Cramming It All In

First semester is all over for 2009, with the only thing remaining being....exams NOOOO!!!! I've almost reached that 'don't care' stage, where you just don't care how well you do in exams, so I sorta want exams to come sooner or later before that does happen! I've got a couple days before my first exam on Saturday morning so I've been doing my best to study as much as I can before the floodgates open and my exams all come a day or two after another. I've gotten so sick of pharmacy though so I thought I'd just take a break and update this.

The last two weeks of uni were quite hectic. Not only did I have two lab reports to complete, a wedding and accordion comeptitions to attend, I also had two tests, a group presentation and a 21st birthday dinner to go to (and this time I actually managed to make it to it! More on that later...)
Let's start off with the Super City Hikoi. In the second-to-last week of the semester, the Maori and a whole lot of other people who weren't happy with the way the government is going to amalgamate all of Auckland's city councils into one, staged a protest or 'hikoi' from all four corners of Auckland and by midday they were marching up Queen St to outside the Town Hall. Now I really should have been studying, but I couldn't resist and went for a little stroll along Queen St to check out the happenings. What I thought would be a protest looked more like a party! There was music, shouting, and everything! Everyone seemed to be behaving themselves though so no complaints from me.

In one of our classes that same week we were told that the format for one of our exams had changed - byebye multiple choice questions, hello short answer and long answer questions! I can say I was absolutely gobsmacked! As if I couldn't dislike pharmacy any more! I've gotten over it now and have accepted it!

I had a Medsci lab test a couple days later, which was a test on everything we've learnt in the labs this semester. I vowed not to have a repeat of my calculator failing on me, so I found another calculator that actually worked, and I stayed back at uni late the night before to do last minute study.

I sat the test though and after when I was in the Information Commons, I overheard others talking about what they wrote as answers and realised just how stupid my answers were!

With the accordion competitions and the wedding approaching the following weekend and everything else, I was running out of time. I was also invited to James' (this really cool guy - I owe him so much, without him I'd probably be failing pharmacy! haha) 21st birthday dinner at this Newmarket restaurant though. I was tossing up between whether I should go or not, as I had so much to do. Our family went out for dinner that night as well which cut down the time I had even further!

The day before though, I was walking back to the city from Grafton when this girl at the traffic lights asked me if I knew James. I must've had a mind-block that day as I was thinking to myself James...James...church? High school? Then it clicked!

"Kan!!!!" (That's his surname)

"Oh so is that what people call him these days??"

Woops...I didn't realise I spoke my mind...Anyway it turned out it was James' little sister who is doing 1st year pharmacy this year! I have no idea how she knew me! She asked me if I was going to the dinner as well, and I told her I would.

Regarding 21st birthdays - I've been invited to a few, but I've never been able to attend most of them because of where or when they've been held! (I'm so sorry to those who have invited me though, I really appreciate being invited though!) Fortunately James' was held on a Thursday night, which was good because I had a late lab that afternoon. I could go straight to the dinner afterwards.

Our last pharmaceutics lab was not too bad. We were learning all about tablets, like how to make them and test the quality of them. We even got to play with a tablet machine and make our own tablet! We were also using Paracetamol tablets and a tablet fight almost ensued!

After that lab I asked around to see if others had bought birthday presents for James, and most said they had, so I had to look in the limited shops around Grafton for something good to give James! I ended up finding this shop located within Auckland Hospital that sold a few novelty gifts. I ended up buying this capsule-shaped stressball, a bottle of pill-like lollies and some chocolate (notice the pharmacy theme?). I returned to Grafton to tag along to some others who were about to walk to the restaurant.

The restaurant was flash, and James had reserved almost half of the restaurant! I sat with the people I had walked with to the restaurant. To be honest, sometimes I still feel like an outsider amongst 3rd year pharmacy people because I don't belong to one group and sometimes hop from one group to another, so it can be a little awkward since I'm not extremely close to any particular person in pharmacy (although there are some I am closer to than others!). I was thinking I'd be sitting there not knowing what to say, but luckily one of my good friends from way back in my Health Science days, Kevin showed up! We had a good catch up.

He and a group of his other Malaysian friends decided to check out some of the neighbouring food joints, so I thought I'd tag along. We went and had a look at Foodtown and a few other places before returning, and discovering James had already started opening the presents! I think he had already opened mine by the time I got back. At least I got there in time to see him unwrap the Playboy Magazine he got given!

In the following Tuesday in the week after the accordion competitions and the wedding I had my pharmaceutics test, but thank goodness it was multiple choice! Now the only thing left to complete before the end of semester was my Medsci lab report! By now I just wanted to get started studying, but I had to get the report out of the way!

I had an orthodontist appointment on Thursday, and to my surprise I was told that I was almost ready to have my braces taken off! In fact I'll be getting them taken off in about a month's time! Wow it's almost been three years since I got my braces put on...I remember it being my high school's open evening and I was to give a speech! It doesn't feel that long! They also told me they'd give me some mouthwash which would be able to polish my teeth, which is cool because my teeth is getting a bit dirrrty. I was even considering getting my teeth whitened once I get my braces off! I'll talk more about this once it actually happens though.

Come Friday though, no more tests, no more lab reports, semester one over, and all there was left to do was STUDY!!