OTay!

OTay! You OTay? I'm OTay too... Sometimes.

Well, as we are coming close to the end of the school year I'm finding out just about how many of my classmates are OTay. Translation: they have old test papers from the previous years, and since most of our instructors are too lazy to write up new test from one year to the next and if you can put one and two together I think that you can see why they are OTay.

Now, I don't want to sound like a hypocrite because some times I'm sitting OTay too. Not as much as I would like but sometimes. Yes, I admitted it. Hell, there's no one in class that hasn't looked at least one OT before a test and I'm starting to finding out there is a whole lot of people doing it more often than I had originally thought. Yes, it seems a little sneaking that we are all doing it in private as if we were carrying around some STD, but that's not the thing that really gets me chuckling.

In the beginning of the year when all the frats were looking for new recruits I remember hearing all this talk from some of my classmates of how they weren't going to join any frats. Some of them were kind of making it out to be a negative thing. Now other than getting paddled while not being able to swing back I really didn't see what they were talking about. Then they told me of how people join frats in order to get OT's. They said there is an underlining belief that you have to join a frat in order to do really well in medicine. So in order to prove that notion wrong they were going to do it all on their own. Now after hearing this come from their mouths I was amazed at their somewhat seemingly high sense of integrity and desire to get thru medicine all on their own. However, now I see that you don't need to join a frat when you got close friends and relatives who are going to give you the OT's anyway. Well, needless to say that bubble has really burst.

Now, again not to sound like a hypocrite but I wasn't the one trying to sound like I walk the straight and narrow path in the first place. Anyway, having OT's is not really all that bad. Though, when everyone has to be so secretive about it makes you a little suspicious. Sometimes we have to cover just way too many things in a short time. And it's not really like the profs really give you a clear indication of what's the most important things to focus on. On the other hand if you just focus squarely on memorizing the answers, A, B, C, and then the professors decided to switch some things up you're screwed. I'm sure some of the people in class can attest to that. Well, I know at least one person can since he is my main supplier of OT's.

However, the idea of whether to take an OT or not seems to put me in a bit of a conundrum at times. On one hand I feel like I'm cheating and on the other hand I feel like it's really helpful in knowing that I can move on to more important matters rather than spending three hours on trying to remember who developed the first scuba gear and when and what the letters S-C-U-B-A actually stands for.

Well, for a bit of personal vindication it's not like I have gone the entire year on OT's. Though, maybe that's only because I need to switch my OT supplier. And the classes in which I get the majority of OT's for are the classes in which the professors actually try to switch things up... at times. So they are almost more like a study guide. Well, sometimes. And I'm doing fine in them. I think. As for the classes that I basically don't get crap for (not that it really matters to me though ), one I'm doing pretty fine in. Though it would have still been nice if someone... or make that some "people" told me they had shit for it. (Ok, does it sound like I'm jealous? ) Well, I guess though that's where the whole secrecy thing comes in to play though. The other major course, I'm doing pretty shitty in but then again the reason for that may be a whole another story. No OT is going to make it OTay when you just don't study or got the time.

Anyway, I know I pretty much half assed my way throughout this whole year. Things could have been a whole lot different if I had put more effort in to my studies than I did in to writing these blogg posts. Or if a few other things hadn't happened along the course of the year. Maybe the thought of having an OT wouldn't have even crossed my mind. Then again who's to really say.

Blogger education

The letters S-C-U-B-A stands for self contained underwater breathing apparatus. It was a term first coined for an invention invented by... Dr. Christian J. Lambertsen of the US NAVY in 1939. Now though Dr. Lambertsen's use of the term SCUBA for his invention is a relatively new word underwater breathing apparatuses have been around for a long time. Some accounts of underwater breathing apparatuses have been dated as far back as 400 B.C. A tale from Aristotle tells of how Alexander the Great used a glass "diving bell" to explore the depths of the ocean. Since then there have been several other accounts of underwater breathing apparatuses in written text from different authors including one detailed design of a leather type underwater helmet by Leonardo De Vinci.

So if you're in my physiology class you might be wondering where does Jacques-Yves Cousteau fit in all of this. Well, he is among a long list of inventors which includes the famous magician Harry Houdini who has contributed to the history of SCUBA diving. However, Jacques-Yves Cousteau and Emile Gagnan's invention of the Aqua-lung in 1943 was not an insignificant one. Their improvement over the previous types of SCUBA gear would change the sport of SCUBA diving for the next decade.