Prochaska and DiClemente's Stages of Change: Exam edition

Pre-contemplation
This stage commences the moment the academic year begins (or following a previous exam during the year). The thought of the next exam is far from your mind. You have more important things to think about, such as what's for dinner tonight, or how many bottles of opened wine did I leave under my bed, and surely Justin Bieber doesn't have testicles. At this stage, exams are four months away, which is like, next year!

Contemplation
With each passing week, the lecture notes and other random pieces of paper pile up on the desk. You look at it, and then think about how awesome it would be to set it on fire right about now. Unfortunately, the arsonist within you is overcome by that voice in the back of your head (usually dad) that keeps asking, "so, have you been studying?" Have I been studying?! Where do you think I am? A university?? ... oh wait, shit! Yep, it's about this time where you start thinking about opening the books and spending some quality time with it. Of course, you're only thinking about it. At this stage, you're still pissing away every weekend, and watching pirated movies, three films at a time.

Preparation
Alright, enough f*#king around. It's time to do something about this exam. You're driven, not so much by the thought of failing the exam, but rather by the fact that a fail means a repeat, and a repeat means another year without an income, and another year without an income means another year leeching off other peoples' money through Centrelink. Hey, that doesn't so bad actually. Anyway, it's about this time that you get your arse into gear. The TV goes off, the computer games get shelved, and you tell your friends that you will be AWOL for the next few weeks days. But that's ok. You will make new friends. Those friends are called Caffeine, Cocoa, Guarana, Taurine, and Benzodiazepine. Also, it's about this time that you actually decide to go buy a pen.

Action
Right, it's time to knuckle down. You close the curtains, isolate yourself from the outside world and let your nerd-like instincts kick in. Pharmacology? You've learnt more about drugs during year 9 (out the back of school). Neurophysiology? More like grade 3 math. Anatomy? Home economics. You are a highly-trained, finely-tuned studying monster. An SAS soldier might be able to shoot you in the head 3km away with a pistol, but he can't draw a brachial plexus in 13 seconds flat like you can.

Maintenance
You've got your study on, and there's no turning back. What's that? Your boyfriend is calling? Tell him you have a new man, and that man is the pharmacist downstairs who is about to teach you three lectures worth of pharmacology in three minutes. What about cleaning? Pfft, everybody knows that houses clean themselves within two weeks of an exam. There is nothing that's going to take you out of your hypnotic, studious state of mind. You are in the zone. You are Michael Jordan winning six NBA championships. Muhammed Ali in the ring. Tiger Woods completing all the holes with a record score (pun intended). Of course, this would ideally continue on until exam time, at which point you will have reached the stage of Termination, but in reality, it never does. Inevitably, you will...

Relapse
So the study period has begun and you have come flying off the blocks like Usain Bolt on a concoction of steroids, ketamine, and methamphetamines. Who knows? For you, that might actually be literal. Either way, you failed to realise one thing. This whole studying business is a marathon, not a sprint... unless you're starting the night before, in which case ha! you're fucked! If there's one thing you should've learnt from primary school, it's that the tortoise always win, not the rabbit... stupid dumbarse rabbit. Throughout the course of studying, you will be tempted by various distractors to throw you off your newfound love for all things academic. Girlfriends, alcohol, strange urges to get on a plane that's going to another country. Whatever it may be, it just makes things all the more difficult. You will crack, and all of a sudden you will find yourself waking up next to three finished bottles of wine, twelve empty beer bottles, and thirty minutes to go before the exam starts.

It doesn't help that you will at some point (usually a week before exams), freak out and stress yourself to a state of catatonia and near-death. You think you will fail, based solely on the fact that the dude sitting on the other table knows that there are two eyes in the human body, whereas you thought there was only one. Don't worry, however, because it's a known fact that almost everyone will get to this state. I say 'almost' because there will be an inevitable few that will stay calm and collected. These are the ones that think they know everything. It is these people who will end up failing simply because it is not humanly possible to know everything. Hence, they are liars, and know nothing.

All that stress is usually followed by apathy. You are over it. Who gives a toss about this exam anymore? As a result you end up ceasing all study, and instead, engage in completely pointless exercises of procrastination such as writing practically useless blogs the night before an exam. :D

Tips for an OSCE

An "OSCE" is a fancy way of saying a "clinical exam" to those of you who are wondering... and that's directed to the med students, too. If you are one of them, and you still haven't realised this ... good luck. You'll need it.

Three and a half years ago as I fudged my way through my final physio clinical exam, I promised myself I would never go through another one of these ever again. Well, that worked out well didn't it...

Anyway, I see people starting to freak out about the OSCEs. I've picked up the odd tip and hint along the way, and it's only fair that I share them:

- When you feel like you're running out of time, and your eight minutes is almost up, you've probably still got seven and a half minutes left.
- If you are unsure as to how to do that particular knee test, just make something up, and explain that it is "a variation of that test" ... Chances are, it probably is.
- When assessing the sim patient's gait, look at their legs. Assessing someone's ability to walk by looking at their face is akin to a deaf person reviewing a rock concert.
- When getting someone to stand on one leg or close their eyes with their feet together, make sure you are standing close enough to catch them. No one likes a patient that has fallen down. It usually ends up with an unnecessary hip operation, an angry patient, and a court hearing.
- Saying "good" or "awesome" as a filling-in response when the patient says "my dad died of cancer" doesn't really make you look compassionate.
- If you haven't washed your hands in the last 30 seconds, it's time to do it again.
- Asking the patient to take off their pants without explaining to them why they need to is slightly awkward, and probably sexually unwanted.
- The sim patient will be wearing a fake arm. The needle goes here.
- The rubbish bin is usually a plastic bag. The needle does not go here.
- If you are asked to do an MMSE, the sim patient will probably pretend to act agitated and aggressive. If he/she decides to pull out a knife on you, stop and call for help. Continuing with the MMSE usually ends up in murder. No one likes a dead med student. It gets messy.
- If you can't elicit a reflex, just say "there is no evidence of an increased reflex". It's a bit like saying the food is "caramelised" rather than "burnt"
- Bring a watch that can keep track of the seconds for when you measure heart rates. Counting to thirty in your head is not really reliable, unless you are an actual clock.
- You can fake your way through using an opthalmoscope. Just learn how to turn it on ... that bit you can't fake.
- An otoscope is for the ear, not the eye.

If you are freaking out, take a deep breath, and calm down. You know your stuff, so don't panic. You're not going to be perfect, and you'll probably forget things or make one or two mistakes. Everyone will. I plan on making three per station. You'll still pass. Remember, you're the one in charge, not the examiner or the patient. You have the control. You're the boss. Walk into the room and be one. Destroy that station.

Medical Ethics in one minute, not one day

- Ask the patient if it's ok before you stick a camera up their arse. It also kinda helps if you tell them why you have to do it.
- Make sure the patient can rationally decide for themselves without coercing their decision-making process. Coercing is bad. Paedophiles coerce little children. Do I really need to say more?
- If jabbing someone with a needle for the purpose of research, it only works if the said needle doesn't contain a flesh eating virus disguised as 'a potentially new drug treatment'

- Try and make the patient walk out of your room feeling better. That's kinda the whole point of this medicine thing..... in case you haven't yet figured out why you're here.
- You're holding a mini ninja blade otherwise known as a scalpel. Note that it is not a killing tool.
- When the patient walks out of the room, don't tell the world about their rapidly growing list of STIs. It may be amusing to you, but probably not as amusing as it is for their lawyer.

The end.

Weekend.

Medical Law

Friday morning again. Law all over again. Hardly anyone's paid attention again. About half of the class has turned up to the tute. You know what? I've actually taken quite a bit away from these law sessions (seriously!!!) So, it's time to revise. Let's revise the key issues regarding medical law, and the best way to stop them from threatening your career.

By the way, a disclaimer: If you are reading this years after it has been posted, and you are the legal practitioner of a client who is currently suing me for something, then please note that all this is not to be taken seriously. I repeat: I AM JUST JOKING! Also, if you are a medical student reading this, and you do decide to take this seriously, YOU DESERVE TO HAVE SOMEONE SUE THE PANTS OFF YOU, YOU DOUCHE. AND IF YOU ARE READING THIS WHILE CLASS IS GOING ON, THEN STOP READING AND START LISTENING!

Key Medical Issues

Mistaking Left vs Right

We've all done it - mistake the left for the right or the right for the left. Hell, I did it during my driving test all those years ago. If I can turn left when some guy asks me to go right, imagine what I could do with an orthopaedic drill, a bone chisel, and a human body that's been anaesthetised! Such a tragedy can be easily avoided with a thick, black permanent marker. When that poor sucker that's going under the knife walks in, don't shake hands or say hi to him/her. There are more important things to be done first. Get the marker out and draw a giant star on whichever leg needs to be operated on. You can even be creative and draw or write something on there. "Say goodbye to this leg" is not recommended.

Confidentiality

What goes on in the consult room, stays in the consult room. You wouldn't want your doctor disclosing your current STI track record would you? Confidentiality is like the house sewerage pipes - break it, and you're in deep shit. You can omit names, but the world is tiny. If you mention "a 56 year old female", chances are, some guy 400 metres away will hear you and know exactly who you're talking about. Avoiding this is pretty simple - just shut the hell up in public. But what about those "secure" medical records? They always ends up in the wrong hands. So what do you do? Do what the crims do. Burn the evidence. At the end of every consult, take those notes you've been writing diligently and burn them in front of your patient's eyes. Nothing says "it's OK. Your secret's safe with me" better than burning paper.

Medical Negligence

Negligence is the technical legal term for "a huge cock-up". There are endless ways of achieving this. Such ways include administering the wrong drug, letting the patient fall and fracture a hip when you get them out of bed, injecting into a vein when you're not supposed to, and somehow causing someone to go blind when you're inserting a scope up their rectum. Best way to avoid such cock-ups? Five words: Let the nurses do it. Face it, future and current doctors. You might be there to make the decisions and boss people around, but when it comes to "hands on" work, you have as much dexterity as a seven month old baby. The nurses completely own you on most procedural work, so just admit your shortfalls and let them do it. It's not being lazy, it's called "doing what's best for your patient". The plus side is, if something goes wrong, the lawyers won't be coming after you. Win!

Relationships with clients

Falling in love with your patient is a huge no-no. No matter how hot your patient is, no girl is worth your medical career. (Exceptions to this rule can be found here, here, and here.) It's hard to avoid such feelings though. You're stuck in a small room all day, and you meet so many people. And with all that stress you're exposed to, it's hard to keep those emotions in check. You need reminders. And what better reminder than a picture of your significant other. Plaster her picture everywhere in your consult room, but that picture shouldn't be one of her smiling or else it's like she's saying "go on, I approve of your infidelity!" No, those pictures should have her looking at you with an angry "if you cheat on me, I'm going to take away most of your money" face. That should be enough to stop you from cheating on her.

Sexual assault

The sexual assault lawsuit is complicated. Well, for males at least. When a male doctor does something unlawful with a female patient, then that lady will rightfully see it as sexual assault. Yet when a female doctor does something unlawful with a male patient, then that guy will usually see it as a fantasy coming true. Regardless of such gender differences, sexual assault is indeed a very serious issue. There is, however, one major problem with tackling this subject. You see, there is just no way around it. I don't know about you, but you can give me all the warning you want. It still won't make a finger up the anus, a poke of my breast, or an alarmingly-thicker-than-the-hole-it's-supposed-to-go-into sized tube up the urethra any less traumatic. Face it, men. There is one absolute with becoming a doctor in today's litigation happy Western society: You are eventually going to get sued for sexual assault at some time. It doesn't matter how innocent you are, it will still happen. So what do we do? Simple! Get to know your medical board! It's the board that decides whether to pass your case up to the courts, so act early and neutralise it before it gets there! Humans are a very subjective species. Medical boards are full of humans. Logic thus says, medical boards are subjective. Use it to your advantage. Find someone, who knows someone's friend, who knows someone's aunty, who knows someone's brother, who knows someone's cousin, who knows someone's best friend, who knows someone on the board. Then buy him wine, or her some flowers. Nothing influences passing judgement on someone more than "Hey I know that guy! He's alright!"

Informed Consent

It is not enough to simply ask the patient, "Is it OK for me to go ahead?" You must ensure that the patient has been disclosed all the relevant information and results regarding the tests that led you to the proposed management, as well as details regarding the actual proposed management. You must inform them of the potential benefits of this management, as well as the potential risks involved. Following this, you must then tell them of the probabilities that the aforementioned benefits and risks would occur. You must then ensure that they are aware of all other treatment options that are available to them. Whilst giving all this information, you must ensure that you haven't coerced them into making a decision, and that their final choice is not confounded and is free from bias. Somewhere along the line you must make sure that they are still with you, and haven't gone insane with information overload. If they are still there, you must then ensure that the patient is competent to make the decision themselves. This may involve various tests of mental and psychological stability. Should they not be competent enough to make an informed decision, their next-of-kin, or court-appointed "decision-maker" needs to be soughted. Once an informed decision is made, and consent is gained, you must then obtain written documentation as evidence that the consent process is completed. This often requires you to find a pen of some sort and the patient to read about seven pages of size 4 font writing. Good luck to you if the patient doesn't read English. Once all this has been completed, it is likely about 2:21am in the early morning, and the practice has been closed for the past five hours.

Basically, what I'm saying is, learn to become a 24 hour doctor in order to accommodate all the informed consent requirements.

Med student types (in a lecture theatre)

It's Friday morning, and I'm sitting at the back of the lecture theatre. I always feel bad whenever I don't listen in to lectures. But from this back row, I can see pretty much everyone else's laptop screens, and all but about six people are obviously not listening. I feel quite good now. Anyway, there's just no way I can tune in, so in order to keep awake I present to you:

Med Student Personalities in a Lecture Theatre

Facebook Stalker - Systematic reviews show that 120% of students with a laptop in any lecture will end up on Facebook at some point. Chances are, you are part of this group. You like to update your status about just how bored you are with the lecture. Not content with that, you will also talk to the person sitting next to you with Facebook chat, to express how bored you are. Congratulations! You may have just found the most efficient way of communicating with someone 30cm away from you: By relaying the message through some IT office halfway around the world.

The Gamer - You might be playing solitaire. Perhaps it's Farmville. Maybe it's a flash game on some website. Whatever the game, you pale in comparison to the people who are playing counter-strike against each other from opposite sides of the lecture theatre.

Rubber Neck - Sleep is for the weak! That's your motto. It got you into med and by Jebus, it's gonna get you through the course. Of course you have to sleep at some point in time, and what better time than during a lecture. Dim lights. Monotonic voice. The soothing sounds of laptop keyboards typing away. You don't need a pillow. Your neck was made flexible for a reason. Everyone else is laughing at you everytime your head flings forward or to the side, and then snaps back like a rubber band. But that's OK... just don't drool as well.

Arm Stretcher - You just can't stop stretching that right arm of yours. Every three slides you feel the urge to stick that right hand up, and ask a question to the lecturer. Don't worry about the fact that your question will be answered on the next slide anyway, or that all your questions will eventually need a combined total of 18 minutes to answer, just make sure you get to stretch that right arm. Cramps are never a fun thing to have.

The Rager - No I am not referring to raging lesbians, I am talking about the ones that get worked up into an angry fit of rage. You are forever linked to the preceding med type. When that arm goes up, somewhere, in some corner of the theatre (usually the back corner) the sound of a fist smashing against a laptop can be heard. That fist is likely yours. You hate people that waste your time, and believe that learning is best done with your mouth shut and your ears open. (Open eyes, and conscious state are optional)

Multi-Tasker - You are quite talented. Your eyes can concentrate on your laptop screen as you power through your next tute or PBL presentation, whilst your ears are expertly trained into the voice of a lecturer like a dog. Of course, you're brain is a bit retarded and can only take one thing at a time, so either your tute answers are gonna suck or that lecture just went straight out the other ear. That's alright though. The important thing is, you believe you got both things done at the same time. And that's efficiency.

Chronic Latecomer - Oops, you slept in again! You've done it five times this week already, and it's only Tuesday! Mathematically impossible, but you have a knack of finding a way to do this!! You only have one choice: skip breakfast. Um, WRONG! Bring your breakfast to the lecture. Nothing says professionalism and class than a bowl of weet-bix in the back row. Next time you might consider upping the ante by bringing in a sandwich press.

Ninja - The number of 'ninjas' tends to fluctuate, with a significantly higher proportion seen the closer it gets to Friday afternoon. You are undoubtedly the smartest of the entire student cohort. You are so smart, in fact, that you can attend the lecture from the comfort of your own car seat, whilst driving back to Melbourne.

Copycat - You type out *everything* on the slides that are presented even though it will be made available later on the web. Your excuse is usually "it helps to keep me awake". You, my friend, need to discover the joys of caffeine, which leads me to...

The Addict - To you, having four lectures in a row after lunch amounts to torture by forcible watching of Grey's Anatomy. There is no way you can last the next 59 minutes and 59 seconds of the first lecture, let alone the next three ones. Your only saviour? A coffee. Really struggling? Then only a Mother will do - $3 worth of guaranteed consciousness, at the expense of getting diabetes later on in life. You never sit in on an afternoon lecture without one by your side. No food or drinks allowed in the lecture theatre? That's OK, a can of Mother is in its own category of consumable goods.

The Territorial Marker - Sure you may not have urinated on that seat like a canine, but hell hath no fury on the poor unfortunate soul that decides to sit on your chair. Yes, you could've sat on any of the one hundred and fifty other seats in the lecture theatre, but that would go against everything you stand for. There is something about this particular seat. It might be the balanced mood lighting, or perhaps it's a Feng-Shui thing. Either way, you have an obsessive compulsive disorder.

Chair Squeaker - You just can't sit still for more than five minutes without shifting positions. Either that or you have haemorrhoids. Your frequent ass-shifting causes your chair to squeak like a tortured duck. You are quite funny when there's a group of you doing it at the same time.

Old Schooler - You are a technological dimwit that can't get your head around having to click on the "start" button to shut a computer down. You don't care that every student was given free laptops by the faculty. That's not how you roll. For you, when it comes to note-taking, only a pen and paper will do. In fact, if you had your way, we'd all be writing with a quill and black ink, which coincidentally would make for some awesome cross-lecture-theatre ink fights.

Model Student - You are sitting in the lecture, listening in intently, and taking due and diligent notes for the entire 60 minutes ........... hahaha! I lie. Such a thing doesn't exist.

The Meaning of Life...

... is like doing one of those frustrating cryptic crosswords. You know there's an answer. It's just that a) it requires too much thinking to work it out, b) you're never really sure if you've got the right answer, and c) when you find that answer and tell others about it, people think you need to go out and get laid a bit more. Unlike a crossword though, the meaning of life usually doesn't have one single correct answer. So trying to explain it would be as productive as finding the corner of a circle. It would also inevitably end up in one of those philosophical arguments where fancy words such as "absurdism", "utilitarianism" and "post-modernism" get thrown around by people, whilst I just smile and nod and do my best to feign that I have an IQ with three figures in it.

I'm sure there's several variations to whatever it means. I've heard people say that the meaning of life is to do whatever is good for others. Fair enough, but then what if that other person is the second coming of Hitler, Saddam Hussein, Napoleon, and the Cookie Monster combined? Another version of it is simply to live, and keep populating the world. A very pragmatic approach, yes, but then anyone who adopts this version comes across as a horny rabbit on heat that just wants to bonk anything that moves. My favourite is probably the "to love and be loved" purpose to life. Everyone wants to be loved. I like to be loved. Love me. Cuddle me. Hold me. Hold me. Never let me go until you've told me. Told me. What I want to know and then just hold me. Hold me. Make me tell you that I'm in love with you...... No wait, those are just lyrics to a song.

Anyway, the point of all this is to say that for the first time in my life, I feel like I may have found my meaning and purpose, whatever that may be. Hooray!

Just don't ask me to explain what it is, 'coz I wouldn't have the slightest idea where to start.

Happy Easter

Easter is a magical time of the year. Somewhere near the North Pole, in his giant mansion made from the slave labour of three hundred underpaid elves, an overweight man enters a secret room with a secret machine. He walks into this machine, and upon exiting he is immediately about five feet shorter, his ears about three times as long, and that white beard of his is now all over his body. Yep, Santa Claus has morphed into the Easter Bunny. Back at his "toy factory" the elf slaves, in all their orange-faced glory, remove their cute little pointy elvish hats to reveal their thick, curly green hair. Yes that's right, the elves are in fact the Oompa Loompas, toy makers for six months of the year, chocolate bees for the other six. The entire clan was won by Santa off an inebriated Willy Wonka, in a game of high stakes texas poker that marked the epic downfall of an entire chocolate empire. In a last-ditched effort to salvage his pint-sized orange-coloured workers, Willy put his entire factory on the line in one last bet. He thought he had won, but someone forgot to tell the intoxicated chocolate king that having five cards of the same colour isn't actually a legitimate winning hand. With the Oompa Loompas and the plans for a chocolate empire now in the hands of Santa, the fat jolly man in a red suit decided to branch out.

And that's how the Easter Bunny was born.

For most, this is what Easter is all about - stuffing ourselves full with the goodness of milk chocolate, then running around the block a couple of times everyday because you feel guilty. You eventually get over it within about eight days, and accept the fact that you're always going to be a fat person simply because you live in a country full of fatties, you fatty fatty boomba.

Of course, there's the original reason behind having an Easter in the first place, which is the religious aspect to it. Christians celebrate this time of year in honour of a man who gets nailed to a cross. I'm supposedly one of them. I say 'supposedly' because most wouldn't think me as one... must be all the swearing, insulting, and violent tendencies that I have. Actually, I now realise why Christians are looked upon with an eye of oddity. Think about it. We celebrate an innocent person dying a painful and excruciating death. Somewhere along the line, logic and religion obviously had a falling out. Obviously the concept is not as simple as that, and to explain it now would put me at risk of looking like a man wearing a white shirt, and black tie, and knocking on your door with a thick book in one hand. (Speaking of which, someone's gotta teach those guys how to understand when a person just doesn't want to hear it right now so please let me go back to my lunch which is now cold because of you!! ... apologies to any Mormons)

In a nutshell, for us odd religious types, it's about appreciating when one gives up something for the benefit of others. And hey, religious or not, that stuff happens everywhere. Just look at all the people lining up to give blood at the Red Cross, or the people calling in on Good Friday to donate to the Royal Children's Hospital, or the people risking their lives as part of Medecins Sans Frontieres. Hey, us humans aren't so bad at all!!!

Whether you believe in the religious god, or the chocolate god...

Happy Easter!

Also ....

It's good to be home for the next entire week. Mmmmmmm, my own bed. :D

MED SCHOOL!

So at some point in time, between now and the last post, I quit my honest day job as a full-time torturer physio and woke up in Egypt. Then I found myself travelling through Jordan and Syria, doing my best Lawrence of Arabia meets Moses impersonation, before realising that I had reached Turkey, where no one can really work out whether they're Middle Eastern, European or Asian. Filled with hummus, and more bread than the stomach of a fat baker with an eating disorder, I came home, bummed around for a bit, then found myself in med school. Hooray!

How the hell did I end up here? I stand by the idea that I bullshitted my way into here ... literally. That GAMSAT result was pretty average for the science and humanities questions. The overall score was brought up by a decently high score on that essay section aka. how-long-can-you-write-for-without-your-hand-exploding section. Two essays worth of prime grade A bullshit in sixty minutes, and voila! here's your invitation to an interview. Of course, the rest is history. I'm sure the bullshitting resurfaced again for those ten or so mini-interviews I had to do. All I remember from that day, was explaining to one of the interviewers that it was ok for some lady to breastfeed a baby that was not hers. I don't know about you, but if I knew my doctor said that, I'd be hightailing it for the exit door even if I was bleeding profusely from all four of my limbs at the time.

So here I am, in what is one of the happiest stretches of my life, living in a house with eight other insane people doing the same med course with me. I say insane with great affection, but quite frankly, we're all exactly that - insane. The mere acceptance into med school has given me the greatest sense of accomplishment and satisfaction, and I have never been more excited about the future than I am now. Yet if you just pause for a second and take a closer look, I, along with the eight others under this roof and seventy or so others in the entire cohort, can be described in two words:

F*#@ing NUTS!!!

Don't get me wrong. There's plenty of good to be had here. But the logic of the here and now is as goes....

- Hi there. Would you like to give up your steady income and embark on a journey of poverty for the next half a decade or so?

- Would you like to be part of a university course that will destroy all the other aspects of your life?

- Would you like to go through another life of exams that cause you to freak out just because everyone else is freaking out too, even if the exam is about as worthless as a five cent coin in the pocket of a man walking into a Ferrari dealership?

- Would you like to go through another decade or so of scrutiny, judgement, inferiority to superiors, and more stress than a blind snail without its shell crossing ten lanes of peak-hour freeway?

- Would you like to be rewarded for your efforts on completing this course with a job that requires you to develop the sleeping patterns of a retarded, narcoleptic owl?

- Would you like to earn a job that promises great pay, only for you to realise in twenty years that, for the time, effort, and stress you put in, you'd get paid more by working the corporate ladder at Ernst and Young or working St. Kilda's streets?

- Would you like to have a career where innocently misreading '6.0' for '60' means you accidentally killed the poor little seven year old girl in bed 2A because you gave her ten times the amount of painkillers, and as a result you have to explain to her parents that their daughter is dead not because of your idiocy, but rather because your optometrist is crap? (or in my case, because I refuse to go see one in the first place!)

If, like me, you answered 'yes' to all of the above, you are probably here with me in Gippsland, doing the same uni course, procrastinating from the same exam that's going on tomorrow.

Yet the fact that you haven't snapped and decided to quit already means that, like me, you actually quite liked saying 'yes' to all of the above .......... you crazy weirdo.

To that girl who said Pink is "one of the most influential artists ever"

No.

Try:
- Elvis Presley
- The Beatles
- Michael Jackson
- Nirvana

Oh, and she did not create that song she performed at her Funhouse gig. I do believe you will find that Bohemian Rhapsody was created by Queen, and that someone should force you to sleep in an ice bath that is outside on top of a wind-exposed mountain somewhere on a freezing winter night for being such an ignorant douchebag.

The perpetual life cycle

Friday afternoons are a blessing, whilst Monday mornings are the equivalent of starting Groundhog Day with a kick in the testicles from pointy steel-capped boots laced with acid. At least, that's what all those Monday morning and Friday afternoon facebook status updates indicate. Yet even when the long awaited weekend arrives, the back of our minds are always transfixed on why it finishes too quickly. Essentially, life is the perpetual cycle of complaining about how quick it takes for two days to come and go, and then whinging about how slow it takes for the other five to pass by. Most people dream of the opposite, a two day working week followed by a five day weekend bender of chocolate and debauchery.

With the exception of those as socially inept as a 15 year old emo at a school social playing Pussycat Dolls, Brittany Spears, and Pink tracks all night, we go out on weekends and do the stuff we want to do. Watch the football, go out clubbing, play video games, kick out street lights of an entire neighbourhood and steal candy from babies. These are all the things that are exciting to us, and as the most used cliche ever tells us, time flies when you're having fun. In this way, the feeling that Saturdays and Sundays go by too quickly is our own damn fault, in which case we have no reason to bitch about it, or else we'd be bitching about ourselves, and all that does is compromise the very principle behind "bitching" - I am right, you are wrong, so go sit on that pointy fence over there and quietly rotate.

On the other hand, weekdays are not our fault, not unless you get a kick out of smashing your head repeatedly against the brick wall of boredom and repetition. The humble bread-winning day job is a necessity that, when you think about it, makes life five-sevenths shyte! Of course there are jobs that are an exception to this rule such as being Megan Fox's underwear, or being the ruler of the entire world. But even careers that we aspire to take, and the jobs we dream of doing tend to have its novelty fizzle away into a vacuous black hole of tedium. If time flies by when you're having fun, then time .... stagnates when ... um ... when it's boring and repetitive. Yeah I'm sure that's a saying of some sort.

That's where that wish for a longer weekend ends up sucking. Aside from completely melting an entire global economy, one that has been used to the five day working week since monkeys figured out how to use spears instead of bananas to throw at each other, the longer weekend just ends up being the new weekday. Sooner than later, you run out of fun things to do and all that free time ends up boring and repetitive. Eventually, you look forward to going back to work because it's the thing that doesn't consume your life.

Having to slave away for five-sevenths of the week is awesome because it makes the weekend all the more significant and special.

Actually no, screw that, I want a two day working week.

You're only 20 and that makes me sad

When some punk year 8 kid used to be a smartarse towards you, you could do anything to him short of picking him up by his collar and pounding him repeatedly over the top of his head with the spine of his maths textbook whilst taunting, "know your algebra, bitch!". That was because once upon a time, back at school, being three or four years older than someone came with a satisfying sense of authority. Perhaps it was the environment of a school setting, which lends itself to a system where age correlates with hierarchy and rank, or perhaps I was madly drunk on the absolute power that came with a tiny prefect badge and the stripes of a year 12 uniform. Whatever the case, it unfortunately never carried over into the real adult world. Instead, the feeling of authority and invincibility inherent with being surrounded by younger people is irrevocably replaced by the thought that you're becoming an old fart that is finding more and more about the world to whine and moan about.

Being 24 and quickly approaching 25 certainly doesn't make you old at all, but relativity can be a pain in the lower cheeks. When you go to a 21st birthday party where practically everyone is 19 or 20, it strangely makes you feel a lot more ... mature. When people are asking what you do at uni when you graduated almost three years ago, something definitely doesn't sit right within you. When the others talk about what they've been doing on their holidays you think to yourself, "holidays? wtf is that?!"

Likewise, they also make your liver feel much older. I like to think that I can hold my drink (for a skinny Asian guy). Except for that one time a couple of years ago on my birthday, I've never had to enlist the assistance of my friends to drag me to my front door whilst in a state of lifeless dystonia and apparent death. At the same time, I can't exactly drink a football team to alcohol school either. But when you see teens cringing agonisingly everytime they down a shot of what can only be described as blue death mixed with whatever the closest bottle is, whilst you happily shot it away with a straight expressionless demeanour that says, "meh, I've had worse", you feel strangely older than you actually are. Granted yes, I wasn't exactly sober by the end of the night, and I ended up being one of the early sleepers, clocking out at the toddler bedtime of 3am. But I put that down to chronic fatigue brought about by three straight weeks of staying up 'til about 2 in the morning watching insane nutjobs on the TV cycle around France.

Maybe I need to get some more friends that are older. No wait, maybe I just need to get some more friends, full stop.

On a slight tangent, isn't it funny how being 21 automatically makes you super cool? As arbitrary as it is, it's the magical number that officially qualifies you as an adult. Welcome. Join the club. Bring a plate of food. But if you're 20, you're immediately one of "them". I don't care if you're smarter or more mature than I am, you're still not 21 and you haven't earnt your wings yet. It's the same as when you turn 18. One day, at 11:59pm you're not allowed to drive by yourself and you are deemed too innocent to be sullied by the evils of alcohol, but when that clock ticks past midnight, all of a sudden it's all ok. Likewise, that one single second can make all the difference between being on the right side of the law and having your name share the same sentence with the word 'paedophile'.

Nerds dressing up

I'm a bit of a nerd. Even though I haven't been lured into playing World of Warcraft and forgetting to feed three kids because of it, I will not deny the fact that I'm a bit nerdish. The acronym 'lol' has weasled its way into my daily, everyday speech. I watch Stargate and then proceed to buy the entire 10 seasons on DVD. I take offence when people tell me to buy a Mac instead of a PC. And I tend to play videogames when I come home from work instead of watching crap vomit Grey's Anatomy.

I am also a coward. You won't catch me proudly displaying my nerdish tendencies. Why else would I live in denial and refuse to get my eyesight checked? For you see, the world can be divided into two groups. Most are a bit of both, to varying degrees, but at the end of the day, you're on one side or the other. In the blue corner we have the aforementioned nerds, wearing their out-of-date glasses, debating with each other on which is the better weapon between Star Wars' light sabres and Star Trek's phasers (oh c'mon no contest, light sabres win on its ability to decapitate limbs), solving squiggly calculus lines, and laughing uncontrollably at the word 'roflcopter'. In the red corner we have the jocks, lifting 100kg at the gym every second night before kissing their guns in front of the mirror, starting fights on the ground every weekend because they haven't touched the ball and are getting bored because of it, drawing penises on the blackboard before the teacher comes in because it's so damn funny, and chugging beer to help offset the water shortages.

If the world broke out into a massive war between the two sides, the jocks would burn all the villages and have their way with all the women before the nerds could even learn how to take the safety off the rifle. It's for that reason that I would happily feign disdain for my nerdy brethren, when the cool kids come by with their super hot girlfriends. I'd tell them that the kid over there with the glasses not only likes Star Wars, but can also recite the entire script word for word, before happily standing there watching the jocks pound the living crap out of the guy. Some people, however, choose to express their inner nerd, and to those people ... much respect. Good on you for sacrificing yourselves for the good of all us cowardly nerds.

And nothing says "NEEEEEEEEEEEERD!" *points finger at person* than those enthusiastic fans who go to movie premieres, book launches and sci-fi conventions in costumes. They have no shame. For them, shame is forgetting the colour of Luke Skywalker's light sabre. They won't get offended by what others say of them. They'll only get pissed off if you call them "that Asian girl Harry Potter kisses" instead of Hermione. If there's something remotely popular in a sci-fi or fantasy culture kind of way, you can always count on a brave few showing up proudly in a costume they spent six months preparing, or paying $300 for.

More power to them!

I thought I'd find a relevant picture to post up just for the hell of it. As I was searching, I came across this (from all4humor.com)













Classic!

How to flip the middle finger up at your loyal audience

1) Base your new reality TV show around an activity that everyone can take part in, as opposed to one that requires contestants to dance around monkeys, sing like broken records, or lose the equivalent weight of a Mac truck through dangerous exercise methods. Borrow a proven concept originating from overseas TV to maximise chances of success.

2) Give the show a sense of credibility by rewarding skill, as opposed to popularity. Borrow the services of several renowned professionals in the field to adjudicate and decipher the eventual winner. Ensure the show is not a popularity contest by scrapping the laughable revenue raising exercise of viewer SMS voting that plagues other reality gimmicks.

3) Bake the new show for a few weeks in front of live national audiences.

4) Watch as viewers, even those not traditionally fond of reality TV, praise the show for its format being conducive to honesty and integrity, unlike pretty much every other "judging" based reality show.

5) With one week remaining, make a decision as to who would sell the best cookbook (the final prize) and thus rake in the most revenue for producers. Designate her "the chosen one".

6) Criticise someone for making food too basic to be worthy of final week competition, then reward the chosen one for making uncreative lamb and potatoes later on.

7) Punish the chosen one for completely botching a pie, by eliminating another competitor who at least competently finishes his.

8) Allow the chosen one to leave a fish raw, and eliminate another contestant, one whom the public believes should've deserved to be the eventual winner (based on apparent skill, and not just popularity).

9) Lay down a challenge which will primarily be judged on presentation and whether it can be "licked straight off the page." Then, to contradict yourself, proceed to save the chosen one who didn't even finish creating her dishes, and eliminate some other guy who managed to at least complete the task and plate up with some form of presentation. It doesn't matter who, just someone else. He is not the chosen one, and therefore expendable. To at least attempt gaining some semblence of popularity, make the expendable one the least liked one amongst public sentiment, despite the fact that he has been the most consistent performer, and easily one of the top two.

10) Bring in apparent cookbook extraordinaire Donna Hay to help judge the aforementioned presentation challenge. Allow her to show obvious premeditated agenda through use of overtly contrasting body language towards the chosen one and the expendable one throughout the episode.

11) Let the chosen one cry and sob in front of the cameras, and continuously mention something vague about family and cooking being her life. Allow judges to take in that emotional drivel and influence outcome. It will make them look human, and that can't be a bad thing in objective decision-making.

12) Disregard the fact that the chosen one, despite being able to cook some tasty homestyle food, really wouldn't cut it as a professional, commercial chef because she has nervous breakdowns, cannot handle pressure, shakes like crazy, is ridiculously messy, has no concept of time management, sweats more than an obese man running, cycling and swimming at the same time (and allows the sweat to drip into her food!), sabotages her own confidence by continuously muttering to herself that she's going to lose, and does not think laterally enough in her creations when compared to her competitors.

13) Sit back and watch as once loyal viewers vent frustration at the show at the water cooler and in online forums, for slapping them in the face and assuming they have no intelligence. Allow them to realise that they have been duped into believing the show was about the best amateur chef, rather than the one that the public can most relate to and will be most suited to making a sellable cookbook.

14) Consider changing the title of the show from Masterchef to Mediocrechef or Mastercookbook.

15) Make sure next season's chosen one will be in the demographic that makes up most of channel 10's audience (adults at the younger end of the scale). These are the intelligent ones that appreciate legitimacy and credibility over being smashed on the head with disguised petty drama and political influence, as opposed to the middle-aged housewives of the country that relate to the current chosen one because "yay! Go Julie because of I likes you and you have kids, and cry and make me cry and make hubby cry, and make kids want to cook for me, and such, and therefore you are Masterchef extraordinaire."

*Flicks back to the Lifestyle Food channel to watch the proper and original UK version of Masterchef*

Transformers 2 ...

... had horrible acting
... had campy dialogue
... had near-non-existent character development (including the Transformers)
... had a sketchy, disjointed plotline like the first movie
... had too much comic relief (but at least a better attempt than the first)
... overplayed the sex appeal card

The movie was essentially nothing but two and a half hours of CGI robots bashing the shit through each other in utterly confusing fight scenes.

And I loved every single freaking minute of it. :)

No KFC Noooo!!

So a couple of years ago, perhaps over a decade, every kid in the western world decides to fatten up like oompaloopas and all of a sudden we have an obesity pandemic. Problem at hand needs solving and being humans, we like to take the easiest way out. Bugger the effort of exercising. Let's just blame someone!

The first in line to suffer the wrath of bubble-wrap politics were fast-food restaurants. Fair enough too, for walking into a McDonald's used to automatically equate to an extra five minutes of your life lost. However, under immense pressure from health experts, family groups, and cows, McDonald's changed its ways. Healthy was the new cool, and ordering an apple from Maccas became the new thing. It's a pity that people who do order this said apple are met with glares of bemusement and genuine calls of "wtf?!". The 6 year old kid working the counter obviously has no idea what an apple is judging by his face. "App...Appel?"

Anyway, all of society's other notoriously unhealthy, saturated-fat havens caved in likewise. Except for one.

KFC ... Mmmmmm. All-star boxes and ultimate burger meals would remain soaked in sodium and drenched in palm oil. "Bugger what the others say! We're keeping our recipe the same. If you die of heart failure it's your own damn fault!" And that was quite a real prospect too, since consuming palm oil is the equivalent of clamping your main artery at three different points with metal clothes pegs.

But alas, those days are over since KFC (in Australia) have finally buckled, and will now use healthy oil. No palm oil?! Palm oil was the secret recipe Colonel Sanders conjured up when he wasn't funding the KKK (probably a rumour but eh ...). Not only that, but there's now going to be less salt!

I used to love you KFC .... *sniff*

Supermarket fuel vouchers

You step into the supermarket with a few coins and the intention of buying a cold drink. It's a pretty simple task, which should take just a few minutes. Unfortunately, supermarkets are bastards at tempting you. When you step inside, you're bombarded with specials and hot deals at every turn. Buy two chocolate bars and save 50 cents. Take a dollar off these freshly made bread rolls which expired yesterday. Buy one and get one free whole energy drink and you don't have to sleep tonight. Buy this beef we overweighed, and you can take this free recipe so you can impress your girlfriend and hide the fact that your only culinary skill involves a microwave, and a fork.

Perhaps the most cunning little supermarket trick is the fuel voucher. The golden number is thirty. Thirty bucks spent and you're on your way to petrol savings heaven! Four cents a litre off your next fill-up? Yes please! You'll save a good dollar or two at your next trip to the pump, and as daddy first taught you when a five cent coin first felt like a pot of leprechaun gold, it all adds up.

There is one problem however. When you go into the supermarket with that one single drink in mind, you end up buying all this other stuff. So you buy an extra thing or two and now the supermarket run will cost you about $10. No matter, you have a credit card to make up for the feeble few coins you have in your pocket. But oh no, cheap Berocca ... and cheap baked beans. Now the cost balloons up to $24. But that's ok because the stuff that you're buying is stuff that you need. If you don't buy it now then you'll just end up getting it some other time.

Now the real problem starts. $24?! Oh man, I'm so close to that $30 mark. I just have to get that voucher. So now you find yourself going up and down each aisle looking for useless crap to make up the remaining six bucks. You find things that are totally unnecessary and you try to justify its necessity and/or usefulness.

Hey, this chocolate milk is on special, and I need calcium. Who cares if it expires today? I can drink the whole two litres in the next minute, fill up on a week's worth of calcium and save a few cents on my petrol! Mmmm my bones feel stronger just thinking about it.

The really silly part of it is when you're lining up to pay for the petrol a few days later. You hand over that fuel voucher to the overworked store attendant, and you read the receipt given back to you that shows the enormous saving of $1.64.

And you actually believe that you've saved money from the whole exercise.

Winter camping

Two schools of thought fuel the desire to go camping. There is the 'going back to basics' idea that is deeply flawed since setting up a tent requires a postgraduate university degree. Gone are the days of a pole, some pegs and a piece of cloth you cut out from your spare room curtain. Now there are awnings, waterproof shells that cannot touch the inner shell and voyeur peek holes. Then there is the 'going outdoors' notion that is silly, since setting up the aforementioned tent provides a makeshift 'indoors' that contradicts the whole point of the exercise. You essentially leave the indoors to become one with the outdoors by making a fake indoors to which you still think you are outdoors. Confused? Good.

The really adventurous souls are the ones that decide to camp it out in the cold of winter. It is essentially the substitution of warm blankets, lamb roast, and Friday night football on the TV for stiff, hard nipples, perpetually moist buttocks, and influenza. It is a substitution that is, despite sane logic, quite appealing.

There will always be the healthy chunk of the population that make the pilgrimage to camp insane-o at some point in the winter. The ones with the marbles still present will drive their car and pitch tent just outside, using General Motors as emergency warmth and shelter. The ones with an undiscovered brain aneurysm will hardcore it up and go overnight hiking, pitching their tent in 3 degrees darkness after refusing to stop while the sun is still up. Of course, these are the people that Bear Grylls wholeheartedly applauds.

What both groups have in common, besides being likely fans of this show, is that unexplainable urge to forego all things comfortable, and make life as freaking miserable for themselves as possible for a few days. Of course, you could just sit through a couple of Grey's Anatomy DVDs and that would achieve the same result.

Wilsons Prom was awesome!

Checklist for the weekend shenanigans

Energy drink to last 3 hour drive at night after full work day - check

2,356,323 layers of clothes - check

Alcohol to warm the body up even though it does the exact opposite - check

Watch a few Man vs Wild clips - check

Switch sanity off - check

24 hour Kmart

There are certain inevitabilities that come with the passing of the night. As the moon floats higher and the alcohol flows in quicker than the bladder can expel it, you can count on a few things to occur. Nightclubs and bars in the CBD will continue to select, serve and expel patrons, and someone will get stabbed. Rival gangs will call for backup before a skirmish ensues, and someone will get stabbed. 24 hour McDonalds will continue to accommodate drunken folk who have nauseating stomachs that only the healthy and nutritious grease of a Big Mac can cure ... and someone will get stabbed. But the most mind-boggling certainty is that people actually go to the 24 hour Kmart at 3am.

I would have loved to have been in that meeting where they decided to turn the store into a 24 hour one.

Regional Manager: Your outlet is underperforming. We may have to close it down unless we find some way to rectify this.
Store Manager: Any ideas guys?
Employee who is having an affair with store manager: Um... how about we make it a 24 hour Kmart?
Elderly woman who has been working there all her life: That's a great idea! More time for people to come and shop.
Part-timer still finishing off his 14 year uni degree: Yeah!
11 year old supervisor: Nice one!
Male employee who always detours through the lingerie section: Yeh!!
Store manager: Yeh good idea Katie!
Only sane employee who is sitting in the corner of the room: errr...wtf?!

Honestly, I cannot see the concept of a 24 hour budget department store successfully passing through a meeting of people with IQs higher than 7. But it did, and you know what? It actually works! People actually go there at 3am in the morning.

I can see the usefulness of a 24 hour McDonalds. The aforementioned drunken munchies spreads through the night and is more deadly than the swine, cow and bird flu put together. For that same reason, 24 hour supermarkets are valid and useful. But Kmart?! The only reasons I can think of for going to a Kmart in the wee hours of the morning is that it's a stinking hot night, and you want to leech off the store's airconditioning because you live in a cheap rental house with airconditioning that doesn't work, or has killed someone through legionnaires disease. Or perhaps the barely coherent girl you picked up from that seedy pub has stripped down to her underwear, and you are halfway through dropping your pants before you realise that you are in dire need of rubber protection. Apparently, though, there are people that want to buy boots or a board game at 3am in the morning who can't wait until the next day.

So anyway, I'll be going to 24 hour Kmart this Thursday.

Many things can happen in 177 days

A minority president can finally be king of the world. A couple of Ameri, er I mean Mexicans can decide to make love with some pigs and create a new deadly global pandemic called overblown mass hysteria. Not that the swine flu was created that way. Well, at least I assume that wasn't the case. But for some reason that obviously needs addressing through professional psychological help, that was my first thought upon hearing its official name - some sick freak got a little too curious, and now the world's face mask company executives have booked a holiday to Bora Bora, the Cayman Islands, and a night in that one hotel on the corner of the hairpin at the Monaco Grand Prix. 177 days is also plenty of time to be given free fat $900 cheques in the mail, and for Wilson to finally have the balls to get House some help. It's also enough time for me to realise that Cuddy just may be the hottest 40+ year old ever. Evidently, 177 days is not long enough for news to surface of a group of rugby players masturbating in front of each other in a room of small, or intimate shall we say, dimensions with some impressionable girl in there as the ticking bomb of perilous scandal. Group sex is one thing... but honestly, what the FUCK!? Isn't wet towel slapping each other's naked butts in the showers of the lockerooms after a long game out in the cold gay enough for you guys? Oh, and 177 days is also evidently not long enough to find Osama Bin Laden .... or Wally/Waldo for that matter... especially on that damn page where everyone is in red and white. Argh!

I also forgot this thing for 177 days. Oops.