Anyone Seen My Self-Esteem?

Welcome to My New Chapter in Life

It’s been a while since I blogged.

No, more like ages to me…

8 months to be exact.

I really don’t know what triggered me to write in the midst of year end exam week. But a short break from studying wouldn’t hurt, especially after finishing two papers so far (DIPSE aka Data Interpretation & Anatomy Spotter Test today). Oh, it’s called procrastinating effectively :o)

(Side note: What do you think of the t-shirt below? I’d grab a pair or two myself)

Absolutely cracking!

So, procrastinating aside, what has ambitious little Malaysian boy in UK been up to?

A heck of a lot.

Well for starters, I finally got my deepest, long-craved for, ‘ever-since-I-was-a-little-child-I’ve-always-wanted-to’ wish granted: a place in a medical school, in a country globally renowned for its supreme quality in education.

Queen’s Campus, Durham University: School for Health & Medicine

I’m pretty sure 99.9% of everyone I know will give me that ‘you’re-studying-where?’ face when I tell them I’m currently in Durham University. I don’t blame them, Durham isn’t exactly widely known for its Medical degree. In fact, I’d probably scratch my head & wonder myself had I not been offered (correction: had it not been my only ass-saving offer!).

As I’ve explained in my last blog, Durham only provides a 2 year pre-clinical curriculum to its applicants before we are merged with the Newcastle medics for the remaining 3 clinical years. At the end, the degree will be awarded by Newcastle University, so you can say that it’s an alliance between Durham-Newcastle University.

To make matters more confusing, I’m at Durham’s 2nd campus which is in Stockton-on-Tees, 37km south of Durham (Durham has 2 campuses) Here’s a link to de-confuse yourself:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durham_University

A few pictures around my campus

When we first started, we had 9am-5pm lectures daily.

Yes.

9:00AM - 5:00PM

No shit!

Now doesn’t that sound much like an office job? But thankfully it was only for the first week (God loves me after all!), and now we only have 9-5 on Mondays, Tuesdays & Fridays. Wednesdays are half days (or free days for certain courses like Business)

Thursdays are half days as well, but we have ‘Community Placement’ after lunch, which is basically volunteer work at a charity/school/organization. As for me, I’ve been gaining invaluable experience volunteering at an HIV Charity based in Middlesbrough called Teeside Positive Action. Very C.A.S-ish, like back in KMB, minus the ridiculous CAS prison uniform shirt we were forced to wear.

Anyway, I better save the rest of the story for another day. Gotta cram some more before this Friday’s MCQ/EMI (Multiple Choice Q + Extended Matching Items) paper. A massive burden will be taken off my shoulders once the MCQ/EMI is over, because my last paper next Tuesday is the OSCE (Objective Structured Clinical Examination).

It’s kind of a fun exam, because we will have to do things like conduct an abdominal/chest examination on a ‘patient’ (paid actors, really, and most definitely male), basic communication skills (also with a ‘patient’), and finally CPR (unfortunately not on a ‘patient’ but a dummy)

Basically just needs repetitive drilling instead of sticking my nose into notes for hours, which I’m seriously getting sick of!

Good luck for those having exams, and damn I envy you if you’re done with yours!

P/S: I’ll be stepping onto Malaysian soil once again, come 1st June 2008, 11:45pm

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 14th, 2008 at 12:25 pm and is filed under Writings of My Self-Esteem. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.