Current location:	Melbourne, Australia
Current mood:	chipper???
Entry tags:	daily life, visual art

Time flies when you're having fun
Well, I kinda disappeared off the net for a while again...so much for doing a pic-a-day. Also, I'm running out of wasted paper (thanks to too many out-takes). But yeah, I might as well regale you a brief account of the exams anyway:

On Wednesday was the written HP exam, for which I vaguely remember saying something like I needed to study something about associative agnosia...but schizophrenia proved to be a more pressing issue as by the time I got around to it at about 0430, I realised it was a HUGE topic. And well it should be, as it is an area of major focus in neuropsychiatry (and thus one which I may be devoting much of my time to next year!) I was somewhat worried when I went to that exam as there were no past papers, but when I did go to the exam, it was, for the most part, straightforward (except I got caught out by one written question and a few of the multiple choice questions as they covered tutorial and not lecture material that I thought was coming up in the practical examination...) It must be said however that I seem to be the only medical student on campus that actually enjoys sitting HP examinations by virtue of liking the subject. Although I tend to do pretty poorly because of my shoddy examination technique...

Friday was the paper I had been dreading all exams. I was well past my endurance limits for a start (I still am now), and on Thursday I spent most of my time bludging around, failing to look at any anatomy whatsoever, watching an extract from some action movie- a fight between Tony Jaa and Lateef Crowder, and thus thinking maybe I could dig up some Rael-vs-Arael sparring crap. So that's what I did- or at least started. The character lineart was done in short order- by that evening, although I struggled with the perspective, as usual (working on it!) Then the next morning, weary and groggy eyed, I hauled my ass out of bed to sit that damn 3-hour written.

When I sat down, I remember having that sinking feeling and almost the accompanying drop-a-load-in-your-pants that I had last semester- some of those questions looked really difficult because...surprise surprise, I had not studied them! After getting over a massive case of diarrhea (which you did not want to know about), I then proceeded to try and nut out the examination, thinking that I was going to fail anyway and why would the 3 hours not pass any faster. By the end of the examination, I had actually surprised myself- from having my previous expectations almost completely shattered to actually maybe even meeting them. However, something dawned upon me immediately after- the exam was in fact an excellent reflection of what we would be expected to know were we to be well-rounded clinicians. "Random" questions, such as 20 (of 180) marks devoted to Trisomy 21 (Down's Syndrome), and significant portions to geriatrics, geriatric pharmacology, menopause and hormone-replacement therapy left much of the student cohort reeling as we belatedly found our examination technique woefully inadequate.

But it was in reflecting on the wording of the questions that it dawned on me that they were written such for a very good reason: "A 36 year old woman and her partner have just had a child after an uneventful pregnancy. However upon examination it is noted that the baby does not 'look normal' and tests reveal that the baby has Down's Syndrome. The couple have presented to you and as the doctor, they want you to answer the following questions."

Uhhhh, oookay...

"What causes Down's Syndrome?" (10 marks)

This is my cue to feel ashamed of myself. I don't know how to answer that question (not 10 marks' worth anyway) despite knowing that with the advent of the development of our understanding of genetics comes such things as screening and awareness of aneuploidies etc. This frankly made me feel somewhat disappointed in myself- not only had I failed to take advantage of the obviously more integrated format of the course which I had been hoping for as an opportunity to exercise my knowledge in a coherent manner such that exams would not require simple compartmentalisation and rote-learning that medical students in general habitually engage in, but I had also failed to appeciate the versatility and greater wisdom of the co-ordinators and lecturers. Ah well, I guess I learnt my lesson this time round- better late than never.

After that, I had several days which seem to have passed largely in a blur of unproductivity. I did some practice for my clinical exam on Tuesday- involving learning several physical examinations from the ophthamology to the minimental to the physical and neurological lower limb examination. As usual, I am rather nervous about that component but go perfectly well on the day (my examiner was so good as to tell me directly that I passed without problems...probably because I was taking too long deliberating over the question "a lesion at the root of S1 causes what deficits?" uhhhh S1 goes to the ankle right...?) Rather, it was the oral short-course that, as usual, I managed to screw-up.

Well I'm not even sure if I screwed it up. Previous semesters, I usually start fine then get worried about the time and start rushing through the signs and checklist, only to be told I should probably "just chat". This time, I'm presented with a garrulous elderly man (an actor) who has had a "stroke" 14 weeks ago, and presents for his scripts. Easy scenario- but a bit slow going as the man was a bit slow in the speech, and I was not sure just how comfortable he was with me (comfortable enough to start using expletives, at least.) Five minutes in, I had just finished picking up the cues about familial issues and was going to explore the possibility of depression when the 1 minute warning bell went. So it turned out that what I thought was five minutes was actually eight...fuck! I panicked and stumbled my way through summing up and was just wrapping up when the final bell went and my examiner said "okay, you're done, thank you" but I wasn't done yet! So I kept going and the examiner just kept repeating "thank you, you're done" and I stood up really too hastily and probably left the "patient" looking a bit bewildered as I was ushered out the door by the supervisors...argh!

If I read all that right, it meant business as usual: at least I didn't fail. But I wish for once that I'd actually *click* and come out feeling like it was more than just 'nine minutes of drill'...I suspect for that, I'd require a full 15-minute consult type exam.

After that shamble, I wandered around aimlessly following people around, eventually alighting in the pathology museum whereupon I...started drawing again, trying not to eavesdrop on the conversations beacuse I had NFI what anybody was talking about and going out to grab a drink. And that pretty much takes it up to this point, where I'm sitting on my ass way past my bedtime because there was nothing much to note from then till now, except, I guess, to say that with sex-scandals and suicide attempts being all the rage on the media as scrutiny kicks up a notch, the public has descended into the practice of what can only really be described as demagoguery. "Let me make this clear," some senator shouts in response to the Orkopulous affair- "if you are a pedophile, I am your enemy!" I doubt he even knew what the actual definition of a pedophile was. Were I in a bad mood (and were I not a pacifist), I would probably deck the next person whom I see saying "I find this a disgusting, morally vile act" because frankly, chances are they would be saying so to pander to the mob-mentality and thus feel good about themselves, without any actual reflection given on the matter. Other irritating news is since the election time comes round for the US, so too must it for Australia...and Beazley has taken the Labor helm again. Problems: John Howard really knows how to pull the ropes and bullshit his way through any election- his backpedalling on Kyoto and the carbon emissions trading proposal are plenty enough evidence of it this time, and hopefully this time the Greens will hold more sway as their criticism that this is a token gesture seem rather valid. And as for Beazley? Either he has no solid policy to speak of, or he really has a gift for saying not a whole lot "it's a simple choice. Either you choose Howard's unfair system, or you choose my fair one." They didn't dub him Australia's most ineffectual politician several years back for nothing. Beazley being a non-event wouldn't be such a problem if Howard weren't obviously eroding the pillars of democracy through his new industrial relations laws- basically the Commonwealth can override the state in matters of workplace policy, effectively silencing unions. It is up to the working class now to decide whether these policy changes will hurt them enough, or, as I suspect Howard is thinking, whether some cash-in-hand bait is enough of a decoy. I don't know how long he expects to keep on getting away with it, but I do not think, despite the mounting pressure from both Costello (poor bastard) and portions of the public, that he had any intention of retiring, and when he finally does so- it will be firmly against his will, given that he has been busy in the process of making himself dictator ever since the coalition gained majority in both houses.

Now, finally, I also did manage to finish that pic I mentioned earlier- so I'll blab on about that now:





First off, I'm testing this sparkly new VCL feature that I remember Ch'marr (the administrator) mentioned some time back before I even had an LJ...it's basically the beginnings of a cross-posting comments system. I just want to see what it looks like, since I do not think I'll be enjoying any "additional exposure" as such a system would probably bring- audience on both LJ and anywhere else is small, and I'm not sure whether I'd actually want people commenting on the journal through VCL or what, because, as you can see, I tack everything in the same place. Either way, it's a thumbnail so CLICKY THE LINKY THINGY (yay, I get hits) because the full size pic is pretty large- it has to be.

Anyway, so this is yet another Rael-vs-Arael sparring pic (well, I haven't posted many online, but I have a collection going.) These seem to share the following characteristic features: a) Rael is always on the back foot, b) they spar in a grassy clearing surrounded by fairly dense foilage, c) ...I can't think of a third feature, uhm, it's always a motion-filled pic? That'll do.

One reason I do not draw the half-dragon characters nearly as much as I used to (back when they were my ONLY characters) is because the wings are a real pain in the butt. However, since anthropomorphic characters aren't realistic by any stretch of the scientific imagination, I've become a little less anally retentive about it...and also I am getting a bit better at the anatomy as well as appreciating principles of motion. Since I was watching Lateef and Tony have at it, this scribble has a distinct capoeira influence. Rael is hitting the deck while Arael sweeps overhead in what would probably have been a triple 540 (outside cresent right, inside crescent left and finish with a jacknife). All very showy and stuff.

As a result of that, the background (which takes the most time as usual) is divided into two parts- as an exercise in framing. Rael's motion is vertical, whilst Arael's is more horizontal, or perhaps radial to some point below the bottom of the picture. Then there's the perspective from somewhere directly behind Rael's left foot. All in all, something I haven't tried before, and I'm not altogether displeased with how it turned out. The tint was the result of several hours of trying to fiddle with the settings in grayscale before giving up- I thought since I already tampered with the background digitally, why not that too.

A final side note- I decided to dispense with niceties and gave Rael a slightly anatomically correct touch- mercifully obscured by motion blur. However, I was not intending to do the same with Arael (I'm not referring to the breasts, although they look more appropriately placed for a moving body than previous attempts), but very sloppy penmanship did it for me. I couldn't be bothered correcting it as this page had too much white-out on it already and it was written on the back of my anatomy notes anyway. I mean, whatever!

Okay, now it is so far past my bedtime that I will have to set the alarm, lest I fail to wake up and miss my exam...which would prove most displeasing.

Dong, out.