The reader accepts, on reading of this disclaimer, that the Internet is a vast wasteland of crap that spews out of human minds. This blog is no different. Any assumptions or conclusions that the reader draws from this blog are not the responsibility of the author, along with any physical or psychological harm that might result from the reading of this blog.
Author
The author is a paranoid, deranged and cynical misanthrope who records snippets of her life so that she will remember them when she grows old and withered. The identities of any names or initials on this blog are based on the assumptions of the reader unless otherwise specified, and the author claims no responsibility for them.
Reality
The author somehow got into medical school. Yes, you of the general public, shudder and fear the wrath of an inept doctor.
Loves
Reading, Maisy (my dog), tea, writing (albeit badly), piano, music, junk food.
Hates
Almost everything else besides the things mentioned above.
Friends
Bao Cheng' Bernice' Chien Young' Chun Hing' Claire' Faustina' Felicia' Ferly' Gloria' Irene' Irene & Jiaying' Jac' Jiamin' Jiasin' Jiaying' Lutheng' Karene' Marissa' Melesa' Mingyi' My fictionpress' Pamelia' Pei Rong' Qiu Ting' Rachel' Satires Site' Stasia' Sylvia' The Clique' Vinette' Wenjia' Xin Rong' Xue Ying' Yanne & I' Yanne & Jamie' Zeena' 203'
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Chat area
Something really amusing happened just before dinner on Facebook.
As everyone knows, Facebook has a useful little tool called Facebook chat. Which... Rather rarely works.
Anyway, I had left my computer on as I went to have a short chat with my mum. When I got back, there was a cute little window open at the bottom right hand corner of my facebook page. From... A certain S (yes, a homonym of ass).
Best not to mention names. I've realised egoistic people like to google their own names.
S happens to be from StH too. And yes, I've blogged (more accurately, bitched) about her before. Many times.
And she's doing med too. Rather stating the obvious.
Her status mentioned needing some help with stuff in our mid sem test tomorrow. And her message was quite short and succinct.
"Hey
Are you there?"
Obviously you'd suspect something was going on. She wouldn't talk to me unless
a) she wanted to call me a freak
b) she wanted to know my grades
c) she wanted to call me a freak after knowing my grades
d) she wanted help
As you can see, it's a bit of a one-way traffic, in terms of where help goes (knowledge goes down the concentration gradient. :P).
So I saw her message, and using my excellent inferring skills (honed from many years of history), I guessed she wanted help for tomorrow's test.
And I promptly clicked the cute little red X at the top right hand corner. BAHAHAHA.
I am sick of these people from StH. When they need help, they come to you. But when they host parties/movie outings, they never come to you. So why don't they go to one of their 'cool' 'unfreaky' friends for help instead?
S also happens to fulfil my top 2 pet peeves, namely:
1) People who only come to you for help and scorn/insult you at other times
2) People who think they are right, and when you correct them, they get annoyed that you were right, don't apologise after shooting your blood pressure up to some astronomical value and then get pissed off at you
And well, she's just a big S, as her name suggests and as her figure suggests (not so much the S, but the big).
You know, since she thinks that she doesn't need me as a friend (she doesn't even talk to me, even though we're in the same lab class), why doesn't she just wander off to ask one of her other friends?
Even in StH, I have always been the one helping her. Not the other way around. And with most people too. And now.. They ignore me when they see me. When the physics TEE was around the corner, they somehow manage to dredge up my phone number and actually have enough guts to phone me up.
So yes, for the sake of my sanity and my blood pressure, ignoring such people is the way to go. :P
I just hope they wander off into non-existence. At least, in the med course... Or just out of my life. I've already got a "hit list" of about 5 people I wish would drop out of med. And yes, the list is dominated with StH people.
I sound mean, but it's hard to tolerate them after TEE. TEE really brings out the worst in people, imho. And to be stuck with them for another 6 yrs kind of drives me up the wall.
So yes, I'm determined to do well in med to outlast these people. I can't do anything about their grades (and I don't intend to play that way, since it doesn't bring me any satisfaction of it being my own work), so the only thing I can do is to do well.
Bahahaha. At the end of 6 yrs, if I do graduate, I should go up to them and hug and kiss them, since they'd have 'gotten' me through med school. That's if they're still there. :P
11:42 PM
Friday, April 24, 2009
My first ever uni mid semester test was quite... Disastrous.
I suppose it got better as the paper progressed, but the first question tripped me up. And triggered off epinephrine (adrenaline) in my brain, causing me to panic.
The question, if you were that interested, was:
Which of the following is not present in the initiation stage of translation? (something along those lines)
a) Large and small ribosomal subunits
b) mRNA
c) tRNA binds with methionine
d) mRNA binds with methionine
a and b were quite no brainers- obviously they're used in translation. After the exam, the question is quite a no brainer. d definitely doesn't happen.
Guess which one I picked? No prizes for the right answer.
Yes, I picked c.
I thought both c and d were right. Because USUALLY, amino acids are added to tRNA during amino acid activation (before initiation). Turns out methionine is the only, fricking exception.
So much for embracing individuality :P.
Anyway, my mum, brother and I were listening to Susan Boyle and Shaheen from 'Britains' got talent' on youtube! They're both really amazing, though I think most of Susan's fame is attributed to her looks (or lack thereof). If a really good looking person sang that, I doubt it would have gotten the same kind of international reaction/recognition.
It's just amazing how much emphasis we put on a person's appearance, and how that impacts on a person's judgement. I think it's sad that these people also know what stigmas society attaches to them through stereotyping. Like Susan knew that Simon was speaking a load of bullshit when he said he knew she was going to do something extraordinary. Well, I suppose he expected her to do something extraordinarily bad.
Poor Shaheen, on the other hand, despite being cute, was cut off on his first song. I agree that it was a bit painful listening to him sing that song. It's just the wrong song! But when he sang 'Who's loving you'... it was just amazing.
Lol, I sound like I'm advertising for Britain's Got Talent.
Anyway, we got a new chinese assignment on Wednesday. It's due next Friday as usual. Seeing that I had that MGC (molecules, genes and cells) test today and another (foundies of med chem) on Tuesday... And not to mention the community placement on Wed and Thurs, I have no idea when I'm going to get down to doing it. Sigh.
We also had a mid sem test for chinese. I studied 1 hr for it. And it's double the % of the other 2 med ones, for which I studied the entire of last week for. LOL. And the 1 hr was spent learning what you call your relatives (there were 5 ques). HAHA.
And I think I did better in chinese than mgc. How ironic.
10:08 PM
Saturday, April 11, 2009
The mid semester exams are looming, but I find myself honestly uninterested and un-bothered. Which isn't good at all.
At the rate I'm going, I'll probably flunk out of med by the end of the semester. Sigh...
I still don't know if I like the course or not. Or really, the job at the end of the long, *treacherous* 6 year road (yes, cliche). There're people like my brother who knew from when they were preconceived what the wanted to do. Then there're people who can't get into med, and try again and again until they get in to fulfil their dreams. Then there're people who just can't get in, full stop. Then there're people like me, who somehow lied their way through the interview (not that it was great anyway) and ended up doing it.
Young was asking me the other day which unis I'd applied to for med. Honestly, only UWA. I would have been equally happy doing vet, or commerce, or engineering. The latter two because of my strength and "interest" in maths, and the former because of my love for animals (MAISY!). Unfortunately, I don't harbour too much of a liking for the human race, due in part to the stupidity of the majority of said species.
I think the reason I ended up choosing med was the pressure from parents, teachers and peers. Due to the prestige and financial stability of becoming a doctor, it is understandable for my parents to want me to do it. It might seem strange that I said teachers and peers. The kind of pressure is rather covert. At StH, a lot of people wanted to do med and thus, it became the holy grail of all uni courses. So the tendency was for teachers and peers to expect me to desire to get into med just because I did well in studies.
At the moment, I don't mind the med units. They're quite interesting, but on the other hand, I miss maths. I walked into the lecture after a calculus lecture, and strangely enough, I missed calculus. Sometimes, all that human bio and bio in med drives me up the wall but then again, I did sign up for the course.
I feel so envious of people who are so passionate about their course because despite my good results and the choice of basically any course at uni (and really, any uni in Aus), I didn't know what to do. The times when I had to talk to uni personnel when invited for stuff like evening tea, I would just don a fake smile and talk about my desire to do med because it would seemingly be a lie to say I didn't know what to do, when I had already applied for it.
Sometimes I wonder if I would be happier if I had done actuarial science, or vet, or engineering. But then again, I'm not exactly unhappy in med. I'm really happy that I met my group of friends, who make it a lot more fun to do med. But sometimes, in my quiet moments, some feelings of discontent are stirred up and they inspire blog posts like these. Lol.
Anyway, HAPPY EASTER TO ALL! (yes, sudden abrupt change of topic) May the easter bunny give you lots of hugs and kisses!
Lol, that sounded a bit wrong.
11:04 PM
Wednesday, April 08, 2009
As an afternote, I probably should apologise to the hardworking, pioneering (lol) students of StH that I have lumped in with the rest. Unfortunately, these conscientious people are a part of the tiny minority.
And well, I was just getting all that off my chest. From 2 years at said school.
Seeing no one from StH (except Gloria) comes to this blog (not that I know of anyway), I doubt anyone would bother that much.
On another note, I finally know how to use blog titles! Woohoo!
11:28 PM
I got my dear chinese assignment back today! And I got 84% for it! Which is a high distinction (without much effort). LOL! :D
Anyway, I was walking up the stairs to chinese class, blindly hurrying along as I thought I was late after the cadavers lab. So I was trying to overtake this guy wearing a bright greenish/yellow shirt, when he said 'qing3', and I realised he was my chinese teacher. Awkwardness.
My friend (Danni) got 86%! Damn. Just 2%.
My zuowen was disasterous, while hers was really good. I lost 7% due to it, while she lost... 3. Damn! Well, I did have a huge load of mistakes. HAHA.
Before the cadavers lab, Chris and Young (predominantly the latter) were complaining to me about S, also from StH. They were rather annoyed that she wouldn't shut up, even after telling her to do so, and giving her death stares. Typical StH people, really. Rich, arrogant snobbish assholes who don't care about other people's feelings. Just because their parents have too much money to shove down their throats to get them into the course they want to get into.
Firstly, StH school fees ALONE cost around $15k a year. In addition to that, she boards/rented a place. So boarding cost around $25k. Grand total of $40k just for that, excluding living expenses.
I don't know if her parents have some sort of oil mine or something, but she paid $80 per HOUR for tutoring last year too. Holy shit, my parents don't even earn that much. And she had tutoring for close to every subject, while I earned my grades through every drop of sweat, blood and midnight oil I had to burn.
On the other hand, she didn't bother turning up for quite a few lessons. And didn't do her homework, did her assignments the night before they were due (this includes FAHB essay this year), slept through lessons and still, miraculously (OR NOT) got into medicine.
Same goes for a load of StH people. They think that just because their parents have more money than they have brains, they rule the world. And while others are not as rich (like me) and are attempting to learn in class, they turn up not having done homework, and chat throughout the lesson. Then screw up exams and start complaining. And yes, pay $80 an hour for tutoring. And screw up other people's marks in the TEE due to moderating (of school marks). Urgh.
Unlike these people, my parents had to even work 2 jobs (my mum did) on top of running a business 2 years ago to tide my brother and I through the astronomical school fees (he was still international. Ie: $40k a yr. And adding my $15k on...). While these obnoxious rich kids were happily sitting on their asses in class wasting my time and money.
And the irony is, I get stereotyped as a nerd just because I do my homework and actually attempt to study on my own. I was one of the precious few people in the year who didn't have some form of tutoring or holiday revision course. Because of financial constraints, and because really, there wasn't any need. True, I did feel quite intimidated by my lack of tutoring, but looking back now, I'm glad I didn't waste that money.
But yes, I was considered nerdy when I did my homework and finished my assignments early. Or when I beat the rest of the calculus class by 20% in both exams because I bothered doing the practice papers online.
And then people got annoyed at me when I got impatient during lessons. I obviously would, especially in applicable maths, when the teacher was considering making us go back during the hols to finish the course (fortunately, we did finish it) because people were wasting time by coming to class with unfinished homework. And I am paying $15k a year for my bloody education, and that $15k didn't come easy. And going back to school during the hols meant wasting about 2 hours a day on transport. Unlike these people, I don't have that kind of money to buy a multimillion dollar house in that area.
But then again, the rich do rule the world. Or the school.
Oh well.
10:56 PM
Monday, April 06, 2009
I have had 2 replies for tutoring! Woohoo! :)
One of them is a year 8 student for maths and homework (the latter sounds slightly dodgy... Hopefully it doesn't include french or drama or something I can't do! LOL), and the other is a year 11 for maths! Yay!
The year 11 is paying me $25 an hour. I AM RICH! Lol, as if.
Not sure about the year 8. I received an email on Friday, replied on Saturday and haven't received a reply. Ah well, see how it goes.
They're both at StH, which isn't far from uni (there's a direct bus), so that's really gd too!
On a slightly darker note, I went to class this morning at 8am and realised that my bank/atm card was missing. We had to take out our police clearance card for them to check off, and it is usually in the same compartment as my bank card. So it was a horrid shock when I pulled all the cards out of the compartment and realised the familiar red card was gone!
I then recalled and smacked my head in frustration when I remembered that I forgot to take the card from the atm on Friday. The stupid receipt (which is utterly useless) gets ejected from the machine first, so I (stupidly) took the receipt and forgot about the card. ARGH.
Fortunately, there's a branch for that bank right in uni (westpac). I rushed there after my class looking all panicky, and the guy checked it out for me and said no one touched my $600 in there. *phew* And that I'd be getting a replacement card free! Yay!
So that wasn't too bad. Except it gave me a really bad fright early in the morning.
I don't know if it was due to that that I was rather grumpy and irritable during FCP. It was more probable that it was just FCP that made me that way, but I did feel exceptionally twitchy. I got rather annoyed with one of my group discussion mates, because she didn't want to share her answers with us and just wrote her own stuff. True, Joanna and I don't really care about it and do fool around a little, but we do still get stuff done. It's just quite annoying that E didn't want to share her ideas/answers to questions, when it was clearly stated to be GROUPWORK.
The saving grace is that the ppt presentation this week is in pairs. So that means Jo and Jo (lol) go together, while E wanders off to I-dont-know-and-dont-care-who.
The ppt is on cultural diversity, and Jo and I decided on India. (Un)fortunately, there's a guy from India in our class. Haha. And too bad that we couldn't use our own cultures. Damn... Singapore: no chewing gum, no spitting and no feeding pigeons. LOL.
We have 2 weeks to do it but seeing that we have exams after the 1 week study break, I might just start now.
6:37 PM
Sunday, April 05, 2009
We finally got windows office 2007 yesterday! Before this, the comp I am using had windows office 1997 and the other had... 1995. HAHA.
Yay! Now I can actually feel safe that my assignments will save themselves, instead of wandering off into oblivion like my physics assignment 2 years ago (which deleted itself after I'd saved it. Urgh).
Anyway, it's been quite a lazy weekend. I thought it was Sunday yesterday, but no, 1 day of my weekend didn't just die! Ok, I sound strange and crazy. Like I always do anyway. Lol.
We find out our community placements tomorrow! Except the unfortunate thing about the community placement is that it kind of clashes into the whole week squashed full of midsem exams. Sigh.
And I need some formal/work wear. Ah crap.
3:21 PM
Friday, April 03, 2009
An hour later, (needless to say, of some procrastination), I return in glory and triumph!
I have memorised the payoff phase of glycolysis too! :D
Okok, here goes.
6: Glyceraldehye 3-phosphate dehydrogenase. Dehydrogenase is basically oxidation. In this step, an inorganic phosphate is added to each glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate (rmb, there were 2 from the last step when dihydroxyacetone phosphate was turned into glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate by the fairy godmother triose phosphate isomerase), and NAD+ (electron carrier) accepts 2 hydride ions (1 proton, 2 electrons each) to form NADH + H+.
So the end product of the reaction is 2 of 1,3-biphosphoglycerate.
7: Phosphoglycerate kinase: a phosphate grp is cleaved off from 1,3-biphosphoglycerate and added to ADP, making it ATP and thus happy again. And the same as above, this happens for each 1,3-biphosphoglycerate.
8: Phosphoglycerate mutase: 3-phosphoglycerate is mutated into 2-phosphoglycerate.
9: Enolase: I don't know why I remember this one. It removes a H2O molecule from each 2-phosphoglycerate, making the end product phosphoenolpyruvate. The finishing line is close in sight.
10: Pyruvate kinase. Woohoo! Pyruvate is created! Of course, by cleaving off the phosphate group to make ADP happy again. End of story.
So overall reaction from prep stage till now:
Glucose + 2ATP + 2NAD+ + 2Pi -> 2 glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate (end of prep) -> 2NADH + 2H+ + 4 ATP + 2 H2O + 2 pyruvate (good things come in 2s)
Aka net gain of 2ATP (ATP is basically energy required for reactions).
Wtfbbq, I don't see how I'll remember this 2 hours later.
12:25 PM
I think everyone but Natan would be groaning in sympathy for me that I am currently learning glycolysis, and going on to the Krebs (or TCA: citric acid) cycle soon. Yes Natan, I promised to explain the Krebs cycle to you when I've actually learnt it. If ever you read this blog, I should hopefully be able to tell you all about it next week.
Unfortunately for me, glycolysis has been a major pain in the rearend. And our dear lecturer didn't lose the opportunity to instill despair in us: glycolysis is supposedly the easiest of the metabolic pathways we're supposed to be learning.
Why, oh why, did I choose med?! Where the course is basically jam-packed with nerdy, hardworking smart asses who have either done some extensive biology, or are willing to work really hard as they're interested in the course.
Not to mention that since the 'major' essay was handed in yesterday, everyone has started talking about mid semester 'exams'. They aren't worth much but I'd think I'd be really worried after them if I fail.
There's one for chinese too. Since I'm allowed a dictionary for that, I don't think I'll be doing too much study for it. The irony is that it's 20% of my chinese mark, while the med ones are only 10%. Oh well. The difference is that my chinese is decent, while my med knowledge is close to nothing.
Anyway, I'm currently attempting to start my glycolysis revision, and amazingly, I think I've memorised the first 5 enzymes in the preparatory phase (there's another 5 in the payoff phase. Yes, 10 ugly enzymes just for glycolysis. Imagine what's coming next week). And just to either show off that I managed to memorise them in the short time since the end of breakfast and now (aka: about half an hour), here they are:
1: Hexokinase. This adds the first phosphate group to glucose (first priming reaction), and it's done by yanking off a phosphate group from ATP, making poor little ATP run off crying as ADP. The product of this reaction is glucose 6-phosphate (phosphate added to 6th carbon).
2: Phosphohexose isomerase. This turns glucose 6-phosphate into fructose 6-phosphate, thus the isomerase (isomer).
3: Phosphofructokinase-1. Aka adding a phosphate group to the 1st carbon. Again done using a poor little ATP. But wow, this enzyme would be worth quite a bit on a Scrabble board.
4: Aldolase. Breaks the 6 carbon glucose into 2 3carbon ones, glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate and dihydroxyacetone phosphate.
5: Triosephosphate isomerase. Converts dihydroxyacetone phosphate into glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate. What the heck is the point in making me learn dihydroxyacetone phosphate then?! Oh, of course, scrabble champions are med students. Lol.
And I haven't learnt the other 5 in the payoff phase. My brain is about to implode at the moment, so wth, procrastination rules.
11:35 AM