I've had a quite a few mishaps this week:
- I was sitting in the toilet (try not to visualise!) when the fire alarm went off! I had no idea what to do! Let's just say I got caught out! Originally I thought maybe I'll just keep going and hope the alarm would be short-lived and no one would notice I was still in the toilet. The only thing is that if there was a real fire and I died, they'd find my body with my pants down (assuming my body wasn't completely burnt!)...
- I was sitting in the business school foyer eating my rice with beef and some sauce out of a container. I tried to pick up a piece of beef with my fork when I accidentally pushed my container off the table! Fortunately I was able to catch the container to limit the spillage but I still got a bit of food on the ground and on my schoolbag! I tried to smile, clean up the mess and then carry on with what I was doing, pretending it never happened.
Later when my friend Alice came to hang out, I tried to steer her away from that area! Instead we hung out a few levels above in the business school which was actually quite cool!
- Yesterday after class and on my way to the bus stop, I dropped in to McDonalds to pick up an apple pie. As I had just finished the fries I had bought from uni and had dirty hands, I went into the toilet to wash my hands. The lower pocket of my shorts got caught on the door briefly though and when I made it in to the toilet, I noticed my pocket was almost ripped off! Why do I always seem to wreck my clothes? They were a good pair of shorts too! Maybe it was a sign from someone up above trying to tell me to stop wasting my money at McDonalds...
- And finally, Calum's Official Umbrella Death Toll and Inversion Count:
Since Monday 18 May 2009, Calum has reported 2 Umbrella deaths and 8 Umbrella Inversions.
The worst is when you're crossing the road and the umbrella blows out. You try to spin around, trying to figure out which way the wind is blowing so it can blow the umbrella back in the right way, and as soon as it returns to it's proper configuration, it gets inverted again!
Saturday, 23 May 2009
Oh the Drama!
I can't believe just how much drama there has been at uni in one day!
This particular day was last Tuesday. We had a guest speaker for our arthritis lecture and as she finished, the course-coordinator came down the stairs shouting at us
"Alright you lot sit down and sh^t up!"
He then went on about how we as pharmacy students and future pharmacists should be acting in a professional and ethical manner, which means not cheating and so on. He was referring to how nearly all of us pharmacy students have copies of the answers to the workshop and pre-workshop case questions, and the answers to the multiple-choice quizzes. Someone from the year above us must have passed it down to one of us, and then just like all things good it got spread around amongst us. Apparently someone in our year accidentally left her USB drive in the lab, and it got handed in to the pharmacy school. The academic director looked at the files on the USB drive to try figure out who owned it, and came across these 'answers'. The course-coordinator told us that if we had them we had to delete the files as soon as possible or else if we got caught with them we'd be in serious trouble.
It's certainly got pharmacy students in my year talking! Quite a few aren't happy at the fact they are looking through our USB drive, while others can't seem to understand why they are unhappy about us having the files, as we're not even assessed and we're just using them as another learning resource.
There are at jokes going on too about keeping an eye on our USB drives just in case the pharmacy school picks it up and goes through our files!
Another case was a week earlier when the afternoon MEDSCI lab stream got yelled at by their lab tutors because apparently some lab reports from students who took the paper last year must have been circulating amongst current MEDSCI students, as the plagiarism-detection website turnitin.com detected a bit of plagiarism going on!
There's definitely a fare bit of drama going on, and with exams coming up soon the pressure's certainly growing!
This particular day was last Tuesday. We had a guest speaker for our arthritis lecture and as she finished, the course-coordinator came down the stairs shouting at us
"Alright you lot sit down and sh^t up!"
He then went on about how we as pharmacy students and future pharmacists should be acting in a professional and ethical manner, which means not cheating and so on. He was referring to how nearly all of us pharmacy students have copies of the answers to the workshop and pre-workshop case questions, and the answers to the multiple-choice quizzes. Someone from the year above us must have passed it down to one of us, and then just like all things good it got spread around amongst us. Apparently someone in our year accidentally left her USB drive in the lab, and it got handed in to the pharmacy school. The academic director looked at the files on the USB drive to try figure out who owned it, and came across these 'answers'. The course-coordinator told us that if we had them we had to delete the files as soon as possible or else if we got caught with them we'd be in serious trouble.
It's certainly got pharmacy students in my year talking! Quite a few aren't happy at the fact they are looking through our USB drive, while others can't seem to understand why they are unhappy about us having the files, as we're not even assessed and we're just using them as another learning resource.
There are at jokes going on too about keeping an eye on our USB drives just in case the pharmacy school picks it up and goes through our files!
Another case was a week earlier when the afternoon MEDSCI lab stream got yelled at by their lab tutors because apparently some lab reports from students who took the paper last year must have been circulating amongst current MEDSCI students, as the plagiarism-detection website turnitin.com detected a bit of plagiarism going on!
There's definitely a fare bit of drama going on, and with exams coming up soon the pressure's certainly growing!
Monday, 18 May 2009
Smashing!
Last Friday's Chemistry lab could be summed up in one word - smashing!
The first to start it off was this girl two benches away from me who pulled out her drawer full of glassware a little too far. The drawer came out, hit the ground and most of her glassware smashed! That was pretty much the big kahuna of smashes in the chemistry lab! That resulted in gasps, some laughs and heaps of eyes staring!
Not too long later, there was a smash that sounded like it came from the bench a few rows down. I didn't see who did it but I saw a lab tutor putting pieces of glass into the bin.
My friend beside me then knocked her glass stirring rod to the ground and it broke into three pieces! She could still use a third of the stirring stick though. I'd say it became easier for her to stir!
With all these smashes, I was starting to feel left out! I wanted to smash something! No I didn't really, but I had this feeling that sometime soon I'd be next to smash something. I did drop a glass spherical cylinder thing (can't remember it's proper name), but instead of smashing on the ground, it bounced along the ground a few times! Phew!! While we were standing around for an hour waiting for our mixture to reflux as well, I was talking to a few people and swinging my stirring rod around the place and nearly dropped it but fortunately caught it just in time! Double phew!!
The first to start it off was this girl two benches away from me who pulled out her drawer full of glassware a little too far. The drawer came out, hit the ground and most of her glassware smashed! That was pretty much the big kahuna of smashes in the chemistry lab! That resulted in gasps, some laughs and heaps of eyes staring!
Not too long later, there was a smash that sounded like it came from the bench a few rows down. I didn't see who did it but I saw a lab tutor putting pieces of glass into the bin.
My friend beside me then knocked her glass stirring rod to the ground and it broke into three pieces! She could still use a third of the stirring stick though. I'd say it became easier for her to stir!
With all these smashes, I was starting to feel left out! I wanted to smash something! No I didn't really, but I had this feeling that sometime soon I'd be next to smash something. I did drop a glass spherical cylinder thing (can't remember it's proper name), but instead of smashing on the ground, it bounced along the ground a few times! Phew!! While we were standing around for an hour waiting for our mixture to reflux as well, I was talking to a few people and swinging my stirring rod around the place and nearly dropped it but fortunately caught it just in time! Double phew!!
Sunday, 17 May 2009
Spreading the Music
On Thursday I skipped my chemistry lecture (yes yes I know...but some things take priority! :P) to go with Aonghas to watch Jenny, my friend from youth group, perform music with her school at the public library. Originally we were going to try get Lisa, our other friend from youth group to come with us but she was..injured...so Aonghas and I just went along.
Even though I've read and heard about these lunchtime performances at the library, I've never actually attended one, so Aonghas and I weren't exactly too sure where the performance would be except that it was in a room with a Maori name on Level 2, and there was only one room with a Maori name!
Aonghas and I were probably the youngest in the audience, but that was OK. Epsom Girls Grammar brought along their choir, a few pianists, a string quintet in which Jenny played, as well as the chamber orchestra. I was blown away. Epsom Girls Grammar sure have a great music department! Their choir was great, their pianists impressive and Jenny was great as usual.
I don't think she saw us but that doesn't really matter. I don't know if they like me being there haha but I enjoy watching and supporting familiar faces, it makes you really proud...plus you get to skite that you know them! ;)
The very next day (Friday) was Aonghas's and my turn to perform at a library - Waitakere Central Library. We were performing on our accordions as part of the library's NZ Music Month programme. Funnily enough we didn't actually play any New Zealand music! We weren't sure about the details of the performance either which made us a little anxious about the performance. It turned out we were just going to perform in the foyer by the entrance to the library. Aonghas and I took turns playing pieces, although I did most of the playing! We ended by playing Bohemian Rhapsody as a duet. We didn't have much of a crowd, but got maybe around 20 people at one stage.
We didn't play all that well, making a few mistakes here and there. We really didn't do enough practice, as it's becoming increasingly difficult to find time to fit it in with uni and all.The most staggering thing though was that after we had played for about 45 minutes and decided it was enough, the librarian who invited us to come perform came to us to tell us that a few people had asked if we had a CD available or if we had a business card they could get! Another guy also asked us for our business card but when we told him we didn't have one and gave him our contact details instead, he said he'd try get some work for us! That gave us a few ideas on how to improve our music, maybe trying to incorporate different instruments into our trio or maybe trying out some different genres of music.
So I guess if pharmacy doesn't work out, I can just hit the resthome circuit!
Even though I've read and heard about these lunchtime performances at the library, I've never actually attended one, so Aonghas and I weren't exactly too sure where the performance would be except that it was in a room with a Maori name on Level 2, and there was only one room with a Maori name!
Aonghas and I were probably the youngest in the audience, but that was OK. Epsom Girls Grammar brought along their choir, a few pianists, a string quintet in which Jenny played, as well as the chamber orchestra. I was blown away. Epsom Girls Grammar sure have a great music department! Their choir was great, their pianists impressive and Jenny was great as usual.
I don't think she saw us but that doesn't really matter. I don't know if they like me being there haha but I enjoy watching and supporting familiar faces, it makes you really proud...plus you get to skite that you know them! ;)
The very next day (Friday) was Aonghas's and my turn to perform at a library - Waitakere Central Library. We were performing on our accordions as part of the library's NZ Music Month programme. Funnily enough we didn't actually play any New Zealand music! We weren't sure about the details of the performance either which made us a little anxious about the performance. It turned out we were just going to perform in the foyer by the entrance to the library. Aonghas and I took turns playing pieces, although I did most of the playing! We ended by playing Bohemian Rhapsody as a duet. We didn't have much of a crowd, but got maybe around 20 people at one stage.
We didn't play all that well, making a few mistakes here and there. We really didn't do enough practice, as it's becoming increasingly difficult to find time to fit it in with uni and all.The most staggering thing though was that after we had played for about 45 minutes and decided it was enough, the librarian who invited us to come perform came to us to tell us that a few people had asked if we had a CD available or if we had a business card they could get! Another guy also asked us for our business card but when we told him we didn't have one and gave him our contact details instead, he said he'd try get some work for us! That gave us a few ideas on how to improve our music, maybe trying to incorporate different instruments into our trio or maybe trying out some different genres of music.
So I guess if pharmacy doesn't work out, I can just hit the resthome circuit!
Friday, 15 May 2009
Pharmacy Peculiarities
Just a few random things I've experienced as a pharmacy student...
We've had this lecturer recently. She's not too bad, she has a bit of an accent however. She also likes to read her lecture slides and then explain them by rearranging the words on the slides. She'll then repeat it not too long after. My favourite:
"...can be easily swallowed. This means you can swallow it easily."
I guess that can be good in a way, just in case we miss what she says the first or third time.
---
Because of her accent, people had a little bit of a giggle when she said a few words that sounded like something...different...I admit I smiled slightly as I heard it, and then felt a bit bad as I wondered if it was only me who had a dirty mind, but it turns out there were quite a few others who were thinking the same! You see she was trying to explain to us this machine where you put six tubes in it. To some it came out as
"you have to put sex juice in this machine"
Today we were learning about powder flow properties in the lab, which involved filling a cylinder with powder and then releasing it onto paper to measure the diameter of the pile and the maximum height of the pile to determine the angle and so on. I found it amusing how they've given this rather simple cylinder a fancy name - Flowdex! It sure makes this cylinder sound like a high-tech device!
What was even more exciting though was this machine were introduced to, called the tapping machine. Guess what that does? It taps containers! Cool huh? In our lab manual it talked about having to tap this measuring cylinder filled with powder 1600 times or something like that. I was thinking about how long that would take when we were told there's a machine that will do it for us!
Come to think of it, what can't you do with a machine these days? No need to mix test tubes yourself thanks to a Vortex Mixer. No need to manually do titrations, let the computer do that. Now you don't need to tap your containers, just give it to the tapping machine!
---
People are never going to forget the stupid remark I made during the first pharmacotherapy lecture of this semester are they? (Where do you see yourselves in 5 years time in terms of pharmacy? I will have left pharmacy...)
I asked one of my friends who had recently taken up a job at a pharmacy if she would recommend that I work at a pharmacy. She replied:
"I wouldn't recommend you get a job at a pharmacy since you hate pharmacy!"
At my pharmacotherapy workshops as well whenever the tutor tells us to commit something to memory as we'll have to know it for the rest of our lives as pharmacists, someone in my group will remark
"Except Calum...he's not going to be a pharmacist!"
I don't hate pharmacy...honest! I just have a love-hate relationship with it. When things go well it's not so bad, but when things go bad...well...I actually have motivation now to pass...screw the degree I'm doing it for the graduation teddy bear! Last week was graduation week at uni and as I sat in Albert Park watching the graduates in their gowns holding their graduation teddy bears and taking photos with family and friends, I thought to myself, I want to be where they are, and I want to get there as soon as I possibly can! So I will be studying hard, or trying to!
We've had this lecturer recently. She's not too bad, she has a bit of an accent however. She also likes to read her lecture slides and then explain them by rearranging the words on the slides. She'll then repeat it not too long after. My favourite:
"...can be easily swallowed. This means you can swallow it easily."
I guess that can be good in a way, just in case we miss what she says the first or third time.
---
Because of her accent, people had a little bit of a giggle when she said a few words that sounded like something...different...I admit I smiled slightly as I heard it, and then felt a bit bad as I wondered if it was only me who had a dirty mind, but it turns out there were quite a few others who were thinking the same! You see she was trying to explain to us this machine where you put six tubes in it. To some it came out as
"you have to put sex juice in this machine"
---
Why do my pens keep disappearing? When I go off to mix a chemical or rinse something in a sink, someone must borrow a pen or pencil from my pencil case and I end up keeping on having to buy more pens and pencils! I'm sure I've gone through at least 4 pens already this semester! It's lucky I stocked up on pens at the beginning of the year when they were a lot cheaper!
---Today we were learning about powder flow properties in the lab, which involved filling a cylinder with powder and then releasing it onto paper to measure the diameter of the pile and the maximum height of the pile to determine the angle and so on. I found it amusing how they've given this rather simple cylinder a fancy name - Flowdex! It sure makes this cylinder sound like a high-tech device!
What was even more exciting though was this machine were introduced to, called the tapping machine. Guess what that does? It taps containers! Cool huh? In our lab manual it talked about having to tap this measuring cylinder filled with powder 1600 times or something like that. I was thinking about how long that would take when we were told there's a machine that will do it for us!
Come to think of it, what can't you do with a machine these days? No need to mix test tubes yourself thanks to a Vortex Mixer. No need to manually do titrations, let the computer do that. Now you don't need to tap your containers, just give it to the tapping machine!
---
People are never going to forget the stupid remark I made during the first pharmacotherapy lecture of this semester are they? (Where do you see yourselves in 5 years time in terms of pharmacy? I will have left pharmacy...)
I asked one of my friends who had recently taken up a job at a pharmacy if she would recommend that I work at a pharmacy. She replied:
"I wouldn't recommend you get a job at a pharmacy since you hate pharmacy!"
At my pharmacotherapy workshops as well whenever the tutor tells us to commit something to memory as we'll have to know it for the rest of our lives as pharmacists, someone in my group will remark
"Except Calum...he's not going to be a pharmacist!"
I don't hate pharmacy...honest! I just have a love-hate relationship with it. When things go well it's not so bad, but when things go bad...well...I actually have motivation now to pass...screw the degree I'm doing it for the graduation teddy bear! Last week was graduation week at uni and as I sat in Albert Park watching the graduates in their gowns holding their graduation teddy bears and taking photos with family and friends, I thought to myself, I want to be where they are, and I want to get there as soon as I possibly can! So I will be studying hard, or trying to!
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