Hello my lovelies, time sure does fly fast, innit? I've been here winding down my well-wound whirlwind winsome wintry semester with a smorgasbord of studying. October is almost over (jeez, it feels like just yesterday she was taking her first steps and eating crayons) and exams are nigh. We have one more week of classes, then a week and a half SWOT-VAC (the ugly-guttural acronym denoting the Study WithOut Teaching Vacation period) followed by several exams. On the weekend we have our MSAT - the practical examination. What it will consist of is several stations with different tasks. It'll be 2 stations where we have to take a history, 1 station where we have to demonstrate clinical reasoning, 1 station where we do a physical exam of some sort, 1 station where we impress our knowledge of life support/procedure stuff, and then 1 communication station. Clinical reasoning is the one that's different from last year and is pretty cool. We get a sheet of paper with a fake patient's medical history and then the history of what brought them here. We then give our top differential diagnoses, defending and pointing out holes in those decisions, and then get narrowed down by asking about physical exam stuff and investigations and what those lead to. It's almost like being a doctor... weird. The communication one will be a bit trickier this year. Last year it was pretty much "talk to the patient who has some non-medical problem and don't be an asshole". This year it's going to either be breaking bad news to a patient (you have cancer! your son has 1 year to live!) or doing what's known as motivational interviewing - the process that assesses how willing someone is to change habit X (their obesity) and trying to get them to understand why it's bad (because they're fat) and how to fix it (stop eating). They're both pretty tricky to do. The life support/procedure thing will probably be okay. It'll either be advanced CPR plus defibrillation and giving them adrenaline/epinephrine or setting up and reading an ECG. Hopefully.
Several days afterwards we have our written exams. Now I'm going to admit something that I'm really embarassed about. In fact, I have not talked about it with anyone who's not in school with me because it makes me feel ashamed. *deep breath* We write our own exam questions.
Our school got some grant to do some sort of psychological assessment on students' anxiety and stress associated with exams and are trying to test and see if students will be less stressed out if they've written and seen the questions and answers ahead of time. This is apparently an existant area of education research in which our School is dipping its feet. I wish they had given me the $26,500 grant and I could have told them, "yes, it will lower our stress". So the actual practicalities of this project is that each of the 40 small groups in our year had to write 1 multiple choice question and 1 short answer question. We also had to write a model answer and reference it, as well as decide what's the minimum amount of info to pass the question. We uploaded all these questions and their answers, after minute screening by the powers-that-be, and they are available for all. We were told that 25% of our final exams will consist of these questions. So essentially, everyone's memorising all the questions and the answers, because it's guaranteed to be a huge hit on the exam. There's SO much material we cover in a year and so a big problem is trying to study everything well and knowing what's important and so this is helpful. Yes, stress reduced. Duh. The project has met some criticism and in my opinion has some issues of its own. Some of the people in our year are total jerkfaces and write ridiculously specific questions that, had most people got on a regular exam, would be very tough to question. Some people are the kind of jerkfaces who don't actually put a real amount of work into it and therefore post a question with the answer being incorrect. Now is where it gets really annoying and tricky - once the questions are posted (up to a certain date) the school is legally bound to keep them up there, with whatever answer was written and therefore bound to give credit for whatever answer is online. This means, especially for multiple choice questions graded by a computer, that you have to memorise the wrong answer to get the point! The mechanism of ways a mind can get boggled is complex and poorly understood.
So there's that.
I've been studying a lot... it equates to everyother day being a late night. Monday was til midnight. Tuesday I had class 8-6pm and so took it easy afterwards. Wednesday I diddle around during the day and then had dinner with a friend and then went to another friend's night-shift work thing to keep him company and study. Studied til 3:15 which is far-and-away the latest I've ever studied. I was never one for all-nighters, choosing instead to follow the early-to-bed adage and make sure I'm functional in the morning for the eventual exam. His place of work was pretty cool and another shining example of good policy that they have here and it lacking in the US. It's a needle-safety program located in the heart of the city, with 24hour staff/nurse, that gives 100% for free and anonymously sterile needles, water, swabs, education, condoms, etc. They ask a few question for statistical purposes and then offload the 20pack of syringes the person just asked for. It's very cool and, especially on a Wednesday, chilled as well and so perfect for study. I'm afraid, though, that in the US this would be met with the same kind of knee-jerk reactions that fight giving condoms to teenagers for the risk that it will promote promiscuity. Thursday studied all day and then had a friend over for dinner. Friday class and study all day and then went out in the evening. A friend was having a fundraising thing for a trip to Africa this winter to help build schools or something and had a movie/hor'sdoeuvre's (however the fuck that's spelled) thing. I got there a bit late and quickly downed 4 glasses of wine before starting the movie. Excellent idea. The movie was called A Walk to Beautiful and was a nice documentary about an impressive hospital in Ethiopia that repairs fistulas (connections between uterus/bladder or uterus/rectum and any other combination) that occurs from long and difficult pregnancies. These women face enormous stigma and adversity in their villages and families and so, if they can, go there and get fixed and it gives them a new life. Powerful shit. Yesterday was Saturday and consisted of the usual markets, lunch, study, dinner with friends and some computer shit.
I've been having a (un)healthy addiction recently to The Daily Show and The Colbert Report lately. I discovered about a month ago that you can watch the most recent 3 weeks-or-so of episodes online, streaming, fast, with no advertisements on the show's respective website. The material has been so good recently, as well, that the episodes have no option but to shine. I'll watch between 1 and 3 episodes a day nowadays and am almost caught up with what's going on in this falling-apart world of ours.
Jesus, I didn't know that!1
Here's something that I was more than pleased to learn about: drinking diet sodas are associated with more weight gain than not drinking soda! That's right, several thousand people's drinking habits and subsequent changes in size. People who drank more than 3 artificially-sweetened beverages a day had about a doubled risk in increasing their BMI. I've tried to find why this happened and I've come to two reasonable but slightly contradictory ideas: a) the body is getting a sugar-like substance in terms of taste and so is acting like it's getting sugar (in terms of metabolism etc) but when the calories aren't there, it bumps up the craving thus promoting these people to go and get more sugar/calories from other sources and thus increase their weight or b)the body is getting this stuff that is like sugar and so is treating the rest of the intake (which isn't perhaps excessive taking into account the "0 calories" of the soda) like it is in excess and as such is promoting storage of foods into fat, getting ready for a famine or whatever. I think those make sense and am definitely happy to accept that that nastiness is not good for you. Definitely not a healthy food, considering there's nothing food-like in it.
Medical word of the post:
Anosognosia - ignorance of the presence of a disease; being unaware of one's own illness.
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Saturday, October 11, 2008
the difference between genius and insanity is measured only by a cannula
G'day. I just got out of my very first drug trial and boy is my arm tired. I've always been interested in the world (money) of drug trials and thought I'd give it a shot. There's a place quite near my hospital/main classroom that does them; a few friends have gone and said they were legit so I decided to give it a go. The way these work is that some company (GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer, etc) has some drug in some phase of development that they need to test. They pay this company, which has the facilities and staff for monitoring stuff, to do some sort of trial on the drug. Drug trials are broken down by phases. The Pre-clinical Phase is when they design the drug in the lab and then test it in vitro and on animals, at highly varied doses, to see if there are any serious adverse effects and if it works the way they want to. Next they move on to Phase 0, where they test very small amounts of the drug on very few people, to figure out a bit more how the drug is metabolized and what pharmacokinetics (the pathways of degeneration and activity of the drug in the body) are important to consider. Phase 1 tests the drug on a smallish amount of healthy people to see what the bioavailability (how much drug is in the body after 1hr, 2hrs, 1day, etc) is like and how the drug is metabolised, as well as any adverse reactions. Phase 2 is on a larger group of people and now, in addition to the aforementioed stuff, they will also check if it has any efficacy in the thing it's actually testing for (eg high blood pressure, diabetes, etc). Phase 3 is the ultimate one: a randomised and controlled trial on a large group of people with the disease/condition on whom efficacy is going to be tested - it is this Phase that helps bring home the bacon.
I was on a Phase 1 trial for a newly released generic version of exemestane. Trade name Aromasin, this drug has been around for like 20 years, as an anti-breast cancer drug in post-menopausal women. After 20 years, a drug company loses the patent on its drug and is forced to reveal the formula, so other companies can make their own versions, especially allowing for generics to be made. One of the reasons I was cool with this trial was because the drug has already been around for a while and this is for a generic version (which I whole-heartedly approve of); the others included that I only had to take 1 pill and the timing and money situation suited me. I had to go in from 7am yesterday (Sat) until 9am today (Sun) and then come in in the morning for the next 4 days. Then do all that again at the end of the month. This gets me $1030 tax-free*. This obviously sounds annoying but I'm actually happy for it since, as I mentioned, the place is near my school and I have a problem getting up early and getting study on, so this will force me to do so.
What was the thing actually like? I got there in the morning, after being told not to have any alcohol, chocolate, caffeine, or grapefruit juice the day before and not to have eaten since 9:30PM the night before, and got a cannula put in. This is access to my veins. We were given a light breakfast and then the drug (they did the thing where they checked under the tongue/in the cheek) and then had a small amount of blood withdrawn every 15 minutes for an hour, then every 30 minutes for 2 hours, then every hour for 3 hours, then 2 hrs later, then 4 hrs later, then 8hrs later in the morning before I left. This may sound annoying but actually is not a big deal at all - the amount of blood is minute enough so you don't feel it and you have nothing to do anyway. I was idealising the experience the whole time, "Wow, I'm getting paid to have a WHOLE day where I'm fed and don't have to do anything... I can study and catch up on internet stuff and watch stuff etc." Oh, how young and idealistic we are... Here's what I did: watched half of Jackie Brown, read more than half of Trust me I'm a (Junior) Doctor, watch 1 episode of Man vs Wild, 4 episodes of The Mighty Bouche, an hour each of Blood Diamond and The Hunt for the Red October, spent an hour reading recipes/looking at pictures on tastespotting, tried to understand what's going on in the economy, and did about 30 minutes of study. Yay. My eyes hurt from all that. I also took a bit of a nap and ate a lot. I was pretty hungry when I got there (having fasted the night before and cycled to the place) and then waited for like 2 hours to get a tiny breakfast. Then 4 hours until lunch - I was quite worried that I was being treated like a post-menopausal woman with regards to her dietary needs. But then we started getting a lot more food and I was happy. I was a bit surprised that we were eating hospital food (for that was whom was doing the catering) yet how not necessarily healthy it was. I had 2 big chunks of carrot cake, 1 lemon cake w/ cream, and 1 chocolate banana muffin, plus like 4 things of orange juice over the day. Talk about diabetic risk. As far as the actual drug goes, I didn't feel anything. I had a slight headache but I would much more easily chalk that up to confined space + air conditioning + fluorescent lighting + no exercise. The only weird thing was the crazy dream I had in the morning. In the dream, I was sleeping but semi-conscious and trying to wake myself up, but I literally couldn't do it. I heard nurses talking about me, saying that I was comatose and not knowing what they should do, and I was like in the mostly-asleep phase (in the dream, remember) and tried to tell them that I was okay and I remember literally shaking myself in order to wake myself up in the dream and then eventually woke myself up in real life. So weird. You know when you're on the cusp of sleep and you semi-dream but are still conscious (the so-called hypnagogic state)? That's what my dream felt like. Weird. If that happens next time, I'm chalking it up to the meds.
So that's that. The rest of my week was pretty decent. I started it by flying too close to the sun and subsequently getting burned. Monday I was in the library until midnight and then Tuesday I was in class/hospital/study from 8am-6pm with no real break. As a result, I was pretty ineffective the rest of the week. On Wednesday I went out to a fish and chips place for a friend's dinner. On Thursday a bunch of people met up for an evening/night BBQ at South Bank - the sweet park and artificial beach that sits on top of a river across from downtown. We sat around eating and drinking and then at 11pm went for a swim. It was so beautiful - we were the only ones there, a nice night, looking at the city, playing catch with a frisbee/nerf. I was talked into going out afterwards and so only got home at like 2:30 and then had to wake up at 7 for class. On Friday I got my head shorn in time for summer (which has been put on hiatus for the last couple days for whatever reason) and then went to a fancy annual lecture thing. Each year the school of medicine tries to get someone fancy pants to talk to us about their accomplishments, as well as dole out teaching prizes to best clinical teachers of the past years. This year the guy speaking was Graem Clark - the guy who invented the bionic ear (cochlear implant). His story was actually pretty impressive... he worked hard for about 30some years and as a trained doctor had to pretty much teach himself audiology and engineering and stuff. Also everyone else around him told him that it was impossible to do. And now over 100,000 people have the thing and they can hear. Pretty incredible. Afterwards there was free booze and food but because of my damn trial I could only stuff my face until 9:30 (10) and eschew all (1 glass) of alcohol.
Today the weather is pretty miserable and I feel a bit groggy. I must tutor later and then dumpster dive - who knows what treasures the dumpster will hold?
Jesus, I didn't know that!1
Yawning, I recently learned from an anatomy tutor, is to aid in pumping an extra oomph of blood back in to the center. The action of the yawn is caused by the lateral pterygoid muscle, and this contraction physcially induces force on the veins in the face, which helps pump blood back into the heart. Muscle-induced blood pumping is one of the main mechanisms that veins have of returning blood. The calf muscles are also useful for this, which is why when you do the full yawn/stretch thing, you also plantarflex (tippy-toes) your feet to return blood that's been pooling down there.
Last week was female sexual pathology stuff and we got to learn all about periods. This contained a very ample amount of information that I didn't know. Like how menopause can be like one long 6-month period, or that a lot of women get menorrhagia (increased amount/time of bleeding) and that this can be diagnosed by: longer than 7 days; greater than 80mls/cycle; changing pad less than every 3 hours; needing "double protection" (pad + tampon); loss of clots, etc. How do you know it's 80mls? Apparently some researchers spent time weighing/wringing out pads and tampons. For your own knowledge, 1 tampon is roughly equivalent to 5mls and 1 pad is about 10-15mls.
We also got to learn about the wide-world of contraception. It's amazing how much shit there is, and all for women, to prevent pregnancy. Pills and IUDs made of copper and rings and depot-shots and implanted pieces of rubber (which is definitely the one I'd go for). We also got a definitive answer on that oft-queried problem: is it cool to skip the sugar pills and keep taking the pill in order to "skip" a period? "Hells yah! Just try to have a bleed 4 times a year," is what they recommend. I was doing a bit of my own research into male contraception and found this thing, which seems awesome and I'd be willing to try out. There are other possiblities out there but, unfortunately, nothing that's really marketed well besides condoms and good ol' coitus interruptus.
Medical word of the post:
Pseudocyesis - the false belief that you are pregnant based on physical cues (no period, morning sickness, abdominal mass), despite evidence that you are not.
*I'm supposed to declare it myself
I was on a Phase 1 trial for a newly released generic version of exemestane. Trade name Aromasin, this drug has been around for like 20 years, as an anti-breast cancer drug in post-menopausal women. After 20 years, a drug company loses the patent on its drug and is forced to reveal the formula, so other companies can make their own versions, especially allowing for generics to be made. One of the reasons I was cool with this trial was because the drug has already been around for a while and this is for a generic version (which I whole-heartedly approve of); the others included that I only had to take 1 pill and the timing and money situation suited me. I had to go in from 7am yesterday (Sat) until 9am today (Sun) and then come in in the morning for the next 4 days. Then do all that again at the end of the month. This gets me $1030 tax-free*. This obviously sounds annoying but I'm actually happy for it since, as I mentioned, the place is near my school and I have a problem getting up early and getting study on, so this will force me to do so.
What was the thing actually like? I got there in the morning, after being told not to have any alcohol, chocolate, caffeine, or grapefruit juice the day before and not to have eaten since 9:30PM the night before, and got a cannula put in. This is access to my veins. We were given a light breakfast and then the drug (they did the thing where they checked under the tongue/in the cheek) and then had a small amount of blood withdrawn every 15 minutes for an hour, then every 30 minutes for 2 hours, then every hour for 3 hours, then 2 hrs later, then 4 hrs later, then 8hrs later in the morning before I left. This may sound annoying but actually is not a big deal at all - the amount of blood is minute enough so you don't feel it and you have nothing to do anyway. I was idealising the experience the whole time, "Wow, I'm getting paid to have a WHOLE day where I'm fed and don't have to do anything... I can study and catch up on internet stuff and watch stuff etc." Oh, how young and idealistic we are... Here's what I did: watched half of Jackie Brown, read more than half of Trust me I'm a (Junior) Doctor, watch 1 episode of Man vs Wild, 4 episodes of The Mighty Bouche, an hour each of Blood Diamond and The Hunt for the Red October, spent an hour reading recipes/looking at pictures on tastespotting, tried to understand what's going on in the economy, and did about 30 minutes of study. Yay. My eyes hurt from all that. I also took a bit of a nap and ate a lot. I was pretty hungry when I got there (having fasted the night before and cycled to the place) and then waited for like 2 hours to get a tiny breakfast. Then 4 hours until lunch - I was quite worried that I was being treated like a post-menopausal woman with regards to her dietary needs. But then we started getting a lot more food and I was happy. I was a bit surprised that we were eating hospital food (for that was whom was doing the catering) yet how not necessarily healthy it was. I had 2 big chunks of carrot cake, 1 lemon cake w/ cream, and 1 chocolate banana muffin, plus like 4 things of orange juice over the day. Talk about diabetic risk. As far as the actual drug goes, I didn't feel anything. I had a slight headache but I would much more easily chalk that up to confined space + air conditioning + fluorescent lighting + no exercise. The only weird thing was the crazy dream I had in the morning. In the dream, I was sleeping but semi-conscious and trying to wake myself up, but I literally couldn't do it. I heard nurses talking about me, saying that I was comatose and not knowing what they should do, and I was like in the mostly-asleep phase (in the dream, remember) and tried to tell them that I was okay and I remember literally shaking myself in order to wake myself up in the dream and then eventually woke myself up in real life. So weird. You know when you're on the cusp of sleep and you semi-dream but are still conscious (the so-called hypnagogic state)? That's what my dream felt like. Weird. If that happens next time, I'm chalking it up to the meds.
So that's that. The rest of my week was pretty decent. I started it by flying too close to the sun and subsequently getting burned. Monday I was in the library until midnight and then Tuesday I was in class/hospital/study from 8am-6pm with no real break. As a result, I was pretty ineffective the rest of the week. On Wednesday I went out to a fish and chips place for a friend's dinner. On Thursday a bunch of people met up for an evening/night BBQ at South Bank - the sweet park and artificial beach that sits on top of a river across from downtown. We sat around eating and drinking and then at 11pm went for a swim. It was so beautiful - we were the only ones there, a nice night, looking at the city, playing catch with a frisbee/nerf. I was talked into going out afterwards and so only got home at like 2:30 and then had to wake up at 7 for class. On Friday I got my head shorn in time for summer (which has been put on hiatus for the last couple days for whatever reason) and then went to a fancy annual lecture thing. Each year the school of medicine tries to get someone fancy pants to talk to us about their accomplishments, as well as dole out teaching prizes to best clinical teachers of the past years. This year the guy speaking was Graem Clark - the guy who invented the bionic ear (cochlear implant). His story was actually pretty impressive... he worked hard for about 30some years and as a trained doctor had to pretty much teach himself audiology and engineering and stuff. Also everyone else around him told him that it was impossible to do. And now over 100,000 people have the thing and they can hear. Pretty incredible. Afterwards there was free booze and food but because of my damn trial I could only stuff my face until 9:30 (10) and eschew all (1 glass) of alcohol.
Today the weather is pretty miserable and I feel a bit groggy. I must tutor later and then dumpster dive - who knows what treasures the dumpster will hold?
Jesus, I didn't know that!1
Yawning, I recently learned from an anatomy tutor, is to aid in pumping an extra oomph of blood back in to the center. The action of the yawn is caused by the lateral pterygoid muscle, and this contraction physcially induces force on the veins in the face, which helps pump blood back into the heart. Muscle-induced blood pumping is one of the main mechanisms that veins have of returning blood. The calf muscles are also useful for this, which is why when you do the full yawn/stretch thing, you also plantarflex (tippy-toes) your feet to return blood that's been pooling down there.
Last week was female sexual pathology stuff and we got to learn all about periods. This contained a very ample amount of information that I didn't know. Like how menopause can be like one long 6-month period, or that a lot of women get menorrhagia (increased amount/time of bleeding) and that this can be diagnosed by: longer than 7 days; greater than 80mls/cycle; changing pad less than every 3 hours; needing "double protection" (pad + tampon); loss of clots, etc. How do you know it's 80mls? Apparently some researchers spent time weighing/wringing out pads and tampons. For your own knowledge, 1 tampon is roughly equivalent to 5mls and 1 pad is about 10-15mls.
We also got to learn about the wide-world of contraception. It's amazing how much shit there is, and all for women, to prevent pregnancy. Pills and IUDs made of copper and rings and depot-shots and implanted pieces of rubber (which is definitely the one I'd go for). We also got a definitive answer on that oft-queried problem: is it cool to skip the sugar pills and keep taking the pill in order to "skip" a period? "Hells yah! Just try to have a bleed 4 times a year," is what they recommend. I was doing a bit of my own research into male contraception and found this thing, which seems awesome and I'd be willing to try out. There are other possiblities out there but, unfortunately, nothing that's really marketed well besides condoms and good ol' coitus interruptus.
Medical word of the post:
Pseudocyesis - the false belief that you are pregnant based on physical cues (no period, morning sickness, abdominal mass), despite evidence that you are not.
*I'm supposed to declare it myself
Friday, October 10, 2008
Q: What's long, brown, and sticky?
A: A fucking big stick insect.
I was sitting on my veranda, innocently having lunch, when I heard some rustling in the gutters. I thought it was a bird or possum or something. Then the thing crashed next to my foot and I saw that it was a disgustingly-large stick inset. It started crawling around, pathetically, searching for relief. I ran and grabbed my camera and came back. It was obviously on its last disgustingly-long legs, after, I assume, being pecked at by a bird or something. I'd say it was about 12-13 inches long, with long legs and butterfly wings. It crawled around the veranda for a bit and then clung to the side thing. After a while, it fell to its death - tired and shattered. Incidentally, its blood was green - who knew?
I was sitting on my veranda, innocently having lunch, when I heard some rustling in the gutters. I thought it was a bird or possum or something. Then the thing crashed next to my foot and I saw that it was a disgustingly-large stick inset. It started crawling around, pathetically, searching for relief. I ran and grabbed my camera and came back. It was obviously on its last disgustingly-long legs, after, I assume, being pecked at by a bird or something. I'd say it was about 12-13 inches long, with long legs and butterfly wings. It crawled around the veranda for a bit and then clung to the side thing. After a while, it fell to its death - tired and shattered. Incidentally, its blood was green - who knew?
Saturday, October 4, 2008
it's like 12 twice
Well a lot has happened since we last had the pleasure. How are you? Oh really? Jeez, yeah.
So the day after my previous post was my birth'd day. The whole festivations started out by going out on the eve for dinner at a Korean restaurant that I liked. The weather was really eerie... it seemed like it was going to storm and weird smells and colours. On my bike ride into the city, the only other life form I saw (it was a Sunday) was a possum, a heron standing in the middle of the path, and a woman jogging in white sneakers, a nice black skirt, and a lace black bra. Fun. After dinner we went to a Belgian beer garden thing and got some fancy beer that tasted like cherry. A lot.
On Monday morning a friend dropped off cupcakes spelling out a birthday wish, which was quite cute.
School was pretty good in that vain as well. Normally I don't really care about my birthday... this time was not much different but it was still pretty cool since I actually have a decent group here and so reaped rewards. Speaking of rewards, here's what I got:
2 sets of cupcakes, 1 cake in the shape of a baby seal (long story-> short = there's an ongoing "joke" that I get off on baby seal porn), 3 bottles of wine, wood chopping board, and then an awesome package from a bunch of people of a silicon rolling pin, gift certificate to Kathmandu, and 5 movie passes to a decent cinema. Cleaned up quite well, I must admit. Let's see, what else. Oh yeah, dinners. Monday night I had a nice dinner at a friends place, Thursday had a friend over for dinner, and then the following Monday I went to another mate's place where they cooked up a sweet feast. All this culminated... or at least fruitioned... at a BBQ/picnic thing at the everglorious New Farm Park. It was a beautiful day... blue skies, lots of sun, lots of people, sitting by the river. Everyone brought so much food and I made a kickass salad + lentil burgers + roastded chickpeas. It was one of the lovelier days I've had, I must say.
So what else has happened... on Wednesday a couple of us in our clinical-coaching group when to a psychiatric hospital to get a bit of experience in taking a mental health interview. 4 of us plus a psychiatrist took turns and time interviewing 2 patients, one with schizophrenia and one with severe depression. It was very interesting and really sad. I think that, like with a lot of kinds of medicine, you must build a callus to protect yourself in order to not get too despondent with sick people. I think these ones being physically well but with these debilitating mental problems is even sadder. The schizophrenic guy didn't even know why he was in hospital; he gets brought in by the cops every couple months for doing something weird. He was valedictorian of his highschool up until 11th grade and then the condition just snapped and that is that. The woman with depression has had a number of failed suicide attempts, is ostracised from her whole family, and was sexually abused as a child. I think maybe dealing with kidneys would be easier...
Last night a friend came over for dinner and then we walked into the city to put to use my movie passes. We saw Waltz with Dashir, a nice and stylistically-cool movie about the Israeli-Lebanese conflict. However it was the wrong movie to come drunk to and drink a bottle of wine in.
Jesus, I didn't know that!1
We recently have been learning a bit about the commercialization of medicine. This is not really much of an issue in the US because, like most things there, commercializing is fair game. Here there are some pretty stringent rules as to how to advertise for a medical business (drugs are not even mentioned since it's illegal to advertise prescription medicine); stuff like making outlandish claims or guarantees, offering pro-bono things or inducements are all bad... just like claiming expertise in something you're not or bashing other doctors. We had a speaker from an organisation that deals with advertising and communication and he discussed a suit against the company that sold those ab-electric-belt-stimulator-things as a weight loss device. Apparently, according to witness testimony, those belts, in 10 minutes, burn as many calories as walking 1km/hr for 1 second. Lolicans. Anyway it's been interesting to think about, though apparently not to write about...
In addition to commercialisation of medicine, last week we were studying sexual dysfunction and that kind of fun stuff (the context was clinics advertising guaranteed erections etc). One funny example about lame companies and sexual dysfunction was the fruition of a relatively new diagnosis hypoactive desire disorder. Something like 20-30% of women (and 10% of men) suffer from a reduced sexual desire (reduced compared to what? I dunno). And so a company developed a testosterone patch that may increase libido but in order to make it approachable/necessary/desired/acceptable first had to medicalise this condition. So they released data compiled in cohoots with doctors and released information etc and essentially invented a market for their drug. Bastardos.
Speaking of sexual dysfunction, it was interesting to read about all the ways to treat erectile dysfunction. 1st line treatment is viagra and similar drugs, as most people know, and then it goes downhill from there. The next treatment is called alprostadil and it needs to be given locally in order to function which means either a "urethral suppository" or an injection straight into it. For some reason people don't like those that much... What's funny/scary about it is that if you aren't careful with dosing (your first injection has to be done at the doctor's) then you can develop priaprism: an erection that just won't subside. If it's around for several hours, then the first thing doctors try to do is give a decent amount of pseudoephedrine (the ingredient in Sudafed that's closely monitored and used to make meth) and wait around. If that doesn't work, then you get to physically drain it. Yay!
Medical word of the post:
tumescence - a protruding or swelling; specifically used to describe the penis in the pre-fully-erect phase.
So the day after my previous post was my birth'd day. The whole festivations started out by going out on the eve for dinner at a Korean restaurant that I liked. The weather was really eerie... it seemed like it was going to storm and weird smells and colours. On my bike ride into the city, the only other life form I saw (it was a Sunday) was a possum, a heron standing in the middle of the path, and a woman jogging in white sneakers, a nice black skirt, and a lace black bra. Fun. After dinner we went to a Belgian beer garden thing and got some fancy beer that tasted like cherry. A lot.
On Monday morning a friend dropped off cupcakes spelling out a birthday wish, which was quite cute.
School was pretty good in that vain as well. Normally I don't really care about my birthday... this time was not much different but it was still pretty cool since I actually have a decent group here and so reaped rewards. Speaking of rewards, here's what I got:2 sets of cupcakes, 1 cake in the shape of a baby seal (long story-> short = there's an ongoing "joke" that I get off on baby seal porn), 3 bottles of wine, wood chopping board, and then an awesome package from a bunch of people of a silicon rolling pin, gift certificate to Kathmandu, and 5 movie passes to a decent cinema. Cleaned up quite well, I must admit. Let's see, what else. Oh yeah, dinners. Monday night I had a nice dinner at a friends place, Thursday had a friend over for dinner, and then the following Monday I went to another mate's place where they cooked up a sweet feast. All this culminated... or at least fruitioned... at a BBQ/picnic thing at the everglorious New Farm Park. It was a beautiful day... blue skies, lots of sun, lots of people, sitting by the river. Everyone brought so much food and I made a kickass salad + lentil burgers + roastded chickpeas. It was one of the lovelier days I've had, I must say.
So what else has happened... on Wednesday a couple of us in our clinical-coaching group when to a psychiatric hospital to get a bit of experience in taking a mental health interview. 4 of us plus a psychiatrist took turns and time interviewing 2 patients, one with schizophrenia and one with severe depression. It was very interesting and really sad. I think that, like with a lot of kinds of medicine, you must build a callus to protect yourself in order to not get too despondent with sick people. I think these ones being physically well but with these debilitating mental problems is even sadder. The schizophrenic guy didn't even know why he was in hospital; he gets brought in by the cops every couple months for doing something weird. He was valedictorian of his highschool up until 11th grade and then the condition just snapped and that is that. The woman with depression has had a number of failed suicide attempts, is ostracised from her whole family, and was sexually abused as a child. I think maybe dealing with kidneys would be easier...Last night a friend came over for dinner and then we walked into the city to put to use my movie passes. We saw Waltz with Dashir, a nice and stylistically-cool movie about the Israeli-Lebanese conflict. However it was the wrong movie to come drunk to and drink a bottle of wine in.
Jesus, I didn't know that!1
We recently have been learning a bit about the commercialization of medicine. This is not really much of an issue in the US because, like most things there, commercializing is fair game. Here there are some pretty stringent rules as to how to advertise for a medical business (drugs are not even mentioned since it's illegal to advertise prescription medicine); stuff like making outlandish claims or guarantees, offering pro-bono things or inducements are all bad... just like claiming expertise in something you're not or bashing other doctors. We had a speaker from an organisation that deals with advertising and communication and he discussed a suit against the company that sold those ab-electric-belt-stimulator-things as a weight loss device. Apparently, according to witness testimony, those belts, in 10 minutes, burn as many calories as walking 1km/hr for 1 second. Lolicans. Anyway it's been interesting to think about, though apparently not to write about...
In addition to commercialisation of medicine, last week we were studying sexual dysfunction and that kind of fun stuff (the context was clinics advertising guaranteed erections etc). One funny example about lame companies and sexual dysfunction was the fruition of a relatively new diagnosis hypoactive desire disorder. Something like 20-30% of women (and 10% of men) suffer from a reduced sexual desire (reduced compared to what? I dunno). And so a company developed a testosterone patch that may increase libido but in order to make it approachable/necessary/desired/acceptable first had to medicalise this condition. So they released data compiled in cohoots with doctors and released information etc and essentially invented a market for their drug. Bastardos.
Speaking of sexual dysfunction, it was interesting to read about all the ways to treat erectile dysfunction. 1st line treatment is viagra and similar drugs, as most people know, and then it goes downhill from there. The next treatment is called alprostadil and it needs to be given locally in order to function which means either a "urethral suppository" or an injection straight into it. For some reason people don't like those that much... What's funny/scary about it is that if you aren't careful with dosing (your first injection has to be done at the doctor's) then you can develop priaprism: an erection that just won't subside. If it's around for several hours, then the first thing doctors try to do is give a decent amount of pseudoephedrine (the ingredient in Sudafed that's closely monitored and used to make meth) and wait around. If that doesn't work, then you get to physically drain it. Yay!
Medical word of the post:tumescence - a protruding or swelling; specifically used to describe the penis in the pre-fully-erect phase.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
cyclothymia
Jeez, it's been a great week. I bet you're jealous.
Last weekend I played in an Ultimate Frisbee tournament. I've never played in one before but was suckered in under the allure of a "med & friends" team. We played 3 games on Saturday and then 2 on Sunday morning. It was quite tiring and I performed like my normal mediocre self, but still it was a lot of fun and I felt great afterward. The tournament was pretty small and chill and involved food for the price. On Sunday after playing 2 hot games in a row, we went over to the pool for a pizza party. Contrary to pretty much any other event I've ever been to, there was a lot of pizza actually left over. I ended up eating 2 whole ones and then getting back on the bike to do the rest of the day.
I have been biking a shitload, actually. No small thanks to Rosie's parents. Her parents have been out of town for 2 months and they live in a nice house about 18km south of the city. A couple friends have been housesitting there and I've been housevisiting. Monday and Tuesday night I was convinced to ride out there: they were both beautiful, mild nights with a full moon and pretty much the whole ride is on a separate bike path. Drinking and watching movies and stuff. Loverly.
School was fairly low this week. The topic was bone tumours and, as they are ridiculously rare, there wasn't much to learn. Or, at least, there wasn't much that I was learning. On Wednesday night I went to play frisbee, as normal, but we had been kicked off our field for whatever reason and so had to play on an adjacent field. In the dark. With glow sticks. I know it sounds cool and maybe I'm getting grumpy in my old age, but it wasn't that fun. Half the people were playing "seriously" and half weren't and the light-up disc kept turning off at opportune moments. I was unsatisfied, to speak the truth.
On Friday night I went back out to the housesitting place to bake a birthday cake. It was the birthday of a girl who had done her PhD in malaria, and Rosie and I made an awesome cake in the shape of a mosquito and a brownie platter representing the life cycle of the malaria parasite within the bloodstream.
Saturday was a huge day. Cycled at 8:30 out to the markets from afar and then went home. From home I went on to a garage sale for a girl trying to do some fundraising to go to Uganda. I hung out there for a while and saw stuff that I had donated by bought by a friend, which is funny if you think about it. I also picked up a nice thermos and a cool tea kettle. From there I quickly went home, dropped off my shit, picked up some beers, and went to the birthday party. The birthday girl put up some amazing Sri Lankan curries (who knew?) and the chocolate cakes were a hit. We hung out, enjoying the stillness of the afternoon and the post-prandial bliss, not to mention several beers, chatting away. From there I went on to a Bollywood party, only to be greeted by more free curries and beer. I hung out there for a while, listening to some classic Bollywood hits, chatting with people in saris, and having jello shots for the first time out of college.
This morning I had to wake up early and tutor for 5 hours (two different students) at the beautiful State Library. I met a friend and we went next door for a quick peak at an art gallery that had a "Michael Jackson thing you have to see". The piece was done by some woman who had recruited 16 "die-hard" MJ fans, without checking out their dancing or singing skills, and then filmed them as they performed all of Thriller, in one small area. The piece was 16 parallel vertical screens, each with a different person, singing and dancing away to music that only they could hear. It may sound weird but it was actually pretty funny and nice.
People were very different and listening to them all sing "together" without background music (especially starting all at once from a longish point with no singing) was very enjoyable. Now I'm still at the library, trying to do some work. But it's not working out.
Jesus, I didn't know that!1
Bone tumors piss me off. I mean, I apologise to all the bone tumorers out there, but they're just so far. In the UK, there are about 6 children with a Ewing's tumor each year. Since it's discovery nearly 100 years ago, there have been about 200 cases of an (admittedly awesome-named) adamantinoma. Talk about clinical relevance.
Also, how badly do you want leprosy?
Medical Word of the Post:
echolalia - a disorder where someone involuntarily repeats the same word several times
Last weekend I played in an Ultimate Frisbee tournament. I've never played in one before but was suckered in under the allure of a "med & friends" team. We played 3 games on Saturday and then 2 on Sunday morning. It was quite tiring and I performed like my normal mediocre self, but still it was a lot of fun and I felt great afterward. The tournament was pretty small and chill and involved food for the price. On Sunday after playing 2 hot games in a row, we went over to the pool for a pizza party. Contrary to pretty much any other event I've ever been to, there was a lot of pizza actually left over. I ended up eating 2 whole ones and then getting back on the bike to do the rest of the day.
I have been biking a shitload, actually. No small thanks to Rosie's parents. Her parents have been out of town for 2 months and they live in a nice house about 18km south of the city. A couple friends have been housesitting there and I've been housevisiting. Monday and Tuesday night I was convinced to ride out there: they were both beautiful, mild nights with a full moon and pretty much the whole ride is on a separate bike path. Drinking and watching movies and stuff. Loverly.
School was fairly low this week. The topic was bone tumours and, as they are ridiculously rare, there wasn't much to learn. Or, at least, there wasn't much that I was learning. On Wednesday night I went to play frisbee, as normal, but we had been kicked off our field for whatever reason and so had to play on an adjacent field. In the dark. With glow sticks. I know it sounds cool and maybe I'm getting grumpy in my old age, but it wasn't that fun. Half the people were playing "seriously" and half weren't and the light-up disc kept turning off at opportune moments. I was unsatisfied, to speak the truth.
On Friday night I went back out to the housesitting place to bake a birthday cake. It was the birthday of a girl who had done her PhD in malaria, and Rosie and I made an awesome cake in the shape of a mosquito and a brownie platter representing the life cycle of the malaria parasite within the bloodstream.
Saturday was a huge day. Cycled at 8:30 out to the markets from afar and then went home. From home I went on to a garage sale for a girl trying to do some fundraising to go to Uganda. I hung out there for a while and saw stuff that I had donated by bought by a friend, which is funny if you think about it. I also picked up a nice thermos and a cool tea kettle. From there I quickly went home, dropped off my shit, picked up some beers, and went to the birthday party. The birthday girl put up some amazing Sri Lankan curries (who knew?) and the chocolate cakes were a hit. We hung out, enjoying the stillness of the afternoon and the post-prandial bliss, not to mention several beers, chatting away. From there I went on to a Bollywood party, only to be greeted by more free curries and beer. I hung out there for a while, listening to some classic Bollywood hits, chatting with people in saris, and having jello shots for the first time out of college.
This morning I had to wake up early and tutor for 5 hours (two different students) at the beautiful State Library. I met a friend and we went next door for a quick peak at an art gallery that had a "Michael Jackson thing you have to see". The piece was done by some woman who had recruited 16 "die-hard" MJ fans, without checking out their dancing or singing skills, and then filmed them as they performed all of Thriller, in one small area. The piece was 16 parallel vertical screens, each with a different person, singing and dancing away to music that only they could hear. It may sound weird but it was actually pretty funny and nice.
People were very different and listening to them all sing "together" without background music (especially starting all at once from a longish point with no singing) was very enjoyable. Now I'm still at the library, trying to do some work. But it's not working out.Jesus, I didn't know that!1
Bone tumors piss me off. I mean, I apologise to all the bone tumorers out there, but they're just so far. In the UK, there are about 6 children with a Ewing's tumor each year. Since it's discovery nearly 100 years ago, there have been about 200 cases of an (admittedly awesome-named) adamantinoma. Talk about clinical relevance.
Also, how badly do you want leprosy?
Medical Word of the Post:
echolalia - a disorder where someone involuntarily repeats the same word several times
Sunday, September 7, 2008
We only work when we need the money
... you know the song.
I just had a week off and it was quite amazing, in fact. I think part of the fact was that this was my first truly selfish week of holiday I've had in a really long time - I wasn't "supposed" to see anyone/do anything and so I just did only what I wanted and that made it great. It involved lots of food, late nights, and more alcohol than is probably safe (who am I kidding, I know the guidelines). But before I delve in, I'd like to officially welcome Elijah Reinberg to the blogosphere. I hope you have very few returns.
Now, back to me. My vacation started, I guess, with a bang. I was riding around town trying to find the cheapest wine I could (the place that had 12 bottles of decent wine for 45$ had sold out, obviously) when the crank (leg) of my bike just smashed. It was as limp as a war veteran's smile. Immediately it flashed through my mind that I needed to: go to dinner on one part of town, go to a Trivia night on another, go to a party back at the other side of town, go home on my part of town, and be in the city at 9am to tutor. Each of those involves crossing a river and public transportation is not great, especially late at night. Fuck, am I reliant upon my bike. 
I borrowed (commandeered) my housemate's but it was a road-bike and therefore not fun to ride. Either way the Trivia night was fun. It was run by a bunch of friends and I was at a table with a bunch other of friends. We didn't win diddly scot, of course, but at least I was dressed in a nasty yellow fluorescent shirt (because the party I was going to was a fluoro party). I also was pretty useless with the American questions (like what NASA stands for... administration?) although I did know all the Great Lakes so I got props for that. After that we rode over to the fluoro/emo party where people were wearing more ridiculous outfits than I (though I did end up with a fishnet vest over the shirt and, at one point, a pink wig) and danced the night away to music of sorts. Tutoring at 9am the next morning was less fun than normal.
Sunday, after picking up bread from my favorite rubbish bin, I went to a BBQ and then went to a friend's parent's house to indulge myself. I haven't seen a movie on a non-laptop screen in ages and so we brought some wine and snacks and watched a couple DVDs (to Be or Not to Be, Rushmore, and several episodes of The Goodies) in her parent's pad. It was definitely what I was supposed to be doing.
Monday was a simple day - I had a couple friends over for dinner and relaxed and prepped myself for the rest of the week.
Tuesday "morning" I got picked up by a car full of ladies and headed up north to Coolum, Sunshine Coast. One of the girl's husband's great aunt has a lovely beach house there, which we rented for 100$ for a week. We spent 3 nights and 3.5 days there and it was an amazing time. At any point there were at least 5 people there, plus more people trickled in and out throughout the time. The beach was a 7 minute walk away and so swimming was in order. There were big waves (due to the general blusteriness of the weather) for us to crash in. It wasn't exactly warm, though, so we never swam for more than 15 minutes. Mostly we lazed around and enshrouded ourselves in holidayiety. One morning it was raining down quite hard and 7 of us ran to the beach and went swimming even though it was surely drowning-weather and we were the only people out there. It was great. Other things we did was fly a kite, play boulles on the beach, read a lot, play cards/backgammon/scrabble/charades, eat a lot, and drink. I went for precisely 5 swims. You can see why I was unhappy to leave, can't you?
Came back on Friday morning where, unfortunately, I had to do some driving through peak-hour traffic and then mellowed for the rest of the night, watching Mystic River (so overrated). Saturday went to the markets, did a bit of study, and then went to a non-DJ off party at a bar. The point was that all these people weren't real DJs but they gave DJing a go, anyway. I hate to sound smarmy but it showed - leave the non-DJing to the non-DJs. Sunday was tutoring, free-breadding, studying, and grasping at the fleeting tendrils of vacation. It's now Monday and back to school with a late night tutoring session to boot. No more days off until November. Yay.
Jesus, I didn't know that!1
Here's an interesting journal article (pdf) - the long and short of it is that it's a study done by some researchers in New Mexico where they charted dozens of strippers' earnings with respect to their menstrual cycle. It turns out that during estrous (the ovulatory phase - when the lady is most receptive to impregnation) the tips were much higher than during menstrual phase (and the strippers had to keep bottoms on). Estrous is the phase that any cat owner will be familiar with - when the cat wags its ass in the air, mewing and asking to get screwed. Apparently, and not fully previously appreciated, humans give out the same pheremones and other signals that make them more attractive - best evinced by the tips.
What was Tiny Tim crippled because of his kidneys? Did Beethoven go deaf because of Irritable Bowel Disease? Did FDR actually have Guillian-Barre, not polio? Who knew medihistorical research could be so fun? Me!
Medical word of the post
subluxation: a partial/incomplete dislocation of a joint/organ/thing. Doesn't it sound cool?
I just had a week off and it was quite amazing, in fact. I think part of the fact was that this was my first truly selfish week of holiday I've had in a really long time - I wasn't "supposed" to see anyone/do anything and so I just did only what I wanted and that made it great. It involved lots of food, late nights, and more alcohol than is probably safe (who am I kidding, I know the guidelines). But before I delve in, I'd like to officially welcome Elijah Reinberg to the blogosphere. I hope you have very few returns.
Now, back to me. My vacation started, I guess, with a bang. I was riding around town trying to find the cheapest wine I could (the place that had 12 bottles of decent wine for 45$ had sold out, obviously) when the crank (leg) of my bike just smashed. It was as limp as a war veteran's smile. Immediately it flashed through my mind that I needed to: go to dinner on one part of town, go to a Trivia night on another, go to a party back at the other side of town, go home on my part of town, and be in the city at 9am to tutor. Each of those involves crossing a river and public transportation is not great, especially late at night. Fuck, am I reliant upon my bike. 
I borrowed (commandeered) my housemate's but it was a road-bike and therefore not fun to ride. Either way the Trivia night was fun. It was run by a bunch of friends and I was at a table with a bunch other of friends. We didn't win diddly scot, of course, but at least I was dressed in a nasty yellow fluorescent shirt (because the party I was going to was a fluoro party). I also was pretty useless with the American questions (like what NASA stands for... administration?) although I did know all the Great Lakes so I got props for that. After that we rode over to the fluoro/emo party where people were wearing more ridiculous outfits than I (though I did end up with a fishnet vest over the shirt and, at one point, a pink wig) and danced the night away to music of sorts. Tutoring at 9am the next morning was less fun than normal.Sunday, after picking up bread from my favorite rubbish bin, I went to a BBQ and then went to a friend's parent's house to indulge myself. I haven't seen a movie on a non-laptop screen in ages and so we brought some wine and snacks and watched a couple DVDs (to Be or Not to Be, Rushmore, and several episodes of The Goodies) in her parent's pad. It was definitely what I was supposed to be doing.
Monday was a simple day - I had a couple friends over for dinner and relaxed and prepped myself for the rest of the week.
Tuesday "morning" I got picked up by a car full of ladies and headed up north to Coolum, Sunshine Coast. One of the girl's husband's great aunt has a lovely beach house there, which we rented for 100$ for a week. We spent 3 nights and 3.5 days there and it was an amazing time. At any point there were at least 5 people there, plus more people trickled in and out throughout the time. The beach was a 7 minute walk away and so swimming was in order. There were big waves (due to the general blusteriness of the weather) for us to crash in. It wasn't exactly warm, though, so we never swam for more than 15 minutes. Mostly we lazed around and enshrouded ourselves in holidayiety. One morning it was raining down quite hard and 7 of us ran to the beach and went swimming even though it was surely drowning-weather and we were the only people out there. It was great. Other things we did was fly a kite, play boulles on the beach, read a lot, play cards/backgammon/scrabble/charades, eat a lot, and drink. I went for precisely 5 swims. You can see why I was unhappy to leave, can't you?
Came back on Friday morning where, unfortunately, I had to do some driving through peak-hour traffic and then mellowed for the rest of the night, watching Mystic River (so overrated). Saturday went to the markets, did a bit of study, and then went to a non-DJ off party at a bar. The point was that all these people weren't real DJs but they gave DJing a go, anyway. I hate to sound smarmy but it showed - leave the non-DJing to the non-DJs. Sunday was tutoring, free-breadding, studying, and grasping at the fleeting tendrils of vacation. It's now Monday and back to school with a late night tutoring session to boot. No more days off until November. Yay.Jesus, I didn't know that!1
Here's an interesting journal article (pdf) - the long and short of it is that it's a study done by some researchers in New Mexico where they charted dozens of strippers' earnings with respect to their menstrual cycle. It turns out that during estrous (the ovulatory phase - when the lady is most receptive to impregnation) the tips were much higher than during menstrual phase (and the strippers had to keep bottoms on). Estrous is the phase that any cat owner will be familiar with - when the cat wags its ass in the air, mewing and asking to get screwed. Apparently, and not fully previously appreciated, humans give out the same pheremones and other signals that make them more attractive - best evinced by the tips.
What was Tiny Tim crippled because of his kidneys? Did Beethoven go deaf because of Irritable Bowel Disease? Did FDR actually have Guillian-Barre, not polio? Who knew medihistorical research could be so fun? Me!
Medical word of the post
subluxation: a partial/incomplete dislocation of a joint/organ/thing. Doesn't it sound cool?
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
testing, testing
So I was planning on starting this post like so many others with an apology for delay. But you know what? I'm not gunna - love means never having to say you're sorry.
The only reason I'm writing now, anyway, is because I have a damn canceled dental appointment (which I suppose is what you get for scheduling an appointment with a 4th year dental student at the university... he's probably hungover and my teeth will be uncleaned for another week) and so decided to build up on backlog for you folks.
August has been a fairly decent month, as far as months go, with various ups and downs. 2 weeks ago I went up with some friends to a beach in the north. One of the guys' brother has a sweet house that's perched on top of a hill with a great view and only 10 minute walk to the beach. Even though it's "winter" I still swam 4 times, including a midnight skinnydip. At night we had a big bonfire on the beach and did something that I think all people should do - build a ridiculously dangerous firework. What my friend did was buy $30 worth of sparklers and put them together such: one handful would be taped together; another handful would be taped together and the ass-end of that handful would stick into the mouth-end of the previous one; this was done until all the sparklers were used up and we had a giant meter-long sparkler. Then, this was placed in a tube as long as the sparklers. Tube was angled on the beach and one sparkler stuck out a bit farther than the rest. Light that one and run. It was very cool, I must say - who knew sparklers could actually be exciting? It looked like the afterburner of a jet engine: it was daylight for about a second there and you could hear all the oxygen in the surrounding atmosphere being sucked into it. The tube was PVC and didn't stand a chance - it was completely gone. I suggest everyone try this.
The next night I got to go to a friend's parents' house for dinner. For those who don't live with/visit adult houses very often, you'll understand why this was exciting for me - everything is stocked! You never go to an our-age house and see matching dishes or completely full pantries and fridges, with cookies and shit just there and begging to be snacked. The best part was time-honoured tradition of raiding the liquor cabinet. They had 42 Below Feijoa Vodka which was really tasty. Plus some good wine and Stella Artois.
On Monday night was the Med Revue. I mentioned this last year - it's a big night of skits and songs, organised by a lot of students from the school. There's videos making fun of professors or, even better, puns on medical terminology. It'd be moot to try to explain it so I won't, but mind you - it was good.
The rest of the week was normal. Sadly, more and more of my time is being taken up by this horrid elephant in the room known as the USMLE (and no, it's not pronounced "you smile"). The US medical licensing examination is a multi-step test designed to equilibrate medical students throughout the US and abroad, in typical standardised-test fashion. We'll say that it's known as the hardest test in the world EVAR, but I'm just making that up. See, I'm not against checking everyone who wants to practice medicine, especially those who come from private-expensive-easy-to-get-into schools, Caribbean schools, or UQ, but this exam asks a lot of stuff that is WAY too in-depth and mostly useless for actual medical practice. Some questions are just ridiculous, as well.
Last weekend was pretty good. On Friday night I got back together with my group of close discussion-friends from last year. We went out for some pizza (I think every pizza place in the world should sell pizza by the meter) and then back to my place for dessert. Saturday and Sunday I tutored a new student who's English is pretty pretty low (good) but can only meet weekend mornings (bad). Saturday night I went to a housewarming gathering (11 people does not a party make) where there was catered good Chinese food (good) but my friend's boyfriend ending up punching a different friend (good).
So what else is new? I've been watching a decent amount of the new season of Weeds and it has been pretty good, though not as good as the previous season, as well as some new Family Guys. I definitely recommend this site to all people who like watching streaming episodes of almost every TV show. I've also seen a couple movies loaned to me from a friend: My Own Private Idaho - good, a bit strange, but nice. Sexy Beast - meh. ShortBus - woah... nice but messed up, I suggest you go and see it and see what I mean.
Anyway, that's it for now. It's too cold inside my house for long typing, I'm afeared. Brisbane houses are built so be cooler than outside. This is good in summer but not so much in "winter."
Jesus, I didn't know that!1
I feel like this is probably the best thing of my blog but has been lacking lately. It's definitely not because from know on, I only encounter things that I know...
Factoid!: Vitamin C deficiency, also known as scurvy, causes poor wound healing, swollen gums, bruising, and anaemia. Once the British Empire learned this, it issued limes to all their soldiers as a way to curb this deficiency, bringing about the term "limey" for British person.
So this week we've been studying organ donation and brain death and everything and it has been quite fascinating. The ethical side is interesting in its own right (not that I understand why someone wouldn't want to donate organs, but that's a whole other thing). If someone "dies" and their cardiopulmonary function ceases, it's pretty easy to assess: no heart beat for 1 minute, no breath for 1 minute, no reaction to something painful. However, brain death is a bit more tricky to diagnose because the person's "body" still goes on (with a lot of medical assistance) and so it's a bit more intricate to find out. There are 12 main nerves that are responsible for most of the sensation (regular and special) and motion of the face and they all have to be checked, this entails: painful pressure all over the face, checking pupils (they will be dilated with no reaction), rubbing a thin piece of cotton over the eye (most deep-coma patients will blink... no blinky = no thinky), testing gag reflex and cough reflex, and, the most interestingly, putting between 20-50ml of ice cold water into the ear (because this is, for some reason, supposed to give you nystagmus = eye shaking). Once a person is declared brain dead by 2 different specialists, then the body is very respectfully opened up and organs go to people who need them. Incidentally, heart & lungs need to be transplanted within 6 hours; liver and pancreas 12hrs; kidney 24hrs; eye, bone, heart valves can be frozen in liquid nitrogen and stored for a while.
Medical word of the post:
fecolith: (feco=shit, lith = stone) a hardened ball of feces that has been dehydrated and is now stuck somewhere in the colon. It commonly shows up on x-ray and is a typical cause of appendicitis.
The only reason I'm writing now, anyway, is because I have a damn canceled dental appointment (which I suppose is what you get for scheduling an appointment with a 4th year dental student at the university... he's probably hungover and my teeth will be uncleaned for another week) and so decided to build up on backlog for you folks.
August has been a fairly decent month, as far as months go, with various ups and downs. 2 weeks ago I went up with some friends to a beach in the north. One of the guys' brother has a sweet house that's perched on top of a hill with a great view and only 10 minute walk to the beach. Even though it's "winter" I still swam 4 times, including a midnight skinnydip. At night we had a big bonfire on the beach and did something that I think all people should do - build a ridiculously dangerous firework. What my friend did was buy $30 worth of sparklers and put them together such: one handful would be taped together; another handful would be taped together and the ass-end of that handful would stick into the mouth-end of the previous one; this was done until all the sparklers were used up and we had a giant meter-long sparkler. Then, this was placed in a tube as long as the sparklers. Tube was angled on the beach and one sparkler stuck out a bit farther than the rest. Light that one and run. It was very cool, I must say - who knew sparklers could actually be exciting? It looked like the afterburner of a jet engine: it was daylight for about a second there and you could hear all the oxygen in the surrounding atmosphere being sucked into it. The tube was PVC and didn't stand a chance - it was completely gone. I suggest everyone try this.
The next night I got to go to a friend's parents' house for dinner. For those who don't live with/visit adult houses very often, you'll understand why this was exciting for me - everything is stocked! You never go to an our-age house and see matching dishes or completely full pantries and fridges, with cookies and shit just there and begging to be snacked. The best part was time-honoured tradition of raiding the liquor cabinet. They had 42 Below Feijoa Vodka which was really tasty. Plus some good wine and Stella Artois.
On Monday night was the Med Revue. I mentioned this last year - it's a big night of skits and songs, organised by a lot of students from the school. There's videos making fun of professors or, even better, puns on medical terminology. It'd be moot to try to explain it so I won't, but mind you - it was good.
The rest of the week was normal. Sadly, more and more of my time is being taken up by this horrid elephant in the room known as the USMLE (and no, it's not pronounced "you smile"). The US medical licensing examination is a multi-step test designed to equilibrate medical students throughout the US and abroad, in typical standardised-test fashion. We'll say that it's known as the hardest test in the world EVAR, but I'm just making that up. See, I'm not against checking everyone who wants to practice medicine, especially those who come from private-expensive-easy-to-get-into schools, Caribbean schools, or UQ, but this exam asks a lot of stuff that is WAY too in-depth and mostly useless for actual medical practice. Some questions are just ridiculous, as well.
35>Two young boys are playing at a daycare center. One holds a ball on topI guess that the annoying thing is that USMLE and my university couldn't focus on more disparate things and still be known as "medicine". USMLE wants to know every bacteria, every symptom that that bacteria causes, what it looks like and what culture it grows on. It also wants the biochemical basis of every disease. UQ medicine wants clinical reasoning skills and lists of risk factors for all the major diseases, as well as some random stuff as well. UQ may be "easier" but it definitely is more logical in terms of learning what you actually should know and will use in the future. I guess the upshot of all of this is that, once I'm done with this test, I will mostly likely never have to memorize (highly) irrelevant stuff again - which is very exciting. Additionally, if I fail, then I guess I'm staying in Australia.
of some blocks that the other child has placed on the floor. The second
child helps steady the blocks, then the first child lets go of the ball
, knocking the blocks down to the floor. They both watch and then repeat
the process. These children are most likely
A. 10 months old
B. 16 months old
C. 18 months old
D. 24 months old
E. 48 months old
39> A 30-year-old veterinarian on a cattle ranch presents with a 1-to-2-month
history of malaise, chills, drenching malodorous sweats, fatigue, and
weakness. He has anorexia and has lost 15 pounds. He has intermittent
fevers that range up to 103 F (39.4 C). He complains of visual blurring.
A physical examination reveals mild lymphadenopathy, petechiae, and a
cardiac murmur consistent with aortic insufficiency. What is the most
likely etiologic agent?
A. Bacillus anthracis
B. Brucella abortus
C. Coccidioides immitis
D. Erysipelothrix rhusiopathiae
E. Trichinella spiralis
18>A 5-year-old girl is brought by her parents to the emergency room
because she is complaining of stomach pain. Physical examination reveals
multiple bruises on the child's body in different stages of healing.
X-ray examination of the chest demonstrates two cracked ribs, and the
child says, "Mommy hit me." The parents deny any abuse of their
children. The physician's most appropriate response would be:
A. "I am going to call the police right now."
B. "I must report this situation to Child Protective Services right now."
C. "I need to hospitalize this child for further studies."
D. "I will bind her ribs tonight and you must promise me that you will not strike this child again."
E. "I will bind her ribs tonight and you need to bring her to the outpatient clinic in the morning."
Last weekend was pretty good. On Friday night I got back together with my group of close discussion-friends from last year. We went out for some pizza (I think every pizza place in the world should sell pizza by the meter) and then back to my place for dessert. Saturday and Sunday I tutored a new student who's English is pretty pretty low (good) but can only meet weekend mornings (bad). Saturday night I went to a housewarming gathering (11 people does not a party make) where there was catered good Chinese food (good) but my friend's boyfriend ending up punching a different friend (good).
So what else is new? I've been watching a decent amount of the new season of Weeds and it has been pretty good, though not as good as the previous season, as well as some new Family Guys. I definitely recommend this site to all people who like watching streaming episodes of almost every TV show. I've also seen a couple movies loaned to me from a friend: My Own Private Idaho - good, a bit strange, but nice. Sexy Beast - meh. ShortBus - woah... nice but messed up, I suggest you go and see it and see what I mean.
Anyway, that's it for now. It's too cold inside my house for long typing, I'm afeared. Brisbane houses are built so be cooler than outside. This is good in summer but not so much in "winter."
Jesus, I didn't know that!1
I feel like this is probably the best thing of my blog but has been lacking lately. It's definitely not because from know on, I only encounter things that I know...
Factoid!: Vitamin C deficiency, also known as scurvy, causes poor wound healing, swollen gums, bruising, and anaemia. Once the British Empire learned this, it issued limes to all their soldiers as a way to curb this deficiency, bringing about the term "limey" for British person.
So this week we've been studying organ donation and brain death and everything and it has been quite fascinating. The ethical side is interesting in its own right (not that I understand why someone wouldn't want to donate organs, but that's a whole other thing). If someone "dies" and their cardiopulmonary function ceases, it's pretty easy to assess: no heart beat for 1 minute, no breath for 1 minute, no reaction to something painful. However, brain death is a bit more tricky to diagnose because the person's "body" still goes on (with a lot of medical assistance) and so it's a bit more intricate to find out. There are 12 main nerves that are responsible for most of the sensation (regular and special) and motion of the face and they all have to be checked, this entails: painful pressure all over the face, checking pupils (they will be dilated with no reaction), rubbing a thin piece of cotton over the eye (most deep-coma patients will blink... no blinky = no thinky), testing gag reflex and cough reflex, and, the most interestingly, putting between 20-50ml of ice cold water into the ear (because this is, for some reason, supposed to give you nystagmus = eye shaking). Once a person is declared brain dead by 2 different specialists, then the body is very respectfully opened up and organs go to people who need them. Incidentally, heart & lungs need to be transplanted within 6 hours; liver and pancreas 12hrs; kidney 24hrs; eye, bone, heart valves can be frozen in liquid nitrogen and stored for a while.
Medical word of the post:
fecolith: (feco=shit, lith = stone) a hardened ball of feces that has been dehydrated and is now stuck somewhere in the colon. It commonly shows up on x-ray and is a typical cause of appendicitis.
Saturday, August 2, 2008
What's the big i-día?
Greetings Chumps and Chumpettes,
Let me tell you about my last day:
8:00AM, Saturday: I woke up a bit early because I was slated to help my friend Claire move some shit. She needed some burl and I brought it to the party. I ate a quick breakfast and headed over to her house where I spent the next two and a bit hours moving stuff from her place to her sis' place and another trailer-load to boot. Hard work but the beer is reward enough. And the good deed, I guess.
11:00AM I went to another friend's, Fiona, house for a treat. What I got was some tasty green coconut jelly cakes and a pork-sticky rice bun. The exchange was finalised by my dropping off of delicious, moist compost. Then we moved on the ever-popular markets to pick up on greens (and oranges, reds, yellows, and more greens).
12:30PM I ate my usual and amazing Saturday-arvo-poached-eggs-plus-nice-bread-plus-veggies and then headed over to Chris' place for a ride down south to the beach. Yes! I sucked myself into a beach ride and this is always relevant. I haven't been to the beach in a month and as the weather has been particularly lovely the last couple days, I thought a trip was necessary.
3:00PM We only just arrive but the sun is shining and the waves are waving and it's very nice, even for just an hour of jumping crashing cruising. We head back home
6:00PM I arrive back at home, giddy and nervous having just been convinced by Chris to do a night-shift at the Emergency Department at the hospital. I fixed up an amazing meal (fresh homemade pasta tossed w/ olive oil, chopped chili and tomato, roasted garlic, onion, and pumpkin with heaps of nice parmesan and a tiny bit of wine (for sleep)) and watch a bit of a movie and am in bed before 8PM
8:00PM I read a bit and try to relax and fall asleep. I was pretty nervous, to tell the truth, because this would be an interesting thing ahead of me indeed. I was guaranteed to do some invasive stuff that I heretofore haven't done and who knows what kind of Saturday-night trauma I would see? I finally passed off into sleep around 9.
10:43PM I wake up with a jolt, down a glass of soy milk, pack up my bag, get dressed and bounce out the door. I ride along feeling vaguely jetlagged and out of it, very confused at the amount of people out there even though I understand it's a Saturday night. I get to Chris' where I have some strong green tea, he teaches me how to iron my shirt and then we go to the hospital
11:30PM We get to the Emergency Department, dressed in clinical white coats with stethoscopes around our necks, plus dress clothes underneath. We looked awesome. We schmooze with the interns/residents/consultants there, who are all impressed that we are there for a night shift and proceed to give us work to do. It was so cool and going through it timelineally would be outrageous. I got to:
8:30AM (Sunday) We finally left the hospital and I rode home high and giddy and cheering because it was such an awesome experience. I got home and took half a sleeping pill (a man's gotta watch his cycle, yo) and had some cereal and then went to bed
12:2oPM My housemate was listening loudly to some random techno that totally sounds like hospital noises to my sleeping-ass and so I wake up thinking that someone was going into VT. Oh well, I'll sleep well tonight.
In terms of up-to-datetry. Last night was quite the culmination to a very full week. We'd had a bunch of procedural workshops (oxygenation, nasogastric feeding, chest draining, catheters, life support) and other random classes. We also had, one of the educational highlights of the year, an autopsy. About 4000 autopsies are done every year in Queensland. They are requested by the coroner's office in cases of homicide/suicide/sudden death/all unexpected causes of death/anything else unknown. We went in and watched one done on Wednesday. There was a pathologist who was speaking and telling us what was going on as well as an assistant who would have made Dexter cringe a bit. It was very confronting because there, on the table, was a 53 yr old guy who looked totally alive and like he'd get up any second. But he wouldn't. And the worst part is the beginning, because while the doctor is explaining autopsies and everything, the assistant starts readying the both, top first, starting by peel the top of the face down. Plus, since the body was so rigid (this guy had been alive <24hrs ago), his arms would move and stuff with the force. Creepy, wonderful stuff.
So yeah, the acaedemic stuff is going pretty full-on at the moment. There's been an unfortunate ebb in my English tutoring. As most Koreans come towards the end of their summer, they also leave towards the end (visas etc) and so all my students are leaving and no luck at the moment finding other ones. It's okay, I will probably have to wait a month (max) but shall get some soon.
Um, in our yard we have a crazy scrub turkey doing all the raking for us. The awesome little guys look like velociraptors and spend all day raking shit up into a pile form. The bigger the pile of leaves, the better chance some chick turkey will come along and offer herself up. The eggs then get buried down at the bottom of the pile where decomposition of the leaves keeps everything warm. The other day I watched the guy courting the girl while I was having my morning breakfast and was struck by how similar these guys are to humans: the male rooster builds a big nice house to get a female over; while she's over there, he's biting at her shoulders while she's digging a bit and flinging leaves in his face. Ah, young love. Here he is working on his pile (which he's been doing for a month now):
Jesus, I didn't know that!1
I'm too tired to think about this one right now - will post later.
Let me tell you about my last day:
8:00AM, Saturday: I woke up a bit early because I was slated to help my friend Claire move some shit. She needed some burl and I brought it to the party. I ate a quick breakfast and headed over to her house where I spent the next two and a bit hours moving stuff from her place to her sis' place and another trailer-load to boot. Hard work but the beer is reward enough. And the good deed, I guess.
11:00AM I went to another friend's, Fiona, house for a treat. What I got was some tasty green coconut jelly cakes and a pork-sticky rice bun. The exchange was finalised by my dropping off of delicious, moist compost. Then we moved on the ever-popular markets to pick up on greens (and oranges, reds, yellows, and more greens).
12:30PM I ate my usual and amazing Saturday-arvo-poached-eggs-plus-nice-bread-plus-veggies and then headed over to Chris' place for a ride down south to the beach. Yes! I sucked myself into a beach ride and this is always relevant. I haven't been to the beach in a month and as the weather has been particularly lovely the last couple days, I thought a trip was necessary.
3:00PM We only just arrive but the sun is shining and the waves are waving and it's very nice, even for just an hour of jumping crashing cruising. We head back home
6:00PM I arrive back at home, giddy and nervous having just been convinced by Chris to do a night-shift at the Emergency Department at the hospital. I fixed up an amazing meal (fresh homemade pasta tossed w/ olive oil, chopped chili and tomato, roasted garlic, onion, and pumpkin with heaps of nice parmesan and a tiny bit of wine (for sleep)) and watch a bit of a movie and am in bed before 8PM
8:00PM I read a bit and try to relax and fall asleep. I was pretty nervous, to tell the truth, because this would be an interesting thing ahead of me indeed. I was guaranteed to do some invasive stuff that I heretofore haven't done and who knows what kind of Saturday-night trauma I would see? I finally passed off into sleep around 9.
10:43PM I wake up with a jolt, down a glass of soy milk, pack up my bag, get dressed and bounce out the door. I ride along feeling vaguely jetlagged and out of it, very confused at the amount of people out there even though I understand it's a Saturday night. I get to Chris' where I have some strong green tea, he teaches me how to iron my shirt and then we go to the hospital
11:30PM We get to the Emergency Department, dressed in clinical white coats with stethoscopes around our necks, plus dress clothes underneath. We looked awesome. We schmooze with the interns/residents/consultants there, who are all impressed that we are there for a night shift and proceed to give us work to do. It was so cool and going through it timelineally would be outrageous. I got to:
- Do a neurological exam on a guy with suspected encephalitis and then present him to the intern
- Stick in 3 canulas (these are the access ports sticking out of veins where fluids/meds go in, etc). I'd never done this before and only screwed up once. It was hella cool though.
- Watch a resuscitation team take care of a woman who flew through the windshield of a 4WD (she was fine)
- Do and present a cardiovascular exam on a guy in a lot of pain, but who was notoriously a difficult patient and whom was given an ABG (painful blood test that was kind of needed) because he was a wank
- Get coffees for all the doctors
- Watch an interncostal catheter get put in
- Watched a demented 84 yr old woman get her bowels manually disimpacted (triple gloves, apron, mask, mucho air freshener)
- Did a bunch of more exams
- Helped with a patient who was rushed by the ambulance. He presented with a fatal heart-rhythm but was worked back up and was semi-okay. The best part was that he looked kinda fooked up, like an alcoholic, and so I, in passing, suggested maybe giving him thiamine (a B vitamin that alcoholics are notoriously deficient in and thus have problems with memory and walking, etc). The HEAD of the department overhead me saying it and mentioned to the team, no fewer than 3 times, "Michael suggested thiamine, which I think is a good idea". Fuck! Awesome.
8:30AM (Sunday) We finally left the hospital and I rode home high and giddy and cheering because it was such an awesome experience. I got home and took half a sleeping pill (a man's gotta watch his cycle, yo) and had some cereal and then went to bed
12:2oPM My housemate was listening loudly to some random techno that totally sounds like hospital noises to my sleeping-ass and so I wake up thinking that someone was going into VT. Oh well, I'll sleep well tonight.
In terms of up-to-datetry. Last night was quite the culmination to a very full week. We'd had a bunch of procedural workshops (oxygenation, nasogastric feeding, chest draining, catheters, life support) and other random classes. We also had, one of the educational highlights of the year, an autopsy. About 4000 autopsies are done every year in Queensland. They are requested by the coroner's office in cases of homicide/suicide/sudden death/all unexpected causes of death/anything else unknown. We went in and watched one done on Wednesday. There was a pathologist who was speaking and telling us what was going on as well as an assistant who would have made Dexter cringe a bit. It was very confronting because there, on the table, was a 53 yr old guy who looked totally alive and like he'd get up any second. But he wouldn't. And the worst part is the beginning, because while the doctor is explaining autopsies and everything, the assistant starts readying the both, top first, starting by peel the top of the face down. Plus, since the body was so rigid (this guy had been alive <24hrs ago), his arms would move and stuff with the force. Creepy, wonderful stuff.
So yeah, the acaedemic stuff is going pretty full-on at the moment. There's been an unfortunate ebb in my English tutoring. As most Koreans come towards the end of their summer, they also leave towards the end (visas etc) and so all my students are leaving and no luck at the moment finding other ones. It's okay, I will probably have to wait a month (max) but shall get some soon.
Um, in our yard we have a crazy scrub turkey doing all the raking for us. The awesome little guys look like velociraptors and spend all day raking shit up into a pile form. The bigger the pile of leaves, the better chance some chick turkey will come along and offer herself up. The eggs then get buried down at the bottom of the pile where decomposition of the leaves keeps everything warm. The other day I watched the guy courting the girl while I was having my morning breakfast and was struck by how similar these guys are to humans: the male rooster builds a big nice house to get a female over; while she's over there, he's biting at her shoulders while she's digging a bit and flinging leaves in his face. Ah, young love. Here he is working on his pile (which he's been doing for a month now):
Jesus, I didn't know that!1
I'm too tired to think about this one right now - will post later.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
And that's why I'm never paying for bread again
Greetings, earthlings. It's been a while since I last rapped at you. Stuff has been a bit busy and a bit chilly over here, yet still quite good.
The last couple weeks has been the psychiatry block. Very interesting stuff. I feel like medicine has this funny thing about it whereby every week we learn about something that I hope I nor anyone I know ever has. Fun, isn't it though? Schizophrenia is one of those things that you don't really think about except in terms of crazy homeless people but it's so much more complicated than that and really horrible. Ugh. At least I'm mostly in the clear for that one... look out Parkinson's!
Speaking of interesting stuff in medicine, yesterday we had our training for the Well Woman Check. This is a check-up designed for women who are well (not just a clever name!) to get vital screening stuff taken care of once a year. Skin check, breast check, abdomen, Pap smear, and a bimanual examination. I was a bit nervous going in but I think everyone is. The student I was partnered with had quite a shaky grip on her speculum, so at least I wasn't the only one. So this program is run by a bunch of women who are trained extensively in teaching and modeling this stuff. Yes, professional vaginas they be, exposing their tops-to-toes to medical students far and wide. I wonder how much they get paid? Anyway the actual doing of the thing was not that weird once we got into it. Eroticism is the furthest thing from your mind, though it didn't hurt that mine was on the larger side and had had several children, if you get my droop - er, drift. The grossest part of the thing, besides a lot of it, was looking in between the toes for skin problems. You'd think that since this woman did this for a living, she'd-a cleaned her feet!
Outside of vaginas, my life has been pretty sociable and good. I've been to a couple of parties and had people over for dinner (made an awesome eggplant lasagna) and such. Last Sunday I had a mind-altering epiphanic sort of experience. Let me tell you folks about the wonderful world of dumpster-diving.
Now, before you get all grossed out hear me out. My friend Chris is a bit of a connoisseur in this area and decided to take me under his wing. We met Sunday afternoon behind a really nice fancy bakery. The kind of place with amazing pastries for $4 and organic olive bread for $8. The kind of place that closes early in the day. The kind of place that throws away perfectly good bread. So we went to their bins where there was other trash but mostly bread. Unfortunately, these philistines (rant - it's so ridiculous that bakeries and other places throw their food away instead of giving it to charity or giving it out free at the end of the day. The former is justified by health and safety acts; the latter by economics - if you can get the bread for free why shop at the place?) also dump the coffee grounds on top of the trash. Luckily, there's an outer crust (ha!) of bread that protects the inner bread from filth. We checked quite well and got about 8 or 9 beautiful loaves of bread plus some pastries (spinach & feta, pumpkin & recotta, steak pies, etc) that were in a separate bag.
We went back to his house and ate (and ate and ate) and then digested and studied for a while. At 9 we went to a strip mall near his house and checked out a grocery store's bin. This is where experience paid out since he knew exactly how to go about diving. Wearing rubber boots and crappy pants he climbed on top of the rubbish and pulled away stuff, handing me goodies to collect in our bags. There was so much produce thrown away that was perfectly good. We got like 15 bunches of asparagus, a couple bags of potatoes and apples, bananas, broccoli, etc. This stuff was a bit gross but once washed looks like anything normal. As we were leaving the mall, we decided to check out one more bin - this one belonged to a different bakery (a chain this time and not as good as the other). As we lifted the lid, a beaticious light shone down upon us as cherubs sung their celestial song. There was So Much Fucking Bread. All of it was in clean garbage bags with only bread accompanying it and most of them were in separate bags. There was more stuff than one could ever eat or take home. We collected a bunch of scones and muffins and stuff. I was able to fulfill a long-held fantasy from the bottom of my gluttonous cockles: grabbing anything that looks good, taking a capricious bite, throwing it (cuz it's not wasteful!!) and moving on... bite off the top of that chocolate muffin, then the top of a blueberry muffin, then get the cream from an eclaire followed by a bite into a brownie. Holy hell it was amazing. I couldn't fall asleep that night until 12:30 - so struck by this awesome way of getting free food I was high on life. And sugar.
Jesus, I didn't know that!1
As I aforementioned, schizophrenia is a crazy disease. Literally. The way it comes about is so insidious and nasty, as well. Often it will be a bright, social boy who does well early in high school and then later on gets a bit more withdrawn and doesn't perform as well in his studies. Parents/teachers assume it's just being a teenager or perhaps mild depression but it is actually a prodrome (syndrome before the disease) that eventually results in the psychosis that we associate with the disease. Once you have 1 psychotic attack there's a 10% chance you return to normal. The rest have either reduced function or chronic disease. These can be somewhat managed with drugs, but brain drugs have their own level of craziness:
Chlorpromazine - this was the first antipsychotic invented (in the 60s) and works kind of well in a number of things. For some reason it cures intractable hiccups and in 30% of people with cholera, it reduces the symptoms. However, it has unattractive side effects like akathisia (fidgeting) and tardive dyskinesia (involuntary movement of head and neck)
Risperidone and some of the newer ones don't have those effects but what they do is cause a buildup of prolactin (pro meaning for and lactin meaning milk) and what this does is cause man boobs and man lactating. You can avoid this if you take an antiprolactin drug like Cabergoline. This has can be used as a party drug as well because of the recently documented knowledge that prolactin is responsible for the refractory period (time where nothing happens) after male orgasm. By blocking this drug, men can have multiple orgasms! Woot! This drug is also taken by steroid poppers to reduce the man-boobs that steroids give.
Clomipramine, speaking of drugs with sexual side effects, is a fairly regular antidepressant. Except that in a select few patients taking the drug, yawning gives them an orgasm! These people, most likely, spend their freetime watching 2 and a half men.
Medical Word of the Post:
hemiballism: involuntary jerking or writhing movements of one side of the body
The last couple weeks has been the psychiatry block. Very interesting stuff. I feel like medicine has this funny thing about it whereby every week we learn about something that I hope I nor anyone I know ever has. Fun, isn't it though? Schizophrenia is one of those things that you don't really think about except in terms of crazy homeless people but it's so much more complicated than that and really horrible. Ugh. At least I'm mostly in the clear for that one... look out Parkinson's!
Speaking of interesting stuff in medicine, yesterday we had our training for the Well Woman Check. This is a check-up designed for women who are well (not just a clever name!) to get vital screening stuff taken care of once a year. Skin check, breast check, abdomen, Pap smear, and a bimanual examination. I was a bit nervous going in but I think everyone is. The student I was partnered with had quite a shaky grip on her speculum, so at least I wasn't the only one. So this program is run by a bunch of women who are trained extensively in teaching and modeling this stuff. Yes, professional vaginas they be, exposing their tops-to-toes to medical students far and wide. I wonder how much they get paid? Anyway the actual doing of the thing was not that weird once we got into it. Eroticism is the furthest thing from your mind, though it didn't hurt that mine was on the larger side and had had several children, if you get my droop - er, drift. The grossest part of the thing, besides a lot of it, was looking in between the toes for skin problems. You'd think that since this woman did this for a living, she'd-a cleaned her feet!
Outside of vaginas, my life has been pretty sociable and good. I've been to a couple of parties and had people over for dinner (made an awesome eggplant lasagna) and such. Last Sunday I had a mind-altering epiphanic sort of experience. Let me tell you folks about the wonderful world of dumpster-diving.
Now, before you get all grossed out hear me out. My friend Chris is a bit of a connoisseur in this area and decided to take me under his wing. We met Sunday afternoon behind a really nice fancy bakery. The kind of place with amazing pastries for $4 and organic olive bread for $8. The kind of place that closes early in the day. The kind of place that throws away perfectly good bread. So we went to their bins where there was other trash but mostly bread. Unfortunately, these philistines (rant - it's so ridiculous that bakeries and other places throw their food away instead of giving it to charity or giving it out free at the end of the day. The former is justified by health and safety acts; the latter by economics - if you can get the bread for free why shop at the place?) also dump the coffee grounds on top of the trash. Luckily, there's an outer crust (ha!) of bread that protects the inner bread from filth. We checked quite well and got about 8 or 9 beautiful loaves of bread plus some pastries (spinach & feta, pumpkin & recotta, steak pies, etc) that were in a separate bag.
We went back to his house and ate (and ate and ate) and then digested and studied for a while. At 9 we went to a strip mall near his house and checked out a grocery store's bin. This is where experience paid out since he knew exactly how to go about diving. Wearing rubber boots and crappy pants he climbed on top of the rubbish and pulled away stuff, handing me goodies to collect in our bags. There was so much produce thrown away that was perfectly good. We got like 15 bunches of asparagus, a couple bags of potatoes and apples, bananas, broccoli, etc. This stuff was a bit gross but once washed looks like anything normal. As we were leaving the mall, we decided to check out one more bin - this one belonged to a different bakery (a chain this time and not as good as the other). As we lifted the lid, a beaticious light shone down upon us as cherubs sung their celestial song. There was So Much Fucking Bread. All of it was in clean garbage bags with only bread accompanying it and most of them were in separate bags. There was more stuff than one could ever eat or take home. We collected a bunch of scones and muffins and stuff. I was able to fulfill a long-held fantasy from the bottom of my gluttonous cockles: grabbing anything that looks good, taking a capricious bite, throwing it (cuz it's not wasteful!!) and moving on... bite off the top of that chocolate muffin, then the top of a blueberry muffin, then get the cream from an eclaire followed by a bite into a brownie. Holy hell it was amazing. I couldn't fall asleep that night until 12:30 - so struck by this awesome way of getting free food I was high on life. And sugar.
Jesus, I didn't know that!1
As I aforementioned, schizophrenia is a crazy disease. Literally. The way it comes about is so insidious and nasty, as well. Often it will be a bright, social boy who does well early in high school and then later on gets a bit more withdrawn and doesn't perform as well in his studies. Parents/teachers assume it's just being a teenager or perhaps mild depression but it is actually a prodrome (syndrome before the disease) that eventually results in the psychosis that we associate with the disease. Once you have 1 psychotic attack there's a 10% chance you return to normal. The rest have either reduced function or chronic disease. These can be somewhat managed with drugs, but brain drugs have their own level of craziness:
Chlorpromazine - this was the first antipsychotic invented (in the 60s) and works kind of well in a number of things. For some reason it cures intractable hiccups and in 30% of people with cholera, it reduces the symptoms. However, it has unattractive side effects like akathisia (fidgeting) and tardive dyskinesia (involuntary movement of head and neck)
Risperidone and some of the newer ones don't have those effects but what they do is cause a buildup of prolactin (pro meaning for and lactin meaning milk) and what this does is cause man boobs and man lactating. You can avoid this if you take an antiprolactin drug like Cabergoline. This has can be used as a party drug as well because of the recently documented knowledge that prolactin is responsible for the refractory period (time where nothing happens) after male orgasm. By blocking this drug, men can have multiple orgasms! Woot! This drug is also taken by steroid poppers to reduce the man-boobs that steroids give.
Clomipramine, speaking of drugs with sexual side effects, is a fairly regular antidepressant. Except that in a select few patients taking the drug, yawning gives them an orgasm! These people, most likely, spend their freetime watching 2 and a half men.
Medical Word of the Post:
hemiballism: involuntary jerking or writhing movements of one side of the body
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
I admit laziness
It is is a problem of mine, I grant merrily, that sometimes I just don't feel like updating and it ends up in a downward spiral of shame and not writing. Mainly, not writing.
So it's been a while, let's see what's happened. The semester wound down with a crazy term known as SWOT-VAC (study without teaching vacation) where all we do is study or feel guilty about not studying. I had several sessions over the week and a half where I was in a group til 11 or midnight, after starting in the morning. But I found a good group of people to study with and it made it much more tolerable (doing practice exams together, dinners, drinking wine and winding down towards the end).
A day before the exam, I went over to a friend's place to use his clippers to get my longish hair shorn. I was doing it myself and trimmed the front half first and jokingly showed them, "hey guys, check it out: the Jewish mullet!". They then offered me 20, then 30, then 40 dollars to keep it for the exam, the after parties, and the next day to show my mom. I obviously accepted. They then did a professional job making the front as short as possible, while keeping the back long. It was ridiculous, for sure.
The morning of the exam, I woke up at 5:30am and with a friend biked up Mt. Coottha, the local "mountain" near the heart of Brisbane. It's only about a 30 minute ride to the top from my home, so it's not that far. We wanted to get to the top for sunrise as a way of pumping ourselves up and working up an appetite so we could eat a good breakfast and not feel groggy for our 8am 3-hour exam. The sunrise was beautiful, especially as it was really really foggy and all you could see was a couple sky scrapers and the rest of the city looked like a cloud city. Quite beautiful. The ride down was also excellent (I reached 68kmph (42mph), my highest speed ever I think) and I was pumped for the exam.
The exam itself was quite ridiculous, as they usually are here. I could have spent the whole swot-vac at the beach and probably performed the same on the test. Some of the questions were basic enough that I needn't have done anything (name 2 reasons why melanoma screening is good, what are the components of the Glasgow coma score) and the other ones were so random that if I had studied 10x more than I had, I wouldn't have gotten them (how much glucose does a neonate need per hour to maintain base metabolism, what are 3 specific side effects of isoniazid (a drug for tuberculosis even though we didn't cover TB this year), if a 2 week old baby vomits 60cm, what condition does he have? (luckily I guessed pyloric stenosis)). Anyway, it was over and that was definitely the best part of it.
The craziness began soon after we handed in the exam. I, as per normal post-exam protocol, brought a strong gin'n'tonic in a bottle for immediately afterwards. We then moved on to the Uni bar. There for a bit, then sat outside in the sun with a carton, playing frisbee and hanging out. We then had a bit of a bike posse and went to the other side of the city to a lawn-bowling place right on the river where we drank and chilled, it being league session and us not being allowed to play. Afterwards to the city for drinks and games at a place called CyberCity 2002 (so futuristic!). They had the largest pool table I've ever seen. We brought another carton into there and I don't think paid a corkage charge. Oh well. Afterwards we went to a Chinese restaurant and had a late dinner. I then rode home with a friend (it had to have been illegal) and got home at 11:30. It was a huge day. I would have had about 20-25 drinks over the day and rode over 40km.
I had to wake up the next morning at 7 and go wait for my mom to get off the shuttle. This was easier said than done. After standing on the street (still with my ridiculous haircut, remember) for about an hour and a half, I figured something was off. Checked the internet and her flight was delayed - yay. She finally arrived a bit later, aghast with my hair but still happy to see me. She liked Brisbane a lot, I must say.
The next day, we flew up to Cairns - a city in northern Queensland that sucks but is a good gateway to the Great Barrier Reef and rainforests and other shit. We hired a car and drove north and entered the Daintree Rainforest. It was a beautiful place and quite unique: it's dense and lush forest that goes all the way up to the beach, where you have sand and then ocean and then great barrier reef. Lovely.
We stayed in a cute little place that was built within the forest. Very basic but very pretty and a good experience. 
We spent a couple days there hiking around and swimming etc. There is lots of wildlife there, ostensibly, but we didn't see much. We heard a lot of crazy noises at night, though. The place is famous for cassowaries, an emu-like bird that is really aggressive. We didn't see any, but that's fine because what we did see was the Cassowary plum. It's a fruit that somehow only the cassowary can eat without dying. It's completely blue and looks totally like some plastic man-made thing. I really wanted to try it but I was warned heaviy against it. 
Eventually headed back to Brisbane.
Now I'm back here and back in school. "Already?" you justifiably query? Yes. We have 1 week of winter vacation. At least we're starting our psychiatry block, which has seemed pretty cruisy so far. Just learning about drug and alcohol addiction, no big deal.
Jesus, I didn't know that!1
Well let's see... it's been a while since I've done this and I pretty much know everything by now. No, not true. Let's see...
Withdrawal symptoms of alcohol and other drugs produce a lot of side effects, some very serious. In fact, alcohol is the only drug that withdrawal of which can actually cause death! Pretty crazy. Some of the side effects of of withdrawal include shivering and goosebumps, leading to the phrase, "cold turkey", at least according to our lecturer.
Medical Word of the Post:
veisalgia - the pain associated the day after drinking alcohol heavily, aka hangover.
So it's been a while, let's see what's happened. The semester wound down with a crazy term known as SWOT-VAC (study without teaching vacation) where all we do is study or feel guilty about not studying. I had several sessions over the week and a half where I was in a group til 11 or midnight, after starting in the morning. But I found a good group of people to study with and it made it much more tolerable (doing practice exams together, dinners, drinking wine and winding down towards the end).
A day before the exam, I went over to a friend's place to use his clippers to get my longish hair shorn. I was doing it myself and trimmed the front half first and jokingly showed them, "hey guys, check it out: the Jewish mullet!". They then offered me 20, then 30, then 40 dollars to keep it for the exam, the after parties, and the next day to show my mom. I obviously accepted. They then did a professional job making the front as short as possible, while keeping the back long. It was ridiculous, for sure.
The morning of the exam, I woke up at 5:30am and with a friend biked up Mt. Coottha, the local "mountain" near the heart of Brisbane. It's only about a 30 minute ride to the top from my home, so it's not that far. We wanted to get to the top for sunrise as a way of pumping ourselves up and working up an appetite so we could eat a good breakfast and not feel groggy for our 8am 3-hour exam. The sunrise was beautiful, especially as it was really really foggy and all you could see was a couple sky scrapers and the rest of the city looked like a cloud city. Quite beautiful. The ride down was also excellent (I reached 68kmph (42mph), my highest speed ever I think) and I was pumped for the exam.The exam itself was quite ridiculous, as they usually are here. I could have spent the whole swot-vac at the beach and probably performed the same on the test. Some of the questions were basic enough that I needn't have done anything (name 2 reasons why melanoma screening is good, what are the components of the Glasgow coma score) and the other ones were so random that if I had studied 10x more than I had, I wouldn't have gotten them (how much glucose does a neonate need per hour to maintain base metabolism, what are 3 specific side effects of isoniazid (a drug for tuberculosis even though we didn't cover TB this year), if a 2 week old baby vomits 60cm, what condition does he have? (luckily I guessed pyloric stenosis)). Anyway, it was over and that was definitely the best part of it.
The craziness began soon after we handed in the exam. I, as per normal post-exam protocol, brought a strong gin'n'tonic in a bottle for immediately afterwards. We then moved on to the Uni bar. There for a bit, then sat outside in the sun with a carton, playing frisbee and hanging out. We then had a bit of a bike posse and went to the other side of the city to a lawn-bowling place right on the river where we drank and chilled, it being league session and us not being allowed to play. Afterwards to the city for drinks and games at a place called CyberCity 2002 (so futuristic!). They had the largest pool table I've ever seen. We brought another carton into there and I don't think paid a corkage charge. Oh well. Afterwards we went to a Chinese restaurant and had a late dinner. I then rode home with a friend (it had to have been illegal) and got home at 11:30. It was a huge day. I would have had about 20-25 drinks over the day and rode over 40km.
I had to wake up the next morning at 7 and go wait for my mom to get off the shuttle. This was easier said than done. After standing on the street (still with my ridiculous haircut, remember) for about an hour and a half, I figured something was off. Checked the internet and her flight was delayed - yay. She finally arrived a bit later, aghast with my hair but still happy to see me. She liked Brisbane a lot, I must say.
The next day, we flew up to Cairns - a city in northern Queensland that sucks but is a good gateway to the Great Barrier Reef and rainforests and other shit. We hired a car and drove north and entered the Daintree Rainforest. It was a beautiful place and quite unique: it's dense and lush forest that goes all the way up to the beach, where you have sand and then ocean and then great barrier reef. Lovely.
We stayed in a cute little place that was built within the forest. Very basic but very pretty and a good experience. 
We spent a couple days there hiking around and swimming etc. There is lots of wildlife there, ostensibly, but we didn't see much. We heard a lot of crazy noises at night, though. The place is famous for cassowaries, an emu-like bird that is really aggressive. We didn't see any, but that's fine because what we did see was the Cassowary plum. It's a fruit that somehow only the cassowary can eat without dying. It's completely blue and looks totally like some plastic man-made thing. I really wanted to try it but I was warned heaviy against it. 
Eventually headed back to Brisbane.
Now I'm back here and back in school. "Already?" you justifiably query? Yes. We have 1 week of winter vacation. At least we're starting our psychiatry block, which has seemed pretty cruisy so far. Just learning about drug and alcohol addiction, no big deal.Jesus, I didn't know that!1
Well let's see... it's been a while since I've done this and I pretty much know everything by now. No, not true. Let's see...
Withdrawal symptoms of alcohol and other drugs produce a lot of side effects, some very serious. In fact, alcohol is the only drug that withdrawal of which can actually cause death! Pretty crazy. Some of the side effects of of withdrawal include shivering and goosebumps, leading to the phrase, "cold turkey", at least according to our lecturer.
Medical Word of the Post:
veisalgia - the pain associated the day after drinking alcohol heavily, aka hangover.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Deconstructing Henlee
Hello trusty people, I am very sorry it's taken me so long to come up with something. I have been busy, true, and lazy, true, and behind the program.
I guess the real exciting thing going on is that I'm finally working a bit. Woo. My life used to be like this:
But now, I'm happy to say, your friend is looking at this kind of situation:
And how has something like this happened? Well, I've always done (little) and thought (lots) that I could just continue tutoring English to Koreans for a part-time job. I've got experience and skillz that make me a worthwhile tutor. The problem has been, however, in the lack of students in my life. Last year I tutored one (1) girl for a couple months and then she left. I'd tried advertising last year and more this year and just couldn't get anyone interested. My girlfriend had even advertised on websites for Koreans living in Brisbane (there are heaps!). Well one day, I decided to check out this so called website that she was using and saw there were definitely people looking for tutors. As it unraveled that she had been using a shite website and I had stumbled upon gold, we quickly posted an advertisement and the requests for tutoring poured in. I've had to deny more students than I could have dreamed of! (6). What I enjoyed almost as much as accepting offers and getting monies was reading the emails of people at various levels of English-bility.
So I guess that's it about the work-front. Everything else has been more or less the same. I went out with friends to a terrible Thai restaurant over a week ago and I'm still steaming about that. But I did get a free dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant last weekend (a friend has a credit card from her company and gets restaurant meals tax-deducted or something that I don't understand but don't argue with). Last night was the Ultimate Frisbee semi-finals. We lost by 1 point. Sad. But it wasn't my fault (normally it is) so I didn't care that much. I have a midyear exam in 2 weeks. Still cooking a lot. Etc.
Jesus, I didn't know that!1
Fistula. Just the word is gross, isn't it? What it is defined as is a communicating tract between two organs, essentially. It can be congenital or as a result of some disease process that you get. People with inflammatory bowel disease can get these, especially. You can get pretty much any kind of connection which, in a body that is pretty tightly regulated, can result in some bad stuff. You can get a gastrocolic fistula (gastro = stomach, colic = colon) which results in some pretty nasty breath. Can I interest you in a rectovesical fistula (recto = rectum, vesical = bladder)? You essentially shit and fart (fecouria and pnuemouria, respectively) out of your urethra. For the ladies, how 'bout a rectovulva fistula (vulva = vulva)? You can use your imagination for the kind of discharge that you get. Besides for being really gross, they can totally kill you, which some might say is worse than pooping out of your pee-hole.
Medical Word of the Post:
tenesmus = the feeling of incomplete evacuation after defecation.
I guess the real exciting thing going on is that I'm finally working a bit. Woo. My life used to be like this:
But now, I'm happy to say, your friend is looking at this kind of situation:
And how has something like this happened? Well, I've always done (little) and thought (lots) that I could just continue tutoring English to Koreans for a part-time job. I've got experience and skillz that make me a worthwhile tutor. The problem has been, however, in the lack of students in my life. Last year I tutored one (1) girl for a couple months and then she left. I'd tried advertising last year and more this year and just couldn't get anyone interested. My girlfriend had even advertised on websites for Koreans living in Brisbane (there are heaps!). Well one day, I decided to check out this so called website that she was using and saw there were definitely people looking for tutors. As it unraveled that she had been using a shite website and I had stumbled upon gold, we quickly posted an advertisement and the requests for tutoring poured in. I've had to deny more students than I could have dreamed of! (6). What I enjoyed almost as much as accepting offers and getting monies was reading the emails of people at various levels of English-bility.i`ve been iooking for tutor on sunbrisbane for weeks and i found your e-mail.Not too bad - this is the English level I like to teach... has some skill but definitely can improve. It translates to an easy gig for mineself.
but i don`t know..how much my english improved..especially i`m weak writing..
i left roughly a month for exam.
if it`s possible, can u send e-mail to me.
i wonder how much is an hour?
thanks for reading....
These guys may have had the English it takes... but that's about it. First of all, I wish I had the time to teach 5 times a week separately - But I don't. Also, teaching couples together is awesome because it's slightly less work for more money. Also, it's funny how they mention paying "less than $15 per hour" because that's approximately minimum wage in this country. I charge 25, baby.hiwe're korean couple.we're looking for a tutor.if you're available now, we wanna study with you 5 times a week seperated each other.but first, i have a question.if we will study with you, how much do we have to pay for you per hour?we're student so we can't afford to pay you lots of money.we wanna pay you less than $15 per hour if it's possible.if you're interested in our proposal, please contact us.(our proposal is negotiable a little bit)i hope to hear from you soon.
Hello~ ^-^
My name is aram Lee n I’m Korean.
I saw your advertisement on sun Brisbane.
I’m looking for tutor.
I wanna study about speaking n writting.
I finished upper-inter level in general English course before.
I want to be active talker who can speak very well about society n culture n politics.
Actually I have a casual job. So I can’t study at same time every week.
I can decide our time table once a week. Of course it’ll be decide with your agreement.
I wanna study 2~3 times a week. N I’m living south Brisbane. I wanna study near city or my place.
If you think I’m alright to be your student, please contact me with ur detail(pay n about you n…..)
I actually took on this student since she seemed to be after something a bit more interesting than the usual essay-help that I have to do. Chatting about intellectual stuff and learning good vocabulary and junk is good. Here's a forceful email:
Nope!HELLO THIS IS PHILIP FROM KOREA.
I SAW UR POST WHICH IS LOOKING FOR A STUDENT ON THE INTERNET.
I'M INTERESTED IN THAT.
I WAS JUST GONNA SAY THAT WHERE WE HAVE A CLASS AND HOW MUCH IT COSTS PER AN HOUR?
YOUR EMAIL REPLY WOULD BE MUCH APPRICIATED..
I know that that email was terrible, but I actually took these guys on for the aforementioned reasons of mo' money less work that comes with couples. They are nicer in real life.I`m looking for English tutor.
we are couple.
we want leaning english to you.
if you can teach us, call me plz
HiIELTS is a big exam that people have to take. It's a main focus for foreigners wanting to study at an English-speaking university. I didn't take on this student but I thought the email was cute.
Acutally, i need tutor because i wanna go to an university.
So i have to learn IELTS
Are you help me about i will pass IELTS
first of all i want that i can study English at over 7pm Mon to Thur
However, at the weekend, i can at 6pm
do you do that?
please help me
maybe The pay is $20 a week
Is it ok?
I included this one not because the English is necessarily funny but because the story kind of is. This guy's wife called my girlfriend immediately after I posed the advertisement (there were as many calls as emails) and, according to Hyeshin, was a bit rude. After we were informed that she lives far out of the city (zone 4 = bus/train zone in terms of distance and therefore fee) we told her that I was sorry but couldn't teach her son. So early the next morning I get this email from the husband, trying to be more polite and trying to sell me about how easy it is to get to their house. I'm sorry, Inki, but I am spoiled by my beautiful bicycle and how it takes me less than 10 minutes to get to the city where everyone else wants a class.Hello MichaelMy name is InkiI got information you are looking for English tutoring from internet site (actually my wife said to me about it)I need a English tutor (especially writing) for my son(year 8)Here are some details about my sonHis name is JasonKoreanHighschool student, year 8He has been studing here Australia a little over one yearWe live in a townhouse(Pedstow view) in Eight Mile Plains4 zone but very near to Bus HighWay, it takes about 25 minutes from cityand bus stop is infront of the town house( route 150)
So I guess that's it about the work-front. Everything else has been more or less the same. I went out with friends to a terrible Thai restaurant over a week ago and I'm still steaming about that. But I did get a free dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant last weekend (a friend has a credit card from her company and gets restaurant meals tax-deducted or something that I don't understand but don't argue with). Last night was the Ultimate Frisbee semi-finals. We lost by 1 point. Sad. But it wasn't my fault (normally it is) so I didn't care that much. I have a midyear exam in 2 weeks. Still cooking a lot. Etc.
Jesus, I didn't know that!1
Fistula. Just the word is gross, isn't it? What it is defined as is a communicating tract between two organs, essentially. It can be congenital or as a result of some disease process that you get. People with inflammatory bowel disease can get these, especially. You can get pretty much any kind of connection which, in a body that is pretty tightly regulated, can result in some bad stuff. You can get a gastrocolic fistula (gastro = stomach, colic = colon) which results in some pretty nasty breath. Can I interest you in a rectovesical fistula (recto = rectum, vesical = bladder)? You essentially shit and fart (fecouria and pnuemouria, respectively) out of your urethra. For the ladies, how 'bout a rectovulva fistula (vulva = vulva)? You can use your imagination for the kind of discharge that you get. Besides for being really gross, they can totally kill you, which some might say is worse than pooping out of your pee-hole.
Medical Word of the Post:
tenesmus = the feeling of incomplete evacuation after defecation.
Friday, May 2, 2008
Here Comes the Regular
Well well well. I see you have brought a seat. That's good.
Last weekend was good. Not just pretty good, but one of those weekends that makes you happy god invented weekends and the luxury of living in a country where your primary concern isn't finding clean water and food for the day. I went to the beach.
Friday was ANZAC day, which means that a bunch of people died. However, it also means that I didn't have to go to school. 4 friends and I piled into a car at 4am and headed out to climb the beautifully titled Mt. Beerwah. It was a tough little climb, I'll say. Like rock-climbing on a slope, about 75degrees, we'll say. That meant that if you were fast and skilled you could run up, but slow and trepidatious meant climbing. It was fairly challenging but I was still better than the girls in the group, so it was just the right level of work for me.
We got to the top and had a picnic. Ben, the guy leading the walk and the driver, had brought a large thermos of hot tea, as well as 2 baguettes, several tomatoes, and three kinds of cheese! It was possibly the best sandwich of my life, aided by the sunrise, blue sky, good company, and satisfying climb. We came down. The rock uppity bit was much worse coming down, actually, since you have to semi-slide and be on all fours (crab). We hightailed it to the beach afterwards and had a great swim. Lunch. Then went and drove around a bit, had some beer at a pub on top of a beautiful hill looking out over the bush country (not Bush country) and the ocean in the distance and then went to Ben's mate's place. This guy has a cool expansive house on top of a hill right in the bush, with lots of fruits and vegetables growing around and a great view from his dining room table. More beers and relaxation. Finally came home around 7 and then I went straight to a different friend's house for dinner, came home around 10 completely exhausted and slept, beautifully.
Saturday was markets, as usual, and then a bit of study. At night there was a birthday dinner.
Sunday I woke up at 9 with a text message saying, "I'm going to the beach in 15 minutes, wanna come?". Aw, hell yes. See, while Brisbane is technically on the east coast of Australia, it's not on the beach. It's about 30km inland from the ocean, but the area all around is industrialised, as ports tend to be, and not beachy. The nearest beach is about an hour drive in either direction, so it's not like I get to go very often. So I jumped, broke my fast, packed a bathing suit and hopped outside and leaped into the car. Went back to the beach and swam for a long while, met up with some people, had some lunch and beers and hung out, then back to the beach. We even brought text books so we could study on the sand. How cute, I know. On the way back, we listened to a pre-recorded lecture in the car and discussed the relevant points. (this is to show that life here isn't all beachy keen, but we do study)
The week flew by. Tuesday I had a study-session until 11:30pm, capping off a very full day. Wednesday I had a meeting with a Korean girl who found my flyer offering English-tutoring services and she's going to hire me. Yay - now I have 2hrs/week of work! That should keep me out of the poor house. Afterwards I had a study-session, then class, and then some ultimate frisbee. Another packed day. But as they say, busy days make merry mays, or something. Thursday was another full day, capped off with dinner with Ben, 2 bottles of wine, and studying lung cancer.
So that brings us to today. Wow, the week flies, don't it? Earlier today we had a practical session where we learned how to cannulate (that's when you put the tube in a vein so you have access to it while in the hospital for putting in fluids, antibiotics, blood, etc). Unfortunately it was on a dummy arm (1500$ an arm) but we were told we can go and practice on real people if we want, so I will. Then we had an ethics symposium on Self-Induced Disease. I find this area terribly interesting (no sarcasm). A person chooses to smoke and does so for many years. They have lung cancer. Who pays for the surgery (20,000$) or the treatment (10,000$) or the transplant (100,000$)? This is much more relevant here in Aus where they have a good health care system where the government supports, obviously, but the key issue is still important. Logic may dictate that a person has personal responsibility and therefore pay out-of-pocket for all health care problems arising from their decisions. However, it is often impossible to separate the cause-and-effect course of disease from the ever-strong role that genetics and environment plays. Sure, more than 90% of all lung cancers are in smokers, but there are plenty of smokers who don't get it. Emphysema is almost solely tobacco-related and induced, but there is a population which a certain genetic deficiency that makes them much more predisposed to developing emphysema. Except they usually smoke to.
So there's obviously no answer.
In the symposium I posited the following, "one can argue that pregnancy is a medical condition that is self-induced, and that pregnancy and child-birth etc. is an expensive ordeal; someone who has no kids might be upset that her taxes pay for someone else to have 8 kids; however, if we tried to establish that people should pay for their deliveries or set a limit or something, there would be a public uproar. What's the big difference, ethically speaking?" I got some chuckles and, more importantly, the lecturer said it was a good point. There is an interesting additional facet to this whole debate in regards to popularity and common opinion. Lung cancer is Evil and Babies are Good. Sport injuries have the same dynamics: a person who brakes their leg on the football field is playing the game and it's a terrible shame; a person who detaches their retina bungee jumping is a damn idiot who deserved it. What's the difference?
I guess the problem (beauty?) with ethics is that there is no clear-cut solution and all you can do is think about it. I know I've been constantly flipping and flopping ideas on both sides of the fence . I think this is as relevant and more interesting in terms of obesity. These days, a person who goes up to a smoker and tells them they're killing themselves is a little outlandish, but it's okay. If I went up to a large person waiting at an elevator and told them that they should take the stairs (which I so often want to do), I would be labeled as a prejudiced person and a bastard at that. So what do we do?
Jesus, I didn't know that!1
So, cigarette smoking has been the soup de jour of the last couple weeks, as it were. There are several different kinds of lung cancer: squamous cell, small cell, large cell, adenocarcinoma, etc. Anyway, up until now squamous and small cell have been the most common but now adenocarcinoma has come up on the rise. What's funny is that this is a more peripheral (ie edge of lungs as opposed to center like the other cancers) cancer and that it is arising much more strikingly in women. The reason? Those low-tar ciggies that are touted as being healthier deliver less of a buzz, obviously, and so people inhale deeper and so the smoke gets farther downstream in the lungs and produces a cancer at the edges. Ha! You can't avoid it, suckas.
In terms of smoking cessation and its effect on the progress of the cancer, the relationship is so linear it seems designed by up above: good research shows that people who quit smoking at a certain point in their lives are at the same risk level as others who quit smoking at the same time and that the risk difference (between quitters and continue-ers) narrows the later in life one quits; additionally, people who smoke less instead of quitting have a proportional decrease in risk: smoke half as much as normal and your risk halves, but guess what? Your risk is still there and much higher than someone not smoking. Lose again!
To discuss exactly how smoking causes all these problems is a task much to great and arduous for a simple blogger like myself, so I will allow you to do research as you wish.
Last weekend was good. Not just pretty good, but one of those weekends that makes you happy god invented weekends and the luxury of living in a country where your primary concern isn't finding clean water and food for the day. I went to the beach.
Friday was ANZAC day, which means that a bunch of people died. However, it also means that I didn't have to go to school. 4 friends and I piled into a car at 4am and headed out to climb the beautifully titled Mt. Beerwah. It was a tough little climb, I'll say. Like rock-climbing on a slope, about 75degrees, we'll say. That meant that if you were fast and skilled you could run up, but slow and trepidatious meant climbing. It was fairly challenging but I was still better than the girls in the group, so it was just the right level of work for me.
We got to the top and had a picnic. Ben, the guy leading the walk and the driver, had brought a large thermos of hot tea, as well as 2 baguettes, several tomatoes, and three kinds of cheese! It was possibly the best sandwich of my life, aided by the sunrise, blue sky, good company, and satisfying climb. We came down. The rock uppity bit was much worse coming down, actually, since you have to semi-slide and be on all fours (crab). We hightailed it to the beach afterwards and had a great swim. Lunch. Then went and drove around a bit, had some beer at a pub on top of a beautiful hill looking out over the bush country (not Bush country) and the ocean in the distance and then went to Ben's mate's place. This guy has a cool expansive house on top of a hill right in the bush, with lots of fruits and vegetables growing around and a great view from his dining room table. More beers and relaxation. Finally came home around 7 and then I went straight to a different friend's house for dinner, came home around 10 completely exhausted and slept, beautifully.
Saturday was markets, as usual, and then a bit of study. At night there was a birthday dinner.
Sunday I woke up at 9 with a text message saying, "I'm going to the beach in 15 minutes, wanna come?". Aw, hell yes. See, while Brisbane is technically on the east coast of Australia, it's not on the beach. It's about 30km inland from the ocean, but the area all around is industrialised, as ports tend to be, and not beachy. The nearest beach is about an hour drive in either direction, so it's not like I get to go very often. So I jumped, broke my fast, packed a bathing suit and hopped outside and leaped into the car. Went back to the beach and swam for a long while, met up with some people, had some lunch and beers and hung out, then back to the beach. We even brought text books so we could study on the sand. How cute, I know. On the way back, we listened to a pre-recorded lecture in the car and discussed the relevant points. (this is to show that life here isn't all beachy keen, but we do study)
The week flew by. Tuesday I had a study-session until 11:30pm, capping off a very full day. Wednesday I had a meeting with a Korean girl who found my flyer offering English-tutoring services and she's going to hire me. Yay - now I have 2hrs/week of work! That should keep me out of the poor house. Afterwards I had a study-session, then class, and then some ultimate frisbee. Another packed day. But as they say, busy days make merry mays, or something. Thursday was another full day, capped off with dinner with Ben, 2 bottles of wine, and studying lung cancer.
So that brings us to today. Wow, the week flies, don't it? Earlier today we had a practical session where we learned how to cannulate (that's when you put the tube in a vein so you have access to it while in the hospital for putting in fluids, antibiotics, blood, etc). Unfortunately it was on a dummy arm (1500$ an arm) but we were told we can go and practice on real people if we want, so I will. Then we had an ethics symposium on Self-Induced Disease. I find this area terribly interesting (no sarcasm). A person chooses to smoke and does so for many years. They have lung cancer. Who pays for the surgery (20,000$) or the treatment (10,000$) or the transplant (100,000$)? This is much more relevant here in Aus where they have a good health care system where the government supports, obviously, but the key issue is still important. Logic may dictate that a person has personal responsibility and therefore pay out-of-pocket for all health care problems arising from their decisions. However, it is often impossible to separate the cause-and-effect course of disease from the ever-strong role that genetics and environment plays. Sure, more than 90% of all lung cancers are in smokers, but there are plenty of smokers who don't get it. Emphysema is almost solely tobacco-related and induced, but there is a population which a certain genetic deficiency that makes them much more predisposed to developing emphysema. Except they usually smoke to.
So there's obviously no answer.
In the symposium I posited the following, "one can argue that pregnancy is a medical condition that is self-induced, and that pregnancy and child-birth etc. is an expensive ordeal; someone who has no kids might be upset that her taxes pay for someone else to have 8 kids; however, if we tried to establish that people should pay for their deliveries or set a limit or something, there would be a public uproar. What's the big difference, ethically speaking?" I got some chuckles and, more importantly, the lecturer said it was a good point. There is an interesting additional facet to this whole debate in regards to popularity and common opinion. Lung cancer is Evil and Babies are Good. Sport injuries have the same dynamics: a person who brakes their leg on the football field is playing the game and it's a terrible shame; a person who detaches their retina bungee jumping is a damn idiot who deserved it. What's the difference?
I guess the problem (beauty?) with ethics is that there is no clear-cut solution and all you can do is think about it. I know I've been constantly flipping and flopping ideas on both sides of the fence . I think this is as relevant and more interesting in terms of obesity. These days, a person who goes up to a smoker and tells them they're killing themselves is a little outlandish, but it's okay. If I went up to a large person waiting at an elevator and told them that they should take the stairs (which I so often want to do), I would be labeled as a prejudiced person and a bastard at that. So what do we do?
Jesus, I didn't know that!1
So, cigarette smoking has been the soup de jour of the last couple weeks, as it were. There are several different kinds of lung cancer: squamous cell, small cell, large cell, adenocarcinoma, etc. Anyway, up until now squamous and small cell have been the most common but now adenocarcinoma has come up on the rise. What's funny is that this is a more peripheral (ie edge of lungs as opposed to center like the other cancers) cancer and that it is arising much more strikingly in women. The reason? Those low-tar ciggies that are touted as being healthier deliver less of a buzz, obviously, and so people inhale deeper and so the smoke gets farther downstream in the lungs and produces a cancer at the edges. Ha! You can't avoid it, suckas.
In terms of smoking cessation and its effect on the progress of the cancer, the relationship is so linear it seems designed by up above: good research shows that people who quit smoking at a certain point in their lives are at the same risk level as others who quit smoking at the same time and that the risk difference (between quitters and continue-ers) narrows the later in life one quits; additionally, people who smoke less instead of quitting have a proportional decrease in risk: smoke half as much as normal and your risk halves, but guess what? Your risk is still there and much higher than someone not smoking. Lose again!
To discuss exactly how smoking causes all these problems is a task much to great and arduous for a simple blogger like myself, so I will allow you to do research as you wish.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
No, not an animal...
I was walking in the markets with a friend last Saturday. I was enjoying it as per normal, meaning liking it and hating everyone who even minutely made it worse for me. A lot of people bring their dogs and it's pretty annoying: it's crowded and narrow-walkways and a dog on a leash makes the traffic build up like crazy. We were walking behind a woman with her dog and I whispered to my friend, "ugh, I hate it when people bring their dogs to the market!"
*sometimes, in a crowded and loud area, there's a point where somehow all other sounds die. at this moment, a whisper seems to travel like an arrow straight into the auricle of another person, heard as clear as a bell*
She turns around, face pre-set to livid. The following exchange takes place:
Crazy woman, "you don't think I should bring my dog here?!!?!? they're allowed here!!
Me, "I know they are, but I think it's a little annoying"
CW, "why can't I bring my dog here?? dogs aren't allowed anywhere!"
M, "actually, they are..."
CW, "you know what? you're an animalist!"
My friend, "okay, guys, things were said, let's just cool down"
M, "okay, whatever"
CW, "you know who shouldn't be allowed in the markets?! immigrants! immigrants like you!"
M, "oh really? your family is originally from Australia right? all your ancestors originally came for Australia?"
CW, "you know what? you're an ignoramus!!"
M, "okay, whatever. bye"
as we're walking away, my friend says, "good job, michael. you had to pick a fight with the only person at this market who's a huge dickhead."
The woman was left behind literally shaking in anger, with her boyfriend holding her and trying to calm her down.
Some notes that only make me happier:
-My friend is a professional mediator so she was good about stepping up. The woman was with a boyfriend (or husband or something) and he didn't say peep!
-I remained calm the whole time. I didn't shout or anything to give her the satisfaction
-My response about her not being originally from Aus. was pretty awesome - I'm quite proud of it. It's a bit of a touchy subject with Australians and it's one of those things that you usually think of 5 minutes later when you replay the conversation in your head.
Otherwise, things have been pretty good. It's autumn here and getting a bit chilly, but quite beautiful. The mornings are so blue and clear and nice. School is full on. Let me talk a bit about school these days, as I haven't mentioned anything this new year. 2nd year is much more intense: it's much more focused on pathology but we're still learning new basic things everyday. In addition, we're supposed to know everything we learned last year and it's just a lot of shit. The other big difference is clinical experience. Last year our clinical coaching (once a week thing where you learn how to do physical exams) was mainly on each other. This year we go around and poke and prod on real patients with real problems and actually get to see stuff. In addition, we're expected to go around on our own once a week and talk to a patient and get a full history and do a bit of physical examination as well. I do like it, I must declare. Talking to a person under that kind of context is quite a unique experience: someone you've never seen before and most likely will never see will tell you about their pains, their depression, their bowel habits, their marriage, their addictions, the problems they have. All while they're sitting in bed, bored and sick and in hospital attire, and you're in a chair dressed up. It's a bit enjoyable, even when the person has hard stuff to talk about, and makes me think that maybe I am going into the right field. Woo!
Jesus, I didn't know that!1
Well, I kind of suspected, but it's good to know. A lot of people are really into the whole "antioxidants, d00d, they totally heal your body!" fad that has spread like wildfire, supplying people with the easy false hope they crave and depleting their cash (according to the BBC, the vitamin-supplement market is around $2.5 billion). Well, a Cochrane review article came out saying that there's no proof that anti-oxidants are helpful for sick or healthy people. They can even increase mortality! Ha! Now, this isn't some news article or even a journal article but a meta-analysis review which, from a statistical perspective, is as close to dogma as it gets. The review looked at 67 randomized trials with a total of over 220,000 patients to get to this conclusion. Cochrane.org is an awesome website that I go to to search for scienticious stuff and I recommend dabbling around in it yourselves: it's free and they usually include a "plain language summary" in their reviews. So what? just eat well, people, that's it! Sheesh!
*sometimes, in a crowded and loud area, there's a point where somehow all other sounds die. at this moment, a whisper seems to travel like an arrow straight into the auricle of another person, heard as clear as a bell*
She turns around, face pre-set to livid. The following exchange takes place:
Crazy woman, "you don't think I should bring my dog here?!!?!? they're allowed here!!
Me, "I know they are, but I think it's a little annoying"
CW, "why can't I bring my dog here?? dogs aren't allowed anywhere!"
M, "actually, they are..."
CW, "you know what? you're an animalist!"
My friend, "okay, guys, things were said, let's just cool down"
M, "okay, whatever"
CW, "you know who shouldn't be allowed in the markets?! immigrants! immigrants like you!"
M, "oh really? your family is originally from Australia right? all your ancestors originally came for Australia?"
CW, "you know what? you're an ignoramus!!"
M, "okay, whatever. bye"
as we're walking away, my friend says, "good job, michael. you had to pick a fight with the only person at this market who's a huge dickhead."
The woman was left behind literally shaking in anger, with her boyfriend holding her and trying to calm her down.
Some notes that only make me happier:
-My friend is a professional mediator so she was good about stepping up. The woman was with a boyfriend (or husband or something) and he didn't say peep!
-I remained calm the whole time. I didn't shout or anything to give her the satisfaction
-My response about her not being originally from Aus. was pretty awesome - I'm quite proud of it. It's a bit of a touchy subject with Australians and it's one of those things that you usually think of 5 minutes later when you replay the conversation in your head.
Otherwise, things have been pretty good. It's autumn here and getting a bit chilly, but quite beautiful. The mornings are so blue and clear and nice. School is full on. Let me talk a bit about school these days, as I haven't mentioned anything this new year. 2nd year is much more intense: it's much more focused on pathology but we're still learning new basic things everyday. In addition, we're supposed to know everything we learned last year and it's just a lot of shit. The other big difference is clinical experience. Last year our clinical coaching (once a week thing where you learn how to do physical exams) was mainly on each other. This year we go around and poke and prod on real patients with real problems and actually get to see stuff. In addition, we're expected to go around on our own once a week and talk to a patient and get a full history and do a bit of physical examination as well. I do like it, I must declare. Talking to a person under that kind of context is quite a unique experience: someone you've never seen before and most likely will never see will tell you about their pains, their depression, their bowel habits, their marriage, their addictions, the problems they have. All while they're sitting in bed, bored and sick and in hospital attire, and you're in a chair dressed up. It's a bit enjoyable, even when the person has hard stuff to talk about, and makes me think that maybe I am going into the right field. Woo!
Jesus, I didn't know that!1
Well, I kind of suspected, but it's good to know. A lot of people are really into the whole "antioxidants, d00d, they totally heal your body!" fad that has spread like wildfire, supplying people with the easy false hope they crave and depleting their cash (according to the BBC, the vitamin-supplement market is around $2.5 billion). Well, a Cochrane review article came out saying that there's no proof that anti-oxidants are helpful for sick or healthy people. They can even increase mortality! Ha! Now, this isn't some news article or even a journal article but a meta-analysis review which, from a statistical perspective, is as close to dogma as it gets. The review looked at 67 randomized trials with a total of over 220,000 patients to get to this conclusion. Cochrane.org is an awesome website that I go to to search for scienticious stuff and I recommend dabbling around in it yourselves: it's free and they usually include a "plain language summary" in their reviews. So what? just eat well, people, that's it! Sheesh!
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Scared Straight
I woke up at 4:11 this morning feeling not right. As I walked to the bathroom (because that's where you go when things don't feel right) I realized that it was quiet... a little too quiet. I recently moved to a house near the train line and it is quite loud at night and especially in the mornings. As a way to counter that, my girlfriend bought me some earplugs - little guys I'm only just getting used to. I've taken to cramming them in pretty well since they inevitably course their way out overnight, rolling to cerumen-less pastures no doubt. As I sleepily padded to the bathroom, I made to take out my plugs and found that they weren't there. Or, at least, they weren't poking out or on the bottom of my floor, where I normally find them. As sleep quickly drifted off me I realized that they were ALL UP IN MY SHIT. I could barely finger the polypropylethelene border preventing me from being woken up by loud noises and I started to panic. I did what any normal person would do and went to the kitchen. I got some chopsticks and a toothpick. I then went back to the bathroom to try to extrude the foreign bodies. My second attempt with the toothpick came up with a bit of bloody stain - Ohohs! I forced myself to sit down, breath a bit, and have some cold water. After a bit of more-awake and more-worried digging, I managed to slice off a piece of the bud, at least letting me be sure that I wasn't crazy and I did have these things inside me. I finally got one out, breathed some relief, and noticed the hard rain coming down. I managed to get the other one out a couple minutes later and went back to bed. As I was lying there, I was wondering where it all went wrong. Warning, it may get a little nerdy here. Normally, there's a bit of air left in between the ear drum and the ear bud. As the air is being smashed in there behind the plug, it is under high pressure. The middle ear is connected to your mouth via the pharyngotympano tube and it is this tube that allows you to "equalize" or "pop" your ears on an aeroplane. So over the course of the night, I would have equalized several times, slightly, without knowing it. So what? Well it was raining quite hard and I seemed to remember from The How, Why and Huh? Book of Weather that rain = low pressure systems. Pressure likes to move from high to low and I wonder if the difference across my ear drum (really, the tympanic membrane... pretty thin) was pretty great, drawing all the pressure from behind my ear drum inside, trying to escape, created a vacuum that squashed and trapped the ear bud inside. This is what I was thinking about at 4:30 am, trying to go back to sleep.
So what?
So what?
So I realized it was time to start blogging again. I've shirked responsibility - neglected my duties out of fear or desire to not catch up. And much like the plagiarizers curse, it all catches up with you. I've done a lot since I last reported - I cannot lie. I been to several cities, countries, airports, restaurants and hung out with a lot of people. But the difference between me and a regular ol' plagiarizer is that I don't have academic culpability. I don't need to play catch up with you, my loyal blogging republic. Huzah! Maybe I'll just put up a couple of piccies to quell your hunger for things past for the time being. That's the coward's way out. But also the efficient man's.
We should be back to normal soon enough. Cheers!
Jesus, I didn't know that!1
Very brief: apparently smoking as little as 1 cigarette every 5 days increases risk for cardiovascular disease and whatnot. That's the amount that a person gets in 2nd hand smoke if they live with someone who smokes 10 cigs a day.
We should be back to normal soon enough. Cheers!Jesus, I didn't know that!1
Very brief: apparently smoking as little as 1 cigarette every 5 days increases risk for cardiovascular disease and whatnot. That's the amount that a person gets in 2nd hand smoke if they live with someone who smokes 10 cigs a day.
Saturday, November 24, 2007
Wrap up
Like most things in, my time in Nepal had to end. Right now I´m too tired from flying to pontificate as eloquently as I normally do, so I will just highlight.
- We went to a Bollywood film. We were prepared for something insanely ridiculous and were disappointed, since the movie we saw was so good. Om Shanti Om: a tale of love, revenge, reincarnation, and movies. It was very well done, the songs were great, the leads were hot, the plot was original and good. Even though it was in Hindi with no subtitles, we are able to follow it quite well. There was an interval in the middle so we duck into the restaurant next door and grab some momos for 50 cents and then hop back in. Also was great was how every so often the video would dim and then go black and then all the people in the audience would hoot and whistle and it would come back.
- Our 2nd to last day we didn´t have to go to the hospital, so we woke up early and rented a row boat to go out on the lake that stakes its claim in Pokhara. The lake was just beautiful: reflections of mountains, mist clearing off... so nice
On the other side of the lake, we climbed up and got great views of the Himalayan range in the background. 
Also we met some local kids who invited us to a picnic. Sadly, we couldn´t attend as we had plans with the group for some late-afternoon decadence. Since it was our last day, we decided to treat ourselves to a buffet/day pass at a posh resort. We rented bicycles and rode there, which was also a great experience. I was a little mad I´d never goten around to renting a bicycle and cruising around, since it´s so fun. 10$ bought us all we could eat of decent food, as well as fool access to pool and, more importantly, sauna. We spent the whole day there. That last night we were blessed with a full moon that rose at sunset and was as pink as everything else.
-I had to return to Kathmandu to catch my flights to Buenos Aires, so I took a bus, forgoing the more expensive plane I had taken to Pokhara initially. The bus ride was abour 200-250 km and took almost 8 hours. Pretty amazing, huh? The roads are not, how you say, good over there. Arrived in Kathmandu in the afternoon and did some leg work until I found a room for under 3$. I spent the next day gleefully enjoying being on my own, since I could do and, more important, eat whatever I want. Street momos? Check check and check. I stopped in a little fruit stall and had a freshly squeezed mug of pomegranite and sweet lemon juice, which was out of this world. I also walked quite a bit.
-My last evening I met up with a girl from my program who was doing her hospital work in Kathmandu and at the same time living in an orphanage. I visited the place and it was pretty amazing. The kids were great and cute but the conditions of the place were... well, what you´d expect at a 3rd world orphanage. Perhaps better. We helped them do homework, hung out, had dinner, and then, the best part: activity time. All the kids (77) gather in a room and sit down and do a couple minutes of chanting and then 10 minutes of silent meditation. It was soooooo cute, all these kids sitting cross legged, eyes closed, just thinking to themselves. Since they´re little, some of them started drifting off to sleep and then catching themselves and jarring back up. Also, since it was winter and resipiratory illness season, there was a consistent sound of sniffling about. After meditation, was public speaking. About 7 or 8 kids (pre-arranged) had to get up and tell a joke, a story, or sing a song. This is to maintain confidence and outgoingness and whatnot to enhance social interactions.
- We went to a Bollywood film. We were prepared for something insanely ridiculous and were disappointed, since the movie we saw was so good. Om Shanti Om: a tale of love, revenge, reincarnation, and movies. It was very well done, the songs were great, the leads were hot, the plot was original and good. Even though it was in Hindi with no subtitles, we are able to follow it quite well. There was an interval in the middle so we duck into the restaurant next door and grab some momos for 50 cents and then hop back in. Also was great was how every so often the video would dim and then go black and then all the people in the audience would hoot and whistle and it would come back.
- Our 2nd to last day we didn´t have to go to the hospital, so we woke up early and rented a row boat to go out on the lake that stakes its claim in Pokhara. The lake was just beautiful: reflections of mountains, mist clearing off... so nice
On the other side of the lake, we climbed up and got great views of the Himalayan range in the background. Also we met some local kids who invited us to a picnic. Sadly, we couldn´t attend as we had plans with the group for some late-afternoon decadence. Since it was our last day, we decided to treat ourselves to a buffet/day pass at a posh resort. We rented bicycles and rode there, which was also a great experience. I was a little mad I´d never goten around to renting a bicycle and cruising around, since it´s so fun. 10$ bought us all we could eat of decent food, as well as fool access to pool and, more importantly, sauna. We spent the whole day there. That last night we were blessed with a full moon that rose at sunset and was as pink as everything else.-I had to return to Kathmandu to catch my flights to Buenos Aires, so I took a bus, forgoing the more expensive plane I had taken to Pokhara initially. The bus ride was abour 200-250 km and took almost 8 hours. Pretty amazing, huh? The roads are not, how you say, good over there. Arrived in Kathmandu in the afternoon and did some leg work until I found a room for under 3$. I spent the next day gleefully enjoying being on my own, since I could do and, more important, eat whatever I want. Street momos? Check check and check. I stopped in a little fruit stall and had a freshly squeezed mug of pomegranite and sweet lemon juice, which was out of this world. I also walked quite a bit.
-My last evening I met up with a girl from my program who was doing her hospital work in Kathmandu and at the same time living in an orphanage. I visited the place and it was pretty amazing. The kids were great and cute but the conditions of the place were... well, what you´d expect at a 3rd world orphanage. Perhaps better. We helped them do homework, hung out, had dinner, and then, the best part: activity time. All the kids (77) gather in a room and sit down and do a couple minutes of chanting and then 10 minutes of silent meditation. It was soooooo cute, all these kids sitting cross legged, eyes closed, just thinking to themselves. Since they´re little, some of them started drifting off to sleep and then catching themselves and jarring back up. Also, since it was winter and resipiratory illness season, there was a consistent sound of sniffling about. After meditation, was public speaking. About 7 or 8 kids (pre-arranged) had to get up and tell a joke, a story, or sing a song. This is to maintain confidence and outgoingness and whatnot to enhance social interactions.
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