Tuesday, May 29, 2007

I’m not really sure if anyone will be reading my blog anymore because I haven’t been very good at writing in it lately. Things are starting to get very busy because we have our exams coming up in less than a month… and there is A LOT to learn. The exams don’t really count for much, but we are going to have to learn the stuff eventually so most people are taking the whole thing pretty seriously.

Last weekend was a fun weekend for me, but kind of unproductive school-wise! I spent most of my Saturday trying to find a refill printer cartridge for my laser printer… only to find out that there were no stores around who had any left- and ALSO that buying a new cartridge (if they even did have one) would be the same price as buying a brand new printer. So I’m not really sure what to do about all that!?!?! I’m hoping I’ll be able to find a cartridge on Ebay or something. Any suggestions?

My friend, Milad (from East York Swim Club- about 12 years ago), also came to visit on Saturday! He is going to Teacher’s College in Wollongong for the year, so decided to make the trip up to Sydney to say hi. (Wollongong is about 1.5 hours south of Sydney.) He came to meet Brooke, Janice and me in our PBL study rooms on Saturday afternoon and was a good patient for us to practice taking blood pressures on. In the evening, we went out to dinner (with about 12 of the Canadian med students) for Japanese food. It was really yummy and I even liked the RAW beef that someone let me try! After dinner we went to the Marly Bar (the place around the corner from my apartment) and then headed down to Circular Quay, the Opera House and the Rocks for some late-night pancakes.

We figured that Milad had to see the Opera House at night and get some pancakes from the 24-hour restaurant, “Pancakes on the Rocks” while he was here. We had to wait over 20 minutes to get a table even though it was past 2 am!!
This past Monday at the hospital was one of my favourite days so far! We got to spend the whole morning learning how to cast and splint. The casting was really fun and I took lots of pictures. Some of the people in my group kept their casts on all day so they could go home and scare their boyfriends and roommates! He he he.

My first cast... DONE! I even got to use the saw to cut it off! Harry with 2 casts on... 2 Casts at once! In the afternoon we went through some more musculoskeletal exams and then had a lecture on radiology. Reading x-rays is really quite hard (and pretty boring). I don’t think I’m going to be a radiologist. (Sorry Brent- I know you had your heart set on that one ;) he he he).

I’ve also finally got into a swimming routine again- which is really nice. I couldn’t get anyone to swim with me regularly here, so I’ve just been going alone. I guess it is better than not going at all… but I was really expecting Australia to be full of swimmers!

Our case of the week is pretty interesting- Osteoarthritis of the knee AND squamous cell carcinoma. Skin cancer in Australia is VERY common, so I think we are going to have a lot of cases involving it! (Oh and since summer is coming around at home, you should all make sure to get yourselves some BROAD SPECTRUM sunscreen... esp. Jules, George and Brent since you are going to be at the beach so much!)

I don’t have much else exciting to tell you other than I am coming home in 25 days!!! It looks like my few weeks home are going to be VERY busy… but I’m just SO excited anyway! Ps. Do you know what they call drunk driving here?? They call it “drink driving”!! How weird is that???! They are so strange sometimes.