mount st louis moonstone...

mi hermano finished his exams on monday so we decided to hit the slopes. had a great time, took some great pictures. the weather was perfect, and best of all, it was SO EMPTY!

you can't see the ground, but i assure you that i got some air in this pic!

rugby? who needs rugby?!?!

so on saturday, the leafs held a news conference to announce their new general manager and president Brian Burke.

i gotta say, so far, i'm impressed. i was particularly impressed with his 3 "mission points".
1. exciting & entertaining brand of hockey
2. financial prudence - it's not his money that he's spending, so he'll be careful when spending it.
3. community service - Burke says that his players will be more involved in the community than ever before and if any player is unwilling to fulfill his "civic duties" he can find another place to play. i especially like this one.

bottom line is that regardless of how exciting the leafs are, how much he spends on the payroll or how much his players give back to the community, UNFORTUNATELY brian burke's time here will be evaluated based on only one thing: the number of wins - and ultimately a stanley cup win.

*****

went to church with my friend jenn today and then chilled with my cousin justin in the afternoon. we decided to go check out a marlies game. had a great time. it was an entertaining game with the marlies winning in a shootout after the 7th shooter 4-3 over the rochester americans.

you know what the BEST part was though??? captain crunch was in the house!!! by complete chance, wendel clark was at the game signing autographs. what what!!!

best idea justin's come up with in about 6 years i think.

to pee or not to pee.

have you ever noticed that after swimming you want to pee? well, here is the physiological reasoning behind it. when you're swimming, your body is in a state of weightlessness. this means that the blood that normally pools at your extremities due to gravity, returns to your heart. this increase in venous return leads to increased blood pressure. the baroreceptors and stretch receptors in your body take note of this increase and makes adjustments. one of the changes that occurs is the release of a hormone from your heart called atrial natriuretic peptide (ANP). in a nutshell, ANP inhibits the reabsorption of sodium and water from your kidneys - so you get more urine production!

how cool is that?!?!
if i had only known this when i was still swimming... i could shout back at my coach that i wasn't just going to the toilet to "get out of practice" and that i legitimately NEEDED TO PEE!
ahh... if i knew then the things that i know now... :)

official results!

the official times are finally out! 48:55 for me.

as a team we came in 161st out of 1090 teams. good job team!

there are also a few pics of me that were snapped by "paparazzo" along the race course. you can view them here.

broncos 24 - knights 2.

went to my first rugby league game today. it was a lot of fun. the cheapest tickets at $19 were pretty decent and it definitely helped that the on-field product was entertaining to watch. sporting events are always much better when you're with large groups of friends...

still need to check out a game of aussie rules football and cricket.

*****
the bridge to brisbane run is in about 29 hours. as mentioned, it's a 10km run. in our training sessions matt and i have managed to run about 11km in ~59min. that's just about 5:30 minutes/kilometer. so for 10km, we should be able to do that in about 53-54 minutes. our goal is to crack the 50 minute mark. that's 5:00 min/km. a little too ambitious? nah... we can do it!

here's a map of our run.

house of god.

this week is my mid-semester break. after this week, it's lockdown mode. 9 more weeks of class and then FINALS!!!
what do i have planned? not much actually. i'm actually going to try and get some work in, tie up some housekeeping stuff (sign up for USMLEs, do my taxes) and just stick around the city to take in some of the brissy culture (picasso exhibition at the art gallery, rock climbing, a brisbane broncos rugby league game). that's the plan.

i do plan on doing some reading though. some non-med-related reading. sort of. today i finished off this book called "the house of god" by samuel shem (pseudonym for stephen bergman). it's this ancient book, and by ancient i mean from the late 70s... about the life of an intern. i read it cause it kept coming up... my clinical coach mentioned it, ifinding mentions it, older med students have mentioned it... i guess you could liken it to vincent lam's "bloodletting and miraculous cures". that book - although, in my opinion was not very good and unworthy of the giller prize - is unofficially considered to be a must-read for all life sci/"pre-med" students at UofT.
i'm told "house of god" is mandatory reading for all med students and interns. it starts off quite cynical and vulgar but in the end i can see what all the hype is about. in the end it's sort of romantic. a little bit of a love story. i enjoyed it.

on an unrelated note... the NFL season starts this week. and many are predicting the dallas cowboys to win it all. romo-owens-barber. are these the new "triplets" that'll take us back to the good ol' days of the early-mid 90s? maybe.

canada finally has some medals.

we may be late to the party. but we're here. finally. thank you to Carol Huynh, Dave Calder & Scott Frandsen and Tonya Verbeek. we now have more medals than mongolia (2), ethiopia (1) and kyrgyzstan (2). however, we still trail some powerhouse countries like north korea (5), cuba (8), zimbabwe (4), azerbaijan (5) and kazakhstan (5).

this is pathetic.

*****
my totals for the week.
study: 10 hours
running: 30.2 km

did some hill training this week.

it's a short run (2.46km) but there are 2 huge hills on carmody road. one at munro street and the other at raven street. we ran this circuit 3 times (total of 7.38km) with a 2 minute rest in between the 2nd and 3rd laps.

next week's goals.
study: 15 hours
running: 35 km

what what!!!

remember this guy???

yup.  he pulled it off.  GOLD in the 400m freestyle.  swwweeeeeettt!!!

big aussie in toronto.

so raptors fans are excited about the arrival of jermaine o'neal. so am i. really i am. ford was redundant behind jose calderon. and sure we gave up quite a bit - Roy Hibbert, Rasho and Maceo Baston on top of Ford but i think jermaine and bosh can be a pretty potent 1-2 combo. but that's not what i'm excited about.

i'm excited about this man...

nathan jawai.
he's a 21 year old, 6'10", 285lb centre. now i'm not going to even claim to be any sort of basketball scouting guru but i've heard & seen him before. you see he's an aussie. a kid from new south wales playing on a team in queensland for the aussie 'national basketball league'.
and he's just raw talent. he's a bit of a diamond in the rough - he started playing basketball just 5 years ago. from what i've seen so far he's exactly what the raptors lack. a big body in the middle to bang for rebounds and just be a nuisance - not a push over like that girl andrea. (ok. ok. i'm not bagging bargnani. but let's be honest, he's not exactly a scary guy.)

apparently one of his nicknames is "aussie shaq". let's hope he can live up to that. he might not make the team this year but watch out for him. my guess is that he'll be a regular in 2-3 years tops.

blast from the past...???

what?
just read on tsn that cito gaston is back as the manager of the toronto blue jays.
huh? really? when did this happen???

well, they're long shots at 10.5 games back of the red sox in the A.L. East but heck, they've still got 1/2 a season to play right? i'm not holding my breath though.

it's hollywood baby.

came across this pretty cool vid the other day.

it looks pretty legit but it's pretty tough to believe. i don't doubt that kobe could hang in the air long enough for an aston martin to speed under him. but to have the cojones to stand in front of a speeding car & to time his jump perfectly... that's a different story.

he's admitted in a recent game time interview that the commercial was "hollywood". but kudos to you mr. bryant for making us actually believe it might've been possible.

as for game 6 of the nba finals, let's go lakers. as much as i love the city of boston, and as much respect as i have for KG, ray "silky smooth" allen and paul pierce, i can't stand another major sporting trophy going to boston. thank goodness the bruins suck.

new gig...

i've got a job!
i've got a job!
i've got a job hey hey hey HEY!

i had spent a couple of weeks in february, sort of half-heartedly looking for a part-time job. it was a half-hearted attempt because i wasn't too keen on working (who wants to work when you don't have to right?!?!) & also, i didn't think there'd be part-time work that could fit all my 'conditions':
- i wanted something that wasn't permanent, where i could take months off at a time (like june and november) to study for exams.
- i wanted something on weekends so as not to conflict with any school.
- i didn't want anything more than about 6 hours/week.
- and i wanted something that was going to pay me at least $20/hour.
- i didn't want to spend a whole lot of time traveling to and from work.
- and most importantly, i wanted something medicine related. i didn't want to usher, i didn't want to sell clothes, and i definitely didn't want to cook french fries.
i know. i'm picky.

i had a couple interviews back in february though.
one was with the Spinal Association of Australia as a personal carer. i thought the interview went well & they really liked me. they seemed to like everything except for my availability. they were looking for more hours and possibly for someone to spend nights at the house. that wasn't going to work for me.

i also had an interview with a company called Emergency First Aid Services. basically they provide medics for events. pretty much everything about this job was looking pretty sweet. i could pick and choose my shifts depending on my availability and the venue. pay was decent. it was medicine related.
unfortunately the training/orientation was held during the week that i was up camping on fraser island. oh well. i figured it wasn't meant to be.

BUT!
the other day they called asking if i was still interested in the position. they were looking to hold another training session to fill in some holes that they had. alright!
so saturday is my first gig. it's a high school netball tournament. i'll let you know how it goes.

ps. do you guys know what netball is? netball is the australian version of basketball - they still have basketball here but i'd say netball is bigger. the concept is the same - you're still trying to get a ball through a hoop. however, there is no backboard and you're not allowed to dribble. once you have the ball in your hands you must stop. you can only advance by passing or shooting. you also have allocated zones. you can't run everywhere and anywhere. the offense is on one side of the court and the defense is on the other. it's also more popular amongst women than men.

yes! we have a home!

our rental application was FINALLY approved. YAY! it took them nearly 4 business days to process the darn thing. geez. any longer and you'd think they were building a house from scratch! but all's well that ends well. it's the house that we wanted. i will post pictures up soon but it's this new brick house (not a queenslander) with 4 bedrooms, kitchen, 2 bath - all upstairs and then another self-contained unit with kitchen, bath & laundry facilities downstairs. yay!! we should be moving in this weekend.

in other news...
been watching a fair bit of tennis lately. only because the australian open is on practically 24 hours of the day. watched Roger Federer's 5 set win over Janko Tipsarevic. that was nerve-wracking. i don't think i've ever seen federer so shaky, his game seemed so... incomplete.
also watched Ana Ivanovic beat Katarina Srebotnik a couple of nights ago. a couple of things i've noticed about ana:
1. she's a cutie ;)
2. she always bounces the ball 4 times before her first serve and 5 times before her second serve. yes. we counted.

speaking of women's tennis, i have a question for the female tennis players out there. when a female tennis player takes 2 tennis balls before her first serve, they usually put one under their skirt. now where does this ball go? and what keeps it from falling out? do they have a little clip for the tennis ball? are their panties made out of velcro so that the tennis ball sticks to it? does it get tucked UNDER their underwear? where? where does it go?!?!

i finished The Time Traveler's Wife. it was good. really good. but if you haven't read it yet, don't. it's good but oh-so-sad. ok. so maybe i'm just being a big sap. so many parts of this book reminded me of... well, me.

dryspell...

sorry for the lack of consistent posts lately guys.
i've been busy studying and have been leading a pretty dull life. i've been spending most of my days in my room, poking out for food and toilet breaks.
i haven't even been going to all the lectures. been attending the mandatory stuff, but have been pretty picky and choosy otherwise. i've always been a pretty keen lecture attender but lately i just find that my time's better spent at home than at a boring lecture where it's a constant struggle just to stay awake as i listen to some monotone lecturer drone on and on about something that's not even going to be examined.
***
my rooms looks like a bomb exploded in it. there are books and papers everywhere.

every day is a shuffle. before i go to bed, all the stuff on my bed gets put on my desk. and then when i wake up, everything goes back onto the bed.
***
it has been stinkin' hot in brisbane. i think we're technically still in the "spring" season but today was a high of 32. i think we're expecting similar weather for the rest of the week.
***
this morning, i was listening to the 2nd period leafs' broadcast on AM640 (thank goodness for the internet!). when i had left for school, leafs were up 3-2 at the end of the second. afterwards, matt (an avalanche fan and leaf-hater) was more than happy to let me know that the leafs had lost in overtime. :(
i hope this isn't indicative of the type of season they're gonna have this year.
***
i've been jotting down aussie-english words. i will have a monster lesson for you all after my exams.
***
i leave you with something most of you may already know.
ALCOHOL METABOLISM:

alcohol is converted to acetaldehyde by alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH). acetaldehyde is converted to acetic acid via acetaldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH). acetaldehyde is what causes the hangover symptoms and gives you a red face. many asians actually lack ALDH and have a variant form of ADH which converts alcohol into acetaldehyde more efficiently. this leads to increased levels of acetaldehyde and furthermore, stronger/faster hangover symptoms and a red face - also known as "asian flush".
a drug called disulfiram is used as aversion therapy for alcohol abusers. disulfiram inactivates ALDH. as per the mechanism above, it increases the negative effects of alcohol in hopes that through operant conditioning (remember Skinner? - the american psychologist. not the simpsons character!) the alcoholic will reduce or even better, stop drinking.

go...go...go...GOAL!

so i've been playing some mixed 7-aside soccer on sundays. our team is made up of mostly med students. appropriately we've named ourselves the "shin splints". i'll put up some pictures another time.
so far we've been playing exhibition games to rank ourselves into divisions. at our current rate, we're a shoe-in for group C. the lowest group. we're 1-3-2. our only win came via default because the other team didn't show up.
the upside is that i got my first goal yesterday. the downside? it was on the wrong net... :( haha.

nerdy fact of the day: did you know that marijuana is actually not a narcotic? a narcotic by the medical definition is a drug that has pharmacological properties like that of morphine. the term narcotic is often misused by the general public when referring to any drug that is illegal.
morphine's primary active ingredient is opium. opioids act on the periaqueductal grey matter (PAG) and the nucleus reticularis paragigantocellularis (NRPG) - say THAT ten times fast! - which then act to increase production of 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT) and enkephalin from the nucleus raphe magnus (NRM). 5-HT and enkephalin then act on the dorsal horn of the spinal cord to inhibit transmission and decrease the perception of pain. marijuana on the other hand has tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) as its active ingredient. you didn't know THAT did you?

had some domino's for dinner tonight. the power was out for a few hours in the afternoon today so my roommate and i decided to order some pizzas instead. haven't had pizza in a LONG time. basically had a whole large pizza by myself. ugh... i'm so FULL...

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.

sunday morning dip.

went for a swim this morning with susan.
it was quite refreshing.

there's something soothing about swimming in the morning sun.
sure beats swimming in a concrete bunker (aka UofT AC)!
;p

just made my day

:D
check THIS out.
scroll down. see anyone familiar?

surf and sun...

Just got home from my surfing weekend.
I had a WICKED time.
We went down to this place called coolangatta. it is on border of queensland and new south wales on the eastern coast. The beach was so gorgeous.



For $130 we got two 2-hour lessons, full equipment rental, 2 nights of accommodation and 2 continental breakfasts. Not too shabby… not too shabby at all.



Unfortunately I don’t have any action shots. But this is the all of us at the end of our second lesson.


l→r: kim, laura, tricia, susan, craig, victoria, sarah, Miguel (our instructor) and me!

who are all these people? Tricia and susan are my classmates. Laura is a friend from Toronto studying law at UQ. Kim is her roommate. Craig is kim’s boyfriend. Victoria is kim’s cousin from germany. She is here on exchange for a semester. Sarah is victoria’s friend. Also from germany.

in the mornings when the moon was still up,


we got up to catch the sunrise. It was quite nice.


We even had an aussie-style bbq. What’s so special about an aussie bbq? Well you know how back home we have bbq grills in parks where you can bring your own coal and have a bbq? Well here in oz, there are little stations with electrical barbies (bbqs). Just push a button and voila! you’ve got a huge frying pan!



And of course, we had the obligatory sausage sizzles.



Unfortunately the weather was not terribly cooperative.
But it did give us a beautiful rainbow.



As mentioned, coolangatta sits on the border of queensland and new south wales.


QUEENSLAND!


NEW SOUTH WALES!

How was the surfing itself?
It was great. It was a lot easier than I expected. I stood up on several occasions and caught some good waves.
The tricky thing is timing. Standing up isn’t so tough. It’s the paddling and knowing when to stand.
I’ve even got some battle wounds to show for my 2 days of hard surfing.


You normally wear a rash guard (when your skins rubs against the surf board it can easily get irritated). But the rash guards they had for us were short sleeves.

That’s a wrap!
I’ll try and post again before I fly off to Sydney on Wednesday morning.

well i am korean-CANADIAN so...

congratulations to you, mr. brent hayden.
you have finally pulled us out of our 21-year drought of world gold medals.
it's about time!