and moving on...

Fig. 1. grouchy grouchy amy in the midst of exams. DND.
no, not dungeons and dragons you nerds. do not disturb!
(lu, remember that attitude photo we tried to take in sec school? this one's for you hehe!)




as an aside.. i was insanely calm earlier this morning. not sure why. just miserable and wanted my finals to be over. took out my digicam and tried to say hello to a baby kookooburra outside my window but he looked at me funny.
i got grumpier. bah humbug.



on a good note, pediatrics paper's over. one more left. wheee! ooh yeah, green contacts, green contacts! wheee!

on a bad note, i'm not sure i want to mentally re-evaluate how well i did for that paper. just the thought of doing so is causing my tummy to churn. out of the first 10 questions, i managed to only fill in a measly three at first go.

back to bloody pregnant women, literally...

bobbing for hearts

ever tried bobbing for apples? it's all fun as you wait there, lining up for your turn as you laugh and goad the people in front of you along. and then you suddenly find yourself facing that tub of water. so many apples! you think to yourself. surely it can't be that hard. let me show them how to bob you tell yourself. *wiggles jaws* aiming for a random apple, you open ur mouth as big as u can with all your teeth bared. ur whole field of vision flashes red, with sparkles in various corners as the water splashes all over you and you find yourself in an underwater world.. chortling because water went up your nose. u straighten up, stare back at that tub of apples happily bobbing along as if oblivious to their impending doom... and u doggedly go back for more water going up your nose.

the past week's been like that. ups and downs, like those apples. stuff that made my heart sink as it tried to take a bite, only to let go and send my heart bobbing back up to the surface. and then down again it'd go.. sometimes, it'd be a slight tap. the heart'll wobble and float still.. other times, it's a jarring shove that sends the heart right down to the bottom of the tub, only to make me catch my breath again as the heart surges back to the surface to get ready for the next dunking.

today, i had one of those surges. one that didn't take my breath away and hurt as the heart came up for air. this one was a happy bob. sorta like doing a cannonball and coming up exhilarated. came home to find a little email happily bobbing in my inbox that informed me of two things ~ i'm getting offered the chance to present the paper at a conference in april next year and assuming that it goes well, i'm assuming that i'm going to have a paper published in my name (among others of course!) by next year hopefully in some journal. *legs turn to jelly* i was so speechless.. i didnt expect my supervisor to offer me the chance to present it. all i did was collate his data for him. now he wants me to write it up and present! i'm so honored, stoked and um.. half thinking it's all a dream at the same time.

tis a great motivational boost to bury my nose in my books. how bad would it look now if i didn't pass my pediatrics exam? "hi this is amy. she's one of my students in 4th yr last year. she's currently redoing 4th year again but hey, she's gonna be presenting this paper to u all. please welcome her with a round of applause" uh, no thanks.

*buries nose in books again... and recoils in horror at the oily blotches i've previously made* hee

im so screwed...

no, im not talking about exams. that's ... well, we'll see what can be salvaged between now and monday. divine interventions, multiple ones, would be nice hehe. *pokes gerby* now would be a good time to introduce me to that dude of yours =P

im so screwed because.. imishoooo. i don't know why but imishooo =(

*****

in other news, conjunctivitis!! yep, i've got it *sigh*
went to see the doc for some antibiotics this weekend. very very impatient amy = bad bad patient. i was preempting all the doc's questions before she asked. i was inwardly giggling hysterically as i recognized the ever-so-familiar "so, can you tell me what's wrong?" opening line.

i launched into a case presentation of myself, sans the "24yo female presented with..." hehe. i told her about pain, discharge, associated symptoms, vision loss and all that other stuff. she was quite miffed but frankly, so was i. with each consult taking 10mins, i didn't see how i could still be in the waiting room 50mins later when there were only 2 other patients before me.

the doc broke out into a huge grin at the end of the consultation when she finally couldn't take it anymore and asked "so.. are u studying at the uni?"
*nodnod with a smile*
"so... what are you studying?"
*big grin with a sheepish smile* medicine.
"i thought so"
*more goofy grins all around* hehe

one thing i'm faulting her for is for not telling me how disgusting those antibiotic drops taste!! 2 drops in each eye, 3x a day. yarrite. that lasted for the first 24hrs ... i told you i'm my worst patient. the drops trickle down all those caverns in one's head and end up at the back of my throat, leaving me with the foulest taste. it's a cross between something acidic ala those sour/super lemon candies and pesticide. not that i've tasted pesticide..

i've tried chocs (thank you A! i finished the whole box already.. and i only opened them on sunday. argh.), i've tried water. i've tried anything edible to get rid of that taste.. brushed my teeth, brushed my mouth, regurgitated phlegm... nothin works! my eyes aren't getting any better either.. half the problem would be the drops not actually staying in my eyes i bet.

anyway, hopefully it'll sort itself out soon.. or else the invigilators might get another class of resident evils like dkxeon did =) *swishes devil tail* hehehe

the wrong side of bed

lately, it seems like i've copped another round of this so-called pms that isn't. i feel strangled, cornered and suffocated. worse the mr giraffey (who is keeping baby D company *beams*)



suffocating with thoughts of blood and screaming kids swirling in my head at the end of each day... that's what going through the multitudes of "scenarios" in obs/gyn and pediatrics can do to you. they all start out with "a 28 year old lady presents with bleeding..." or "you are an intern at ED and gets called to see a 18-month old baby boy who's just arrived, screaming..."

bloody hell, i want to scream too...
my state of mind, the state of my room.. it's worse than that mess that i was back at P's sleepover. if you were here, you'd be giving me worse looks than N was giving me.



at this point in time, i'm sitting here mechanically reading things that aren't registering. i'm mindlessly scribbling things that aren't legible. i'm seeing things that aren't there. i'm not seeing things that are there.



i can't wait til the exams are over. i'm oversaturated with useless bits of random nonsense. i'm undersaturated with knowledge that will prevent me from killing future patients. despite knowing that we all statistically will kill 1.7 people in our first year out, having that piece of knowledge isn't very reassuring.

will someone please live the next two weeks for me... please?

dry spell

in terms of blogging, in terms of creativity, in terms of mapling, in terms of socializing... heck, in terms of life in general i say.. i've hit a dry spell! exam stress is beginning to seep through the glass ceiling floating over my head. obviously, it wasn't as glassy as i thought it to be if it's permeable. that in itself is not a bad thing, no? nobody wants to walk around with something floating over their heads... some people can barely tolerate having hair up there!

i do sincerely apologize for the lack of blog strolls i've failed to go on lately... the pace i'm feeling is much too fast to allow strolls anymore. it'll wind down once the exams are over. speaking of exams... we had one today. unplanned, outta the blue. in-your-face. nggaarrgh!

it's been one of those days today. woke up late, promptly dismissed my plans of seeing a patient before class (so that i could present that patient to the tutor at the aforementioned class) and ran so late i left without picking up A. i was up to the nearest traffic light when i realized that i was missing my passenger and had to call her up and apologize. d'oh! cleared that up, found parking at the furthest possible spot in the furthest possible lot and headed straight up to gum gallery for the session. ran into that certain registrar that i have a soft spot for *grins* but ARGHHhh it's so wrong. *bangs head against the wall* it's so Grey's Anatomy-ish. i would like to be friends with the guy... i think there's potential. it's not like we can't carry a conversation or have nothing in common. we stood around for more than an hour just chatting after one of the clinics... bleah. but but everytime i see him, he's around with consultants or in some conversation with someone else higher up the ladder of hierarchy. the last thing i need is to have rumors floating around, especially after that one about the phantom doctor boyfriend of mine... or even just the teasing. i already get that from L about him. she's dying to pass him my number as it is... actually, she's been dying to set me up with any asian doctor that says hi to her for the past year. very sweet of her, but geez woman, i'm not that desperate! eeeesh!

anyway, i'm digressing. all 3 of us showed up for class and the tutor sprung an assessment on us. we had to do our practice long case.. the one that didn't count where we could redo as many times as we wanted until we passed but was graded on with a criteria marking sheet and had pass to pass the course. that one. good news is that i passed.. we all did. not bad for something so impromptu, i must say! hehe =) bad news is that i now have a confidence boost meaning that i feel justified enough with passing to take it easy with the studying. this would also explain why i'm here typing up this latest blog entry rather than bury my head in foul-smelling thick volumes of wonderful obs/gyn books with lovely gory pictures of bloody cervixes and such.

two more weeks, i tell myself... just two more weeks. =)