lunar.soliloquy

Guess what i'm having for dinner? #dinnerforone

Oh how time goes by so fast these days. Looking back at my last post, I think I was worried about passing my long case and making some comparisons between living in Rotorua and in Auckland (something that seems to be a common train of thought every time I come back here). Well the good news is that I passed my long case! YAY. Seems so long ago it may as well have been a dream. But its a good feeling even now, knowing that its out of the way for the year.

I've just come off doing a 4 week rotation in general surgery and a 1 week rotation in ED, which have been much less stressful in terms of assessments compared with gen med. I don't see myself being a surgeon but working under the surgical team was really fun. I know some of my classmates take the opportunity of the short 30min ward rounds in gen surg to go home early (a real perk especially now we're getting paid) - and I could have done the same if I wanted to, but there was so much happening in surgery that it would seem like a shame to waste the opportunities. There was always something to do after the mandatory ward round - minor surgery clinics, gen surg clinics, ED admissions, house officer jobs, theatre...I even had the opportunity to attend a rural GP skin flap course which was surprisingly fun. I've always been rubbish at suturing (before I couldn't even hold the instruments properly, lol) but now I feel I could close up after a minor op if the consultant walked out on me for whatever reason. Feels good to be a little bit useful. Holding the camera for laparoscopy is fun, too. I'm also sucking less at clerking patients and actually getting their proper meds on the drug chart these days.

ED was fun, too. Probably the most exciting thing was getting to watch some defibrillator action live for the first time. And doing bedside ultrasounds on patients with abscesses or acute abdomen. I guess it wasn't particularly exciting seeing triage 4 or 5 patients (most of the cases I saw alone) but it was still good to get that GP-like experience since that's the direction I'm likely to be heading in. Looking after the worried well probably isn't the most satisfying medicine, but hey, if it's all I can get I'm going to take it. Also realised my orthopaedic knowledge is severely lacking since at the moment I'm just like "X-ray all the things!" xD. Oh well, it's not like we TI's can prescribe or order tests anyway. The only thing I've prescribed so far is water, lol. Can't even give paracetamol without a countersign. So annoying. At least we're able to order ECG's since that's usually just verbal, and it provides quite a lot of information.

On another note, I recently got myself a brand new Samsung solid state drive (SSD) to install windows 8 on. Basically SSD's are a kind of hard drive that have no moving parts and run much faster read and write speeds compared to traditional hard drives. However they're accordingly more expensive and smaller in capacity so you have to be selective of what you choose to put on them. Typically, the operating system, resource-intensive programs and high specs games are good choices. Unfortunately I ran into quite a bit of trouble getting windows 8 on mine since there was an annoying intermittent freezing glitch which I could not find the reason for at all. This went on for a week before I found out that it was a crappy windows wireless network driver that was causing it (this took many, many re-installs, tests, updates and much misery in general to diagnose). I then went to uninstall the said driver and it kept re-installing itself without my permission ><". Windows likes to be annoying like that. Solution was to disable it then install the correct one. Problem was that I installed the wrong driver because I forgot I had my network card replaced for a faulty product, and the replacement wasn't the same as the original. So wrong driver = crash. With that said, let's just say I'm grateful to have my good ol' desktop back to heath. Sometimes I think computers can be almost as difficult to diagnose as people, though I'm no expert on either subject.

Got a week of ophthalmology between now and Easter weekend. I plan to read up on eyes this weekend so I can go into a rotation actually knowing something for a change. Then going up to Auckland hopefully on Friday to visit friends and pick up parents from the airport (they're out of the country at the moment). So a few things to look forward to. I really should keep this more updated.

I can't believe its been almost a whole month since my last post. Time goes so fast when life's busy (well, I could be busier, otherwise I wouldn't be writing this post). But I feel like I've been learning a ton on the wards these past few weeks. Getting quite a lot more used to clerking patients than I was in 4th year. Now that I look back I did such a sloppy job back then I probably wouldn't even consider it proper work. Even now I still take ages, and still forget things when I have to present things to my consultant. I don't think I've ever clerked more than 3 patients for admission in one day since they all seem to come in the afternoon and I don't want to stay til 10pm even though there are tons of patients waiting to be seen. I want to get faster and slicker at doing these basic things so that when I finally graduate I can actually feel confident about my skills. With the long case drawing nearer, I'm really needing as much practice as I can get.

I decided to take up running again now that I have access to the Redwoods and in need of gaining some fitness to make up for all the sitting around I do at home. It really is quite nice being able to visit the forest again. The air is fresh, the solitude is relaxing (yeah I know, I'm such a loner. But its probably the only time I can think clearly), and the atmosphere is peaceful. Apart from when there's those buses taking tourists by the truckload to take photos of each other standing next to trees. I need to hurry up and get fitter so I can run the more advanced trails so I don't run into so many tourists. Damn, those Asians!

In other news I did take a trip up to Auckland to visit little mikorikawa since it was a long weekend. It was nice to have a break from Rotorua and do a few city-like things again. Although I do say its probably overrated for me these days. There are pros and cons to both Auckland and Rotorua for me. For example I''m probably saving enough money on petrol and food to afford a trip to Auckland and back each weekend just by staying with my parents and driving to a hospital that's only 10 minutes away. I can get up at 7am and still have time to get ready in the morning before handover at 8am. None of these things would happen if I were placed at North Shore or Middlemore Hospital. Probably the next best hospital for me to work in terms of convenience would be Auckland, just because I live in the city. But Rotorua does have its cons as well. Sometimes I'm afraid I'll lose touch with people in Auckland. Not much to do after work here. Not many places to go out or visit. Parents pushing their agenda onto me when I'd rather be doing other things. I don't really mind where I end up to be honest. I will probably end up in Auckland simply because I feel more connected to the people there, although the experience I'm currently getting in the general medical setting here is really good. Decisions, decisions.

Getting paid to study has been good too. I've received one and a half payments so far and expecting more next week. Money never really has been my primary goal in life but having more of it certainly doesn't hurt. According to a recent article I read there is a definite positive correlation between increasing income and levels of happiness up to a certain point. Apparently due to decreasing levels of financial stress and greater fulfilment of one's goals. And I'm not surprised to hear this. People try to say money is evil and all but not if you've earned it honestly and use it well, in my opinion. Of course, I don't believe money in itself is a worthy aspiration in life but it is undeniably means to a lot of ends. I daresay my opinion would look falsely arrogant from the outside.

"You're doing med! Of course you're doing it for the money, right?"

Don't get me started on that one.

So today I had my TI year orientation day at Rotorua Hospital. Now, equipped with my pager, swipe card and ID I'm ready to hit the wards! Woohoo. Finished early at 3pm which was a plus. The staff down here were really welcoming (and yes, we did have to sing a waiata). Apparently the 4 medical teams fight over who gets the 2 interns xD guess I'll find out who I'm with tomorrow. Going to be 8am starts for the rest of the year it seems so better get used to it now.

Well it feels like years since my last post. I wonder how long I'm going to be able to keep up this blogging before I get lazy again. I guess I start blogging when I start having too much time on my hands. Even though I've been on break for over 2 months (yay for uni holidays) I seem to have been able to keep myself busy with something. Well, time to get back into it! You'll see that I've given my blog a little clean-up so it looks more visually appealing (well to me anyway). I've changed the title to something a little more meaningful too, heh. I guess I get bored of things too quickly these days.

There's so much to catch up with on here I don't know where to start! Well first things first. I passed all my 5th year exams! Woohoo, bring on Trainee Intern year (and the money, $_$)! I start on Monday in Rotorua Hospital. Kind of nervous too, I guess. Being that one step above a medical student, harbouring that extra responsibility and all that. I worry about being able to contribute to the medical team and not being a burden like I'm used to being. Especially after all those weeks of holiday I'd convinced myself I'd earned. Even though I've been trying to do some study these last few days I still feel like I'm scraping the surface of the endless volume of information I should know after 5 years of medical school. What's worse is that we might have to sing a Waiata (Maori song) on orientation day. Someone save me.

On another note, interning in Rotorua means that I get to freeload off my parents for a WHOLE YEAR (for those of you who don't know, I spent my intermediate and high school years in Rotorua, and my parents never moved since i went to uni)! Hooray. I know for most Aucklanders this is probably just a given for most of their university life but it isn't for me. It's nice to not have to worry about chores, grocery shopping and cooking every single day. Sure, there'll be time that I'll have to do the odd dishes, vacuuming or gardening around the place but that's nothing compared to living away in an apartment. And all the money I'll save. One the downside I won't be able to see little mikorikawa as much. I'm sure both of us will be having a busy year anyway. I guess there's always skype and other communication modalities ot keep in touch.

So what have I been spending the past 2 months doing? Well for starters I've been doing a bit of random gaming. I finished Kingdom Hearts, Halo and Halo 2. Old games, I know. Just felt like playing other than the ol' Starcraft 2. I bought a month of RuneScape membership for lols. Gosh that game has changed. Trying to monetize everything now. Used to be such a good game, now its just like the rest of them, although it does hold a bit of nostalgia for me . I got pretty bored over the holiday. Mikorikawa had a log going on at that time so didn't get to spend much quality time with her. Ah well, that's life. Can't have everything I guess (but doesn't hurt to try).

  

We did however manage to watch some movies together! We watched some movies from the Avengers series (Iron Man, Hulk, Captain America) and going to re-watch the Avengers with all that backstory fresh in our minds! I quite like superhero movies. We also watched Wreck it Ralph! I don't usually enjoy kids' movies, but this one was an exception.

   



I also watched some anime. Of the ones I watched, Sword Art Online and Accel World stood out particularly in terms of storyline  Definitely some of the best anime I've ever seen, along with Fate Zero, Death Note and Code Geass. I also watched Highschool of the Dead which is a good series if you like lots of bloody graphic zombie violence ^_^

Sword Art Online!

Accel World!

And Blogger just crashed (and somehow saving a blank copy of this post), making me type out all of that text AGAIN. How annoying. Oh well hope that doesn't happen again. Now I've lost my train of thought. I just re-read my last blog post 3 months ago and remembered how I'd wanted to buy an iPhone 5. Well in the end I decided to save myself $300 and get a Samsung Galaxy S3. What can I say, its an excellent phone and not regretting the purchase one bit. It is a bit big but the huge screen size is really great when browsing the web and using maps, which I do so a bit when I'm out. And it's got NFC (which iPhone 5 doesn't) which I reckon is the way of the future. Apple will probably release their next iPhone with NFC as its main selling point, knowing them.

There was a whole lot more I wanted to add to this post but I'm just going to end it here while I'm ahead.