Physiology yay!

...Yes, you read the title right. *g*

I'm just back from two consecutive hours of studying (was it really that long? Didn't feel like it.) Physiology I studying is going surprisingly well.

Now, for those not in the know (and why would you know anyway?), my Physiology I material consists of 24 chapters from two heavy tomes. They are, of course, too huge to study in detail, so I just go skimming and summarizing. My work is particularly easy because each chapter is broken down into titled units and mini-units, so sometimes not even skimming is necessary - I just jot down the title of the mini-unit, and voilà! *g* Job done.

What I'm most excited about is that I finished one tome already (only 8 chapters left, which means two thirds of the work I have to do are already done, yay!) and I've gotten to the second one. And this one deals with the endocrine system (hormones etc.), which is a) much easier to understand and b) much more interesting. I mean, the first tome was interesting too (would tell you what it was about, but I don't have the courage to look up the English names). But this second tome is really exciting. It's the kind of thing that makes me love Biology, the kind of thing that made me choose Pharmacy over Electrical and Computer Engineering. It's the kind of thing I can read with interest, and think to myself, "oh, so *that* is how it works! Way cool." It's awesome, really. Shame there's only so little time to dedicate to it.
(Now, if I were a smart girl, I'd have spent some time studying it during the school year, instead of waiting for the last few days before the exam. But I'm not.)

BTW - Cath, remember ACTH? I'll have to study about that one, too. *g* It's in a later chapter.

Oh, it feels great to enjoy studying so much. I feel like I'm becoming again the girl I used to be, the one who studied encyclopedias just because she found the articles interesting, who read her schoolbooks from the beginning till the end the day she got them, and who studied from her dad's Biology books when she was still at kindergarten. I really hadn't been that girl in a long time.

*nostalgic*

See ya,
Anna.

Someone jinxed me.

So I just got informed that my department will be doing a sit-in for the next week.

First of all, *headdesk*.

Secondly, yay for the existence of an English word for it. (Even if I had to look it up.) I was afraid the sit-ins were a Greek patent. :p

And thirdly, some explanations:

You see, since last spring there's been turmoil in the Greek universities, because the government wants to pass a bill that will allow the foundation of private universities equal to the public ones, and other higher-education related things. The majority of the students are against this bill, so the student assemblies have been voting for sit-ins in almost all universities. Some departments have lost their whole semester because of the sit-ins.

Anyways. My department didn't do any sit-ins at all during the past semester (one of the very few, let me tell you). They only decided for a two-day sit-in at some point between the Anatomy and the History of Pharmacy exam. Older students lost a couple of exams because of that, but it was arranged that they would just be transferred to the end of the exam period.

Today there was a student assembly to decide whether they'd be doing a sit-in or not. I didn't go - actually, I forgot all about it, not believing they would decide for a sit-in. And yet they did. For one whole week.

Yay for not studying? Umm, not exactly.

First of all - the Physiology I exam is on Thursday, as you're well aware. But we take that at the Medicine school. And I don't know what's going on at the Medicine school - do they have a sit-in, or not? And if they don't, does this mean we will take the exam? Supposedly, the Pharmacy students are in the Pharmacy building, 'protesting'. But what if some of us decide to go? Will there be an exam to take?

I think I'll just go to Goudi on Thursday, just to make sure. And I'm certainly not having high expectations for my grade in Physiology I, but if there is an exam and I pass it, it will be welcome.

But no, it doesn't end here.

You see, there's also the Mathematics exam on Tuesday. The sit-in is arranged to last until Tuesday, and in the afternoon there will be a student assembly.

Does this mean no Mathematics exam? All signs are pointing to that direction. The assembly will take place in the amphitheatre where we're supposed to take the exam at the exact same time. Now, *before* the assembly, it's still sit-in period. And *during* the assembly, you can't have class or exam, because all the students are supposed to be present in the assembly. (At least, that's how I understand it. We *had* lost a few Inorganic Chemistry I classes because there were assemblies scheduled on them.) Also, however reliable this is, I heard from Thodora who heard it from her roommate who heard it from a friend of hers (*rolls eyes*) that the friend in question asked our Math teacher about it and was told that there won't be an exam.

This is such a mess.

And the Math exam is the one exam I was actually looking forward to! What with all the work I did during the Christmas vacation...

Gah.

I guess I'll study Physiology until Thursday, I'll go to the exam (it's not like I have something better to do) and... I'll do the Math vs. Chemistry dilemma afterwards.

Siiiiiiiiigh...

See ya,
Anna.