Things I've been putting off

Megs:

So I've figured that I have four years to get my act together and go out and go wild while I still can, before Med school calls me back and I go back once again to a period of intense study and then becoming Tony Ryall's [the Health Minister's] bitch (fantastic quote from our university magazine Craccum, ha!) :D

Sooo - below's a list of things I've been putting off, plus things I'd like to do in this time of, hopefully, intense growth. Just think of it as a second puberty, or something.

- Sit and pass Grade 5 Theory of Music

- Actually get good at viola; I think I owe it to more than just myself. Practiiiise!

- Sit and pass my Restricted (and then Full) driver's license

- Get work experience by joining a particular marketing firm -> I'm very interested in the change I'd see in myself if I worked for this lot; from getting big companies to support charities such as Save The Children, to door-to-door knocking

- Travel. Keen about the idea of going to India; visiting monasteries and holy landmarks, getting to grips with seeing the more chaotic, livelier, harsher aspects of the world and how people live. Plus all-you-can-eat butter chicken curry for the equivalent of NZ 80c? I'm there!

- Learn to cook. I admire people who can cook!

- Get fit. Go for runs? Walks on the beach? Hmmm. Not an easy one. :P


Might add more later.

Got to catch up with Olive today!! Went to visit her and her new apartment and she showed me all the shinanigans she's been up to, and wandered the Hall of Residence and just hung out for two hours :D <333 Yay! xoxo

PS. Happy Birthday Nawar, you're awesome and here's to another fantastic year, buddy :D

Quarterlife crisis

Megs:

aewhawelifawelfkbaewkb

Random rant addressed to nobody and which I don't really expect anyone to read (which is just as well.)

Nowhere to start, really. Sometimes, I think that I'm over the fact that I would have been the very next person to be accepted into the medical progamme. (Or, since there were two left on the waitlist, at the most the next next person.) It's okay; I know how close I was, so I made it to somewhere.

These days, I'm finding something odd, and intriguing. I've never ever really missed people - when people go away I'm never too bothered because I know I'll see them again, and I get on with my life. As a general rule, my holidays are okay with or without meeting up with others, though of course I prefer the former.

So I'm not sure why, now after university's started, I miss everyone. Maybe it's because we've all come back and it's now how I pictured second year to be.

I miss Olive, who's in Med and so now we can't run crazily to the next lecture or cram/stress for the same things together anymore; I miss Marianne, who's going to Sydney for an indefinite while, and leaving behind - for the time being - her dreams which are similar to mine; I think I miss Wil (:P haha), though since we're texting everyday it makes it a bit better. I miss the older students who offered so much help and advice; I miss those who've left AYO; I miss those who have gone off to do Biomed and Pharmacy and heavens know what else, and I miss the faces of those who I met and said hi to last year but won't get to know.

What I'm missing is everyone, now that we've gone our separate ways.

I'm not warming up to the people in my class this year all that much, although that's more my problem than the actual people. I'm sure they're lovely, but I just haven't felt so much like I can't relate to a group of people in such a long time.

It's a little awkward, and very bizzare, how the thing I'm happiest about in life at the moment is Statistics.

Just going to go off and listen to Littlest Things for now.

Say what you say, do what you do

Megs:

Wooooo! Learning how to use a sewing machine has been exhilarating :D :D Made this thing over nearly the entirety of yesterday while listening to Lily Allen (officially new favourite singer, as you could probably tell)

Of course, the bag I've made could have probably taken someone else like 1/16 of the time it took me, but it was incredibly fun. Exciting exciting!


Spiffy ancient thing borrowed from the centre:





Anyway, a family friend kindly showed me how to work this thing on Sunday; on Monday morning it wouldn't sew properly and I thought I'd broken it. Took the bottom bit apart and put it together again several times, thenageslaterrealizedIjustneededtowindthethreadatthetoponemoretime... anyway, I didn't break it! :D

Rummaged through the boxes downstairs through the billions of truckloads of masses of clothing and things downstairs that nobody wears anymore for something for me to cut up and make into something else. Eventually decided on an old fitted sheet with pretty pattern.

The old fitted sheet with pretty pattern:



Anyway, tra la la, you know how I texted you saying it was nearly finished yesterday at around 4? Ha didn't finish til this morning!

Ze bag:



Yay!



Halfway through making ruffles, or crinkly bits (? - I need to get my sewing terminology checked) at the top




It even holds BOOKS!! GASP!! Mission accomplished!! :D

So with this I've managed to whack several birds over the head all at once with one stone - find new hobby; get new bag for uni; learn how to use a sewing machine! Yippee!

P2 Camp FTW!

Wil:

Wow. I didn't know you had posted in the blog. You should have said something. By the way, what's OLY1? Stop making things up!

Anyway,

Greetings all! Yes i'm sorry that I haven't posted in this blog for AGES. I think it might be the first time this year...

Well, just an update:

- I've been in Dunedin for about a week and a half.
- I've moved into my flat.
- I'm having the time of my life.


So the topic of the week: P2 Camp!

So i've just spent the last 2-ish days at Pharmacy Camp where the 2nd year students are invited to meet each other. Let me give you a breakdown of it all:

Day 1: Packed all my luggage and walked to outside Med school where we met our camp leaders and found the other people in our teams (there were 6 teams; I was in team red!). We departed on the bus shortly after that. We arrived at Waiora Scout Camp which is in the middle of nowhere, but it's a pretty cool camp site. It's huge!

Everyone met up in the main hall to listen to announcements and notices. The main hall contains 10 bedrooms and they were for the really party people because the main hall pretty much had music booming in it 24/7 and I don't think people who chose to sleep in the main hall actually got any sleeping done.

We then went to find our own cabins and i went up the hill far away from the main hall (cos i'm smart like that). Our cabin had 3 rooms: 1 main room which lead into 2 bed rooms. Each bed room had 2 bunk beds so you could sleep 4 people in each room. I shared my room with a guy called Jess who was the only other guy in Team Red, while the other bedroom had 3 other girls from Red.

We then got into our colour teams and played the typical team building games where we learnt each others names etc. It was pretty lame. And then they decided to get the water slide out which was pretty much a very long piece of plastic, about 3 metres wide, which went from the top of the hill and down to the bottom. They wet the plastic with dish washing soap and water to make it slippery and you pretty much ran and jumped onto your belly and slid down the hill head first.
I went 1st! :D and I went 3 times in total that day. It was so much fun.

We then had dinner. They served us instant noodles which they had initially told us to bring for the Camp site food bank (which didn't actually existed), so we were all pretty pissed off that we were deceived, but by that point we were all REALLY hungry and ate the sloppy wet noodles. The camp leaders got to eat pizza. They softened the blow by serving us chocolate cake, fruit salad and ice cream for dessert.

That night we had a quiz night. It went from after dinner all the way to about 9:30pm. There were about 6 or so rounds, each round being a different category such as General Knowledge, Sports, Science, History, NZ etc. In between each round we all had to play these mini competitions where one person from each team had to do a challenge and compete against the other teams. I had to do the eating challenge where we had to stuff our faces with a bowl of cold noodles from dinner which had a random gummy bear in it.

After that we all went back to our cabins and started settling down for the night.


Day 2: We were woken up at some ungodly hour in the morning by someone in our cabin starting up a giant chainsaw, and screaming "GET UP! GET UP! EVERYONE WAKE UP AND GET TO THE MAIN HALL NOW". This was, obviously, the start to initiation. We ran to the main hall, and it was FREEZING COLD (I just had shorts and a t-shirt on). We all had to buddy up with someone and they attached one of our wrists to each other with a plastic strip that tech people use to bind cables together (the ones with the grooves/teeth on the inside and you insert 1 end into a knoch thing in the other end and pull to tighten it and the only way to undo it is to cut the strap off). Well the teeth were cutting into my wrists real bad and they became really swollen and now my wrist is marked with scars.

Anyway, we had to do push ups (that hurt like hell with the teeth digging into my wrists) and then do a confidence course outside through the forest (still attached to our buddy). Throughout the course I got hit with water balloons, eggs, flour, and tomato sauce. At the very end we got the wrist strap snipped and we had to go down the water slide, except this time it was covered in eggs and noodles and at the very end you landed in a giant pool of instant noodles. So by the very end of initiation you were covered in eggs, sauce, instant noodles and you were freezing cold. Good fun :P
(P.S. I don't think I can eat instant noodles for a long time now :P)

We had a shower and got ready for breakfast.

We then had sporting activities in the main hall. Again, we were playing against other teams. There were a list of about 9 Olympic sport games like ice skating, judo, sailing, swimming etc and we had to choose one. The games turn out to be stupid, indoor representations of these games (but some of them didn't even make sense or were related to the actual olympic game). I chose judo and ended up having to play handball. I failed miserably :P.
One of the games we also got to play was our leaders had to sit in a chair and have a balloon filled with water held over their head. The balloon was then covered in shaving cream and each team was given a razor and we took turns shaving the balloon without popping it. The balloons all got popped in the end eventually and the next 30 minutes was sort of filled with the camp leaders chasing each other with shaving cream and covering each other with it while us P2 students just tried to stay out of the way.

We then had lunch (we had a BBQ. I ate like a little piggy). After that, we split back into our colour teams and played actual sports. There were 3 games: touch rugby, cricket and soccer.
First off, we played cricket against the pink team. We lost. ha. I sucked at it. But now I sort of know how to play cricket.
Secondly, we played touch with the orange team. About 3/4 of the way into the game, someone kicked the ball and I jumped up to catch it. I landed on my ankle in a really awkward angle and it hurt like hell. I knew I had done something to it and we all concluded that I had sprained it. So some of the camp leaders helped me walk off the field and I just sat on the side and watched. The sprain wasn't too major and I only needed to let it rest. I got some ice for it too. (actually, it was a pack of frozen vegetables...)

I was really bummed cos that meant I didn't get to play soccer. We lost the soccer game and Jess (the other guy on my team) thinks that if i had played, we could've won. ha. go me!

At that point, the sprain had gotten a lot better but my foot had swelled a bit it was still feeling a bit tender and fragile. I could walk on it though, but I couldn't flex or extend my ankle joint very well. I limped/waddled/hobbled my way back to the cabins after the sport events all finished. Everyone was concerned with my ankle. It felt good to be looked after by the camp leaders :P

We had dinner and then that's when The Party started. Essentially, everyone gets drunk and hooks up throughout the night. It's really stupid. I dressed up along with everyone though! I was Super Cat of Red! :P I'll show you pictures later. I was so cute :P

All that drunken frivolity was happening in the main hall, and the lower hall (else where on the camp site) was set up for those who don't drink so went along to there. There was Wii, sing star and buzz set up. I had so much fun there! We ate and sang the night away. Yummy wedges...

At about 1:30am we decided to call it a night and on our way back to the cabins we went past the main hall. They had a DJ in there (and the hall was decked out in lights and stuff, like a club) and they started playing Infinity and I was like "OMG I LOVE THIS SONG". So we decided to go up to the main hall to dance to one song, so I hobbled up the stairs and when we went in all we saw was a whole lot of people with their tops off. All the guys and all the girls were topless (girls wore bras). It was then I remembered that the tradition was "tops off after midnight". It was stupid :P We left as soon as we entered.

I went to bed about 2am.


Day 3: We all got to sleep in til 10am. Then we had to have breakfast and pack up and clean our rooms. We were going to meet the Dean and some of the staff from the School of Pharmacy.
After they each gave a little speech, we mix and mingled with them while drinking tea and eating biscuits. Lunch was then served. We had very nice sandwiches. We sat around some more pretty much and just waited for our bus to come. We played some games and just chatted in our little groups. Our bus came at about 3pm and we left the camp site.


So that was my trip. It was awesome and I had HEAPS of fun. It was amazing.

I'll end this post here.

Mission Complete!

Hobby hunting

Megs:

I've unwittingly found myself with a new hobby. It's hobby hunting. It began when I was thinking that I needed a new hobby, and hopefully it would be one that would produce something that I could sell (eg. Teaching [self] Teddy Making, which is also a book which I got at a flea market for $6 maybe a year ago and haven't used properly.) Et voila, enjoy making crafts and earn a few dollars at the same time.

Anyway, first I thought I could make watch-bracelets, so one could maybe purchase and thus be wearing girly jewellery things and also be able to tell the time, assuming he or she didn't already own a watch. I've trawled through the internet and have the basic ideas on how to make them and exactly what materials I would need, but then I would need materials, which I will probably never be bothered getting. Also, not sure how I'd sell them. But I've discovered stuff, like it's $25 to rent a stall at Taka on Sunday mornings.

I've stumbled upon Etsy, which is kind of like Trademe, except everything is handmade. Now I've been inspired to crochet things, like soft toys. Because I wouldn't need to buy materials for crocheting soft toys from overseas. But to be honest, making watches sounds like more fun and more rewarding. Blah.

So yes, just really tossing ideas preoccupying myself with thinking of things to preoccupy myself with and not really doing said things. I have crocheted a bit.



From left to right, the successive end results of my attempts to crochet. I think I'm getting better. Oh and I didn't make the hat on the right, but I thought it looked good with the lot.

PS I've changed the About section. I thought it was time for us to move on from OLY1. Ha.

The Bilirubin Question

Megs:

Heads up, folks, there's a new level of stupidity at the front of what might pose as logical reasoning; or perhaps what is more likely is that it was already there and I momentarily attempted to grapple with it (only momentarily because, after all, there is very little point pressing the matter if the other party is irritably close-minded).

Just now, in the car on the way home my mother was telling us about someone who has a son who has had a history of being mentally unwell, and on the side apparantly, somehow, managed to finish middle school being, frankly, very sucky at English*; in the way you or I would finish third form here and go to Taiwan or China and be no better off at it than the kids there.

So I expressed my surprise at how unusual this was and I went on to suggest that the boy may have/have had dyslexia. I mean, it could have gone undetected because who knows how they detect this sort of thing if the child's reading Chinese as opposed to English. (Don't know how it works but would like to know.)

Anyway, it was a statement which my father firmly rejected.

1. Very well; so I asked, "How can you be sure? Was it also he had bad speaking skills in English* too?"

2. And he said, "No."

3. So I said, "Then why can't it have been dyslexia?"

4. To which he had no answer.

Okay so it went from me wanting to understand the situation into something really circular and idiotic; steps 1 to 3 repeated and he said, "Why would you ask such a stupid question if I can't prove that it wasn't dyslexia?"

(Insert Steps 1 and 2)

And then he replies, "Why are YOU so sure it is dyslexia?!"

"I'm not sure that it's dyslexia, I'm asking you why you're so sure it isn't!" Honestly, falsifiable statement defended needlessly much?

And apparantly it's a stupid question. He said, "That is a stupid question. If I said you must have mental issues and you said you don't, how can you be sure that you don't?"

rgkuyegfkawfb awet... like what the fuck?

And he goes on with this attack saying just because I've done one year of Med (sic) don't think I know everything about this condition (FYI, dyslexia wasn't covered in OLY1) and basically stop acting like such a smartass.

o_O

If you came up to me today and said, "Oh, so and so's baby has yellow skin!!" And I, assuming you didn't mean that the child was Asian, might say, "He may have abnormally high levels of bilirubin!"

...you couldn't very well say, "No he doesn't!" with no other explanation.

Well I guess you could, but that would be the most idiotic thing ever.

Anyway I haven't had someone try to make their point to me in a more stubbornly stupid and ineffectual way than today, and I live with my sister. I stopped retorting far sooner than I would have liked, but there is no need to argue frivolously against inexhaustively stupid reasoning.

Other than a not so much frustrating as a bewildering end, my weekend was great :D Centre + very Asian pre-wedding party + 1km of running + Henry's + Big Bang Theory + half of the Whole Ten Yards (the Five Yards? haaaahaha. I have to finish the rest of that movie!)




*English actually being Chinese.

New project!

Megs:

Yay! I think learning sign language went really well for starters today :D
I always thought it kind of ironic how Sign Language could be the third official language of NZ(well, since December, which was when I found that out) and yet only a handful of people know it.

http://www.signplanet.net <- Our teacher for the time being!

Ha anyway, we'll see how this goes :D

**

Jotting down good times: (just for memories's sake, if memories's is even a word ^_^)
- KayLynn's birthday (Monday)
- Playing Taboo
- Making our own Taboo cards (Don't worry kids, it's a family friendly game despite its name)
- Loitering at mall, queen st, post office, etc