This week coincided with the culmination of my revision for the final exam of my medical career, to become a consultant in geriatric medicine. I sat the exam this Wednesday 28th. I’ve been so stressed trying to balance my work commitments, revising for the exam and trying to stay some way up to speed with the MA (I’ve not quite managed the latter task to be honest) that now the exam’s been completed I’m left just feeling quite numb.
The MA work this week focused on the concept of the gaze and how this influences the way an image is read and the power the photographer or image viewer potentially holds over the subject. This is an idea we’ve come across in a previous module but I must admit that I’ve not been able to really consider this subject in any detail on this occasion due to my other commitments, and just my overall work and exam-related stress levels. This is probably the second major pinch point I’ve encountered since the start of this course, in terms of my ability to focus on study being significantly compromised by my commitments elsewhere. Before I started the MA last year, I anticipated there might be more tricky patches so in one sense I’m grateful that there haven’t been more white-knuckle moments, considering everything else I’ve got going on.
I’m hoping to be able to pull things back together now the exam is out of the way…I’ve got quite a bit of catching up to do!