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
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