wish you were here

back to mildy

2012-01-26T20:59:00.004+11:00

bliss

2011-10-08T14:54:00.002+11:00

sleeping in after a late night up drinking and gaming

the smell of cooked breakfast with freshly brewed coffee

the weekend paper and all the time in the world to meander through it

and to top it all off, dinner with good company to look forward to

*sigh*

the summer of 11/12

2011-10-03T23:32:00.002+11:00

daylight saving started over the weekend and so today as we walked out of the hospital after work, it was still a bright warm afternoon. no exams. beer time. sweeeeeeeeeeet...

good grand finals over the weekend. geelong were deserved winners as colliwobbles hit again. fantastic first three quarters. manly was the more disciplined team and worked hard for their win but the warriors were much more exciting to watch, particularly in the second half.

i have a couple of great interns atm. they work really well together, making ward rounds a breeze. and with dot on the team as well, there is always plenty of laughs. plus dom is a hands off consultant, which of course is how i like them. can't ask for much more than that...

our apartment got flooded the other day. i was at work so gal had to sort it all out. got home to find him still madly mopping the floor. the floorboards are all ruined and we had to make do without hot water for a few days. but right now, i really couldn't care less...

it's going to be a fantastic summer!

back to work with a vengeance

2011-08-16T08:36:00.003+10:00

so much for being a vegetable. things are busier than ever - and boy its fun!

ive signed up for not one but two research projects. so lots of reading around the subject and learning (and re-learning) random things like how to do a pivot table and apply for ethics approval. and ive just realised why im enjoying this so much - its because i work better when there are concrete goals. like an essay or a mini-assignment. abstract, open-ended tasks like "studying for the fracp exam" are just hopeless for me. but i dont have to do that ever again! yay!

on top of the projects, i have my interview with the vpmtp panel tomorrow. and then job applications, house hunting and also trying to get through all the other chores ive put off for four months - tax, salary packaging, sorting through the mess of paper in my room.

im revelling in the promise of tomorrows. how long can this last?

the end of the beginning

2011-08-09T17:10:00.002+10:00

so i passed the fracp. big deal. now what do i do?

just kidding.

IT'S BLOODY FANTASTIC!!!

for various reasons, but most of all:

1. i don't have to do another twelve months of this

2. i didn't let laila down

3. i don't have to feel guilty about not knowing anything other than palliative care ever again.

sure i have six months of general medicine to go. but it doesn't really bother me too much. i can come home and be a vegetable in front of the tv without feeling guilty! oh it's just so good...

hectic

2011-06-19T07:59:00.002+10:00

time is running out like sand in an hourglass. things seemed so leisurely three months ago. now the pace hastens. we're all pushing each other along, helping one another to overcome inertia, swelling together into a wave that will hopefully peak and break beautifully in five weeks' time.

there are so many thing to do at once that i either feel overwhelmed or flit from one task to another, briefly tackling something before becoming distracted by something else. compiling and memorising lists, researching and trying to understand signs, tidying up my cv and writing emails to various palliative care directors to set up meet-and-greets, booking and seeing patients and examiners for long cases, attempting to make it to as many short case tutorials as i can, and on top of this looking after my own patients and trying to make the most out of this rotation. doesn't seem to leave much time for anything else!

five weeks to go... i can't wait until it's over!

pall care bear

2011-05-09T22:03:00.006+10:00

im back doing palliative care. yay!

its annoying having to prepare for exams at the same time. all i want to do is break down people's discomfort into discrete, treatable symptoms; talk away the family's fears and guilt about their loved one's dying in family meetings; dive into clinical research and learn about new exciting drugs; eat free drug-rep lunches perched on a ledge at the back of various multi-disciplinary gatherings; do a few tummy and pleural taps here and there. ahh... bliss! is it wrong to feel this way? am i just finding new ways to procrastinate? am i just trying to convince myself that this is still what i want to do, having been away from it all for a couple of years?

i don't care. im looking forward to going to work tomorrow. something i haven't felt like doing for a long time.

waiting... again

2011-05-02T10:52:00.003+10:00

shit has it really been a month already?! it feels as if ive barely started! sure ive stumbled through a few short cases and made a fool of myself messing up a couple of longs, but theyre merely test runs, before i really get stuck into it, before i get serious about the whole thing, before...

sigh. here we go again. perpetually preparing myself. and then just making do when it comes down to it. the life of a procrastinator.

only eleven weeks to go.

geelong waterfront

2011-04-04T21:37:00.001+10:00

five short weeks later, im back in the soup...

what is art?

2011-03-24T10:20:00.008+11:00

is this art? (a room full of purple balloons and screaming teenagers)

what about this? (a couple of groovy slides and a bunch of kids aged ~ 6 to 60)

or this? (cooperative lego architecture)

(links here and here)

refrain

2011-03-10T15:37:00.002+11:00

the phone going off at 3:30pm on that fateful afternoon and recognising laila voice over the airwaves was possibly one of the most dreadful moments of my life. surely it was all over. but to my great surprise, she didnt have bad news for me.

i think i was in shock for the rest of the day. i trudged dutifully to the belgian beer garden, but i really didnt feel like going. i convinced myself that i should do the expected thing, join in the backslapping and cheerful false modesty as everyone breathed a big communal sigh of relief. it was horrible. i left without saying goodbye, which i guess was nothing out of the ordinary for me. instead of a weight being lifted off my shoulder, i think i just felt confused. what do i do now?

this is such a ridiculous state of affairs. how did i find myself in this situation? i mean, its not like im not glad that i passed. on the contrary, im not sure i could have gone through another twelve months of this without some sort of permanent brain damage. but for some reason i feel guilty. the voice in my head is incessant: "i didnt deserve to pass", " i still dont know anything", "i should keep studying"... before the exam it was procrastination; now its denial. its ironic and its sad.

sometimes i really dont know whether to laugh or cry at my useless ego.

hiatus

2011-03-01T00:11:00.003+11:00

so i have dedicated most of the last twelve months of my life this this thing.

and now finally the day has come and gone.

there is some regret. i gave it a shot. i really did. i could have done a bit more, probably. especially the last three months. that didnt really go very well. it couldve made all the difference. maybe. but its done. theres nothing more to do, but wait...

there is a lot of relief. "at least its over!" the little voice in my brain shouts! but almost before that thought can form another pops up next to it: "at least for a little while. i mean, you dont know if it is over for good. and you know, deep inside you doubt yourself, you suspect that you will have to do it again. you know you have to do it again." oh but i dont want to think about that right now.

now is time to rest. clean up my room. put my affairs in order. categorise and cleanse and recharge my batteries. the next challenge may be just around corner.

day dream weekend

2010-10-09T22:00:00.004+11:00

instead of studying im thinking about my ideal weekend. this probably has something to do with the beautiful spring day outside and the impending 13.5 hour cover shift tomorrow. sigh...

waking up naturally (no alarm clock!) in the cozy hole ive made for myself in the doona. only my head is sticking out in the cool morning air. its still mostly dark outside, with only a slightest hint of dawn poking through the curtains. the window is open and i can smell the trees.

a quick coffee before i head out the door. its getting brighter as i hit the trail. an invigorating walk through the forest before making it home for a cooked breakfast of scrambled eggs, mushrooms, spinach and hash browns. more coffee. lounge about reading the paper, guilt free, with nothing else to do before lunch. ahh... i might even do some laundry!

head out to meet friends for lunch. vietnamese? japanese? chinese? indonesian? i don't really care as long as there is plenty of room for the gang to huddle and not too loud so we can all hear each other. what's been happening in everyone's lives? more of the same. bitch about work. we love it.

wander through an art gallery or maybe head over to someones house to play board games (or even a quick LAN battle). fire up the barbeque, crank up the music and down a few beers around dusk. theres not much to say. we all slouch down and watch the sunset. there is nowhere else we'd rather be.

duty of care

2010-09-25T23:29:00.002+10:00

just because its possible doesnt mean its right.

a young man with muscular dystrophy and end stage heart failure represents to his hospital the day after his discharge with not much objective signs of decompensation but subjectively he feels worse. he doesnt diurese much despite intravenous frusemide so he was transferred 400kms back to us. we restart him on inotropes but his systolic blood pressure hovers between 70 and 80. he is wheelchair based and requires a hoist for transfers. his brother had worse heart failure but better skeletal muscle function and received a heart transplantation. all he wants to do is make it to his sisters wedding in 3 weeks' time. but we dont think hes going to be there. transplantation would be futile.

another man referred to us with (recreational) drug-induced cardiomyopathy presents with pneumonia exacerbating his underlying heart failure. he was initially drowsy and rousable only to pain and needed non-invasive ventilation. after antibiotics and diuresis he has now woken up and is demanding benzodiazepines for his panic attacks and drug withdrawal. he threatens to discharge himself against medical advice. the nurses ask me: would that be such a bad thing? he'll never be transplanted.

he is a father of an seventeen year old boy currently doing vce. his son thinks he is lazy but really he has an ejection fraction of 16% and still tries to work full time to support his family. he thinks all he needs to do is "get fit" but feels tired and breathless all the time. i presented him for transplantation and the cardiologists and surgeons in the audience approved him for listing but still i dont know if he understands what he needs and what is ahead of him.

what is informed consent? should we let some people die because they dont know whats best for them? should we let some people waste a heart (or any other organ for that matter) that could benefit another simply to prevent their death? its hard not to be paternalistic. maybe its even right to be paternalistic. after all, what do the masses know? nothing. and what do i know? the futility of the whole thing.

time to sleep

2010-08-21T11:46:00.002+10:00

the last few days sure have been long ones.

wednesday: afternoon off started at 4pm. yay! a couple of hours to dash through questions before study group, which finished at 10:30pm. but at least i got to do a tummy tap, and enjoyed a lovely dinner with my study buddies - probably the only real food i've had this week!

thursday started at 7:30am with echo tutorials. ducked out at 6:15pm to go to lectures at the college. my god what a trio: forty minutes on rheumatoid arthritis delivered in a monotone; ten thousand slides on lupus which left every one much more confused than when we started; and a tedious drag through the evidence free zone that is osteoarthritis. barely managed to stay awake. back to work until 11:15pm to finish my transplant meeting presentations.

friday: the boss decides during the transplant meeting that he didnt want me to present the third case after all. i couldve gone home an hour earlier!! sigh. trudge trudge trudge through the day, then the crazy cover shift during which i received four referrals for admission plus a smattering of reviews and random ward jobs. finally got out of the place, grabbed a pie from the corner 7-eleven, only to be confronted at the tram stop by a "hey you come over here, quickly!" from three big guys with shotguns. "have you seen a forty-year old man with a white jacket and jeans in the 7-eleven?!" trams are backed up all the way up st kilda road as the cops set up a blockade. more questioning from detectives. two drunk guys holding beer bottles were "sure you were after us, you know, drinking in public. please dont shoot us, were just being dickheads" and a nervous asian woman "i feel unsafe. whats going on? can you guys escort me home?" it wouldve been hilarious if i wasnt so exhausted. had to make an hour-long detour home on foot. luckily i had michelle on the phone to guide me through the pitch black fawkner park "so you're walking alone in the middle of a park at night with a murderer on the loose?"

saturday. slept in until 11. finally gave in to the grumbling in my stomach. miso soup and udon noodles. back to bed. ahh...

retrospective

2010-08-14T07:39:00.004+10:00

looking back at the mildura posts, it seems like all i did was grumble about work and the system. but in fact it wasnt as bad as all that. i certainly dont want to leave myself with the impression that i had a horrible time by the murray (not that i ever actually saw the murray while i was there), when i look back in a few months/years time.

we had a great bunch of registrars and residents up there with us. went out to dinner almost every night. met several lovely, interesting people and made some good friends. i enjoyed the challenge of being a medical registrar, mostly, and was surprised to find that i didnt mind general medicine too much. i wonder if that had something to do with the way general medicine is practiced in the bush, working within the constraints of limited resources and alongside the stoicism and blind faith of country people.

once again, leaving didnt worry me too much. i think sometimes im glad to leave a place. and other times i leave with a sense that i will be back there again, down the track. with mildura, i was looking forward to coming back to melbourne, somewhat; but i also got the feeling, as i was walking out the front door of the hospital on that last morning, that it wont be long before im back there again.

o m g

2010-07-28T11:44:00.000+10:00

www.blizzard.com

... stupid exams :-(

selective memory

2010-07-23T05:17:00.004+10:00

its been going on for a couple of years now. lots of my friends will attest to this: my memory is full of holes. some will argue that this is related to my gross alcohol intake (which is possible) or suggest that it's simply because my brain needs lots of down time (sleep, daydreaming, playing solitaire on auto-pilot). whatever the pathophysiology, the fact of the matter is, i simply dont remember a lot of things. is it because i dont make an effort to remember them? or is it because im not paying much attention in the first place? or do i really have an inability to form, store and/or retrieve memory? im really not sure.

it is certainly true that my mind wanders a lot. my concentration is often scattered between several tasks, little bits of neuron firing off near-simultaneously, all clamouring for my attention. certain things i recall relatively easily, eg the names of my patients' various relatives, entire monologues from plays and films; but sometimes entire conversations have apparently taken place - but i am convinced that ther other person is simply pulling my leg, much to their amusement and/or frustration!

so is my memory simply selective? do i only remember things that i want to remember? is it just a matter of paying more attention to everything i do? do i need to sleep more and drink less? perhaps...

tyranny of distance, part 3

2010-07-13T15:10:00.002+10:00

in the bush, there is just not enough of some things.

what a horrible weekend: the hospital was so full that they had to open up day procedures to put patients in so that more people could come into emergency; our list pushed out to three pages for the first time this rotation; i was still doing my inpatient ward round at 5:30pm in the afternoon. the bed coordinator cajoled and threatened but there is nothing i can do! look at the bloody list:

- a third of the patients are oldies admitted from nursing homes because there are not enough general practitioners in town, such that the ones that are left are either overworked and dont have time to deal with anything more than a six minute consult; or they simply don't know and don't care;

- another third of the patients are oldies waiting for allied health input before they can go home or be placed: physios to improve their mobility, occupational therapists to set them up at home, speech therapists to work on their swallow, dieticians to buff up their nutrition, neuropsychologists to prove that they are incompetent, aged care assessment to tick that box - and even after that, they wait for a bed to be emptied from one of three facilities in town. waiting in hospital to go somewhere else to wait to die. what a lovely thought.

- the final third of the patients seem to comprise entirely of patients bouncing back with a medical problem that cant be fixed (eg end-stage copd), they wont let me fix (eg alcohol abuse) or i cant fix (eg fulminant hepatitis and malaena but no gastroenterologists in town).

so we did the best we could: patched up the oldies so they could go back to their nursing homes; kept the others in hospital so they received adequate nursing care; and provided band-aid solutions or palliative care to those who are simply broken, before they went back into the community or up to heaven.

why would anyone want to live in the bush? and... why do i want to live in the bush?

managing people

2010-06-26T12:51:00.004+10:00

there is a lot more to being a medical registrar than looking after patients. actually, when i think about it, thats usually the easiest part of my job. most patients have relatively straightforward problems: exacerbation of a chronic illness; some sort of infection; social issues; or simply being old and having less physiological reserve. it's really a matter of triaging, writing up the drug chart or making a referral to allied health, and seeing what happens.

what i find to be most challenging is actually having to manage people. striking a balance between leading and learning from my consultants; supervising my residents to make sure they are safe, yet giving them a degree of independence to learn how to think for themselves; teaching the students while trying to study myself.

lots of my friends and colleagues are thrilled to be registrars, and hate the idea of doing resident jobs, the mundane tasks of rewriting drug charts and putting in iv cannulas, and the lack of freedom to make treatment decisions. well, i dont mind the mindless tasks - i find them quite satisfying, actually - and i find that i have a great deal of influence on my patients' inpatient experience even if i dont get the final say on how their medical problems are treated. on top of all that, being a resident is far less stressful than being a registrar! so, yeah, i am looking forward to being a resident again when i return to melbourne...

tyranny of distance, part 2

2010-06-13T12:13:00.005+10:00

the diabetes educator had left her the previous day after a 2 hour "catch-up", apparently well except for ongoing unstable bsl (which had been going on for years). she found her in the same position 24 hours later, unconscious, gcs 11 and febrile. with no obvious explanation for her temperature of 39.5 (impressive for a 82 year old), mild neutrophilia and a surprisingly normal crp, i asked the ed resident to do a lumbar puncture. id just done a question on herpes encephalitis and aciclovir was on my mind. sure enough, the csf came back with high proteins, relatively normal glucose and (drum roll please...) 100% mononuclear cells. and so the aciclovir went in. the next day we noticed she was having seizures and added phenytoin. her gcs fluctuated between 6 and 8. things looked bad.

her closest family was her dead husbands nephew 110kms away. he was the only one that seemed to care (i will try to come up doc but it wont be until the weekend cause im working) but didnt feel comfortable making medical decisions for her. there was a son in wa, he said, and gave me a number that didnt exist. apparently there were three more sons in holland, and i left a message on an answering machine after a (what i presumed to be) dutch "please leave your name and number..." routine.

later, the son from wa rang me. i guess the nephew had better luck getting on to him. he was angry that switchboard had made him wait (on long-distance) while i was in a family meeting (rapid deterioration in a woman with extensive stage small cell lung cancer). but he quickly got the picture. no he couldn't come, he said, because he didn't have the money. and he didn't want to be stuck here if she died. did he wanted mum to go down to adelaide or melbourne for further investigations? no doc what's the point? shes in her eighties and shes had a good life. i promised him id let him know how things went. later on i overheard some nurses talking: apparently my patient is loaded. ahh...

i shut my ears and quickly moved on to the next patient.

tyranny of distance

2010-06-11T07:14:00.007+10:00

the man looked pretty good for someone who had just had fifteen minutes of cpr.

out of hospital vf arrest. bystander cpr until the ambos arrived. four shocks to get back into sinus rhythm. there were massive tombstones on the ecg. we thrombolysed him but his chest discomfort and ecg changes persisted. time to get him out of here. fast.

if you live in mildura and have a cardiac arrest, on average your outcome will be worse than if you lived in melbourne. it's closer to adelaide but they'd rather you sent your patient to melbourne, even if its almost twice the distance, because after all mildura is in victoria. even if you always send your cardiac patients to adelaide because there is a more integrated, easier to navigate cardiology service there and your boss has mates there. even if the patient has already been accepted and has a bed waiting for them in adelaide. even if your patient has failed thrombolysis and is rapidly developing q waves.

sorry fellas, but i don't give a shit whether mildura is in victoria or south australia. it might as well be in afghanistan or on the moon if you are going to keep acting like dickheads. this man needs a hot plasty and he needs to be retrieved. end of story as far as im concerned. but in the end, it took as long to resuscitate and stabilise my patient, talk to the family and admit another two patients, as it took the retrieval guys to dick around and try and handball responsibility to each other, until finally they dumped it on the rfds.

it's just not good enough.

just another afternoon in ed

2010-05-30T21:42:00.006+10:00

massive eyebrows lady had a great murmur that you could almost hear without your stethoscope. her lungs were filled with crackles and her troponin was 15. but she also had a low ph, a bsl of 24 and a tongue as dry as the sahara. i gave her some fluids and she got better than she got worse. her family gathered around with frowns and said they wanted full resuscitation. palliative care fail.

gcs 4 man came in with a fever and a raised troponin. he had a shearer blue singlet on and a permanent trache thanks to a floor of mouth scc. he had no neck (dissected away long ago) and no blood pressure. he also had no massive intracranial haemorrhage or cerebral mets on ct, which we were rather hoping to find. so we had to take him to icu because the ward couldnt manage his sats of 78%. yet another palliative care fail.

bmi 40+ man had no neck either. but he did have a pco2 of 113. his family attempted to keep him awake while we put him on bipap and tried to reverse his warfarin so we could tap his pleural effusion. finally at 11pm we decided to bite the bullet and tube him. the anaesthetist didnt want to come in but in the end she relented. perhaps it was the confidence (or was it panic) in my voice. thankfully it only took her three goes to tube him with the bougie. she also left me to check the tube position, put in a ngt to decompress his stomach, make up the ventilator settings, write up sedation, work out which inotrope to use (i wasn't too thrilled with a sbp of 65) and talk to the family. fortunately, it seemed that i had learnt something from my icu rotation after all (entirely through osmosis of course). and the icu nurses were very patient. another life saved.

but now i have a cold. hooray!

just wing it

2010-05-15T11:43:00.005+10:00

i can't believe it's only been five days since i started up here in mildura. those days have been filled with so many... decisions. big important urgent decisions that i feel unprepared for, but nevertheless have to be made and there is no one else to make them.

so i just wing it.

do i resuscitate this 85 year old man who's just dropped his gcs and blood pressure in the rehab ward? do i take him to icu and scan him head to toe? just wing it.

do i admit this apparently well (albeit slightly smelly) guy who collapsed between placing his bets at the local tab and drinking at the bar, but with no risk factors on history and no abnormal findings on physical examination? and after i send him home, what do i do when the lab rings me with a positive blood culture for staph aureus in 2/2 bottles? just wing it.

do i advise the gp that it's okay for his patient to stop taking his beta-blocker, even though he came in with ischaemic sounding chest pain, dynamic ecg changes and moderate cardiovascular risk factors, because his enzymes and stress test were negative? just wing it.

and to top it all off: i have a scary intern.

the english surgeon

2010-04-20T23:57:00.007+10:00

"what are we if we don't try to help others? we are nothing. nothing at all." - http://www.theenglishsurgeon.com/

funk

2010-04-12T09:28:00.006+10:00

some days i wake up and, after downing that first coffee to open my eyes, halfway through the morning routine, i catch myself - why am i even bothering with this? it's not like ive been getting a kick out of life lately. working nights suck. and when im not working, im supposed to be studying for this exam that, at eleven months away, seem more bogeyman than deadline. what's more, after the nice, principles-based, practical specialty of respiratory medicine, we're up to infectious diseases. is there a fluffier, more waffly subject? what causes fever and rash in a fifty-nine year old man? oh i dont know - theres only about seventeen gazillion. maybe his wife just caught him ogling their seventeen year old neighbour. who cares?

its generally at this point i try to console myself: what else would i rather be doing? but i quickly realise that this is a dangerous and seductive question: do you want the whole list or just the top three? no, perhaps what i mean is: what else should i be doing? but once again that wont do (see the entry on 21.3.10). it's just hopeless. am i doing this exam because it's what im supposed to do? am i doing it because i dont know what else to do? i used to laugh condescendingly at my friends who i felt were doing exactly these things. whos laughing now? *choke*

i went to donate blood again the other day and found that i've put on ten kilos since we finished travelling fourteen months ago. ridiculous. mum thinks its because of all the beer that im drinking. the truth is im drinking less beer. its the lack of activity and eating out of boredom thats doing it. picture this - jabba the hutt in a "i heart ny" hoodie, with potato chip stains around his lips, slouching in front of his macbook, alt-tabbing between wikipedia and the same question on parvovirus b19 for the last three hours. this is not a joke.

what is a joke, a really bad one, is my entire existence. o woe is me, to have seen what i have seen, see what i see!

you'd want to cry too if you've just spent forty minutes learning about secondary syphilis (Lali Chetwynd, An Evening with Jabba the Hut, 2004, http://www.gasworks.org.uk/)

goodbye blue sky - oh but hello!

2010-03-26T10:04:00.007+11:00

(one two three)
if you close the door
the night could last forever
leave the sunshine out
and say hello to never

all the people are dancing
and theyre having such fun
i wish it could happen to me -

- but if you close the door
id never have to see the day again

if you close the door
the night could last forever
leave the wineglass out
and drink a toast to never

oh someday i know
someone will look into my eyes
and say hello
youre my very special one -

- but if you close the door
id never have to see the day again

dark party bars
shiny cadillac cars
and the people on subways and trains
looking grey in the rain
as they stand disarrayed
all the people look well in the dark

and if you close the door
the night could last forever
leave the sunshine out
and say hello to never

all the people are dancing
and theyre having such fun
i wish it could happen to me -

- cause if you close the door
id never have to see the day again
id never have to see the day again (once more)
id never have to see the day again

- "after hours", the velvet underground

(well, minnie: it looks like you opened the door, emerged from the darkness, looked that someone in the eye, and said hello to forever. i wont go as far as saying that youre dancing around embracing the sun, but perhaps we can retire your song to never...)

expectations

2010-03-21T12:09:00.002+11:00

there is a world of difference between expectations and dreams. one dictates what one should do while the other merely describes what one would like to do. should is such an evil word. if one believes in free will, that individuals are capable of making independent choices and are therefore responsible for these choices, then one should (haha) be able to lead a life free from "should". for example:

- my child should do (insert medical specialty) versus i would like my child to do (insert medical specialty);

- my child should marry an asian guy versus i would like my child to marry an asian guy;

- i should pass this exam versus i would like to pass this exam;

- i should study more versus i would like to study more (who am i kidding here?);

- i/my partner should behave a certain way in our relationship versus i would like (my partner) to behave a certain way in our relationship;

- i should know what to do versus i would like to know what to do

... etc. let's all try to lead a life free from "should"!

just do it

2010-03-12T09:15:00.008+11:00

what is it about being a medical registrar that still fills me with unease? im into my fifth year out of med school; spent a couple years as a relatively competent resident (at least i think so); managed patients on my own pretty much since day one; admitted hundreds more; ran codes by myself; done a stint in icu and even worked as a locum "registrar" for a few weeks. lots of my colleages are doing it / have done it / are over it. and yet i dread that first day in mildura and a part of me wants to put it off forever.

i think it's mostly the responsibility of the job, or my idea of it anyway. the sense that the buck stops with me. im supposed to be making the calls, running the show, supervising my interns and only occasionally "consulting" with my bosses. if something goes wrong, then im the one whos stuffed up, not done enough, let the patient down. i know it's not exactly like that, but thats how it feels.

i love being a resident when i have an easy-going registrar. i get to do whatever i want, but if things aren't working out, i handball the problem into his/her court, and demand a solution. it's that simple. now i will be on the receiving end. serves me right.

the last run of nights was insane. six transfers and two code blues. it's difficult when all ive got on my side are one div one nurse, whose probably been working in subacute for twenty years either side of her pregnancies, and a non-medication-endorsed div two nurse, and me all on my lonesome. it feels like the day teams dont know and dont care about their patients medical issues (but the stump looks alright: what are they, surgeons?) and when the person on the other end of the phone is half asleep, or questioning your judgement, or telling you they're on bypass, well... that doesn't help either.

im starting to understand why xiu keeps moaning about not knowing enough. its this... panic. it freezes me. and then the endless replays in my mind (the "i could have done this... i should have done this... maybe it would have made a difference..."). the guilt. the gaps in my knowledge seem enormous. didn't i learn anything in medical school? it spurs me on for a moment, until im lost in the overwhelming amount of information in harrison's or uptodate. then i despair.

not that im into acute medicine or anything. but sometimes its great just being lost in the heat of the moment, doing thing, thinking that you know what is going on and what to do, and not having to worry about the consequences.

e

2010-02-25T02:16:00.007+11:00

she was the first ward patient i'd looked after in a long time. a young thing, barely out of her teens, she was preoccupied with life, frustrated by an illness that seemed to thwart all her attempts at normality. for a while, as her lung function fluctuated, we wondered if she was really compliant with her treatment. our doubts made her angry: didn't we believe (in) her?

it was as if her entire existence hinged upon others believing in her. adolescence is tough enough to negotiate without having to deal with what is essentially a terminal illness. for her, walking that fine line between striving for independence and relying on others was particularly difficult. for someone who was yet to develop a strong sense of self-identity, who still needed other people to validate her choices, the loss of autonomy that came hand-in-hand with each hospital admission threatened to overwhelm her hesitant steps towards adulthood.

the final blow came months later, when i'd left the service. a colleague informed me that she was in icu with full blown respiratory sepsis. the bosses had decided to go down an unusual and bold path. she was on ecmo, and awake. the thought of it terrified me. i couldn't bring myself to go in and visit her. on each day that i went into work, doing another job at another hospital, one of the first things i'd do was to check on her latest bloods and chest x-ray. the little patch of aerated lung grew smaller and smaller; the oxygen level in her blood became lower and lower. sepsis gave way to ards. transplant wasn't an option. and then, finally...

icu is a frightening place to die. it's so completely alien. there is no day or night. there is no privacy. nurses and doctors, orderlies and clerks, family and friends, all come and go in shifts. the only constant is the throbbing fluorescent light reflecting off the shiny surfaces of medical hardware and the sterile white linen. endless miles of tubing sprout from banks of beeping machines and invade the helpless bodies on trolleys. the only view outside looks onto the enormous grey helipad, where broken bodies from traumas are brought in from all across the state. all we can offer are words, and when that fails, sedation.

she had dreams. simple, worthwhile ones. to finish uni. to move out of home. to travel. others waste their entire lives looking for reasons to live. she only wanted to live.

dream on, e. you're free at last.

nights

2010-02-09T05:35:00.006+11:00

freezing to death in the tiny on-call room, struggling to stay awake despite twenty-seven cups of coffee. the words on the computer screen swimming around, and after trying to put them together for the third time, i still have no idea what they mean. im supposed to be studying but its not working. only four hours to go before i can go home and have a beer at nine oclock in the morning.

the loudspeakers outside my door seems to be mumbling something. then my pager goes off. code blue in rehab c. great. out of all the wards in the hospital, of course it had to be the one furtherest away from me. i put on my shoes and run. but ive forgotten my stethoscope. turn back. whats the stupid door code again? run run huff puff chest pain. going through the als algorithm in my head, getting the hs but always forgetting the ts. oh its the same guy i reviewed yesterday: why is he still here? didnt the day team do anything? the subacute nurses fluff around. ivc, ecg, do my own obs, make some whimsical comment to lighten the atmosphere, a set of bloods, call a taxi to take them to the alfred, write some notes, inform the ao. only three hours to go before beer oclock.

sigh. at least im awake now.

tagged

2010-02-07T14:38:00.000+11:00

currently feeling -
lethargic, waiting for my first night shift to begin

currently addicted to -
procrastination

recent most funny moment -
my mate dan’s two minute phone interview with the head of orthopaedics from a queensland hospital included: “can you operate?” delivered in a growling, entirely serious tone

favourite airport-travel routine -
haven’t been to airports for a while, but id probably try to fit in a pint at the irish pub

most prized possession -
im not big on material possessions. so im going to go with the feeing in my gut

current mantra to get me through the bad times in life -
it can always get worse

currently inspired by -
fear

most entertaining online read when u have nothing else better to do and need a laugh -
xkcd

favourite blog -
minnie min

most excited about -
beer and sleep

just digested -
plain boiled rice, tinned tuna and spicy bamboo shoots from a jar

f*crap

2010-01-16T22:26:00.008+11:00

so it begins -

- with a series of weekend lectures that threatens to overwhelm me,
- tense trainees, eyes rimmed with lack of sleep, debating minutiae,
- frantically trying to form study groups and organise study sessions,
- downloading lectures, signing up to journals i know i'll never read,
- not knowing, worried about not knowning, worried about worrying,
- feeling guilty guilty guilty about everything and anything but still
- spending endless hours procrastinating on facebook and wikipedia,
- laughing at horror stories about med reging in the country but
- knowing that it'll be me soon +gasp gasp gasp+

time for more coffee.

another customer arrives at the hotel alfred

there is no why

2009-12-23T18:28:00.004+11:00

why do kids refuse to do anything for their parents? why do they feel that it's other people's responsibility to look after the frail elderly women and men that once did everything for them, gave them life, fed them, clothed them and brought them up?

a woman with mild cognitive impairment wants to go home. she is happy to adopt the team's recommendations regarding gaid-aids, home modifications and community services. all she needed was her children to meet her when she got home, make sure there was some food in the fridge until someone from the council could help her do her shopping in a few days' time, and ring her occasionally to make sure she was okay. but even that seemed too much to ask. they wanted us to send her to a nursing home. but why? when we finally got her home, she managed to lock herself out one night, went over to her neighbours for help, who called her son. he rang the ward and wanted us to readmit her. for what? call in a locksmith. call the cops. if all else fails go over yourself and let her in with the spare key. is that so fucking hard?

*

why do frail elderly people refuse to do anything for themselves? why do they give up their last shred of independence and dignity so willingly and throw themselves into a cycle of dependence that leads inevitably towards nursing homes?

a previously self-sufficient woman, living alone in her rented flat, walking without gait-aid and independent with her personal activities of daily living, is admitted with osteomyelitis. over the six weeks of inpatient stay for intravenous antibiotics and physical rehabilitation, she becomes fully dependent on nursing staff for personal care and mobility, declines physiotherapy and lies in bed all day, refuses clinical psychology and antidepressants for her anxiety and adjustment disorder despite their overwhelming impact on her level of function, and wants maximal nursing and community assistance for when she goes home. yet when push comes to shove (threatened with delayed discharge or placement into a nursing home), she demonstrates that she can perform at her premorbid level. so why does she insist on playing the sick role?

*

why do the frail elderly refuse to accept their declining physical health and diminishing capacity to look after themselves? why do they reject help and insist they return to the same conditions that brough them into hospital in the first place?

a man with urinary retention, faecal incontinence and poor mobility wants to go home. he doesn't understand why these things need to sorted out before he can go home, refuses to participate in therapy and dismisses all of our recommendations as "meddling". he says "i've looked after myself for eighty years and i can still look after myself just fine. i'll know when there is a problem, and until then, i don't see why i have to do anything about it". lack of insight? yes. but then at times he demonstrates an uncanny appreciation of his circumstances: "you have all the tools to rule over my life and i have no control over it. all i can do is be grumpy, and that's exactly what i am". and so there it is: absolute, glorious, undeniable clarity. so how come he still doesn't get it?

hunting in the (sub)urban jungle

2009-11-21T17:35:00.004+11:00

there is one in a tight white singlet and a short black silky sashaying skirt, trailed by her olds dressed much more respectfully, the father (sporting a careful moustache) in a checkered collared polo ralph lauren shirt and the mother clutching her louis vuitton handbag, no doubt with her chequebook tucked inside, ready to bleed for their ungrateful offspring.

another, his hunched shoulders and curly dark hair screaming WOG, flits from room to room, trying to escape his overweight, overbearing but nonetheless well-meaning mother. look it's a spot for your washing machine! the bathroom doubles as a laundry! he tries to escape but im blocking the door. excuse me. c'mon ma someone else wants to see the bathroom. i wait to see her spit into her hand and pat his unruly hair into place, but they turn the corner and leaves me alone to imagine the ensuing squirming and verbal barrage.

a couple with all the right questions, dressed in the uniform of young upstarts: he confidently decked out in a printed t-shirt, faded jeans and sneakers; she mildly overweight, slightly overdone with her make-up and wearing black pointy shoes. (shudder). the agent with the cheap suit and tie is cornered and forced to listen to their entire investment philosophy. he stutters explanations for why the floating floorboards seem to be lifting off the floor (something to do with a fishbowl accident) and why he does not have copies of the contract to sign right this second. they promise to ring him on monday and he looks like he's about to faint.

i make it to the final inspection with three minutes to spare. she is about to lock up. i try to get an impression of the place in thirty seconds but her pink push-up bra distracts me. i vaguely remember some music posters on the walls and a miniscule balcony that looks straight into the fence. as we walk out another belated hunter is coming up the path. she tries to keep her cool and fails. i avert my eyes (from her chest) and decide to call it a day.

i haven't had this much fun in ages.

brain drain

2009-11-15T10:07:00.004+11:00

i haven't listened to music for ages. i used to, every day, on the way to and from work. my little ipod shuffle blasting at my half-deaf ears. these days i shuffle along (and sometimes, catch the tram, filled with guilt) still trying to wake up or slowly sinking back into a daze. i tell myself it's so i can pay more attention to my surroundings, see and hear what is going on in the world around me. but that's a lie - i am oblivious to it all. work. sleep. work sleep...

nor do i read or write any more. it's such a battle trying to describe a feeling, or recall a moment. its as if im banging my head repeatedly against a wall. my brain is lead; thoughts stifled just as they are born; instead of ideas and emotions bursting to express themselves, there is only emptiness behind my eyes. oh how far have i fallen since... i don't remember...

promise

2009-10-16T22:22:00.003+11:00

she is going to die.

rapid af. hypertension. desaturation. increased work of breathing. rise in arterial carbon dioxide. drowsiness. raised white cell count. diaphoretic but unable to raise her body temperature. lack of improvement after antibiotics.

all i could do is give her digoxin. fluids. more antibiotics. a few smart-arse remarks to lighten to atmosphere in the windowless cubicle with her three anxious daughters. fill out a nfr form.

i promised her i'd see her later. will i get a chance to keep that promise on monday?

ward service

2009-09-26T18:32:00.005+10:00

i love and hate being back on the wards again. i dig the sense of belonging and comraderie, continuity of care, responsibility and satisfaction; but loath the hours, frustration, emotions and most of all the dickheads that let the side down.

there is something wrong with me when it comes to authority. i dont think its about whos the top dog. rather, its about being able to trust my colleagues and for them to have faith in me. but getting in the way of this is my inability to share responsibilities and blame. and i need to figure it out or i will continue to be a difficult person to work with, either as a leader or follower.

last weekend was fantastic. caught a tram north to melbourne's fringe (it took bloody ages) to visit thommo and taisia. had a wonderful indian dinner. played a game of scrabble. the next morning allowed thommo to convince me to help him build a set of steps for their new foster dog. who knew those woodwork lessons in grade 8 would come in handy one day?

skooshie tries out the new steps

another life saved

2009-07-31T21:24:00.002+10:00

it was the day after this particularly anxious personality was transferred from a private hospital. she had fallen over at home and spent two weeks in hospital with lower back pain radiating down the left leg. no fractures on plain films, but mri showed a smidgeon of narrowing of the left L5/S1 intervertebral foramen. she was put on tramadol and panadol osteo, and had the joint injected with local anaesthetics and steroids under ct guidance. so basically a typical story of lower back pain, not much to find on investigation, but having a drastic impact on her mobility. the private guys finally handball her to us for "slow stream rehab", ie out of their hair. whatever.

except, then she develps new right pelvic rim and hip pain. not much to find on examination except focal tenderness over the greater trochanter. full range of movement in the hip joint. nothing on the original x-rays. doesnt sound particularly radicular or neuropathic. hmm...

later in the evening, just as i was about to go home after three admissions, one of the nurses came up to me with a tinge of panic in her voice: "she's got a pale, pulseless right foot". uh-oh. turns out i could actually feel all the pulses: dorsalis pedis, posterior tibial, popliteal. the foot is pale and cool. tone is reduced, 3/5 strength, reflexes absent and absent plantars. what can it be? i was almost convinced it was neurological but the spectre of ischaemic limb loomed. i put the call through to the on-call consultant, who is also unconvinced but says "she sounds like she won't be happy until we get her back to the private hospital to see a vascular surgeon, but try and talk her out of it." i didn't try too hard - perhaps they could get a neurosurgeon to look at her this time? a letter and a call to the ambos, finally i leave work only three hours late.

the next morning, while getting handover in my day job back at the alfred icu, i get a phone call from my intern: emergency femoral embolectomy. phew! all i can say is, thank god she was a grumpy old fart...

half measures

2009-07-22T22:57:00.005+10:00

the patient has been in hospital for three months, in and out of icu for most of that. a young bloke, he went for a drive on his birthday with his nephew and they smashed themselves up good: broken bits, burns, the works. he has been making slow slow gains, his grafts and regrafts are mostly not taking. he is on tpn and ng feeding but remains cachexic. he is withdrawn and rarely engages. he hasnt moved his right arm for weeks and his left fractured femur is held together by metalware but hasnt made any attempt to form a callus after all these weeks. looking at a double amputation, weeks more in icu, months of rehab and years of recovery, his family have decided to pull out.

my consultant told me he was a bit surprised because he felt the patient had been making gains. but he could understand where the family was coming from. so the plan is to withdraw treatment, and quickly. he told me he didnt like to do thing by half measures. the patient could die by a thousand cuts, slowly succumb to infections and malnutrition over days and weeks. or he could die with dignity. we would turn the sedation up to ten and ten of morph and midaz per hour initially, then titrate upwards freely. three days later, we'd turn the ventilator off, knowing he'd be comfortable and lapse into apnoea.

i don't know if i agree. this seems to go against everything i believe in about medicine, about palliative care, about my role as a doctor. and yet, there is something dangerously seductive in what he says. it feels both right and wrong...

bitch and moan

2009-06-21T22:16:00.003+10:00

when im with others i feel irritated. yet when im finally alone im bored. listless, i turn to comfort food. then i feel bad for eating junk. it never ends. o my empty, meaningless existence.

there is only work. how sad.

bethlehem

2009-06-18T21:58:00.004+10:00

its more aged care than palliative care, and its not ballarat. the cafeteria is horrible and the ward smells. but hey what does it matter - im back doing what i love.

cute frail oldies with their squeaky voices and grumpy ways. fixated family members and div two nursing staff (soooo different from icu). trying to cut through the crap and find practical solutions, always frustrating yet somehow so satisfying when it works (like nothing else ive done). continuity of care! working in a multi-disciplinary team! reasonable working hours! what a blast!

and it's a lot easier now - i have an intern! other doctors don't try to bullshit me because im a "registrar"! what a laugh. im still the same. yet everything is different somehow.

at least my coffee consumption has decreased. thats got to be a good thing.

i see you

2009-05-19T19:58:00.003+10:00

these are scary times.

it's like being a brand new intern again. i print the patient lists in the morning, write in their notes during ward rounds, buy coffee for the team afterwards; i try to laugh at my boss's jokes (it's a bit difficult with the irish accent), try to guess the correct answer to their questions and inevitably get it wrong; and try not to kill anybody. the nurses know far more than i will ever know about everything that scare me: ventilators, haemofilters, and all the other machines that beep incessantly. and when they do (beep), i sneak out of the cubicle quickly, making sure that no one notices, and pray the patient doesn't die before someone else hears the beeping comes to their rescue.

it's great working in a team, partly because i get free coffee, but mostly because it means i don't have to make any decisions. i write what they tell me to write. the registrars are patient and explain everything to me. everyday i go home with a learning list as long as my arm and yet i continue to feel incredibly stupid at the beginning of the next day. in trauma icu everyone has about twenty acute problems. it's so hard to remember who has what injuries: (hang on, didn't we stop vanc on the guy with pseudomonas sepsis? - oh, but there are three guys with pseudomonas sepsis and they're all on different antibiotics regimens).

as well as regressing to my medical student befuddlement, working in trauma has had another effect on my mental state. my daily walks to and from work now fill me with anxiety. i had no idea that so many road accidents take place on melbourne roads. truck versus car. car versus tree, tree versus bike. bike versus pedestrian. so many non-survivable brain injuries. so many organ donations...

i guess it could be worse. at least i am still dreaming...

comfortably numb

2009-04-30T15:52:00.006+10:00

they have propped my head between the pillow and the sheet cuff
like an eye between two white lids that will not shut.

stupid pupil, it has to take everything in.

*

my husband and child smiling out of the family photo;
their smiles catch onto my skin, little smiling hooks.

*

they are subtle: they seem to float, though they weigh me down,
upsetting me with their sudden tongues and their color,
a dozen red lead sinkers round my neck.

- extracts from "tulips" by sylvia plath

theres no place like home

2009-04-19T10:17:00.006+10:00

a real holiday of sorts. im back in brissie again and the weather is gorgeous, warm and clear most days. theres no need for me to help out at the shop. i half-heartedly plug away at my arts essay but that's not due for another couple of weeks. even dad has no irksome odd jobs for me. to top it all off, i don't have to worry about where i'll be sleeping or what i'll be eating, like i had to on the road last year. completely no responsibilities! it's such a novelty, such a luxury...

so i sit around downstairs in our newly renovated house, which has finally been fitted with an assortment of furniture. i while away the days on the internet, meet up with friends, daydream. these could be the best days of my life and i wouldn't know it.

old blog posts
troilus and cressida
nihilism
epicure
golden horde
dream house

sound relief

2009-03-15T17:48:00.007+11:00

personal highlights:
- paul kelly singing "to her door", "how to make gravy" and "leaps and bounds" (with the entire mcg singing along, of course!)
- when crowded house sang "weather with you", the notorious melbourne weather relented briefly and blue skies appeared overhead. they also did "don't dream it's over" and "better be home soon".
- the stadium went completely nuts when hunters and collectors belted out "holy grail", followed by the collective love of "throw your arms around me". aww...

memorable moments:
- the girls on the ground sharing a simultaneous orgasm when jack johnson appeared on stage. im not jealous at all.
- kylie minogue leading 120,000 people in an emotional sing-along of "i still call australia home"
- midnight oil, fronted by a smirking, self-conscious peter garrett, revisiting their signature protest songs, as well as an electric version of the national anthem

not-so-memorable moments:
- sound equipment failure during wolfmother's set
- dickheads shouting "aussie aussie aussie, oi oi oi" during the minute silence
- the mountain of rubbish left behind at the end of the night

the intermittent rain did not stop the crowd from having a great time

magic: blue skies appeared briefly when crowded house sang "weather with you" :D

the disinhibitory effects of vodka: drew and catherine salute the mighty g

coming down off nights

2009-03-10T10:04:00.007+11:00

physically i am tired but mentally i am restless. i tell myself it's the camaraderie but i suspect it's the subconscious sense of power i get from doing night cover, the feeling that what i do is worthwhile, urgent and important.

last night i watched clint eastwood's latest movie gran torino, and it left me with an idea that won't leave me. like a cancer it grows at the edge of my consciousness, gnawing away incessantly until it crowds out all other thoughts and takes over my mind. even as i slept it builds, initially infecting my dreams, then dragging me into the timeless limbo between wakefulness and sleep, until finally i struggle awake, still exhausted in body and agitated in psyche. i yearn for release, for someone to talk to, to bounce ideas off, to share and echo and reaffirm and help me make sense of it. but there is no one. my mind turns and turns around it. It can't let go. loneliness is reinforced. i sit and smoke and pace and makes cups of tea that i leave half-drunk and tries to find distractions in a million little things. but it's no use.

when one sins, one at least is directed towards a goal: forgiveness. even if man cannot grant it, perhaps god can. but if one hasn't sinned, what then? those that live blameless lives live without purpose. why has god given us no meaning but granted us free will? why can I not decide? why am i left to my own devices? isn't that dangerous? isn't that... when everything is possible, nothing is sacred. i live in fear of such freedom.

maybe that's why, as much as i bitch and moan about it, work is the only activity that defines my existence at the moment, and keep me from going insane.

the (un)kindness of strangers

2009-03-05T19:27:00.008+11:00

so there is this woman on the ward who is a month down the track of an ercp complicated by pancreatitis and multisystem failure requiring a prolonged icu admission. shes making slow recovery and spikes a fever one night while on meropenem. the only new thing i find is a murmur. this is potentially very bad. so the septic workup is negative and blood cultures are pending as usual. the team orders an echo and leaves her on meropenem. two days later i get paged about her having another temp. i ask the nurse over the phone to take some blood cultures from the picc line and give her some panadol, and i'd review her and take some blood cultures peripherally myself (because she has no veins) after sorting a few things out in ed. but oh no, if only it was that simple.

nurse: we can't use the picc line.
me: why not?
nurse: i don't know. i was told we can't use her picc line.
me: but she's on meropenem. does she have another iv access? how are you going to give it?
nurse: oh i don't know.
me: well... can you find out?
nurse: (silence)
me: hello?
nurse: anyway i can't take blood from the picc line.
me: why not? is it blocked?
nurse: we don't take blood from the picc line.
me: well, we need to because it could be the source of infection. can you get someone else to take it?
nurse: okay i'll take the blood cultures from the picc line.

anyway, so i get to the ward a bit later to find 1) the blood cultures haven't been taken, and 2) the patient is now receiving meropenem through the supposedly unusable picc line. nice. after explaining to the nurse why we need to stop the antibiotics and take blood cultures while she is still febrile (while trying to resist the overwhelming urge to strangle her), she says anyway she couldn't take the blood cultures because i hadn't physically written up an order form for them.

AARRRRRRGGGHHHHHHHHH!!! DIE YOU STUPID FUCKING BITCH!!!

the cultures finally get taken. and the next day the lab rings the evening cover about positive cultures in two out of two bottles. the picc line had been removed and the tip sent for culture. a toe was being organised to conclusively rule out endocarditis. and the patient was restarted on vancomycin.

vindication is a sweet, sweet thing. sigh. why can't people just do their job? pete is right. i've been sucked into the abyss again, just a few weeks back. there is no why. there is just the shit that comes with everything. deep breath and move on. it's not me, it's them. blah blah blah. if only it was so easy! i think im going to need that annual leave...

faces of melbourne

2009-02-25T11:56:00.005+11:00

i have settled back into routine more quickly than i thought i would. pete might muse about how depressing it is, and hes probably right in the long run, but i find im rediscovering melbourne. st kilda is a fascinating place to live and demands to be discovered. but elsewhere, pocket so full of life, so distinct from each other, if only i wasn't doing nights! or have yet another essay to write! or busy finding excuses...

our local: the george on fitzroy street, st kilda

view from a rooftop bar on swanston street

platform one, flinder street station

footscray junction, note the obama/bush poster :D

resident life

2009-02-09T09:57:00.005+11:00

sunset. orange-pink horizon. the moon already up ahead of me, overlooking the road. at last - the cool change! the noise of peak hour traffic subsiding and people pass me hurrying home. lights are coming on in the houses and apartments. the massive crane towers at the top of the road, signposting the hospital. im heading in for another night shift, and strangely im not altogether unhappy. surprisingly, i suspect i might even be a little content.

the end of the road

2009-01-20T00:25:00.004+11:00

russell fall @ mount field national park

lake pedder

highland lakes road

hartz mountains

so... where to now?

tasmania

2009-01-12T23:17:00.011+11:00

the roads dart between and over hills and mountains, under enormous trees, joining convict era towns and laid-back fishing villages. lots of small roadkill and signs warning drivers of wombats, roos and of course the tassie devil. dairy cows and sheep on pastures wet and green or brown and littered with hay bales. large extended families playing beach cricket. streets deserted after six pm and everyone lining up for their pizza at the local restaurant. walking around port arthur. eager backpackers at cradle mountain and wineglass bay. having tea at luke and michelle's new house. running into summer in st helens (blonde surfie chick from the gold coast that was supposedly taking care of the oldies group on our trans-siberian train trip).

it's been a random few days, and in a way it's been representative of the last twelve months. my year of wandering is nearly over and i'm ambivalent about the future. i can't wait to get back into medicine yet i don't want to go back to work. i hate travelling but there are still so many places i'd love to go to right now. i am dying for routine, for a home, to settle down and at the same time i am not sure about living in a bit city again, sharing house, and planning for the future while getting back into the rat race and basically not doing things spontaneously and living for the moment. it's always give and take: i know, i know...

cradle mountain: mist and snow

intense colours of the tasmanian countryside

lighthouse at low head, tamar valley

orange rocks at skeleton point, near bingalong bay

ducks at red bridge, campbell town

ships in drydock, dunalley

penitentiary ruins, port arthur

isle of the dead

eastward ho!

2008-12-24T10:32:00.015+11:00

heading for the clouds @ bluff knoll

from the top of frenchman's peak @ cape le grande

wave rock, hyden

telegraph station ruins @ eucla

false advertising, the nullarbor plain

venus bay, eyre peninsula

sunset in port fairy

bay of islands, great ocean road

the great southern

2008-12-15T22:02:00.006+11:00

climbing a fire lookout tree, near pemberton

giant tingle tree

conspicuous cliff

picture perfect beaches @ esperance

beach kangaroos @ lucky bay

flooded highway

the southwest

2008-12-10T20:36:00.010+11:00

it was really hard to leave perth. exciting things to do and interesting places to go kept popping up! cat and mark were fantastic hosts. we went people watching, sailing, surfing and kite surfing. we cooked up feasts at home (including a recreation of our trans-siberian experience), tried different beers down at freo and had lunch on william street pretty much every day - gal and i were insatiable in our quest for real asian food after so long in the wilderness...

when we finally hit the road again, it was towards margaret river to explore the famous region between cape naturaliste and cape leeuwin. good wines of course, but a good handful of excellent breweries too, together with a very chilled out vibe made for a very pleasant few days... before the rain set in, and we headed east towards the great southern forests.

jacarandas in bloom @ hyde park, perth

perth skyline from the south perth yacht club

cape leeuwin

cape leeuwin lighthouse

simple tranquility @ eagle bay

the long and winding coast

2008-11-20T18:38:00.008+11:00

emu dad and chick, exmouth

chasing a reef shark @ coral bay

snorkelling with a green turtle

a cheeky dolphin @ monkey mia

the loop, kalbarri national park

jagged coastline near kalbarri

silent watchers @ pinnacles desert

the pilbara

2008-11-13T21:12:00.014+11:00

paradise (cape leveque)

it was really windy @ cape keraudren

so much spinifex... millstream chichester national park

fern pool, karijini national park

knox gorge

hancock gorge

climbing mt bruce

from the top of mt nameless, near tom price

the kimberley

2008-10-15T19:04:00.012+11:00

theres nothing out here but wide open sky and red dirt sprinkled with spinifex, pandanus and gums. the road stretches dead straight to the horizon. on our right are rolling red and green hills, on the left, the blue-grey escarpment. we pass a patch of recently burnt countryside, and the colours change to brown, maroon and black. the red speargrass and sooty ghost gums attempt to break the bleak monotony. or do they add to it?

time pass. we blink and find ourselves further down the neverending road. tumbles of falling down rocks on a shrub-dotted hill. termite mounds of different shapes and sizes, up to two metres tall and wide, not as impressive as the ones in the territory, but there are certainly many varieties here: cathedral columns, flat sails and even lumpy-dumpy ones that remind me either of turd or tiramisu.

the grotto, east kimberley

fiver rivers lookout near wyndham

the bungle bungle range

remnant of the devonian reef @ geikie gorge

freshies enjoying the sun @ windjana gorge

massive boab tree (used as a prison in the past), near derby

sunset at gantheaume point, broome

top end

2008-10-05T22:47:00.010+11:00

get ready for it: i have a new favourite plant, the pandanus spp. personally i prefer pandanus aquaticus, but pandanus spiralis is quite nice as well. okay, thats more than enough about plants :D

ten days of camping in mary river, kakadu and litchfield were simply amazing stuff. surprisingly mary river was my favourite, probably because there was no one else there. we camped for a couple of days at couzens lookout and had the place pretty much to ourselves. sure there is absolutely nothing to do but look at stars after seven pm, but that's the whole point, i think. kakadu and litchfield were somewhat less amazing then i'd expected, but having said that, they are still spectacular places that everyone should visit before they die. as for me, im definitely coming back this way before long: with a real four wheel drive and a winch.

scenary @ devils marbles reminded me of paintings by cezanne

canoeing down katherine gorge was a particular highlight

sunrise views from inside the tent @ mary river

view @ ubirr

plunge pool @ gunlom

florence fall: touristy but nice

the centre

2008-09-22T15:12:00.012+10:00

it surprises many people, including myself, how far we have travelled in less than three weeks. the car has already clocked six thousand kilometres since i left brisbane. are we going too fast? should we be spending more time in fewer places? all i know is i need a break from the mozzies and the flies and the twice-a-day application of 80% deet.

we spent about a week in the centre and i have completely fallen in love with the desert nothingness. in particular, i love spinifex grass. i know it's a strange thing to love but there it is. i love how it coats gorge walls and mountain sides in its fluffy green and yellow and breaks up the monotony of red and brown. there has been a few good walks too: kings canyon rim walk and section 12 of the larapinta trail to mt sounders, both visually stunning and physically satisfying. ormiston gorge was quite nice, too, in case you were wondering...

chilling out @ uluru

sunset @ kata tjuta

desertscape @ rainbow valley

the dry riverbed @ simpsons gap

gal and poyi feeling very small @ ormiston gorge

yep, that's where we're going @ mt sounders

back on the road

2008-09-13T11:02:00.007+10:00

gazing into eternity @ st germain pier

where the hell are we? gal and poyi at wilpena pound

a whole lotta nothin' on the oodnadatta track

chilling out @ mutonia sculpture park

dusk @ coward springs

hanging loose

2008-08-22T12:57:00.003+10:00

my days are decided on a whim. while i've been on the road, external factors had played a big part in their shaping: where i am going to sleep; what i am going to eat; when i need to get up. now that i am home, i have withdrawn into a cocoon of self-indulgence. i sleep until i am no longer tired. i eat as much as i want of mums cooking. i play computer games for hours. apart from a few chores and applying for jobs, the only worries i have are my desires. god it's a tough life! but i am slowly and surely becoming disgusted at myself.

i can't remember what it feels like to be a doctor. for what seems like the last few weeks in europe i dreamed about work every night. it wasnt exactly unpleasant, either. was i missing the camaraderie? the feeling of power, responsibility and purpose? it certainly wasnt the hours or the stress? and i definitely havent missed the game of hamming up my resume, picking the right tie to go with the shirt, or sucking up to hr. god knows i suck at it. i am scared but i am looking forward to it. hopefully i will have a job in melbourne next year.

i'd forgotten how cold it gets in melbourne. ballarat is going to be even colder. i wonder why i like it there so much? it could be that it was my first hospital, that i got to know lots of people, and that they happened to be lovely. perhaps melbourne will be just as good. i doubt it though.

germany

2008-07-07T23:11:00.005+10:00

i have been kicking around in germany for a couple of weeks. the party atmosphere of the first week dissipated quickly when germany lost to spain in the final. i was actually a little bit disappointed after visiting munich and berlin - sprawling metropolises with lots of different suburbs and galleries and gardens and palaces to explore, but it just feels like ive seen it all before. instead, i appreciated dresden and nuremberg a lot more. we stayed at a cute hostel on a artsy street in dresden, that managed to be bustling and laidback at the same time. dresden old town was compact and filled with grand old buildings with blackened walls reminding everyone of the allied firebombing of 1945, and the rustkammer there had the best collection of arms and armour that ive come across (better than the kremlin and the met in new york. nuremberg was more romanesque than gothic, which was a nice change, and the dokumentation centrum set in the old nazi rally grounds was excellent. frankfurt and hamburg were also nice towns to spend a few days in, guzzling down excellent beers by the water, watching the world float by on the waves.

racism: when people treat you differently because of something you have no choice about, something you cant change, it makes you feel very vulnerable. the rest of the day changes for you, all of a sudden you are on the look out. every comment, every glance, seems to be suspicious or even hostile. its a very unpleasant state of being. when the trigger event stem from children, its so much more hurtful in its innocent cruelty. i suppose lots of countries have mostly homogeneous populations, if you look chinese or japanese, they assume you are. even when i assure them im from australia, they look incredulous and fall back on 'but you dont look australian'. no, i dont look like paul hogan, but then again, most australians dont. but they wouldnt know anything about that. and its not just germans that are guilty of racial stereotyping or tactless behaviour towards foreigners. lots of other people ive met on my travels are also just as clueless.

hungary

2008-06-23T04:41:00.002+10:00

i have just stayed at the best hostel ever. i'll admit my first impressions were apprehensive. walking through a non-descript door, up four flights of stairs in the dark, knocking on an unmarked door, then practically falling over some long-haired freak smoking on a bean bag in the living room did not fill my heart with confidence. the long-haired dude turned out to be the owner of the place. evan hails from florida, via berlin, and had been running hostels for a few years. his latest hostel was basically his house, with an open-plan living area (lounge, kitchen, dining) downstairs and two dorms with ensuites up the rickety spiral staricase. but the place was majorly chill. we smoked inside and drank beer talked shit and played poker (i ended my five days there 3000 forints up - yo!), cooked snacks on the stove and watched the football, all in the company of similarly chilled-out people (a real mixed pot: english, irish, americans, mexicans, canadians, finns, norwegians, australians) it was very easy to just hang out and never venture outside except to go next door for more beers and fags... the dorms werent super-massive (im staying at a 40 bed dorm in munich next = whoa) and the bathrooms were squeaky clean. the kitchen was fully equiped and the internet was free. and there were no snorers in my room. what else can one ask for from a hostel?

but i did head outside for a bit, even though the weather was very ordinary. budapest is a charming city. not as beautiful as vienna (vienna was so good that i decided to head back there for another three nights afterwards) but the disintegrating old buildings and the constant flow of the danube contained an energetic, friendly population that made it, well, not better or worse, but different from prague and vienna and st petersburg and all the other great cities i've visited in the last few months.

shearing sheep

2008-06-12T00:52:00.002+10:00

it was time. it was a tad uncomfortable at the belarussian border, being scrutinised by two massive dudes for ten minutes, because i look nothing like my passport photo. i could see them thinking: how can we get him to bribe us? in the end, they let us get back to sleep at 2am.

we walked into the hairdressing school. we didnt speak czech and they knew nary a word of english. what could possiblz go wrong? for forty czech crowns (less than three bucks) i got a short brunette with a nose stud, and gal got a tall blonde. my student got to tick off hair-trimming, beard-cutting and using the clipper - what a model customer i am! it was a bit lumpy, but in a week, you won´t be able to tell anyway.

prague was gorgeous and full of energy. i loved it.

europe at last!

2008-05-30T17:32:00.004+10:00

just as we overdosed on temples and shrines in japan and korea, over the last week it feels like all we have seen are castles and cathedrals. there was of course st basilś and the kremlinś cathedral square in moscow, followed by the church on the spilled blood and the winter palace in saint petersburg. in kyiv we ran into the saints sophia, michael and andrew, as well as the caves monastery (unfortunately we were too late to go exploring underground, indiana jones style). warsaw has also been a blur of churches and castles and little squares surround by houses painted different colours of the rainbow. as we have worked our way across, the number of icons and the use of gold gilding has diminished and pews and stained glass windows have started to appear. now, rather than experiencing the dazzling richness and beauty of god, i am contemplating the vast emptiness and silent simplicity of his house.

speaking of indiana jones, the ads for his latest adventure have been plastered across every available surface in the last four cities. either heś very popular here in europe, or george lucas is getting his moneyś worth from his marketing monkeys.

after the hermitage, i have not felt compelled to visit every museum within a ten kilometre radius - i know itś shocking! for the time being itś great just to wander around the little cobblestoned lanes and leafy courtyards and watch the endless stream of beautiful women walk past me, amidst all the glory of spring.

mongolia

2008-05-10T15:20:00.004+10:00

time is such a strange creature. the last two months, when i reflect on the events of each day, feel like an eternity; and yet, it's a surprise to realise that a quarter of my year off has elapsed already. there is still so much to do and see. thinking about the immediate future is both thrilling and overwhelming. so these days i try not to brood too much, which is rather easy actually, as so much shit is happening every day, even when we're stuck on the train or in a ger camp in the middle of nowhere.

four days in mongolia is barely enough to get an appreciation of this vast, mostly empty land of rolling grassy hills and jutting jagged rocks. we spent a little time in ulaan baator, the chaotic capital in which a third of the country's people reside. next to funky modern skyscrapers still under construction are dirt tracks lined by gers. a statue of lenin leaning forward, urging the people on towards revolution, overlooking trendy boutiques of burberry, gucci and kookai. it was yet another city of contradictions, like beijing on a smaller, more human, more immediate scale. but my favourite part of the mongolian experience was in the ger camp, 70 kilometres from ub, where we went on long hikes over the hills and rocks, tasted traditional mongolian cooking, rode the small mongolian horses, watched the sunrise over distant steppes. the fresh air, open sky and expansive panoramas stangely reminded me of the western districts of victoria, of home...

snapshots

2008-03-08T01:46:00.002+11:00

breakfast of champions

galaxy can run, but he can't hide

nirvana is so hard to reach...

galaxy and chi on top of the world

exploding tastebuds

2008-03-07T10:22:00.004+11:00

walking around the early morning fish market at jagalchi gave us a real appetite. a middle-aged korean lady promised us a feast for only 30,000 won - how could we refuse? raw fish with garlic and wasabi, chased down by fish soup and a sprinkle of kimchi dishes = breakfast of champions.

before our hike to seokbulsa (mountain-top temple with amazing carvings of buddhist deities), we decided to enter a random restaurant (tavern of folkways: what?) and order lunch by pointing at random korean hangul characters. naturally, what appeared on our table were utter surprises. being adventurous types, we decided to invite a bottle of soju (korean vodka) with us on our hike. we only just made the last cable car down the mountain.

tired and hungry, we decided to follow-up our successful luncheon by choosing another random korean eatery for dinner. what eventuated was an excellent (and cheap) korean barbeque in what turned out to be a pretty classy establishment. the evening climaxed when an unsuspecting galaxy and i were waylaid by an innocent-looking green chilli. our mouths were on fire. hot tip for scorching tongues: suck on a pickled kimchi cucumber!

we are certainly well on our way to having stomachs of steel. china, here we come!

walkabout japan

2008-03-02T20:19:00.004+11:00

we based ourselves in kyoto for seven days, and the weather was awful the whole time, with rain and/or snow making walking and sightseeing a very cold and wet experience. but we made the most of it and still had a pretty good time. did lots of day trips, out to himeji, uji, nara and osaka. saw about a billion temples and shrines in kyoto (admittedly it was getting all a bit too much towards the end...) then headed west to hiroshima, briefly stopping at okayama on the way.

himeji castle was amazing - like the castle at inuyama it's one of only four castles in japan that have been preserved in their original state, and not a concrete replica. but himeji castle is about ten times bigger than inuyama castle (or so it felt like). very awe inspiring.

nara-koen was another highlight. it was filled with massive, ancient trees and herds of (apparently sacred) deer, which terrorised countless unsuspecting tourists silly enough to have food in their hands, much to my amusement.

of all the temples in kyoto, my favourite was shoren-in. while it lacked the grandiose buildings, magnificent paintings or exquisite gardens that featured in some of the others, it didnt have hordes of tourists armed with cameras led by a microphone-wielding guide holding a little flag. it was modest but peaceful, with big, old trees and quiet, humble alters.

from hiroshima we caught the ferry out to miyajima to see the famous floating torii of itsukushima shrine. that was nice but not in itself particularly memorable. what was memorable was the two-hour hike we did to the top of mt misen. the trail was wonderful (but exhuasting) and the view from the top was fantastic.

but, you know what? the best part about the last two weeks has been spending time with mum. (yes, i know that is a nauseating-ly warm fuzzy admission to make)

japanese quirks

2008-02-26T22:14:00.004+11:00

vending machines. i know it's common knowledge but the i didnt appreciate just how many of these things there are. it's staggering. they are quite literally on every street corner. and they are usually accompanied by a bin for recycling bottles and cans. a nice touch. smokes, beers, soft-drinks, tea, coffee, soups, batteries... the selection is endless. however, i am yet to see one selling underwear, new or used (maybe its an urban myth).

restrooms. do japanese people have weak bladders? or is the number of public restrooms a necessity resulting from mass consumption of beverages readily available at the above mentioned vending machines? each temple has at least three and each garden half a dozen. castles have almost as many toilets as towers and turrets. it's crazy!

smokers. restaurants and trains still have smoking sections. it seems like half the people i see on the streets have a durry in their hands. isn't this unusal for a people so mad about health and fitness? or is this phenomenon a mere reflection of their tolerance of other people's bad habits?

boxy cars. they are abhorrent looking things. small and ridiculously angular, even the vans and utes are tiny. given the narrow and winding nature of their streets, i can sympathise with the need for compact vehicles. but do they need to look like lego-mobiles?

pot plants. i love the little pot plants crowding the entrances and windows of japanese homes. they are all very well looked after and neat, complimenting the meticulously clean doorways and driveways. the japanese are a very neat people indeed!

snow at last

2008-02-22T22:14:00.003+11:00

seeing snow falling for the first time, mums behaviour regressed to that of a four year old girl. it was mildly embarrassing to see her jump up and down in front of nagoya station, waving her arms towards the sky. it also makes ones heart fill up with warm and fuzzy feelings, doesn't it?

highlights of the last few days have been visiting the castle at inuyama (unlike most castles in japan, this was an original, rather than a concrete replica); seeing a crowd of japanese girls dressed up in punk gear lining up to see a pop band; walking around hida-no-sato, which consisted of a dozen or so farmhouses, each of them centuries old, transported from all over the countryside and reconstructed to form a village in takayama; the train ride from takayama to toyama, the tracks crossing over jade-green rivers and tunnelling under tree-topped mountains heavy with snow; and the town of kanazawa - galleries filled with beautiful pottery and calligraphy, the gorgeous kenroku garden, the wonderfully preserved streets of the geisha and samurai districts. too bad we only planned to stay one night there!

its been good and bad travelling with mum. shes happy to go along with pretty much whatever i suggest (we do have pretty similar tastes), and we've been doing a lot of catching up; at the same time she is even worse than me at reading maps, so we often spend ages stuck in the middle of the sidewalk, with traffic forced to divert around us, while we argued about where we were and which way we're supposed to be going. she also has a tendency to walk in front of oncoming traffic, which is rather unsettling.

hibernation

2008-02-13T18:02:00.003+11:00

i have been eating pretty much non-stop since i landed on friday. only sleep manages to punctuate my perpetual feasting. the chinese new year gorging has been supplemented by the required tasting of all the foods i haven't had for ages that i must have before i leave again. i don't even need to go on the hunt - the horde of circling relatives ensure i have all sorts of tasty treats within my reach. my abdomen is ballooning out, growing in size daily. and nothing satisfies more after stuffing my face than a long snooze in a warm, dark place. after all it's winter here in taiwan. and soon i will be on the move. only three more days of gorging before my plane leaves for nagoya. kampai!

highway 39

2008-02-06T18:20:00.000+11:00

my last days at the rat were filled with those wonderful people who had made the last two years special. ange and george stole a pickup stick from work and made a cd recording of themselves saying random things; went over to clare's house for dinner with aaron, heath, weif and dom; had dinner with my allied health 'harem'; paul helped me move all my stuff into storage; nurses baked cakes for us and the boss took us out for lunch; had a weekend away at carolyn's grandma's beach house at walkerville with brumbles and alison; a couple of parties and numerous afternoons at the pub lingering into evenings...

despite the stuff-ups with my visa applications and the stress of packing and moving, despite the going away drinks and the hugs and goodbyes, the reality of going overseas and driving around australia still seem a distant one, a daydream to play with when im bored then put away for later. i don't feel like im in the middle of an excellent adventure; i don't even really look forward to it that much. what is wrong with me?

a bit of my new reality began to sink in as i drove between ballarat and brisbane. the newell highway, highway 39, departs shepparton, victoria and stretches the entire length of country new south wales until it arrives at goondiwindi at the queensland border. somewhere after dubbo, the tall gum trees lining the road, the rolling foothills of the great dividing range, the field of morning fog hiding emerald paddocks, the countless passing highway towns, each with its own farcical claim to fame... all blended together to leave a sense of wonder threatening to burst from my chest. between goondiwindi and warwick, sheets of rain collapsed around me, lightning thundered too close for comfort, and peering intently into the five metres of water in front of me, i rediscovered the jolt of fear and exhilaration that i last experienced when i entered a train compartment on the new york city subway, late one night in july, to suddenly realised that i was the only one on board who wasn't black. it's moments like these that make one feel incredibly alive.

momento mori

2007-12-12T07:53:00.000+11:00

the man in room 15 presented with a three-month history of hoarse voice, lethargy, anorexia and weight loss. CT chest showed a left hilar mass and mediastinal lymphadenopathy. Bone scan revealed widespread metastases. CT brain, abdomen and pelvis lit up liver mets, adrenal mets, bone mets, pleural effusions, the works. We are waiting for his CT-guided lung biopsy results to come back from the lab. But he is a sitting duck. We all think he is fucked. I'm sure he can tell from our voice and our eyes.

I hae been telling him to eat, to get out of bed and mobilise, in order to maintain his weight and muscle bulk, so he can remain fit for chemotherapy. It's war, I tell him, and you must be fit. You've got to buff up so you can fight it. But what is it all for?

I have seen his family. Met his anxious wife and daughter. They have no idea what he is in for. Will I be seeing them in day oncology in two weeks' time? Will they be like all the others, giving up their own lives to extend his? Will it all be worth it?

The woman in room 18's blood films came back confirming her neutrophilia. Toxic granules and band forms. She has a serious bacterial infection and we are giving her ciprofloxacin. She was asymptomatic so we sent her home. But we haven't found a bug. Perhaps we should bring her back in and scan her head to toe. An abscess, a fistula, anything. Her grandchildren were clueless and a little intimidated by all the goings-on of an acute medical ward. Will they lose their grandmother because the doctors couldn't find bacteria?

The pathologists' middle son got married the other weekend. His eldest has just become a father, and his youngest is graduating from physiotherapy school this year. I was going home on my afternnon off, and he was strolling back to work afater lunch at home, so we were both having great afternoons.

They have all delivered their genes successfully to the next generation. I have only my patients.

classy characters in the rat

2007-10-28T13:51:00.000+11:00

starry nights

2007-10-05T12:53:00.000+10:00

saturday was the grandfinal gathering at weifies. sunday, monday and tuesday were spent madly doing my arts essay on european integration (yawn). med cover wednesday night. a most excellent party at the students compound thursday evening (trolley fire! eighties music! giggling gyrating blonde medical students! core!)

can't hardly keep my eyes open and the maxalon down today. phwo!

is life supposed to be filled with meaning? when i stop to think about it, my life seems to be dominated by feelings rather than meaning. mostly emptiness and loneliness, with moments of overwhelming rapture that threatens to blow me up to a billion pieces. but these days im far too busy to stop for long. which is good, because im not cut-up by all these feelings. but its also bad. because im starting to not give a shit.

outta my way, damn scrooges!

home alone

2007-09-21T22:00:00.000+10:00

i have been a busy little bee.

weekend away with gal, brumbles and kermit at the grampians. we walked for miles. we played plenty of games. mount williams at sunset was really nice. lunch on top of the hallow mountain was fantastic fun. we were all exhausted on the way home. exhausted-silly.

med cover weekend reminded me how much fun acute medicine could be. it was steady, but not busy; easy but not quiet; no codes!

i love oncology. working with three interesting women (jackie, yen and kate). interesting patients. interesting problems. lots of palliative care. i have even managed to go to clinic once! it's a sign of bigger and better things to come, fingers crossed. and acute care nurses, thank the lord for them!

now for a weekend of rest and arts homework. brumbles is going away for five weeks to europe. aaron has a couple of weeks off in perth. i will be home alone. sigh.

time

2007-09-05T13:32:00.000+10:00

a mate of mine recently got engaged. i only found out a little while after the fact. actually, many people did. a few were mystified by this delay. some have even been apparently offended. inevitably people are guessing, wondering, coming up with conspiracy theories, trying to justify to themselves why they haven't been told, casting a shadow on what should be a very exciting and happy moment. i must admit that i too was mystified and felt a general unease at how things have turned out. it's so unfair! why should this been happening to such a gorgeous person during such a wonderful time?

thank god brumbles (another mate) cut through all the crap and declared: it's none of their business.

perhaps she had wanted to keep it her little secret just for a little while, a promise just between two people. to be able to go about her daily business with a core of happiness bubbling inside, washing over all the stresses of day-to-day life. i think it's a brilliant thing to do. like eloping with your lover, it is a private moment shared, defiant against the world. fantastic.

i suggested to brumbles that perhaps a big engagement party is what will clear the foul air and make the atmosphere warm and fuzzy once more. she shook her head and said: why? it's not her style, and she owes nobody anything. but how else is this to be resolved? i wondered. she hrmf-ed wisely and said: time.

oh all bow down before the wise one.

not that im counting or anything

2007-08-26T04:00:00.000+10:00

10.6 shifts down, 12.4 shifts to go.

it has actually been a lot better the second time around. as a resident, the ed consultants seem more likely to believe you when you tell them your patient doesn't look like they're on the brink of death. and the ed nurses even do ecg's and put in iv cannulas when you ask them to. even the patients appear less twitchy when you see them and actually trust you enough to go home when you tell them to bugger off because there's nothing wrong with them.

perhaps i have changed somewhat over the last 12 months... but how?

still, the ten hour shifts are pretty long and intense; and weekend night shifts still suck. and i still hate the lack of continuity of care. can't wait until i move on to oncology. oh sure it's not all doom and gloom. im learn a lot of paeds and acute medicine and general practice stuff. it's good to get back into the swing of things: actually using my brain to diagnose instead of just institute knee-jerk management; seeing interesting, baffling medical problems instead of just grappling with frustrating psychosocial issues that can never be solved. the joy of it all.

home sweet home

2007-08-09T18:14:00.000+10:00

my first ed shift fizzed before it began. i had rocked up at ten, ready to rumble, my guts in a knot of anxiety, only to be told they had expected me to be at work earlier that day, where had i been, etc. turned out they'd changed the roster without telling me. so all i could do was trudge home, wide awake, trying to wind down, get some sleep. at least i caught the end of er. abby is so hot. even if she doesn't have an uterus any more.

madly planning my travels next year. so restless. but i know it won't be long before im consumed by work. then i'll have no energy to do or think about anything other than getting home and slumping on the couch.

back in the frozen grey landscape of ballarat. picked up a cold from someone already. how wonderful it is to be home.

homeward bound

2007-07-25T23:42:00.000+10:00

had a couple of drinks with two randoms my last night in boston. richard, 27, from switzerland, ran a business offering overseas language courses. his mannerisms reminded me of dunno. tania, 22, from chile, is a teacher here on a booking buying spree. we had a good three hours, drinking, smoking, talking about the state of the universe.

i have been mostly vege-ing out this time around nyc, being a blob on the couches at the hostel, reading a tom clancy thriller, thinking, dozing. went on a walking tour of greenwich and east villiage yesterday. the guide, evan, is a middle-aged bronx native with a goatee and ponytail. very trippy.

white stripes at madison square garden was 4/5. could hardly have been further away from the stage, but at least i was dead in front and had a clear view, luckily with no tall dicks standing in front of me. meg's singing was off, the intriguing turns of her voice missing, as if she was too tired/drunk/sick to try. jack was manic, red, glorious. their use of colour, lights and shadow on the stage was magnificent as expected, and the disco light was out of this world. they took a ten minute interval, and the audience cheered through the whole thing, flicking little blue glowsticks across the darkness. it was surreal.

flying out today. willing be a long twenty-four hours. sigh. i hate flying.

boston

2007-07-22T07:24:00.000+10:00

jfk museum
this turned out to be a very inspiring place. jfk's story was inherently magnetic, of course, and there is no question at all that jackie was the most beautiful woman of her time. the exhibits were well set-up, and the architecture was interesting, too. the wonderful view of the water from the glass pavillion, at the end of the exhibits, was perfect. it left me in a contemplative and peaceful mood. im glad they didnt sink to the level of the conspiracy theorists and dwell on the assassination.

museum of fine art, boston
another place being renovated. to be honest, i expected a bit more from the experience. perhaps im a bit spoilt after the wonderful collections in the previous three cities. the edward hopper exhibition was very crowded. but without a doubt he is a real master: i love how his watercolours look like oils, and his oils look like watercolours. they are incredible.

harvard
both the museum of natural history and the art museums were very good collections of manageable size that i could get through without becoming bored or exhausted. for an hour or so i wandered around the harvard yard and getting semi-lost in the winding streets. there were teenagers arriving with their parents in tow and luggage: isn't a bit early for new students to be arriving? the place reminds me a lot of parkville. obviously the buildings were a bit older and, well, it is harvard, after all...

freedom trail
a good walk around historic boston. once again, the architecture is what entertained me the most. so many different colours! why is melbourne and ballarat so grey? the narrow and winding streets was a very welcome change after the rigid grids of the previous three cities.

philadelphia

2007-07-19T11:24:00.000+10:00

the streets of philadelphia are unlike those of new york (exhaust-choked jungle of steel and glass) or dc (neoclassical marbled monoliths). the beautiful two-hundred odd-years-old buildings are juxtaposed against modern skyscrapers, but instead of competing, they seem to complement each other. even the condition of the roads is better (however, the traffic continues to be disgusting). i feel much more at ease in this town. nevertheless, i remain undeniably in america. the droves of homeless in parks, for one, are just as prominent as nyc and dc.

the rodin museum houses a collection of his sculptures. i think the gates of hell would've been much more impressive if it had been cast two or three times bigger. rodin certain does beautiful hands. more rodin sculptures are found in the nearby philadelphia museum of arts. this place is somewhere between brooklyn museum of arts and the met. van gogh's sunflowers is here. the real thing seems less vibrant as the prints, somehow. but the host of cezannes, renoirs and monets are fabulous. upstairs are various rooms beautifully decorated: a japanese tea garden, a hindu temple, a chinese temple, a qing-dynasty room, fransciscan monastery, 16th/17th/18th/19th century european interiors etc. a marvellous few hours.

also interesting was the eastern state penitentiary (ie prison), a decaying ruin abandoned after 141 years of holding prisoners in solitary confinement. even in the 30-degree heat it felt damp and eerie. the thirty foot walls seemed silent and solemn, as if reluctant to speak of the suffering they have witnessed.

before i left dc, somehow, bec and i managed to catch up for dinner. it was another instance when shit just comes together. it was wonderful, sitting in the mild breeze by the potomac, talking, listening, just being.

a modern-day athens

2007-07-16T07:01:00.000+10:00

national portrait gallery and smithsonian gallery of american art
this is a fascinating place that took me three afternoons to get through. images (photographs, busts, paintings, etc) of significant americans and their stories. the painting of jfk in green and yellow is perfect. it's a pity the gallery shop had such terrible prints.

the phillips collection
i think of this as the twin of the fricks collection in new york. the building itself isn't anywhere near as excellent as the fricks, but the artwork possibly surpasses it. you know that renoir painting of all those young people around a table? the prints are everywhere. well, the real thing is here, along with van goghs, monets, rothkos, etc. its just superb!

capitol, white house, supreme court, washington monument, lincoln memorial
just a bunch of neoclassical marbled monoliths stuffed inside full of statues and enormous paintings about washington and lincoln et al. i guess they are obligatory to visit. but the queues are just not worth it. the lincoln memorial reminds me of chiang kai shek's equivalent in taipei. except cks gets a tough looking guard with a dress uniform and rifle, and lincoln gets a couple of fat american cops chewing gum and loungeing about.

library of congress
what started out as a place to dump my bag (the cloakroom here saved me from dumping my bag in the bin while i went on a tour of the capitol building) turned out to be much, much more. the murals and frescos were worth the half-an-hour tour. the main reading room, which you can look at from the landing, is intricately decorated - if a bit over the top.

national gallery of art
like the metropolitan museum of art in new york, but less crowded. fewer picassos and monets, but more cezanne, sisley, renoirs etc. overall, i thought it was far more pleasant that the met. and, would you believe it, the section on eighteenth and nineteenth century european painting was being renovated. just my luck.

freer and arther sacks galleries, hirshhorn gallery, national museum of natural history
interesting places to spend a few hours. the gem collection at the latter is pretty popular, and to be honest, quite spectacular, with its tiffany diamonds and the hope diamond.

hamlet @ shakespeare theatre
hamlet was a touch overdone, gertrude was terrible, phelia was sensational. i enjoyed it immensely. for a tragedy though, it was rather funny. and the american accents just didn't seem right for the bard...

u-street walkabout
my lonely planet guide was beating its drum about this neighbourhood being the essense of culture and cool in dc, so i went for a look. the narrow, fairytale tower-like houses crowded together, painted in dark red or browns or blues or creams reminded me of brooklyn; trees clothed with their leaves green in all the glory of summer; soft tinkling piano and jazz bass floated out of bar doorways with the air-conditioned cool. it was wonderful. it was also really weird, with so many black dudes loungeing about the sidewalk, rattling their cups, asking for money.

dupont circle walkabout
much more than the phillips collection, this area (especially along massachusetts and connecticut avenues) has dreamy architecture and flags of the world hang in front of all the embassies. i also stumbled across the woodrow wilson house, where he lived for the three years after his presidency until his death. for a history buff, it was fascinating. the museum guides are very passionate about their favourite topic. some might even say fanatical, in that sweaty-palmed, glassy-eyed, role-playing kind of way. creepy but cool.

city of the dead

2007-07-14T13:54:00.000+10:00

the wide clean streets of washington are deserted in strips at night. the homeless dot the landscape. gangs of whites and blacks huddle around the few lighted areas. by day, in the harsh july sun, droves of tourists roam in the stifling heat. the city feels sterile. soul-less. full of malaise. i hate it. and yet my little lonely planets guide paints a picture of town filled with power and passion. that may be so in the monolithic air-conditioned federal office corridors, but out here on the pavement, there is only the walking dead.

it had been at the back of my mind, but contrast with my present surroundings has thrusted it forward in my consciousness. new york city is like a living organism. there is always construction and renovations and areas of decay. new yorkers busy about their lives, giving their city a relentless pulse. its energy is contagious. you either breath it in and immerse yourself in it, or it overwhelms you and you drown.

i am always exhausted at the end of the day. some of it, i know, has to do with the heat and the humidity. but america and americans grate my nerve raw. someone once described them as a powerful child. there is truth in this allusion. industrious, hopeful, intelligent, beautiful, full with energy and talent and ability. but just because everything is possible doesn't mean that everything is good. there is so much cruelty in their ignorance.

no, this is unfair. it's not just the americans. but more seem to have crossed my path these past few days. it is simply that these people are inconsiderate. inconsiderate people drive me nuts. i want to shoot them all and make them suffer. i wish i had the point-of-view gun!

leaving new york city

2007-07-13T11:21:00.000+10:00

harbour cruise
this was definitely one of the highlight of my trip. because i forgot to bring my watch, i had to wait at the pier for an hour before we could actually get on the boat. however, this meant i got a really good seat on the packed boat, behind this one chick with insolent, sexy eyes and a killer southern accent, and a couple of seats from an angellic french teenager with a body made for sin. *drool* to top off the good views, the cruise was narrated by this comedian who sounded just like seinfeld! fabulous.

the frick collection
together with brooklyn and the guggenheim, this is another one of the rare few really cool places in new york city. the paintings and statues (bronzes, marbles and even a terracotta diana) were splendid, set in a gorgeous house with impeccable interior decorations. must say though, i wouldn't enjoy living in a place like that: wouldn't be able to leave a mess without scores of minions to clean up after me. and i'd probably feel too lonely.

the whitney museum of american art
different. a poor man's guggenheim. isn't quite worth the $15 admission. the most interesting exhibit was about the hippy phenomenon in the sixties (that, incidentally, was free). a few other cool paintings round off a rather strange collection.

random pub in little italy
had grand plans but then it rained. did the only sensible thing and dived into a random pub. sank a few brews with a bloke called michael, who turned out to be fascinated with asia, and disturbingly probably knows more about taiwan than i do.

train ride to washington
the seats were surprisingly roomy. read and dozed in the sun. not really any good scenery along the way. just little and big towns dotting the countryside. a good way to travel, to think.

new york culture update #3

2007-07-11T06:36:00.000+10:00

brooklyn: the coolest borough of them all
walking over the brooklyn bridge, wandering around the tree-lined streets named after fruits, surrounded by beautiful architecture and cool deserted streets: there's no doubt i'd rather be here than the lunacy of manhattan. even the people seem cooler (unlike those in the east village, who are just plain weird). the brooklyn museum of art: no crowds, beautiful pictures, nice ambience. bloody awesome.

harlem
i doubt i would have ever ventured out here on my own. luckily some bearded dude hungover from the sixties did a walking tour straight from the hostel. it was hot and dirty, but mostly worthwhile. i think. we meandered through big empty streets and lush dirty parks littered with crack cocaine containers and baggies: apparently a significant improvement from the days past when cocaine vials crunched underfoot. far out.

lincoln centre
saw cinderella (american ballaet theatre) at the metropolitan opera house. i was right up the top, in the family circle (think hamer hall, near the roof). i know what you're thinking: ballet?! look, whatever, it wasn't too bad. it was dance. i like dancing. we had something in common. and nice music to go with the whole thing as well. i would probably go again. you know what they say about traveling changing people...

museum of modern art, metropolitan museum of art
i'm lumping these two together because they are basically the same: enormous, cumbersome, crowded places filled with way too many picassos and renoirs and rocks from egypt. i think its the congestion of people that really get to me. and the rude suited security guys really piss me off. and the fact they keep roping off sections for no apparent reason. and the museum shops at the end of all the exhibits with selling overpriced crap and filled with obese people with annoying accents blocking the well-hidden exits. AARRRRRRGGGHHHH!!!!!! gimme brooklyn anytime.

guggenheim museum
now this place is something else entirely. for me, its second only to brooklyn in the coolness factor. i even spent way too much money on a print and big fuck-off tube to carry it around in. i have no idea how im going to cope lugging it around the country and on to the plane etc etc. ironically, one of the pieces in the museum told us: the more we own, the less free we are: aint that the truth! but, im getting ahed of myself. first of all, the building itself. i know it's been talked about to death but it is absolutely magnificent. and the art inside, not just pictures (although there were plenty of those) but installations too, were really exciting. finally, i don't know if i was just early or lucky, but it wasn't particularly crowded. i got a bit carried away...

fifth avenue walkabout
in my post-guggenheim ecstacy i decided to wander down fifth avenue from the 103rd street, hang a left at the 42nd, check out the united nations building, then take in east village and chinatown. after walking about 150 blocks later, i realised it was a bad idea, but by then i had very sore feet and not much of a mental capacity left.

midtown along the fifth avenue is like wall street, but feels like a dusty, exhaust-choked wasteland in the guise of capitalist paradise. there were plenty of expensive shops, countless brightly dressed young women (why don't australian girls like wearing short semi-transparent dresses? they all do here! drool...) but it was about 35 degrees and a string of sirens went past, eleven police cars at one count. it felt like i was in an absurd play, everything was warping at the edges, then...

the air-conditioned grandeur of the grand central terminal. once again, like all american things, this place is bloody huge. 130+ tracks? spencer street, eat your heart out! but, like all american things, it felt coarse around the edges. massive domes left undecorated. elaborate archways leading to drab concrete tunnels. beautiful marbled floors but litter everywhere. basically, the whole vibe of the place was cheap. what a shame.

after several more hazy streets filled with car horns and angry vendors selling hotdogs and pretzels, finally, the relative cool of the united nations building. there was a queue for a tour of the place, which cost thirteen bucks. but the line was moving at sloth-pace so i turned around and headed south instead. but cbgb was no longer there, graffiti on the walls said our world was a little darker, but all i wanted was a cool drink and a little shade. stumbled onwards deeper into east village. it was a strangely wonderful place being slowly eroded by relentless waves of commercialisation. what was that tom petty song? there was even a cbgb souvenir shop. it was all wrong, but the red and brown buildings were really captivating.

finally, i was in chinatown. it sprawled like a crumbling guargantuan. by this time i had been reduced to a mindless savage. thoughts of food, shade and sleep took over my entire consciousness. the first was easy to come by in an area occupied by the chinese. it was unsurprisingly cheap as well. but the second required more dragging of tired feet across town. finally, i was inside an air-conditioned train shooting north back towards the hostel.

new york culture update #2

2007-07-09T07:04:00.001+10:00

american museum of natural history
this is the real deal: they use real dinosaur bones in their reconstruction, not casts. the four floor monolith is incredible, and i struggled to see everything in one day. i suggest two days if you have kids in tow, or you're a kid yourself. and start on the fourth floor so you don't skimp on the dinosaurs. my word they are impressive! i also found out what badgers and racoons actually look like at last. totally worth the sore legs and the effort required to gently shovel little screaming children out of my way.

rent @ the nederlander theatre
three of the regular casts were out for the night. the understudies started shakily but warmed up quickly, such that by the end of the first act, the applauses began to feel deserved rather than polite. to be honest, i've never been one to harp about musicals, but at the end of it all, i was left less than impressed: is this the best america has to offer? isn't broadway the crown of western theatre? perhaps i should've checked out spamalot, phantom of the opera or even les mis instead...

liberty and ellis islands
it is worth getting up early so you're down at castle clinton to get your ferry tickets by 9am. the number 1 train is nice and slow (stops at all the stops) and the queue was already getting out of control by the time the first ferry was off. the statue of liberty was pretty cool, all things considered. but don't bother with ellis island: it's just a big empty building. full of history, yes; worth lining up for the ferry back to manhattan, a most definite no.

wall street
this place is phenomenal. it exceeded all my expectations. so many beautiful, tall, old buildings! i spent a good hour wandering around aimlessly looking up, always up. afterwards i kept going over the brooklyn bridge, and wandered around brooklyn heights. but i'll leave that story for later.

empire state building
the longest, craziest queue of them all: it curled around itself about three hundred times until finally, an hour and half later, i found myself on the eightieth floor, decidedly not outdoors, definitely not on the observation deck, and far from impressed. luckily, this was just a way for the capitalists to plug an audio-tour and cheesy postcards. the audio-tour is absolutely gold. i would highly recommend you secure tony's services, just to listen to his boo-ti-ful accent. the postcards were duds so i returned them, no thanks!

the view from the eighty-sixth floor was excellent. with tony in tow, i looked in all directions and spent a merry hour or so in the clear summer rays. wish i had brought my buffalo brewery hotel bucket hat with me though, i think i got second degree burns.

new york culture update #1

2007-07-08T06:58:00.000+10:00

i have concluded that new yorkers love queues. this is not a coincidence. in a city of eight million people all in a rush, shortages are inevitable. yet there is a need to to maintain a veneer of civil behaviour, hence queues.

for new yorkers, queues reinforce their place in the universe:
their city is screwing them all day, every day.
true new yorkers never complain when they find themselves in a queue:
everyone else is also getting screwed,
so they accept their misfortune with dignity; however,
this is not to say they like queueing up:
if they can pull some strings, call in favours, and get to the head of the line, top of the heap, etc they will: after all, it is the new york way.

first impressions of earth

2007-07-07T12:02:00.000+10:00

los angeles international airport is without a doubt the worst place i've ever been to.
ugly non-functional architecture;
american flags every where, so crass and unimaginative;
shuffling, blank people completely demorolised -
a spiritual wasteland.

new york was grey and raining, which reminded me of melbourne and ballarat,
except all the cars were on the other side of the road;
subtle differences in the buildings and the cars and people:
bigger, brighter, more obnoxious, super-real;
the american dream in every gesture and word.

the smell of raw sewerage on the nose, the blast of loud chatter in your face, the heat of the streets against the skin;
the terrible condition of the roads and the horrible drivers using their horns freely -
the garbage on the sidewalks (don't they have bins? don't they recycle?) -
the conscientious lack of eye contact on the subway -
remind of of taiwan.

before the tunnel between queens and manhattan was a field of tombstones.

time to go

2007-07-01T17:41:00.000+10:00

after forty-two weeks of subacute care, i knocked off work at the qe one last time around 830pm on friday. walking down the ramp, looking back at the flat, sprawling, ugly monolith, a flash of nostalgia quickly quelled. no more overnight on-calls! no more disabled parking permit applications to fill out! im free at last!

but you (think you) know i (think i) love it.

however, this is not just more end-of-rotation rhetoric spurred on by the relief of finishing a physically and emotionally exhausting rotation or the five weeks of annual leave hot on its heels; no, its long past time for me to get back to acute, learn how to put drips in again, dealing with acute nurses, real codes, rushed communications with patients and their families, senior colleagues watching/looking over my back. i dont know. i cant tell. how its going to go. whatever.

home for three days then onwards to nyc. practically a whole twenty-four hours spent on planes and airports. bugger me. i hate flying.

its all happening

2007-06-16T17:05:00.000+10:00

paid for the tickets yesterday: im off to new york city in two weeks! in an afternoon frenzy, i joined the yha and booked accommodation in nyc and dc as well. it'll be interesting sharing a room with eleven other people. i wonder if i'll sleep at all. heath and jono are pretty excited. after all, they're right: it's bloody exciting. only thing is, still not sure if i can do the quick detour to fortaleza. the ten day turnaround for the visa was cutting it a bit close. the plan now is to go to the embassy in dc and see if i can grease some palms and get it quicker in person. hopefully the tickets would be cheaper in the states as well.

allied health cocktail party last night was absolutely mad. a really good turnout for maso's last day and jonesy's birthday. everyone frocked up and looked fantastic. really it was a complete zoo at side-by-side. three random ophthalmology registrars were on the prowl, drinking moet by the bottle. the lap-dancing poles received a lot of love from drunken dancing punters. the eighties music videos went down a treat - doesn't it always? multitude of conversations with a multitude of people - i don't really remember but i dimly recall that they felt important and meaningful at the time with the double bourbon on the rocks. the chips with bolognaise and cheese from the silver bullet on the way home had never tasted better.

wished i had some photos to share. but i forgot. i think miyuki took about a billion though.

weddings

2007-05-23T09:47:00.000+10:00

been to a couple of weddings recently. they are simply filled with warm-fuzziness. clare and heath strolled into the sunlight together in swan hill. taisia and thommo kissed every time we tapped our glasses in ascot vale. we danced and ate and drank and caught up with old friends. aww...

surviving rehab. no registrar this week. consultant away for the next two weeks. and im on conference leave for a couple of days as well! it's just ridiculous. five more weeks to go.

i think i'll go to new york for my annual leave.

look at me, im a viral mess

2007-04-27T18:17:00.000+10:00

nothing like two sleepless nights up spent hugging a bathroom basin being sick to give you a different perspective on reality.

i thought i hated my life. my stupid consultant. the drudgery of paperwork. the absence of a love life (or any life outside work, come to think of it). it slipped out innocently one evening while i was sitting on the couch. how wrong i was.

i never realised how happy a person can be just to sleep through one night without being woken up by waves of nausea, abdominal pain, headache or fever.

oh. im on call this weekend. fuck.

home (or the closest thing to it)

2007-04-08T21:59:00.000+10:00

surprisingly, im back in brisbane for two days.

a total lack of desire to return meant that, when mum's last minute nagging finally got to my conscience, the tickets i bought were twice as expensive than they normally are. but i paid for them, much to ange's disgust: what else is a man supposed to do?

home means the usual family dramas, but the beauty of a quick weekend visit means everyone is on their best behaviour. we're all still putting up with each other's bad habits and banalities. so i sit and read my magazine and books. ang hides in his room making love to his laptop. mum sleeps and cooks. dad wanders around trying to impress everyone but we've all become quite good at ignoring him. one day his ego will surely fail and then he'll be reduced to a sorry blob. then we might take pity on him and give him some of our time and his much craved attention. i love him, i really do. but he's only tolerable in small doses.

ang was angry that i never called him. he accused me of calling my friends more than i call him. this is true. but i find i have nothing to say to him. we have no common ground on which to share or build dreams. maybe im just not trying hard enough.

mum is telling me the same thing. i am calling her less and less. i don't listen. why have i became such an inpatient, cruel person? catherine is right: i snap so quickly these days. in the past i used to put up with so much, waiting for the beautiful moment to justify all my hanging around. now i just walk out. instant gratification is what im after. i detest what im evolving into. im sure its work thats doing this to me. i must rediscover meaning.

speaking of instant gratifications. heres the latest toy:

snapshots

2007-03-02T17:05:00.000+11:00

work is stale. but i love the people i'm working with. rosie is a most fantastic consultant. but she is such a shit magnet. it seems like every time she's on the ward someone crashes. the nurses are friends that look out for me. as a team we're a well-oiled machine, working like a dream. i could just never leave...
*
they stuffed up my enrolment. i won't be doing an arts subject this term. but i've signed up to do the physicians training lectures. i feel as if i'm back in first year again: incredibly stupid, scared shitless.
*
living with brumbles and aaron is very different to living with jono. my life is lacking far-out conversations. we skate around each others superficialities. i feel numb at home. insulated. bored.

roadtrip update no.4

2007-02-18T12:13:00.000+11:00

beer bottle hammer @ goondiwindi

another wave of sheep @ the outback

a dugout @ white cliffs

sunset @ white cliffs

royal flying doctors base @ broken hill

happy travellers @ baffalo brewery, boorhaman

who loves beer? @ bridge road brewery, beechworth

yet more brews @ bright brewery

the end of an epic journey

roadtrip update no.3

2007-02-11T11:28:00.000+11:00

day 13: brisbane – ipswich – toowoomba – goondiwindi
after a hearty lunch with the folks at the norman hotel (the worst vegetarian restaurant in queensland), our adventurous duo made their way to toowoomba. wandered around picnic point for a bit and drove around town some, got bored, drove to goondiwindi on the qld-nsw border. the camping site was pretty awesome, but the ground was incredibly resistant to our tent pegs. we had to improvise using beer bottles as hammers (we drank the beers first, of course).

day 14: goondiwindi – burke – white cliffs
drove over 1000km today: phew! the outback is stunning: floods of sheep and cattle on the roads, willy-willies, the red, red soil and miles and miles of flat shrubbery! stopped by burke for lunch. finally made it to white cliffs (pop. 200) after a close call with a couple of kangaroos. stayed in an underground motel built from old opal-mining dugouts. had dinner with a few locals. it was fantastic.

day 15: white cliffs – broken hill – wentworth
we visited otto at his gallery and barbara at her jewellery store in the morning. both were in their homes (dugouts) and had a wonderful time chatting and looking at beautiful things. drove to broken hill for lunch and visited the royal flying doctor’s service base there. as i admitted to the lady there, this was a bit of a pilgrimage for me… anyway, after much souvenir shopping, we darted down to wentworth on the nsw/vic border. camped on the banks of the darling river.

day 16: wentworth – mildura – bendigo
sprinklers still operate in mildura! it was incredible to see such things again in a drought-stricken country. we went kayaking in king’s billabong and visited the local brewery. fantastic drops there, particularly their storm cloudy ale. we drove down to bendigo in search for more but unfortunately the brewery there had closed. disaster! we did see the salt lake (tyrell) on the way though – it was pretty cool but swarming with flies.

day 17: bendigo – glenrowan – boorhaman – rutherglen – beechworth
finally saw an emu in the wild! glenrowan was a real letdown for me: real history buffs avoid at all costs! it was basically four souvenir shops and some gaudily painted figurines around an intersection. bah! fortunately for me, the excellent pub atmosphere at the buffalo brewery in boorhaman was more than sufficient to wipe away the bad taste in my mouth (helped by their excellent ginger ale). bintara brewery at rutherglen felt industrial and their beers were pretty average, except for their exceptional pale ale. finally we motored to beechworth and camped by the lake.

day 18: beechworth – porepunkah – bright – wangaratta – mentone
now beechworth is a town with a real history! its courthouse is definitely worth a visit. we tasted the offerings at the cosy local brewery before heading south. stopped by porepunkah at boynton’s (a brilliant pilsener). the country was lovely with tall straight pines. the bushfire must have been further south. bright brewery was very modern and their duffel was an extremely easy but dangerous drink at 8.5%. finally we decided we’d had enough and headed back to melbourne. thus ended our epic roadtrip.

roadtrip update no. 2

2007-02-05T19:15:00.000+11:00

boys fooling around

killer gulls @ the nobbies!

setting up the jump shot @ phillip island

sunset @ emu bight, the lakes national park

robin hood @ lakes entrance

pick the nerd @ canberra deep space communications centre

up those last few steps... @ the giant staircase

god gave me two hands! @ katoomba yha

obligatory picture of the three sisters

lighthouse @ byron bay