Hmmm. Just called home and asked my mum "guess where I am now?" And she was like "the hospital?". Shows how much faith she has in me taking care of myself... (for the record I was in the new house we just bought in adelaide checking on it and collecting mail.)

Have to do so many things against my natural instinct these few days sigh. Like stay up a bit more to do more revision so I won't die in my exams and to peel off pus filled plasters attached to my skin so I can cleanse my grazed skin even though I would rather not touch it cos it hurts like hell! Ouch... :( I guess this is part of independence, having to tend to my own injuries. (I fell off a threadmill and grazed both my kneecaps and shoulder very badly:( to everyone out there, do not turn backwards and talk to someone when sprinting on a threadmill!!)

Carpe Diem, seize the day, gather the rose buds while u may!

I know this might sound a little proud and I should probably be a litle more humble but I topped the cohort for the Anthropology exam! Woohoo. I decided to take a humanity/ non-sciency topic for my elective this semester, and I choose to do Cultural Anthropology because the topic desciption talked about using films as the main medium of instruction and I love watching films! Well the topic certainly didn't dissapoint its description. We have 3 hours of contact hours a week; a 2 hour lecture and a 1 hour tutorial. For every of the 12 weeks of lecture, we watch a full length movie. Yes. Full-length, ie from beginning theme song till the credits roll. And then during the tutorial, we talk about the movie. Well, not really 'we' talk, in my tute class my professor talks the full time.

I just love my professor!!! ^^ He is this middle-aged, hippy-ish (imagine biker jacket, you-can't-see-my-eyes-you-can-only-see-your-own-reflection sunnies, long white tied-back hair) irish-accented guy who is so knowledgeable! He knows the exact date of every significant (and well, even insignificant) event that happened throughout history. But, he is not a nerdy historian either! The way he describes stuff, 'in and out of jail like a yo-yo', 'walking around like a tent' (when describing the Islamic clothing) (I find the imagery of this wildly hilarious!!! LOL), there are heaps more occasions when I am just awestuck by how well he expresses his ideas, how perceptive they are, and how unique his way of expression is, (but its a pity I can't remember what exactly he said....).

It's a pity too that the class is unable to match his intellectual fierceness... In one class, after talking for a long time about complex societies and what constitutes one, he posed a question to the class. It was, apparently to him, a very simple question and he expected an immediate reply. 'What significant event happened in 1991?', imagine an expectant glance from him and blank stares from the class. Cue: 30 seconds of awkward silence. No one knew what he was expecting??? And then he gave up, probably thought we were just an apathetic lot.... The answer: the fall of the Soviet Union!!! LOL. Right, so never in my life would I guess that as the answer. Heck, I don't even know that. So... I guess sometimes I really like the humanities and history, its such a shame that I know so little about it.... And so, this is one of the classes I have never regretted taking.

Apart from it being so film-focused, I also like the assessment method of the class. Well it was a pleasant surprise really, because the assessment method was not stated in the topic desciption, so it could very well have entailed a 3 hour 100% exam-condition essay and I would have had to suffer through that. Fortunately for it, the assessment simply included 2 mcq-only exams and a 20% 1250 word essay. And the one I topped the cohort for was the 45% EOY exam. 90% HAHHAHA! I am so proud of myself, coming from a science background, and beating 64 other people LOL. Also, I got 2nd highest for my 20% essay (90% highest was 91%). And I did that essay the day it was due, started at 7.30am, when it was due at 4pm. (Procrastination is going to kill me someday, well it might already have, for Health Psychology, but that is another story...) Alright, thank you lucky stars! I am eternally gratefullllll... :)))))



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On a side note, don't you hate it when you see a really funny picture on FB (on one of those pages that have a million funny Trolling pictures), and then you can't find it!!! There are at least 5 sites I visit, Go. Be. Love, Trust me I'm an Engineer, Lol page, etc. So how am I supposed to find the one that I am looking for. By trolling though the thumbnails????

I was walking to Sturt campus today, (and I always happen to think a lot during these walks to lectures...) and I realized why is it that most recently I feel very lonely, even amidst a whole group of friends.

It struck me that Adelaide is wayyy too small, and that perhaps I am a naturally introverted, anti-social person. The thing is, sometimes I like being alone. I like studying by myself, group study sessions are sometimes a waste of time I feel. But, I don't like being seen alone, especially by people I know. So now I have come to a stage where I know too many people in Adelaide, everywhere I go I will bump into friends/ acquaintances, and I don't like being seen alone by them, although I like being by myself. Ok, I hope someone understands what I've just written, or myself when I see it in the future. It was all fine in the past, when I first moved here. I didn't know many people then, and the place still afforded a sense of anonymity as I wandered around. Now, its just friends everywhere. I figure I need to belong in a bigger city, like NYC or places where people don't give a care of who you are. Or I could just stop feeling so self-conscious, and overthink stuff. Oh wellll

This may sound nerdy, but I genuinely love using Excel! And also my calculator. Oh Math, I miss you :(

What a wonderful day!

1) Went shopping at Bugis Street and got slightly carried away... Ended up buying 4 dresses, 5 tops, 3 jackets, 2 skirts and 1 pair of heels. =DDD
2) Came home and checked the student portal to find that I got HDs for all my 3 topics this semester, and passed a special pass/fail topic. (Justifies the guilt from #1). That's 11HDs out of 11 topics so far WOOHOO!!!
3) Went onto Facebook for some bejewelling and got 100 000 coins off the daily free spin. Cherry on my ice cream, TYVM!

HAHAHA! Couldn't resist a screenshot before the rest of the results are released tmr which I am less confident of. WOOHOO!=D

edit: latest!

Brilliant name for a game.

Remember Maslow's Hierarchy of need from IP days? I totally agree that the basic needs/ survival bottom rung should now include broadband connection.

The hardest decision I had to make all week was what colour I want to paint my nails with and whether I wanted an ice cream after dinner. Life is good!

Random

My mind goes hyperactive at night just before I fall asleep, and last night I realised that I have 5 friends whose name just varies by 1 letter.

Tina
Nina
Gina
Lina
Dina

Just quietly, on an impulse right after the exams, I pierced my

....


belly button!

Sometimes I find writing a heartfelt card as challenging as writing an academic essay....... And I procrastinate :(

So I was lying in bed at 11pm, this being exam week and having slept for 5 hours last night cramming for physio exam this morning, but somehow I just cannot fall asleep?

And so I was thinking back on the phys paper done this morning, and while mentally killing myself for a few silly mistakes I made, I recalled that a couple of questions bothered me during the exam itself.

Eg:
What increases blood flow in the circulatory system?
A) An increase in pH
B) An increase in mean arterial pressure
C) A decrease in mean arterial pressure
D) The presence of aldosterone
E) All of the above

Well, option E surely cannot be right, because of the presence of options B and C. I mean, how can mean arterial pressure both increase and decrease at the same time? Furthermore, placing 2 options which directly opposes each other as a choice highly suggests that the correct answer is either one of the 2. This question is clearly testing the relationship between blood flow and arterial pressure, and the rest of the options are just 'filler-options'.

Eg:
Which of the hormones/enzymes below would you expect to find in elevated levels when blood pressure is low?
A) Cortisol and acetylcholine
B) Renin and adrenaline
C) Renin and angiotensin-converting-enzyme
D) Renin and glucagon
E) Renin and insulin

Erm... it seems that renin must be included in the right answer, since 80% of the options contain renin as an enzyme. If renin is not an enzyme in elevated levels, then the question would be far too easy to solve by elimination. By this reasoning, then option A is clearly wrong, even if the student has no clue whether renin levels increase or not.

These questions are not badly set; they still serve their purposes by having a right and wrong answer. However, I think that good multiple choice questions should have all the options having an equal possibility of being the right answer. Also, the choice of which option is correct should also be made based on subjective knowledge and not logical deductions. Lol, I really should not be complaining if the questions end up being easier to answer, I think this is sleepy-and-brain-has-been-overdriven me talking right now...

Ohoh! And I also remembered being highly amused by the example used in the short-structured question. To illustrate a situation of a massive haemorrage, the scenario started off with

'A man has his leg bitten off by a bear...'

HAHAHA!

I guess I should be more empathic, but really??? Is this the best example you can come up with? (Hmm, I remember finding this a lot funnier during the exam itself, but not so much now...)



(just in case you have gruesome images of bear maulings in your head!)

If you see me in the library, in front of a computer, surrounded by books and papers, typing and pausing, frowning and sighing. Do not come and talk to me.





I might just be reaching an epiphany.








No, not this kind

'1, 2, GEAR UP!'

'Now add a smile to your gear.' - Shane Boal.
(Sometimes I suspect Shane is quite a sadist!)

Pain is temporary, quitting is forever.- Neil Armstrong.
If bluedogs sold this same poster as is hanging in the RPM room, I WANT IT!

35 likes on this wall post. I guess my friends are kind of the nerdy type...

It seems as though I do not think with my head anymore. In these couple of weeks, I have been basing a lot of my decision making on feelings, intuition and dreams. It might sound strange but it seems to be working very well for me.

Warning POTC spoilers ahead!



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Sometimes, I just 'know' things.

I knew that the white napkin which Jack Sparrow tossed onto the floor beside the dining table was going to help him escape, and that he would eventually get the muffin which got stuck on the chandelier. I knew that the sinking chalices were going to be retrieved. When Serena dived into the water upon being untied, I knew she was going to bring back the chalices and save the day. I knew that Captain Jack Sparrow was not going to kiss Angelica.

Well, being able to forecast movies might not be the best example of how my 6th sense is extra sensitive at the moment, since the director might have left some cinematography trails which I simply caught on to.

But, I knew it was the right time to approach my landlords regarding my leaky tap of one month when I just bumped into Andrew one day while emptying my garbage, as I dreamed about it the night before.

I think just as well as I am responding to signs-in-the-air as I like to call it, the signs are responding to me too? (Paulo Coelho would call it omens in The Alchemist) Just today, I was feeling unusually gloomy. I was frustrated with everything; the amount of work piling up, the pitiful number of hours I had slept the night before, friends who just need to man-up, the crazy weather, I was even unsatisfied with what I had chose to wear for the day, because I just threw on some clothes before dashing out of the house. Seriously, I was quite upset. I was actually psyching myself to list everything that was making me unhappy, to clarify the negative emotions in my head, just in case anything small triggered me that day (like no more subway cookies?), causing the emotions in me to boil over and turn me into a sobbing mess.

And then wonders of wonders, during my power walk pass the carpark to Sturt campus, this middle aged couple, whom I just walked past seconds ago, waved and shouted to me:

"You're beautiful!"


Wow!

My day was instantly made! Firstly because compliments are never ill-received and secondly and perhaps more significantly on hindsight, the signs are reading me too.

Oh well, everything might just be a happy coincidence, but I certainly feel more alive now!




'The boy and his heart had become friends, and neither was capable now of betraying each other.'- The Alchemist

haha if only that comment was a one-way ticket to sleeping in all day. Bliss!)

What are some of the ‘nuts’ and ‘bolts’ of....?

Mind/body dualism

'Debates about the true nature of the body have a long history, dating back beyond a time when scholars such as Descartes and Rousseau began to talk about the mind as distinct from the body (i.e. a mind/body dualism). This idea has tended to privilege the mind as that which defines human 'being', while the body has been treated, at least in intellectual life, as a sort of excess baggage of human agency... the body's importance has been perceived in the main, in terms of the necessity of its careful management in order to enhance, or to avoid distracting from, either mental or spiritual effort...'


'The human body can 'dis-appear' in two senses. The first is non-appearance as background dis-appearance (e.g. some part of our body can be 'put out of play' because it is completely irrelevant to what we are focused on" we can 'lose' our legs if we are typing at a keyboard)... There is also the 'dysappearance' of the body when the body appears as 'Other' to the self, as an 'alien presence'(such as in a time of pain), arguing that this common experience has served to support the mind/body dualism of an essential non-material mind and an all too material oppositional body'

Interesting reading from Week 8 Epidemiology and the Social Determinants of health.
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'To study 'best practice' is always to study what is contingent, complex, fragile and often unruly. This does not license idiosyncrasy or serendipity in the provision of health care. The point is to account more fully for the lived experienced of participants engaged in health care as an embodied and culturally constituted performance.'

I wish I could write like that, to be able to express human-moments (like the alien body experience) in words with such clarity and succinctness. 'Best practice' is contingent, complex even unruly. But this does not license idiosyncrasy or serendipity. Ahhh, words of wisdom written with such flair.....

I think I am constantly digging a deeper hole for myself to fall into, getting bigger shoes than I can fill.

I have been breezing through this first half of the semester, not because I am constantly on top of my ball game, unlike last year. But because I am consciously blocking out what is to come. I think I have let myself become complacent. And I am treating Dr Paul Worly's words like a mantra now; not as a motivation for the future, but as an excuse for the present.

Have I already proven who I am in these 2 years? Shown my capability, my potential, this is me, kthxbye. Or is it something that I need to be consistent in, or else I might just lose the essence of who I really am. And then again, who am I? And who am I proving myself to?

I still have time, not much, but still sufficient, so don't worry. It's just a nagging feeling in my head that I am not living up to my own expectations that prompted this blog post. I've taken a long long hiatus from margaretinoz, and this post has a 180 turn of emotions compared to the last whee-exams-are-over-lets-get-drunk-at-noon post. (In the past, I would have first written a helloworld! I've-decided-to-return-to-the-blogging-sphere post, but now I have decided to just plunge back into the once familiar pool and see what goes. Is that a sign of me getting complacent/lazy or am I over reading it hmm...)

Anyways, the main point is: I need to get started on my assignment!!! Ahhhh!!!