Long-lost friend

I haven't blogged in a long time. I haven't even read other people's blogs in the time being :-S Of late, I've had a bout of avolition where I've just found it hard to get on with the easiest and simplest of tasks. It hasn't helped that I've had deadlines to submit various forms coming at me left, right and centre. It's paper-warfare I tell ya! So, since November, here's what I've been up to (in a nut-shell):

- Sat and passed end of 3rd year exams (phew!). Actually did aright, I got an overall mark of 76% which is the highest I have ever gotten in med-school so far as an end of year grade.

- Travelled for 2 months to Jordan, Syria and England over the summer break (although it was actually winter in all of these destinations). I had an amazing time and definitely could've kept going with my continental drifting had I not had to come back to start 4th year in late January (I actually missed first week back, so go figure). I did some hospital placements while I was oversees (O&G in Jordan, ED in England) but have nothing remarkable to report on those execpt that they were pretty boring, uninvolved and student-unfriendly. This turned out to be a good thing as it meant that I was okay not being at the hospital and actually doing some travel.

- Returned in late January to commence my 4th and final year of medical school (*squeal!*). I'm so excited to be on the home-stretch run. This has been a long time acoming! I will have plenty more to write about this as the year progresses, so it's definitely going to be an overriding theme throughout my posts this year. As for what I have been up to rotations wise, I am half-way through my 2nd rotation (Neurology). My first rotation was Cardiothoracic Surgery (this is something I plan to write more about as well in the near future) - but suffice to say for now that it turned out to be the highlight rotation of my med school career so far. Bloody mind-blowing, complex, intensely emotional cases - the grand dame of surgical specialties did not fail to impress! Neurology has been quite cruisy but enjoyable as well. Kind of my niche area if I had to pick a medical speciality as I did my undergraduate degree in Neuroscience.

- What else? I was made redundant from my long-held (9 years!) job before going overseas. This is something that stressed me out a great deal, especially since I have a maasive loan (~ $20 000) that I took out to buy my car last year... and also because I was just about to go on holiday and the last thing I wanted was to do things on a shoe-string while travelling. Anyway, I dug deep into my savings and managed to budget what I had quite well while on holiday. As for my car, I lent it out to my parents (who sold their car at the end of last year and didn't yet get a new one), while I was o/seas and they paid my fortnightly loan repayments in return. So then when I returned from overseas for the first month I just made do with what I had and brought lunch from home and didn't go out at all, etc. Then I found a tutoring job which was advertised on Gumtree, basically just helping a mature-age "return to uni after having kids" student from a non-English speaking background with her assignments for a Bachelor in Early Childhood Teaching (very random, I know!). It's a few hours work so it's not too bad and it's cash-in-hand. But get this right, in a fortunate twist of fate, my ex-work contacted me last Sunday about getting my job back because they'd culled too many people and were in desperate need of staff that they wouldn't have to retrain. SO now I've got my old job back (on a Sunday too - so extra pay!) AND I have this random tutoring job, which means I've gone from just Youth Allowance income, to > double that every fortnight (and all is well with the world!). This is has been a big relief, especially since I would like to save up to travel at again the end of this year.

- Lastly, my sister is now about 21 weeks preggers and getting quite big. Her and her hubby want to keep the gender of Little Bambi (as I call It) a surprise. But I'm very much looking forward to meeting it and forming an awesome friendship with it later down the track!

So, that's it from me. I have a few things I want to reflect on, which I will do gradually. One thing I was thinking of doing is switching to a different blog as I feel like this blog was started in a time and place that I am far removed from now, and everytime I log in I think of all the crazy shit that was happening at the time, so it's not always a happy place to come back to. Still, it feels like a long-lost friend that knows all your secrets; but not in a snide way either. Anyway, I will give forwarning of a change if it does happen as I don't want to drop off the blogosphere and have people wondering if I got hit by a car or something :-S

Toodles!