Chapter 112

27 days. That was all the time I had. Just a little under 4 weeks to get myself ready to be tested for every topic ever learned from all my four years in optometry school. I was about to be stressed and more stressed than I have ever been. This was something else. But I was fired up. 

This was a big task to take on and I knew it too. Everything else in my life had to be put on hold. I would need to focus up and pursue this single mindedly. With that said, what else was going on in my life at this time? Well…quite a few things actually. The girlfriend, who had been living with me ever since I returned from Hong Kong, had decided that we should move out of my mother’s place and move into one of my condo’s. 

Long story short, while awaiting for the appeal decision, the tenants of the old condo my mom rented out decided to leave. When they departed, they left the place pretty beaten up. Since I had nothing much to do when awaiting for the whole appeal process, I went over to clean up the place as much as possible. The girlfriend helped as well and during the process, she suggested that we move into the condo. She was now working full time as a nurse and making decent money. She had enough to cover the rent of the condo and sort of felt that it was better we didn’t live with my mom for my mental health. When I told the girlfriend I wanted to do the NBEO, it was then that she really pushed for moving. 

So it came to be that between Xmas and when I found out I would only get 27 days for study (aka Dec 30th), we moved into the new condo. Well…I say moved but to be honest, we really just had the essentials with us. Oh, and just to clarify a few things. The decision to move and the moving was done BEFORE I found out about the whole 27 days thing. All of that was in the time period when I knew I was doing the NBEO but wasn’t sure when it would be. Or in other words, I did not sacrifice any of my cramming days for moving. 

The girlfriend’s most prominent reason to push for the move? My mom was a bit of a distraction to me and even if she knew that I was cramming for this super important exam. Personally, I don’t think she would be able to avoid asking me for favors around the house even knowing I had something like this happening. If I was cramming at 100% mental capacity, I needed to be devoid of all distractions, familial or otherwise.

However it came to be, at the start of my 27 days, I was living in a new condo. The minute I moved in, I went into full-cramming mode. In our new condo, I chose an empty room, put a desk and chair in it then got to work. This room would be my prison for the next few weeks. I needed it to be. Like I said, this was more than just a test for me to pass. I treated these 27 days as a challenge. I was going to pull on all my 8 years of experience as a university student and put it all on the line. 

The first thing I had to do? Make a plan. I was using the KMK textbooks for the NBEO and they came in two large stacks of paper, one large and one small. The bigger one was known as the Big-8, which accounted for most of the materials the test had. The smaller one was not-confusingly known as the Non-Big-8. You may think that since I was in a time crunch and since the syllabus of the books divided itself into super important and not-so-important that the plan here was to just focus on the Big-8 only. That would have been smart if I was just trying to optimize the scheduling for passing. However, I wasn’t here to do the bare minimum. I’m here to do it all. Furthermore, it wasn’t just about passing either, the materials in the books were something I felt would actually make me a better doctor in the future. Learning all of the material in its entirety just felt more holistic.

With that said, the Big 8 was around almost 800 pages and the non-Big-8 was around just a little over 400 pages. Aside from the fact that there were various subchapters to each chapter and each subchapter had quizzes, mini tests and lectures online, the texts were also small. Which is to say, there was a huge amount of content. Beyond just that, there were also MCQ quizzes on an app that came with the KMK materials and also a good 6 mock exams. Despite the overwhelming feel of everything, I did eventually come up with a skeleton outline. The short and simple version of it is…I would drill as many lectures as I can for around 17 hours every day, working through all meals and limiting my breaks, until the 10 days before the exam. During the last 10 days (and some change) I would do 1 mock exam every other day or so. 

This schedule would mean I would have a few days left over after the last mock exam. That time was intended for reviewing topics I still felt uncomfortable with as well as to fly out to Edmonton. While the flight was just a domestic one which took a few hours, the fact that I would be flying during COVID made the entire situation uncertain. What if the airport shuts down? What if domestic flights stop? These variables made the whole situation way harder to handle amidst all the exam stress. 

Apart from that, I also set up a few extra things inside the room to give myself the best chances to study as optimally as possible. From my experience as a veteran student at this point, I knew that I had to schedule for coffee so as to not over nor under-caffeinate during the study sessions. One other thing I set up was that since I knew cramming intensely made breaks very dangerous rabbit holes for which I could lose hours just browsing my phone, I put a yoga mat in my room to meditate for 8 minutes every time I needed a rest. 

From my last few years in school, I knew that meditation was the most optimal way to take breaks as doing nothing really focuses your mind better than mindless social media scrolling. The timer I used for my meditation was a song called Weightless by Marconi Union. It’s just some relaxing ambient noises with no melody or lyrics. More importantly, it was timed to be around 8 minutes which kept the schedule in line. On the talk about music, one other thing I had to do was delete songs and music streaming apps on my phone. Being someone with a background in music, I have a bad habit of analyzing music whenever I’m listening to it. The problem with that? It was a dangerous distraction which could lead to hours wasted. 

This seems like a lot but to be honest, it really doesn’t take that much time. In fact, this was all done the same day I found out and registered for the NBEO. On December 30th, I woke up, got online to register for my NBEO and then had a panic attack at how little time I really had had. Then, I got to work on everything as well as moved some last minute essentials into the condo. Following that was when I got around to scheduling my modules, setting up all of the things inside my study room, and clearing out my phone. Nearing the end of the night, the last thing I did was book my flight and lodging for Edmonton all. It seems like a lot but all of the panic and acceptance was really occurring in a span of around 10 hours or so. 

With all of that done, I slept early and called it a night. I knew that when tomorrow came, it would be time to get to work. 

On December 31st, I woke up early, got coffee, then got straight to cramming. With everything in place, I found myself not as intimidated by the exam anymore. When I opened the KMK, I knew where I needed to be and how fast I had to go. The days between Dec 25th and the 30th had some studying in it but it was before I knew I needed to go at a breakneck pace. Since I didn’t really get that far during those days and the fact that I wasn’t really super focused since I was also moving, I decided to just start fresh again. Those days weren’t completely useless though. Since I had gone over some of the material a bit in the last week, the material was fresh on a second glance and because of that, I did get to breeze over it easier. All things considered, things were going smoothly. 

Though it seemed pretty simple so far, I had to remind myself that it was just going through the basics. While a good start to everything on my first day of studying was nice, I knew that this wasn’t likely to continue. There were two large hurdles to jump over in this endurance race that I had to face. 

The first one was burning out. I may be okay with the schedule that I set up on day 1 but to keep studying and cramming through material for 17 hours straight every day on repeat? That would be the hard part. It was the continuation of staying true to the course and the slow burn that you have to maintain. Dedication is hard when the timing is long and though 27 days is too short for course content, it was extremely long for a mental endurance race. 

The other issue I knew I was going to run into? More complex cases. From my time in optometry school, I knew about the content that would be tested. It was things I have already crammed for before. With this knowledge, I knew that there were certain concepts that took longer to relearn further down the line. The smooth and easy sections I’ve gone through so far were not to be expected to continue throughout the entire textbook. There were harder concepts coming soon. 

In my mind, I thought of the entire cramming process as a mental marathon where the track I was running not only had a very long trail, but a winding one at that. There would be ups and downs and though the schedule has some leeway, it was hard to say if it’ll be enough to account for all the problems along the road. 

This was the mindset I kept as the first day ended. Though there were no unexpectedly hard concepts nor any big issues I felt, my brain was still sort of scrambled in the fear and anxiety of what’s to come. I was so worried about all of this that when the fireworks started flaring up outside my window, I realized that I had forgotten it was New Years Eve. 

As I viewed the fireworks outside my window, I mentally prepared myself for the road to come. The two big hurdles kept weighing on me as I thought about how much more content I had to chew through. 

Fortunately, in the next few days, and to my utter surprise, I would find out that the road ahead being harder was only half true.