Fingers

You can always tell how stressed I am by the bad habit I have. That habit is destroying my fingers. I think they are worse now then they have been since the fifth grade when I tried to stop ripping them apart. I peel the nails off, and get rid of all the skin on the sides of my fingernails and rip my cuticles off. It's not pretty, and it is a really nasty habit. This week has been one blow after the other. I got my cell midterm back that I took before break, and it was bad. I mean BAD. I went in to meet with my professor, and he did tell me that I'm 16th out of 60 in the class, but that's not saying much since half the class is actually failing. My lab grades are bringing everything else up. His exams are graded essentially question by question pass/fail. So if you write a 10 point essay and don't use the exact terms that he is looking for, or miss a couple of details, you get a zero. There is very little partial credit, and that he only gives if you were spot on with everything and only missed a little bit. I can understand it, and I realize that probably more classes should grade this way but... it was kinda harsh for me, especially when some of the questions had to be answered in only one sentence.

On top of that, I had a midterm in American Poetry on Wednesday (which I rocked), and an exam in orgo yesterday which I didn't do so hot on. The worst part about the one yesterday was that it was really unlike the professor- he threw stuff in there from last semester without even a warning or an indication to look back over it, and even the format was different than his past exams. Nobody that I talked to actually finished the exam, and I myself left two parts of questions blank, and guessed on quite a bit. It was pathetic, since orgo is normally my strong suit by far, and I went in feeling good about the material. Maybe I'm developing text anxiety? After the exam I went to my next class and was just miserable. Even a few tears leaked down my cheeks as I took notes on lecture. This semester is rough. I have a physics exam on Monday, so I'm hoping to do alright on that one, and get at least two good grades this semester. Unlike last, this definitely won't be a 4.0. My great GPA for vet school is quickly dropping with every exam, and I can almost see things slipping away from me.

Oh, and the school is probably slicing down my grant money for next year. Which means that I am looking at the possibilities of going part time just to be able to make ends meet (I can do this with the amount of credits I need, though I sacrifice the courses I have been looking forward to for years, and this looks awful for vet school applications, especially after what this semester is shaping up to be). There are bigger things than vet school though, and one of those is not putting my parents into debt just because of what I want to do.  I'm looking into taking out more student loans as an alternative as well.

My poor fingers...

~Melissa