Here's Hoping It's Easier From Here On In!

After a few weeks of intense study the MEDSCI exam finally came yesterday. I spent the day prior to the exam trying to cram in as much as I could at the Waitakere Central Library. The funny thing was that there were two others sitting nearby who were studying the same thing as me! There were a few distractions that day though. I caught up with Matthew, an old friend from Rutherford College who I haven't seen since 2006 (he was in Rutherford Idol! lol) He's been traveling all over the place and is now studying to become a counsellor.

When the hunger finally set in I wandered over to the takeaways (our favourite takeaways!) to buy some chips and ate them at Westcity while trying to revise on vision! It just happened to be about 3pm when all those school kids had just finished school. Just as I was heading back to the library, I caught up with my cousins Janice and Korina who were still in their Henderson High uniforms, eating chips bought from the same takeaways!!

I spent that night cramming and cramming before waking up slightly late in the morning and missed the bus I had originally intended to catch. Fortunately Hamish and I caught the next bus which got us into the city an hour before the exam. I spent most of that time doing some last minute study in the library before heading towards what I thought was the Human Sciences Building (where my exam room would be) fifteen minutes before my exam. I got there, looking for lecture theatre HSB1, but when I saw all the lecture theatres labelled with BIO or something like that I went back outside and realised I was in the Biological Sciences Building! I found a nearby security guard who pointed me in the right direction and I managed to cross the road and find my exam room just in time!

The exam itself was...so so...not too sure how I did. Probably not too well but we'll see! Due to the reflection of the light I didn't see that they had written up the times on the white board. I must've gotten something mixed up when I looked at the watch because I found myself finishing about half an hour to an hour before I was supposed to (that's after I was rushing and rushing!!).

I caught up with Kat and Melissa and Aneesya's friend Dominica afterwards who was in the same exam room as me and wandered outside for a talk until I caught up with Hamish. Hamish and I then strolled off to Grafton and the first thing I did was return the Principles of Anatomy and Physiology book! I've had enough of that book for one year!!!

So that's one down, another three more to go, with ECON151G on Monday and POPLHLTH101 and HLTHPSY122 on Thursday. I actually only discovered those two exams were on Thursday, not Wednesday, as I had always thought 1st November was on the Wednesday for some reason!

A Good Way to End It

There is still almost a week before my first exam and I'm already tired of studying, having done about six-seven hours a day in the library this week! I don't even know if I've remembered everything I've studied! It's been a week filled with review lectures thank goodness!!! No new content! That is a definite relief.

I had my last lab on Thursday which was based on ventilation. I ended up parting with $2 to hire a lab coat because I didn't think I would need it for this lab. My lab partner Sheena and I joined with the pair behind us Abbas and Rita and went around trying all the various ventilation equipment. We had to blow into this thing and breathe into that. It was really funny watching other people do it! At the end of the lab the lab tutors ran a little competition to see who had the largest vital capacity (I think it was that??) and the best guy could exhale 7 litres while the best girl could exhale around 5 litres!! My best was only about 4.5 litres! How shameful is that! I must not be all that fit!

After, Sheena and I took a few photos with the lab tutors. I was about to leave when I realised I didn't have my glasses on and that they were still in the pocket of the lab coat I returned! It was not till we left that I realised how sorta sad it was, being the last ever MEDSCI lab, and possibly the last lab in anything I do, unless I quit Health Science!

On Friday morning it was our last ever MEDSCI lecture. I was with Henry and we all had to fill out evaluation forms. It was funny because I could see what some people in the row in front of me wrote:

What did you like about this course?

"Colin Quilter"

Colin even told us about how he's been teaching at Auckland University for about 25 years now and he once got a comment on how much better looking is legs were to his female colleague! To read about my own Colin Quilter experience, see my previous post ;)

I then had my final MEDSCI study group, and it must've been this study group that made me realise how cool it was and how much I'd miss it! Andy, our uber-cool MEDSCI study group co-ordinator and tutor (even though he's a 1st year like the rest of us!) had organised a MEDSCI bingo game to help us revise in a fun way. Every time someone got three or four in a row we would get a piece of chocolate, and whoever got a complete row and called out

"MEDSCI [insert MEDSCI related word here]"

would win one of four prizes. The first game which was based on the reproduction topic was won by this guy Paul, who I got to meet at the study group that day. I came second and got the second yet-to-be-revealed prize. The next game was based on the respiratory system, and because Paul, some girl sitting in front of us and I had the same bingo card, we, along with three others, called out bingo! We then had to have a tie-breaker, and after accusations of cheating, I got disqualified (What? Me? Cheating? I swear that MEDSCI course guide under the table wasn't mine...!) and the two girls in front of us got the remaining two prizes.

The prizes were then revealed. One of them was a boogey prize. I ended up getting some peal milk tea (thanks Andy!!!! :D), while the girls got bars of chocolate, and poor old Paul got the plastic cup with tissue in it (yep that's the boogey prize!).

It was a great way to end the semester and the year, and I met some cool new people such as Paul and this other girl...I think her name is Tiffany...but it's a shame I didn't get to meet the people in the study group a lot earlier so I could get to know them a lot better. I admit that when I'm in an environment where I feel dumb (such as MEDSCI study group) I tend to shut my mouth for fear of saying something stupid, but playing games yesterday was a good way to socialise. Now it's the end of the year though and most of these people are likely to quit Health Science while I'm likely to end up sticking with it! That reminds me I've still got to get email addresses and numbers from my uni friends before it's all over (which I should've done a lot earlier in the year...what a procrastinator..)!

I decided to go home early due to some really loud music from the uni quad travelling through the library walls. Later that night I went to Rutherford College to perform with Aonghas yet again at this music concert organised by the school teacher Ms Faaea to fundraise for new musical instruments. The cause was even advertised in the Western Leader! As opposed to the formality of the Studio Shows, this one was more of a casual show since most of the acts were bands. It felt a lot different when we got out on stage and performed Bohemian Rhapsody. Aonghas got off to a great start by announcing:

"Good evening my name is Calum...I mean Aonghas"

but after that it was pretty fun when everyone sang along to us playing. My mum wasn't much of a fan of the rock music that followed though, and so wasn't our neighbour who she brought along (which we never knew either!) but according to her it was an 'interesting experience.'

So, another academic year over. Exams are fast approaching, and I'm only just starting to realise this! I may not see some of my friends or be in any of their classes again!!! No time to be sad though, it's all about study study study...

EXCLUSIVE - Calum Gets Photo Taken with The Legend!

Yesterday I was extremely fortunate to get a photo taken with the one and only legendary MEDSCI lecturer Mr Colin Quilter! Fan clubs and shrines have formed on various social networking websites such as Bebo and Facebook, with people sharing their own experiences with the best lecturer in the world:

"Colinn drool drool"

"Saw the man himself on his bike this morning. My hearts a-fluttering just thinking bout it... :P"

"heehee, i kinda zoned out and stopped listening to the actual words...let his voice wash over me like a soothing lullaby instead :P"

"i love colin so much that whenever i hear someone mention any colin, i immediately think they're talking about Mr Quilter himself, and i get all excited , saying "yeah hes sooooooo cooooool aye!!!" and then make a dork out of my self when i realise they're talking about some american engineering student or taiwanese commerce student or something . haha

i followed him down towards ponsonby once, but then he biked too fast and i lost him. booooohoooo"

"I was lost at Grafton the other day and then I saw the Big Col chaining his bike up outside and I was going to follow him cos I knew HE'd know where he was going but then i thought I might scare him and that he'd think I'm a retard for getting lost on the way to my SIXTH lab.."

(From the 'Shrine to Colin Quilter' Group on Facebook)

As soon as our final MEDSCI lecture was over for the day, I dashed down the stairs to the lectern where Colin was sorting his things out, grabbed a nearby friend, and got a photo taken with him! The perfect wallpaper for my computer!!!

A Tale Behind the Name

There is actually an interesting story behind the name Te Urewera (the area where the police anti-terrorist raids were carried out) -

Apparently Te Urewera means 'The Burnt Penis', and is named for the tale of a Maori chief who rolled over in his sleep while lying too close to the fire... ( Wikipedia)

Dr Sharples should really be restraining himself from further inflaming the situation. The police are damned if they do and damned if they don't. If they didn't act and something were to happen in the not-to-distant future, we would all be accusing the police of not acting early. When they do take precursory steps, all these people jump up and down criticizing the police for arresting all these people and so on. How can you defend people who possess illegal firearms? I'm sure having illegal firearms isn't legal in this country, therefore the police have a right to arrest those who do.

People have also been criticizing the armed offenders of wearing black balaclavas and looking scary. So the guys in the bushes can wear what they want and look intimidating, while our armed offenders must act friendly and passive?

I heard the guys in the bushes bought some of their gear from a store selling surplus army gear/equipment in Auckland, and it just so happens that while I was on a bus to the city yesterday I saw this shop down K' Road with a sign saying

'Surplus Army Gear'

Maybe that's where they purchased their gear! Or it may just be a little more openly available than I would have thought..

Interesting Facts from Psychology Book

Here are a few interesting facts I found while doing some health psychology study during the past week:

Men who understand others well which means being able to read their emotions are likely to be more socially successful and compete more successfully for females. Thus males may have pressures both to feel and not to feel...

Men inhibit expressions of fear and sadness more often whereas women are more likely to inhibit expressions of anger. How much gender differences in regulation of anger are not entirely clear though. Recent research has found that women express as much anger as men but only if the target of their anger is not present.

Females are more cognitively complex (the reason behind their attitudes are more logical and specific) than males but men and women in close relationships have similar cognitive complexity. We are drawn to people who are at the same level of cognitive complexity to us.

Research consistently finds that when people feel and act attractive, others are more likely to see them that way.

- From Psychology : Australian and New Zealand edition by Drew Westen, Lorelle Burton, Robin Kowalski