Summer times!

So, a couple of days ago, I finished with exams, hoorah! The actual exams were a kind of mixed bag...once again, an SAQ (Short answer questions - marks ranging anywhere from 1 through to 5), MEQ (Mini Essay Questions - generally short questions based on a scenario, in total worth 10-20 marks per scenario, 7 questions), and two MCQs (Multiple Choice Questions - yeah, I'm sure you're all more than familiar with them). Found the SAQ and the last MCQ difficult, MEQ and the first MCQ bearable but only slightly - which hardly raises my confidence levels, but what the heck - its OVER! Celebrate! *party poppers!* *streams of paper cover the room* *smiles all around*

Shame we had such a party pooper for our main supervisor in our last exam. Was really rather strict about no talking after the exam... I know, that's what is meant to happen, but it is nice to smile around, mouth "how did you go?", mouth back "omg that was so hard" and grin without being scolded for it.

At any rate, with the holidays now here, endless opportunity abounds. I could continue to learn guitar, start learning mandarin, maybe read some medical journals or finish summarising Boron... or continue dreaming, continuing procrastination methods, starting new games. Hmm. Endless opportunity... I would like to be optimistic these holidays, and believe I will at least moderate the two extremes and meet somewhere in the middle, like the good negotiator I am now supposed to be after intense training in student politics. I guess one can only simply start doing it rather than think about it, since thinking about it rarely leads to anything productive (for me, it leads to a game of minesweeper - reaching the 100 second mark on expert btw). Speaking of student politics stuff, these holidays will most likely represent my only significant chunk of time I can dedicate to it for this and next year; I'm getting the feeling that things like extracurricula are going to have to take second priority and be slotted in amongst the clinical attachments, which is probably a feeling amongst almost every full-time worker in the workforce; that everything seems to take second priority after work. Mulling on this, things like a family and religion may become difficult to maintain, and time management is really a rather critical thing to learn when young; when you hear statements like "your most precious asset is time", you think "hey, that makes sense, I agree!" but in real life I think that I, personally, forget about that, especially when procrastinating. Value your time, for it only comes around once...

On a more interesting note, I've just got wind recently of an exciting new project happening at UWS! A person that I'm working together with as part of the Campbelltown Campus Life Committee (mostly UWS Staff, and the sole student rep, me) is heading a new inter-professional project, whereby students of different professional pathways (Occupational Therapy, Physiotherapy, Nursing, and of course Medicine - with a few more maybe added in together) are mentored by professionals of their own chosen pathways, as well as of others. The goal of this project is to foster holistic, integrated and thus (hopefully) a better standard of healthcare in our future professionals. I'm not entirely sure as to how much I can reveal, but essentially, the sessions of the project would occur in an integrated clinic that already exists, whereby clinicians take up students and guide them to facilitate the treatment of real patients, rather than be a wallflower and observe passively. This is the most exciting thing of this development - more clinical exposure, to better prepare us for the future! A friend of mine commented on how this would have been great if it were introduced earlier, seeing as my cohort will be in full-time clinicals next year anyway; but nonetheless, it will most likely be a wonderful opportunity for the future students at UWS. Hopefully it goes to plan and produces some positive results!

Anyway, I hope you have an awesome break, especially those of you who've just completed the wonderful journey that is secondary school, and I'll see you around!

Busy as a bee can be

As one may have noticed, my rate of posting has really, really slowed down. I guess it's inevitable thing that happens as priorities pile up, and I've noticed the same goes for computer games and watching TV series - all huge time-wasters that eventually have little to no place in my life anymore... for once, I'm seeing some truth in the stereotype that games are for kids, the adult's life seems too busy to regularly follow the games scene, especially since it is so fast-paced.

Anyway, third-year placements came out just a few days ago. I'm especially thrilled because not only do I have the closest hospitals to my home possible (Blacktown and Mt Druitt) but also because the rotations that I got happened to be amongst my top preferences! For those who don't know, UWS' medical degree from years 3-5 is essentially full-time clinical rotations, which involve you being attached with a medical or surgical team for the large bulk of the year, in the hospitals; with some time being given to other types of attachments such as Medicine In Context, which I'm still not quite crystal clear on. So yes, this means that second year already marks the end of our "university" university experience; I recently attended a friend's 20th, which was surprisingly lavish for a 20th - one of my other's friend's speeches remarked upon the idea that the party was so lavish because it was the last year our grade would be together as a combined cohort, and I suddenly felt quite moved. Yes, we will see each other during conference weeks (epically long days of lecture after lecture for a week) and in hospital, but not in the frequency as we do at the moment. I guess it was appropriate, then, that the party had quite a 'year 12 formal' feel to it.

So, I'm only two weeks away from our summative OSCE, one day away from an event I'm co-organising as part of the student union, and a few days away from a week-long sports event that a student collective at UWS Campbelltown is organising. Oh, and if you're curious, we made a promo video for the week: Inter-Society Sports Week on Youtube. Busy as a bee can be, you see.