Year 2011!

Rejoice, first blog of 2011. Current resolutions for the year are as follows:
1. Pass final year of medical school
2. Gain super finger skills for piano
3. Attempt (for the 91283921832173921 time) to lose some damn fat
4. Be single buddies with cranky journalist and not date for the entire year (If applicable, subject may share new year eve's kiss)


So Paris Hilton faded and the Bieber came along with stupid pale vampire fad. 2010 has sped past so quickly that I'm only blogging about it in mid Jan 2011 (This has nothing to do with me being a lazy blogger AT.ALL.)

2010 started with a fantastic trip to New Zealand, an awesome year 3 rotation, and concluded with a visit to 5 different countries. The exam period was naturally blocked out (again) but somehow I have managed to scrape through the merciless and perilous cracks of the barrier.

New Zealand
So there's suppose to be a scrapbook, along with 92873291873 collected receipts, 18329138012 photos, 1x scrapbook folder (with no scrap paper), multiple scrap paper, 1x mount Tongariro 3 day hike/hut pass and 1x uncle Neil resturaunt menu autographed by uncle Neil and staff.


40km, 3 day worth of tramping and peeing into a drop hole in the ground, 5x blood blisters, a pair of new legs later, I am a new person. Somehow physically completing the track has given me enough closure and courage to move on from a terrible break up. New zealand was beautiful - landscapes, lakes, towns, sheeps, they even have the sterotypical dairy cows that are black and white (fascinating).People spoke with the weirdest accent(gas sounded like guest, ten sounded like tent and six sounds like sex.) It is home to movie film Lord of the rings, also population of sheep > people.


Without doubt I definitely had a fantastic time there and will definitely revisit - south island next time.

Third year came along with a dash of 7am handovers, 15 hours of 0 urine output, learning how to use a scalpel, perfect the art of retracting almost every retractable part of the human body during surgery, doing long cases and getting grilled by consultants, doing venepuncture on extremely frail little old ladies, delivery echo forms everyday like a good slave to the resident, get awesome feedback from the gastroenterology team, meet patients with liver span of 20cm, 6 weeks of general practice life, 6 weeks of rural lifestyle in outback Australia with only aboriginal patients, some pop health bits, administrative staff that talk and stalks, paperwork, paperwork, paperwork, portfolio, paperwork, paperwork, portfolio, paperwork annnnd paperwork. Suppressed memories of pre and post exam period.

The year ended with a blast after visiting China, Korea, Cambodia and Vietnam with a short affair in Thailand for new years eve countdown.

I should give a small breakdown of each of the places I've visited:

China - Beijing
Great food, great TV, cheap shopping and I spent a few hours learning how to ski.Although most of my time was complicated by insecurity and anxiety from exam results Beijing was the first place where I could officially announce the beginning of my holidays. Novels, movies, shopping and sleep. Such luxuary.



Korea - Seoul
So my family's pretty spontaneous. Like. We just decide to burst into action, pack our bags and go. I vaguely recall mum mentioning the possibility of war (war?!) in Korea but we decided to visit anyways. The best thing in Korea is everything is cute and pretty and shops are opened till 5am in the morning. Skinny girls all made up, perfect hair, cute designer handbag around their arms. They look exactly like they do in them soap operas.



Cambodia - Siem Reap
Dont even bother asking why I'm in Cambodia, Angkor Wat is one of the things that is on almost everyone's bucket list, and I ticked mine so I deserve to be fat. Angkor is magnificent, the only regret is not bringing a decent enough camera aka my newly acquired DSLR to capture the true beauty of it. Apart from landing into delirium due to 30 hours of travelling coupled with 90minutes of sleep, nothing could get between the awesomeness of Angkor Wat and us!



Vietnam is a different story all together. There are so much feelings and experiences I figured I'll start a new post for Vietnam altogether.

Much <3

The night of Platters

I often feel robbed when daylight saving kicks in, and therefore resort to blasting 60s music into my ears for consolation. Not that they are in any way relevant to each other. Plus the fact that the NT government owes me 2x long weekend public holidays therefore I am extra bitter..like when you add extra baking powder.

When I first got to Darwin we had a cultural session with one of the aboriginal educators, during the session he taught us how to recognise plants and some bush medicine practices (I can totally survive in the bush now thank you very much.. as long as I bring my GHD and iphone) Especially when he showed us the weapons used for hunting and that when I decided that I really want to spear a dugong from the end of a speed boat in slow motion like this:



I accept other forms of spearing, such as conversation prior with fellow colleague

S:"We were driving along this dirt track and this huge emu was just running along next to us."
Me:"OMG! I could've speared it from the roof of the four wheel drive!"
S:"LOL. Psycho."

I mean, that's how the locals do it, I wanna be cool too and drag home a bunch of feed and impress the ladies.

Apart from my new found aspiration, I also discovered new talent of baking 200x Greek cookies in 5Hrs from scratch. Oh and I finally paid some attention to my face and shaped my brows for the first time in like a whole year. They no longer look like a patch of rectangular hair growth. Hurrah.

Cranky journalist asked me the meaning of life today.
I answered her 42 like a good geek should and she appreciated it.

What exactly is the meaning of life to the individual?

This is probably a harder topic than the peanut butter subject.
Aspirations, ambitions, accomplishments, attachments, acts of kindness. What are they to you?

I leave a lingering thought while The Platters romance me on a Sunday night.

I want to do my portfolio but I dont....

The desire to blog is directly linked to the amount of stress starting to build from the coming exams. Also that I would much rather write about peanut butter and syphilitic eyeballs than reflect on family communication and multidisciplinary team care for the elderly. *roll eyes.

Peanut butter:
Peanut butter, a food paste made from dry roasted peanuts. Mainly used for a sandwich spread and the trigger for a deep and meaningful conversation with you significant half. You can use it as an open ended question such as

"So! What do you think about peanut butter sandwiches?"

or you can use it as a joke such as

"If you strap a slice of peanut butter toast to the back of a cat and chuck it out the window, which one will land face up?"

Or you can start it as a fun fact! such as:

"Did you know that Arachibutyrophobia (say it 10x fast!) is the fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth?"

Then cross your fingers and hope he says these exact words: Look, I think...

Tada!- Good old peanut butter, catalyzing your soul to soul communication yet again.

Syphilitic eye ball
Also known as Argyll-robertson pupil medically. The convenient prostitute's eyeball as it accommodates but does not react.


The relationship between peanut butter and syphilitic eyeballs has to be explored with an open mind and understanding that many of my principles in life are directed by a series of analogies.

Should we accommodate when all we get is a 5 word answer to our peanut butter question, when we are expecting or rather, wanting an opinion starting with "look, I think". -or-
Should we react and keep searching for the one who gives his 2cents about peanut butter?

Cranky journalist and I are both conducting our individual social experiments with the peanut butter and syphilitic eyeball theory. However in the meantime, I continue to procrastinate and blog about my exciting time in Darwin.


Darwin is kinda awesome, 4 weeks I've been here, placed in a community right in the middle of the city. 2 more weeks, and I'll be back in Canberra freaking out about exams and showing the psychiatric patients the correct way to behave like a lunatic. So Darwin.... is hot......and humid.... and....(insert fun stuff)*


I really cannot think of anything that's fun except for fishing.

On the other hand, I am totally amused by the track Barbara Streisand by Duck Sauce. It cracks me up every time and I must dance to it.

Till next time.

Dont you know who I am?!

So I went out on Sunday night with some friends and here's what happened.

Random guy comes up and asks how my night's been. Awesome I replied. He then proceeds to tell me his mum's recent diagnose of cancer.

I was like. WTF. Takes interest immediately like a keen intelligent medical student who pretends to know everything about cancer.

In the middle of my metastases talk and radiotherapy he blurts out "So are you going home with me?"

seriously. What?

He then proceeds to yell "DONT YOU KNOW WHO I AM? EVERYONE KNOWS ME HERE!"


Gotta love a guy who uses their dying mum to try and pick you up.

I much rather have that pick up line:

What? Another Underwear incident?

Ok. So it's been clarified that talking to the microwave does not make you a crazy person. Unless the microwave starts talking back. Then you're probably at risk of being schizophrenic.

My microwave never talks back hence therefore by logic I am sane.

Just need to put it out there. *Ahem

Did you know that a male fox mates for life? And if the female dies he stays single until death. I have decided that I will marry a fox. Again, do not question my sanity.

So I have finally decided: rather than cleaning my house and putting things away I much rather procrastinate by blogging. Now this not cleaning business is making me extremely nervous because I have pest men coming tomorrow and they're going to think a bunch of suitcases rocked up and regurgitated all over my place.

Back to blogging yes. Holidays! Woo! This is going to be a long post.
The whole of December and January consists of:

- Half way dinner yay! I'm like half a real doctor! *squeal*
- A baby shower, lots of good food and cluedo
- Dinner on a suitcase followed by heading out to party and realise I have 0 social skills left, went home and woke up with the biggest hangover
- Return trip from sydney to canberra in 12 hours followed by high adrenaline speeding to the airport
- 92187371298371928 x orange cakes (Premantunga, 2009) 1x giant mango-misu 9x blueberry and white chocolate scones
- A trip to Bateman's bay, Singapore, Beijing, New Zealand
- 1x movie for the last 6months and it was awesome
- 1x catch up with old uni friends at 1x awesome indian restaurant
- And of cause my UNDERWEAR incident

Here are some photos because I have no idea where to start ^_^




This is when we're all still sober. Things kinda went downhill after.









Lots of good food and of cause the bottle of champagne. Pre-requisite.



My awesome Christmas present. If you know me well you know I go crazy for Shaun the sheep. He shares my bed now. *blush*




The infamous suitcase, that also works as a dinning table.









Before I left Australia I spent a couple of days in Sydney with my best girl. We have decided to re-live the old days where we'll go out to a korean resturant [insert either "seoul-ria" or "Arisun"] get smushed on soju and go out partying. All visualized perfectly in my head until I get to Argyle and when men came up to me all I can manage to blurt out is "Hi! ......" followed by awkward silence, followed by the desire to tell him about this SCID case I watched on TV and watch him slowly back away from me thinking I've lived under a box for the last 23 years.

I then nursed my hangover the next day with moans and groans, berroca, lots of chocolate, instant noodles and a japanese gore film called machine girl who installs a machine gun on her arm. Yes. This is sounding pretty ridculous, check it out yourselves: [I cant believe they have a wiki page on that]

In the meantime, Mountain dude calls me in the middle of the night telling me he has brought the wrong passport and needs a trip back to Canberra in 12 hours. I now rightfully and legally owns his left kidney.

Singpaore, China and New Zealand. I will have to write in a separate post. Because I am the laziest blogger ever. on earth. yes i'm not even using CAPS anymore. Laters.

A story

The rain falls, unexpectedly just as she started working on it. She is annoyed at the irony but is determined. Pilers in her hand, she snips the first wire, the second, totally unaware of the overwhelming emotions that is creeping up from deep inside. Images flash, and all was there - buried and repressed, they flood back like water through a broken dam, as though watching a movie, she watched her memories replay before her own eyes.

The rain falls still, wetting her hair first, then her shirt, her pants, tears merge with rain and the only way she can tell them apart is from the faint salty taste in her mouth. Her hands are sore, but she continues on like a robot, her mind transfixed on the past.

Some time past, she is unsure how long, she snaps back to reality, feeling sick to the stomach from nostalgia, she sits down and stared into her hands. Fresh red blood stains her hands, slowing washing away by the rain, and through her hands she sees his hands, also covered with scratches from the malicious wiring of the fence. It was almost like karma, he bled when he built it, and now she has to bleed to take it down. She sits there still, her white fluffy dog staring at her almost with the same sad eyes and all she could taste was that familiar salty taste.

Each time she cuts a wire it seems like she is snipping out a little piece of her she never knew, each time she cuts a wire she dies from guilt inside for destroying his hardwork, each time she cut a wire she sees him tying the wire, his hands sore too, each time she cuts a wire it seems she is cutting a piece of him out of her life... bits by bits...until there is nothing left.

She finishes her job. Numb from physical and emotional pain. She looks out the window to her backyard, it was exactly how she felt, empty and lonely, what use to be there is gone. And all that she has left, is an image of his back walking out, the faint smell left behind, and the familiar wet patch on her pillow every night before she goes to bed.


--

Update my blog post... Like a boss.

So what am I watching on youtube repetitively nowadays?