recipe for madness

As promised, a little bit more about the Foreign Policy conference which, overall, was thoroughly enjoyable and stimulating!

Favourite speaker award has to be a three-way tie between the MP from Switzerland, the Professor from Duke University, and the Maori academic from Victoria University. The Swiss Minister of Parliament who talked about Direct Democracy (which I had never heard about before!) was undoubtedly the most eloquent person at the conference. The Professor of International Relations from Duke University in the States spoke via video link on post-9/11 foreign policy, etc -- not only very interesting but extra points for his oh-so American accent (*swoon*). And the young lady Maori academic from Victoria University spoke so incredibly articulately on Indigenous Peoples and Human Rights that I now have a fervor for Maori Health and its inherent inequalities. No, the sky is not falling: her talked has taken a sympathetic but uninspired medical student and given her... well, let's just say now when I talk about Maori Health Issues my words-per-minute has increased dramatically! I'm even hoping to get a research scholarship to do a summer studentship on medical education and Maori Health... hoping. That is, if I can find a supervisor and get some funding.

Other than that, I've largely been enjoying having not much to do. Although, having said that and being the closet overachiever that I am, there is always more to be done. The next issue of the NZ Medical Students Journal is coming together -- finally! :) -- but dotting the "i"s and crossing the "t"s are still required. I've still got notes and books from my Medicine run strewn around my desk as a visual manifestation of the Chaos Theory... I've been meaning to organize it all as well as "review" (aka: st--y) some of the essential concepts, but have yet to succeed in either. Or even attempt, to be perfectly honest. But I will! I will! I will! before my break is over. Also need to write a book review for another one of those silly assignments where quality doesn't matter, just the mere act of production. A sad reflection of our modern (?soul-less) curriculum-based education.

And last but not least, this new research project I can finally start work on! It's the one my summer research supervisor offered me in March, which I've been keen to start work on and had been hoping do to during this break. I finally met with a guy today who showed me how to use the digital photography set-up they have in the Anatomy department. After talking to him I realised this is a much bigger commitment than I originally thought, hours-of-work wise. More specifically, it looks like I will be holed up in the same windowless 5x9 room I was working in this past summer for all of tomorrow and most of next week, the last of my holiday... sitting in the dark... by myself... photographing cadavaric slices of anus. No joke. Thus is the nature of research. LoL.