Dig! no more

It's official: I am no longer procrastinating -- I have just given up altogether. Procrastination by definition means putting something off in order to do it later, right? Well, I've given up trying to bulldoze through everything I have left to do. I have just given up. This doesn't mean I'm going to stop studying period (cos that's just silly), but I am no longer worried about trying to get through everything on my list because... it's just not possible. They keeping telling us medicine is about knowing your limitations, right? Well, this, I have decided, is one of them. I have finally accepted there is no humanly way of finishing everything so I am just going to stop trying. Oh well. Plus, my number one talent is and has always been making stuff up in context and, most of the time, not being too off the mark, so here's to whatever or whoever it was that helped me perfect the art of proverbial b.s.

There have been a couple random things I've been wanting to write about including the two-headed (Siamese?) tulips in our garden (no jokes) and a follow-up on my darn blister-causing Nikes... but anon...

I've been reading our Great Britain Lonely Planet more and more lately because we've been trying to decide which day-trips out of London we're going to pay for before we leave (over $300 worth!! so expensive!) and it's all getting incredibly exciting! Just three weeks left... I love it!

Laurie or Friedrich

So I've been thinking about Little Women lately, the movie, not the book because I'm ashamed to admit I have yet to read the book. More specifically, about Jo and Laurie and Friedrich. The first time I saw the movie I was about twelve and I couldn't for the life of me understand WHY JO REJECTED LAURIE. He was so sweet and completely in love with her, not to mention, majorly rich and handsome (Christian Bale! Hello!!?!) and such a natural and easy member of their family. That scene in the forest where he proposes and she rejects him utterly broke my heart. AND THEN, and then, to watch her fall in love with that OLD MAN (Gabriel Byrne! Hello!!?!). Ew. Why??

That was the twelve old Anna. And the fact that I've been thinking about it lately... well... the fact that I'm writing about it... I guess it wouldn't be surprising for me to say I think I may have changed my mind. The twenty year old Anna has to, I'm afraid to admit, agree with Jo. I get it now. And you know what? She made the right decision. Which has got me thinking... about a lot of things really. And I don't think it's just because I'm older now. I don't think...

I've been sitting outside for the past couple hours enjoying the warm breeze and on-again-off-again rain, listening to John Mayer's oldies and reminiscing about... a lot of things... and thinking about Little Women. LoL.

the lives of others

The weather was so great today putting me in an unusually good mood in anticipation for summer which seems just around the corner. Sundays are always such great days -- days of rest, as it should be. I didn't get any studying done but I feel so relaxed and rejuvenated which has (hopefully) put me in good stead for the study week ahead. Slept in, did a bit of Lonely Planet reading in bed (since our trip is now only THREE WEEKS AWAY!!!), went on a walk around the neighbourhood with my mum after breakfast (she's the equivalent of a pet puppy! :)); then church and a family bbq lunch. But the highlight of my day was the Sunday Afternoon Concert at the university Music Department. They usually have student showcases every week but these Sunday Afternoon Concerts happen only maybe once a month and feature professors, lecturers and other 'professionals' and man, it was brilliant! My first time experiencing a quartet featuring the piano, violin, viola and cello and it was incredible. Hearing it 'live' really is different to listening to classical music at home over the stereo. They played three pieces over the two hours, my favourite being Richard Strauss: Piano Quartet in C minor, op. 13. WoW.

Sometimes I forget how people live such different lives. To be a classical musician... I wouldn't even know where to start in my imagination if I tried to picture what that would be like. I can only appreciate what they do from afar as an ignorant fan. And just how did people, way back whenever it was, invent musical instruments like the piano and cello and violin?? How did they come up with the idea that if you hollow out this part and put strings here and here, you'd produce this utterly indescribable sound?? Watching the news and the like you would think if human beings were to leave a legacy it'd be all destruction and pain, but then you hear... you hear something like that and there is no other way to describe it than, transcendent. It's hard to be eloquent -- watch The Lives of Others and you'll get my full meaning.

retraction

Apparently, my study limit isn't seven hours... poo. Now I have no excuse. Maybe it was being at the library, but I seriously need more days like today. *sigh*

martha stewart, sans the $$, part II

I can't believe it's Wednesday already -- the week is basically over. Studying has been incredibly slow, but steady so you gotta give me some credit. I think on average I've only been able to get about seven hours per day of actual studying done... which isn't a lot if you consider there are twenty-four hours a day, fifteen to sixteen if you exclude sleeping (which reminds me, I've been sleeping waaaaaay too much lately! yes, do the math and that's nine hours!), so what do I do with the rest of that time?? I can't get myself to type the words cos the truth is too, too difficult to face.

Hmm... even though seven hours isn't nearly enough, my brain feels SO tired of just constantly studying or thinking about how I should be studying when I'm not... every so often, it just needs a break. And today was a baking kind of day! Conditions were perfect! Empty house? Check. Cold, scary, stormy weather so I can warm up in the kitchen? Check. PERFECT rainy day and subsequent baking music in the form of the first Dawson's Creek soundtrack? Check. (Think what you will about the show, that's one good soundtrack! Takes me straight back to the year 2000 and She's All That. Oh, that Freddie!) Like I said, conditions were perfect.

I thought I screwed up the brownies so I melted a butt load of dark chocolate to pour over the top and in the end they turned out really great! The M&M cookies were perfect as always. :))

But what really made my day were the AWESOME noodle boxes I got at Spotlight on Sunday. I mean, I knew they would be the perfect means of giving away my home-baked goodies, but I didn't realize they'd look this great as well as being so practical!

Today was just a trial run for Christmas, but they turned out amazing! The ribbons worked really well, though a tad bit expensive, but ultimately worth doing. They just wouldn't be the same without the ribbon. :))

martha stewart, sans the $$

I'm glad I have two full weeks to study before exams, with no classes, etc., cos I really do need it. Didn't get anything done today, which makes me feel slight guilty, but hopefully it'll give me the drive I need throughout the week... or, more realistically, the drive I need for tomorrow at the least. LoL.

Got around to the gym today for the first time in a couple weeks which was nice. I'm really going to try to make the effort to go at least every other day up until exams cos I know if I don't I'm just gonna feel... icky. And it's not like I don't have an hour or two to spare... it'd be a nice break too. Although, I think there's something inherently wrong with my Nike's cos I keep getting these horrible blisters on my foot when I run for a couple miles, even after bandaging it up. Hmmm... it's a shame cos they were pretty expensive and... they're Nike's! That shouldn't happen with Nike's... urrrr...

After catching the second half of the Rugby World Cup final this morning (that Jonny Wilkinson is sooooo... mhmmm...) and then church, Kirsty and I went out to town for an hour to grab some Starbucks, run a few errands and visit the lab cos a couple of our friends/workmates were stuck working the weekend! At some point during the conversation I think I promised to bake them all a bunch of my famous brownies the DAY AFTER Kirsty and I get back from our trip to the UK. Nonnegotiable cos that day is both a birthday and wedding anniversary of the aforementioned workmates. Baking through jet lag -- should be interesting. Probably not as yummy cos I won't be channeling in as much of that home baking love(!) but we'll see.

Which leads me to my final and most important revelation of the day: Spotlight ROCKS. Kirsty had to go there for some reason and I was perusing random aisles when I came across all these AWESOME "crafty" things like scrapbook, frames, boxes, chocolate moulds! Not to mention, incredibly cheap gift boxes, ribbons, wraps and the like. AND, wait for it, NOODLE BOXES!!!


Paper AND plastic; plain AND patterned. Perfect for when I give people home-baked goods! Man, I'm so excited for Christmas so I can start baking like WOAH. And my big goal for the summer is to find and MASTER the perfect apple pie recipe! :))

insidious... like addisons, ha!

I must say it's been a full-on twenty four hours. After (trying) to study all day yesterday I left for work in the late afternoon and, as always, hoped for a relatively quiet night. When it comes to the lab you can end up having three kind of nights:

a.) unbelievably quiet tantamount to having absolutely nothing to do so you end up spending your entire shift reading cnn.com inside out, figuratively speaking. Usually correlating to really bad weather where people can't be bothered to leave their house to get their blood drawn. These shifts, though mind-numbingly boring, are my favourite but they're pretty rare.

b.) Not too quiet, not too busy, like the past few weeks where I've managed to finish all my work about a half hour early. Nice!

c.) Non-stop. Crazy. The worst part of these nights is that it is usually insidious in onset, ie. you don't even see it coming. Last night was one of these nights, and what made it that much more harder was all these little things that could go wrong did go wrong! Tracking things down, sending away tests, spilling blood on myself(!) -- I appreciate lab coats and finally get what they're for, getting horrible static shocks every time I took my lab coat off(!! not fun), and not to mention, 24hr urines. Ugh. The most unpleasant part of the job. And man do those acid urines stink. It's important though; needs to get done.

I definitely earned my money last night. I was so incredibly tired by the time I got home, especially considering I didn't sleep very well the night before (should NOT have coffee past dinner time, no matter how tempting).

Today? Studying, studying, studying... then my parents hosted a barbecue for some family friends which was great... but pretty full-on. I had fun though. Ate SO much; it was nice.

Crazy twenty-four hours... but don't ask me what I spent the past two hours doing. I will not confirm or deny that I was watching the Pussycat Dolls finale... with my mum and dad. LoL.

mhmm... salmon... yum

Watching Chemical Brothers, The Salmon Song, music video on C4:





Me: Wait, hold on don't change the channel, I wanna see what video this is... oh, it's this one. It's kind of weird, but Kirsty likes it...

[Thirty seconds later]

Mum: Eugh. It's gross, those fish. [pauses] It is a weird video... no wonder Kirsty likes it... She likes those Disney movies.


Disney movies?? Took me a while to see the connection.

FYI: incase you haven't noticed, the frequency of posts is inversely proportional to the amount of studying I'm getting done. Ugh. And I'm working tomorrow night too...

the nicer dicer: true germen ingenuity

Two more weeks till exams, but in my mind the year is now officially over. Hence, spending the morning watching re-runs of Home and Away and infomercials for the (mind-blowing) Nicer Dicer. Neuroanatomy? What neuroanatomy???




On days when I actually do manage to sit down and get some studying done, it's surprisingly been going pretty darn great. What I mean is that I'm no longer just approaching it as 'bulk memorising' but I think I'm finally (after three years) starting to piece IT together. They're no longer separate body systems but part of one body; when things go wrong, I'm beginning to understand not just what else goes wrong but why. I can talk my way through it... and it makes sense. Hopefully I'm not wrong to be approaching it this way, but it's making me feel pretty darn good, like this is what med school should be about.


On a different note, a friend of mine from class is not only a scary-smart student but also, as I was able to witness for myself this week, a scary-talented bassoonist! He's been taking a performance paper at the university (on top of classes) for "fun" and had his examination recital on Tuesday. A bunch of us went along and it was so worth it! I got to experience the awesome-ness of the bassoon for the very first time with its thick, rich sound; the only way I can describe it is like gorgeous dark chocolate melting slowly in your mouth. I have to say I enjoyed it almost, almost, as much as listening to the cello. My favourite piece was when he was accompanied by the cello and the harpsichord. Wow. Talk about impressive. I'm beginning to realise, med school is full of seriously impressive people.

whadyasay?

Sometimes I wonder what an 'outsider' might think if they heard bits of our everyday conversation out of context (as I'm sure happens more than I realise):

"Stephen said if you can't get pregnant in a year you are infertile."

"So the uterus leans forward and bends forward?"

"If the same nerves supply both peeing and pooing, then how come you don't pee and poo together every time?"

And so it goes...


FYI: I watched Over The Hedge today, and I just loved that when Hammy got that boost of caffeine from the energy drink, his pupils dilated and correctly so!

seven seemingly insignificant days

'Research' for our big trip to the UK in five weeks time has most definitely included checking out concert dates for my favourite artists/bands, taking advantage of the fact that we'll be in 'major' cities where performers actually go.

Ben Folds hasn't got any tour dates planned (I still kick myself for not seeing him in Boston in summer of '04 when I so easily could have!!!); we'll be missing John Mayer's performance by a couple weeks or so (but we saw him last summer in Auckland, which was brilliant! Don't think we could top that); dates kind of match up with Maroon 5 (+Dashboard) but we'll have to figure out some way of getting to and back from cities outside London which might be a wee bit difficult so we'll see (although I saw Maroon 5 when they opened for John Mayer in Boston, '04); they must not like Yo-Yo Ma much in the UK cos it seems like he's going to all the key cities in Europe except the UK(!); and last, but not least, David Gray... DAVID GRAY... THE one performer I am dying to see at least once before I die, hopefully sooner rather than later. And what makes the whole situation just painful to think about is that YES, he will indeed be giving not one, but THREE performances in London, all of which I will be missing by ONE WEEK!!!! I have no words to describe my utter heartache. Oh what a difference a week can make...

Had I known this back in July when buying our plane tickets, I would have seriously pushed our trip forward by a week... it was a pretty arbitrary decision in the first place - we just chose random dates!! Oh what a difference a week can make...

Chapter 8

With the introductory 'orientation' sessions we've had this week in preparation for next year (the beginning of our clinical years!) I must say I'm am SO ready for fourth year. It's incredibly exciting, thinking about being in the hospital, learning to interact with patients, and beginning this next chapter of our lives as medical students. I remember meeting fourth years when I started med school and how 'advance' they seemed... and now we're fourth years! What a wild ride; every year is truly a new adventure.







One thing's for sure -- it's motivated me to really knuckle down and start some serious exam studying, so that's helped! And so have these:

My boss and his wife grow daffodils and roses, among many other flowers, on their property and even sell them at various times throughout the year! And them being the absolutely lovely people that they are gave me a bunch to take home with me today. My room now officially smells like daffodils... and it's made my day!

a lifeline, it seems

I've come to realise this year that one of the things which helps keep me... grounded, you could say, during exams is having leisure reading on hand. Last semester it was Jane Austen's Persuasion, and this semester it seems to be Wilkie Collins' The Woman In White... and it's gooooood. Truly creepy at times and amazing writing throughout! Brilliantly crafted narration. And though there are many parts worthy of quoting, I must admit, this has been my favourite so far (it may or may not be related to the fact that one of my good friends got engaged this past weekend! How sweet!!):

"The secret which that confession discloses should be told with little effort, for it has indirectly escaped me already. The poor weak words which have failed to describe Miss Fairlie, have succeeded in betraying the sensations she awakened in me. It is so with us all. Our words are giants when they do us an injury, and dwarfs when they do us a service.

I loved her.

Ah! how well I know all the sadness and all the mockery that is contained in those three words. I can sigh over my mournful confession with the tenderest woman who reads it and pities me. I can laugh at it as bitterly as the hardest man who tosses it from him in contempt. I loved her! Feel for me, or despise me, I confess it with the same immovable resolution to own the truth...


All memory of the past, all thought of the future, all sense of the falseness and hopelessness of my own position, lay hushed within me into deceitful rest. Lulled by the Syren-song that my own heart sung to me, with eyes shut to all sight, and ears closed to all sound of danger, I drifted nearer and nearer to the fatal rocks. The warning that aroused me at last, and startled me into sudden, self-accusing consciousness of my own weakness, was the plainest, the truest, the kindest of all warnings, for it came silently from her."


Man, it's good!!! :))

oh glorious morning!

Summer is almost here and I cannot wait!! :)) I feel like the gorgeous tulips in our garden that are just about to burst! Three more weeks... c'mon!