it's gone.

yes.
i have cut my hair. is everyone happy now?
i feel so naked. i'm not completely sure it was such a great idea at this point. i'll give myself a few days to "grow into it".
before:

after:

why the sudden change of heart? well. first, let me assure you that it wasn't because i caved under peer pressure. as a matter of fact, if anyone implies that it was because of peer pressure i might just go on another hair-growing spree.
so why did i cut it then? well mostly for 2 reasons:
1. i've run out of conditioner.
2. laura promised to bake me a dozen home-baked cookies in exchange for a haircut.
SOLD!

in seriousness, i cut it because it was getting distracting.
back to my "normal" hairdo for a few months. maybe next year i'll give myself a shave.

i'm coming home!

well. not RIGHT NOW. but soon.
i've booked & paid for my flight from brisbane to vancouver. i'm flying with China Airlines and have a stopover in Taipei. i'm flying to vancity with my friend matt so that'll keep the flight a little less excruciating.
my last exam is on the 24th of october and i fly out on the 28th. that should give me enough time to catch up on what-will-be some much needed sleep and patch some things up on this end before going home.

yes THAT china airlines. not to throw everyone into a panic (mom!) but for those of you that don't know, China Airlines recently had a bit of a boo-boo. i guess that's a bit of an understatement.

we figure accidents like this happen all the time. (case in point: westjet in near miss at LAX) and if anything, hopefully this will keep the engineers at china airlines on their toes for the next couple of months at least. Either way, I've picked up some travel insurance - something i normally don't do, JUST in case.

i'm looking forward to coming home.
now just need to get over these pesky exams!

birthday STEAK!

my friends took me out for dinner last night.
actually they took a few of us out. my birthday was on tuesday. jon carter's was on the friday before that and susan's birthday is on the thursday coming up. so we decided to lump ourselves together and have one dinner.

we went to this place called the breakfast creek hotel. it was great. i had heard good things about this place but just hadn't had the opportunity (read: excuse) to venture out there.

in case there was any confusion as to who the august babies were, kim brought us birthday badges.

susan with her birthday badge.


my steak. i was so hungry and it looked so good that i forgot to take a picture until matt reminded me. that's why there is a piece missing.

before
& after!

i practically licked the plate down.

shannen made a cheesecake from scratch for us. it was delicious. they decided to play us for fools and put trick candles on the cake. we all had a go trying to blow them out.

jon spitting all over the cake.
tricia also made us cupcakes. but they disappeared so fast the i didn't even get a chance to take pictures.

a BIG thank you to matt for setting everything up.

and to everyone that came out.

this is the closest i had to a "group picture". although there are about twelve people missing.

i just had to. it was too tempting.

a year older, but clearly none the wiser or maturer. (and yes. maturER IS a word. i checked!)

quit your jibber jabber!

i think this is the funniest commercial on (australian) tv right now.

poll results & miscellaneous

well, seems like the readers have spoken. the hair will stick around for a little while longer. but i'm a little disappointed with the voter turn out. i KNOW there are more than 5 of you out there that read my blog. come on!
the official count was:
1 for "YES! Please! You're embarrassing me!"
3 for "NO! Looks great! Let's give Fabio a run for his money!"
and 1 for "Meh. Stop being such an attention seeker. Do whatever you want."

today is the big day. it's the big TWO-THREE. doesn't seem like a big deal though. i feel like i've been 23 for a while now. kept it pretty low key today. will probably be going out for dinner with some friends on friday.
thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes, e-mails, cards, facebook wall posts...
i noticed that this year was not only my first birthday away from home but also my first birthday with school. being an august baby, i've always been on holidays during my birthday. it's nice to go to class and have everyone wish me a happy birthday.
of all the great little gifts that i got, a preppy tie for clinical coachings from clara, roots t-shirts for that homey-feeling from stella, john mayer CD from jules, a philip yancey book from matt... i think my favorite - mind you they were all pretty fantastic! would have to be the mini jar of nutella that susan got me.

seriously haha. clearly the word is out that i'm a bit of a nutella junkie.

we've had 3 full days of rain. how refreshing. it was well overdue. we've been on level 5 water restrictions for the past few months. level 5? doesn't mean much to you does it? it doesn't mean much to me either! from what i know, it means that you can't use outdoor sprinklers and hoses, washing your personal car is prohibited, you can only water your plants using a watering can on alternating days, and there are restrictions on water usage with penalties for high volume users. yea... still doesn't mean a whole lot to me.

there are now 9 weeks left until my final set of exams. it's time to kick the study up into high gear. i've been using my birthday as the "checkpoint". seems like a long while away but i'm betting that it'll fly by a lot quicker than i expect.

nerdy fact of the day: did you know that matt damon's character in the bourne trilogy - jason bourne, has the same birthday as me? yep. jason bourne is an august 21st (1969) baby.

AND of course, happy birthday to my birthday buddy. happy birthday meg!

hair update #2...

i still haven't cut my hair. as previously mentioned, the last hair cut was on march 5th. for those of you keeping track, that's 165 days and counting.

hm... should i cut it?
reasons for YES:
(1) i hate it when my hair gets into little knots everywhere.
(2) i'm (sort of) getting tired of the long hair.
(3) i don't like the slimey/slippery feeling that conditioner leaves on my body after i rinse my hair.
(4) i look like a korean fob.
(5) my bangs poke my eyes.
(6) i can't fit all my hair into my swimming cap.
(7) i'm constantly having to pick up my hair off my bedroom floor.
(8) many of my oz friends think this is what i normally look like.

reasons for NO:
(1) i don't want to go back to my short spikey hair look. every 2nd generation-asian kid has the same hair cut! well, sort of. short at the sides, short the back...
(2) i've started using conditioner, and i LIKE it! it leaves my hair nice and smooth.
(3) my hair is long enough for me to twirl in between my fingers. *this one counts for TWO points!
(4) i can't wear my headbands with short hair.
(5) i always give up on growing my hair after a few months. i should STICK IT OUT!
(6) i probably won't have a chance like this to grow my hair out again. i've been lucky this year with a pretty relaxed clinical coach.
(7) many of my oz friends think this is what i normally look like.

clearly. it's a tough choice.
and as such, to you dear loyal reader of my blog, i give you the opportunity to speak up! fill out the little poll at the bottom of the page. poll closes on monday, august 20th, 2007 at 11:59pm Brisbane local time. That's sometime around 9:59am on august 20th in toronto. i will seriously consider the results of this poll when making my decision.

frazer vs. banting&best...

during my undergrad at uoft, we heard endlessly about insulin and how it was discovered at uoft by Sir Frederick Banting and Charles Best. every human biology course mentioned this remarkable feat at least once during the course of the semester.
---all you life sci grads from uoft know what i'm talking about!

here at UQ there is something that they are even MORE proud of. if you've been keeping up with your medical journals, you'll know what i'm talking about.
i'm talking about Dr. Ian Frazer and his discovery of the cervical cancer vaccine. for a little backgroung info: cervical cancer is the second most common cause of death from cancer in women worldwide. the human papillomavirus (HPV) is believed to be the cause of virtually all cervical cancers. SO... just like the rubella vaccine that you get as a baby, there is now a vaccine that protects against cerival cancer (usually given around 11 or 12 years of age).

and we hear about this vaccine (Gardasil) / Ian Frazer / HPV / cervical cancer on what seems like an average of once per week. i kid you not. i swear! if i've learned just one thing this year, it's that Ian Frazer is the 2006 Australian of the Year, and he invented a vaccine for cervical cancer. that is all i know.

peeping tom.

we've had an unwanted guest for the past few days.
a gecko has been living in our bathroom. at first i just let him be, thinking that he'd leave soon enough. but nope, he's stuck around.


today i decided that it was rude of him to watch me shower and brush my teeth so i took him out and released him into a nearby bush.

i have no idea what kind of gecko he is and am even more clueless about the type of habitat he lives in. hopefully, he isn't easy prey for the birds or turkeys that roam around the backyard.

ekka...???

what's that?
today is the start of the royal queensland show. it was originally called the brisbane exhibition. and that's where it's nickname of ekka comes from. apparently for aussies, the short form of exhibition is "ekka". isn't the short form of exhibition, "the EX"?

basically it's a mix of agricultural fair/cne. it runs for 10 days in august. they have a bunch of carnival stuff, some farm animals as well as some rides of questionable safety. just like the CNE!

apparently it's quite a big deal. i'm told that for brisbane, it's a cash infusion of $100million! and it's such a significant event that next wednesday is a public holiday. it's meant for everyone to have the day off in order to go to the fair. how sweet is that! so, will i be going to the ekka next wednesday then? hm... probably not. i think i'll just catch up on some sleep and some studying. i'm looking forward to it.

a bit of a let-down...

we had our first dissection today. before the lab, i was a little anxious and excited - mostly excited, but now that i've gotten my first incision out of the way, it seems a little anti-climactic.
it was no-where near as exhilarating as i had hoped or as nerve-racking as i had feared.

maybe it's because we've spent the last 6 months or so looking at these cadavers.
or maybe it's because we focused just on the upper limbs today.
or maybe... maybe i just expected too much.

book it!

a group of us took part in this race put on by the campus christian movement (ccm) called the "amazing g-race". get it? amazing GRace?
it was a good time. basically just like the show amazing race, we had to run all over the city of brisbane completing tasks at various stations along the way. it was a whole lot of running, some being silly and some more running.

unfortunately i don't have too many pictures of us doing the tasks at each of the stations. after all, it was a race! no time for posers! but at one of the stations we had to convince random strangers to strike a superhero pose.

susan, random person #1, random person #2, alan.


photo courtesy of sean.

some more silly pictures...

C-A-N-A-D-A!
I would actually like to state that this was not an activity that needed to be completed at one of the stations. we did this completely voluntarily! buncha goofs!

first prize was 200 smackaroos! not bad... and we were so darn close! we ended up finishing second. we settled for a basket filled with "gourmet" cooking ingredients instead. :(

us with our prize. matt is hiding behind the pastor. you can see his hat though.

as part of our win, we ended up singing "Oh Canada". Rumour has it that there is a video floating around the internet of us singing the anthem. if you do find this video, don't laugh. and don't ask why i'm being so patriotic and holding my arm to my chest! hahaha.