Joyce's Blog - v3

Raaaaaaagh tired!!!!

2009-10-02T00:31:00.001+10:00

One last before-bed post: Life to the Full @ Jeram's for the first time tonight! Soo tired but also so good. my legs hurt lol. :D

Learning..

2009-09-23T23:07:00.004+10:00

That I am not in control

To cast all anxieties on him who cares for me

To be content, whatever the circumstances

To be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer

To be strong and courageous, and to hold on to the promise: Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.

Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the LORD's purpose that prevails.

Reflections on 4th year

2009-09-22T16:31:00.003+10:00

Ok, so I've posted in my blog.. 4 times this year...

Where have I been?

It's been a good year I think. There's a lot to praise God for.

I've been in Newcastle all year, and so has Jeram

I've passed everything so far, with minimal effort (really)

I've scored really good tutors and rotations for everything

I've had Miche to bother and keep me company for the last semester

FOCUS has grown, particularly in the last semester, with a really diverse spread of culture and people.

I've learned more about myself, more about people and more about God.

It's funny, this year I actually feel older.

I think it hit me, when I was church the other night and people were talking about a girl in first year. She's short, asian, wears glasses and lives on campus, and she's a little "pocket rocket" - full of energy and bubbly, even when everyone else is tired, almost irritatingly so.

And I thought - hang on, that was me in first year!! where did all the energy go? Somewhere in the last 4 years, I think I lost my smile.

It's funny, the last 4 years, I've been trying so hard to be "older", to break the image of the little girl and make myself known as a friend on an equals level, not on a "put up with the younger kid" level. And now that I think I'm there, I feel like I want to go back to when I was 16, full of energy and naive about everything.

(then again, I had a moment yesterday when I was turning up for urology theatre and the nurse at the desk was calling the reg saying "I have a YOUNG medical student here to join you in theatre" and it felt like she was doing the "are you even old enough to be out of school?" thing - these things are more amusing than irritating these days, as I think - in about a year, I'm going to be a doctor :P)

But for all the energy and bubbly, I've lost, I think I've picked up a better appreciation of life, and what I'm doing and where I'm going. In terms of med, I think I've come to understand the system a lot better. I've lost the wide-eyed first year sense of "hero worship" and come to understand the doctors better as not just doctors, but also as people. In terms of FOCUS, I'm now better at standing back and looking at the big picture. And in terms of life I'm more certain of who I am as a child of God. And having been around so many old, sick and dying people, I'm more thankful than ever for the hope that I have in heaven.

It's weird, getting old is more "real" for me now than it ever was before - even a year ago, I couldn't imagine myself even at 30! Now as I look at friends who have graduated, it all seems to speed up. Of course, right now is the oldest I have ever been ;)

The speed at which life moves is exponentially proportional to the age of the life moving.

Tamworth feels less and less like home, every time I go there. It feels like the city in which my family is living, and a city that I'm familiar with, but not so much "home" any more.

There's a couple of words that I think could sum up fourth year medicine at the John Hunter, but above all, I think my word for it would be "lonely".

Picture being in an office full of midwives, waiting for handover on the delivery suite. They all know each other and laugh and joke about the weekend, about kids, about knitting. You try not to look too awkward, and hope that one of them will be happy to supervise you this shift.

Picture being in an operating theatre - the surgeon and anaesthetist are talking about mountain biking, the nurses are talking about motorbiking and the reg is busy writing notes or operating. I'm by myself, and it's the timeless feel of the operating theatre - is it still daylight outside? is it rainy? is it cloudy? is it sunny? - it doesn't matter because the time always feels the same..

Thinking back on my favourite memories of medicine, they'd include PBL groups in first and second year, singing to Sufjan Stevens with Dr Hungerford in 3rd year, singing to Jimmy Buffett with Dr McCallum in 4th year, getting lost in the ID department or Lake Macquarie private with Miche - I think for me, what I value most is feeling like I'm part of a team, or at least being included. Of course this isn't always going to happen (in fact, as a med student it won't happen that often), but it's special when it does.

Does it get better when we start working? I hope so. But even if it doesn't, I think 4th year has trained me to get over the loneliness of working by myself, and just getting the job done and getting out of there. Guess it's a useful thing, for reminding myself that medicine is just a job, not a career.

wow that turned into a soliloquy :P lol time to go back to napping! woohoo 7am starts...

I suck at blogging

2009-09-22T16:28:00.003+10:00

I really do. Oh well I think I'm going to start again for the sake of my sanity.

So far: I've finished 8 weeks in general medicine with 4 weeks in infectious disease and 4 weeks in geriatrics.

I picked up some form of cold in the weekend between ID and gerries @ wintercon 2, and still haven't completely shaken the cough.

Had focus weekend away in the holidays, picked up ?tonsillitis, was sick for a few days.

Started surgery last week, getting used to 7am starts - i felt strangely normal the past couple of days. my body told me how tired i was today tho, slept from 11am to 4pm!

yay for afternoons off.

I am lazy at blogging.

2009-05-29T17:20:00.001+10:00

Here a short update:

Finished paeds

nearly finished o&g

fish tank

weekend yay.

Tired... and silly

2009-02-04T00:03:00.001+11:00

I am tired but currently too silly to sleep! You can tell when there are 2 tired 4th years who have just gone back to uni when there is manic laughter happening at midnight :) neonatal ICU is fun. Paeds ED was a bit slow. So much to learn... augh. zz.

Back again!

2009-01-26T10:36:00.002+11:00

Wow it's been a long time since I posted. Let's see... in the last couple of months, I've been to Japan, Thailand, Tamworth and moved back into college - starting uni again tomorrow!

It's kinda overwhelming how much stuff can get done in a few months... or how little stuff :P

Psalm 131

2008-11-19T08:13:00.001+11:00

Short case day!!! Here we gooooooo.....

O LORD, my heart is not lifted up;
my eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things
too great and too marvelous for me.
But I have calmed and quieted my soul
like a weaned child with its mother,
like a weaned child is my soul
within me

O Israel, hope in the LORD
from this time fort and forevermore.

Pascal's Wager

2008-11-16T00:30:00.000+11:00

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_Wager

read this it's interesting. :)

Joyce's adventures at the beach

2008-11-15T22:14:00.010+11:00

Yes, this is a retrospective post... hehe - this is from Wednesday when I went to the beach after hospital!

So on wednesday, I went to hospital and saw my followthrough patient and went to ED and practiced some shortcase skills, then thought "it's a perfect day i'm going to the beach"

so i set the GPS to send me to near random beach...

first i ended up at Belmont Bay - a nice marina and picnic spot but no sand! having no food on me, i decided to keep going.

next, i was sent along a tiny random road to a road that said "private road" - the GPS told me to keep going, so i thought "sure i'll check it out" - there were some beautiful dunes there and I thought "oooh this could be good" and followed the road to the end to find.... the Belmont Waste Water Works. :(

So i set the GPS to "Pelican Island Beach" and a little while later I was driving down a beautiful dirt road surrounded by thick shore forest wondering where I was going to end up....
1km later down this road, this beautiful beach popped into view!!

The sand was perfect and warm, the water was crystal clear and cold, the water was running pretty fast and there were boats going by - so I chucked a towel down down on the sand and pulled out a textbook! I'm such a nerd! hehe. I have short cases next wednesday, please excuse the study... After I got sick of studying and had a bit of a nap, I decided to go for a walk down the beach, so I chucked everything in the car, put the car keys in my pocket and went for a walk.

There were little hermit crabs trundling around between the rocks and little shoals of tiny shorefish (yes I was thinking "ooh ikan bilis!") and i went for a bit of wade (but i hadn't brought my swimmers! *sighs*)

After a little wander I went back to my car, when to my shock and horror the keys weren't in my pocket any more! Figuring that I must have dropped them on my walk, I went back along where I'd walked looking for them in that state of semi-panic you get when you lose your car keys on a mostly deserted beach and your mobile phone is locked in the car along with everything else, praying desperately that God would help me find them...

I eventually asked one of the bikini-clad locals if I could borrow her phone to make a NRMA call - turns out she was out of credit but she very nicely offered to help me look for my keys. After a while, she decided to walk back to her house and call NRMA from there and just as we were walking past my car again, i found my keys! in the sand, about 10m from my car - PHEW! thank God!!!

So I decided that it was time to leave that beach, but not having enough of rambling, I decided to head for another random beach nearby and check out redhead beach!

There was a beautiful 10 minute boardwalk down, and some awesome cliff faces and dunes to scramble up. The beach was pretty choppy tho, and the sand was really white and soft. After walking in the sand got painful, I decided it was time to do some more study so I headed off to Estabar on Newcastle Beach for some yummy scrambed eggs and some more study! Then off the 3 monkeys cafe for a raspberry orange frappe and some more study and then back home again after a big day!

Water, sertraline, pill, nurofen!

2008-11-14T21:56:00.000+11:00

I've been in sydney for 12 hours! saaaave meeeee :P

Nov ... 16?

2008-11-14T03:53:00.002+11:00

Yes, it's 4am. I've just finished my patient followthrough report and i'm in that state of utter past-sleep exhaustion - so tired that i'm awake! and acutely aware that i have to be awake in 3 hours >< . but i thought i'd share this beautiful spurgeon nov16th evening first.

“Thine eyes shall see the King in his beauty.” Isaiah 33:17

The more you know about Christ the less will you be satisfied with superficial views of him; and the more deeply you study his transactions in the eternal covenant, his engagements on your behalf as the eternal Surety, and the fulness of his grace which shines in all his offices, the more truly will you see the King in his beauty. Be much in such outlooks. Long more and more to see Jesus. Meditation and contemplation are often like windows of agate, and gates of carbuncle, through which we behold the Redeemer. Meditation puts the telescope to the eye, and enables us to see Jesus after a better sort than we could have seen him if we had lived in the days of his flesh. Would that our conversation were more in heaven, and that we were more taken up with the person, the work, the beauty of our incarnate Lord. More meditation, and the beauty of the King would flash upon us with more resplendence. Beloved, it is very probable that we shall have such a sight of our glorious King as we never had before, when we come to die. Many saints in dying have looked up from amidst the stormy waters, and have seen Jesus walking on the waves of the sea, and heard him say, “It is I, be not afraid.” Ah, yes! when the tenement begins to shake, and the clay falls away, we see Christ through the rifts, and between the rafters the sunlight of heaven comes streaming in. But if we want to see face to face the “King in his beauty” we must go to heaven for the sight, or the King must come here in person. O that he would come on the wings of the wind! He is our Husband, and we are widowed by his absence; he is our Brother dear and fair, and we are lonely without him. Thick veils and clouds hang between our souls and their true life: when shall the day break and the shadows flee away? Oh, long-expected day, begin!

if we all had such a view of death, noone would be afraid to die. wish that God would grant me such a view of heaven and Jesus that nothing in this world can make me afraid.

yup. definitely time to sleep. zzzz. thank God for getting assignments done - 4000 words in 7 hours! :P

My shopping verse

2008-11-09T01:23:00.000+11:00

1 Cor 7:30b-31

...those who buy something, as if it were not theirs to keep; those who use the things of the world, as if not engrossed in them. For this world in its present form is passing away.

2008-11-08T20:15:00.002+11:00

funnies

2008-11-08T18:12:00.002+11:00

muchos gracias to www.nataliedee.com for my new profile pic :P

incidentally, if anyone wants to give me syphillis, herpes or the flu for christmas, here is a good place to get it: http://www.latestbuy.com.au/giant-microbes-soft-toys.html

:)

Almost holidays!

2008-11-07T23:59:00.001+11:00

11 days to go!!! Almost there... so close... in holiday mode already - so bad! :P

Still Alive

2008-10-16T14:14:00.001+11:00

I am still alive :) Updates:

I was in Tamworth for the last 3 months. Prac in Tamworth Hospital ICU - really good!

I am back in Newcastle now! Prac in Belmont Hospital for the next 3 months until the end of the year - really tiring! but also good.

That's a basic summary of me for the last 4 months! :D

Welcome home

2008-06-17T11:48:00.005+10:00

On the GW front, I'm very excited because I have a new guild! And even more than that, I've got the guild hall I always wanted :D It has a beach... and a waterfall!

I feel like this is me posting my "holiday" pics! except I get to live here now! YAY!!

The name reminds me of something Paul would name it - "Tiny Rambutans" hehe.

one down!

2008-06-17T11:46:00.001+10:00

one more today, one more tomorrow :)

praise God for his mercies that are new every morning :) and for a great exam yesterday! here goes today....

Cabin Fever!!

2008-06-11T12:19:00.004+10:00

So here I am in Tamworth because Newcastle was giving me stuvac cabin fever... and now i'm still cabin fevered! only a week to go - this next week it will be holidays!!! the only problem is that there's exams in between :(

back

2008-05-25T23:56:00.004+10:00

by popular demand:

phantom was brilliant! costuming and set was great, voices were well cast - surprisingly, the Raoul character had almost a more "manly" voice than Phantom (well, anthony warlow is a tenor at best - this raoul was a really deep tenor :P) and helps that he was Raoul good-looking too ;) orchestra was really good too, tho the percussionist deserved yelling at at times ;) (just had to nit-pick about something... hehe)

amendment: and the whole thing was courtesy of an absolutely amazing boyfriend who got tickets, then drove 4 hours that day, 2 of which were through heavy fog, so we could go see the two men have a calligraphy contest :D did i mention it was opening night too? :D hehe. *what was it i was supposed to have wrote? >.< ... written.*

thought of the night:

Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? (Luke 12:25)

(I also like how the alternate footnote translation thing says "or cubit to his height!" (hehe) )

so i am not going to live longer or get taller by worrying. useful verse for studying med i think - makes me paranoid about something suddenly going wrong somehow, but remembering that worrying isn't going to do anything makes me feel better :)

I'm stil here!

2008-05-22T10:18:00.002+10:00

This blogging thing carries almost as little motivation as study! hehe. Nothing much on the new front. Joyce is going to enter crazy stuvac mode (there will be silence....)

For once, it's not the weekend!

2008-05-13T09:05:00.002+10:00

Blissful day off.. :) Phantom tonight! wheee!

--

Now playing: Ways & Means - Snow Patrol

another weekend...

2008-05-10T22:44:00.000+10:00

Another weekend... the weeks go too fast...

----
Now playing: Dido - Honestly OK

I'm on the Travian stats board!!! wooo!!!

2008-05-07T15:52:00.006+10:00

And Elwen's climbing up the ranks... for doing nothing! wheee! man this game is um.. easy? interesting? and i wasn't even hardcore into it! hahahahahaaaaaa

gone slightly mad due to exhaustion i think. couldn't sleep last night until like 3. then the college office calls up at 9:30 going "one of the girls in your unit said they were locked out can they call us back?" and i'm like "wha? who? umph." hehe.

after a few hours of wrangling with STA travel, my flights for the end of the year are booked! :)

kingdom of loathing is also a great way to waste time. When i'm not creating a 55 monk. hehe 3 levels to goooo! or trying for guardian/vanquishing title... too many mssions and areas to go! >< <----- this paragraph is a load of blather about guild wars. disregard if you have no idea what i'm talking about. ;)

ok off to class time for meeeeee

The weekend's gone! Where did it go??

2008-05-04T23:58:00.002+10:00

Weekends always go too fast.. :(

The sun comes out, then goes behind clouds again..

So much work I should have done/be doing augh! Sometimes I feel like I'm coming undone (watch the video it's really clever! - if somewhat disturbing :P - i love that song tho, it's a perfect summary of the human condition) but then I remember that "Surely God is my help; the Lord is the one who sustains me." Psalm 53:4 - if God knows how many hairs there are on my head, he knows how much work is in this semester and even though i sometimes can't see the end of the tunnel, I know he's got a plan (even if my study plan keeps falling out the window! :P)

In other news - yay I have a dual screen setup! (thanks Jeram!) - it's useful for having notes on one screen and a lecture on the other, or wikipedia, or email, or guild wars open on one screen with the guild wars wiki open on the other... teehee!

Immunology week! aaah!

2008-04-28T23:33:00.002+10:00

I think I'm going to make a cartoon series explaining immunology in a simpler way than the textbooks which make you want to hit your head against them.

and also go to sleep now.

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toothpastefordinner.com

I am weak, but He is strong!

2008-04-27T23:27:00.004+10:00

Just got back from FOCUS camp - about 25 of us went to Tahlee for the weekend and had a heap of fun hanging out, eating, hanging out some more, studying Romans, and not sleeping very much ;) highlights of the weekend for me:

- shopping with Paul at Woolies for food for 25 people for a weekend - pushing 2 fully-laden trollies around yelling out stuff like "THE END IS COMING! PREPARE YOURSELVES!!!" and "FOOD SHORTAGE!! GET IT WHILE YOU CAN!!" at the people who gave us really weird looks, and having a good chat with the lady at the checkout about what we were really doing (hehe)

- when the sun came out! It was raining for a whole week since I arrived back in Newcastle, but then the sun came out on Saturday and it was absolutely stunning! While rain is an incredible invention by God, so is the feeling that you get when the sun comes out again :) The sunset on Saturday looked something like this (but not the same, of course, because no two sunsets are ever the same!)

- reading through Romans, being challenged and taught by the talks and the studies, struggling through hard concepts with everyone else and understanding so much more about a passage that really had turned into a "ok I've read this before, that's great, now what" passage. I think one thing that really challenged me was the phrase "we rejoice ("boast") in hope of the glory of God" - it's one thing not to boast about or in yourself, but to rejoice and boast in the hope of the glory of God - that means actually showing it! It's one thing to go about life as a humble hermit - anyone can do that, really - but going out there and rejoicing in how good God is, and my hope of his glory? that's scary! I guess it also really is the kinda "final blow" to boasting in yourself - if i'm being humble and not saying anything for once, i guess there's always the "i hope people notice that i'm being humble" or the "i hope people notice the stuff that i'm not boasting about even without me saying anything" in the background, which is still, really, boasting in myself - if i'm going to boast about how it's all God - well it's not any me then, is it?! What I guess i'm getting as is that i think i want to work on not only not boasting about myself, but going out there and boasting about God - it's easy to boast about, for example, how good Jeram is (he bought me another pot of tulips even though I killed the last one! :D), but then boasting about God seems something so misplacedly unnatural! (how awesome is God for even inventing tulips! and also for creating people who give me tulips! :P)

And I think in the same way, I want to be out there to bring glory to God - which means "letting my light shine" - so what if i'm depressed, tired and feeling sick! R&R's one thing, but letting that slide into a self-absorbed misery is another. So I guess one aspect of bringing God the glory is to use the situations and gifts he's given me - i guess before i was losing focus and starting to doubt whether i'm in the right course, living in the right place, what's going to happen next semester, how am i going to survive this semester: looking back, God's blessed me in so many ways and he's definitely got a plan for me now - i guess until further notice, i'm going to be a med student, living at college, and not doing a half-assed job about it! so thankful for people placed along the path that have given me a kick along the way - if you're reading this, please make sure i'm studying! :)

And even through all this resolving - I know i'm not going to be able to do it without God pushing me along, and even though i'm not certain about the future, i can rejoice in the sure hope that God's got a plan for his glory, a plan for me, and that everything will work out according to that plan! (I am weak, but He is strong!)

in other news: I'm addicted to Umbrella (by Rihanna) (ella, ella, ay, ay, ay) and there's a party weekend on in Guild Wars! (lol there goes the resolution to study! i change my career to full time gamer! hm. something tells me that's an unwise plan... if Solomon can seek after pleasure to find out if it's the meaning of life.. oh yeh it turned out that was a vain "striving after the wind", huh. >< )

--

For when dreams increase and words grow many, there is vanity; but God is the one you must fear -- Ecclesiastes 5:7

A quick summary

2008-04-23T01:01:00.004+10:00

For everyone who hasn't seen me in a while (last blog post was in August last year! - whoops) - here's a quick "what's happened to me in the last while" post

Still at unichurch @ Newcastle uni and loving it!

Still studying medicine, in 3rd year academic semester right now (which is like a subspecialty a week - ouch!) - looking forward to an 8 week prac in Tamworth in the middle of the year, then an 8 week prac in Belmont hospital to finish the year off.

FOCUS (Fellowship of Overseas Christian Uni Students) is going off this year! I love hanging out with the international students and pretending that I'm still Malaysian ;) We're going on camp this weekend which should be awesome - if you're coming, please let me know ASAP! if not, please pray for good weather, safe travel and that we'll learn heaps from God's word and get to know each other all better (the way that only camps can do!)

Yes, still going out with Jeram :) almost 2 years now!

I have facebook! But I don't check it very often these days because i end up wasting heaps of time on it *embarrased face*

And i have a beautiful little scooter that is exacerbating my "college spread" uni weight gain!

Joyce's Blog - revamped!

2008-04-23T00:35:00.002+10:00

Hi everyone! It's been a long long while since I last blogged... but here is the new, revamped blog of Joyce! Keep watching for more updates, I guess... if there's anyone out there vaguely interested in my life ;)

(thanks to www.toothpastefordinner.com for the picture!)