Dat Birthday

Had a birthday party last night- not being a teenager isn't so bad after all. I hope it means I leave all my teenage angst and melancholy behind, and start doing the "real" stuff in life. I mean, who doesn't want to work from 9-6 every day so they can lose 40% of their income as tax, and then manage the rest around rent, bills and every other fucking thing that costs money in life. Yeah I'd totally love to work all day all night and retire when I'm 75 when I'm too old to spend my meagre savings on anything substantial. Goddamn.

I think I already mentioned when I turned 18 that it just feels like another one of those days, and you don't magically grow older or become mature. Disappointing, yeah, but growing up kind of sucks anyway. When you gain the ability to think and ponder a variety of subjects, you also open up your mind to be plagued by everything you learn.

Let's talk about happier things- my party. I actually picked a terrible date- the weather was absolute balls, it was about 2 degrees outside, but luckily the rain had subsided by the time we were supposed to gather. I made a booking at a restaurant a few days ago, and everything seemed to be going smoothly, until last night. I arrived at the restaurant 20 minutes early, trying to be ahead of my guests, and then it turned out to be closed. Lights off and everything- closed. I stare at the door awkwardly, confirming with the opening times on the door that yes, it was meant to be open, but no, it in fact wasn't open. I quick browse around surrounding shops and I noticed some broken glass and smashed windows- so I assume the shops around got broken into- or something. But the restaurant itself seemed fine and was just- closed. I kind of internally freaked out with the most stoic expression I could muster- then I pretty much walk into an adjacent restaurant and ask if they have enough room for 10+ people. Luckily they did, because of the shit-house weather, but that was probably damage control at its finest. Naturally my friends made some complaints, but that's okay because they're whiney as hell anyway.

Afterwards we went to karaoke for about 3 hours. While it may seem like an excessively long time- but it totally doesn't feel that way when you have 10+ people in the room trying yell over each other. For once in my life I decided to be more considerate of my white friends, and didn't line up 20 Jay Chou songs in a row. I don't know about others- but I had quite a bit of fun.

So yeah, even if birthdays don't really mean that much any more- getting together with friends is the best feeling in the world.

Teeth

I went to the dentist yesterday- because my parents were all "we like this ONE particular dentist better and we trust him". I guess that's fine and all, and when I went to see the guy I didn't have any particular complaints. He seemed like a decent guy, he paid me out a little for knowing shit all for anatomy when he found out I was a med student- I guess that's fine, it's my fault for being retarded, but God I hate studying anatomy. 

Anyway dentist dude looked at my teeth, agreed that I needed wisdom teeth extraction but also found various other problems, so he wanted a second opinion from the orthodontist. My parents didn't like the orthodontist as much, probably because he didn't speak Chinese like my dentist did. Not that it made any difference, because as it turns out my parents still had zero idea what was going to happen, even though the dentist explained to them, in Chinese, that I needed surgery for my wisdom teeth. Fun times.

So the surgery is going to be after my birthday, which means my biggest concern of looking totally unattractive on the day of my birthday is gone. Other than that though, surgery is still going to be super-painful afterwards, with the swelling and whatnot. The orthodontist also told me I needed braces, which makes sense for my crooked teeth- apparently I have a "traumatic deep bite, severity 100%". I don't need to understand dental lingo to get that my teeth is fucked. Then my orthodontist made the entirely inappropriate joke, "if only your mouth was bigger... hrm, that could sound inappropriate out of context; I won't go there". Like, what a fucking troll, my mom was in the room! Good thing she didn't get the undertone, and thought my orthodontist was just making a PG-rated joke.

Anyway the quote for braces I got was like, equivalent to how much I spend on school in a year- which just means it's entirely expensive and very not-cool. I really want to start making money soon- I'm spending so much of it, and there's so much stuff I just need/ want to buy. It's one thing to have enough money for all the leisure items you want- yeah I can buy books, games, cool t-shirts and clothes- but when it comes to the big stuff, like a house or a car or orthodontic treatment, I realize how poor I am. 

God why are my teeth giving me so much pain.

Another Diet

I can't remember how many times I've tried to lose weight. Despite people telling me I'm not fat (and I kind of agree, in a way), I still want to be skinnier. Mmm, I'm not sure you can call it a self-esteem issue, but it seems these days when you say you want to lose weight people's alarm bells ring and immediately think you're depressed, or you have a terrible body image, and you're on your way to developing anorexia. That's not really the case. I want to lose weight for the same reason I wanted to buy new clothes or get a new hair cut- I want to look better (to myself) and feel better.

Anyway the running thing totally failed this morning when it rained- I mean, I don't mind the temperature being 7 degrees Celsius, but when it rains on top of that it's a bit too much to bear. Never mind that, you're meant to lose weight by changing your diet, right? My biggest problem is the fact that I feel chronically hungry. I just feel like I can eat and eat and eat and then break for 2 hours and come back hungry. It's terrible.

So like, this is probably the 20th time I've decided I'm going to go on a diet? I'm not very optimistic on how long this one will last, considering my birthday is coming up in a few days, and that'll give me the biggest excuse to binge eat. I'm really looking forward to that, actually. I always feel like I have 0 friends until my birthday comes around, and then when I work out the invite list there's actually quite a few people who I'd like to see.

Holidays are the best :)

It's Cold Out Here

I've finished tests! *cue weak applause*

Anyway I've travelled south since then, and my God it's cold down here. I've gotten used to the 20 degree weather, and wearing a t-shirt all day. Down here it's like... below 0. My parents are still trying to be economical about their electricity usage, insisting that the heater doesn't need to be on. I basically just sat in the Sun and curled into a ball. God save me if it rains and there's no sun light.

So I tried exercising today- the first of many days. I reckon I ran about 400m of the 1km I was meant to run, because I was so goddamn unfit. I was going turtle-paced and then I became breathless in like 20 seconds. I slowed to a walk half way, and decided I should run again because it was too embarrassing. That was a terrible idea, because then my chest started to ache and I couldn't breathe at all. I'm trying to tell myself that I probably have "med student syndrome" (where you diagnose yourself with whatever disease you're studying)- but I'd be really worried if it turned out I had stable angina. I'm waaaay too young to have heart problems, goddamn.

Anyway it's also the first time I've tried to run in like, 3 years, so I'm going to say it's because I'm terribly unfit. I could just like... not-eat or eat better, but I kind of like my food. I probably should've signed up for the sports club properly, instead of only signing up to buy the uniform because I want to look good.

Oh well, at least I'm on holidays. I shouldn't be thinking about this stuff. I have sooo many games to play, and sooo many books to read. I also have a bunch of unfinished artworks in my portfolio. I should just enjoy my break.

YOU ARE NOT IN A COMA

About my last "you're in a coma" post. I'm terribly sorry. I came across it on Tumblr and I thought it was fucking hilarious. Then I read that people actually got really distressed about it, and I now I feel kind of bad. If you have paranoia it's probably not going to help... but yeah it's all fake and plz don't kill yourself to try and wake up from limbo or w/e.

If you wanna get really philosophical and be like "BUT HOW DO I EVEN KNOW I EXIST, WHAT IF EVERYTHING IS JUST A LIE", refer to that philosopher (I think it was Descartes?) who was all "I think, therefore I am".

You can also try pinching yourself. Or tracing the outline of your hand. Just don't die in an attempt to "wake up". I mean, you probably got that from watching Inception, right? Who's to say Inception is right? There's no evidence to suggest that you're currently in a coma. Other than that troll post which I got off Tumblr. I mean, I still think it's pretty funny, but considering my blog settings are public, technically anyone will be able to see it, and someone in that audience could have paranoia, and for that I'm sorry.

Whoever wrote that post though... that was some clever and witty shit.

I Don't Know

There's roughly one more day until test week begins. I feel terrible. It will be over soon, I know, but I feel kind of scared at the moment. There's a lot of stuff I've gone over and zero guarantee that I'll remember. My laptop isn't exactly cooperative either, it's kind of overheating and really slow at loading/opening files. I get so frustrated I kind of want to smash it on the ground.

I still haven't gotten to that point yet where I'm like "I don't care if I pass or fail". Like, of course I'll care if I pass or fail. I could not care for about the span of a day, and then when the results are about to be released my stress levels will take a hike. I get so nervous, even though the tests are meant to be "easy". It's not that easy.

I really don't think I have natural talent or any incline for the subject of medicine. It's like... interesting, sometimes, but everything takes so much effort for me to learn and remember. Back in high school there were so many subjects I could pick up with ease, and they would just all automatically make sense and manage to stay in my head. With med it's kind of like... if I stare at something for long enough I'll have a vague recollection of it, but I won't be able to conjure the information at a useful time (like during an exam).

Well, stress isn't going to do much for me, and at this point I don't think my revision means much any more. Hopefully the tests don't thwart my expectations, otherwise I'm going to have some very disappointing scores.

Wish me luck. x

Heart. Romance. Jks.

Whenever I think about heartache or heartbreak it's always really romantic; like there's this backdrop with roses and handsome men and a proposal by candlelight. Fancy, fantasy, dreamy stuff. But now I look at the word heartache I think of angina pectoris which involves your heart slowly dying due to being deprived of blood. I can't stop thinking about revision but I haven't revised very much- and even after I've looked at something I tend to forget it. Overall there is nothing wrong with my comprehension- I remember everything that was explained, but ask me to recall and I'll show you just how much I've forgotten.

Studying the anatomy of the heart, I've realized what a grotesque thing it actually is. If you did any biology in high school you'll remember that the heart is essentially a blood pump- but it's like a continuous pipe twisted and wound around itself to form a massive...blomp (that's not even a word) and there really is nothing more to it. Sure you can look into how it was formed, what allows it to pump, how it can beat faster or slower- but really, it's just a fucking pump that does 2 things. Contract----Relax.... Contract----Relax... How do you keep yourself going when you stare at a gif of this for 10min trying to correlate it with an ECG?

So what I'm saying is: the heart is kind of grotesque and I feel like I have to vomit right now. That probably has nothing to do with revision. I feel like I ate too many raspberry bullets today. To be fair it was the only thing making me happy after 2 hours of staring at notes about "plaque formation".

Hey hey, wanna hear another one of my rants about why alcohol is bad for you? No? Too fucking bad. Anyway, alcohol was like the only thing under the cause for "dilated cardiomyopathy". So like one of the chambers of your heart becomes larger- so now there's more blood in it, but the walls are actually weaker so they don't pump any blood out. Then you just have blood stuck in your heart and not enough blood everywhere else, and you'll have heart failure sooner or later. Doesn't that sound wonderful.

In conclusion: all romantic notions I had of the heart have been destroyed- I am now a new person seeing the world in a new perspective. This complete paradigm shift has caused me to become a better person and I'm on my way to ending world poverty.

Jks.

I Love Korean Food

My revision has been largely non-productive; I look at the course content and I feel as if I've learnt everything I need to, then I try taking the practice exam and fall flat on my face. I don't know why tests have become so difficult all of a sudden- I was never worried or stressed about exams before. Sometimes I feel like I don't experience anxiety at all- but some part inside of me is screaming that there is so much I do not know and I really have a long way to go. 

Anyway being in Sydney has been a real treat for my tast buds- I basically refuse to eat "normal" food that I could otherwise easily get my hands on. On the day I got here I ate at a Korean restaurant for dinner, and subsequently fell in love with kimchi. Maybe it's because I'd never had Korean food before, but even the side dishes taste good. There's just this... flavour in Korean food which I can't really describe. I think it's soybean sauce? It's as staple in Korean food as MSG is in Chinese food. Day two I essentially just slept a lot and woke late, then we had takeaway delivered, which was great. The food was like, meat softened with starch and flavoured with your usual MSG + salt combo, which tasted delicious regardless. You'd be surprised by how few unhealthy meals I can usually get my hands on.

Then last night I had Korean again and tried bulgogi. I have no idea what that word means and it reminds me of a genre of Japanese porn, but we won't go there. As far as i could tell bulgogi was mostly deliciously succulent beef and from that point on I just wanted to eat Korean food all day every day. If I ever become rich enough to eat out every single night, I'm going to love my life. 

Though in reality if I get that rich, I'll probably become one of those sleep-deprived work-a-holics who ask their colleagues to buy them meals in styrofoam boxes and finish eating in 5min. I guess at that point I would no longer care what I was eating, as long as it was food.

Pushing aside thoughts of good food, tomorrow is going to be another day, and hopefully I will be more motivated and actually study or something. It's quite disappointing that the work and effort I put into things doesn't match my ambitious drive, and I just keep lowering my standards every single time.

STUVAC ver III

So this is like, the 3rd STUVAC I've ever had and this could potentially be the best I've ever had. I'm only saying this because I get to spend this one in Sydney- away from my parents but not quite in the shit-hole I signed up for when I got into med school. Like, if the city I primarily resided in got some Asian grocery stores and entertainment centres, I wouldn't complain, but since it has nothing to offer other than the beach (and it's winter now so beach is a pretty bad idea) I've bailed out.

I'm currently crashing with my room mate's family; and they have excellent internet. Naturally the first thing I've done is patch up LoL (I gotta de-stress before revision, ya know) and I'm going to test out, once and for all, whether it's because if my laptop is overheating or whether it's because I just had really shitty internet before. It'll probably be because my laptop is overheating, and I'm gonna need to get it fixed after the exams... (what a gigantic pain).

While LoL is patching I"m semi-revising, and I realise I've forgotten everything we've done since lecture 1, week 1. Reading over it again, it's not that hard to understand, and some of the information is coming back to me, but overall it's still like, the most boring shit ever. I kind of just want to sit back and enjoy everything as it is, but I think if I don't start revising soon I'm gonna fail the exams...

Well well, there goes. Study yea yea yea