everything in
it's right place

As I believe that the week starts on Sunday, today officially marks the end of week 1 of school. The course itself feels so different to Biomed in Unimelb, the number of orientation activities is really overwhelming.


First day of school began with a longgg series of introductory lectures (I think this is standard) to administrative staff and responsibilities of being a medical practitioner (nope, this one is new to me). The lecture timings are also not as structured, gone are the 50 minute time slots where the lecturer would rush through the entire lecture. Everybody in first year does the same subjects, in fact we can't even choose, so there are no lecture clashes to disrupt timetables.

This carried on for the next two days, more introductions to anatomy, histology, physiology. There is a very strong emphasis on clinical skills, so subjects like bedside manner and empathetic skills are introduced as well. According to Dad, NUS and Duke-NUS in Singapore don't teach this. Looking at the manners of most Singaporeans, I think they should! Anyway I found these lectures the most interesting out of the whole lot, haha just the emphasis on these skills itself made it interesting. In biomed we had ZERO interaction skills whatsoever, which is my major gripe with doing research.

Finished off the week with a UQMS (UQ med society) exhibition after lectures on Friday afternoon. Free memberships for med student indemnity insurance all over the place, as well as other freebies. I noticed it immediately as a bullshit marketing plan, but hey they do provide free service for 4 + 2 years (med school and then some) so I guess it is really worthwhile. Got so many safeway-like cloth bags and TONS of pens and postit pads.


In the evening we had our UQMS Welcome Back Keg. It was more like a massive social with just free flow of alco (beer and goon). Drank about 8 cups worth - I impressed myself with my tolerance! I think it has gone down slightly though due to my alco abstinence lately... haha. This is also when I realised my complete inability to remember names, yesterday I met Amy in a lecture and forgot her name 10 secs later. Only when she went "HI CHRIS!" at the keg did I remember... that's terrible! My friends say they force themselves to repeat the persons name in a convo 5mins after they've met that person, so as to keep thinking about it. Gotta try that...

First week of med school - lecturers always refer to it as 'a rollercoaster of activity and emotion'. Ya whatever la. Attribute it to my laid back-ness, I see it as just another week in school albeit the very new environments. But as everyday passes I miss my bebe, maybe not more and more but still just as much as I did from the first day I left. Thanks to the makers of Skype, that program is a lifesaver. Until then I've only got BBB to grab on to at night...