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Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Some fun


You know you’re in med school when…

Your highlighter runs out of ink.
Your hands always smell of cadaver fixative.
You hear someone say a drug name/structure/whatever, obviously mispronounce it, and you get annoyed.
You can remember the Krebs Cycle, but not your phone number.
The name Robbins is as familiar to you as your last name.
You're wife tells you you smell like a band-aid when you get home at night
You can discuss cadaver dissection while eating dinner.
you find yourself talking about which post office innervates your neighborhood and whether or not two highways anastomose.
You're sitting between two people who are mindlessly spinning their pens around their thumbs during lecture.
when you realize that you are an average student and that it's ok
You tell your girlfriend to look lateral to the cereal to find the salt
when you take notes while watching ER or Grey's Anatomy
and when something you saw on ER/Grey’s anatomy shows up on a quiz or test.
 You own a 4-color pen and it's not enough colors for you
You have used up more than 6 highlighters in the past 6 months
You have highlighted something you wrote
You skip class to study
You equate "morning stiffness" with Rhematoid Arthritis
You have made a medical joke and no one laughed
SOB means shortness of breath to you
You know how to calculate specificity, positive predictive value, and anion gap
Anatomy makes you hungry
Your eyesight has worsened by 10 points or more in the last 4 years
You have debated between giving up eating or sleeping in order to find more time to study
You start studying for the boards more than 2 months in advance
When you're lifting at the gym and are staring at your muscles, not because of their size, but because you're trying to see their attachments and origins through the skin.
you see an attractive girl in a bikini but the first thought that comes to your mind is palpating her liver border
When you insist that someone in a photo is on the right. "No no no, the other right, the patients right."
You look forward to weekends not because you can sit back and relax and hang out with friends but because it means you have more time to study and catch up and dare I say? get ahead??
You feel superior to the 10am kids in college when your first class is at the asscrack of dawn.
You tell your friends in high school to enjoy it because they just dont know.
Reading 200+ pages over the weekend? easy. Trying to figure out how to sit back and relax? impossible.
You lose touch with whats popular on the radio or on television. The second that something new has changed with insurance, politicians & their plans for insurance, any change to anything USLME or med school or residency? You're the first to know.
Your friend says casually, "Ooh, I think I'm getting a headache," and the first things that pop into your head are:


1) When did the pain start?
2) Does the pain radiate anywhere?
3) Does anything make it feel better or worse?
You have an acronym for everything.


You have a differential diagnosis for your own abdominal pain that includes names of pathogens.


You diagnose members of the general public with diseases
You think " *courtesy of wikipedia" should be somewhere on your diploma.


You think you have whatever disease you’re learning about… every week.
You think " *courtesy of wikipedia" should be somewhere on your diploma.


You think you have whatever disease you’re learning about… every week.
You come to realize how normal handwriting can evolve into chicken scratch as you witness yours make the transformation.

Saturday, August 14, 2010

First post written whilst almost drunk


Ok, heres the deal. I just finished a bottle of wine  (roughly 7 standard drinks), and I'm writing a post to try to document my expriences before I forget. Before I get stuck into it, I apologise for any spelling mistakes I am sure to make, for after all, I AM almost drunk.

Ok, so I guess the first question would be how do I feel? The answer is, a little nauseaus, hopefully I don't throw up on my keyboard ^__^". Otherwise, I feel fine. Apart from the way my brain is throbbing and the way my vision is starting to blur. Oh god I need to pee. (news break: alcohol is a diuretic). Also my face is on fire. Next question please.

Why did you drink a bottle of wine?
Becuase I had random bottle of wine to boot. And I almost got drunk last week at pre-drinks. And I'm a med student and absolutely love alcohol. Actually no, scratch the last bit, I've never gotten this drunk before. The fact that I'm typing coherent sentences (I hope) means that I'm not even that drunk (I hope). But I know that I'm not sobre. As suggested by my speeling mistakes. Lol. And use of lol in that last sentence. Frick. I'm drunk. 

Arn't you supposed to be doing homework?
Yes... so?

What will S think?
I'm not sure. Probably that I'm a terrible boyfriend. And that I'm not good enough. Fuck. Yeah, I'm drunk. Bite me.

Why did I drink a bottle of wine?
Huh... deja vu... Cos my vision is starting to go really blurry, and I still need to brush my teeth. And I also needed to update my blog. GOD I NEED TO PEE. 

I hope I actually remember typing this...

Please don't laugh at me too hard.

Sunday, July 11, 2010

Something 19

So. I'm 19 now. Thanks to Flic I feel guilty for not blogging more often. -___-

Things I'd thought I would've had by age 19
a car
P's
a million bucks
a degree in awesomeness
the ability to grow a beard
a life

Things I didn't think I would have
an apartment 
S
this annoying "facial hair"

A short post, might add more whenever/ifever I feel less sleep deprived.

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Hey, you smell like awesome-ness.


Phwoar! No more exams! Give me a hell yes, HELL YES!

I think I should introduce y'all to my Significant Other (to whom shall be lovingly referred to as S). S stands for superawesome! As well as smart. And stunning. And sophisticated. And sexy. And suave, and sociable, and sanguine, and self-assured, and secure, and well... super. Sentences are superfluous to the senses by which she stimulates. It seems my style of speech is in short supply to satisfy the superawesomeness which she secretes. Si, it seems I've run out of ideas... Shrug.

But yes! I've survived a semester of Medicine =O. Everything's not as bad as I first thought it would be - though that could be because I've slacked off so much over the past few weeks (too much partying with my textbooks?) I feel somewhat burnt out. Or just completely resigned to my fate... hopefully I didn't fail any exams...

Actually, lets go through them, since this IS supposed to be a Chronicle of the adventures of a MedKid...

First exam, biology. The bio here is completely fail =___= seriously? Even less material than year 12 VCE bio? What the hell -_____- The exam itself was typical of the Adelaidian stylique; broad strokes of general knowledge with a subtle dab of minor detail, not a particularly challenging piece to master.
Septum secundum comes the MEQ (modified essay question). This exam was a total bitch. "Dislike". It basically involves a case scenario (e.g. A 150 year old man comes into hospital with a pencil stuck up his nose.) and a basic history (He complains of headaches and grey coloured bogeys). And then that's when the shit hits the metaphorical fan - first they ask for data significance, i.e. the significance of the person being aged 150? he should be dead by now, duh. And then there's the, what are 3 potential differentials? 1) He's actually 15 and the 0 is used to indicate IQ, 2) He has a pencil stuck up his nose and 3) He is pregnant. (No joke; we are supposed to assume that all women we see are pregnant until proven otherwise. And yes, that includes YOUR MUM. *gasp*) And blah blah blah, some random question about some minor detail the lecturer mentioned for 2 seconds and can only be found in a completely irrelevant chapter in the textbook. MEQ should instead stand for Masochist Enema Quillrat. Because the exam feels like stuffing your rectum full of fictional spiny porcupine monsters. And for 3 whole hours too! Hurrah.

Third exam was MCQ, multiple-choice questions to mere mortals (^__^"). Consists of basically 100 multi-choice questions plus 25 marks for mechs. Basically. Quiet boring really. This was a 2 hour exam and I remember finishing an hour early. Hopefully time left over for an exam is directly proportional to the percentage score you get, amiright?

Last was the dreaded resource exam, which was today/yesterday incidentally (because I'm writing this at 2am). Apparently the 3rd year resource exam was impossible. Apparently the 2nd year exam was horrendous. The 1st year resource exam was a piece of cake. What an anticlimax, sigh. The most I'm worried about at the moment is that the admin people realise how stupidly easy the paper was, and decide to use scaling instead of the >65% = A system they have in place now. (Insane right, >65% serious? But yes, in MEQ >50% would be a godsend.) So yes - I'm really really hungry.

Oh yeah, my mum has come over from Melbourne. And my sisters too. Their reaction to S has been.. well, interesting... mum seems to be, surprisingly accepting. My sis's on the other hand were completely wtflumoxed; they must've underestimated my Awesomness.^__^

Now I feel sheepish. Baahhh.
Time to procrastinate on deviantart. Go go go!

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Gene pool party anyone?

So, its been a while since the last time I've come around. You can blame the fact that I was living off 1g of internet a month for the past 2 months or so. It was so sucky. Actually I'm STILL living on 1g/month fml. As a result, here I am at uni procrastinating like a bitch and scabbing "free" internet. Hurrah.

Speaking of hurrah exams are coming up soon! I surprisingly very cbs about it all - got no motivation to do well, I reckon I could pass without studying so why the hell study right? Sigh, but that's just me. Unbeknownst to myself I probably know nothing and am completely retarded. Wait no, that I do know. =__=

But yes, my Lair is pretty awesome right now. All the furniture has been set up (some more dodgily than others *cough* DT *cough*). Most sexily of all it has a couch! Hell yes! I have my own couch! Let the many years of misuse and abuse begin!

So, my life as we know it so far.

Uh yes med. meh. Sleep-wise I've been getting more hours in total on the weekends than on weekdays. I think its called binge sleeping. On weeknights I usually get 3-5 hours. Weekends is epic splurg 10+ per night/afternoon. Also cooking for myself sucks; I forgot to buy bread this week and now have no idea what to eat for lunch - might go "forage" after the next lecture. I tried to cook chicken the other night whilst learning/doing a diarrhoea case, now I'm so paranoid of getting salmonella its not funny. And stuff keeps going off in my fridge which makes my life so damn interesting.  

I think I'm getting the hang of the Adelaidian way of life now; drinking and partying every night into the morning. Having an epic hang over in the morning and not being able to remember a single thing that went on in the past 10 hours. Then going to uni and attending 8am lectures where all the lecturers seem to constantly be on crack. (Insert gratuitious quote: "From an ethical point of view, it is a bad idea to blow off your friends." No duh, cos you'll get mouth warts yeah?)

Oh when I said "drinking and partying" I mean "drinking" cofffee and "partying" in front of my computer with forehead to desk, then Cecil, then desk over and over and over and over again. And hungover cos you know, you get hung over after being smashed like that. 

This post was awefully boring. Sorry. So sleep deprived I can't think straight (I actually think I'm lesbian).

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

I'm so damn hungry.

Ok! So the house warming was completely fail. Sigh, so this is how it feels to be ALL BY MYSELF. Don't wanna be, all by myself~ Yes. I like Henry's idea of everyone coming over - I'll provide the electricity and venue, you guys can pay for the plane tickets (and port-o-loo, no way are you guys going near my sterile and pristine toilet). 

Sorry to say I still don't have proper internet at my apartment, currently scabbing uni internet in one of the 24 hour labs. And there are quite a few people around. Uni-wise, stuff is still as hectic as it was many weeks ago. Haven't slept before 12am for weeks now. If I binge sleep one day, I'm afraid I'll never wake up. I'll be able to sleep FOREVER mwhahhaha. 

Ok must leave now. This key board is too squeeky for me.

Monday, April 26, 2010

The Story Thus Far

Ok. So this post has gotta to be quick. I'm at a secret location in uni, hunched over my tiny laptop, furiously jabbing at these pissy little keys. I have orchestra in 10 minutes and am also scabbing internet off some unsecured network.

The reason I'm not writing this at home is because I don't have internet at my house. In fact, I just moved house. Hurrah! I promise I'll spam plenty of photos of my awesome Ikea-fest room and my massively empty living room. But the fact is, I have my own condo!

Moving in was quite epic. Dad decided to ditch the day after he arrived. Left me alone to DIY all the furniture. Bought a screwdriver from the Reject Shop for $3. It is now broken. I also don't have a fridge, which is really really gay. And I don't have internet. =/

But on the upside, I live in the city, am 5 minutes away from uni and I CAN DO WHATEVER THE FUCK I WANT.

So! House warming party anyone?

Friday, April 16, 2010

So... study break?

I've finally realised how much I miss you guys. Sob. All this med this is starting to get to me. I think I'm having a nervous breakdown. No not really, I just like the attention of pretending to have one. 

ANYWAY, I'm going back to Adelaide tomorrow morning. How fun; 5.00am wake up yeah! And the fact that I'm returning to hours and hours of hardwork and study and muddy water and slow internet. Damn that get the blood pumping. I don't know. I think the holidays have made me somewhat apathetic: I can't be stuffed doing anything. Or it could be the sleep deprivation. 

As for holiday study, I can't say I didn't do any. But I just haven't done enough. 


In fact, heres a list of the stuff I DID do:
  • catch up with friends
  • form a band
  • crash Melbourne uni
  • a bit of homework
  • and um... that's about it
How sad. I think I'll go for a run now. BRB TTYL LOL BATBYGOBSTOPL!


--- *run run run* ---


OK! That was totally gay. I think I swallowed a fly. o___O And now I'm all hot and sweaty...


So anyway! Where was I. Yes, leaving Melbourne tomorrow. Again. Tonight's going to be the last time I sleep in my own bed, for a while at least. Because I'm going to be sleeping with your mum for the next month or so. On an unrelated note, I think living with my parents has dropped my maturity level a couple of notches. Probs because of the lack of responsibility? Which reminds me, I never fully realised that I had "moved out" of home. I thought it was more of a "lets-temporary-live-here-until-I-finish-uni" kind of thing. I always thought "moving out" would be more dramatic, you know, with tears and parties and champagne and everything. And a car too, all wrapped up with a cute little tag signed "from mum and dad with love". And I'll be like 30 as well, with enough money to retire. And the only reason I'll be leaving home is to live on my private island with fully furnished casino and space station included.
 
Huh. A major whose reality moment there.


Instead moving out is kinda like, oh are you sure you want to go to adelaide son? YES! I WANT TO DO MED NOW, NOT DO 3 YEARS OF BIOMED THEN GAMSAT WHICH I WILL COMPLETELY FAIL AND NOT END UP DOING MED! are you really really sure? we'll support you whatever you choose. WELL GODDAMN SUPPORT ME NOW. are you sure you want to go to adelaide though? its ok if you choose biomed. FRIGGING NO. ADELAIDE NOW. are you sure ke-wun? we'll give you a car... UM. UHH. UM. NO MED FIRST! THEN CAR! are you sure? (repeat ad nauseum)


But yes. Eventually I got out of home. And so far its been pretty awesome. Though at one stage I thought I missed home. (are you sure you want to go back ke-wun?)


So anyway, time to pack.

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Life is one big study sess

So I've been working my arse off lately. Hell, I shouldn't even be blogging right now. But whatever, LIFE CAN WAIT>>>>>>

Another Random Gratuitous Picture




Why does XKCD always manage to crack me up?

My completely eventful day today

12.01am - realise that it is 12.01am, fuck
12.14am - drink 3rd bottle of iced coffee
12.30am - download eBooks on ECG, hardcore study ECG
1.24am - realise that I havn't finished Case Based Learning issues
1.40am - yawn.
2.15am - print out CBL issues
2.16am - prepare to sleep, remember that i have a bio tute later that day
2.17am - climb out of bed. do tute questions.
2.48am - take a really really long leak (it was 3 bottles ok)
2.51am - find the printer jammed up. unjam printer. sleep.
6.45am - wake up
6.50am - turn off snooze on phone
6.55am - turn off snooze on ipod
7.00am - turn off 2nd snooze on phone
7.01am - get out of bed
7.10am - brush teeth, wash face, pour previously boiled water into filter
7.15am - pour cereal, get out bread, prepare tuna, get milk out the fridge, wash lettuce, find bread, find lunch box, pour milk into bowl of cereal, drain lettuce, pour filtered water into a drink bottle, find a spoon and a knife, spread tuna on bread, start eating cereal, put lettuce on bread, close lunch box
7.30am - get out of the house, finish eating cereal
7.40am - get to Klemzig O-Bahn station
7.42am - catch the wrong bus
7.58am - get off bus in a random place in the city
7.59am - look at watch and curse
8.00am - lecture begins
8.01am - start running towards campus
8.05am - get to lecture theatre
8.10am - find a seat in the front row (which shows how much dedication i have for morning bio lectures)
9.00am - lecture ends, walk to med school
9.10am - get to another lecture, sit in 3rd row now
9.24am - start shaking (due to frostbite in the Frigid Florey)
9.31am - lose sensation in extremities
9.57am - lose consciousness
10.00am - extract frozen arse from the chair
10.10am - go outside to thaw
10.15am - go to library and study study study
10.16am - get distracted
11.30am - eat lunch
11.40am - finish lunch, and feel hungry
12.00pm - return to medschool
12.10pm - begin CBL 
12.24pm - get picked on by tutor. Wake up.
12.38pm - get stuck on some random mega mech. on some random obscure bodily function (specifically the action of juxtacapillary receptors in the role of dyspnoea caused by pulmonary oedema due to aortic stenosis which then may precipitate in congestive heart failure)
12.57pm - sigh.
12.59pm - realise that there is another hour of CBL. sigh.
1.28pm - make up some crap about calve cramps being a result of heart failure (heed my warning Steve)
1.34pm - Zone out.
2.34pm - Mentally turn up to bio tute. Realising on arrival that my bio tutors were still stuck in the printer.
2.35pm - Nod and smile. Then zone out.
- two lectures and a yogurt bar later -
5.48pm - Have dinner on Rundle Mall
6.00pm - AUMO (adelaide uni medical orch) start
6.10pm - finish my spicy chicken with rice on Rundle Mall
6.20pm - turn up at rehearsal
6.30pm - play play play play play play play play play play.
7.30pm - finish rehearsal, pack up. 
7.38pm - get to almost Hindley St, shudder.
7.49pm - catch a bus from outside the Royal Adelaide Hospital 
8.00pm - get off at Klemzig station
8.06pm - get stabbed (in my imagination)
8.11pm - get back "home"
8.13pm - change clothes, open new bottle of orange juice
8.14pm - turn on computer
8.15pm - look at and make a list of work that needs to be done. Open MSN. Open mozilla to check out the blogs of friends. 
8.16pm - Check if anyone has commented on my blog. Begin writing blog just for lols.
12.01am - realise that it is 12.01am. Fuck.

Monday, March 22, 2010

Week 4

Sigh. Week 4 has just begun. And things are pretty bad. I hate Med. 

Joking, I kid completely.

But seriously, the work load is huge-normous. Much like the size of a severely hypertrophied heart after multiple myocardial infarctions. Frick. Med is getting to me. On the weekend I pretty much studied two days straight - only decided to rest on Sunday at 11.30pm to watch an episode of Big Bang. Oh how I envy Sheldon and his eidetic memory. It would make studying so much easier. And the way he handles awkward situations too... you are my idol Sheldon Cooper (Figure 1). 

Right next to Dr House that is.


Figure 1. Some totally relevant picture to illustrate Sheldon's awesomeness.


Do you know why Dr House is so awesome? Because he has an MD. Damn, those two letters just fit so well together on your tongue. It's like they were destined to be together. Unlike MBBS. *shudder* The word just wants you to cough up sputum doesn't it. MBBS. Ugh. 

So yes. I dunno. I've kind of run out of ideas already. Not that I had any decent ideas to begin with. I'll just like to finish off by saying that some faeces has acutely infarcted upon a rotary blade superior to the cephalic cavity. 

In other words, the shit just hit the fan.

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

SMAF - studying my arse off

No time to blog. Sorry.

I'll bitch and rant about how insanely busy I am soon I hope.

Saturday, March 6, 2010

Week One

Lets start with a run down of all the stuff (good and bad) that's happened over this past week...

Parents
My parents and sister drove up from Melbourne for a couple of days, bringing with them a haul of stuff from home. So now, my room actually looks like my room - rather than a cold, sterile hospital ward. Some of the things they brought were useful - like this 22' screen I'm typing on and my Windows 7 Rig. And clothes as well, having more than 5 pairs of "Calven Klain" underwear to last 6 years is a good start. However, they also brought other things that were a little less useful - like a gigantic 25kg box full of oranges. WHAT THE DUCK AM I SUPPOSED TO DO WITH 25KG OF ORANGES. If I tried eating them all I'll probably die of Vitamin C overdose. Not that drinking ~1L of O Juice every night doesn't make me eligible for a good stomach pumping already... 

An Interesting Lecture
Our first anatomy lecture started off like any other in the Frigid Florey. (The lecture theater has it's thermostat set on -30 to keep students from falling asleep). Everything was normal until the professor STARTED TAKING HIS SHIRT OFF. AND THEN HIS BELT. AND HIS PANTS TOO. =O. I don't know why some girls started covering their eyes and screaming (because of frostbite in the eye?) but I thought the old man had balls. Figurative ones of course. So because it was cold, the professor ended up putting on a lab coat over his boxers and knee high socks. He is now my idol.

Anatomy Lab
On the same day as that awesome lecture (questionable because I'm not sure how much content I still remember), we went down to the basement which appropriately was where all the dead bodies were kept. And so (almost) everybody got a good look and feel of their first dead person. It was quite confronting. Here in front of me was an old man (looked 70ish) who had taken his last breath about a decade ago. Fully nekkid, perfectly preserved (except for the huge slit across his throat) and DEAD. Seriously, half the time I was expecting him to sit up from his guerney and start complaining about the draft down his neck or something. I guess I just couldn't really grapple with the fact that I was literally staring death in the face. It gave me goosebumps. 

-Warning, somewhat graphic descriptions ahead: do not read whilst eating.-

But all that soon passes when you realise how fascinating the human body actually is. Placed around the Lab were prosections (cut off bits) of various organs and structures. There were lobe-y lungs and hearty hearts and kool(?) kidneys. There were also torsos (from groin to neck without arms) that had huge cuts down the middle to expose the intestines and arteries and heart and stomach and lungs and veins and... well "dead body juice"(it's actually embalming fluid) - which tended to pool at the bottom of the cadaver. I accidently stuck my hand in one of these pools whilst looking for a kidney. Not a good feeling. Other body bits including arms and legs with skin peeled back, showing muscles, arteries, veins, nerves and bone. 
 
- End warning - 

All in all, it's one of those things that have to be experienced to actually know what I'm talking about. Despite the initially ewwness of touching real organs and limbs I learnt a load about anatomy. And as it turned out, it was also awesome fun.



Steth Pack 
I finally got my stethoscope and sphygmomanometer pack the other day, which I ordered off the internet. And it is really, really orange. Really orange. Dare I say it, TOO orange. (Sorry EJ)
Cecil
My order for Cecil's came in (refer to previous post). My arms broke as soon as I looked at it.

Stupid Public Transport System Made Me Late For My Lecture, Curses.
Well I think that subheading is pretty self-explanatory. Moral of the story: don't turn up to a bus stop with a $50 note and a $2 coin. Bus drivers don't like yellow. 

Free condoms!
For the finale of a surprisingly boring but useful lecture on sexual health (i.e. STDs, contraception and the like) the lecturer started throwing condoms and lubricant at the crowd. I was worried that there would be a crush of guys and girls trying to get their hands on some free rubbers but nay! My fears were unassailed - people tried to get as far away from them as possible. In the end, the floor of the Frigid Florey was littered with frozen condoms - no doubt the next group of students to use the lecture theater will shake their heads in wonder and think; "Damn, I wish I were a MedKid."

Memorial Service
This annual pseudo-funeral is organised for family and friends of people who donated their bodies for scientific purposes, such as those in the Anatomy Lab. The whole event was touching and made me realise how easy it is to forget that the cadavers in the basement are in fact humans - here are their loved ones, crying and grieving for them.


And it was only just that night that I was told one of my old teachers had lost his battle with cancer. It came as a shock and still is a shock. I think I'm beginning to realise how naive, and small my little world is. 

May we never forget your laughing face and questionable teaching methods, you are one of the most awesome people I know.
R.I.P, Mr C.

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

O week, BEGIN!


Herein lies the secrets of Adelaide O week...

Today started off with an interesting (albeit somewhat disconcerting) thought, statistics show that Adelaide Medkid's will marry other Adelaide Medkid's. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that I must be one of the minority. 

But yes. I will digress now. 

I started this post with the intention of finishing it. Due to the world needing saving and whatnot, I cannot. I'll have to take a raincheck on that one.


My sincerest apologies.

Sunday, February 28, 2010

Books.

Did you know that MedKids have to have a certain fitness level as well as mental level to be able to graduate MedSchool? I mean, if you had a weak heart or something HOW THE HELL are you supposed to carry all your text books around! Seriously, they should have an upper body strength test as part of the interview process to weed out all the weedy kids - some of them only Arnold Schwarzenegger would be able to carry.

Take the Cecil Textbook of Internal Medicine by Goldman & Ausiello (which will be fondly referred to as Cecil's from here on in) for example. It is one mean 3000+ page mother goose with over 200 chapters, at least 7kg. Just taking Cecil would mean I had to pay extra for frigging Tiger tickets. Seriously, its so big, it could kill you. Not from the severe internal bleeding you'll get when somebody throws it at you because they think you're an arrogant prick for lugging such a big book (read subtext). No instead, you'll die from the psychological trauma of holding so much knowledge in your hands - if you hold onto it for too long, your head will explode. 

Another noteworthy text book/reference is Rohen's Colour Atlas of Anatomy, by Yokochi & Lutjen-Drecoll, not because it's insanely expensive (which it is, but more on that later) or because it is insanely huge (is an elephants backside huge?) but because of its awesome description in our textbook guide - "Say hello to the cadaver on your bookshelf!" I ABSOLUTELY LOVE dead bodies! Apparently this book "allows you to revise what you have seen in resource sessions (i.e. happy-cutting-up-people time) ... without the smell of formaldehyde!" 
Ok I couldn't help myself, sorry. I also can't help but verbally emesisise how expensive Med texts are. For example, Cecil costs $275. And that's just ONE text. In total, I'm looking at around $1000 just for books. This doesn't include essential equipment such as a stethoscope or lab coat or sphygmomanometer (roll THAT around your mouth a couple of times and tell me you're not getting hypertension!). All that will cost another $10 at least - that is if you're buying the plastic dress-up-as-Barbie's-Gynaecologist set (which isn't necessarily a bad thing...). But seriously, a decdent Litmann steth can cost as much as $200 with many digital steth's fetching well over one grand. Moral of the story: why can't the Government fork out a little extra to subsidise (partially?) our text books and equipment when in the long run, we'll be paying the community back many many times over. 

It'll also give me an earlier opportunity to gawk at the genitals of END POST.

Friday, February 26, 2010

On a side note

Ye Olde readers will have realised that I've removed all my old posts. Do not fret! I copied the contents of each individual post into about a gazillion notepad documents. So if one of you requests a post to be well, reposted then I'll gladly put it back up. Probably.

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Please say ahhhhhhhh!

OK so my week so far has been jam packed full of O week fun! It's been wandering-around-campus-feeling-lost galore! Hurrah. 

So far the message I've been getting from the Adelaide MBBS staff is that they are ABSOLUTELY ANAL about "professionalism" and such. An MLTU (Medicine Learning and Teaching Unit) staff member lectured us, literally, on how important it is to address Professors with "Professor" and send emails with capital "I"s and no spelling mistakes and WE'RE NOT LITTLE KIDS OK, WE'RE SMART ENOUGH TO GET INTO MEDICINE, SO I THINK WE'RE SMART ENOUGH AND MATURE ENOUGH TO SHOW RESPECT WHERE IT IS DUE.

On the topic of maturity however, it seems that MedKid's are the ones that party the hardest. MedCamp is next week and to be honest, I'm scared. The shit that happens at MedCamp is the stuff of legends - young children from all over the world have been threatened with being sent to MedCamp if they don't become REAL DOCTOR'S. Rawrs. I dunno. I've just heard some pretty crazy stories of guys losing all their clothes (and dignity too) after some notorious sexing in the undergrowth and then getting losing their way in their drunken stupor, resulting in search parties from Adelaide being sent up to look for them.


HM. I don't think I've bitched about my timetable yet. 




I'm not sure what you can see, but what I see is a BITCH of a timetable. Monday is a 8am to 5pm day with one hour break in between. That's a 6 hour lecture-fest followed by another 3 hours of fun and games. Oh and following this from 6-7.30pm is Adelaide Medical Students Orchestra (AUMO) practice. FML. Fuck Monday Lah.

Tuesday and Wednesday are also 8-5 days. But on the otherhand, Thursday is my half day of respite, where I can hopefully find time to speel about other aspects of my MedLife. Yay!

So in total, I'm getting something like 28 contact hours a week - somebody please tell me this is less than what MonashKid's get or else I'm going to kick some(bodies) balls real hard. Stupid 5 year courses. @__@

Oh and I met a new MedPhrase today. I was flicking through this anatomy text book (I think) and written at the top of the page was "ANAL WINK". It made my day.

Saturday, February 20, 2010

Day 2 and a 1/2

I'm going to take this opportunity to bitch about how intimidating the girls doing med are. HOLY FUCK! THEY ARE SO HOT OMFG AND SMART TOO WHAT THE FUCK AM I DOING HERE THEY ARE SO HOT HOLY CRAP HOLY CRAP AND INSANELY SMART TOO ITS TIMES LIKE THESE I WISH I... I DON'T KNOW. BEING SMART AND FUNNY AND HANDSOME AND RICH JUST DOESN'T CUT IT WITH THESE PEOPLE. >___>

*BREATH IN* *BREATH OUT* *BREATH IN* *BREATH OUT*
Ok. As I was saying before some idiot interrupted my meticulously calm stream of thought (that all Doctors have), Adelaide is not as bad as some people say. Below are some reasons:

1) Everything is really close together. But that's probably because Adelaide is a hole, and the points on the surface of the hole are physically closer together (shown in diagram 1). Of course in this case I say "hole" with a certain kind of fondness to it. Like how Homer Simpson would feel if he were talking about donut "holes". idk.
Diagram 1. This phenomenon can also be seen in Perth.
(Adapted from Google Maps, 2010.)


2) The water isn't too bad. You get used to drinking orange juice all day. Especially Black Label orange juice. Yum. The only problem with this is the withdrawal symptoms you get when you drink 1.5L a day and you realise that you've run out of money. You tend to become delirious and start having multiple personalities.

3) There's a free tram route in the middle of the city. It also happens to be the only tram route. In the entire city. Also, the trams smell like sunscreen.

4) Some of the buses actually go to 100km/h even though there aren't any freeways in Adelaide. Instead they have dedicated "bus lanes" that make the buses little more than glorified bumper cars. If you think that's bad enough, its also called the O-Bahn (which means "bull" in Scandinavian). And my stop is Klemzig (which is also "shit" in Klingon).

So despite all this rage over the many short comings of Adelaide, I'm slowly being brainwashed (despite only drinking the smallest amounts of Adelaide water) and finding it not all that bad. God help me.

Monday, February 15, 2010

The Three R's

Resurrection, Renovation and Revamp... tion. That is what this blog needs.
And for you my dearest readers, that is what this blog, dying from acute myocardial infarction, will get.


I have decided to give my piece of internet a new spark of life; restart it's tiny virtual heart, with the defibrillator of my new found status as ©Medkid™®. *Gasp*. That's right folks, a real ©Medkid™®! I can't believe it too right! I'm a real ©Medkid™®!

Shit my nose just grew a little longer. OK, OK. So I'm not really a ©Medkid™®. I'm still just a MedNoob, but I WILL become a doctor one day. Like Dr House! Yes. And like, work in like, Seattle Grace Mercy West Hospital. And like OMG have sex with all the hot nurses too... yeah. Thats right. Right there. Oh Yeah.

Yeah.

But I digress. The true purpose of this possibly impulsive decision to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation is to breathe life into this potential vessel of verbal emesis. That sentence probably increased my vocab by about 5%. (You suck n-emesis.)

To be brutally honest, I know that med is going to be a long, convoluted road with littered with bumps it's going to look and feel like a pretzel. Since my place is bonded, it's going to be at least 18 years until I can finally do whatever I want i.e. work in a hospital where I get paid to cut open people's brains. And I've heard that the course itself is hellish. Everynight spent studying till 12am, and waking up at 7 to go to lectures. Then more study, and tutes. Then lectures. And lectures. And lectures. Sigh.

But not to worry! I am tank. I have Perseverance. (10 Damage, 5 HP Regeneration, 125% Mana Regeneration).