Haggard! It’s how we all felt in the 11th hour of board examinations this past Friday.

Board examinations consisted of 6 main subjects that we covered during our first four trimesters, including subjects such as: General Anatomy, Spinal (and neuro) Anatomy, Physiology, Clinical Biochemistry, Pathology, and Medical Microbiology. Each module consisted of 90 questions, adding up to a grand total of 540 questions, spread out over the course of 11-ish hours. It wasn’t so much the amount of questions that was so wearing, it was the time spent hunched over a desk, darkening in little, diminutive bubbles that finally got to most people.

As my friend, Adam, elegantly put it, “I just want to get this over with, man. I don’t even care about the questions — I’ll pass.” Adam is of Grecian decent and has annoyingly thick hair that starts surprisingly low on his forehead. He’s been growing it out and constantly wears a hat to force it all back to achieve some sort of flow. He’s one of the more vibrant characters in my trimester and some sort of savant genius.

Many people were thinking the same thing as him by late afternoon. Interestingly enough, most of us still felt as though the day was going much faster than an average day of classes. Perhaps it was due to the milestone quality of the experience, or maybe it had something to do with the barrage of testing that kept us extremely occupied and busy — in the zone if you will.

Either way, when it was all over, I was more than happy to ingest a pint or two of one of my favorite beers, the Farking Wheaton W00T Stout. It almost made it all worth it. Not to mention, my birthday was the day prior and I was well overdue for some celebration.