infection at its worst

To me, the most unattractive quality in a person is negativity. That is one thing I truly hate with a passion. I hate that awful, destructive power, how it's so strong and so incredibly contagious. More than any other emotion or state of mind (however you want to classify it) it's just... disgusting. It's suffocating and it warps your thoughts and reactions.

One little spark of negativity sets into motion this immediate chain of events leading, before you even realise it's happening, to this unstoppable Californian forest-fire of anger and gut-wrenching hatred for anyone and anything in your eye line.

I have grown up with a negative person. And for so many years I had little strength to stand against it, allowing myself to be so quickly and fully affected by it, so much so that when faced with said negativity it seeped through all that I was and I too became its conduit. And I hated myself for it, and what's worse, I hated that person for starting it. But a few years ago I actively decided to try to break its hold over me -- to now allow it to have such power over me. When faced with that spark of negativity I try oh-so damn hard to let it roll off my shoulders and to not get sucked into its most disgusting, hateful, destructive path.

I don't want to be part of keeping that fire ablaze... blaming it on someone else isn't good enough.

Negativity is one infection you can actively stop yourself from contracting and therefore spreading -- it's contagious only if you allow it to be.

And I'm trying very hard right now... *sigh*...

"I am satisfied-- I see, dance, laugh, sing"

It's been an interesting past few days with a lot of seriously unexpected surprises.

I went to get my hair done, the usual trim and colour, and came out with short hair for the first time in 10years. It's strange how hair can be so defining in a way because I actually do feel not quite myself with such short hair.

I went for what I thought would be an hour-or-so run with a friend and ended up in utterly satisfying agony 600metres up a hill, only getting back to my car two and a half hours later.

I went for lunch with a friend to a cafe by the beach while it was raining outside and three hours later we were walking barefoot in the sand under the sweltering afternoon heat, cooling our feet in the crystal blue water.

I went into the bookstore looking for a copy of Salinger's Franny and Zooey and came out an hour later with The Portable Walt Whitman with which I am officially falling in love.


I'm not one to normally like surprises, but surprises such as these I don't mind in the very least. Overall, a pretty great weekend I would have to say.

"country road, take me home..."

A close friend of mine from high school is back at her parents place for the summer which is about a twenty minute drive from the city. They have a plot of land with these gorgeous gardens, a couple horses/ponies/etc; their place even has a name, which, I guess, makes it more of an estate?? (But without being pretentious as "estates" generally tend to be.) Anyways we've both been getting into going for runs this summer and so last time we met up for lunch we decided we should go for a run together!

After spraining my left foot up in Auckland (an unfortunate combination of 10hours in a new pair of 10cm heels + daily hour-long runs around the Domain), I've been easing myself back into it. Yes, I went to see the Urgent doc; no, I couldn't "diagnose" myself... I tried, believe you me. All I got was: tender, warm swelling with pain on walking indicates an inflammatory process, due to some [strain?]. And that was it. At least I picked up on the "inflammatory process" part, right? Anywho the doc gave me some diclofenac and told me not to run for a week, then I could start easing back into it gradually, making sure to stretch out and ice my foot afterwards. So that's what I've been doing this week and it's been going good. In the very least, I'm back to where I was before I went up to Auckland.

Which brings me back to my run this afternoon. It was AWESOME. We did the "block" around their house, a big section in the countryside. I think she said it was around 6kms and the weather was perfect for running -- cloudy, but warm. And it was great running with someone else too because the chatting back and forth really has a way of distracting you from any tiredness, etc., and before you know it you're done! Plus it was so peaceful out there. No cars, just farms, cows, country road. I can see why people would want to live out of town in a place like that.

I think I'm having one of those "I can't believe how lucky I am to be living in a country like New Zealand" moments. But seriously, I can't believe how lucky I am to be living in a country like New Zealand. :)

[Pictures from Auckland... not the countryside from my run today, but unbelievably gorgeous nonetheless.]

Random afterthought: You know what else I can't believe? At least SIX of my classmates have gotten married this summer. SIX. And I'm gonna stop that train of thought right there.

three weeks of summer left, you say?

It's been just over a week since I got back from Auckland, and it's been so great. I had the house to myself for a while too which was so relaxing, not that I mind my parents in the very least, but the quiet, the not being woken up at 7am by their talking and moving around the house, just the stillness was... refreshing. Plus it gave me an extra incentive to cook, which was so much fun!

Auckland was so full-on; I didn't even leave the country and yet by the time I got home I felt almost as tired as I was last summer after my mini-OE to the UK! I think it was just the various dramas that occurred while I was over there and the fact that I was staying in my sister's (funky albeit) small studio was, if anything, physically and emotionally draining. Maybe having lived in Dunedin for six years now I've become more "Hobbit-like" than I realise because after just two weeks I was more than ready for the smallness and the routine of life down yonder.

After my trip I gave myself a week off of summer research to just be away from the hospital for a bit. I got a lot of writing done which was just fantastic, as well as -- drum roll, please! -- spring cleaning! Well, technically it's "summer" cleaning, but I managed to re-organise my closet including donating two bags of clothes I never wear anymore, in addition to my desk/general study area... dusting, moving, buying book-ends, clearing up space, etc. Just slowly getting ready for fifth year that is oh-so quickly approaching.

But I'm excited. I've forgotten so much medicine, from the first year basics to second and third year theory, and all of psych and surgery which weren't even a year ago! I hate that feeling of 'information leakage' which I seem to get every summer, making the study -- the blood, the sweat, the tears -- of the year past feel like it was all for nothing. However, over the past four years this dreaded feeling has been so faithful a companion that I have learnt to make peace with it at this point. Whoo-ray for me!

Which brings me to the spring cleaning and the fact that, although most of my classmates will either hate me or judge me for saying it, I am pretty darn excited for the year to start. Because the faster we get a move on, the faster I can start to re-fill my brain with all that which was lost via the aforementioned unavoidable 'information leakage' process.


I went back to the hospital today to start work on my summer research project, and, surprisingly enough, it wasn't as painful as I thought it'd be. I think I was just too emotionally and psychologically (and physically) invested in my clinical trial up until Christmas, but luckily enough it was nothing a good dose of complete exhaustion and subsequent madness couldn't cure.

brain transplantation -- impossible? really?

I was at a barbecue a while back with mostly med students, and the topic of brain transplantation came up, initially as a joke but it quickly turned into a debate of theory.

Medically speaking brain transplantation is, as we currently know it, an impossibility, as argued by most of those who were in the room at the time. For one, there's the inevitable, unavoidable displacement of the brainstem, among various other issues like what would happen to the donor's memories, personality, identity, etc., and so forth. Seemingly an endless list of reasons to support their argument.

And yes, I accept their premise and the undeniable sense of impossibility given the world we live in today, BUT what I believe is that it would be utter hubris to think we could, at this moment in time, declare something to be medically impossible, full stop; to think we know enough right now to say, "there is no way _______ could ever happen." I mean, who would have believed you if forty years ago you told them heart transplantation -- when a person's heart is stopped, removed, replaced with the heart of a complete stranger, then restarted -- would not only occur but become commonplace in any cardiothoracic surgical ward.

I believe one day brain transplantation, in some form or other, will be possible. I'm not saying in my lifetime, or in two lifetimes, but that one day there will be a headline of the sort. Because honestly, I just read an article today entitled "Baby born after mum declared brain-dead" and I wasn't even that surprised.