Waltz into the Moonlight

Another week deeper into the uni grind. Again nothing exciting happening. Geez I'd probably suck the life out at parties.

Anyway, I think I mentioned before that one of units of study is "Research Methods for Health Science". Its basically statistics and how to do proper research like in all those medical journals that we've read. It has been pretty meh so far. It's split into two branches/streams/sections/etc: Data Analysis and Research Design. Data analysis is basically statistics plus more stuff while research design is about doing health research in general. The tutorial component has use developing then writing out a research journal. My group was working on our question of "does a lack of sleep affect short term memory?" and we were worried that it wasn't up to scratch or was crap, but in the end we did quite well. The tutor didn't find anything majorly wrong and just cautioned us on the definitions of some terms. Still it was pretty cool.

My dad's computer has finally died. Blue screens of death, refusing to read and floppies or cds. I think some OS files got corrupted. It was pretty inevitable. My brother used my dad's comp quite a bit (cos at that time my bro had a shit comp) and so the comp was probably crawling with viruses and spyware. Prolly have to get a new comp for my dad, something cheap since all he does is surf the web, send emails and occasionally watches YouTube.

I've been playing around with the idea of getting a new comp as well, but I have a slightly harder justifying the cost. My comp may not be the lastest and greatest and will definitely choke on the lastest games but it works, its stable and I can't fault it for anything else. I'm also wary of Vista, despite SP1 getting released. Plus Microsoft will stop selling XP sometime in June. Well, the idea is floating there in my head. I'll let it stew for a few months.

Starting to play DS again. A new RPG called "The World Ends with You" has been released, from the makers of Kingdom Hearts. It uses the touchscreen quite well, and the plot is developing nicely. But damn, the music is awesome! Haven't gotten to deep into the game, but some far the main character is such a wanker. I don't really like him and I hope he changes eventually cos his personality pisses me off.

A gem I've picked up on on the internet. This is an awesome vid of some guys playing Aqua's Barbie Girl on cellos.





No Naruto manga until next week, so I have to wait to see what the deal with Itachi is.

This Heart Attack

First post in the month of April. Nothing really going on. Just the usual uni grind and what not, so this post will be short but hopefully sweet.

In one of my lectures (Research Methods for Health Science) the lecturer is talking about gathering information and the different techniques that a researcher could use. Along the way she showed a video on the life of uni students in the US, where the researcher set up some blog/wiki/thingo where students could add and edit info and basically survey themselves. Granted it is a bit US-centric.



The music of the vid is quite good in my opinion. I followed the links and download their album and I have to say it's not bad. It's very good.

List of things to do to remind myself

• Burn SPSS (think Excel on steroids) for Phuong via Nam
• Clean up my table, books and papers everywhere
• A bottle of vodka
• Catch up on reading Tales of MU
• New Naruto and Eyeshield 21 manga chapters
• Finish off SPSS assignment now, so I don't have to worry about it later
• A bottle of vodka

Man I've acquired something of a taste for vodka. I think it started back on New Year's Eve where I was playing poker with friends with the loser taking shots (Olivio took 8 shots when he lost). Afterwards I chickened out, and then started drinking the vodka and finished off almost the entire bottle.

Good times, good times.

Ladder to the Sky

Back to the uni grind, although it wasn't that much of a grind. I had a one hour lecture, when it was supposed to be two hours and thus ended up paying $3 for an hour or so of parking. Meh, the parking is cheap compared to other unis and I can always park for free in those side roads.

I actually drove to uni in the Daihatsu Terios today, a big achievement since its a manual car. Driving with the clutch still throws me off a bit, but I only stalled twice...no three times today. So I'm improving! Still not that confident to do reverse parks, but I'll get some practice in the weekends.

I noted two things this morning. The first is that the Australian Navy seriously wants to get an aircraft carrier. Despite my military experience being limited to Tom Clancy books and Wikipedia, my first thought (I thought it was really good) was "we don't need any stinkin' aircraft carriers". They are big, expensive and basically a massive target. Let the US have their 11 aircraft carriers, Australia has no need of one. Later in the day, I started to rethink my position. Considering that Australia does have certain responsibilities in the region and the fact that we do get involved in other Pacific Islands (East Timor and the Soloman Islands spring to mind), maybe having one aircraft carrier would be okay. If some uprising or whatnot was taking place on the Solomon Islands, with Australian lives at risk, the PM could send a naval task force with an aircraft carrier with Hornets ready to drop some bombs. To show that we're serious about whatever the issue is. It will be a couple of billions of dollars, but it may be a few billion dollars well spent.

The second item was talking about how Nick D'Arcy, part of the Aussie swim team, could lose his position in the team and not go to the Olympics because he was involving in a bar brawl. I was watching Sunrise on Channel 7 and the hosts were of the opinion that he should still be allowed to represent Australia, but a large majority of letters wanted him dumped off the squad. The only letter read that even remotely supported him was one noting that everyone was making such a fuss over a bar brawl and not noting China's appalling human-rights record. The letter ended with a firm suggestion of a boycott. Firstly, I think that D'Arcy should be allowed to represent Australia unless he is found guilty of something substantial during the brawl. It's not a major offense and no one was critically injured or killed. He wasn't taking drugs or whatnot, I think a public apology should suffice. Secondly, I disagree about boycotting the Olympics. It is a frankly useless political gesture, in my opinion. China is too big and powerful a nation to ignore. It's on its way to become a, if only economical, superpower. A boycott only works when the target is weak and can't risk losing the backing of other powers, or when everyone does it. Not everyone is going to boycott the Olympics and it'll be heartbreaking to the athletes who train for it. It's much better that China's Olympics should be in the spotlight, to better inform the world of the lack of human rights in China. The Tibet riots and the situation in Darfur, Sudan are just two examples of what activists and athletes could note on television to make it stick in people's minds that not everything about China is all sunshine and lollypops.

That's really the only things that really caught my attention. My TIMES subscription comes in tomorrow, so at least I have something to read about the world. I really want to see how the US election is rolling along.

Long Reef Beach

Just when the long Easter holidays threatened with boredom, a well-timed trip to the beach washed it all away. Well, it wasn't that spontaneous. The beach outing had been planned before quite well by Andy and Michael K, two good uni friends of mine, so when the long weekend came around everything was planned out and we only had to worry about the weather.

I ended driving four people there and probably overpacked and underpacked for the trip. It's a bit of a doublethink yes, but you'll see why. Pretty much everyone except me cut north to Chatswood to avoid going over the Harbour Bridge, maybe in dread of the city streets or seeking safety in numbers. I asked my dad about the route and after some scouting on Good Friday, I felt pretty comfortable driving over the Bridge. You just follow the signs and you'll be right.

Long Reef Beach in near Dee Why and it's a splendid place. The beach is nice and big and isn't very overcrowded. Its got decent parking at reasonable cost, has all the facilities, even has a electric BBQ. On arriving though, we tried the BBQ but it refused to work, no matter no many times we pushed the button. We were in a bit of panic and was about to resort to cooking the meat at a BBQ in another beach 2km away then bringing the food back, when Daniel L got one BBQ working. So we started to cook. The meat was alright, although who bought it probably never bought food for a BBQ. I was expecting steak and sausages, but ended up with frankfurts and thick slices of pork, plus chicken kebabs and chicken wings. You can't really cook frankfurts, usually you dump them into some hot water. The pork was pretty thick and cooking them took a long time. Thankfully, we had all this flavouring and we dumped massive amounts onto the meat to add some taste to its absolute blandness.

Also never ever use raw chicken wings in a BBQ. They are bloody difficult to cook on a BBQ. You usually scorch the outside while the inside is still raw. Cooking them properly takes a very long time on low heat. And I've been to many BBQs where someone decides chicken wings should be on the menu. Oh, you can precook them and then just heat them up on the BBQ, but raw chicken wings just can't be cooked properly on a BBQ. Still, it wasn't that bad. The group quickly split into three groups, the sitters, the cookers and the tasters. Most people would sit and wait for cooked food to come, while the cookers worked the meat, pouring on oil and flavouring, while the tasters would stand near the BBQ and grab all the good stuff. So basically all the people at the BBQ intercepted the good stuff.

But on the whole, it was an excellent day out and I had lots of fun with friends. While I didn't bring a camera, but luckily my friends did and here is a selection.

Me and two friends at Long reef

In the ocean, getting some salt water

Long shot of the ocean

The hard decisions of cooking

People grabbing food

Needed the umbrellas to shield us from the sun

I would heartily recommend Long Reef Beach if you ever want to go to a beach to have some fun, but do take some care with the BBQs.

Never Gonna Give You Up

Spent some time on yesterday and today getting used to driving a manual car. It's not difficult per se, mainly just another layer of interactions. Getting used to driving and using a clutch to change gears is somewhat tiring, since I have to consciously think about changing gears. Meh, I have an entire week off, so I'll probably do some driving to get better. I've gotten better today, only stalled twice, but the car doesn't accelerate smoothly as it should, so just more practice.

Yesterday, my dad also took my brother and I over to Collaroy to scout out the route to Long Reef Beach. My uni friends are organising a beach trip this Wednesday and I wanted to get an idea of the route and the facilities at the beach. It wasn't too hard, although just after we got off the Harbour Bridge there were a few confusions. Thankfully, with the combination power of Google Maps and a street directory we managed to get heading the right way. Its been a long time since I've crossed the Bridge, so it was nice. Also the beach was pretty good. My dad did a bit of exploring; he's probably marking it down as another possible destination.

Haven't really been doing all that much for this little break. Since I'm getting close to being capped and want to preserve what I have left, I haven't been downloading or anything much. So mainly it's reading. Might have to drop into a library or something, I'm running out of books. It always nice to have reading to fall back on. There is just so many books, different styles, different genres, you'd never really get bored. Seriously, if I had the time and money, I'd probably spend most of my days reading.

Funny thing, I was browsing on Wikipedia, until I got to the article on Sun Wukong, the Monkey King from Journey to the West. Then I started to remember the Viet dub of Journey to the West (Tay Du Ky) and I suddenly had this craving just to watch it again. I can't find the old VHS tapes, so I ask my mom to ask her friends if they have it. Unfortunately, they only had the older Chinese version from the 80s, while the version I used to have was the HK version from '96. None of the video shops seem to have it either. I've been spying the HK Journey to the West on a US website for US$38 plus shipping. I might that up soon, seeing as the Aussie dollar is still good against the US greenback.

Oh ho, Naruto and Bleach manga are out. Shame Eyeshield 21 isn't yet. Off for some reading.

The Fragrance of Dark Coffee

Second Week of uni over and I've gotten back into the hang of things. Some people bitch about the "uni grind" but to be perfectly honest I'm having a lot of fun. It's nice to be back at uni and meeting good friends.

Got my green Ps on Friday. Wasn't really that difficult, but I played it safe most of the time. The RTA handbook and other info scream that turning right isn't possible because a car is too close, but when in reality, you can still make the turn. Also had to shell out 70 bucks for license renewal and 35 bucks for booking fee. Far out, they make a killing with all these fees.

I've finished Apollo Justice some time ago and I've been bumming around with no really good DS games to take up my time. So I went out to grab a book. There was this book Final Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko that finished the series that I was reading. I couldn't find it before remembering that it doesn't come out until July. Damn. But another book did catch my eye. The New Space Opera edited by Jonathan Strahan and Gardner Dozois. It's a collection of sci-fi short stories featuring 'lushly romantic plots and the star spanning empires to the light year spurning star ships...stuffed full of faux-exotic colour and bursting with contrived energy'. Sci-fi epics in other words. It's only a collection of short stories but some of the writers intrigue me a lot. I might see if I can grab some of their book later.

Hmmm, now for a bit of rant. Parking at Cumbo is pretty good. Decent cost, and it's quickly likely you'll find a spot if you time is right and if there is no spot there are always back roads you can park at, although it is a bit of a walk to get to uni. Except there is always these people who will do anything for a park even if it creates problems for others. In carpark 3, there is a new pay and display system. You park, buy a ticket and put it on the dashboard. And there is like 500 odd spaces. But some people come in and can't find a spot so they park on corners or road ways. A few days ago, when I was turning to exit I found my route blocked my two cars. See below for a cool, ultra-realistic diagram (not to scale).

The two cars left a tiny gap where I had to squeeze my Falcon stationwagon through with just centimeters of give on either side. It was a little too close for comfort. I was glad to see the next day the parking inspectors were out in force, fining every bastard not parking in the bays. The fine is probably in the region of $50-70, but I reckon they should double it and put up bigs signs in red letters to that effect. Because I still see people not parking in bays. I wonder if next week will be any better.

Anyway, back to some reading.

Apollo Justice Impressions

Just when I thought that I would spend the weekend doing not much and lazing around I remembered that I had Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney on my DS. Shame on me for not remembering! I'm about 75% through the game, so here is my impressions so far.

First recap, I've played the last 3 Ace Attorney games and was struck by the wit and charm that it displayed. It was an awesome series and when I first heard that a new main character will be added to Ace Attorney 4(AA4), I was skeptical. Gamers will remember Metal Gear Solid 2 and Halo 2 when you diverged from playing the "main" character to another "main character".

So far I'm having a good time, as some old characters do return. The main character Apollo Justice feels a bit too much like Phoenix Wright. While that's not necessarily a bad thing, he's not as good as Phoenix Wright in terms of characterisation. This is something AA4 suffers from a little bit. The new characters weren't as funky as the old characters. They all seem a bit weak. However, the writing is still excellent, full of charm and jokes and is as good or even better than the old AA games.

The gameplay is similar to old AA games and that is a bit of a shame. In the DS port of the GBA AA1, there was an extra chapter only for the DS which showcased some new techniques, like examining and rotating evidence. The new AA4 was built ground up for the DS and that does show in stuff like character animation and detail, but the new gameplay elements aren't used enough to take advantage to the DS capabilities. It is almost as if the developers were a bit hesitant in changing the old gameplay too much. Of course, the music retains is usual high standard.

All in all, AA4 is good game and a worthy addition to the AA series. However, it doesn't seem to shine as much as it's predecessors and it is a letdown that the developers didn't take more advantage of the DS capabilities. Still, if you've played that last 3 AA games, you'll enjoy Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney.

Our Velocity

Wanted to post earlier but with the end of clinicals I had to take care of all the paperwork and administrative shit.

So yes, clinicals ended last week and it was a little sad. After working there for six weeks you get so sued to it, so ingrained in its culture and everything and now you suddenly walking away from it all. I really liked it there and I have been thinking about working there after I finished uni.

Also the start of the uni semester also brought two other goodbyes. Two friends Thien and David are off to Pharmacy, at the big main campus. There was a farewell party just after the clinicals. I'll see if I can grab some photos. Good luck to both of them, and I wish success on their chosen paths.

Uni has started and it is still a little shock to realise that a year is over and its now the second year. Lectures haven't really started yet, mainly little intros to the rest of the year. It's not that packed a week though. I still have Fridays off and there would be a lot of breaks if not for the bloody tutorials. Oh well. You can't have everything. The only bad thing is that there these stalls and volunteers all these pamphlets. Cumberland is only so big and there are only so many evasion routes. It could be worse, it could be on the main campus.

Pah. This is a pretty short post. I'll guess some time later in the week I'll have some more stuff to post.

Unforeseen Consequences

And so continues the ongoing saga that is my clinical (hah! I wish...)

This week I'm up in Operating Theatre (or better known as OPSuite). There is a whole bunch of operating rooms where doctors work their magic in cutting up the human body and fixing it with the most advanced techniques known to humanity. Actually, it's a lot more primitive than I thought.

Having read many a sci-fi book and watch many a medical tv show, what actually happens in operating theatres is quite eye opening. I mean sometimes it gets downright brutal. For one operation, the surgeon had to get to the gallbladder (I think; I don't remember clearly), so he uses this soldering iron thingo and basically burns his way to the desired level. "Burns" is the correct wording here. One hand is holding a small clamp and the other holds the soldering iron. He grabs a piece of soft tissue and basically slashes it away, cutting deeper into the body. Scratch that, "burns" is that correct, "slash-and-burn" is a much more accurate wording. You could even see the smoke swirling around inside the human body. Since he's accessing the body through small holes which are plugged up with instruments, I have no idea where the smoke goes. Maybe it just floats around until the body absorbs it through diffusion. Another example is when the surgeon is trying to put a large steel nail into a patient's neck of femur. It had been fractured and the nail holds the bones in the correct position to heal. After several minutes of drilling and screwing fruitlessly, one surgeon suggested hitting the nail with a hammer, since "it will bend to the left" or something. I thought he was joking, until he picked a hammer and started smashing the nail like Thor smashing with Mjolnir (check Norse mythology; its fun). It looked so brutal but apparently the nail was going the right way, so the surgeon continued smashing away.

To be honest, OPSuite is kinda boring, since I can't really do all that much. I have done a bit of screening, doing real time x-rays for the surgeons, but I'm just a student. Other radiographers have to be nearby to make sure I don't kill the patient or muck things up. But it is interesting. I mean, getting to see surgery up close is quite cool and learning all these new things, it makes up for the boring moments.

Also, working there reminded me of the dangers of hearsay. A few of the other students didn't have the best experiences up there, due to conflicts with the senior radiographer up there. However, I never experienced anything as bad as the stories they tell. I know that he can be pedantic, and that's probably a reason why the other students don't get the best experience, but I can't really say anything bad about him. If anything I'm expanding my knowledge of the profession of radiography thanks to him. And as such, this presents the dangers of hearsay. Just because someone else says something about someone doesn't mean that it's necessarily true. Shades of Wild Swans, I know...

Just finished Half Life 2 Episode 2. It is amazing, an excellent example of game design in the swamplands of PC gaming. It also has a commentary track and you can listen to the developers and voice actors talk about the process of creating the game and why they took the directions that they did. It's very enlightening. It is a first person shooter, but it's definitely a series that everyone (at least every serious gamer) should play. There's a line in there that was spoken by one of the characters "Prepare for unforeseen consequences". That line is just in my head and I can't get rid of it. It was so well delivered. Now I have to wait for Episode 3.

Now I'm off to take a nap. Those lead aprons I wear to protect myself from the radiation are so fricken heavy. My shoulders are burning in agony. I might down a few painkillers.

The Lost Coast

I not suggesting that after last week's rant that you have a lack of common sense Land. Maybe you just suffered a brief lapse. When it happened to me, I was like, put my money in, see it rejected, sign says "insufficient change sale canceled", recheck display, see "exact fare only", take money and move to counter. Altogether maybe 20 seconds? Not over a minute of putting money in again and again. But that probably sounds a bit arrogant. I happened to notice the sign and all the other people didn't. The morning after the post I did point out it was exact change only to someone, but they snapped at me that they noticed, like a minute after first putting money in. Maybe they were having a bad day.

Anyway, the end of the week signifies the end of another aspect of clinical.

In this case it was General X-rays and Mobiles. Basically mobiles is taking a mobile x-ray machine and taking x-rays of patients who are too sick to come down to General X-rays (which is termed Work Area 1). 90% of mobile x-rays will be chest x-rays, with occasional other bits of body anatomy thrown in. When it's quiet, it's a nice little bludge. When it's busy, it's hell. And it's usually busy. Every 15 minutes the pager will go off with a request for x-rays, it could in ICU, neonates or halfway across and up the hospital. So while it does involve a lot of walking, it's the never ending request for x-rays and no rest whatsoever during the hours that drags you down. I don't like mobiles. You are constantly pulled in one direction then another, with difficult patients and sometimes difficult doctors.

Here's a little story. There was a call for a chest x-ray on the 5th level. When we got there, it turned out that the patient had just suffered a cardiac arrest and was only beginning to come out of it. One of the doctors turned us away, saying no x-ray was necessary. As we turn to leave, another doctor asks us if we're going to do a chest x-ray and is quite surprised when we told him told that there was going to be no x-ray. In the end, the doctor returns saying they want a x-ray but they will page us again when the patient is more stable. Time passes and finally the request comes down and we go back up there again. However, a doctor in the room (probably a different doctor, I'm not sure) turns us away saying that they don't need an x-ray. And we had to walk down and away again. I'm not blaming any individual doctors, but no one seems in charge and even the doctors didn't not what was going. One says yes, another says no. Make up your damn minds and come to a group consensus, x-ray or not?

And on the weekends, what do I do? Besides reading books and manga? Well, I've been playing through Half Life 2 and its sequel Half Life 2: Episode 1. It's an awesome game and great story as well. It just pulls you in so deeply. I'll probably buy Episode 2 later tonight, over Steam. Here is the intro to the original to take a look see.

Memories from the Wind Scene

Entering the third week of clinicals. Halfway there and it feels as if I've been working for so long. Just a little bit more to go then back to the uni grind.

One of the myriad of groups on Facebook that catch my attention is one whose name is something along the lines of "When I walk behind slow moving people, I want to punch them in the back of the head". Because walking slow is a bad thing apparently. I don't blame slow moving people. They have a reason (either good or bad) as to why they are moving slow. I just find an opportunity to overtake them, same thing applys to cars (with the exception of Lesley's dad, he goes sooooo slow). Apparently slow moving people equates to stupid people. Not necessarily. Moving slow does not mean you are stupid or lacking common sense. No that's different.

Here's something that's stupid or at least lacking common sense. At Granville Station, like most other train station, you can buy tickets from the counter or from the machine. Lately the machine had a bad case of the gremlins and couldn't give change; you had to pay the exact fare. It even says so on the screen just about the main one "Exact fare only". I was waiting in line and I saw the exact fare only sign, so I stepped out of line and moved towards the counter. When I bought the exact fare the next day, I ended up going for the counter because the line was full of people pushing in ten dollar notes and expecting change for their $5.20 fare, ignoring the "insufficient change" and "exact fare only" and keep pushing in money again and again. After a good minute, the person gave a snort of disgust and moved to the counter. And the next person would do exactly the same thing, pushing in money expecting change for a good minute before moving away. Rinse and repeat. Over the past fortnight, I've always noticed a short but determined line of people pushing in money, expecting change and getting none while completely ignoring the signs the machine puts up. I don't fault stupid people. Stupid people are stupid (well, duh) and eventually the laws of evolution weeds them out. Common sense, despite its name, is not very common, or at least, not as common as you like or think it would be.

Well enough ranting, what about clinicals? So good, so far. I did spend a day at the Children's Hospital in Westmead to see how different it is from doing adults. It's a lot different and I don't really like it there. I have nothing against children, and there are some pretty outgoing and funny kids over there, but there are also a large number of kids who scream and kick when just entering the x-ray room. I put it down to fear of the unknown, but I'm not 100% sure what's running through those kids' minds. It does not hurt, your parents are there as well holding you. Might be just me. I asked my mom if I kicked and screamed during x-rays or whatnot when I was younger and she said "no I was very quiet". There like this age where all the kids scream though. They seem to be around 2-3 years old. The slightly older ones don't scream even though they might be feeling a little overwhelmed and the slightly younger ones don't have a grasp of what exactly is going on. It very different, but give me little old ladies to x-ray anyday.

Also this week I'm on General X-rays, x-raying outpatients and in patients as well as doing mobile x-rays for those intensive card wards. It's been pretty cool so far, except they introduced a new system for processing x-ray cassettes. Generally speaking, most systems in Westmead are digital or DR. You place a part of the anatomy on the image receptor, a large flat board connected to a computer. The picture is taken and sent straight to the computer screen, where you can see a preview. It is very fast and produces minuscule amounts of radiation. Computed radiography or CR has a cassette with a photosensitive film inside. The picture is taken on the cassette, then it has to be taken to be id on a internal tag using a computer. A scanner reads the image and the picture is outputted on a computer screen. Longer and slightly more radiation. There is a new system for id-ing the cassettes and the other students and I had to spend some time to learn and familiarise ourselves with a new system. But it is much easier to use, definitely more user-friendly.

10AM shift tomorrow, so a few more extra hours of sleep...

Escape from Westmead

Another week of clinical is done. For the past week I've been working Emergency and while there are days where it was tiring, there were also days where it was downright boring. The weekends have never looked so good.

On Thursday I went out for dinner with some friends mainly to discuss our differing clinical experiences. We went to this awesome restaurant called Sahara at Parramatta near the bus stop. The food was great but no pics because I don't do those and I was starving at that point. I had some dish that had thin strips of lamb with bread and these sauces. Along with a couple beers and the meal went down swimmingly.

Also a few hours ago I had to put together this cabinet-slash-drawer thingy for shoes. It took almost two hours because of the shoddy engineering and near non-existent instructions. Well it did have instructions but it was a few small pictures with some pathetic labeling. I guess it did work my reasoning skills quite hard, but it works well now. My mum both that on a whim, because it looked good in the catalogue. I think it is a complete and utter waste of money and space. She doesn't have enough shoes to justify buying a little cabinet to store them, but what can I say?

That incident reminded of a time that I went to Westfields in Parramatta. I went to buy a book and get some gift cards. One of my uni friends was with her sister in Westfields and say me but she didn't say hi because "I looked very determined...like a man on a mission". I guess that the way that most guys go shopping. Generally speaking, of course, guys only go shopping when we need to buy something. We need to get that console game, that new book that just came out and maybe a new shirt because the old one is ripped. Less window shopping, more mission. Since then I've noticed that whenever I go shopping I have a clear definite list of things I need to buy and I go in, buy the items, then go out and home. Women tend to window shop and buys things on impulse more. Just a few observations.

Also bought Halo 3 for my brother. I've pretty much finished all of Mass Effect and a new game for the Xbox 360 (it still lives!) is just what the doctor ordered. And BSS finally managed to sub the remaining episodes of Moyashimon. And I'm uncapped so cue the downloading spree.

Man I'm tired. Clinicals really take a lot of you.

One Thousand Years of Pain

End of the first week of clinical and it has been pretty bludgey so far. That changes next week since I'll be going to Accident and Emergency, which will require me to actually carry out certain x-ray projections.

Last day of fluoroscopy was alright. Nothing to exciting. The only procedure that was interesting/disgusting/shitacular was a double contrast barium enema. Basically the doctor shoves a tube up your back passage and injects barium contrast. He then pumps some air to help drain the contrast out, hopefully leaving a thin film of barium on the surface of your large intestines. Various x-rays are taken, hopefully showing pathology. It's pretty disgusting and luckily it was the doctor having to do the insertion and not us. Now I see my doctors get paid a lot more than us radiographers; they have to do the dirty work.

After that I hung around Work Area 1 doing outpatient x-rays. I did a chest x-ray and was glad to see that my skill had not degraded that much. It wasn't perfect but it was good enough.

Also, I've made a nice little discovery. It's a fish and chips shop that also started doing Asian food. I tried it for lunch with a friend and I give it two thumbs up. I can't transfer photos from my phone since I don't have the cable and I'm not the type to start taking photos of my food. Neither am I a connoisseur, but I was hungry and the food was great. So if you ever visit Westmead Hospital or Westmead Children's Hospital, just go towards the station and stand in front of Oportos near the corner of Darcy and Hawksbury road. Turn go the road and go into Queens Road and you should see the shop Western Seafoods.

Also been playing Advance Wars: Days of Ruins. Not enough for a review, but it's a much darker game then previous AW games and the COs are much more balanced. In AW:Dual Strike the CO powers could instantly changed the tide of battle.

Now to catch up on rest.

My eyes are burned by the fluoro

Finally, something happened that was worthwhile to blog about. My clinical placement at Westmead started yesterday.

There are six guys altogether at Westmead, including me. We're all in the same awkward position; technically, we're second-years, but we really only have first-year knowledge. Plus the assignments that we have to do really screws things up a little bit.

It was the usual show and dance. We rock up, get kicked in the teeth with all the OH&S and emergency regulations and get the standard tour around the department. This being my second time at Westmead, I had a good idea of where all the departments are located. The radiology department is full of right angle turns and intersections, so you best bet is you're lost is to turn randomly and if it's a dead end, go back and take another path. Personally, during my first visit I spent a ridiculous amount of time simply walking to the other departments, using the tea room as my reference point. So I can always find my way to and from the tea room.

I've been working in fluoroscopy since the beginning and will stay there until the end of the week. Fluoroscopy is basically real-time x-ray imaging. Occasionally, patients will swallow some barium contrast to show extra details. Apparently that tastes really bad because a prison inmate was supposed to get x-rays of his throat and he puked on the barium and refused point-blank to drink any more. And he was supposed to swallow it two more times.

Fluoroscopy is pretty good in that, there is only a handful of ops in the morning and there is plenty of time between ops to have a break. Some ops can take well over an hour and the other radiographers there brought books along to pass the time. Unfortunately the time can work against you. Today, there was a patient in for an op on his small bowel. Twist number one: he has MRSA. Look it up if you don't what it is, but it's bad. During the op, we injected contrast into his system. As it made its way through the bowel, we gave him three booster shots of contrast to ensure it would reach the whole bowel. Which leads onto the second twist: he shat himself. He wasn't in the best of shape, so the booster shots actually worked against us in the end. It soaked through all the layers of sheets and reached the foam mattress. Plus he has MRSA. So we had to disinfect everything with copious amounts of hospital-grade disinfectant. This sort of shit doesn't happen often, so it was bad luck for us.

I also go to sit in on an ERCP prcedure. ERCP stands for Endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography, and it combines fluoroscopy and endoscopy to treat problems in the pancreatic duct systems. It's pretty simple actually, you turn on the real-time x-rays when the doctor tells you to, and you take an x-ray when the doctor tells you to. And it has 20 minutes gaps between ops. The bad thing is that the doctors always seem to speak softly, so you have to concentrate like hell on listening to the doctor. I had a go at using the system during an actual op and there is nothing worse when you miss the doctor's words and he has to repeat them. That happened to me several times and each time I felt like a complete dill.

Well, the clinical is only two days in and I have 28 days left. Now off to bed to rest. I can't remember the last time that I had to stand with no place to sit for 7 hours.

The odds against me

Nothing much to report. The holidays are beginning to draw to a close, and with clinical looming ahead, I actually feel glad about it, despite my nervousness. There is a whole bunch of assignments and evaluations that I have to do during clinical and its got me a little overwhelmed. Still, it'll be a interesting challenge.

There is a new little show that I'm having fun with. Since that writers' strike doesn't look to end anytime soon, I've been on the search for new stuff. This little gem is called Never Mind the Buzzcocks. It's basically a British version of Spicks and Specks, a musical quiz with a lot of humour thrown in. It's on Youtube, here's a little snippit.



Pretty fun stuff, like when Myleene Klass briefly talks about her pregnancy diary and the host is making a joke on who people don't really knows whats going, and Bill Bailey just yells out "THE BABY" and plays some scary techno music, "WHERE DOES IT COME FROM?", more music, "MYSTERIES REVEALED!". Definitely some funny stuff.

Playing some Oblivion as well to pass the time. It's a massive world.

I'll post some more stuff when I have some more news.

All the little sparkly things

Happy new year for 2008 everybody! And belatedly, a Merry Christmas. I was capped in the leadup to Christmas, but the new year brings uncapped internet once again.

Because of the capped internet, I spent NYE with a whole bunch of friends in the city to watch the fireworks. Lesley was the organiser and he did a bang up job of getting hold of the hotel room. The room itself was small. It was meant for two people and with around 15 people enjoying the the new year it did get a little squashed. But the views were excellent.

It was basically dinner at Fullhouse then fun and games back at the hotel. There was handheld gaming on, with several PSPs and Nintendo DS games. Mario Kart DS and Tekken 5 were the favourites. There was a poker game that basically went through the night and into the morning. I'm still new to poker and most of what was happening went right past my head, but I did get lucky in beating Olivio and he was forced to drink 8 shots of vodka (or was it tequila?). Not all at once mind.

The fireworks were good and there was plenty of cheers around when midnight struck. I still think the 2000 fireworks were the best. Whenever you were tired you did your best to take a nap with the the sound of poker chips and gaming dancing around your ears. Things got quiet early in the morning and everyone was suffering from the late nights and drinking. Breakfast at Macca's took away the edge though.

It was some good fun on NYE. It makes you realise that in the overall scheme of things one year isn't really that long. Time really flies and it's important that you cherish your friends and family. All the good times over the year add up and now 2008 starts on a very positive note.

Oh, and here's a little pic that Mi Zhou took sometime during the night or day.

I never got any decent sleep, so it was basically one-hour blocks of bad shut-eye, although I think I ended up 4-5 hours of sleep, which is pretty good. The bed was full so I grabbed a bathrobe to use as a makeshift pillow, put my feet up against the wardrobe and grabbed some snooze time. Here I was asleep with the legs propped up at 45 degrees by friction with the wardrobe and the arm resting on the strategically placed drawer. I did get a bad case of the pins and needles and there was some residual pain afterwards although everyone else thought it was pretty funny.

Proof that when you are dead tired, you can fall asleep anywhere.

Tonight, tonight, tonight

Ever since I bought my Xbox 360, I've kept a somewhat wary eye on it. Its reputation for loudness, overheating and failure often weighed on my mind and sometimes I ask myself: Why did I buy an Xbox 360 in the first place? I now have the answer: Mass Effect.

Mass Effect is a sci-fi role playing game from Bioware, who made other excellent RPGs like the Neverwinter Nights and Knights of the Old Republic series. And this game has all the hallmarks of a Bioware game. Excellent plot, interesting characters and amazing visuals. You play Commander Shepard, a human soldier trying to save the galaxy. You can customise Shepard in a myriad ways, from gender, hair, and facial structure. The combat is fun and simple, and there are plenty of quests and things that keep you busy.

I bought Mass Effect for a mere $77 and I've been playing it since Monday, racking up 30-something hours of play. I've been hooked since I started playing and already I'm thinking of playing it again a few times just to try different play styles, dialogue choices and plot options. And the times that I'm not playing Mass Effect, I'm catching up on reading. I introduced my dad to the wonders of buying stuff off the internet and while he is suspicious of eBay, he has really taken to Amazon and has already bought a swag load of books from them. The books on my list right now are:

• Secret Army Secret War: Washington's Tragic Spy Operation in North Vietnam by Sedgwick Tourison

• The Black Book of Communism by Stephane Courtois et al

• A Devil in Paradise by Henry Miller

I've only finished the first, which basically details the shitty US spy operation in North Vietnam. Basically they trained South Vietnamese soldiers to do special ops like in World War II, recruiting freedom fighters and disrupting the North Vietnamese Army by blowing up bridges and dams and etc. Pretty much all the ops were massive failures. There was no clear leadership nor goals and later when clear goals were detailed it was way too ambitious. All the parachute drops into North Vietnam basically failed. The teams were drop way off course and in most cases were captured by North Vietnamese forces within days. The VC had basically penetrated the operations centers in the South and the US were too arrogant to assume that they had been compromised. It just shows that while the US is the world's foremost superpower, it has and can be defeated in the battlefield. That's what Vietnam was. A defeat. And that's not mentioning the conspiracy theories on how the US cut deals with China to abandon Vietnam. It's an interesting but depressing read.

The two other books I haven't read yet, but I'll probably start with A Devil in Paradise, seeing that the Black Book of Communism is over 800 pages on detailing the failures and atrocities of communist regimes.

Well I guess it's back to some more Mass Effect.

Wicked Game

Bought the Xbox 360 a few days ago and I've been playing a lot ever since. Got it at GAME for $499 plus 2 games (Viva Pinata and Forza 2) and I was damn lucky since I got the very last unit left. I'm hoping that's a good sign.

It is a lot bigger than I thought. I have a slim PlayStation 2 and compared to the Xbox 360, it's tiny. The first thing I did was to plug it in, turn it on and stare at it for 15 minutes. I was half convinced that the moment I put in a game, it would play fine then explode in a shower of red flames and leaving a small mushroom cloud behind. It's fairly quiet and it doesn't get that hot. The Xbox 360 has a notorious reputation for being loud, overheating and dying just after the warranty expires. But I think I got the new Falcon revision with a smaller CPU, so that's probably why it isn't so loud and hot.

It ended up costing quite a bit, the console pack itself was $499 plus wireless controller with charge kit, extended 2 year warranty, plus an extra game NBA 2k8. I picked up a preowned copy of Gears of War for $44 yesterday. Gears of War is proving to be great fun with co-op. My brother and I have probably finished half the game already. It's a bit of challenge playing a shooter on a console, since it's not at accurate or easy as a PC. I bought Gears of War from GAME, but I'll probably remove the "preowned" stickers and trade it in for something else, Assassin's Creed maybe? Mass Effect comes in on Monday, so I'm hurrying to finish Gears of War soon.

I also dropped into Borders at Parramatta Westfields just to see if any new books caught my eye. And one did. The Twilight Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko, part of a tetralogy of books. It's the third book and seems to be freshly translated from Russian into English. I've grown to love the series. Think Harry Potter, Russian style, set in a post-communist Russia with more adult and philosophical musings. If you enjoy fantasy, you should pick this up quicksmart and the earlier books, The Night Watch and The Day Watch.


Also picked up a DVD of We Are The Strange. $40 bucks plus delivery from the US. It's a very strange film and it's definitely not for everyone. The plot is about two outcasts, a doll called eMMM and his female companion called Blue. After meeting each other, they travel to a sinister city in search of ice cream. However, bizarre monsters roam this city all apparently controlled by the evil ruler called Him. Fortunately, they encounter a hero called Rain, who starts destroying all the monsters around them. The rather vague plot does the job, but the entire movie is held together by it's amazing and alarming strange visuals.


The director, calling himself M dot Strange, combines stop-motion animation, 8-bit artwork, computer imagery and sheer strangeness, creating the visual weirdness that he dubs str8nime. Str8nime is basically strangeness + 8 bit artwork + anime. The film itself is more of an emotional ride. It's more of "what do you feel right now?" rather than "wtf is going on?". And if you subscribe to the former, then the film is much more enjoyable. Seriously, this film looks as if Pixar made while high on drugs and it's mind boggling that M dot Strange basically made the entire film himself over a period of three years. I guess the film reminds me of 300. That film had a thin plot to string together the massive fight scenes and was a primarily a visual experience. We Are The Strange is no different. Check out the homepage and Youtube channel before deciding to commit to this.



That's it for now. The holidays is a bit more manageable and the horrors of clinical practice is still weeks and weeks away. That is going to be hard.

On Occasion

I've basically decided to bite the bullet and buy an Xbox 360. Despite my fun experiences with the Nintendo Wii and the now less expensive PlayStation 3, the games I really want to play are on the Xbox.

Knowing Jimmy, he'll probably drop a comment noting that I am mistaken in my choice, the Xbox 360 is shit, and with a month I will curled in a fetal position, sobbing, because I got screwed over. And on the balance of probability, he'll probably be right. But I'm taking that risk. There's a whole bunch of games that I want to play that are only on the Xbox 360 and not on any other platform. Mass Effect is a prime example.

I'm going to go buy it at GAME (they took over GameWizards) since they have the Pro bundle with 2 games at only $499. And I'll probably throw in an extra controller, maybe an extra basketball game for my bro and some extra warranty stuff. That'll probably add another $150 at least.

I already have my eye on Mass Effect. Too bad both EB and GAME sell it at $100. I've found a site that sells it at $77 with free shipping. Oh, the wonders of the internet. Unfortunately, my coffers will be sorely depleted. I might get some money for Christmas or maybe flog the unwanted presents over Ebay. And maybe get a job. No wait. Can't really do that. My second year of uni has 18 weeks of clinical Mon-to-Fri and unless it's weekend work I can't do it. If it were weekend work, I'd be so tired.

Now, once I have an Xbox 360 within the next few days, I should probably try to convince my dad that a new HD tv would be good. Space will be an issue, so I don't think I might be able to get those big plasmas. Bah, I'll cross that bridge later.

And when will this writer's strike end? House ended weeks ago and I need my fix. At least Doctor Who will be unaffected.

Eyes are at the Billion

I've settled somewhat into a comfortable routine of waking up, checking my downloads, then spending my time catching up on reading. It's been a long time since I read for pleasure, but I've hit up some goood books, so this post will be more like a review.

First book that I'm currently reading is The Age of Turbulence by Alan Greenspan, who is the former Chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve for over 30 years. Look him on Wiki and you'll know this guy is the real deal. His memoirs deal mainly with his experiences growing up and working in the world of economics, especially his time at the Federal Reserve. He goes on to examine the economic policy of several American presidents, and he is quite critical of George W. Bush's economic policy. Besides that it's also a massive discussion on how capitalism is the only market economy that works and how to have a successful capitalist market you need a democratic government. Those people doing economics would find it easy reading, but since I've never did anything economically related in my life, there were a few parts that had me puzzling over the technical terms.

But it's very educational and enlightening. My dad always said that if you read a book and you learn just one new thing from it, then it's totally worth the price of the book, regardless of the actual price. I subscribe to that view. For example, western Europe's economy is going to well with slow growth and high employment. Greenspan argues that there is too much labour protection that it hampers the economy. It's become too hard and expensive to fire employees that employers don't want to hire more people even if they need to, because when the economy slumps then they have to fire people which ends up costing a lot. Now I can see some of the reasoning behind Howard's whole WorkChoices thingo, but I reckon that some kind of labour protection should be in place, especially against unfair dismissals and the like. Howard probably wanted to go a little too far.

Next up is The Six Sacred Stones by Matthew Reilly, the sequel to The Seven Ancient Wonders. It's a very action packed novel that reads exactly like a Hollywood action film. 30 seconds of exposition then non-stop action and explosions. There is some character development but it's still minimal at best and you need to read the first book to get the full effect. It has a massive cliffhanger ending which pissed me off to no end, but it does it's job of making me want more. Definitely pick it up, it's different from how other authors right and because to that it's fun and exciting.

I'll probably buy more books eventually. The Dune series attracts my interest, combining science fiction, with environmental, religious and political messages with a hint of military action. Frank Herbert wrote six books, and had planned to write more before he died. His son, Brain Herbet and sci-fi author Kevin J. Anderson are writing the continuation. They did write the prequel series to Dune, which was alright, but it wasn't as good as Frank Herbert. Still I'd like to complete my Dune collection one day.

And finally some anime stuff. To be brutally honest, I don't watch that much anime. I read manga much more now, since it's always ahead of the anime and doesn't have those massive fillers. I used to watch Naruto and Bleach, but the fillers pissed me off. Eyeshield 21 is a manga I also read, since the anime, in my opinion, is crap. The last anime I watched was The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. It was different, quirky and fun. A second series is coming out next year supposedly. However, there is any anime that caught my attention quite by accident. It's called Moyashimon : Tales of Agriculture. It's about a boy who goes to an agricultural university, with the unique ability to see, hold and communicate with microbes. It's different and its taken me by surprise. With my minor Chemistry background, it is quite interesting, the whole microbe thing. Also at the end of every episode, they showcase a new microbe, its name, where its found. The draw the microbes in a very cutesy way. I'm sure plushy toys are just around the corner. You can find it here, and personally, I watch the BSS subs. Watch it. I highly recommend it.

That's all really. Oh and if anyone is having a party, BBQ, outing or anything, just drop me a line and I might rock up. Holidays is starting to get a bit boring, and my clinical placement doesn't start until January 29th.