Two days left

Megs:

Wow! Less than 48 hours - for the time zone I'm in, at least - before 2010 is over, and the New Year arrives!!! I suppose I should really get posting about my adventure in Taiwan - namely, the OCAC (can't remember what that stands for) Expatriate Youth Study Tour, or as I prefer, Around Taiwan in 21 Days for Overseas Taiwanese Kids.

The trip was AMAZING. My eyes have really opened, in the sense that I got to know heaps of students around, above and below my age in a non-studious setting (well, it's called a Study Tour, but when you don't have exams it doesn't count), from all over the globe; from places I'd never even heard of until three weeks ago, when I met them.

I formed close friendships with people from Australia, South Africa, Singapore, Mauritius, and of course New Zealand. Of course, back in Auckland, where exists a very multicultural society, I know wonderful people from all of these places (except Mauritius, which was new to me) and over the last three weeks they helped me to regain confidence and emerge more from a shyness or shell that I had lately been conscious of forming. Everyone was open, friendly, quirky and fun. A few of the crew:

The Team I was assigned to was #12.

Our leader was (and IS) an awesome, wacky and sometimes (self-determinedly) awkward guy by the name of Edmond. Except he hates this name, so we called him Jeff, because apparently he looks like some Taiwanese singer also called Jeff. Jeff bought a stuffed monkey on this tour, for which I volunteered to be responsible. Ergo, Team 12 became the Monkey Team, with Monkey Numbers 1 - 15. We were very good at our Sound-Off! I was #7.

The 180 or so students on this year's tour went round Taiwan in five massive tour buses. We were on Bus E, aka the Easy Bus! Complete with TV and a Karaoke set, at which some of the boys were very good at. (Girls: mostly too shy to sing. Hum!)

This is Taiwan. It's shaped, by general agreement, as a kumara/sweet potato. Although I remember when I was 8 I was dissatisfied with this analogy with what seemed to be an obscure vegetable, so I insisted it looked like a chicken drumstick.

...Anyway! We travelled around the island in an anti-clockwise route around the coast. Every day was filled with lessons and activities that brought us closer to the culture and history of Taiwan: museums, factories, sightseeing. We baked kumara in the earth;

made paper;

went SHOPPING;

and many other things - attended two military schools for a day;





we also went bike riding past a beach and around a park; visited countless historical sites; had an international basketball tournamet (NZ won :D); visited Buddhist and other religious temples; climbed up a mountain that was inhabited by many monkeys; stayed at an animal resort; stayed at lovely hotels, stayed at not-so-lovely hotels, watched Taiwanese aboriginal dances and rituals, and a whole litany of other things - AND, if Facebook hasn't been spamming your News Feed enough already took about a million photos. Not possible to upload all of them, so here are some. :P

I'm amused and grateful towards everyone who said "Have fun!" to me before I left. Having fun doesn't even begin to cover it. Those 21 days were unforgettable, and as the (now very overrused) saying goes - Taiwan definitely touched my heart :)

Summer of 2010/11; Part 1

Wil:

While others are basking in the New Zealand sun, returning back to deliciously cooked home meals with their family after work at the end of the day, travelling the world, or just plain doing nothing, I'm here at university stuck in an isolated (albeit adequately lit with natural light) seminar room tapping away at my laptop for at least 7 hours a day and 5 days a week. But don't despair, it's not as dire as it sounds. Any job has its fill of gross paperwork and unsightly clerical work. And my work here doesn't completely consist of staring at a computer screen. I'll tell you more about the exciting events I have encountered so far, and what the future holds, later.

But first, so what exactly am I doing you might ask? Well, for those who didn't know, I'm currently undertaking a summer studentship at the School of Pharmacy. A studentship is a research job where you work under the supervision of a staff member at the university. The summer project was developed by, and is related to the supervisor and whatever research they're carrying out at the same time.

I am supervised by two lovely women who work here at the school. My primary supervisor is Dr Kirsten Lovelock who is a research fellow (she doesn't teach). My project relates directly to the area she is studying at the moment. She got her PhD in anthropology and is a very knowledgeable social scientist.

My secondary supervisor is Dr June Tordoff who is a senior lecturer in pharmacy. She is traiend as a pharmacist and works part time at Dunedin hospital doing drug information, which is basically like customer services for the pharmacy. She answers drug questions that come from anyone: local and distant pharmacists, doctors, students, patients etc.

My project is titled, "Access to medicines and health care in rural New Zealand: the role of the rural pharmacy and depot." Dr Lovelock has done a lot of work on rural health and I'm contributing by researching the contextual nature of health in rural settings and how the pharmacist contributes to the well-being of the community they serve.

Due to the lack of a fully coherent health care workforce in rural areas, health professionals already existing in such places often need to take up responsibilities which extend beyond their traditional roles of their discipline. I'll briefly look at the capacity of the rural pharmacy and the services they offer. For this part, I'll be interviewing rural pharmacists and depot operators. Depots are little shop thingies in remote, rural places were patients can leave prescriptions which will then be transferred to the affiliated pharmacy to be processed and filled, which are then returned to the depot where the patients can pick them up. Depots tend to be located in remote areas where a pharmacy wouldn't be financially viable, but the area still requires the services of a pharmacy. They are usually manned by a pharmacy technician or even just a lay retailer.

I'll also dip into looking at how the rural community perceives the rural pharmacy and their access to health care services. There's often discrepancies between the way the policy makers handle rural health care (or any other aspect in the whole of society, for that matter) and the reality of the situation faced by those who actually live in these settings and who are affected by the policies that are put in place. We'll be interviewing members of the community for this section.

So that's a long-ish summary of what i'll be doing in my summer. I have to write up a report on all of this. I've done about 10-ish pages so far and I feel like it's only about 1/6th there. Bah. So much work and i'm already half way through my studentship. I feel like this is going to take much longer than just 10 weeks.

This is just blog #1 in a series of blog posts that I'll hopefully churn out while my adventure unfolds over the summer. Expect lots more over the next week (or so. I'll probably procrastinate...) since i'm already half way through my studentship. I have plenty to say!

To my readers: if you want to continue talking about rural health in New Zealand (or even health in general), feel free to hit me up! Comment away. Let's partake in some healthy discussion.

This is just like me

Megs:

Hum hum, conumdrums.

I bet, hypothetically, if I ever wrote a really good book, or made a really good painting that surpassed anything I've ever done before, the final manuscript or piece would end up sitting in the corner of my room, or under my bed, because I wouldn't be able to think of a title/name with it that I didn't feel was rubbishy, or already taken.

This is just an observation.

What was that saying? A truly eloquent donkey would starve to death / die of dehydration if it was place equidistance from a pile of hay and a trough of water, if it was equally hungry and thirsty, because it wouldn't be able to decide. This is very a compelling thought, and really rather fail.