In Kiwi-Land

A long year

2008-09-03T18:22:00.002+12:00

Over the last year, a few things have happened:
1. continued with my Diploma studies and not much else because of it
2. applied to the O&G training scheme in NZ in May and didn't get on (apparently, other people had more experience than me - 2 people on the training scheme have significantly elss experience than me!)
3. put off my Diploma exams in June and due to do them in December now
4. got a job at Middlemore Hospital - busiest in NZ with the sickest people - as an acting Registrar in O&G.

So now I've been in Auckland for a week and a half and the job is going ok although I've had a particularly gentle introduction to it. Auckland isn't too bad but the traffic is driving me crazy. I'm currently a bit of a hobo living between 2 places, staying with friends Wendy and Maneesh during the week in Epsom and then spending the weekends with my cousin Joe in New Lynn. I'm sure I'll feel more settled when I finally have a place to call home.

Very much looking farward to my upcoming trip to the UK - will be there for 7 weeks so a good chance ot catch-up with friends and family properly and sort out my head, life and belonging!

Stupidity

2007-10-02T20:42:00.001+13:00

Most of the last few months have been filled with studying with a few nights off here and there. My Diploma in O&G is going ok, learning tonnes and really enjoying my job at the moment.

Highlights of the last few months:
1. topping the list is forgetting my passport at the airport on our long weekend away to Melbourne. Never going to do that again!
2. preparing for my audioconference, handing my pager on to someone else for a few hours, shooing everyone out of the office for quiet, then realising I have not only the wrong month, but the wrong date as well (since when does 18th September have any resemblance to 23rd October?)
3. countless stupid phrases that have given my 'friends' at work plenty more ammunition to spam me with

Once I finally got there (12 hours late after having my passport driven up from Rotorua to Auckland), Melbourne was great. Good food, great city, fantastic shopping and good friends.
Just the break I needed to renew some enthusiasm for studying.

Student days are here again

2007-07-18T00:13:00.001+12:00

I'm 7 weeks into my Postgraduate Diploma in Obstetrics and Medical Gynaecology. Its going well and for the first time, I'm really enjoying studying since this is something I chose to do and it doesn't seem to be all about getting through the exams.

The Dalai Lama gave a few lectures in Auckland a few weeks back and fortunately, my flatmate enlightened me that they were happening. It was inspiring. An arena-full of people gave a standing ovation welcome to an endearing diminutive gentleman who was humorous and gentle. He connected with everyone in the venue, which itself, appeared to reduce to the size of a comfortable lounge. The 12,000 strong crowd disappeared and it seemed like a fairly intimate audience. His message was clear and simple: separate the person from their actions. A person's actions may be wrong but that doesn't make the person themselves a bad person - he used George Bush as an example. Simple in theory, rather more difficult to put into practice.

We held a thoroughly amusing Pub Quiz night last week in the hospital. Heavily sponsored by the Medical Assurance Society, it was a great night to plunge into inebriation for both senior and junior staff. I'm reliably informed a few members of staff were feeling the after-effects the following day (sadly I was on nights so I was one of the few sobers). All hail to Ryan Paul, Quiz Master, for putting so much effort in and producing a top class night. Thankfully for everyone concerned, I was not required to don the blonde hairpiece and stunning polyester dress complete with shoulder-pads that was oh so popular last year!

Getting back in touch

2007-05-28T22:18:00.000+12:00

I've discovered the joy of Facebook - a great way to get in touch with old friends and stay in touch with people overseas.
Since I've been wondering about going back to the UK for my 10 year school reunion (due next year), it's been great find old schoolmates. Maybe, see if anyone else is going to the reunion, see if it's worth going to...

Anyway, for those of you not already on it www.facebook.com

End of Turmoil

2007-05-27T00:10:00.001+12:00

I finished my last night ever as a medical registrar on Thursday night. And what a night it was. My first set of nights as a medical reg were the busiest the consultants had seen for a while, admitting an average of 6-7 patients a night over 10 hours compared to the normal of 2-3 if that. My last set of nights were quite different. I had no patients for the first 3, then 2 patients, then four patients and then Thursday night happened. I started my shift at 10pm with 4 patients waiting to be seen, and then at 11pm, we heard that a major car accident had occurred near Taupo and casualties were going to come our way (there's only 1 doctor in Taupo Hospital outside the hours of 8am-4pm!)
It was all hands on deck and we at least had 20mins warning of the first patient to call in people for back-up. At midnight, ED was overflowing with 2 unconscious major trauma patients, 5 sick medical patients and an unusually large number of drunken patients. ICU was full, CCU was pretty tight and the rest of the hospital was almost bursting at the seams. Great timing, eh!

Eventually, things settled down at about 6am with no further patients arriving and we were just left with clearing the remnants. It helped that I was mentally, fully prepared for the worst night ever. This was my last set of nights, the last 6 nights had been fine, good even. Chaos was bound to deal me some dud cards. Unfortunately, it wasn't just my hand that was bad, the whole deck was a washout and my bad luck affected everyone else. Mark, the Surgical Registrar, spent a total of 24 hours constantly seeing patients in the hospital, trying desperately to keep 2 of them alive. The fog in Hamilton didn't help matters. Hamilton is our tertiary centre with all possible specialities (unlike us with essentially the basics) and both the trauma patients needed to be urgently transferred there. Because of the fog though, the retrieval team could not fly by helicoptor or fixed wing plane. So the urgent transfers had to occur via road ambulance - a 4-hour round trip. Hardly urgent, but the best we could do given the circumstances.
Everyone did amazingly well, especially Mark, who maintained composure in the face of pandemonium.

I saw a total of 9 patients in 10 hours, 6 medical patients, assisted with the 2 trauma patients and sorted a ED patient with a rapid heart rate. I worked solidly from 10pm til 8am but it felt like I was made of steel. Nothing brought me down, I was laughing at fate - Bring It On was my response to the disarray that I saw before me. I was prepared and it was my last night. I would never have to deal with this again, ever.

My last medical handover started at 8am, got home at about 9am and couldn't comtemplate going to sleep. I was still wired. I survived 1 year as a Medical Registrar, learned an enormous amount about medicine and myself, built up good relationships with the Consultants and Nursing Staff and had thoroughly enjoyed myself after I stopped being so damned scared at the beginning. I now know how to approach extremely sick patients, remain collected in adversity and actually know what I'm doing rather than just project that image. There's not much that scares me now and even when something does, I know I actually have more time than I think and I am capable of managing the situation.

I now have faith in myself, the faith that my seniors have thankfully had in me from day 1 but until 3-6 months ago, I didn't see.

Decisions, Decisions

2007-02-16T18:41:00.000+13:00

A huge load has been weighing down on me over the last few months.
1. Do I go back to the UK to continue my training or stick it out in New Zealand?
2. What speciality do I want to continue in?

So I got talking to all my friends working in the NHS already and going through the system. And the result was an astounding, unfaltering "Dont' do it" in response to statement "I was thinking about coming back to the UK". I didn't even get around to asking the question "what's going on with the training schemes?"

I tried to read up on the new MMC and what was going on for myself. I tried several times, and only just managed to get to reading the first paragraph of the website before a sinking feeling entered the pit of my gastric space and started to ferment. It felt as though I was pretty close to vomiting several times but thankfully nothing.

After a few weeks of debating, I guess I came to the conclusion that I knew was right in the first place. I decided to stay in New Zealand, train here and then who knows. One day, maybe I will go back to the UK. But I don't think it'll be before I'm a consultant.

That answered question 1 so I guess I needed to decide what I speciality to do...

Back at Work

2007-01-25T21:55:00.000+13:00

After 4 blissful weeks away, I returned to work on Monday morning to find myself on-call, with new patients from the weekend, working for a consultant I had never worked with before! Oh Yay!

So my first week went relatively quickly since I was so busy but I was off to Melbourne for a course at the end of the following week so that was good. I was actually glad to be back though. Getting back home in Rotorua actually felt like home, and it's been a while since I've felt that, probably not since living in Highfield in Southampton.

My course in Melbourne on Acute Care Medicine was great. I learnt quite a lot as well as confirming that I was doing the right thing with my management of patients. It was good fun too, with Ryan, Amy and Renee.

Then back to work again. I finally gave my notice in for general medicine and am down to start obstetrics and gynaecology at the end of May. It seems like a while away but I'm sure it'll come around quick.

India

2007-01-10T21:44:00.000+13:00

After a long time waiting in Heathrow airport after the folks got an earlier flight, I arfrived in Bombay late and ran through the airport to catch my connecting flight to Goa. Finally I got to Goa and all was well, met my folks at the airport. The humidity and heat hit me and the bumpy drive to our accommodation didn't do much to settle my stomach.
Last time we were in India, it was low season. Most things were shut. But this time, it was peak season and anyone was considered fair game to have money beaten out of them. I hadn't prepared myself for so much noise, dust and people.
Overall, I enjoyed my time in Goa. We had some quality family time which was important to get through and I learnt a few things about myself as well as about the rest of my family.

We visited a fair few relatives, some more distant than others, and met Edwin, our elusive uncle only 5-10 years older than my sister. We had a good tour round the island of Charao, where my mother is from and heard a lot of stories about my mother's childhood. The scenery on the island was beautiful, remarkably untouched compared to the rest of Goa and the proof is in the pictures.

My mother's ancestral home, built by my great great great-grandfather

My favourite photo of Goa, captured over several minutes

The sunsets were beautiful (though marred by mosquito scavengers)

After a beautiful wedding (my second cousin's), some good partying at Christmas and New Year, it was time toi head back to the reality of work back in New Zealand. We flew together to Mumbai and then it was time for me to separate and head on alone to New Zealand while my sister and parents spent the night in Mumbai before heading back to London. There were lots of tears from Anthea and mum & dad and the pangs of guilt at leaving my parents returned. For me, it felt like I was on my way home. Rotorua is the place I've lived for the longest period of time since University and it definitely feels like my 3rd home now (after Southampton and London). Auckland airport is my adoptive Heathrow.

And the pessimism returns...

2006-12-20T02:02:00.000+13:00

People in London are officially rude. I know I'm generalising a lot, but from my experiences over the last week and a bit, the people I've come across have been 80% rude, and 10% polite. Some examples:
1. I dashed into the Post Office with my sister to get some passport photos on the way to getting visa and stuff. There was a big queue for the counters that went past the photo booth. Saying 'excuse me, can I get to the photo booth?' wasn't enough of an explanation to allow the person standing right in front of the box to move, or prevent her from giving us evil looks as if we were trying to push in front of her in the queue. That was followed by lots of tutting and sighing from the surrounding people as I attempted to help my sister decide whether the photo was suitable. I'm not trying to jump the queue, people, I just want to get some photos which you are not waiting for!

2. A lady with a push-chair (and child in push-chair) is walking along the road and comes to a group of people chatting whilst blocking the way. One of the guys in the group facing this women, quite obviously sees her trying to get past but makes no attempt to move his friend out of the way. This, despite at least 5 very audible excuse-me -pleases from the lady with the push-chair!

3. You HAVE to drive aggressively in London or you don't actually get anywhere. Other drivers are so intent on getting to their destination that their regard for other road users and their common courtesy is left behind, probably dumped with the weekly rubbish for the dustmen to collect. 1m of space between cars is a chance to change lanes and push n front of the person who was so stupid as to leave some sort of braking distance in front of them.

As much as I miss the great variety of shopping, the wonderful arts culture, the beautiful architecture, the enormous sense of history palpable just walking around the city and my family and friends, I don't miss living in London. With a population of 8 million in London City and a further 6 millions in the suburbs, London is just too big and too busy for people to give a damn about anybody or anything anymore. Rubbish litters the streets, people don't even seem to attempt to find a bin before they throw things into the air without a care of who or what it might land on, nobody looks out for anybody else and the general attitude of It's My Right is applied to everything.

I am not "spoilt" by the fact the I've been living in New Zealand for over a year. There are still people living in New Zealand, human beings like the ones living in London. The big difference, however, is that the Kiwi Nation still actually care about their neighbours, their environment and the country. They know and understand that to keep their country looking as beautiful as it does, they have to look respect it and look after it. It takes some effort but not a lot. They're wise to the fact that to continue living together on this planet without destroying it, they also need to respect each other and be thoughtful of others.

There are a lot of problems in this world - war, starvation, homelessness, disease, killing, drug & alcohol abuse to name but a few. Could the key to finding the solutions to all of these problems possibly be as simple as being considerate of others?

Friends Reunited

2006-12-15T15:31:00.000+13:00

I caught up with Ivo last night. Eventually found a nice Chinese restaurant that he wanted to try and had a good meal. And the saying is right, time flies when you're having fun. In May, I didn't managed to meet up with Ivo and caught up briefly on the phone. Last night, we did the big catch-up of events over nearly a year. He left Rotorua at the end of January, having travelled for the last few weeks and it was nice to be able to talk about how things have changed/stayed the same over the last year. I've never stayed in one hospital for longer than 1 year and Vegas is feeling pretty home-like now. I guess that's a sign that I should leave soon and get on with some proper training. I've got at least 6 years ahead of me that involve moving about between cities and hospitals, and if I settle into one place now, it just makes it that much harder to move on. And Rotorua isn't exactly the best place for O&G training.

Anyway, three things struck me about Ivo last night, he's still as arrogant as ever (Ivo, you already know this so don't try to act offended) but he's a decent well-mannered person who doesn't mess around (in any aspect of his life). He is what you see and hear, there's no hidden things. That's a good thing, something you don't find too often, and I'm privileged that I can call him my friend (Ivo, don't let this all go to your head).

OK, enough warm and fuzzy feelings. I'm sure I'll be more pessimistic and critical very soon.

Back in Blighty

2006-12-11T15:26:00.000+13:00

After a mammoth 37 hours of travelling, I arrived at Heathrow yesterday a little bleary eyed. One of my nightmares came true on the last bit of the last flight, I had to actually admit to being a doctor and look after the little girl having a gushing nose-bleed next to me. Thankfully it all stopped after 30 minutes but just before it stopped I was raiding the doctor's kit to find something that I could pack her nose with. Well, it was a little bit of entertainment seeing as the in flight entertainment system had not been working properly since we left Sydney, 25 hours before!

The part of getting home I was most looking forward to, oddly enough, was the cold. There's just something not right about getting sun burnt in the days surrounding Christmas. The Christmas carols being pumped through the audio systems of shops and various other places doesn't fit in when it's about 20 degrees outside!

When I came back in May, everything was so familiar and normal, like I'd never been away. But on the drive back home for the airport yesterday, it all felt very new and bizarre. It was a good deal more claustrophobic than I'd ever remembered. But it was good to be home when we fianlly got to the house. I'd woken up a fair amount by the time I got home and was getting to my manic stage after not much sleep. I calculated I'd had approximately 10 hours of sleep over the last 72 hours! I slept for a few hours in the morning and then caught up with the inevitable mountain of mail that had accumulated in my absence. Caught up with family friend Maurice and then it was back to bed for what turned out to be about 14 hours!

An so to the tasks of shopping, catching up with friends and sorting out the forever on-going affair of the malfunctioning Motorola Razr phone! And I've got 10 days to get through everything before I get on a plane again!

Ash Cash Bash

2006-11-05T14:34:00.000+13:00

As the other medics will know, part of our job is to fill in death certificates. However, it's not part of our job description to fill out a cremation form stating that the deceased doesn't have a implanted part that will explode during cremation. So, the funeral directors pay us a separate fee for completing this form. Now in the UK, it's every man for himself and each person gets a personal cheque for each form. Not so in Rotorua, you can opt to have the social club get the money and at the end of the year, there's a big party using the money that's accumulated that year.

So this year, it was a big BBQ, fireworks and a night of Singstar (like kareoke) to coincide with Guy Fawke's Night (it's a little strange that Guy Fawke's nihght is celebrated out here to be fair, but I'm not complaining!). It all started out well, booze, food and fireworks. But unlike the normal drunken me who will end up giggling in the corner shortly before pasing out, I got a little bit feisty and started play-fighting (actually, maybe slightly more aggressive than play-fighting) with 1 of the other guys, Ryan. Flashbacks to being 13 years old and fighting with Daniel come flooding back. It was actually great fun until I decided I'd launch myself at him as he was standing on the sofa...in front of a window. No guesses required...the window cracked and although Ryan bounced off the window on the the floor, the damage was done. I actually managed to break a window in my sobriety-challenged state. Needless to say, I was more sedate after that under the watchful eyes of Amy, one of the housemates.

But the window got fixed and sorted. The next morning I was left feeling rather battered and bruised but I have to say, one of the most fun nights I've had recently.

Halloween

2006-10-31T13:02:00.000+13:00

Well, I think the photos speak for themselves but just to make things clear...
...lots of alcohol was involved and I was an oompa loompa!

It looks suspiciously like Caroline passed out in a bush (was was dragged into one)
but really, she's just choosing music on the Ipod.

The witch, devil, scream man and oompa loompa decided to make peace!

The de Souza Clan (but one) arrive

2006-10-10T20:10:00.000+13:00

Thursday evening I headed out to Auckland from work to meet Anthea at my Cousin Joe's house. I hadn't seen her since March in Japan and spoken to her much since then until a bit in the last few days before she left Canada. It was a nice reunion and good to have a family meal with Anthea and Joe's family. Going to Joe's house is always like going home for the weekend (but without having to deal with my parents). Spent the night at Joe's and then headed off to the airport the next morning to meet mum & dad as they arrived from a week in Japan seeing Daniel. They had landed early and so sadly, were waiting for us, but it was so great to see them again. We then began the drive south to Rotorua. 3 hours of jokes about how far away I live from civilization (meaning anywhere outside a major city) and catching up. They were stunned by the scenery immediately as well as the contrast for wide open spaces as compared to the compressed-skyscraper-metropolis of Tokyo they had just left. Arriving in Rotorua, I was proud to show them around my new house. Mum & dad were especially impressed to find they'd have their own bathroom. After lunch at the Fat Dog went down well then we picked up some information from the tourist centre about the South Island before heading home for everyone to rest and generally chat. I brought them up to speed about what we would be doing in the South Island as well. The next morning we had a leisurely day and headed out to the Lakes. I had the pleasure of showing off the Green and Blue Lakes, the Tarawera Lake and Mountain, Lake Okareka and the Walkway and my old house.

Lake Tarawera with mum and Mount Tarawera in the background

Having seen the Buried Village 3 times already with other visitors, I managed to get through more of my book (It's Not about the Bike, Lance Armstrong) while Mum, Dad and Anthea learnt about the 1886 Eruption of Mount Tarawera. I felt proud to be able to say I lived among this for a year and realised how lucky I was to have lived up by the Lakes. I saw it change through four seasons and it's beautiful in all of them. But, I'm really glad to be now living in town. I'm living with a nice person, in a lovely house and I feel like I can put some roots down. It feels like MY house, rather than just somewhere I'm staying.

In the evening, we had dinner at home - New Zealand lamb with kumara, and set about doing some serious planning for our week in the South Island, and booked some accommodation for the first few nights and Wellington. Sunday consisted of a gentle walk around Springfield and then our 2 flights (Rotorua to Christchurch, via Wellington). We all got a bit of a shock with the small planes that we were passengers in and Mum and Anthea didn't really do very well with bumpy take-offs and descents. We arrived at our accommodation in Christchurch a little worse for wear and in need of some rest before other things were attempted. At least the rental car was booked and there was no hassle getting it and finding our digs for the night. Anthea and I had decided on experiencing a range of different levels of accommodation, improving along the way. Our first night in Christchurch was spent in a Hostel with a private room and en-suite bathroom. Our parents had made it to the lucky ages of 64 and 57 until they had the pleasure of staying in a Youth Hostel. They were pretty game for it though and were impressed. Not sure how they would've coped with dorm rooms and shared bathrooms though! We walked around the centre, saw the Cathedral and were surprised at how deserted the town seemed to be (although it was a Sunday evening). The next morning, we set out early, going to the International Antarctic Centre before beginning a long drive down to Manapouri, just south of Te Anau.

With Anthea on the snow mobile used in Antartica

We headed out of Christchurch along State Highway 1 then crossed over onto SH72 for the scenic route along the mountainous ranges around Mount Hutt. The contrast between city views on one side and the Southern Alps on the other was stunning. We slowly made our way more south and reached Lake Tekapo after several small stops along the way. The hue of the lake's water was unbelievable - pure turquoise, surrounded by the mountain ranges of Gammack, Hall and Two Thumb. Sadly, we missed reflective views of the mountains in the water because the gale force north-westerly winds across the lake. Lake Pukaki 50kms further along SH8 was also just as astounding. The clarity of the water was evident from its shade, an icy-cool transparent blue.

Lake Tekapo with Mount Cook almost unseen in the backdrop

We carried on down past Twizel and Cromwell into Queenstown for dinner at a Fish & Chips place and it was my turn to drive onwards to our stop for the night in Manapouri. It had started to rain during dinner and was now completely dark. We headed off into the driving rain and the blackest of nights south and west to Manapouri. After 2 hours we safely reached a lovely warm cosy motel room for the night, unaware of our surroundings.

In the morning, we woke to the most amazing view from the window, straight over Lake Manapouri and the mountains. It was a welcome surprise. We set of towards Te Anau where we picked up some breakfast and some picnic things for lunch and continued north on the Milford Sound. Lonely Planet had it right with suggesting that the Milford Sound Road was a destination itself. The drive ran alongside rivers and mountains and the rain from the night before had fed the waterfalls, appearing from nowhere. Milford Sound was wondrous. It is truly amazing how beautiful nature is.

After lunch and wandering around a bit, we headed back towards Te Anau and then onwards back to Queenstown where we stopped for the night. We headed north to Wanaka and then onwards to Haast the following day and made it up to Fox Glacier township for the night after a day of following the coast northwards. We stopped at Franz Josef Glacier on our continuing journey north the next day and learned about advancing and retreating glaciers. I managed to practice some photography, managing to get the exposure about right for capturing water movement down one the streams.
Continuing north along the West coast road, we came across Hokitika, saw some kiwi birds and giant eels, the Pancake rocks at Punakaiki and then stopped in Westport for the night. The driving was more relaxed now as we had plenty of time. We took full advantage of stopping at every viewpoint and interesting little town.

The Pancake rocks at Punakaiki, made from thousands of years of sendiment

From Westport, we left the west coast and headed inland past Murchison and St Arnaud reaching the Marlborough winery area. We tasted at Villa Maria but were too late for Montana, so we settled for the night in Blenheim.

It was dad’s birthday and after a quick stop at the chocolate factory, we got to Montana for opening in the morning and as it was just the four of us on the tour, we pretty much had a private tour of the Brancott Winery including the grape press used to make sparkling wine. We also got an extended tutored tasting session and all this for half price as the motel we stayed at had given us vouchers – a pretty good birthday treat. Then it was time to head to Picton for a quick lunch stop, returning the rental car and catching our ferry to Wellington.

The crossing was pretty good and the motion sickness tablets I had given Anthea worked a treat for her and mum. Arriving in Wellington, we got to our hotel and freshened up before headed out for a walk along the waterfront and then back into town for dinner. We practised our learning about wine when choosing a bottle for dinner and it worked well.

After a quick breakfast the next morning and mass at a local church, Anthea, mum and dad headed off to Te Papa museum and I met Helen for lunch. I went to medical school with Helen and we first met in the library while studying for some exams we both really needed to pass to get through the year. She’s been working in Wellie for about 4 months now and although work is not that great, life in Wellington makes up for it. It’s my favourite city. Ever! Firstly, it has a great centre with everything in walking distance and a fantastic nightlife. Clothing shopping is pretty great there (less spaced out than Auckland), it’s by the sea, and as if I needed anymore convincing, its public transport system is pretty damn spectacular. In a nutshell, London, on a scale that suits me perfectly. The pitfalls: it’s known as Windy Wellie, quite apt for the weather, and the hospital’s infamous for being a shocking place to work.

Anyway, it was great catching up with Helen. I caught up with the folks and we took a tour around the city’s highlights on the yellow bus that does a circuit around town. It was time for some general wandering and then dinner and back to the hotel for more stories about childhood and silly things we used to do 20-odd years ago. We headed out to the Parliament building on Monday for a tour and then popped into various shops on the way back to collect our luggage and get to the airport.

Outside the Parliamentary building in Wellington

Our flight was delayed by 20minutes but at least it wasn’t too bumpy on the way back to Rotorua. It certainly felt like I was getting home and although it was a great feeling, I’m always slightly perturbed by the thought that anywhere other than London is home. I guess, in my heart, London will always be my ultimate home. I did spend 18 years growing up there (well, getting older, anyway) and I suppose until I spend another 18 years in one place, nowhere else will feel the same.

We still had more sight-seeing to do in Rotorua, and got through the geysers, boiling mud pools, Maori culture and the Haka, and a sheep-show (including some very cute lambs).

The Pohutu Geyser at Te Puia and At the Agrodome for the sheep show and at the farmyard nursey

Then it was time to head up to Auckland, with a short stop in Matamata (known as Hobbiton as the Shire from Lord of the Rings was shot in the area) for the photo opportunity. My parents were able to catch-up with their ‘4th child’, Joe, and his family and it just like a miniature family reunion. The obligatory car tour around Auckland was unavoidable but did prove to be a good opportunity for photos as the sun set.

Dropping them at the airport the next morning was horrible. As much as my parents had irritated me with some of their habits over the last 2 weeks, it was horrible to see them go. Final realisation came to me about how far away I was from the rest of my family. The nearest one is 12 hours away by plane and my parents are a full day’s travelling away at the very least. I wish Concorde would make a comeback.

After spending the day with Joe, Anthea and the kids, it was time to me to head back to Rotorua for the work the following day. Adding insult to injury form dropping mum & dad at the airport, I wasn’t even able to drop my sister at the airport because I had to go back to work. At least Joe was able to get her to the airport, so she didn’t have to get there by herself. I did manage to speak to her from work the following day before she left though.

So after 2 weeks, I’d had a wonderful time with my family and saw a great deal of the rest of New Zealand. I look forward to see them all again soon and them coming back here at some point.

Random shots along the way

Photos

2006-09-20T19:24:00.000+12:00

Just a few photos to catch-up. The camera's not got out much recently but I think it's about to come out of hibernation.

Daniel's brief visit to see his little sister.

Daniel with Joe

One last spectacular view of the Blue Lake before I move from the area

Some photos from the World Mountain Bike Championships.

Moving and other dramas

2006-08-31T20:01:00.000+12:00

During the last few weeks I've been trying to find new people to move into my house so I can stay put until Decemeber. Sadly no joy, but then I started looking for a new place to live and stumbled upon a little gem. So now I'm moving into town into a 3-bed house sharing with another girl who is also from London. Katy moved out here 2 years ago and her parents have migrated here. So now I'll have a double room, with an en-suite bathroom for less rent than I'm paying now for a single room and shared bathroom. Plus I'll be living in town so I'll save on petrol costs and might even summon up the courage to trying biking into work when it gets warmer.
There also the distinct possibility of walking but that would probably take about an hour or so. So I'm left with the task of cleaning out the house and moving the weekend before I'm working and 2 weeks before my parents arrive in New Zealand. Just enough time to settle in. My parents finally decided to get it together and visit Japan and New Zealand in 1 big trip in September. So they're spending a week in Japan with Daniel before 2 weeks in New Zealand, and Anthea's coming to NZ at the same time. I'll be looking forward to boasting about New Zealand and showing them why I love it here so much. Work-wise, it's been crazy. The hospital has been in bed crisis for the past few weeks but there are a few less patients coming in under medicine these days. Less people with chest infections. But that just means more chest pains about to start as the weather warms up and people take up the gardening again and push themselves too far. I was offered a contract to stay on in Rotorua as Medical Registrar for another year and after some consideration (mostly trying to figure out what the catch was), I accepted. So I'm now out here until December 2007. Better get my visa extended. Again! From what I've heard about the job situation in the NHS in ol' Blighty, I don't think I have that great a chance of getting a job, and I might even be completely out of a job come August next year. No-one really seems to know what's going on with the new training scheme and hey just keep on churning out more qualified doctors from med school with no idea of whether they will have jobs in the not-too-distant future! Difficult to see how my decision to stay in New Zealand only took a little while to make, huh? Managed to get a few weekends of skiing in so, although my season pass for the Mount Ruapehu hasn't quite saved me money, it's been much easier on the slopes, without the queues to get a lift pass.

Danieru and Celebrations

2006-08-03T19:38:00.000+12:00

So, I didn't get much sleep on Thursday night, I was too excited at the reality that my brother was arriving the next morning. He was due to be dropped at the hospital by the aiport shuttle at about 9am, so when he hadn't arrived by 10am I was understandably worried. I knew he'd probably have a hard time with customs, coming from South America and all, but this was too late. Rang the shuttle company and was told that he wasn't on the plane - OMG he's got lost or worse in South America! End of panic when the company told me he'd got the wrong day and was arriving tomorrow and they would go back and pick him up then. OK, I can get on with my job now for the rest of the day.

So he arrived safely, marvelling at Customs' lack of humour and we proceeded to have a great weekend, catching up, eating and seeing quite a few sights of Rotorua on Saturday. Headed up to Auckland on Sunday to see Joe after lunch in a fancy restaurant as a birthday present. It was good to catch up with Joe again and the kids, they seem to have grown so much since I last saw them.

Dropped Dan off at the airport the following morning for his flight back to Tokyo and then headed on down to Vegas to work with a minor accident on the way (policewomen really shouldn't just step out onto the road when it's wet, cos it led to me rear-ending someone). Home again and after a shower, the car's battery decided it'd had enough and died. Called the Insurance company and after a few hours, thankfully got the car towed to the garage and a lift into work. Thankfully managed to borrow a friend's car for the time that the car was being fixed.

Great day - all in all!

But thankfully, the next day was my birthday and after a hectivc day at work, we managed to just about make it to our massages on time. If I were a lady of luxury, I would be having a massage everyday! It was great and just what I needed to relax after a crazy few weeks of full-on entertainment/working/general busy-ness. Then dinner at the Fat Dog Cafe and everything was well in the world again. The next day I got the welcome news that my car could be fixed and wasn't going to cost too much for the insurance company so my little blue mazda would continue with life.

Andrew Leaves

2006-07-27T18:49:00.000+12:00

Andrew got back from Wanaka on Thursday evening after 10 days in amazing snow with his sister, Claire. The photos and video shots he has of the powder are amazing, especially the heli-skiing ones - one day, I will hopefully be good enough to do that.

We went out for dinner on Friday night as a big send-off for Andrew at Triple One 5 and then drinks at The Pig and Whistle. At about midnight, the tiredness kicked in and the realisation that I was working the weekend and really really needed to get some sleep. So I toddled off to bed, leaving Andrew in the company of beer and others. The sadness of people leaving was sinking in. Spoke to mum briefly before work on Saturday morning and told her about the job offer for another year in Rotorua I received earlier in the week. She was supportive and the trusty "you have to do what's best for you and your career" line came out, but she was obviously upset that I might stay away from the UK for longer. I didn't manage to hold my composure and when Jade came in for handover, the tears started flowing. Andrew leaving was also making Dee's absence very real and there were just too many emotions to hold in. After a good hug, i got stuck into work and the day went well - not too busy, just enough to keep ticking over.

Sorted out last minute money stuff with Andy at home and then sadly, his last morning in New Zealand arrived. It was oddly comforting to see that Andy emotional, no tears but his eyes looked a little moist. Got to work and had such a rough day that thankfully I didn't have time to think about the fact that both my flatmates had both left for good. There are no words to describe how awful my Sunday at work was - 2 patients in ICU, 1 dying, and quite a few slightly less sick referrals stacking up in ED. Thankfully, Charlie and Mark in ED and the Anaesthetist, Stefan were miracle workers and helped me out heaps.

I was thoroughly spent on Sunday night and the rest of the week was spent slobbed in front of the TV with early nights to recover (aside from preparing a rather rushed presentation for my teaching topic on Thursday).

Am I back in the NHS?

2006-07-16T17:03:00.000+12:00

Since my first ski session of the season, I'm not been able to get back to the mountain. I've had 2 rather hellish weeks of work, which got my contemplating the possibility that I'd somehow been tranported back to the NHS.

Week 1: long days on Wednesday and Friday plus spending every afternoon in ED helping out the on-call person with admissions. Since I'd been the one doing the helping out, come Friday when I was on-call, there was no-one to help me out, in addition to Jade being off sick, Peter off pre-nights and Ryan post-nights! Tears were very close at hand Friday evening but things settled with a welcome drink with some friends after work (well, 2 hours after work was supposed to have ended)! I bailed on a weekend of ski-ing - my body just couldn't take the travelling and lack of sleep inevitably involved. The extra workload and responsibility was starting to take its toll - I had dark circles under my eyes for the first time in at least 10 years! After a weekend of doing sweet nothing, I'd recovered and was ready for whatever the coming week could throw at me, or so I thought!

Week 2: Jade was still sick on Monday, having only managed to get through half her weekend on-call, and Ryan was sick with a broken nose from football. 2 Registrars down and on a new team, post-take from the battering it took over the weekend. Thankfully the consultant knew most of the patients. The House Officer is still new to the game, having been away from medicine for about 6 years and never dealt with the likes of the tedious paperwork involved in hospital medicine. Add to this, a typing speed of 10-15 words per minute, and you have calamity. Discharges took forever, and I was effectively doing 2 jobs. Things didn't calm down as we were on-take the next day and post-take again on Wednesday with a patient list of 25! Now, back home in the UK, that's an average number for a team. But in Rotorua, that equates to disaster! Just when I thought things couldn't get much busier, they did. With 2 registrars sick, we had to swap long days to cover spare shifts, although I got totally shafted with 2 consecutives ones. Thankfully, Wednesday evening was quite good and I only admitted 4 patients. The rest of the week went ok, not great, but ok and finally it was the weekend again.

Writing in restropect, I can't actually remember what I did with the weekend but I do I didn't go skiing that weekend for some reason - God only knows why now.

Back in the Land of Daylight

2006-07-03T16:42:00.000+12:00

I managed to get through my nights without killing anyone. Yay me! My confidence in my own skills is slowly increasing but I still need a lot of reminding that I can handle things.
After breakfast on Friday, I got about 6 hours sleep and awoke to find that my new flatmate, Guan, had moved in without me hearing a thing. The house is now Andrew, Guan and me, and soon Andrew will be disappearing as well.

Went out to drinks which was a combined effort between RMOs and SMOs. It was nice to interact outside of the hospital, without any heirachy in place (not that there's much of that anyway). Went on to dinner at Chambers but after being awake for only 4 hours, my energy was spent. I went home to sort my bombsite of a room out and pack for the weekend - we were going ski-ing!

So first ski-ing weekend of the season and 5 of us headed out at 8am on Saturday morning on the 3 hours drive to Mount Ruapehu. After a leisurely drive and stop for breakfast we arrived at the mountain just after noon. Joyce, Naomi and Bevan headed to the lifts and Marama and myself headed over to the desks to hire our equipment and get our lessons. The other 3 were boarders, but Marama wanted to learn snow boarding and I needed an ice-breaker to get back into ski-ing. Lessons booked and gear on, we played around in Alpine Meadow at Turoa for an hour before our lessons. My group lesson was only with 2 other people. Great, more personal emphasis! Unfortunately, the 2 others were half my age, literally! So for just over an hour, I felt patronised and like I was a middle school again. Anyway, it got me back on the right track and I was getting more comfortable with stopping and turning and no falls yet! Apres-ski drinks and dinner at the Powderkeg with some of Joyce's friends and then we headed to Turangi to the backpackers Joyce had managed to book for us. We managed just over half a day of action on Sunday before the lifts closed and after pushing myself a fair amount, I managed to make it down the last trail of the mountain, Clarry's Track, in one piece. I fell just the once, being unable to manourvre myself out the the path of a boarder in front of me but then managed to control my speed fairly well down the rest of the trail. It was my achievement of the weekend.

Headed back to Rotorua with dinner in Taupo and sadly no photos.

The Most Senior Doctor In The Hospital!

2006-06-30T05:16:00.000+12:00

My advice to prospective patients in the Rotorua area for the duration of my nights is: Run for the hills, and don't look back!

I started a week of nights on Friday at 10pm where I am the most senior doctor in the hospital for 10 hours overnight, in a hospital with about 200 beds! The phrase Scarey As, comes to mind for some unknown reason. My nights started off not too badly, 10pm on Friday night and no patients waiting, no-one expected, no-one to review on the wards. This lasted for 1 hour during which I managed to at least ring home and talk to my folks. Then the full assault was launched. I was kept busy for the rest of the night and finally left ED at 7am. Slept ok during Saturday day and the battering continued on Saturday and Sunday night - a straight 9 hours in ED clerking patients each night. It was harder than I had worked during the day on-call! Ryan and Jade lied and lulled me into a false sense of security - "nights are fine" they said, "you only see a few patients" they said. Coming from Jade, who attracts all kinds of trouble, this was reassuring. Alas, it was not to be.

Monday night finally calmed down and at 3am I managed to get a few hours sleep before handing over at 8am. Tuesday night was similar but the bonus feature was my first proper heart attack which I successfully thrombolysed. She did well until the early hours when her heart failure kicked in, having taken out a fair amount of cardiac tissue with her heart attack. Still, I managed to sort her out with some good help from the CCU nurses. My faith in my abilities was improving. Not only had my first few nights been busy but I'd been completely knackered at the end of them due to the huge amount of responsibility I was now carrying. If things turned to custard, I was the person with the overall say in the heat of the moment. When patients are sick, you at elast have some time to ring the boss, check the books, whatever. But if someone's heart decides to stop, man, would I be in trouble.

Still, last night now and under 3 hours to go until I finish. Celebratory breakfast to finish our week of nights, and catch-up time with Julie before she jets off to South America and Scotland for 2 months.

I have a weekend of ski-ing to look forward to, and lots of aching on Monday, I'm sure

Farewell to Dee

2006-06-26T23:37:00.000+12:00

Dee left today. She started her journey back to Ireland this morning to start a 2 year Paediatric rotation, starting in Dublin. Andrew, Dee and myself have lived together for 9 months, didn't know each other before that (although I knew of Andrew from University being in the same year) and have become firm friends. Dee was the first doctor I met in Rotorua. Both Dee and Andrew have inspired me to really get into some serious, regular exercise. I started swimming because of her, a whimsical session before the start of a weekend at work to avoid taking 2 cars to work for the same shift starting me on a regular habit. She's still to eat her hat as promised if I went swimming 3 times in a week - I managed it for 2 before averaging twice a week for the summer. Since getting back from Japan though, I've been slack and only been a few times, if that.

The banter of ripping her Irish phrases and accent are over for now. No more will the linen cupboard be described as the 'hot-press', or a random person be 'your man, over there'.

Ski-ing for the first time on one of our first weekends in New Zealand, the Hospital Ball, the Tongariro Crossing, many a BBQ and a terrifying film called Wolf Creek. Just a few of the memories of Dee.

Hopefully a reunion in Europe in December/January will take place - Dee, Ivo, Andrew and myself will all be in back home.

My New Job

2006-06-23T19:30:00.000+12:00

After a traumatic 6 hours in LAX, I survived the second long flight of my journey back to New Zealand, touched down at 5.30am on Sunday at Auckland and then had a 3 hour shuttle ride to home in Rotorua. Home-to-home transit time = 35 hours!
Got a few hours sleep, unpacked, went to be for the 3rd time in 24hours and awoke at 2am. After failing to get back to sleep for 2 hours, I gave in and revived the fire downstairs for some heat. Got to work for 8am to start my new job as Medical Registrar (UK, SHO equivilant). Scary first day but the relaxed consultant post-take ward round eased me in, not to mention a house officer who knew the pre-take patients very well. Managed to stay awake til 9am before collapsing into bed.
Tuesday was my first day on-take during the day, and although I didn't see my first patient until just before lunch, it took me almost 5 hours to see and sort 3 patients! Pathetic! Still, the next day, I managed to rattle through 5 patients in my on-call evening of 7 hours so not bad. Only 1 case baffled me and my confidence was restored.

Thursday was the first day of the RMO strike. DHB management had been proposing what they thought was a fine idea for the last 6 months before agreeing to re-ngotiate the country-wide RMO contract. Their idea of fairness was to set up a committee to agree on any working condition changes by majority vote. They proposed a committee of 4 members of management and 3 members of the RDA (doctors' union)! They seemed to be at a loss as to why we thought this was unfair! In addition, anything we wanted changed would have to go through this committee and so we would effectively lose our negotiating union. I had taken my stand in the ballot vote before going to London by voting against industrial action. However unfair management were being, I don't think doctors should strike, even if I agreed on the reasons for striking. There are other ways. Anyway, after several weeks of intense negotiating, the DHBs refused to budge and no compromise was reached - the strike went ahead: 5 days of no junior doctors. Hospital care was provided by non-union juniors and consultants. Each of the medical regs had to be onsite for a day to provide emergency back-up so I camped out at the hospital on Friday. The weekend passed with ridiculously stormy weather but at least I got all my paperwork and most of my music in order. I even managed to perfect the art of making a fire so that I won't be freezing to death any time soon (as long as I have, newspaper, kindling and logs that is!). So back to work today and I feel like I'm starting to settle into work now. Even managed to do some studying this evening precipitated by the realisation of not knowing some of the common cardiac medication.

So back to work today and I feel like I'm starting to settle into work now. Even managed to do some studying this evening precipitated by the realisation of not knowing some of the common cardiac medication.

Family Time

2006-06-11T00:25:00.000+12:00

One week, limit reached. My new limit of time spent in close quarters with my parents is 7 days. The long weekend hasn't helped, nor the water tank corroding and leaking through the house. Something always goes awry when I'm back. But it got fixed on Tuesday and the wonderful power shower is back in working order.

I took a trip down to Yeovil on Tuesday evening via Salisbury. Caught up with Edd over a beer at the Old Mill then had a brief chat to Mohammed and Colin before heading on to Yeovil to meet Helen. Dinner with lots of wine, gossiping about friends and other people and trying to avoid my feet being scratching posts for Bruce, her lovely but claw-happy cat. Took a trip down memory lane with photos as well. Headed back to London in the morning, enjoying driving past Stonehenge on the way and got back to scanning in more family photos. Went to see The Da Vinci Code after dinner. It was the first time my dad had been to the cinema since ET. It made me realise, how my own cinema visits have changed over the years. I used to go a lot more while at school and university but now, not quite so much. I guess, it continues to dwindle with time.

Lunch with Julian on Thursday at Covent Garden was nice. It started to make me realise just how much I did actually miss being in the UK and being able to meet up with all my friends more regularly. Also had a good rant about the state (or lack thereof) of the NHS currently and the present issues with getting a job, any job. Julian's not having much luck getting onto a surgical rotation, which means his lifelong ambition of getting into ENT is seriously endangered, and not through lack of experience or ability.

Spent the weekend having some quality time with mum and after several text messages, realised I probably wasn't going to be able to meet up with either Ivo or Alice. We were going to be missing each other over the next few days. Headed into town on Monday to New Zealand House to get my visa extended. Thankfully had all the right paperwork so no problems, and saw John Snow outside the National Gallery on the way! I miss the Channel 4 News at 7pm. Met Nufar for lunch with her 7 week-old baby, Ella and her mother, who's staying with her at the moment. I seem to be in limbo in life in comparision to lots of my friends. Most of them own houses, are most of the way through their exams, 2 are married, 1 engaged, 1 sort-of-engaged and the first baby has arrived! I'm still a nomad!

I started the task of copying my music again after losing half of it thorugh a corrupted disk. According to the copying box, it would take about 24 hours! Granted, there is 68GB worth!

Tuesday was finance day. Got all my tax papers in order and figured out how best to deal with my savings. Realisation: I only 3 more days in London! Time really does fly when you're enjoying yourself. I've not really done all that much in the past few weeks in London but it's been nice to have time out, take stock of my life and put a few things into perspective. The opaque puddle of my life's path is starting to clear, or at least some of the larger fragments of debris have been filtered out and priorities are getting into something resembling an order.

Went down to Southampton for the evening and met Susan, Jane and Ben for dinner at the Cowherds. Southampton's changed a lot over the last 3 years since I left, lots of new buildings, different road layouts and new shops. Driving past my former haunts certainly made me feel aged. The houses where I used to live still look the same though. Headed back to London the next day and had a few very long conversations with people I hadn't managed to catch up with. Was meant to be having dinner with my old housemates from my 2nd year at university but that was scuppered by various problems. It ended up being just myself and Nicole but it was nice to catch-up with everything since I last saw her in New Zealand.

Spent Thursday packing and chilling with my folks before last family dinner and a visit from Maurice, dad's oldest friend and adoptive uncle to us all.

Emotional farewell at the airport and it was soon the start of a 35-hour transit time back to Rotorua. It was much harder leaving this time for both my parents and myself. I knew what I was going back to, not that it's bad, but the excitement of the unknown wasn't there. In addition, I knew my parent's wouldn't be seeing any of the children for at least 3 months. It must be very hard having your nearest child living 8 hours plane journey away. They're taking it remarkably well, no desperate pleas to come back to the UK, the old "you have to do whatever's best for your life and career, wherever that may be" phrase gets used many times. And I believe they truely mean it.

New Website

2006-05-28T11:11:00.000+12:00

Having got the link from Greg, I've got another website which I can add more photos onto. It's got a link to this site as my only entry in the blog. After finishing digitalising all my photos from uni and school, a selection of all my photos on it.

Hope you enjoy...

http://karenad.multiply.com/

And the catching-up begins

2006-05-26T20:55:00.000+12:00

The phone calls to friends started on Wednesday. Talking to Lou was as if I'd never been away - that's when you know you've got a good friend. She's on nights, and although there's a mess party on at Chichester tomorrow night, I'd be staying at her house overnight if I went. It sucks that she's on nights. Then made the mistake of calling Steve to let him know I wouldn't be coming. I knew I'd have a battle on my hands but didn't really think it through. So, after a little protesting, I caved. Going to the mess party afterall, but it's a beach theme! Steve's trying on a sarong that sounds more like a tea-towel! I fear for my eye-sight, short-sightedness is still better than blindness!

Finished the mammoth task of scanning all my photos into the computer yesterday. Can now upload photos onto the web. Oh the joys of having broadband internet.

The mess party was good although a bit tame for what I remember of Chichester. The surf simulator provided lots of entertainment and competitive streaks started to rise. After trying to get a taxi to take us pack to Steve's in Port Solent for about 1 hour, we collapsed on the sofas on the mess for a few hours of kip. Steve and Matt headed back to Port SOlent a few hours later when safe to drive, and I hung around to see Louise after she finished work. After a busy and tiring night, we caught up quickly over some toast and then she headed to bed and I headed out to meet Lisa for proper breakfast after her night of work. The lack of sleep was settling in as I drove back to London. Quick shower before running out the door again to the dentist and then slept for an hour before feeling slightly more human.

My tolerance for not only alcohol but late nights has significantly plummeted. Long gone are the days when I could party til 2am, go to work for 8 hours starting at 8am and feel ok. Ahhh, back in the good ole' days...

Home at Last

2006-05-24T05:21:00.000+12:00

It's official: Virgin Atlantic Airlines have THE best inflight entertainment ever, and I mean ever! You can take your pick from over 20 films, dozens of TV programmes, oodles of music (albums, that is, not crappy pre-recorded playlists) or more than a few games (you can even challenge someone at the other end of the plane to a match!). As if that's not enough, you choose when you want to do anything and you can pause, fast forward, rewind or just stop any programme in it's tracks whenever you want to! A far cry from the single video screen for the plane section than Air New Zealand had. I'll be flying Virgin Atlantic again, that's for sure (and not just because that's who my return flight is with).

So after a fairly bumpy ride and a less traumatic landing (it felt as though there was a seriously possibility that we might run out of runway at Hong Kong and end up in the sea!), I found myself amongst the green green grass of home, on England's green and pleasant land at 0548 on Monday 22nd May. I'm sure there was greenery somwhere amidst the grey drizzly skies and matching concrete, that is. It was good to be home and I knew I'd been away far too long when even the non-descript greyness couldn't wipe the cheshire grin off my face. My folks had got stuck in the commuter traffic heading into the terminals so I made my way over to the departure area and duly waited. It dawned on us later, that at that time on a Monday morning, there were plenty of business commuter flying off up to the likes of Manchester for the start of their working week.

I was overwhelmed to see my parents again and the feeling was obviously reciprocated. 9 months apart was a long time - the longest time to date that we've not seen each other for. Everything on the way home looked the same, but different, old, but new, familiar, but strange - very bizarre. The house was a lot brighter than I remembered, especially on a dull, rainy day, but it was all just the same. My room was a lot more pink than I remembered though! I understood why my mother had felt so empty after myself and Daniel left. Our rooms were empty - nothing on the bedside tables, hardly anything in the wardrobes, almost no trace of us having once lived there. My room was filled quickly with a scattered mess of belongings. The computer came out and my parents were suitably brought up-to-date with a myriad of various snapshots from New Zealand and Hong Kong (I'm still waiting on my tardy siblings to send me photos from Japan 3 months ago). After my second breakfast of the day, mum enlightened me on the book she had produced of her family tree. It was inspirational, so say the least. Every family had a page, illustrated with any photos she had been fortunate to find. In summary, our page read, Marie, Administrator, married to Jerry, Bank Official, in in London. Children: Anthea, Accountant, Daniel, Computer Analyst and Karena, Doctor. The pride I felt must have been only a small percentage of the pride my parents feel when they think of how far their 3 children have travelled, in education, life and distance.

I managed to stay awake until 8pm then crashed out and slept like a hibernating hedgehog for almost 12 hours before being woken by my bladder.

Hong Kong

2006-05-21T19:14:00.000+12:00

Sitting in a cafe on Hong Kong Island, counting down the hours until I need to leave for the airport. It's raining outside, has been since early this morning and it's showing no signs of letting up. Good things my plans for today involved, getting onto the internet for my blog and checking out the Hong Kong History museum.

My 12-hour journey from Auckland was plagued by inconsiderate Chinese fellow passengers set upon standing in the way, even after clearly seeing that I was trying to bend around them to see the only video screen for the section. I seemed to be the only passenger that I could see below the age of 50 on the plane. Probably the only person on the plane to be amused at the fact that my can of 7-Up had a pull-ring instead of the usual push-rings. Managed a few hours of sleep though and got a rough itinerary together for how to spend my time in Hong Kong. I hadn't quite taken in how hot or humid it would be and it hit me first when the pilot said it was 30 degrees Celsius outside at 5.30pm and the humidity enveloped me as I left the air-conditioning of the airport in search of the bus into Kowloon. I found my way to the stop for my hostel without problems, but luckily, the manager was at the bus stop waiting for me or else I would've been wondering for a little while. After a welcome shower and the feeling of my humanity returning, I wandered on Nathan Road for a little while, searching for a quick bite for turning in. Unfortunately, the only snack I could find was a choice between KFC and McDonald's - the grilled chicken flatbread I had a long 12 hour flight from Auckland to Hong Kong on a plane where I couldn't see the communal video screen most of the time due tot McDonald's won out. I set out on Saturday to Victoria Peak and spend a few hours getting to grips with my camera along the way.

Got some pride-inducing shots before taking the tram up to the Peak and after wondering for a while, I got some lunch at a restaurant. 'Table for 1 please' and I could cross another thing off my Things To DO Alone list. Still have, going to a bar alone to do, but I might try that in a country I'm familiar with first.

Then headed into Central to browse the shops and take in the atmosphere of a Saturday afternoon in Hong Kong. Escaped the humidity for a few hours in my room before heading out again to Temple Street and the famous market of cheap knock-offs and useless curios. Picked up a hand strap for my camera and another plug converter for New Zealand. Got a silk scarf and tie and mum and dad respectively on the way home after dining alone again at a street restaurant.

I checked out of the hostel late morning on Sunday and headed to a cafe with wi-fi in the pouring rain. My computer was safe from the rain in my waterproof bargain day-sack from Kathmandu and my head was kept dry by the proper raincoat I'd invested in earlier in the year. I settled down to update my blog and send a group email out while the rain settled. It didn't so I resigned to spending the rest of the day inside until I had to leave to collect my luggage and leave for the airport.

I'm glad I made a stop-off in Hong Kong. I'm happy that I didn't make a special trip to come here and I don't think I'll be back in a hurry. It's a bustling urban environment with neither the redeeming historic architecture nor tangible history of London. A good place for designer shopping with all well known names nearby. It feels like a bad mix of Kuala Lumpur and Tokyo. The old and new haven't gelled quite as well her as they have in Japan. Yoshinoya ihas even made it here - a favourite refueling stop for Daniel in Japan. Compensation comes in the form of good Chinese cuisine available everywhere. The dim sum yesterday was great.

Holidays are Coming...

2006-05-18T23:27:00.000+12:00

Right - first off, here's a written vow, for all to see and for me to remember and stick to this time...
I WILL NOT WORK IN A&E/ED/ER OR ANY NAME UNDER WHICH THE EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT IS KNOWN, EVER AGAIN.
Reasons:
1. too unsociable
2. you can't disappear from the department even when there are no patients to see
3. not enough satisfaction to compensate for the said hours.

Now then, Thursday was my final day in New Zealand before jetting off back home for 3 weeks. Packing was the order of the day (with a few extra errands thrown in for good measure). It was surprisingly easy, given that I knew I would be buying a fair few things in the UK. After tidying and hooving my room, I headed down into town to meet Dee and change the rental agreement of our house from her name into mine. Both Dee and Andrew are leaving fairly soon, leaving me in New Zealand. A big change from the original plan of me being the first to vacate. Dee's got a 2 year Paediatric rotation in Ireland from July and Andrew's just got a years rotation in Truro starting in August. Then off to the hospital for teaching and then back home to finish off a few things of packing and make the salsa and cake I'd promised for the evening's BBQ at Troy and Fiona's place. For the first time in, well, forever, my Things to Do List, consisted of 2 things: pay credit card bill (due in 1 month) and things to remember to do in London - I was finally up-to-date

I was finally all packed and headed off to the BBQ with Dee. It was a nice last evening and said goodbye to Greg, Logan and Brendan, who were moving to various places across the globe. My alarm was set for 0415 the next morning for my shuttle pick-up at 5am. I was going home!

My Last 7 Shifts in ED

2006-05-18T09:35:00.000+12:00

Friday night started well - good intentions of work the next day and being on call-back overnight went awry after dinner. Got home after work and chilled for a bit before changing and sorting hair out - was a fuzzy mop but miraculously changed personality when attacked with the hair straighteners. Arrived with Dee at Rydges - the new place for drinks after work due to happy hour cheap drinks! Energy spent on taming the frizz paid off almost immediately after several compliments from a mildly intoxicated Brendan of "you're hair looks fantastic". A few of the group had started alcohol consumption at 3pm and Brendan was post-nights! One glass of wine went down well but according to my resolutions for the evening, that was to be it. Headed off to dinner for Japanese and got stopped by some grumpy porkers breath-testing all drivers. Failed the first one after the policeman gave me the wrong instructions and then he proceeded to be a complete kn*b asking lots of intimating questions before testing me again with a different machine which cleared me completely. No need to take it out on me because you're working on a Friday night outside in the cold! I'm not the one that chose your job now am I!

It was nice to have udon noodles again, since Japan and we headed down to the Pig and Whistle for some dancing. The good intentions stopped there. Arguably forced to have a Baileys & Midori shot, I realised that I couln't resist the call of alcohol and gave in to a few more glasses of wine. Got on well with Bevan again (not that well, for all you people jumping to conclusions!), got the new elective students up and dancing and danced my little socks off with my 2 prodigal housemates - it was good to have them home again).

Left in the early hours and stopped off at the 24 hour bike race that had got underway in the Redwood Forest, then home to bed. Early start the next morning driving Nic's car to work and doing to hurried walking in the frosty morning air to move my car up to the hospital to avoid parking fines, clamping and stealing. I knew it was a bad idea not getting enough sleep the night before when I woke up but then the day got worse at work with a full-on collapse after several hours of nose-bleeding, having to call in the ENT consultant to stop another nose-bleed then an arrest call after lunch. Got home and collapsed on the sofa. Didn't even manage to make it back out for a while for the ED night out.
Tucked up in bed at 21.30.

The next day went a bit better, mostly because my head was actually clear and I'd managed to get more than enough sleep the night before. I just delayed at the end with a patient having taken an overdose of a potentially dangerous cocktail of medication. Thankfully, the amount of alcohol she has also consumed worked in our favour and the vomiting it induced managed to clear her stomach of most of the medication before it all got absorbed. She turned out to be ok, although the odour of her whiskey & Bailey's vomitus was a strong deterrent against alcohol. The final insult came when trying to find my jacket, I saw it peaking out of a brown 'Patients Property' bag. Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Having taken off my jacket (the department had been icy cold, in temperature only, for the last few days) when the patient came in, to avoid contamination with bodily fluids, I had stupidly flung it onto a chair in the cubicle out of the way. Big mistake! Someone, who, in their own best interests, failed to reveal themselves, had assumed it was some of the patient's belongings and chucked it into the same bag as her clothing covered in oral-excrement. Thankfully, my jacket landed on top of her upturned shoes, so although in the immediate vicinity of vomit, it did not touch anything. Still, the hostile aroma had penetrated the fibres of my attire. This was salvageable, so the jacket was extracted into a paper bag of it's own and on arrival home, was transferred into the washing machine for the 'Heavy Duty' cycle. Dinner from Andrew was accompanied by a Japanese Horror film and then part of an Australian cult movie. My seating place at dinner was determined by being the furthest away from wine that Andrew and Dee were enjoying. The mixture of whiskey, Irish whiskey cream & vomit is a surprisingly noxious concoction which I would not even wish on my worst enemy.

Monday started with Body Combat - a really good self-empowering class full of kicking and punching. It took me back to my childhood days of Daniel 'practicing' his self defense on me. It worked though, and I turned up to work in a good mood and full of energy. Tuesday started with step class and I was finally on a roll with my exercise. Wednesday started with making my leaving cake for work - a lemon and ginger sponge that was devoured within 60 minutes of arrival. I even managed to get through a few errands before work, booking my airport shuttle and renewing my library books. I'm currently reading The New Penguin History of the World, having missed out on the wonders of history at school. I hated the subject and I think my teacher was secretly relieved I was not taking it for GCSE. But now I feel left out and clueless, so I'm educating myself. It's relatively easy reading, but after a few chapters, I had to give into my lighter photography book to get to grips with how cameras work. I didn't abuse the library enough at university. Instead, I spend inordinate amounts of sterling on text books that I either didn't use or couldn't carry (mostly both).

Anyway, my last day at work went without a hitch, and for the last 4 hours I worked very hard. Well, I worked hard at maintaining the level of boredom in the face of no patients. For the first time when I wasn't working the next day, I got to bed later than Andrew, and woke earlier thatn him on Thursday.

Fun and Not so Fun

2006-05-11T20:00:00.000+12:00

Went luging with Nikki on Wednesday then explored Rotorua's Museum and settled at home to look at some photos - it turned into a bit of a computer sorting session.

I was back at work on Thursday for the first of 4 shifts of 1pm-11pm. Don't remember much of those 4 days, so couldn't have been very exciting really. Andrew and Dee got back on Sunday and the house seemed suddenly noisy. Nic (Andy's brother) was sticking around for awhile also, locuming at Rotorua for a few weeks before going to Australia. 3 days off work again and didn't doo much apart from getting back into my fitness regime - I'd been very slack for 2 weeks and not done a single thing. For the first time ever though, I was now desperate to be able to do something to increase my heart rate other than running to an emergency. On Monday I went for a long brisk walk down the Okareka Walkway. It was beautiful, and armed with my camera, camera book and iPod, I was happy as the proverbial Larry singing loudly in the glorious (if not cold) New Zealand Sun alongside the peaceful lake. Wish I had taken a self-portrait to remind myself how happy I was to finally be exercising again. Sadly, it got cold quickly and after cooling down substantially while playing with my camera for some spectacular shots, I had to head home just to keep warm. With some harsh self-encouragement, I managed to make it up the steep hill without stopping (although my speed progressively reduced). I did manage to capture the reflection of the moon in the lake though, although I wish I had more zoom.

It was Andrew's birthday on Wednesday - dinner at home with Andrew, Dee, Nic and Erica then onto Shankar and Greg's leaving do at the Belgian Bar. It sad that all the leaving dos were starting. Out of 46 doctors, 10 are leaving over the next few weeks and the ones leaft are either first-years or registrars, here until the end of their year in November.

Andrew's birthday - with Erica, Dee, Nic and Andrew
(not much of a family resemblance between the brothers, eh?)

The leaving guys - Shankar and Greg

Thursday was the start of a 7-day stretch of work. I'm getting fed-up of it now. Still like the work but the hours suck and I annoyed that I only get to see my friends if they have to come down to ED for something. They're even starting to act surprised to see that I'm still alive. Only 7 more shifts of ED to go - 4 normal days then 3 shifts of 2-11pm. At least I have a Friday night off!

The Quiz

2006-05-03T18:08:00.000+12:00

The weekend was largely taken up with getting my body to recognise daylight hours as awake time again, instead of for sleeping. After 2 hours of tossing, I gave up trying to get back to sleep and got out of bed at 6.30am on Saturday morning after 4 hours of sleep. At first I contemplated the possibly of having slept through the entire day waking in the darkened evening, instead of the still-dark morning! Andy was back for the weekend, running the Rotorua Marathon that morning. Got a lift into town with him before the race and picked my car up from the hotel I'd left it at the night before. Got back home and pottered for a few hours before heading back into town to meet Andy at the finish line. Camera primed, eyes set on the perfect vantage point, 35mins ahead of his predicted time...all set. I was 20m from the barrier when the PA rang out "and here comes Andrew Boyd, living in Lake Okareka, working in Rotorua, from England - a great mix, and a good time of 2hours 57mins". No, no, no, I was meant to be there at the finish line ready for the perfect action shot! No fair. Managed to catch up with him round the back though - very impressive time and totally inspired - the man is a machine!

Left Andy to his own devices with his folks and headed into town to meet up with Rachel for lunch. She had done the 10km that morning also but after loitering for 40mins, turns out she was heading back to Napier sharpish as other people were driving and they'd come together. Was starting to feel pretty shattered as at 1pm, I'd already been up for 9 hours! Crawled into bed and after failing to fall asleep, got up again and went round to Ben's to help with the quiz questions. Got a few ideas from the Saturday paper for current affairs and sporting questions and then headed over to Shankar's house for pizza and onwards to Secret Spot. It was almost torrential rain and after stripping off in the car, we made a mad dash in our togs to the water - a naturally hot stream about 20km south of Rotorua. A few candles around and glow-sticks and we were set for a few hours of prune-inducing hot water soaking in the dark. The 5 guys did not help the creepy feeling of being able to see very little beyond your nose, especially when Shankar threw a big rock into the water about 5m from our group. Having not been able to see him throw the rock, we just heard the splash. Terror sank into my mind, lifted eventually, when the torches came out and proved the absence of strangers standing on the banks. After several hours, we headed back into town. Having got home late and showered and rested, I thought that I might easily fall back into a normal sleeping pattern.

Sunday was mainly spent sorting out the quiz with Ben, then just about managing to make it through the very boring Apocalypse Now. Ben finally finished the quiz at about midnight, co-ordinating with the film, and we were all set.

Monday was a day of getting everything on the Things To Do List done - finally, the list got cut down and like Damon Albarn feeding the pigeons it gave me an enormous sense of wellbeing. My sense of fulfilment was inflated by the purchase of a new pair of shoes.

Tuesday arrived and so did Nikki. She came over from Hamilton for 2 days and after some lunch at home (I did myself proud with some chickpea tortillas and breaded mushrooms), we headed off to the Buried Village. It was actually good to see it a second time and we did a full tour of the place including seeing the waterfalls.

The White Terraces that were blown out by the Tarawera Eruption

The Wairere Falls - 30m waterfall

Then off to the Hospital Quiz, couldn't bear the thought of wearing my costume for longer than I really had to so it was jeans for a while until 18.50 and with 10 minutes to go, I headed to the toilets. A round of applause welcomed my blonde self into the room and I even managed to stay upright for the whole night in my new heeled shoes. Our costumes went down a storm and the Quiz was a huge success - good old-fashioned entertainment. I successfully proved that under no circumstances should I even consider bleaching my hair to blonde!

Your wonderful host, Benjamin Albert, and his lovely assistant, Karena

Just over 2 weeks!

2006-04-29T06:52:00.000+12:00

Finished my set of nights and after breakfast and 3 hours of sleep, met up with Ben again to get our costumes for the Hospital Quiz on Tuesday. Ben found himself a sparkly waitcoat with a matching bow-tie and hat and I managed to get a lovely polyester black dress with pink polka dots and shoulder pads, and a lovely wig. Mission accomplished - in my role of lovely assistant I would not be looking very lovely!

Then on to drinks after work at Rydges Hotel. The wine won again in the tussle between 2nd glass of wine or remaining able to drive home in post-nights-sleep-deprived state. Then onto dinner at a new Thai restaurant and obviously the wine kept on flowing - well what was the point in stopping now, I'd still have to crash on someone's floor or get a taxi home. After finding 2 possible further drinking establishments closed (on a Friday Night!), we ended up in the questionable Turf Bar (it always gave me the creeps walking). At midnight, it was time for home and the taxi journey home seemed a little too long.

In just over 2 weeks I'll be back in England, sleeping in my bed in London!

Mania

2006-04-27T04:12:00.000+12:00

Nights are definitely bad for the soul. Over the past 5 days, I have become quite the maniac at just about 8am as my night shift comes to an end. Frightened looks from friends and colleagues are a good warning sign that the tide has turned and I should hurry to the safety of my bed. The week started off very busy but has finally calmed down (hence being able to post something again).

Since last post, let's see...
- had a day off work to catch-up with lingering errands hanging around for weeks,
- had a weekend off work for Easter and spent some of it in Auckland with Joe, Uma and the kids,
- worked yet another public holiday but saw some very interesting cases which I'm still following up,
- failed miserably to relocate a very stubborn dislocated shoulder,
- finally finished reading Bill Bryson after 4 months,
- put my redundant toyota corolla on Trademe,
- started a week of nights and had to resort to drug-induced sleep to prevent further insomnia
- started to read about photography,
- managed to continue enthusiasm for exercise and have made it to the gym twice a week so far.

Taken by Dee along the Okareka Walkway (about 1km form our house)

New Toys

2006-04-12T18:24:00.000+12:00

My third consecutive weekend of working and it was actually ok. This time my shifts were 8am-4pm and so at least I felt like I had part of a weekend. After an emotional case of Saturday, I was in need of some alcohol and company, so met up with Bevan, Brendan and Ben for dinner then a DVD. Ben's psycho Siamese cat, Mr Glass, seemed to adopt me. Having previously been silenting hissing as me, he settled down on my lap for about half the film, despite me being concerned that his claws would appear at any moment.

Exercise really does work - Tuesday started with a step class and I had an enormous amount of energy for most of the rest of the day, at least until my head started pounding from too many screaming children. I was even enthusiastic about examining a kiddie's ears when I first started my shift! Since I've got into some regular cardiovascular exercise, the endorphins have been running riot - I'm definitely in a better mood generally and for the first time, I felt sick when I saw some McDonalds! I'm not doing too badly - averaging about 2 gym visits a week so far, not far off my aim of 3. The fact that I feel fitter is even more incentive to keep it up.

After some cruel spamming from Ryan, retribution was achieved last night with a double whammy - email spam with supplementary posters around the hospital. Ahh, the sweet taste of revenge!

My new second-hand PDA arrived this morning. Bargin buy from Trademe, the Kiwi equivalent to eBay. Found some good software on the internet for various medical calculations which will be useful - I have my comfort blanket back for working in ED and seizures will no longer scare me!

Systems Analyst

2006-04-07T13:59:00.000+12:00

So Japan gave 3 siblings the opportunity to become better acquainted. There were a few things that came up in our somtimes heated discussions that I hope have led to each of us having a slightly better understanding of the others. Dan's job discription maybe Systems Analyst (or something like that anyway) but we should all be systems analysts - the systems being our minds. So many things are done or said without thinking or reason, and it's only when you understand why you do something, that you can actually change your behaviour - if you think it needs changing.

One thing we got stuck on for a while was so-called selfless acts. There is nothing that you do that does not inherently have some net benefit to yourself. If you didn't get some benefit out of it (or as least less damage), you wouldn't do it. Eg, going to the Saligao May Feast - they may never have been any distinct benefit of going along with our father's wishes (almost demands) of attending this overwhelmingly boring social events, but the NET benefit was eliminating the inevitable hassle of NOT attending - damage limitation! Therefore, there is no such thing as a selfless act - although I think Jesus and maybe Mother Theresa are 2 people that are the exceptions that prove the rule.

So self-analysis:
1. I really need to reclaim my hibernating fitness (and embrace the inevitable weightloss).
2. Life became 10 times more simple and more enjoyable when I realised worrying about the future was futile. I can't affect things out of my control.
3. I understand what Daniel means about me being diplomatic.

3 Days Off Then Back To Work

2006-04-06T19:05:00.000+12:00

The view from about 100m up the road from my house

Mount Tarawera last erupted in 1886 with the eruption lights being visable from China!

I had a great few days off, apart from the fact that everyone else I knew was working. Dee was off in Waikaremoana doing a 3-day tramp. The invitation to join her was slightly appealing but I would slow her down and frankly, I could do with some quality time in my own bed with nothing in particular to wake up for.

Monday was a day trip to Whakatane & Ohope. A gentle walk on the beach and then I found a cafe to sit and people-watch inbetween reading my book. I'm finally getting towards the end of my Bill Bryson book (A Short History of Nearly Everything) after more than 3 months of sporadic reading. Tuesday was unfortunately a paperwork and general sorting day with me finally getting my car's high beam lights sorted, writing a snotty letter to the Student Loans Company for some enlightenment on why they were returning my money with no explanation and trying to get through the small mountain of forms for my visa extension. I won't be paying them any more interest! So finally, the number of things on my Task list in Outlook is down to only 6.

Wednesday finished off my 3 days off with a few errands in town and some concentration on getting my medical education and training folder in order. One of the consultant physicians has taken me under her wing and regular meetings are forcing me to make an effort to record my training. Also trying to get my medical registrar job pre-approved for training in the UK - just in case.

Since Japan, I've made a good effort to make my life more healthy, changing my diet, joining the gym and doing alot more exercise. I've managed 2 cardio class sessions this week already and actually really enjoyed them. Probably because I've had to concentrate on not tripping over or falling off my stepping block instead of thinking how knackered I feel. It's definitely working though - I have a lot more energy and feel generally a bit better about myself as well.

Let the fish get drunk

2006-04-03T15:28:00.000+12:00

Friday was another sad day - Erin's leaving dinner and drinks. Unfortunately, I was working the evening and by the time I was finishing, the others had flagged and were on their way home. So we met up from brunch the next day. After some good food at Sirocco, a few of us headed to Kathmandu for the sale (and I tried to prepare my debit card for the inevitable upcoming splurge). I then headed to work again - my second weekend in a row. I managed to get a decent photo of the group of us though before Erin headed off on some travels in India and Europe before starting work in Ireland.

With Emmora, Julie, Erin, Shankar and Greg

If anyone has ever wanted to be put off even the thought of consuming alcohol again for the rest of their life, Saturday in ED would've been the night for it.

My shift started off tamely, the odd injury, no-one sick, it was all good. at 7.30pm, we had 2 injured parties from a car accident. A drunk driver vs a sober driver who was a well-liked nurse at the hospital. As always, the sober guy came off worse - 2 badly broken arms, a busted ankle that would never heal due to lack blood supply and a minor head injury. The poor guy was on his way to the supermarket to get some food after nothing for most of the day. The drunk driver came off lightly with a broken leg and a scalp laceration. With no impression of the consequences of her inebriated actions, she started feeling sorry for herself and blame it on bad luck. BAD LUCK! I corrected her very quickly with it only being bad luck that someone else was involved. Later I learned 2 of her family members had died whilst driving drunk, and this was not her first offence. "A coouple of beers" in her case meant not 2 but 7. A few days later, I heard reports that her mother was complaining the nursing staff on the ward were acting like she was to blame for something. Woman, are you mad??!! Of course, how could a drunk woman who was driving way over the speed limit, lost control of her car, smashed into another car causing the other driver to suffer multiple serious injuries that stops his career in its tracks again not to mention walking difficulties possibly be guilty of anything!

OK, ranting and raving over, deep breath..............and release.

The other 2 serious injuries that night were associated with the ethanol chemical as well. Another car accident involved teenagers, one with an arterial bleed from his scalp. And then there was the unknown adult male who had been whacked on the head with a baseball bat, drunk as a skunk, and ended up with a depressed skull fracture diagnosed on CT after being sedated for the scan. He was airlifted to the neurosurgical unit.

When finally leaving the department 2 hours after my shift had ended, one wish was overwhelming: could we let the fish be happy and just pour all the alcohol in the world into the oceans? It would certainly reduce the amount of obtuse injuries seen in ED.

Waitomo Caves

2006-04-02T09:44:00.000+12:00

Myself and Erin headed to Waitomo Caves last Tuesday - I had 3 days off after a 7 day stint, and Erin was post-nights. The idea of sitting in cold water, in a cave, in the dark, seemed all so appealing to my mind in light of...
1. my active dread of water deeper than my shoulder height
2. my lack of confidence in swimming and
3. not least of all, my previous experience of water-rafting

Still, I put my best foot forward and squeezed into a flattering wetsuit and helmet for the 3 hour tour of a glow-worm cave and some blackwater rafting.

So forward we went, in our soggy wetsuits to a little stream. At the stream, we found rubber rings to fit out posteriors and then we invited to voluntarily jump backwards off a little jetty into the stream that was just a little deeper than an average height - VOLUNTARILY! The old Hula Hoops advert came to mind - Oi, NO!

In the end, I manage to do it - an event, several months ago before I started learning to swim properly, I would not even contemplated doing, even for a second. I proved to myself how far I had come. We them headed into a cave and learnt about the glow-worms and the fact that they neither glow nor are worms. In fact, they are fly larvae who use their own excrement as fuel and so as the excrement reacts with oxygen, it glows blue/green. The "glow-worms" are obviously an efficient form of life - recycling their own waste products.

So the caves were pretty with stalagtites and plenty of rocks and limestone. Unfortunately, no pictures, but I doubt if any would actually come out even if I had my camera.

We got to a waterfall, and I was determined that I was not going to do the jumping-backwards thing...that was until I got to the edge and it didn't look too threatening. Jumped I did, and managed a face-full of water. But I remembered my breathing technique and managed not to enhale the water over my face. Scary but exhilarating at the same time.

After making it out of the cave, we floated down the stream and then back in the van to the hut for a hot shower and soup and bagels. All in all, a fantastic trip - a good use of a day off from work.

Back to work

2006-03-20T23:58:00.000+12:00

First day back at work and my mind was more in ED mode. I managed just 1 stupid question this shift. It started off slow but typically, it got busy around dinner time - so dinner consisted of bites of a sandwich, that Shankar had picked up for me on a canteen dash, inbetween patients. It was nice to be back. If they were faking, everyone did a good job of making me feel I was missed. The annual luging challenge is happening tomorrow evening. Oh the joy of unsociable shifts - the pathetic response of "Can't, I'm working evenings this week and the weekend" was repeated several times after the first "Are you coming tomorrow?" from Bevan.

Shock! Horror! They've blocked Gmail at work! They can easily block our access to innocuous email but somehow can't quite manage to block offensive spam from viagra and porn companies getting through work email!

Konnichiwah Japan!

2006-03-20T11:08:00.000+12:00

Photos will follow soon, just have to consolidate the collection with ones coming from Canada and Japan.
After a hectic day of dull paperwork and errands and 2 nerve-racking days of ED, after-work drinks rolled around again, this time with a difference. I wanted to consume some alcohol, so having deposited the car at Olivia's house, I caught a lift into town with Shankar, Jenny and Bevan. After trying a change of venue unsuccessfully, we gave in and ended up at the Princes Gate again. The alcohol started flowing and drinks was followed by more drinks and dinner at the Belgian Cafe. Alas, after starting out as an enthusiatic bunch for a big night out, dinner was consumed and the age-old blood rush to the stomach kicked in. We were happy lunging on the comfortable sofas and could not be moved to the Pig and Whistle for some dancing. After carrying on our silliness at Ben's house, he kindly dropped us all off at our dwellings and I finished off my packing. 1 hour to go until I was picked up by the airport shuttle service at 3am, so I made a futile attempt to sleep. Finally, I was on my way to Japan, meeting up with my siblings after far too long a time, in my eyes. Check-in was smooth and the courier service managed to get my Japan Rail Pass to me beofre my plane took off. I was all set, i just had to endure the 17 hour transit time to Tokyo via Hong Kong. After just getting to the gate at final call due to the longest queue at the transfer gate, I boarded the second flight of my journey from Hong Kong to Tokyo. MEMO to self and airlines: 1 hour between transfers at Hong Kong is not enough time!

I arrived at Tokyo at 21.30 and Dan was waiting for me with a long welcoming hug. It felt as though I had been transported onto the set of Bladerunner as we walked from the train station to the flat, dark and almost colourless except for the neon lighting of shops and restaurants. In a city where bars and clubs close only when the last customer leaves, Tokyo is the real city that never sleeps. Arrived at his flat in Ikebukuro at midnight and fell asleep. Sunday started with a much needed shower and some repacking and then we headed out to meet Rheanna and her father, Brian for lunch in Ginza and then onto the airport to meet Anthea. We were heading straight to Kyoto after the airport for a week of travelling the central and southern part of Honshu. Managed to almost lose my rail pass after my first train journey - £250 lost in an instant. Thankfully, it'd dropped out of my pocket on the way out of the train and someone had picked it up and handed it in - a big Phew! Big hugs all around when Anthea arrived and then we raced to the platform to catch one of the last trains to get us to Kyoto that night. Met Rheanna in Kyoto and found our way to our Ryokan for the next 4 days, a Japanese Inn.

Monday's weather was rain but we weren't put off visiting some temples and shrines and our ryokan owners kindly lent us umbrellas. Our first stop was Toji Temple: 2 temples filled with statues of buddha and protectors with a 5-storey pagoda in the grounds. Then we headed to the Fushimi Inari shrine with millions of bright orange torii. After walking for a while, we headed back to the centre of Kyoto for dinner at a restaurant recommended by the owners of the ryokan. Rheanna and Brian joined us after a while and soon all of us were wriggling about trying to get comfortable on the tatami mats - dead-legs for everyone sitting crossed-legged and getting up after the meal was not a dainty affair. We took in the Imperial Palace, Sento Palace and Nijo Castle the next day with better weather. On Wednesday, we headed to Nara, a city 1 hour south-west of Kyoto, for the day. Tame deer wander freely throughout the town and are partial to the taste of the yellow tourist maps. We walked around the city, visited Toda-ji and Hoyu-ji temples and unfortunately had to bypass the Photographic museum because of time constraints. I got a hancho made - a stamp of my name in Chinese kanji characters - have to wait until I get back to Tokyo to find out what the kanji means though! It'll make a good personalised key-ring. After heading back to Kyoto, we went up to 12th floor of the train station to get a glorious view of Kyoto city at dusk. Seeing high-rise modern buildings next to ancient 5-storey pagodas was fairly descriptive of Japan in general - a bizarre mix of an ultra-modern technology-obsessed population with deep-rooted tradition and culture. Kinkatu-ji temple awaited us the following day. Several days of pounding the tarmac had taken a toll on my feet, worsened by the lack of insoles, and what started as a stop for tea at the plush Westin hotel in Kyoto turned into a few hours chatting and sounding out each other's opinions of various things. We headed back into the centre of the city for dinner and then bed. Friday was Hiroshima day. We took an early train to Hiroshima, arriving shortly before midday and after depositing our luggage in some lockers, made our way to the Peace Park. It was obviously Graduation Day for many students, and there were plenty of girls dressed in full kimonos, tottering about on wooden shoes. I was half expecting Hiroshima to be a deserted place with constant reminders of the A-bomb. Instead, we found a fully recovered, vibrant city, with memorials restricted to the Peace Park. After some lunch, we spent a few hours in the Peace Memorial Museum, then wandered around the rest of the Peace Park, taking in the cenotaph, the Children's Statue, the Peace Bell, the Flame of Peace and the A-Bomb Dome, the only building to survive the bomb. The museum was truely powerful. It gave a balanced history of the city of Hiroshima, events leading up to detonation of the atom bomb and the effects of the bomb, both immediate and late. The most moving piece was a section of stone steps with a darkened shadow, the only remains of a person burnt into non-existence by the bomb. We headed back to the station to collect our bags and got a taxi to the youth hostel.

On Saturday, we went to Miyajima Island, with a tori (signifying the entrance to a shrine) floating in the water before the island, indicating that the entire island is sacred. Deer roam wild, amongst all the touristy shops and temples, following any scent of fodder.
Sunday consisted of the long train ride from Hiroshima back to Tokyo and chilling at Dan's flat for a few hours. I was finally able to upload some backlogged photos onto the blog - the joys of broadband connection!

Monday morning, and after Daniel headed to work, Anthea and I headed to Mount Fuji amidst the cloud. The cloud was lifting as our bus approached and it looked like a good day. Off the bus, it was freezing and, boy, was I glad I had brought my ski jacket. We headed to the cable cars for a good view of the mountain, stopping along the way for a much needed hot cup of tea. Visability check before the cable cars: complete cloud cover! Just what we wanted. As we headed down the road to waste a couple of hours before trying again, little soft white flakes start flying around! The snow got heavier along with the wind and it turned into a light blizzard. Having walked along the nearest lake, we realised the cloud cover was not going to clear that day and headed back to the bus station to get back to Tokyo. Mount Fuji remains a mystery. Back in Tokyo, we met up with Daniel after he finished work and headed for dinner to a restaurant with 2 of Daniel's favourites words - tabi hodai: eat all you want. for a set price, you get as many sticks of food as you want, batter them and deep fry them in the oil in the middle of your table. Deep fried food, yes, but because each lump is on a separate stick, you can only eat so fast. Daniel's phrase was good, "probably the healthiest way to eat unhealthy food!". On Tuesday morning we got the train to Akita, where we met Rheanna and did some window shopping before heading to Noshiro in the evening where Rheanna lives. Having fallen asleep in the train, I was very surprised to wake up and find the landscape covered in about a metre of snow in some places. Had we managed to get into another country? Nope, just gone 4 hours north of Tokyo. Having not seen it snowing for probably 8 years, it was very exciting, less so for my sister. Snow will never lose it's magical properties, no matter how much I see of it. On Wednesday morning, we went to school with Rheanna, who teaches English in a public school. We got introduced to everyone and helped with some lessons, answering question from the teenagers about New Zealand, Canada and England. It was a bizarre experience being on the otherside of the classroom 8 years after having left school. We managed to get to the station for our train back to Tokyo but unfortunately, I was too slow with the camera to capture a fantastic memoir of Japan - a 70-year old lady with what at first seemed to be a benign-looking black glossly cabin suitcase. As she turned around, the bottom left-hand corner revealed Hello Kitty - it summed up this nation's obsession with this character.

From the train station, we went for dinner with Daniel and finally I had a camera. After being inspired by Daniel's Canon 350D, I spent a few days delilberating between the camera I had wanted - Sony T7, and an older, ex-demo model that was cheaper, bigger but had heaps of manual features to let me learn more about photography. Hmmm, flash, credit-card sized, super-cool camera, or manual features. The manual features won the battle and I had my eye on the Sony W5. Alas, I was too slow and the camera was gone the following day, but in it's place was a W1, older but much the same camera and had the added bonus of being cheaper. For a bargain price, I got a new camera, and when I sell my previous cameras on eBay, I shouldn't lose out on anything! Bonus!

So Thursday started as our sightseeing day on Tokyo. Having made for the rightly numbered item on the wrong map and consequently walking for 2 hours in the wrong direction, we still managed to get through a lot of things. We unfortunately missed the Godzilla statue, but got through the Imperial Gardens, the Tokyo International Forum, the Sony Building, Kabuki-za Theatre, the Observation Floor of the Metripolitan Government Building and the Hachi-ko Statue. We met Dan for dinner with some of his friends in Shibuya.

Friday was my last day in Japan and it started with some necessary shopping to get souvenirs and presents. Being unable to understand anything meant the shopping took a lot longer than it should've done and we'd just managed to get a few things before meeting our brother for lunch with Matt. We then headed for Shibuya, to see it in the daylight, and then wlked up to Harajuku, the reknowned hangout area for gothic teenagers and THE place for wacky shopping. Anthea managed to find herself a decent hat and I finally got myself a keyring that I could attach my hancho to. Met Daniel after work in Asakusa, the electronic district. I managed to get my extra computer disk and a mini-tripod for my camera. Anthea invested in a cordless mouse and a web camera. Amzing to think that the girl who owned no technology in 2003, and then barely used her mobile phone, has now bought a web camera with perfect opportunities to use it! Then rushed off to meet Matt for a night of surprise entertainment. The entertainment consisted of dinner at a themed restaurant called The Lockup. We were led into a labyrinth with doors opening onto cells with dummy monsters in them, made more spooky by the background music. When we eventually found our way through, we were met by a waitress of proceeded to handcuff herself to Matt and lead the group to our table, set in our own prison cell! Dinner was a set meal with nami hodai (drink all you can), so we strived for maximum yield on the alcohol front. Halfway through our meal, sirens started and the lights went out! There was a breakout and the "prison" was locked down. With flashes of light, we were terrorised by monsters and a fair amount of sake ended up in laps rather than in mouths or glasses. Having been nicely oiled with some sake, we headed to karaoke for a few tuneful renditions of Japanese and foreign songs.

With Anthea and Daniel at Karaoke

Having had the aim of gettting to bed at 1am in preparation for my early morning train to the airport, we made it into bed at 3am for a full 2 hours of sleep before heading to the airport. Thankfully the flights were good with a full row of 4 seats to myself all the way from Hong Kong to Auckland. I arrived refreshed on Sunday morning, even after the 1 hour passport control queue, and spent a few hours with Uma and the kids beofre catching the bus to Rotorua. A quick summary of my great holiday to Olivia on the way home and then the realisation of how much stuff I had left behind after unpacking all my stuff.

Japanese people are so polite and respectful, they try to help even when they can't understand or speak any English. Unlike the Western World, where you can see the younger population lacking in respect for traditions and culture, you can see the culture through the veil of a perculiar sense of fashion.

Photos to follow soon...

Oh, and met this man along the way that Daniel had snapped a few months earlier. I wonder if it's the same bottle...

Wellington

2006-02-28T22:39:00.000+13:00

Straight from work on Friday, Julie, Erin and myself started the long 6 hour drive down to Wellington for a weekend of city lights and shopping. Granted, a long way to drive for some shopping, but I hadn't been to Wellie before and wasn't back at work until Thursday. We stopped at Taihape after 3 hours for dinner at Cafe Exchange before I took over the driving from Erin and continued down some wonderful roads to the southern tip of the North Island. We arrived just after 11pm, checked into the hostel and settled down for the night.

We headed for breakfast the next morning at The Krazy Lounge before hitting the shops. Several shopping bags and a heavy credit card later, we dropped our purchases at the hostel, gathered a picnic from the supermarket and headed back to Waitangi Park where we had just passed some street performers and live music. Unfortunately, we arrived a little late and everything was being packed up when we got there. No matter, we just lounged on the grass with our fiction for a few hours until the sun went down and the temperature dramatically dropped. Back at the hostel, we glammed ourselves up a bit and headed out to dinner and dancing. After trawling the streets for something that enticed us all with a kitchen still open, we settled on a good Indian with table-top buzzers, a different button for the service you wanted, more drinks, more food or the bill for example. With the blood quickly deserting our brains in favour of our stomachs, we all agreed that dancing was out of the question, and our beds were looking more attractive with each passing minute. Breakfast on Sunday was at Espressoholic and then we found an English shop. Julie (from Scotland) realised how much she missed Polos and I indulged in some cola cubes. The experience was lost on Ozzie Erin, but she faked some enthusiasm well. Onwards to Te Papa Museum, renowned for its good portrayal of Maori history. After joining in with learning some 1920s dance moves, we headed to a cafe for a drink and then it was time for Erin and Julie to head back to Rotorua as they were both working on Monday.

I headed to the tourist info centre for a proper map of the city (I'd been relying on Julie and Erin so far as they had both been to Wellie before) and then met Andrew at Te Papa Museum. Andrew had driven down from the Kaweka Challenge, a mountain run which he had done the previous day with Dee and some other Rotoruans. Dumped stuff at the hostel and then headed out for a walk around. Andrew bumped into a friend from Winchester and we managed to get some tickets for a play, our trip coinciding with the NZ Fringe International Festivals. Had a good cheap meal and then headed to see 'Two'. Then settled in The Hummingbird, a cool jazz bar with attentive service, live jazz and good whiskey - a fabulous combination. Started Monday off with collecting my passport from the Chinese Embassy and then heading back into town for a stroll around and general atmosphere-taking-in while Andrew went mountain-biking. Met up with him just after lunch and tried to sort out our visa renewals only to leave with more paperwork to fill in. Managed to totally confuse the shop assistant in the camping shop with Andrew buying a tent, hinting that whether he got a 1- or 2-man was dependent on how much luck he was anticipating with the ladies. The shop assistant looked totally bewildered at the fact that Andrew was saying this in front of me, before realising that we weren't "together". Failed miserably to get any tickets for a few other theatre events but settled on meeting Andrew's Winchester friend, another Andrew, and his girlfriend for a coffee at Fidel's. The conversation flowed into take-away pizza at their place - and for the first time, we found good pizza in New Zealand (other than the ones we had made several months earlier!). Alas, it was time for bed too soon, since Andrew was catching the 3am ferry to Picton for his onward journey to Christchurch. After gathering a small picnic in preparation for my mammoth 7.5hour journey back to Rotovegas, I boarded the bus at midday on Tuesday leaving a tiny fraction of my heart in Wellington. From what I saw, it's definitely a city I could live in. And I hate cities!

Last Week of O&G

2006-02-24T15:37:00.000+13:00

It would've been appropriate to be on evenings for my last week of O&G but thankfully, I was on normal days. My peers were once more puzzled as to why I was in the hospital during the day and having lunch with them. "No really, I'm working normal days again, I promise. I'm not just turning up at lunch to see other people during the day."

Being on with Julie inevitably means being busy. But I really didn't mind. A few acute Caesareans, some emergency admissions and some entertaining theatre time with Mr Ewen.

Dee arrived back from the South Island Monday evening and on the way to the airport, I think started to experience some home-sickness. My eyes started to well up for no apparent reason and after picking Dee up from the airport, the plan of meeting everyone after a climbing seesion for dinner was totally unappealing. I couldn't think of anything worst than having to be social. So I flagged. Tuesday felt no better. I muddled my way through the day, with only Ben's random and entertaining comments to lighten my mood slightly. I crawled into bed straight from work and finally made it out an hour befre the end of the day for a quick snack before going back to bed.

When I first went to University, I was an emotional mess being homesick. But in that situation, it was my first time away from home with a new place, new people and new course. It fact that I was socially inept was not particularly advantageous in the situation. Several days of balling my eyes out, certain that I wouldn't be able to continue living in new surroundings ensued. Eventually, I settled in, thanks to some wonderfully encouraging flatmates, and over the following 4 years of university, I developed into a fairly social person with oodles more self-esteem. So, I was somewhat perturbed by the fact that I was quite obviously depressed but without any particular reason.
Conclusion: combination of 3 factors made me emotional and homesick:
1. Nicole had just left, probably making me think more about all my friends in the UK
2. Anthea had booked her flight for Japan, the 3 of us were last together in September 2004!
3. realisation that I last saw Anthea 10 months ago and Daniel 6 months ago - the longest it's ever been.

Wednesday arrived and I was finally starting to feel better although still not normal again. It was paintballing night and after a few errands, met the others at the paintballing ground. It's true - those damn balls hurt, and they hurt a lot. The painful stinging sensation of being hit was not something you got used to. After being a little bit too enthusiatic, my ankle reminded me about not being able to run and started to swell and ache again. After lying down with my foot in the air and a bag of peas on it for a while, it was a little calmer but still had to get a lift home with Erin. I would hopefully be able to drive the next day and catch a lift to Jenny/Bevan/Olivia's house to get my car. It was a full week until my ankle was fully back to normal. At least I know exactly what the trigger was and it's not unpredictable anymore!

Thursday brought excitement of plans for the upcoming weekend in Wellington Friday rolled around far too quick with respect to it being my last day in O&G.

I'd really enjoyed O&G over last 3 months and what had started as a get-out quick card from ED for 3 months had become a really enjoyable job that yet again, had my career choice in turmoil. I realised that for the first time since my first job in Basingstoke, I didn't mind being busy and after doing a procedure by myself, the buzz I got from surgery still appeared. Hmmmmm, another possible specialisation had entered the ring alongside ED and Medicine and it sure was a strong contender. Ho hum, must wait until I've had 3 months in ED and Medicine before making any more decisions. The future seems to have a mysterious way of working out for the better, I only have to think back to my 6 months out of work to appreciate that.

Learning points for the week:
1. sometimes a good cry is a good thing, letting out any unconsciously built up emotions
2. I worry about the future and life in general a lot less, and life is simpler as a result.

Afternoons and Visitors

2006-02-19T21:49:00.000+13:00

After a hard weekend of toil at the hospital, I was on evening shifts again, now why does that not surprise you...
I had my work cut out for me, a whole season of The OC to get through in 5 days. Would I reach my goal? Monday evening started off badly with a twins delivery, which saw the 2nd twin refusing to make it's entrance into the world. Off to theatre for a Caesarean section to extricate the little trouble-maker. 30 second stop to grab some food from the Cafeteria before it shut and BEEP, BEEP...BEEP BEEP, "23-weeker with abdominal pain and ?contractions!" Whoa! Way too early for baby to be born yet! BEEP BEEP...BEEP BEEP, "your lady with a very low blood count from bleeding has arrived and needs assessing!" I think I was on my way to making up for my lack of work 2 days ago. Finally got a rest for 30mins before handing over, fending off various phone-calls. At least I was enjoying my work, not resenting every single phone call that I received when doing Orthopaedics.

Tuesday was better, a few things to do, but still managed a few hours of nothingness. And then it was Wednesday and Nicole was arriving, one of my housemates from my second year of University. I always wonder how much someone will have changed from the last time I saw them. No changes in Nicole, still the same wonderful, warm-hearted, supportive person I last saw in August 2005. I felt proud to show-off the great surroundings I live in, my home, and even Rotorua town centre. Then, unfortunately, I had to abandon her forr the evening while I went to work. Andrew was on a long day, and I had to work the evening. Luckily for me, Nicole was quite in the mood for a quiet night of poor NZ TV, not having to make any social effort.

Dropped Nicole off at the Information Centre for a day-trip to Waitomo Caves, then headed to work having swapped my shift. Picked up Nicole after milling around town for a while and headed back home for a quick change before heading out to dinner by the edge of Lake Tarawera with a few rounded up friends. Good company, good food, amazing view - essentially a good night. Friday started with a whistle-stop tour of a few tourist features. Wai-O-Tapu was first with our arrival timed perfectly for the engineered spouting of the Lady Knox geyser, then a leisurely look around the rest of the "Thermal Wonderland".

Lady Knox's Engineered eruption

The mineral deposits in sheets

The colour in the background is the actual colour of the fluid making up the pool!

The Champagne Pool!

Next, it was Kiwi time, with a visit to the Kiwi Encounter Park to take in the sights of lots of trout, some emus, and a look at the few kiwi birds they help survive. Cute little things but look somewhat like they're been amputated off their wings at birth (Unfortunately, no flash photography allowed as as I'm still using a disposable camera, I seem to have no control over the flash). Alas, it was time for me to go to work and leave Nicole in the able-hands of Olivia. Even though I had to work, there wasn't any way I could Nicole alone on a Friday evening. After-work drinks was followed was dinner and then more drinks at the Belgium Cafe, where myself and Bevan met up with the group after our shifts.

We headed to Ohope beach, north of Whakatane, on Saturday. We made for a samll cove than Brendan knew around from the main beach, Brendan confidently ignoring the sign indicating that the recent flash flooding had casued part of the trail to slide. We made it upwards and on the way down came across a narrowed stretch of path caused by mud slides. It that all! What's all the fuss about then? Oh, That! The path disappeared in front of us - total slide of branches, mud and clay! We wouldn't stop something like that stop us would we! Confidently, Brendan began descending down, and nervously, we followed. Heck, it was worth it though. A secluded cove with just a few people, beautiful sand and the warmest sea-water I've been in. Our picnic was followed by some valued reading, a swim in the sea and some ball games before the sun began setting, and it was time to head back. Climbing back up was much easier than sliding down, and after a long walk along the beachfront, we headed into Whakatane for dinner at The Fig. Then the hour journey home before piling into bed. Sunday was another touristy day, visiting the Buried Village in Tarawera before dropping Nicole back at the airport, to continue her NZ trip in the South Island. It was strange, saying goodbye. I knew we'd meet again soon in London, in May/June but it felt uncertain.

With Nicole outside the Buried Village

Back to a chilled out late afternoon and evening of lounging about at the house after delivering some coffees to those working the weekend. The coffee things becoming quite a ritual, and a welcome one at that.

Days, Sweet Days

2006-02-13T11:49:00.000+13:00

It's been a while since I was on normal days at work. I managed to get completely shafted with the roster, working twice as many evenings as everyone else. So it was nice to be on days and get to eat lunch with other people and be sociable in the evenings. It turned out to be pretty busy during the week, but unlike in Orthopaedics, I didn't mind. I'm still surprising myself with how much I'm enjoying this job. Even stayed late out of choice to continue assisting with a Caesarean section and surprised the Consultant when I admitted enjoying O&G.

I met up with one of my teachers from school on Tuesday, Rupert, and met his wife and recently arrived baby. I was quite nervous on my way to meet them. I'd only ever met Rupert in a school setting but had stayed in touch since school by email. There was no need for nerves, a big hug from him started the evening off well. Dinner and drinks at the Belgium Cafe and I even managed to look after Eleanor for a little while. They were off the next day on a whirlwind tour of New Zealand, a rather admirable task with a 3 month-old baby.

Dee left on Wednesday evening for Dunedin for a APLS course and she'll be exploring the South Island for a week after the course. Andrew's on evening this week, so surprise surprise, I'm not seeing much of my housemates. I popped into ED at the end of my shifts a few times just to ensure Andrew was still in existence and to reassure him that I was still alive as well. Shift work sucks.

A hard week of work culminated in a long night in the pub on Friday. Hazaar, a Friday evening that was wasn't work on or staring nights on! Bevan's email in the afternoon had a ring of desperation to it. Turns out he had set himself an alcohol-charge mission whether there was company or not. After works drinks at the Princess Gate Hotel started off the evening as always. It's become a regular social event and a good venting a wind-down sesion at the end of the week. It was made sweeter to be enjoying ourselves despite to torrential rain and thunder storms continuing outside. Drinks ran into more drinks and dinner at the Pig and Whistle, the only decent place for evening entertainment I've experienced so far. All it's punters were surprised to find a company of circus acts providing some entertainment for a few hours. It started off slow but manged to culminate in some fantastic acrobatics and magic tricks. Then the usual Friday night band set up and on the dancefloor we stayed (albeit frequent visits to the bar) until 1.30am when they ushered us out. Our company had changed somewhat over the course of the night. For dinner we had a full compliment of about 10 but after the circus acts finished, we were down to 3-4. At 10pm, it was left to myself and Bevan to carry the flag until reinforcement arrived in an hour after late shifts. We did ourselves proud before Ben and Andrew arrived after their shifts and the dancing continued. Aware that I was working the weekend (and the downside of living a $40 taxi fare out of town), I had had my fill of lemonade through the night. After dropping Bevan home and reaching home at 1.45am on Saturday morning, I had the sinking feeling that since I had to be up in about 5 hours time, staying out so late might not have been such a good idea.

6 hours later at work, I'm handed over 3 patients who, 3 hours later had all been discharged home. No in-patients, no-one giving birth, nothing for me in ED. Unfortunately, I was cacooned in the hospital. Having forgotten to add on my apple to my lunch bill, I was depressingly able to say "add it onto my dinner". I had 3 more meals at the hospital to look forward to in the next 36 hours - that's what dreams are made of! My handover lasted as long as it took to put my jacket on "no patients, no-one in labour, nothing in ED, Deryk's the Consultant...oh, and here's a piece of paper if you need to write something down". 2232 and I was finally leaving the hospital after being holed-up in it for the last 14.5hours. Thankfully, I was welcomed home to an impromtu dinner party courtesy of Dr Boyd. A spoon of two of delicious paella, a few glasses of wine and some good company for a few hours almost made amends for the mind-numbing day I had endured.

Sunday, and work again. In comparison to the previous day, it was busy...ie 3 patients to see in 14.5hours. Sally had brought in the 2 complete series of The OC on DVD, so I was kept busy inbetween patients. Mercifully, the day passed more quickly and I crawled into bed at about 2300 with a week of unsocial evening shifts to fill my dreams.

Raglan

2006-02-06T21:47:00.000+13:00

The rest of the week panned out well - 2 lazy days recovering from nights and then 2 fairly busy days at work. After work drinks at the Princess Gate Hotel ran into dinner at the Belgium Cafe - we're almost fully endorsed regulars!

Saturday morning and myself and Dee head down to Raglan on the West coast for the long weekend. Raglan is one of New Zealand's hippy towns - a beach town reknowned for good surfing. An appropriate setting for the annual Soundsplash festival of reggae music. We set up our tent for camping and then a weekend full of good reggae music begins. Erin joined in the afternoon and the following day, Andrew joined us after his 24-hour mountain-bike relay race in the Redwoods and Olivia met us for dinner. It was Dee's birthday so dinner and drinks were in order. Special excitement began as the bar we settled in had Glenmorangie Madeira Wood Finish in a cabinet. When tasted in Heathrow airport, I like this better than Blue Label. So drooling in full flow, I'm carelessly shot down at the bar with "that's only available at the other bar, and it's closed"!!!! Grrrrrrrrrrr. Must take Olivia up on her offer to get me some at staff rates from her old place of work (wine merchants, Glengarrys) Monday was a relaxed day of reading and taking in some views before leaving Dee and Andrew to some surfing while Olivia and I headed back. My first 2 music festivals and both within 3 weeks!

Ivo's leaving while others can't wait to arrive

2006-01-31T15:47:00.000+13:00

I finally decided to get my hair cut on Friday, just a trim 'cos I'm growing it again, but wow, the woman did an amazing job. And she even managed to get my hair to stay in a side parting - mother will be pleased!

I was starting nights that evening but had a house party to look forward to in aid of Ivo leaving New Zealand for the better life of England's cold winter and the joys of working for the NHS in Grantham A&E! We are all so envious! Misery set in when, at 10pm just as all the food had been devoured and the party was in full swing, I have to get ready for work - first of 3 nights.

I hadn't sleep during the day in preparation, so I hoped to God it would be a good night. The night was more random than good. Several odd calls about stupid things like "this lady's IV fluid is going to run out in 8 hours, can you prescribe some more now!" AAAArrrrgggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhh. In my mind, noises akin to a lion's raw, were emminating. A stuffy room with no ventilation and the fear of being attacked by biting insects in the night is not condusive to sleep. Add to that the more bizarre 3am call ever: an SHO obviously far too awake for their own good at the ungoddly hour of 3am calling me to ask about a paediatric patient's diagnosis. Yes they are still an inpatient, no I don't know how the diagnosis of bronchpneumonia was made I'm only covering paediatrics for the night, yes I am the SHO on-call, no I'm not a nurse on the ward. Switchboard have some answering to do! Of course, the guy was very nice and understanding when he had to tell me how to transfer him back to switchboard from my phone - st's the RECALL not REDIAL button you want! Who on earth does their clinical audit following-up at 3am!

At least, there were no emergencies, I've always got the day to sleep. The call of sleep was very loud indeed after breakfast. Bedroom for set-up for sleep on a very hot day - windows open enough for air but no big bugs, fan on, door closed - room cooling down nicely. several hours of sleep achieved! Unfortunately, for smoe reason, we had a power cut for about 2 hours. An hour into it and I wake up hot and bothered with no cool air from the fan. After sleepily fiddling with the plug for 30mins, it finally dawns on me that the plug isn't the problem. Memories of insomnia return to haunt me as I investigate the fuse box with no success. Extreme tiredness set in, and the power cut is obviously part of someone's personal vendetta against me! Tears of relief are almost forthcoming when the power returns after 30mins. Doing nights on hot summer days is not much fun!

Of course, the optimism in me hope for a quiet night. Alas, some babies just can't wait to be born. First emergency of the night - baby not breathing very well after delivery. Thankfully, with some oxygen and a little help, he comes good and after some welcome but fruitless help from Ben to get a line in, Belinda, the Consultant, manages to get access eventually. Baby doing well, relax and breathe! 3 hours later and just popped into the birthing unit to check what's happening before I disappear for some sleep. Lady wheeled through from ED in labour and I'm in for a treat when I'm called to the delivery room from the office. Mum had woken up with stomach aches at 4am and gone to the toilet. Baby decided this was a good time to see the world and lands in the toilet! A classic story as always. Baby is just 29 weeks old and her lungs are most definitely not ready for the outside world. Oxygen and breathing support eventually stimulate her to start breathing but the damage is already done - it's been at least 10mins without oxygen. 10mins later and Belinda's in again - and calm and breathe! The classic advice of checking your own pulse first in an emergency is very good advice.
3 hours later and baby's doing ok, still very sick but the Neonatal experts have arrived from Hamilton and ready to transfer her to the Neonatal ICU via helicoptor. Breakfast is a must before some well-deserved sleep without lack-of-power issues.

My last night on Sunday and I actually manage to get a decent night - no stupid calls about non-urgent stuff and no emergencies. After breakfast (the only good things about doing nights), it's a perfect day to spend reading in the hammock. I enlighten myself on Japan from the bible that it Lonely Planet. Go round to Brendan's house for dinner - shock horror, I'm the only female with 6 blokes! Must be in some twilight zone - can't possibly still be in Rotorua. There is a stupidly overwhelming ratio of approximately 5:1 females in the Hospital amoug doctors. All the guys will soon be over-run with female hormones and voices will start increasing in pitch!

Haggis for everyone!

2006-01-27T10:32:00.000+13:00

Coming back to work after a good 3 day break was pretty damn difficult. So much for the intention of going swimming before work on Monday morning. After reaching home at about 1am Monday morning after a 4 hour drive, sleep was definitely needed. Went swimming after work though, so at least I made it to the pool.

Wednesday, Burns Night. Julie hosted some proper Burns' Night celebrations and whiskey and haggis was enjoyed by all.
A word of advice: haggis is much better in the evening when properly awake as opposed to at 9am in the morning for breakfast.

After failing miserably at trying to find some normal t-shirts in Rotorua's very limited clothing shops, I headed to Tauranga on my Thursday off before nights, in search of some proper clothing establishments. Success finally, 2 t-shirts and a shirt for work later and I was a happier bunny. I even managed to resist the almost overwhelming desire to buy more shoes from the extensive array of pretty items on sale! A good day was finished off with a respectable swimming session on the way home, a good meal cooked by Andrew and entertainment from Spellbound.

Mini-Holiday

2006-01-23T10:15:00.000+13:00

After the BDO, we headed on up to Olivia's Bach (holiday home, as such) north of Auckland near Leigh for the rest of the weekend after getting some necessary supplies - plenty of food and wine!. We arrived at a gorgeous 3-bedroomed house in the early afternoon and set off to spend the rest of the bright, sunny day at the beach. Dinner was a massive BBQ, enough to feed all 9 of us and probably another 5 or so, all washed down with most of the wine.

The next day we headed off to Goat Island Marine Reserve for some snorkelling. I managed to conquere my fear and swam all of 300m in the sea...using my trusty kickboard of course. Proof that my early morning swimming sessions were paying off and I was making progress.

Frozen yoghurt cones all around and then back to the bach for dinner before starting the mammouth 4 hour+ drive back to Rotovegas and the dreaded start of another week at work!

The Big Day Out

2006-01-21T11:57:00.000+13:00

I'm not being cheesy - honest. The Big Day Out (BDO, as it's known here) is a 1-day music festival (mostly rock) that tours Australia and New Zealand. 6 of us were lucky enough to get the day off for it on Friday. So on Thursday afternoon, Olivia, Jenny, Erin and myself piled into my car and headed up to Olivia's house. Jenny was heading off ot Taiwan the same weekend. Good thing she ran through her checklist of stuff out loud in front me - money, passport, tickets. Argggggghhhhh, TICKET! Not so small diversion out to Lake Okareka to pick up my ticket for the BDO and at 5.30pm, we were finally on our way to Auckland. Dee and Andy had already gone up to Auckland on Monday to join some of Andy's relatives on a boat as they both had time off. After a long 2.5hour drive (thank Him up high for the CD player and everyone else's music), we unloaded the car and sped off to dinner at a lovely restaurant. Let down slightly by the over-enthusiastic waiter that was more interested in providing some rather droll banter than getting on with our order.

The low-point - in response to the "so what do you ladies do then?" question, I politely tried to fend him off with "we work at the hospital" line. This usually indicates to the other person, that that's all I want to say on the matter. Not that I'm ashamed of being a doctor, but it's not really something I like bringing up in pass-the-time-banter. Of course, the inevitable "ah, so you're nurses then" retort came! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, why do all females who work in a hospital have to be nurses. If there had been a couple of guys with us, Mr I'm-the-best-waiter-in-the-world would never have said that phrase. "So what do you do at the hospital then?" would be the more like enquiry to pass out of his mouth. The whole, "but you're too young to be a doctor" comment is just not good enough. Doctors do not all start out as crusty, grey-haired, white-coat wearing men - has nobody else watched Scrubs or ER! So he takes the synchronized patronising chorus of 8 females saying "No, we're all doctors!" appropriately as a insult. But unfortunately for his big-foot-small-mouth syndrome, he doesn't stop there. He tries to 'rectify' the situation with weak explanations of the likes of "but you all look so young to be doctors" and "we have a lot of groups of nurses come here for dinner". Sorry mate, but that just didn't cut the mustard. Anyway, we just wanted a chance to catch-up over dinner properly and discuss the Big Day Out, not be harrassed by a waiter desperate to get our approval. Anyway, several bottles of wine later and having delighted in some delicious delectables, we headed off to a bar for another drink before comatosing for the night.

The next morning started with a genuine feast of bagels, muesli, fruit and juice on the verander of Olivia's house before setting slapping on the sunscreen and heading towards the taxi buses laid on for the event. The artists? mostly Kiwi and Ozzie bands most of which were pretty good. Pluto were my favourite unknowns (to me anyway). Then we squirmed out way through the crowds to get stage-close for The Magic Numbers, who were just fantastic. Breaks Co-op were pretty good, although the sound system wasn't on greatest form and I realised that Zane Lowe, Radio 1 Evening DJ was in the band - just as cute as his voice!

Breaks Co-op (Hamish Clarke in dark t-shirt and Zane Lowe with shades behind the guitarist)

Fodder and fluid break followed before finding some good places for Franz Ferdinand who were pretty damned amazing. I wasn't such a big fan before they played, I liked them, who doesn't, but now, albums must be acquired!

Franz Ferdinand

Then separation from the rest of the group for approximately 3 hours! Arrrggghhh! I went to find a quiet spot to get some more credit on my phone, the result of endless text messages to find out where people were and where to meet. When I got back, everyone was gone and turns out, each segment assumed I was with a different segment - how convenient. Situation compounded by phone network unable to cope with the large increase in text messages that day and so SMSs were about 30mins late - result: chasing after people to places they had been 30mins ago. Spent lots of time during the White Stripes getting pushed and shoved and very nearly trampled trying to get back to part of the group until 2 hours later, I gave up. Sod the rest of them, I'll just find a space where I can still see the band (just about with a little eye of faith) and actually still have enough space around me to allow inflation of my lungs! Still, not too much lost, not really that into the band. Pre-emptive message sent to Dee saying where I was and to come meet me after the set on the way to the other stage to see Fat Freddy's Drop. The set ends and no-one to be seen - then enlightening message from Dee to say they were on their way to see FFD and will meet me there - yeah, right, fat chance! Yet again, give up and meetin up with the group and peg it over the the other stage but plan scuppered by Olivia trying to meet up and both of us just missing each other amid the endless crowds.

So, the night end, with Olivia and myself, sitting on a concrete block, next to some cops, waiting for the best part of FFD's set, outside the stage waiting to meet the others. Annoyed doesn't really describe what I was feeling, as I had already missed out on FFD playing in Rotorua the previous week due to my inevitable unsocial shifts, and now I'd missed out again. Same bag for Olivia - she had to go pick-up Ivo after he crashed his car that night and now she was missing out again.

Eventually, the rest of the group emerged and we made our way back to Olivia's house and after a small midnight feast and a night's sleep, my angrified state was calmed (mostly).

And the travels commence...

2006-01-18T14:15:00.000+13:00

Saturday was my chance to feel totally inadequate in the sporting department while being leader of the Supporting Team for Andrew and Dee, who were taking part in the Wild Moa race. Andrew started with a 3km run, allowing Carl to be 2nd into the water for his 16km kayak (including 1km portage). Carl provided Andrew with a challenge by coming out of the water in approximately 25th position. Andy bravely it on for a 32km mountain bike course, coming in 6th for Dee to take over with a 15km run. I have to confirm now, that the man is indeed a machine - not quite as machine-looking as Raw, but a machine no less. Dee continued the quality and as a team, the DHB dudes and dudess came 7th in the overall race (out of about 100). As I said earlier, I felt suitably deficient in sporting ability in comparison to my 2 very fit housemates.

Carl, Andrew and Dee just after Dee's run

After a good lunch at Capers and an entertaining Prize-giving, I headed off with Olivia to get a film and make pizza while Dee went to sleep ahead of her night shift. "Mad Dogs and Englishmen" (aka How to Kill Your Neighbour's Dog) reminds me just how dry the British sense of humour is and I miss it.

Sunday started with finally booking my flight to Japan. Spending 2 weeks with my brother at the beginning of March and hopefully doing some skiing and seeing a bit of China at the same time. Anthea might be coming along as well - so it may turn out to be a reunion for the 3 Musketeers.

Then another mountain-bike session with Olivia, which proved how much my fitness has improved since starting swimming. I had to pause for breath a lot less and only after a bit hill. Even more incentive to continue with my fitness plan - it's working. Then a well deserved rest by the lake (having fully coated myself in Factor 30 sunblock) and even swam for a little bit in Lake Okareka - not too big a fan of the weeds in the water though I must say.

Monday morning and it's amazing! I'm actually working days this week and next week, but then of course, I'm back to unsocialable night shifts and evenings.

Managed to convince Patricia (final year student) to coming swimming after work and was confident that my legs were working properly. Even achieved swimming underwater for 2m. The main obstruction to my swimming was being able to put my head under water and now I can do that without freaking out - I can actually concentrate on swimming rather than not drowning.

Wednesday was a new experience. After doing a few errands in town after work, I met up with a few others for luging - essentially engine-less go-karting down Mount Ngongataha. My 'need for speed' and competitive streak returned after a fairly long absence and I realised that I should have done this a long time ago. Heading down the side of a mountain in a moulded plastic cart with the smell of rubber filling your lungs with every hard push on the brakes was exhilarating. Wasn't doing too well in the competition coming last for the first 4 rides but when I got ahead in the final run as everybody else piled up into a heap, I thought I was in with a chance. Overtaken by the testosterone-fuelled males in the group, I thought I was doing ok but then more overtaking. Coming into the single lane final curve and I thought 'at least I won't be last'. Jenny, on the otherhand, had other ideas. At we approached the narrowing into 1 lane, Jenny put all her effort into colliding into me from behind, then a few extra pushes later and somehow, she had managed to get in front of me! So after 5 rides, I was champion of coming, last. Dr Lane had ruined all my fun. Still, it was brilliant fun and I think I might finally be ready for some rally-driving again.

New Year but still the same old stuff

2006-01-13T16:05:00.000+13:00

I've just about got used to writing 06 for the date now - a world record for me. Usually it gets to about May before I cotton-on.

It's really nice to get all the replies to my Christmas emails and wishes for the New Year. Made me feel homesick though, but bound to I suppose, being my first Christmas Season away from the UK and family. At least, I was surrounded by friends though.

Back at work, it's the same old grind. After seeming to be on unsocial shifts constantly, I decided to spend my third "busy" evening at work tallying up our shifts instead of ploughing through another couple of sudoku puzzles. Turns out I have twice as many evening shifts rostered to the other 2 SHOs. I started to think seriously if I could remember the heinous crimes I committed against Christine (in charge of drawing up rosters) in my previous life...to no avail!

It was the start of my second block of evenings-weekend-evenings last week. Thankfully, I appear to be a good repellent as I had an average of 0.5 things to do each evening. Evening my weekend went smoothly and I gladly helped out the overwhelmed medical team on Saturday. Mr Ewen was the Consultant on-call worked in Portsmouth for several years for those of you who think his name sounds familiar) and yet again, I was enthused with new interest for O&G by some good quality teaching and the realisation that I was on the right track with the diagnoses of my patients.

After the fiasco of my car problems, on Friday, I managed to find a car that fitted the bill for my needs. A sporty very blue Mazda Astina (323) from 1991. Pretty good condition, with all the important things...central locking, power steering (although I'm sure my biceps have developed a bit from the lack of power steering on my current car), windows that go down and a stereo that works with all speaks and no buzzing (except when the bass is disturbingly loud). Oh, and all the engine parts are present, correct and in working order - according to the stringent AA vehicle inspection survey. I have a new lease of life and not hesitating with long car journeys as to whether my transportation device will survive or not. Roll on, gorgeous New Zealand roads!

The entire of Series 2 of Scrubs later, and the weekend was over. Oh, and the best bit about the weekend? Being rung by Joyce to offer to swap some of my evening shifts the following week. I would be able to get back to the land of the living!

Monday was another evening shift then 3 days of normal daytime shifts before todays evening shift again. On Tuesday, I was poked and prodded by Olivia, checking that I was actually really there, standing in front of her at the hospital, at work, between the hours of 8am and 4pm, and not just a figment of her imagination.

Tuesday night was an impromptu trip to Tauranga (about 1 hour north of Rotorua) for an evening of reading on the beach (while others were slightly more active with swimming or running), then a Thai dinner (they deserved a standing ovation for seating, taking orders, cooking, serving and settling the bill in 40mins) before seeing the film, The Constant Gardener - the real reason we had come up for the evening. It was only being shown at the Rialto Cinema, and seeing as Rotorua's 'interesting' population have no demand for off-the-beaten-track films, Tauranga was the place to go. It was amazing film based on John Le Carre novel about pharmaceutical industries and Africa. We all felt genuinely horrible for accepting any free items from drug reps, endless free pens and post-it notes, the mini-maglite attached to my stethoscope, the travel burns kit I was proud to have wangled from Salisbury etc not to mention all the free food, the reason to attend various lunchtime meetings. Damn, why do they have to be so alluring!

I feel more cultured having watched a fair few non-Hollywood films lately. I'm starting to appreciate the artistic nature and endless creative juices from everyone on the Credits, that go into making a good film with a sound, original story-line. That's what makes a good film, not how many Hollywood stars are involved, which glamorous setting have they picked this time, which old good film have they remade and ruined.

Adding to the theme, I finally watched Hotel Rwanda on Thursday. Anyone that knows me, knows I'm not horrendously emotional, but with this film, nothing could stop the tears forming and falling. Being in my early teens at the time and with no interest in current affairs, I vaguely knew that Rwanda had some problems and a lot of killing took place. I am truly ashamed to admit I am from the Western World and a citizen of one of the superpowers of the world. How governments can sit back and watch such terrible atrocities unfold without intervening, is something I doubt I shall ever be able to understand.

Friday has been a bit more upbeat. Dee and I went to Paradise Valley Wildlife Park and petted the 12 week old lion cubs, saw a lot of trout trying to swim upstream, but managing to stay stationary, some very cute deer and a few other wildlife creatures. A good experience, but the $22 entrance fee was a bit steep for 45mins entertainment.

Dee with Aslan, a 3 month old lion cub

Back at home, my new car got a good scrub and we caught up with Ivo for lunch and photos of Sydney. Alas, it was time for work again and the my last evening shift in O&G for at least a week.

Oh, and brilliant news: Nicole is coming to stay for 5 day in February, my first of hopefully many visitors!

Burn Time

2006-01-04T09:23:00.000+13:00

Monday was a 'stat day' in New Zealand for the New Year - that's their version of a bank holiday. It was spent continuing to clean the house and now we have a sparkling stove hob and the garage smells less after all the recycling things have left. Now we just have to remember to put the rubbish out in time for the dustmen!

Finally watched City of God and appreciate good cinematography. Also watched half of O Brother, Where Art Thou? before falling asleep.

Tuesday, another stat day, started with the phone ringing non-stop - various people talking about going to the beach for the day and making sure I was coming. Met Vicky and Colin in town for breakfast at Fat Dog. It was really nice to fianlly meet up with Vicky, who's been working in Hamilton for the last few months. Colin's visiting and they started a 10 day speedy tour of New Zealand the day before.

Vicky and Colin

Then headed towards Tauranga to Omanu Beach and met up with everyone that had made it up earlier. Played some cricket - actually managed to hit the ball this time around, even if I still wasn't able to throw properly.

Then dinner at Volantis before quick stop to see Nic and his girlfriend Anthea with Andrew before heading back to Rotorua. For the first time since I've been in Rotorua, the company was male dominant. There is a general lack of men in the medicine business, and at times they all feel a bit over-run with oestrogen. Boys Poker Night held weekly/fortnightly has been addressing the testosterone balance.

Got home, and realised that I'd obviously missed big chunks of my back when applying the factor 30 sunscreen. My back was pretty sore and my face was glowing red again. Lots of rich moisturiser later and the burn was at least soothed for the night.

A New Year Dawns!

2006-01-02T23:04:00.000+13:00

Saturday started off with swimming - managed to do 2 lengths back-to-back before stopping - my stamina is improving.

Then a trip to the shop with everything - The Warehouse - for some party poppers and decorations for the party. The Warehouse, is probably most like Woolworths back home - has everything as a bargain price, including all the random things that nobody else has, it also does food and adult clothes, car stuff... the list goes on. party stuff in hand, it was time for my duties of coffee-delivery girl to kick in and get some nice coffees for the guys that were working the weekend. 12.30pm and the medics were still ward-rounding and Bevan had 4 patients in ED waiting to be admitted and a wish of 'good luck' from his registrar - his legacy of being a s***-magnet continues.

Next stop, food shopping for the necessities of a BBQ party not forgetting the all important champagne and other alcohol. Then home for a quick tidy up, decorating, food preparation and then making myself presentable - an opportunity for my new shoes.

The masses arrived just after 7pm and I quickly handed over BBQ duties to Jared, Shankar and Ryan. Music maestro was open to everyone to choose what they liked from the great 60GB collection. An the party started. The weather was perfect and we were finally able to make use of the big table outside. Drink and food were free-flowing. Turned out to be about 12 of us for dinner and then at about 11pm, more people started arriving to aid in the countdown.

Midnight was a rough guess. My first New Year brought in under the influence. We also managed to have some entertainment from Anne-Marie on bagpipes and one of her friends doing some folk dancing.

At some point, the hose was needed to wash someone's unwanted stomach contents off the deck and somehow, I ended up having it turned on Shankar. Fortunately for Shankar, he had the great foresight to use someone as a shield - that someone was unfortunately me! After being drench for a good 5-10mins in cold water, I managed to escape and dry myself off. I was obviously intoxicated enough to agree that continuing the celebrations at a foam party happening in town was a good idea with Jenny, Shankar and Erin. I was soaked for a second time that night and stayed the night at Jenny's. I eventually passed out at about 4am not before a 30minute discussion on whether a deep laceration on Jenny's leg (probably cause by someone's dangerous stilletto heels) waranted a visit to ED for stitches now or could it wait for 4 hours until Bevan was going to work. It was agreed that it could wait, and a note was left for Bevan for Jenny to be woken.

6.30am: wake up spontaneously still drunk after 2.5 hours of sleep. Go back to sleep
7.50am: woke by strange noises coming from the window. Turn over to see Bevan's grinning face to greet me with a very very bright background of sky!
10.30am: finally make it out of bed - water desperately needed, along with my eyes crying out for my contact lenses to be removed and replaced with glasses.

We made it back up to my house at about 1.30pm to pick up Jenny's car and allow me to get a much needed shower and clean, dry clothes, thankfully remembered to pour all the alcohol remains down the sink the night before so the house doesn't have the attractive aroma of stale alcohol. Putting on wet jeans was not very pleasant while hungover. Then over to the Fat Dog for some food - the astronomical portion sizes were the deciding factor in where to go - half way though my meal and the nausea sets in with avengence - don't think that smoothie was a good idea.

Still manage to feel more human and then it was back to Jenny's for a movie - Mr & Mrs Smith - don't bother if you haven't seen it already.
Finally resolve that I'd left the debris from the night before long enough and head back to the house to start the clean-up. 2 hours later, we had a sparkling kitchen and the deck was clean just in time to settle down with food to watch Whale-Rider, a New Zealand film about Maori tradition that won some very deserved awards. Managed a half-hearted conversation with mum and dad and a brief catch-up with Dee when she got back from work, before hitting the sack for a full 12 hours.

2006-01-02T23:02:00.000+13:00

Paediatrics at Night

2005-12-31T09:33:00.000+13:00

Well, I managed to survive 4 nights covering paediatrics as well as O&G. 2 weak admissions for "fluids and review in the morning" and 2 emergency Caesarean sections later, and it was all over. No great dramas. Turns out I delivered a friend's new niece - very cute baby. So next time, I will have more faith in myself and be more confident at assisting with the delivery of a baby in an acute Caesarean section, then hot-footing around the operating table to clean the baby up, stick them with some vitamin K and do a baby check before handing it to the mother. For my first delivery on night 3, Brendan (currently medical registrar but just finished doing paediatrics) was very kind and came up to help me. The next night, I had the confidence to do it myself. I'm even getting the hang of how to hold a newborn baby and appreciating that they are cute (once cleaned up).

Wednesday morning afforded the opportunity to spend an hour and a half swimming with Shankar again. I tried to practise using my arms but concentrating on 3 things proved a little difficult - either my legs stopped working and I started sinking or my breathing was lacking and led to inhaling pool water - not a good move! So I concentrated on getting my kicking good enough to not think about it and learnt breast-stroke as well. Friday morning ended my nights and was celebrated with a long breakfast at Zippy's Cafe. Then a day of random bits and pieces before take-away and a film at Shankar's with Jenny and Bevan and the revelation that our New Year's Eve plan was a BBQ at my house.

Andrew was lucky enough to get a ticket to the Rhythm and Vines festival at Gisborn with his brother Nic and Dee was going to jooin the party at our house when she finished work at 10.30pm.

Christmas in Hot Weather

2005-12-27T01:21:00.000+13:00

It's just plain wrong to have a hot Christmas but I think I made the most of it.
After a pleasant 3 hour journey to Napier on the East coast on Friday evening and a drink at Kate's house (Julie's friend from university and Christchurch), the weekend started with a Thai meal with most of the other British doctors from Hastings Hospital. I finally had a chance to meet and catch up with Rachel, who I worked with in Chichester. Gossip and news was exchanged but alas, the arrival of food and more people prevented further talking. Dinner was follwed by drinks at a bar which was then followed with a club for most people but I was shattered, sober and joined in tiredness by Amy, another of Julie's friend. Bed and sleep was beckoning so we pooped the party and answered the desperate calls.

We eventually started to make movements at about noon on Saturday 24th after a luxury brunch of scrambled eggs with camembert cheese and smoked salmon and croissants. We headed into town to get some much needed contact lense solution for Julie (the necessities you forget eh!), a phone card for me and some last minute christmas gifts (lottery scratch cards are a God-send!). Then, we drove on to Te Mata Peak for a wonderful view of Napier and the rolling hills around the town. We then got to the beach for a good walk along the seafront before heading home for snacks and to prepare our roast lamb dinner over some films. With the curtains closed and lights on, it felt like a wintery Christmas with a good roast, so Christmas Eve was our British Christmas.

Te Mata Peak with Amy, Kate and Julie

The Beach on Christmas Eve

Christmas morning started with strawberries and present opening. Thanks to Daniel, I have a poster of The Sting in Japanese - now I just have to actually see the film. A picture frame from Dee, some aromatherapy body lotion from Kate and a flax soap from Julie. Sadly, mum's present didn't make it in time - it's probably still in transit somewhere within the hospital postal system. Then, on to the "Orphan's BBQ" at someone else's house. A small gathering of about 10 health professionals in New Zealand, not on shift, without family to go to. It was a wonderful day - the cancer-causing sun returned with avengence but I have to say, felt more like Christmas after I'd spoken to Daniel so at least there was some family contact.

My Christmas Presents & Cards

After lots of food and the compulsory board games and films we headed home and I managed to negotiate the congested NZ telephone lines to speak to ma and pa and Anthea. And then it really was Christmas for all of 20 minutes until midnight.

Christmas Day sunshine and BBQ

Boxing Day was recovery and travelling back to Rotorua in the hot sun. A lovely soak in the bath, several emails and a proper phone call back home later, and it was time to go to work to start 1 of 4 nights covering Paediatrics as well as Obstetrics and Gynaecology. Hopefully I'll get some sleep tonight.

A Week Off Work

2005-12-23T15:53:00.000+13:00

Successfully managed to while away a redundant week off from work doing almost nothing. Within 3 days of starting work in August, I'd booked 2 weeks off for Christmas and New Year in preparation for a de Souza Christmas in New Zealand. Alas, the decision for where to spend Christmas varied for some weeks between New Zealand or Japan and resulted in a cop out decision to each spend Christmas in a different country. Thus, I had 2 weeks of leave from work but nothing to do. I decided to work the second week but keep 1 week off to get through all the hum-drum rubbish that seems to build up without being noticed.

My pre-Christmas week was spent sorting out my finances, writing a snotty letter to the Student Loans Company inviting them to explain why they were sending my loan repayments back to me, continuing the swimming and doing computer stuff.

So now, I've finally realised just how much money I'm spending and what useless things I'm spending it on. Student Loans letter awaits being printed and I'm finally getting somewhere with organisation of my music. There weather was perfect for doing all the boring necessities of life - torrential downpours with intermittent bursts of bright, cancer-inducing sunshine.

I managed swimming just twice this week, but after a good hour-long session with Shankar today, I'm learning to use my arms in frontcrawl. I never realised there was actually a technique to it as opposed to just moving your arms in a motion that sort of worked. I'm now fairly comfortable with my head in water, although still have to concentrate on continuing to exhale while coming up out of the water. Even managed to swim totally submerged to go under the lane divider.

I'm heading over to Hawke's Bay with Julie (first doctor I met in Rotorua) to spend the Christmas weekend with other ex-pat "orphans". Let's hope the car makes it and Julie's tape collection expands on the one tape that has been going round and round and round for the past 3 months.

Fun-Packed Weekend at Last

2005-12-20T12:11:00.000+13:00

Well, the weather was finally good enough on a weekend that I wasn't working to let me have an action-packed 2 days. Friday evening started with drinks after work at a colonial-style hotel and then an impromptu driving range visit with 1-2 successful hits out of 50. Then we went on to dinner at the Thai restaurant. Having given into the lure of white wine, I had responsibly left my car at the hotel earlier and headed back with Olivia and Jenny to make myself comfortable on the sofabed for the night. When obviously deeply unconscious after 30mins of sleep, I managed to successfully scare Bevan by my presence very near to the garage door when he came back from work at 11.30pm. This is the second time I have not been woken by loud noises while asleep. The first, being the shrieking smoke alarm attached to my bedroom wall to let us know the downstairs was filled with smoke from the log fire! I clearly sleep very deeply in the first 1-2 hours.

Saturday morning started with lots and lots of rain - torrential is nature! However, we were not deterred from seeing the outdoors. After collecting my car and becoming reacquainted with my human side with a lovely hot shower, as a group of 6, we headed to Wai-O-Tapu to walk around the natural hot pools. Tourists pay $20 for the honour of strolling past some steaming caves and pools and have their airways filled with sulphur fumes. Luckily for us, residents of Rotorua get in free. So we dutifully took some paperwork with our Rotorua addresses on them - wonderful things, phones bills! Unfortunately, the surrounding temperature was cold enough to allow the pools to only be seen as masses of steam. Not only that, but my camera seemed to take a dislike to the sulphur fumes and decided to have epileptic fits while trying to turn off. Eventually, the lens went back in but now the lens does not focus. It's still under warranty but the receipt would be in London, somewhere in amongst 10 boxes of my possessions. Lucky my mother is persistent with finding things.

I made an excellent tour guide managing to pronounce most words incorrectly and mix up the blurbs about each sight (Geysers will forever be pronounced Geezer in my presence!).

Might be a little out of focus (camera issues)

but it's an absurd colour for a pool of water don't you think

We stopped off at Secret Spot on the way back into town, a natural hot stream that hasn't been snatched by a money-making company. It even has banks containing natural clay known for it's cosmetic properties. Well, it couldn't have made my current acne outburst any harm so I gave in to a facial from Marama. Thankfully, no photographic evidence was obtained of my whitened face with patterns of orange.

Back to Jenny and Bevan's house to cover the odour of sulphur with shower gel and deodorant and a relaxing afternoon of reading the paper before heading out to dinner for Japanese and lots of sneaky comments of my wonderful success with cars in New Zealand.

In true Kiwi style, dinner finished at 9.30pm and after a stop to watch the end of American Pie: The Wedding at Jenny and Bevan's house, I reached home at 11pm.

Sunday was a much nicer day and started with trying to get my camera fixed in town. The mountain biking that we had planned was called off the day before due to all the rain. But seeing as the weather had become absolutely perfect for a bit of biking, we seized the day. I managed to fit 2 bikes in my car and headed out to meet Jenny and Bevan. Jenny was using Dee's bike (Dee's on holiday in Northland for a week) and after Bevan hired a bike we set off, only to find that Dee's bike wasn't working so well. So back to the car to put the broken one away and hire a working one. Then we set off properly along the track known as Repco. It's been a long time since I've had so much fun. Although my sincere lack of fitness came into play quickly with Jenny and Bevan having to wait for me at various points along the way. Still, I'm not going to get any fitter unless I do some exercise. After finishing Repco, we headed down the track a bit to conquer Diamond Back. This was more fun despite a spectacular fall at the beginning - a combination of approaching a large dip too fast and sliding in the mud and my complete inaptitude at steering. Several near misses with trees later, and I was truly knackered but pumping with adrenaline. It was time for me to quit while ahead but the other 2 still an hour left of their hiring time, so they carried on. Covered in mud and sweat with bit of blood mixed in, I was proud of my achievement - a successful mountain biking experience, being on a bike for the first time in 7 years! This is something that will have to be repeated.

I finally understand why the little white polo I inherited from Daniel was filled with a forest after he had spent a fair amount of time biking in the forest he lived amongst in Bristol, and why he was always covered in scratches, bruises and cuts.

Swimming

2005-12-15T15:51:00.000+13:00

Went swimming after work on Monday and used a kick-board. Felt like a dog paddling, not moving very much without using my arms. Finally had my swimming lesson on Wednesday morning before work, from joint instructors Annemarie and Shankar. Apparently, I have a good kick, although when I started kicking form my hips instead of just my knees, I realised it was much tougher but actually worked well.

I even managed to put my head underwater and breathe out.
An hour in the pool finished with the achievement of swimming 2 full 50m lengths without stopping and also managed to swim at least half it with my head in the water. Very proud of myself.

I've finally found a sport I enjoy and can work at. I'm even getting into the routine of going swimming at 6.30am for 1 hour before work! Those of you who know how awful I am in the morning will appreciate the magnitude of that last sentence.

The Weekend

2005-12-14T15:28:00.000+13:00

Mentally, my weekend started at 9am on Friday morning. After a week and a half of unsociable 4-11pm shifts, it was an understatement to say I was looking forward to meeting everyone in the pub after my shift. Having waited almost a week to write this, it's clear that Friday day was so uneventful, I have no idea what I spent it doing.

Anyway, my shift went fine with no hiccups.
2230: I handed over - nothing to do, everyone fine, no problems anticipated
22.40: foot in pub, ready to partake in some celebration with no particular cause
22.41: remember that I'm on call-back, so if it gets amazingly busy, I have the pleasure of being called back to work - interpretation: no alcohol for me
22.50: actually feel glad I have a valid reason that cannot be argued with as to why I'm not consuming intoxicating beverages tonight - the shots of unidentifiable alcohol start arriving and seem free flowing

I quickly realised (and undoubtably, so did everyone else) that alcohol would've been a bad idea anyway. I was already hyperactive from the overwhelming emotions of attending a social event. Completely sober, ready to dance and make a fool of myself without needing any encouragement. After they moved us out of the pub at closing (2am), I stupidly agreed that it would be a good idea to carry on dancing at the Lava Bar down the road. An hour later, and all the adrenaline dried out. I was suddenly very hot, sweaty and knackered. Time to go home and drop people off at their abodes.

So, good start to the weekend, and the theme continued. We went shopping to the factory sale of an expensive New Zealand shop, Moochi, and amazingly enough, I managed to find a pair of trousers that actually fit (aside from being half a foot too long as always) in addition to a good skirt. Then the christmas shoping really kicked off. Finally managed to start with getting a present for Dee. Later at home, dinner consisted of various dips and bread and a Spanish film, Life's a Bitch - a very long film that I'm still trying to decide whether I liked or am indifferent to.

Sunday was relaxed, catching up with Olivia (wearing lots of different shades of green, getting embarressed and needing my jacket to cover her top when she realised) in town and finally getting around to buying odd bits and pieces that have been nagging for a while.

Goggles

2005-12-08T20:41:00.000+13:00

Managed to remember to buy goggles for swimming today and got to the pool before work. Actually manged to go under without getting total freaked out about my nose being under water! Marvellous!

Tried to swim front-crawl with head in water but failed miserably.

Roll on next week, when I'm on normal days and hopefully able to finally get a lesson from Annemarie.

PLS course

2005-12-06T23:42:00.000+13:00

Yesterday was very educational - Paediatric Life Support course for 10 hours.
I did the same course in February at Chichester, but having no chance to put my knowledge into practice (thank goodness), I easily forgot the special techniques involved in management of the seriously ill or injured child.

Yet again, the course was brilliant, and I now feel only 50% terrified of a "sick kiddie scenario" in comparison to 200% terror, pre-course. That's a good thing, seeing as between Christmas and New Year, I'm on nights, covering both O&G and Paediatrics.

Bonus points: I managed to swap my shift on Wednesday from an evening shift to a day shift, thanks to Joyce. Yea - I get to eat lunch with other people and go to Jenny's brithday BBQ.

Swimming

2005-12-05T20:17:00.000+13:00

My weekend on-call started with an early morning swimming session. Dee managed a sterling job of convincing me it was a good idea to go swimming at 7am before our 8am start for 15 hours.

The last time I went swimming was in my 5th year at univeristy - 2+ years ago! I've always hated swmming but after our sailing episode, a light bulb appeared over my head in realization. My wariness of water is most likely due to the fact I know I wouldn't be able to swim my way back to land because of my non-existent technique! I decided that practice was the only way forward.

Hit 1: one of the trainee interns (6th year med students) offered to give me lessons, having swum competitively in the past and given lessons to people who have never been swimming.

Strike 1: inconvenient evening shifts in O&G have forbidden swimming lessons for the past 2 weeks.

Hit 2: Dee and I were both working the weekend and Dee often goes swimming before work. To help the environment out, we took 1 car to work and so I had no choice but to do 40mins of swimming on Saturday morning.

Result: I managed 25m front crawl before flaking but alternated front and back crawl. I might be developing some bizarre neurological disorder since for 40mins I was unable to swim in a straight line, even though I was sure I was focussing on a single object to keep in line with.

Added benefit: I was fully awake when I got to work rather than my usual sluggish self lasting until 11am.

Resolve: swimming every other day before work.

Ah, those were the days...

2005-12-04T00:33:00.000+13:00

My selfless good nature came to the surface this weekend. Yes, people, I do have one of those! I remember what my first day of work (well, actually it was a night) and weekend on-call were like and how I felt utterly useless after 5 years of studying medicine and not having a clue where to start with my unfathomable list of jobs. So, continuing to have a quiet weekend in terms of Obs & Gynae work, I offered my services to the surgical and medical house officers for their first weekend on-call. Thankfully, I seem to be having an extraordinary long god run of cannulating people's veins. So, lots of cannulas were sited, bloods taken, prescriptions signed for and a few patients reviewed for Bevan, doing surgery. By 10am, he was speechless with no idea where to begin with his list of jobs. By 3pm, he positively looked ready to break. Dr Smith's fantastic teaching on insulin types and doses came in handy when changing a patient's insulin type to accommodate the lack of medication in the hospital (after 6 months working for this man in Diabetes and Endocrinology, I had a change of heart from the desire to be a top Colorectal Surgeon, to wanting to do General Medicine - he was an inspiration indeed!).

I had an authentic baptism of fire in the world of being a doctor. My first ever shift was a night shift which started with a pep talk from the Surgical Registrar at 9.30pm. "The sh**'s hit the fan" was Etienne's greeting. A rare and life-threatening case has presented requiring the vascular consultant, who was not on-call, being drafted in to operate at 9.30pm on a Wednesday night. I was duely handed the pager of my registrar and informed that I would not be able to contact him for the next 7-9 hours while he was operating, and if I had any serious problems, I was to contact the Medical Registrar. So, after 5 years of medical school, I was thrown into the role of Surgical House Officer AND Senior Surgical Registrar with 100 patients to keep alive until 8am the next morning. After that, I hoped and prayed that it could only get better, and indeed it did. But I still remember the sinking feeling of not having any idea what I was doing, the doses of any medication or what fluids patients needed in their drips. 5 years of medical school did not seem to incorporate practical things like that. Since then, I've felt responsible for helping out the Newbies, and I finally feel that I'm at a stage to be able to do that.

It's a strange feeling, realising that you actually know something about what you're doing, being able to answer questions from more junior colleagues. Since doing A&E at Chichester, I feel like a doctor. I know where to start when reviewing a patient that I don't know or if someone tells me they have a painful knee. During my House Officer year, I felt like an secretary, pushing papers around. The key to my job seemed to be knowing what forms to fill out for what tests and knowing where to hand in the forms to get the investigations done. I hadn't gone through 5 years of training to do that. But now, I know that I learnt an awful lot in that year without realising it at the time. I knew the theory and I learnt how to put it into practice and I learnt that I had good instincts.

It's all been good practice for my future medical registrar post in 6 months times in Rotorua, safe in the knowledge that I have progressed in my education in medicine.

2 of 3 Friday Nights Spent Working

2005-12-03T09:58:00.000+13:00

So much for the plan to have fun when I was here and have less unsociable working hours. Tonight is the 2nd of 3 consecutive Friday evenings spent working. Plus, I have the whole weekend of on-call to look forward to.

Well, I really shouldn't complain, my tasks for the evening consisted of checking some blood results, chasing a scan result and then seeing 2 patients in ED. Not bad for a 7-hour shift to be fair.

So after my rivetting Friday evening at work, I headed over to join some friends, catching the end of their pizza-making-and-alcohol-consuming evening. At least I had some sort of recognisable social life on a Friday evening, even if it did involve being designated driver again. Still, there are advantages to driving lots, I almost got all my confidence back again after having a few close shaves while driving, and I'm sure my liver is feeling a lot happier and content.

Random Photos

2005-12-02T13:45:00.000+13:00

Just a few random shots

I can't take the credit for this masterpiece cos it's one of Ivo's - Andrew trying to die after climbing the mountain.

Sometimes it feels and looks like we live in a rainforest, especially when, after heavy rainfall, you see steam rising from the forestry beyond the clothes line
Also, just added some video footage, courtesy of Daniel, from my skiing experiences. Find it here

1 Piece of Good Luck

2005-12-01T17:14:00.000+13:00

Well, the nice man down at the AA garage patched up my radiator enough so that "it can go to Wellington, no worries!". Not sure if I'd trust it going for 6 hours down to Wellington but at least it'll make it up the hills to Lake Okareka, hence getting me to and from work for the next couple of weeks. So, new car still needed but at least I have to car that's useful in the meantime.

Panic over. Will be able to sleep tonight. Don't have to rush into another car.

And then it went POP

2005-11-30T19:06:00.000+13:00

So today I took my car to the garage to see how much it would cost to patch it up. Turns out, the radiator is shot to pieces and it'll cost half the car's worth to fix it, and I won't be getting my money back when I come to sell the car. Well, it was giving a little hassle with starting, so now I have the unenviable task of finding a new car. Except, after 2 days of checking multiple websites and used car lots, the cheapest halfway decent car I can find is $4500! Looks like all my good luck with cars in the UK has come to an abrupt end.

Well, Andrew's car is doing well for now, but unfortunately, I'm on the unsociable afternoon shifts all next week and Andrew is back on Monday. Time for car rental to enter the scene.

Go-Karting? No, Golf

2005-11-27T00:16:00.000+13:00

Saturday started off slow with an attempt at a lie-in. I woken at 7am by my full bladder. After vainly trying to go back to sleep, I gave up and had a lovely long shower and was then cooked breakfast by Dee. A good start to what turned out to be a random but good day. The weather wasn't the best - rain and wind made a bad combination. Ivo suggested Go-Karting to fillin some time, and an indoor activity while the weather so being inhospitable. After 30mins of driving up and down the main road at the bottom of our road, we finally found the warehouse, only to find that it was shut and looked like it was actually closed down. Bowling was the next option, but that was quickly shot down by all the bowling lanes being booked until 6pm - it was 2pm at this stage. Finally we decided that golf would be a good break, it we headed to the driving range. With great amusement, we hit a total of 400 odd balls between the 5 of us. After a good hour or so, it was time for a warming drink at the Fat Dog and a good slice of cake.

Then, with the bad weather continuing, we headed back to Olivia and Jenny's flat for a good film (goodbye Lenin) and another good Amazing Thai take-away.

I've had a lot of exposure to lesser known, world films lately - even through the subtitles, they're much more enjoyable than the mainstream hollywood rubbish that always seems to be a remake of or different take on something else.

Sunday was a day for doing mundane things. I cleaned my room, which was still littered with feathers that had escaped from my feather boa before the ball, and then filled my car up with all the empty bottles from the garage for recycling. A nice drive towards Tarawera to find the recycling bins was unsuccessful as the gates were locked. On my way into town (i'd filled the car up, so I might as well just get rid of all the bottles), I picked up the bag of paper for recycling and a few other bits to do and headed into town to find the other recycling centre.

Having arrived in town and gone past the centre, I turned into a side road to turn around and head back. My car had started making some odd noises and I'd noticed the temperature had increased substantially - mental note to self: check the water, oil and washer when I get home. At the junction about the turn onto the main road, my car died. After convincing some little kids that I didn't need it to be hot-wired, just pushed to the side of the road, I waited for the AA to arrive. Turns out, there was a hole in the radiator, but the water was only just leaking out slightly, not bursting out. Not convinced that the car would make it back to Okareka up the hill, The 'very, very, very nice' AA man suggested to drop it at a closer friend's house. Unplanned visit to Olivia and Jenny's house and waited for Olivia to give me a lift back home. Lucky for me, Andrew is in Thailand, so I have a car to use in the meantime. So, now I have my car to sort out - joy of joys.

But, after a bit of milling around, Bevan, Jenny and myself headed to Mount Manganui to join Olivia, Shanker, Dee and Ivo for dinner after they had finished enjoying the surf. A nice civilised end to a mixed weekend.

End of the Run

2005-11-25T10:05:00.000+13:00

It's my last day of Orthopaedics and ENT. Hence, celebration time on the ward - lots of yummy food for morning tea, cakes, biscuits, crackers, pate, dips, cheese etc. It's been a good 3 months. Apart from enjoying life outside work, I've learnt heaps about orthopaedics and ENT. I now know the management of some basic common fractures and conditions and how to manage simple ENT complaints. I didn't manage to do a tonsillectomy myself, but I can always try and squeeze into ENT theatre if I have quiet day.

The nursing staff have been good, and I have to say, generally, I haven't had the ridiculous calls about simple things that if a brain was engaged, a call would not have been needed. Having said that, there are always those who don't conform. I've had to remind myself several times that it takes all sorts to make the world go round.

I have my last long day today - made worse by the fact that there are 2 parties happening this evening. On Monday I start Obstetrics and Gynaecology for 3 months, and the worrying thing is, that it involves Paediatric cover at night!

By 6pm, I had only been called once, so I was thinking it might be a good night and not to busy. Boy, did I think that too soon. Half-way through dinner, and I'm called to see a patient in ED because the Registrar is busy in theatre and my pounding headache from last night and this morning returns with avengance. On arrival to ED, I demand some pain killers for myself before even contemplating seeing any patients. My headache is the horrible type that makes your whole body ache and throb, and it doesn't help that my first patient is more than a little hard of hearing. I finally left ED at 8.30pm after seeing 3 patients, in addition to being called several times to see patients on the wards. I made it up to the wards for a quick sweep of confused and non-urinating patients and then back to ED to see a further 3 patients. By 10pm I was about ready to crawl into my bed and probably fall asleep instantly. My headache hasn't got much better, my sinuses are still blocked and although I have a blocked nose, it is as dry as Australian outback and it's painful jsut to breathe. Not a very combination for a busy evening on-call.

Finally 10.30pm rolls around and something clicks and I pass quickly into delirium and hysteria - suddenly, almost everything is humourous. Dee rings me at 10.56pm saying that she has been designated driver to pick up some drunken friends from the BBQ that was on this evening and drop them home/continue drinking at the pub. The pub suddenly sounds like an enormously better place thn my bed - I need to see people outside of work with a strange eagerness.

I leave the hospital, sharp at 11pm to a weary looking first-of-a-week-of-nights staff and head to the Pig and Whistle, the only true pub in town. They have a band playing every Friday night and they sound good (although, I think in my state then, anyone could've sounded good). Automatically thinking, I would be driving back home, I stay of the grog (kiwi/ozzie for alcohol) and stick to a variety of lemonade and orange juices, but feel surprisingly awake for the rest of the night and even partake in some dancing while stone-cold-sober - a rare sight, I assure you. We carry on until kicked out at 2am and it's been a fantastic night and we've done some damage to the $300 bar tab that we won over 2 pub quizes. Being designated driver, as the temptation of wine became all too enticing for Dee, I end up driving my very drunk but elated friends home before carrying on to Lake Okareka for me and myself.

I was impressed - I managed to be good company and even have the energy to dance for 3 hours after having one of the worst on-calls in Rotorua and feeling like death only 1 hour before hitting the pub.

Assured that I will sleep well tonight, I have the weekend to look forward to. Though nothing definite is planned there are lots of possibilities, and with my recent bike purchase, I'm sure some mountain-biking will be involved.

Recovery and Sailing

2005-11-22T11:41:00.000+13:00

Sunday was the ultimate day in relaxation. After a lazy morning and a breakfast/lunch of leftovers, sausages and many other titbits, we packed up and set off back towards Rotorua. The weather appeared 50:50 - some white cloud, some sun but there were also some dark clouds hovering. By the time we got to Taupo, 40mins away, sailing seemed like a good option. We hired a 3-person catamaran and set off onto the lake for a good hour of tacking, jibing and running. Inital fears of capsizing were forgotten with the fun of skimming fairly fast across the water with Dee as our experienced 'Captain' and Ivo and myself forming the 'crew'. I even managed to getting hit by the boom.

Learning point 2: swimming lessons must be taken so that I am more comfortable and confident in the water.

We headed for a quick smoothie, walk along the lake edge and roll in the grass before continuing our drive back to Rotovegas for a good dinner and film before more sleep for the week of work ahead of us.

Walking along Lake Taupo's Edge

Dee on the Grass
Next weekend is in need of some planning...

The Tongariro Crossing

2005-11-21T08:39:00.000+13:00

We finally left Rotorua at midnight on Friday after Dee was delayed at work with 2 emergency Caesarean sections. After a very strong coffee, Ivo drove down to Turangi, taking 1 hour 20minutes for a generally accepted 2 hour journey. The next morning, we had a group of 8 of us doing the Tongariro Crossing that day, staying in a nice chalet. We set out at 9am and started from the Mangatepopo Road end with a 17km walk ahead of us, one of the Great Walks in New Zealand. The track started off smooth and wide with a good view of Mount Ngauruhoe in the distance, although the top was slightly obscured by cloud cover. We had picked a good day for the crossing. The sun was shining, the sky was almost clear blue and there was just a gently cooling breeze, ideal for walking. Despite the application of a good layer of factor 30 sunscreen, I could already feel the sun penetrating through the skin of my forehead. The New Zealand sun is quite different to any other sun I've experienced. Even in Australia, the rays did not seem to burn through my skin quite so readily. Within 3 months of being in this country, I've been burnt twice, and that's 2 times more than I've been burnt during the rest of my life.

The track called for a change in walking style after 15 minutes of genelte walking on the flat. The scenery became more rocky and bit of scrambling was necessary to scale the rocky steps set beside the fast flowing stream of water arising from melting snow. As we reached nearer the base of Ngauruhoe, the track opened out into decking-style laid-down track with seemingly dessert on either side. It felt like we were walking through the set of a Star Trek film. Any minute, Captain Kirk would be heard calling "Beam me up, Scotty" through the air. The direction we were walking meant that the sun was ahead of us and the distance views were behind, but that just meant more stops to appreciate how far we had reached and how utterly awesome New Zealand landscape is. We saw Soda Springs from a distance on the left of the track, very pretty, but we favoured continuing along the main track. Our group split into two at this point. The more eager group of 5 carried on at a faster pace, keen on ascending Mount Tongariro along the way. Julie, Alison and myself continued at our own pace, myself bring up the rear, naturally.

My right ankle had lasted a miraculous 30mins before the pain kicked in and I became very wary of bending it too much in any direction. Nevertheless, I continued on. Drugs might be needed at lunchtime but until then, the pain was a good limiting factor in how much I pushed myself - every aware of the fact I had a further 7 hours of walking to do. The track changed again into a full on climbing expedition up the basalt rubble. It took a good 45mins - 1 hour to ascend 250m. In my horrendously unfit state, there were lots of stops necessary but the advantage was time to appreciate the view and some thinking was also necessary to map out a path through the rocks without sliding backwards. We reached the saddle between Mounts Ngauruhoe and Tongariro and added our stones to the mound that is constantly being added to by most crossers.

From there it was another little climb up to Red Crater from where we could see the Emerald Lakes, coloured by minerals leaking out from the volcanic debris surrounding them. Coming down to meet the rest of the group at the Emerald Lakes however, was tricky. The rough basalt slides easily with your feet and had I had a pair of fully functional ankles, it would undoubtably been much easier to run down with bounding leaps. Eventually, having my rear end making contact with the ground a total of 4 times while sliding down, I made it to one of the lakes and we settled down for some lunch at 1pm. After 10minutes, the eager 5 joined us and a good 30minute R&R was enjoyed after 4 hours of tramping.

Revitalised and re-energised (and having had a good dose of paracetamol and ibuprofen), we picked up ourselves and carried on, towards the Blue Lake and beyond. After a small climb up to the Blue Lake, I was glad to realise that it was all downhill from here. The environment had changed from a very volcanic sparse, almost moon-like territory to a fresh green alpine one with hot springs and freshwater streams.

1 hour later we reached the Ketetahi Hut and my ankle got a welcome rest. The painkillers had worked initally for all of 15 minutes but the pain returned and my foot was feeling quite snug in my boot with the inevitable swelling it was experiencing. I lay on the deck with my foot elevated on the bench, staring to the sky, and the relieve was almost immediate. We gave the others a head-start so that having piled into Julie's car that was left at the end, they could go back to the beginning, pick up the other 2 cars and then someone could come back to get us. After a good half hour, my the swelling and pain had reduced so much, that I was again able to move my foot within my boot and no pain coincided with the impact of placing my foot on the ground. Physiotherapists are truely onto a good thing with their RICE theory.

After another hour, we entered a forest environment, continuing downhill. It was nice to be out of the direct sunlight, amongst leafy trees and bushes and a stream flowing down alongside most of the track. We managed to pick up the pace a bit too and continued to finish the walk at 5.40pm. A total of 8 hours 40mins on the track but walking for about 7-7.5 hours of that.

We waited for a lift in the form of Dee for about 10mins and then made a necessary stop off at the supermarket for ice-cream, beer, apple pie and a much needed pack of frozen peas. After resting for a while with the peas over my ankle, propped up on the stairs while lying on the floor, we ventured to the hot pools 5 minsutes away for a soak to soothe our muscles and wash away the bits of the track we had carried with us. Lucky Ivo, the solo guy in a hot water pool with 7 semi-naked girls. He acknowledged, that bringing a camera with him would have been asking for trouble. Dinner followed with copious amounts of wine and a good night's sleep was guaranteed for all.

Although, climbing and descending Mount Kinabalu was a much more challenging task 2 years ago, I had a great sense of achievement having completed the Tongariro Crossing within the widely accepted time frame of 7-8 hours. Not only had I managed to complete it, but I wasn't left disabled by my ankle. It was still functional and surprisingly unswollen (well, no more than it usually is).

Learning point: must go through the pain and elevate and ice my ankle as much as possible and ASAP after any aggravating assault

2005-11-21T08:09:00.000+13:00

The Red Crater

The Neverending Track

Julie, Alison and Myself in front of the Blue Lake

The Emerald Lakes - coloured by mineral deposits from the volcanic environment

The Tongariro Crossing Group at Dinner that evening

Drunken Fun

2005-11-15T13:00:00.000+13:00

Saturday night was the Rotorua Hospital Ball, based on a Moulin Rouge theme. It's early start time of 6pm meant that alcoholic consumption started at a moderate 5pm consisting of several glasses of champagne. Revelation: good champagne actually tastes quite nice.

Having prettied ourselves up at Olivia's house with free flowing beverages, our carriage (in the form of a taxi minibus) arrived to convey all 8 of us to the Grand Tiara Hotel in Rotorua. As opposed to the UK, where a theme is only played out in so much as the entertainment is loosely based around it, in New Zealand, people actually go hard out with their costumes. Alex was wearing a barely-there corset and a tiny belt-of-skirt over fishnets and very very high stilettos. Where her figure though, she looked fantastic and actually quite classy for someone trying to be a tart.

The evening started off well with a good meal, and the best bit - seemingly endless free wine during the meal. From what I remember, about 1 bottle each. Obviously, it all went down very well, a little too well. The rest of the night went swimmingly (I was a fish in a wide ocean of wine and champagne) and lots of good photos were taken. Unfortunately, in my pre-ball drunken state, I forgot to include my camera in the communal handbag we were using, so we decided to hijack Ivo's camera at various points during the night. There were some good professional photos taken also, especially a house photo of Dee, Andrew and myself, Andrew looking every inch the part of a pimp with his two women hanging off him.

At some point ( I had lost all sense of time by this point), we moved on to a very dodgy bar, full of scary big Rotovegans, with the sensation that a bar brawl was inevitable. Tables were danced on and more alcohol was consumed - the beginning of the end. A few indiscretions later by various people, and we were leaving, heading back to Olivia's house were more drinking continued before roughly 10 people fell into various beds and sofa-beds passing into unconsciousness on the way.

Needless to say, Sunday was rather painful and unproductive.
Photos to follow...

With Dee

Skydiving

2005-11-12T12:27:00.000+13:00

I gladly finished my week of nights at 8am on Friday morning. After a lovely breakfast of a cinnamon and raisin bagel with cream cheese and lemon curd (trust me, it's delicious), I just about managed to keep my eyes open long enough to reach home and crawl into bed. 3 hours later and I dragged myself out of bed and forced my body to drive back into town to buy a desperately needed pair of jeans. I had noticed a few mornings ago while changing my clothes that a badly positioned hole had appeared on the rear of the jeans. Instead of wanting a new pair, I now needed a new pair. Unfortunately, a need for an item of clothing usually equates to not being able to find what I want. With the reality of a rather small choice of clothing shops in Rotovegas, as it is affectionately known, I was pessimistic of my chances to successfully purchase a pair of jeans that 1, fitted properly without indecent exposure when sitting, and b, were affordable.

I was pleasantly surprised. The first pair of jeans I tried fitted well but had undesirable diamante strips across the back pockets. My optimism subsided slightly. 4 shops later and 5 fittings later, I had found 2 pairs of jeans that fitted well, did not exposure a builder's crack when sitting and were $100 for the pair. Bargain! I even managed to have the hem taken up for a small charge, so that they weren't trailing 1 metre behind me.

Back to bed I went for a a further 2 hours of sleep before going to a BBQ house party at Ivo and Richard's. I managed a record 3 bottles of beer (whilst being in New Zealand, I'm not counting my student and house officer days) washing down some gorgeous food.

Back to bed for the 3rd time that day, and then up at 8am on Saturday to go skydiving at Rotorua Airport. Bright blue sky, not a cloud in sight and just a light breeze - perfect jumping weather! After a short video and getting strapped into harnesses, Ivo, Kath and myself piled into a small plane with our tandem instructors. We jumped out of the plane at a height of 15,000 feet and free-falling lasted a whopping 65 seconds! Memories of how uncomfortable harnesses are quickly returned when the parachute opened and our speed dramatically dropped. Yet, again, my ears objected to being the altitude insult. Several yawns, swallows and valsalva manoeuvers later, my ear came back to normality and I became partially hearing. What an adrenaline rush! Highly recommended to everyone - it's gotta be done!

Ivo and Myself before the jump

Intermittently, my left ear decided to allow some sound through it's eardrum. Each episode was followed by severe lack of balance - truely amazing how a few tiny bones and fluid affect your ability to stand upright. 2 hours later and my left ear is still not right but it's getting there.

Sleep at Last

2005-11-09T05:04:00.000+13:00

After 39 hours and 2 separate shifts, sleep arrived, having been beckoned by a double dose of temazepam. I slept for 7 continuous hours on Monday after 39 successive hours of consciousness. No chances were taken, a double dose of sedatives ensured that I would be safe to work on Monday night.

I have never been so enthusiastic at waking up - by default, you have to have been asleep in order to wake up!

I felt like a new person, and soon realised I had not been myself for the last 2 days. I was promptly informed by Andrew, that he thought I was about to bawl my eyes out during dinner on Saturday evening. 3 other people also agreed that I had been almost silent during the BBQ on Sunday evening.

If I had been working as a junior doctor 5 years ago, I would have undoubtably been on-duty for a continuous 36-hour period, without the prospect of being able to try to sleep.

The stars being counted tonight are indeed lucky.

2005-11-07T04:00:00.000+13:00

Continuous hours of consciousness: 31
Hours on duty in that time: 9 + 5

Mission: to obtain sedatives from ward
Plan B: prescription from colleague to enable sleep

Choices: which sedative?

Insomnia

2005-11-06T16:00:00.000+13:00

Total hours of sleep in last 54 hours: 7
Running total of number of hours awake: 19

Measures taken to aid sleep:
...natural sleeping tablet used with good effect by my flatmate during her finals
...glass of red wine 2 hours later

Results
...wide awake and hungry

My next night shift starts in 7 hours. Enough with the pansying around, strong sedation may be required tomorrow morning.

It's That Time Again...

2005-11-05T06:45:00.000+13:00

I started nights 7 hours and 45 minutes ago so I had the day 'off' yesterday. It started with a haircut then on to the hospital to swap cars back (my flatmate had been blocked in this morning so had to take my car, and I drove hers in later). Dee was on a long-day and she was able to get a few hours off for lunch in town with me and Olivia, it's getting to be quite a routine for Friday lunches in town. Then we headed to Tauranga, 1 hour north, to complete my ball outfit with some shoes.

A successful few hours shopping then back to Rotorua. I was able to get 1 hour of sleep before needing to get up again and make an appearance at the birthday party 3 houses up for 2 of the Surgical Registrars. A veritable feast of wild game, fish and salads was set out with firworks and lovely desserts to finish.

Sadness loomed at 10.30pm when I had to leave the festivities to get to work in time for 11pm.

First night...
...my brain was ready for sleeping at 11pm, and I was just starting a 9-hour shift
...only 1 drunk patient, who I didn't even see
...lots of paediatrics to slowly ease me into my next job starting at the end of November
...lovely cold homemade pizza as a snack

1 hour and 15 minutes to go, then a very welcome time for sleeping. The neighbours better be quiet and damned are those who will inevitably mistakenly think that 2pm is the ideal time to start trimming their overgrown hedge!

Health

2005-11-04T09:08:00.000+13:00

Things I have noticed about my general health this week...
...My finger nails are smooth and growing at an alarming rate - is it due to me not biting them so much, my improved diet, or the increased exposure to sunlight?
...My hair is growing fast - I had it cut 6 weeks ago and normally I would wait for at least 2 months before evening thinking about another cut. I've got an appointment booked for another chop later today.
...Instead of the usual episodic 3-4 weekly depression I noticed experiencing in the UK, regardless of what my life was like at the time, I have had 1 single episode so far in New Zealand. This occurred during my last set of nights, when I would wake to a dark house in a raining stormy environment, looking forward to going to work so that I could talk to other human beings!
...I feel generally very happy with life at the moment and I have found a place to live in that is close to idyllic is my opinion, regardless of the weather and job intensity at work.
...I no longer have cravings for alcohol, I even say no to a glass of wine in the evening on a regular basis. Steve and Louise, I assure you I haven't been brainwashed!

Living in New Zealand obviously agress with me. I understand now why Steve has a large marshmellowy soft spot for New Zealand and Kiwis.

Backward Roll Achieved

2005-11-03T18:56:00.000+13:00

At last, I managed to successfully complete a left-handed backwards roll in Aikido last night. Not only that, but it wasn't just 1 roll, but I could do left-handed rolls to my heart's content, well, until the dojo walls began spinning round from dizziness anyway. There was progress with forward rolls as well, I managed to make contact with the mat this time, even if it was rolling over my elbow. Big fat purple petechial bruise now appearing.

I was reassured by some of the other women letting me know that it was approximately 1 year before they became confident with their rolls.

So far, I have learnt Kota gaeshi, the hamburger, Shiho nage, the aeroplane, a defending stance and a balancing stance. I building in confidence which means more enthusiasm to continue.

Happy Birthday Mum

2005-11-02T19:17:00.000+13:00

Happy birthday Ma!

Hope you had a good day to fill the gap of 3 children scattered in different continents around the globe.

Shopping

2005-10-31T11:20:00.000+13:00

Another early start to the weekend. Left Rotorua at 8am heading for Auckland for a shopping trip to find a dress then shoes for the hospital ball, then onto spending the rest of the weekend at Joe and Uma's, my cousin. 4 hours into shopping and finally there were actually some dresses in the shops. Almost about the give up on the idea, falling back on my safe black dress from my fourth year University ball, and there it was. A lovely silk, bright emerald shade was the result, now just for some shoes. Injected with new-found enthusiasm, we hit the shoe shops with avengence. There were a few possibilites, but the likelyhood of managing to stay upright in the shoes was small, let alone keeping them on all night. The shopping came to an end at 5pm with most of the shops shutting. At least I now had a dress.

Olivia dropped me off at Joe's and I helped man the BBQ with some delicious fish and chicken. Sausages in New Zealand leave a lot to be desired...some taste would be welcome. Having stuffed mylsef with food, the rest of the evening was spent chatting and comparing our experiences of Mount Ruapehu (they had been there last weekend with friends, but not skiing).

Sunday was chilled. More reading, covering my top in satay sauce from lunch and a timely nap after my brain was forgotten by my circulation in favour of my digestive system an hour after eating.

Managed to get back to Olivia's house through Joe's driving, and we headed back to Rotorua (of Rotovegas, as it is affectionately known).

Skiving

2005-10-28T23:53:00.000+13:00

My work day finished at 0945 today and having handed my pager over to my lovely colleague, I sent off for home to have a nice relaxing day off - a lot of reading in the warm sun, a walk by the lake, lunch in town and a spot of shopping. All made more exciting by the fact that I was meant to be at work.

That used up the time until the soccer match between consultants and juniors in Ngongataha at 5pm. A good game and very well played by the juniors - resulting in a 7:4 score to the juniors! I'm sure the chants helped to break the senior spirit - "they're old, they're grey, and they'll never win today!"

Then onto the post-match BBQ at one of the consultant's houses. Good food, comedic company, a thoroughly good day in all.

Unfortunately, forgot the camera, so sadly no photos for possible blackmailing.

2005-10-26T21:11:00.000+13:00

Spent 30 minutes dancing around the house this evening with Basement Jaxx blaring through the base-enhanced stereo from the priceless external hard-disk of music. Luckily, I was on my own, Andrew and Dee are working afternoons this week. It felt good to raise my heartrate and start working up a sweat.

Resolution - need to join a gym to do some cardiovascular exercise. Since my ankle refuses to let me take part in any impact exercise, the cycle and cross-trainer will be forced into friendship to aid weight-loss and fitness improvement

Yeah, More Skiing

2005-10-24T22:15:00.000+13:00

Today, we left Rotorua at 6.45am and started a 2.5hour drive to Whakapapa (WH is pronounced as an F in Maori) for a day of skiing. Today was Labour Day, a day off to celebrate the struggle for an eight-hour day for workers in New Zealand. Hence, after working on Saturday and Sunday, my reward was a day of skiing. For the first time, waking up early was not so much of an issue. My bladder and excitement woke me up at 5am. Ivo arrived at 6.15am and we headed into town to pick up Shanker then we were on our way south to Mount Ruapehu, with a good music selection, gorgeous scenery and wonderful morning fog and mist.

Mount Ngauruhoe - Mount Doom in Lord of the Rings

Arriving at Whakapapa, we got a choice parking space just a short walk from the rentals hut. Ivo decided to expose all the surrounding people casually going about their business to the sight of himself in his boxers while he changed from his normal trousers into the borrowed salapettes of Andrew. Ivo's voice soon turned slightly high-pitched as he did the salapettes up and it was proven that Andrew is very thin. Several comments about Andrew being small came out wrong giving an uncomplementary opinion of certain parts of Andrew.

I was kindly informed by Shanker, that Happy Valley, the beginners area, was next to us - a large expanse of rugged volcanic plains and rocks. I rapidly found my panic station, as I realised that I would have to go further up the mountain and even then, the areas that I would be able to ski in would be limited. After hiring some ski pants, skis, poles and boots, we set off up the mountain. I managed not to embarress anyone when getting on and off the chair lift which is a slight challenge when your ski boots refuse any movement of your ankles. I settled for spending the morning on the beginner slope half way up the mountain. Shanker (snow-boarding) and Ivo (skiing) carried on after unsuccessfully trying to convince me to travel further up the mountain. After 2 runs down the first beginner slope, I went further up the mountain to meet Shanker and Ivo after being reassured that there was another beginners area that looked better at Knoll Ridge. My first spectacular fall occurred while trying to ski away from the chair lift - managed to fall backwards on my rear and hands, the compacted ice provided a good reason for my palms to start stinging.

Having caught up with Ivo and Shanker, the two guys decided they were in need of some entertainment - watching me attempt to ski down the beginner slope. Having seen the steepness of the 'beginner slope' (K Road), I relunctantly agreed. I promptly managed to fall while getting my skis on. At the bottom of the slope, I thought I had got away with it but the snow barrier setup at the bottom had other ideas. I finished the run in a heap with tangled skis, unable to stop in time before the barrier. Entertainment was indeed provided.

I then experience a lesson from Ivo on how to get back to upright from lying on the snow after falling. For 15 minutes, I managed to get halfway up before I was sliding forward and had to fall back down onto my side. I gave up and unlocked 1 boot from the ski. A further 30mins of trying and I eventually succesfully managed to become upright without unclipping my boots. Having learnt that, I desperately tried to remain upright and not fall over for the rest of the day. My efforts were in vain...
My next Ivo-lesson followed. I learnt to snow-plough, the first step in turning with parallel skis. It went well, and I slowly improved, managing to turn when I wanted and control my speed.

By this stage, Shanker and Ivo were obviously getting a little frustrated, although being far to polite about it. So they went on their way and did some proper skiing/snowboarding and I wnet for a rest to the cafe. A couple of runs later and it was lunchtime, then my legs held out for 1 more run before reaching their lactate limit and I gave up. The chairlift ride down the mountain was more successful that the ride up and I waited at the bottom for the 2 guys to finish their run. Watching the skiers and snowboarders coming down a long run was awe-inspiring. I became very envious of the little 6 year-olds able to do jumps and ski without any poles. Oh, to have no fear of falling!

Eventually, we were all tired out and a much needed beverage was consumed at the bottom of the mountain before returning to the car. Another display of Ivo's legs followed before setting out back to Rotorua with a few pauses along the way at scenic stops. The day-after muscle ache was already starting to kick in, and by the time we got back to Rotorua, we were all fairly sore.

A good Thai take-away was obtained with Ivo, and lots of water chugged down to ease the burning from the green curry, then it was time for bed, delayed by the need to actually see my flatemates for the first time in 4 days.

Video

2005-10-24T14:04:00.000+13:00

The activity of the day was all just too much for Shanker

1 Down, 1 To Go

2005-10-22T22:26:00.000+13:00

The first day of my weekend is almost over. And it's been ok. I've managed to do all the jobs from the ward-round, get a decent amount of time for lunch and dinner and get into theatre, all without going round in circles like a fly in the middle of a room.

Well, 1 more to go, then hopefully, skiing!

New Technology

2005-10-21T13:27:00.000+13:00

I got a surprise parcel in the post today, my brother sent me is phone upgrade from the UK that is useless in the GSM-lacking world of Japan - a new black Motorola V3 Razr.
How thankful am I!

T-mobile are too stingy to give one for free (and I'm too feeble to argue properly for one) but nontheless, I know have a sexy new phone where I don't have to worry about calling people by accident because I've forgotten to lock the keypad!

Getting used to a new phone has it's downside though. I found it necessary to browse the manual online to understand how to enter multiple phone numbers under 1 name - necessity, seeing as quite a few people I know now have 2 UK numbers as well as an overseas number. Now, if I can just figure out how to program in my voicemail number even though I seem to be lacking the right option according to the manual...

Round of Applause, please

2005-10-20T21:43:00.000+13:00

I achieved 1 proper, non-neck breaking, non-head-floor-contact, backward roll today in Aikido. I even got a round of applause from the rest of the group, given that the nearest I had previously got to doing a forwards roll was bending my head down. I'm afraid it's a case of mind-over-matter, and my mind is not in favour of me hurling my body toward the ground if at all it is not needed.
Why do I need to roll forwards and backwards you ask? Well, to enable me to be safely 'thrown' by others practicing techniques on me, and to be able to avoid throws without giving myself a head injury if I were to fight on concrete.

Fortunately, my lack of rolling competence does not affect my ability to throw people away from me when they grab my wrist of the other end of a jo.

Well, there is progress.

Just a Sprained Ankle!

2005-10-19T18:04:00.000+13:00

Yesterday I decided to be productive and take advantage of living in a beautiful place with the sun actually shining. I went for a walk by the lake, being unable to run since my "just a sprained ankle" in June 2002. I managed to walk for 30mins when I arrived at the foot of the hill (more like a mini mountain) on which our house sits on top. My ankle seems to have been doing great for the past 2-3 months but today it reared it's ugliest head ever at the foot of the hill. I trudged up the hill cursing my ankle and started to wish that I had listened to Guy at Basingstoke and taken the option of having a wheel fitted to my leg at the time of my arthroscopy!

My right ankle became a throbbing mass for the rest of the evening although the pain was somewhat relieved by a wonderful dinner cooked by Andrew and copious amounts of wine shared with Ivo, another doc from the UK (it's not pronounced the same way as the engine!).

Today, my ankle seemed to have recovered somewhat with sleep but by 2.30pm, I was limping yet again and amanged to get away from work an hour early. It turned out to be an hour extra of the ankle being strapped with tubigrip and elevated in front of the TV. I turned into a certified couch potato for 2 hours, the words of the A&E Registrar 3 years ago reverberating through my auditory system: "there's no proken bones, it's just a bad sprained ankle".

Sprained ankle my a***! A sprained ankle, in my opinion, does not end up requiring an operation and limit basic mobility for 3 years. And counting!

Guy: can you recommend a qualified wheel-fitter?

Thought for the Day

2005-10-18T17:39:00.000+13:00

When the blind leadeth the blind..........get out of the way

(as completed by a first year school child in USA)

Lounging

2005-10-17T17:19:00.000+13:00

I spent the weekend lounging, watching some good dvd's, eating with friends and catching up on some boring paperwork. Amongst that, I made it to the Polynesian Spa with some friends. The several adult pools vary in temperature from 38-42°C. We became bone fide prunes after spending 90minutes soaking away.

Monthly membership as a resident of Rotorua makes every 3rd visit per month free, so the challenge for maximum yield has been set...

Sushi at last

2005-10-14T14:30:00.000+13:00

All week I've been wanted sushi for lunch. The latest I've made it down to lunch is 12.15pm and all the sushi has already gone in 15 mins!

Well today, at last, there was 1 sushi box left, even though it was chicken.

Not to self: investigate the 3 Japanese restaurants in Rotorua

Pub Quiz

2005-10-14T10:32:00.000+13:00

Like a slice of cold pizza the morning after, the pub quiz went down well yesterday. I even managed to contribute some productive answers. The Flaming Smurfs, as we were called, manged not to come in last which is the important thing, Last In Action received that honour.

Good fun and a healthy reminder of life at Basingstoke and Tuesday evenings.
What's the name of the pub near the hospital in Sherborne St John? Answers on a comment please.

Aikido, Part ni

2005-10-13T10:27:00.000+13:00

My second visit to aikido was a definite eye-opener (and mouth). I spent almost 2 hours with my jaw hanging open in overwhelming awe of little old ladies and nerdy-looking men throwing people away from themselves with ease and the smallest amount of force.

A one-time live-in student of Morihei Ueshiba, the founder of Aikido, visited Rotorua and spent 3 days doing workshops at the Rotorua Dojo. On Wednesday night, in addition to the workshop, there was a grading session where 3 senior people were doing another grading. The grading started with each of the 'gradees' having to fight off individual attacks. This progressed to multiple attackers, then individual attackers with sticks, the individual attackers with knives. Yes, real, sharp shiny knives! The photos I managed do not do justify to the awe-inspiring display, but I'm not sure how to upload the video footage. There may be a link to follow.

Surfice it to say, I intend to continue with aikido.

My first mission, to conquer the art of rolling forwards and backwards in a safe manner without breaking my neck - very important, so that I don't get hurt when being thrown by someone else.

Yoga

2005-10-11T20:28:00.000+13:00

After milling around for about an hour after work today, I went with some friends to my first yoga class.

First impressions: man in 50s, prancing about in a t-shirt and little shorts, need I say more!

I rapidly confirmed that I am inflexible, have pathetic muscle strength and desperately need to re-start my exercise program for my right ankle. After approximately an hour and a half, I felt stretched out and quite tired but more alert.

As I feared, I also managed to successfully embarrass Dee when I fell asleep during the relaxation period at the end. It was inevitable after my 15.5 hour shift the previous day!

Job Situation

2005-10-11T17:03:00.000+13:00

Before I left the UK, my aim was to return for August 2006 to start a medical rotation. If I had a job that was. Judging by the current situation with thousands of out-of-work doctors, I wasn't too hopeful.

Having read the BBC news , I'm even more sceptical. Who said medicine meant a job for life?

Thought for the Day

2005-10-10T09:19:00.000+13:00

The second mouse gets the cheese