Second visit to Napier

Eat. Wii. Watch movies. Sleep. Chat all night long. That's what I called Holiday!

There's nothing better than hanging out with old friends. Even better if it is in Ulu Kapit so we have excuse to laze at home. There are so many things we can do indoor, like fishing on wii or practicing to become a pro photographer. I am suffering from pancakes withdrawal syndrome already. Miss talking to Sin Sii until late at night and listening to Canai sleep talking. The later is the most recent discovery, haha.

Went to the small chinese church with the pancakes on Sunday. Totally amazed. Canai is the pianist and Sin Sii is the cantonese/mandarin translator!!!

We have a visit from a fellow malaysian pharmacist on Sunday night, aka the owner of Canon EOS450. Now I finally understand why people are willing to spend half of their fortune on good quality camera. You don't have to be a pro to take pro pictures. We were snapping away at random stuff the whole night, from jandals to Ah Chan and back to vain self portrait pictures. Yes, I allowed myself to be vain on good camera.

Italian lunch (pasta + cheese omelete) prepared by Canai and a Taiwanese aborigine friend

The chef and the assistant

*Waiting for lunch*. Yes, girls play games while the guys cook nowadays ;P

Knock the scarecrows with the cow. Haha, lame? Tried it, it's not that easy.



Jennifer, owner of canon EOS 450

Love is in the air~~~

Take 1 with Ah Chan. Cute.

Take 2 with Ah Chan. Emo.

Last but not least, thx Ah Chan for being our model.

Time for dessert. Self saucing chocolate pudding from Sam.

Beware, the world is changing!

I was watching 60 minutes yesterday and saw an interview with a gay couple purchasing their dream babies from a baby factory in India. I used the word purchase because it is literally shopping for babies - fill up an order form online, tick the characteristics of the baby you like, send the sample of your sperm, pay the money and receive your baby in 9 months time. Altogether $40,000 for a twin babies. Donor eggs can be bought for about a $1,000. They're then fertilised in the laboratory and implanted into a surrogate who receives about $5,000. I don't know if I should applaud for the achievement of man playing God or shudder at the weirdness of how the world has become. If this is not weird enough, there are some chia ba bo su zo group of people trying to hybridise homo sapiens and chimpanzee. They have done it with Liger (cross between male lion and female tiger) that has unlimited phase of growth and can weigh up close to a tonne. Gene enhancement. No thank you! There are enough starving pedigree homo sapiens in the world, we don't need further competition. Imagine the day when earth becomes The Planet of Apes . . .

No more Andrew Jackson

Die! Human, die!

XX Next Top Model

Fail all the dumb humans! Muahaha!

no life?

I really need to stop boring you guys with stories about my school but I really can't think of anything that I have done outside school. Ok. The bottom line is I have no life. How sad is that.

Anyway, back to my boring life and boring story, I was in ED this week. Has been quite fulfilling so far. Had two major duh events while i was in ED. On Tuesday afternoon, I had 450ml of blood being drained out of me (blood donation, not bleeding!). I was oncall that night, and it was madness. Lots of MVA casualties, beds were literally stacking out the corridor. Last thing I wanted was to join the casualties at the corridor. I almost did. I fainted. But luckily only for a few nano seconds. That was when I found out I was anaemic.

Tonight in ED, just as I thought I had enough sugar to keep myself from fainting, I accidentally banged my head against the back of the chair. Great. I can't afford to have more of my precious neurons died. Besides the two hapless events, I pretty much enjoyed the learning in ED, thanks to the advice from previous students. 1) Avoid Dr. I-own-the-world like a plague. 2) Hang out with young male doctors. Now don't get me wrong. It has nothing to do with WHAT'S going through your head now. It just happen that young male doctors are more keen on teaching students. Most old mature male doctors are going through mid life crisis and female doctors generally have higher stress level.

Apart from the mandatory skills we need to pick up, i.e. ABC, history taking, communication, clinical examination, d dx, treatment, bla bla, I've seen the reality of some harsh decision we have to make in life. For example, should I buy this really expensive jacket and live on bread for the next few weeks? Nah. Nothing like that. It is like giving a CT contrast to a renal impaired patient who had a suspected leak from the AAA stent and risk having dialysis for life or save the kidney by not having the contrast and running the risk of bleeding to death from the leakage. The hardest decision is sometimes the unknown. Like going through a surgery that has a minute chance of success which might end up in ICU wired up to a dozen machine, not a dignified way of dying. Or not having the surgery and the end result is death.

sunday

I was deceived. Deceived by the stream of sunlight flooding through my window. As soon as I got on the bus in my summer shorts and hoodie, a big patch of greyness advanced through the sky. And along with it, a ghastly wellingtonian wind. Gah. I should be thankful that at least I am not in Dunedin ;p which I heard is unusually cold this year.

After church, I walked along Cuba Street, in the cold, seeking for the spicest soupy lunch. Came across Thai Express and ordered a Tom Yam Noodle Soup extra extra spicy. I was literally in tears and I suspected the receptors in my taste buds had suffered a tremendous insult. I had milo later on with two generous heaps of sugar and it tasted like plain water.

Arise is having a baptism service tonight. 77 people is going to be baptised! I am really curious how long this is going to take or are they going to have a mass baptism in a swimming pool? Anyway, I came across an article on a psych journal. Very interesting. There was a research comparing the efficacy of treating a group of patients with 'possession' like psychiatric manifestation between psychiatrists and protestant exorcists. As expected, results showed better improvement in those who were treated by protestant exorcists. But they attributed the treatment efficacy to 'awareness and sensitivity to cultural believes'. If only they knew. People are always trying to find explanation to everything.

Catching on

Ok, seems like Jon Schmidt's Love story/Viva La Vida bug has been catching on me. I am so marrying the first guy who plays this to me=P. The exact full version. *continue to dream on*

Finally submitted my eeeextended case history.

Enjoying ICU at the moment. Patients in peace, heavily sedated. Friendly consultants.

Need to get my list of precedure-to-observe signed off, URGENTLY.

• chest drain - not done
• central venous line - not done
• central arterial ine - not done
• catheterisatoin - not done
  
• abscess drainage - not done
• Wound dressing - not done
  
• AHHHH and the list goes on and on
  

Panic. Panic. Three more weeks left. Must harrass the nurses to show me how to do.

Looking forward to hols next week, woohoo!