but I still have to go back to UNI for OSCE practice. *sigh* because OSCE exams on the 2nd day back from hols. Why?!?!?! Nevermind.

Book release season. =) ‘Brisingr’ came out, anticipating Victory of Eagles (Temeraire 05!!! I love Naomi Novik), House of Many Ways (Diana Wynne Jones, nuff said) spotted at Dymocks and G. R. R. Martin releasing his soon??? I am so itching to use my Borders 30% voucher.

Reading Dante’s Inferno right now (when I should so be reading ‘ECG Made Easy’ instead) and it is fascinating in a way.

For those who like Lord of the Rings, I would say the books by Alison Croggon, The Pellinor series is worth a try. I don’t really like the Inheritance Cycle (Christopher Paolini) because to me it was too similar to LOTR but Alison did pretty well with hers. The first book is The Gift, then The Riddle, followed by The Crow and ending with The Singing. I’m waiting for my housemate to finish the last book so that I can have a go at it too. Plus I usually don’t like authors changing the narrator of the story, but I find that I didn’t mind it at all this time.

The weather here is really cheeky. First it becomes all sunny and warm, blue skies, candy puff clouds (and pollen everywhere). Then the moment I put away all my winter clothes, I woke up to gray skies and hail. -_-”

but it was a fine and sunny day yesterday. There was the city to bay run on as well but instead of that, we went crabbing instead at Brighton!!! So exciting. My first time and all. Although we caught all but 2 crabs which was pretty pathetic but fun!!! munched on chips while we waited for the crabs to take the bait and watched the sunset.

So we had crab for dinner tonight. =) Free crabs.

Chin Fatt who did most of the crabbing and now has to prepare the crabs… =P

and cook them as well

Tomato chilli crabs….. delicious

I brought my camera to take pictures of last Friday’s International Food Festival organised by the Med school but in the end, the food was too delicious and it is very bothersome to try and take pictures while eating at the same time so I discarded my original plan and decided to enjoy the food and entertainment instead. As a short summary, the food was good, the performances great and the night was fun.

However, some miscellaneous pics that I had taken over time…

N5, the chocolate dessert house in Handorf, Adelaide Hills that I’ve mentioned before. A boutique of wonderful selection of chocolate from around the world and also some very nice chocolate desserts. Mmm….

A sneak peak at my room. I did say I planned to decorate it =) More angles of it coming soon (I hope)

Oh, and this is what happens when you hang out with Asians for too long. Some of their habits rub on to you….

Note the stash of chocolates in his left hand? Yep, We spotted some guys handing out free chocolate at Rundle Mall last Friday and we went a bit overboard. =) Ok, no. We didn’t. We politely took 2 packets each but the guy was pushing more of them stuff into our hands. Then we remembered we had PBL later that day so we started grabbing more for out groupmates. Thoughtful right??? Anyway, we saw a girl filling her shopping bag with them.

Oh, and Rundle Mall was fun that day. There were live models on the window displays throughout and it was so much fun to try and spot them from among the mannequins. =) Some were very good and holding still while others got bored and started teasing the shoppers from behind their glass walls. -_-”

Finally…

!!! =)

This was in the Dymocks best 51 kids’ books list:

1. Harry Potter series for ages 9+ (no surprises)

and the usual but then I looked at the age recommendations and I was flabbergasted. =P

Do 10 year olds really read and understand ‘Anne of Green Gables’???

Ok, maybe that doesn’t seem much until you really try to read them.

there are some more…

‘The Hobbit’ and ‘Lord of the Rings’ trilogy for 12 year olds.

o_O … really? I only read them when I was 14 and it is quite tedious with pages and pages describing the landscape alone. -_-” Same with ‘Wind in the Willows’ for get this…. 7 year olds. *sigh* Kids here really good readers. I wish I had such enthusiasm last time. I was only reading Enid Blyton *shame* when I was that age. =X Which was apparently what they recommended as well!! =) ‘The Faraway Tree’ nice book.

They had ‘Peter Pan’, ‘The Wind in the Willows’, ‘The Secret Garden’ and ‘The Chronicles of Narnia’ at ages 7 - 8 but ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ is recommended for ages 9+??? and then in 1 year time, you’re qualified to read ‘Eragon’ at the age of 10??? Seems like a jumble up.

I’m never going to understand this. Then again, I am 21 and I still follow ‘Artermis Fowl’ assiduously =)

Another post on updates AGAIN. What happened to the deep, thought provoking stuff that I promised myself?? I guess it just feels awkward to me and really dumb whenever I go back and read them later. Superficial things are comforting, in a way. They gloss over the more carefree aspects of one’s existence and provide a sense of fulfillment, albeit temporary and false. I can look back and convince myself that, ‘Yes, I had good times and got what I wanted.’. Pretending that I did the right things and I had no regrets. Is that lying, or can I say that I am being positive?

Anyhoo… lets start from where I left off. That would be last weekend where I did not have time to post pictures up. Some might have seen them already on facebook which is so much more easier than posting here because I do not have to resize every single picture.

Last Friday was harrowing. Lol, not really. I just got myself a slice of what my future would look like. I foresee getting introduced and eventually being chummy with anything caffeinated because the other alternative I think would be smoking and we just finished an asthma + COAD case. Not pretty, very disgusting and um… just no way! for me. Let me explain. I got back from school last Friday evening, looking forward to a quiet Friday night (for once), thinking about the yummy fish bake I was going to treat myself with when I chance to look at my phone and realise I had an sms waiting for me. (uh oh) In a few short lines, I was told by my pregnant lady, whom I have been attached to (or stalking) for the past few months that she has been induced, and they are now all gathered at the hospital waiting for The Moment. In that second, I saw all my plans disintegrate and to cut things short. I was next at the hospital with her family who have been waiting since 3 in the afternoon. We then had hours to while away as her body did the work of preparing her for the birth (parturition?). She was amazing, refusing epidurals everytime it was offered to her. 12 o’clock came and went, no sign of the baby coming. I have been there since 8pm. 1 am, she told us (her family and I) to go home since nothing seems to be happening. Of course, we all refused. Nobody wants to miss out right (uh…). By now, everyone was quiet and tired. I had been up since 6am that morning. But it was no more different from usual school days. At half past 2, her water broke and she gave birth to the sweetest baby girl ever. Baby was huge but so adorable that you would immediately forgive her for giving so much trouble for her mom for the past few weeks when she was growing inside her mother’s womb. She came out so fast the midwives didn’t even get to give the lady pain killers. I will say she is amazing though. Cannot imagine having to go through all that pain. Little baby girl immediately began feeding and she had a shock of hair (her mum claims its going to be curly) and her eyes were already opened. (aww….) So adorable, even more so when she did not cry at all when they gave her injections. I was so expecting squallings and bucket loads of tears during that moment. She is going to be as tough as her mom. =)

Anyway, I stayed with them till 6am and then headed off home. Then I had errands to run so I couldn’t catch a nap. That night, we had a housewarming + surprise birthday party for a friend. I have to say, I am getting really envious. Everyone is moving into supper nice apartments now. I am very happy with mine, but that doesn’t mean I can’t sigh over theirs. Let me show you…

Now just look at this!!! I am so tempted to jump in T_T

But those who didn’t own bathers had to content with some photo taking instead =(

too many cooks spoil the soup, or in this case, the laksa?? Not this time. =)

I got back and needless to say, crash out for 12 hours after that. I had been up for more than 40 hours. I do not look forward to this part at all… The occasional sleepless nights are fine by me. I hope this kind of things will not happen at too regular a basis. (I am being too hopeful am I?? =P )

But that left me with just a few hours to finish my preparation for next week’s work. Not fun, I usually spend my whole weekend doing them. My plans for the weekend were all made into a jumble from that Friday incident. I couldn’t even cram some stuff in on Sunday night because this time I’ve promised to go to Amanda’s birthday surprise as well. I’ve already skipped the one on Saturday night. We had closed to 50 people hiding in the top level of Lemongrass Bistro (Thai restaurant that um, serves Singapore Fried Noodles?!?!). Amanda, being the blur girl she is (we forgive her because she is from Melbourne and thus cannot help it. Lol) walked up the stairs and was totally oblivious to all of us hiding behind the tables. -__-” How is that possible. She must have really poor peripheral vision. In fact she was so unaware of us that we ended up being confused as well. People weren’t sure whether to jump up and shout or wait for her to turn around and notice us. =P

Birthday girl with the tiara

Of course we HAD to play crazy games…

Amanda with her new electric keyboard =)

Yesterday was MedReveu. A play produced 100% by medical students from the University of Adelaide. It was called ‘The Medschool Way’ and depicts the life of one called Emily Brynside as she studied, played, cried, drank, partied, sleepwalked? her way through 6 years of medicine only to arrive once again at the bottom rung of the hierarchy of the medical profession. It was a hilarious production as things that we understood and connect to were humourously portrayed at each change of the scene. A relatively accurate satire of the lives we are living now. Poking fun at the UMAT tests, the different personalities of meddies found in this school, convention (omg lol!) and in the second half, the Clinical Years which was so random and crazy and spontaneous. Yeah, being at the mercy of the residents and consultants of the wards is inevitable for everyone of us. All in all, it was one hell of a roller coaster ride for Emily. And it will be so for us. Quite a bit to look forward to eh?

Ash looks like he was about to eat me or something….

me being cut out of the picture -_-”

20 minute interval, so out we went for some photo taking and milling around…

Us with Romain (red T - shirt) after his amazingly funny performance on stage. This guy is seriously so funny. He is so like his character which was an unfortunate clinical student under a psychotic consultant. The result being him subjected to every whim of the consultant which strangely (or maybe not) involved chasing cockroaches, tried as a terrorist, cut in the face, and crawling round the wards. All which ended well, of course.

Thankfully, I have this 2 nights free. I have some serious catching up to do. >.<

[EDIT] ooh, its not really visible here but believe it or not, I bought those pair of boots for $15!!! I just had to say this here. $15!!! I cannot believe it. It was the last pair so I guess they were trying to get rid of it. Lucky it was my size and so comfortable to wear as well. =) Good bargains just make one happy. [/EDIT]