Making out with mannequins

I had to attend a first aid course today. Walked into the city to catch the bus 10 minutes north of the city. The three of us - Jason, Young and I were meant to catch the bus together, but somebody walks really slowly and missed the bus.

Little did we know that a 3m tall sign that point to St John's Ambulance is actually wrong and directed us instead to someone's backyard and train tracks. We spot a market, and after asking a few locals, we deduced that we had to walk 1km in the direction that we had come from. Thirty five minutes later, we bump into Jason (who had missed the second bus because he was sitting in Subway, so he caught a taxi instead). After 40 minutes, we finally located the CORRECT [identical] 3m sign and shuffled into the room as the instructor was pumping away at a Little Anne - 30 compressions, 2 breaths.

12:15 pm meant lunch time, so we trekked [in the rain] to KFC. Nothing like a shower in 15 degree whether to wake you up in the morning.

The afternoon session involved learning how to transform bandages, cloth, whatever you could find into slings, padding, and immobilisers. We were told how to treat various bee and wasp stings, snake, spider, octopus, pufferfish, stonefish, jellyfish, stingray, and ant bites, most of which can essentially be divided up into give warm fluids, apply ice-pack, or wash with vinegar.

<-- Picture of my friend all bandaged up.

We met two of Jason's friends that live on campus with him, and the three of us went went shopping at Coles, which ended in the boys stalking me down the aisle because I like to take my time grocery shopping.

Medwelcome 2010

Never turn up to medwelcome half a hour late.

Turn up one and a half hours late. That's when everyone arrives. The drinks menu was dull (choice of beer, UDL, or punch), so Johnny and I sneaked into the hospital (which adjoins the clinical school) and bought coke at the vending machine in the cafeteria instead.

First taste of medicine

First week of medicine! Apart from our CBL case, it's been pretty bland. The majority of our lectures are titled: "Introduction to...", which means you get a summary of the subject, and what will be required in it.

After the initial hype of getting to this point, I feel as if week one has been a tad anticlimactic. The highlights of my week have included buying colour pencils (I love pretty, colourful objects), taking photos of this beautiful city:



and receiving 'care packages' from my parents filled with all the possessions that I didn't manage to take.

It's been more interesting in the apartment this week though. We've had 3 more people move in on the ground floor - Karin, Myriam, and Alex (2). Myriam and Alex were next door neighbours in Italy, whilst Karin met Alex during her travels. However, Alex is flying to Bali to holiday with his girlfriend, so we'll be seeing more of him in a few weeks.

Introduction and Summary

I've been living in a sharehouse for 5 days now, and there's been so much happening lately that I thought I might share the drama with the rest of the world.

So I'll start from the beginning. The reason I'm in a sharehouse in the first place is because I've moved roughly 1000kms away from home in order to pursue my dream of one day becoming a doctor. The days leading up to my departure were filled with farewell parties, drinking, parents that insist I take everything with me (it turns out that I really did need my old anatomy textbooks), and my attempts to compact my life into 30kgs.

I arrived at an underwhelming airport (it had one level, and no actual terminals. I expected more from the airport of a state capital), to be greeted by my landlord, one of the girls that lived at another one of his apartments, and fake seals on the baggage claim track.

Day 1 involved shopping (mostly food), and settling in. The next few days were orientation, where I met many people from Sydney and Melbourne, and even bumped into a girl from high school! Although the focal point was the last day of orientation, where we had a free lunch supplied by the med society AND freebies from medical insurance companies to entice us to sign up. ^^

At the end of the week, Yoni (another medicine student who lives here) and I went to Kmart to buy a printer - on his motorbike. Finding a printer wasn't the problem, it was bringing it back. And having a 3-in-1 printer wedged between us wasn't the smartest idea we've come up with. Luckily, we survived, only to discover when we arrived home that the printer wouldn't print. It was late, we were tired, so the printer sat in my room for the night.

Had breakfast yesterday with three of Yonis friends from Melbourne. It was the first time I've had Turkish coffee before, and all I can say is that...it works. Apparently, you have to acquire the taste, like drinking beer or whiskey.

Surprisingly, it hasn't rained here yet. The rain graphs lie!