Lecture #2 of oncology block and I'm already:

- bored
- depressed
- unmotivated

I JUST CAN'T GET EXCITED ABOUT CANCER, OKAY

tumour suppressor genes microsatellite instability multitude of pointless acronyms zzzzzz

It is PEE & PROSTATE & PENIS WEEK here at med school. Slash fiction lied to you, kiddies: the prostate is BORING. And quite honestly I just want to snooze through the seven hours of lectures I have today:

- Bladder dysfunction and urinary incontinence
- Male sexual dysfunction
- Imaging the urinary tract
- Renal colic and uriolithiasis
- Anatomy of male reproductive tract
- Prostate cancer and screening
- Lower urinary tract symptoms and benign prostatic hypertrophy

YEAH. EXCITING.

I hate this block.

~

Much more cheerfully -- yesterday I finished the third chapter of the heist AU! I am now (hopefully) a third of the way through the fic. The document has over 21,000 words in it. This fandom is EVIL.

I am warning you now that there is likely to be a fair bit of capslock over the next 12 weeks about BRAAAAAAAAAAINS; to stave off any chance that I might awaken one morning to find the lot of you outside my door armed with zombie-fighting materials, I will hasten to assure you that I am just remembering how much I love studying anything to do with the nervous system. We started a spinal cord lesion case today and I think I scared my PBL group with my willingness to bounce up to the whiteboard and draw a diagram of the motor and sensory cortices, and babble at the speed of light about masked symptoms and ascending tracts and other incredibly geeky things. YAY. BRAINS <3

Other things I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed include the early seasons of Friends. It's pissing down rain and I have to do some research and then go to a party at Darling Harbour, but in the meantime I intend to watch brainless telly and eat bbq rice crackers and drink Lady Grey tea.

Life is good!

So, um, that slightly pulled foot muscle sustained during the second performance of Med Revue might be a more serious injury than previously suspected, because I am currently in CRIPPLING PAIN after walking from Railway Square to Broadway, which is a piddling little distance, and I was wearing my Doc Marten Mary Janes and thick socks, possibly the most foot-friendly shoes I own. Hmm. I seriously doubt I have managed to break any bones in my foot simply by over-pointing it (which is what I did during the show, O WELL DONE ME) but this whole 'inability to walk' thing could get tedious. Good thing my dad's coming to visit for the weekend! Free orthopaedic consultancy FTW!

I am also feeling a little like I'm going to keel over and collapse, which could be a combination of fatigue and low blood sugar and god knows what else, but --

I TOOK BLOOD FROM A PERSON'S ARM TODAY

THAT'S RIGHT

I AM A PHLEBOTOMIST

-- so all things considered I am in a pretty good mood!

ETA: And also: I just found out that I passed my second RFA with an above-average mark, so my good mood can be upgraded to GREAT.

Just like last time, I don't really have anything to say, but I am on a 5 minute study break and have been sitting here racking my brains for something to say so that I can think about something that is not carpal tunnel syndrome. I feel SO EDUCATED. And I am not even a year into medicine yet. I do not know how my brain is going to fit it all in! Surely there is a secret ritual during third year in which they take all med students aside and surgically or pharmacologically alter their brains so that they can, just like TARDISes or wizarding tents, contain a whole lot more than they should be able to considering their size.

I end up listening to some really weird music when I'm studying. Musculoskeletal notes seem to go well with intense violin sections, and also my Christmas playlist.

I miss writing. My imagination is getting serious cabin fever :(

ETA: My fingers/creative urges are also itching to get started on the cosplays that ryokophoenix and I have planned for Supanova next year, which are both so utterly awesome that I kind of want to keep them secret and then spring the photos on you all in a RANDOM OUTPOURING OF JOY. Okay, that is a lie. I can't keep secrets. COMPROMISE: one of them is the DANGEROUS LADIES (newsflash: Mai's hair is a fkjdkdhjfhas pain in the posterior and I have no clue how I'm going to do it without spending bazillions of dollars on a styled wig) and I'm not telling you the other, even though I expect you'll hear a lot of bitching about it because we are totally overambitious :D

Dear self:

No. No. Stop it. No matter how much fun you had at hospital today and how much of a kick you'd get out of going into a boys-club specialty, you don't want to be an orthopod.

Please keep that in mind.

I am very amused by the fact that a full-fledged LJ meme appears to have sprung from my crippling insecurity!

Hospital today was fantastic -- interesting patient histories & examinations, and we learned how to scrub in for surgeries & put on gowns & gloves while maintaining sterile conditions. It's sodding TRICKY and oh man, TV shows get it hilariously wrong.

I spent three hours in the library tonight, and despite the fact that at least one of those hours was spent in glorious (albeit useless, exam-wise) communion with my health psych textbook, I feel like my brain deserves to spend the last hour before bed doing nothing more strenous than watching an episode of QI.

(Although...one of the contestants just tried to explain Schrödinger's Cat in such a way that made me physically cringe with how wrong she was. It wasn't even wrong in a funny way! It was JUST WRONG.

...I am never going to escape my physics background.)

Wow. Having a dead computer makes me actually behave like a med student. I went to my two labs this morning -- Jesus Christ, bones are tricky little buggers when you actually look at them, and I am rethinking my love of the clavicle -- and then I spent some time in the LIBRARY with my NOTES and I've thoroughly revised my upper limb anatomy and the entire text chapter on clinical examination of the respiratory system. Man. The things you have time to do when you don't have classes from 8am-5pm (this week is remarkably light \o/) and also don't have fic writing itself feverishly in your head.

Tomorrow classes finish at 11am and I am determined to be likewise productive in the afternoon, but you know what, I'm kind of enjoying this being-uncharacteristically-prolific thing, so for the gaps in between study:

Drabble requests?

You know what I write. Though if you're having trouble deciding, I'm on this serious animated-things kick at the moment, so throw me Avatar/anime-of-your-choice prompts and everyone will be happy.

(Please note that due to the fickle natures of both free time & inspiration, I am not putting my hand on my heart and swearing to finish every request this time, but...request away anyhow! We'll see how I go.)

1) Patients are scary!

2) Fic wordcount = now almost exactly 13,000 words. Although there is certainly more to come, because I just finished hammering out the details of my grand pulled-out-of-ass theory of chakra signatures and summoning and elemental balance and mumble mumble clinical trials for therapeutic application, OH MY GOD, I am incorrigible. So...the end is in sight, but it'll take a while to get there.

3) I have a three-hour lecture block at 8am tomorrow morning but I will survive because after Thursday comes Friday, and on Friday the RPAH Clinical School Students Society is putting on a cheese & wine night, and after that I am catching a bus HOME. And on Saturday I will be dressing up as female!John Darling (don't ask. there's this whole story about _leareth's umbrella having roses on it and me being far too keen to adopt genderfuckery as a solution to any problem.) and seeing lots of my Canberra people again. WHICH IS GOOD. BECAUSE I MISS THEM :(

4) New mood theme! <33