Being a little bit poor as a student (well, poorer than I was a year ago), I buy a lot of my books second-hand. Often it is a lot cheaper to buy them from the USA, even when shipping is added into the cost.
The most fun and frustrating part about this is that I have no idea when the book is likely to arrive. It usually takes between 2 and 8 weeks to get here, so you can imagine that any books I need quickly, I don't send for internationally (to state the bleeding obvious).
This means that I often send for books that I find interesting or would be helpful for my study, and get them a long time later, and almost forget about them in the meantime. When they arrive, it is like somebody has sent a present, but it is almost a present that I have forgotten why I wanted in the first place.
Yes, I will use them. And no, the are not a waste of money. It's almost like I'm thinking, "Oh. That's right. I wanted this book for histology study 8 weeks ago. Interesting. I remember how keen I was on histology, way back when we were covering the liver. Ah, the memories." At the time, the idea of the book was so much more exciting than the book itself when it actually arrived.
Not that I'm ungrateful, mind you. I still love my books.
And thanks to Roy from shrink rap for the mention. Perhaps medical students are insightful. Perhaps we are all just confused and tired and should lay off the vino a little bit more. :)
3 comments:
Adam, thanks for the link, but I had to bin it - I'm not a fan of those sites that breach copyright and am a bit uncomfortable having the link on here.
I love it when things come in the mail. I'm so scatter brained that I always forget when I buy something like that. It's like Christmas then!!!
I like to get extra books on medicine too... That's why I'm always out of budget.
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