6/8/2012

Good things today: I got the special consideration that I requested.  I will be able to type instead of hand write my answers.  I will also get an extra hour per exam and 10 minutes rest per hour.  Not bad huh!

My hair is finally looking normal.  I got a bit of studying done. I ordered pizza for dinner so that I could be a bum.  I went for a walk while enjoying rainy Melbourne. 

Not so good things: I was in pain all day.  I don't know if the pain is just catching up with me, if I'm starting to get stiff, or if I've just irritated it.  Hannah and Ken invited me out for dinner but I declined because I've already eaten and I'd prefer to go to bed.  Being social seems like so much work when I'm injured.  

The injury vacation ends tomorrow.  Get excited for pictures and study stories

6/7/2012

Today wasn't very exciting. Most of what I did involved studying and trying to figure out my exams. I met up for a study session at 10. Unfortunately I had to take a tram, then a train, then another train and then a tram to get to uni. My friends were all very nice and extremely helpful. We studied until three when I had my meeting with the Coordinator. She was also very understanding and we have scheduled for me to take my exam by computer. After my meeting Kat gave me a ride home. I studied cranial nerves for a bit and tried to get assistance for my other two exams. At around eight I was starting to get sore and tired so I called it a night.

6/6/2012

I had a really exciting day to day I started out by studying. I got through a couple lectures and made some cauliflower soup. I study a little bit more. I did some jumping jacks. At three I took a break to go for a bike ride. I was headed for the bike path next to the beach. I was a mile and a half from home when a lady decided that she was going to cut me off. I tried to swerve in break but I wasn't fast enough. My impact with the car left me with a broken clavicle and the world's tiniest scrape on my knee. I got to enjoy the Australian health system. It's good but slow. It took them 5 hours to take an x ray and send me home. This means that I'm back to riding the tram. Grump! Exams should be ok. I'm meeting with the coordinator to discuss my options. I'm hoping that I can talk her into giving me extra time to write. I really don't want to delay the exam. So I had an unfortunate day but everything worked out. I'm just going to have to cope with cabin fever as I heal.

6/4/2012

Despite my best efforts I had a very productive day.

If you remember(or look down) to yesterday I said that I was going to finish reviewing the pharmacology and then go to bed.  Well last night I managed to do 1 of 3 lectures before going to sleep.  That meant that my considerable workload for today was increased.  I do have all week to study but I have been asked to complete a section of 19 lectures for my review session tomorrow.  I had done a couple previously and a few more were incorperated into the pharmacology that I had done yesterday so I only had 11 lectures to outline today....Since each one take about an hour that it quite a bit of studying.  Of course, as hard as I tried I couldn't work straight through so at around 1 I made curried sweet potatoes. They are really good and killer spicy.

At the end of each lecture I would take a break to check my email and facebook.  That would normally take me on a detour to studying a different item for a bit.  Facebook is no good for procrastination when my classmates are all on talking about different aspects of the material.  I really wanted to take a break and go to the beach today but it would not stop raining, so I stayed at home and was productive.
Tomorrow will be a little more exciting.  I have swim workout followed by several study sessions and I need to go for a run(today was my day off).  Unfortunately, I won't be home so I won't have the ability to cook between studying but I promise to come up with something of intrest.

6/3/2012

I went through an impressive amount of pharmacology today.  I finished outlining the topics and revised my notes on the concepts that I had already outlined.  It is making sense.  I don't know how I got by with the limited understanding that I had before but I'm really happy that it is all coming together now.  I have done about 10 hours of studying today and I want to get in a tad more before I go to sleep.  Even more impressive than my studying may be my efforts to procrastinate.  I baked cherry-chocolate cookie bars.  They are fantastic! Since it's a Maddie original here's the recipe.

Cherry-Chocolate cookies:

2 1/2 cups flour

1/2 tsp baking soda(5 shakes)

1/4 sep salt(4 shakes)

1 cup packed brown sugar

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 stick butter-(150 g) at room temperature 

2 eggs

2 tsp vanilla(large splash)

1 super dark chocolate bar(85% is nice)

20 cherries chopped into tiny pieces

Squish butter and both sugars together with a fork in a big metal bowl until the butter is well creamed and the ingredients are indistinguishably mixed.  Then add the vanilla and so the same thing, followed by the eggs.  Then mix in the flour, baking soda, and salt.  If your chocolate is in a bar like mine was put in a plastic bag and beat with a mallet or frying pan.  If you really like measuring things the chopped cherries plus the smashed chocolate should be at least 1 1/2 cups.  After you have smashed and measured mix in the chocolate and cherries.  Check your dough to tasty part ratio.  If it doesn't look like you'll get some cherry/chocolate in every bite throw some more in. Spread in a 4x9 pan(or similar).  If it's an old pan you may want to put some foil down but there is enough butter that sticking will not be an issue. Bake at 300 for 70 minutes or until it's golden brown and looks like you can cut it without it melting all over the place.  (don't do the toothpick test, that doesn't work on cookies) Then cut into small pieces giving yourself at least 24 cookie bars. Ps I take no responsibility for the way that these look. I was going to make them look fancy but Katie got impatient as they were cooling and butchered them onto the plate. 

I also braided my hair and went for a 10 mile run.  I was faster this week doing the run at 8:50 pace, almost half a minute faster than last week.  Now I'm off to echo a few more lectures and go to bed.  

    

6/2/2012

Since it's Saturday my day was mostly football.  We had a good day today.  It was a bit hectic and a little stressful but nothing too big.  I started off the day with the cardinals.  They're my favorite.  They are a low stress club team that plays well.  They get exited about footie, they are well organized, and they don't sweat the small stuff.  We won by 60 points against UHS.  Since I went to UHS(a different one clearly) I had to make sure I was supporting the correct team.  At one point I though man my face hurts! and realized it was because I had been smiling for about an hour straight.  The secondary highlight of my day was 42km of bike riding.  Before the cardinal's game I went to the club to pick up the gear, then biked to the university for the first game, then I biked back to the club for the senior's game, and then home at the end of the day.  I think I might actually be getting faster.  The senior's game at home was past players' day so the president of the associated professional team along with the founder of the club came in for lunch and to support the team.
 We were up 100-30 at the beginning of the 3rd quarter(the terminology here is actually 3/4 time) and then they scored 10 goals and we only won by 9 points.  It was nerve racking but luckily time ran out before they could beat us.  As another accessory highlight to my day I had pharmacology.  I did really want to go out with the team for the past players' banquet tonight but instead I was good and came home to my pharmacology notes.  I found that I apparently had not fully summarized the material before the last test.  After looking at the lectures tonight I am amazed that I did so well on the test.  I don't think that I fully understood the concepts covered. Now, I have a mastery of the material and can happily explain to you the inflammatory process and associated therapies on the molecular level.....oops I better go back to talking about footie or you'll stop reading my blog. Um....The boys all did well, no major injuries, we have next week off for a public holiday, which corresponds nicely to my study plan. Let me quickly go over scoring for you so that you have a better understanding of how this works.  There are 4 goal posts at each end of the field.
If you get the ball between the middle two it is 6 points, if you get it between the middle and side it's one point, outside the goal posts is a free kick for the opposing team.  While we're at it have I explained that footy is played on an oval?

The field can actually be an oval of differing size and dimentions.  It is actually a cricket(lame baseball) field that is repurposed for the winter.  Footy started as a way to keep cricket players fit in the off season but has overtaken cricket in popularity.  I'll leave you with those footy facts for now.  More to come don't you worry!

6/1/2012

First day of winter!!!...?....!
I know, I know the seasons are supposed to be opposite and summer doesn't start in the northern hemisphere till June 21 or so when we reach the summer solstice. Well... The fun part about being the largest most influential country in the souther hemisphere is that you can start seasons whenever you want to! So winter is from now until the end of August. It's as simple as that. For the first day of winter and and also the first day of study-fest, I spent longer than normal on my bike. I biked into uni to study with some classmates, then studied by myself, went for a run, and biked home(sounds simple but took10 hours). Then, Katie wanted to go grocery shopping but was running behind so I biked to the store filled up the cart and she showed up just intime to pay. Nice of her? Maybe. It's also in her contract. She fussed about the $3 chocolate bar I threw in but I want to bake. She's leaving for 10 days so she a tad stressed. She is not supposed to do that as per her home stay contract. I don't care I wish she was away all the time:) but she's trying to placate me so I don't tattle on her. I will enjoy the quiet and freedom of being able to study undesturbed. I would try to take advantage of the situation and charge her for house and dog sitting but I'm quite happy that she is going away and would like to encourage her to do it more often. On the housing front, tori is looking to close on a house over the break so I may have a much better housing arrangement by August. It is steph's birthday so I should be going out to party with my classmates but studying pharmacology and going to sleep was just too appealing, so I picked that option instead.