The end of the summer/winter has gone by really fast. Aunt Chris was in Sydney in early August and we managed to meet up for a really nice breakfast in Newtown one morning. Brent and Jules kept busy with their surf lifesaving competitions in Toronto which happened to be held at the Woodbine beaches this year. They both competed at the Provincials and Nationals and did really well!
I spent a lot of time (when I first got back from Canada) working on our wedding website with Brent- and I think it turned out pretty well. :) Brent has also been busy making the invitations and organizing the flowers and, in his spare time, he’s taking a course at Ryerson on the Canadian Healthcare System (to help him get back into school mode before he starts his masters in Australia next July).
Also, I’m sure most of you heard that Jamie is back in school now too! So instead of calling him at his office to say hello- I’m able to chat with him on msn while he is in class! :)
I’ve been keeping busy for the last month by going to see a lot of great speakers that have come to talk at the University. A few weeks ago I went to see Glenn Singleman speak at the Wilderness Medicine Society at the school. He is a University of Sydney Medicine alumnus, a doctor at the Sydney Adventist Hospital ED, a BASE jumper, and adventurer. He is also the world record holder for BASE jumping and BASE jumping in a wing suit (jumped off a 6672 metre Himalayan mountain in 2006). He’s also been on expeditions to Antartica, jumped of Mount Minto and Mount Meru and been a part of James Cameron’s deep sea Titanic expeditions. It was a really neat presentation, but can’t say that I’m any more inclined to get into BASE jumping after hearing him talk. A wing suit on the other hand… http://www.baseclimb.com/
Another great speaker who visited the school last week was Prof Ian Frazer, who is a scientist and clinician and is one of the main people responsible for developing the HPV vaccinations that are currently being introduced worldwide. He gave us a really interesting talk on “How to avoid cancer” and talked a lot about the HPV research he has done. I really think he was one of the best speakers I’ve ever seen.
It was also interesting to be in Australia during the Olympics this year. There seemed to be a lot of hype about it all (maybe because Australia does so much better or because it was winter here, so no one had anything better to do). I didn’t get to see too much of it since I don’t have a TV, but I did scope out some quiet waiting rooms in the hospital where I was able to spend some spare time watching swimming! :)
Other than that, not much else is new. I’ve been spending a lot of my time working on my honours project and helping run the North American Medical Students Association of which I am now a part of the executive. My study group (with my Canadian girls- Janice, Brooke, Heather and Amy) is also going really well and Brooke has been sharing all her U of T secrets with us … he he. We’ve recently made a lot of our study sessions into ‘girls nights’ which have been a nice break from studying and a good excuse to make some nice dinners!
Speaking of nice dinners, my friend Jad (who I worked with at the beach) recently moved to Sydney to be with his Australian girlfriend. Coincidently, they ended up moving into a place about 20 minutes (walk) away from me and had me over for an amazing dinner last week (fresh salmon from the fish market!).This past Friday (which was probably my last ‘night out’ for a while), a few of my friends and I went to see the Whitlams concert downtown at the State Theatre. They are the band that Brent and I went to see at the Opera House while he was in Sydney last September. I just love them!! And as always, they put on a great show. That is one thing I will definitely miss when I move back to Canada.
Although, I think I might also miss the weather. Our 3-month ‘winter’ is pretty much over already and we are back to beautiful, sunny, mid-20 days already (actually 31 tomorrow!). I was back in the pool swimming outside today—something I’ll never get sick of!
Well I better get back to my studying. We are learning about HRT, BPH, STIs and IVF these days. It’s pretty interesting since they are all very common issues. A LOT of our professors have been very passionate about their topics and several of them have told the women in the class (since most of us are now past the ‘ideal’ child bearing age of 24), on numerous occasions now, that we “shouldn’t be attending the lectures and instead we should be out getting pregnant”! Easy for them to say. We also learned some other interesting stats: apparently studies are now showing that babies of fathers who smoke are up to 10 times more likely to develop brain tumors in their lifetime. Eeek. Also, they say that couples who have twins are 5 times more likely to get divorced than the average couple. A bit of a sad stat- but I still think I’m super lucky to have my twin!Miss you guys. xoxo
