exams. exams. exams.

I was not born with a coping mechinism for stress. I have learnt that over the years… but one event makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck, my knees shake, my stomach churn, my liver quiver and my brain melt. Exams. Yep, a good old exam is always guaranteed to turn me into a complete basket case. Just like I am right now.

It’s 7.14am. The sun is shining, it will be a beautiful day. I feel oh-so-very-very-sick. My stomach has about 13 baby elephants storming around inside it and I just feel rotten. I’vedone just about as much preparation for this exam as I could. Revised previous years exams, read chapters of books, written pages of notes, memorised formulas and what-not. But there are still some things I feel I could read a zillion times and come no closer to either understanding or absorbing. I have surprised myself on occassion though… there has been the odd performance in an exam when I have thought a question would complete stump me only to reach into the very recesses of my brain to find the answer. It truely is a "lightbulb" moment. There is something about today that just makes me feel incredibly ill though… it has a whole lot to do with the fact that this is my first Uni exam… it’s not TAFE, it’s not school…it’s Uni. From going over past year’s exams’ I have learned that they seem to like to throw in trick questions… for what reason I don’t know (with everyone’s stress levels at exams on high speed I think it’s a bit unfair).

I remember when I was young my mother telling me how to remember the spelling of certain words. I think I was in about the 3rd or 4th grade, possibly lower. It was before (what I considered at that point in time) a major spelling exam (or was more a pop quiz but oh well) and I was a bit wrought up over things. My mum told me that the best way to remember things was relating to the words and finding little sayings to help remember them.

Arithmetic was: "A Red Indian Thought He Might Eat Tobacco In Church" (initial letters)

Difficulty was: "Mrs D Mrs I Mrs FFI Mrs C Mrs U Mrs LTY."

Believe it or not I still use these little remembering games to help me grasp the idea of or remember something.

I found use for this formula yesterday whilst studying. I’ve probably mentioned it once or twice in passing, but maths and sciencey things have never been my forte. I can punch out essays and do an analysis of something, but remember formulas and normative ranges can be like a nightmare for me. When I say normative ranges I’m talking about the figures that come out of test results because (of course) we have to be able to spot check Blood Glucose readings (well that’s not hard – have had plenty of practice with that at work), Calcium levels, Potassium levels, Sodium levels and Magnesium levels. Then there’s the host of other ones that we haven’t quite touched on yet.

So as Penny and I studied yeterday I was sitting there trying to think up ways to remember all the normal ranges for these things. That and the Gate Control Theory and the differences between Isotonic, Hypotonic and Hypertonic and the different fluids you would use. *sigh*  Penny started singing the "OPSM" jingle (which is an optomitry chain here in Australia) and it quickly became apparent that it could be applied to the Calcium, Potassium, Sodium & Magnesium ranges, except we would be singing "CPSM." Then in that order we decided that we would remember the ranges by saying that:

Calcium: 2.2 -2.6 (Alcoholic drinks is enough)

Potassium: 3.1-4.2 (Alcoholic drinks would make us tipsy)

Sodium: 137-146 (Which is a few numbers from the above ranges added together!)

Magnesium: 0.9-1.25 (Which is the only one that can’t be applied to this formula so it;s the only one I actually need to remember!)

Anyhoo… so that’s how I’m memorising stuff. It might sound pathetically basic, but if I can pass this exam based on a small remembering game then that’s a good thing in my book.

Oh and in case anyone was wondering? Drug calc’s: Stock required/Stock Strength x Volume/1 = Ml’s to be administered.

And for drip rates on a standard macro drip? Ml’s to be administered (per hour) x drip feed rate/60 (minutes) = drips per minute!

YAY

See? I KNEW you all wanted to know that!!!! *grin*

Now I’m off to make a coffee, calm myself down and go read some more notes!!!

Vee