dome(?)

went and saw dhoom 2 today. havent seen dhoom 1, dint recognize bipasha basu for a really long time, and therefore friends laughed at me.

whatever i dont have time for this shit

anyway we went to this little " ac video parlour" place (called DOME), which is a room with chairs and a projecter and a biggish screen and an ac which (luckily) barely works. the movie is played from dvds which are usually pirated.

the print wasn't good at all, nor was the sound (no dolby digital etc here), however,these things were nothing in comparison to how much the movie sucked.

i wish i had slept during the middle and watched the begining and end only. i would have spent my time better. the women were hot (much more than the men atleast) but the story, plot etc really sucked.

anyway
apart from that shit, i have manju for a practical tmrw and i havent read up shit. i am going to be publicly humiliated unless i do something...


ran into shelly a couple of days back (saturday night)at edge. yeah, we ended up there after watching casino royale at another parlour place (as bad as dome) and chilling at downtown (where i had vodka.... yum yum).

later

still sick with SAME cold.

sucks

cant wait to go home...


whats worrying me is: how will is tand to come back here again for SIX months without a break, having to face THREE sets of exams??

sick

head cold.
congested ears, cant hear properly. not to mention nose which is runny at all the wrong times (class, when people are watching) and blocked at other times (when i want to sleep and am forced to leave my mouth open in order to breathe, and i wake up with drool all over me... ugh)

i guess its good that i wake up before my room mate.

test tmrw.
anat

prospects of passing: very high
prospects of doing well: reasonably high

considering that i pay more attention than most in class, and also i HAVE been studying...

must go study

kvpy still not out.

bored

sitting in the stupid internet place in the lib, they charge ten ruppees an hour. I had ten mins of work online, but im paying for the entire hour, so why not use it?

we had an a surprise test in dh today.
by surprise i mean that we were specifically told that there wasn't going to be any test, however when we got there we were told that there WAS in fact a test.

Everyone objected. Then the teacher person relented and said, 'no, no, its not a test, just a DISCUSSION.'

A frikkin 2 on 1 discussion, 2 teachers on 1 student.

mine went off pretty well, he kept asking me questions, i kept answering before he finished asking the questions, and he asked the next question before i had finished answering the previous one. So it was a kind of interruption game.

at some point the other teacher was like 'you like giving tests, dont you?'
this is after she smiled at me and commented to the other teacher (loud enough for me to hear) about the expression on my face (?).

i started cracking up. but it was obvious that she meant it in a good sort of way.

im so bored. stupid firewall in this lab wont even let me sign into msn.

whats the point of wasting TIME as well as MONEY. I should just pay and leave.

contd

yeah, so as i was saying before i was rudely forced to stop when she wanted her laptop back, i found it in the bus.

whew!!

the bus i'd taken in the morning to class (there are three such buses, it was my luck that the one i had taken was parked right there outside class) was parked on the road outside class (did i just say that twice?)

So i casually asked the driver if he happened to find a wallet and he was like yeah i did. then i started breathing normally again. he gave it to me and began to apologize about opening it to know who i was so that he could return it to me. And i was like no problem, its ok, i dont care if you opened it.

really wanted to give him something, but offering an old man money is something i can never bring myself to do, so i just joined my hands and said thank you some five times before leaving.

haven't seen the same driver since, even though ive been making it a point to take the same bus to class, in order to give him the chocolate i carry in my bag everyday.

-------

got a test in a few days
plus com med project due monday
must study some physio

oh im going to watch this vela rock show tmrw. i think it involves the college bands of mit, wgsha and some other college.

and r etc want me to take them trekking down end point, and why the hell would i refuse?? i think we're doing that on sunday.

later.

Chicken Pox, and losing my wallet

im so much like a child it scares me

Yesterday a close female friend of mine discovered spots on her face, neck and hands. we hurried to emergency. the doc said it was chicken pox.

i've never had chicken pox. And i absolutely CANNOT afford to get it now. i would panic if i missed more than a day of class. missing seven? no way no way.

im hoping that the virus misses me through divine intervention.

Poor girl though. she having fun in any case, with a room to herself and a tv and stuff. but gimmie a long day of class any day.
-----

lost my wallet, sometime between eating (and paying) for breakfast at the bq canteen and wanting to eat something at ten after lectures.
ran around the whole place looking for it. asked cleaning staff, went all the way back to bq (we dont have it madam, you lost it its your problem). i was so freaked out i could cry. the wallet had ALL my stuff in it. my money(no money in my room), ATM cards, ID, everything.

eventually ended up finding it in the bus

lonely

i wish i had friends i could hang out with anytime of the day or night.

when you have a room all to yourself, theres no charm left to midnight feasts.

oh and i forgot to mention
the only time we have coed accomodation is at our month and a half long posting at karkala... theres only one hostel block for both sexes.

not that we'll have time to do much apart from deliver other people's babies.

Day 4

sucked

long drive there, long drive back.
stopped there for some ice cream.

Karkala hospital is nice too. i cant believe that in a few years, i'm going to be assisting a woman give birth, and tending to accident cases and other general stuff like fever and gastroenetritis and jaundice etc.

what a thrill

we were told the details abt the project today.
it has to be

on A4 size paper
handwritten (wtf??)
spiral bound

okay....

if i only knew what to write about...

Com Med Day 3, and much more

I'm getting sick of writing boring details about these field trips. I mean, I DO like them, but I still feel like the best part of the whole event is the BUS RIDE.

I miss those hour long daily bus sessions i had to live with at VVS. Even though I complained about them so much, whining about the headaches and the heat. Only now, when deprived of it, have i figured out how much motion soothes me. I have always always felt relaxed in a moving vehicle, maybe thats why i love driving... and going on long drives.

Anyway, so todays session began, again with Dr RPP. He went on about his Carry Away Messages for a while, then we all trooped into the two (AIRCONDITIONED, Manipal is obsessed with AC) buses. Went to Malpe, where we visited to the Maternity and Child Welfare Home, A PHC, and Aanganwadi. Met loads of little kids, I had with me toffees to distribute, which was enough to distract them from me.

NOTE TO SELF: Must learn Kannada.

Stayed for an hour or so, came back. In bus. Which got a tad bit unpleasant, especially when people started singing songs like "Deewana tera" and dedicating it to me and V.

Whatever.

To Karkala tomorrow. Longer bus drive. yippee.

Came to the lib to study. Instead, met R and her friends (who have an exam tomorrow, but are CHILLING. I wish i could be that cool before an exam). Hung out with them. Transferred Pirates of the Carribean game(1.6 GB) via flash drive onto R's laptop (NOTE TO SELF: take it from her later), played game. Ate at FC, embarassed this classsmate of mine who had a birthday treat on, but hadn't invited me.

Back to lib, and then got ONLINE. Discovered something pleasantly shocking in my mailbox.

I think i have a minor table test tmrw. Who cares.

Must start studying seriously.

Com Med Day 2

8 November 2006

DAY 2
This time, Dr RP Pai came to and spoke to us. We were to be going to Dr TMA Pai Hospital at Udupi.
Interestingly, the local people still refer to it as the ‘Law College Hospital’ as its located in what was once the Law College Building. Ofcourse, now it looks very different, they’ve expanded and renovated it.

He also told us a gruesome story about how he once had to deal with a burns patient, a 75 kg weight woman, whose synthetic sari caught fire while she was working in the kitchen. A ‘75 kg human kabab’ he called it. Said he would never forget the smell of burnt flesh, and everytime he sees a lady entering the kitchen wearing synthetic clothes, it brings back acute memories of the stench of burnt flesh. Point being(Carry Away Message being), clinical medicine is all about the sights, smells and sounds that you must be adept at recognizing. These are imprinted on your memory forever.

Then he said we’ll need to write a project report at the end of four days. GREAT. Just what I needed.

The bus ride to Udupi, lasted less than 20 minutes, but was lots of fun. We were randomly dancing and singing. Once there, same story…we were divided into batches. The hospital itself was one of the cleanest, whitest and brightest I have ever seen. Its more appealing than KH, with airy corridors, and huge windows. The OPD’s are cheerful, the wards have pretty blue curtains all around, even the ICU looked like a more hopeful place than the one at KH.

They don’t really do much charity work though. Each Dept can allot, at any given point of time, two free beds to needy patients. However, the cost of medicines and disposables must be borne by the patient.

We ended up meeting with the head of OBGYN Dept. She told us that now that we’ve chosen to be medical graduates, we better be good at it.
Also “Medicine is one profession where you don’t require much intelligence. All you need is Average or Below Average. The only requirement is that you have to be willing and able to SLOG, day after day, no weekends off, no partying, no slacking off. All your life”

WTF
a) WOW it does my self confidence a LOT of good, knowing that all I have is avg/BELOW avg intelligence
b) Could these people be a little LESS motivating??
c) I don’t want to be a doctor anymore
d) I want a life beyond hospital
e) I am NOT good at slogging
f) I have no choice now

Someone please help, show me how my life is NOT going to suck.

In other news....

... I scored a 99 on 140 in Physio.

Thats not bad, considering the highest in class is 107. I fucked up the prac viva, if I hadn't i would have scored atleast a 105 (which would have given me a distinction)

I'm genuinely happy I passed though. At the time, prospects seemed really bad.

Maybe there is a god.

Community Med Day 1

First day at Community Med Posting (Posting?? who are they kidding)

Horrible morning, woke up at 5:30 am with headache that refused to be placated even with Crocin. By the end of Physio class (Cardiac muscle contraction) the dull throbbing changed to head splitting.

The Chief Admin spoke to us for 38 minutes, boasting about KH. (Pvt hosp with 1500 beds...thats supposed to be a WOW figure for a private institution, 3000 patients entering OPD daily, ISO 9001:2000 blah blah, BORING.)

He also told us that we've made an irreversible decision by joining med school. Great. Just what I needed to hear. Apparantly now no other proffession will adopt us.

KH is apparantly famous for its Cardiology Dept. Its also an X ray film free hospital... All X rays are digitalised. I like that. Its good for the environment, and its also extremely efficient.

Anyway, after that we crossed the road opposite the biochem block and walked across to KH. (Field trip -- HAHA.)

Thus began our long walk (should i say trek? we walked upstairs, downstairs, uphill, downhill) through the hospital. We were divided into batches of 15 each, and an intern accompanied us to a couple of wards, radiology dept, icu (we weren't allowed in), OT(we weren't allowed in), students clinic (NOTE TO SELF: Get Medicare card made).

I saw more, much more at CMC Vellore and Apollo Hospital.

Here we were rushed along, weren't given a chance to ask questions.

Atleast we finished well before lunch break... giving us a chance to chill a little more before Dissection.

Life lesson

6 Nov 2006
Biochem class

Life Lesson for Doctors

"Be sensitive in every way possible about everything in life. Be sensitive. Insensitivity brings indifference and nothing is worse than indifference. Indifference makes that person dead before he dies. Indifference means there is a kind of apathy that sets in and you no longer appreciate beauty, friendship, goodness or anything. So, therefore, do not be insensitive. Be sensitive, only sensitive. Ofcourse it hurts. Sensitivity is painful. So what! Think of those that you have to be sensitive to. Their pain is greater than yours."

Elie Wiesel

Dr. Sudhakar, HOD biochem, (works with the Palliative Care Dept) tried to show us how cruel doctors can sometimes be, leaving terminally ill patients to discover death alone.

No one teaches students how to approach death in medical college, he said.

BOOKS TO READ

Complications by Atul Gawande
The Making of A Surgeon by William A Nolen (out of print)(someone get me a copy from an old bookstore in England)
What they don't teach you in medical college by some proff at Manipal

Speaking of books, there's a book fair on at Nehru Library, (no idea where that is), but SS(room mate) said she wants to go, and so i'll just go with her.

Desperately need some literature.

I booked my ticket back to Bangalore (going home for 3 weeks, vacations). V said he wanted to book and go with me, but hopefully he'll forget he ever said that. Or I'll tell him my uncle did it for me, and so i had no control over the process.

Trek

November 1, 2006

Woke up at five thirty this morning (IRONIC: woke up two hours earlier than usual, on a NON CLASS DAY) and proceeded to trek first, to end point, and then, lower. Went with V, P, Va and, ofcourse, M.(All male). (As of right now, M’s the hottest guy I know. He’s amazingly smart, funny and cool; but pays me no significant amounts of attention. That’s probably because V pays me TOO much attention, and they’re friends.)

(Oh yeah, it was V’s birthday… and he got ME chocolates, which he proceeded to present to me during the trek in front of the other two. I was so embarrassed for him…)

Our route led us first to the normal end point road, and at some point, (near the makeshift soccer field) we took a detour to the left, hence getting off the road and onto a stony path. This path led us to the dried up bed of a stream that went all the way down the hill. We started trekking down this. (Va led us, he’s been doing this ever since he got to manipal, wish I had known him earlier.) We kept going lower and lower, it wasn’t an easy trek, lots of jumping involved, but I was helped along. We stopped at some point, and went all the way back up again because the undergrowth was getting to thick, and the spiders too numerous (this last wasn’t something I had a problem with).

Sights seen and enjoyed: We saw the hospital incinerators (all dead bodies, surgical waste…you know….bloody gauze, cotton etc is burnt here). Also saw water recycling plant from very high up, looked to us more like a giant swimming pool. While trudging down the streambed, also came across 5 used condoms. (V, pointing at all the sharp rock and lack of space: People do it HERE?) No, you idiot, they just threw the condoms into the damn stream!!

Back onto the main end point road. This time went straight to end point. Then the real fun began. We trekked ALL the way down. It was awesome, I’d been dying to do something like this since my last camp at school. We went all the way down to the little road that runs by the river. The sun had just risen, the birds were chirping, and the water was shining silver and gold.

We crossed the temple, then climbed down the stairs cut into rock till we were at the river. Here V was pushed into the water by the other guys, I found myself looking on enviously. I wanted to swim…

Va randomly shouted “BOSS!!”, in response to which a cottage door opened and the man who got out then got into his boat (a narrow elongated thing, a fishing boat) and started rowing towards us. He took us for a nice long boat ride, during the course of which I convinced everyone to get into the water. So we jumped in (off the boat) one after another. It wasn’t very deep, and the water was quite clean and sweet. We swam around, laughing, the guys still picking on V. He can’t swim, I tried to teach him how to float on his back. That’s the best way to enjoy this… just lie back and stare at the blue blue sky with the eagles soaring around, palm trees swaying, listening to the sound of the water in your ears. But after a while I realized that he was a very bad learner and gave up on him.
After which we all took turns rowing the boat. It was fun.. Kinda like kayaking that we did at Saat Taal, REALLY long back, except the boat was bigger and heavier, and the oar had a paddle on only one side. But it was cool.

We were drenched, and we just dried off lazing on the boat in the sun. It was so much fun. I was struck with nostalgia. I miss camp. But this was pretty much as close to it as possible. I wish I could take Y there with me… wish he had come to meet me. I mean I was chilling with 4 guys I barely know, and it was so much fun. If Y was around instead, and if neither one of us were cranky, then it would’ve been MUCH more fun.

After drying off, we began the steep climb back up, during which I had to stop and rest some 5 times. I was fucking tired. We scrambled up, slipping and sliding (wet shoes, loose rocks). Started the long walk back to campus, got there by ten, in time for breakfast.

Wow. I’m glad I have a good sense of direction, I can never forget the way there, which is a good thing cause I can go there anytime I want now!!

Plus I threatened the guys that if they didn’t take me with them the next time they went, I’d pretty much throttle one of them…

Wonder if RandR have done this? Probably have….