winnie, phil and an irish pint

I'm broke... well, almost. Today was the last day to pay for my plane ticket to Europe at the end of the year. Yes, it's final -- there's no going back now. Not that I'd want to. I admit, the fact that my savings account (which I've been sooo good about this year!) is almost back to zero is slightly painful, however, it makes my impending trip that much more real! The excitement is slowly building up more and more with each day that passes. Only three months now until I'll be in London! And not just London, but Scotland and Ireland! To be honest, I'm more excited about latter than I am about London itself. Maybe my friends are right -- if I'm going to have a pint in Ireland, then I'm going to have to start building up tolerance since beer consumption has never been my forte... hmmm...

And apparently, smart is cool. I mean, I've always thought so myself but now it's official -- it's on CNN so it must be true!! Well, smart is cool according to Winnie from Wonder Years. What makes it funnier is that my family's pet name for me is Winnie -- apparently they thought there was some sort of resemblance, whether in appearance or personality I do not know. But we really must be kindred if she thinks smart is cool too!!

The Wonder Years was great... and so is Phil...

when it rains, it pours

I know this may not be the case for most students here, but I have to say -- while basking in the comfort of my parents' house, heater and electric blanket on full -- I have to say that I love the rain. I love that in Dunedin, even though it's utterly freezing half the year, it doesn't rain much per se, so when it does you appreciate it that much more. Like an old friend who lives half way across the world but has come to visit for a couple of days -- just long enough to remember only the best about them.

Unless you're actually outside in the rain, which I try to avoid as much as possible, it really is lovely. I love the sound the rain makes as it downpours onto your roof; it's worthy of it's own Hemingway-esque poem.


I don't know why but I had the worst headache today and just couldn't concentrate at all. I actually started to fall into deep sleep a couple times during lectures. Could it be I'm going through some sort of withdrawal because I didn't have any coffee today? Surely not. I may enjoy my coffee, but I'm not... dependent... hmmm.... Maybe I should test it out and try not having coffee all week and see how I fare. Or maybe not.

I've been catching up on my US Presidential Election news of late, and am kind of worried and slightly disappointed at how it's turning out. I just hope that Clinton and Obama don't do anything to jeopardise the best chance of a democratic win. I'm still waiting for Al, but at this point I'm gonna stop holding my breath. Kirsty's promised to get the sixth season of West Wing out for me while I'm recuperating from my surgery in a couple weeks -- definitely something to look forward to.

I can't believe this year is almost over. I mean, it practically is already. Crazy. How did it get to be August so quickly??

daisy chains and dandy lions

It's the first Saturday in a long time that I haven't had to go into work, and it feels SO good. The whole 'work Friday night, then the next morning' is really hard to do I'm beginning to realise so it's nice having a weekend off. I got a chance to sleep in, have breakfast with my family, and enjoy the nice weather. Yay! Can you believe I'm even looking forward to getting some good study done? (I'm not afraid to embrace my inner - or not so inner - nerd.)

Good, warm weather always reminds me of Seattle. Misleading, I know, since it rains nine months of the year there, but the very last summer I was there (before moving back to NZ) was such a thickly warm, gorgeous summer -- and strangely enough, that's how I'll always remember my four years there.

Which gets me thinking of America...

Which gets me thinking of Boston...

Which gets me thinking of... yeah....

I feel like going for a walk. It's that kind of day.

0.5 of a doctor

Despite all my recents doubts of my impending career, I have to admit this is very exciting:

Although at this point, the only thing I could tell you is whether or not you were alive. It's okay -- I've got three more years (and the rest of my life!) to figure it out, riiiight??

sexy back

After nine hours of being on campus without a break - starting at 8am!! - followed by a quick dinner, I headed off to our first Funky Ballet session at Clubs and Socs. I say "we" because Boomi and I made a joint decision last semester that we'd take one of those seemingly stressfree, fun, just-for-the-hell-of-it random classes they offer for students, whether it's Beginner's Spanish, Judo, Tango, or in our case, Funky Ballet.

I liked the "Funky" part of it. Naturally I have no dancing ability whatsoever, but I thought under the circumstances it might be fun to have a go. I've never been a 'social sports' kind of person, and have for most of my life avoided situations or classes where I could very clearly predict me making an ass of myself. So why the change of heart? The answer is two-fold: first off, near the end of last semester med school was driving me crazy and I was in desperate need of anything... not med; and second, I knew, with the exception of my friend Boomi, I wouldn't recognize anyone there so... why not?? Anonymity is a powerful thing.

And surprisingly enough, it wasn't as painful as I thought it could have been. I wouldn't go straight to fun, but it was really... refreshing to do something so utterly random and new and different. Although I now know what it feels like to be at the absolute bottom of a class -- well, maybe not absolute bottom because the two guys taking the class weren't so hot, but they're guys so what does that say?? But you know what? Even that was pretty damn refreshing.

I didn't feel very funky though. Kind of disappointing, but there are four more sessions so maybe the funk comes later on in the class.

The funniest part of the whole night, however, was the fact that I forgot my actual shorts. I had planned on wearing shorts over my old tatty bike pants, but instead of shoving my navy blue shorts into the bag I packed my navy blue t-shirt instead. So here I am in the bathroom getting changed only to discover I bought two shirts and no shorts. Following? I had a half-second freakout, but then thought to myself, hey I'm twenty now -- who cares? Who cares if I feel absolutely ridiculous wearing only a pair of old tatty bike pants -- I'll just act like it was on purpose. Just own it, aye! And to be honest, it felt pret-ty cool. And that kind of led to a similar mindset throughout the entire class, embracing my un-coordinate moves and all. But I had fun, and that's the whole point, I guess.

Dancing along to Justin Timberlake, I may not have been much of a sight according to society's standards, but in Anna's world, I was TOTALLY bringing sexy back! (Though I would argue it was never gone to begin with!)

oh, to be a revolutionary

Anna: I read this really good article while I was at work yesterday about how those people involved in the terrorist attacks in Scotland/London recently were doctors... it got me thinking...

Kirsty: Yeah...?

Anna: Yeah... I think I would have been a good revolutionary. Like Che. I think I see a lot of Che Guevara in myself...

Kirsty: No. I don't think you're like Che... but you're definitely as hot. Your face would be good on all those shirts.



My sister is hilarious. The most unexpected response, but it proves how funny she is.

perfection

Before I die I'm going to take a boat out to Lake Manapouri and, enveloped by the absolutely perfect silence, listen to Chopin.

a passive faith?

I was really challenged yesterday through our speaker at MedCF. He was talking about faith and how so many Christians just slowly drift away from God throughout med school, or, later on during their registra/consultant years. The nature of this work, this profession, this lifestyle, forces you to make a decision, either actively or unknowingly, whether you'll put God first... or not.

And it made me realise that... for the past few months, unknowingly -- but knowingly -- I let myself start down the easy, wider path. A path that leads further and further away from God, and closer and closer to the world. Why? Because... it got too hard and I stopped relying on God's strength. And I justified it by telling God I needed just a short 'time-out.' But I realise now I started down a dangerous path -- a passive faith where even though the knowledge of the truth was well-established in my mind, no response followed.

I always wonder every once in a while if life would be easier if I wasn't a Christian -- if God hadn't proved himself in my life so many times as he has... if he wasn't so real. Then I could of just been 'of this world' and things would be that much more simpler... but everytime I think this, and every time I try out this of-the-world business -- every time I start to push God aside, bit by bit to see if I'll be alright -- I start to become this mess. Maybe not on the outside, but inside I always get all twisted up and... it hurts. The confusion, the emptiness, the sheer pointlessness of life...

I started to think you could live with a passive faith. A faith where you declare yourself a Christian, yes, and tick that box, go to church... and do little more. But to have faith means you believe... and to believe means God is real... and if God is real means he has to be real in your life... and for him to be real in your life, you have to live each day in relationship with him. If you love him, you have to talk to him. If you trust him, you have to learn more about him. Everyday.

I keep thinking it's too hard... everything. But then that's when I know I'm not trusting in his strength, because it is too hard... when I go at it alone.

Mmmbop?? You know it!

My dad recently bought an old second-hand cassette player (as part of his latest quest to teach himself German via. aged language tapes from the public library) and so we decided to test it out which meant going through some of the dusty boxes in my closet to find tapes I used to listen to almost religiously as a ten-year old. All mainstream pop, of course, including (I'm not ashamed to admit) SpiceWorld, Backstreet Boys, Titantic Soundtrack, Hanson, Will Smith (his first foray into the music industry <-- getting jiggy with it!) and a '100% Hits' compilation tape.

You know what I realised?? The mid-to-late nineties had some pretty awesome music! Before pop went all... angry... and sad... when pop was still happy and optimistic, but still... substantial, sans the teeny-bopper-esque superficiality.

Some of the tracks off the 100% Hits compilation include:
-Iris, Goo Goo Dolls
- Real World, Matchbox 20
- One Week, Barenaked Ladies
- Break Me Shake Me, Savage Garden
- Kung Fu Fighting, Bus Stop
- Last Thing On My Mind, Steps
- I Will Wait, Hootie and the Blowfish
- Losing A Whole Year, Third Eye Blind

It was such a fun travelling-back-in-time moment. Oh, the memories. Surprisingly enough (or not?) I could sing along to basically every song on SpiceWorld, and, I have to admit, even remembered the dance for Stop. Go ahead and laugh, I grant you it is funny, but do keep in mind that Spice Girls embodied GIRL POWER. Powerful stuff for a bunch of ten year old girls.

And I reckon groups from that time period had the coolest, most original names! Just look at the list above... not to mention, just awesome groups, period. Groups who have all either gone their separate ways or are trying to recreate the magic they had back then.

dschinghis Khan

Kirsty and I were having a conversation today about Genghis Khan/my recent post and when my mum overheard she got really excited (strangely enough...) telling us about how she learnt about him in her high school history class and how there was even a song about him. Now, my dear old mummy can say some pretty silly things every now and then, but a song about Genghis Khan? She responded to our overwhelming disbelief by singing what she could remember of this alleged song: "Jheng-is Karhn, Jheng-is Karhn, da-na, da-na, da-na, da-na, Jheng-is Karhn!"

It was, hands down, the funniest thing EVER! Seriously?!? A song about Genghis Khan?? Which she claimed was sung by a German group!!! And a song that sounds that silly???

But alas, she was adamant to prove she wasn't crazy (which she has tried to do many a-times before, but with most other things, failed). So her and my dad searched online for about half an hour and finally found the name of the group/artist(s)... and after a quick search of YouTube uncovered... this:




Not as funny as my mum's rendition, but almost. Man, my parents are getting old.

old flames die hard

Today I had the first of my five humanities elective sessions. The med school has so graciously given us the opportunity to take a bit of time out of our schedule to do some sort of humanities course for five weeks. Sixteen stress-free, of-interest courses were offered ranging from medical aid, international relations/politics, religion/suffering, history, English and so forth. I chose 'The Historical Novel' and had my first session today -- man, did I enjoy myself! I haven't had that much fun and stimulation since... I can't even remember. How utterly depressing. We discussed the definition and characteristics of historical novels and also touched on The Enlightenment, French Revolution, etc. It just made me so... happy. :) That's what learning should be -- stimulation. No conclusions, just stimulating discussion.

A pathology tutorial is like going to the gym to lift weights -- uneventful, same-old, same-old, but you know you should and you know you need to. And even though you struggle and it hurts at the time/the morning after, you know that in the end you're better off and you'll improve. You're working toward that improvement.

My humanities session today was like going for a run in the morning along the lake for the first time in a long, long time -- no direction, no purpose, no final destination or goal. Just running, breathing, taking it all in and feeling completely refreshed afterwards like nothing else.


History is the sheepish, adorable boy -- my first love -- that I dumped four years ago for the older, mature guy... and now, running into him again all this time later (in the fear of sounding like a total romantic) makes my heart ache still... it makes me realise just how much I gave up...

Professor's Theory of Original Thought

I was having an interesting conversation with a friend of mine today about the idea of original thought. He was positing that it's almost impossible to have a truly original thought and I took it a step further by saying it was impossible, period. He responded with, how about Einstein's Theory of Relativity? To which I replied, he spent his entire life dwelling upon quantum physics and the like, reading, discussing, etc., and his Theory of Relatively must have been the zenith of a lifetime of thoughts, most of which began as not his own (or something along those lines). [My argument centered around the fact that everything we think was 'picked up' or, to various degrees, shaped by the people and experiences we've had in our life. He should have counter-argued with the fact that it all depends on your definition of "original thought," which is what I would have done... man, I must be annoying sometimes.] At this point we both kinda started losing interest in the conversation, and we parted ways with him concluding he could probably come up with an original thought if he really tried.


Later on that day, via text:

Me: How's the original thought coming along?

Professor [<-- what I like to call him when he's wearing his reading glasses]: I figure there's no way of definitively proving to yourself a thought is original so you may as well just claim them all. I invented jam sandwiches, for instance.


Now that was pretty original.

Joe, Me... and Jessica Simpson

I had such a good birthday today and I'm not sure why exactly but it did feel extra "special." I think it's because it's the first one I've celebrated where I got to share it with a friend -- a good friend who was born on the exact same day and year as me. Not many people get to experience that, but man, it's pret-ty cool.

I understand now and agree with people who say that the friends you make in college are the friends you have for life. I think it's very true and I realised today I'm blessed with some pretty awesome people in my life.

It's weird -- not just the thought of being twenty, but actually seeing how... how much has changed... how much I've changed. When did I become a college student? A med student?? This twenty year old??? At heart I still feel like that fourteen year old girl in Seattle, doing extra credit for Honours English and going to the mall with her friends. (Yes, an unexpected combination, I know; I just wrote the first things I could remember!) And now, in what seems like nothing but a blink of the eye, I feel like as if I'm officially entering the next phase of my life where it's not about 'growing up' anymore but... becoming a doctor... finding my "guy"... entering the work force... becoming an "adult."

I know I keep saying this, but it's amazing how much can change in just five years. It's scary to think where I'll be in the next five to come. Hopefully finishing up my House Surgeon years and deciding which university to go to for my Masters in Public Policy... hahaha... yeah. Georgetown here I come!!

me and Genghis Khan are like *this*

It's amazing just how much you can NOT get done in two hours given the circumstances. I had a four hour gap between lectures today and so had been planning on doing a substantial chunk of studying but I guess it all turned sour -- a group study room + a very talkative person. Need I say more? I literally felt light-headed afterwards, trying to focus on what I was doing while trying to drown out the conversation around me but failing miserably at both. *sigh* It's amazing just how much you CAN get done in two hours given the circumstances too. (Thank goodness for the two hours study I got done later on, or else my day would have been a total waste!)


Did you know that all/most descendents of Mongolians are born with a blue birthmark on the bum?? It usually fades, but how amazing is it that we all get it? I knew I had a blue birthmark on my bum for a while growing up, but I found out today I'm not the only one! My whole family, my Korean friends, and all of us descended from the Mongols. Crazy...

a crime against humanity (or at least, us med students)

First week back for second semester and I have an 8am start every morning. Dear Faculty of Medicine -- that's just cruel! Oh well, what can you do? Hi ho, off to work I go...

p/s - it's freezing!

Mr Yummy

Romance advice number 1000-something-or-other from my dear ol' mummy while watching the movie 'Catch and Release':

"Anna, always be careful with guys whose hair looks like that.

Be very, very careful."

one-eye blindness (no, it's not the title of a song/poem/90s rock band)

It's been a pretty full-on week and surprisingly enough I got a lot done which I'm very happy about, my biggest achievement being that I am now a proud owner of a New Zealand driver's licence! It's only a learners, I grant you, but you have no idea how much agony I've been through these past five years, always having it at the back of my mind as something I should do but just utterly dreaded doing. I don't know why I have to learn to drive -- in the grand scheme of life, learning to drive would be at the bottom of my 'to-do' list if I had a choice. I would rather move to a large city (ie. NY, Boston, London) where they had an extensive public transport system (making it impractical to have a car) just so I could avoid this whole fiasco. But I've finally done it. I have to admit there were times when I thought this day would never come. I passed my theory test but funnily enough, I failed my eye test!


Looking down into the microscope-like eye testing machine:

AA worker: Can you please read for me line 6 of column 3?
Me: Huh?
AA worker: You see the rows and columns?
Me: Yeah...
AA worker: What letters do you see in line 6 of column 3?
Me: You mean column 2?
AA worker: No, column 3.
Me: But there are only two columns...
AA worker: Do you not see the third column at the right? Yeah, you're going to have to get a certificate from an optometrist before we can issue your license.

Me (thinking): What the --!?! What just happened?

So I wasn't expecting that. But it turned out okay. I've known for a while that my right eye is basically blind and my left is almost perfect -- together I see fine, but I had to get it certified first. I'm considering getting contact lenses for just my right eye. Apparently it's more common than you'd think!

Looking back at my 'to-do' list from the beginning of the week: Learner's licence? Check. Starter for 10? Transformers? Check, check. [I absolutely loved Transformers!! You'd think a movie with talking robots would just be stupid, but man, I just had this giant grin on my face throughout the whole movie. It was great! Reminded me a little of Armageddon (Michael Bay??).] 1984? Check. Well, not finished, but major progress.


"As he watched the eyeless face with the jaw moving rapidly up and down, Winston had a curious feeling that this was not a real human being but some kind of dummy. It was not the man's brain that was speaking; it was his larynx. The stuff that was coming out of him consisted of words, but it was not speech in the true sense: it was a noise uttered in consciousness, like the quacking of a duck." - From '1984' (George Orwell)

All in all, a good week! :) Now I'm gonna enjoy my last weekend (even though I'm working tomorrow morning) before I have to head back to med school.

6pm curfew???

The last few days, I have to admit, have been kind of a blur due to excessive West Wing watching and now that it's over (for now) I feel a little... lost? I've been so wrapped up in all that is West Wing that when I finally get out of it I have to steady myself a bit. But that's not just with West Wing but any TV series DVD I get hooked on.

Anyways, it's good it's over because I seriously have a lot to do in this last week of break -- I can't afford to let it go to waste, no matter how much I want to. The downsides of being a "responsible" student.

This past Thursday Kirsty and I had a pre-birthday celebration for my turning 20 next week. A little early to some, but it has kind of become a family tradition -- it's fun that way! She took me out shopping for the day, we went out to lunch and then later that night to The Royal New Zealand Ballet's "Swan Lake" which was, no kidding, the best ballet I've ever been to. The leads were amazing, and the rest of the company, especially the other swans, were brilliant. It's funny how the only reason I've been to so many ballets is because of Kirsty's life-long love for it, but now it seems I'm getting hooked myself. The last two acts in particular gave me chills as everything came together -- the music, the lighting, the costumes, the dancing... brilliant.

Although... why do people have to do things at night?? I've always been a morning person, which implies I'm not so much of a night owl so it's always hard to fully enjoy shows or movies or dinners late at night. During Act II of the ballet, there was a period where I had to struggle to keep my mind alert (it was my threshold -- the point when it's the hardest, and then after I get past it, I'm wide awake for the rest of the night) and last night at church the same thing happened. I was joking with Kirsty that my problem would be solved if "they" impose a curfew on the city/country. Hahaha... not possible, I know, but not impossible?


To-do this week:

Movies to watch: Starter for 10, Ocean's 13 (maybe), Transformers, Blades of Glory... and to watch again: Becoming Jane, Lives of Others.

Things to study: embryology, organogenesis, reproductive anatomy

Licenses to get: driver's learners license

Cleaning to do: room

Books to read: 1984, Becoming A Doctor (the latter which I have to review for NZMSJ)