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Monday, 29-Nov-2004 4:19 PM This time tomorrow I will be a chiropractor. Okay I better stop procrastinating or I won't get there! Friday, 26-Nov-2004 11:52 PM Injury update. It didn't even occur to me to look at my butt for any signs of damage because I figured I had enough padding there :P Upon last check I have me a big ole bruise right where the sun don't shine! Ouch! Friday, 26-Nov-2004 4:26 PM Me in my own Soap Opera. I seem to be making a lot of clumsy mistakes off-late. It was also that very same exam where I got told twice to put my pen down because stupid me realised with ten seconds to go that I was supposed to answer the very last section in the answer book provided and not the question booklet. I was frantic! I quickly scribbled the answers in the booklet and still kept going when time was up. I know lots of people do that but it's worse when you've been allocated a seat in the front row and the exam supervisor is standing right in front of you. There wasn't enough time for that exam and people made a lot of careless mistakes because of it. I suppose that's what you get when you have three different lecturers all trying to squeeze their material into a 1.5 hour exam. M was asking me after the exam if I understood what that 'clinical indications' question meant and I didn't have a clue what she was talking about. M: 'you know, the clinical indications that you had to write for the adjustments...' Me: 'uhm..I just mixed and matched the answers for that...' M: 'What??? What mix and match!?' Me: 'you know...the section where we had to match the clinical indication with the adjustments' M: 'WHAT!?!' Me: 'uhhh.......did you look at the last page? did you turn the paper over?' M: 'SHIT!' Apparently M didn't see the back of the paper and she actually wrote down all these clinical indications for a list of adjustments we were given...man, that must've taken her ages. Okay, anyway. Clinic yesterday and we were all short of our xray numbers that we need in order to pass. So we ended up xraying each other. M and I got full spinals (and I swear I could feel my body tingling after it was all over) taken, Sar's knee, R's ankle, E's neck, K's neck and thoracics. It was a party in the xray room that's for sure. After my xrays were taken, I walked back toward the treating room where I had left my clothes and everything inside so I could get changed. The door was locked and I thought someone was in there so I knocked but no one had a patient. I had locked myself out. And there began my 4 hour ordeal. The supervisor didn't have the key to get in the rooms. Everybody tried their hand at picking the lock. Everybody tried their own house and car keys. We tried to use a folded xray to jiggle the lock on the side but it wasn't really possible because there was a panel in the way. M went to her car to get a screwdriver so we could break the lock. While she was gone, we used one of adjusting tables to hoist me up to the ceiling where I removed a panel from the ceiling to see if I could climb through to the room but there were walls baracading each individual room so that was no longer an option. We did try to pierce through it with a butterknife because it was gyprock :D The only other way I guess was to crawl through the a/c vent which I was not willing to do. M came back and told us that someone had just committed suicide at the parking lot and there were ambulances arriving all around. Someone said that they'd have something that would definitely be able to open the door but it would be so unimportant in comparison to what they had to deal with. It was just as well my 2pm patient rescheduled for later. I ended up having to call the locksmith because none of the other clinics had the key nor did the university. Then I had to wait around, clothed in a gown with no shoes, Sar's shorts and my arms crossed in front of me (cause hey, it's a student clinic and we only have ratty white, see-through gowns with holes everywhere). It was pretty humiliating. Even the locksmith made me feel like a fool over the phone. We ended up cancelling that because someone from the university brought the key over in the end. Thank goodness because I had everything in there. My wallet, car keys, phone, clothes, shoes and all my notes for today's exams. I was in panic mode for four hours. "At least you made our very last clinic shift entertaining and memorable" . Thanks :P Perhaps taking 24 xray views yesterday was a little too much radiation for my body to handle. Plus I'm sure it didn't help to be walking into the developing room with no shoes on and old developer spilt on the floor. Ugh. So today. I fell. Down the stairs. Like a bimbo in a movie. I was carrying Boston and took one step down and slipped. Landed right on my ass and went all the way down the first flight of stairs. In the midst of it all, I actually thought I was going to break a leg because I couldn't seem to grab onto anything because I was holding the cat. Five minutes post severe rubbing of my butt, I actually felt fine and thought that hey, I might have actually fixed my coccyx problem and with the way I landed, maybe it even fixed my posterior ilium. It was until much later that I noticed both my thighs had major scratches on it. The right thigh looked like someone had tested their brand new saw on me. I have a big serrated looking scratch with tiny petechial hemorrhages all around it =( Boston also put a hole through my pajama pants, which actually have pink dye marks all over from another clumsy thing I did not long ago (yes stupid accidentally washing red clothes with my normal clothes). Blurry shot from my webcam because I've lent my camera to a friend.
Monday, 22-Nov-2004 2:51 PM ** Arr! **
I've just come home from the library. Ahh, the library, where there's always something that gets on my nerves. They've conveniently arranged the tables so that they're sort of in groups of fours and each table is walled off in front and on one side. I had moved there from a different place because there was a girl typing on her laptop like she was using a typewriter back in the old day (gosh, the poor qwerty keyboard!) and boy did it shit me. So, the new location. I got to experience first hand, a couple making out constantly, their heavy sighing and breathing and bumping repeatedly into my table (what the hell were they doing??!). There was also a stench of smelly old socks lingering around and I noticed under one table, this guy had his shoes off and he was rubbing his feet, one over the other. When I saw him getting up to leave, I almost wanted to cheer but then he looked at me and holy crap he was HOT. Then I sat there, mixed feelings about whether you should let a guy off the hook just because he's so cute. Lastly, the guy sitting perpendicular to me, with his desk wall separating the two of us. Now he stank bad. Like faeces bad. Plus I don't know what he was doing with his pen but it sounded like he was trying to do that flicking trick over his fingers and failed everytime, his pen dropping loudly on the desk every five seconds. I couldn't help myself. I put my hand on the back of the wall of his desk and pushed it right into him. Twice. Okay well the first time I tried to do it at an angle so he would think it was the person on his other side but he wasn't getting the hint so second time around I didn't care if he found out it was me. The other thing is, out of the blue, he loudly hummed the first line of the chorus from that Mr Big song - "I'm the one who wants to be with you" and it was so loud, my desk vibrated. He did it again 5 random times. And don't forget my desk is still being repeatedly bumped into me by that couple. Ew, I was on the receiving end of their horniness. Oh gross. I'm not really a cranky pants. Really, I'm not. Haha :D
Woah, I need a haircut badly. Monday, 22-Nov-2004 1:31 AM I thought this only happened in movies. Oh it is JUST MY LUCK that I'm home alone and the house gets flooded. I was hoping to watch the final of Aust Idol but two minutes into it and I hear this high pitched noise coming from downstairs. While running down the stairs, I did notice the floor below looking rather glossy. The entire place had half an inch of water, and more than an inch in certain areas. I saw water coming out from under the kitchen sink and when I opened the cupboard doors, water exploded in my face and by the time I turned all the taps off under the sink (I honestly didn't know there were SO MANY), I was beyond soaked. It took me forever to clear the water. I tried sweeping it out the front door but ended up filling over 7 full buckets of water using towels, a mop and a sponge. When I thought all was done, I opened the garage door to find that it was flooded in there as well. Just my effin luck. At least the floors are nice and clean now. Sunday, 21-Nov-2004 0:33 AM Everybody is in Melbourne for my cousin's wedding except ME! Once again, left home alone because I have exams. Ahh I miss the opportunity to dress up all girly girlish. All these years studying for chiro has meant wearing minimal clothing so we could get skin on skin contact while practicing our adjustments and set-ups. I miss having long nails and wearing skirts. Ironically my back is killing me. I'm sure it doesn't help that I'm sitting here like a trishaw man with one knee bent to my chest and the other in a frogleg position on the chair. I can't help it though, I love sitting poorly =/ I'm really just rambling on because I'm falling asleep but I've told myself I can't until I finish 7 lectures tonight (ie procrastinating again) and I really want to eat those chips glaring at me from their foil packaging but I've already brushed my teeth, damnit! Friday, 19-Nov-2004 7:02 PM Multiple Choice Questions - a perfectionist's nightmare. Don't get me wrong, I love when an exam is multiple choice as opposed to writing essays but it just kills me when the circles aren't colored in perfectly on the answer sheet. I notice it out of the corner of my eye when I'm trying to read the next question and as hard as I try to ignore it, I end up attacking the almost perfect circle and pencilling in a microscopic dot of white that shouldn't be there. So you can imagine, 100 questions later and I'm one of few still left in the room because well......my circles aren't perfect. So once all the circles are perfectly filled, you'd think I'd be settled and satisfied. I did too, until I started noticing that some circles were a lighter shade than others. Alright, now that I put down to severe dehydration and lack of sleep and food and yadda yadda yadda. The exam itself was neither here nor there. I guess I did okay. So that's Sports Med and OHS out of the way, 4 more to go! :D
Wednesday, 17-Nov-2004 8:27 PM The very last VIVA exam. Today was the final part of my board exam. Scary! Last minute studying in the 'holding room' did little. My mind was swarmed with bees that buzzed in my head - 'multiple myeloma presents with this, this and this, don't forget guillian barre ...what the...what is that again!!??! oh and headaches! temporal arteritis, cluster...shit, so what IS guillian barre?? ' You have 15 minutes to read a case, make notes and answer about 5 pages of questions. Then you're taken into a room with two examiners and during the fastest 15 minutes of your life, you talk about the case and you look at xrays and get drilled by the examiners. So there I am, hiding behind my white clinic coat which is too big for me. I figure it would cover up how nervous I am. I knew one of the examiners which was comforting. The other one was a little scary looking. He didn't look like a chiropractor at all. Actually, that's the great thing about chiropractic, is that you can't look at someone on the street and say 'she/he looks like a chiropractor' because we haven't really been given an image to identify ourselves with (or have we and I just don't know it?). Anyways, back to the case. A lady with multiple, multiple problems! Just what I needed! I was always under the assumption that the cases had one primary problem and a secondary, not as important complaint. I made a stuttering fool out of myself trying to spit out my provisional diagnosis of benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (you try saying that really fast!) and probably a bigger fool out of myself when I had a look at the lab diagnosis they gave me and was shitting myself that she had yet another condition. At one point, I was told to stop. And breathe. I did as was told, and smiled. But really....wtf are you doing!? you're eating into my 15 minutes and I don't have any spare seconds to spend relaxing! Err, well he said I did alright so I'm counting on him to give me a good mark. So now I'm halfway there. Five more exams to go til sweet freedom. Oh and I decided to go for boxercise tonight. We had a different guy take it because the usual girl was sick. He seemed to have an apprentice instructor there and she bugged the hell out of me. She acted as though she was the best at everything and she also ran us through the stretches at the end of the hour. She was telling us to stretch our hip flexors by sitting down and bending the knee up toward the opposite shoulder. Uhh right. Don't even try to correct how I'm stretching my calves when your idea of stretching the hip flexor is by contracting it. Bah, in fact, don't even talk to me. Monday, 15-Nov-2004 9:58 PM Tomorrow is my last ever practical exam. Lets kick some ass. Sunday, 14-Nov-2004 9:57 AM Having my mom here has its ups and downs. I guess I had a little breakdown yesterday :( I just don't want to be here doing this. Having to put complete concentration towards learning something new and then being tested on whether I know how to apply it, when everyone else in my family seem to have all this spare time in the world to do things like book holidays, accommodation, go shopping or sit around and do nothing. For me to have to drive all the time also pisses me off because it exhausts me and by the time I get home and am sitting at my desk, I'm too tired to study. Frustration ==> Anger ==> Crying ==> More frustration ==> More exhaustion ==> Definitely too tired too study + Sore eyes. I want to lie face down in an ice cold pool and see how long I can hold my breath for (which for the record, is exactly 2 minutes). Long enough to let the cold water numb me so I can't feel anything and I can't think anymore. Thursday, 11-Nov-2004 6:22 PM Tuesday's exams killed me and I was so upset for one of them that I actually cried when I got home. It's just really disappointing when you practice so hard for an exam and you completely fudge it all up. The big norwegian guy had me as his patient and he was so nervous. He had to do an occiput adjustment and his whole hand was bigger than my head! He also slipped right off my coccyx on another adjustment. All that made me three times more nervous when it came to my turn. I kept thinking to myself, don't fuck it up, don't fuck it up, and damnit, I fucked it up. They even threw in some adjustments that weren't supposed to be in the exam. Gees. Anyhow, it's my reception shift off and I really should be studying hard but my mom flies in tonight (hah I made that sound like she flies in on a broom or something) and I've just rushed to clean the kitchen and throw all this garbage out. It'll be great to have her here, although I'm sure by tomorrow she'll probably be driving me crazy. Boston loves making it difficult for me to study. He has this routine of coming into my room and taking the longest route to get to my desk. He'll walk over to the other end of the room, jump up on my stereo, walk over my cd rack then onto this mini stand thing I have, then on my desk and he'll sit his fuzzy butt right down on the notes that I happen to be studying and then lie across it. This is one of the times he actually gave me some room to read.
And this next one actually scared me because I thought he'd died on me or something. It was a sudden death flop!
Sunday, 07-Nov-2004 8:45 PM I'd love a weekend. This weekend was spent at the library and practicing at one of the clinics for exams :( Today I decided to bring my laptop to the library with me (because we all know that working on a laptop that has internet connection = procrastination) and study without any distractions. I must say that the worst thing about that is when you have to go use the bathroom (which I always do) and you can't leave your laptop there unless you're willing to risk it being stolen. So I basically have to carry the thing with me every time. The bad thing is my computer hangs when I close the lid, instead of going to sleep mode so I have to reboot it each time which takes forever and makes a considerably good amount of loud beeps and other more technical sounds. So I have broken my own rule of being quiet in the library. But hey, I was there FIRST! Everyone else that came later could have sat elsewhere because there were plenty of seats around (hey, it's Sunday). Anyhow, anyhow. My sister just left the house - she'll be in Queensland for a week for work. That isn't the reason for my feeling incredibly lonely and depressed right now. I don't quite know what it is but man have I got the blues tonight. What do you do when you're down in the dumps? I usually lift weights or run but I just ate so that's out of the question. Perhaps I should cut my hair off. :( Friday, 05-Nov-2004 11:13 PM How quickly it has gone. Today was officially my last lecture ever. It's quite sad, really. I'll miss the fold-down seats of the lecture rooms. I'll miss sitting by the window in the cafeteria and looking out at the trees and the lake. I'll miss eating expensive, nasty cafeteria food with my friends. I'll miss walking in the hot sun to the mall just to get better food. I'll miss the tutors too. I'll miss my friends, most of whom are leaving Sydney. I'm sure that not long after exams, once I've had the time to rest my brain, I'll miss being a student most of all. Thursday, 04-Nov-2004 11:12 PM So close and yet so far away. My grandpa is so cute. Every morning he leads a group of people in tai chi and he's pretty hardcore - I tried it a few times and it was pretty damn hard to keep up with him. anyway, he's just come back from a 5 day cruise with all the family members and my mom was telling me that he got up every morning to do his tai chi and other holiday-goers were following his steps! go gramps, go! On another note, tomorrow might be my last lecture ever. Exams start next week and don't finish til the end of the month. I'm excited and scared and worried about my future and where it will take me. I feel like I am one of few who have no plans yet. Honestly, it is depressing me because it's not like I haven't been looking for a job, I just can't seem to find one that suits me. Plus my confidence level has been declining for some reason. It's just hard to pick up when you're at a low. I need motivation. Badly. Tuesday, 02-Nov-2004 9:11 PM Up yours!
Monday, 01-Nov-2004 11:06 PM Pinch and a punch for the first day of the month! The one bad thing about living here is that we don't celebrate Halloween and I sure miss it :( We only had one small group of kids come ring the doorbell and my sister told them we had nothing! I had 4 month old kitkats that I needed to get rid of! I've been such a sourplum today. I really don't know what is up with me. Even Boston is in a sooky mood. Perhaps I caught it from him! On S aturday the last of my friends did their Board exam and we headed to the bar to celebrate. From there we went to circular quay for dinner to celebrate M's bday. Then we went to three different clubs. It was an average night. The boys seemed more interested in picking up girls. So basically the girls left and we danced the rest of the night away at a different nightclub. I can't put very much pressure on my left side - it absolutely bothers my left hip so I'm sure that night my dancing must have looked completely retarded. I felt like all I could do were three moves and I was dancing like a broken recorder, doing the same thing over and over again. Got home at 4am (thanks to daylight saving) and ended up talking to Salami on the phone until 6am when I knew it was time for me to get some shuteye because the sun was coming in through my blinds and the birds were out hunting for worms. Alright, it's past my bedtime. Just one last thing. One of my friends brought their housemate along on Saturday night and he tried talking to me, which was fine. But this was what he said : 'So what do you do?' 'I'm studying chiropractic like everyone else here..' 'Are you sure? Didn't I see you working at Kings Cross?' <-- he seemd to think this was funny. Working at Kings Cross implied I was a prostitute, which was NOT fine. Asshole. |
