5/31/2012

Last official day of class! Wahoo! I still have to go in tomorrow and all next week to study but no more lectures this semester! Now I know what you're thinking dead week for WVU always meant crazy parties and lots of drunk people. Luckily for me we don't have dead week, here it's SWATVAC. I don't know what that stands for. However, all of the non-Physio students were done last week so they actually start exams on Monday and we have so much to study that I will actually be busier next week than I have been during the semester. Other exciting things from today include my research and evidence grade. I passes!!! Yay! No remedial paper for maddie! I am unbelievably thrilled. I didn't just pass either, we received high honors on our presentation:)
I got to be a triathlete again today. I swam 1.5 biked 30 and ran 10 kilometers. I feel.... Surprisingly lazy for don't that much work. It must have been the extra large chocolate bar that my study group shared at lunch.
I keep trying to study with people but I need to learn a bit more on my own first so that I can get the most out of the review sessions. Tonight at footie training they made a taco dinner. I was sad to miss it but Katie had bought me Asian noodles so I had to go home. As expected I got absolutely plain noodles with no sauce, garlic, and broccoli. Then Katie complained that it was too plain. It's my dinner and I like plain! And by plain I mean garlic. Now it's off to study a bit before I go to bed to prepare for tomorrow.

5/30/2012

This morning we had our last class in the cadaver lab.  It was very helpful to look at everything again and be reminded of just how much we have covered this semester.  Then we went down to the lecture hall for a pharmacology lecture and a physiology lecture.  I was supposed to go swimming after class but Steph forgot her bathers(swimsuit). So instead of going swimming I went to the library with Angela. We met up with Drew, Jamie, Brian, Ally and Rainer and studied for 6 hours.  There were 5 lectures that I was supposed to go over today.  I made it through 1/2 of 1 but I do have a much better understanding of several other topics.

I think that it's really helpful to study with other people because we pick different things out of the lecture.  We studied until the library closed and I was ready for dinner.  If you remember about a month ago I was talking about wanting to go to burger's edge.  Since we had be studying anemia and energy usage in endurance exercise I decided that I would get a burger to ward off anemia just incase I was at risk.  I would say that the burger was nothing to write home about....but since I'm clearly writing home, I'll just say that I was largely unimpressed and don't see myself ever going back.  At least I know that when I want a burger, Grill'd is much better and also more convenient.

5/29/2012

Today was research and evidence presentation day. I think the presentation went well. We were the first in the class to present and we satisfactorily answered all the questions and were not confronted with any major flaws in the study that we presented. We sat around for the rest of the day trying hard to pay attention to the other groups. After the presentation I met with the instructor and she assured me that no one failed their presentations. Yay! She was a bit stuck up and told me that I am below the standard for the class but offered absolutely no help or guidance. With any luck I passed my presentation and no longer have to deal with her. I had footie training tonight where they finally paid me. Yay! And we hung a flat screen tv on the wall. I also worked a bit. But just a tad. I really want to share my presentation but I haven't figured out a way to do that yet.

5/28/2012

I'm sorry to say that we have our first causality in the Maddie V. exam schedule battle.  He fought valiantly but alas succumbed to the power and magnitude of the blood pressure notes and dried up.







With no official class today I was very productive.  I went into uni(by train, cause my tire was flat) at 9 and studied theory questions with Angela for 3 hours.  We went through the basics and decided that we still needed to expand on our answers.  I worked a bit more on the practical questions I think I have now answered 5/77 and I'm up to 10 pages.  After that I went for a swim. 2.5km later I headed into the city to buy a patch kit and a new tire for my bike. Since I was already in the city I took the train home.  Then I had a quiet night of fixing my bike, eating leftovers, outlining lectures, and practicing for my presentation tomorrow.

5/27/2012

Happy Birthday Abbie!
I got right into my normal Sunday routine of laundry, cleaning, studying and running.  After listening to a couple of lectures and spending an hour on an@omedia I decided to procrastinate by looking at the specifics of the practical exam.  Much to my surprise it is much more involved that I had originally realized. We got the question bank of 77 questions. We will be asked 4 but each question will be used on at least one student.  The questions are easy but the answers are quite complex.  They expect you to need 5 minutes to preform the task.  For example the one I did this morning was palpate the elbow flexors.  The answer is biceps, brachialis, and brachioradialis.  While trying to correctly find the borders of these muscles I will also need to be talking about the origin, insertion, accessory action, and innervation of each muscle.  Every time the muscle attaches to a common site I need to name the other muscles as well, so for biceps I need to say that it the long head originates on the supraglenoid tubercle, runs through the joint capsule and into the bicepital groove of the humerus.  The short head attaches to the corocoid process along with pec minor and coricobrachialis the muscle then follows down the front of the arm...and so on.  Anyway I suppose I need to make sure I have a very solid knowledge of every muscle in the body and it's attachments. At about 3pm I went out for a 20 mile run.  It was lovely but I started to get sore at the end.  I want to be a bit faster, right now I'm running at 9-9:50 pace.  When I got back Katie had made soup for our dinner and discussion session.  Sometimes it is good to talk to her but today northing that she was saying sounded reasonable.  She wanted to make some plans for the next few months, which is fine but she's basing these plans on her gut feeling that the Australian economy is going to hit a major recession in the September.  She is concerned, as she should be owning multiple rental properties, but she doesn't actually look at economic figures or facts.  She has a distrust of economists and doesn't have an interest in the stock market.  I didn't know what to say, plus I was exhausted from my run.  After dinner I got back to studying.  I'm working on outlining my answers for the practical exam so that I will be able to start practicing soon.  Luckily tomorrow is a pretty chill day with only independent study.  I'm meeting with a couple different groups throughout the day and will hopefully be very productive.
Everyone have a fantastic Abbie's birthday!

5/26/2012

I spent the day at footie. We had 3 wins and a loss. I wasn't at the loosing game so I had all wins:) the first game was 137-9 the second game was by less but it was good none the less. This is the seniors team.

Sorry I couldn't get a better angle. I'm short. It was my friend Angela's birthday so we went out to celebrate. I rode my bike since I've been less active the past few days. It was a nice ride a fun pub and a good time. I really like my grad school friends they are responsible drinkers that can have fun without getting overly intoxicated. I didn't want to get hit by a taxi on my way home so I wasn't drinking and I was pleasantly surprised that I could have intelligent conversations with everyone.

5/25/2012

So Friday was our community engagement conference. Each group presented their community in a comparative format to the class and community liaisons.  I got dressed up in my fabulous suit which unfortunately meant that I had to take the tram instead of biking.  On the bright side I looked good and had a fantastic presentation.  The director marked us as most exciting group.  It could have been that we had the most unique experience but I'm pretty sure we presented nicely as well. Actually all of the presentations were very interesting and I really enjoyed the conference.  If you remember I made cake which was a huge hit.  I was also able to barter for other goodies which made the day even better.   After the presentations we all went to the pub for dinner.  We looked pretty impressive  in our business attire.  Unfortunately, I got my research grade back yesterday as well.  She really disliked my paper. I asked to meet with her to better understand my error, since she just gave me a grade with no feedback.... and she refused.   Which is why I was a bit grumpy last night.  Sorry.  Friday was a fantastic day and I was really proud of our project.

5/24/2012

Today you might have actually been able to call me a triathlete.  I did all three sports.  Of course I biked to campus, then to work and back home.  I also met up with Steph for a swim before class and went for a run after class.  My run was shorter than it was supposed to be but I was crunched for time.  Since it was Thursday I had a full day of class and then footy practice.  I also needed to bake for the full day confrence tomorrow.  I decided that Thai Tea Cake sounded delicious.  I went to 5 stores without being able to find tea and finally googled Thai tea leaves in Melbourne and found a shop 2 blocks from the footy oval.  The cake is very good but the tea flavor was quite as strong as I would have liked.  Here is the final recipe with my adjustments to increase the flavor:
1 stick unsalted butter
1/2 cup loose-leaf Thai tea(3 tea bags)
2 eggs
1 tbsp vanilla
2x 3oz sweetened condensed milk
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup powdered sugar


1. Pre-heat the oven and grease a 8-9in pan of your choice.  Brew 2 tea bags in 3/4cups of boiling water, covered for 10 minutes.
2. Strain and discard tea bags add butter to tea and cover until melted.
3. Pour tea and butter mixture into a mixing bowl and combine with vanilla, 3oz of sweetened condensed milk, and eggs.  The mixture should now be a vibrant creamy orange.
4. Stir in flour, baking powder, and salt until smooth.
5. Pour into pan and bake 35-45 minutes until the toothpick come out clean.
6. When you put the cake in the oven, begin brewing the last tea bag in 1/4 cup boiling water, cover and let steep until the cake has finished baking.
7.  Once the cake finished baking let stand until cool enough to handle but still relatively warm transfer to serving dish.
8. Pour the 1/4 cup of tea over the cake.  Then cover and allow it to cool completely.
9. Whisk together the remaining 3oz of sweetened condensed milk and confectioner's sugar.  Spread over the cake after it has completely cooled.
10. Sprinkle with sugar crystals

5/23/2012

We had our last cadaver lab this morning. So there was a large amount of review. I did well this morning. I felt like I had all the answers so easily. After that we had a lecture on the cardiovascular response to exercise. I really wish I had brought over my notes from my applied cardiac anatomy class at penn state they would have been quite useful. After a bit of studying I headed home and bought shoes on the way. We are giving presentations Friday and I needed to acquire appropriate shoes.

Today they were redoing the display case so everything was 20% off. I guess I picked the right day. I was really sleepy around 6 so I took a nap.I was actually really tired so when the dogs woke me up around 9pm I decided to go to sleep:) at 1130p Katie called me because she thought I was still out. I said, "Nope you're calling me from the other side of the wall!"

5/22/2012

I had the day off from class today so I spent 8 hours at uni.  I was going to be there even longer but I ran into some technical difficulties this morning.  I got on my bike and was about to leave when it started pouring down rain, so I parked my bike and went back inside to water proof my computer and get a rain coat.  I hopped on my bike again to find that I had a flat tire. By the time I had fixed my tire I had missed the Tuesday morning aerobics class so I decided to eat breakfast before going in.  After sweet potato hash browns I finally left the house.  On my way I saw the most vivid rainbow right across the most miserable intersection of my ride.

I got to the university in time to meet up with my classmates and practice hands on skills with 3 different people.  We went over the hand, hip, knee, ankle, back, and neck.  I need to practice these skills but sometimes I feel like it's a way to procrastinate from studying the other stuff.  After 4 hours of practicing Kat and I headed to a cafe to work on our theory questions.  They are hard.  If you remember, I put up the shoulder question a few months ago.  We now have 9 more questions all equally as difficult.  Kat and I worked on formulating answers for the next 4 hours.  For your viewing pleasure here is the elbow question.

Q 2. For a push up 

Analyse the action of the elbow joint and the muscles controlling the joint during the action of a) a push up and b) return to the starting position 

Include in your answer the 

accessory movements of the elbow joint 

forces responsible for the movement 

muscle action occurring throughout the movements 

At 5 Kat had to meet with her research group so I headed home.  A quick run, a bit more studying and that was my day.  I'll put my answer to the question up tomorrow so you can see how you went (Australian for how correct was your answer)

5/21/2012

Today I had a long day of class.  We started with a lecture by Jenny Hays, my favorite lecturer.  Unfortunately she only gave us 6 of our 80 lectures but I have really enjoyed all of them.  Next we did problem based learning/Case supported learning for two hours.  We came up with quite a large mechanism.

Then we had our last lecture by Jenny.  It ended a few minutes early so we went to the computer lab to study anatomy for an hour.  After that we had an hour long lecture describing the intricacies of our exam schedule.  It sounds thrilling. Luckily they promised to put up some practice questions shortly.  After that I met with my group to work on my community project. Finally! We are presenting on Friday and have yet to put the presentation together. Speaking of my presentation here are some picture of us on the farm.
http://s1244.photobucket.com/albums/gg566/Dookie_Farms/
After that I met with my research group our project seems to be going well. We are all working really hard to make this project perfect in hopes of getting a good grade.  We will be the first group to present, I don't know if that is a good thing or a bad thing.  We finally finished just after 8 so I got home at 9 with just enough time to pack my lunch and go to bed.

5/20/2012

Today I studied! When the radiology started turning my brain to mush I took a break to go for a 16 mile run. When I got home I showered and made tacos. Then I was going to study some more but talked to Abbie instead. I love my Abbie. I got all my procrastination out of the way so I can do a full day of work tomorrow. Yay

5/19/2012

Today the footie game was the third string against the forth string. I was with the 3's the cardinals. We won by about 50 points.

After the game we had a barbarque where they were silly and gave out awards for one of the player's 100th game. Then I headed home and studied for several hours. At 8 Hannah came by and we took the dogs for a walk on the beach.

 We got ice cream on the way home and had some post walk dessert and dinner(in that order). Then back to studying.

5/18/2012

I was off my game today. I don't quite know how I made it through in my haze of tiredness. I biked in early and went to yoga. I fell asleep during yoga class. Then I showered, met with my group worked on our inclinometer project, and went to the seminar. The seminar was really cool but I was having a terrible time staying alert . During the seminar I realized that I had forgotten my wallet. This normally wouldn't be a problem but I had a paper due today and needed my ID card to print the document. I have great friends that helped me out and shared their printing privileges. So I printed my paper and went to meet with my other group. They once again were not coordinated so I decided to head home...see a problem? Yep that's right I got home to realize that my paper was still in my bag. Not in the mood for another bike ride I took the tram back to the university. On my way I emailed my professor to tell her that I was running 10minutes for the deadline. Luckily she is understanding so I had no problem. Although I am only 50%sure that I put it in the correct mail box. If I made a mistake I'm only off by one so I'm sure that they will figure it out. After that I cafe hopped for a few hours working on various projects. My goal is to finish my project requirements today so that I can spend the rest of the weekend studying for the upcoming exams. I'm going to need to study even more than originally expected because all 4exams are essay format, 1 is a practical, and the last one is anatomy identification. Fun fun.

5/17/2012

Today in class we got to pretend that we had asthma by breathing through straws.  I was awesome at it.  I went 500m on my 6 minute walk test, passed my incremental shuttle walk test, and did the functional grocery store test in 15 seconds.  All while breathing through a straw.
We got done with class a tiny bit early so I was able to go on a run before practice.  I went to the Melbourne gardens.

Most of it is closed for winter but it still looks really nice.

At footie tonight I accidently put icyhot in my eye.  Ouch.  I cried for a bit but then it cleared up.  Luckily I was able to laugh the whole time so the boys made fun of me as I worked while crying a puddle on the bench.
Tomorrow's guest patient is supposed to be fantastic I can't wait!

5/16/2012

Wednesday! that means dissection lab and studying at a surprise location. We did pulmonary anatomy in the labs today.  It was quite exciting.  We had a lecture after lab and then the afternoon off.  I studied with my classmates for a while after the lecture.  We practiced shoulder evaluation.  Everyone wants to practice the shoulder, I'm going to know it so well by the time the exam comes.  I've started practicing my patient communication skills because I'm so comfortable with the hands on techniques.  From there I went to federation square to rewrite my reflective assignment.  It is the biggest pain.  I have so much time trying to edit it and make it look nice just to have to change things.  I have 1000 words to describe an aspect of the course, give pros and cons, and write a lesson plan to either change or add to the learning objectives.  It makes for a very crowded paper that doesn't flow.  So, I worked on appropriately meeting the objectives of the paper on a dock on the river.
I made some birdy friends that thought  that I had food.

After 2 hours my computer battery was reaching the end so I headed home to study some more.  That was probably a bad idea because I snacked a bit, had a cup of tea and looked at the bell curve for the test grades instead of studying.  I did eventually buckle down and study for 3 hours.  That's not saying much since I meant to do 5 but some is better than none.
I promised a study plan so you can see why I don't have many fun pictures or Australian stories.  My study plan is a bit illegible at the moment but here is my diary(Australian word for planner) for the week Green=studying, Pink=things I'm behind on, Yellow=project meetings.  I also have class and this paper to write.

5/15/2012

I had a long day of work today. I got my grade back from my neuroscience exam 90% that puts me in high honors for my foundations class. Yay! I was supposed to be studying for the next exam today but instead I was absorbed in the upcoming projects.  I spent far too long trying to figure out how to analyze my data for the mini research assignment that we conducted.  We have absolutely no correlation of our data and I'm trying to determine the best way to show that.  Between the complicated software and not knowing what to highlight I didn't get much of anywhere.  We did have an interesting prac class today.  We talked about how I am predisposed to upper back problems because of the genetic presentation of my thoracic spine.  Hear that family? Do back stretches because we are more likely than the general population to have bad upper back. Also, today was the completely topless prac day.  They have been warning us about this since the first week.  It was actually no big deal and we were completely covered while our backs were examined.  It was actually more professional than normal.  I'll try to be more fun tomorrow.  Right now I'm off to bed.

5/14/2012

Theme of the day: I'm annoyed with people passing judgement while only half understanding the situation. 

Marsha my group mate is mad that I haven't organized a group meeting yet.  I am not the group leader we are equal participants, she could organize a meeting just as easily.  I go ahead and organize the meeting at her urging and to find out that she has left out one our group members from all prior communication.  There are only 5 of us, it's not that hard to be inclusive.  We all settle on meeting at 5:30pm tomorrow because that is the only time that our entire group is available and Marsha is willing to work.  She then goes and reschedules the meeting for 12pm tomorrow because she wants to go out to dinner, except that 3 of the 5 of us aren't available at 12....

Then I get home and Katie starts hounding me for having a pre-diabetic diet. Why? because I have had 2 pieces of raisin bread today and have one packed for lunch tomorrow.  The entire loaf has 1tbsp of sugar(+the raisins).  She has decided to monitor my eating more closely and ban my sugar intake.  I don't think that she understands that I bike 16 miles a day, have an active class/job, and run/swim/work out almost everyday.  I would eat better if she was willing to buy healthier snacks.  

Alright done winching(australian word that means complaining loudly) 

Class has been less intense since out last exam.  We have started the pulmonary respiratory and it's been surprisingly basic compared to what we have previously been asked to learn.  I find it almost boring in comparison but am excited to have a lighter load while we put together 3 final projects and study for our 5 exams in June.   I think it's quite fun how my friends have changed so far this semester.  In general I have kept the same core group of friends but we bounce around between smaller groups amongst ourselves depending on stress levels, exams, and projects.  We all work so hard that I really enjoy the small moments where we are positive and supportive, like today when Amelia missed the first 5 minutes of lecture to wait for me after the barista messed up my coffee before our 3 hour afternoon session.  It's the little moments that make me feel like I fit in and have made the right choice by coming to Melbourne.

I know I know pretty boring.  Tomorrow:study plans and project previews. also..."please wear a bra that fastens in the back for thoracic mobilizations"

5/13/2012

Happy mother's day! I hope it's wonderful for everyone. I did a bit of skyping this morning. Some for fun, a good bit working on my paper that is due this up coming week. Katie's family had mother's day plans to do brunch around 1100 and requested that I join them. I desperately tried to hold out for lunch even though I was hungry. I coped by cooking. I made cinnamon raisin bread in the bread maker. It's awesome!

When they didn't show up at 11 I continued to work on my paper. At 12 I was working with a grumbling tummy. At 1 Katie made French fries as an appetizer. They finally showed up at 130 and we had a delicious lunch of lasagna, salad, fries, cheese cake, apple strudel and ice cream.

If you didn't notice half that meal is dessert but they still felt the need to tell me I eat too much sugar. When most of what you offer me is sugar, the salad and fries have been finished, and the last 3 pieces of lasagna have been claimed for lunch tomorrow...I'm going to eat the desserts. After lunch I buckled down on studying I was supposed to do 8 hours today to stay on track for my study plan. I needed a break after 2 hours and the sweet potato tater tots Gillie was eating this morning looked delicious so I made some of my own. All together today I finished half of the studying I meant to complete, but my paper is significantly better than it was this morning so it's a fair trade. Happy mothers day everyone!

5/12/2012

I spent all day doing footie. We started at 7:20a and went till 530p. We were at 2 different fields so I biked 25k to, from, and in between fields. Unfortunately all of our teams lost today. On the bright side we only had one injury, a dislocated shoulder at the beginning of the day. While I was out Katie and Stan entertained some property friends so I came home to a fantastic spread of food. Salad, meats, cheese, and cake. Yum.
Oh and I got a care package from Grammie. Thanks:) you're the best.

5/11/2012

Ah patient Friday! I love Fridays when we get actual patients. I made apple cake to make the meeting even better. It was absolutely delicious. I was going to take a picture but we ate it instead it was fantastic. I'll give you the recipe instead.


Apple Cake

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 1/2 cups peanut, vegetable, or corn oil
• 2 cups sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3 cups peeled, cored, and thickly sliced apples
• 1 cup chopped walnuts
• 1 cup raisins
• Vanilla ice cream for serving (optional)

preparation

1. Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter and flour a 9-inch tube pan. Sift together the flour, salt, cinnamon, and baking soda.

2. Beat the oil and sugar together in a mixer with a paddle (or in a bowl with a hand mixer) for 5 minutes. Add the eggs and beat until the mixture is creamy. Stir in the dry ingredients. Add the vanilla, apples, walnuts, and raisins and stir until combined.

3. Turn the batter into the prepared pan. Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in the pan before turning out.

4. Serve with vanilla ice cream, if desired

 http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Teddies-Apple-Cake-362089#ixzz1uZ0e5HBg

Our patient was a 71year old with emphysema. She was sweet and very informative about cardiovascular rehabilitation. After our seminar we practiced hip and ankle evaluations for 2 hours while finishing off the cake. On my way home I did some shopping. I'm bad at shopping. Between not wanting to spend money and not wanting to take the effort to dig my wallet out I don't buy much. I should have studied this afternoon but instead I did laundry, fixed my bike, and made a study plan. Since dryers are generally frowned upon in Australia, this is what you use as a clothes line in the winter.

Footie all day tomorrow so I'm off to bed!

5/10/2012

I slept in again today(all the way to 7:30) but I felt much better when I woke up.  I got to School in time for Thursday's free ride to Uni breakfast.  I ate a ton.  It was really good.  Then I headed to lecture and the guest lecturer that we were supposed to have today didn't show up. Oops. Luckily we are all very motivated individuals and we walked straight over to the phisio building where we practiced for the next two and a half hours.  Class today was very exciting.  We got to draw respiratory components on each other.  Tory, Amelia, and Kendal ganged up on me and made me into a master piece that was the envy of everyone in the course.

This evening I had footie practice.  I massaged whiny football players for three hours straight and then ate a chicken and capsicum (look I'm using it 2 days in a row) pie. I stuck around for a bit to bond and watch the game from last week.  Sometimes I find it really hard to hang out with the guys.  They have such a unique culture and if I were to try to fit in I would just look ridiculous.  So I get by being an observant professional.  I headed home half way through the video to make an apple cake for tomorrow.  We have a patient coming in at 10 and then we're going to study for a while.  There is something about the Friday seminars that lends particularly well to breakfast parties so a couple of us are bringing in goodies.

5/9/2012

I picked the right week to get sick. This might be the easiest week of the semester. There was no gross anatomy lab today which means that we only had one lecture from 11-12. While I was tempted to stay in bed, I went out of respect for the lecturer and a desire to learn. 1/4 of my class was there. Luckily I made the decision to attend because he was very animated and walked around most of the lecture but he wasn't wearing a lapel microphone. This means that the people who stayed at home will have a very hard time listening to the recording. As I was heading off after the lecture I ran into Tuba, she had missed the lecture but wanted to practice so I practiced shoulder evaluations with her for an hour. After that I headed toward home with the intention of writing my reflective essay. I kept passing potential spots because they weren't working out for me. I was going to sit outside at federation square but there was a parade for Buddha's birthday.

My next choice was burger's edge which I've been meaning to try. Unfortunately that was quite crowded. I ended up at a cafe that was a little bit out of my way but seemed like the place to study.

I ate roasted capsicum(look an aussi word! It means red pepper) and zucchini soup.

My 1000 word essay on how I feel about one of the teaching methods is finished and off to be edited. I really really want to do well on this assignment. When I finished I packed up and went home to take a nap. When I woke up I fixed up my paper a bit and emailed some paperwork for my farm project. Around 7 I made some matzo balls to go I to the soup Stan had made over the weekend. Matzo balls here don't expand as much because the matzo meal is more course. So I had about 20 tiny matzo balls. Yum!

Oh and I got the date of my last exam today. I finish this semester at 5pm on Monday June 18th.

5/8/2012

Remember how I was going to wake up this morning and get back on track for my full work Tuesdays? Well I woke up got out of bed and realized that I felt ill. I am congested and have an absolutely horrible headache. So I skipped my conditioning session and went back to bed. I went to lecture, then lunch. My salad tastes weird so I just ate the celery. We practiced manual techniques a bit. I don't know how productive I was. Then we had practical where we did a practice case on a gentleman with a collapsed lung. It was fun. Then we played with simulators and stethoscopes. Ooo. By that point my headache had taken over most of my cognitive function so I stopped at the store at got some panadol. I hope I don't mess this up if I do please correct me. The chemical formula for Tylenol is paracetaminophenol. In the united states this long name is shortened to the drug name acetaminophen in Australia the drug name is shortened to paracetamol. Therefore, through a complicated process panadol=Tylenol even though the drug name appears to be different. And it helped my headache which is what really matters. Refreshed, I went out to dinner with my travel buddy Sarah. She's the neuroscience phd student that I met on my trip to the great ocean road. We got burgers and they were quite fantastic. We talked and caught up for a few hours. My ride home was beautiful. Melbourne in the evening is as scenic as it is during the day.

5/7/2012

I have been quite lazy the past few days.  I think the work load is catching up to me because all I want to do is eat and sleep.  Luckily I live 13km from school so my commute forces me to be active.  This morning we had problem based learning where we did a case and determined the mechanism for an imaginary patient's stroke.

I am still a little confused about the whole process but it appears that my classmates feel the same way.  We met the learning objectives but our advisor is quite strict and is pushing us to work harder.
Our lecture this afternoon was on the exact same thing that the morning's lecture was.  It was supposed to be a review so that we were more comfortable with the cardiorespiratory system but it was pretty much the same lecture twice in a row.  We were all bored out of our minds.  Nicki showed me a new app it's called logos.
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/logos-quiz-game/id478364212?mt=8
Not only did I waste the rest of the lecture playing it but I have spent the evening trying to finish the game. Sigh.  No apps for Maddie.  I'm headed to bed and desperately hoping that I wake up on time tomorrow to get back into the tuesday routine.

5/6/2012

With no commitments today I got up early and lounged around. I read, sipped my coffee and relaxed. When Katie woke up 4 hours later she was much less calm. Doing chores, giving me directions, stressing out about dinner, all while dying her hair.

I did a few chores, cleaned my room, planned my week, etc while continuing to be lazy until 2pm. Then I went on a 12.5mile run. It was fantastic. The ocean is much higher in Autumn. The wave splash over the boardwalk and the swans were closer than I have ever seen them before. Of all the animals I've seen in Australia the black swans are still my favorite.

In her hectic spree this morning Katie had charged me with making dinner this evening. I made gnocchi primeverra.

It was really good. It is a tad deceptive because the beets made everything look red. It is actually a garlic and white wine sauce. After cleaning up from dinner I did more lounging around. I don't know if Katie and her family think I'm lazy and unhelpful or a pushover that they can boss around but Hannah was being just as bad as Katie tonight. Katie had texted Hannah while I was out on my run to ask for some iTunes help. Hannah texted 5 hours later to say if I was at home could I please help Katie with iTunes. Since I was in the mood to be a brat I responded with "I did help her with iTunes right before I cooked her dinner". Anyway it was a lovely day with minimal exertion. I have a pretty mild week coming up. I need to write 2 essays but they should be relatively easy. I'll start tomorrow morning.

Some Australian wild life for your viewing pleasure:
This is a gum tree. They are everywhere. They have a distinctly flat canopy that looks like a well placed hat.

The second most common indigenous tree to Melbourne is the tea tree. No you don't get tea from it but it is commonly used as an ingredient in soap, lotion, and body spray.

The birds are fantastic but I've been having terrible trouble trying to photograph them. I thought I had the perfect picture on my run today but by the time I got my phone out they had flown away.

5/5/2012

Happy cinqo de mayo. I didn't do anything Mexican today and neither did anyone else in Australia. Instead I worked footie, spent 3 hours on a train, made dinner and read a novel. Since I didn't have to study today I spent several hours lounging around reading. Nothing too exciting today and I am really happy for the opportunity to relax before I return to school work tomorrow.

Injuries today: either a broken fibula, over reacting, or a really bad attempt to hit on me. I'm not quite sure but one of the players is an ER doc and he concurs.

5/4/2012

When I walked out into the kitchen at 7:15 Katie said, "Oh no you slept in!"Ha, that's a little embarrassing.  I did sleep in all the way till 7:15, then I had breakfast, talked to Abbie and went in to take my exam.  I got there an hour early and relaxed/looked over my notes.  The exam was actually easier than expected. I think we all over studied a bit.  Or miss studied because I was less confident on a few of the question than I should have been while others seemed embarrassingly easy.  At 1 it was all over.  We enjoyed Pints and Parmas at the Queensberry hotel.  I shared one with Kat.  Good call on my part because I spent the remainder of the day over eating.  Without my exam blinders on I realized that things have changed a bit.  It is definitely becoming autumn (not fall, people laugh at me when I say fall) in Melbourne.  There are leaves everywhere and squash is the in season vegetable.  The birds are changing color too.  If I can't get a photograph tomorrow I'll put up an image to show you.  The city birds go from black to brown in the winter.  When I got home I thought about going for a run.  Instead I made white chocolate raspberry biscotti. Yum!

I did go for a very quick jog while they cooled.  I took some over to Emma because I owed her a favor and then I went to Katie's brother's for dinner.  I think that they are still desperately trying to set me up with Robbie but I maintain that he is dull and uninterested.  I do enjoy going over there for dinner.  Susan(Katie's sister in law) is a fantastic cook.  I ate more for dinner tonight than I have the rest of the week put together.  Should have taken a picture but I ate too fast.  Homemade meatballs, roasted vegetables, cauliflower, salad, fruit compote, and blueberry cake. Yum.  I got home around 10 and have been coordinating footie ever since.  No exams and nothing due till Thursday! Yay!

5/3/2012

More studying today! I reviewed 1 lecture on the way in, 2 before class, we were given 2 more lectures today, and a practical, 1 more on the way to work, 1 at work, and 1 on the way home. Yikes! I don't know that there is any more space in my head. Everyone in my class is quite stressed out. I'm not quite so bad. I don't know if I'm well prepared or if I'm too tired to care. In addition to studying tonight I also figured out the training schedule for the next 2 weeks. Yay!

5/2/2012

Bananas! Full of potassium great study food. Sweet and delicious but less sugar than a gigantic cookie.
So dissection. Well kinda. In the past few weeks it has gone to almost completely models, notes, white boards, preserved specimens, and example dissections. I think I could have done the whole lab without gloves. As always they overloaded me with knowledge and I left feeling saturated and cold(lots of air conditioning to help preserve). Luckily our lecture today was completely pointless and in a warm room. After lecture we reviewed as a group for a bit. We went to the library because several people were in a rush to study and then get home. We started with a small group at 12 and were supposed to meet up with a bigger group at 1. Unfortunately, with the hectic library environment and miscommunication we missed each other. This led to some hurt feelings, tantrums on Facebook, and almost everyone studying solo. A small(er) group of us still went to the cafe as originally planned. We studied for the next 5 hours, it was probably the most consistently productive I've been thus far. At 6pm I loaded a lecture onto my iPod and rode home. After I got home I revised sensation, made my lunch and headed to bed.
Most of my studying consisted of revising my outlines and practice tests but here is my representation of the circle of Willis.

5/1/2012

I spent a little too long getting out of bed this morning. Just a little so I was rushing to get to my aerobic's class. I biked to the train and took the train 8k. I made it to the class with seconds to spare. Unfortunately, I didn't have the right shoes so I wasn't able to do the class:( On the bright side I did get to study for an extra hour. I made big plans to go running this evening but things kept delaying my study plans so I substituted my run for studying instead. It occurs to me that I haven't adequately explained myself. I have a large exam on Friday. It covers back and neck anatomy as well as the entire neurosystem in detail. From nerve tracts, to pharmacology, to stroke. I got second honors on my last exam so I wouldn't be too concerned about my abilities except that since I did so poorly on my web page assignment, I need to have high honors in this subject. Then they'll classify me as a nerd with no people skills and make me do remedial social activities:) So I've been studying my butt off(i mean on). Speaking of which, I alluded to it yesterday but I have also found an exam diet. It seems like a hoax but it keeps me from making unhealthy choices while studying. All it does is add in vitamin rich foods at strategic intervals to keep the studier mentally alert. So, I snack on bananas instead of chocolate. I have no idea if it'll help my grade but it is keeping me from getting the too much study slump that normally occurs around this point. Once again we spent lunch studying. This time we had 2 whole hours and were quite productive. Each person took an area and acted as the point person on that subject and explained the topic as questions arose. Another thing that has really helped me study is that I can download podcasts of my lectures so that I am able to listen to them on my ipod while riding to class.  Don't worry, one ear only and not while I'm on major roads.
Unfortunately I don't have any good diagrams from today although my brain is beginning to look more realistic:)
On a very exciting note, thanks to Dad, Skype, and united airways I am able to visit at the end of June. I'm sure it will be a busy week full of jet lag. I'm just happy that in between studying I get to make plans for being home.