Last day of the year

31 December. A year has come and gone. Is time to say good bye to 2008. Is the last day of the year. It symbolizes the ending of a life as a student. It marks the end of my 4 years stay in Australia. It is a whole brand new chapter waiting ahead next year. A chapter waiting to be written. To be filled with new stories and experiences, with hope to be better than previous ones. More challenges ahead, both new and old. I am not quite ready for it now, but when the time comes, I will. 2008. There have been many dissapointments and failures throughout the year particularly in academic, up to the end of it. Nevertheless, it did teach me some lesson of life. All the group discussions, assignments and presentations has been fun and memorable although it might not seem like it at that time. It has been an awesome year of travelling for me. The many road trips and vacations with many new experiences. New friends were made, old friends were reunited. The whole of New Zealand, Adelaide, outskirts of Queensland and Fiji. Adding to the list of other places I have been throughout my student life. Many more has happen and has its own significances. Hope that 2008 has been a good year for all and may 2009 be a better year.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Results of 6 hours in uni

What do I get from wandering around uni aimlessly for 6 freaking hours?? 1 - waited for my main supervisor who did not show up to work (and no one knows about it) and had to call her home phone 2 - emailed my co-supervisor and waited for a reply; found out that she was in uni but nowhere to be seen and did not reply my email yet 3 - managed to make an appointment with my head supervisor (which my main supervisor could not get a hold of him) but now I don't know what I am going to say during the meeting 4 - seeked advice from a course co-ordinator; received good and bad news, making it harder to make a decision 5 - emailed another lecturer to ask for help (whom is known to be moody) and regret about it now as there might be more stats than what I have right now 6 - messed up with my work schedule and hopefully my boss is not mad at me 7 - called my preceptor regarding my one month placement in a hospital and found out that I start at 800 am 8 - managed to run some errands - bank, photocopy shop, news agency, post-office In conclusion, I was more confused, screwed more things up and more stressed up by the end of the day. More and more things to be taken into consideration to make a DECISION. Just making things more complicating.

Oil Price

TDM vs TCI

Therapeutic drug monitoring refers to individualisation of dosage by maintaining the plasma drug concentration within the therapeutic window. The correlation between drug plasma concentration and desirable response is much better than the correlation between dosage and response. This is due the variability between individual patients in drug response. TDM is useful for drugs that have: - large pharmacokinetic variability - narrow therapeutic index - desired therapeutic effect difficult to monitor - used for prophylaxis Nonetheless, toxicity may occur within this "range" as this range provides the highest probability of beneficial response with the lowest probability of side effects. The therapeutic range is not individualised and the patients are treated according to the population range and not own response. It is more concerned with maintaining within the range than response. Target concentration intervention revise the dosage in order to obtain the best response. Initial loading dose and maintenance dose are calculate using the population pharmacokinetic parameters to achieve a target concentration. The plasma drug concentration is then measured and used to predict the individualised pharmacokinetic parameters for the patient. Based on the patient's response, a new target concentration is obtained and the dosage is adjusted accordingly. TCI accounts for inter-subject variability. Nevertheless, TDM is widely used in patient monitoring. It is a valuble tool in assessing the drug therapy and protecting against toxicity. p/s: This is what you get from not wanting to study but feel guilty for slacking too much. Haha.

What do you do best?

What is your best quality about yourself? Playing computer games; sports (badminton, swimming, tennis etc); instruments (piano, guitar etc); drawing, singing; cooking, baking; photography, camping. Or something more abstract like public speaking, friendliness, time management, being organized. Or anything else. Yet a simple question as this seems difficult to me. I don't know what am I good at. I am never excel in one area. I just know a little of somethings. It is good but also bad. It then make me seems like I don't really know myself. Who am I? Why don't I have something that I am really passionate about? Or is there one but I am just not realising it? Anyone care to point out? I can't think of something that I am really obsessed about. Hmmm I remembered those schooling days where we were so obsessed about a particular celebrity/artists that everyone knows about it. We will know every single detail about our idol, having posters of the same face covering every single wall in our rooms, even having pictures of the celebrity in our purses. Then there were all the autograph books where friends would paste pictures of our favourite celebrity in it. Not to forget our nicknames were the names of the idols and even having email address with their names in it. Haha. The good old days. Anyway, my point is even back then I wasn't so crazy about a particular artist. I did have some favourites but come to think about it, it might be more of peer pressure than actually liking them. Lol. The only thing I can think off is I will be a good mother. Wahahahaha. Is not something I am good at currently but hopefully in the future. This is based on the number of 'kids' I had back in college. Practically, about quarter of the Chinese in AUSMAT were my 'kids'. Haha. Suddenly, I was everyone's "A mak". And there were a few occassions where people "yes mum" me here in Australia. OMG. I don't know what I did that got me into this label. Maybe I nag people too much like their mums. Oppsss. Haha. I am done with 'mothering' people for the time being until I have my own children =P So yeah, what are you good at? I will try to figure out what I do best. Damn. Is tough.

Lab work

Finally, finally is over. I am finally done with my lab work for my honours. Yahoo!! It is worth a celebration. Haha. A two weeks lab work was extended to 5 months!! How can I not be excited that is it all over.

Nevertheless, only the lab part is done. Now working on analysing the results. And then, there will be the writing up part. That will be another nightmare, but that is to worry later. Hehe.

5 sets of results were obtained with slight modification from one to another set. 2 were useless. So, the other 3 sets were being analyzed and they gave the same conclusion which is good. Now we gotta decide which set of data to use as the results in my paper, which one will look better in my paper. It was seriously a waste of time repeating one set after another when the conclusions were all the same. I guess it will give better support to my results. So what was the conclusion from my research work? There is variation in beta-carotene content between Kensington Pride mangoes. Duh... Everyone could have guess that without needing a research on it. But I did a 5 months lab work to prove it. Sigh. Not sure what contribution or significant my research will be. Oh well...

At least is over now. I did learn some research techniques, some instrumentation procedure. Really learnt time management because I always try to squeeze in some time for lab between lectures, tutorials, group discussions and work. Trying to maximize all the possible time I had. Learnt to multi-task, accomplish a few goals at one time but also not to be too greedy (had a few lessons to teach me this). It also tested my patience and strengths. And finally it changed me to be a morning person. Hehe. Can't really sleep in much anymore. Just automatically wake up and more productive in the morning.

Placement

Today is the last day of my placement at a community pharmacy for this semester. I have done a series of placement since first year; community, hospital and rural. Yet, of all the placement, this time is the best. I really enjoyed myself every week at this 8 weeks block of placement except for one. I shall not further describe what happen in that one week except for my preceptor was not around. The staffs are all very nice and easy-going people. My preceptor is absolutely a fabulous guy. I just love the environment around the pharmacy settings. It has always been enjoyable and no tense moment. Laughter always fill the air. Jokes are being made. I was even being conned by the owner of the pharmacy into believing that he was a pre-reg. It went on for about 2 weeks before I knew the truth. It became a joke around the pharmacy. Singing, dancing can be seen from time to time. Besides all the fun part, I actually counselled more patients in this 8 week block than I had over the past 3 years. I have always been afraid to counsel patients and usually hide myself behind the dispensary. The fear however subside this year. I was much more confident in serving and counselling patients. Maybe is my fourth year now and the confidence level has slowly built up. Maybe is also the settings of the pharmacy and the pharmacy staff that helps me boost my confidence. I am glad I am of help during my placement. Although I served as a free labour, it didn't matter much. I learnt something after every placement and enjoyed myself. Therefore, as a token of appreciation, instead of writting a letter to my preceptor thanking him for his time and effort of teaching me, I bought a box of Krispy Kreme for him and the staff. At least everyone get to enjoy it rather than a letter which I reckon will end up in the bin. Everyone enjoyed it over their morning tea. What touched me the most was that I even got a present at the end of the day. One of the pharmacy assistant was really kind enough to put some things together for me. Although they are mainly free samples, it the thought that matters. I wasn't expecting anything at all as all that I have done was part of my duty. I doubt anyone else would get a box of gift for doing their placement. We even exchanged some hugs before I left. Thanks a lot for allowing my to do my placement there. I am sure to return next semester. See you guys soon.

Pictures courtesy of my housemate and his 'baby'

Busyness, Craziness, Madness

Gosh. It has been an incredible busy month. Assignments, group discussions, lab, presentation, logbook, case studies, work and the list goes on and on. Studying for exam is not even included in the list yet. And on top of that, a couple birthday celebrations going on this month.

I think I spend more time anywhere else except my house. The lastest time I woke up was 9am. My day sometimes starts as early as 6am. And I would be all dead by night.

I couldn't even chat much with my mum on Mother's Day. But she made my day when I could hear her all excited over the other side when I called. Furthermore, I only called my god mother a day after May 11 and wished her happy belated Mother's Day. Anyway, I would like to shout out "Happy Mother's Day" to my mums. I love both of you.

And things aren't going smoothly. The UPLC machine that I used for analysing my mangoes as part of my honours work is giving me problems. Not enough with the standards keep on crashing out, this machine always stopped running when I was not around. An overnight run could be dragged up to 2 days long. I really had to 'baby-sit' the machine to ensure that it was running properly. Blardy hell. Really testing my patience.

Then assignment was not being done correctly. So what else, gotta redo.

I am seriously trying to keep a positive mind despite all this incidences. Trying to prevent the work piles from driving me insane. This madness does not seem to ease anytime soon. Being fatigue and tired all day long, the only thing I look forward everyday is a cup of coffee. Hee.

Journal Club

I had my Journal Club presentation this morning. It is a part of my assessment for honours. Well, despite having two supervisors, I did most of the work myself. The presentation was about critically analysing and reviewing an article of interest. It could be related or not to our honours project. Mine didn't.

I decided on which article to use by myself, which resulted in a not interesting article as commented by a friend. Oh well. One supervisor was on holiday for two weeks and another was also busy with meetings.

One week ago, I still haven't finalized my slides and did not understand the article fully. When my supervisor finally came back, she wasn't much of a help. Sigh. I had to figure everything out myself. Unlike others, their supervisors actually go through the paper with them.

And I only got a chance to present in front of my supervisors the day before the presentation. Others had presented weeks before their turn and even a couple of times. But they did give me some feedback and corrected some points on my presentation. A little help is better than none right.

Anyway, I think the presentation went quite alright. The questioning and answering session was not bad. I managed to answer most questions and stuffed up just one or two. Haha. The whole presentation preparation was quite last minute but overall, it was pretty good.

Although it wasnt like I worked really hard on it, trying to convience myself that I deserved a break by slacking the whole night =P

Two days

My life suddenly slowed down. All thanks to my ankle. As I injured myself, I gave myself some good excuses to skip tutorials, presentations and placement (but still gotta replace my placement next week...boo). I stayed home fully for these past two days. I never even stepped a foot out of the house. It has been ages since I last stayed home for one full day. For the past few months, I was always running out; to uni, to lab, to work, to placement, to gym etc. Even my weekends were occupied. Working on Saturdays. Grocery shopping, if not lunch on Sundays. Sprained my ankle on Saturday evening but still out for dinner that night, then lunch and grocery shopping on Sunday. It felt different. A little weird but a little peace. Haha. Just sat down and get some assignment done, watched some series. But I just can't wait to get out. There are lots of things waiting to be done out of this house. Moments ago, I was just planning my day starting tommorrow until ANZAC day. Trying to fit my honours lab work into my uni schedule. And I decided I rather be busy, which means I will continue working on Saturday. Haha

And AGAIN...

And yet AGAIN I sprained my leg. This time is my right ankle. It was 6 months ago when I sprained my left leg. That was severe;I missed a week of uni and even had to use crutches. This time around it isn't that bad but still it is swollen and I am limping. Sigh.

I have not been playing netball for almost a year. And when I do for the first time this year, I injured myself. What a luck. Using my pharmacy knowledge and some traditional method to heal my leg:

R -rest

I - ice

C - compression

E - elevation

R - rehabilitation

And since this year I am staying further from uni, a good 20 mins walk, this week gonna be tough. A 20 mins walk is gonna be a 40 mins walk with the speed I can go. But I think I am gonna catch the bus instead.

Hopefully I can recover by this Saturday, just in time for the QSC (Queensland Sports Carnival). Doing everything in my power as I really wanna play!!

Fellow Bloggers

Friends blogs' are just a good way to keep in touch. To know what is going on with their life, despite not chatting in person, through phone or msn. Feel like still being a part of their life. And then there are those blogs about cooking and recipes. A good way to learn new recipe and they are more do-able compare to 'real' recipes from chefs or cook books. But there are some random blogs that are just interesting. Some people that I barely knew or don't know at all. Things that they write are very attracting. After reading, just feel like wanting to find out that person more. There is something hidden, something mysterious.

Re-birth

Looking back at my previous posts, mostly seems so sad and depressing. And I only blog when I am down. Feeling kinda pathetic now because I only write about sad and bad memories and nothing about the happy times. I wouldn't want to remember my uni life like this. There are plenty of moments that are more worth cherishing. I could share my happy times. After all, there is a balance between up and down in life. Why just focus on one? Haha. Easier said than down. I am usually not in the mood to write when I am happy and problem-free. Or rather focus on doing other things than sitting down in front of the computer and blog =p. Let's just see how it goes. So, have been abandoning this blog long enough. Time to start kicking again. A brand new year, final year of uni. There's a lot to be done in 2008!!

I'm back

Yohoo. I am back. Taking almost a month break from blogging. To concentrate on my studies and exams (yeah right? =P). Nothing is being changed. Everything still look the same. More and more people are making their blog private. They have their own reasonings. A lot of thoughts and opinions are not being expressed as they afraid they might step over the line. There are many unforseen consequences that could arise from blogging. It doesn't provide total freedom in writing. It isn't a private diary. Yes, one owns the blog and he/she can write anything one wants. Nonetheless, there is always a limit for everything. So yeah I am back. I will continue blogging when I am in the mood. Sharing some moments, expressing some thoughts. But none for now. One more week of exam to go!!

Update (sort off)

Been quite busy for the past month but is not getting any better this coming month and the next. Just done with my honours research proposal, up coming are the presentation, assignments and finally EXAMs Just for an update, I went to Cairns for 9 days for rural placement and holiday. It was awesome. As I am too lazy to write about it now, refer to Amy's blog. Hehe. I will update it once I have the time, which is most probably after the exam (opss, hehe). We also celebrated mid autumn festival. Thanks to the organizer, Pey Weon. It was a success although we didnt end up eating mooncake that night. Haha. I guess it is a trend, the more studying you gotta do, the more excuses you will find to procrastinate. I might blog more once exam session comes. Haha