The Real Life (Yuan)

What began as a flurry of posts in the beginning of the year has gently trickled down to the occassional update, or in my case, a hiatus for a couple of weeks. Welcome to Uni! Everything stepped up a gear and all those talks about self-responsibilities become a reality nightmare. All those skipped lectures and nights surfing the net or TV has come back to bite you in the butt. Straight after the Easter break, I had an exam (admittedly a small one) which I’m happy to say I did well in. Then a week or two later, I had to hand in an assignment, which most of us started the night before. This is incredibly scary considering how we’re all med students and as much as I don’t like to generalize people, I have to admit, med students are nerds and yet we were still procrastinating till literally the last minute. And then, just 5 days later, we had another exam (this monday), which I’m sad to say, I bombed it. Moral of the story, this ain’t high school. There won’t be any teachers poking your back demanding to see a draft or hand you out revision sheets regarding the exam. It’s all you. you. you.

Oh well, life goes on.

Apart from the hectic studies, which I’m pleased to report has eased off a fraction since I’ve done biology and this week is on genetics, life has been good so far. While we’ve pretty much established our circles, everybody in our cohort is still pretty much lost and happy to make new acquiantances. Also, we’ve expanded our hangout place from the library to… the med common room, union house and such. We’ve taken trips down to Melbourne central, went to the night market (which was awesome, by the way!) and done other fun things that are outside the medical realm. The only thing I have to complain about is all my friends are med students. I don’t even know where the arts, science, commerce etc. students hang out or what they do. But hopefully, that’ll change… eventually.

Living in Melbourne is just getting easier and easier. The public transport takes me everywhere (and it’s pretty much all zone 1 unlike Brisbane, which has 5 or 6 ridiculous zones), shopping is fun and if I can’t be stuffed to cook, I can grab a bite to eat pretty much everywhere.

Course-wise, the med course has been pretty awesome so far. Two weeks ago, we got to look at cadavers (donors who have donated their bodies to the University of Melbourne to aid our learning). The atmosphere was slightly gloomy when we entered the lab. For me, it was because this was a reminder of our own mortality, something that I unfortunately receive every morning as my tram goes past the Melbourne cemetery on my way to uni. This Friday, we’ll get our first taste of surgery as we try our hands on cutting up the cadavers.

My rambling has finally come to a closer and I think that’s all I’ve got to say for the time being. So until next time!

P.S. Just a note of interest. I went into the city to grab something to eat (because I’m sick and tired of cooking and I’m sick and tired of eating my own cooking). When I came out to catch the tram home, I was surprised to find all the major streets of the CBD (including Flinders, Swanston etc.) blocked … by yellow taxis! Apparently, there was a taxi driver strike because today, a taxi driver was killed. So they were holding a protest holding signs saying “Stop Killing Taxi Drivers”. All the taxi drivers barraccaded the streets and sat together outside the Flinders St Station intersection with Fed Square, filling out literally the entire space. There were police, onlookers (with cameras and mobile phones) and the city was in chaos because nobody could get out. I ended up having to catch the train home (literally the only thing that is still moving) and only just got home. They’re probably still there now. You guys will probably hear about it in the news tomorrow… Was anybody else there to witness the event? It’s sad how in this day and age, things like this still happens in society.