A Dark Night

It was so dark that he couldn't see a thing, but he could hear the rain battering the edge of the cliff like hammers made from water. His hair was slick on his head, but with his head bent it didn't touch his face. Over the thunder and the rain there was just one sound - the hollow beat of the meat pump inside him. Beating away because that was its physiological imperitive, as dependable as the vagaries of life. It was unwavering in its dedication - beating through all the smiles, through the tears, through the summer days past and the nights laid awake. He looked around and saw nothing but black, the wind coming up from the cliff below and buffeting him, urging him to get further from the edge. It wasn't the first time he'd been here, but tonight was the time when the world, both inside him and out, was the darkest. The ship would come in soon, and he'd see its light illuminate a thin path through the water below. And he'd hear its horn, at this distance a physical force on his ears. If he stayed. And yet if he stayed, he would still feel nothing. As he came out of his crouch, and turned his back on the world, he remembered that there wasn't anyone out there waiting for him to come back, for his ship to come to dock. There wasn't a single person who would know that he had been there, or indeed that he'd been anywhere. Should he look to the future, dear reader? You would probably tell him that this is just the present, that the future holds as much for him as he wants it to. But he has walked this path before. His feet are tired, and there hasn't been a second set of footprints next to his for many years now. How long do you walk the path that ended long before, until you give up, and throw your hands in the air and admit to the world around you that you aren't its equal, and that despite your best play, it has won this time. Dear reader, his path has simply ended. There are no backward steps in this game, there are no take two moves back. When your feet find the end of the path, and all the world around is dark, all there is to do is take a moment to remember, truly remember all the things that you saw along the way, and then you must walk on. Into...anything. Something. Nothing.

Plodding along the increasingly tortuous road

Hey everyone

So I haven't posted much recently, and that's mainly been because of both things at home and things here (ie, the course). The title of this post probably seems a bit negative, but it absolutely captures the present completely. I'm currently having a bit of burn out with regards to lecture and home study style learning, and literally can't wait until we move into the hospitals next year. So in that respect, it's just one foot in front of the other until then (hence the 'plodding'). And the road continues to get more and more tortuous as we continue -- it might be smooth-ish right now, but as we get up to those dreaded end of year exams the shit is going to hit the fan in a major way. The end of year exams are on not only this semester, but the first semester as well. By then it's likely I'll have about 200000 words of notes in my onenote document. How are we meant to study all of that and retain any appreciable amount...it's just going to be very interesting. So at the moment, it's one foot in front of the other as the world around us and the path under our feet gets more and more treacherous.

Anyway! let's revive this post before it just becomes a general rant.

Probably a week ago now my laptop out of nowhere died. It would boot, but it would go to something called the 'aptio setup utility' or something like that, and wouldn't continue on to windows no matter what I did. I took all sorts of advice but to no avail, so the next day I went out with a friend and bought a new laptop. That may seem rash, but I simply don't have the time to spare to get the other one fixed. I have like 4 lectures a day on average! There's no way I want to catch up on that many lectures if the laptop would take like a month to come back. So I bought a laptop. And...an ipad mini. Why did I buy that?? It was a bit of an impulse purchase, but I've been thinking of getting a tablet for a while and there was just a better app store with the ipad. At the end of the day I want my phone to have excellent pre-installed applications because they're what I'm going to be using most of the time (eg, the keyboard), but on a tablet that's not as important. I'm going to be spending probably 95% of my tablet time in third party applications, and the argument is there that apple has better third party applications for some reason.

The ipad turned out to be one of my best impulse purchases ever! It's nice to have a big screen to enjoy everything on, but the main use for me has been facetime. Now, I know that's really lame. I scoffed at the facetime ads when they came out, and said to myself 'why didn't these people just use video calling'. But there's just something about it that makes it super easy to use...anyway, so my use of facetime has basically been exactly as apple portrayed in the ads -- facetiming my girlfriend (long distance relationships suck), and facetiming my family. I shudder to think that I've been so...predictable to an international corporation. But facetime is indeed cool, and I've greatly enjoyed using it.

The laptop I bought is a sony vaio pro 13, which it turns out is actually a very new laptop indeed. It's a pleasure to use, and is perfect (aside from the absence of an ethernet port. But, ethernet really needs to update the standard because the heads of the cables are now much too large for this day and age of measuring thickness of laptops in mm's).

Well this didn't end up being much of an interesting post, so I'm sorry about that. Just an update, I guess.

Catchas!

Circle

What We Can Learn From Hannibal

I feel like it's about time I did a bigger post! Plus I'm bored tonight, and I don't feel like studying.

I read the Hannibal books a long time ago (in the distant times when I had the time to read normal books), and one of the things that struck me about the man was the mansion in his mind. The details of this mansion are but degenerating memories in my mind, but some parts are supported by links with other things I have since learned. Hannibal used his mansion as two things if I recall correctly -- as both a storage place of memories and knowledge, but also as a place that he could retreat to at any time, a place all of his own and removed completely from the reality that his body remained surrounded by. In year 5 our teacher taught us some relaxation techniques and my classmates and I went with it because really it just gave us an hour to sleep in class. But one thing did stick with me. She told us to create a place in our minds that was the most relaxing place to us that is possible, and keep it in the back of our thoughts and always return to it and imagine ourselves to be walking through it when we needed to remove ourselves from life for a moment. She told us that, and when she gave us a chance to try it my mind immediately went to task and in my mind's eye blossomed the most beautiful scene. And in all these years that place has remained completely unchanged. I won't give details of my place because that isn't the point -- despite irrationally not wanting someone else in my space, it should be up to you to know what you would find the most relaxing, and have a place of your own.

But my place is not as real as Hannibal's mansion is to him. He experiences his mansion as though his feet were actually on its carpets, his lungs breathing its air, his eyes seeing its displays (for that was the nature of his storage of ideas - putting them on display). Not only does my place function as nothing more than a place to relax and separate myself from the world, I experience it as though I am forcing it upon my mind. I think that is why Hannibal's construct struck me so strongly, because it represents something that I desire very much. This 'method of loci' technique may also help me to learn the immense and unending lists of things that I need to learn for medicine (possibly the start of Hannibal's use, too!). Method of loci is used by almost all memory champions, and if it can work for them then I would be willing to try.

Also, apologies for my last blog post. I wasn't having a good night!

The other night I was sitting with some high school students who are at the college as part of a program showing them what university is like, and to inspire them to attend I guess. I would have liked to have sat with my medicine friends but their entire table was filled with people from the college not wanting to sit with high schoolers, so I just sat with the younglings. At first I didn't say much, as is probably normal with me, but then I broached conversation with them by asking normal things like what were they doing at the college. These boys were probably the kind of kids that I wouldn't have been friends with in high school -- a bit too loud, very competitive, etc. However a couple of them became interested when I said that I was in medicine, that we got into a proper conversation. Much of it consisted of them asking me about my course, and about my future, but we eventually turned to talking about their futures. One of them said that he wanted to be an astronaut but the others laughed at him, and the others didn't say that they knew what they wanted to do (I presume some of them simply didn't want to be laughed at too). But I started to talk to them about what I had to do to get to where I am, and the amount of work that I had to put in. And by now about half or more of the table of boys were listening to me, and the tone of the conversation had turned greatly -- it was much less them and I talking, it was now more me talking to each of them individually, and as such they were much more open in their responses. I talked to them about the regrets that I have had in the past, and the things that I would have done differently if I could go back to their age. At this point the entire table was listening to me. I told the boy who had said that he wanted to be an astronaut that if he but started now doing a small amount of study per night, and kept it up, by the time he was in year 12 (a few years away for them) he would have the whole world at his feet, and he would only be a few small steps away from living his dream. No one was laughing at him now, none of them were talking at all! It's as if I had removed some long standing obstacle, and the gears of their brains were turning at full speed, imagining the possibilities. We talked for a bit longer, before their teachers brought them away, but quite a number of them thanked me for talking to them and one even said thanks for the inspiring words. I really enjoyed that conversation, and I sincerely do hope that some of them were inspired to put in the small effort now, so that their future is disproportionately easier.

We went ice skating last night with some of my friends, and it was absolutely brilliant to get away from the tedium of study. A number of the people who went are my friends already, from college or just from medicine, but a few I didn't know but proved to be very nice people indeed. One of my better friends from college and I both decided to try out proper hockey skates, and wow did they make no small amount of difference! By the end of the night I was properly running on the ice in that manner that hockey players do to get up speed, and taking corners in that way that looks so smooth. I did a small amount of damage to my feet though, with several blisters appearing because I hadn't worn socks that were thick enough to pad them. To be fair I don't actually have thick enough socks because I left them in Perth, but I should have bought some or something.

Anyway, in medicine we're in neuroscience block and even though people all year have told us that it's the worst block I'm actually loving it! Well, I've never liked learning the cranial nerve nuclei and I have to learn them now, but aside from that it's all fantastic. Even the physical exams and the patient interviews have effortlessly imprinted themselves on my mind. 

Yesterday too I bought a new phone -- the galaxy s4 -- but today the company that I bought it from said that I needed to provide proof of who I am by sending them, including other things, a utility bill with my name on it. Well, I live at college...we don't get utility bills. So I've had to email them back and ask them to cancel the order. It's sort of easy for me to go directly to their store, so I'll maybe do that tomorrow. The news has come out tonight though that Verizon is set to reveal their new line of motorola droids on july 23rd which isn't too far away, so on the off chance that the motorola X is revealed at the same time, and on the off chance that it's a more attractive option than the galaxy s4, favour may pay the one who waits a few more days with refunded cash in hand... In other but related news I finally got around to getting my forms to the college and now they can pay me for the tutoring I did last semester. I think it's actually going to come to quite a handsome amount, which should hopefully pay for me a tablet computer! I'm thinking of getting the galaxy note 8.0.

Well this post did end up being one of a reasonable size, but I have run out of things to blog about which is a sure sign that probably you have already passed the point of being boring! Haha. So here I shall sign off.

Till next time!
Circle

Like the lion with no teeth, or the jester with no jokes, or the banker with no coin, behold the hollow man.

Dr Universe?

So, I think either today or yesterday the Australian contestant for Miss Universe was decided -- and whaddaya know, it was a medical student from Melbourne! As far as I know she isn't from the University of Melbourne so she's probably from Monash but she's 19 so that's young to be in graduate medicine...either way, I'm pretty sure I'm getting a transfer to wherever she's from!

Just goes to show, med students are the most beautiful people ever. That's my unbiased take from the news. Also, good luck Olivia Wells!

Catchas,

Circle

Neuro, and the study timetable

So we started neuroscience this week, and by all accounts of students from previous years it is by far the hardest block in first year. So we have all been looking at this block coming up with a large degree of apprehension...but for me it hasn't so far turned out to be so bad! I've done quite a bit of neuroscience and neuroanatomy in the past however so that's probably the only reason I'm going along ok. I actually am loving it so far -- I think what I like so much about neuroscience is that any deficit in it you can see in immediate ways in the patient. You have damage to your spinal cord? Ok, let me touch you at specific levels...oh, you can't feel below this line on your chest? Ok, the damage in your spinal cord is here. In other areas to investigate function you have to do all sorts of complex things like run lab tests, attach all sorts of weird wires to the patient, or look for the consequences of poor function in places that the patient is quite surprised you're looking at (like looking at the fingernails to get information about actually several different organs, a couple of which are in the gastrointestinal system!). In neuroscience the cause and effect relationship is immediate and plainly obvious, and that's one of the things that I find extremely interesting about it.

Also, I made a study timetable over the holidays (it actually took me the whole two weeks, that's how good I am at avoiding work) and it planned out my every 15 minutes between 6:45am and midnight every day of the week, monday to sunday. Call that ambitious? It was. The issue was always going to be how well I stuck to it, and I'm finding that with missing my girlfriend it's all the more difficult. Still I am finding that I'm doing more study, which is good I guess...I'm just being more liberal with my free time periods than I should teehee. I should get a handle on it soon -- I'm already finding my focus improving though.

Until next time! Sorry for the boring post!

Circle

Going back

My 2 week mid-year break is over, and Melbourne is the last place I want to be. I feel like this must be how dumbledore felt as Harry forced the potion down his throat. This must be done, but just at what cost.