So I should blog every once in a blue moon eh?

Soooo its been a while yeahhhhh...

Indeed it has. Stuff tends to happen over time. In terms of this blog however, its quite the opposite. Since I haven't written anything original over the past half year or so (?) I'm gonna get down and dirty. And regurgitate everything that's happened in the life of this little MedKid since my last post.

Get ready. Get steady. Go!

Second year vs. first year - I may or may not have said this before (I ceebs rereading my posts right now), but 2nd year is a piece of noobcake with pwnage-icing topped with a slice of pro-ness compared to first year. Study is seriously chill. Reasons; 1) the workload is lighter - naive little MedKids go into first year thinking they know everything there is to learn. Unbeknowst to them, BAM! Cecil (refer here) ninja's in from nowhere and smacks them in the face, causing frontal bone fracture with concomitant coup and contre-coup contusion, leading to cerebral oedema, mass effect, central herniation and ultimately, the end point of all the best mechanisms, death. Whiiippeee! That was first year. In second year, you actually know stuff. You no longer quake in your boots when you see the words "clotting factor" or "parasympathetic stimulation". "Cytokines!" isn't your catch phrase anymore for any immune system related question. And now, you can actually read an ECG. (Hell yes baybee, hell yes.)

Word of caution: ECG machines mad baaaad alarm clocks.

And now, because you know your foundations, other stuff is a whole lot easier to learn. Also, the admin like pounding in the basics, so you oft get the opportunity to redo first year material to make sure it sticks in your head, which, for those that havn't forgotten everything, makes for easy studying.

Reasono numero two-o) you sort of know how to study medicine. The coursework is less, but the material is still just as difficult, if not more so (*shudder* brain anatomy */shudder*). Even so, you're so used to rote learning lists of random names (such as the muscles of the limbs) that beating out the obscurest names of the obscurest structures in the depths of the brain that no one really ever talks about is no big deal. (Example, the crus of the Fornix and the Habenular nuclei and whatever. I don't care anymore, I did my exams.) But anywho, as I was saying.. uhmmm yeah. By second year, you will have honed down your studying skills to a scapels edge allowing you to cut through swathes of boring junk without a single bead of sweat. That's the theory anyway. In practice, it certainly does help to have good study habits, but mine are nowhere near perfect aka I cannot blow up a mans head with my mind just yet...

3) Our mid-year medical exams were formative - meaning they didn't count. Need I say more?

4) Less contact hours. Instead of the deadly jungle that was my first year timetable, this years timetable is relatively desolate. Most days (Mon, Weds, Fri) I have afternoon CBL (refer here this time) meaning that I can sleep in until about 10 o'clock. On top of that, I've just been a naughty boy and have been skipping some of the more useless lectures. So instead of my almost impeccable attendance record last year, this years attendance record is only slightly more than a stained square of 2-ply toilet paper. Sigh. The reason for this ceebsness? Most of it stems from the fact that I know I don't need to work as hard as first year. I sort of regret putting in the amount of effort that I did. And now I have a feeling I'm going to regret not working hard enough this year. But that shall be reflected in the exam grades. In terms of clinical skills and CBL assessments however, I've been doing pretty good so perhaps that's what's been causing my false sense of security. Gah, we shall see...

And now for some random gratuitious picture! The caption: "Hugs keep us alive"

If only this were a T-shirt design... guess what, it is!

All this means MORE TIME TO CHILL AND STUFF. Chilling how I hear you ask? Read the next instalment of the Chronicles of a MedKid and you will find out!

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!