The Last of Uni...Again

I returned to uni this weekend for the final presentations of my postgrad course at university. I had one presentation to give on Saturday morning on a patient care plan, while my presentation on Sunday afternoon was on a clinical pharmacy service (I spoke on pharmacists being Quit Card providers). 

I was quite anxious in the lead-up to the weekend, especially regarding my patient care plan as I had only just managed to get access to patient notes a week out after a two week fight with red tape. After reviewing the notes I only realised how much more there was to this case than I first expected! I was a little overwhelmed, and didn't know what to do! 

Fortunately I managed to pull off a couple of over-nighters and come up with a care plan for this patient. I even managed some sleep the night before the presentation!

I was due to present early on the first Saturday morning. I started off a bit nervous, but pulled myself through. We had a time limit of 10 minutes, with a time penalty for every minute we spoke beyond 10 minutes 30 seconds. I had timed myself prior to the morning and my presentation was only nine minutes. I ended up speaking over time though! Yikes!

It was good to get it done early though, so I didn't have to worry for the rest of the day. I have to admit I was a bit tired though, and started dozing off a little! I was sitting at the back with one of my classmates. 

He gave his presentation a little later in the afternoon, and after his presentation he told me he saw me dozing off during his presentation and tried to change the tone of his voice! I felt really bad about that! I bought myself a coffee at the next break to keep me awake for the rest of the afternoon! We didn't finish till 5.30pm, which meant a long nine hour day at uni!

The next day were the clinical pharmacy service presentations which were a bit more interesting to me. My presentation was right at the end of the day though, so I had a long wait. I was hoping to avoid going beyond the time limit this time though.

It was eventually my turn, and I gave my presentation. I ended up speaking for longer than yesterday! Noooo!!

At least it was all finally done. No more presentations, assignments or deadlines! Now the only thing to do is wait for the results to come out in about a month's time!

While I have been telling myself throughout this year that this will be the last time I go back to uni to study, I always find myself thinking about what I should study next! I think this time I should focus on finding a job first before considering any more study. I'm glad I did extra study this year though, as I have learnt quite a bit and it has helped me refresh my memory on quite a few things. I've also met quite a few cool people in my class!

Careers and Birthdays

I took a day off work (music teaching) today as Aonghas and I had a compulsory music rehearsal I had to attend over at Mt Smart Stadium (it's a secret right now!) which meant neither of us could teach. Fortunately the sun was out...maybe it came out a bit too much as I had to cover myself in sunblock to avoid getting burnt!

The rehearsal finished by midday which allowed Aonghas and I to make a trip back to the city to check out the University of Auckland Courses and Careers Day. We parked all the way down Symonds Street, which meant it was quite a walk to the university. 

When we got there, I was surprised that there wasn't much going on in the Information Commons! It turned out that most of the displays and stands were over at the business and engineering buildings.

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJJJfD3JrLw)

The business school had all their stands/displays at the ground level and I came across my good friend Alice who I haven't talked to in quite a while! It turns out she switched to 2degrees! No wonder I hardly receive txts from her these days! She was supposed to be providing advice to prospective students but I sorta hogged her for a little while, just to catch up with her and get a bit of business advice!

We then went downstairs so I could visit the pharmacy stand and ask about post-grad, which I'm considering doing next year. I think most of the students there were first or second year students with one third year student who said she recognised me as the one who works at the university pharmacy! Busted!! 

They weren't able to help me out so I went over to the School of Graduate Studies stand where some people gave me some advice. I also checked out the law school and education faculty stands as well. It looks like I could study primary/intermediate school teaching if I want to next year (if I get accepted of course).

We were running out of time and Aonghas wanted to check out the engineering school. I have to say I was quite impressed with some of the projects on display - there was a mechanical fish, a few robots, a popcorn machine and a candy floss machine apparently powered by solar energy! I managed to get some popcorn and candy floss to eat which was a bonus!

We caught up with Grace and came across Jenny who was manning the Biomedical Engineering stall! We then went by the Gamja stall and bought some Gamja so Aonghas could try it out. We then had a little stroll down Queen Street, trying to find Andrew and Ben, as it was Andrew's 18th birthday today! He told us he was having a haircut, but by the time we got to the barber's he was gone.

We heard he was playing pool with his brother and mum, so on our way there we went to Wendy's to busy some food and sat in Aotea Square to eat before I tried looking for a cake to buy for him.

We finally caught up to them at the pool place and gave Andrew the cake which I hope he enjoyed! We watched him play pool for a little while before it was time to go!

Long Night Ahead

A long day at work has finished, now time for a long night of working on my assignment at uni ahead of me... My preceptor wants to go through my assignment with me tomorrow but I haven't completely finished it yet!

I'm hoping to catch the 9.30 bus home, but it's looking more likely that I'll be catching the 10.30 bus home. I'll probably get home at 11.30, just in time for bed!

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!

Graduation Day!

Today was finally my big day! It was to kick off with a breakfast in this giant marquee at uni for graduands and their families at 8am, but as usual our family set off from home late (like 7.50am late!) and were stuck in traffic! We didn't get to uni till just before 9am when the procession was about to start. We parked somewhere up Queen Street, so we had to walk all the way to uni. I only just made it in time!

We had to line up together with people graduating with the same degree. When I first saw the others from pharmacy, I noticed they all had different hood colours to mine since I hired mine from this Chinese place instead of the official place! Fortunately there were a few others who had done so too so I wasn't the only one!

As the procession started, we walked down the road onto Queen Street, with onlookers lining up the footpaths taking photos and cheering us on. 

I even bumped into my old high school principal Mr Edmeades along the way!

(http://youtu.be/EMqLO60OUwg)

It was amazing just how many people were walking down Queen Street. I don't think I've ever seen that many!

When we finally got to Aotea Centre, all of us taking part in the ceremony had to go to this back room where we had to line up according to the seat number we had. I discovered it was based on what sort of honours you got, with those with First Class Honours lining up near the front! I was around the middle, since I was graduating with Second Class Honours.

After a while of everyone sorting themselves out, we finally filed into the theatre, with the audience standing watching us as we came in.

The ceremony started off with all of us singing...or attempting to sing the official graduation song. It was all in Latin and no one really knew the tune either so it was a bit of a fail. The organ playing the music made it extra hard to determine the tune as well!

The medicine students then the nursing students going up on stage one by one. As their name got called out, they would cross the stage, pretend to be capped and then walk off and receive their degree off-stage.

It was a loooong time before it was pharmacy's turn! I was sitting next to Natalie, my best friend in pharmacy, and she was busting to go to the toilet, so it was lucky there was a music performance by a music student before we were set to go on stage! She made it back on stage just in time!

It was finally my time to go up on stage to get capped. I was seriously hoping I wouldn't screw up buy tripping over, shaking hands wrongly or not putting my cap on the right way!

Fortunately as you can see it went without a hitch!

After me there were still quite a lot of people to get through, along with all the masters and doctorate students needing to be capped too.

When they finally had their moment on stage, we all sang God Defend New Zealand before the staff and special guests left the stage, and we all followed afterwards.

I was quite hungry afterwards, but I had already started receiving text messages from friends saying they were already at Albert Park waiting to take photos with me! My mum and Aonghas went to Burger King to buy some food while my dad, Hamish and I went back to the car to drop some things off.

We then met up at Albert Park where I also caught up with some friends to take some photos.

 

It was also a really good chance to catch up with some old friends. I even caught up with Mandy, a really old primary school friend who I hadn't seen since, well, primary school! She had recently moved back to Macau but came back to New Zealand for a visit and I was lucky enough to catch up with her while she was still here! I'm so grateful for that, as I was always wanting to catch up with her once again after all this time! To be honest I wasn't exactly too sure if it was her or not at first!

I also managed to catch up with many of my old pharmacy friends! It was cool seeing all their graduation toys too! I had borrowed my friend Nadine's graduation bear as her's had the proper pharmacy hood while mine wouldn't since they had to order them in. I also had my graduation pig with me too!

 

Amazingly I had been at Albert Park for over five hours and it was almost 4pm, and so I thought it'd be the right time to go visit my workmates at my work (Campus Pharmacy). Apparently it had been a busy day today, so maybe it was a good thing I wasn't working! I could see they had heaps of boxes to unpack in the dispensary! We took a few photos together and I introduced them to my family before Aonghas had to take off for one lecture.

Our church friend Winston had just finished his research work for the day, so we met up with him at Albert Park to take some photos around the place as Winston knows how to take the good shots!

 We had to be at the photography studio to take photos and to return my gown by 5.30 and we were already running late, so I rang them up to let them know we'd be late (twice in one day!). We parted ways with Winston and got to the studio where we had to wait our turn before having our photos taken.

We took quite a few photos, spending almost half an hour there! We tried different poses and different combinations, with me on my own, with my brothers, with my parents and with everyone altogether.

We'll have to revisit them in a week's time to view the photos and choose which ones we want developed.

To end the evening, we went to Wing Wah Restaurant in Avondale, where we were pretty much the only people there. That's probably why we got good service with one of the ladies hovering around our table waiting to refill our teapots and rice pots!

We got home by 9pm since we all had work and uni the next day. There was one more surprise left for me later that night, when one of my best friends Chen came over with a bouquet of flowers and a graduation teddy for me! That was a really huge surprise as I wasn't expecting that! We had a bit of a catch-up before he had to go as he's got to be at Middlemore Hospital early next morning.

And that officially marks the end of my time at uni!

Surfing the Wave

It wasn't too busy at work today and so there wasn't really much to do besides the occasional dispensing. I did talk to a patient who told me she had been working in a pharmacy since she was 15 and didn't want to study pharmacy because it's sooo boring and didn't want to waste four years of study just to work in retail! That was...interesting....

I also wore my name badge upside down for the second half of the day without realising till my preceptor pointed it out to me just as I was about to go upstairs to the doctors to give them some prescriptions!

I managed to find a seat outside in the Quad during lunch and spotted my old friend Shen! We were right beside this mechanical surfboard thing which is kinda like a mechanical bull. He wanted to have a go at it because they were giving away free razors to anyone who had a go. 

Shen kept persuading me to have a go as well, so after he went, I decided I might as well try it too! I didn't last too long though, but at least I got some free stuff!

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MQ2b_iOVls)

I was going to go to the gym after work as well but I didn't have a lock and after going all the way down to Queen Street to find one decided to just go home early!

Now the Real Work Starts

Today was the first day of uni, which meant work was going to get a whole lot busier! For some reason though it didn't feel much busier than last week! We had two extra staff working today though, so maybe that helped a bit.

What was quite different though was during my lunch breaks. Usually I would either sit outside in the Quad or sit in the study area of Level 0 of the IC to eat lunch, but today there were students everywhere! There was nowhere to go!

People had to line up at the ground floor to get their MAXX stickers (to get 40% off public transport) and the line stretched all the way across the bottom floor of IC, went out the door and then went in a semi-circle! I think I might have to stay in the tea room during my breaks in the future!

I'm Graduating!

(Not mine just yet!)

All my marks came back this afternoon, and....I'm graduating!! (OK so I kinda already knew that after attending Completion last Monday but at least this doubly confirms it!)

Overall my marks were a lot better than I thought they would be, because I was pretty much expecting to scrape by. I was hoping my research dissertation mark would be a bit better than it was, but I can't be too disappointed with it!

Now to wait for May graduation and hopefully my graduation teddy!

Celebrating Completion

Finally the big day had come today - the 8th Bachelor of Pharmacy Completion Ceremony! While it wasn't our proper graduation where we wore hoods and gowns, today was still sort of a celebration where class prizes were awarded, and we all recited the Declaration of Professional Dedication.

Tickets are Here!

My tickets to the Pharmacy Completion Ceremony have arrived in the mail! Now all I need to have done is passed my exams! Here's hoping!

Thanking the Supervisors

This morning I went back in to uni to meet up with most of my research dissertation group to present our supervisors with a present and give them all the data and files we had relating to the research project.

I arrived late and missed the presentation of our lolly jars to the supervisors, but I did manage to be there for a bit of a chat with the supervisors.

After we transferred all our files onto their computer, we returned to the Grafton cafe just to hang out and have a chat. Jessica, one of my fellow group members bought us each a drink! I tried a 'Vienna', which I've never tried before! It was great to just have a chat about life and uni without having to worry about anything at all! Meanwhile, the 3rd years not too far away in the cafe were stressing about their oral exams today!

Apparently we'll find out TOMORROW if we have to do a resit on Monday! Fingers crossed I don't have to! 

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!

The Final Written Test

This morning was hopefully my last ever written exam - my pharmacotherapy exam! Pharmacotherapy is usually the toughest subject, as there's so much to study for! We also usually have the oral exam before the written one as well. 

I wasn't sure how prepared I was, so I wasn't overly confident, especially after Thursday's exam which didn't go so well! 

I was originally going to catch the 6.50 bus (yip, early for a Saturday morning!) but I missed it, so my dad drove me in. It was quite deserted! I just sat outside reading my notes before having to catch the uni bus to the Tamaki campus where the exam would be held.

I actually wrote quite a bit in the exam! We had to answer four short answer questions and write up four pharmaceutical care plans. One question was 

'Discuss the pathophysiology of meningococcal disease'

which I had absolutely no idea how to answer! I ended up trying to think of some creative way to answer that question that would sound remotely plausible!

I actually wrote quite a bit for the cases, but obviously not as much as James, the guy sitting behind me. One of the exam supervisors would regularly go over to him to hand him extra answer booklets!

By the end of the exam, my hand was cramped! We all went outside to see each other and talk (or avoid talking) about the exam, as well as to get our 2010 Pharmacy t-shirt! This year I actually remembered to buy one, which had a 'Pharmopoly' board game on the front of it.

My friend Natalie then offered to give me a ride back to Grafton along with Kunsala and Anisha.

When we got there, Kunsala said she had a spare train ticket and that I could catch the train with her! That was nice of her! We got to the train station to discover that the next train would be arriving in an hour's time, so we walked back to Subway for a bit of a feed before returning to the train station to catch the train.

Even though I have an oral exam on Monday, I don't think I've done too much study all day since the exam! I'll have to get back to it tomorrow...if I can!

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

Off-Count

I had my first written exam today - PHARMACY409B, which really means Professional Pharmacy Studies...which really doesn't mean much to anyone!

Anyway I spent all of yesterday studying at the Henderson Library, which almost froze me towards the end of the day!

Whenever I try studying in the library I always seem to start off half falling asleep before finally being wide awake and able to do some proper study! I guess I have to plan ahead and allocate some dozing off time before I ever do any study in the future!

The library closed at 8 and I ended up taking a little 'dinner' break (mainly just to avoid the noisy school-kid period) and ended up buying a cheap bag of chips!

Anyway, I thought I was more or less prepared for today's exams, except for a few lectures such as wound care and skin cancer (why do we even need to know about incisions and biopsies?), and OTC...which I probably should know...

The exam was over at Tamaki, and got off to a rocky start for our room. We were sharing the theatre with another group of students sitting an exam for another paper. All of us pharmacy students at the back though only had question booklets, but no Scantron sheets for the MCQ section, nor any answer booklets! While we had our 10 minutes' reading time, the exam supervisors tried to get it sorted out and ended up giving us one extra minute at the end of our exam!

I had to make up a lot of stuff and guess quite a few MCQ questions in that exam.

After the exam I did something I usually don't and shouldn't do...I went back through my notes to see if what I wrote was correct in the exam, and it turns out some of the stuff wasn't!

Now I'm a little scared...As my friends have tried telling me though, I've got to move on and focus on the next one!

The Big Presentation

Today was the big day of our pharmacy research dissertation presentations! There was greater pressure on me compared to others though as I was the only person in my group speaking.

I spent the night before practising the speech with my cue cards (instead of studying!), and freaking out over the fact that I couldn't get the speech within six minutes. According to our guide, it was recommended that the speech was six minutes to allow for four minutes of question time and a total presentation time of ten minutes. My group and I eventually decided that we'd just stick with what we had rather than cut things out as everything was kinda important.

The very next morning I got to uni, wearing pretty much the same clothes I usually wear for dispensing lab plus my old school (Rutherford College) tie, not that you could really see much on it since I was wearing a vest!

I did a quick run-through with my group members in the IC before we all went into the Lewis Lecture Theatre to begin presentations. Our group was at 10.30am so at least we'd get it done early on. While we were all asked to stay to watch all the presentations, there was some talk that some people would leave after their group had presented their own presentations so that they could go and study. I guess at least by being early in the morning, at least most people would get to hear about our research!

I set up a camera to film the research presentations but I was later told I wasn't allowed to upload them anywhere as they contained details on unpublished data.

Some of the presentations were quite interesting. There were quite a few pharmacy staff in the theatre, either watching the presentations, marking presentations or asking questions. 

It was finally our group's time to present. We didn't have a chance to check if the sound in our presentation worked though as we had to start pretty much straight away. As it turns out, it didn't work! We originally had a few quotes read out in our slideshow, but I don't think the sound files were attached, so they didn't play, and Becky (one of our group members) had to read them out instead.

I was relieved that the presentation went smoothly! Maybe it was because I was standing behind the lectern that made me feel more confident and able to speak more fluidly. 

When it came to question time, we got quite a few questions from students in our class! I guess they were interested in what was being taught in pharmacy schools. Becky answered all the questions really well. Professor John Shaw, the head of the pharmacy school was sitting in the back and spoke last. We thought he was going to ask us a question, but instead he explained to everyone how there was a bit of discussion on our research topic, how he was interested in watching our presentation and how impressed he was!

I was surprised afterwards at the positive response from everyone about our presentation! Everyone was complimenting me! I suppose I don't really do much public speaking in pharmacy these days ever since I left high school. Even our group's supervisor came up to me afterwards to say that she thought she had heard me speak more in that presentation than in the whole year! 

Straight after our presentation there was some finger food for morning tea provided for the pharmacy students.

 After morning tea we went back to the lecture theatre to watch more presentations, right through to the afternoon. We were also provided lunch too which was nice!

Once presentations were over, we all got together for another class photo, the one that would be sold to us. We took several photos before we all dispersed.

(Thanks to Ravnit for taking this photo!)

It was a great feeling knowing our research dissertation was finally complete. At least one paper was over! Now we just have a couple of written exams and an oral exam to go till we all hopefully graduate!

A Farewell to the Dessert Club

Tonight was the Dessert Club AGM...I know, we actually had one this year! In the past we've had our Dessert Club AGM in the park, but this time we actually a full-blown AGM in one of the Engineering School lecture theatres with proper speeches, and some of the aspiring committee members giving speeches as to why they wanted people to vote them to the positions they were going for.

As for me, because I'll (hopefully) be graduating at the end of this year, it marked the end of my four years in the Dessert Club, with three of them being in the committee. I was fortunate enough to be asked to give a speech about my experience in the club towards the beginning of the AGM, after I was presented with my certificate to certify my Senior Advisor and Web Manager positions in the club this year. They also gave me this little figure saying 'Cool Dude' which was pretty..cool too!

 Here's a transcript of my speech:

A lot of you outside the committee may not know me as I haven’t been to too many Dessert Club events this year, but I’m Calum and as probably the most senior committee member I’ve been asked to say a few words about my time in the club and the committee, which is sadly coming to an end.

I remember my first year of uni. Quite a few of my friends drifted towards a certain Kiwi Asian Club, but being the cheap person that I am, I was lured to the Dessert Club’s stall in Orientation Week by the free Dunkin Donuts they were giving away. While I was slack at attending events, for some reason I managed to make it to more Dessert Club events than others, probably because they were either cheap or they were offering free food!

It was not till later in the year after I competed in the club’s Amazing Race that I considered being in the committee.

During my time on the committee I’ve held all sorts of positions, from web manager to senior advisor. We’ve organised and run all sorts of events which have given me many memories I’ll never forget – people stuffing their faces in cream pies at the Pie Eating Competition, teams screaming at me in frustration at the Amazing Race Competition, that girl who ate over half a litre of ice-cream in less than a minute at our Ice-Cream Eating Competition, the security guard coming to shut down our Ice-Cream stall when we tried to sell leftovers, and people stuffing their mouths with marshmellows in the Fluffy Bunny Competition after our Easter Egg Hunt. Not everything has gone according to plan but that’s what makes things interesting.

There has been much more to the committee than just organising club events for me though. I’ve enjoyed the great friendships I’ve formed with many past and present committee members and all the social stuff we’ve done together as a group. We’ve been out to many restaurants and dessert places I never knew existed!

This year has probably seen the biggest change in the Dessert Club at least while I’ve been involved with the club. A lot of last year’s Dessert Club Committee members had been involved with the club for a number of years, some having been there since the club’s establishment. Almost all of them left for one reason or another and the job of keeping this club going was passed on to Suzy and Xinny. I have to admit to feeling like I had just joined the Dessert Club committee for the second time, not knowing anyone else in the committee! Despite this, Suzy and Xinny along with the rest of the committee the committee this year have done a great job this year, having stepped up to the plate by not only continuing this club’s fine tradition of providing its members with a lot of excuses to eat dessert but they have taken this club to a whole new level with membership numbers and event turnout greater than ever. This has been acknowledged by our club finally getting the recognition it deserves by not only being nominated but actually winning an AUSA Club award this year. It’s about time!

I never thought I’d say this but I’m going to miss being associated with the Dessert Club. I won’t be drifting too far away next year if I do graduate though, as I’ll be interning at the Campus Pharmacy in the IC where you can come see me and I’ll try not to kill you. Hopefully the club will let me renew my membership and attend some events!

I thank the committee of 2010 for being such a great bunch of people, and I wish the committee of 2011 all the very best. May you continue making Dessert Club the sweetest club on campus.

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2x_u0z_SmXw)

After my speech, the aspiring committee members each gave their speeches before we all voted, and they all pretty much got the positions they wanted, so congratulations to them all!

My time at the Dessert Club hasn't come to a complete end though, with our Mulan Rouge end-of-year event still to be held, so I'll type more about Dessert Club then!

Last Ever Class

(Thanks to Jacky for this pic!)

Today was the last ever lecture we had! It was given by a paediatric specialist at...Starship Children's Hospital...I think and it pretty much only lasted for half an hour before he tried getting us to ask enough questions to fill the rest of the hour! 

Sadly we had to end our last ever lecture with a short multiple-choice question quiz on the paediatrics module. I originally didn't think it'd be too tricky, but it turned out to be quite tricky! 

After the quiz though we all got together to take a group picture with all (or most of u) in our leavers hoodies! I wish I brought my camera, but I only had my video camera with me, so I just tried filming random stuff!

It's been really weird this week thinking about everything potentially being the last we'll ever have, like our last lecture, our last workshop, last lab...I wonder if we'll actually come to miss them in a few years' time, just like how we sometimes look back at our high school years and miss those days.

The Serious Stuff Starts

I only had one lecture this morning and then spent the whole day studying...well I tried to anyway! The library was so full in the morning so I just sat in the Information Commons reading a psychiatry book.

In the afternoon my research dissertation group wanted me to practise my speech in front of them. Fortunately they liked it! 

We then put together a little modified cartoon of our group that we're going to get printed on a couple of lolly jars for our supervisors as a present! Jess accidentally deleted our first version, but the second version we did didn't take too long to do! The expected arrival time is the day after our presentation though, so hopefully it arrives early!

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YO0URH9qr0)

Lasts

These final two weeks of uni are a week of 'lasts' for us, with the end coming up quite soon!

We had our last Pharmacy Practice lectures on Tuesday, which were on pharmacist prescribing which is kinda exciting, and the other one was on...I can't exactly remember...I skipped that one to work on slides for my research dissertation that I was supposed to do the night before (I fell asleep early!). 

Yesterday we had our final law workshop EVER! We have our final ~25% law test next Friday, and so instead of having an end-of-workshop quiz, we just spent the workshop revising.

I really should be doing more study in these final weeks before the exams, but in the past few days our research dissertation groups have had to prepare our presentation slides to hand in by today. My group has decided that I'll be presenting on my own, so I've been getting the slides ready and trying to give them 'high visual impact' and doing my best to make them 'entertaining'. We spent some time in the Information Commons creating caricatures of our supervisors to put on our slides, and other students would come by and ask us what we were doing!

We finally handed in our slides on a CD to the office during our final pharmacotherapy workshop this afternoon after having a quick test in the tutorial room.

In our final pharmacotherapy workshop we did cases that were based on paediatric patients, and instead of presenting our case like usual, our group decided to be different and do a roleplay!

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nR7oX4T9ECY)

I also got my Evidence-Based Pharmacotherapy assignment back, which I wrote on prostate cancer, and I was surprised to get a good mark! I spent the holidays working on it and thought I wrote a load of rubbish, but they obviously thought otherwise!

Oh, and we also got our leavers hoodie today as well! What a great day! The sun was shining too, so I treated myself to a trumpet!