Flash is HERE!!!

Flash arrived yesterday afternoon and still doesn't seem real that she is actually here in Australia. She's never flown on a plane before so for her to fly half way around the world is pretty big. There were some glitches on the way here. We were standing there waiting for her bags to come through the conveyor belt and one load after the other there were no signs of her bags. Oh no, after coming this far her bags were lost or something. After a call to the baggage people, it turned out that her bags were some how left somewhere else. I didn't fully understand or listen to the guy. All I cared about was that she got all her bags (and mine from my family).

Having her here is great. It almost feels like we're back in Waterloo again. Like good old times. We brought in the New Year together last year and we're doing it again this year. How cool is that?

So far we've checked out the city and already she's done a lot of walking. I kinda forgot that she had just spent two days traveling and decided to show her the city. She said that she wasn't tired so I took that as lets go for a 4-5 hour walk around the city. That's like my usual day. My bad. I guess I should've warned her that we were going to do a lot of that. But than again, she knows me better than that so she knew what she was getting herself into.

Tomorrow we are heading down south with Becks to bring in the New Year and see what we can discover down there. Then when we get back Flash and I will rent some wheels and head up north. It'll be a crash course of Western Australia. People say you should take a few weeks to do either the south or the north but we plan on doing both in half that time. We can do it. As many of you know once I get into my driving zone, there's no stopping unless if it's requested. If that's not enough we are going to fly to Sydney on the same day that we come back from up north. Come on you can't come to Australia and not venture around Sydney. It's all about covering the essentials here. It'll be great. I'll make sure Flash is nice and tired for the flight back to good old 'loo. She'll be fit to walk a marathon.

Hope everyone had an amazing Christmas and ate lots of yummy food. Umm, turkey...

Happy New Year and talk to you all in a few weeks.

My new pal Sarg!!!

Meet our house guest for the next two months, Sarg...I was lounging around the other day and thought it would be nice to do a little bonding with our new house guest. You know, to help Sarg settle in and feel more at home. We wouldn't want him crying for those salt tablets on the second day away from home.

Somehow I got around to telling him about my ambitions of becoming a professional photographer and Sarg excitedly offered to be my model. Apparently he didn't think he was getting enough attention back home.

Calm down people, no need to freak out about Sarg experiencing any seizures or anything like that...No flash was used during our photo op so don't all jump to call the humane society.

Awww, look at him radiate in his little fish bowl

Come on Sarg, look up and smile for the camera

The next series was his brilliant idea. I guess he was feeling quite Patriotic...

The next two are my favourite!!!

Which one is the real Sarg??...

He just loves setting up in front of the flag...Can't really blame him...

Merry Christmas everyone!!! I love you all...

It may be summer here and I may be miles away from home but many of you have made me feel very blessed and grateful for having such wonderful friends and family. It's tough getting into the Christmas spirit when you are in a foreign country by yourself. However in the past two weeks I have received many cards and packages. THANK YOU sooo very much. They have meant a lot to me. Just knowing that you all thought of me has kicked started my Christmas spirit.

Merry Christmas my friends and I hope you all have many feasts during the holidays and enjoy each other's company. Even though I'm half way around the world, I am thinking of all of you and thankful for having such wonderful people in my life. Miss you all!!!

May the New Year bring you an infinity of laughter and new challenges...

Fighting a losing battle...

With all the good things that have happened to me personally I should be feeling great but it's tough when the friends around you are suffering. I've successfully passed the hardest year of the program and I'm loving my clinical placement right now. Everyone says that you're pretty much home free from here on in. The patients and diseases that I've been seeing in the past few weeks are incredible. It's not until you're actually out there that you realize how much you love what you're learning to become. I love this Physio stuff and there's so much more to it than muscles and bones.

But in saying all that, the politics and sadness that this program is bringing to people makes me want to walk away just to make a bold statement. This program here is world known and when I'm done I will get a higher wage simply because the reputation this school gets. But damn they treat their students really poorly and if you make one mistake, there's no mercy.

I have a few friends who unfortunately failed a few exams and are not granted to opportunity to write supplementary exams. Yes I know a few sounds like a lot but keep in mind that we had 14 exams in a span of two weeks. A few, which includes practicals, is not a lot. Some of the reasons for failing the practicals were ridiculous. One examiner said that they didn't think she was encouraging enough and the voice quality was not good. Those are ridiculous reasons to fail someone, especially when it's suppose to be on patient safely and doing the right technique. One person set the wrong ultrasound intensities and they still passed. It's so subjective and sometimes you wonder...

So my friends are in the midst of appeal right now and watching them go through this is the worst thing ever. I've been hanging out with them and trying to study with them but it's so hard because they're in some degree of depression. Your mind can only take so much abuse from people before it gives in and break down.

What bothers me most is how unsupportive most of the staff are. Instead of trying to encourage them and console them, they actually told them that they should just give up on this term and just repeat it again next year. One of my friends actually bought into that and didn't even bother appealing the decision. She had a really good chance of winning the appeal since it was only 2 courses. But after speaking to one of the staff she decided that it would be best to repeat the entire year, not just the second semester. That's the stupidest thing I have ever heard. It made me really sick and it made be cry that she was giving up. At one point I had helped her realize that she didn't want to just give up and actually went to the school to fill out the forms. Stupid people decided to have a xmas party that day when they told students to go in that day to talk about the supplementary exams. No one was there to help her so she gave up, again.

This whole school really pisses me off and I can't understand why they are so heartless. They have no compassion and everyone has become to hate this school. Year after year, they treat students like robots. They throw us in the open deep water and see who can swim back on their own. If you drown, you drown and they don't care. We're simply remaining in this course because we can't afford to walk away and I personally don't have the guts to. Honestly I can't watch any more of my friends go through this. It's too emotional for me. It's worst to watch someone go through it than if it was happening to me. If I had something to walk away to or if I didn't want to be a Physio as much as I do, it would be a loud statement that I would love to make.

Another set back

The first week of clinics was going amazing. I was seeing many different kinds of chronic diseases that I never even knew existed. Some we had discussed in class so it was great to actually see it in person. I'm doing Long Term Care right now and we go to people's homes. Most of the patients are bed bound and are paralyzed to some extent. These patients will never get better and will get worse. If they are lucky they will deteriorate slowly so it's pretty sad to see them and most of the diseases are hereditary. It almost makes you hesitant to have children when you see what these patients have to go through.

What amazes me the most are the primary carers. Most of these people are a family member, like a spouse. From talking to them you can tell that they love the patient very much but you can see the sacrifice that they had to make and sense the loneliness that they are experiencing. I have nothing but gratitude and respect for these people. It's great to see that they are not giving up on them even though the outcome is pretty much set in stone.

Midway through the first week of clinics I go to softball training and I somehow end up fracturing my finger. The coach was hitting me grounders and liners one after the other. No one else was there yet so she kept hitting me ball after ball. Occasionally a ball will hit my non glove hand because of a funny bounce or something. It happens all the time and people don't think much about it. Well I kept going and when we finally stopped and warmed up with the other players, I couldn't throw. It was just too painful. I thought it was just a swollen finger.

Two days later I spent all day trying to get an appointment for an xray referral. I go to school and they wouldn't fit me in. Then I go somewhere else and they say that they are not accepting any new patients until after the weekend. Two places later I finally have an appointment and got a referral that took the doctor 30 secs to write. When I eventually got the xray and got back to the doctor's office, he immediately sent me to the hospital to see a hand surgeon. Great, this is going to cost me so much money. Because I am an overseas student I have to pay for everything upfront and hope that I will get some of it back.

The hand surgeon told me that he would have to operate on my finger because more than 50% of the joint is out of place. But then when I saw him again on Monday he decided that surgery may be prevented and worth a try. Now I have a splint on and have to keep it on 24/7. Even if I take the splint off, I have to ensure that the finger is completely straight and absolutely not allowed to bend it for 6 weeks. It's quite a hassle sometimes but I'm allowed to do anything I want as long as I can tolerate it. It's just a finger, not a big deal at all but I still can't believe it's broken. Even with the broken finger and before I got this splint I decided to tape my fingers together for some support. Then I went to my ball games and ended up playing. I may have a broken finger but it can't stop me...

On the move...again!!!

I moved out of rez on Monday and then rushed to our class meeting before beginning clinics in the afternoon. That was the start of a crazy week. It was kinda sad leaving rez because I surprisingly loved living on campus. The whole experience was completely different from when I first lived in rez in Waterloo. The best part was meeting all kinds of people from all over the world and of course my flatmates. I was very lucky to have been placed in a unit with the head RA and with some really cool people. Other than the two of us, everyone else will be back in the same unit so I will be visiting them quite often. Thanks Unit 38 for the great times and memories. Yay, unit 38 forever...

As for my new place, there's still one girl who still needs to move out so we are short a bedroom. So right now I am sleeping in one of the two living rooms. It kinda reminds me of home because whenever I went back home in Toronto I would just sleep in the living room. For a period there was always an extra mattress in the living room and so I just slept there instead of dragging my sleepy self upstairs to my room. Even though I can't find any of my stuff and is literally living out of the suitcase, I am liking my new place. And the best part is that my new flatmates are spoiling me. I've been coming home late every night and my bed is all set up in the living room ready for me. And they've been giving me rides when I needed it. Now that's what I call service. All doubts that I had before I moved in is slowly diminishing.

Surreal

This past week has been so crazy. We finished our exams on Friday and found out that same night whether or not we passed. Most of us started clinics on Monday but if you had failed an exam you can not go. So they had to tell us before Monday. They said that they will email you on Friday night if you had failed. No news is good news in this course. I was pleasantly surprised to not receive any email. Going into this term I was very optimistic and had somehow regained my confidence. That was lacking the first semester here and keeping myself extremely busy with softball also helped. I've realized that you can't do accomplish anything if you don't believe in yourself. Confidence is everything. Sometimes you need to talk yourself up and make your head big.

I have just completed the most difficult and challenging academic year of my life. It seems so surreal, kinda like me being here in Australia. Sometimes I still can't believe it.