Conquest

It's over! And I've slept and eaten several times, so now we can sit down and have a chat about that thing that just happened called Boards.

All in all, I think that it went as well as it could possibly go. I won't find out scores for more than a month, so I'm choosing (very consciously) to put my faith in the high pass rate and hope for the best. I have earned this vacation, perhaps more than any other vacation in my life, and I'm not about to waste it worrying about scores.

Tuesday night I did what my mother had always tried to teach me to do but was never successful because I am stubborn and awful: I laid out my clothes and packed my lunch. I wrote a reminder list to myself of everything that I would need so I would have to think about it in the morning. Yesterday morning, I got up in plenty of time, came downstairs to find that Patrick, securing his title as The Best Husband in the Known Universe, had gone to the store and bought me lovely roses (of the variety "Freedom Roses", which is just sickeningly appropriate) and strawberries. Also, he left me a note that said, "Fracture a tibia!" God, medical nerd humor never ceases to be funny, especially from such a cute guy.

Once I got to the place, I hung out with my classmates who were also taking the exam, engaging in some nervous, awkward talk, which is always hilarious. For example:

FRIEND ONE
Well, I'm hoping not to miss any questions.

FRIEND TWO
Should be no problem, right? I mean, it's not like this thing will be hard.

FRIEND THREE
Did you guys even study for this? I didn't really. I looked up what time the test started, though.

And so forth. One by one, each of us were called back and assigned a computer, which was like awaiting our execution. As each person's name was called, the rest of the group would look at them and say with grave seriousness, "You can get through this, man. See you on the other side." Oh, the melodrama was very entertaining.

The day itself did not kill me as I had expected. I spent almost all of my studying doing practice tests, so this just felt like another practice test, only without the constant negative feedback of getting, like, 30%. Instead, I just bopped along and felt okay. I did have a minor meltdown in the middle of my 4th (of 7) block after I had four questions in a row that incorporated words that I'd never seen before. For the first one, I thought, "Oh, well. B." Then another. "Hm. Wow. Uh... B." Then a third. "Holy cow I don't know anything. B." And a fourth. "I'm going to fail. Why did I think I could do this? God, I am so stupid." At which point, I closed my eyes and had a little talk with myself about expectations and self-esteem and, you know, how I'll NEVER KNOW EVERYTHING. After a thirty second pep talk, I opened my eyes back up, picked B, and finished the block. After that block I took lunch and my friends all reported to have had at least one of those moments. Thank God for friends.

To celebrate the survival of boards and Patrick's achievement of Best Husband in the Known Universe, we went out to dinner. Patrick had a double beer, one for each of us, and we sat outside and were happy. It was odd to me that no one else seemed to be celebrating this MOMENTOUS DAY. People obviously had not looked at their calendar to see what day it was. Can't you see? It's the day that life begins anew and the sun shines once again. It's the day that I return to humanity and bestow my attention upon things like baby names and nursery themes. IT'S THE DAY THAT I CONQUERED BOARDS, something I have feared since before signing up for medical school.

Huzzah!