What did I say about those Yellow Books?!

For those of you who don't know, those yellow books are Hunter, Mackin and Callahan's Rehabilitation of the Hand and Upper Extremity, 5th Edition. They are a two-volume set of about 2000 pages of teeny, tiny surgeon, medical, therapist jargon and literature and I resisted (well it wasn't that hard..) reading them until now. You see my strategy was always to use them as reference... i.e. look something up when I needed to know more. But, at the back of my mind, I had this gnawing feeling that my guilt (at not reading them) and my insecurities (of being "the only one" not reading them) were going to get the best of me and make me cave sooner or later. Sooner is better than later in this instance because I'm the kind of person that has to finish a project once I start. I have to finish a book even if I am hating it/it's just not for me and thus taking forever to read it. I can't leave the bed unmade in the mornings. I have to pack away my clothes. You get the idea! And so, it was slowly dawning on me that if I was ever to start reading these books, I had better start, like yesterday, because they are monstrous and can literally kill you if dropped on your head, and I would never finish reading them in the so-called 3 weeks I had allocated. 

So now my whole "strategy", whatever that means, has changed.. Well more like increased a million-fold. I am doing everything I was doing before and now reading these books which amounts to probably about 200 pages a week for the two chapters that the study group is preparing. So this week is elbow and shoulder week. I am doing the summary for the elbow but I also have to prepare for the shoulder. This means reading both sections (note how I did not say chapters as there are multiple for each topic) which is roughly about 200 pages of aforementioned teeny jargon and concentrating on what I'm reading; reviewing the three different types of summaries I have mentally committed myself too (why? see what I mean about the obsessive personality?!) and trying to do 25 random MCQs a day. Plus, again at the back of mind (wow there is a lot going on back there!), I am thinking that although I have started reading the Hunter books asof one week ago, I have not read the beginning of the books or really the middle and I have skipped out basically the whole of volume 1 so when I am I going to make up that time? ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh See why I need this blog? I need to vent!

The next challenge of this week is to try and get into a routine. By routine I mean studying for 6hrs a day. You would think when there are 24hrs in a day, one could get a lot done. Um, nope. Biggest procrastinator/faffer, put it here! Despite popular belief, I do have a mini-life, and by that I mean I have an apartment which needs to be cleaned, a husband, who needs his clothes to be cleaned and a little puppy who makes me clean more! And so orchestrating two 3hr study sessions can be challenging, mostly because I can't concentrate for that long but also because I need to be more disciplined and stop surfing (the web). I'm even hesitant to blog because I feel guilty about it! But I am going to try and change that: busy people get more done. Fact. So starting today I am going to get more done. By writing this post, I already get to cross off a To-Do on my list which, again, makes my obsessive-compulsive personality smile. 

And so to continue on my turned leaf, I bid you farewell to complete the next thing on my list: cook dinner at home at least once a week. (I know, I know, I live in New York.. it rubs off after a while.. ok 3 months)

Bye!!

I don't even know what day we're on now..

So my theoretical commitment of posting, if not every day, then regularly say three times a week has failed miserably. I would like to think that I have been too busy studying to have been blogging, and whilst I have been studying, it's probably not a fair assessment to say that I have been too busy. It's all about making time. Perhaps I have just been emotionally too busy and as such found the thought of blogging, a guilty one, when I should be playing catch-up. I'm feeling a little intimidated to be honest because so many people that I know of, started studying for this exam WAY in advance - 9 months - a year? and me.. just 3 months really until the exam! OK so I don't have a job but it's still scary. How will I catch up to them? Would it have been better to start 9 months ago? Not sure I can retain info for that long.. 

My strategy has changed a little since my last post. I have kind of abandoned the cardboard which I thought might happen and ordered a ton of books! I went onto exploringhandtherapy.com and ordered what they recommended for the CHT exam as well as all of their practice tests. The whole exercise was very pricey but especially for the practice tests, I think the money will be worth it. Not sure how I feel about the DVDs. The are very detailed and comprehensive but there a lot of spelling and grammar mistakes and typos and I wish academic information that cost a lot of money was presented with minimal errors. I guess for the detail-orientated A-type personality in me, typos rub me up the wrong way. Note to self: NEVER have mistakes on this blog - I'll be flayed alive! In this blog's defense, though, I'm not charging anyone to read it and I am not professing it's professional integrity! Anyway! Enough complaining - there are more important things to discuss.

I also finally received the study guide from ASHT with which I am very happy. It's basically a summary/study guide of everything you need to know in the exam without any pictures or diagrams - i.e. a lot of text! It's portable enough though that you can take it with you to refresh things and from what I can see, the text is very comprehensive. At the back of the book their are questions regarding each chapter which are nice for testing yourself. The guys from ASHT also emailed me the answer memo which is great (the answers aren't in the book) and so I can see which ones I got right and what I still need to work on. 

Then I have been using the purple book to top it all off! (I feel like I am discussing a skincare routine 1. cleanser 2. toner 3.. etc etc). The purple book (it doesn't seem like anyone really knows it's name but click on the link if you want to find it on Amazon for a ridiculous price! It must be going out of print or something because it is not an inordinately large book!) is structured with a Q and Multiple-choice-A format and is actually authored by the people that own exploringhandtherapy.com. It is also kind of considered the 'must-have' 'Bible' book for passing the CHT because the questions (in my understanding) are very similar to those in the test in terms of layout and material covered. My only thing with this book, while very comprehensive, is that the Q&A format makes it hard to learn the information before being able to answer the questions..

And then... drum roll please... I found myself a study group! An online, skype-chat via keyboard-only group, but a group nonetheless. I definitely have these three other individuals to thank for pressuring me into starting to study and to keep going as we have deliverables every other week. Because there are 4 of us, we each summarise a chapter from the purple book every 2 weeks. 'Summarising' the chapters is actually more about turning the answer into a paragraph and trying to organise the information as I don't think anyone feels confident enough to actually leave/summarise anything out. So far we have 'met' twice and I think the group is going well although I do feel more in-depth studying is needed. For me at least, I definitely need more revision. 

So today I allowed myself to finally blog because I have completed the chapters I needed to revise and summarise this week for Sunday and it's Thursday so I am feeling semi-on top of things and thought blogging would be cathartic before I start a new chapter and try and play catch up. I haven't even attempted the yellow books yet... But that's a post for 'a-whole-nother' day!

But actually the best thing I did this week was buy this:

It's called an "Our Pet's Smarter Toys IQ Treat Ball" and it has been keeping my 5-month old Dachshund puppy occupied for the entire length of this post. Score!

Hope you guys are all doing great! I would love to hear how your studying is progressing and any tips or ideas you have, everyone knows, we need to pool resources to show this exam who's boss! 

Bye for now.