2/29/2012

Oops I almost went to bed without blogging.  Leap years in Australia are much better than in America,  I get an extra day of sunshine and ice cream:)
So I got up and decided that I wasn't in the mood for Pilates this morning so I went to the pool instead. I had a lazy workout and then realized that I forgot socks.  Luckily I have some pretty sweet friends that lent me a pair.  Why do I need socks? Gross Anatomy lab! Two hours of identifying the brachial plexus and then we had a lecture on the hip joint.  The rediculous anatomy has actually slowed down a bit. Then classes were over for the day what a nice break.  I went over and bought my ticket for the phisio-ball in April.  Then we went out for lunch.  It was a fantastic italian place.  I had a great pizza and way too much bread.



Then I went all over Melbourne trying to get my bike.  After an hour I found out that it isn't here yet so I went all over Melbourne again trying to get home.  I used the rest of my afternoon off to take a nap.  When I woke up I had dinner, studied and did mini-hill repeats.  They were mini because I couldn't find a good hill.


Fun fact of the day: Australia has switches on all of their outlets to conserve electricity when not in use,

2/28/2012

News of the day: I finally got an@tomeida the software i've been waiting for!!!! But it crashes my computer:(

I had a long day.  It started with body pump at 7am, my favorite workout class of the week.  Then I went for a run.  I spent some time studying anatomy and then I had two lectures.  One was fantastic the other one was very poorly delivered.  After that we had a lovely lunch and discussed outfits for the party friday.  Then it was time for prac class.  I can now identify all parts and movements of the shoulder through feeling for it. Yay!! We got some pretty interesting homework  that I have no idea how to start. The tram was the busiest I've seen it so far.  There were no seats the whole way home. 

I finally got home around 6 and spent the rest of the evening fighting with anatomedia, talking to Katie's daughter, and planing social events for the weekend.  Don't worry I'm not getting soft on the studying.  It's our once monthly outing as an entire program including professors.  The study plan is still in full effect. 

Fact of the day: Saori my Japanese roommate does not do any of the Japanese things that I like, no anime, no wasabi, no sushi, and no Vocaloid:( 
Also, cricket is the Australian form of baseball.  It is a national past time so everyone talks about it but it doesn't seem to be anyone's favorite sport. 

2/27/2012

I must have gotten a little more rested this weekend. I woke up and went made it to the tram with no problem this morning. I continued on my normal Monday program of erg, lift, erg but this morning I decided to be super critical of everyone around me. I wanted to tell all of the middle aged men that they were doing their exercises incorrectly and were puttin themselves at risk for injury. Luckily I held back because they were swinging wildly with heavy weights.  It poured all day long.  The university has a really cool upside down umbrella thing to sit under and stay dry. 

Our first class today was on muscular injury and repair.  It was interesting but not too intense.  We had 2 hours off to digest the knowledge so I finished my business paper and studied anatomy.  I tried again to buy the anatomy software but the book store still won't sell it.  They finally got it from the anatomy department that is located right across the street but I guess the department forgot to give them an invoice so they still won't let us buy it.  One final lecture on muscle physiology and it was time for lunch.  We ate under the big umbrella thing.  

I take baby sandwiches so that I can eat them during class as I get hungry.  After lunch we had our pre-practical lecture.  She asked extremely hard questions and then assigned 9 review projects and a chapter of pre-reading for tomorrow, in addition to the prep work that we already had.  I studied a bit on the tram ride home.  After I got home I booked it to training on my bike in the rain.  It's a good thing that I bought a new bike because my old one kept trying to die on me the whole way there and back.  It squeeked and shook and the seat fell off.  Now I know what you are all thinking because Katie yelled at me for it last night.  My first bike purchase was not an impulse buy.  I shopped around and found a very good deal.  I didn't get a lemon or played buy the little old lady that sold it to me. The problem is that I underestimated the ware and tear on the bike.  Things really do ware out more quickly in the high UV environment and I also though the school was 4K closer when I bought the bike.  It is a good bike just now the high performing piece of equipment that I require for daily transportation.  So now I have bought a bike that is up to the challenge and it will be here Thursday.  I get to training and I find out that it has been canceled because of the rain.  It was still worthwhile because I showed my commitment and they said that they actually had a couple too many trainers and were going to be making cuts but I'm safe because of my dependability in all weather.  They're also taking me to training camp on Philip Island:).  Since training camp was canceled I went home to study.  Shoulder palpations, biomechanics, and patient interactions, good thing I wasn't planning on studying anything else tonight.  Saori and I had a late dinner and packed our lunches.  I felt bad for being anti-social and not spending more time doing things with her but school comes first.

2/26/2012

Today was a bit more fun.  I started out writing my paper on Nettwerk the independent label that produces the bare naked ladies music.  I got it almost done and Katie announced, "We're going to the beach!" At first I was annoyed but then I realized that it was a good thing.

Saori, Katie and I took the dogs to the beach.  I was finally brave enough to get in the water and Saori and I played in the waves for an hour and a half.  After that we came home for ice cream coffee and lunch.  We had a smattering of vegetables and cheeses, It was delicious.  After that we went to do a 5K walk for Katie's niece with downs syndrome.

We got there an hour early so I had a brief jog before before it started.  In the 20 minutes I was gone Katie decided that she wasn't going to do the walk.  So she left me and Saori with her brother, sister-in-law, and niece to do the walk.  

After ward Katie's sister-in-law invited us over for iced coffee.  It was wonderful.  She also had some fantastic chocolate cake.  The lady can cook..... quite well in fact.   As we were sitting there talking Robbie came home and decided that the two international girls needed to try vegemite.  

I liked it Saori said it needed soy sauce:) after 2 hours Robbie took Saori home and I went on a run.  I finished the 9miles I was supposed to do today and made it back home.  I was so thirsty that I drank a litre of water when I got in the door. I sweated off 5 pounds(which of course I drank to replenish) thoughts of hyponutremia crossed my mind but then I ate a potato and felt better.  By that point it was 9 and time to get ready for tomorrow.  This is going to be a good week Saori and I have dinner parties almost every night. Also... Look on facebook Saori and I put up a couple more pictures that aren't on my log.

2/25/2012

I had a very productive day.  I finished my annotated bibliography.  I wasn't expecting to get it completed.  After hours and hours of searching for articles I finally found the cheat button that pulls them up for free.  The entire thing is done and off to my personal editor. I'm slightly concerned that I didn't do it correctly so I'm not sharing a copy until it has been corrected.  Katie had a business friend over so I joined them for lunch and tea while I worked on my annotated bibliography.  After that I went out for a run.  I needed to do a 5k time trial.  So I took a scenic tour with 5k worth of sprints in it.  

After I got home I started working on my final paper for business class.  I got through all of the background information and had started the analysis at 9:30 when Katie got home from cleaning her daughter's house.  I took a break to chat and compile my video.  Katie is worried that I don't have any friends and thinks I need to socialize more.  I think I need to chat less and spend more time on my homework.  I've been on facebook chat all day and I can tell you that my classmates aren't parting either.  We are all talking about how to do our projects and where to find references.  More productivity and fun stuff tomorrow, I promise. 

2/24/2012

We had today off and that means the start of my weekend. Yay? As expected my weekend list just gets longer and longer.

I slept in today all the way to 7:30, pathetic I know.  I studied a bit and then made breakfast.  I was contemplating a run but didn't have time before I needed to get dressed for my meeting at school.  I got dressed up as business casual Maddie.  This was good in the morning but by the time I got home it was miserably hot.  It was high 90's today.  I'm trying to break in my danskos as well and they really hurt my feet at the moment.  After my meeting I picked up my health care refund and went to the market.  I know you shouldn't shop hungry and today was no exception.  I think I bought enough food to last me a month.  After the market I lugged my bag of bread, fruit, vegetables, wine and chocolate brioche onto the tram.  I was so sweaty and hot that I actually started to feel faint so I sat down for my ride to the grocery story.  In case anyone was wondering you also don't want to shop thirsty.  I bought enough beverages to last me for a month too.  When I got home I started making dinner.  Katie had asked me to make a quiche.  Why anyone would try to make a quiche in this weather is beyond me.  It was so hot outside that the dough came out of the fridge sticky.  It turned out ok.  I really wasn't in the mood for quiche so I also made a salad with mango and avacado.  It was fantastic.  I think everyone liked that better than the quiche.  So in her travels today Katie set me up on a series of dates with several boys ranging in age from 24-30.  She wants me to be excited but really I'm not  interested in going on dates with strangers; it interrupts my already packed schedule.  After dinner Katie told me that I needed to go on a diet.  sigh. I really don't like her eating habits.  I studied a bit more while I digested.  Then I finally got out for my run and Katie made some comment about my garmin.  Goodness. I like her but she is suprisingly close minded sometimes.

2/23/2012

I got a new alarm clock for my phone.  I don't know if it works better or if my allergies just decided to ease up so I was able to wake up earlier.  This morning was spinning class.  I'm really not sure that I like it.  It's really hard and the instructor isn't very exciting.  After spinning I went for a run to stay on track with my marathon training.  I still haven't bought my bike because I am continually running into problems with paying.  The bike that I want is in Brisbane and internet banking is a bit behind here.  So I jumped on a tram and to pay at a local branch of his bank.  I got there and found out that the building is under construction so I still haven't been able to pay. After that I headed back to campus for free breakfast. Pancakes, bacon, eggs, cereal, toast, and a bunch of toppings.

Then I had the anatomy lecture that I've been waiting for all week the brachial plexus, we also had durmatomes, myotomes, and applied anatomy.  Then it was time for more free food. My classmates and I went around and got all the best offerings. Today was the best yet.  Bar-b-q, fairy floss(cotton candy), donoughts, cookies, tea, slushies, cup cakes, pookie, and of course beer.

Names for when I talk about people: Steph if pink, Kat in Blue

After lunch we had a lecture on how to use endnote.  It was fairly useful since I had been having difficulties.  I made it on the tram and back to the local post office in time to pick up my package and get my working with children check.  It was unfortunately way more expensive than expected but necessary.  When I got home devised a plan for the weekend and studied anatomy.  Katie had an exciting day so we(Stan, Katie, Saori, and me) sat and drank wine and at cheese for a bit and then I went back to studying.  Katie met a Japanese man today, this Japanese man has a younger friend that Katie talked into taking Saori out for coffee.  Then katie began to freak out and tried to recruit me to help her stalk and take pictures of his car before they drove away.  It interrupted my anatomy video.

2/22/2012

No pictures again!! Sorry I know i've been bad this week.  
I had trouble getting up again, which means I missed the tram.  I caught the next one and luckily it got to school surprisingly fast.  My allergies had me feeling kind of gross so I opted to do pilates instead of working out this morning.   
My first class was gross anatomy lab.  I seem to always get the anatomy labs first thing in the morning, which means I smell bad for the rest of the day.  It was pretty fun, we worked in groups of 5.  I touched my group members did the paper work and looked up the structures.  I also looked mighty pimp in my lab coat. 
After anatomy was physiology of exercising muscle composition.  On my way to the journal review group I passed the in coming med student orientation.  I blended in and took a piece of pizza.  Domino's has much better flavors over here.  We reviewed dynamic methods of fitting orthotics and then recreated their statistical analysis in both excel and SPSS.  I think my classmates have a general loathing of statistics.  I seem to be the excel master and Steph(my group mate) has SPSS covered so we teach everyone else.  After that I discussed my schedule with the head of the practical team.  Looks like I might not get much of a chance to come home before November, but there is still a small possibility in June.  By that time it was 4:30 so I headed home.  I wrote a thank you note to the PT that I had worked with on Monday on my ride home.  I grabbed some dinner and worked on my papers.  At 8 Saori and I went for a quick jog.  I think we made it about 10 minutes and then walked back.  And that's my day. 


To keep you entertained while I'm busy how about some Australian trivia.  
Who knows the capital city Australia? 


Did anyone guess Canberra? That's ok most of my Kangaroo classmates don't know it either. 


Let's recap for anyone trying to keep up...
New bike: still in Brisbane because I haven't gotten to the bank.  
Tax number & children check: still haven't been to the post office.
Community paper: half done, having trouble finding where to download the articles
Research group: Started and I've bullied my group into working this weekend
Research paper: Ummm, I know my topic
Business class: 1 paper left
Training: Mondays for now,  Tuesday, Saturday in March
I have actually been so busy this week that I haven't spent any money.  Crazy!  
If you're trying to keep up with my schedule don't bother.  It's an ever evolving surprise.  They are constantly changing it and there is absolutely no continuity.  

2/21/2012

Orientation day Yay!!!
Not for me since I've been there for three weeks and I have two huge projects to keep myself busy with but it was for the other programs and melbUni.  This had several consequences for me through out the day.

First I had a lazy morning and didn't get out of bed until 6:03.  This means I got to the tram stop just as it was pulling away.  I decided not to take my computer today because the weight of my laptop has been giving me back pain.  Ironic huh.  (yes this is situational irony because school is supposed to be allowing me to alleviate back pain, not causing it) Don't worry though I did homework on my phone during the tram ride.  The sad part is I'm not kidding.  I got to Uni just in time to be late for my exercise class.  Luckily I just barely made it in.  Then after a quick shower I was off to class, since it was 830 there weren't too many orientators yet.  We sat down and started our lecture on introductions to stem and leaf plots.  I think I did these with Mrs. Warner in 3rd grade.  Throughout the class people kept trickling in.  They would look concerned try to sneak to the back sit down and realize that this was an actual lecture and not a welcome speach.  Then they would again try to sneak out.  They were very disruptive and extreamly bad ninjas.  That class ended a tad late which meant that the entire class was 15 minutes late getting to the next lecture across campus.  Luckily we move as a mob so it isn't me showing up late by myself.  Unfortunately the lecturer had an engagement at 11 so our presentation on energy sources in exercise was abridged.  It was a good lecture too, I'm sorry it had to be shortened.  For anyone who is wondering taking carbohydrate supplements during a long run will enhance your performance but decrease the process of metabolizing fat. This means if you're running to win, eat gels. If you're running to lose weight, don't eat them.  At lunch I met with my group for the Dookie farm project.  We wrote up our terms of agreement and divided up the research.  After that Marsha(my group member from guam) and I went to the orientation carnival.

I got a free bag of goodies that I haven't really looked through yet, free coffee, a free spinach burger, a free slurpee, free ice tea, wasabi peas, and fried rice(in a bag, I gave it to Katie).  Afternoon class was just as exciting because in addition to the people accidently walking in half of my class had picked up balloons.  Then I headed home.  I couldn't get full texts but I started looking up Journal articles on my phone.  Unfortunately I was too late to do bank or post office stuff so I just got to work.  I looked up and summerized 3 articles and that was my day.  Sorry guys I think until I turn in my first project on March 9th that is going to be my schedule.  Gym, class, 4 hours of homework, bed.  I promise to try for pictures and some exciting stories.

2/20/201

Well I had a pretty exciting day.  No pictures though:(
Like all Mondays I had a little bit of trouble getting out of bed.  It was supposed to rain so I decided against biking, not to mention I'm still riding the old one.  I went to class and learned about precision and accuracy for two hours.  I pondered when this concept was first introduced to me.  Really I'm trying to figure out how my classmates could have gotten this far in their education without studying research.  After that I met with my group, we split up the assignment and decided to meet again on Wednesday at lunch.  Our topic is "The usefulness of and inclinometer in measuring lumbar flexion"Then we learned about ACL tears and why women have more ligament and tendon problems than men.  That was it for classes. Early day:) I tried to get my tax file number on the way home but after and hour and a half tram ride I needed a paper copy of my visa.  This is particularly annoying because the US refuses to give me a paper copy.  It's all electronic.  The US government knows this the Australian government knows this but the post office wants a piece of paper before they will notarize my tax form.  I got home a Warwick called me.  They want me to start training their footie team right now.  Well actually he called at 5 and wanted me there by 6.  I biked over, it's only about 7K.  I met with Fiona the head phisio, taped a wrist, 2 fingers and learned some back mobs.  Not too bad.  After talking for a bit Fiona realized that she didn't have my email which lead to the who did I talk to..... it turns out that I had gone to the wrong practice and the new trainer who was supposed to be working for them didn't show up.  The practice I was supposed to be at was in the adjacent oval behind the trees.  I went to my intended practice.  It's a much smaller operation.  I will be working solo except for games where I will be the head trainer.  Um yikes! I'm excited by way under qualified.  I'm going to stick with this footie team for now because they seem like they need the help.  I'd like to see if I can't get involved with the other one on some level as well.  I think I could learn more from working with a Physio than I can just trying stuff out on my own.  Fiona gave me her card so I'm going to write her a letter to say I enjoyed working with her for an hour and I'd like to learn from her when possible. 

2/19/2012

I woke up this morning and had internet troubles.  Man I love when that happens! I studied the brachial plexus for a bit and then finished my business paper for the week on Bank of America's mobile devision.  After that I tried to read my hand lecture but was logged off the internet again.  I got my community assignment, finally! For the next 3 years I will be involved with Dookie Farm. Hehe. That means that I get time off in April:) yay! So start booking trips to spend between April 7and 22 with me. At noon I went for a 10K to federation square in the city where I went to the sustainability festival.

They had delicious free sample a bunch of fun stuff.

Motor bike tires recycled into belts

Grocery bags made into hand bags

magazines made into dishes

solar pannels

and a plan to put them in a 100mile generator in the middle of the desert.

gas stickers

road signs made out of plastic bottles

organic undies

and the entire event was powered by people riding bicycles

If you wanted to be selfish you could use your energy to make yourself a smoothie.
I ran the 10K back home and met my new roommate.

Saori is a Japanese exchange student that will be living with me for the next 3 weeks. She barely understands english and the only Japanese I know is Bento so we talked about music for a while. If you were keeping track of my to do list. 
 
I made it pretty far. The only item I did not attempt was the slide on the hand.  I was planning to do that on the tram in the morning.  The rest I have work diligently to learn but I'm not ready to cross it off my list yet.

2/18/2012

I had a productive weekend again.  This was my to list.  

I spent the morning skyping and cleaning. I have a new roommate from Japan arriving tomorrow so I don't want to be a complete slob.  I did a bit of studying and paperwork this afternoon.  I went out for a bit but there was nothing picture worthy.  I did a little more reading for class and Katie came home from her seminar.  She wanted to go out to a movie.  She was trying to push Robbie on me again but he didn't answer when I texted.  She says that he is shy and no good around girls.  I think she has the wrong impression of her nephew but whatever.  Katie, Stan and I went to see Shame.  It was between Shame and the Artist.  I wasn't in the mood for a silent film so we saw shame.  I don't think any of us knew what shame was about before we went.  It was really awkward.  To recover from the movie we went to a bar and got wedges(KFC style potatoes).  After that was the grocery store.  Oh man so much food! And that was my day.  Sorry to be lame.  Stay tuned tomorrow is gonna be fun.


Update of the day.  If my blog is hard to read or the pictures are all at the bottom I posted from my phone and haven't had a chance to reformat yet.  If it bothers you give me a few hours and then check back.  

2/17/2012

Thanks mom and Grammie for the valentines treats. I feel so loved<3. Grammie could you please give mom some tips, chocolate doesn't travel so well and her shipping costs were much too high:) 

I had a roller coaster of a day! I started out not feeling so well. I was much more rested when I woke up but still has a bit of a head ache. I decided to erg instead or run since there is less bouncing. I like erging at the gym. The people around me are entertaining. The music was fabulous. I think the radio station pulled their play list from Abbie's ipod; amanda palmer, the red paintings, florence and the machine, and afi. At one point a girl sat down next to me she pulled 5-52 second pieces with the worst form I think I've ever seen. By the time I was done with my 1-52 minute piece she had left the gym. After erging I felt better so I went for a short run. I went to go shower and found that my computer was covered in shampoo. I know, I know why was my computer in the same bag as my shampoo? It wasn't the shampoo leaked out of my gym bag through my backpack and onto my computer. On it's way it got all of my clothes and my anatomy flash cards. I washed off my clothes in the shower. Unfortunately the driers weren't strong enough to dry off my clothes. I also found that I had forgotten my shoes so I wore my vibrums to class. I walked outside and it started raining. Then I couldn't locate the building where my class was today. I thought I was late but he hadn't started yet. Turns out there were technical difficulties with the PowerPoint so after an hour of trying to fix it they sent us home. I had some international student thing to do today but I couldn't find it. I looked really hard I promise. Instead I found a bank rep that set me up with a much better system and got my Australian tax information so that I don't lose 45% of my income to taxes. I test road a bike that I really like. It's a specialist dolce, compact 44cm. It is a $1000 bike that I would have to have special ordered. I think I also found someone to buy one from for $750. A girl named maddie used it 5 times and got bored. I'm not 100% sure I need to make sure that the bike is what I'm expecting but it looks promising. After that I went home and filled out my working with children check. I need to take it to a post office that is about 3k away but I didn't make it before 5p. 


At 5 I hoped on a train to babysit for the evening. They are a lovely family of 5 with 2 girls and a boy. Today was Mike(the dad's) birthday and they hadn't been out on a date since the youngest girl was born. Awwww. Anyway it was my first experience on the west side of Melbourne. It's very different. Much more rural and spread out. We watched movies and played computer games till 830 and then they went to bed and I learned the brachial plexus(neurosurgeon version). I had to go through the city on my way home so it was my first chance to see the city at night. It's pretty cool.
 
Ha I love looking back through my pictures and recalling things that had slipped my mind. This huge dog was on the steps to the gym this morning. Just sitting there while his owner worked out.

2/16/2012

I was up and on the tram at 6 as planned. I was pretty sleepy and missed my stop. Oops. Luckily the team line ends about 100m past my stop so no big deal. Spin class was lovely. I showered and went to the library. I took my 2 hour marketing final. It was hard and he wanted exact phrases from the book. I still got an a. I have mad searching skills. The morning classes were wrist anatomy and muscle composition. For lunch I got coffee.

The birthday girl liked her cookies and found a pretty flower. 
I was feeling good like I had actually made friends but they were going to 7-eleven and showing up to class late so I ditched them. I want to be friendly but I left my family, my friends, my country, and my belongings to get an education. If I wanted to hang out I would be at home.
Our 2 afternoon classes were more introduction to research. She said that test tube studies are bad research. I think what she meant to say is that although laboratory studies have a high level of accuracy due to the controlled environment, there is sometimes problems translating the results to clinical practice. Oh well. She also told us that our groups were assigned and that I was one of 5 who didn't get my choice. We then got an email about community groups and I was 1 of 7 who didn't get my choice and will be randomly assigned. I'm 0 for 3 right now on my preferred groups. I might try to see if they'll reconsider since I'm the only one to get reassigned all 3 times.
Does anyone remember what I originally wanted to go to college for? Athletic training! Well what do you know the university has set me up to work as an athletic trainer. This is different from my clinical placement. It is a position where I get to work with older students 8 hours a week to be a trainer for a football team(Aussi rules). Pretty cool!
Katie wanted to make quesadillas for dinner but didn't know how so I ended up taking over. After dinner I worked on anatomy until the Internet started acting up. At that point it was 830. My allergies have been bothering me and I didn't feel so hot so I used it as an excuse to go to bed early.

2/15/2012

I had a little bit of trouble getting up this morning. I missed my tram and the next tram and took the 6:32 one.  The tram police hopped on and we had a ticket check.  My card decided not to register.  It doesn't particularily matter because I have a weekly pass and I've already paid for the week.  The man decided to be "nice" and not fine me $200.  I don't really think he had any grounds to fine me since my pass was valid for the week even if it hadn't specifically register this morning.  Since I was late I went swimming instead of to Pilates class.  I can't wait till the expanded gym schedule comes out so that there will be interesting classes more days of the week.  The first lecture was short and ran for an 1:15 instead of 2 hours. It was on why statistics are important.  Not how to calculate them or anything just why we use them.  After our morning break we had physiology.  Then a 2 hour lunch break.  I went for a run and then tried to be social.  It's so hard sometimes.  After lunch we had another 2 introduction to statistics lectures.  My classmate said that it went over her head, I can't believe that we are spending so much time on this.  I guess it's important for some people? We got out at 4:30 and I headed home.  The tram ride home was long as always but the billboards were funny.

I got a lot of marketing homework done on the tram. Today was really hot.  It's still 85 and 10pm.  School has air-conditioning but Katie and the tram don't I think that the heat has made me a tad lethargic. When I got home I took the marketing test and got a 19/20.  All I have left now is one paper and the final. One of the girls in my class is turning 29 tomorrow so she's having a big party.  I decided to be anti-social and justify it by making her cookies instead.

I don't want to be lame but getting drunk on a Wednesday when I want to be out the door by 6:05 in the morning is a bit much for me.  So I apologized for my absence and baked chocolate chip cookies.  Stan and Katie loved them.  It got them out of their real estate slump.  Katie does not bake.  I packed up my bag for tomorrow and that was my day.  

Bottles of sunscreen consumed since arrival: 1

2/14/2012

Happy Valentines day guys!
I have to say it really doesn't feel like Valentines day over here.  It's sunny and warm and I just don't feel that American consumerism spirit.  If I were at home and spent all of Valentines day doing homework I might be sad but I really had a hard time noticing the holiday here.


So I woke up at way too early in the morning.  Got on the tram because I need a new bike. Good think I took the tram because I forgot that I had a confrence call with RMU this morning and it would have been really hard to take if I was riding my bike.  Anyway my registration got mixed up so they owe me money or a free class yay! I also found out that I wasn't supposed to take the class that I just finished either.  Apparently the was a prerequisite that I skipped.  Since I got an A in the class they are going to wave the prerequisite corse for me.  Yay!
My Hobby: Mercilessly ridiculing smokers on trams.  

I got to the gym and did the body pump class.  It's an hour of strategic weight lifting to music.  I really like it.  Then I headed to My first of 8 hours of class.  It was yet another lecture on how to use the library.  Really? Except the projector was having difficulty so the lecture was severely delayed. In fact she finished the first lecture after an hour and forty-five minutes and a room change.  So the second lecture was canceled since there was only 15 minutes left to present an hour's worth of material.  Then we spent an hour on the wrist.  I was elated to find out that we get an hour for each the wrist and the hand and it wasn't a combined hour for both.  After that our fourth lecture was canceled due to illness and our fifth and sixth lectures were available for our completion at the computer of our choice between now and Friday.  So my 8 hour day quickly turned into being able to go home at noon.  I stopped at the bank but didn't have my passport so I couldn't do anything.

Nope it's not for Kennywood this is Melbourne's late night bus service.
On the tram ride home the driver had intestinal difficulties(or something) and got off at every stop and ran into the booth.  It took way too long to get home.  Luckily while I was walking around downtown I got a brochure about sustainable Melbourne so I browsed the lectures, like this one:

When I got home I finished my paper on Louis Vuitton.  I am quite the expert on the Japanese luxury market now.  Ask me anything. Then I looked at bikes online, packed my lunch and did everything I could to avoid the library lecture.  After dinner with Katie I did a bit more work but the Library thing is still on my to do list.


Roses are red
Kangaroos hop
Soft drink is what australians
call pop

2/13/2012

So I biked in again today I really like biking in the morning.  It's refreshing and I get to see the city waking up.  There are 5-10 hot airbaloons that go over the city around 645.  I couldn't get a very good picture but they look quite nice.

The art Museum looks super nifty before they open.
Yeah that's a water fall over the marbled glass doors.

They were just turning on the fountain as I passed.

I got to campus in a little over an hour and went to the gym to exercise my upper extremity.  Well both of them but I was doing it more for the educational aspect. After I was clean and ready for class I went to the bike repair shop.  The advertise that they do same day service and since I had a full day I was going to see if they couldn't make my breaks work.  Unfortunately they said no.  They also said that my bike looked like it had maybe a week left in it.  It's not meant for the type of travel that I'm doing and the barrings, breaks, wheels, and gears are going to go very soon.  The guy suggested that I spend the money and get a good bike.  If I have 3 years and I plan on riding to campus it will be worth it.  He pointed out that I have already ruined 1 bike and it's only been 2 weeks.  A better bike will hopefully be more efficient and get me to class quicker as well.  I'm taking the tram the next 3 days so I'll look around and see if I can't find a better bike.


So 9am I learned about the shoulder.  All of it. All the muscles involves, all the bones involved, all the ligaments, the nerves, the blood supply and the joint capsule.
At 10 I learned about ethics.  They seem to be teaching more strict ethics than I had seen in practice.  I don't know if it is a cultural thing or if they just teach us overly conservative standards.
At 12 I learned about the elbow. Again all muscles, bones, nerves, tendons, blood vessels and joint capsules.
After lunch we had research and evidence.  I don't know if this class is going to be pull your hair out boring all semester but all 3 hours today were pretty bad.  We learned how to formulate questions based on our interactions.  Then we learned how to use the online library's search functions.  Why that took 3 hours and the shoulder took one? I have no idea.
I biked home.  It was pretty fun. I was in rush hour traffic so I was in the middle(ok fine I was at the end) of a pack of bikers for the first 9K of my trip.
When I got home I made the pasta that I had gotten at the market last week.  Handmade hot pepper pasta. Yum.
My wonderful Pittsburgh roomie sent me a care package.  I am so excited! So I spent the rest of the evening exfoliating my face and doing anatomy review modules.


During lunch today I bought my lab supplies.  I was going to get them second hand to save money but I accidently walked into the book store looking for a bathroom and found that the book store sells lab coats and goggles cheaper than the 2nd year students.

Now I'm a sexy scientist!!