Thursday #44 – it was another early start this Thursday as I
left DTM’s to head into uni for a 9am start.
I managed to score a lift to the bus stop with The Cabbie and somehow got
to uni early, despite leaving later than I had last Thursday. This proved fortunate as once again I had not
had time for breakfast at DTM’s, so picked up a ham and cheese croissant and a
hot chocolate to down before clinic.
I bumped into The Greatest Shavee upstairs and was asked
some rather deep questions for 8.45 in the morning. She kicked things off with “how is your life?”
before delving further with “why is your life good?” My inability to answer her second question
had me in all kinds of doubt about my answer to her first question and suddenly
my perfectly good Thursday morning wasn’t looking so good anymore. We’ve since discussed this and she is
apparently working on her small talk skills.
I headed down to clinic for another day of red eye and tried
my hardest between patients to finish case reports which were due that
afternoon. When 3 o’clock hit, The
Italian and I headed off with Short Skirt Short Jacket and The Quiet One for
our 2 hour oral exam. We each presented
a case we’d seen in our 2 weeks in red eye clinic and then answered questions
on our case/diagnosis/management. It all
would’ve been fine had the examiner not been The Bitchiest Straight Guy We Know. I volunteered to go first just to get it out
of the way. I humoured The Bitchiest
Straight Guy We Know with a bunch of differential diagnoses, even though my
patient walked in with a referral telling me he had a corneal foreign
body. It continues to frustrate me that I
am examined on my ability to identify a bunch of possible diagnoses which I know
are wrong – surely in the real world optometrists aren’t sitting there looking
at a foreign body thinking “hmm well it could be viral conjunctivitis”. Nevertheless I came up with a solid list of
what it wasn’t and based on my mark am beginning to wonder if maybe The
Bitchiest Straight Guy We Know is aware of how I feel about his stupid
assessments.
3 hours later we got out of our 2 hour exam and another half
an hour later The Italian and I managed to get out of the building. With a couple of student cards which weren’t
working, a staff card from reception and a comedy of errors involving getting
stuck in both an elevator and a stairwell, we finally made it out and were
determined to celebrate after completing our exam. We went our separate ways but being girls we
both ended up at the shops. After a
skirt, a bag and two pairs of shoes I decided I had better leave before I put
myself in more debt. DTM didn’t seem to
understand my sudden shopping spree (and fair enough given my catchphrase for
most of the past 5 years has been “I’m a struggling uni student”) but I pointed
out that he was in no position to judge and that his recent purchases were part
of the reason I needed to go shopping. Watching
him buy a ridiculously huge TV, new bed, 2 seat recliner and 27 inch display
for his laptop had made me incredibly jealous and desperate to buy myself
something the first chance I got. With my
tax return back and Centrelink’s start of semester bonus making its way into my
bank, this Thursday seemed like the perfect opportunity to hit the shops.
With an oral exam it was by no means a good Thursday but it
was certainly a relief when the assessment was over and hitting the shops to
buy shoes did take me back to my very first Thursday without free movies.
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