Disclaimer
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'

Archives

 03/01/2004 - 04/01/2004 09/01/2004 - 10/01/2004 10/01/2004 - 11/01/2004 01/01/2005 - 02/01/2005 02/01/2005 - 03/01/2005 03/01/2005 - 04/01/2005 04/01/2005 - 05/01/2005 05/01/2005 - 06/01/2005 06/01/2005 - 07/01/2005 07/01/2005 - 08/01/2005 08/01/2005 - 09/01/2005 09/01/2005 - 10/01/2005 10/01/2005 - 11/01/2005 11/01/2005 - 12/01/2005 12/01/2005 - 01/01/2006 01/01/2006 - 02/01/2006 02/01/2006 - 03/01/2006 03/01/2006 - 04/01/2006 04/01/2006 - 05/01/2006 05/01/2006 - 06/01/2006 06/01/2006 - 07/01/2006 07/01/2006 - 08/01/2006 08/01/2006 - 09/01/2006 09/01/2006 - 10/01/2006 10/01/2006 - 11/01/2006 11/01/2006 - 12/01/2006 12/01/2006 - 01/01/2007 01/01/2007 - 02/01/2007 02/01/2007 - 03/01/2007 03/01/2007 - 04/01/2007 04/01/2007 - 05/01/2007 06/01/2007 - 07/01/2007 07/01/2007 - 08/01/2007 08/01/2007 - 09/01/2007 09/01/2007 - 10/01/2007 10/01/2007 - 11/01/2007 11/01/2007 - 12/01/2007 12/01/2007 - 01/01/2008 01/01/2008 - 02/01/2008 02/01/2008 - 03/01/2008 03/01/2008 - 04/01/2008 04/01/2008 - 05/01/2008 05/01/2008 - 06/01/2008 06/01/2008 - 07/01/2008 07/01/2008 - 08/01/2008 08/01/2008 - 09/01/2008 09/01/2008 - 10/01/2008 10/01/2008 - 11/01/2008 11/01/2008 - 12/01/2008 12/01/2008 - 01/01/2009 01/01/2009 - 02/01/2009 02/01/2009 - 03/01/2009 03/01/2009 - 04/01/2009 04/01/2009 - 05/01/2009 05/01/2009 - 06/01/2009 06/01/2009 - 07/01/2009 07/01/2009 - 08/01/2009 08/01/2009 - 09/01/2009 09/01/2009 - 10/01/2009 12/01/2009 - 01/01/2010 08/01/2010 - 09/01/2010 12/01/2010 - 01/01/2011 06/01/2011 - 07/01/2011 04/01/2012 - 05/01/2012 08/01/2012 - 09/01/2012 09/01/2012 - 10/01/2012 10/01/2012 - 11/01/2012 11/01/2012 - 12/01/2012 12/01/2012 - 01/01/2013 01/01/2013 - 02/01/2013 02/01/2013 - 03/01/2013 03/01/2013 - 04/01/2013 04/01/2013 - 05/01/2013 05/01/2013 - 06/01/2013 06/01/2013 - 07/01/2013 07/01/2013 - 08/01/2013 11/01/2013 - 12/01/2013 12/01/2013 - 01/01/2014 02/01/2014 - 03/01/2014 03/01/2014 - 04/01/2014 05/01/2014 - 06/01/2014

Chat area


 Sunday, October 28, 2012

In spite of my lack of preparation for the upcoming exams, my motivation has hit solid rock bottom. Doesn't help that I've been oscillating between 'yeah, I passed osces' and 'omgomgomg, totally failed it'.

So what am I spending my time doing? Reading my old blog posts. And realising that sometimes I can be a downright bitch.

I think stress makes me lose control of my rage. Some of my comments about the people around me have been downright unfair. Such as my parents. Or even my research groupmates.

They've both been pretty good overall, esp SL. EB does have selfish tendencies, but I'm glad we haven't had any major quarrels even though there have been a few sharp words here and there. SL's genuinely tried to help I think, despite being uninterested in research as a whole. And I do appreciate it. It makes me feel less alone, when treading on uncertain ground (which was basically what the entire project was).

I guess JT was right to say that I expect too much of the people around me; the whole premise for my rage probably rests on the expectation that people should work or be as interested in stuff as me. Which isn't fair on my groupmates.

And the same applies to my expectation of friendships; I shouldn't expect every damn friendship to be as good as the ones from Nanyang. Because life changes. And I think I've met some people that I get along reasonably well with in med (like SL, MW, VH), at least better than most since moving here from Singapore. They at least put up with my whining and bitching and crap, which I guess is what friendships are about.

Sometimes, I think I read too much into things, or am overly suspicious about people (haha, sounds like I have some kind of cluster A personality disorder). Like with EB; I suspect that she just doesn't have the social awareness to understand that there are some basic codes of decency that shouldn't be violated. Like if you clearly did less work, it's completely unfair to ask to be credited with the same amount of work. And the whole deal with exam study being so important and all... I guess when we're all stressed, small actions like that just grate on us.

But all in all, I'm satisfied with stuff. It could be better, but I think I need to remember that it could be worse too. And that really, things aren't bad.

No idea where this shit came from. But I should get back to studying. But I have no motivation. Don't we all live in such vicious cycles ;).

2:20 PM

Saturday, October 27, 2012

Just a quick post on my first (real) clinical exam yesterday (OSCEs):

Overall, I think it went ok. I strangely enjoyed it... I mean, it's one of the only times to really get 1-on-1 feedback from consultants who are experts in their field.

Gen med

The neurology station was quite alright... The patient was in pain because I think she had osteoarthritis. She had peripheral neuropathy, and I think I pwned the differential diagnosis that the examiner asked for. I started off by saying diabetes is the commonest cause in our community, then went on to list about 7 other causes. Bahahahaha. Hope that made up for forgetting to test for proprioception.

Respiratory was the best station. There're only a few chronic conditions they can give us, and very rarely acute ones (pneumonia). I admittedly kinda 'planted' a question when I mentioned I was looking for yellow nail syndrome in the hands (to check for bronchiectasis, which is one of the things that could potentially come up). Did everything in the exam I wanted to do, answered the questions well, treated the patient really nicely since I felt very sorry for her (I was the last student of the day and she was really tired and breathless from all the breathing in and out. She had COPD). Then... 'So what is yellow nail syndrome?'
Me: It is due to the hypoplasia of the lymphatic system associated with bronchiectasis.
Examiner: You are the 1st student ever who's been able to tell me that. I gave you full marks for this station.
BAHAHAHA. Nearly danced out of the exam place since that was my last station.

Surgery

The abdo x-ray station was pretty bad I think... I started off quite well, then said I thought it was an incomplete obstruction since there was some contrast going through. Examiner then told me it was complete since stools could never pass. Damn. He also asked me how the contrast is given, and I had a brain fart and said orally when I said earlier that it was a barium ENEMA. The examiner was nice though; told me to cut out a lot of my bullshit (eg: I'd take a full history and examine the patient) and get to the crux of the issue because he'd already seen 27 students before me (yes, he counted the number on his list). LOL.

Peripheral vascular exam started off relatively well... I noticed 2 bruises on the guy's abdomen and asked if it was from heparin but he said he was from insulin. Made a special point to look for neuropathic ulcers on pressure points in the foot/heel. Felt the abdominal aorta pulse...
Examiner: So do you think it's a weak pulse?
Me: Yeah... (but the patient is fat!)
Examiner: Oh, so ___ (patient's name) should be shocked to hear you say that! You're saying he's in shock aren't you? LOLOL
Me: What?!
He completely trolled me and kinda threw me off. At least he looked happy when I found that the right femoral pulse was weaker than the left. Not sure if I interpreted buerger's test correctly, but I thought it was positive.
The questions were completely screwed up. He asked me what I thought was wrong with the patient, so I said a peripheral vascular disease...?? (oh come on, that's the station) Asked me what else and I suggested peripheral neuropathy and basically dug a grave for myself. He asked me why and I said due to the insulin suggesting diabetes, and I thought the patient had a charcot's foot. Examiner asked me if I was sure it was a charcot's foot and I was like uh yeah...? He then said I was extrapolating since I hadn't done a peripheral neuro exam. Blargh.
Then asked me to localise where the 'lesions' were. I don't think I did that well. Lol.
And after that... He asked me to go back to the patient, and pointed at some freaking purplish/blackish non-blanching 2mm spot on his medial malleolus and asked me what it was. I was completely stumped. I mumbled Campbell de Morgan's spot, and he lifted the guy's leg up and showed me another 2 on his calf and asked me what it was again. I said... MELANOMA?! The examiner looked amused/pissed off.
And before I walked out the door, he asked if I thought the patient had an abdominal aortic aneurysm and I said no. I think I heard him tell the patient 'not bad' before I shut the door, so hopefully I passed.

Geriatrics

Had to talk to a patient about his incontinence issues, and the impact of the incontinence on his life. Not too bad... I timed myself to have time to present back to the examiner since he probably thought I asked a few strange questions (after asking about smoking history, I asked about dysuria and haematuria to screen for bladder cancer), but he LIED to me and told me I had more time, so I kept asking questions. Then 10secs into my presenting, the whistle went. Blargh.

Musculoskeletal

I had a rather stern Indian doctor who looked really pissed off. Looked at the spine xray, said I thought there was generalised reduction in bone density, and thought there was a fracture. She asked me to point to the fracture and I randomly jabbed. She looked annoyed (rolled her eyes and sighed).

Then asked me about osteoporosis risk factors. She would not accept broad answers. I rattled off a few things, thought it was enough... She asked for more. Said things like 'I'd ask about other medical conditions' and she asked what specifically. Mentioned malabsorption and endocrine disorders and she asked for specific endocrine disorders. Thankfully had a couple up my sleeve (Cushing's and acromegaly). Mentioned used of steroids and drugs. Asked what drugs. Again, thankfully knew a couple (anticonvulsants and heparin). She just kept asking for more and more risk factors.

Then asked for investigations. Started off with the obvious (DEXA), then went to the really minute and small. Like urine calcium. Oh, but that wasn't enough for her. She had to know HOW. So I said do a calcium/creatinine ratio and she was happy.

I think she was quite impressed with me because she looked a lot happier than when I first started. I handled the questions pretty well, but I know I stuffed up the pathology (she asked me to try looking for it again in the last half a min after I answered all the questions). She told me where the fracture was in the last 10secs. It was no where near where I randomly jabbed. LOL.

Infectious diseases

After the trauma that was MSK, I had a partial mind blank. Didn't help that the case was totally non-specific and unhelpful. And my examiner was bored stiff and wanted to poke some fun. One of the worst stations of the day for me, even though the examiner said I did well (don't believe him though; he was trolling me quite a bit during the questioning). This is probably the station I'd want to redo if I could.

Psychiatry

The patient and examiner looked completely bored. Think I covered the essentials... Couldn't answer the examiner's question at the end though. He asked what I'd ask in the developmental history for a borderline patient, and I said family situation, education/academic history and social function (friends). He then asked the question again. I said premorbid personality...? And he just said ok, thanks. No clue if I got it right. Might have been childhood abuse actually. Oh wells.

--------

I think I passed. If I were to fail any, it would be the surgery stations, ID and MSK. Given that I can only fail 2 stations, I damn well hope I passed at least 2 of those. At least I know I got 20/160 thanks to the full marks in the respiratory station. Lol.

And yes, this post was extremely polite. I would have used a few not-so-polite terms to describe a few of the examiners, but decided against it. Wouldn't want this dredged up in the future.

Time to go study for other papers before I fail them.


12:52 PM

Monday, October 15, 2012

In some ways, the writing of this post is the signing of the death warrant for the end-of-rotation exam I have tomorrow. Which I have barely studied for thanks to being away for almost the entire of last week.

I think it's more important to document the memories of the past week before they disappear in the avalanche of study that's awaiting me. So here goes:

The last week of my life was spent in Hobart (Tasmania) due to a conference for our research project. Along with 8 of my peers, we embarked on an adventure to proudly display the fruits of our labour in front of an international audience.

Or not.

It was incredibly frustrating being with a bunch of people who were clearly uninterested in the conference, which was the purpose of us going. When I questioned (albeit politely) why they even bothered coming, the response I got was 'for a free holiday'. Said quote was by EB, and threw me into a complete rage since she didn't even have the decency to pretend to have any interest in the conference/whole damn project. Not that I should have expected any decency on her part (see previous post).

Let's go through what happened during the trip chronologically:

Tuesday

We took the midnight flight from Perth->Melb->Hobart, arriving in Hobart at approx 11am. Headed to our hotel where we all promptly collapsed in exhaustion. Then headed down to the conference site with EB and SL to meet DE (dearest supervisor) to pass him something that he forgot and emailed CT and myself to help bring over about 5 hrs before my flight. He was surprisingly nice; we postulated that he was slightly drunk. He even remembered about SHMRC (the UWA student conference we entered for and I had to give an oral presentation at. The memories of the night are best tucked away in a musty corner. /traumatised)! Thought that was rather sweet of him. Although sweet is really not the word to be associated with him. /gags

Wednesday

One of the guys (JT) promptly decided to do a climb of Mount Wellington, and somehow managed to convince us girls (there were 4 girls and 5 guys) that it was a mere 1.5hr climb up and down, and doable with non-climbing gear. Which included dress pants and ballet flats for one of my unfortunate peers.

What really happened: I was convinced I was gonna die on a mountain, away from most of human civilisation. Or faint and tumble down the entire mountain. It was a mammoth 3.5hr climb UP the bloody mountain, which was almost like a damn rock wall. Being the unhealthy person I am, I thoroughly regretted not choosing the sit-in-hotel-room-munching-on-junk-food-and-getting-atherosclerosis option. By the time we reached the top, I wasn't sure if I was delirious, hallucinating or dead. JT and CT were really encouraging and refused to give up on us though. At one point, they even carried our bags. The photographic evidence of them with 2 ladies' bags is honestly amusing and slightly vindictive (esp in JT's case since he LIED to us). We all then refused to climb back down the damn mountain and hitched a ride from some very kind strangers (yes, cars could go up there. We didn't rent a car though).

We then had a really satisfying dinner, although I felt like throwing up thanks to the sheer exhaustion (and perhaps rhabdomyolosis. My muscles were burning; I'm sure they would have lighted up like a Chrismas tree on suitable imaging modalities).

Thursday

This was the day of the presentation for us (i.e. we had to stand next to our posters for 30mins talking to random people coming up). Show time perhaps? Unfortunately my peers didn't think so.

The day started with a sponsored breakfast with talks from various burns specialists. It was a mere 1hour talk (45mins considering we turned up late). What did my peers do? They whipped out their lecture notes, ipads and what-not, with no thought of concealing what they were doing (we were thankfully sitting at the back). One of them promptly fell asleep.

There was then a series of presentations, and half of my peers ran off to I-don't-know-where. The other half that came with me to the presentations again either thought exams were that imminent that they had to grab every spare damn minute to study, or dozed off. It was utterly disgraceful.

The rest of the conference kinda went like that. No one asked us any questions at our poster since the presentations ended slightly late, and most attendees were more interested in morning tea. My peers (the ones left anyway) then ran away back to the motel to STUDY, only to return for the free food at lunch. After that, SL and CT stayed with me to watch the afternoon presentations since our dearest supervisor was presenting. They both did the study/doze-off thing again. The rest of my peers were in the city shopping and enjoying themselves.

After the talks, I wanted to grab some afternoon tea since I was rather hungry. SL and CT did not even have the courtesy to wait the 15mins for me, and said they had to go back to the motel to study and go to the city after that. Seriously, you couldn't spare 15mins?! I guess I wasn't disappointed in CT since he isn't even close to me, but SL's action disappointed me. I would have done that if our positions were exchanged.

The day's events just threw me into an (admittedly irrational) rage that simmered and boiled while we walked to the city to join the rest. Esp EB's behaviour; so much for studying being so important. She was the one who dragged us all to the city (or at least suggested it), while making no disguises about her purposes of going to the conference (i.e. sponsored holiday from the uni). I mean, if you didn't have the decency to even contribute to the project, at least attempt to pretend you care?!?!? And whipping out notes left-right-and-centre like exams were judgement day/the end of the world?! She even took them out at DINNER. I was utterly enraged.

Shout-out to Mel though; she was my lighthouse in the dark tumultuous sea. If not for the emails from her, I think I'd have gone absolutely berserk with rage. It's an indication of how angry I was when I even emailed my brother to complain about the situation (I never ever confide in him).

Friday

My rage had subsided by the end of dinner on Thurs, when I realised that there's no point in being angry at people who don't even know about it. And my brother's reply was true; the conference/project is very interest-based. It was irrational of me to expect people to have the same amount of interest as myself, and I should just ignore and accept whatever they wish to do.

So it was quite an enjoyable day; we went to MONA museum. MONA is honestly one of the most amazing places I have ever been to, although some of the artwork was rather confronting and frankly bizarre. It also proffered an opportunity for me to get away from my (annoying) peers and wander around myself in some peace and quiet, appreciating art and just immersing myself into something I love. Thinking back, being at the conference alone also allowed me to do that (when my peers weren't there studying/sleeping), so I guess I should be grateful for that.

We then went to the city, and JT and CT left for the airport. They ended up being on the same flight as DE. That was rather amusing ;). Apparently DE was grading us en route back to Perth. Unfortunately JT wasn't able to see what he gave us :(. Hope I passed. By pass, I mean get a HD (I'd be honestly miffed if I didn't).

Went back to the motel to study and just chill. After the other 3 guys left, us girls had our end-of-trip gossip session. It's probably been 1 of the only times I've felt like I've had a real conversation with people in my year group, even though it was inane and weird at times (such as love life). When we started talking about religion/theology, I was again reminded of how my thoughts are often on a different wavelength from others, and it filled me with a sense of loneliness. I did think it was one of the best conversations I've had in a long, long time though. Managed to partially convince ML about my radical views though ;). (my view? That religion is a human construct with too much baggage, and that I am happy to accept that there is a higher power, without calling it God and having all that shit that comes with associating with a particular religion. And that faith involves the abandoning of a certain part of one's intelligence. This led to EB [devout Christian] to brand me an atheist. Sigh, I don't think she understood where I came from. She stopped listening the moment I said 'I don't believe in Christianity').

Saturday

This was probably the best day out of the entire trip. I finally met up with Irene for the first time in 7 years!!!

We just walked around and caught up and chatted about everyone in 2/3. Had great food, and she brought me to unimelb (the uni I nearly went to. Haha). It made me wonder how different my life would have been if I'd ended up making the choice to go there.

Meeting Irene was also really quite humbling; she made time out of her incredibly busy schedule to meet me, and hearing about her achievements reminded me about how vast the world is. I don't know. Perhaps humbling isn't the right word.

It left me feeling strangely warm and fuzzy. Which is something I've not felt in a long time. I was probably rather emotional when we parted, and I think EB and SL were rather surprised that there was such a side of me. It made me realise how much I miss having such great friendships, that even not seeing or being in contact for the most part of these 7 years still didn't affect our relationship. That we could still talk about just about everything under the sun, freely and without fear of judgement. I really hope Irene and Jiaying come next year :).

-

So all in all, it was a pretty good trip, albeit frustrating at times. It made me think about a lot of things, including these so-called 'friendships' I have in med school. Am I willing to continue being made-used of by people just to maintain this facade of having friends? People like JT, SL and EB mainly only talk to me when they need help. Like how I basically ended up teaching during our study sessions (despite being the least prepared given how EB has been studying since God-knows-when, and JT and SL study a lot more than they pretend they do). I'm exhausted of these lousy relationships. But if I reject even these, I will end up with nothing. I think I implicitly made the choice between something and nothing when I decided to 'befriend' them. They aren't bad; I'd probably say SL is one of the closest to me out of everyone in med school.

But I do wish there were more people who functioned on the same plane as me. I'm tired of being lonely, of having nobody to understand me. In some twisted way, I think DE understands more about me just through this project than most of my peers. He probably understands the way I work, and he at least doesn't 'make use' of me just because of my accomplishments (as meagre as they are). I don't feel like I have to be in a mentoring role around him, and it's comforting to be in the presence of someone who knows more than me and can help me. It is exhausting when your peers expect you to function as a 'mentor', and can't really help because they think too highly of me (i.e. 'if you don't know the ans, I wouldn't know it').

It's especially hard when you never envisioned yourself in such a role, and never wanted to be in that position. All I want is to be treated as a peer, as an equal. Instead of being the one who's regularly consulted but excluded by default. Perhaps I sound arrogant by thinking that I'm a mentor to my peers. I don't know. I'm confused, and all I know if that I miss the friendships from 2/3, when I was free to just talk about any shit I want. When people understood me for the way I was, and embraced and accepted me for it.

And now I should probably get back to studying before resigning myself to failing.

12:12 PM

Friday, October 05, 2012

'Nothing more you need to do.' -Research supervisor (DE)

Those words spark a certain sense of freedom; I'll have the next 3 weeks away from research (besides our conference next week), and be able to devote it completely to preparing for exams. To save me from heading for certain doom/failure.

Don't get me wrong; I enjoy research. It's a good combination of putting my OCD skills to work, being able to write, and just the sheer challenge of thinking through things to try to unravel bits of the 'puzzle'. What I thoroughly detested was the groupwork aspect of it. Or the lack thereof.

I've learnt many things through this project. I've learnt that there is always room for improvement. That I actually enjoy research, and want to do it in future. That there are aspects of my personality that might require some work on (e.g. repeatedly pestering people such as my supervisor). And that I have more tolerance for working with imbeciles than I ever knew.

Many people would expect me to explode and insist for my groupmates to pull their weight in the project if they don't. Even I thought I would never tolerate such shit. But here's what happened in the end: One of my groupmates (EB. No, not her real initials) has told me since June that she is putting research as one of her lowest priorities since she needs to study for the upcoming end of year exams (yes, the ones at the end of this month). Which I also have.

And she whines and craps about how much work research is when she does SHITALL, SHITALL, SHITALL. It borders on ridiculous. The only time I asked her to do work (writing the intro of our manuscript/report), I got this horrible piece of cut-and-pasted crap from our project proposal that made as much sense as a pool of hedgehog vomit. I promptly decided to rule over the project with an iron fist since waiting for her piece of crap left me with less time to write the thing to the deadline.

It wasn't just this. Both EB and SL (other groupmate) don't really read or respond to the emails or facebook posts until I actually post for them to PLEASE read it. It's fking ridiculous. It's basically MY project with 2 frigging stones that I have to drag around and give credit to.

In all honesty, I thought I wouldn't mind doing more work. But I never expected it to be >90% of the entire damn project. I mean, when you've written all 17 pages of the final report/manuscript and your groupmates just make feeble attempts to help (unsincere phrases like 'let me know if I can do anything' and not doing anything when asked or offering when opportunities come up/I drop hints), I think it's pretty hard not to get angry.

And it's even harder to not get angry when EB knows she has done SHITALL for the project and still asks to be joint 1st-author. With a crap reason like 'Oh, our supervisor DE might want us all to be joint 1st-authors'. DE doesn't give a crap except to ensure that we get our work done, and if we don't, I am the one who'll get hassled.

I think shit hit the fans when EB said that (2 weeks ago when we were discussing authorship). I didn't mind doing more work since I respected that the both of them hate research. I didn't think I asked for much in return; keeping up with where the project's at, attending most meetings, answering my emails/fb posts. I went easy on them because I didn't want to force them to do any work, or live up to my expectations (which I understand can be considered to be higher than avg).

And all I wanted was for some appreciation, respect or just sheer decency. To acknowledge that I basically did all the work and they're riding on my coattails. EB's request completely threw me into a fking rage because it showed that she didn't even have a GERM of decency.

When you've given up what little social life/time you have to do a project, and do it well to make it count, it's just incredibly disappointing to find out what your groupmates really are like. There's EB living in her own little fking selfish bubble. And there's SL.

Admittedly, she's nice and has the basic courtesy/decency to acknowledge her lack of contribution to the project. And that's probably what has held me back from going out on an all-out rage against the both of them. But stumbling onto her blog and reading her whining/moaning about research (for whatever little effort she put in) tipped me over the edge a little.

I'm over this shit anyway. At least the faculty component of this project is done (what the report was for. Project is done as part of our 4th year curriculum). It's up to them if they want to keep working on it to get it published. I don't care. I don't want to force them to do something against their will since it backfires on me and I get a large turd disguised as work in return.

But still. Fk this shit. I'm sick of groupwork, at least with the both of them. If I were to do any research in future (and I'm pretty sure I do), I will do it alone. Screw people who ride on my credit. 

I do have to give a shoutout to my supervisor DE though. He has been great, even though he isn't the most friendly/nice guy. He's been incredibly supportive with feedback, which he sends at just about any time of the day. He replies my emails within hours. I don't think I could ask for more in a supervisor, and I think I've asked for more than what supervisors usually give (he called our group [ie: me] high-maintenance). He has made up for my incompetent groupmates. In many ways, he's functioned as both a mentor and a team-mate (although I think he'd be insulted if he finds out I treated him as a team member), with his reliability and support. Which incidentally might have been why I pestered him (since I had no one else to really discuss the project with).

I hope he wins the faculty research supervisor prize (nominated him in some spur-of-the-moment crazy decision). And I hope it's anonymous since I really don't want him reading what I wrote about him (it isn't bad, but there's stuff that I don't want him to know I said :P). He is honestly one of the most dedicated and passionate people I know (about their work). And it truly motivated me to work hard and commit to our project, despite having to work with imbeciles.

I think he thinks I'm an imbecile too though. Wonder if he blogs about working with idiots like me, who pester him over the smallest details. Lol. Nice thought to end this post on.

9:51 PM