If Only I knew How to Cook

Tonight I joined Natalie and Kunsala for our weekly study session, this week at Natalie's flat. Natalie and Kunsala were cooking while I was bringing the Diet Coke, chocolate and apple pie! I have to admit I felt a bit bad not being able to help in the kitchen! They were cooking butter chicken and it sure did smell and look good!

We ate the food along with a my very first papadum (I love that word!) before settling down to study while the apple pie sat in the oven to cook.

If only we kept an eye on that apple pie...It got burnt around the crust! That was OK that though, as we just ate the middle part of it and it still tasted good!

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmXyHlb6ROk)

Our First Study Session

Tonight I met up with my pharmacy/intern friends Natalie and Kunsala at Natalie's flat for our first study session. I got there a little late as I had to catch a bus and well..fell asleep along the way!

Natalie was cooking dinner for us tonight and had attempted a courgette quiche. She put it in the oven, and as it cooked we did a bit of study and munched on some chocolate.

Quite a few times we had a look at the quiche in the oven but it was a little runny, so we left it in for a little longer as we studied. It was still a little runny after a while, so we just chucked it in the microwave before just deciding to eat it!

It actually tasted pretty good! I always knew Natalie was talented! We had some salad along with it. I have to say that was probably the healthiest dinner I've had in a while!

I soon had to leave with Kunsala but it was a good first night of study together! We might make this a regular Monday night thing right up to the exam!

Looking at the Options

Tonight after work I caught a bus to the University of Auckland Epsom Campus to check out the the Open Day at the campus as teaching is one option amongst others that I'm considering next year.

Because the bus came late, I only made it to the campus in time to sit in on a talk about secondary school teaching and studying towards a Graduate Diploma in Teaching. It sounded quite interesting, how you have to do two 6-7 week placements at two different high schools during the year. It would be kinda cool going back to my old school Rutherford College, or even being assigned another school!

At the end of the talk though, I told the speaker that I had a pharmacy degree and whether that would be OK. She told me though that they looked at pharmacy degrees as a problem as it wasn't completely aligned with a high school subject.

She reckoned that I'd have a better chance of being accepted if I spent a year doing a post-grad diploma in Science/Chemistry and then apply to do the teaching diploma in the following year, and because it's in chemistry I'd have a good shot at getting a scholarship which would cover costs for that year and enough spending money to cover the post-grad diploma costs.

I guess I can rule out studying teaching as an option for next year. I'll have to write a post about all my possible options a little later!

The Anti-Famine

While all those poor people are giving up food for the weekend, my brothers and I had a little pig-out today. 

A little while ago this new one-day sale website Treatme.co.nz started up, offering $1 Burger Fuel burger vouchers on their site. Everyone in my family bought a voucher but never got around to redeeming the vouchers...until today!

After music teaching, we went into the city so that Aonghas could study and I could work on my assignment (I bought a 2 Degrees USB modem by the way and I must say the internet was a lot faster and reliable than the actual university wireless!). It's funny how I spend five days a week working at uni, and then I come back to uni on Saturday to study! What a life...

I tried working on my assignment for a few hours before it was 9.30pm at night. I met up with Aonghas and Hamish and we went over to Burger Fuel to get a burger. I ended up getting a $14 burger, and all I paid for it was $1! What a deal!

After Burger Fuel, we all went over to Wendy's for a bit of a feed and didn't leave till almost 11pm at night! 

 

We're going to be fat by the end of this weekend!

Lucky I'm Not Still Studying

This morning I went to see a JP but got there too late, so instead went to the library beside it, and was surprised at how packed it was! All the seats were taken by school kids, even seats at library catalogues. There were kids sitting on the floor in between bookshelves as well! I'm so glad I've finished all my exams and don't have to study anymore!

I just hung around in the library for a while, looking for some books to read. I caught up with my youth group friends Grace and Andrew there!

After a while I decided it was time to go, since my brothers probably didn't know where I was! I went over to the music shop across the road to buy a couple guitar picks. Hopefully these are the right ones! I'm going to finally try to learn the guitar!

Please PLEASE be the Last!

This morning I had my PHARMACY408 OSCE (oral exam). I don't do so well in the dispensing lab and with this whole lab process as I always end up making stupid mistakes, or get criticised by the supervisors for one thing or the other.

I hadn't really done too much study in the weekend for it as I didn't really know how to, but it had to be done anyway! I was in the IC half an hour before the exam, and instead of studying I was reading the news on the internet!

It was finally time for the oral exam at 9.35am though! We were in the second lot of students going in. Last semester I was right at the end, but this time I was right at the beginning (it was sorted by alphabetical order).

I can't talk much about the case, only that it wasn't too bad. We were told in advance that we would be dispensing two products, but when I got to the doctor consultation station, I could only think of one drug to recommend!

I was recommending to the patient some suppositories to take for a condition though and couldn't think of too much counselling to give her, so I advised her not to put the suppositories in her mouth!

70 minutes later and the exam was over! We all had to remain in this room until everyone else in our session had done their exam, which meant we were stuck in that room till midday! They had King Arthur playing on the projector though which was quite depressing, especially for after exams.

When we were finally allowed out, I spent an hour or two uploading photos to Facebook before checking out sheet music in Central City Library (we can borrow books from there now thanks to the Supercity!!).

To finish off the day and mark what I hope was my last ever exam at uni, I went to McDonald's to try a McSnack Wrap Value Meal. I've tried a McSnack before and found it to be small, but that was quite a while ago and I couldn't remember. I thought I'd give it another chance! It is still quite small but I guess I can't expect kebab size though!

So that's it for uni...I hope! I'll find out this time next week!

Getting That Study Mojo Back

I should really have been doing hardout study for my OSCE (oral exam) tomorrow, but I've been taking it too easy! It must be what happens when you get all your hard written exams out of the way, and it then feels like your holiday has already started.


I even spent all last night watching those Halloween movies like Scary Movie 2 and Scream 3, but I have to say I was quite let down as they were quite bad!


Anyway today I was meant to be doing a lot of study to catch up for yesterday's lack of study. I was going to study during the sermon at church, but Aonghas, who had been working on a 'year in review' video for the church's AGM, stayed up all night working on that video and we all woke up late. My mum was too ashamed to go into church late, so we just went to Pak N' Save during the service and went to church after. 


A few of us were going to sit in on the AGM so we could watch Aonghas's video being played, but we were told that the whole thing was in Chinese and would just be about the church's financials, so Jireh and I just left for the teens' Sunday School which was a bit more entertaining!


I TRIED to get some study done when I went home, but I really don't know how to study for this oral exam! Maybe I'm just pharmacotherapy'd out. Hopefully it'll go OK tomorrow!

He's a Eurasian!

I spent most of today in the Henderson Library, trying to study for tomorrow's big Pharmacotherapy exam, and I'm even going to miss out on youth group tonight to study!

Unfortunately though the Henderson Library closes early at 5pm on Fridays! When I had to leave, I was quite hungry and decided to reward myself with some food for doing all that study! I went into the bakery and bought a sausage roll and apple pie, and as I was paying, the guy at the bakery asked me

"You're mixed aren't you?"


After I explained to him my ethnic make-up, he started asking me more questions about whether I could speak any other languages, or if I had ever been back to Hong Kong before. He even asked me what kind of girlfriend I would get!

He told me I looked more Asian than European, but if I dyed my hair then I would look more European!

That was kinda cool. A lot of people think I look more European than Asian!