Packing for India

As I wash and iron the collected mess of the last 3 weeks, and try to fit 100 litres of luggage into a 45 litre backpack, I can afford a few minutes to briefly run through all that happened in the closing days of the exam season.
Trying to put the ambiguity of the written exams behind us, we crammed as hard as possible for the practical exams a week later, in which we would have to rotate through 8 stations which would each last 10 minutes. Typical examples of a station topic would be to examine a basic bodily system, to take a history, or to do a basic procedure.
So, naturally, the revision centred around the most common topics that we'd be working on all year. The cardiovascular, respiratory and gastrointestinal systems, the specific medical history, and a few other common subjects.
Needless to say, the School of Medicine once again saw fit to omit all these from the exam, and instead included topics like Down's Syndrome, alcoholism, and an examination of the legs.
Unfortunately for them, we've all been on this course far too long to expect them to be anything other than grossly unfair with the questions, and had revised broadly enough to get through. My stethoscope was not used once.
I decided to dull the pain of the waiting for results by drinking and playing poker until 9am the night before the day they were due to be posted, even finishing about £50 up if my distinctly hazy memory has held firm.
After 2 hours sleep, fully clothed and drooling, I staggered with my friend down the road to the closest School of Medicine office to look at the results on the wall. Of course, I checked the "failed" list first, and once I'm weaved my bleary eyes down that one, with no sign of my identification number, I checked it again to make sure. Then I gradually worked my way down the remaining 200 names in the "passed" list, eventually finding my own number, next to two Bs and a C. I checked again, then again, just to double check that my eyes hadn't wandered down or up instead of horizontally. But it was correct. Even so, I still went back at 7pm to recheck.
I've got a funny feeling that the results were moderated up again this year, because the written exam question came totally out of left field and the OSCEs weren't exactly routine either. But even if they had been, my BBC grade couldn't have been a fail to start with.
So here I am, with a load of clothes on the floor, a pile of Loperamide tablets, and a little bit of nervous energy.
Because, at long last, I am a fourth year.