Gaps with gaps

With the end of my last clinical block, I very privately wished that it went on for a little longer. Just a little. Because there is still heaps to learn, even about the basic stuff.

Especially about exposure factors. I tend not to memorise them since I just use the preset numbers, but what if you a special projection that's not preset? What if you're doing mobile radiography on ICU patients where the machines have to have the exposure set manually? It's an embarrassing gap in my knowledge, especially when the radiographers ask me what exposure to use.

Exposure can be broken down into two factors. Technically, three factors, but remembering two factors is easier and works the same way. You have your 'kV' for kilovoltage and your 'mAs' which is milliamperes per second. The first is how 'penetrating' your x-rays are and the second is how 'much' x-rays are produced. A really thick patient not only need enough power to punch through (ie high kV) but also needs enough x-rays to make a decent image (ie high mAs).

Some anatomy need more power and more x-rays than others, so there's a wide range of exposures to cover the human body. Later into my clinical I was starting to set my own exposures, just to remind me of them and basically see if I've given enough to get diagnostic images. Plus the pathology that you learn about can be quite interesting. Still, six weeks was a mighty long time.

And now I have to keep my eyes and ears open for a PDY postion. Ideally staying in Sydney would be nice, although I'm keeping my options open and checking interstate as well. But before that, I'm going to be blasting off to Terrigal tmr for a nice little 4 day vacation with uni friends. Then paintball after the first week of uni, then a friend's 21st, then David Copperfield at Acer Arena, then my own 21st...

Bugger it, I'll just have a BBQ to celebrate.

Long time between drinks

Massive void of not posting since life has been just been more interesting. You start to know your friends better, you start spending the occassional late night out, and have 3 drink too many. Good times been rolling.

Exams was the usual fuss and mess and sweat, except for our very first exam when the power went out. I'd finish the mcq by then and there was barely enough natural light to see the paper. So I just started making notes to answer the long-response questions. Then one of the supervisors came in and announced that the entire Lidcombe campus was blacked out, so will everyone please stop writing and wait quietly. So we wait. Then the news came that the entire Lidcombe/Auburn area had suffered a blackout. So exam cancelled. We had to redo the test an the end of the week, and it was pretty much exactly the same with minor changes in the long response. Still, I wrote heaps for the long-response and in the end forgot what to write for the last question so I shotgun'd it. Meh.

Clinicals start on the 7th of June but I'm heading to Adelaide for my clinicals, so I'm jetting off this Sunday. Nothing much to do except last minute frenzied downloading and repeated checking of all my gear. And I will forgot one essential item. That always happens.

Dunno if I can actually blog along the way, but 6 weeks is quite awhile. I'm sure there's a net cafe somewhere.

Preparing for a new start

So just finished the first week of uni and now well into the second week. I wouldn't say its a total grind at the moment, but they definitely don't muck around anymore getting on to third year.

The hardest subject, for me at least, is probably the ultrasound unit. Partly because of the massive amounts of reading just to grasp the subject, partly because it just feel completely different. US is a part of diagnostic radiography, but its usually done as a postgrad course to qualify as a sonographer. The concepts are relatively simple, but critquing the images, I just find that so bloody hard. In the end most sonographers drift away from general x-rays. At best, they'll probably be able to remember how to do a chest x-ray or something.

I did go out to see Watchmen with friends, and was probably the only person who had read the graphic novel. The movie was good, but it was very crammed. It was trying to fit a 12 volume comic series into a mere 2 and a half hours. Most of my friends felt confused while some understood the plot quite clearly. It's probably one of those films that you either like or dislike, with no in-betweens.

Of course, most of the ads were pretty crappy. Except one though.


It makes Star Trek look pretty epic, considering that the series does a lot of talking overall. Apparently the director is pitching it towards a more mainstream audience, those with no or little knowledge about the Star Trek canon. Being a bit of a Star Trek fan myself, though not hardcore enough to see all the tv series or movies, I like the look and feel of this new movie. It's definitely a lock for me to watch at the cinemas.

Now back to more sono readings.

Lava Reef Zone

So on Tuesday I'm off down south to Culburra Beach to relax before the beginning of my final year of uni and to forget about the current financial tsunami that is still sweeping the world. I'll be gone for 5 days to enjoy surf, sun and sand, then straight after I come back I have a wedding reception to go to at Maxims. It seems to be an unspoken rule that if you're Viet and you need a wedding reception place, then go to Maxim's. I can almost recite the menu from my head. (Fried rice was near the end wasn't it?)

Anyway organising this trip was a little more difficult and troublesome. Mainly because there was more democracy involved. A lot of time was spent asking people what they wanted and how about this or that. So I spent quite a bit of time sitting around waiting for email replys that may or may not arrive. Lesson learnt: Tyranny is the only option, don't give people a choice (or at most give them an illusion of choice). Kinda sucks as well that out of the original 16 people, only 9 can make it. It felt disappointing that after all these questions about "when is the next road trip?", quite a lot of people pulled out or were unable to make it. Lesson learnt: confirm people are going by taking as much as their money as possible early on, so they are committed for fear of losing money.

Still, the trip will be fun. I won't be taking the tried and tested Ford Falcon stationwagon, because it's has definitely entered old age and now suffers from a wide range of differing illnesses with mysterious causes. For example, the transmission occasionally leaks oil despite it being replaced with a reconditioned one and the workshop attempting to plug the leaks twice. The aircon died, and has not fully recovered because 1/3 of the air goes to the windscreen regardless of knob position, and causes engine overheating. Maye too tried and tested. So I'm taking the Toyota Landcruiser Prado, which is taller, but actually a bit shorter than the Falcon. It's going to be...interesting.

As always on such a trip, when we safely get to our destination I will have a suitable alcohol brevarage to consume. Unfortunately, the most interesting whiskey I've seen so far is unavailable in Australia.
A man's drink if I ever saw one.

It's Gone Now

So I spent most of the last days of January, mulling around my room, with capped internet and no money. Boredom starting to creep around, and I missed a few outing with friends due to what you could call 'a series of unfortunate events'. So when a message appeared whether I was up for some paintball, I couldn't refuse. Of course, I had no money, but some scrouging and borrowing, I had a small amount of cash and heavy in debt.

We had to be there at 7:30am for registrations and stuff, so I picked up some friends in Sefton at 6:30am then rushed over to Granville to pick up the other person. That took a bit longer, since she walked out in flats and we recommended her to get some sturdier shoes. And her mother wanted to offload some banh chung or something to us as well.

And then the drive to the paintball area, during which we spent a lot of time talking about conversation breakers and the dominating appearance of internet abbrieviations into common speech. Instead of actually laughing out loud, people ares starting to just say lol to each other. Weird and oddly terrifying in a way. Or breaking conversations where people say something, and you're at a loss on responding so you just bring up "I see" or "Is that right?" or "Yeah" or even just the dreaded "lol".

Paintball was fun as always. Our group was slightly smaller, so we joined with a few other groups. It was quite fun, and I ended up with a healthy set of bruises, especially two on my arms which look like cigarette burns. We were joking about explaining to some of our parents about what kind of party we had to go to at 6:30am in the morning and come home with bruises everywhere. I was joking about how I should tell my parents that I'd met a girl who gave me those burns. Anyway, it was fun. Sweaty, tiring fun.

After that we made our way from Blacktown to Yagoona to drop off some people, before winding our way up to Campsie to crash at a friend's place. Eventually we decided that some karaoke was the answer, so we made our way to the city, still having not showered after the paintball game. K was fun as always, but the machine added like 45 minutes of extra time and by the end I (and everyone else I think) was tired and had the energy sucked out of us. Still fun. The sights and sounds of Phuong and Julia screaming the song 'Gay Bar' was energising to say the least. They scored 100 as well.

Getting home and having a nice cold shower was a godsend. I took a look at my back and the bruises where much more numerous that I thought. Looked like someone had decided to stab cigarette burns all over my back. My mum gave me some cream that supposed to help the bruising heal faster, but 24 hours on, it doesn't seem to have done much.

Good thing uni is still a ways off. Those bruises would probably draw questions and unwanted attention.

Good Times

Recently celebrated a friend's birthday in the city. I didn't know that the Sydney Festival thingo was on and there was this movie screening thingo at Darling Harbour. Unfortunately, we went to Hyde Park where there was nothing on. All that walk for nothing.

Vaguely looking forward to uni, when it starts in March. It's my last year, and that in itself is something special. More groupwork though, something I'm not looking forward to. Well, you can't everything. Also looking forward to going to Adelaide for clinicals. My friends are also planning to have a quick stopover in Melbourne after clinicals as well. Might to find something to do to replenish the my depleted financial stocks at the moment.

Nothing that much to do at this moment. I'm holding off on downloading and watching Youtube in a [vain] attempt to prevent being capped early. The thing about holidays is that you look forward to doing all the things you haven't had time to do during uni and then you do all you wanted to do and still have 2 months of free time. I'm reading through some random manga to pass the time, as I think of what to do next.

I remember somewhere on the internet, there was a short story site, where anyone can post any short story as long as it was exactly 666 words. Or something close to that, I'm not sure it has to be exactly 666 words. I might try to find it, do some reading and maybe post something. With the holidays, it gives plenty of time to let your mind wander, and something I wonder whether I should commit some of it to paper. I'm pretty meh about writing stuff though, since most of my attempts at writing tend to lack decent characterisation and emotion. And I tend to ripoff from other people. But Stravinsky did say that good composers don't borrow, they steal. Probably applies in a way to writers as well.

Actually, one of the more interesting stories I've read is called "Armageddon??" written by someone called 'Stuart' [his internet alias]. Basically, demons from Hell invaded Earth, only it seems modern weaponary is quite effective against them, culminating with a human invasion into Hell taking on Satan himself. The style is rather like Tom Clancy, focusing on the interaction of human military forces and Hell's invasion force. You can read it here. It's fairly long, but after reading the first couple of chapters, you can probably tell whether if it's your cup of tea or not.

I would buy books to supplement my reading, but since I tend to read quite quickly, it usually ends up with me buying the book, then finish reading it later in the day. Some time ago I bought The Last Watch by Sergey Lukyanenko, the final book in the tetralogy in the Watches series [I heartily recommend this series] and finished in around 3 hours later. It was $40 well-spent, but it didn't last that long. If I kept buying books and reading them quickly, I'll end up bankrupt.

Well I'm running low already, maybe I should do some odd jobs to build up my balance again.

Blue Ridge Mountains

Men kick friendship around like a football and it doesn't seem to crack. Women treat it like glass and it falls to pieces.
- Anne Lindbergh

Just seems strangely appropriate quote to a situation I know.

Nothing much happening so far. I'm busy organising a trip with uni friends. Seems a little messy this time around, probably because there was more democracy involved. That's a lesson learnt. When organising something, the organiser should be a benovolent dictator and when necessary a tyrant.

I went out and watched The Curious Case of Benjamin Button with friends. It was alright I guess. It reminded me of Twilight (the book). Rather bland characters and plot, but a very well done romance. The fact that one of them getting younger and another getting older and still remain totally in love was nicely handled. The fact that no medical authority picked up on the fact that this guy was ageing backwards irked me, but that's why suspension of disbelief exists.

Just so you know Fleet Foxes do some pretty decent music.