Candy Pop

Pretty fun second week of uni. I would have posted on Monday, but the fun made me tired. Well not really, there was a two hour practical that knocked the stuffing out of me.

The practical was about using the cathode ray oscilloscope (think back to Physics). My group got the older type, so getting it to work properly was a bit finicky. We connected it to the usual suspects, a signal generator and batteries. It would have been done in an hour or so, but like I said, the CRO often refused to work. It would work for 5 seconds and then mysteriously stop working. So the whole thing took longer than expected. The fact the some of the activities in the practical manual were obscured by pictures didn't help either.

During the sometimes lengthy breaks, I join in some card games, the newest of which is proving to be rather addictive. It has no official name and explaining it is a bit difficult but here goes. This game can be played with any number of people (around 4-7 is recommended). Each player get four cards, and attempt to get 4 of a kind, 4 Kings, 4 Aces etc. The cards are passed around in a circle, with the players discarding card so that there are only 4 cards. So one person starts by picking up a card from the deck, discarding a card, whereupon the next player picks up that card, selects a card to discard and son on. Once a player has the required hand, he/she grabs an object from a pile in the middle of the table (plastic spoons or pepper packets work well). However, there is one less object than the number of players, so 4 spoons for 5 players, 5 pepper packets for 6 players and so on. Once one person has grabbed the packets, so must everyone else with the person unable to grab an object as the loser. Once a player has lost a certain amount of times, he/she has to perform a dare.

The difficult part is passing the cards around with the point of trying to form 4 of a kind and keeping an eye on the objects in the middle. It lead to some pretty intense games and moments. Some of the dares performed or suggested were:

• Offering a random person a serviette and they had to accept
• Running up to groups of people yelling "Lord Voldermort is coming!"
• Doing a pole dance while singing "Singing in the Rain"
• Eating a ridiculous amount of wasabi
• Asking random people for their photograph

Fun times indeed. Anyway, one of our psych lectures, Biological Psychology, was pretty fun because it was examining some of the biological and genetic pressures on psychology such as looking for mates. The lecturer was making plenty of jokes, and we spent the first half laughing pretty hard.

Tomorrow there's the dreaded three hour specific lecture on radiography. It didn't get to 3 hours last time, so hopefully, I'll get out early.

I've started to go to sleep much earlier than usual. It'll be like 9:30pm and I'll be like "Meh...I'll go to sleep now" only to wake up at like 5am in the cold cold morning. Well I'm warm under the covers, it's just that my room is cold. Usually I don't turn on the heater because it gets stuffy for me. If there is anything I hate worse than cold mornings, is the feeling of stuffiness in a room. Some of the lecture rooms can get quite stuffy, and for me it's a relief to breathe fresh air, even if it is cold outside.

I'll stay up later than usual. I usually get kicked awake by my body's biological clock at 6am anyway.

Cidade Sol

Friday. The end of the working week Friday. My uni day off Friday. Nothing much to report except the presence of another 5 hour break. If my calculations are correct, every fortnight I have a 5 hour break on Wednesdays. Screw that, I'll probably go City Hunter or something.

Having eased into the first week of Uni, I'm more or less content with all my lectures. Health physics is pretty cool, psych and sociology are proving to be much more interesting than previously thought, further anatomy is alright and the specific radiography lectures are long but useful. Of course, I also had my first taste of Bangers in such a long time. They make some good food, and plus with my Rewards card, it gets cheaper.

Waiting for more games to come out. Overlord is a nice little distraction, Trauma Center is getting ridiculously difficult, and there's still DoTA. I'm waiting for some nice little DS games. Phoenix Wright 3: Trials and Tribulations for the DS is number one on my list. The Metal Gear Solid 4 gameplay video looks amazing, although the high cost of the PS3 is going to prevent me from playing it out.

Otherwise, nothing much is happening. Except...oh crap...looks like rain. I going to have to move the clothes into the garage.

Housework to do, so I'm off.

Que Pena

So it's back to the university grind on the first day back. It was a decent day, but the 5 hour break between my two lectures did not help. I actually kinda felt tired.

First day back and we shared clinical war stories, the highs, lows and downright weird. But we all agreed that we learned a lot and became more confident in performing x-ray procedures. It only filled so much of our 5 hour gap. Well, starting next week, we won't have that gap as it will be filled with pracs and tutorials, but one the first day back, it was rather pissy. Anyway, as we chatted, one of our friends came up and told us that our notes were ready. It cost $77 all up. A bit on the expensive side, but hey, we want to pass, not fail. So we waited in line and coughed up the money. The notes look pretty interesting, especially for BACH11612 - Introductory Behavioural Health. The notes for that are pretty heavy, I think they photocopied an entire book or something on the subject, but it makes for interesting reading.

On the subject of reading, I braved the natural afternoon light to buy HP7. It was in my hands at around 11:30am and I finished it some 5 hours later. I won't say that it's an excellent book, but it brings the Harry Potter saga to an adequate end. The important trio of characters didn't die permanently, and there was a happy ending. There were a lot of deaths though or other minor characters. Like I said, it ends the saga well enough and it was worth the $30 I spent. Still I did feel a bit cheated. It was nowhere as thick as I expected and that was probably why I finished it much faster than previous books.

I've finally found a neat little DS game. It's called Trauma Center, and you play as a young surgeon with amazing skills despite a lack of experience. It's quite a tough puzzle game. Not only do you have to beat the time limit, you also have to keep your patient in good condition otherwise they die and you lose. Very challenging. I'm somewhat surprised that it mixed in patient care and ethics. Not a lot, but enough to remind you that as a health professional you have to save your patients and treat them well. First Ace Attorney, now Trauma Center? What next?

I also took the plunge and replaced why PSU. Which turned out to be a good decision and now my computer is running better than ever. No more whirring fan noises and overheating, just smooth quiet running.

More operations to do. I'm off.

Harry Potter and the Franchise that Prints Money

There's no doubt that the Harry Potter series has made J.K Rowling a very rich woman. Was it multi-millionaire or billionaire? Well, her total wealth is pretty damn large. Now we have the seventh and final Harry Potter book.

So, HP7 kicks off this Saturday and I happen to have some spare money. I'm thinking of going to buy the book on launch day, but seriously, I'm not sure whether I sound brave the morning queues. Shops usually open at 9am. I wonder if they will have some book left over at 11am? I'm not going to fight through crowds of people just to get one book. So that's the plan anyway for me. 11am at Parramatta Westfield, homing in on Dymocks, but there is also Borders on the 4th level. The plan's success depends really on whether I can be bothered getting out there. Apparently, it's forecasted to have showers, which dampens my mood to go out. So now I'm plagued with indecision. Damn.

Apparently, it's been leaked to the internet. Honestly, I don't mind spoilers. But I'd rather read the whole thing and let the story unfold, rather than having the plot condensed to a few key dot points. So I'm leaning towards going out and buying it. I have to buy a new PSU eventually, so two birds with one stone.

If you happen to be looking for some free (and legal) music, then ccMixter is a pretty good place. It's mainly ambient and chill music with electronic vibes, but that's just the surface. Pretty much all genres are represented, just some more than others. But it's free (and legal)!

Also there's this Jap flash game, based on slapping. You play some chick and you have to slap your opponents into submission for some reason. It uses the mouse, so you click attack and move your cursor across the opponents face and if you're fast enough, she gets slapped. To avoid slaps, you click evade and swing the mouse under you character's head. So yeah. Check it out here.

And rounding out today, here's a little something something from Youtube. I'd buy that.

The Waiting Game

Nothing to do really as I await the return of the uni grind. Mainly reading and playing my DS. And restocking and reorganising my modest comic collection. Yeah, so I read comics. They aren't updated as often as I like plus one of them is like a year behind on the third issue. No idea what's happening there.

It's strange how some memories just pop out. You're doing something and all of a sudden, a nostalgic memory blossoms. You smile, then go "WTF? Where did that come from?" I was thinking back to the ye olde days of primary school. As I was wondering about my former classmates and what they were possibly up to, my mind brought up the time of the school fete. Basically, the year 6 students would set up stalls and the rest of the school would spend money. Was it for charity or the school? I don't remember. Anyway, my group set up this skill game stall. Arranged on a table was a variety of jars with an amount of money written on it. The aim was to throw a small ball so that it landed in the jar. If it did you won the amount of money inside (ranging from 5 cents to $5). It like $1 for three throws and $2 for eight throws or something. The kicker was that the ball was those very bouncy rubber balls and the place where you stood to throw was a ridiculous distance away. Naturally, more money was made then lost. One guy was lucky. He managed to win $5 eight times in a row, but it spent $10 or so to get it. There were a lot of 5 cent winners, so the profit we made was insane. I remember we managed to con this girl in our class, Jenny Jiang(?), into having multiple goes and she basically wasted 90% of her money.

That came out of the blue as I was doing housework. Random, but it was a good, fun memory. Yep, when I'm not reading or gaming, I do the housework. Vacuuming, washing the dishes, washing the clothes, hanging the aforementioned clothes and bringing them in. I wouldn't say it's boring or that I hate it. I've seem to have developed an immunity to it. I just do everything on automatic. Still, it can take a stupid amount of time before everything is done.

On the subject of primary schools, I've noticed that my old primary school even has a Facebook group. Pity that I don't anyone in the group. Must have been beyond my time or after it.

My power supply for my computer has been acting up. Makes horrible whirr-ing noises and sometimes the fan doesn't spin, causing the PSU to overheat and the machine to restart. Maybe I should buy a new PSU...

Doctor Who and House have finished. I need something to fill the void. Maybe a short anime series?

And Phuong...why has your blog gone private? Isn't supposed to be public?

In My Skin

Well, clinical placement at Westmead is now over and I have around a week of relaxation before I got back to the university grind. At first, I didn't think it would be useful. BUt I was dead wrong.

Clinical gave me more confidence. Performing even basic x-rays was at first intimidating, but I got used to it. It might seem obvious but there is a big difference between a mannequin and a real person. I thought it would be easy to give someone one a basic x-ray like a chest. But there all these other factors that come into play. My lecturer was talking about how some people see us as button pushers, but there is also a human element. We meet with people every moment on the job. And that makes us more than button pushers. We are often the first to see the bad news. Cancer in a person shows up quite clearly on an x-ray for example.

Anyway on the last day, it was quite boring. Definitely not as exciting as the others, but just as interesting. I followed a radiographer on mobile duty. Basically, some people are just too sick or fragile to make it down to our department, so we go to them. There's a mobile x-ray machine that's powered on batteries and that's what we use as our source of x-rays. The rest of the day had x-rays that I couldn't do, but I helped as much as possible. Mainly the paperwork, of slotting the x-rays into the folders, putting on the appropriate stickers and giving them to the doctors to diagnose.

I was going to do one chest x-ray before leaving, but the patient was a Muslim woman, and she refused point-blank to have a man x-ray her. All the current radiographers were male and the female radiographers were all away busy, so we had to pull the Chief Radiographer out to do it. It just made more difficult for us. But that's her belief and we have to respect that. Seriously though, it's just a chest x-ray. Women are usually given a gown, so no one is getting you to stand naked or anything. Oh well. Not my problem.

Worth it? Hell yes. Now I can't wait for the next clinical placement. It will probably be more difficult, more pissy and with more responsibility involved, but I'm certain to learn something that can't be taught in the classroom.

Oh and Harry Potter 7? I am awaiting that, but I'm not in a rush. I'll probably grab the book later and don't worry about spoilers. I don't mind them.

My #1 HP7 prediction? Hermione dies. That's where my money's at.

Work Area One

New day, new place within Westmead. Work Area 1 does mainly Fracture Clinic (people with broken bones, duh) and a combination of inpatients and outpatients. Unlike Accident and Emergency, also known as Casualty, there isn't that much sense of urgency. The pace is slower, more managable and can be downright boring at times.

Yesterday was my last day at A&E, and it was probably the best day yet. I mostly helped with this PDY (a radiographer who has just left school and must do an "internship" so to speak) who was really helpful. Again I mainly observed but helped out where I could. Some people think that being a radiographer is a pretty cushy job and I guess it can be depending on where you work. But in A&E, it can be pretty taxing. On one occassion, we needed to do a chest and knee x-ray on this 80-year old woman wiht Alzheimer's. It was difficult because we couldn't use the DR system (she was too fragile to move around) and had to slide a cassette behind her back to do the chest x-ray. However, due to the Alzheimer's, she was very distracted and was never in the right position. In the end, we winged it a bit. The PDY set her into the correct position while I held down the prep button. As soon as he ran out, I pressed the button down fully to take the shot. It wasn't perfect, but it was close enough.

The A&E office happened to be right next to two rooms, 28 and 29. That's where the dead or dying go and the family can grieve. Well, that's where they usually go. Sometimes when we are short on beds, some patients go in there. But I'm walking back from an x-ray only to have this Asian family sobbing their hearts out just outside the office. It was pretty gut-wrenching.

Work Area 1 was different. For the first few hours, there wasn't much to do, expect the odd x-ray. But it was cool because I managed to go down to the mortuary on two occasions. One was a suicide victim, and the second was a jumper. The first guy had shot himself in the head, but the body had been cleaned up slightly, so there was only a bit of blood behind his ears. The second guy had jumped off somewhere high. The police were present during his death, so whether they were trying to talk him down, or whether he was on the run was unclear. X-raying cadavers is a lot different. And a bit difficult. By the time we got to them, rigor mortis had set in and it was difficult to move the body. But very interesting. Very, very interesting.

I managed to do another bunch of chest x-rays, and the PDY person assisting me was very frank, but that helped in my learning. He didn't bullshit, so to say. But I picked up a few tips that helped immensely.

I think Jimmy commented last time that this was I was learning something practical and directly related to my course. That's pretty much true. This sort of training is invaluable, especially in a public hospital where you get plenty of cases. Private clinics are alright, but you don't have that many cases.

Tomorrow is the last day!

A & E

Clinical placement has been pretty cool. It's quite different to learning in class. I made a mistake of going to Westmead Children's Hospital rather than Westmead, but luckily I turned up early so by the time I realised my mistake, I was still on time.

Let me say this first though. The digital radiography system is fucking sexy. Two systems operate at Westmead, the CR (Computed Radiography) and DR. The CR system works like this. You slide in a cassette, set your exposure factors, ping then take out the cassette and slot into a reader, so you can see whether you've done a correct diagnostic image. And if you get it wrong, you have to do it all over again. This is not counting the multiple cassettes. The DR system has an image receptor, so the X-rays are stored digitally and displayed instantly on the screen, you if you do get something wrong, you can quickly do another shot. Everything is automated so you don't have to punch in the factors. Sexy, very sexy.

The people at the hospital are nice, but are always in a rush. My current supervisor is definitely a pro, I mean, she knows her shit, so to speak. She is a bit pedantic on technique, but it's the right technique. I managed to do a handful of chest x-rays today. Besides assisting in procedures or observing them, I also do some reading and take care to the request forms. When a request is entered, the printer in the room churns out the form (what to x-ray, patient details etc) and some stickers. I take the form, label the location of the patient, stick the stickers on and place in queue, with the newest ones at the back. We seem to always have a backlog of requests to do. I only ever see about two radiographers, including my supervisor on duty, at most three. Today, there was more reading and organising request forms than taking x-rays, because my supervisor was running around doing mobile chest x-rays (when the patient is too sick to come to us, we go to them), and the other person on duty was a PDY that didn't really like me observing. But I learnt stuff and that's what important.

I'd probably do more x-rays tomorrow, since I start at 8am and the mornings are usually slow, so I can take my time, and my supervisor can point out some details better.

The weather has been horrible. It's stopped raining, so far, but the wind is blowing pretty strong and it's cold as well. I timed my purchase of a trenchcoat perfectly. It's so warm.

Sophia's planning her 18th birthday and the theme is Heroes and Villains. I have know idea what to go as, but preliminary ideas are mad scientist (I already have a labcoat) or 1940s gangster ( i just need a hat, and maybe a mustache and maybe a gun?). Meh. I still have time to plan.

Off I go, to revise radiographic postionings.

Sharada

Yesterday was spent away from the computer and book. I met up with some old friends to go out and have some fun.

Went to Burwood to watch Transformers. I was a little unsure about the movie. I've heard both good and bad things from it, and with Transformers being a rather dear childhood cartoon, I had worries that the director might butcher the film. My fears were completely unfounded. Relative to other action films, Transformers is a delightful romp with explosions, fight scenes and plenty of eye candy. The robots were very well animated. The movie is definitely something worth watching, and would probably be worth it to own a DVD.

The main criticisms from other people were the overall lack of plot, characterisation, bad directing/editing/cutting. But I think that such a criticism is very harsh. This is an action film! Not an Oscar-contending film! Compared to the "good" films, of course, it sucks. But that's like comparing apples and oranges. An action film is not meant or known for a deep plot or ecellent characterisation. It's supposed to be a fun film, where the audience turns off their brains and go more more base motives. On those factors, Transformers is an excellent action film that holds its own against other action films. Now. Die Hard 4, anyone?

With my overall lack of interest in anime, namely Naruto and Bleach, I search the net for some new anime. One of the newer anime series that is highly recommended is the Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. It's about a girl called Haruhi Suzumiya who is bored with the ordinary and wants to find the extraordinary, like aliens, time travellers or espers. The story is told from the point-of-view of Kyon, a normal guy who is dragged into Haruhi's world. It's a fun anime and the story is quite good. The two main characters are also well-fleshed out and the animation is smooth and looks very good. Throw in a hint of mystery and a tiny dash of Evangelion-ness, and it's a hit anime series, clocking in a 14 episodes. Note that the episodes were broadcast in a non-linear fashion, so the storyline can become incoherent or confusing at times. Some people prefered to watch it in its actual chronological order rather than its broadcast order. But it's good. Highly recommended.

Oh and did you hear? There is a new children's book in town.
The man in the picture is supposed to be House.

Take it Down to the Wire

Nothing much to report on. I have clinical placement next week, which apparently is the same time this camping trip is happenning. Can't do much about it.

Called up Westmead Hospital this morning to get detail on my clinical. I think I spent about 10 minutes on hold before actually being transferred to the Chief Radiographer. I'm kind of pissed that it took that longer, but I have had worse and the hospital has (presumably) more important things to do. I was tranferred 4 times. I remember. Because I said "Hello, I'm a student from USyd and I'm on clinical placement next week. Can I please speak to the Chief Radiographer?" four times. Ah well. That's done and now I play the waiting game.

Exam results aren't out yet. The grades on the website are like 'not yet received'. I've got fingers crossed. Pretty sure I got at least Credits.

The last episode of Doctor Who. The season finale for the third season. What can I say? It was an awesome ride. There are a few things I disagree on, like one death and the ways the physics was whacked off a bit, but that's television for you. It's not about the science, it's about the emotional ride. And let me tell you, it was one hell of a ride, especially the end.

Heh. I so want a sonic screwdriver of the Doctor. There's one on Ebay. It's a replica with a pen and UV lights and stuff. I might get it. Let me go find some money. There must be some under my bed. There must be!

The series has peaked a bit of interest in the theory of time travel. And it's a bit more complicated than I originally thought. Take the grandfather paradox. You go back in time to kill your grandfather before you were born, thus creating the paradox. Since you killed you grandfather and since you never existed, you never actually travelled back in time to kill you grandfather. This implies that you never actually killed your grandfather, and so then you were actually conceived anyway to go kill your grandfather. Yeah. A bit of a mouthful, but there you go. Wikipedia helps a lot.

Been playing F.E.A.R. It's one of those titles where the developers chose the title first then decided to make an acronym out of it later. So FEAR stands for First Encounter Assault Recon. It's a pretty scary game. Not scary like in-your-face-monsters-and-shit scary, but more like freaky-little-girl-Japanese-horror scary. I literally can't play it alone. Well I can, during daylight hours. But as the sun sets, I have to have my brother watching over my shoulder or vice versa. So yeah. Pretty scary shit.

And here's a little something-something
You would you choose? Limit of two, three, say? I'd put my money on Ms Korea and Russia.