going green

I don't know how many people out there have thought about changing certain aspects of their lives to go green. In the process of my education I have discovered 1) I will probably never come close to the financial success that people have always associated with the veterinary profession, and 2) I will probably be living like a miser. And it's also in this process I've realised that while financial prosperity would be something I'm sure nobody has any qualms about having, I don't necessarily want it.

A general practitioner during our rotations told us something that has been resounding in my head for the last couple of months. The fact that yes, we will not be big pimpin' and living the high life like our human medical counterparts (dentists?) but why live these excessively consumer driven lives? The earth can't sustain it, FACT.

There's a difference between being rich and flaunting it and living a flambunctious (I just made up a new word there) lifestyle, and having a good amount of money and living a comfortable life. And in my case, probably not having much at all and still feeling pretty happy about it. When I think of my future, I think of a space that isn't bigger than it has to be, filled with vintage treasures and giving things a new lease on life. My housemate does this pretty well and at most times my laziness gets the better of me (but I blame being an unmotivated student). I am never going to buy another brand new book. It's e-books and 2nd hand books for me now. Prior to tablets, I think I've bludgeoned through a forest worth of paper printing notes and buying textbooks.

I look forward to the day I buy a car that's better for the environment, install solar panels, use rainwater, and ultimately grow my own food. I don't know about vegetables though, but I know enough to run a small rag-tag group of animals and give them the best life. Who knows, maybe I'll grow to love them so much that I will never bring myself to eat them (oh god the thought of being vegetarian is making my brain feel a little hazy).

So at the moment I know I have a few things to work on. I know my showers are just a bit long and I keep my computer on sleep mode far too much. But I don't accelerate excessively and I sort out as much recycling as I can from all my garbage. I used to have green bags so I've just made a mental note that I need to start that again. Every dog I get in the future will be adopted.

Maybe my kids too.

how to deal with an accident 101

I've decided to do up an entry on the Do's and Don't's of what to do when you get into an accident.  If you, like me pre-January 2013, have no idea what actually elapses if you have the misfortune of getting into an accident, this could be helpful.

So here we go.

BANG! Accident. Oh shit. Shock and horror, maybe you start crying. Take a second or two to calm yourself. Get out of your car ASAP and make sure nobody's hurt and nothing is on fire, and that no fuel is leaking (if any of this is the case call the police right away). Check on the other driver and make sure they're okay, help them out of their car if they need it.

If you are causing a major traffic obstruction, try and safely move your cars off the road. People watching accidents tend to cause more accidents. Call the police and make a report. They may or may not send a car down.

Okay, you're both safe and it wasn't your fault. Or it was. Or it was both of you at fault. SAY NOTHING ABOUT IT. Do not utter a word. Don't even say sorry (even if it's your fault). If the other party is a hysterical lunatic DON'T be tempted to say sorry to defuse the situation like I did (I need to harden up).

Pen and paper, phone whatever, exchange the following details;
Name
Address
Phone number
License number
Registration number
Insurance details (basically the company name is enough)

Take lots of photos of everything. The accident site, ALL the damage to the cars, as thoroughly as you can. Remember exactly where it happened if you can, because you will need to indicate this on paper and over the phone to your insurance company.

Lastly, call your insurance company and tell them what happened, every last detail if you can (how long you were waiting at an intersection, road signs, speed limits etc). They'll usually ask you all the relevant questions and guide you along with the process.

And done! The excess will have to be paid and depending on your insurance policy and who's fault it was the outcomes are different in terms of your excess. Your fault/both at fault? Excess not refunded, and be grumpy for a few weeks. Not your fault? Smile, get your excess back and your shiny fixed car back. 

just dropkick

This scenario has been playing in my head all week. Ever since starting uni once again, i've had moments where I was put on the spot, asked a question about something I vaguely remember reading once last year for an exam. And didn't know the answer. Or knew it, but had no confidence in what I knew. And times where I've forgotten to do something, and other times where I wanted to say something, but didn't, then regretted it. Too much going on.

So each time any of the above happens, my mind immediately conjures an image of myself dropkicking my notebook. It's rather comical. My notebook isn't particularly great for dropkicking but amongst all my belongings at the time I felt it was the easiest I could part with in case I broke it (vs say... my phone or stethoscope, and a pen would be quite hard to dropkick). Today it all came to a boil and I finally dropkicked my notebook.

RxWorks, is a program that never disappoints in the disappointment department because it never actually works. Just dropkick.

Get into an accident that puts your car out of commission? Just dropkick.

Insurance company ruled against you despite the other driver being a reckless hack? Just dropkick.

Popped the cap of your phone bill to astronomical proportions? Just dropkick.

Answered a question wrong? Dropkick.

Spent 4 hours on an assignment worth nothing? Just dropkick.

Thank god tomorrow is Friday. I hope February brings better things.

milestone in life : got into a car accident

Not really gonna go into details, except to say that it was NOT my fault and that this lady was insane pulling out across oncoming traffic and into my way and then proceeded to blame me for it.

Somehow the insurance company isn't giving me quite the vote of confidence I needed to get my excess refunded (1.3k :O) but I've done everything I can. Also, the people I love have been such angels. First my parents said they were proud of me (lol?) and told me not to worry, it's just a car and most importantly I am safe. Despite Bidina's malfunctioning thermostat she drove about 30 minutes out of her way to work to send me to Richmond and Asami offered to drive me home the next morning after we had a night out of drinks and seeing Empra at the Corner Hotel in Richmond. Just as I was wrapping up my rather disappointing holidays. Oh well. TIME TO LOOK FORWARD GO!

to answer all your questions

At this point in my life, the answer is bleah. Hopefully the only post about this shit low point in my life, I don't want any more reminders. And excuses to wallow.

Hello 2013! Big big plans you have for me and my life. Let's just keep looking forward, like a horse with blinders on.

(in 2012, I went for a massive Melbourne to Sydney coastal road trip with David Cooper for about 2 weeks. It was fantastic, saw and did things I thought only occurred in the recesses of my imagination.

I completed 3 weeks of equine placement at a equine clinic I shall not name. Had a great time and at the same time didn't. Too much going on at the same time as nothing at all. You like my riddles? Cemented my interest in horses but didn't get enough out of it. Ah well, lessons learnt.

Instead of coming home, I decided to spend my first full Aussie summer here since I had fewer holidays to play with and felt like spending Christmas and New Year's here with David and his family would be a good idea. And also to work heaps and earn some good moolah for graduation and the like. Boy did one and a half of those ideas fall flat on their asses.)

my housemate bought a giant centipede baby

And it freaks me the fuck out.

Not because it's there, or that he's keeping one. I really don't care, to each his own desires for whatever sort of companionship.

I walked into the kitchen to see the tank he moved in with full of dirt, leaves, and a branch. And just hidden in the dirt was this red segmented creature with a bajillion legs. I couldn't see how long it was, but it's already 10cm. It's a BABY. Ohhh shit son.

So the tank has no lid. From what I saw last, he had placed cling wrap over the top and poked some air holes in it.

..... Whut. My paranoia was out full force last night. He says he's going to make one, I don't fucking know, just make sure the dude's in there at all times because if it skittles under the crack of my door and decides to take a nap with me in the middle of the night I WILL KILL IT.

I shoved several things in the door crack and tried not to think of every funny little sensation I felt while falling asleep.

P/s: Apparently they can't climb smooth surfaces like the plastic wall of its tank. It's not the deepest tank though... if it grows any more.

you know what's weird?

Noses. 

the vet student....

Celebrates Hallowe'en much unlike the native university student, with lager by the gallon and skimpy outfits. The vet student, like many Hallowe'ens before (except maybe first year), sits in a bundle of blankets at home and explores its own surroundings for the Nth time and always finds a new speck on the wall to devote the majority of its attention to instead of the more obvious mountain of notes before itself, despite the precarious situation ahead of knowing next to NIL for its upcoming exams. It continues this bizarre behaviour for a period until, like a bird abruptly changing directions with the wind, it snaps out of its mesmerized stupor and curses itself for being such an attention deficient imbecile.

Look at all this pastel shit going on. I think this blog needs to look more exciting. Hmm, something for exam study procrastination or better still - AFTER exams. But who are we kidding?

Also I finally figured out how the hell to change things on this stupid blog. So I can't be arsed to re-align photos of videos so here is a disclaimer saying that I don't really care if it looks like a mess. Ok bye.

i have been SO busy

It's the business end of semester. After completing 6 exams in the last 2 weeks, i'm in the last 2 weeks of school leading up to the very last 6 exams that will mark the end of my theory vet years. We just had a talk last Friday about the many ways we could fail final year, and it all seems so daunting.. 8am starts (sometimes even 7.30am), night time rotations, spending majority of my weekends on call (and 30 mins away at any given time)... but it will be fucking great. There is no way final year is gonna get me down even before i've started.

So my brain is already starting to break down even before I've started on this home stretch. I've got a beach roadtrip, 3 weeks of horse placement, Radiohead and Harvest festival to look forward to after exams... To sit for any supplementary exams will absolutely KILL the buzz of my last summer holiday as a student. I CAN DO THIS!

I've compiled a little collection of songs that i've had on rotation for the last few weeks. Or months. For some music tastes, maybe not all, but they're all pretty damn good songs. Sharing is caring. Here we go.

For the stoners.. I know you're out there ;)


I embed a song from MySpace (that's the only place I could find it and it turned out like this). It's such a lovely song, I heard it on AM Radio while I was visiting a rather fat and rather vocal cat with some degree of arthritis.

Fading Away









Winding it down now.


Just a dash of Pogo..


 Best for last. This one just to remind us all in the southern hemisphere that SUMMER IS COMING!! And that there's always the light at the end of the tunnel. God damn just listening to this song as I type this already makes me positive!
 

Well that was just a giant clusterfuck of music. I should really do up entries by genre.

Just quietly... I got 100% for my horse practical exam. I wonder what this means. The examiner was so nice and the horse was so sedated I don't think I could've possibly done badly. But... horses hey? :D

sticks

So that weekend we were up in Macedon (ref. our adventure at Hanging Rock), I took some photos of the Coopers' up-and-coming new house next door to their current house. Had a tinker with some photo apps on my tablet and came up with this..

So I don't quite know where I stand on these photo collages. It looks like an ad for a very poor wood construction company. The idea of these collages seemed pretty cool at the start, but now I don't really know...

Anyway, a few weekends ago the vet kids went up to Mt. Martha, about an hour southeast of Melbourne along the coast. Driving along the Nepean highway to avoid the tolls on the Eastern was a pain but we got to see some really slick looking beachfront houses with cool looking cars. Every year since 2010, Hill's has been sponsoring our alcoholic weekend, with our only obligation, subjecting ourselves to personality pigeon-holing- I mean -typing. 2 nights of drinking, beautiful weather, nature and friends. And not to forget the beach close by. So here are some badly taken photos.

Our binge drinking party was 80s themed. Also, a classmate brought a handy torchlight and I used it to take some... spotlight photos. I quite liked the idea of it but I have to admit the execution is rather poor... I blame alcohol and the shitty quality of my phone camera.

I love my skates. They are awesome, I bought them on eBay for $45 brand new. I don't skate as much as i'd like to but hey the weather's warming up, and it's more fun than running. Have I mentioned how much I love them? I LOOOOOVE THEM.

Absolutely SKATING

spring is here!

The number of days between each beautiful spring day is shortening, the days are getting longer, and I'm starting to feel better. After feeling quite shitty the last 2-3 months, $920 at the neurologist later, found nothing. I don't really know why I've been feeling rather 50% lately. But today is the first day in a long time that I feel pretty good. I'd say about 70%.

I wonder if this has anything to do with our dwindling holidays. I really need some sort of relaxing beach holiday, soon.

(why yes, that is my car, and it is a sexy Holden Commodore)

Every Single Semester.

But on the bright side...
6 school weeks of the last academic semester of vet school...... EVER.

crazy things

So I've been working my new job for about a week now, and it's been great. The animals so far have been absolutely adorable and the work is relatively easy going save for the driving.

Basically I pet sit. When people go on holidays, they call up the agency I work for, and I may get assigned to it if it's west-side. I get their details, get to know them (so far they've all been lovely) and off I go. I've been ridden with I think the worst flu bug possible (it's lasted all weekend and it makes my entire face hurt :( ) which has made the driving a bit of a task but hopefully i'll get better soon. Next week i'll be faced with 9am-5pm days with morning and evening jobs which will absolutely swamp me. I thought I'd catch up on study this weekend but this flu has had me doing the absolute bare minimum. Of life. It's upsetting because I was really getting into the swing of studying but what to do.

What do you do when the Sudafed no longer works? I hate taking any sort of medication but this bug has really been something else.

Back to my job. I usually look up addresses prior to leaving and remember the route there as I don't have a sat nav and I think it's much quicker this way and I just like to look at maps and navigate old school. So this one particular job I got was about a 15 minute drive from mine and I looked it up on Google maps, to find this while looking for a shortcut;

Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

But really, how long did he (or she) have to wait for that to show up on on satellite view? Madness. 

I really enjoy reading about Singapore politics nowadays, ever since the exciting 2011 General Election. We're living in exciting times, things perhaps may change now as people are actually standing up to voice their dissatisfaction. Despite being of voting age I have never voted, and probably had my name struck off the registry which doesn't bother me and yet it does, I feel like a bit of an outsider and now all I can do is merely observe.

The Singapore government has warmly embraced hundreds of thousands of foreigners, some highly skilled and some working basic hospitality jobs, allowing them to lead cushy lives and providing them with nearly on-par benefits with us, the native Singapore citizens. I have not worked a tax-paying, CPF-contributing job (had to love being a tutor back in the day) but as long as my dad is a tax-paying Singapore citizen surely I am not a complete outsider. I've only been in Australia nearly 4 years and I love Singapore as the place I grew up in, but all this civil tension is going to boil over sometime and get messy. The government has cited various reasons for herding in foreigners by the masses, and when it backfires they provide weak excuses, insult and threaten Singaporeans and yet keep hammering away at their terrible policies, haha perhaps in an attempt not to lose face? To avoid an I-told-you-so?

So here I am, just over a year from graduation and having to make a pretty big life changing decision soon as to where I am going to be for the next few years. Maybe this is just my opinion, but the veterinary profession is rather politically and economically isolated. Maybe I could go back home and save myself the trouble of moving elsewhere, but I wonder if that is the right decision. Educated Singaporeans are packing up shop to start anew elsewhere, seeking a better life and I have yet to hear anyone who's made the move complain about anything really apart from getting used to paying larger taxes. Surely this is sending some sort of message to the ruling party? How will you one day afford to import highly-skilled labour once the population has been saturated with foreign blue-collar workers? How far will you underpay them? How will you afford to keep the rich Singaporeans rich when there is no local middle class to exploit after you've run your cheaply paid foreigners into the ground?

Ahh... So I wonder what the future of Singapore will be like. Will the government heed and finally listen to the people as a democratically appointed government should? Or will they press on with stupid policies only to buffer them with exponentially stupider, stifling and less accountable policies?

STOP IT WITH THE QUESTIONS ARUNA. Okay. I'm just mind-mapping outcomes. Interestingly enough, I googled 'working in singapore' to find this;


Contact Singapore is an 'alliance' of the Ministry of Manpower.

Next, I googled;



I am probably taking it out of context. But it's just funny how they are on both ends of the spectrum. Amazing.

Haha, I wonder when the kiss-assery will stop and when Singapore will emerge as the badass nation that it truly is. 

"I'm not sure which of these individuals has a radio for a head, whoever he is he ought to try Classic FM and calm down."

This is the 2nd night in a row I am sleeping less than 8 hours. Why am I still up instead of sleeping I do not know, I guess it's because I wanted to blog about nothing at all really, haha. Today I attended Paul's graduation, and the entire nearly-2-hour-long presentation got me thinking about my own graduation (only after Paul received his degree - he was one of the first then I kinda spaced out cos there were a million engineering degrees afterward). And having that sense of euphoria and anxiety at the same time about the future. It seems so daunting, life after uni. But everyone has gotten on with it, I hope my mind will finally settle when I have a daily routine.

I just realised how shit I feel when I don't get enough sleep so I should really be doing that. In the meantime, I never knew how therapeutic weather news was to me until one of my favourite songs was played over it. It was just ultimate therapy. And I don't mean weatherman style news, but just the sort that has a Google-earth kinda vibe and a marquee. It works wonders, my brain just takes off into space and I think about all those other people all over the world with all sorts of different weather and what they're doing. It's almost a dreamlike state and quite reminiscent of what it felt like when I saw planes as a kid. All I could think about was how the people in the plane felt and always wondered if they were excited about going to a different place as I was for them, even if I was on the ground. We all have our own little things I guess.

Now I'm starting to wonder what sort of unconventional therapies exist for other people. Like we all get kicks from certain smells, but I wonder what sort of events happen for other people for them to feel similar. Hmmm....

panoramalama

I am the blanket lady of Hanging rock.

Spent a nice hour or so walking up Hanging rock and checking out the awesome views. Didn`t study a wink this weekend but to be honest i`m glad I didn`t, it was nice and relaxing and got some much needed fresh air while having a bit of a cigarette detox.

Gotta love Android`s ICS camera update.

The main reason for coming up was to bury Roti. It was a beautiful morning and I tried meditating but couldn`t keep it up for too long unfortunately. I'll have to try again soon.

Roti loved beer.

interactions with a cat

This is one of David's cats back in Macedon, Zacky.  He's a bit of a bully and a grump but he didn't seem to mind big squishy bear hugs. He just sat there and took it. I'm surprised he didn't scratch my face off. I'm not well versed with cats, grew up with dogs. I probably won't keep one and I certainly don't hate them, but I will appreciate yours.

one of those days

I hate these days when I feel like i'm just going to suck at everything I'm going to embark on in the future. I know it's too early to call it, we've done fuckall vet work but it's just a feeling of impending doom.

But i'm guessing i'm just having one of those days. It fucking sucks.

Also.... Ever since my A Levels I have absolutely lost the ability to take any sort of study seriously enough till the last minute. Every. Single. Semester. I sit here at my desk at the start of the evening all determined, and actually not go on Facebook every 5 minutes but this shit still isn't productive! It's never nearly as productive as panic-mode study. Why? I take 3 hours to get through a 1 hour lecture. Why? Especially this year. But I guess now lectures are getting more condensed, like those new canned soups in the supermarkets that give you MORE soup for the soup you're getting. Are you feeling me? Yeah.

Yet another unproductive evening, I could've perhaps watched a nice movie, read a book, played my keyboard, but instead, I AM WASTING MY LIFE AT THIS DESK. Like I have for the past four fuckin' years. SHIT. I am so glad this is the last formal uni semester. I feel like i'm losing my fucking mind.

Alright.

Time for bed.