we had group osce practice today, and my osce partner randomly said ‘holler atcha boy’ to someone else and i immediately iit up and exclaimed ‘oooh i know where that came from!’ i love the phrase, it’s so catchy hahaha. yes and if you know where that came from then we share a bond. holler atcha boy!

anyway exams have officially begun, i am one down and two more to go… major ones too. :s certainly sucks that everyone else is done and having fun in the sun, while i tear my hair out and study myself silly. even my brother is squeezing in weekend escapades to france and belgium on top of juggling a new school term!! oh well. i shall not whine further. c’est la vie! i’ve given it all i can, given up so much for this…. so what’s a little more to give? i am nearly there. nearly nearly there!!!

p.s. i can’t wait to go home i miss you all soooo much. family + friends = my sustenance for exam madness.   LOVE xxx

H: I saw your ‘favorite’ friend today- S. aka my michelle 0bama. Nah i was cold for you, cuz i was like ‘wot a ho!’

E: Don’t be hating! But thanks though, you know i love you for that UGH I’ve been sick the whole day!! I always fall ill during exam time

H: You need my powers. you know i shoot IgM out from my eyes and IgA from my hands? I’ll save you!

yeah sometimes i need some saving……. like now. maybe, you’re gonna be the one who saves meeee

sometimes when i feel like i’m falling apart, i think of you and reminisce about the happy old times. i wonder if you still remember me

today i visited a patient in his home as part of a community palliative care visit. he was battling a terminal illness and was in a lot of pain. but he managed to smile at me and even offered me lemons from his lemon tree. he blew me away with his generosity, even in his difficult circumstances- so i accepted. we took a walk in his garden, towards his blooming lemon tree and he said i could pluck as many as i wanted. his wife gave me a plastic bag to put the lemons and so i gingerly tried to pluck 2 or 3 lemons but he stepped in to give me a hand. so we plucked lemons together and he made me take 11 lemons home. later he showed me his prized orchids, his empty aviary (he had to give his birds away), everything in his garden that was meaningful to him. he smiled at all these beautiful things and i genuinely believed that for that moment, he was happy and not in pain.

naturally i have this amazing ability to procrastinate just days before my exam. i feel like i have to blog more during exam times because it helps take away the stress when i write it down. anyway today i spent 9 hours in the hospital! amazing. like J said, i could camp there and no one would know. i had osce practice with this bunch of really committed medicos, we’re a good mix of international and local students and it helps that everyone is really nice and encouraging. we couldn’t find any available room to practice in, so we went to the outpatient clinics and used it as our venue! which i must say, worked really well!

then i bought myself a huuuuge slab of sticky date pudding from the cafe. i said ‘hi can i have a slice of sticky date pudding’ and the guy who served me was very cheeky. he said ‘how much are you willing to pay?’

i laughed and said ‘for as much it’s worth’. anyway i was pretty pleased with my sweet treat (it was actually my breakfast and lunch) and devoured it within an hour. and ended up feeling a bit sickish…

i finally left the hospital at 930pm and just as i left i heard a helicopter! and i thought OMGGG a helicopter is landing! so i ran towards the helipad with my bag and books in tow and there it was, dazzling lights and revolving huge blades… a helicopter! it was exciting. possibly the most interesting thing that i saw in this week, apart from last tuesday when i sat for my paper and saw a jockey riding his horse when i looked out of the window.

ok exams in less than 48 hours! press on! i’m off to traralg0n for the osces! i hope i get lovely examiners. i’m excited i can’t wait for exams to be over. i’m already making my things-to-do-after-exams list. haha!

hello, what makes you happy?

kai wrote a post on happiness…. i was quite inspired after reading it and so i decided to come up with my own 3 steps to happyness:

1. do a good deed everyday. bonus points if you do something nice for someone you barely know! i know it seems cliche but being nice and gracious to others can really give you a spring in your step. at least it works for me

2. spend time doing one thing you love everyday. treat yourself to some sticky date pudding, curl up in bed with a book, talk to a loved one on the phone, or….retail therapy!!. or exercise on the wii fit! i have to say it really motivates me

3. get enough sleep! i cannot stress how important this is. no one manages to smile and mean it when they’re running on 4 hours of sleep. i am most grumpy when i don’t get my magical 7 hours of sleep… that’s why i looove sleeping in on the weekends

there’s more of course but i figured i should stop before it turns into one of those columns in a lifestyle magazine. BIGGG exams are a-coming, which makes me slightly less happy, but i know that i have much to be thankful for, so i choose to be positive. and maybe if i work hard enough, i could probably treat myself to a luxurious advanced birthday present ohh the motivation!

+ wii updates!: day 5, and the wii is making me ache from top to toe. i swear i haven’t been eating (too) much, but apparently i’ve been gaining weight! still, it’s only been a couple days…. i shall persevere and see how it goes!

+ p.s. aren’t these mighty cool? these are drawings on the pavement by a chalk artist called Julian Beever. i think his works are absolutely fab and there’s more to be had if you head here

amazing. some people are just so incredibly gifted

+ started mentor week today in mitcham with my mentor who’s a fab gynaecologist. i actually didn’t get lost (hurrah!) and it was a tiring but (kind of) exciting day, and i am absolutely drained from 9 whole hours of clinical work. oh and i managed to correctly diagnose a transverse fetal lie in antenatal clinic today. i feel semi-competent. perhaps i’m really getting better at this! and this is the kind of thing that really makes my day

‘love of the family is life’s greatest blessing’

i’m thankful that i have supportive parents who only wish the best for me, who believe in my abilities and share my dreams. i miss them badly and although they are far away, they are always close to my heart.

lots of love and happy mother’s day mum! as well as to all the brave women out there who endured the pain of childbirth (as evidenced by my labour ward experience) and screaming toddlers and angsty teenagers to bring us up into the individuals that we are today

+ props to gwenda for the lovely video which i first came across in her blog, then pilfered and stuck it on my own.

it’s funny how people dream dreams and can’t remember a thing about them, while other people dream the most vivid dreams and remember every single detail. (i belong to this latter group)

so last night i dreamt of prostaglandins and cardiac contractility! seriously. i am far from pedantic so i have zilch idea why i dreamt of something like that. bizarre! anyway, i saw myself in the lab with lots of rats (eek!) and injecting them with something to cause them to arrest (sick, i know). it was all really weird so i googled it up…. and found dozens of studies to do with cardiac contractility and prostaglandins. the most interesting of which was an incidental finding of how prostaglandin F2a had a surprising negative inotropic effect on cardiac contractility after myocardial infarction. plus it was an experiment conducted on rats’ hearts! sheesh. if dreams have meanings, i wonder what mine is trying to tell me.

p.s. i haven’t been reading any cardiology lately, and obs&gyn doesn’t even remotely involve the heart

p.p.s. i have never, ever, read/heard anything about prostaglandins and cardiac contractility. i dreamt them up randomly, it was like dreaming of brigitte bardot and john f. kennedy and later finding out that they were related. (although they aren’t of course)

was just browsing through j.crew’s catalogue when i came to the realisation that j.crew’s getting better and better over the years! (slow, i know) they have work clothes that i actually want to wear, or rather work clothes that i actually want to wear for events other than work. clicked on their store locator only to find that they have no stores outside of the U.S. of A.!! *cries* (or, am i just grossly misinformed?)

+ anyway i’m being lazy today, i skipped school, or rather hospital… just because.

in other news, i got all my births signed off! now i need to complete my gynae tasks, which actually is quite a lot… still it’s nice to be at home for a change, although i did want to go to theatre. i feel slightly slack BUT then i also have to pack for sydney (leaving on thursday arvo!) see, another reason to make myself feel better

i’m thinking that as i grow older, i tend to be more lonely. i sit in my room and bury myself in my medical textbooks (or at least pretend to) and think that maybe i am destined to be alone (hopefully not). i want to go out there and meet new people, see new things and embrace transition, but many things hold me back. i see myself struggling in a tight cocoon, half wondering if i’m ready to flutter my wings, half hungry for the excitement that the world brings.

i don’t really want to stay in the confines of my little room. it is a place where i find comfort in, but also one where excuses and escapism exist. i sometimes dream of having a garden tea party with my friends- think scones and jam and clotted cream, sitting in the sun and looking at the clouds through oversized sunnies. or maybe cafe au lait at one of those little cafes, we can share a nice slice of hazelnut torte while we laugh over life and watch the world go by.