For the past week and a half, every time I've gone to my physiology class I've felt like puking. Why? Because we are supposed to get our first midterms back any day now.
The funny thing is I wasn't all that nervous when I went in to take the midterm. I don't usually get nervous before tests-- I know I am a good student and I have confidence in my abilities. I knew the physiology material fairly well (considering I spent most of the first month of school doing little outside of class except filling out applications). The test went well. Of course, there were some things I didn't know, but I felt like I answered the majority of the questions well.
But somehow in the intervening weeks since taking the exam, I have developed increasing anxiety about how I did. I have this terrible fear that I flunked. I know that I am catastrophizing-- imagining the worst for no reason. I tell myself I've rarely flunked anything in my life (perhaps one quantum mechanics exam, but the average was so low I suspect even that I passed with my 11 out of 100... but that's another story). I've never, ever been remotely in danger of failing a class.
Yet no matter how much I try to reason through my fears intellectually, they persist as strong as ever. Darn emotions. Why don't irrational fears respond better to intellectual reasoning? Really, it annoys me so much when I can reason my way through something and find my emotions on the subject unchanged, it is like my heart just refuses to listen to my brain no matter how hard I try to bludgeon it into it.
So today I found out my exam will be ready tomorrow morning. It is among the last few to be graded. I haven't decided if I am going to pick it up or wait for L to get it for me so that I don't have to see the score, and she can tell me I did fine or break it to me gently if I didn't.
I think I have been so anxious over it because I know that I need a good grade in this class to achieve my goals for next year. And there are only three exams, and it is on a tough curve, so it counts for a lot. I hate when I am reduced to a grade or score on paper based on a few scant hours of my life. Last time I wanted to puke this badly was before I took the GRE a year ago. I almost puked all over the woman who checked me into the exam. And then I got phenomenally good scores. Go figure. But I still object to being reduced to a few numbers based on my performance during only three hours of my life. That simply can't be indicative of my talent. It can't capture me.
And I also want to puke when I hear that it looks like Prop 8 might pass and that gay marriage will become unconstitutional in CA. It seemed impossible that something like that could even be a real possibility. Why are people so closed minded? Who have I ever hurt by being gay?
And since I am a complete geek, I wonder why my stomach literally tenses when I get stressed. It's physiology folks, so I should be able to reason through that too. Flight or fight. Sympathetic nervous system. Adrenaline. Norepinephrine. Vasoconstriction of blood vessels in the digestive tract. That can't be the whole story, but I bet it is part of why I want to puke when my stress levels spike.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
For some reason the puking/maybe you're pregnant joke is even funnier in my head now.
My sister literally threw up on the exam to get her real estate licence. I found it humorous, but then I have a twisted sense of humor... and you would have to know my sister to get how funny this actually is.
I was just talking to a friend recently about the closed-mindedness of people. Why does a gay couple getting married affect someone who is not gay? This whole subject angers me so much. I also learned yesterday that Connecticut (my home state) is going to be the third in the nation to pass the gay marriage proposal. It made me happy to see that my home state was trying to stick it to the rest of the country, even though I know that this is not the intent.
The irony of living in a country that was developed based on wanting certain rights amazes me sometimes. I'm making a point to pray for this issue daily.
You may want to talk to a counselor. There are breathing techniques that I have found helpful when taking exams. I find that using them when studying for the exam and then carrying them into the classroom is tremendously helpful.
But I wasn't even that nervous taking the exam for physiology. That's the really ironic thing. I only want to puke when I think about getting the exam back. Weird, huh?
Post a Comment