i've got skills...

we had this optional skills workshop this weekend.
for $10 (to cover the cost of materials and what not), we learned how to...

suture...

that's a pig's foot. not bad with the needle work though huh?

plaster...

garrett looks WAY too happy for a guy that's supposed to have a broken wrist!

intubate...

squeeze that bag matt! look at that face of concentration! haha.

canulate and inject "intramuscularly"...

make sure you get all those air bubbles matt!
that's not a typo. they are both "matt"s. i think there must be at least half a dozen matthews in our class. it's always, "did this or that with matt". "which matt? asian matt? matt with one T mat? booze hound and streaker matt?"

it was a good time.

act your age!

just got home from lawn bowling.
yes. LAWN BOWLING. went with matt and some of his church buddies.

had a good time. it's actually a lot tougher and more entertaining than it looks. to put it simply it's the english/ozzie/summer version of curling. the object of the game is to bowl (verb) your bowl (noun) as close as you can to a smaller, white ball (known as a kitty or a jack).
sounds too easy?
well there's a catch. these bowls that you bowl are asymmetrically balanced. one side of the bowl is weighted more than the other side. so when you bowl the bowl (had enough of these "bowls" yet? haha), the bowl doesn't roll in a straight line. it'll start curving off to the side that has more weight on it.

i caved under the pressure. i just couldn't deliver. >_<


i can definitely see why older folks would find this entertaining.

desperate times...

call for desperate measures.

so some friends are taking part in medical research. not as research assistants but more as the guinea pigs. it's pretty good money. like $1700. but they have to spend 3 full days (you sleep there) on two separate occassions as the researchers keep an eye on you.
i was thinking about doing something like that but i chickened out. why? well...
1. i don't need the money THAT much. if money gets too tight, i can wipe my ass on old lecture notes instead of buying toilet paper.
2. i'm sure it's safe but what if something goes wrong? that's obviously why they have these research experiments right? to investigate the possible side-effects? and hence the word EXPERIMENTS?
3. if you actually do a per hour calculation, it works out to only $10 or $11 per hour. which is still better than my $0/hour i guess.
4. is this really that different from prostitution?
speaking of which, did you know that prostitution is legal in the australian state of new south wales (as long as you are over 18) and in the state of victoria (as long as you are licensed)? but i digress.

i don't mean to look-down/condemn/denounce prostitutes or research participants.
;)

educational movie.

since we got back from the holidays all we've been talking about at school is pregnancy.
first week was a case focused around assisted reproductive technology (ART), then it was a teenage unplanned pregnancy and just this past week our case was on genetics and down's syndrome.
so to wrap up all of our learning on reproduction and in particular UNPLANNED pregnancies, we went out to see the movie "knocked up".
what a great movie! it was funny as hell but sweet and touching at the same time.

for those of you that don't know, it's written by the same guy that wrote 40 year-old virgin. and stars canadian seth rogen and katherine heigl (from grey's).
it's not quite as raunchy as 40 y.o. virgin but it's not exactly kosher. definitely a good laugh. go watch it.

for those of you that have already seen the movie, how hilarious was dr. kuni? hahaha! did you know that ken jeong, who played dr. kuni is actually a real physician and stand-up comic? yep. did his undergrad at duke, his med degree at u of north carolina and his residency in new orleans. see. doctors can be funny too!

random thoughts and a martini...

1. you know how there are little socks and cases for cell phones, or ipods or whatever else you don't want to damage in your bag? well someone should could up with a sock for stethoscopes!
i know what you're thinking. but really, i'm not a nerd! and it's a serious problem! whenever i have clinical coachings and i need to take my steth, i'm sort of worried that it'll get squashed in my bag with my lunch, textbooks, etc.
jess from my pbl used to carry her steth in its original box for the longest time but after i called her up on it, she now carries it in her pillow case. hm... not a bad idea but you know what would work well? long hockey socks. hey mom, do we still have my old hockey socks??

2. did you know... (haven't had one of these segments in a long LONG while).
a birth of twins occurs once in every 89 births.
what's more interesting is that triplets occur once in every 7921 births. for those of you that aren't so quick with numbers, 7921 is 89 squared.
now hold on to your pants cause this next one is just mind-boggling. quadruplets occur once in every 704,969. and you guessed it. 740,969 is 89 cubed!
isn't that so cool?!?!?

3. found this great textbook called "fundamentals of anatomy and physiology" by frederic martini. it's really an undergraduate texbook. very easy to read and quite simplified. it does a good job of linking the anatomy and physiology and even some histology together. love it.
loving a textbook doesn't make me a nerd does it? naah!

my daily commute...

for those of you that are skeptical of my claims that i ride a ferry to class each morning... i am putting up pictures!

here it comes!

so if i open my front door in the morning and see the citycat (that's what the ferry is called) coming, then i'm late. i then have to make a mad sprint to the ferry stop which is about 400? 500? meters away. i haven't missed it yet. but i've come awfully close.

home is at the "west end" stop.


school is at the "university of queensland" stop. duh! ;p


the "ferry" isn't like the toronto islands ferry. it's not this huge bulky boat that bobs up and down. its more like a modified speed boat. its a catamaran (a boat with 2 hulls) with these huge motors that'll leave you plopped on your butt if you're not holding on to something.


it's actually a really nice ride in the mornings (& afternoons for that matter). with the sun shining and the wind blowing... it's sure beats sitting in rush hour traffic!


disclaimer: some of the photos were taken on my trip TO school and others were taken on my trip FROM school.

aussie english lesson #6

sorry for the lack of aussie words.
it appears that i've mastered the aussie language and there is nothing else to learn!
here's a few that i squeezed from my friends...

1. dobber - tattle tale. Um... Ms. Douglas, so-and-so did such-and-such. "Ugh! Albert, you're such a dobber!"

2. dunny - toilet. from my understanding, it refers to the toilet ITSELF rather than the room. but they don't really differentiate between the two here in oz so.

3. bee's knees - cool, best, high quality. "whoa! is that the new sphygmomanometer-1000?!? that's the bee's knees!"

4. dressed to the nines - used to describe a person that is formally and immaculately dressed. "wow, aren't you dressed to the nines!"

5. swotvac - refers to the week off from school before exams. the term SWOT was originally a scottish term meaning sweat. however it has been used as slang to describe a student paying careful attention to his work. hence swotvac. the backacronym (an acronym that is formed after a previously existing abbreviation) that has arose is: Study WithOut Teaching VACation. (background info courtesy of wiki)

6. crook - really sick or even dead. "I haven't seen Emma in a few days. She must be crook!"

brrr...

i went out today and got myself a space heater.
yes. a space heater. now before you laugh at me for getting an electric space heater in australia of all places, let me explain.

it is CHILLY!
today was a high of 18C and a low of 9C.
last night i slept with a long sleeve shirt AND a sweater on. and i was still cold.

the thing is that the houses in oz don't have any insulation. i swear. they are just big ol' wooden buildings and the air just whips right through them.
literally.
will let you know how i sleep tonight.

goodbye carmody...

...hello hill end terrace!

started my move yesterday and i finally feel like i'm settled in now.
a big thanks to my PBL mate gerry for driving me and my stuff over the river. otherwise, i would still be shuttling back & forth on the city cat.

i've gotta say that i'm quite pleased with my new place. along with all the things that i mentioned in my previous post, the best thing is that this place feels like a house. and now MY HOUSE. the last place felt more like a room. and it was just my little room. does that make sense?

enough chit chat. let me give you the grand tour.

this is my room. it's a little bit smaller than my last place but that's fine. there's plenty of sunlight and it overlooks the backyard.

this is the kitchen...


living room...


dining room...


back patio...


and the view from my front porch...


yay!

1 down, 13 to go.

i'm back to the daily grind of school.
seems like just yesterday that my holidays started.
like a bunch of crack addicts trying to justify that one last hit, this week has been full of med students wishing and explaining why they need just ONE MORE WEEK of hols.

and worse yet, it seems like october will never come.
the upside is that i erroneously thought that this semester was 16 weeks. turns out it's only 14. those 2 weeks make it seem a lot more bearable.
it's funny how our expectations can change our persepective on life's events.

move into my new place this weekend. looking forward to it. but then again, maybe i shouldn't get too excited about it... maybe i shouldn't set my bar of expectations too high...

ninth day (29th of june)

it was the last day of the trip. Another early morning as we had to return the boat to abel point marina (2) by 10am.


After dealing with all the paperwork, we set our feet back on solid ground, took a nice warm shower and re-entered civilization. We shuttled it back to Proserpine and flew to Brisbane.

you can actually see shannen, meera and eric (far r→l).

some things that I forgot to mention:
1. we ate REALLY well on this trip. We took turns making dinner each night. We had seafood carbonara on one night, lamb chops with veggie kebabs and pasta on another night and curry with buffalo wings and calamari on yet another night. Everything was delish! I guess you could say that we all ate like kings. Or in the case of some people, perhaps more like pregnant women.


2. while we were snorkeling in butterfly bay, there were all these colourful fish. And when you snap underwater, they would swim towards you – why? Not sure. I guess they were just curious – so you’d have these schools of fish swimming all around you and some times would even bump into you!

3. I took a disposable underwater camera with me. i just hope some of the pictures turn out.

4. I didn’t really wrap up the story about our holding tank. When we radioed in our problem, they gave us 2 choices: (a) come back to the marina and they’ll unplug it for us or (b) one of us had to go under the boat to plunge one of the holes leading out of the septic tank. Karsten our crazy german took one for the team.

5. during our off day, i was reading with my feet in the water. when suddenly someone screamed out "look at that!"

it was an eel of some sort. i was so startled i almost pooed my pants.

The trip was a huge success. Everyone got along well enough and we all had a great time. I definitely want to get a sailboat some time down the road. Probably not a catamaran though. Sure they have more deck space but they’re bulky and don’t handle as well. Not to mention… there’s nothing like the feeling of a sailboat that’s keeled over to one side. I wish you guys could have seen some of the views and felt some of the waves…

shower count for the trip: 3.

eighth day (28th of June)

this was our lazy day. The sun was shining…

and no one was feeling like doing anything but relaxing. We spent most of the morning reading…

soaking our feet in the water…

and just plain goofing around.

we didn’t even sail! We stayed a second night at macona.

Seventh day (27th of June)

Another early morning.
We got up, had a light breakfast and then went for a hike. A 1½-hour hike in thongs!

But the views of the islands when we got up there were well worth the journey.

the pictures don’t do justice.

we then made our way to macona inlet (8).


when we got to macona we saw something that was perhaps the highlight of this trip.

those are dolphins. I’m sorry for the poor picture quality – I wish I had an SLR camera! It was so cool. And at night, you could hear them splashing in the water. You couldn’t see them, but you could definitely hear them.

Later that night, we drank warm tea and played bridge like little old ladies.

Sixth day (26th of June)

So the plan was to head towards Whitehaven but there was a severe weather warning on the eastern coast of the island. So we were forced to backtrack and go to Cid Harbour (7) instead. Bummer.


when we went got into Cid Harbour we went in for a snorkel.


after our snorkel we bathed in the ocean.

And yes. I am na-KED!

Shower count since leaving Brisbane: 2.

fifth day (june 25th)

another short sail and we were at tongue bay (6).


there we had cheeseburgers for lunch...


and then headed up to a peak overlooking whitehaven beach to burn off the excess calories.


after the peak, we went down to the beach to explore the wildlife...


soldier crabs...


stingrays...

we then took some silly pictures...



and drank beers on the beach.


what more can you ask for right?

shower count since leaving brisbane: still 1.

fourth day (june 24th)

we got up, had breakfast and tea to warm our bodies and headed towards cataran bay (5).


and this is where things started to turn sour just a bit.
first we had some head & holding tank issues. yes. i'm referring to the toilet on the boat. for some reason, our holding tank got clogged. weird cause, we were really careful about our toilet paper usage... nonetheless, things started coming out of holes when they shouldn't have.

it was not very pretty.

if that wasn't enough, the winds picked up and the clouds rolled in.