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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 3 of 3. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by alexandra_k on November 20, 2013, at 23:26:45
This might be my home for the next...
6 years?
No, surely not. I'll be sent to some dismal town for placement, surely.
4 years? If I don't get in to medicine and I have to do a degree in something else.
2 years? If that is all I get before being sent to some dismal town for placement.
(Fingers crossed the best students get to stay in the city and do placement in the hospital there)
I think... That is why there are a bunch of med student scholarships... So people can afford to keep their place in the city while they go on placement...
Anyway...
My current apartment... It is possible that I can stay here. It is a 'standard studio' rather than a 'deluxe studio' and 13 square meters rather than 19 square meters. No cook top... I'm pretty sure they don't get an actual oven, though... But no element. Miget microwave... Gas cook tops and ovens on the ground floor... But no element in my room.
ANd I brought a f*ck*ng stove top coffee maker already.
For, like, twenty bucks. But that isn't the point.
Anyway... I am meant to move early December... So I've been sussing out the building... And I think... Well... The building manager said I could stay where I am if I like. Probably he just meant over summer... Because I've accepted a contract for a deluxe studio ($10 extra pw) for 2014 academic year (starting March)... Keen to get / be settled...
So I was like 'I want an element and the bigger area. But north facing and upper level please'. ANd he was good enough to say 'this room then' which met my criterion... But then I looked a bit harder (from what I could tell from outside) and while (north facing) sun comes in... It is uninspired.
So... I said if they could get an electric cook-top / electric frypan / slow cooker for the apartment as a chattel... Then I'd be prepared to stay and call it a Deluxe Studio (since cook-top was the official difference). But that now I was feeling more serious about fridge / freezer. Since we only have very old (not space efficient at all) fridges with ice-boxes. And an ice-box isn't a freezer any more than a blender is a juicer.
I think... I think... The whole 'Unilodge' deal... Was that individual people buy Unilodge apartments. That that is how the building gets funded to be built. Then Unilodge management manages the building to students. Then the University here came along and went 'exclusive contract to us (our students who are fairly f*ck*ng desperate for places to live close to uni / in the city) and we will help manage you and give you a higher quality clientele' (because there were significant issues before with both short term students and management).
Anyway...
I have fallen in love with the view, I've decided. The harbour and the sky tower... My view reminds me: I'm living in the f*ck*ng city. If I'm facing trees in a courtyard... I might as well be in the dismal f*ck*ng town already.
But a freezer would be nice. Cook. Freeze. Then microwave. Obviously, people...
And the thought of carting everything downstairs... Then making social chit chat... Then carting it back up again... While appealing to most (how to make friends) is really not very appealing to me.
I wrote a really nice f*ck*ng review of the particular apartment for such things online. Because current ones were mixed, and that did indeed affect how I felt about applying here / moving in. It is a mixed bag... I think... I might not have a representative sample (will know next year) but I think that mostly it is full of international students (which I am totally used to and very cool about indeed) but that a lot of them are sort of US undergrad / frat party ideal focused. Which is... Not really the sort of clients that make the best tenents with respect to not noise issue / looking after the place.
They could totally market this place higher... Student accommodation is so very scare... They should totally prioritize graduate students / undergraduate students who are contientious / study focused. They make better tenets even if nothing else ffs.
In better news: I'm less panicked and thrashing about wildly in the pool already (day 3). 4 laps today (there and back a lap). Breast stroke, head above (or I get ear troubles). My kick is a-symetric after my injuries. Trying to be relaxed and symetric and unrushed. I suspect... I'll build this up to 30 or even 40 minutes cardio by the end of summer. If I can keep my kick somewhat symmetric... I hate the thought of ingraining bad motor patterns. In an OCD hating absolute revulsion kinda way.
Um... I'm jumping in the pool when I get back from the gym. All my sweaty self in my sweaty gym gear. Is that gross to people? I'd sweat in the pool via exercise anyways?
Posted by alexandra_k on November 20, 2013, at 23:55:45
(sorry i can't reply to my own posts at the moment).
it isn't that *most* are undergrad / frat party focused - the problem (as always) is more about the salient few.
actually, I think a lot of students taking the studio options are muslim women. Partly because of the private bathrooms.
But that this building has a bunch of multiple room shared apartments - which (while being significantly cheaper) also seems to attract the socially / party focused.
I am very interested in this... Feeling as I do (though strangely for my culture) a lot of empathy for this idea of covering the skin (though I don't feel that way about hair or particularly about loose fitting). I... Would like to talk to more women about this... About what hajab means to them... Especially because it is clearly their choice to wear it in circumstances where it is not the socio-cultural norm.
And... About what a room of their own means to them... For their freedom.
Though to be fair they aren't the norm either. Just the salient few insofar as I have an interest.
I...
I really do love living with (mostly grad to be fair) students. The news... Well... Propaganda for the masses. Actually getting to talk to people about from all around the world...
I mean... I watch the news here in NZ and I think 'really - foreign people watch that and think that this is how I think / see things as a Kiwi' - problem being: It is not, really. Talking to people from all around the world... From cities... From small towns... With all kinds of prejudices and idiosyncracies and so on... It is pretty f*ck*ng cool, indeed.
My crazy Mexican friend who wanted to get to America, wanted to get to America, wanted to get to America... Just got a 2 year post-doc at Oxford. LMFAO!!! Salute!!
Posted by alexandra_k on November 24, 2013, at 2:24:36
In reply to actually that's not fair..., posted by alexandra_k on November 20, 2013, at 23:55:45
So things are good.
But I've been feeling this... Gnawing. I think it is a combination of overheating and... I'm not sure.
I've been reading... Getting further into Organic Chemistry. Functional groups. Double and triple carbon bonds. The stuff is... Making more sense the more I read it / think over it. I really do think... I'll be alright. Have found some more blogs etc and most people who worked hard but didn't ace it... Well, their retrospective analysis was that they wasted a lot of time doing silly things. Sleeping in lectures. Missing lectures. Copying their notes verbatim from print to computer or vice versa. Not filling in their lab manual before labs (so not knowing what they were supposed to be doing). I... Know not to make those mistakes.
They run 2 streams of lectures. So you can pick whether you will have lectures in the morning or lectures in the afternoon. But then laboratory / tutorial times need to go into the timetable as well, so I suspect they will take up the rest of the day, really. It is strange to me how many contact hours there are. Need to remind myself that I won't need to be working on essays, though, or reading lots of articles / books. Textbooks are dense, though, not that anybody is really expected to read them anymore... But... Ur... Well... That is how I learn, basically. They are dense for a reason. They fill out the lecture notes / provide a different voice / dialogue for the lecturer.
I think I'll take morning lectures - even though I'm not a morning person. I know how things will get, already... Cold and tired and sick and miserable... But you can still take that to bed and - study with it... I think I'll be more likely to study in the afternoons / evenings than I would be likely to in the mornings. In the mornings... It would be too tempting to snooze half the day away. 8am organic chemistry it is.
I found a wonderful book: "Evolution in four dimensions". How did I not read that before? Now I know a little of what epigenetics are all about... Pretty sure I should have known that already.
I need to... Just finish my thesis as best I can. I just... I cringe. In all honesty, I simply don't feel qualified to say anything of any value whatsoever. And I cringe at the thought of showing my supervisor anything at all. 2 weeks to conference. I need to get him something before that.
I hope... Dammit... I need to finish this. I am scared I won't get into med. I'm trying to get into the spirit of being happy doing bio-medical science. I think I'm finding the spirit on that. But I need to finish this. Dammit. I got an offer for BHsc (which I've decided I really don't want). Hopefully... When I get an offer of BSc BioMed then things will kick off... LIke how my Masters Thesis got written when I had the security of knowing exactly where I was going next.
Sigh.
Things are good. What is wrong with me?
This is the end of the thread.
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