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


 Thursday, January 24, 2013

The first week back at uni (excluding tomorrow) has been rather eventful. I think I've made part of the giant leap from fourth year to fifth year. Here's a list of the notable stuff that has happened:

1. Had a super crazy day on Tues. Went on 2 ward rounds (1 of which was a consultant round. Consultant was pretty nice!), and honed my mad scribing skills. On top of that, RL and I both failed 1 cannula each, watched the intern (who's incidentally CT's girlfriend) fail the cannulas on said patients after us, watched a failed pleural tap, ran around the ward scavenging for files, were asked to take consent for a radiological procedure (which we thankfully didn't have to do as the patient wasn't in his bed) and left the hospital in exhausted wrecks at about 5pm (started at 8am).
2. Met our consultant-in-charge who's this really intense cardiologist who's younger than I expected on Wednesday. Attended some tutes with the rest of our colleagues which was pretty unremarkable and boring at some points.
3. Turned up at 9am today since RL and I both thought hanging around for an hour when we got there at 8am on Tues was a waste of time... Only to realise that the consultant was there for a round today *facepalm*. At least he's nice. Failed taking blood from a PICC line and venepuncture on the same patient, who didn't seem to have ANY BLOOD (save 1 drop which came out from the PICC). Granted, he was in due to an upper GI bleed from an antral gastric ulcer and was pretty dehydrated. Even the intern (other girl. Not CT's gf) couldn't get it.
4. Consented my first patient for an MRI. Thankfully it was just a checklist, so there was little room for me to be incompetent.
5. Attempted to work on research at about 11pm after a long day at hospital. Despite it just being the entering of 2 statistics, I managed to muck it up horridly; first, I forgot to change coefficients into IRR. Second, I only realised it half an hour after emailing it to DE. Third, my 2nd email that said I messed up the 1st document did not have the attachment thanks to my already half-dead brain at that ungodly hour.

I have to admit that I've been really happy being at Armadale, which currently only hosts 2 medical students; yours truly and RL. RL's been great as a 'partner' too. I'm glad I can sorta stay in our own little bubble and ignore the other imbeciles who are in my cohort. Our consultant-in-charge informing us that we don't have to attend the whole group tutes at Fremantle was the icing on the cake. It kinda means I don't have to see anyone else for another 5 weeks or so.

There'll be students from the other med school though. They'll hopefully be nice. At least I know that we aren't close and they're final year students and will thus have very little need to take advantage/make use/leech off us.

And I've been strangely motivated to attempt studying regularly. Or just revising stuff (esp cardio) so that I won't make a clown of myself in front of the final year students and my crazy-pro cardiologist. It's just the 1st week, so I wouldn't really expect myself to continue like this. I guess there is a possibility, considering how all of this time would have been spent on research last year -.-.

I've also been sleeping before midnight which has been a record. Must be something to do with the tides/moon cycles or something... I've been behaving honestly strangely.

Alrighty, time to pack my stuff and get ready for a full day tomorrow (RL and I are gonna try to clerk as many patients as we can tomorrow to fill our logbooks before the other students get there)!

11:53 PM

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

The end of the holidays draws near (unfortunately), and I've found myself genuinely really dreading having to return to uni.

I guess part of it is due to my inherent laziness. As I was discussing with Mel, I'm the ultimate slacker. It inconveniently provides a facade of studiousness which is completely and utterly fake. I complete stuff early so that I get more time after to slack off, study for mid-sems and do well in assignments to avoid having to work my ass off to pass the end-of-year exams.

5th year promises to be tough. And after the ordeal of 4th year, I'm not sure if I'll be able to survive it. Granted, loads of the crap from 4th year is attributable to research. Even though I might make a return to research this year (depending on work and stuff), at least I'll be working alone and on my own schedule instead of having to work myself half to death trying to get stuff done by deadlines.

It's harder being surrounded by people that I personally find hard to trust or confide in. My top new year's resolution this year is to stop being pushed around and made used of by certain assholes, and to be more assertive in telling them to piss off. Another resolution is to be more independent.

I suppose the reason I've been rather upset about the lousy friendships I've made in med school is because I actually care. But now, thinking about it, they do nothing but damage me anyway. I need to stop being such a doormat (quoting Mel) and cease doing things to help people just because I don't want to annoy them. In short, I need to stop caring.

It kind of helps that I only have 2 more years of this course left. When we all start working, I doubt that we'd be able to keep in that much contact anyway. Whatever happens will happen. I don't want to spend any more effort and tear myself apart just to make others happy at my expense. I've survived the past 4 years anyway, and I'm sure I should be able to survive the next 2.

I believe I can do it. In grumpy-cat style, humans suck. No loss having to associate with fewer of them.

In other news, my brother has started working. No fair! I want money too!! He's been surprisingly nice and is taking our entire family to this expensive buffet for dinner on Thursday night when he gets his first paycheck! About time too... I'm usually the one who buys stuff for the family with the money I earn from working -.-.

Piano teaching's been driving me up the wall too. I'm helping my brother's friend to relief-teach his students as he has gone back to Singapore for CNY (this guy took over my brother's students when the latter stopped teaching). Some of our students have gone back to China for CNY too, and so it has left me with 7 students to teach. I've tried to move everyone into Saturday so that I'll actually have time to study/have a bit of a life (friend teaches on Sat, I teach on Sun), but haven't really been able to move them into an ideal time. Best I could do was 10.30am-1pm, then 4.30pm-8pm. Which really annoys me since I can't do much work during the 3.5 hour gap anyway. Urgh.

Oh well... I do need the money though, thanks to my new laptop. And there's only about 4 more lessons that I have to relief-teach, so hopefully I won't be swamped with uni stuff yet.

Keisha's also coming back to Perth this Thursday after her half-year exchange program in Canada!! :D We're going to this chocolate cafe called Koko Black (omg, it looks totally awesome) on Friday since I'm starting uni next week. Time to overdose on chocolate/liquid happiness while I can!!! :D

4:42 PM

Sunday, January 06, 2013

Goodnight

I seek refuge in these pungent chemicals,
Which blaze a path of destruction through my gut,
My nervous system,
Although it is too late for my heart
Already devoured by the demons of the past,
And my soul, already bartered to the devil.

The alcohol leaves pink traces across my eyes,
Mapping a lost train in never-ending tunnels.
It loosens the shackles that
Excavate for bones that lie beneath the dying flesh
Leaving dust,
Rust that reeks of blood.

Perhaps it's time to crawl into a bottomless pit,
Darkness mirroring that in my heart.
Bid goodnight, farewell to these endless nights of blood rain
Which leave trails of rubies skittering down to nowhere.

12:12 AM

Friday, January 04, 2013

Carrying on in the same vein as the last post...

I think 2012 has taught me a lot. Most importantly, it has shown me that I have not reached the human limits of cynicism yet. And of course, I've become more cynical and pessimistic than ever.

I'm sick and tired of the shitty relationships I have with my peers in med. True, I've realised that some are indeed better than I would ever have thought (like ML). But I've resolved to stop bothering with the ones that keep dragging me down, the people who only talk to me during the term to ask for help. Why should I waste my effort in 1-way relationships, especially with people whom I won't remain in contact with outside of uni? Moreover, the relationships aren't even beneficial to me, both in terms of uni work and my sanity and happiness.

Talking things over with MW today kinda helped. As much as I denied being bothered by these relationships, I was bothered. Probably still am. But my top new year's resolution for 2013 is to stop being so 'soft' and believing in humanity. So many times I've told myself to just tolerate the shit that has been flung at me, in the hopes of  fostering real friendships.

These hols have found me re-kindling my friendships with people from Nanyang and even CHIJ. People I've not spoken to for about 10 years were happy to meet up with me (in Beijing of all places), to keep in contact and just chat about inane crap. I've found myself being unexpectedly joyful and eagerly anticipating their next messages and emails. And regretting the effort I've put into the growth of relationships I knew were doomed from the start (but admittedly had to put up a facade to avoid conflicts with work).

Why should I care, when I have my own network of people I love and care about, and who love and care about me in return? I think I need the confidence to step out of my bubble of trying to keep everything and everyone happy and rosy at the expense of my happiness. It's time to remove the weeds from the rather barren land of relationships with my medical colleagues. I guess it should still be possible to remain professional and work together, but I know who I want to keep in closer contact with now and who I want to leave at arm's length.

And for a start, I shall ignore a certain someone's repeated attempts to contact me to help with their osce. Despite them not even contacting me all holidays. You know what, screw you. You aren't worth me getting upset over, nor worth the time and effort you would like me to spend on you.

And the same to those whom I've cordoned off into the section with a huge neon pink 'Keep Out' sign on. I don't need the shit that you fling at me. I won't let you harness me like a stupid donkey just to make use of me, because I don't need the meager support from you that I thought I needed. I'm not alone, despite how I always thought I was. And so, piss off from my life.

12:02 AM