2010

One must have patience. And a lot of it. One of my more recent jobs has been to go through some old handwritten patient card notes and transfer the data into the electronic medical database. As I've mentioned previously, I liked to think that patience was one of my better qualities but this job's really testing it. Seriously, what the hell is the point of writing notes if no-one can even read them?? Might as well save the time (and a few trees) and not bother, if your handwriting's going to suck so damn bad. /rant

So I realise I haven't really been updating this blog as much as I should be, I guess I just haven't been bothered lately. Not that anything interesting has really been happening in my life worth mentioning. Work goes on, days off are spent at home with parents, and boredom slowly accumulates. Three weeks of this and I'm beginning to feel the boredom biting at my sanity. I should probably get out more and stuff, but the city life in Rotorua just isn't the same as in Auckland, and most of the time my parents have plans of their own for me (such as helping out with visitors, of which we've had plenty over the past few weeks), so that makes things difficult. A significant portion of my time is spent attempting to play SC2 at 1 fps with my friends in Auckland on my 3 year old laptop, which usually ends up in utter fail with me lagging everyone else in the game and generally having very poor quality games. My dad gave me $400 to upgrade his 8 year old computer at home and I've ordered a few parts which should be here by Christmas, so hopefully I'll be able to have a decent game on that. I'm still contemplating on the parts I should get for my own computer I'll be building next year and hunting down deals online. According to one of my friends, $1000 is about the optimal amount to spend on building a computer.

Work's been meh. Still poking people's arms with needles and doing the occasional BP or CVD assessment while my boss piles me with the monotonous computer work amongst other stuff. It's been a while since I've actually missed a vein but I somehow managed to miss 2 today for some strange reason. Perhaps the novelty of phlebotomy's beginning to wear off and I'm starting to lose interest in what I'm doing. Guess I'm that type of person who's not easily interested in things, and gets bored with things easily. Ah, I need to find something to amuse me again, life's just getting too boring.

At the moment one of my Dad's late friend's wife's yoga teacher from Germany is staying at our house as part of her tour of New Zealand. I don't really mind having random visitors in my home but I won't deny that things are easier to do when they're not around. For example, playing DDR. Our visitor is staying downstairs at the moment so I'll certainly cause a lot of noise for her if I play at my usual time before breakfast. And since there's only one TV in the house that just means one extra person I'm sharing it with too. I would get a TV for myself and play in the basement but since I'm only home for one quarter of the year I'm not sure it's worth the investment. That's one annoying thing about living in two homes rather than one, you can't furnish your place as well as you want to since you're only getting to use it for a limited portion of the year. There are lots of things I'd like to get for my room, like maybe a surround sound system, a big corner desk, a nice desktop computer (I'll be getting that soon) to list a few. I know I'm just being picky and I should just appreciate the fact that I do have my own place to stay in during uni (I do) but I guess I just like to enjoy myself too much sometimes. Anyway I'm going way off topic.

So yeah, we've got this visitor and Mum and Dad are going out of their way to show them around a bit. Which means they tend to leave me alone more, which is one advantage of having her around. Yeah I know I should make the most of my time with my parents but I do like my alone time too and sometimes they do invade into that. I also don't really like gardening that much. Oh, it looks like I'm heading off now. I'm still at work atm and we're gonna take a patient to the hospital in Rotorua cuz he's poor and doesn't have any money for transport and my dad's just being kind. Sigh, the demographics of this place sometimes make me wonder what these people do with their lives...

To read a doctor's handwriting...

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Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Don't ask me why I'm blogging at 4am in the morning, cuz I don't know either. I guess analyzing computer components at night before sleeping was a bad move. The complexity of computer architecture is so ridiculous, my head was literally buzzing with them all through the night and I had a terrible amount of sleep last night.

I suppose the main motive behind this new venture of mine is due to my simple annoyance at the fact that my $2300 laptop I got 3 years ago can't run Starcraft 2, even on the lowest quality without lagging the hell out of everyone in the game. Yeah, sure my Toshiba P200 meets the minimum requirements but those are the -bare minimum- for even running the app and that's still on lowest quality. Now I don't mind running SC2 on crap quality but what actually gets me is the LAG. 128mb dedicated graphics is the minimum, 512mb is the recommended. Guess how much I have. 256! T.T; And that was top notch 3 years ago. For a lappy, anyway. I won't ignore the fact that my motherboard broke on me two years ago but I didn't find it affected it -too- much in terms of gaming. My laptop's just simply out of date, and I need something I can play my Starcrafts on, and with Katherine's Intel i7 930 nVidia GTX 470 out of reach, I'm feeling the pinch more than ever now.

So those are my prime motivations for looking into a gaming rig. I just received a pay rise at work so I'm feeling I can be a little generous with my present for myself this Christmas and could probably part with $1500 for the purposes of building my machine. But no more. I know how easy it is to go over that limit with the endless numbers of computer components that are out there on the market now, and how you could get that extra "oomph" for just $50 more or so. But that's not going to happen to me. I'm going to strictly adhere to my budget on this one, and not oversplurdge on something ridiculous like the monster of a machine my sister has. Of course, getting the latest tech out there is sure as hell tempting, but I'm not a hardcore gamer as such, so spending extra money for a hobby I really don't have a lot of time for would be a waste of money in my eyes.

At $1500 I believe I'm looking at the mid-range of performance computers, so it's not going to be hitting the fps on Crysis HQ max anti-aliasing etc, unfortunately. But I don't care, so long as it runs Starcraft 2 with NO LAG I'm happy. Apparently you can build a decent rig for around $500 if your sole intention is for it to play SC2 but I don't want my rig to be outdated so fast to the point its going to be obselete next year (when they release Diablo 3 and god knows what else) so I'm quite keen on getting something that will last a while. Building a computer is serious business and being my first time at ever looking at a computer beyond the specs in the shops it's a little daunting. Luckily for me the internet exists, with its wealth of information (although can be a little subjective, as all media is) and I have friends experienced in such matters. I will be sure to pick their brains about this, as computers have never really been my forte since the only thing I used to do with them is play on them, lolz. Didn't really take them apart or try and put one together, it all seemed like too much work for what it was worth. Wish I could've learned a little computer architecture in high school.

So onto the parts themselves...

~Processor/CPU
So far I'm leaning towards Intel rather than ATI atm since from what I've been reading, Intel's chips are where it's at today in terms of gaming and overall performance. ATI's chips are a little cheaper and the specs do look good on paper but in practice, Intel makes the superior gaming chips. In particular the i5 series seems to be the favourite chip for budget gamers such as myself and the i5 core 750/760 was agreed by several reviews to be the one to go for. It's a little expensive at $309 (all prices are from PBtech, where I'm probably going to be buying it from) but the CPU is important and I'm willing to spend a little more on it, but if the budget disallows it, I'll probably go for something a step down. I'd still like to run a quad core, though. Interestingly, Intel's releasing their new chipset line early next year, so I'll probably wait til then and see what the i5 line has to offer with the new "Sandy Bridge" or whatever you call it technology. If I was going for an AMD chip I'd probably go for the hex-core (!) Phenom II X6 1055T but according to a number of reviews the hex core technology they use is still based on an old AMD chip or something and somehow it's not as good for games, but is better for multi-thread apps, whatever they are.

~Graphics Card
nVidia or AMD? >< too many decisions. I heard ATI makes better cards but nvidia makes better drivers, so the verdict's out there of which of the two is actually better. I think in terms of bang for buck AMD cards are top on the market, but if you're looking at high-performance cards, nVidia beats AMD hands down with its GTX460 series and above. Since I'm a gamer on a budget, I'll be leaning more towards AMD on this one. I looked at nvidia cards but the ones I wanted were too far out of reach for my budget ($300 and upwards) whereas with the AMD ones you could get a similar performance for 2/3rds the price. The AMD Radeon HD 5770 seemed quite popular among gamers on a budget with the nvidia GTS450 close behind. Both cards were around $230 which seems a reasonable amount to spend on a graphics card for a gaming rig.

~Motherboard
So I'll need a motherboard that fits nicely with the two options I've chosen up here. I'll be waiting for Intel's new chipset to come in so obviously this may be subject to change, although I've looked at what I need and what's on the market. Gigabyte seems to make decent gaming motherboards and are cheaper than the EVGA ones so I'll probably be getting one of theirs. The Gigabyte H55M-D2H looks to be within my price range and has all the support I need including support for ATI CrossfireX technology in case I decide to purchase another graphics card in the future to keep up with the play. All for a reasonable price of $160.


~RAM
The architecture of RAM components didn't seem particularly as important compared to CPUs and Video cards for gaming rigs, so I just decided to go with something generic - the Kingston HyperX 6GB 1600MHz C9 DDR3. Any 6GB card with DDR3 should be okay to use, right? That's another $199, not much more than the 4GB ones, so I decided I may as well got for 6 gigs of RAM.

~Hard Drive
Idk, anything that will fit all my anime and junk, and won't break the bank or lose my stuff. Western Digital seems the economical choice, with 1Tb for $109.



~DVD/Bluray Drive
A Bluray drive would be nice but I'm not spending an extra $100 just for that. The LG GH22Ns50 seemed economical, at $45.

~Network Adapter
Need something that works. And wireless too, please. The Asus PCI-G31 was only $38 and seemed like it would do the job.


~Power Supply
Prefer something not too noisy. The Great Wall 550SEL boasted good energy efficiency and ultra-silent running for only $79, and that seemed reasonable.


~Case
Something stylish that would keep the goods nice and cool. Everyone who builds custom rigs seems to use Coolermaster these days, probably because they have the best ventilation. Even the ones at the net cafes back in Auckland use them. Must be good. I pick the most stylish looking one, the Elite 430 mid-tower.
So I think that's all the hardware I'm going to need to build my new gaming rig. I'll wait til next year for Intel's Sandy Bridge and see what's new before jumping in, of course. It's pretty exciting, the prospect of building something like this (abeit a bit nerdy) since I've never done this sort of thing before and I'm expecting to get some good results out of this thing. I have absolutely no experience in the art of computer assembling whatsoever (unless you count the time I replaced a broken 64mb graphics card with a 128mb one on our 8 year old bomb of a desktop in Rotorua many years ago) so I'll have to get someone else to do it.

Let's see how much this is going to cost me altogether...

Intel Core i5 760 2.8 GHz Processor - $309
Sapphire AMD Radeon HD 5770 Graphics Card - $229
Gigabyte H55M-D2H Motherboard - $160
Kingston HyperX 6GB 1600 Mhz C9 DDR3 RAM - $199
Western Digital Blue Edition 1Tb Hard Drive - $109
LG GH22NS50 DVD Drive - $45
Asus PCI-G31 Wireless Network Adapter - $38
Great Wall 550SEL Power Supply - $79
Cooler Master Elite 430 Mid-Tower Case - $171

Total comes to $1339. I know I have a little leeway to upgrade 1 or 2 things if I wanted to and still stay within my budget. I still haven't decided on a monitor yet either. My sis asked me if I wanted her LG LED one for Christmas so I might just use that, although I still want to have a look around to see what's on the market at the moment. I'm more than open to suggestions if anyone who's bored enough to be reading this blog can suggest anything in the way of parts cuz i'm utterly clueless about these things and I just compiled the list above in 1 day on a quiet day at work. I'm all for value for money so I'm after the parts that will give me the best bang for buck, not the ridiculously expensive ones that are going to break my small collection of savings. Thanks for reading, feel free to comment (I think I removed the restrictions on profile requirements for comments now so you shouldn't need to sign in anymore).

To Build a Computer...

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Saturday, December 11, 2010

A random kitten paid me a visit at work this afternoon. Being such a hot day the receptionists had left the back door open to uninvited guests, and despite being uninvited, this little guy made my day. I mean, it's not every day you get a little kitten stroll into your room at work, jump up on your lap and have a nap, and stay there for an hour. All the while, making soft little kitten noises and squeaks, of course. And combined with the warmness of its little body vibrating gently with the purring, it was certainly a delightful experience to be had. No-one had any idea who it belonged to or what it was doing there but apparently it wasn't uncommon for people at work to take home stray animals who turned up there. I've always wanted an animal at home. A rabbit, a cat, or even some fish would have been nice. Never even bothered trying to convince my parents though, especially since I've essentially moved out of home and probably wouldn't have the time to look after one in Auckland. Not that the apartment allows pets, anyway. Ah well, I'll just hope more of these little guys show up at work xD


In the end one of the doctors ended up taking her home. She got her immunised, de-flea'd and cleaned at the SPCA and now she has a new home. This little kitten certainly knew where to look to find herself an owner who would treat her well. Clever little thing ^^

So yesterday and today I've been taking people's blood and have been having about a 80% success rate so far and rising. I think I've been starting to get the hang of it. When I started I forgot really stupid things like taking the needle out before loosening the tourniquet and causing a big mess =X. I always feel real crap when I remove the needle and blood spurts out like a fountain everywhere and the patient looks away and you just know you did something wrong. Hey, it doesn't happen so much anymore, I swear I've gotten past that stage ><. Practice makes perfect, right? Although phlebotomy isn't really something you can practice at home (unlike piano, etc) ... so before I reach a level where I'm competent enough not to screw things up, a few people are going to have to get hurt >< gomen kudasai... I just can't stand hurting people. Even when people say it's OK I still feel bad because know if I was in their position I would say I was fine even if it hurt. Guess some people are more honest than me, but still =X

This weekend my dad's got some garden work lined up for me, probably involving mowing the lawns and weeding the vegetable patch. Gardening, haven't done that in a looong time. Not that I miss it too much, heh. So long as the weather's good I'm not complaining. On Sunday some people are coming over from Tauranga to visit the Redwoods along with some of our family friends here. I don't know many of the people coming so I guess it'll give me a chance to meet some new faces. Rotorua's pretty goddamn boring at the moment so I'm just sticking to whatever my parents are doing, not that I have anything better to do anyway. I do DDR it out on the Wii occasionally when I've got the energy but usually I'm so tired after work I just couch potato in front of some anime or manga. Of course, I don't have any internet or DDR in Murupara so that's pretty much all I do after work anyway when I'm staying out there. It's a good way to wind down, anyhow. I haven't had much of a chance to watch anime all semester so now I'm just catching up a little xD. I just finished Code Geass R2 yesterday night and it was fantastic. The ending caught me off guard but only a little, since a certain SOMEONE happened to spoil it for me right from the beginning T.T. I'm wondering which one I should start on next, maybe I'll take a look at Dark Angel ^^.

Okay, it's getting close to 11 so I think I'll quickly wash up and head off to bed, thx for reading =D

Kittens Delight

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Friday, December 3, 2010

Category

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So I just arrived back in Rotorua yesterday night. I do wish I had better memories of this place, but some things can't be changed. Perhaps I ought to make some new ones. Even without being in the high school environment there should be opportunities to expand my world here if I just look hard enough. Yeah, Rotorua's not so bad, it was just my attitude towards life that was weighing me down all that time I was here. Living away from parents for three years doing a degree as hectic as med makes you grow up, and fast. I guess if there's one reason I'm glad I chose to do med, it could be that. Meh, however that happened, I'm glad that I did make it in, somehow.

First day of work in Murupara today, joy. Spent the entire day doing some super-boring auditing for the doctors as part of their quality control thingie. Almost fell asleep at my desk this afternoon. I'm glad nobody saw me, falling asleep on the first day of work is never a good way to make a good impression on your employers. Anyhow, that job should be done by tomorrow I think. After I'm finished with that job I'm going to do a phlebotomy course with one of the labs in Rotorua to gain some venopuncturing skillz and go back to the clinic and puncture some veins ^^. I'm hoping I won't cause too much mess for the nurses to clean up and actually be of some use, heh. I never was good with anything practical, besides maybe piano, if that counts.

Ah, so lonely out here in the rural town. I'm staying in Murupara overnight so I'll be relying on my laptop (filled with anime from Masaya's hard drive, of course xD), my DS and a few books for company tonight. No point in going out in a place like this, honestly. Even if you did somehow manage to get out without getting raped/mugged/assaulted there isn't anything here at all anyway. At least K Rd has places to go (and no, I don't mean brothels, either, if that's what you're thinking). Oh well, time to wind down with some Code Geass R2 for now, too tired to think of anything else to say here.

Feel the Spirit

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Monday, November 29, 2010

I wish I had them back in high school. But that doesn't matter now, all that matters is that I have them, and what's in the past doesn't matter anymore. I have to keep telling myself this, otherwise I'll never stop thinking of the high school life I could have had, the memories that should have been made, the people I should have met. Stop it now damn it, the past's gone, and the future awaits.

I woke up this morning feeling a bit under the weather for some reason. Probably I should have spent Sunday resting after going on a six-day long road trip to the Coromandel but instead I went and hung out in town. Meh, not the smartest decision I've made in my life but I sure as hell don't regret it. Time in Auckland is running devastatingly short with my parents coming up on Friday and taking me back on Sunday (with work commencing immediately on the following Monday, gah ><). When you want to spend time with people in a limited timeframe, you have to work around their schedule and to do that sometimes you have to make a few sacrifices, and that's just how it is. At the time of writing I've just received a text from a friend who's organising a get-together dinner before I head back to Rotorua for the summer. I feel truly blessed to have this opportunity to say my goodbyes to my friends before I head off. Thanks for organising this, you know who you are =) I saw the facebook movie yesterday. It wasn't a super-epic movie I'd have to say, but it was interesting nonetheless since most of the events were based on what happened in reality. It was a little heavy on the business and political side of things, but that's to be expected of any film involving large amounts of money. I did like the Harvard university setting, it's always nice to see what other kinds of university life are like across the world.

Coromandel road trip was epic. Although the accommodation wasn't quite as cosy as the ski lodge last time it was still pretty adequate and the facilities were good. Not having to bring sleeping bags on the bus is a definite plus, the beds were pretty good for a backpackers and there was some nice solid water pressure on those showers. The soundproofing could have used some improvement, the walls may as well have been made of paper for all the sound that carried through even while just having a normal conversation. i admit, the amount of noise generated during games of Pictionary or Monopoly are probably a bit above normal conversation level but for the noise to carry all the way through 2 doors and a corridor? Seems a bit dodgy. Perhaps because the building wasn't as insulated as the one at ski since at coromandel people usually come during summer, and the building needs to let in some ventilation? Lol, I'm thinking too much again xD.

We arrived at Hahei beach at around half four in the afternoon, iirc. Lol I couldn't blog during the trip cuz the internet there was devilishly expensive ($1 for 10 mins? Come on...><) so I'm trying to remember everything off the top of my head now. I think we just checked out the place and unloaded all our stuff that day. I remember having some nice egg omelette with some other stuff (cucumber, probably) along with some suspiciously soft and squishy rice. Lucky for me I wasn't on dinner on day one, because I was pretty damn tired that day if I remember. Well, not tired enough that I couldn't participate in the poker that happened that evening. I'm always up for a game or two. Or three. It's amusing how over the course of the evening we got to know people's poker personalities and know who's bluff to call and which people raise big only if they actually have something.
I think we may have played something else that night (jenga?) but trying to recall events from a week ago is hard for intellectually challenged people like me so I'll leave Monday for now.

Tuesday was beach day at Cathedral Cove. Breakfast was cereal and milk and was going to be cereal and milk for the next five days. And cucumber, if you're into that stuff. Oh yeah, before I forget I'd better mention that we came to the trip with a supply of about 20 odd cucumbers. Don't ask why, we just had them. Hence the having cucumbers with every meal, I don't think I want to touch any of those long green sticks for at least another week. Anyway, cucumbers aside, we went for a bit of a walk to Cathedral Cove, think it took us about 1 hour 30mins to reach there including the random stoppovers to gemstone bay and stingray beach to check out the scenery those places had to offer. Didn't see any stingrays that day, though. Apparently Cathedral Cove was where the opening to the 2nd Narnia movie was filmed. I guess New Zealand does have some pretty nice beaches, I probably take these sorts of things for granted after living in this place for so long. I didn't find this particular beach too special, though. Probably since it was quite small. Even beaches at the North Shore are longer and vaster than this one, according to some friends who live there. At least the weather was good. Even with sunscreen on I think I got a little tanned from that day, for some reason I tan real easily under the sun. Probably due to that bit of Indonesian blood in me, heh. Dinner was pasta and more pasta. Pasta is surprisingly good despite the simplicity of its preparation, with the right sauces. I should make it more often at home, instead of haing rice day in and day out.

We went on a 3 and a half hour kayak on Wednesday with some tour guides who showed us the ropes on basic kayaking and the various attractions around Hahei beach. We pretty much just went around the same places as we did on Tuesday (Gemstone bay, stingray beach, cathedral cove, etc), except this time experienced it from a different angle (from the sea! lolz xD). It was cool being shown the different types of animals that hung around the beach and the sea. It's been a while since I saw a gannet skydive into the sea to grab a fish at 120km/hr and the first time I've seen a stingray up so damn close (yeah, we actually got to see stingrays at stingray beach for a change!). Haha, Shaochen and me were always speeding away from everyone else and had to wait for the rest of the group a couple of times to catch up to us. At one point, we were so far ahead of them that they didn't even bother to wait for us before starting the tour commentary and by the time we paddle back to them they had already finished. Lolz.

Dinner was vegetarian sticky rice dumplings (compliments of mum and dad) and potatoes with stock. Apparently someone didn't know the difference between stock and gravy but she does now ^^;. Oh yeah we also went around the place looking for fruit trees in the backyards of various unoccupied holiday homes. According to our tour guide on the kayak he and his wife often went around picking figs, peaches and loquat from the various fruit trees that grew in the area. Fruit at the convenience store was so expensive that we didn't get any and since fruit doesn't keep so well we didn't get any prior to the trip either. Unfortunately we didn't find any figs or peaches but we did find a lot of grapefruit, lemons and loquat, which was better than nothing. The grapefruit was a tad sour, though. Had a bitter aftertaste too. Ah well, fruit is fruit.

Thursday was our free day. Sleeping in ftw. Woke up at around 9:30am and I was still the first one awake. So I played my DS, lol. Played a few games of chess with two guys over breakfast while waiting for the rest of them to wake up. I think the lovey-dovey couple went for a romantic stroll along the beach while the rest of us geared up for some tennis at the local dive shop. My arms still ached from kayaking but nonetheless had a good few hits (and probably even more misses). First time playing tennis for me, lol. But it was all good fun. Came home in the afternoon and hit the mahjong again with junk food and cucumbers. I managed to salvage the dodgy-looking overcooked rice from Monday's dinner sitting in the fridge by turning it into fried rice with mixed frozen vegetables and egg, which I thought was quite a success by how quickly it went. The guys fired up the barbecue and everyone had their meat and sausages while I had my veggie patties and dumplings in the cool evening breeze. I think that day we ended up gossiping a bit about other people which I found a bit boring so us guys went inside and went back to the mahjong. Yeah, we played a shitload of mahjong that day, it was epic.


On Friday we went to Hot Water Beach, supposedly one of the main attractions in the area. Despite it being a rather cloudy day the place was pretty damn busy and none of us realised exactly how small the actual thermoactive area was. We probably spent at least an hour poking around in the sand looking for a hotspot before finding a place near the tide where we started building fortifications to keep the tide out. Unfortunately despite it being low tide at that particular time we found our efforts to be in vain as our walls were constantly overrun by the massive tides that just washed all our work away. In the end we resorted to waiting for other people to leave their little hotspots and sniping their spots once they were gone. It was then I realised how damn hot that sand was, and why it was said to be used by the Maoris to cook people in. It was so hot that I would voluntarily let sea water in to actually cool it down to get it to the right temperature. I think I'll just stick to the Polynesian Spas in Rotorua for natural hot spas. God, if anyone stayed in that place for too long they'd surely get cooked to the point of being dinner.

After the beach we went on a short walk up around the various cliffs around the area where we took some pretty awesome photos of the beautiful scenery around the area. The weather wasn't spectacular that day but there was layer of mist covering the horizon which I thought was really pretty, in a mysterious sort of way.

For our last dinner we had rice again with some potato chips, egg omelette and those funny green sticks who's name escapes me at this moment - oh wait, of course - CUCUMBERS, duh xD. That night, six of us stayed up til 2am playing Monopoly which was epic. I went out pretty fast but still had lots of lols watching the rest of the game while retiring to the position of real estate agent and banker. Probably the craziest game of Monopoly I've ever played, oh the lols.

We had to gaps the place by 10am in the morning, so couldn't sleep in too much, unfortunately. They even kicked us out in the living and dining areas so we resorted to playing mahjong on the outdoor tables. It didn't last long, however as there were mosquitoes everywhere and people were getting bitten. So we packed up and headed to the park instead. Not really much to do around that area besides browse overpriced gift shops and hang out, really. Our bus came at noon, so we had a bit of time to kill. Probably the longest couple of hours in my life. At least the bus trip back was good. I was rather tired and managed to get some shuteye on the bus. All in all, a great trip with awesome people, I won't forget it. Well, except maybe the cucumbers. I don't really wana remember that Dx.

Thanks Lester for taking all those amazing pictures! U r da man =D

Friends Like These

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Monday, November 22, 2010


I woke up at 5am yesterday morning to make these babies. Took 3 hours to make them and were gone within 15mins at Ice's picnic at her house. I'm still pretty inexperienced at making these things (hence the long time it took to prepare) but I was pretty surprised at how well they turned out. My first few onigiri turned out a real mess, being the health-conscious person I am I ran the classic error of attempting to overstuff the filling (since I had plenty of real good vegetables in there), resulting in the rice ball pretty much exploding as soon as it was out of the mould. Now I know exploding onigiri might sound like fun, but trust me it isn't. Those which I tried to overstuff ended up in a huge sticky mess of rice, filling and seaweed which stuck to the chopping board, the table, to fingers, or pretty much any surface really. I was faced with the dilemma of wondering what the hell to do with such a big mess of fail onigiri, until I had the sudden idea of just pressing the big mess into the mould and wrapping it up with seaweed. Yeah, those 6 onigiri at the back were failures. Still, 9/15 is still alright, isn't it? That's exactly 60% success, which sounds pretty passable as far as I'm concerned. At least I managed to salvage those failures into something respectable-looking (and hopefully tasting), sometimes I surprise myself at my own ingenuinity, heh.

So, had some good times at the picnic yesterday with some good weather, good company and good food. I won't say anything about the unexpected tramp through the forest apart from the fact that I would have worn my walking shoes if I knew such an expedition was imminent. Not that I mind walking too much, at least it wasn't like muddy or anything. Played some SC2 afterwards at iPlay which was pretty fun. Almost won my first Raynor party, lolz.

Ah, looks like it's almost time to go. Today we're supposed to be meeting up for ice-cream at Giapo where they've got some kind of deal going on. I have to get the laundry out from the wash and hang it up before I go pick some people up from uni who need to get some stuff from my place for Coromandel. I guess I'll be going now.

Onigiri Time

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Sunday, November 14, 2010

Some part of me doesn't think these articles are compatible with each other, lolz. Just found my NCEA L3 Merit certificate at the bottom of one of my drawers and thought it would be a joke to hang it up next to my dux medal and student doctor badge (my UE certificate's up there too btw). I always have fun cleaning my room cuz you never know what junk you might find...

Sorry if this looks like I'm being stuck up or anything, just these things I find amusing...I must have a weird sense of humour xD

Spot the contradiction

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Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Where they belong. And not touching them again until February. Or later.

My cough has gotten somewhat better since my last entry but still pretty damn annoying, especially when trying to talk to people. It's like there's a tickling feeling in my throat which triggers some kind of reflex coughing spasm, ah you don't need to know the details, what the hell am I doing.

So I successfully managed to hack my wii on Sunday before I was invited to go play cards with some of my sister's engineering friends. And no, not MTG this time, but we played this awesome game called Dominion where you're in this medieval setting where you manage limited resources to try and secure as many victory cards (estates, duchies and provinces) by purchasing various improvement cards and the like. It took a while to get the hang of but in the end it was great fun seeing what sort of combinations you can pull off by taking advantage of certain cards. Anyway I won't bore you with the details (not that I can be bothered explaining them lol) but if you ever get the chance to play Dominion, it's a great game. After a dinner break for pizza we got into some Munchkin which was pretty fun, although I never quite got into that game as much as other card games for some reason. I mean, it's fun, but the whole thing seems too much based on luck due to the imbalanced nature of some of the cards, although I guess the idea is that people target whoever's winning with their hex cards, but even then they're still hard to beat. All in all, a fun night out with some good friends.

Oh yeah, one thing I forgot to mention was how flash metropolis apartments are. People were commenting on how our Statesman apartment was like a hotel, but Metropolis actually -was- a hotel before it became an apartment complex, lol. I know Statesman apartments are definitely above average but Metropolis is in another league altogether. It's funny, our host that evening didn't want to take us in through the front door because it looked too flash XD but I would definitely agree with that one. Even I would feel a little subconscious about taking people up to a place through what seemed like a Sheraton hotel lobby. It's like "wtf? do you live in a hotel or something?" I suppose I shouldn't really care what other people think anyway. Still, I can't help but feel a bit of hate from other students I take up to my place in the Statesman who have to put up with cheap student accomodation from their allowances. It's times like these that remind me to be grateful for what I've got in this life and forget about all that shit I don't have. I don't think most people hate people who are well-off just because they're rich, I reckon it's because some take it for granted and lose their ability to appreciate the small things in life. I don't want to fall into that trap, but I know how easy it can be to do so.

Yesterday was spent playing hacked games on my wii. Lol, yeah what a silly way to waste a day, I know, but I haven't done that in so long and it felt good to butcher some zombie heads with a katana-wielding high school girl complete with uniform and pigtails. One thing to note to others wishing play hacked games on their wii, there's a difference between DVD+R and DVD-R (I had no idea, I'm so low-tech these days) and only .iso's burned on DVD-R's are able to run wii games. Learned that the hard way. Anyway, so I got into some Onechanbara Bikini Zombie Slayers and pretty much spent most of the day playing that. The story is pretty ridiculous and just seems more like a justification for little girls to be running around with katanas lopping off zombie heads. It's so mindless and silly which makes it awesome, lots of blood too. Simon popped in for a bit to borrow my waistcoat and tie for some formal pastry thing he's going to. Oh yeah, I've also started watching Code Geass, I'm up to episode 8 and it's a great anime. The main story is pretty similar to the manga but the actual scenes differ quite a lot, especially with all the Knightmares they didn't have in the manga. I might watch an episode or two after this entry.

Today I think I'm going to be going out to town with Simon and hang at BK where that girl who plays Pokemon is going to give us some discounts or something (she works there). I'm also supposed to be helping Jo with food for the Coromandel trip next week, I think we're going out to the supermarket tomorrow or something but I don't think that's been confirmed yet. Hell I'd better start packing soon, I didn't realise the trip was so soon. Also need to tidy my room, too...still a huge mess from exam time. It's funny, I've got all this stuff I need to do and none of it's getting done. This's what holidays do to you I guess. Ah, so lazy..

btw check out my new Miku mousepad =D just arrived yesterday and I'm loving it <3

Doing nothing much

Posted on

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Happy now? Yeah I'm talking to you. You know who you are.

LOL ok I turned the music off

Posted on

Saturday, November 6, 2010

Being sick. It's been 6 days since the onset of whatever I've got and still doesn't show too many signs of going away anytime soon. Probably a combination of having to study, sit two 3 hour exams and going out have delayed my recovery but what the hell am I supposed to do about that? Sure, I guess going out wasn't as necessary as the first 2 but I'll be going back to Rotorua relatively soon and this is pretty much the only time I'll get to spend time with my friends in Auckland before I go back to Rotorua (and Murupara *sob*) so I do want to make the most of it.

Yesterday was an interesting day. I actually planned to softmod my wii that day but somehow I ended up going to AUT and playing DotA with some random engineering students who had just finished the last of their 4th year exams. Apparently WC3 is installed in almost every lab computer in engineering in a hidden folder named "Photoshop" lolz. Been a while since I played that game, don't really miss it though since SC2's been keeping me busy. Lol, one of Simon's friends kept giving me advice which was good since everyone else there was so hardcore and I was quite out of their league. Blizzard does make good games. But some of them can be really addictive, so sometimes it's better just to stay away from them altogether.

We headed to town after that. That's when I met HER. By her, I mean a girl who knows more about POKeMONz than I do, and is absolutely crazy about that game. Seriously WTF?!? I didn't think that was even possible, let alone I'd get the chance to meet someone like that. I guess that's the cool thing about Simon, you always meet new people when you hang out with him. But yesterday was something different. SEVEN HUNDRED and EIGHTY HOURS on her heart gold save file. And THREE HUNDRED and something pokedex. I'd met her briefly before at a random time I went into town to lend Simon my stethoscope and sphygomo but didn't really get to know her that well (apart from her blood pressure, which I took to show Simon how it's done) but my god, that girl's got Pokemon coming out of her ears. So, we had lunch together and hung around the arcades for a bit, then Simon had an urge to hack some Pokemon so we went around to my place after. That's when I played some epic Pokemon challenge (battle tower or something, I forget the name) with her, where you choose 2 Pokemon each to rent and proceed to do a series of double battles until you lose. I can't remember the last time I had so much fun playing Pokemon like that since my sister stopped playing that game (guess you grow out of these things after a while, lolz) but it was so epic, I mean, discussing tactics, choosing which Pokemon to use after each battle and which ones to keep...analysing the stats and movesets of each pokemon...I don't think I could do that with anybody else in the same way I did yesterday. I mean, that was just EPIC. Haha, I know, this must sound so nerdy but hey, Pokemon rocks my world and I don't care if it's a kids game or what. That's another reason why I'm so annoyed I was unwell, I didn't get to enjoy the experience as well as I should've. Ah well, I'm sure there will be a next time.

I went to dinner with Simon and a few of his friends in the evening. Apparently he's got connections with the owner of the Dynasty Chinese Restaurant on Wakefield St so he shouted us a feed there. Met another new face there, had a nice chat with her, although again what would I have given to get rid of that goddamn cough...>< whyyyy do things have to be so annoying? Why is the only time I get the chance to meet new people and expand my social network like this when I have to be so under the weather? Garr... anyway we went to the domain to join some of my classmates from med school for fireworks and had a good time there. It was pretty cold, though. And I wasn't feeling good...sigh. We did some pretty cool things like spell out words and numbers using sparklers and took photos of them. They even did an ECG trace with them (and I thought I was nerdy xD) and believe it or not, it actually turned out pretty good. Playing around with sparklers and things can be a pretty fun way to spend Guy Fawkes. Although it did get a bit dangerous at one point. I think there were some idiots in the domain who thought it would be funny to have firework wars with each other, and we got caught in the crossfire a few times. I happen to have a family friends who lost part of one of his hands due to a fireworks incident, so I was reluctant to actually light and of the proper fireworks. I think I'll just stick with the sparklers ^^.

It's kinda sad how I had more fun yesterday than going to halfway grad last Wednesday. I guess I'm not really so much into alcohol, drinking and loud music. I mean, what's so social about having the music up so loud that you can barely hear yourself think, let alone what other people are saying? I think I've covered this in another post, so I won't get started on it again. It's annoying how so much is happening now that exams are over, and I'm still not feeling 100%. Of all the times, why now do I have to get sick? Life isn't fair. Sorry I'm ranting on about this, but this cough just isn't going away even as I type. It's been keeping me up at night, and I haven't even been able to catch up on much sleep recently (probably slowing my recovery as well).

Yesterday was great though, despite all this sickness. Just looking back to how things were in high school and comparing it to now, I've realised just how much my world has expanded since then. It feels somehow strange to have people in your life who do actually do the things you do and feel the way you do. I can't describe the feeling in words, it's just so...great. It seemed so foreign to me in my high school years that I'd ever meet people who would appreciate the things I do in life. No-one would ever care how much study I did at home, how many hours of piano I practised, or what sorts of books I read or anything like that. And all I did to that was to shut those people out of my life cuz if they weren't interested, I wasn't interested in them, end of story. And why would I be interested in how many people got drunk on Saturday or who made out with who that evening, because I don't give a damn about that gossip shit. I don't regret living my high school days in isolation. But by depriving myself of a social life I threw it away before even realising exactly what it was I was giving up. By throwing it away, I meant deciding to do MEDICINE. The respose I get from this from my parents and friends is "Oh, it was a good thing you didn't have friends in high school, that way you managed to concentrate on your studies and get into medicine!" YEAH F**N RIGHT. I get that so much it's not even funny. For crying out loud, I only got bloody MERITS in NCEA L3 and that was without any so-called distractions from friends. Does that tell you how oh so hard I studied in high school at all? Yeah go figure. I didn't give a shit. I even think that having the right friends would motivate me, not the other way around. I probably would have still gone for med but I wouldn't have been so quick to dump the social life. It would have made the decision harder, as it was meant to be, and give me all the more reason to work hard and make the grades.

Oh boy this post is long and full of rant. And hell this cough is driving me nuts. I wonder if I should try modding my Wii today, or do something more productive like cleaning out my room (my room always looks like a bomb hit it after exam time). Need to do groceries as well. Work starts in Murupara on the 29th, I really want to get over this cough and make the most of what's left of my time in Auckland.

Since Windows Live Spaces is closing down soon I thought I'd salvage this wall of text I put together last year. Sure it's a bit outdated now but I think most of the stuff in there is still relevant. For those of you who haven't seen it before, enjoy.

--

~The Road to Med School~

"Don't go up that road!" - Civilian, Liberation Day (Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty)
I have been told, on numerous occasions, the reasons one would pursue a career in the field of medicine, and no, it’s not just about the money, as some would like to think. Firstly, it’s all about the job security. Medicine is one of the few professions which offers a job which society needs and always will need. Doctors will have their work cut out for them so long as people keep getting sick, and I can assure you, even with my limited knowledge, that this will not change anytime soon (at least not in our generation, anyway). This gives rise to the option for travel. People don’t just get sick in New Zealand. Wherever you may want to go, I can assure you there will always be people getting sick and there will be work for you. Even if there is enough GP coverage in an area, doctors need holidays now and then. Unfortunately, viruses, bacteria and disease don’t go on holiday. There’s your work.

On top of this is the nature of the work. Doctors help people in their time of need and use their knowledge to overcome their grievances so that they can get on with their life, whether they be a humble dairy owner or the chief executive of a major corporation. Dealing with people and helping them overcome their troubles would naturally bring one great satisfaction, though the great responsibility associated with such a career could place a reasonable amount of stress upon an individual at times.

A satisfying job which involves you with the lives of those around you, a secure career society will always need, with the flexibility which lets you travel the world...and of course you will be paid well. A nice little package, isn’t it? Perhaps this is the winning combination which draws so many to this profession. However, training doctors is incredibly costly for the government, and universities have to limit their intake of medical students. Only about 140 are taken in each year at the University of Auckland, and only slightly more in Otago University. This limitation places great pressure on prospective students to perform, which gives rise to a large amount of competition among peers. I personally dislike competition, but alas, it is the only way one can hope to attain this highly desirable career.

So, how does one go about getting into Medicine? Both universities require you to complete one year of undergraduate study before applying for Med School; so naturally this is where the competition lies. Getting into first year or “Pre-Med” from high school isn’t too hard; it’s pretty much open-entry for Health Sciences First Year (HSFY) in Otago but in Auckland prospective students for first year Health Sciences or Biomedical Science are ranked according to their best 80 NCEA Level 3 credits in 5 “approved subjects” (science subjects like biology and chemistry) so you’ll need to make it above the cut to get in. If I can recall correctly, the intake for Health Sciences in Auckland is about 200, whereas the intake for Biomed is 400 (it’s not too hard to get in; I got invitations to both courses, and I only achieved NCEA L3 with Merit).

So you got into one of the 3 pre-med courses, now what? Now the competition begins. Regardless of which one of the 3 routes you choose, you’ll have to sit for a nasty exam called the Undergraduate Medical and Health Sciences Admission Test, or the UMAT. The first thing you should know about the UMAT is that it is all relative. It’s like the Australian Schools Competitions you might have sat for in high school; your score is compared to all the other students’ scores and given a percentile ranking. Competitive? Yes. Just like the Australian Schools Comps. Except THIS TIME IT COUNTS. The second important thing about this test is that it is strictly timed, and you only get one shot at it each year. You can actually sit for this test in year 13, since scores are valid for 2 years after you’ve sat them, but your most recent score is the one that counts. So if you got 99th percentile in year 13 and for some absurd reason you sat for it again in first year uni and got 39th percentile, your 39th percentile score would be the one they looked at.

What exactly is this UMAT? Basically, the test is broken down into 3 sections; “Logical Reasoning”, “Understanding People” and “Non-Verbal Reasoning”. The “Logical Reasoning” section judges your ability to draw valid conclusions from various stimuli without making any unnecessary assumptions and basing your reasoning only on the information provided. It also tests your ability to analyse things like graphs and interpret other sorts of data in order to answer questions. In “Understanding People” you’re given various scenarios where you have to answer questions based upon your understanding of various characters’ emotions and feelings throughout the passage. It more or less tests your ability to put yourself into somebody else’s shoes and identify their emotional state in the given context. “Non-Verbal Reasoning” is a section where you’ll be given several shapes or numbers and told to choose the next one in the sequence, arrange them in a logical sequence or pick the odd one out. These questions are quite similar to some of the ones you’d find in a standard IQ test.

All the questions in the UMAT are multiple-choice and each section is timed separately, meaning that you can’t move between sections or allocate your own time to each section. The whole test is 105 minutes; 40 minutes for Section 1, 35 minutes for Section 2 and 30 minutes for Section 3.

Well, that’s the UMAT for you in a nutshell. Ideally you’d want to get a percentile score of 80+ if you want a decent shot at getting into Med School (especially in Otago). Preparation? They say you can’t prepare for the UMAT, but you can (“they” being ACER, the Australian company who run these tests. As a side note, you have to pay NZ$140 each time to sit the UMAT). Obviously you can’t actually study for the UMAT, but there are several prep courses available (for a price) which give you the single thing which will help you most: PRACTICE. Practice builds up your accuracy, confidence, speed and endurance – things which will help you immensely when the time comes.

Your UMAT score will be weighted differently depending on which Med School you go to. For Otago, Med School applications are based upon 1/3 of your UMAT and 2/3 on your grades in the 7 HSFY papers. For Auckland students, UMAT only counts for 15% of your score whilst grades count for 60% and the remaining 25% is based on your performance at the interview.

In terms of your papers, I’ll have to take you down the Auckland route, since that was the one I went down. Regardless of whether you take Health Sciences or Biomed (I did Biomed) you’ll have to do 4 overlapping papers which are identical in each course – CHEM110, BIOSCI107, POPLHLTH111 and MEDSCI142. Each of these papers counts 15% towards your score for your med application, so they are the ones you want to be concentrating on most during the semester. Here’s a bit of an overview on each of the papers:

CHEM110: Chemistry of the Living World – Take 7th Form organic chemistry and bring it to the next level. Along with the basic naming and drawing out of structures, you’ll be expected to complete complex reaction schemes and do some calculations. Don’t expect to get away with rote-learning everything, as you’ll need to be able to apply certain concepts to new situations. Labs are worth 20% of your grade, so prepare for them well ahead.

BIOSCI107: Cellular Processes and Development – Quite a challenging paper. 7th Form biology knowledge is assumed and you’re thrown into the world of the cell and its functions in relation to the human body. A bit of anatomy here and there with some cellular metabolism and histology thrown in, it makes quite an enjoyable paper if you find it interesting. Labs are also worth 20%, so prepare well.

POPLHLTH111: Population Health – Students are generally divided into 2 camps: the ones that love this paper and the ones who hate it. If you want to apply for Med School you’ll need to choose this as your elective. Basically, it’s the study of populations and their well-being and how to improve it. A bit of epidemiology, demographics, studies on different approaches and strategies to improve the health of a population and a couple of case studies. Much of the course can be rote-learned.

MEDSCI142: Organ Systems – Ah, this is where you start to get a picture of the guts of things (sorry, bad pun). This is more or less an overview of the anatomy and physiology of the human body including the nervous, circulatory, reproductive, digestive, and urinary systems. You’ll be dissecting things in the labs, watching videos on heart valve operations and viewing life-scarring images of sexually transmitted diseases. It’s a challenging paper, but it’s definitely not boring like some may find Population Health.

And there you have it. Idealistically you’d want to be going for all A+ in those 4 core papers, but realistically, an A- to A average will get you an interview at the very least. Although the university states you only need a B+ average to get one, the university interviews only twice as many applicants as they have positions (maybe about 300 or so get interviews from both Health Sciences and Biomed combined) so the cut-off point is a bit above B+ and more into the A- to A range (apparently your UMAT score plays some role in the selection process for interview, probably counted as another paper they weight as well as your grades).

Made it this far? Congratulations! You’re 75% of the way there. The last bit is the interview (Otago doesn’t do interviews for Med School, but they do for dentistry), which will account for the last 25% of your final score. I’m no expert on interview technique, but I do know it’s good to prepare. If you’re like me and this will be your first interview, it would be wise to take an interview training course so you have an idea of how to approach it. Some things they’re looking for are maturity, communication skills, certainty of career choice and friendliness among other things. Basically they’re just checking your suitability for the job and that you’re a well-rounded enough person. You’ll have to write up a supporting statement to submit before your interview, so make sure you’re prepared to answer questions based on that.

A thing I forgot to mention was that the intake of approximately 140 students for Med School in Auckland is broken down into 3 cohorts, the general category (100 students), the rural category (20 students) and the Maori and Pacific category (20 students). The general category is the cohort most of us would fall into, while the rural category (the Rural Origin Medical Preferential Entry or ROMPE scheme) is for students of rural origin and the Maori and Pacific category (the Maori and Pacific Admission Scheme or MAPAS) is for students of Maori or Pacific Island descent. Otago also has a ROMPE intake of 20 students, but I’m not sure if they have MAPAS. If you’re eligible for either ROMPE or MAPAS, great! Your chances of getting into Med School have just become significantly better, as you’re competing against a much less competitive cohort than the general category. Most students applying under the general category are students who are the top scholars from Auckland’s top grammar schools which pose significant competition; whereas under ROMPE and MAPAS the competition is generally lighter although I’ve been told ROMPE can still be quite competitive. You’ll still need to get a B+ or better average though.

I think that’s about everything I need to say about entry into Med School in Auckland. If you’re looking for information on Otago you’ll have to look elsewhere unfortunately. The Auckland and Otago Med Schools are both fully independent of each other in terms of undergraduates, and it’s impossible to switch from one to the other once you’re in. Even if you’ve done pre-med in Auckland and want to do HSFY in Otago, they won’t let you. Which med school is better is a subject of much debate. Auckland seems harder to get into due to the competition posed by high-achieving Auckland students, but Otago places much of their weighting on the UMAT which I find is a bit of a dodgy test in the way of selecting our future doctors. Whichever route you decide to choose, hard work will inevitably be up ahead, but at the end of the journey, a rich, rewarding and fulfilling career awaits the next 40 or so years of your life.

--

The Road to Med School

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Thursday, November 4, 2010

One to go. So I think I managed to get through 305 alright despite the coughing, throbbing headache and fever (Panadol ftw) although I may end up submitting for an aegrotat anyway just to be safe. One can never trust their reasoning while under the influence of any toxic substance, be it alcohol, crack or overreacting interferons and cytokines storming around your body. Surely Doxazosin is a calcium channel blocker and Diltiazem was an alpha blocker (since those 2 were in the same lecture and they both sound similar-ish I used to get those confused)? Anyhow, I sure hope that 312 turns out to be one of those exams you can just b/s your way through like I did with 211 last year.

Argh, my eyes still hurt from concentrating for 3 hours and I can feel the headache coming back again. Time for another Panadol, Tamiflu and shuteye.

Two Down

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Monday, November 1, 2010

I don't know if I've overexerted myself or what, but somehow I managed to get myself sick right in the middle of exam time. Sure, I have been doing a lot of reading over the past few days but I don't recall losing sleep or being overly stressed about these exams. I duno, maybe it's just my body telling me to look after myself better. I admit, I have been eating out more since exams started but its not that I haven't done that before around this time of the semester. An hour of nap, an hour of procrastination and I think I can hit the last of the notes I have to cover before tomorrow. Ugh, I just hope my body won't give out on me, just need to hang in there for 3 more days...

Hanging on

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Sunday, October 31, 2010

Two to go. Yeah, that's right, I'm talking about god damn exams. I don't understand what making people memorise large amounts of useless information aims to achieve but I'm just going to play by the rules and be over with it. Who am I to question authority, anyway. It's just part of being a student.

I realise with all the study that's been happening I haven't really been posting much here but nothing's really been happening apart from that. I guess there was Armageddon so I suppose I could write a bit about that. Yeah, I did the unthinkable thing for a med student around exam time and actually took a day off to go out to that thing. I guess part of me wanted to rebel against the whole "omg exams are in a week and I need to keep my 8.3333 GPA" feeling I always get when I'm around other med students as well as wanting to see the cosplays, overpriced merchandise etc. but overall I can't say it was a day well spent, to be perfectly honest.

Being so crowded (as usual) with endless mobs of people was in itself enough to put me off from the event even though I sort of expected it since I'm really not comfortable with large numbers of people. I don't know what it is, I guess I just really like my space for some reason. Yeah, I know its a bit stupid but that's just how I feel. It's just really hard to go places with so many people around and if you want to go anywhere you're more often than not finding yourself pushing against the current and sometimes not going anywhere at all. And I guess the noise, too. Can't stand the noise, either.

And now I'm starting a new paragraph so this whole post doesn't look like a massive wall of text. Yeah, I'm really tired this evening so I can't really think straight and I'm pretty much typing my thoughts as they come to me. Yeah ok, back to ranting about armageddon. The selection of merchandise wasn't particularly good this year either. I only bought a pair of Rukia gloves and a FMA necklace, both which I could've probably gotten on TradeMe for the same price. They did have some nice swords, and sword umbrellas which were pretty cool but I was more looking for 'functional' stuff like stationery, t-shirts, posters, etc. which I didn't particularly find. Probably because I didn't look hard enough cuz of all the people. Oh well. I guess such things can't be helped. I do wish I could've gone to see the final cosplay show on Monday though, apparently it was really good. It sucks so bad how every year Armageddon is always neck in neck with exam period and the only was I can go to it is if I forfeit a day of study and I don't believe I should have to be stuck with that decision. The organisers should appreciate that many otaku are also students who actually want to have futures outside Xbox and Playstation and that as much as they love anime, manga, games and movies, they also want to have a career and a life.

Stupid stuff like that makes me feel that I'm getting too old for this anime/manga/gaming shizz. Sure, I love playing Magic: the gathering, my nintendo DS, Wii and Starcraft2 but when I go casually to an event like a casual MTG draft I find that the culture there is somewhat elitist it takes the fun out of doing those aforementioned things. Even playing SC2 online is like that. I guess it takes time to get good at those sorts of things and when you're a student with assignments to do and exams to prepare for you don't have that sort of luxury. Perhaps I ought to find different things to distract myself with. Should go back to reading books or something.

Ah well I guess such things can't be helped. I want to enjoy what's left of my student life (ie, not much) but at the same time I don't want to waste time doing things that won't get me anywhere in life. After 20 years I still haven't been in any sort of relationship and nor do I foresee myself being in one if I continue doing things the way I am. Not that I give a damn if there's no-one in this world for me. I admit, I'm not someone who anyone would ever want to be in a relationship with anyway, not the way I am at the moment. Perhaps when/if I become a doctor at least someone might be interested in me for the money LOL. Pretty sad, huh. Haha, now I know I'm really in a shit mood. Nah I usually try not to beat myself up too much about such things but sometimes I can't help it, especially after sitting an exam, being all tired and cbf doing anything. I really need to sleep. Duno why I wasted this evening trying to format my blog and realising how goddamn complicated XML is. I'll leave that to another day. For now I'll just use the default tools and skins, sigh...how generic.

One Down

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Friday, October 29, 2010

Another week's passed since my last entry into this blog, and I don't really know what I should be saying here. I guess it's that time of semester when the days kind of meld together in a monotonous drag (not that my life is that interesting regardless), and you have those moments where you can't remember which day it is because it simply hasn't been important. I've been somewhat successful in holding off from the Starcraft over the past few days which has been good I suppose in terms of study (and sleep, believe it or not) although I still manage to distract myself with other things, ie. other games. Still not sure whether or not I'll have done enough study by Labour weekend to go to Armageddon with my friends and I guess that in itself is a nice motivational factor to get stuff done. I can't really think about what else I wanted to post here tonight so I think I'll just go back to the books.

Today arrives, becoming Tomorrow

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Monday, October 11, 2010

So here I am procrastinating yet again. Despite assignments being out of the way there's always exam prep and I think I only have 3.5 weeks to go before my first exam. Not to mention OSCEs before that. Argh, what the hell am I doing? Sometimes things seem so complicated yet the answer is so simple: just go the hell and study. Guess I'm in one of those moods again. Sigh. And this is after 3 games of SC2 today (got into platinum league for 2v2 and 3v3 not that things like that matter), a trip to the supermarket (was a nice day for it) and an hour spent in the kitchen cooking up some tasty food. If that's not enough to put me in a studying mood then I don't know what is. Maybe I should go to the gym or something, not that I haven't done enough walking today already. Sooo anti-study at the moment. Btw the title of the post doesn't have anything to do with this post it's just a phrase that I picked off one of the songs i was listening to earlier.

So what the hell am I going to do now? I don't like to think that SC2ing the night away like a hopeless addict was an option I was considering but hell, that's the way it is. Part of me was semi-interested in that AUMSA writing competition but as you can tell I'm not feeling so creative either so that's out of the question. Sometimes I question whether medicine is the right career for me. Part of me feels that I don't have the personality to do it despite the fact that I could make the grades and UMAT and whatnot. The fact that I still find bloody games like SC2 so much fun worries me. Shouldn't the thought of all that goddamn money I'll make as a doctor excite and motivate me to study? Shouldn't the prospects of prestige and wealth drive me? Shouldn't I be looking forward to helping my future patients get the best out of life from what medicine has to offer? What the hell, if all I wanted was a stable-ish job why in the name of all good things did I have to go pick med? I guess I don't give a damn about some things that I should be. What do I want in life, what am I prepared to do to get those things. I spent all my life avoiding questions such as these but I'm thinking they're catching up to me and catching up fast. Guess I spent more time in virtual worlds during my youth than I should have. Ah well, what can you do. I don't want to have to live through these regrets again, so I guess that in itself should be motivation to study. Damn you video games, why do you have to be so much fun...

Can't see the world through a mirror

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Monday, October 4, 2010

Yup, still slaving away at assignments. Although a bit closer to finishing now. Had observed case history taking assessment yesterday which went all good despite the fact that I had to sit around for an hour before I got to see my patient. Not good for the nerves. Poor patient I got had been interviewed 4 times before me, too. Bet she was so over this "Hi I'm a year 3 med student" crap by the time I got to her even though she didn't show it, fortunately for me.

Today we were learning about sexual history taking and practising it on each other, which was pretty damn awkward. I dunno even where to start when your patient says "I think I'm pregnant" and you're supposed to ask about their sex life. God, I don't even know what the hell people do when they do that sort of thing. Especially when it comes to promiscuity. Sigh, why do these things have to even be real issues...

One thing about Auckland's train service: IF YOUR TRAIN IS DELAYED FOR MORE THAN 20 MINUTES NEVER EVER EVER GET ON THE FIRST ONE THAT COMES. Just wait for the next one, unless standing around a random train station in the middle of nowhere tickles your fancy for some reason. Yeah, they just kick you off in, say, Otahuhu and leave you to rot for like 30mins til the next train comes to take you to wherever you were supposed to be going. Guess its no issue if you're just going a short distance but I've had that happen to me twice in a row now on my way to Middlemore. So sad they don't even give passengers compensation for the 1 hour of their life they've just wasted on standing in the middle of nowhere and still demand tickets on the train that arrives an hour late. I heard even Starbucks gives you free coffee if they're too slow with your order or they spill your coffee over the NZ Herald you were reading. Sure, the train people will apologise anonymously over the irritating loudspeakers (which I swear are just automated recordings) but I guess they're not apologetic enough to actually do anything for these poor people who were foolish enough to put faith in Auckland's public transport system.

Recently I've been trying to get into some more mainstream music instead of listening to jpop and anime/game music all day. Guess it's just getting a bit old, and sometimes I actually do wish to listen to music with lyrics that I actually understand. For some reason I'm getting drawn towards pop/teen/girl music, namely Taylor Swift and Avril Lavigne. I guess I'm kinda liking the messages that come across in the lyrics and they do have really nice voices. Don't judge me for it, I'm just trying to find stuff I like and I don't really know many artists. I try to listen to the radio on occassion but I can't stand the majority of the stuff that comes on and some of it's just real heavy.

My thoughts seem all over the place tonight. Not really doing a very structured entry tonight unfortunately. Just can't be bothered trying to make everything flow nicely like I usually try to do. Sometimes I reckon I'd write more entries if I didn't worry so much about making it nice and easy to read but then again that's one of the fun things I find in keeping this blog. But when I'm tired and in a "can't be f**ked" mood like I am in now you're going to get something like this. I duno how many people actually read this blog, but my suspicions are that more people read this thing than the absence of comments suggests. Probably should be more careful about what I put on here, really.

Done for the night, turning in now.

All over the place

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Thursday, September 30, 2010

So I'm finally underway with my Critical Review Article and by god, it feels good. Don't know why I always have to pick hard topics for myself (this will be yet my 3rd assignment related to stem cells) and why I don't just go do some clinical trial-based topic like everyone else. It would certianly save myself all the time digging around for stuff that we're not taught in class (eg. sox2, lin28, nanog and other [insert random combination of letters and numbers] genes etc. @@) but the sad thing is I actually find this stuff kinda interesting. I guess the idea of regenerating body organs is pretty awesome even though it seems it's going to be a while til we get to that stage. No, I'm not thinking of cloning people (although it would be tempting, lol jks) but the truth is there is quite a lot of potential in this field. Being able to transplant organs without being on immunosuppressant drugs for the rest of your life would be a pretty big step, keeping in mind the shortage of organ donors in the world.

Ah I duno what I'm doing rambling on about random med stuff, I guess I rarely get interested in my studies. Not that my interest in stem cells is huge (its complexity outweighs all the coolness of it, tbh) but it's certainly something that would be really really cool if it did get to the clinical setting. I'll leave the lab research to the PhD. MedSci's, though.

Underway

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Wednesday, September 22, 2010

So it's been almost a month since I last posted here. Just goes to show that procrastination has no limits. Especially when combined with Starcraft 2 and the fact that my sister went and bought herself a $2700 computer and was out of the house (at work) most of the time I was on break. Now that I've done my league placements, completed the campaign on the hardest difficulty and done as many of those little achievement tasks as I could, hopefully things will start getting back on track. Sure do have a lot of things I need to be doing at this time of semester other than SC2, that's for sure.


Had a rather uneventful break with all the SC2ing although I did manage to fit some study here and there for Monday's test. Probably didn't do as well as I should have but then again it's been a while since I've actually taken my studies seriously enough to do any better. I did also go to a few 21st birthdays which was a good excuse to get out of the house and away from those dodgy SCV's. One was at a karaoke place which was fun but not as fun as it would have been if I actually knew some of the songs that were being played. It did have the effect of reminding me of the 18 odd years i spent living under a rock, so to speak. Guess I was never got into popular music, it's always been J-Pop, video game music (which can actually be pretty good believe it or not) and other random stuff. The other 21st was at some random playground place called Bigups that was pretty fun except that I ran out of energy towards the end, and that felt good. Afterwards we hung out at the birthday guy's house (really nice house btw) and played on his wii he'd just gotten for his birthday. Probably the highlights of my holiday.

I've just spent the morning cleaning every corner of the apartment since my parents are inbound this evening and they (well, my mum) has high standards. Last time I don't think I met those standards and she was, shall I say, less than pleased. Fair enough, I suppose. Small time investment for having this place without paying rent with only groceries and bills to worry about, I guess. The freedom is nice, too (but can be distracting).

I'll probably be getting onto some assignmenting for the time being and try not to get sucked back into SC2. Stuff's due fairly soon for the stage I'm at with them (ie. not started) so better get moving.

Wings of Liberty

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Saturday, September 18, 2010

Just experimenting with some formatting while I procrastinate for my 305 test tomorrow. Just realised that this test is worth 30% towards the final grade yet I'm still wasting time like this. Go figure.

/procrastination

Procrastination

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Sunday, August 22, 2010

A lot of things on my mind at the moment. Perhaps I've been going out more than I should be recently and life seems to have caught up to me in a big way. That way being my parents. Well, more like my Mum. I know blogger probably isn't the place to discuss family affairs but I gotta say that I really screwed up the whole balancing thing between friends/family/uni during the past few days. I know I can't just blame the fact that I live away from home as an excuse since I'm still largely dependent on my parents by staying in this apartment and that in itself is a cause to go out of my way for them. And that's not to mention that they raised me since I was a zygote (or its precedent components, even). I guess I misjudged my investment in that department, so to speak.


Family matters aside, life has been generally meh over the past few days. 8am starts slowly chipping away at my sleep, ward and labs being a drain as usual and Starcraft 2 eating up set-aside study time. I probably shouldn't be so easily influenced by certain unemployed members of my household who have too much time on their hands but SC2 is so damn addictive it's not uncommon to find yourself at the end of a day and wonder where past three hours went when you thought you promised yourself that you wouldn't touch the thing after feeling so guilty from the last nights that vanished without a trace of work being done.

Saw Scott Pilgrim movie yesterday and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who needs a consistent and coherent storyline to satisfy them. Not that the story sucked but it just didn't make a lot of sense and I guess my tolerance for randomness is a bit low for me to like that kind of thing. Yeah, I know it was meant to be cheesy and stuff and I kinda walked in without realising it. It wasn't terrible, by any means. I've seen far, far, worse. They had a pretty neat thing going on there though with the video game references, there was room there to develop that a whole lot more but I guess they would have to spend a crapload on licencing and whatnot. Wonder how much they paid Nintendo to use that Zelda "you just unlocked a door/chest/solved a puzzle/finally solved whatever was stopping you from advancing the storyline after spending 3 hours on the damn thing and angrily resorting to the internet to continue playing the goddamn game you spent $90 on" tingle that brings back terrible memories for noob zelda players such as myself. Ah well, maybe some other director can pick up on it. I certainly see a lot of potential in a game-style movie. College Saga ftw =D

It's 10:50pm and the reason why I'm awake at this moment is due to the fact that I don't have a cursed 8am start tomorrow in which case I would be in bed by 10. Light day tomorrow, hopefully get some work done for that test on Monday. Looking forward to seeing the med revue tomorrow as well, hopefully nobody who saw it tonight will spoil it by then.

Sleepy time ^^
Thx for reading~

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Balance

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Wednesday, August 18, 2010

It's been just over a week since my last post and a lot has happened since then. It's not that my life is usually this eventful but it just so happens that 3 people were celebrating their birthdays, two of which were 21sts and one of which was my own birthday. Ward round on Wednesday was another eventful afternoon as usual and MTG draft after that was fun, although we did lose quite badly.


I'm not sure what to make of my experience at Showgirls on Thursday night. Part of me was curious as to wonder what actually goes on in there but at the same time I really didn't want to find out, because I reckon that there are some things in life are best left to the imagination. However, the opportunity was there, and I felt I would regret it if i let that that opportunity go like the so many other ones foregone that won't come again. I can't say I didn't enjoy the company of the people there; friends, acquaintances and a number of new faces - but sometimes I get pretty frustrated by the antisocial-ness of the whole bar/club atmosphere where you can barely hear yourself think yet alone meet and get to know new people without having to shout over top of everything. It does seem somehow counterintuitive to me that such a social atmosphere should have this barrier to natural communication. I know it's partly my fault for having a soft voice and sometimes mispronounce words but I don't like raising my voice since I feel I lose the emotion in my words when I have to shout all the time. Yeah, bars and clubs aren't really my scene. Hulucat ftw ^^

The stripclub atmosphere I guess isn't too different from a conventional bar, except perhaps for the addition of a couple of poles and things on the ceiling and a slightly different layout (we were in a private room so that would have made things different...or are there even non-private rooms? o.o). The suggestive provocative dances were nothing I hadn't seen before (they have them at revues as well as even some high school performances), except perhaps they were wearing slightly less than usual and exaggerated the moves a little more. I won't give an account of the lap dances the guys received but all I can say is that though some people enjoy them it's not everyone's cup of tea. I think it depends a lot on your attitude towards certain...things. I'm not usually so opinionated about things but for me it isn't something I would feel comfortable with no matter what the circumstance. I can't really put into words what exactly it is but for now that's the way things are.

My birthday happened to be on Friday the 13th this year and the weather held its promise to that, although some hail or thunder would have added nicely to the atmosphere. It had been so long since I'd celebrated my birthday in that way that I wondered why I'd never done anything for it for so long. Perhaps it was due to lack of motivation for organising such an event since I guess the last time I did anything for it was with my parents who used to do everything for me. Getting stuff together is surprisingly simple if you plan ahead with these things and I'm so glad everything went alright, being Friday the 13th and all. I suppose the only real misfortune was that I only managed to blow out 15 of the 20 birthday candles, does that give my wish only a 75% chance of coming true?

Reading over the birthday messages from my friends again I feel truly touched to be have such amazing people in my life. Perhaps I've only come to realise how much these people mean to me that it brings tears to my eyes to think that three years ago I had believed that there was no-one out there who I could truly relate to me in a way that I would ever understand what having a real friend was like. I wasn't told to make friends in high school or to be interested in anyone except myself. I wasn't told the importance of being able to communicate, share ideas and connect to people. All i was told was not to get into the wrong crowd, shut up in class, do my homework and practice my piano. And I listened to them. And that was all I did. I guess I just didn't want to disappoint anyone, and I don't think I did. Even though the vast majority of my peers didn't do things my way. Over the years I began to look down on them. Even my sister was always the more rebellious one at home, and I looked down on her as well. It was as if I was serving some higher purpose by listening to just doing what I was told even though nobody else ever did. I don't know why I thought those things back then. Perhaps it was my own futile way of trying to find a purpose in life when having nothing to hold onto but your own misguided compass of what you think is right.

I won't dwell on those past mistakes. I don't care if I lost my teenage years to books and video games and every other antisocial activity you can think of because it simply doesn't matter anymore. Even video games can teach you things, like "The World Ends With You" and what the world is to you is simply what you make of it. Nothing can change your world except you, and for your world to change, you have to start by making the change within yourself. They say the only thing that's constant in this world is change, and I've just begun to accept this as part of my world.

Gah, all this emotion's driving me all philosophical. Perhaps I'd better occupy myself with something. I think I'll head into town to pick up a case for my shiny new iPod. Yeah, I'm really going to cherish this gift.

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There Are Some Memories I Don't Want to Forget

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Saturday, August 14, 2010

We were learning about vital signs today. Yeah, pulse, O2 sats, ventilation rate, and, of course, BLOOD PRESSURE @@! Why oh why do I suck so bad at taking blood pressures ><. I thought I'd practiced it time and time again on my mum back in Rotorua with dad's equipment but I guess I forgot that I'd have to deal with patients with flabby/fatty arms where finding pulses is a nightmare (particularly when you're doing it in front of a registrar and 3 of your peers). Lucklily for me my registrar was very patient and she took me around to a few other patients to take their pressures after failing so bad on the first ones, and eventually I got it right (on a skinny old lady whose diastolic didn't seem to want to fade away). I guess its not so bad being the geriatric ward, since if I'm to make a goddamn fool of myself its better to do so as a third year than a 4th/5th year/TI...if I can take a BP off those seniors then I'm pretty sure I can take one off anyone in the future (or at least I hope).

Other than epically failing at taking BP's I guess the rest of the ward was pretty good. Again, I was lucky with my patient and got someone pretty nice. T'is a pity we still have to do stuff in pairs since I kinda want to try a history by myself although it's sometimes good to see how other people phrase their questions and stuff. I think my partner today has had quite a bit of clinical experience in the past so it was good to see how he went about things when we saw our patient. I hope next time I'll get to try one on my own, though.

Went and saw Toy Story 3 yesterday with some friends. It was my first time seeing a movie in IMAX theatre so it was quite an experience. The Night and Day short film was a little too random for my liking, though. The whole thing just seemed to be one of those things animators do to show off how cool they are at doing random stuff people don't normally (or want to) see. Toy Story 3 itself was pretty entertaining (well, as far as Pixar Disney movies go) with lots of amusing moments and a good take home message as well. Overall it was quite a bargain, for only costing $10 and being all 3D and IMAX. Much better than Knight and Day at any rate. That one seemed to me to be the stereotypical fast-paced action movie abundant with "people in fast cars with guns shooting at each other on the motorway" scenes with the recurring "helpless female caught up in some big nasty plot for world domination who the protagonist inevitably falls in love with" theme so common in these types of films. Even Transformers was better, cuz the robots were at least kind of cool. I don't mean to be a film critic (I hate people who sit around all day long criticizing things) but sometimes I just wonder if the people making all these films have run out of ideas or something. Perhaps I should INCEPT some new ones into their minds >=D /badjoke =.=
Inception was amazing (although I was kinda wtf for the first 30mins) and it certainly puts an interesting twist on the way one can perceive reality. How can one distinguish between a dream and reality? Even if you do have one of them 'totem' thingies how can you be certain the world you made the totem in wasn't just another dream? Ah @@ my head. I'd like to try out one of those dream terminal/cafe places though. They seem like fun ^^

So what else is there. Nothing much really. Got my Critical Literature Review topic approved today (yay for stem cells). Still haven't decided on what to do about hospitals yet. Thinking of swapping groups with someone actually. Hm, need to get onto that one. Stuff seems to be breaking rather frequently this week. First my glasses nosepiece broke (still needs fixing, argh) then my watch (just before my wards too =.= how convenient...) and my DS failed to wake me up 2 mornings in a row (missed 8am start yesterday ><) so I think something may be wrong there. Sigh, so annoying. Should really be getting down to some work tonight. I think I've ranted enough for one evening.

Sayonara~

Another Day on the Ward

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Wednesday, August 4, 2010

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Hi, I'm Jeff! Welcome to my blog, where I share random thoughts and things about my life. Enjoy :)