Recently I decided to rejoin the first world and took up a room in King’s College.
It’s relatively nice and almost on campus,so it’s about as convenient as you can get.
Where I have been till now must remain an internationally protected secret.
Monday afternoon here, and I’m still searching for an apartment. The only difference now is that it looks like I’m searching alone again. I was looking with a guy in my class and a friend of his, but now it looks like they will probably just live together in the place she’s in now.
I am moving into a dorm on campus for temporary accommodation though, so that looks like it will work out well for the interim. I suppose I’ll just get a two bedroom alone and see what I can do about a housemate. Seemed to work out last year.
This is one of the more famous Brisbane bridges. It is called the Story Bridge and there is a building on campus called the J D Story Building.
I don’t know what the story is.
This is a list of the people I will be spending exorbitant amounts of time with this year, in the Princess Alexandra Hospital:
| Shaun Dooley |
| David Robert Graff |
| Andree Laherty |
| Ian Law |
| Sebastian Le Feuvre |
| Meghann Leahy |
| Michael Lee |
| Nele Lenders |
| Jacinda White |
| Emma Whittle |
I only know a few of them, and they are good, so I hope the rest are just as good. Jacinda and I were in the same group last year! I understand they try put pairs of people from old groups in the new ones, so there’s a little bit of carry over from before, and a lot of new. I will sit in a room with these peeps for about 5 hours each week working on problems, sort of set up like this Small Group. Also, half of them will be in my Clinical Coaching group which also meets for maybe two or three hours a week to learn practical skills. Then after that, if we haven’t seen enough of each other, there’s “Practicals” which to me really means labs, including Anatomy, Pathology and various Physiology Pracs. Also, there are one-off things to do like Clinical Skills… intubating, injections or life support. Needless to say, you get to know your PBL group fairly well.
Hopefully it’s a good one!
Here we are again, in the land of gross black tar with hot water on it.
Seems weird to have Christmas cups in 30 degree heat.
I arrived in Brisbane today, a little disoriented and a lot tired. My flights were good, but very long. It was insanely hot on the plane and I was dying of thirst for a good chunk of it.
To start things off, I fell asleep with orange juice on my tray, only to wake up an hour later and try to slam my tray shut, orange juice and all. the cup broke, and dumped all over my lap and legs. I tried to drink the rest out of the cup, but since it was broken, I only ended up pouring it all over my shirt. Then I lifted the tray again, to find the little cup dip was full of juice and dumped more on my lap. I sat there soaking wet, looking like I peed my pants, waiting for it to get sticky and gross.
I’m sick, so I was coughing the whole flight, and now I feel like I did 1000 situps.
All that said, the good thing is that things look fairly familiar, and hopefully I’ll get up to speed again soon.
Back in Alberta now, which is where I grew up. It’s cold and snowy here and perfect for Christmas. There have been some accidents on the highways, which is an aspect of life here that I kinda forgot about. There are times that the road gets so dangerous, it’s best just not to drive.
It’s funny to think back to Brisbane, where temperatures are mid thirties. We’re scheduled for mid thirties too… so to speak! Right now we’re just in the twenties tho. I hope all the Aussies are enjoying their breaks too, all in the heat!
I’m all checked in for my flight to SYD. I had a little weight distribution problem at check in though. It wasn’t with my checked baggage, those were both easily under the allowable 32 kgs. It was my carry-on that had too much mass. The guy supervising the woman checking me in informed me that “It’s just not fair for you to carry more onto the plane than anyone else”. Ok… So I put some stuff into my other bags. Still not light enough. So I put more, till it was practically empty. Turns out my NAS weighs 3.6 kgs, and my bag 4.6 so they’re never going to go together and add up to 7. The supervisor kindly suggests that we check one bag. So I take out all my stuff for carry-on and checked an empty suitcase. For what reason, I don’t know. The guy said Air Canada will be better with carry on allowance and I’m going to pick it up in Sydney and try again. Let’s hope that goes well too… So weird. The plane weighs exactly the same… If this sounds like a weird ramble, it’s because it’s 445 AM and I have been packing since 6. My legs are killing me, and I should have saved some pain killers to take on the flight. I can feel the stiffness setting in.
But, with school done, the apartment empty and being on my way to Canada, I have a lot to think about. Looking forward to getting this flight done too!
All done. Happy, nervous, surprised.
Goin home.
The local students have a phrase that they use to fondly refer to their pre exam signs of stress… It’s purple panic time. There are Jacaranda‘s in bloom everywhere here. That’s how a UQer knows it’s time to panic. The trees make quite bright purple blooms, solidly without any green leaves. This picture was taken yesterday, but they are already a little past their prime and have started to grow green leaves a little bit.
Very appropriate…. my exam is in less than 50 hours. Too late if you’re just panicking now, but hopefully not to late for us.
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