What happened next...

Fashioning

2012-02-17T00:04:00.004+11:00

I just discovered today more than a few girls from uni have fashion blogs. I haven't been able to ignore the great style of any of these girls (these women know how to colour block), and then I look on their sites and there's pages after pages of them at their sartorial best. Apparently they can sew too. And do fancy things with glitter and nail polish.

And do you know what?

Not once do they stare in their navels and wonder about the meaning of life, love, everything. Not once. No self-pity. No 'oh! the sky is falling in!'

I'm put to shame.

So the only thing to do was go shopping. Have I already mentioned I'm a terrible shopper? I'm so reluctant to part with my precious dollars I over think things until nothing is quite good enough.

Well, I lay-by-ed and in the next 4-6 weeks I'll be the proud owner of a yellow cardigan, brown skirt and blue t-shirt. This will also be my first retail clothing purchase in >6 months (except when my mum bought me shoes a month ago - so grown-up). I think I need to do this more often.

Anyway, I'm motivated to look again at my wardrobe. Think about what I'm wearing. Maybe I'm not all 21 year old loveliness like the girls at uni, nor have their disposable incomes, but I'm not ready to retire just yet. Time to pull up my socks.

How to: Relax

2012-02-11T18:31:00.001+11:00

Reading on the balcony of our guesthouse in Ella, Sri Lanka.

Bad timing

2012-02-03T19:17:00.006+11:00

If you ever wondered how I came to be studying medicine, the answer is: they let in anyone these days. Even me. And by anyone, I mean everyone - including me. And if you think I'm exaggerating, you only need to look at the large increases in medical school student numbers over the last ten years to know I (kinda) speak the truth.

This situation amounts to many things - but what I want to know is: what does this mean for me. When I graduate, there will be more than enough junior doctors than the hospital system needs or can handle. I might enjoy more liveable rosters, but lose out on learning experiences and breadth of clinical exposure. Competition for training positions and anything else worth fighting for will be fierce.

And all that fills me with dread before I've even got there. It's bad timing.

I'll turn 33 in my intern year. No one would call that old, except for maybe my 18 year old self and her ilk. But I'm not old, right? And I won't be at 33. Except I am and I will be. Without even comparing myself to my classmates who turned 21 last year, it's the wrong age to be. Maybe not old per se, but it's still bad timing.

Because when we're talking about age, I'm not comparing myself to the 94 year old still walking laps of her neighborhood with her arthritic pomeranian, I'm thinking about my biology.

Do I want children? Maybe. Yes. Perhaps. I don't know. It sort of seems like I should at least give it a go*. I'm not sure, but it's an option I'm keeping open and sort of devising complex contingencies for. But if I'm in anyway ambivalent about motherhood I think it's partly because I don't want to hope for something I don't even know is possible. Even the idea of writing about that small sliver of hope or possibility seems dangerous.

Me? Motherhood? Family? Happily ever after? Or chaotic-compromise-henceforth or whatever family life is really like?

It's life I can't imagine myself in. To get even half the way to being there, there's a whole bunch of things I'm hoping to go right for me. That the man I love, I'll love just as much in a few years time; that he'll love me; that we'll be committed to one another; that we'll be in good health; that physically everything is working as it should do; that the stars will align; and...

Well, that all seems too much to ask.

And I know the love and significance of children and family and all that jazz might outweigh questions about career in the long run. Maybe you want to point some bigger picture out to me?I But I can't see it. I don't know that juggling babies and a career would be worth it. Right now, babies and career and medicine are hopelessly incompatible. Moreso when I consider that I'm entering a medical workforce in a buyers market, where medical graduates and junior doctors are desperately selling their shaky experience to an indifferent system.

Thirty-three is not old, but it's only leaving me a small window of time. I can't have a child before I finish internship (I've seen that happen to a woman, and they sent her back to complete 6th year before she could return to work), so I'm at least a 34 year old first time mother. And that's not even if 'all went to plan', because this isn't my plan. My plan would be that I'd be considering these issues five years ago at least. That I would have time to give to both - my job, my family. That I wouldn't be almost 31 with nothing tangible to my 13 years of adulthood, still feeling uncertain about the path ahead.

But even if all this happens- especially the bit where Kiko and I love one another as much -if not more- than we do now- what does it mean for everything else? Babies don't fit well with shift work and long hours and exam stress. They don't fit well with career stress and frustration. With fatigue, boredom, isolation. With the times when your partner becomes a stranger, a housemate at best. And when you lose all sight of the point of it all.

How does it work? Because I suspect it doesn't. It doesn't work. In a time of over-supply, I suggest my age, sex, and relationship status doesn't work in my favour. So much so, I'm already conscious of my age, my grey hair, the wrinkles and lines I see the first signs of appearing. I shouldn't feel old, because I'm not - but then I also am. I'm nine years older than my classmates, and maybe that's not much in the grand scheme of things - but it is when you feel time running out, when your reproductive years are finite and the choices you have feel like they're shrinking by the year.

So what do I? I don't know. You push forward. Cross those bridges when you come to them. I don't know. I wish there were a way I could prepare myself, influence things well beyond my control. I want to be 'good' at uni. I try not to take my relationship with Kiko for granted. I remind myself there's a big world beyond medicine.

*Dear potential future offspring, if you're reading this - I'm sure I gave birth to you with the utmost confidence and commitment to the cause, and that I love you endlessly. Hopefully you're in a position where that doesn't even need clarifying, but just so you know...

Holiday hangover

2012-01-28T00:59:00.006+11:00

I'm in a funk. Not just because I'm not on holidays somewhere far away, or even on holidays in my home town; it might also be because my boyfriend's not on holidays either. Something I discovered between my passport going missing, getting lost in the giant shopping mall of Singapore, and spilling my guts - almost literally - in Delhi: that damn, I really love spending time with this man. Actually, I love him. To bits.

Of course, I knew that already and I say it all the time - as in "love you, have a good day!" or "love you, gotta run - bye!", even "love you, thanks!" (...for cooking dinner/ picking me up/ doing something lovely). But I must admit there's some disconnect between those few words and full conscious awareness of what they mean. Not that I've ever stopped loving him since I started, it's just good to be reminded that you do. A moment to stop taking things for granted - without having to ever put your life, dignity or future at risk.

Now we're both back to the grind, I'm taking note of the way everyday life gets in the way of the good stuff. And I'm not happy about it.

The first week Kiko was back in the office was probably the worst from him. He said he'd completely lost his stress tolerance. Six weeks beforehand he wouldn't have noticed the pressures he was under, but after so long free of that burden he was un-prepared to take it all on again.

I felt stressed finding him so stressed. When you're in the thick of it, you don't notice the way these things shape you, but even the look on his face, his posture, the tone in his voice - it all changed in a few short days. He looked worried, restless, weighed down by an invisible something. He wasn't available to me anymore. The easiness of holidays was gone too easily, too soon.

And it's happening to me too. One week back on the wards, and my mind is already distracted by things I could and should be doing. I'm planning my time, portioning my life into little bits of things that need doing. There's not the time for deep and meaningfuls or strange flights of ideas. We've shifted gear. We're purposeful, practical, efficient.

I feel the pang of anxiety. On holiday, I realised something so precious. I realised it and got to bask in its warmth for six whole weeks. And now everyday life is forcing me to loosen my grip. My instinct is to squeeze tighter. Hold on. Don't let go.

But it's hard to re-create that precious closeness in the midst of the working week. You get home long after you left. You're tired and your mind is full of things that filled the day, what's waiting for you tomorrow. And dinner needs to be cooked, and the house is looking a bit shabby, and stuff needs to be done. But you take a moment and ask 'how was your day? What did you do?' But you already know that the answer is pretty much 'Okay' and 'Stuff... meetings, a project I'm working on' - nothing that means anything, because the person you're asking, their mind is working just like yours. It needs time to unwind. The questions you ask don't deserve the answers you want.

So that's the funk I'm in. I miss my boyfriend. Who I live with. And see everyday. Oh, and I wish I was on holiday. Forever. With him.

Is that too much to ask?

Booting

2012-01-26T13:48:00.003+11:00

I want boots, but I can't have them. I could have them, but I can't wear them; these giant calves of mine get in the way.

So I thought I'd ask DrGoogle: what can I do about these ginormous calves of mine? And the advice I found (from numerous sources) included the following:

- Don't do squats;
- Don't do calf-raises;
- Don't run up hills;
- Don't jump;
- Don't skip;
- Don't walk up stairs;
- Don't walk down stairs;
- Avoiding walking on your toes;
- Minimise exercise involving your legs.

Right. What I take from this is: sit on the couch, preferably with your legs bound to splints. Don't move, except maybe to go to the toilet by dragging your body along the floor with your arms.

What they're saying is let the muscles of your calves waste away through disuse and you can expect to have slimmer calves.

Nice work, Dr Google.

I guess you can apply the same principle to weight-loss in general. Don't do anything, by which I mean DO NOTHING! And you're sure to lose weight as your muscle mass wastes away! Hooray. It's THAT easy.

I'd rather be without boots than have beautiful, useless legs. I'm going to reject any advice that deters me from exercise. So since I got no joy from the world wide web, I thought of a more sensible plan for getting into a pair of boots:

Lose weight. Not by sitting on the couch dammit! But through sensible eating and regular, challenging exercise over a long period of time. There's no quick fixes.

I'm also going to work in some more stretching into my routine. I'm not sure it will have a great impact on my muscle bulk, but it feels good and it's something I currently neglect.

I did also search online to find out what the average calf circumference is for a fashionable pair of boots is. For a size 7-8 (AUS), you're looking at 35-36cm. I have babies with a 42cm circumference (bloody huge). That's a 6cm difference. And if I'm going to by myself some birthday boots in April, I'm aiming to loose 6cm in just over 2 months? Let's be realistic, I don't think that can happen. That's 1/7 the size of my calf, and that sort of reduction in size doesn't happen quickly or easily.

So I guess, getting into boots will happen in time. Maybe a longer time than I'd like, but that's okay. I lost fitness and put on weight last year when I struggled to adjust to my new routine and the beautiful food my live in lover likes to serve me. But I've made changes and have been learning new habits since late last year, and little by little I'm getting there.

The boots are going to have to wait.

Reading into India

2012-01-22T20:56:00.003+11:00

I knew that India gained Independence from British Colonial rule on the stroke of midnight, 26 January 1947, because I’d read so in Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children. Perhaps too much of my knowledge of world history and politics has been influenced by the adventures of fictional characters in the novels I’ve read, but then - maybe they’re still a more reliable source than some others?

I thought I knew more about India than what influenced by the magically real and convoluted family sagas I’ve read about in Indian (Enlglish language) literature. What Vikram Seth or Arundhati Roy hadn’t taught me, I’d learnt from the people I’ve met, know, admire and fallen in love who hail from India. But even then, I lacked context. My impressions were influenced by the beautiful words and mystical metaphors my story tellers used. That they told stories of violence and suffering became more romantic tragedy than offensive.

My boyfriend’s mother lends the stories of her childhood something fantastic. She’s an artist, and she can’t help but give her autobiography beauty. The most difficult stories are touched by nostalgia, and the rough edges of life smoothed over. I love listening to her convoluted tales of her family and the journeys they followed before arriving in Australia - but what I’m left with is something so extravagant it almost seems unreal. That they left everything to board a ship to Africa, with no passports, no papers- not even citizenship: homeless, nationless, nobody - is an invitation to read between the lines.

And then you talk to your friends who’ve just returned from India. They’re born again vegetarians, they’ve taken up yoga, read Shantaram and had a close encounter of the spiritual kind. That, or they’re suffering some chronic diarrhoeal illness and never want to speak of the place again.

Anyway, my point is: from where I sit, India is a romantic place. If it’s not the seat of some supposed spiritual authenticity, it’s is a land of grand epics of tragedy, love, loss and glory. But then you arrive, and India is nothing like that at all. I won’t pretend to know or understand too much of the place in my short time there, but even in the brief time, the small glimpse I had - it’s impossible to reconcile much of the India inside my head with what I saw.

I started reading William Darymple’s Nine Lives on the beech somewhere in Vietnam. And in many ways it’s a book that confirms all my most romantic imaginings of India. Years before I read City of Djinns and The Age of Kali by the same author, and in case you didn’t know Mr Darymple is a beautiful writer. He’s a historian and I believe has a religious program on BBC, and his portraits of the history and complexities of the city (Delhi in the former, Mumbai in the latter) are so vivid and rich. In Nine Lives he presents nine vignettes of religious life in India, exploring religious practice of some fantastic and bold characters.

He’s side-stepped the big kids on the block. There’s no direct exploration of the influence of mainstream Hinduism, Islaam, Buddhism or Christianity - but instead focuses on the individual’s experience of their more local religious practice.

Darymple found his subjects in the village. He meets a man who stands at the end of a long line of orators whose livelihood involves wandering from town to town reciting the long Hindu epics interpreted for the audience of village farmers and itinerant workers that he visits. The poems he recites are so long and detailed, he performs them over a week, performing his audience from dusk till dawn, singing and dancing before the open fire in the village square.

Before that, he followed a Jain nun on her pilgrimage and learnt more of her religion and the path to her devotion. Jain nun pursue a life dedicated to relinquishing everything that is worldly. All relationships, all love, all ‘attachments’ to this tangible, chaotic world. In pursuit of this aim, they must constantly wander, lest they find themselves attached to a place. The Jain nuns exist on a meagre, ‘pure’ diet that excludes not only all animal product but any vegetable that dies in the process of being harvested. No onions, no root vegetables, no garlic.

Her strict asceticism and discipline is undone by her broken heart. She never says as much, but she fell love with a fellow nun, who many years beforehand died of TB. In spite of her incredible acts of self-denial, her grief speaks volumes of her deep attachment. The story haunted me.

Whether by accident or design the focus on Indian village life underlines this as the place of spiritual integrity and authenticity. A nostalgic image of a world defending itself against the corruptions of modernity and progress. When you read between the lines, poverty and deprivations are signs that this is the real deal.

Darymple warns us of the tensions that underlie the imaginings of romantic India as he shines the light on the cost of preserving tradition. Darymple notes that linguists have found a pre-requisite for the epic poetry performers to be able to recite their long sagas - that if written down might fill several volumes of books, a thousand pages each - is illiteracy. Other nations that shared a similar oral tradition have lost that practice when their great orators learnt to read.

Another chapter tells the tale of a woman who was devoted to the goddess Yellama as a young girl. Her dedication to the goddess involves working as a prostitute - a holy prostitute. Under the guise of this cult, her profession is given some legitimacy and esteem that it might not otherwise.

You can trace back this cult to the great Hindu temples of centuries ago, where these women held positions of power and influence in a courtly society. But it’s a different story now - where it seems, under the auspices of the Goddess, very young girls are forced into sex slavery to support their families. The woman Darymple meets, now in her forties, has been a hostage of the goddess since her menarche. Her family’s poverty forced them to sell their daughters virginity as soon as she reached puberty, and it breaks your heart as you read to learn she did the same to her own daughters - all who have now died from the complications of HIV.

I never got even a glimpse of the lives or religions that I read about in this book, but it did give me a keen interest in the strange dynamics of religion in this country. I’ve been reading more about Indian politics and economics - because I’ve been on holiday and I could, so I’ll hope you’ll indulge me while I write more about this country.

William Darymple. ‘Nine Lives: In search of the sacred in modern India’. Bloomsbury, London. 2010.

Traffic

2012-01-14T11:21:00.004+11:00

One of my pet hates about Perth is the traffic infrastructure and how that shapes driver behaviour (=frustration and rage). There's nothing tricky about driving in Perth. In fact, all decisions are taken out of your hands so Perth drivers never need to Think-and-Drive. In fact, just this week the WA minister for transport announced they're trialling traffic lights on freeway on-roads to improve merging.

What?

Just in case you're not from round here, Perth drivers don't know how to merge. So how will traffic lights help there cause? The light does green and - guess what - they still don't know how to merge. Ppfff. Stupid.

So last night I met the man responsible. Or a man in some way responsible. He was a civil engineer. A civil engineer who works on stuff to do with Perth roads. Traffic lights even.

I don't think this guy has ever received such an excited response at a dinner party after he's confessed that yes, he's a civil engineer (yawn!) But excited I was. He was the man I'd been looking for all this time. It was fate we were brought together.

And this should've been my moment. I deliver an impassioned speech about the frustrations and stupidity of Perth roads. And I am so persuasive, he immediately realises the error of his ways. As of now, the traffic light sequences will be changed to optimise driver happiness and the efficient movement of traffic. All would be right with this city.

But instead, Kiko started off on a tangent on how cool the traffic was in Saigon and how it was like a school of fish. And then I might have sounded like a crackpot when I told him the average waiting time at key Perth interesections and my secret plan to film empty interestions and prolonged red lights...and, well, it might have been clear to the man from the outset that Perth Traffic is a theme of impassioned, but maybe not always reasoned conversation in our household.

And he says: I guess we're all experts, aren't we? I'll go google a few medical conditions just now and get back to the doctor over there and I'll tell them what's wrong with me, shall I?

Ouch!

After that, our enthusiasm for this topic kind of petered out and we changed topics. We backed down basically. So close, but we lost our nerve when the target was in sight. We discussed him on the way home in the taxi. The one that got away.

Voyeur

2012-01-11T11:11:00.004+11:00

I confess: last night I fb-stalked a girl I went to school with. Somewhere in those lost middle years of high school we had the kind of intense friendship only 14 year old girls can, that perhaps could only end with great difficulty. By the end of year ten both of us had changed schools. She got a scholarship to an expensive private school. I was running away from my problems. And I've never spoken to her since.

You'd think I would have stalked her already. Who doesn't search out long lost friends? But this was different. And I hadn't - I don't even know what made me look her up last night. But there she was. With an open, un-locked page and all. Fifteen years older, and so different from the girl I knew.

Back then, she was defiantly different. And not in a cool way. She was intelligent and articulate and outspoken. She seemed impervious to the snide remarks and mocking of her classmates. Teachers loved her. Her peers were unnerved by her. And I was both in awe and slightly embarrassed of her.

What happened between us is something I can't explain. Or won't explain. Fifteen years on it seems too difficult and complicated and confusing to try to pick apart the angst and fear and vulnerabilities of my adolescence. But what did happen was the beginning of some turbulent times. I still feel a mix of shame and grief when I think back to then and wonder (or worry) how much of all that still shapes the person I am today?

But anyway. I looked her up. And she's a stranger, with the same brown eyes and curled lips that I knew. She's successful, like I knew she'd be. But I'd never guess how.

She's successful enough that when I google her, I can find her name in newspaper articles and videos. I'd never guess she'd be a fashion designer, a business woman. She lives overseas. She travels all around the world. Every month, somewhere different. Her hair is glossy, perfect. Her clothes conservative, maybe a little boring, expensive. Her husband is handsome. Polished and poised.

What am I doing?

I'm curious. But not enough to want to contact her. I don't kid myself we could ever be friends or even acquaintances. I'm curious in a way that's about picking at an old scab. Scratching at my insecurities. Seeing everything I'm not in what she seems to be. I don't measure up.

I only learnt to properly straighten my hair last year. My wardrobe is full of tired clothes I bought five years ago. She is quoted in an article talking about her $1300 Valentino heals. I put on five kilos last year. She has legs to die for. I got a call from the bank yesterday about my credit card. She leads a life far beyond my reach.

Why am I comparing myself to this stranger? Feeling so inadequate and incompetent? Even if I weren't a student, I could never be what she's become. So desperate to get out of the public service, International Business Woman wasn't an option I turned down for medicine.

Why am I doing this?

In article she talks about 'taxi-to-bar' heels. On her fb wall she's at the theatre, reading something profound, drinking something reserved, eating somewhere famous. I bet her conversations are witty, peppered with tales of adventure in far flung places. I bet she's funny and sophisticated.

And everything I'm not.

What am I doing? I'm fifteen years old again.

Goddamn! Snap out of it!

On your marks, get set...

2012-01-10T12:47:00.002+11:00

Blogging is like exercising. You enjoy it when you're in the groove, but if you slack off - there's nothing harder than coming back to it. And actually, as the reader, there's nothing more boring than the apologetic 'sorry I haven't written for so long' post following the posting drought. So I'll stop this paragraph now and just get on with it.

I'm back from a holiday. A proper holiday! And my passport has a whole new set of stamps to prove it. So now I'm all refreshed, recharged and excited about the year ahead, you can look forward to some more postings coming this way.

If anyone's still out there, I hope you'll enjoy reading...

Saigon sling

2011-12-02T12:24:00.002+11:00

I could be anywhere in the world in this new apartment, tastefully decorated, daily cleaned. But I am in Saigon. Which means I obviously got hold of our passports in time to get on the plane. And in between now and then I've fallen in love with Hong Kong in quick time then landed here.

We're passing time in my uncle's apartment. Taking daily excursions into the chaos and commotion of district one, before returning home to the relative calm of this well-to-district. I thought we'd just be passing through, but we've paused longer. My auntie, his wife, died not long ago. And here in this apartment, I've met a man I didn't know before.

His soft voice and slow, purposeful movements only underscore her absence. She wouldn't be living in a place like this. She would have found somewhere in the thick of things, maybe not so nice or clean, but somewhere that told you where you were, reminded you of the smells and flavour of the city - its pace and organised disorder. She'd want it that way for the experience, to learn about the place - for the stories.

She was opinionated and stubborn. Conversations always leaned toward debates, as is my family tradition. Debate became argument, became eloquent, forceful speeches, long monologues and treatise handed down before dessert. She followed family traditions faithfully.

And she was always colourfully dressed, maybe almost over-dressed. Her outfits were always elaborate, not always appropriate. She wore furs in Kuala Lumpur and delicate heals aboard a two-man dinghy. Antique jewels weighed down her wrists and heavy gems decorated her fingers. She had charm bracelets and heavy chains of yellow gold that sang along as her arguments reached their crescendo.

So the quiet, the muted shades, the understated decor, the cleaning lady and the bare fridge tell me she's not here. The clean white walls and polished tiles and beige furnishings. The door staff that will call you taxis and hand you the paper. The rooftop pool. The sterile suburb. The lonely streets. The restaurants filled with ex-pats serving everything but local cuisine.

She's not here.

So we've lingered a little longer. To fill the apartment with noise and conversation. Line the pantry with at least the basics, and to cook home cooked meals. I asked my uncle were we making too much noise. I didn't know if our bustling in the kitchen was welcome. And he reassured me. He missed the noise. The sound of pots and pans and dishes. Of our conversation. Of laughing. Make noise. Bang doors. Turn the TV louder.

It will do

2011-11-24T11:56:00.002+11:00

Following on from yesterday's post, in case you were unsure there are occasions when 'it will do' will do. There's no need to double check everything. And if you do double check everything a) can I have a little bit of that; and b) does it interfere with your function? ...Just asking.

So take yesterday. Yesterday I went to a salon to have my pubic hairs ripped out at the follicle by a stern faced young woman with an orange tan. Now I am 'holiday ready', she chirped. And indeed I am.

Later that night Kiko asked did I get my legs done aswell?
No, I did them myself.
Oh! But you've missed bits.
Where?
On your calves!
Oh. [inspecting backs of leg] It'll do.
But...
It'll do. I can't see that bit anyway.
???

And that my friend, is an occasion when it WILL do!

Attention to detail and first world crises

2011-11-23T15:31:00.004+11:00

Next time I do an imaginary shrug of the shoulders and think to myself: this will do... it'll be alright, I must remember to slap some sense into myself. Because, no, it will not be alright!

A friend told me she thought I was one of the most relaxed people in medicine. Which I have to remember to tell my family; they're sure to find that hilarious. But then I think of our highly strung cohort - and think, maybe I am a little less... obsessive, meticulous... careful? Maybe it's not that I'm more relaxed, but that I'm less conscientious.

Is this a good thing?

Well, it almost could be, but it's most definitely not. "This will do" is the prelude to disaster. Picture me now in two years and two months (hopefully) charting up warfarin for some little of dear with a errant heart beat. I'm thinking to myself: now was that 5 micrograms, milligrams... grams? Meh, this will do... it will be alright.

STOP.

No, it will not be alright.

This is the bit where I've got to slap some sense into myself. When I hear that laissez-faire voice in my head, I've got to take it as a cue to double check things instead of shrug my shoulders. 'This will do' is NOT good enough.

Fortunately, I haven't had the chance to kill anyone yet. There's still time for me to develop some healthily obsessive, double habits yet. But in the mean time, well, I lost our passports.

I lost our passports with just days before I needed them.

You see, when I was sending off for visas, I didn't have the address with me to say where I was sending our visa applications to. But on the application form was the embassy address, and I thought to myself: this will do... it'll be alright.

But of course, it wasn't.

I sent our passports to the wrong address. I know they arrived at the wrong address. And then it seems they went on a wild adventure into the unknown. They were nowhere to be found.

I won't bore you with the painful details of my attempts to negotiate and impenetrable bureaucracy or the mobile credit I've chewed through. Fortunately, a miracle happened yesterday afternoon and our passports were found. They're now on their way to WA - we even have a tracking number. It's a huge relief - though I'm not going to relax till I have that little blue book in my hands.

If only the person who told me I was ever a relaxed person could've seen me this week. I've been at my whiney, self-pitying worse this week as I beat myself up about my poor attention to detail and the coming of the apocalypse. Kiko is more than busy at the moment trying to cram 6 weeks of work into his last couple of days before we depart, and drama of this kind is hardly helping him along.

This morning he cut me short. What's the worse thing that can happen? You're not going on a holiday? But you're okay, right? You're healthy, you're happy, you're good. First world problem. And he's right.

Hopefully, it is a crisis averted this time. But let's not try this game again. This will not do. Double check. Look it up. Ask. Don't bloody assume!

A pregnancy in status updates - part 1

2011-11-19T21:22:00.000+11:00

why are my fuck ups really big ones :s ?
i said yes :)
sooo awake !!!!! thinking abiout you and tonight
goodnight to the man i love :) ... remember i said yes :)

"someone like you " ... :) .... time for bed well try to sleep
i love you
miss my nathan so so much :( ... cant wait to see him on thursday and give him a massive hug !!! .. love you
nathan i very much am in love with you :D
life certainly can throw curve balls every now and then ... :)
would be awesome if lovely nathan would reply :) love you
had a really good night with my sister, feeling better today, cant wait to see nathan tomorrow :)
Talking to Laura good sesh ... :) miss Nate ♥
playing games with nathan :D haha so much fun !!!
my buisness is my buisness ... no one elses ...

went from being "in a relationship" to "single".

Is extremly excited about turning 19 next WEEK :) ... think i need to have a party haha :)
had an awesome day ... sat out side doing nothing playing with trev .... im soo lazy lol
going for coffee with an old friend EPPP!!! sooooo excited !! its almost like a date .. except shes female haha and like family lol
goood coffee time last night :) .... made my night

when life throws you big sour nasty lemons, do you know what you do ... you say hey fuck you lemons imma make sweet lemonade :)

The waiting game

2011-11-13T16:51:00.006+11:00

Elsewhere out there in the far reaches of the world wide web, young med hopefuls are waiting hopefully to find out if they will be offered a place in an Australian medical course. It's a tense time for some. Maybe a little too tense.

If you're feeling a little crazy, a little daring today, put away sharp objects and type "gemsas" into a twitter search... go on, just for fun. What do you find?

Behold! The angst, the anxiety and the far out, hyperbolic catastrophising. It's enough to make you wonder: is it worth it?

I'm finding it difficult to empathise with the plight of many of the hopefuls I stumble across online. Maybe I felt all that they're going through and more when I played the waiting game, but from this side of the fence - it's hard to fathom why anyone would lose sleep for the chance to walk in the worn out shoes of a doctor. Have you seen those shoes?

Let me be clear: I actually love being a student. I'm really glad I followed through on my decision and had the opportunity to do this course. Obviously there's plenty to hate - and I do - but they're far outweighed by some pretty spectacular moments in medicine. But being a medical student is not the same as being a doctor, and for the moment I'm not sure what the career means to me. I'm not sure where I see my place in the grand scheme of things - which is not to say I doubt there's a place for me, but just that I think it's more of a 'wait and see' situation.

But when I think of the current med hopefuls, it's not their excitement and hope that I don't understand, but the idea of medicine they're dreaming of. Already people are making plans and preparations for what seems to be a degree far different from anything I'm studying. People are starting online courses in histology and anatomy, which seems like a reasonable hobby, I guess... But the idea of medicine seems like something other worldly that one must singularly pursue. And as all the anticipation and agitation reaches feverish heights, I wonder what medicine means to that lot. What is it they think they're getting themselves into?

I'm currently playing a waiting game on a smaller scale. Results are out this Friday (I thought it was the Friday just gone) and I'm wondering if the board of examiners will permit me a holiday before fifth year. And while I wait, I'm wondering about what it is this course seems to mean to so many hoping to get in and play this silly game themselves.

It's a funny thing that we don't just make getting into medicine our goal, but we put a bow on it, hoist it up on a pedestal and sacrifice a goat in its honour. What is it that we imagine being a medical doctor to mean? It's gotta be something pretty special if we're prepared to flirt at the fringes of sanity in its name.

But I know there's little good at telling strung out hopefuls that the novelty wears off, that the the extraordinary becomes ordinary before it becomes a bore. I'm sure everyone will believe that it'll be different for them. They won't let the med-beast get them down, they'll do it differently, better, faster, stronger. They'll enjoy every moment, be ever grateful and be studying at 10pm on a Friday because that's what it takes to be - to be what?

Even with the most thorough research and careful planning, two things I've learnt in medicine so far are that nothing is as it seems, and you won't know till you get there. Take for instance the clinical years. I was of the firm belief that I would not need a car and I could continue working my part-time job in an office during this first year on the wards. Oh yes, wise and experienced people told me otherwise, but I of course knew better. Cut to February this year (barely 6 weeks into the term) and I am desperately searching for somewhere to park my 20 year old beast, while mentally counting my dwindling fortune and calculating whether I can afford petrol on my way home since I quit my well paying job.

I expect to learn similar lessons as time goes on. Like secretly and despite compelling evidence to the contrary, I imagine things WILL be different for me when I embark on post-graduate training. Such is my arrogance! But the thing is, sometimes you just can't know until you get there. There's no other way to learn from your mistakes (or naivety) than to make the mistake yourself.

...Or maybe there is, but I'm too simple a creature.

I hear people's advice, I comprehend what they're saying - but it takes me a while to understand. Sometime down the track, the most thoughtful, insightful and generous words will come back to haunt me when I'm in exactly the position some generous mentor advised me against.

So maybe I should forgive the most effusively enthusiastic med student hopeful, even while they grate on my nerves. I'm guilty of the similar crimes.

The further I push forward into this degree, the more I appreciate the generosity of the people even just one step ahead of us. Our effusive enthusiasm and arrogant ignorance calls for great patience from those who know better. More than a few times I've been authoritatively told what I should be doing, about what it is a medical student does and behaves and looks like by people just hoping to get into medicine. And the best you can do is politely stand your ground. Few people want their ideas challenged.

But if I could convince anyone of anything it would be to exercise humility. There's a world of things we don't and cannot know yet. We won't know till we get there. Humility will tell you to pay respect to everything we don't yet know. Humility will remind us that at least medicine will mean something different to you in a year's time and different every year after. With humility you know you're not the first to walk this path, go through the worst of it and get through to the otherside. And you won't be the last either.

Lessons learnt

2011-11-10T12:29:00.003+11:00

Yesterday, before dinner and the band, I went to see an exhibition* with a friend. This friend, well, she IS the warm person who is generous with her time. She doesn't buy into any of this group business on campus (or the ward). She's just her own person. She moves effortlessly between people and groups and cliques. She's beyond all that business. And her conversation is easy and expansive. And she's thoughtful and empathetic, but has clear boundaries and a cheerful smile.

Yep, all that.

And so speaking to her yesterday reminded me a bit of the stupidity of 'us and them' thinking, of making 'no' a reflex and not a decision, of being divisive when I could be inclusive.

We went back to mine and continued the dinner preparations. People came; they ate; they drank. I had a good time. The fussy eater was discretely fussy, and only I would've noticed since I cleared the plates. And that was fine.

And then we went to see the guy play. And he was good too. He plays REALLY well. Acoustic guitar and a bass drum, vocals rough around the edges. And his lyrics weren't THAT BAD - which you have to be impressed with coming from a medical student (read: most likely lacking any appreciation of poetry).

So what have we learnt from this?

Well, something. Yeah. Maybe I need to practice this being a better person business.

*Actually, it was called "Canning Stock Route" - it was an exhibition of Aboriginal art from artists of the Eastern Kimberlys down through the eastern Pilbara down to Wiluna put on for CHOGM but still going - so go see it if you're in Perth.

Observation: the exhibit was curated like something between an art show and a museum display. What do you think? If there was an exhibit of my work, would it be accompanied by a detailed history of what it's like to be a middle class, thirty year old white woman? Is it patronising? ...On the other hand, there's an important history to tell. And you know,when you see the works with even a little understanding of the place and the context the colourful canvases are transformed again.

Poster's remorse

2011-11-09T13:45:00.002+11:00

You know, I'm not actually sure how I feel about what I just posted. Strange, since I wrote it. But it's complicated. I feel the guilt, but also the resentment.

I want to be the warm person who is generous with their time, is able to make others feel special, listened to. But who am I kidding? I'm too impatient, opinionated. I step on toes. I say the wrong thing. I'm clumsy.

But then I remember the empty loneliness of living in Canberra. When I wasn't so fortunate to have people inviting me to things I didn't want to attend. When people never invited themselves over, or were offended I didn't want to be their best friend.

I don't want to take others for granted. But I don't want this either. Where's the happy medium here? How much personal space are you allowed on this crowded school playground?

Obligations

2011-11-09T12:17:00.003+11:00

Tonight I'm cooking dinner for a few people from uni, including a fussy eater. She's so fussy, I think: fuck it. I'm not even going to try to remember the few things she actually does it - I'll cook what I'll cook. Thank-you.

Fussy eating is a friendship deal breaker for me. When someone says "I don't eat food coloured red, legumes, and fish that tastes fishy", I hear: "I am a fucking five year old".

So what's the difference here? I guess medicine. Bloody medicine. And maybe I'm in want of a spine.

We actually don't have much to talk about or anything in common either. When we're left alone, I'm an active listener doing the hard yards sounding interested in her kids and life in the distant suburbs. But most of all we talk about medicine. And people who do medicine with us. And then medicine some more.

And then I politely excuse myself and run for the hills.

So after dinner. We're then going to see a guy from uni perform at a bar round the corner from my place. I hope to god there's no cover charge.

I don't talk to this guy. I don't even do chit chat. Once I heard him walking behind me and so worried I was that he was going to catch up with me and -you know- say hello, I almost had to start jogging to keep ahead of his long legs. Yet I'm going to see him play tonight.

Please note, the bar is conveniently located around the corner from my house. So I guess it's dinner and byo drinks at mine?

A shared coffee, a vent, stupid laughter and talking about 'anything, but' are what get you over the bumps and small crises that this course inflicts upon you. The women I count as my close friends here in Perth are like family. And I mean it. We might bicker and boss each other around a little, we'll be brutally honest, dish out some unsolicited advice, then give the best hugs, share some tears and a belly laugh and get on with it.

I cherish the friendships that I do have. But medicine is also filled with many obligations. Feelings of duty. Or responsibility.

We were asked last and again this year to form groups of five people to be part of the same clinical rotation group. Doesn't mean all five of you will be at the same hospital at the same time, but you will at least be doing the same rotation. Sounds all cosy, right?

Forming these little groups is a political maelstrom. It's easy enough to know who you want to be with, but then there's the sensitive matter of breaking the news to others who you don't want to be with. And even the people you are with - the people you count as good friends - do you want to be with them every day of the year? If you're friendship is like family, would you want to shuffle alongside your sister all day everyday?

So this year I opted out of the race. I said I wasn't going in a group with anyone. Friends understood. Obligation friends were deeply offended. It's very sensitive this business.

But you can't please everyone. I don't want to please everyone. But I do find myself doing things I don't really want to do. And always feeling guilty.

I feel guilty that I'd rather read a book than spend time with the fussy eater. I feel guilty that I don't do things the social things that others expect me to. I didn't go to the end of year drinks. I don't want to catch up. I don't want to go out tonight. I don't want to talk about the exams, or medicine or the crazy characters who populate our course. And sometimes I do, but just not with you.

In 'real' life, I can't imagine someone would want to spend time with me if we didn't have anything in common and could barely manage a conversation. But in med, these things happen. And I think to myself, why burn bridges? We'll be classmates for another two years and colleagues after that. And this world is so small, so close and closed I continue to make polite conversation out of obligation. And each time feel more guilty and dishonest and frustrated for it.

Traffic light vigilante

2011-10-30T20:49:00.002+11:00

If I weren't doing this med student business, I'd be a traffic light vigilante. I'd spend my days flying around the city with a video camera and a stop watch to expose the stupid traffic light sequences that plague this isolated capital of mine. And then I'd do a PhD where I would devise a formula that would calculate ideal traffic light sequences that optimise traffic flow and minimise driver frustration. And then I'd campaign to have my perfect formula applied throughout the land. And if people failed to recognise my genius, I'd find out how they program the lights and in the wee hours of the morning I'd set about the light sequences.

And then do you know what? The world would be just a little bit of a better place.

OSCE-remorse disorder

2011-10-24T11:39:00.002+11:00

A mostly sleepless night spent ruminating over the OSCE. I was relieved at first, but since then I'm being haunted by all the things I did or didn't do - wondering did I do enough?

Part of this anxiety has to do with my holiday. I'm so excited - I don't quite believe it's actually going to come true. Perhaps if I didn't have that to look forward to, I could reconcile myself with the idea of a re-sit. Big deal, right? I could get through that. But dammit, there's a holiday I might be taking with Kiko, and I want to take it.

Remediation involves 4 weeks on the wards between November and December. It also involves telling Kiko he's not taking the leave. He's managed to secure 6 weeks, and how rare is that (in the full-time workforce)?

Got to put it behind me and get on with study...

Endurance hospitality

2011-10-23T14:10:00.004+11:00

I am in pain. The effort of raising my tea cup to my lips is almost to much. Every muscle in my body aches, but especially my biceps. They quiver at the thought of carrying anything more than their own weight.

Last night I had the bright idea of working a function. I'm not really working at the moment, so the idea of earning a (student) fortnight's pay in the midst of exam season sounded too good. Except for the bit where you do the hard yards.

So normally, I waitress for very small groups. The staff to guest ratio is very small and I can pace things. I know my regulars and it's all very familiar and friendly - and a little bit leisurely. I'm also usually finished by midnight.

Compare this to last night. I'll start with the end and work my way back. And the end was after 3am. There was a smoke machine and a dance floor and a really long, huge marquee. I had somewhere between 40- 50 guests on the tables I was serving - and my tables were at least 50 metres from the kitchen. I was running that length with my arms filled with a tray of either glasses or dishes - negotiating fold out chairs and ladies' fine dresses and the demands for more booze. I was managing five dishes at a time (new skill!) last night and I think I might have dashed over 10km between the kitchen and my table (there were six bloody courses afterall).

I was also in a marquee on a warm, humid, rainy night in my capital city. It was muggy inside. My eyes were itchy and watering from the smoke machine and I was sweating and grunting in pain. Oh, my arms!

We must have been understaffed. There wasn't a moment's break. Not even a pause for thought. And if I knew anything of any of my guests, it was who was more demanding of my time (read: dietary requirements). The pace was quick and constant.

By 3am I'd worked 12 hours without a break. That's 12 hours of lifting and carrying and moving, negotiating revelers and balancing glasses and cutlery. I hadn't eaten anything. I hadn't been to the toilet. Fortunately, my bladder had been surgically trained to retain, but what I would have given for a moment of quiet perched on the toilet seat. You know you're working hard when a trip to the toilet is the most respite you can hope for. I had managed quick swigs of water on a handful of occasions. But it was before midnight that I was feeling faint, and my lower back was spasming in protest. Clearly I don't have the kind of mettle I thought I did.

Just when the end was nigh, it was our job to pack away most of the hire gear. Fold out chairs and huge tables. More carrying, more lifting and we were almost done. As my pen was poised over the sign out sheet, a supervisor came round urging us to help elsewhere - apparently there was still some people pushing on in the bar. My whole body protested. I want to be helpful and a good team member, but I was in so much pain. I felt so faint. I signed my name, peeled off my uniform and was out of there. I couldn't do it.

And this morning I'm wondering how I did do it. My whole body aches. Really aches. Is this because I'm getting old? I'm unfit? I don't know - but that was hard. I've got a boxing class tomorrow morning and I can easily conjure up the pain I'll put myself through in my mind. Oh. Oh dear.

Places I'd like to visit and holidays planned

2011-10-22T16:04:00.003+11:00

Because I should be cracking on with study, let's briefly ponder places to visit. Here's three:

TASMANIA. Jokes about incest and third heads aside, the image of Tasmania in my mind's eye is a verdant place with beautiful pinots and fine bubbled sparklings, open fires and cold crisp oceans and fresh bubbling streams, old buildings haunted by pain and tragedy and heart warming, comfort food. This sounds beautiful to me. I'd hire a car and drive up into the mountains. I'd rug up in a coat and scarf and wander somewhere to get sight of a breathtaking view and return somewhere warm and dry on the night to drink said pinot and dig into something delicious encased in golden, flaky pastry. Perfect.

BALI. Everyone else is doing it, and I'm feeling the weight of peer group pressure. Seriously, I'm sure I'm the only Australian born resident of Western Australia who hasn't been to Bali on a $40 flight. I at least have to go to find out what's the attraction. Sure, I know you can get rabies by rabid dogs and monkeys, face the death penalty for drug smuggling, or get up close and personal with fellow Australians tattoed with the Southern Cross - but that can't be a draw card?

NEW YORK. Living in WA, I quickly forget what a big city feels like. When I visit Melbourne I'm affronted by the business and bustle of the place. New York - let's call it immersion therapy. But really, I want to be in the thick of things - even for a moment. Perth really is such an isolated place.

-----

And do you know where I'm going? Yes, I have an overseas holidays organised (just to raise the stakes for my upcoming exams)! I'm very excited. It feels like forever since I've escaped this place. So long, that my passport had expired and I hadn't had any cause to do anything about it.

So I'm off to Hong Kong, Viet Nam, Sri Lanka and India in a few short weeks. I'm very excited. If you've got any hot tips about any of these places, I've not had the time to do much research and would really appreciate any pointers. I've traveled around Viet Nam before, but I was alone - and well, maybe I'm not adventurous enough, but I play it fairly safe when I'm traveling solo (no groovy bars and late nights or heading off with too strange a stranger). But this time around, I'll have a companion (Kiko) and I'm eager to go exploring.

I'm also looking forward to re-reading my William Dalrymple books and doing a crash course in the history and politics of Sri Lanka. Well, really - I'm looking forward to do any leisurely reading (alas, I've been reading the same book for the last 5 weeks). Any recommendations? What travel writing would you be reading?

OSCE Friday

2011-10-21T11:49:00.002+11:00

This sunny Friday, the 21st of November is year four OSCE* day. Rumor had it I could be asked to do a mini-mental on the Queen, but it turns out she's visiting the hospital NEXT Friday, which is kind of a relief because I've not factored in any of that cutrsying, bowing business into my repertoire.

So last year, you may recall that I routinely freaked out at OSCEs. The bad news is: in comparison to this year's, last year's OSCEs were just mucking around. This is a little more serious. And I'm sure next year I'll be telling you the same thing again. The good news is that I've been doing this stuff all year: examining patients, hunting down signs, following people around. In contrast to last year, I feel like I KNOW something, but I'm perhaps more acutely aware of all that I don't know.

And then there's the wild card of the unknown and how you perform on the day. I know my cheeks will flush, my hands will tremble, I'll hear my heart in my ears, but hopefully I can also take a deep breath and go through things systemically, methodically, as close to calmly as possible. Please may I not only look, but see; not just hear, but listen. May my words be logical, linear and coherent - and may I get through this okay.

*OSCEs are like "Thank God your here!" theatre sports-type assessment scenarios. You walk into a room and there's a patient there and you're asked to examine them and then discuss. And strangely, you're not allowed to ask them "what's wrong with you?", which is what you'd do in real life.

2011-10-09T00:19:00.000+11:00

Red earth caked on the skin. Creeping into the creases.

Watching time tick by over the dash board. The static and chatter of the radio in the background.

A train a kilometre long. A wash out to wash away the clay.

A gecko climbing up the wall. The man singing to the clear night sky.

A long line of dongas; walls paper thin; air conditioners humming through the night.

The curtain leaving a sliver of something to see. Egg shells on the floor. Bin filled with beer cans.

Fuck! Fuck! Fuuuck!

A cry in the night.

2011-09-25T23:19:00.002+10:00

As an addendum to my last post - I was at a party last night and got stranded talking to this guy. We went through the chit-chat questionnaire: who do you know? What do you do etc.?

So I say I'm a student. And he says: really? Aren't you too old to be a student?

Things to look forward to

2011-09-23T19:40:00.006+10:00

Somehow I got cornered by the anaesthetist who had mistaken me for a sixth year doing an anaesthetics rotation. Oh well, she said. You're not her, but I'm sure you've seen enough lap choles already? THIS is more interesting!

Yes, I guess she had a point. Though it seemed she didn't really want to talk about anaesthetics. She wanted to talk about fat, and something like the meaning of life. It so happened that the young woman on the operating table had a BMI of 45 at the tender age of 22 (my heart breaks) and this spurred the anaethetist onto deliver an impassioned lecture about the perils of getting fat that went something like this:

You don't know what it's like! She told me. YOU can eat anything. And if you were in an MVA, we'd get venous access and secure your airways, no problem! EVEN if you were volume depleted."

"But you know what? You'll get to thirty and then you'll find out you can't live the way you do. You'll get fat if you don't take care. Your metabolism will start to slow. You'll start to age. Your skin won't be as nice. Everything dries up. Your ovaries will start drying up. Nobody tells you this when you're young. But it's true! This is what happens. You'll get fat too. Everyone gets fat!

Okay. An important lesson in my medical education. The positive message I took from her lecture: this woman had clearly mistaken me for someone younger than thirty. Because I AM thirty years old, in case you didn't know.

2011-09-13T08:58:00.003+10:00

I don't even think they have a transplant team at my hospital, but they do at the one my friend is at. She's on it at the moment. And she knows already the rush of adrenaline and excitement when a new donor is coming in.

But this time she knew the person.

I don't believe young people die. When the old and frail and infirm can hold onto life so tenaciously, how can any one whose heart beats to a regular rhythm let go? But of course I'm wrong. Death can come suddenly, unexpectedly. It's not just for those who are ready for it.

My friend stayed home yesterday when the business end of things was taking place. She's scared of facing the excitement of her team today. How strange it will be to meet the patients who now have a life ahead of them.

Rice pudding

2011-09-10T16:49:00.002+10:00

Kiko's mother makes the most beautiful and simple rice pudding. It is rich and delicious, and this is how you make it:

The seeds of 10-12 cardamom pods;
12 cups of milk
3/4 cup of basmati rice

Lightly pound the cardamom, then add all the ingredients into a pot and simmer on a low-medium heat for over an hour.

At first it will look like there's too much milk, but slowly the mixture will thicken and as the milk is reduced the rice becomes sweet with cardamom.

Let the mixture cool down, toast some slivered almond and eat! Lovely.

Slow motion car crash

2011-08-22T18:48:00.004+10:00

I parked on a very slight slope in the laneway beside my apartment block. A very slight slope. And then I went to the boot to get out my computer, shopping bags, gym stuff when the car started to lurch forward.

I grabbed the lip of the boot with both hands and held on, leaning my whole body to counter the weight of the car. Still, little by little with the car was moving forward - closer to the car in front.

My laneway is quite quiet. I'm holding on to the boot, trying to stop the car creep forward, wishing somehow I could keep holding on while running to fix the break at the same time.

I'm in the centre of town, but not a person is to be found. With a great degree of difficulty, I managed to get Kiko on speaker phone. Help! Help me!

Kiko works in the city - walking distance from our place. But it will still take him 15 minutes to get here. My arms are getting tired. I'm still moving forward. Closer, closer, closer to the car in front.

Shit.

I'm looking in the boot for something, anything I can wedge under the back wheels. I throw random things under the wheel and make a dash for the cabin.

Handbreak up. Clutch > first > whoops! Clutch > reverse > phew!

I look at the result and see I easily edged a good metre forward. Thankfully, there was the room between me and the next guy. Close call.

Quality time

2011-08-21T10:05:00.002+10:00

The first promise of spring is the crisp new morning sunshine. My neighborhood feels like its waking up. Everything feels fresh and alive.

Yesterday was that day. A beautiful day. Oh and I was working. But I could see it all. Out the window from where I was serving food and pouring drinks. My customers looked like they were enjoying themselves, enjoying the sunshine.

It's a shame that day was yesterday and not today. Because today I set aside the whole day to spend with my boyfriend. One whole day.

You'd think living in such close very proximity to one another, I might spend time enough with Kiko. But in between my days in the hospital, time at the library and a few shifts at work, there's time enough to make dinner and do the washing and some light entertainment and not much else.

Then I ran away to Melbourne a few weeks ago and then a friend took me down south somewhere in there too - and it seemed like any spare time I had I was spending with everybody else but him.

So I set aside today. Which wasn't nearly so nice as the day before, but nice enough to spend a day doing nothing in particular. A ferry to the side of the river I'd never been to. Crepes and coffee. An art gallery. A band. Dumplings and green tea.

I imagine for a moment that I could conjure up that feeling we had when we went away. Just the two of us. Unfortunately that's a feeling conjured up in time - time we never have enough of.

Pity party for the poor student; chapter 1.

2011-08-10T13:12:00.007+10:00

I don't want to wish away these student years, because really -despite the drawbacks- life can be pretty good. But there are drawbacks. Apart from the obvious (financial insecurity and dependence springs to mind), there are other less obvious thorns in the side of student life and I plan to document (aka whinge about) all that gripes me.

So to get the ball rolling, these things annoy me about the degree:

Uncertainty. I finish my current rotation at the end of the week, which will be promptly followed by my next rotation. At this point in time, I have no idea where my next rotation will be - what hospital, what team, what ward? Who knows? This is now a familiar circumstance to be in, since eleventh hour notifications seem to be a specialty of medicine. But seriously? Since every hospital known to man is an architectural rabbit warren and when your rotation ends up being 50km away in a suburb you've never heard of, some planning is involved to get there at 8am on Monday.

Perhaps this is just training for a career of bending to the will of insensitive administrators? They've been organising medical students for a while now, surely they've implemented some processes or systems to let us know sometime before 9am on Monday where we're meant to be an hour beforehand! Dammit!

Now imagine you have kids. Or a dog. Or any sort of responsibility or free will or sense of self beyond "medical student"... yeah! I know!

Expenses. So there's the expensive textbooks (optional luxury) and the limited hours one can engage in paid employment, but what about all the other expenses and opportunity costs you soon wrack up as part of this course? You ring the clinic to arrange a time to come in. The contact person is not in. Repeat times ten, before you finally get through - and then someone puts you on hold - forever. And you can't hang up because you've tried so hard to get through to them... but your phone cuts out instead. There goes a month's worth of credit in a week and you still haven't booked that stupid mandatory clinic. Shit.

On top of that, you've driven to your outer suburban hospital. It would be cheaper to catch the train, but in the course of the day, you're expected to do an outpatient clinic in a nearby suburb and finish the day off with a tute at a completely other hospital on the other side of town. There's no parking for students, so unless you can spare the 30min walk you pay for parking. Or chance a fine. There goes another five bucks.

And when you're traveling between all these different hospitals, what fridge do you leave your lunch in? And where do you get to eat? By now you've blown all your cash on sundry things and you're looking longingly at the inedible crap that gets served to diabetic patients. THAT'S HOW BAD THINGS GET!

_______________

Okay, that's all I've got right now. That felt good. Moving on...

Attention to detail

2011-08-09T14:18:00.004+10:00

Maybe the black-pen vs blue-pen girl had a point. Attention to detail. If I had some, I might have known that rather than doing this morning's clinic at Big-City-Hospital, I was actually meant to be at Suburban-campus-of-Big-City-Hospital. I also might not have been 40 minutes late. Unfortunately, no one gives you credit for being half an hour early to the wrong place.

I am, I confess, that annoying friend who calls you just as a tute is starting to ask 'what room am I meant to be in?" Well, actually - by the time I'm frantically pacing corridors everyone has put their phones on silent. So really, I am the annoying friend who you get plenty of missed calls from, with a habit of barging into tute rooms, red faced and flustered.

I really should use my diary.

But to my credit. I have a really good memory, until now I didn't need such aids as diaries. 'Yeah sure' I hear you say, to which I reply 'Seriously!' I am pretty proud of my powers of recall. Especially regarding patients. Sometimes I almost imagine myself as useful.

But all that comes undone when it comes to managing an ever changing schedule, several different hospital sites and names I can't put faces to. But let's be honest, too often I'm a fly by the seat of my pants kind of girl. Carelessly disregarding instructions about the colour of the pen she should use and at which hospital site she should be. A rebel I am.

Things have got to change. I know my family will be confounded to know exactly how - but I need to become even MORE dorky. This is the only way I can see to improve. I want attention to detail. I want to be a careful, meticulous, small picture, fine details kinda person, dammit.

So here's where I'll start:
I will read instructions.
I will read the full sentence of instructions.
I will make a little checklist of interpreting instructions and make sure I go through all the motions, even when I've spotted a key work and already think I know what the deal is.
I will double check my assumptions.
I will use a diary. Properly.
I will know where I'm going before I start going there.
I will not ring friends at the last moment to ask where the hell am I meant to be.

That's a start anyway.

Save the children

2011-08-05T22:40:00.004+10:00

It turns out going to Melbourne for a crazy weekend comes at a price. I've been sick all week... involving at least 3 physical systems (go on, guess which ones). And in true medical student style, I thought I was going to die on more than one occasion. Or at least be VERY, VERY sick.

So this morning was a dawning of good health. I awoke to feel something like refreshed. But still feeling fragile I thought I'd dedicate much needed time to my neglected research project in lieu of spreading my germs with already sick people.

How I know I'm not completely recovered is when I'm reading through some papers and I get to tables reporting patient outcomes and I see the mortality figures. And each time it's like the tear jerking moment in a chick flick; I'm thinking: 'oh no! THAT many people DIED!' I'm not quite welling up, but still...

And then in some fever-induced flight-of-fancy, I picture myself as Eddie from Ab Fab arriving on the scene to save the day with a Santa-sack of all the right drug to save ALL the kiddies from preventable diseases. And then I adopt a black baby for good measure.

I probably still need more sleep.

Medicine is impressive. Discuss.

2011-08-02T17:46:00.006+10:00

So you're meeting someone for the first time and the question invariably comes up: "what do you do?" You choose to the evasive "I'm a student", but that's usually followed up with "oh and what are you studying?" You're forced to 'fess. "Medicine".

And then something strange happens.

It's kind of like... well, they're impressed by you.

But you know it's not what they think it is.

-----

Kiko sent me on a flight to Melbourne this weekend gone to say good bye to a friend who is off to New York on a wing and a prayer of a career opportunity. We went to uni together (the first time round) and since then she's earned a PhD, then flung herself in to the nebulous field of 'creative industries'. She's always busy between projects and exhibitions and proposals and conferences and papers. She's always leaping into the next unknown. Always facing financial insecurity.

So I was sitting at a long table surrounded by her collection of friends from different ages and stages of her life. Designers, photographers, an artist, an architect, restauranteurs, chefs and bar staff, a sex therapist, a yoga teacher, a handful of academics and researchers, an IT man of some variety, a doctor, and me.

The conversation flowed easily and over terrain I rarely tread these days. Ideas and politics and possibilities in place of bodily functions and fluids - and upcoming exams. It could've been bordered on the wanky and pretentious, but people had enthusiasm and warmth that made the more esoteric of subjects seem accessible.

I caught a taxi back to my brother's thinking about the extraordinary choices of my friend and the people in her life. To pursue a goal that calls on you to define the very steps to getting there, and whose success depends on a combination of perseverance, talent and chance is a brave thing, is a frightening thing. There's not many occasions where we truly expose ourselves to risk, but in conversation that night I was humbled by people who do.

If I haven't already told you, an old friend released a feature length documentary in the last week as part of the international film festival. It's an exciting time for her - coming at the end of six years working on this project. Six years. Six years is the length of my medical degree (if I were an undergrad entrant). But where the study of medicine is to some extent knowable and predictable - first semester is followed by the second; a party follows exams - making a low budget film never can be.

Medicine is safe. It is a structured, supervised course, with learning objectives and key milestones and measurable successes. And at the end of it (hopefully) you get a job. Because there is a job.

The study of medicine is about rote learning more than you can remember, decision making algorithms, processes and guidelines, make-work assessment and a touch of stage fright. My family are convinced that I've got some leg up on my mostly younger peers because of my "life experience" and background - that I have some special claim on communication skills and empathy. But really, whoever I was or whatever I did before doesn't matter so much. The course will remake you in their mold. You will learn the habits and reasoning and rituals of a medical student.

Imagine instead if the opportunities available to you were only of your making, were dependent on your talents, determination and hardwork - but also on good luck and networks. All those things matter in medicine to some extent, but not to the same extent. In place of independent thought or imagination, we have guidelines. I have a taste of the clinical reasoning I might one day get to exercise, but at least at this stage medicine is about norming and conforming.

-----

So then why are people impressed that you're studying medicine? It might not make sense, but often they are. Something changes in the dynamic, and after they've asked you whether you want to specialise or 'just be a GP', you might face some gushing about how hard and difficult it all must be.

When I was an arts student, I was just a student. But being a med student seems something more. There's some sense of 'prestige' that I can't explain. Is it the notion of medicine as a vocation, a calling? Is it that you might one save lives and 'make a difference'? Really?

See, sometime last year I was flipping through a magazine when I came across a photo of my film-making friend accompanying a feature article. So somewhere in between shooting her documentary she has set up an orphanage in northern India. She is an impressive person. And she just might have saved some lives and made a difference.

I also study alongside some very impressive people, but I'm not impressed by their ability to memorise things and then recall them at an appropriate time. I'm not impressed that they're a medical student.

No one graduates with a Bachelor of Making a Difference, but what's impressive is people that do. People who have the imagination and ambition and bravery to take the risk.

musculoskeletalphobia

2011-07-29T12:47:00.004+10:00

Yesterday morning I was in the ortho team meeting. It was 7am, in a small warm dark room and I was sitting up the back. I remember people discussing the finer point of managing achilles tendon tears, and the next thing a friend elbowed me in the ribs. Apparently, I was snoring.

I'm skipping the hospital today and now I'm over-run by guilt. The legacy of my Catholic upbringing lives on. But seriously, I'm tired. I've made this week a long one. My body clock is a little messed up. And... I'm going to old Melbourne town this weekend - I've got stuff to do, because I'm pretty sure I'm not doing any study this weekend. And I haven't packed, and I'm having my haircut before I go. And. And okay. I confess. I don't want to go into theatre. Please! Don't send me in there!

My med-buddy this term is actually a friend. This is nice. Unfortunately she's also a physio and the partner of an ortho, meaning this is her thing. Good for her. She's real life friends with our registrar (who is lovely by the way), and he's gone out of his way to involve us in the interesting spectrum of things happening. The unfortunate bit is that anatomy is my weakest point, and all these great opportunities she's thrusting upon me is highlighting my weaknesses - to everyone. And probably no one else cares as much as I do, but I'm starting each morning wondering: how will my ignorance be highlighted today!

I want to show my appreciation for such opportunities with enthusiasm - and some demonstrable grasp of what on earth is going on, but instead all I'm managing is the rabbit-in-headlights look. I'm thinking in my head that my time would be better spent trying to grasp the basics in a book, somewhere quiet and unintimidating - like say: the library. But instead I just feel a little hopeless most days, and stupid on the others.

My friend is really pumped to be heading into theatre. And I know it's a privilege - every self-respecting med student seems to be competitively clocking up as many hours as possible - but I'm feel dread in place of excitement. The tools, the rough man-handling, the smells, the sounds, the splatter. The standing there in one small room. And please don't ask me any questions!

I spent the morning at a fracture clinic yesterday and I do actually surprise myself with the amount of musculoskeletal knowledge I do have. Enough to sensibly present patients to the registrar at least. I suspect I know more than I think I do - but I've got an irrational fear of the musculoskeletal system that I wish I could be over already. It evokes in me all the worst feelings of inadequacy and "imposter syndrome" that hit me in my first dreadful year of medicine. I'm re-living every anatomy exam I failed, and remembering all the panic and shame of that experience.

On the plus side, this rotation has also been a revision session. I've spent a while in the physio outpatients clinic learning the finer points of Msk examinations and in the process I've learnt and re-learnt a fair bit. But perhaps my problem isn't so much remembering the names of tendons, tubercles and the like, but being able to confidently use this language and talk like a normal human being.

Yes, practice makes perfect. But today, I'm giving myself a break.

Black-pen RANT

2011-07-27T17:41:00.003+10:00

And to think all this time I'd been using a blue pen. Little did I know I was committing a medical crime.

This morning I had a stand-off with a fellow medical student over my blue pen.

"Oh, you're using the wrong pen" she helpfully pointed out.
Me: ???
"It's blue!"
"Yes...?"
"It's blue! ...Doctors use BLACK pen".
"Really? I like blue pen."
"Haven't you EVER noticed? Doctors use black pen".
"Okay. I use blue pen".
"But you should use black".
"I'm sure it will be okay".
"Well anyway, if you read the instructions in our logbook it clearly states BLACK pen".
"Oh okay [checks logbook]. I see - it says not to use pencil, use black pen - perhaps it's just reminding us to use ink! ...I'm sure it will be okay. I've done everything in blue pen".
"I think you should read instructions more carefully. Attention to detail".
"Okay".
"Doctors. Use. BLACK. Pen!"

I don't know if all that's true. I guess I've noticed more black than blue pen - but is there some unwritten law against blue? I'm already foreseeing my borderline fail coming back at me for the shameless use of blue pen.

This is what I'm learning about orthopaedics.

----

When I find myself at the wrong end of some consultant's eccentricities I wonder how they got to be the way they are. When did they decide it was okay to belittle and humiliate? But since beginning ortho I've seen the seeds of inflexible, black and white thinking and the particular peculiarities that breeds. Some days you get a glimpse of a future consultant yelling at some poor medical student years into the future.

In a surgical simulation suite, I was talking through the anatomy of some piece of the human body when my friend - an anatomy gun, previous degree in something relevant - interjects:

Her: "NO!!! You're WRONG! It's this!"
Me: Oh. Okay, I thought it was that. Why is it this?
Her: NO it's not THAT. No! It's this!
Me: Oh okay. Can you explain?
Her: It's THIS! THIS!

I feel embarrassed that I don't know something that is supposedly OBVIOUS, SIMPLE, BASIC, and frustrated that asking questions seems to just make the situation worse. She's angry with me because I don't "just know it!"

...And all the insecurities and feelings of inadequacy flood back from my first stupid year of medicine.

----

So earlier in the morning, I quickly sneak a peek at the notes of the Black-pen-girl and my confidence takes a further diver. Her notes are beautiful. Ridiculously thorough, neatly written - and all in black pen. I look back at my blue ink scribble. I've got positive findings, relevant negatives and kept everything brief. I'm neat, but I seem to be missing something. Some meticulous detail, some sense of perfection and completeness. My notes look like I'm going through the motions, and for a moment I'm wishing I could have a little bit more of the anal retentive about me.

-----

People talk about medical students being a certain type of personality. Competitive? Conscientious? ...But more than that... All or nothing, black and white... I don't know - do you get the gist? Anyway, I'm not going to go out of my way to fit the mould, but I know there's plenty of occasions where I feel almost penalised for not being the type. I can spend more time than most on the ward, know my patients really well - present, put myself out there, ask questions, get involved... but then what really matters is the formatting of your case report and you just my fail* while your mostly absent colleagues get full marks.

Not that I'm bitter or anything.

Is it because I'm doing surgery now that the worst of the dogmatists have come to the fore? It seems to be a field that lends itself more to competitive pedantry and competitiveness in general - or perhaps I'm just saying that because it's not my cup of tea. Let's out do each other in how much time we can spend in theatre holding someone's leg in an awkward position. Oh the honor! The privilege! I was mocked when I grimaced at the sight of a traumatic leg injury - but wouldn't anyone? Isn't that normal?

I'm finding the condescension a little too hard to bare, but also a little too hard to understand. I am a capable and intelligent person, and I know stuff. I didn't lose my self-worth or my mind just because I didn't know the name of the ligament that goes around the proximal end of the radius**!

I AM NOT AN ANIMAL!

A quality I really admire in the doctors I've liked the most is their generosity in teaching. They don't have to deliver their lessons with sugar on top, but some appreciation of the learning process places them high in my list of "admirable people I'd like to emulate". Challenge me, expect much of me - please, explain things to me. But just like no one became a pedantic stick in the mud over night, nor did anyone become a great teacher. I think it's something we practice and learn through our own process of learning.

It's funny that the people I'm butting heads with right now were actually some close companions during previous - more medically based - rotations. I'm fairly confident-ish in some areas where a few of the anatomy guns aren't. I like infectious diseases and immunology type stuff - and I like helping others out. I've found there's no better way to consolidate your knowledge than sharing it with someone else. Sharing in a helpful way. I hope. I think and I hope I'm learning to be a good teacher - and wishing some of my classmates might share that ambition. The answer is never: "it just is!"

*PS. After an easy re-formatting job, I got a distinction thank-you very much. I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

**Anular BTW

Hump

2011-07-04T08:41:00.002+10:00

I'm struggling to get over this hump. An exercise hump. I've gone a whole week now without going for a run, and my record this year has been pretty poor. I promised myself when I moved in with Kiko I wouldn't be victim of the co-habitation spread, but I dared to step on the scales for the first time in 6 months and I've put on 2.5kg in that time. That's a trend I don't want to maintain.

Kiko is rightly frustrated with me. He said if I can't manage good habits now - as a student - there's only worse to come when I'm back in the workforce.

I'm a morning exerciser. I sleep terribly if I work up a sweat after 5. And before I lived with Kiko, I lived in a very safe, old people's suburb where I'd safely go running in the dark winter mornings. I didn't need a gym. In my current inner city locale, I dodge too many dark shadows to feel safe running on my own. A few mornings I've almost tripped over people sleeping on the path after a hard days night. We live amongst nightclubs and backpackers, and while I love the place by day - sometimes I feel threatened after the sun's gone down. Perhaps more my imagination, but unfortunately I know well what I'm afraid of.

So right now I'm posted at an out-suburban hospital, so to get in a good hour - or at least there abouts - allow time for showering and breakfast, then my journey up the freeway I got up at 5am. I got up, had most of my stuff organised, got to the nearby gym... it's packed. Who are these crazy people? The class I wanted to attend is full; the gym is sporting a queue for the cardio machines; I feel defeated.

Kiko offers to go for a run with me when I get back all before 6.15am But I feel so far out of form I'd rather keep my struggle to myself. This weekend was the first weekend in ages we've missed out on our lake run together and I feel frustrated with myself.

Exercise hump. I'm struggling.

One week's holiday

2011-07-02T12:45:00.003+10:00

One week’s holiday is almost enough when you actually holiday, when you get away. And we did. One week in the top end in a campervan, keeping pace with the old folk. Just Kiko and I. It was so good. It didn’t just feel good to get away, but it felt great to spend a week in the company of the person I love. It’s a relief to know we get along that well, and it’s a relief to be reminded of how much I love this person.

So if you didn’t know already, Kakadu is many things, but amongst those things it’s a theme park for retirees. It’s filled to overflowing with campervans and plus sized caravans dragged around by grey haired wanderers. Kakadu is a beautiful place; a place of dramatic and contrasting landscapes, and with hand rails and ramps.

It was kind of disappointing to find the place tamed for tourists. It’s the wildness of the wilderness that attracts us, but in making something accessible to us all we lose something of what drew us there in the first place.

We were wandering around one of the popular rock art sites - conveniently wheelchair accessible - and I thought about how we change this place, take it over in numbers. Kakadu was world heritage listed for both its natural and cultural values. And yes, it’s great that it’s open for us all to appreciate, but do you think that letting us all appreciate this place robs it of some of what’s special about the place?

There’s a cultural centre in Cooinda which I'll recommend. The objects and images displayed are accompanied by the comments of traditional owners of the land. It takes you trhough some of the traditions and lore of the place, but also some of its recent history. It's a history that resonates with what I encountered in the pocket of Western Australia I visited last year. Waves of dispossession, exploitation and discrimination, followed by neglect.

On your way out there’s a few reflections on the history and fate of Kakadu. I read the comments and they said things like: so much has changed, I hope things don’t change anymore and we can remember the old ways; we fought so long for our country, and now its all for the tourists.

I read all that and went to the car with a full head. It’s the impossibility and tragedy of it all. It’s not just that change is inevitable or that I found myself in the uncomfortable position of complicity, but that there’s no going back. You can’t unlearn something, un-know something, unexperience everything that came before. What’s done isn’t done - it persists. This is something of the discussion we had as we continued our drive south.

But a part from that, there were the crowds. We found the best way to escape the crowds without access to a 4WD was to go where arthritic bones don’t dare to. So we spent most of our days climbing up rocks and steep inclines, which was all good - because usually there was something spectacular waiting at the top. If not a breathtaking view, maybe a rockpool and a waterfall. We’d go swimming even though it was never hot enough.

Going where arthritic bones don’t dare to doesn’t take you too far from anywhere. We left so many people behind at the car park. And it all got me thinking about getting old, and that was before I started my geriatrics rotation.

Imagine waiting till retirement. When I retire I’ll do this and that, and if disease or disaster doesn’t get in my way, that’s what I’ll do. But till then...

Too many people waiting to board the large tour buses looked liked they’d never walked as far as the path from the picnic table to the toilets since their children were teenagers and they bought the second car. It made sense that folks so struggled with physical activity folks when they were so much out of practice.

I don’t want to live like that. I’m not saving the best till last.

I can’t imagine retirement anyway. I can’t imagine wanting to tow my life’s possessions in a car to sip on tea-bag tea at road houses and set up camp in over crowded caravan parks. These caravans are McMansions, with satellite dishes and washing machines and every conceivable appliance and convenience packed into a fold away compartment. Is there any sense of freedom when you’re weighed down by so much baggage?

A few people solved that problem. I saw a few folk towing a trailer behind their caravan - like a long road train - and on that trailer was a small 4WD.

Obscene.

But that isn’t all our holiday was about. There’s still much more to tell, but this was something of what I took home - perhaps they’re thoughts reinforced by my current rotation on a geriatric ward. I’m thinking a lot about what is a good life - and it’s all of the obvious things - love, LIVE, take a risk, respect. Respect what you have, value what you have.

Life in real time

2011-06-28T22:57:00.002+10:00

It's only been a few weeks that I've been without a computer and a reliable internet connection, but it may as well have been eternity. I can report, life does go on after you've spilled tea on your computer and your previously free internet connection is lost forever. It just takes a bit of getting used to.

Anyway, I've got lots to tell but not the time right now. But in brief, I passed my exams in fine style, I made the most of my one glorious week of holidays touring the top end with my fantastic boyfriend and I'm now onto geriatrics. I've got a lot to say about my holiday and doing time with the old people (believe me, there are common threads... have you ever driven around NT at peak season?), but that's going to take some getting round to.

My computer is back, repaired and good as new... but alas my internet connection cuts out if I make a sudden movement or it starts to rain. I'm going to use what contact I have with the world wide web to do productive rather than procrastinating things. Or at least try to.

After exams...

2011-06-09T08:55:00.000+10:00

Did you know I’m going on holiday? After exams, Kiko and I embark on a (mini) grand adventure and I’m excited. This is our first proper holiday together - discounting trips to Melbourne to see the family. And this trip will mark two years since I realised Kiko was someone kinda special. Two years! It doesn’t feel like two years, and I’ll take that as a good sign.

So we’re flying somewhere warmer. Somewhere north of here where the dirt’s red, the sky’s blue and it’s not safe to swim in the water. We’re doing a road trip of sorts. A comfortable road trip. The closest Kiko comes to roughing it is a campervan without an inbuilt bathroom, but I can live with that. I can’t wait!

2.5

2011-06-06T22:14:00.001+10:00

After the exams this week, we’ve got our half-way dinner. That means I’m halfway through my course. Two and a half years to go. I’m not going, of course. Not because I’m too cool for school or anything like that, but I’d rather be with the group of gorgeous, funny, generous women I count as my friends than pay $75 to make polite conversation. But I digress...

So half-way, hey. It’s a lot of stuff to have learnt. The good news is the learning bit seems to get easier as you go. Two and a half years in, nothing’s so incredibly new or overwhelming anymore. You speak the language - even if just conversationally. And rather than store things away for a rainy day, you get to put these good ideas to the test. Each step you take seems to turn the mountains of before into molehills. You think of the time spent trying to get a hold of long lists of things that now seem so obvious... and equally wonder at the possible use of a long list of other things you know too well.

These days, we even have opinions. This is remarkable because in order to have (rational) opinions, you need to know something about what you’re talking about and what your friend is trying to say. So today, my library buddies and I expressed our inner-selves through a heated discussion about antimicrobials. It’s kind of exciting - you know - to be really thinking about this stuff - thinking about how you can pull all those threads about PK and PD, resistance patterns and mechanisms, and hypersensitivity reactions, and immunocompromised people and nosocomial infections and hand-washing protocols and the patient’s mother’s maiden name together. I love a good debate. It IS exciting; and yep, I am that cool.

Still two and a half years left of this student life, and that feels like long enough. I’ll graduate at 32 and a half. I could wish I was ten years younger, or that I’d graduate in a hurry, but this is just the way it’s going to be. Things are interesting and challenging, but they also leave time to do all the other things... the living, loving, earning and socialising that one requires. I want a proper income, but I’m not ready to trade that in for the luxury of time just yet. I’m happy to take my time, even if sometimes I feel like time hasn’t worked out in my favour.

...Of course, all this time I do spend enjoying non- medical related pursuits could be a sure sign of my poor studentship and dedication... that, I’ll have to live with.

Reasons I might want to twitter...

2011-05-31T18:28:00.005+10:00

To share my frustrations with the world when watching Q&A.

To vent to the world about that annoying couple (with the woman who does the patronising pigeon-English-mock-Asian accent) on the Australian Amazing race (why has someone not yet punched her in the face?).

To avoid doing all the things I should be doing.

Secret special

2011-05-26T18:39:00.005+10:00

Before I tell you I nearly cried on the ward on Thursday, I'll have you know my psychiatry observed case went very well on that same day. And it was perhaps because it went so very well that I was fighting back tears on my way to the car park.

I left the ward after a long feedback session with the consultant. Would you be surprised to know that feedback given by a consultant psychiatrist is something quite different all together? What had just happened? Was this encouragement or therapy or feedback or instruction? I'm not sure. I was close to tears, in the grip of a sympathetic drive and the hold of ambivalence on the walk to my car.

The consultant had quickly skimmed over the boxes that I ticked and then he shifted gear. He gave me a short story of myself: what interests me; my strengths; what I've learnt; and maybe why I'm here. His story left me with a funny feeling. How do you feel after someone's slipped under your skin and gone exploring? Do you feel exposed? And if they find something beautiful, something secret? What then?

I remind myself all the time in this strange world of medicine that I'm not special. It's a strange mantra I repeat to myself in the face of so much strangeness. If I overlook the nuances for a moment, my friends in medicine don't see far beyond the limits of the course curricular. It is a closed and a conforming bunch. And I secretly draw a line between myself and my wider cohort and imagine I see things a little differently; that I hold some perspective on things that no one else does. I imagine I hold this secret - flying under the radar with this special distinction... And it's then I rebuke myself: no, I'm not special. Not at all.

So it unnerved me to sit before this consultant while he indulged me my fantasy. He told me the way I see people. That I see people as their stories would have it - that I look for narrative and search for character, and try to pull together the pieces of a this patient's puzzle. I didn't impress him with all this in just one hour long interview, but he said he'd watched how I'd learnt over the term. That he could see I was uncomfortable in the rotation in the beginning - but suddenly found my rhythm.

He told me what my strengths were and that's what really stung. He listed things along the lines of what I thought I did best, but it's the kind of thing you'd never admit to yourself - never truly own it. Instead it's safer to tell yourself that you're not special, put your head down and soldier on.

He told me I'm a good listener and he can see how interested I am in people. After I got through the presenting complaint and my screening questions, I moved onto social history and he said he watched as I stepped into my patient's shoes. He said he could see how much I was enjoying myself.

Perhaps for anyone else this isn't the kind of feedback that would hit their nerve, but for me it felt like he'd read my mind and knew something of what mattered to me most. I can't quite explain why his observations and encouragement so upset me. Even now, I can't get over the ridiculousness of this post: I am writing about something I did well! This medical degree of mine is more likely to fail you for your flaws than encourage your strengths, and I'm getting used to that. My skin is growing thick, but these kind words take me by surprise.

Psyched

2011-05-24T10:20:00.005+10:00

I was never psychotic! I don't have schizophrenia! I haven't heard voices ALL week!!!

So psychiatry is trundling along. It's grown on me a bit. We're almost at the end, and all I've got to do is an observed case with my reg and a long case exam next Thursday. Up until about 11.30 today I wasn't too worried about the observed case - I thought: it's just a matter of pinning this registrar down - but then my psych buddy did her case today... and now I'm not so sure.

My psych buddy is the screening question queen. Her psych interviews border on interrogations at times, but since ticking boxes seems to be the aim of the game at this stage she's doing it all right. And then she got the feedback for her observed case that she wasn't doing ENOUGH screening questions. Shit.

This is the thing I don't like about psych at this level. You focus so much on pulling a part a person's story and matching the bits and pieces to your memorised lists of diagnostic criteria that you can quickly loose sight of the person. Screening questions take away all curiosity for a person.

One of the consultants demands quick formulations and management plans from us on Friday mornings. This kind of grilling is great practice for the long case next week - but I get so frustrated by the process. We present amazing stories, incredible stories of loss and trauma and dysfunction, the weird, the wonderful and the very, very strange. But in place of knowing anything about the why, the how, and what next, we get drilled about what obs this patient needs, the management setting, the follow-up.

This focus is probably as much student driven as it is consultant. Psychiatry ventures into the grey - when what students want is the black and white. What do we need to know to go well? To pass exams? To tick the box? And management plans are probably what medicine is all about anyway. What does the why matter anyway?

Despite my complaints, I think I've learnt a lot from this rotation. It's not the same kind of measurable progress I forged in gen med, but there's been plenty of insights into who we are and why and how. For me, it's been a reflective rotation. Patients' stories can't help but make you look at yourself. So instead of going home and imprinting the DSM to memory like I should, I've been reading and thinking about all sorts of round about things - which I'm sure I'll never be asked about in an exam. Oh well.

Our registrar told us she'll give us (me and my psych buddy) a mark to reflect our general input on the wards as well as what she observes in our interview. Since she seems convinced I'm going to be a psychiatrist, I thought I was in... that was until my buddy got her "screening question" forecast. I have some work to do.

fantasy

2011-05-06T19:46:00.002+10:00

In my purse, I have an old and neatly folded piece of paper. On it I've carefully made a long list of restaurants and cafes and bars in foreign cities and their respective addresses. Just in case. Just in case I find myself in Rome or Sao Paulo when I thought I was on my way to a lecture on polypharmacy in older patients. You know, just in case.

I can hear the click of my heels on paved streets and the smells and the textures of somewhere else. It's nice to imagine - to a point. And after that point, the imagining is frustrating. Will I ever get there? And the "there" could be anywhere - anywhere but here. Not that I'm unhappy here... but just that chance to be there - just for a moment... long enough to feel the difference.

I've been wasting valuable time coming up with a plan. A convoluted escape plan that began with a $25 per week saving plan and gave rise to a detailed spread sheet and a gant chart. I'm excited. And very, very dorky.

Now excuse me while I indulge in a late afternoon reverie about train travel, suspect guest houses and proteins of unknown source. I'll try to contain myself before I start making lists of what to pack when I should be learning something more about this psychiatry business.

PS. 5 weeks till one week break!

Today I sat in a meeting. That is all.

2011-04-27T19:00:00.002+10:00

Back in the day when I was paid to sit at a desk for some thirty-eight or so hours in a week, I hated some meetings more than others. Meetings with a purpose weren't nearly so bad as those that waffled on, with agendas hijacked by personal asides, too much socialising and too little sharing of important information/opinion. I hated the meetings that stretched out for hours that - if you took out all the padding- could've been over in 45 minutes.

This is another reason I don't like psychiatry.

On the plus side, I don't worry about bringing my lunch. Sandwiches and cake provided.

Imperfection

2011-04-24T12:27:00.009+10:00

In honour of being thirty, I decided I was going to buy myself a new pair of glasses. Kinda like a mini makeover for myself. And like a good haircut, not only are glasses expensive (throw in some good lenses and we're talking >$500), they're also an outfit you wear everyday. More than an outfit - they become apart of your appearance. But unlike a haircut, you're stuck with a pair of glasses for years. Years!

Wearing glasses is a love-hate thing. I love that they help me see. I hate that I have to wear them. And I wish I had the choice to look nerdy sometimes, then whip 'em off every now and then Clark Kent style and be superwoman for a while. Instead I have strange men ask me on the bus if I'm a librarian. I do realise the solution to this problem is called "contact lenses" - but such things are beyond a student budget (glasses are more expensive, but it's a one off expense), and I find them a bit intolerable anyway.

Just as an aside, I did have contacts I wore infrequently for a time there. And since the only time I see myself without glasses usually is up very close to the mirror early in the morning, when I was wearing contacts I just thought I looked tired.

But now I'm thirty, it's about time I learn to accept my imperfections. So I've decided to go bold. Rather than fight my myopia, I'll embrace it. I'm starting on the path to eccentric old lady beginning with a dash of colour and a heavier frame, with the aim of something hexagonal with flashing lights by sixty-five. I wear glasses; hear me roar!

So yesterday we went eyeglass shopping (read: check serial numbers so you can then order online), and much to my dismay nothing with a heavy, plastic frame fitted me. My head is neither extraordinarily big nor strangley small. My ears, nose and eyes are all in the right place. But it's my nose. My nose is crooked.

I've always had glasses with an adjustable nose piece. In fact, these are my current spectacles. Behold:

Clearly optometrists around the country have been hiding my crooked nose from me, moving the little nose piece bit around to give the allusion of symmetry. Alas, plastic frames don't provide this kind of flexibility, and every pair I tried on the crookedness of my face was clear for all to see.

These are the pair I liked the most:

But unless they come with some secret cushioning device to disguise a lopsided nose, they're not for me. Subtler eyewear will be my destiny. This is upsetting.

And you know it's not just about the glasses - I remember reading some worthy scientific article, probably published by fairfax, whereby beauty was found not in the eye of the beholder but in the symmetry of a person's face. This means, I am officially not the most beautiful woman in the world. Under close scrutiny, I may have also noted my eyebrows arch to a different curve too. Damn. I had my suspicions my looks weren't quite as noteworthy as -say- Nathalie Portman, but it comes as some blow to face the hard cold truth of the matter.

So cheers to thirty, and embracing imperfections and physical flaws.

Lap of luxury

2011-04-20T21:03:00.003+10:00

In case I had you convinced I live this hard student life of poverty and destitution, I'll confess: my house is cleaned by a professional. It's a very recent phenomena. In fact, it was just before my thirtieth birthday shenanigans kicked off that Kiko decided there were better things to do with our weekends than mop floors. I, of course, agreed with him - which is why I mop the floors far less frequently than perhaps I should. But while I interpreted his decision as a shift toward looser standards of household cleanliness, he was making up his mind to PAY someone to do to do what we can't be bothered doing.

Ladies and gentleman, is this not the height of decadence? Let me remind you I am a childless student/waitress who has her floors washed by someone who probably gets a better hourly rate than she does. Don't worry, I do feel guilty.

Still I can report that it is a strange but awesome feeling to come home to a house that someone else has cleaned that is NOT your mother. Everything is perfect - better than you would have done, and they even fold over the ends of the toilet paper like hotels do. Rewind a fortnight ago and I don't know if I was getting more excitement from the arrival of my family in town, or from the folds of the toilet paper (in a non-sexual, aesthetic way).

So tomorrow morning the cleaner is coming. Kiko is offshore and I'm home alone. And what am I doing? Cleaning. What's wrong with me?

On coping, or not.

2011-04-19T18:45:00.006+10:00

Hold on to the goodness I shared in my last post, because I am. Things ARE good, but they can also be difficult at the same time. That's how I feel about psychiatry, anyway. It's difficult.

In the small amount of time we've been with the unit and amongst the small amount of patients our small posse of students have interviewed, it seems that by now everyone but me and my student partner has interviewed at least one woman who holds some traumatic memory of sexual assault and abuse. Fortunately, I've dodged that bullet so far; but unfortunately it is readily apparent that if I let things run their course, I will inevitably find myself sitting in a windowed room (visible from the nurses' station) gently prodding some depressed patient about her difficult past. Yes, unfortunately inevitable.

So we're telling tales in the tea room and these stories are scaring the bejesus out of me. I'm beginning to worry, so that when I'm sitting in the small windowed rooms talking to patients I'm almost waiting for them to tell me what I'm afraid to hear. I worry how I'm going to respond. I'm worried that I'm going to cry, to fall apart. And I know none of this should be about me, but I'm caught up in my worries and despite my good intentions - it's ALL ABOUT ME. I feel like I'm a kitchen sponge soaking up their emotions, and spilling out dirty dishwater tears.

Shit. I'm angry with myself. Angry to be reliving these feelings. Angry for getting this way.

And then there's a PBL on anxiety and I'm scanning over checklists I've scribbled in my notes for each disorder... and -shit- each criterion describes something of what I'm feeling in that moment. I fight back tears. I feel like a failure.

They're talking about PTSD and I ask what's the distinction between a normal and pathological response to a stressful or traumatic experience? People throw around ideas and I feel like they're describing me. They're not, of course. But I'm taking it all personally nonetheless. The "Prof" says something about the appropriateness of duration and intensity of response. I take my pulse and count the months and know I'm a failure.

It's not all so bad. I had a long talk with my registrar after I'd cried over my coffee, found some perspective and resolved a kind of plan. But you know - it's really difficult not to feel some sort of weakness or failing that I can relive all this. You set yourself high expectations - fantasies of being a steady cool, calm and collected. A sophisticated machine. Instead, I'm undeniably human: fallible and vulnerable. And I wonder if I'm coping, and I wonder what coping looks like. I remind myself that this was a traumatic experience and that anyone would feel something of what I have. It's been a tough time, but I've kept going.

Elsewhere on the internet there was some discussion about coping skills and being a junior doctor. It's a discussion I take note of, looking for clues about what coping means and how to do it. What is coping and have I done it? Did I not cope because I cried, because I broke down, because I felt angry? Or was that all called for? Is that what I was supposed to do? If you look at the patients on the ward, I coped; but if you compared me to the best and brightest in my course, I failed. If you ask my boyfriend, he'll tell you how proud he is with how I did cope, but perhaps anyone who has read my blog will say I didn't. And now that I've been comparing myself to DSM-IV criteria*, some objective person might officially diagnose me.

*Playing the Self-Diagnosis game in Psychiatry is a recipe for angst. Just letting you know. :)

Goodness

2011-04-18T20:01:00.004+10:00

So I'm adjusting to this being thirty business. It's been three whole days now and the end of the world has not yet come. I'm taking one day at a time.. :P

I turned thirty at the end of a whole week of celebrations. People over from the east, breakfast, lunches and dinners out, drinks and festivities. There's been fun to be had, cooking to be done, and hosting to be delivered. By the end of it, I was teetering on exhaustion. There is such thing as too much of a good thing.

Still, my birthday party was great. It's an unusual privilege to find yourself in a room filled with people you love, and I'm glad I could enjoy that pleasure. It was a great night. There's no reason it shouldn't have been, but I'm still not in that habit of enjoying my own birthday. It's been many years in the making for me to find this comfort in myself. Usually I associate these kind of social gatherings and focus of attention anxiety-inducing, but now I find myself comfortably amongst friends.

The opportunity to bring people together from different chapters of my life gave me a clear view of some of the growing I've done. It's not easy to look back upon some of the tougher times, but it brings a different perspective to the present. Knock on wood, rabbits foot and salt over the shoulder... things are good. Right here, right now - things aren't perfect, but they're good. Psychiatry upsets me and is draining, but I love my course. I'm in love with a wonderful man. I have good friends here - a good community - and the family is okay. Maybe because I know how very different this all could be that I want to shout this goodness out to the world. Things are good.

This hospital serves cake

2011-04-13T18:16:00.005+10:00

Not sure about psychiatry just yet. We'll see -it looks interesting, but I'm having difficulty letting go of gen med. But perhaps I'll be converted in time...

Right now, I'm at a new public hospital with a private wing. Perhaps because of the private wing, they serve cake at this hospital. Tuesdays and Thursday cake will be served! There is also affordable, healthy food available for purchase - the very opposite of what was on offer at my major metropolitan hospital last term. That's right - they reserve the deep fried fat crap for the poor people.

In other news, I am on rotation with generally lovely people. There is no one on this term who scares me! I just point that out because there were a few people last term who did. And the people who scare me aren't so much misanthropic psychopaths, but just a little lacking in "care" factor. Like not respecting patients' dignity (leaving people in a state of undress or discomfort), not caring that your fellow students have to pick up the slack, pissing off the consultant and reg (and making the rest of us look bad in the process).

Dear internet, what happens to those people? I don't want to work with those people... I don't want to be the patient of those people... And I especially don't want anyone I care about to be the patient of those people.

2011-04-09T00:20:00.003+10:00

I'm sorry to go on about the weather, but that's what I'm going to do. I was so excited yesterday when - YES - it rained!!!! It rained for the first time in 100 days or more. And -whoah- was I excited about the chance to wear a cardigan.

Okay. I felt a twinge of sympathy for the friends and family flying in from the east with hopes of warm, beach type weather. Instead BOM was forecasting low twenty something and RAIN. RAIN!!!! RAIN!!!!!

But then the week progressed. Fine days of warmth are on the radar. And enough! I want Autumn already. Ungrateful, yes! But please, stop tempting me with something different. I want cosy clothes and layers and any excuse to curl up somewhere comfy. Amen.

Forgetting

2011-04-07T08:43:00.002+10:00

I met a patient yesterday. He was well-dressed, well spoken, and wasn't eligible for any sort of senior citizens discount (what I am saying is he was relatively young). He had early onset Alzheimers diesase at forty years of age, and it is the most tragic thing I have seen so far. He had no idea where he was and why, how he got there and what for; but unlike your average confused person on the ward - he had insight. Four times in fifteen minutes he mentioned he has problems with his memory. Twice he said "they might have told you I have this Alzheimers disease".

His wife loves him. She is his bastion of familiarity. He has children, had a career. He seemed like he might have been a pleasant man to chat to about other things than where he was just now. I could see the fear in his eyes and it frightened me.

Visitors from the East

2011-04-03T20:03:00.003+10:00

My parents are here! And by the end of the week, my brothers, their girlfriends, an uncle, and some old friends will be too. What's the occasion?

I am turning thirty. Three. Oh! And people are crossing a continent to celebrate with me. Aren't I special? Very grateful and excited.

I want to write all about it, but there's so much to do between now and then. Last week of Gen Med term... boo! Just one more stupid case report to deliver between now and then... hooray! (Case reports: easily the most annoying thing about clinical experience so far...)

That is all.

Bearable lightness

2011-03-30T17:00:00.000+11:00

I was walking to the hospital in the morning sunshine and I remembered for a moment the weight that wasn't on my shoulders. I felt my own lightness and carried on my way.

I feel like I jinx myself a little every time I remind myself 'it's over', but it is. It really is. And besides, no one should feel at risk of any jinx that might make you a victim of a crime. Raped. It's not a jinxing matter.

Still, I'm a little cautious. I'll touch wood and tell you: life! Isn't it amazing? It's painful and unjust, and it's also beautiful. Perhaps it's because I know something of the opposite that I can appreciate the lightness of being in the morning sunshine. That will be my silver lining.

Sensible shoes

2011-03-28T16:30:00.010+11:00

I'm home sick today. I'm sure paid employees go into the hospital sick because they have to, but it sort of feels quite tricky being there as a student. Because you know, I'm not really helping anyone on a good day - and coughing and spluttering and sneezing on everyone seems kinda selfish. I did actually head in this morning (hospital's not far from where I live) with the aim of hanging round for our consultant round, but after the millionth time washing my hands (sneeze, cough, sniffle) around our few dying patients it was time to go home.

So. I should be studying but I'm not. Instead I'd like to discuss the important topic of sensible shoes. Earlier in the year, I was complaining to everyone about the prospect of buying sensible, comfortable shoes. In times of limited resources, you wanna get the most bang for your buck, right? And there's no bang to be had from grandma shoes. Why should I spend my meagre funds of buying dog ugly footwear?

Yes, there's plenty of dog ugly old ladies shoes out there waiting to be snapped up. But that's not the extent of what's on offer. Apparently, you CAN buy shoes with a modicum of style. I promise. Perhaps you'll need to adjust your standards, but you can be sensible without being hideous.

And the bonus is sensible shoes really are actually quite sensible. And comfortable. To think, all this time I've been hiking around in a slither of a ballet, ruining my shoes and hurting my feet, when there was a rubber souled alternative out there. Perhaps I've lost all perspective, but I don't even think they're THAT ugly. See for yourself. This is what I've been wearing around the wards lately:

So perhaps they won't win any beauty contests, but they're not hideous either. They are comfortable though. I can wander in, march around the hospital all day, meander home and still feel like dancing. And the bonus is, I now have shoes in my cupboard reserved for the fun stuff. Rather than getting scuffed and worn over the week, they're waiting patiently at home for some other adventure.

(Of course, I wear matching shoes).

Note bene

2011-03-27T15:24:00.002+11:00

This is something I did right last year: keep all my med summaries electronically, organised by system. Even better that I used a searchable note taking program, so throughout my med rotation I've got a handy resource telling me the why and the common things in a language and level that's (mostly) right for me (well - I'm adding more clinically relevant stuff these days - it's a work in progress this learning business).

So there's my tip for the day. I use circus ponies' notebook program for Macs to keep everything organised and tidy. It's a bit cumbersome and annoying sometimes (perhaps I'm just not using it right?), so often I type things into pages and then copy and save across.

This blog needs pictures

2011-03-26T18:13:00.002+11:00

Kiko and I in the splashing around in the Indian ocean.

I'm not going to let a lack of camera get in my way. We need pictures!

A week on my ward

2011-03-25T18:20:00.003+11:00

This week...

The interns finish their rotation. My interns have been wonderful. They're good teachers, they're intelligent, they're organised and systematic, they have lovely manners with the patients, they're firm and fair. And they're also 22 years old. Ladies and gentleman, they are graduates of my 6 year medical degree and in their intern year, AND they're TWENTY TWO years old.

I had two "breaking bad news" conversations this week. Not so much telling anyone something they didn't already know, but being by the bedside when the patient wants to talk through things they didn't want to talk about with the busy registrar. I've got the time to really listen after all. As a result, I now know where the tissues are kept.

I had my observed case this week and got 5 out of 6 and some really good feedback. My areas of improvement concern backing my judgement and presenting with confidence. I feel pleased and relieved - though I can't help wonder if my patient was particularly straight forward?

I'm getting the hang of this cannulation business. Seeking out well hydrated patients does wonders for one's confidence.

I've witnessed what a UTI can do to a nice, little old lady. Why hello Mr Hyde! ...I was thinking to myself how I never thought a UTI was that big a deal, while the intern wrote up an order for haloperidol.

I've been overcome by a bad case of introspection this week. Be thankful I haven't had the time to share all the details. But I've been thinking a lot about love, life, turning thirty, and all that jazz. And I'm wandering up the street with Kiko and talking through some of the 'big issues' when he just throws this out there: "Maybe you've missed the baby boat. By the time you've graduated - and you're working chef-hours, be realistic - it's probably not going to happen".

Ouch.

There was a MET call for one of our patient's yesterday afternoon and even when she was stabilised, things didn't look good. When I came in this morning, our intern was so lovely in giving us a bit of a de-brief regarding how she fared overnight. We went round to see her prepared. She seemed to respond to her name, but didn't open her eyes. So I went and got some guaze and saline and cleaned away - and sure enough, she COULD open her eyes. And then there was a flicker of movement in her hands, and her feet. We were surprised. Then she reached out her hand and seemed to obey our commands. We were all smiling. Then the intern thought perhaps she should put her false teeth back in. The nurse did just that, and our patient almost smiled and said to the nurse she prefers to lie on her right side. We laughed at small miracles.

Priorities

2011-03-25T10:04:00.002+11:00

One of our patients is really sick; the sickest I've seen so far. And yesterday she looked a whole lot worse. The relevant specialty ward won't take her; they'd prefer she receives palliation. Palliative care won't look for her until we withdraw the one key treatment we're giving her - the one key treatment that is assuring her some quality of life. And in any case, she's still talking about when she gets better.

So yesterday she took a turn for the worse. The specialty crew were called and the reg got some advice on what to do. We were getting a drug delivered to us in a hurry. Our patient was in distress. It wasn't looking good.

The nurse was annoyed by all this commotion. She didn't like the pharmacist, and liked less our reg. "You WILL give this to her now", our reg said to her. "YES!" The nurse said back firmly, "But it's my morning tea time. Not before I've had my cuppa."

Well. Priorities. Our patient promptly got the drug (before anyone had their cuppa) and she was stabilised, made comfortable. But it was a tense moment.

2011-03-22T22:13:00.004+11:00

I'm finding photos for my thirtieth birthday. Apparently, I was once this cute:

PS. Check-out that shag pile carpet.

Notes from another life

2011-03-21T17:48:00.004+11:00

In my move to Kiko's I re-found a collection of old diaries, mostly cringeworthy. I plan on ripping out the pages and salvaging the beautiful notebooks to fill with medical bits and pieces. But before I throw away the thoughts of my former self, I thought I'd record a few bits and pieces here.

I really was a different person. Maybe. Between now and then feels like infinity.

------------

From November 2003.

We’ve been getting drunk. Warm nights, sunny days. Walking in the shallows of the sea, taking beers to the park and getting bitten by insects in the humid twilight. I’ve already had too many hangovers, and tomorrow officially begins summer. I’m caught between the desire to be healthy, discipline myself against the sedantry year that has passed, and an urge to unravel, to give in to it all - the pleasure I’ve not allowed myself. Sex and laziness and intoxication.

This is the beginning of something different. Uni is over. What next? I’m not sure what this beginning is the beginning of; I just hope it’s the beginning of something.

Beginning of 2005.

I miss the freedom of traveling. Canberra is the opposite of all that feeling. Canberra is suburbs and families and buying things. Cars and supermarkets. It is not a city, just a huddle of suburbs. Maybe I miss the city. Maybe I just miss walking somewhere meant for walking.

Things are nice here. Nice houses. Nice jobs. Nice people. So nice that you miss all the things that are not.

I’d love to be traveling right now. Walking through a city new to me. Somewhere beautiful and dirty, that doesn’t even notice I exist.

I want to be engaged and challenged. I’m not. I don’t know if you can find these things in the workplace. I’m only so ambitious as to want these things. I’m not ambitious to want to be an EL whatever, just because.

I made Jim and I move here. To Canberra. Is it funny that I regret the decision, while he seems happy here. Happier. I haven’t given up yet. Things must get better.

End of 2006

I don’t believe my friends have the patient to put up with me. But then I’m testing their patience - making my expectation come true.

I don’t want anyone to see how I feel. It could scare people away.

At the same time, I resent people when they comment on how well I’m coping, how together I am. That I’m conducting myself with dignity. It makes me feel angry and frustrated. Also very distant and detached. Those observations seem to make me float away.

2007

I’ve read the depression stuff and I don’t think I’m depressed. None of that resonates with me now. I know from experience of my reslience. I’ll be okay. I have reserves of self-belief I forget about, but seem to re-discover when I need it most.

2008
He writes to me from England and I know all about his troubles. He frustrates me. I lose respect. After all this he doesn’t seem to have learnt.

So he’s living in that hardened and depressed place. The factories closed, council houses and teenage mothers, kids throwing rocks at the bus. I hated life there. It still gives me the creep of claustraphobia. But for him, it’s home.

Later in 2008

Work meanwhile was a slow painful death.

Summer continues

2011-03-20T11:03:00.003+11:00

Today the temperature will reach 30, and over the next week we'll have 34, 35, 32, 31, 34, 35. This is the summer that just won't end. The saving grace is that our evenings now reach lows of 18 and it's easier to sleep than it was during that month long stretch when all our nights were in the mid to high twenties.

Kiko's glad to know that the beach weather continues. Yes, it does. Blue skies and sunshine are a pleasure - that I'd prefer in moderation. Give me some variety and some relief. Kiko has an ocean engineering friend and she told us the sea surface temperature had reached 25 C and killed the doctor. For a while there the sea breezes were no relief. A whale shark was seen off city beach.

Things have at least changed now. The doctor is back and on some afternoons I've felt a lick of cool breeze on the evening's approach. One morning I woke up and I could smell rain like a distant memory... but there was nothing. No rain. I can't imagine what it will be like when it does - when big fat rain drops might wash away the sweat and dust and fermenting smells of summer in the city.

Will the sunburn English backpackers put their t-shirts back on? And the footpaths be cleaned of months of spilt beer and body fluids? I'll run my route around the neighborhood and won't be suffocated by the smells of the thick mud and duck faeces where once there was a lake. And things will be fresh and clean and new.

Gen med so far

2011-03-17T20:30:00.003+11:00

So let's imagine some future when maybe I'm on maternity leave or something like that. And I'm actually a qualified doctor. Goodness me. Well, I tell you what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna get my self a casual job teaching some skillz. I'm gonna be the best pre-clinical teacher those future med students ever had. Dammit!

Perhaps I should be embarrassed that this term has been all about re-discovering what you knew, but I'm having daily epiphanies about things I thought I'd heard and seen and felt before. But oh no! Did I really hear it, touch it, feel it? Because I think it's only now I really am. And it's so exciting. It's exciting to be excited. I'm liking this medical stuff.

And if I were a teacher teaching me last year, maybe I couldn't have given me the opportunities I have this year - but I could have helped me better appreciate what normal is; help me feel comfortable to talk about what it is I see and hear and feel - and most importantly: why?

Unfortunately, much of our course - and especially our clinical skills teaching in previous years has been about memorising a list and checking it off. It's taking a while to shake the habit of check-list examinations, but with only four weeks left of this rotation I think I'm getting there. I want to stay longer and learn more.

Denial

2011-03-17T09:40:00.003+11:00

My older brother is in Japan. Snowboarding. He's still snowboarding and posting on facebook occasionally about powder snow and asahi. Yep, he's still in Japan and seems to be having a good time. Maybe he's in a parallel universe? Have been sending subtle messages of impending nuclear doom. He replies with an update on his latest adventures and current plans - none of which involve a flight home.

Shit.

Thankful

2011-03-15T22:44:00.003+11:00

Just a few days before I flew to Melbourne for my aunt's funeral, I went to a public lecture on the subject of death and spirituality. Not a cheerful topic, but perhaps a timely one. It was delivered by a palliative care physician from the hospital I'm rotating at this term. I'd heard him speak before, and I sort this chance to hear him speak some more - and pay for that privilege - because I think he has something pretty special to say.

If I could convey something of the message he shared, you'd be sure to tell the special people in your life how you love them, to listen to others, to say sorry when you need to, to seek reconciliation, and share the good things that you have. No one needed an earthquake or a tsunami as a reminder of these simple things. A two hour lecture on a Thursday night was enough for me. I can appreciate how uncertain life can be - even on a small scale. And I can be thankful for the concert of joys in my life, I can share them with others and hope to one day cure myself of regret.

The pictures of the devastation in Japan are incomprehensible. My thoughts and hopes are with all those affected.

Ridiculous

2011-02-28T19:23:00.004+11:00

The bath tub was full; a fragrant candle by the side; a glass of wine untouched. Who knows how she slipped, but she did. She hit her head. She drowned.

My uncle and my cousin had just gone down the street. My parents were just 15 minutes away. They drove there as fast as they could. My quietly spoken uncle and her son were soaked by the bath water. Wailing. Shaking. They'd dragged her limp body to the floor. Her warm body.

Mum told me the body lay there for hours after as police arrived at the scene. An unexpected death. Mum wanted to shake her, tell her to wake up, get up, stop being silly!

The dog cowered in the corner. My uncle couldn't speak.

Her eldest son is surfing somewhere in South America. He hasn't seen his mum in months. And no one could reach him. She retired at Christmas time. Fifty years old. They were moving to Hanoi. She was in good health.

My brother rang me yesterday. I was by a busy roadside and only heard enough to put the picture together the way I'd like it. I asked him what hospital she was in, was she okay? He said no, she died and I told him that was ridiculous. It is ridiculous. And that's all there is to say.

The library of humankind

2011-02-26T11:14:00.004+11:00

You know it's really difficult to post something about the ins and outs of my day when a people's revolution is over-throwing governments in one part of the world, and an earthquake has devastated another. The world's a strange place and my life is so small.

I'll give it a go anyway.

Wouldn't it be great if there were a library of humankind? Everyone has their own leather bound volume and the index at the back lists everyone who ever meant anything to that person - good, bad or and difficult. So you meet someone who intrigues you, confounds you or repulses you, you locate their book, read the back story, and maybe know "why".

This is part of the privilege of being a medical student. I've got the time and the ear to listen. By the end of the day you've collected a bag full of stories and a long list of questions. You know something of a stranger; more than maybe their lover and their best friend between them. So there's no library to browse through the back story, but you've got enough already to imagine. And what they don't tell you is hinted at by their body. Spider naevi spread like a rash over your chest. An enlarged spleen and the bruised injection site in your groin.

People are so interesting. I think I'm meant to feel frustrated or at least incredulous by the stories of daily self-destruction. Almost everyone smokes and almost everyone has diabetes, and if you point out the pack day history of the COPD patient in bed G-something or other, the intern quips "welcome to general medicine".

But I don't feel frustrated. This is all shiny and new for me - and even so, people are so interesting. Their lives so different to mine. And maybe if there were a library of humankind, I might know something of how they ended up here. Perhaps disadvantage doesn't absolve you of responsibility for yourself, for your actions - but I can see how that struggle has written the story. So what happened? Do you know love? Do you remember when the sober light of day was something to bask in? Have you felt safe? Do you feel special?

I don't ask. I don't think you should ask, because knowing the answer is only for my curiosity. Yesterday I took a history from an IVDU with a personal history of mental illness, with a family history of mental illness and an extensive list of things he crushes up and pumps into his circulation. I can only imagine what this man's life as a child. It's hard to separate the cause and effect in most people's stories, and especially his.

When I was at the Aboriginal medical service, I thought what I was seeing were the symptoms of something more than socio-economic disadvantage. I still think that's the case, but I can also see how the large slice of influence such disadvantage has. I can give you a list of the social determinants of health, but I think I'm only just learning how much they determine.

It's not just that my parents read to me or fed me and loved me. It's that I grew up taking opportunity for granted. I might not have known what I wanted, but I didn't question that there was a place for me in the world. And even when I might have wandered far from home, there was always a home there for me. It's all the difference in the world.

It's not just about dollars and cents and opportunity. It's peoples' stories. This is the ultimate people watching experience, and straight away I know how so many doctors end up being authors. It could almost be a prerequisite. Creative writing classes are useless. Listen to the story of a handful of patients and wonder a while about what awaits them beyond the ward.

I'm excited.

The apprentice

2011-02-17T23:59:00.001+11:00

My mum is a bit puzzled about what I’m doing in a hospital. I explained this medical business has something like an apprenticeship system. Since food is a language my family speaks, I told her I’ve got to learn to slice my onion finely and fast before I can graduate to pastry, maybe pans and who knows - maybe one day I’ll be at the pass. “Aaah! I see” she said. And then there was a long pause over the phone where I imagined her wondering what parts of the human body my analogy referred to. I’m wondering too.

Med post!

2011-02-11T11:05:00.003+11:00

I fail a little in the med student blogging department, but now I'm a clinical student maybe I can write some more interesting things. Last year, the best I could have given you was an account of my movements between the lecture theatre and the library, with occasional excursions to the lab. I'm hoping for posts about crazy-funny things patients say and the weird world of public hospitals. This year I will be a better med student blogger and talk more about medicine! Hooray. And to get the ball rolling, this is the blog post where I - a fourth year medical student - wonders what I might do with my life after sixth year work wise.

To begin with, I say no to surgery. And that's not only because I'm somewhat lacking in my knowledge of human anatomy, but because it's boring. Gray's Anatomy would have me believe surgery is sexy, but I think otherwise. Maybe the sex appeal will reveal itself in good time, which is entirely possible given my limited experience, but at this stage whenever I've seen surgeries or think about surgery I can't fathom why anyone would want to do THAT day in, day out. Boring.

And then there's general practice. I am fully aware that my fertility clock is ticking. I know general practice would be a good, family friendly avenue to stroll down. Things could be flexible and accommodating and wonderful. That doesn't mean I wanna do it. Please, don't make me do it. I've seen general practice be very exciting. At the Aboriginal medical centre there was not one single patient who presented with lower back pain! But the problem for me is that most of the general practitioner's time is spent in a chair in an office all on their lonesome. You see, I can't sit still (apologies to my library neighbours). I like to be on my feet. I like to be moving. And I want to work with people, in a team - moving around on my feet. The being-on-my-feet part of the picture was actually part of my motivation to pursue medicine. Yep. That's right. Some people what to save lives and help people. I want to stand up. I could have been a waitress, but clearly I am also a masochist. So, unfortunately - no to general practice.

And also no to psychiatry. I LOVE the drugs. I mean, I don't love the drugs, but damn those drugs are interesting. Well, the brain is interesting. I remember learning about anti-psychotics last year and doing a bit of reading about schizophrenia and ascending to some nerdy frenzy of excitement. This stuff is AMAZING! I want to get up (on my feet) and tell my library buddies all about it. And even depression - wow! How cool is that? Well, obviously not cool - but the brain... so interesting, which is all well and good - but psychiatry? No. It's just not my cup of tea.

So, here's what I like. I like pharmacology and physiology and I like people. I like standing up, being on the move, working in a team. I want a bit of stress, a bit of adrenalin. I want multi-systems and regular sleep patterns. Not sure about the kids, but maybe. And what I really like is learning about people and their stories.

And here's what I've got:

Oncology. It's all of the above. And I think one day, I might be the right person for the job. I think it's a field where my strengths might be strong. It's only a hunch at the moment, but we'll see. Only thing is I hate genetics, but I think that's more because I've not had the chance to really learn properly about this stuff.

Infectious diseases. I think this is partly because this is easily my best subject. At it's most weird and wonderful, this would be a really fun area to explore. There's pus and bad smells and multi-system failure, and I think I could almost be in my element except for the lab time. And the prospect of being an infection control pedant. Still...

Anaesthesia. I really like all the thinking that goes behind anaesthesia, and we have this awesome pain medicine man at uni and every lecture I'm hoping all his content gets imprinted on my brain - because he gives out Ah-ha! moments like they're going out of style. And anaesthetists seem like a friendly bunch of people, which helps. But I'm not entirely sure... maybe. Maybe more intensive care stuff. There's plenty of sitting down and not a whole lote of patient contact. Important patient contact- but nothing too in depth.

And then there's these other curiosities I have. Strange curiosities - like geriatrics. Geriatrics is so far from being sexy, but it is interesting. It's not just because everything is packing it in, throw in dementia for good measure - but because there's lots of interesting questions and things to think about in that area. Dignity, respect, comfort, end of life, family relationships, that kind of thing. Which brings me to palliative care - which I feel is a funny curiosity to have, like I shouldn't be thinking about this kind of thing. Death. But I think in time I could be the right person. People I've met who are the right people are people I greatly admire. I'd like to be like them - maybe I don't need to be a palliative care doctor to do that, but I'd like to keep some of the principles of their practice in mind whatever I do.

So that's where my thoughts are at right now. It might all change in a heart beat. We'll see.

Things happening

2011-02-10T19:25:00.002+11:00

1. I have officially moved in with Kiko. He is now my live in lover and so far it's all good.

2. I start Gen med on Monday at the big inner-city hospital round the corner from me (because I live in the inner city of my city - postcode six thousand!).

3. He's appealing the sentence. The sentence, not the conviction. Still... The prosecutor is a fantastic person; doesn't stop that panic feeling I get when I see his messages in my inbox.

2011-01-29T14:38:00.002+11:00

Because I'm crazy, I went for a run this morning. Cyclone Bianca is off the coast somewhere west of here, and I'm going to blame her for the oppressive heat outside. I hadn't even made it to the end of my street and my sweat dampened clothes were climbing into my crevices to chafe the rest of the way. The air is thick and storm clouds hand overhead. There's no sea breezes licking at the sweat, just a heavy, humid stillness to wade through.

I look to the weather report for signs relief might be on its way. There's a thunderstorm and rain around the corner, but the temperature won't budge. The humidity remains high. And I remember my first year here when summer persisted into May. Shit. There's months between now and then.

So I went for a run this morning and since no one else was running, I guess new years resolutions have already been left for another year. In the first week of January and despite the heat, I passed many struggling joggers on my route, but they're all gone now. This weather's beaten them. It might be me yet.

But now I live at Kiko's house, I live in air conditioned comfort - for the first time in my life!!! It's a kind of novelty to break the association between hot summer nights and insomnia. To sleep comfortably. My dad told us kids that life without these luxuries was character building, but surely I've found more complex ways to build my character over the intervening years. If I haven't, I guess I'm fritting away valuable character at a pleasant 27 C - warm enough that I know it's summer, not so hot I may as well head outside.

Perhaps my morning jog is character building enough.

Gender stereotypes in action

2011-01-26T16:35:00.003+11:00

Kiko's platform is right in line of cyclone Bianca off the Pilbara coast. In accordance with their safety guidelines, they're not evacuating. It's a rating two cyclone, not three - whatever that difference means. So anyway, Kiko was talking with work people this morning about the situation and shot off an email saying hopefully the guys are okay with the decision (not to evacuate).

Just now, Kiko's looking at the cyclone report. He laughs. Shit it's coming right for [the platform].

I ask has anyone spoke to them?

He says yeah yeah, we won't lose comms.

No no. I mean has anyone spoke to them about how they're going?

Yeah, they're prepared.

No, but how are they FEELING???

What???

The fat

2011-01-23T11:45:00.003+11:00

Is it inevitable that if you move in with your partner you get fat? Because I'm worried it is. The current trend says "yes", not because I'm getting fat just yet - but because the other night I baked a custard tart on a whim. Things are looking dire.

For me fat isn't just something you measure on the kitchen scales, it's an indicator of bigger things. Of the way you live your life and the respect you give yourself.

From past experience, boyfriends and fat go together, and that's a worry. By the time my marriage ended I was almost 20 kilograms heavier then when that relationship started. A decent gain by most people's measure. I shed the weight fairly easily after it had all ended, only to re-gain some of it when I started dating that man of sorts. Not 20 kilograms, but enough not to be able to wriggle into my new skinny jeans by the time I saw the back of him.

I know how it happens and it's not just a matter of portion sizes and regular meals, it's the whole lifestyle thing. In years gone past, I lost myself in the men I loved, liked or fancied. I might've mistaken the gesture as something like romance or passion, but with all the benefit of hindsight I can see otherwise.

The problem was I didn't make a choice. It wasn't that my choice was denied to me or that any man was pressuring me one way or the other, I gladly gave away my choice to cowardly men. We drank pints of lager and ate stodgy English food and exercise was only ever incidental. And all that took the edge off my boredom and frustration, until I'd be sitting on the beach on an odd occasion and have a glimpse of the excess of pale flesh circling me. I was a stranger to this body that I didn't feel was me.

I can no longer summon the sadness I felt after my marriage ended for the time I wasted in indifference to myself, but I can still value the lesson learnt to remember what I want, what's important to me and how I value myself. Know that self-care and self-respect are practiced, not taken for granted. I can be disappointed with myself that I so enthusiastically followed that man of sorts down a similar path - but perhaps it was a lesson re-enforced.

Kiko is different from those men in any case. He's not a coward of life. He works hard and takes risks and has hope and ambition. And he's assertive, strong. His assertiveness reminds me of my choice about what I do and who I am. His assertiveness fosters my own, and we argue and challenge each other in a way I've never done before in a relationship. It's hard to forget yourself when you're asserting yourself.

To buck the trend, I've actually lost weight in the time I've been with Kiko. This is despite the hours we spend in the kitchen or sourcing ingredients for our elaborate meals. This is despite the cheeses and desserts I've indulged in, the new ways to cook I've been learning, breads we bake and wines I've tasted. In Kiko's company, good food is every meal.

Still, it's good food in some sort of moderation. Like in the fridge right now is a small box of the most beautiful chocolates. I think Kiko bought the treats for almost $60, but even without the price tag, they're something you'd savour. Rather than eat them all in mindless succession, we've had one each - sometimes two on the occasional night over the last couple of weeks. And that's much of his approach to food - a mindful enjoyment - that stops short of habitual excess. It's a fine balance.

And I worry I'll disturb the balance at any moment now, but somehow I've found a place where I'm fitter and healthier than I've been in a while right now. In between courses, Kiko's encouraged me to run over the past year or more and it's meant everything to me. Running something I can do anywhere and has lent routine to my year when I needed it most. Running has become meditative and soothing, and maybe I could push myself harder but the rhythm of my moderate pace seems enough. I'm currently entertaining a fantasy of doing a short triathlon in a couple of months (fantasy because I don't own a bike) and setting goals I didn't know I was capable of beforehand.

Perhaps that's been the counter-balance to all the good food I've been eating in Kiko's company. But don't forget last year, I still spent most of my time at home, where on my own I eat for sustenance and not pleasure. I love to cook - just for other people, and on week days I eat enough to stave off hunger and buy enough to not blow my small budget.

We've got humble Portugese and Indian staples to replicate my austere diet at home - but with taste and flavour, and I'll push the menu in that direction. Kiko's Indian genes predispose him to weight gain around the waist line and I know he wants good health like I do. It's just about making the choice.

So fat is not a simple thing. It's not just about diet or exercise, energy in and energy expended - even if weight loss and gain is. For me it's about mindfulness, about self-care and self-respect. And I'll watch my weight not just to know if I'm getting bigger, but to know if I'm taking care of myself.

Nothing in particular

2011-01-18T16:24:00.003+11:00

I've made a few aborted attempts at posting something recently, but never went so far as publishing. It's hard to write about my days of nothing in particular when so much seems to be happening everywhere else. So I'm just pressing "post" whatever comes of this attempt at something. Half my continent is under water and people are dying, and I want to whinge about the stinger that stung me and the relentless sunshine and blue skies I must endure? If you must know, stingers sting - and scar it seems, and this heat? I've had enough. Where is my Melbourne-style cool change? Give me a grey sky and grisly weather to relieve me from the monotony of these perfect summer days.

I spoke to my mother dearest the other day, and for a good 45 minutes I didn't say anything more than "ah-huh... mmmm... really? ...wow! Hmmm. Oh dear. Mmmm. Yep" as mum excitedly recounted her flooding experience. She's "farm-sitting" for some friends of ours who've dashed off on their annual holiday just in time for a good slice of Victoria to go under. A flooding river courses through the property the parents are caring for, though thankfully the farm house and all the farming infrastructure is at the top of a hill. Still that didn't stop mum and dad getting cut off from civilisation for a while.

My demure, reserved, ever so lady-like, prim and proper mother loves this shit. As she's telling the tale, I'm picturing her overflowing excitement as the world gets turned upside down around her. Even over the phone as she tries to convey the seriousness of the situation and the tragedy she's seen unfold, I can see the glee on her face and feel her adrenalin pumping from all the way over here. Not that she'd ever admit to any of the above.

Of course, there was never any great risk to my parents - and I'm thankful for that. Beyond that, I can't say anymore about the flooding on the east coast other than to say I wish people well. I'm always in awe of life changed in a moment. You think of things happening in increments, a continuous progression of events - but so often, it's just a moment, a day, a night that changes everything. Just now, I found out my cousin's baby is deaf after suffering meningitis. I know how that happens, but how can it happen? He's four months old. It just seems so arbitrary and unfair.

They know he's deaf for sure, but everything else is still uncertain. Mum said he was feeding, could grasp people's hands and reach out for things. I don't know much about babies, but that sounds like good news to me. Still it all takes a while to comprehend.

It's the finality of things that I have problems with - it's hard to let go of the idea that you might yet make amends, get another go at it, try again. I remember after That Night, I wished so hard that I could just rid myself of that experience, undo what had happened and be new again. Fighting the finality of it is a battle you'll always lose, but I understand the urge to fight anyway.

In a moment, all your hopes and wishes for a child are re-calibrated, not because someone with a disability doesn't share the same hopes and wishes, but because the obstacles are different and greater. The beginning of 'moving on' is when you begin to incorporate what is difficult and sometimes painful into your experience rather than fight with it, but that bit takes time. There's a big adjustment to make for the parents and the rest of the family, and there's much uncertainty ahead - what else might reveal itself in time? Still, I know it will all work out. My mum's response was: "I guess we'll all just learn to sign then", and that's it. That's exactly what you need to hear.

But I really didn't want this to be a serious post about the meaning of life or such things. I'm enjoying a moment of little complication right now - days of idleness, interrupted by a shift or two waitressing (no, I don't think I told you I had a second job?) and a few things that need doing here and there - but overall, I've been busy doing nothing in particular. So now I've got the serious stuff out of the way, maybe next time I'll tell you about my nothing in particular I've been up to.

x

His father

2011-01-04T20:31:00.002+11:00

I had Kiko's dad's mail. Kiko was away and I was to organise for his dad to get the mail. I called him, and I was annoyed that he insisted I deliver it to him even though I know he has a car (Kiko bought it for him) and I don't. It's baking hot outside and I take the bus to his flat that Kiko paid for since his dad arrived in Australia.

I know he wants to stay at Kiko's house, but I also know they don't get along, they don't know one another. After Kiko's mum fled this man when he was a child, Kiko didn't see his dad again until he was a young man. They spend time in each others' company arguing in a mix of languages. They come from different culture. There's a traumatic past in there somewhere, and more that's not spoken about.

So I knock on the door and he ushers me in. He's happy to see me; I'm apprehensive. We've never been alone together, and everything I know about him tells me to be weary.

I hand over the mail and shoos me toward the table. I'm happy to wait until he's open and read through it all - his English isn't great, and I can do my best to interpret the contents. And when that's all done, her turned to me.

"You will be my daughter. We must talk. You will be my daughter. I must know you".

I shake my head.

"No, we're not getting married".

"Yes. Just time. You will be my daughter".

I shake my head, but he carries on.

"My son. My son is a very selfish man. I don't know what's wrong with him. It's not my fault. He's a very selfish man".

I'm shaking my head. Holding my hands up in protest. I don't know what to say. I'm too polite to walk out. I'm a rabbit in the headlights.

"I didn't bring him up. I had to make sacrifices. I don't know what happened to him. He doesn't know how to treat his father. Respect! No respect!".

He goes on, and soon I'm finding excuses to leave. He urges me to organise for us to share a meal together, spend time together - I say I will, only to get away. We kiss both cheeks and he calls me his Caterina, and I leave.

I'm angry and upset and confused. I don't understand why this man would at once want me to be his daughter, while at the same time try to convince me what a horrible man his son is. That doesn't make sense. And then to disparage Kiko's mum and step-father - who I know well, who I love, who do treat me like their daughter - what good does that achieve?

I want to tell Kiko - tell him about his dad, what I think of him, what he said. But again, I don't know what good that might achieve. He's quite a helpless old man quite dependent on Kiko. And if he didn't have Kiko, what would he have?

Legs eleven

2011-01-03T12:53:00.005+11:00

Hello new year! Lookin' bright shiny. You're going to be a good one - different than the last. And I've got you off to an easy start. Cold and salty water and warm sand between the toes. My hair is a crazy birds nest of beach curls. My fingers are puckered by too much time lounging on the swell beyond the breakers. It's summer and I live in a beach side city.

We've driven down to the beach each day since Christmas eve. The best time is early in the morning, before the doctor's afternoon sea-breezes have arrived. The water is clear and blue, and you can see the sandy sea floor down below. If you come in the afternoon, the waves are wilder and the locals have all gone home. Messy waves kick up the sand and cloud the water. Tourists wade hesitantly close to the beach, in sight of the lifesavers - but we go out further, more confidently. I follow Kiko's bright colours out into the deep. I don't have my glasses on and everything around me is just colours and blurred shapes. He dives through the waves and I follow. He swims further, I follow. And then we rest together on the swell beyond the breakers.

Helicopters fly overhead looking for white-pointers looking for swimmers to lunch on. And I heard on the news that a beach was closed. A lone tiger shark was seen prowling the the shoreline. So while I lounge on the swell beyond the breakers, just beyond the groin, I imagine dark shadows in the corner of my eye, and worry that the little fish licking my toes are really ocean predators waiting to take their first bite.

But then I swim into shore, navigating my way through the families closer to the beach and I don't worry anymore. Rinse off my rashy under the cold showers by the carpark and follow Kiko back to the car. The hot vinyl seats in his heavy old car rekindle my childhood. And I unwind the windows and let my hand be buffeted by the wind. I wish for air-conditioned cool, but at the same time I don't. I like the way the heat and sweat remind me of being ten years old on some careless family holiday. The smell of sunscreen, salt and the old vinyl and chrome of the car - my skin sticking to the seats and the sweat behind my knees.

The cricket's on in the background and the Australian team just might recover some of their dignity. I'm putting lots of hope in a new batsman who doesn't resemble the uniform white Australia of his team mates, and I'm encouraged to know he's doing so well, so far. Perhaps I should mind more that Australia's game might be struggling, but I like it that the game's less predictable now than it has been in years.

The days seem long and lazy, but I know the holidays will come to an end. But till then, I'll enjoy meandering through the hours with Kiko and the simple pleasure of doing nothing much in particular.

So anyway, happy new year! It's going to be a good one. Different than the last. Good luck!

Well wishes

2010-12-30T20:04:00.002+11:00

It's hot here. Hot and windy and dry. Very dry.

So images on the news of whole towns under water, huge stretches of a state flooded seem unreal to me. I forget I live in the same country so that I can't even imagine what people are experiencing on the far side of the continent.

If best wishes count for anything, I can do that. I hope people are well and safe. If I was impressed by nothing else after the Victorian bushfires two years ago, is how community appears you didn't existed before. People do care about one another.

Good luck.

Sticks and stones

2010-12-22T14:03:00.006+11:00

Two minutes in town doesn't make me a local, so I won't begin to pretend I'm any sort of expert on the place. Still, I've got so much I want to say about my short time at an Aboriginal Medical Service up north, but all I've got is a tangled knot of yarns to try and make sense of. It's complicated and everything seems inter-connected: history, family, resilience, culture, government ambivalence - callousness, suffering and neglect.

At university, we're censured to tell only one side of the Aboriginal health story - a very optimistic, somewhat simplistic story. The story goes something like this: If only there were consistent funding and meaningful community consultation, all might be better with the world. And yes, I can see that - all that would be helpful in a small town with government services duplicated many times over and pulling in opposite directions, and short-lived programs canceled just when they were beginning to get results. But - ah! I think there's more to the story than that.

This year, I submitted a pop health research proposal with two friends about acute gastroenteritis in children in a specific Aboriginal community. Part of the focus was on different environmental factors such as over-crowding and inadequate waste disposal and sanitation contributing to the high rate of hospitalisations for acute gastroenteritis in the age group we were studying. Somewhere in our lit review, we quoted a previous study where they'd mentioned something about soiled nappies, hand-washing and general hygiene. We incorporated those observations in our lit review, placed them in quotation marks and referenced accordingly, and then showed our proposal to a doctor from the Aboriginal health school in our faculty.

The feedback we got was angry. We couldn't say THAT! She spoke to us as if our mistake should have been obvious to us. There were big red marks through our lit review and we were admonished for suggesting that the people in that community 'were dirty'. There wasn't much room for discussion after that. We thought we'd quoted a high profile study relevant to our proposal and didn't know we were flirting with racism. She advised we could refer to that study - but should paraphrase the offending passages rather than quote directly. And we did - we made the suggested changes, but it left us feeling discouraged.

I can be painfully PC and more than attuned to the semantics of the words I choose. I think I'm duly cautious - and more so when writing about a topic I know can be politically charged. It wasn't the end of the world, but it reminded me of how sensitive this field is. Walking on eggshells is not conducive to honest and direct conversation, let alone understanding.

In the small town I visited, no one was worried about eggshells underfoot. I was taken back by the blunt way that issues were discussed over the last week. The language was practical and the observations were frank. Gentle euphemisms were replaced by a clear, direct language which was sometimes offensive only in its harsh clarity. There was nothing to hide behind and all the frustrations and compassion and pride and anger were brutally laid out. Brace yourself - that kind of honesty can be hard to handle.

So I feel like understand more now than I could ever learn from the careful words given to us in the classroom and real life is a million times removed from worries about referring to "soiled nappies". On my first day, I walked into a room filled with "culturally appropriate" health promotion posters and leaflets everywhere, and I thought straight away about how naive our proposal had been... but to not be naive wasn't really an option. There's no room on campus for anything but the impractically optimistic and over-eager. How do you get to the heart of the matter when your words are blunted? How could I tell the stories of the things I learnt and saw with the small and cautious vocabulary available? I don't think you can. Not the way I saw it anyway.

I think I've learnt a lot, in anycase, even if I can't find the right words to tell you exactly what. In a short time I was in love with that country and the history alive within it. The people I saw were diverse - there was no predictable custom or approach I could follow. People were people, and these circumstances were often tough. So much is happening and has happened and in the last week I got some sense of how interconnected everyone and everything is in that small town - how much the history and culture informs today - which also left me wondering about how complicated everything is - and what that all means.

From the perspective of medical education, it was a great experience for me. I've recovered some confidence after the battering it has taken this year, test drove some new learnings and learnt some procedural skills along the way. I had great supervision and really enjoyed the time spent with patients and staff. I regret that I didn't know more about children and babies before I arrived - because Aboriginal populations are young populations! I've managed to avoid babies for most of my years, but in the last week I held a baby for the first time in maybe 20 years! We don't do this stuff properly until fifth year, but I've done a crash course in history taking and examination for infants in the last week, and have a little experience with pregnant and new mothers to put under my belt.

So anyway, I'm back in town now and it feels like I'm a million miles away from that other world. I'm left with a lot to think about - so give me some time and I might have some more stories to tell.

2010-12-12T23:23:00.003+11:00

Well looks like my modem can do what my mobile can't: work! I've just settled in, went for a walk to get an icy-pole only for it to already have melted by the time I got home.

So I'm excited to be here. The aerial view from the plane on the way up was beautiful. I've been to the NT before, but this was different even still. You know so much of Aboriginal art is about the land - their land - mapping it and telling it's story. And the view from the plane was all those images come to life. It was so amazing; I wish I had my camera.

And we flew past a thunderstorm too somewhere further inland. The rain hung like a curtain from the cumulus clouds above. I watched spears of lightening reach for the ground while we flew on under sunshine and a cloudless sky.

I was following the twisting paths of a pattern of dry creek beds with my eyes when suddenly they were filled with the brightest blue water and without me realising it we'd reached the sea. We made a wide turn to approach the run way and as we turned toward the sea and got down low, I'm sure I saw a flock of fish (or whatever be the collective noun) being shepherded by a pod of dolphins. And right there, I'm bitten - I've got the travel bug badly.

Here, the sky is clouded and the air heavy. The practice manager picked me up and took me to the accommodation the long, scenic way. From this angle the landscape is something different again. There are long stretches of featureless terrain of flat spinifex and rock punctuate by large boulder and steep rocky hills arising unexpectedly from nothing. Wherever there might've once been water, things were vivid greens right next to everything else in growing economical greens, greys, and brown.

And just when you feel you could get lost amongst the spinifex, there's the ocean just over the hill with its little bay lined by mangroves and long stretches of tidal plains reaching in land. As I was chatting to the practice manager, he dismissed the view out the car window as just heat and dust like he didn't notice the ridiculous extremes in the world around him. But then he also took a few detours on our way here to show me things I might be interested in and even though he didn't comment when we got to our destination, he knew it was all noteworthy stuff.

So anyway, I'm tired now and looking forward to getting started tomorrow.

North West

2010-12-12T16:00:00.006+11:00

Did you know that you can take a regular, public transport bus from the centre of town to the domestic airport? Yes! Costing me (at student prices) 90 c instead of $40.00. The fact I can take a busy ANYWHERE for 90 c in a state capital is probably amazing anyway (60 c if I'm heading to uni), but to the airport? Such is the quaintness of my big-country-town-cum-big-state-city,

So now I'm killing time at the airport because one of the trade-offs of taking the bus is being here very early. I just bought some airport fried special for lunch and almost blew all the money I'd saved getting here. Oh well. Still ages before boarding time.

I'm heading north to somewhere hot and sweaty to do a placement at an Aboriginal Medical Service. I think it's similar to a John Flynn deal except it's not John Flynn that's getting me there and paying my way. I'm exited and cautious. Cautious because I know that even though I've got some idea, I suspect I don't really know what I'm getting myself in for.

I've had some training over the last couple weeks and it's given me a taste for what we'll be getting up to. I know there will be a fair share of emergency medicine, since there are no other medical services nearby. And the type of medicine they practice isn't of the wait-and-see cautious kind.

I got given a booklet of protocols that outlined the approach to treating conditions that in any other setting might be considered fairly benign. The contents page lists a long list of diseases that are really the disease of poverty and disadvantage and already tells me something about the community I'll be visiting.

Inside the instructions describe an approach that is quite aggressive (in my very limited experience and with my dearth of knowledge). Arthritis is rheumatic fever until proven otherwise, ear infections are ALWAYS treated - and often syringed, and hypertension might get you ACE inhibitors AND irbesartan. But then the idea that 30 year olds are having heart valve replacements and 40 year olds are moving to Perth because the wait for dialysis up north is too long probably warrants this aggressive brand of medicine.

We also did a fair amount of cultural awareness training with a few (of the very few) Aboriginal doctors in my state and it was wonderful - very insightful and constructive.

I get so frustrated with the Aboriginal health teaching at uni - the staff seem intent on dissuading students to have anything to do with Aboriginal health. It's not just because they're well known for their penchant for failing students and marking unreasonably hard, but also because their message is all about blame and their actions speak of defensive gatekeeping. It's an area I'm really interested in, but I won't pursue that interest at uni lest I be punished for my efforts.

In a couple of hours of cultural awareness training the other week, we managed to cover many of the same topics - but in the context of what you (me!) can do. They explored the privilege of being white (middle class and educated), and did it in a way that didn't attack us for that privilege, but explained the phenomenon in an honest and direct way that didn't leave anyone feeling alienated. People shared their stories and experiences and we explored differences in communication, culture and language and I left feeling like I had some useful tools. I wish all my fellow students might get the same opportunity to UNDERSTAND.

So anyway, I don't know if my modem will get reception where I'm going. I know my phone won't (not 3G), but in anycase - I'll look forward to sharing some of my experience with you when I can.

PS. If you're interested the protocols are available online here

"Third" year

2010-12-11T11:28:00.005+11:00

I am almost a "fourth" year medical student - and by that I mean I'm about to start my third year, but technically I'm a fourth year - and well it's confusing, isn't it? At the beginning of "third" year, I'd spew out a complicated explanation of my status as a "third" year medical student, but by the end of the year I was happy to let the fine print slide. Next year I'll be in my fourth year of a six year degree. Ouch, just three years to go.

Really, I'm a graduate entrant doing an under-graduate medical degree. Thankfully, I got to wipe off one of those years, but the other five remain. In my first year, I was in a cosy little cohort of just graduate entrants, but this year we joined the undergraduates and 60 became something more like 180.

The amalgamation wasn't the difficult adjustment some had forecast. There's barely a year between most of the under-grads and grads with only a handful of exceptions (myself included). There's plenty of discussion amongst the grads about the maturity difference - but I don't think there are any hard and fast rules. Age is only part of the picture.

In any case, I'm happy with the change. I like to get lost in the crowd. It's easier to slip under the radar and escape the more intense and competitive peers. There was much more scrutiny and monitoring last year with the constant assessment and staff closely monitoring our progress. This year has felt more like a regular university course - to some degree - and I am glad for it.

This year I made some progress on taming the medical beast. Last year, I felt like it was me against godzilla, but now it seems manageable - if not predictable. It turns out I didn't know how to study last year until the end, and this year I was able to take those lessons learnt and apply them. And I also had the fine advantage of knowing that I knew nothing.

For most of the cohort last year, the content was revision with a few twists and surprises to keep them on their toes. After finishing their previous degrees with straight HDs, the pattern more or less continued. But this year things were different, and I could see the change took many by surprise.

I walk into the lecture theatre or lab or classroom knowing I know nothing and knowing that knowledge takes time and effort. If you've breezed through medicine on the back of your first degree, that might be something you've forgotten. Last year I learnt something about the "how to" of studying medicine, but for many people in the grad group - that was a lesson they didn't have to take too seriously. I know how it hurts to fail and to struggle, but now I'm sort of glad I got those lessons early. Hopefully they're not things I need to repeat.

I struggled with OSCEs and such things like I didn't last year. But that's okay - it was a confidence thing and it wasn't particular to whatever I was doing at uni. And then the court case came and went quickly followed by the big end of year OSCE and something miraculous happened. Maybe I could put these stresses in some sort of perspective, because I went through it all okay. No OSCE doctor is a defence lawyer or even a judge or a jury. They're just one person who doesn't know me and I was okay.

A new student joined us this year after transferring from a grad medical program over east who became a good friend over the course of the year. I doubt there's many like her that have experienced two different styles of course, and I've found it interesting to get her perspective. She describes our course as more science heavy, we're spoon fed to some degree, and go over things in greater detail than she did in her previous degree.

I'd agree with her description - after the whirlwind of last year (which doesn't resemble this year in style so much) this year has been all about the detail and there's a lot of hand holding here and there. Objectives are clearly stated and lectures thorough. All exam questions come from material they've given us and they even produce good notes for us to use should we please. I gather this is standard practice in other medical degrees?

From her account, I can now confidently say we've never had anything that looks too much like PBL - we've got a tutorial based system - but the learning is closely directed and it's only one small component of the course. A component that I wouldn't see as vital. I'm half curious about the PBL system she described, but I also see how it could hurt - especially for us non-sci people. I'm quickly bored by those who want to harp on about the irrelevant and broadcast their supreme intelligence, but I suspect PBL caters well for such folk? I'm not unhappy to have tutorials guided by the tutor, if only because it seems efficient and I want to get out of there.

If we're spoon fed vast volumes of fine detail, I don't think it's all together a bad thing. It's not the most exciting way to learn, but we've learnt it. And they managed a layering process of learning throughout the year that by the time we got to the end of second semester I was confident I could bluff my way through somethings and pluck others out of nowhere. I've got the language tools now to piece things together, which has made all the difference. I can problem solve, and work it out. So even if we don't have PBLs or CBLs, I don't know we're disadvantaged - though the proof will be in the practice.

We don't have any procedural skills though - and very little clinical experience. I hung out in theatre a bit and did some GP time, but nothing too regular or in depth. But, hey! I've got three years of it ahead of me.

I'm not completely unhappy that we didn't get too much patient time this year. I was quite exhausted by people and my head filled with worry. I seemed to make a habit of stumbling across patients with domestic violence and sexual abuse related problems (didn't help I did a sexual health elective... I enrolled in it before That Night and everything that happened) that made it all the more an ordeal. I felt so much sadness and grief for the women sitting in front of me. I felt unworthy to be in their company - and none of those feelings are conducive to learning.

Next year will be a different year. Already life is changed and I'm rediscovering my confidence. I'm looking forward to seeing, watching and putting what we've been learning about in practice. I'm looking forward to a new style of learning and the chance to work with others. Next year we've got four rotations: general med, general surgery, psychiatry and a joint palliative care/orthopaedics rotation. We've all got a year long research project (which apparently is the bain of everyone's existence). And that's all I really know for now. Still, it's different and new all over again.

Beginning of the sentence

2010-12-09T20:45:00.003+11:00

The sentence was delivered today. If I told you how many years, it might be identifying - so I'll just say it was harsh, by which I mean long. The prosecutor expected less; I didn't know better to guess a number, but this seems like more than enough years for me.

So?

It leaves me feeling conflicted. I'm so aware of the gravity and responsibility that comes with this. And if you think that's a strange feeling to have, imagine taking away someone's freedoms, irrevocably changing their life. I know he's responsible for his actions and the consequences that follow, but I'm witness to that. I can imagine a life altered.

And yet, during sentencing he didn't alter his version of events. He didn't apologise or offer any explanation. I don't know what I was hoping for, but still...

But then I guess, if he were to confess, he'd be identifying himself as a rapist. How do you explain that to the people who love you? That this is something of the person you are - something you're capable of?

Sweet revenge

2010-12-08T18:38:00.003+11:00

If the best revenge is to get on with life, I'm a vengeful woman. Exam results just in and I didn't just pass, I walk away with some very strong results.

Incredible.

I think of everything that filled my time this semester - this year - and not too much of it uni related and wonder how I did it? Wow. The court case was in the penultimate week of semester. I took the week off and then escaped to the beach for the weekend. What type of crazy med student does that? Damn. I spent more time speaking to the prosecutor than I did in the class room, and I so convinced myself I was sitting a supplementary.

Sorry, I know I'm gloating - but really - I'm just very, very relieved and happy and amazed. This year has been so strange.

Forward moving

2010-12-07T20:02:00.000+11:00

Well the news is Kiko and I are going to move in together. My lease is up in February and it's then that we'll become cohabitants.

It's an exciting and scarey idea that we've been throwing around for a while. For a long time it's felt inevitable, but it's still a leap to make and a change to negotiate. A decade ago I might've just jumped on the back of some romantic idea, but now I've thought things through and give things time. This caution is not to be mistaken for hesitation - rather I think it's a measure of my respect. Respect for the man, respect for myself, respect for this independence that I've carefully tended.

We’ve made this momentous decision while in different continents. I saw Kiko off the other night on his way to North America for work. By 'North' America, I mean NORTH America. Somewhere cold enough to be frozen. Google tells me it's minus twenty something at his current location. Something I can't quite imagine after just getting acclimatised to the summer heat (though right now it’s a brisk 24C).

So anyway, it doesn’t quite feel real right now and won’t till we see each other again closer to Christmas. But it’s a strange and new chapter waiting for me in the new year and there’s much to discuss.

2010-12-02T19:43:00.003+11:00

I've just submitted my "Victim Impact" ahead of sentencing; hopefully the last step in this long process. It's been the most difficult thing to write. Things move on quickly, but obviously not that quickly. Since the trial finished I thought that it was all over, but turns out - those memories still have teeth. Not sharp enough to pierce too deeply - but enough to hurt.

But anyway, hopefully that's that. I don't want much from the sentencing, not because I'm indifferent - but because I know my life goes on: I've got plenty to be hopeful and happy for. I don't wish misery upon anyone or hope to take away their future, but when I think about what I jail sentence means, that's what I think it adds up to.

The man for the job

2010-11-27T14:13:00.000+11:00

Somehow he’d found himself a specialist in child abuse cases. My first response was something like suspicion. What could draw a person to such a specialty? But then it was soon apparent he was the best man for the job.

By the time we had our first of many meetings together, I’d learnt enough about our legal system to hate it - and everyone involved in following out its laws. I’d spent an hour with the social worker at the court just days before angrily laying out just why and how this whole thing was fucked - and all he did was agree with me, which only made me angrier. Supportive nodding and noises of accord weren’t what I was after; I wanted things to change. I wanted to know that this wasn’t the way things would be - I wanted influence over the course of things, I wanted power, I wanted control - because I had none. The impotent nodding and agreeable noises of the social worker just fueled my anger, and there in that little room at the district court was the first time I seriously thought I’d had enough.

So when I sat down with the prosecutor and his colleague I’d met earlier this year, I was already more than frustrated by my position and ready to walk. He understood. Not with a nod of the head and gestures of active listening - he understood my complaints about the process, he anticipated how that made me feel. And then he threw it back at me. He challenged me - and argued against my arguments with the clarity and eloquence of man whose job requires it of him. In that first meeting, I felt I was understood for the first time in almost a year.

The strange things I’ve learnt about me in this process... I hate to be counseled. I find no therapy from an hour spent with that purpose in mind, talking over things to someone trained to counsel. I still feel burnt by the counselor and psychologist I’ve seen this year. But to argue with a state prosecutor gives me the relief I wanted and strength I needed. It was a turning point experience.

He said of all the options available to me, this was the only one the gave me power over the situation - even as it denied me the particular powers I wanted. I took that idea and carried it with me into the court room. And each time I met with him in the weeks leading up to the trial - I felt a little stronger each time I left their offices. Even as I had to review my statement, the events of the night, cast a critical eye over the person I am, my character, my credibility - I felt things were changing, that I was growing back into myself, recovering the confidence I’d lost.

How fortunate I was to meet this man, the prosecutor. He wasn’t just the right man for the job, but the right man for me at that time. He would reply to the questions I sent him in email, and if he thought he needed to speak to me, he’d ring. He offered the kind of support I could never take for granted all year. He gave his time, which is an amazing gift to give.

Stupid

2010-11-17T19:41:00.005+11:00

Did the question ask me to select ONE of three pairs of drugs listed, compare and discuss? No, it did not. It asked to compare and discuss ALL of the pairs of drugs listed below. I knew all of them well - I could have got full marks for that question. Ah! I'm so frustrated with myself. Pharmacology is one of my favourite subjects - but I feel like I did a really bad job this afternoon.

Uh. I need to stomp around the house a bit and get it all out of my system. I'm on holiday. I'm heading out to celebrate. Holiday, dammit! Holiday!

Erysipelothrix Rhusiopathiae

2010-11-14T21:41:00.002+11:00

Judging by the previous exam papers, tomorrow's ID exam might look something like a spelling bee combined with a game of "which antibiotic?" and "is this catheter specimen contaminated?" That all sounds very manageable. And at the end of all that, there will only be a pharm exam between me and a holiday. Hooray.

2010-11-13T00:01:00.002+11:00

Just thought I'd pop by to say hello. And right about now I'm panicking about the exam that will occur in 12 hours time. Why is it the closer I get to an exam the less confident I feel in my knowledge?

Career decisions

2010-11-01T23:16:00.002+11:00

Kiko was offered a job last week somewhere far from here. It was a role he really wanted in a company he respected in a city he wanted to live in. He said he needed to think about it and over a few nights we talked about the job and the move and what it would all mean. He wanted to know how flexible I could be - could I get a transfer? Unlikely. Perhaps I could defer a year - just so we could be together? No, he didn't want me to do that. I felt frustrated and scared. We agreed we could make long distance work if that's what we have to do, but still - I know from experience how hard that would be. Would we survive it?

And then today he rang me rang me as I was finishing work. He spoke to the company. He turned the job down. Maybe for a few other reasons, but also for me.

PS. Thank-you!

2010-10-29T16:33:00.002+11:00

I meant to say a big THANK-YOU for the nice words and comments left in response to my post last Friday. They all mean something special to me. Thank-you! I've said to my friends how grateful I am to them all for riding this difficult journey with me - and the same goes for the world wide web. The comments I've got and the support I've found in unlikely places has been a wonderful thing that I really appreciate.

Letting go

2010-10-29T12:21:00.004+11:00

It’s harder than you think to accept it’s over. I feel like I’ve been battling all year, and to find I’ve got nothing left to fight for has left a vacant space. I could fill it with study and things I should be doing, but I’m not letting go just yet - though I should. This week, I’ve flirted with obsession as I’ve trawled over everything I’ve learnt in the last fortnight and all the questions left hanging. I’m close to obsessed with these people - who are they? Why did they do the things they did and make the choices they made?

But the pace of my thoughts is easing, and I suspect this is just the hangover to the adrenalin fueled weeks leading up to the trial. My stomach is only just settling down and sleep patterns returning to normal. There’s plenty to comprehend. My mind has some catching up to do.

So I have a lot to tell, but I’ll hold off diving into all that just yet. There’s exams around the corner; today’s the last day of semester, and I have more than enough catching up to do. And after all that, I’m looking forward to the holidays more than you can imagine. I had an interview for a job on Wednesday night and got offered it on the spot, I’m also heading up north for a bit and down south for a long weekend for Kiko’s work Christmas party (the perks of the private sector).

More than anything though, I’m just looking forward to nothingness - the slow unwinding of holidays and lazy, empty time. It’s something I haven’t had for too long now. The difficult adjustment to uni life last year was followed by this. By That Night. And I don’t know I’ve known rest too well since.

Last weekend gave me a glimpse of some of what I’ve missed. We went not too far north of my capital city to a wind swept crayfishing town. The town was deserted ahead of the fishing season and the brilliant blue sea was too cold to swim in - but I did anyway. There’s something regenerative about plunging yourself into the icy sea and licking the salt from your lips, and even though the trade winds roaring off the ocean stopped me feeling the warmth of the sun - I had my taste of the summer to come.

We wandered through empty shanty towns of makeshift fishing huts built above the beach, and I realised I was somewhere in Georgie Jutland’s territory*. After we’d driven back to our beach house, I could imagine her sitting on the same balcony, drinking lonely vodkas-and-something through her insomnia. I’m usually a good sleeper, but over the weekend I woke up each night too long before dawn with my thoughts full of loose ends, and it seemed like I could not be in a better place than this to over-think my way through the night. Being far enough away from home made it easier to leave the worst of my 3am reveries back there. I’ve slept well all this week and am slowly getting back into gear. And if I can just let go of my want of answers, it really will be over.

*Dirt Music's protagonist.

2010-10-22T20:21:00.001+11:00

Guilty!!!! Guilty of sexual penetration without consent.

I criied when I got the news. Now I'm off to the beach for the weekend. Everything else can wait.

2010-10-22T10:43:00.002+11:00

The jury retired for the day sometime late afternoon with a few points for clarification left to hang for the night. Their questions are telling. They seem to suggest they reject the accused’s version of events, but still there’s some legal arguments to contend with. We’ll see... still, the important point is that they believed me. That counts for something.

Yesterday, Kiko rode the lift down from the courts with the prosecutor and two law students. The students were really keen to speak to the prosecutor - comment on how interesting the case was, the legal arguments, all that jazz. I can imagine them like a gaggle of med students circling a poor soul with a pan-systolic murmur.

Finally they turned to Kiko after the prosecutor alighted at his floor. Kiko would’ve cut a fine figure in his Italian suit - nothing like most of the people who hang around the court end of town - perhaps they mistook him for a legal-ish someone. And what’s your role in all this? They asked. I am “the boyfriend” he replied as the lift doors opened and he left them behind him.

Remind me to be more sensitive when I come across an “interesting” patient.

4 hours in

2010-10-21T20:14:00.003+11:00

Pretty soon, the judge will be asking the jury if they plan on pushing on into the evening. We're still waiting. At least this means they're considering the case carefully. I wonder what they're talking about? I wonder how much longer?

Waiting

2010-10-21T18:09:00.003+11:00

The jury has now been deliberating for an hour and a half. I'm not hopeful of a conviction now - I've had a moment to appreciate how difficult it might be to prove a case of this kind beyond reasonable doubt. They're not adjudicating on how creepy the man is, how incredible gis story is and how suspicious his actions were - their task is to determine whether the prosecution's case has been proven beyond reasonable doubt.

So anyway, we wait.

2010-10-21T15:33:00.002+11:00

Kiko's just got back from court. He only stayed long enough to hear the prosecutor's address - deliberately choosing to avoid what the defence had to say. Still, that's ninety minutes of legal argument, and he said the jury is looking a little tired of it all.

So. He thinks there's maybe a 40% chance of conviction - even though everything seems to have fallen in place. Unfortunately, at the end of the day it's his word against mine. Kiko said it would all be completely obvious if you knew me - but that's a luxury I don't have. It all seemed simple and straight forward to me just yesterday, but I guess forgot the defence doesn't have to prove the accused is innocent - they only need to present reasonable doubt. And that the case boils down to one person's account against another is perhaps underpinned by reasonable doubt.

Still, we'll wait and see.

In breaking news...

2010-10-20T20:14:00.004+11:00

He took the stand today and gave evidence. He didn't have to - he has the right to remain silence, presumption of innocence and all that wonderful stuff that underpins our civil society. You may recall I was shocked and horrified when I discovered some of the basic tenets of our adversarial legal system, so I'm kinda glad he did this. From where I sit, the man only need to open his mouth and you'll be convinced of his guilt. He exudes creepiness - though apparently, that in itself is not a crime.

But still my mind is churning. I'm hanging by the telephone waiting for the prosecutor's call - and of course, because I can - I'm imagining some wild, crazy scenarios that play out something like the court room scenes in Chicago, the musical. Fainting spells and all.

And now I'm just off the phone. The prosecutor said he didn't do himself any favours taking that stand. Still, nothing is a foregone conclusion. We'll wait and see. Tomorrow is just a sleep away.

2010-10-20T07:25:00.002+11:00

My bit is over; I've had my day in court. The trial continues, but for me - it's done. And it feels good. I've had my say; I've been heard - I think I presented myself well. I didn't get overwhelmed, overawed or confused by the defence. It's easy to say now - but what was I worried about? I was only asked to tell the truth.

The prosecutor told me I did a good job. I spoke well and all that. Still, he warned me - you can never sure which way these things might go. The jury decides. But just so you know, an acquittal doesn't amount to innocence. Knowing what I know now, the man is anything but.

I don't think I'll ever get an answer to my question "why?", but the process has actually brought me some strange confidence. There was a lot about the events that lead up to the assault I didn't know and the prosecutor wouldn't tell me before yesterday. And so into that black hole of mystery I'd poured my worst nightmares and fears. But as the defence cross examined me, he went through the accused's version of events - and to say it was an implausible story understates the ridiculousness of it all. I can't believe we've come all this way to trial on the back of that flimsy account of things?! So it was a relief to put my worst nightmares to bed, and learn something more of the events of that night.

So anyway, it'll all be over soon and I'll leave the detail till then. But my god, it feels good to be done with. And as my friend said, how could I ever be intimidated by an OSCE again?

Checking-in

2010-10-16T16:47:00.002+11:00

I'm a hare's breath away from the trial and I'm as ready as I'll ever be. I've found myself in a good place and for a while there I suspected it was just the calm before the storm, but it's stayed with me and I've got peace to show for it. Even a storm of things demanding my attention couldn't unsettle me. This is firm ground I'm standing on.

The best way to describe it is acceptance. I can't tell you it's something I've been chasing all year, because I don't think I've ever quite known the feeling. I couldn't have known it was a destination to aim for, but I think I'm here. I don't know if any of this amounts to anything, except to say I feel sure. I have little influence over the outcome of this court case, I have no control over the process, how people see me, and what the consequences are. But in myself, I can be sure - and who knew, that matters a bucket load and more.

So anyway, we're at the pointy end of the semester, exams are looming, a mother of an OSCE is not too far away, I've got a job interview for work in the holidays and plenty more is happening still. I did well enough in the mid-semesters and I'm sitting on a comfortable margin heading toward the end of the year. I had an OSCE just the other day too, and while I was nervous - I also performed well (I think). I've spent a bit of time in theatre this week too and it's given me a kick of motivation for the year to come. Things are hectic, things are sometimes stressful, and there's more than enough work to get done. But, things are okay too.

And most of all, I'm in love with a wonderful man. It might sound crazy to say this at this point in time - right now, in these circumstances - but I think I'm happy. I'm not sure if happiness can come in such strange a form, but it feels right to me.