‽

This blog has become a dumping zone and a place where much negativity lingers. I made a new blog elsewhere, as a new start and also for me to focus on the “reflective writing” aspect of it rather than pure negativity+other emotions that people would not enjoy reading.

Just going to find a way to save all these posts...

There are a couple of friends who I am still finding really, really hard to approach. They were the ones who for the past two years I considered as my closest friends, but I guess that feeling was never really mutual.

I’m not sure where to start. I’m not sure what to think of this half-semester, and even now I am clouded with a lot of differing thoughts.

I got to see my first ever patients in the hospital. I remember seeing my first patient and being overly emotional about it, because I got to have a glimpse of the boundary between being a friend, and being a professional. I even made a facebook status about it that generated a lot more attention than I had intended; it even ended up being mocked in the ND (New Doctor aka No Decency – our med school magazine)! But after getting over that (along with the feeling that we were not yet worthy of walking around the hospital with our stethoscopes around our necks), talking to patients and learning how to report back to the consultant in a concise, efficient manner was really enjoyable and even rewarding. I met a patient who started crying every 15 minutes, I talked with a patient in an isolation room who was vomiting in a bucket as I walked in, I met a difficult patient who wouldn’t say anything more that “I’m sick”, and having been allocated to the renal ward for the semester, I met many patients who were on haemodialysis. Going home with friends and talking about the patient each one of us saw that day was also a great way to end the weekly routine. I am definitely looking forward to next year, when I begin my clinical years.

Alongside this were all the assessments we had to go through – the observed history, where we were assessed on how well we interview a patient. The OSCE (Observed structured clinical examination), which tested us on skills like taking blood pressure, feeling for the liver and percussing the chest. The portfolio, where we had to do a LOT of reflective writing. The exams for the “modules” we learnt this year, such as the blood and immune system, head and neck anatomy, and the nervous system. As stressful as it was, I got through most of it alright.

SGAs (Small group activities – last year was more about talking about our week and learning meditation techniques, but this year was much more structured and focused on professional and clinical skills) were also really enjoyable, and I somehow ended up being allocated in a group with a lot of my friends.

Oh and I had to be on crutches for a few weeks because in mid-October I badly sprained my ankle.I sprained it in an unsual way as well – I was playing bumper ball soccer! I was bumped into while I was in mid-air, making me land badly. This was only 2 minutes in, so I didn’t get to play much at all. I must have been really clumsy because I was told that this was the first accident they had in months!

From this I also learned the importance of being clearly informed. When I went into emergency and took a few x-rays, the doctor simply told me that “it’s not broken”. I was expecting him to say more, but that was pretty much all he said. He then asked me if I wanted crutches, and that made me really confused. I don’t know… shouldn’t you be the one telling me if I need crutches or not? It was nurse who ended up telling me that it was sprained, and that I should see a physiotherapist. Regardless, I was really clueless at the time.

My mum was adamant that I go see an acupuncturist rather than a physiotherapist (I realised she is quite an acupuncture advocate), so that was what I did. When I went, the acupuncturist started off by saying “nobody knows how acupuncture heals a person”. That wasn’t exactly the best thing to hear... When I asked how long it would take for my ankle to heal, she didn’t answer the question. Instead she started talking about how all her patients get healed with her acupuncture skills within days. It seemed like she was offended that I asked that question.

Because I wasn't noticing any difference, and my ankle was still really swollen, I stopped going after the second visit and tried physiotherapy instead. In my first visit there, the physiotherapist told me what was going on, which ligaments were affected, what I can and can’t do, and how long it might take to heal. This made me feel so much better and made me regret not having gone to see this person earlier. The sense of reassurance in itself made me keep coming back.

Being on crutches wasn’t as fun as I always pictured it to be. It was a lot more difficult that I thought to have good control, it woke up each morning with heavy pain in my wrists (but I got a good pectoral workout), and getting around uni was a bit of a challenge. It allowed me to have a lot of interesting conversations with a wide range of people though (seems like there are quite a few people who have been on crutches before), and I even got special treatment here and there - for example the bus driver would lower the bus so that I could get on easier. Yeah, that was pretty nice.

Unfortunately it’s still not fully healed, but hopefully I’ll be able to get back into running. One of my goals is to complete a half marathon by the end of next year, and I would love to be able to start working towards that again soon.

And then there are the other random stuff I got up to during or outside of med school:

Tried out gymming... 

Got to practice IV cannulation for the first time

Had a taste of the Whittaker's Lewis Road chocolate milk. This is a huuuge thing in New Zealand at the moment, and even now there are queues in the supermarket just to get a bottle. It's actually pretty good, it's really rich in chocolate, and although it's thin it still has quite a creamy texture? I don't know how to explain it I just liked it is all

My name is Jarrel

Scarmbled tofu. Putting this on my blog because that was some pretty good sh*t

And was a part of the MHSSSO Charity concert this year too

But of course, along with the good moments, there were also the not-so-good moments.

There was the slight depression I felt because the med school system was pushing us too much towards secondary and tertiary care, and putting such little focus on the primary interventions. The fear of being tied down – to what, I still can’t really explain. The thought that we are doing all this to choose a specialty, work our way up to a consultant position, seeing interesting patients in the process, and settling down. There must be more to being a doctor than that?

Then there were the more personal aspects. I loved too much and was hurt in the process. I loved too little and hurt others. I was pushed around and was then blamed for it. Whether it was in a professional team or among friends, I often felt neglected and unworthy. All because, as much as I thought I had, I have not yet learned how to speak up, I have not yet learned how to do things for myself, and I have not yet learned how to love myself. If anything, this is something that really worries me about entering the clinical years. How well will I be able to cope with all the different situations I will come across?

I do not yet know how to apply the concept of letting go. I didn’t know how to let go of my first patients. I don’t know how to let go of past mistakes and shortcomings. I don’t know how to let go of people I love, in order to protect myself.

10/08/14

AUMSA (Auckland University Medical Students’ Association) held its second ever student run conference on the 26-27th July.

I had the opportunity to be a part of the Conference team as an Academic Officer. This role involved organising everything related to the academic programme of the conference, with a theme of global health and making a difference. This meant contacting potential speakers from all over the world, asking if they could give us a story to inspire the medical students. I was honoured to be able to talk to people like Dr William Tan, Dr Dinesh Deonarain, and Jeph Mathias who spoke via video-conference from the Himalayas. He even dedicated a story to me! (Watch his talk here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHR_dZaZO-Q)

From what I know, it was almost 12 months of preparation for the conference. The time was full of meetings, sending hundreds of emails and trying to meet lots of deadlines. The team was also quite big, consisting of 14 members (the different roles were split among quite a few people due to the workload of med) but seeing every member work so hard together to make the conference work out was really rewarding. So much time and effort was put into this conference for these two days. It felt like it went by way too quickly for that reason. Seriously, I could write about each team member and how much they contributed to this conference. It made me appreciate all the student-run events and conferences being organised!

I was busy helping out prepare the food (one member's role was food sponsorship, and she did an incredible job of it), meeting the speakers before their talk, helping to prepare all the technical stuff and so on, so I wasn’t able to see all the speakers. In the first morning tea break, some delegates complained about how there were no spoons provided to stir their tea and coffee so I ran all the way down to The Warehouse to buy spoons! That was another thing I realised – it’s really hard to even think about the little things like spoons for coffee, especially when worrying about much bigger stuff. It again made me truly appreciate all the events that run real smoothly... haha

(Carmen the Conference convener... thought it was necessary to mention her here :p)

Although I was busy throughout the two days, I was able to sneak in and watch a few keynote speakers and wow, they were really inspiring if I say so myself! Dr Dinesh Deonarain talked about the concept of ‘surrender’, which is accepting the outcomes of our actions for what they are and learning from them. He also talked about how, no matter what you tell yourself, in the end it’s you who is preventing yourself from grasping an opportunity. Dr Susan Jack talked about the importance and power of love and how it is so easily forgotten in the medical field. Dr Renee Liang talked about her reasons for leaving the field of medicine and reminded us to remember why each of us chose to become a doctor. They were all really, really good speakers.

(Awkward photo with Dr William Tan!)

(Arms were so tired after moving all those boxes of juice and foods...)

A few of us even got interviewed and made an appearance on the local newspaper.

Overall I think it was a success and although there were the few small muck-ups, the programme in general went really well. Despite having a small role in comparison to the other team members, I was still exhausted by the end of it. I really hope the delegates enjoyed it and they got at least one thing out of it.

Things I did in the inter-semester break.

YACMA Camp

YACMA (Young Auckland Chinese Medical Association – an association that constantly emphasises that it is “not just for Chinese people”) has an annual retreat in the inter-semester break. This year it was held on the 3rd-6th July. I decided not to go until two days before the actual camp, due to a #yolo moment I had while talking to one of the exec members. And also because I felt that my life was being revolved around study too much and I needed a break.

I couldn’t go on the first day because I wanted to watch my siblings perform in the community concert band. That meant having to bus alone all the way to Tauranga.

Lol I luved it

And it also meant missing all the ice-breaker games, so instead they sat me down in the middle of the circle… and played the “what do you like about Gerald” game…. Wow, I wish we played that game every day.

I’m really glad I went in the end. The weather was cold but we went to the beach anyway and relived primary school days by playing games like ‘stuck in the mud’ and ‘get the jelly out of this plate of castor sugar’, as well as riding the see saw at the playground. We also did a med-related sand sculpture competition (I guess it’s hard to avoid medicine at a med students’ camp). We were split into two groups. The other group did a really nice sculpture of the brain! Our group… did a sculpture of a woman giving birth. This included the female parts (which had lots of unnecessary details), the legs, the umbilical cord, and I modelled the baby attached to it. Obviously the photo wasn’t uploaded onto facebook so I don’t have a copy of it. But we won the competition in the end.

The camp was at a holiday park so there were other people on holiday at the site. Nevertheless we were all able to fit in the hot pools and we managed to use the kitchen at the right times for our meals. Alcohol was also allowed so at night we played drinking games. The most popular seemed to be truth or dare and I played for a bit as well. I didn’t feel like drinking on those nights so I didn’t take part in other drinking games. I guess that had its consequences in that I wasn’t able to get as close to some of the guys in my class and the year above me as I could have.

Regardless I still had lots of bonding time, funny moments and overall a really nice three days where I could let go of everything I was stressed about. I don’t regret making the last minute decision to go.

Also, when the camp ended and everyone was on the way home, one of my close friends and I decided to walk around and explore Tauranga for a few hours before bussing back. And even though there obviously weren't as many people as the camp, and we had to walk around holding our bags, sleeping bags etc, it was probably the one of the highlights of my whole trip.

  Maori Health Week (14-17 July)

I went to Maori Health Week last year because it is a compulsory course for all medicine, pharmacy and nursing students at Auckland University. This year they offered paid work as student facilitators and I was luckily chosen to be one of them. The job mainly involved leading two groups of ten students as they participated in workshops, case studies and the final poster/presentation about an issue in Maori Health.

Last year the facilitators looked like they did nothing. They seemed so relaxed, they did their own thing while we worked on our poster ourselves and so on. But this year, not only did they change the whole programme (and meant facilitators had more stuff to do), it was also a lot harder than I thought when I was in that perspective. The first difficult task I had to do was to make sure that the members in my group were getting along and that they were participating enough in the programme. The first group I saw was really easy. They were really friendly with each other, and the ice-breaker games I prepared went extremely well, to a point where other facilitators were asking me what in the world I was doing to make my group seem so entertained!

On the other hand, the second group was almost the opposite. It started off with members dismissing my beautiful ice-breaker games by telling me that they were a waste of time, then went on to excessive moments of complete silence and vibes of apathy, then eventually comments about how stupid Maori Health Week was. As the facilitator I was meant to be encourage them and make them enthusiastic… so I was put in the spotlight for a while. I managed to weave my way through answering to their comments while making sure I respected their opinions at the same time, but I knew I had to put in a lot of effort for the next few days.

Having said that, they were quite compliant to everything they had to do during the week and I ended up getting along with them really well. I’m a little sad I couldn’t watch their presentations in the end but I trust that they did well :) From this I definitely learnt to prepare better for situations where things don’t turn out the way I expect them to.

Other stuff I did included having to do a hongi with around 300 people during their “Whare” visit (I wasn’t even told about it so I was quite confused when everyone was lining up in front of me), be a part of the adjudicating panel for a group of presentations and helping with set up in between sessions.

Also, the food they provided for the facilitators was absolutely amazing. We even had a hangi lunch on the last day. They chose some really good caterers. 

.

And other stuff

Invited my friends over to my house

Explored my almost-rural neighbourhood a bit more

and so on.

I had the opportunity to go to the annual New Zealand Medical Students’ Association Conference this year in late May. It was for three days in Christchurch so it involved having to get to the airport by 5am. One friend was kind enough to take a few of us there, even though he wasn’t going to the conference himself. He even bought all of us McDonalds for breakfast! If you are reading this, thank you :)

The flight there was great – we got to see the sunrise.

We arrived and checked into our hostels. We had allocated rooms but I know that a lot of us didn’t follow it; 7 people somehow ended up in a room with three beds! We ended up sharing the double bed among three people, and even one single bed was shared between two. I think it would have just been better if we were allowed to just choose our own rooms…

We had some free time before the start of the conference schedule, so some friends and I decided to walk around the town for a while. I have been to Christchurch before early last year, but seeing it all again a second time had the same impact on me. I again got to experience the agitated silence of some parts of the town, along with the surrealism of the construction sites and half-crumbled buildings scattered around the streets.

We were allowed to appreciate these surroundings for the whole day because the first event of the programme was a mini version of ‘The Amazing race’. We were allocated to groups, which were a mix of Auckland and Otago medical students (the two medical schools in New Zealand). Luckily the race itself didn’t involve much running at all, but it did involve a lot of interesting activities. There were the more common activities like indoor rock-climbing and kayaking, but there were also some unusual ones, like mechanical bull-riding, speed dating, interpretive dancing and a military activity, where each group had to move an ‘injured’ person from one place to another. In my group I was chosen to be the injured person, and throughout the activity I was transported across the field via various one-man carry methods, including the fireman’s carry, and simply being dragged across the grass! I thought it would be relaxing to be the casualty, but afterwards I was pretty sore…

(The back of my shirt after being dragged around... and a glimpse of how messy our accommodation room got)

There was even a station called ‘Reflection’. We were all prepared to do some kind of intense problem solving activity with mirrors, until we realised it was just a station where we sit down and write letters to ourselves. They told us that they would keep it and send it to us six months later. I thought that was a really good idea.

We ended the day with a cocktail party. We were all meant to assemble to take the bus to the venue, but a few of us missed it… The conference team eventually had to call a few taxis for us. Oops…

The academic schedule was throughout the second and third day. Some of the speakers were quite inspiring. Dr Sam Prince talked about the importance of being open and connecting with a range of people. Dr Sue Bradshaw talked about why the youth are less likely to see a doctor, and how she set up an initiative to improve this. Dr Geoff Shaw talked about the importance of staying creative in the medical field, and keeping in touch with reality. This was before he went on a really big tangent about… engineering… rocket science…. I don’t even know what he was talking about in the second half of his talk…

The most inspiring for me was Lucy Perry, the Australian CEO of Hamlin Fistula Ethiopia. She talked about her experiences with women in Ethiopia and it was amazing to hear how passionate she was. One thing she said that really got me was that when we volunteer, we must not go with a mind-set of “helping them” or “making them better”. Instead we should be the ones learning from them and allowing them to make us better by being immersed in their rich culture and lifestyle. Only when we truly connect with them and be at the same level as them can we make a real difference.

…I fell asleep during a few of the other talks. But so did a lot of others. I guess everyone was tired…

Overall the conference was a really nice way to be inspired, meet new people and get to know old friends better as well. It was a good thing we didn’t have time to study, because a LOT of us admitted to packing study notes and course guides into their luggage!

I also had my last “Human Early Life Development” visit this month. It is a visit we make every two months to follow the development of a baby. Although it was always a long trip to get there, my HELD partner and I always looked forward to going. The home was always so warm and both the mother and baby were really friendly. It was really interesting to see how much the baby would have grown since the last visit. By the end of our last visit the baby even smiled and waved goodbye to us. I never had much experience with little children so I know that goodbye will definitely be a memorable one.

Of course the semester would not be complete without the immense stress caused by exams. I came out of one exam feeling absolutely horrible. It was an exam that I felt highly underprepared for, which lead to one of worst written exam experiences I’ve had. During that exam my heart was racing, my chest felt tight, and I even felt like I was tearing up. I remember having to put my pen down and focus on my breathing for a while just to calm myself down and stop myself from giving up entirely. It was something I didn’t experience even in my pre-med assessments. Results came out and luckily I managed to pass (T-T), but I know I will need to be a lot more efficient with my study in the next semester if I want to prevent that from happening again…

We are also in the process of choosing the hospital we want to go to next year for the start of our clinical years. Having to fill out the form makes it seem like 4th year is so close by… I hope things go as planned.

It’s the holidays for me now, but I still have to study, and I have an assignment due on the first day back… But I’ve been having a good break so far; catching up with friends, trying to finish How I met your Mother, exercising and trying to wake up early to watch FIFA.

And even having some time to myself – exploring my neighbourhood and going to the art gallery (although I left in less than half an hour lol)

Today, after an unexpected talk with two friends, I learnt many things that I thought I already knew.

I learnt that patience is an art, and that good things take time. I learnt that we must be open and non-judgmental. I learnt the importance of perseverance. That sometimes we need to take smaller steps.

I learnt about the ease of moving into isolation. I learnt that many people feel alone. That many of us, although in different ways, face the same problems. That it's okay feel hurt by someone and it's okay to be disappointed. It's okay to be in a conflict with yourself. It's okay to make mistakes.

Most of all I learnt the importance of self-confidence and self-esteem. The value of faith. The perks of "I got this. Do you got this?"

Oh anon you make me feel so guilty... I'm scared to make promises now that I've made them so many times...

So I was actually writing about everything that happened so far this year but gave up because it was taking a lot longer than I thought it would; not because my year was that eventful but rather because I’m not putting aside enough time for this… When will my blog entry intros not sound like more excuses for my lack of posts…

It’s May already and despite an eventful (enough) start to the year, I have now been tied back down into a fog of typical thoughts like “I need to study” and “I need money” and “I still need to study” and “where is all my money going”

In February I went to the med Fresher’s camp as a Kitchen helper. Even after all the news I heard about how crazy things can get at the camp, I still decided to go because I didn’t get to go when I was a med freshman, and I felt that this was something I needed to experience. Luckily some of my third-year friends were also going so I stuck with them at the start. But I had quite a few opportunities to meet some second years when I wasn’t… peeling onions (Hannah and I were literally crying and we started acting out Korean drama scenes), or stirring multiple pots of mince. They were all really friendly and it was generally a great way to enjoy the sun for a few days. Some of the third years also secured a room that was away from all the rowdiness happening outside and I spent a lot of my time with them as well. They were really nice company and it was a really good way to get to know some of them better.

(inside that room... the only photo I took was one where two of them were pretending to be dead...)

I told myself that I wouldn’t get drunk at the camp, and I stuck to my word on the first night, but on the second night I wasn’t so committed… and I ended doing things that I thought I would never do… Not something I would post up here but… Well… at least now I have a better idea of what kind of drunk I am…

Two days after the camp I got my four wisdom teeth out. The dentist suggested that I get fully sedated and he even offered to do it for free (lewls free drugs), so I don’t remember any of the procedure.

The bad thing was that I don’t remember a lot of the stuff that happened after the procedure either. I made the payment and got my prescription medicines and I don’t remember any of it. According to my mum, I was laughing at everyone I was walking past, like as if they looked funny.

Then I went home and sent these texts to two of my friends…

After the essay on euthanasia the text messages actually started getting more personal and I was sending texts like “are we friends”, “are you angry at me” and so on! I’m really glad that they were so understanding.

It was also my birthday that month and although I hadn’t really planned anything, it was full of surprises.

I had to go to uni that day for a meeting, but that meant that I got to see my locker, which one of my second year friends decorated! Then a group of them sang happy birthday to me at the student lounge which was embarrassing but really nice at the same time :D

Jonathan, Joyce, Clifton, William and Hannah actually came to my house with party hats, a ukulele and even homemade cupcakes! When they found out that I was at uni, they drove all the way just to greet me! This is a photo depicting how annoyed they were that I wasn’t at home. Although I wasn’t too good at showing it on the outside, I was pretty touched that they put in so much effort. This was probably the highlight of all the birthday surprises I got :D

There was a dinner with four of my high school friends, and even more surprises on the first day of the semester. A group of friends got me speakers along with an ‘awkward giraffe’ soft toy, cake, and even made time to have dinner that day at a Korean BBQ restaurant.

I think that birthday unintentionally became the the best birthday I’ve had.

There were other events too. I broke my own personal record of ‘largest number of people I spoke in front of’: I had to promote the uni orchestra that I’m in, so I ended up speaking in front of a lecture room of 600 people (plus another few hundred if I counted the overflow room!). Although it was almost impromptu and I was only speaking for around 30 seconds, I definitely felt accomplished afterwards.

I became a mentor for a group of Korean first year pre-med students. I don’t actually do much; I just check up on them every once in a while and answer any questions they have. We had lunch together one time though and although they were all really quiet we got along pretty well. They are like puppies, in the best way possible… and I hope they get the results they are aiming for :)

I would also mention that Round the Bays, an 8.4km run, was an accomplishment if it wasn’t for me walking most of the course… and… stopping by to get ice cream on the way… (what made me laugh was that when we went into the store, the majority of customers were also meant to be doing Round the Bays).

I donated blood for the first time as well! I guess I shouldn’t go into too much detail here, but it was a unique and even a somewhat emotional experience. I wouldn’t mind doing it again. I did feel faint afterwards and I used that as an excuse to eat an excessive amount of biscuits that were provided. Also, before donating, they had to ask me a few questions like “do you take any medications” and “have you ever had sex with another man in the past five years?” Just imagine having to say yes to that question…

wow my kneecaps look so prominent from that angle. Amazing.

I went through two big tests already. One was the progress test, which is a MCQ test set at a graduate level, and it’s supposed to test how well you’re progressing with your medical knowledge in comparison to everyone else in your year. Despite efforts to study for it, it was, of course, still really difficult! The other test was the nervous system test, which luckily we had the inter-semester break to study for. I was pretty interested in the topic so studying for it was a lot easier than most of the modules that I did last year! I hope my results will be better than last year’s too.

This is my friend Cindy's snapchat depicting our struggles...

We also ordered our stethoscopes, and I spent way too much time (I think it took me just over two weeks) trying to decide which colour I wanted! I was thinking about the pros and cons of getting an orange… but more importantly I think I was trying to associate my personality with the colour too much. I wasted so much time and when I realised this I finally settled for a “hunter green”. I’m satisfied.

There was also the medical and health sciences student symphony orchestra camp during the inter-semester break. It was another nice way to relax and forget about study for a while (although some people brought their notes to the camp… something that I was intending to do as well. Wow, we are all going crazy). It had the longest flying fox I’ve seen. I wish I rode it more than just once.

We spent time with each other in a special way: we did a LOT of riddles, or games where we had to figure out the ‘code’ or ‘secret’ or whatever. Did the dog die? Is this water bottle blue? Is the gate open or closed? It annoyed a lot of people! We also had too much fun on the cup song from pitch perfect. Nevertheless… it was a fun three days. Proud of my friends who organised and lead it.

This year we also do a humanities paper. It’s like a general education course, except the papers are all arts linked with med, and are specifically for med students only – except the music humanities paper, which is the one I decided to do. This one has both med students and music students. One of the assignments we had to do was a group seminar, and groups had to be a mixture of med and music students. At first this made me worried, because of the thought of working with people I never met before. I grouped up with Paul and Chloe, and music students Mina and Alina. Fortunately we got along pretty well. We probably got closer when we were pulling an ‘all evening-er’ on the evening before the day of our presentation! In the end our seminar was good (although there were a few technical difficulties when trying to play some videos. A technician eventually had to come in. But the good thing was that our 20-minute-limited presentation couldn’t be timed anymore!) and we even met up for dinner the next week.

Also I can’t forget all the birthdays that we celebrated within our group of friends. One of the many memorable ones was a 21st celebration of a couple, whose birthdays are only a few days apart. We ended up doing speeches, every one of them being impromptu (or at least it was for me because I had no idea that we would be doing them). When it was my turn I realised how much I actually wanted to say to one of them, and I actually ended up cutting my speech ‘short’ because I was self-conscious about blabbering on and boring everyone else.

...

Ok. I don't know where I'm getting with this so here is a picture of the fried chicken we ate that night

I guess a problem is that I’ve really been sticking to them this year, and I didn’t make as much of an effort as last year to meet new people in my class. I’m still generally quite awkward around people and I guess I will need to put in more time towards socialising with people outside of my usual groups of friends!

To leave on a good note though….

...

...

This music essay is stressing me to the max!!!!

cs-music.tumblr.com

Due to my laziness, this blog post was written over multiple days… and now I don’t see myself spending any more time on this particular entry (It’s like I’m having a permanent mind block whenever I come onto this page now…) so it might seem a little incomplete (and there are still a lot of typos I’m assuming), but… yeah. :/

It’s been another few months; I scraped through my cardio test and survived the rush of tests and exams before the year ended (kind of…). I admit that after the cardio test (which is generally known as the hardest topic in the year) I let go a little bit. I think that although my “Biomed mentality” (which is being overly competitive with others, putting study as top priority etc etc) has died down, I still ended up burning myself out. Eventually it lead to me having horrible results for my last few tests. I’m really disappointed and I know that I need to figure out better studying techniques; ones that won’t involve me spending excessive amounts of my free time with my course guides, me not trying to escape the stress and procrastinate all the time, and me not… forming any further ability to sleep anytime and anywhere.

I’m not the only one with the sleepy disorder.

There were multiple times where I felt that time was going very… slowly… All my short term goals were related to the next test we were going to sit and I felt that I had ‘no time’ to think about anything else. But now that the year has ended I’m thinking the complete opposite – I can’t believe I have finished my second year of uni already!

One thing I’ll miss is my human anatomy lab group. The majority of them were also in my ‘small group activities’ group (aka SGA), which is the group I would meet up with each week to talk about our day, discuss medical scenarios and practice meditation techniques :p. It was a really nice way to get to know some of my classmates.

Other groups apparently went real deep and talked about really personal aspects of their lives, but ours was a bit more laid back and we touched on lighter topics, like ‘how is study going?’ and ‘what was your week like in general?’. Sometimes I did want to be in one of those intimate, therapy session like SGAs, but overall I’m glad that we never went too deep in the end. This is hard to explain, but sometimes I feel like we bonded more than other groups /because/ we didn’t get so personal. It kinda made us talk to each other more outside of the small group sessions.

…Although this photo is slightly contradictory to what I just wrote:

This was after our final presentation on our findings of the cadaver that we were lucky to work with through the year.  We saw some other groups uploading some real nice, warm-hearted photos on facebook so we felt it was necessary to take one for ourselves… but this was the best we ended up with. We decided to end the year by calling us the ‘awkward family’.

Actually, we met one last time on the day after our last exam. Our year proposed that we should have a closing ceremony for our cadavers, because we didn’t get a chance to say a proper ‘goodbye’ to them after our last human anatomy session. So it was allowed, and we were to give our farewells in any way we wanted. Some people brought flowers, others wrote poems, and one person even sang a song for his group’s cadaver. Our group… didn’t really prepare anything (I guess the chilled nature of our SGA rubbed off on us), but we decided to stay for a while anyway. A group-mate suggested that we make friendship bracelets with the suturing threads. We did do that eventually. But more importantly the word “friendship” triggered some emotions!

It was the first time I actually felt pretty emotional and truly thankful for the person that was willing enough to aid in our learning like this. Throughout the year I treated the labs as just another part of the course, just another class. This time, we had the chance to really focus on the ‘cadaver’ aspect of the labs (as opposed to the ‘studying’ and ‘doing what we need to do’ aspects), and that finally brought about how I’ve been taking him for granted, despite spending every lab trying not to. I’m really glad we had that ceremony, and I feel extremely privileged to have been one of the few people in the world to have experienced something like this.

Thank you :)

  The same day, some of the friends I made in the course and I went on a road trip!

14 of us went down to Whitianga for four days to try and get med school out of our minds as soon as possible! The road trip was spent chilling in our bach, helping with the cooking (a LOT of potatoes were eaten!), going to the beach, skateboarding, watching the sunrise and sunset, and so on. It was the perfect way to start the holidays. These people are possibly some of the best friends that I have now, so I’m really thankful for that. Wow, it will be difficult to split with all of them once clinical years start.

Just blabbering on as usual.

These days I've been studying for the cardiovascular system test this Friday. It's probably the hardest test of the year and it's hard staying motivated. I was doing so well when I changed my study tactics for the respiratory systems test, but now it feels like I'm going back to old habits!

Maybe it's because I'm exhausted. I have subconsciously given up on meeting new people, and I've really been sticking with the same group of friends. The problem is, I'm not exactly 100% comfortable with them either. In fact, as of now, I feel like I'm not exactly comfortable being around people in general...

I know that last year I truly became a closed person. Because last year was difficult for me (especially due to the constant stress of trying to get into med school), and I was continually choosing study over everything else, I eventually got distant with a good majority of my friends. Little did I know that it would have long term effects...

Two weeks ago, I went to a birthday party, where I got to meet my high school friends, who I haven't seen in months. I thought that we would have a lot to talk about, but it was quite the opposite. The atmosphere was so uneasy, and I felt so detached from everyone there. Hello, I haven't seen you in ages too! How are you? I'm good too! End of conversation. I ended up leaving within three hours. Should I have stayed longer? Would things have gotten better? 

I thought that I would at least be comfortable with the new friends I made this year, but that isn't the case either. I'm finding it extremely difficult to open up to them, in fear that they will see me in a more negative way. I get extremely sensitive to their friendly criticisms. I feel like I give out a bad aura to everyone around me, and that eventually they will want to distance themselves from me because of it. I feel like I'm dragging people down by just being there...

Today I was taking the bus home with a friend; someone that I consider to be one of my closest friends in my course. But I couldn't think of anything to say. My head was completely blank. He ended up initiating all the conversations, and even then they were cut short. It got to a point where I felt bad that he had to be sitting next to me, putting in all that effort throughout the one hour bus ride. 

What makes things confusing is that I don't want to be alone. I still want to be around people. So I still sit with my friends during break times, and I still have lunch with them. The problem is, sitting and having lunch is all I do. I don't talk to them. I don't exactly interact with them in any way. I just... sit there. I'm not doing anything, and yet I don't want to leave.

I feel like I come out as too serious, too sensitive, too boring, too emotional, and as I mentioned earlier, I'm scared that people will leave because of that. Isn't that what happened last year, after all? But despite this I still can't seem to open up. I still don't try to let people get to know me better. I can't seem to change myself.

I’m starting to doubt that writing is my hobby.

Here I am once again, needing to write about 6 weeks’ worth of happenings in my life… I have to say that this was the most eventful half semester so far (either that or I just forgot everything that happened in the other half semesters…)

There was firstly the med revue, where I got to have 40 seconds (40 whole seconds!) of fame through a small couple hip-hop dance in the opening act. Despite being on stage for such a short period of time, I had to spend hours (just like everyone else) in the campus, dance studio and maidment theatre in preparation for the four performance nights. Other performances included sexy nurse and gay pride dances, skits about being incompetent doctors, and of course the random song about being an Asian in med school.

The amount of time that the revue consumed didn’t seem to be a waste though; going out for dinner and being allowed to talk to each other when it wasn’t our turn to practice on stage meant that I had plenty of good bonding time with the new friends I made this year.

I had wardrobe malfunctions as well – my suspenders were too tight so one of the clips flung free during one of my performances, and I remember I had to take them off while I was dancing! Could they not have lasted just 40 seconds…!

I admit, I felt like a professional though… :p

  I also decided to join the Teddy Bear Hospital team and make a visit to a kindergarten. Basically we helped the children to be doctors, and cure their teddy bears that they brought from home! Unfortunately this is the only photo I have!

This was my first experience with children, so at first I found it really awkward! I didn’t know how to talk to them at all and how I was meant to act with them. But I managed to adapt quickly and actually found myself really enjoying it! They were really creative – one of them said that their teddy got a stomach ache because it bumped into a tree and swallowed the bark that fell off it! I then helped bandage the teddy’s stomach and put in a pretend injection!

They were really cute, but by the end of it (it lasted around two and a half hours) I was really exhausted… I concluded that maybe being a paediatrician might not be the best pathway for me…

  Then there was the communication skills assessment, where we interview a pretend patient for 5 minutes. In the practice sessions I kept going blank, and I wasn’t able to act natural… so I was really worried. My assessment was a 2pm, but I came to uni at 7:30am because I was carpooling with friends… I really regretted coming in so early! It was a really, really long wait. I couldn’t study properly because my mind was preoccupied, and I couldn’t exactly practice for six and a half hours! I tried killing the time by going to a friend’s flat, and forcing myself to get through a lecture recording…

The actual assessment went by so quickly though! It felt like it was only two minutes long. The interview flowed really well, and the actor I got was really nice. I was really thankful for that.

It turned out that it went well for everyone! Now comes the part where we have to watch the DVD recording of us doing it, and writing an evaluation… I can just imagine how much I’ll be cringing as I complete that assignment…

  I went to the ball as well! It was the best ball I’ve been to! It was definitely different to high school… firstly, they offered champagne at the door!

(...I don't actually have a lot of photos from the actual ball yet lol)

It was an interesting day before the ball… I met up at a friend’s flat to drop off some of my stuff there before going to the preball. My friend went down first to meet another friend, but by then the taxi had already arrived. It had to be at this moment that the elevator stopped working – so I had to run down 14 levels of stairs before the taxi left without me! As I was running down one of my blazer’s buttons flung off T.T

Luckily they had some sewing equipment at the preball, so I got someone to sew it back on for me (then at the ball the other button flung off!! I should really check if the suit came with a spare button…)

The theme was also “Carnival”, so there were entertainers on the way to the entrance! Fire hula hoops, stilts, magic tricks… they all set the mood. It was an open bar as well – this meant that people got quite drunk and photo bombed a lot of the professional photos… Darnit, I was planning to buy a photo this year too…

This was the only one that wasn’t photo bombed. And it’s not exactly one that I would buy…!!

But it was overall a really good night, where we were able to just let loose and have fun! I think that day will stay with me for quite a while.

  As well as the physical events that occurred throughout this half semester, there were also the mental/emotional/spiritual moments that I went through.

One of the main ones was that I’ve been having some self-esteem problems throughout the year!! Like I said in a previous post, I met so many amazing people this year; I could go as far as saying that some of them are like role models to me! I look up to so many of them, but this also meant that I often ended up seeing myself as inferior, and I guess that’s where the problems started to arise. I could write a whole separate post on this!

But I think that due to the various events that occurred within this half semester, I not only went through an extreme end of this problem, I also found a way around it by learning not to compare myself with others so much. I think it’s this that made this half semester seem even more “eventful”. I feel that I’m starting to be a bit more confident, self-respect blah blah. You know what I mean. I leave it there before I get too personal lol! (Ok in a week’s time I’ll probably wonder why in the world I wrote this)

......Now that I think about it a lot of this stuff is personal so I can't exactly write all too much about these things here. I'll leave what I wrote so far though :p (for now...)

Lol this is really a steam of consciousness blog.