adelaidemedblog

Yes. That is my revelation for today. That is all.

Ok not really…

…you smartie-pantses all probably worked it out ages ago. Before the exam, even…

As for the exam itself, I thought it wasn’t too bad, but then it’s hard to tell what exactly they were looking for. And some of the questions looked very very familiar… and they wouldn’t have but for the lovely Resources page on this site, thank-you Mana + all the wonderful people who put stuff on there

But enough of exams: 2 down, 2 to go, and that’s all I shall say - for now - I am in that little post-exam state of euphoria… (Does anyone else get that? Or is it just me… One of my teachers last year made a comment that went along the lines of “So, now exams are over, you having fun regaining your non-student persona?” I didn’t even know I had a ’student persona’… but there you go.)

Back in the world of the (delusional) ass-kicking whip-cracking (non-)supergirl, I have been doing and thinking about many various things. And the stuff I’ve been thinking about is both agitated and controversial, so I’ll leave it for later when the sane ones among you would have already stopped reading =)…

Whip-cracking, in the time since I last shared my thoughts with you all, has included getting a job. Right before and during exams. (I think this is where the delusional bit comes in…) All the same, fail or not fail exams, I don’t think I will ever look at cucumbers the same way, ever again. They are silly veggies, because when you slice them with a veggie slicer the seeds fall out of the middle. And so the slices in which that happens must be discarded, because no-one wants to eat a cucumber slice that looks like a donut. (Well sorta like a donut, just a lot smaller and greener and flatter and wetter…) At the moment my feelings towards cucumber mirror those of Stewie in Family Guy towards broccoli.

Oh, and okra beat cucumber any day

And ass-kicking? Not much of that happening recently, I had another non-supergirl moment this morning, when I woke up to find that breathing was rather painful (in the throat, it’s ok everyone, I don’t have pleuritis) and yawning felt like a form of torture. So that’s my excuse. Fortunately (or maybe it’s a bad sign, I’m lost here in the grey-world of “ahhh I don’t know the mech… or the clinical progression for that matter”), 2.5 hours of exam seemed to help, and it doesn’t hurt so much anymore. Although I did have a little peek inside with a penlight… and I now know what swollen tonsils, complete with…. [drum roll]…. *exudate* look like. Ew. I’m sorry, I’m sure none of you needed to hear details

Soooo…. Now all the sane people have ceased their readership of my blog, it’s onto the agitation. Just like a washing machine cycle. (Has anyone ever pondered that? You think the marketing people of Phillips or whoever makes top loaders would change that terminology. It’s rather negative, just reminds everyone of what a chore doing the washing is…)

Indigenous studies in medicine courses. Basically I wanted to write a bit about the topic on here…that is, what I would’ve put on the discussion board, but for fear of being misunderstood (or probably more likely being off-topic). For those of you who don’t have access to the aforementioned discussion board, there seems to be a lot of division over whether the emphasis placed on Indigenous health in our medical course is justified. And my first thoughts on reading all of it is that, yes, it definitely is justified. Non-indigenous people have basically taken over this land from its indigenous peoples, and in the process have done terrible things.

Ages ago (when I was a little primary school kid), when Pauline Hanson talked about “putting the lid on Asians” and telling them to go back home, I felt pretty angry. Not so much because she was painting an unrealistic portrait of Australia’s population, but more because those of us born in Australia don’t have another home. It’s like the way I get annoyed whenever someone asks me where I’m from. Like the lady at [an unnamed corporation] who asked me whether I was on a visa or a permanent resident. And then looked surprised when I told her I was an Aussie citizen. Just like both my parents. By the way, this little tangent does have a purpose, I’m getting to it…

So, in summary, I was pissed off.
But then I realised that Indigenous people have an even harder perception to deal with in this respect. Because this is actually their home, and that of their ancestors. They, truly, have nowhere to go home to if they feel that this country is not treating them well. A lot of people who were disenchanted by the emphasis on Indigenous health appeared to be treating indigenous people as just another cultural group in our multicultural society. Which is true to a small extent… but IMHO the peoples who were “here first” are most definitely a special case.

Which brings me to my next point…
At the same time it irritates me that I have to separate Australian into indigenous and non-indigenous. I’d love it if I could say “Australian” or “Aussie” and we’d all think of absolutely everyone who classes themselves as being such. I strongly believe in losing the “us” and “them” attitude… But this isn’t about ‘assimilation’. One culture (ie. indigenous peoples) shouldn’t have to become a part of the other. Is it totally impossible to achieve a sort of synergy? (And that word doesn’t mean compromise… look it up.) Finding a place between both cultural sets where everyone is comfortable? Some of the students of ATSI heritage talk about having to choose between two cultures, indigenous and non-indigenous. If I could, I would ask them whether they could achieve such a synergy of cultures (I like that word…… synergy ). Because as someone who is, say, genetically, fully Chinese, but also fourth generation Australian, I have had to do that exactly. But I guess it is very different in their cases…
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I’m sorry, this has been one helluva marathon post. Forgive me, my inner whip escaped from my control…
On a different tack, I started this 2 days ago, and now my tonsils are looking and feeling much happier. Just like supergirl after buying new shoes

Thanks for putting up with me - back to erythropoeisis (it that how you spell it?)
xoxoxo tpaitpai