Quote

Motivation is an elusive animal that all organizations want to capture.

-Steven Silbiger, The Ten-Day MBA (1994)

Picture credit: amazon.com

Of cats and laureates

A top cat?

Controlling the migration of such people [talented scientists] is a bit like herding cats, a rather useless exercise. It does nonetheless help to offer quality cat food (funding) and plenty of it if you want to attract the attention of a top cat.

-Peter Doherty, The Beginner's Guide to Winning the Nobel Prize

I found this to be really amusing! "Attention of a top cat". LoL. This became a self-motivating question for me while I went jogging today: Are you a top cat? If you fall, do you rise again? Do you keep pushing to your limits? If you have to suffer in order to fulfill your destiny, would you? How willing are you? And once people do recognise you as a top cat, how would you redefine the top cat standard?

Picture credit: birmancatclub.co.uk

Moment of Shock (1)

Part XIX.

Is this really it?

Waited till 3am for the result to come out.

Kind of surprised to see the outcome; it wasn't what I expected.

Lower than my target, and it wasn't what I heard Papa say.

Still now it's an ongoing question that I still ask.

Even if it is it, then I still seek Him.

There's gotta be a bigger lesson
that I haven't yet
realised.

An Idea Unwritten (2)

Part XVIII.

"Unassuming"

1

"When you've changed, I'll tell you." That was early 2009, said by my UL leader. But I was very anxious back then, thinking, why can't I know exactly how/what to change now?

Within a few months she said: Hey, you've changed so much, you know; what made you change?

Now I must admit that those few months were a bit different than previous months.

2

Flashback 1 year - I'm in 1st year of uni, living away from parents, free to take care of all my time and money. No nagging, no orders, no instructions. I thought to myself, God, you blessed me so much to live life. Soon enough, the thought turned into: Hey, what am I here for, really? So I set myself some targets. Straight H1's in school would set me apart - make me get to the 1% of the right hand bell curve. After all, I'm already part of a social class. What's more prestigious than Melbourne Uni? And what's more exclusive than Medicine? Now if I just become a little bit more of an over-achiever (as if I'm not already one), then the world's eyes would be set upon me.

3

When K and I arrived for the party, all I wanted was to look good. Then she asked what "backslide" meant, and I wanted to explain it to her as silently possible. Because not knowing that basic term is a shame in people's eyes!

Happened later with N too. I had wanted the calls, the talk, the walk, etc, to be as cool, smooth and flowing as could possibly be imagined. I had certain assumptions about how it's meant to be. It killed my unassuming attitude.

4

Looking back, I clearly see these changes inside of me. From who I was, to the hardened self, and back to the unassuming me. It's been a fight, really. I admit, it's not easy to know that you're wrong until after the incident. Heck, I might even be wrong in some areas now, still being shaped and moulded by the Higher Power. But the greatest thing to realise is that He is on your side. He's faithful even when you're not.

Question is, would you respond with an unassuming attitude?

Picture credit: familycentersinc.org

Battle of 'the real world' (3)

Part XVII.

Neuroscience - This is it

A

Hmmm, let this first half be "Battle of Photographs", because that is essentially what the Prac exam is. I reckon it's a great paper too, although I did make a mistake because I didn't know the answer then. People said this paper was hard, and that's mainly because it was ultra-specific. That's the usual method of catching med students 'off guard'.

B

As for the combined OSCE and Neurological/Musculoskeletal Physical Exam, it ended on a high note for me. After finishing around 2pm, I didn't have to wait hours like I did last semester. I think I covered the content well for the symptom of tension-type headache, although I wish I could be more fluent with my questioning and "conversation". I could also have improved on the fluency of my answer for the doctor's question at the end. And as bonus, perhaps I could have differentiated between infrequent, frequent and chronic subtypes of TTH. But oh well, it was a superb exam overall. Surprising thing for the physical was, I ended before the 6-minute bell, and as I was about to leave, the actor said, "There's another one" (1 minute later). So we chatted about going back home, holiday plan, etc.

C

Summer truly is a liberating time. No external commitments, study loads, other-imposed duties, etc. It's all from you - i.e. you decide what you wanna spend your time on. And I've amazed myself because of my discipline in exercising/working out during the past 2 weeks. Just today I was doing shrugs in CS gym. Never knew that I could shrug 20 kilos! Now time to see the traps grow =)

This Uni Life (4)

Part XVI.

α

The Pre-Clinical H1 Hypothesis

Repetition for Lectures

That means:

O - pre-read

1 - attend lecture ± Lectopia prn (as needed)

2 - Lectopia (pre-test)

3 - grand round

Hunger: Ask, Seek, Knock for PBL's

On Mondays and Thursdays - 2 sessions now...not just 1!

Maybe 1 day of overnight (considering I've been doing it a few times anyway...and then there's on-call to be conditioned for)

Consolidate/Coagulate/Sediment for Prac

Take the trouble (e.g. spinal cord & brainstem; took some time, didn't they?), let it sink.

'Precocious' for HP

Start early in all aspects: ICM, physical exam, medical Hx OSCE, past years.

Coactivators

• do group study
• teach people
• be taught

β

Finally writing this from my laptop again! It was gone for a few days, unable to load Windows XP, and I'm still not sure why. Anyway, I got the installer CD from Pau yesterday, and thankfully Dad has got a valid XP Pro CD key. I'm also grateful for the C: and D: partitioning. Otherwise all my writings and excel sheets would have been reset to 0.

Picture credit: mame.mu.oz.au

Battle of Spectrum (5)

Part XV.

Paper Review 3

It was a wide-range paper spanning almost the entire Sem4 curriculum. Hence "spectrum". But I did realise the lack of pharmacology questions.
(Now I might be caught for doing this, but I'm not so worried)
Listed below are my "confidence" levels for each question:
1. Stroke +++++
2. Facial n. ++++
3. Spinal cord, L5, sup. fib. n. +++
4. Secondary amenorrhoea +++
5. 69 y/o, dementia ++
6. Contraceptives, PI +
7. Pharyngotympanic tube, epiglottis +
8. Red chilli, watery eyes, red cheeks, ↑HR +++
9. Population control +
10. Adrenal gland ++++
11. UMN, LMN, tendon jerk reflex +++
12. Chromosomal abnormalities +

#9 is definitely the most jaw-dropping question I've had this semester. But as they say, expect the unexpected.

Anyway, the night before I was doing forward-moving declarations, believing that I'll get an H1 for this paper's breakdown. This never happened before. Usually my PBL paper brought my score down (it had been H2B and P). Despite feeling not confident in the natural, I'm trusting the supernatural to bring this through. So it can't happen by myself alone. Well, what if it turns out that it does happen? Then that's the extra push/pull enabling me in the impossible. Nothing is impossible for those who believe.

Yeah, I'm waiting on that.