Back on Track

Well I eventually finished my essay on Wednesday morning. I about to fly out the door but when I grabbed my shoe I found the cat had vommited into it! I ended up walking around uni with shoes a few sizes too big that day!

 

As soon as I got to uni I decided to change my essay again and it was only at the last minute that I had my essay completed. I was going to submit it online to the Turnitin website when I discovered I was having problems! Fortunately my tutor said it didn't matter.

 

I went to the Dessert Club AGM later that evening where they elected people to positions. They also asked me if I wanted to take on some sort of higher role in the Dessert Club, possibly in the events team or elsewhere, so I said I'd be keen to. Next year you might see me around with the Dessert Club then!

 

On Thursday I went to this Student Life Christian meeting thing with Ayesha and they had this interesting speaker who told us about personality profiles. We did this activity which could determine whether your personality is PLAYFUL, PEACEFUL, POWERFUL, or PRECISE. I turned out to be peaceful!

 

Later that day I had my Medsci lab where we were learning about blood pressure and how to measure it. That was fun! We got to use real stethoscopes like how doctors use them, even though they hurt your ears! I decided to check Ebay to see how much they cost (you know, so I can look like a doctor haha) and they range between $40-$200+. We measured our blood pressure at rest, and then one of us had to do some exercise so we could measure blood pressure after. My lab partner Sheena got me to do the exercise so I ended up running down the road and back up, and then a quick trip to the toilet (to also put on some deodorant!). It turns out my blood pressure is normal! Phew!!

 

Today after my single lecture and study group with Andy and the crew, I went to watch Jenny Chen (great violinist who used to lead the Rangeview Intermediate School orchestra if any of you can remember!) before having a meeting with my scholarship mentor. That was a little depressing for me! My mentor's great, but I think I've let him down once too often. We were just looking at what I really wanted to do and what I should do next year. I just kept coming up with more and more ideas which didn't seem to narrow things down!

 

Afterwards I caught up with Alice for the first time in a while and went with her to her Information Systems lecture which turned out to be pretty interesting - about biometrics and other emerging technologies! Man I wish I was studying something like that..or law!

 

We then went to the bus stop while discussing ways of making money!!

Race Against Time

Once again Calum is doing an all-niter, racing against time to complete an essay he should have completed weeks ago! The topic:

Outline the difference in cardiovascular disease (CVD) morbidity and mortality rates between ethnic groups in New Zealand and discuss the possible explanations for these differences.

Believe it or not, I've found this topic really interesting to research, getting to read various medical journal articles and such. It's just having to put all these ideas together! That's what I'll be doing for the next hour or so. Let's see if I can try finish this by 3am so I can get some sleep!

Fall Out Boy!!!!

I saw Fall Out Boy today!!!! No I didn't...I just saw people who were going to get to see Fall Out Boy. Yes...much cooler...

There were all these little teeny-boppers queue up outside Real Groovy and along down the road all waiting to meet Fall-Out Boy. Most of them were dressed up in black, while there was some people with video cameras and girls calling out to be on TV. I soon caught the bus after passing this fracas, and then it started raining so I hope those who were stuck in the queue didn't get too soaked!

I didn't get any photos of Fall Out Boy, but here is a photo of the queues at a distance (had to keep my distance - people dressed in black...especially tight black...scare me!)

An Interesting Health Psychology Activity

We were learning about deindividuation in our health psychology tutorial today (which is a state of lowered self-awareness e.g. you feel a greater sense of anonymity when being a member of a group, and it increases as the size of the group increases). We did this activity where we each had to write down one thing we would do if we could go about it undetected. We each submitted our own thoughts anonymously, and the results are pretty interesting:

Pro-social (behaviour which would benefit others or society as a whole)
...nothing...

Anti-social (behaviour which involves a common disregard for social rules, norms, and cultural codes)
- Humiliate someone I really hate
- Rob a bank
- Rob a bank
- Rob a bank
- Rob a bank
- Rob a bank
- Cheat in exams
- Steal a Picasso painting
- Get hold of exam papers
- Rob the biggest bank in the world
- Shoot Helen Clark and become prime minister of New Zealand
- Start match-fixing to make sports teams win
- Rob Smith & Coughey
- Steal an expensive car from a car dealer

Non-normative (weird behaviour)
- Shadow doctors at work
- Kiss girls

Neutral (Neither good or bad behaviour)
- Fly a plane
- Go into pyramids of Egypt and see treasure
- Depends on mood...might watch TV

it seems as though there are a lot of wannabe bank thieves in our health psychology class! I won't say which desire was mine...
The make-up of desired behaviours in a typical group is:
Pro-social - 9%
Anti-social - 36%
Non-normative - 19%
Neutral - 36%

So it seems as though our class fits the bill!

What a Sick Guy!

Yesterday was the first time I had thrown up since primary school and I can tell you it wasn't fun! After that I spent the rest of the day making trips to the toilet and struggling to sleep to forget the pain.

It's funny. I was recalling everything I learnt in health psychology. As I was lying there helplessly on the couch my dad was bringing a bucket over and a tarpaulin, but I refused it, as it would encourage 'sickness behaviour'. That's when you are in an environment that encourages you to think you are sick and so you continue thinking you're sick and don't improve as fast as you could be..or something like that...

Anyway I managed to get through the day having only consumed one bowl of Chinese porridge. I also had a really good sleep in my parents' bed. My mum's pillow is the nicest! So this morning I woke up earlier than usual, with a grumbling stomach!

By the way, did anyone watch Miss Asia Beauty Pageant 2007 on CTV8 on Saturday night? Once again a bit of a struggle trying to get through it, but it was a lot better than the 2006 pageant. One thing that made this year's more interesting though was knowing one of the contestants Julie Ding! I competed against her on the accordion a couple years ago! I completely screwed that performance up and she came first in that competition...
Congratulations to her though as she came third!!!