Again from me

So I'm sitting here the day before assignments are due, thinking, "Hmm... How can I waste more time? Ah! BINGO!! Update my blog!!" And voila, here I am.

I see from my records I last updated on February the 19th - well, not that much has really happened since. We went back to uni about a week later and have been entrenched in the same monotony ever since.

Brains, breast cancer, blah blah blah... Yes, important I'm sure, but oh-so-dull. Especially all the neurophysiology lectures... Actually, since I've already submitted my assignment, this blog is largely procrastination from Vickery lectures.

Some noteworthy events that have occurred in the meantime, however, include:

1. The successful release of Umbilical 2007: a publication pronounced by the Faculty to be "the best one yet - can we keep a copy? The advice is really good!" The stress FINALLY seemed worth it!! It was marginally annoying changing the information according to the changing university climate, but meh. Done, done and done... I can now say I've successfully edited a university publication! Of sorts.
   
2. Medcamp 2007 - ahhh, so much stress. It was ridiculous. Everything seemed to have a tiny little hiccup somewhere just to ensure we were always kept on our toes. The worst, perhaps, was the bungle over the bar tab. Toga party with a pay-as-you-go bar?? I don't THINK so! Thank goodness that was all sorted out!
3. Crime Sex and Gender is OVER... I used the words "paradigm", "microcosm" and "dichotomy" within a single paragraph, which should indicate how much I was scraping the bottom of the barrel for proper ideas. I received 68 for that piece of crap course, which is a good 18 marks above what I deserve, but who am I to complain? Haha - this was one of the only 'day before' efforts I've ever done... Clearly, I don't give a stuff about Women's Studies. Or should I say Womyn's Studies?
   
4. Pubcrawl: Let me take this opportunity to explain that chasing Chris around a pub yelling "Give it to me!! Oh please, I need it!!!" was nowhere near as wrong as it sounds - I wanted Kevin Rudd's phone number. Simple! At least, it seemed that simple in my head.
   
5. Chris's Party - this gets a mention for being a party with one of the best themes I've ever heard of. "Politically Incorrect" - an excuse for people to dress up as blackface Hitler, an abortion doctor (complete with wire coathanger and 'foetus' in plastic bag), a bishop with a baby, pregnant Catholic schoolgirls, Saddam Hussein with a noose around his neck, Sophie Delezio + Car, a terrorist... Ahh, wonderful stuff. I went as "HELENA", MAIL TO: Bob Carr... not incredibly imaginative, but at least it was something.
   
6. Les Miserables - produced by St Andrews - one of the best school musicals I've ever seen. The singing was wonderful! Eponine and Valjean were fantastic! Cosette's voice was amazing!! Marius was excellent!! Javert could have been better, but he was a stand-in, so I forgive him. Very exciting finally seeing a production of Les Mis.
   
7. Transfusion Camp - I must say, there was quite a lot of stress leading up to this because I hadn't done my talk. By the grace of God, however, it was done... Dad's was also really good, which was exciting. And Peter Hastie liked mine! Haha, I felt like I hadn't left school.
8. Easter Service - Lachlan was JESUS! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Yeah, not going to stop laughing about that one for a very long time. I think the better moments were the "CRUCIFY HIM!!!" ones... =P

Ahh... Well that really brings me up to today, the point where I'm trying to hide my head under the covers and pretend that I have nothing to do, when in fact I desperately need to study for my exam. Hope life is going well with all of you! If you're really bored and want to check out other aspects of my life (for example, what flower I am or what flavour of chocolate I would be), do not hesitate to examine my myspace: www.myspace.com/wenying

Conversely, if you are on the other bandwagon (I refer to Facebook)... Add me! That address is: http://unswedu.facebook.com/profile.php?id=823580456

For your sake, though, I hope you are NOT that bored. Love you all!!

Jen

The last 5 months...!

I'm keeping up with my regular tradition of updating Jentertainment once a blue moon. Last post was in October? Well, well, how much has happened since then.

I believe October was in the midst of HM and I'd been planning on going to various things. From what I can remember, I saw Pirates of Penzance at the Opera House, the Tempest with the Sydney Theatre Company, Evermore at the Forum and a chamber music performance at the Conservatorium during that term. An attempt to appear cultured, sure, but it was enjoyable at the time =). HM itself wasn't too bad (apart from the incessant library trips to study). For the first time, most of med started to make sense, and I got my first ever uni credit!! 73!! WOOO!!! A mark that would have reduced me to bitter tears in high school, but is cause for celebration in a different context.

After HM our group headed down to Berrara to spend a week at Pat's holiday house. That was wonderful! Beautiful beach, relaxing time with friends, lots of drinking (I set a PB for myself - 12 drinks in a night!). Couple of dramas, but whaddya know... I spose if you stick a whole group of people in close proximity together for a week, SOMETHING is bound to happen.

On the way back to Sydney, I received a message from Micky saying something to the extent of "GO KEVIN RUDD!! WOOO!!!!"... Being in the same car as Chris Mulligan naturally meant that the first thing we did was turn on 702 and hear the wondrous news that Rudd and Gillard were challenging Beazley. This excited me greatly because I am NOT a Rudd bandwagon fan. I have nurtured a liking for him since 2003 - ie, since pre-Latham times. I love his Christian social democrat stance on issues such as welfare, health and education, and I love his intellectual and very well-thought out foreign affairs policies on China and the US. Anyway. The point is, I like Kevin a LOT.

I then got my green Ps on December the 4th (moments after hearing Rudd had won leadership and Gillard had been elected unopposed as deputy), which put me in an excellent mood for the rest of the day.

The rest of December was a bit of a blur - lots of lunches to catch up with people, lots of Christmas parties/birthday parties/catch up parties, etc. It was nice to be in Sydney for Christmas for a change, as opposed to Malaysia, Tasmania, New Zealand or Jervis Bay (to list a few off the top of my head).

New Years came and went while we had a nice picnic in a family park, sharing one bottle of champagne and another of disgusting bourbon between around 15-20 people. So much for a fun party where we get smashed. Nobody was even close!

A few parties carried over into January, such as Pat's birthday party and Lachlan's cocktail party. The latter was memorable for various reasons which I would prefer not to dwell upon... I'll just say that SOME things in life would be great if prefaced with some sort of warning *mutters darkly*. Shankari and Jess know perfectly well what was going on, though, what with the minute-by-minute commentary they were getting via sms. One regret, though: I wish I hadn't touched any alcohol at all. There are some occasions in life where one wishes to have one's wits about them, and that definitely counted. Meh... What's done is done.

Anyway, we were off to Opera Bar a week later to catch up with school people, where we got amazingly, amazingly drunk... I don't remember being so off my face in a very long time. Hehehe. I don't think Celia has been, either. It was funny - up until that point, I'd only ever been drunkenly debauched around uni people. I'd never even been close to inebriated amongst my schoolmates, but I suppose they got a whole year's worth of entertainment in a night.

The rest of January was characterised with a lot of work. Working for my parents because the real receptionists had taken off to Phuket or the South Coast, working for Medcamp/Umbilical, or working for Kid's Mission. I did the 2nd level advanced driving course, which was quite exciting. The drive wasn't as nerve wracking as I found it a year ago (funny how experience does it) despite the conditions being the worst I have EVER driven in. Other exciting things about January: CLAIRE AND JACKIE CAME BACK FROM OVERSEAS!!!!!!! It was soooo good to see them again and chat to them!!!!! Ahhh I'd missed them both so much.

Australia Day came and went, and I suppose saying that it's something of a landmark day would be fairly close to the point. And I don't really mean that in the cheesy Australia was settled! sort of way. Something a bit more personal than that. There's a line in "Both Sides, Now" that expresses it better than I can, but if I type it out I'll feel like a sad case. I'll let you guess.

February began, and that was just a mad rush to finish Umbilical and organise as much of Medcamp as we could, as well as starting (and finishing) the Crime, Sexuality and Gender course. Medsoc exec cruelly made us cut 20 odd people from our team =( so that entailed a bit of drama for Minty and me.

The Crime/Sex/Gender course wasn't quite as gripping as it seemed to be... I mean, a lecture entitled "Men who have sex with men" was turned into a snore-worthy drone on statistics. Sigh. And I'm currently avoiding the assignments, keeping up with the grand tradition that Jentertainment gets entries when I do NOT want to touch work.

Got involved with a group called Transfusion, an outpost of Christians in Medicine and Dentistry Fellowship (CMDF), which is actually pretty exciting. It's a ministry that I really do believe in and want to invest a lot more in this year. So that's good news =D.

Anyway - that really does bring us up to now - the end of the summer holidays. Expect to hear from me when I'm avoiding my A&E assignments!!!

Love you all,

Jen

Am I Vain?

You Are 39% Vain

Okay, so you're slightly vain from time to time, but you're not superficial at all. You are realistic. You know that looks matter. You just try to make them matter less.

How Vain Are You?

Haha, sorry, random...just trying this out. Hope you're all going well and that you enjoyed your holidays!! I am very sad mine are over...and very sad that the fun we had will not occur for another 8 weeks. But meh! Oberon, the beach, everything..it was all AWESOME fun. Love you guys! Can't wait til summer holidays!!! Wooooo!!!! =D

But now it is HM we're looking forward to..ggahhh...

See you soon anyway =)

The Answers.

1) "You Oughta Know" - Alanis Morissette.
2) Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding (this is when she's dealing with Daniel leaving her for bronzed goddess)
3) Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy (right before she thro - er, I mean, right before the end)
4) The Sound Of Music - Captain von Trapp to the Baroness
5) The Attack of the Clones - Amidala to Annie.
6) John 14:1
7) Romans 8:28

Once more, I'm wasting time when I should be studying. I actually am interested in this unit, I just have absolutely no motivation at the moment. A really bad night's sleep (thanks to some stupid dream) has made me ridiculously tired today, and expert tutes didn't really wake me up.

Although, I must say Peter Little's a pretty hot old guy. Like a really old guy, I know, but...his voice!! Ahhhh... I'm such a sucker for English accents. They sound so cultivated. I've decided I want to date a guy with an English accent, red hair, blue eyes, a sense of humour... Actually, this has been my plan for a very long time, I'm just making it public. Hehehe - if you can guess who this is based on, you win a Chocolate Frog!

Ok I'll stop right there. Haha. Umm Jessica has been very quiet over the past 2 days. Silent, in fact. She hasn't spoken for 40 hours. Highly impressive, seeing as it's Jessica (note: if you wish to sponsor her, please contact me and I can organise that).

What else? Lalala hoping to go see Cirque de Soleil, maybe "The Tempest", definitely "The Devil Wears Prada", and I'm running as social rep for MedSoc as well as the UNSW Student Guild. I don't really care about the last bit (just doing it to help someone out), but if you're curious, the party is called "Action" and is supposedly the Liberal side. Yeah... go on, call me a stooge, hack, toady, Liberal bitch... I've already heard it all! =P Social rep should be fun though. Hopefully. If people TURN UP to med events, that is.

Holidays are exciting... Plans to go to Greenwood on Thursday night, as well as go to a MedShow after-after party + combined MedSoc dinner on Friday night all look very good. Total rest and relaxation also sounds fantabulous.

I'll get back to gene stuff, and maybe infertility. If I can find it in me. Love you all!

Some thoughts.

"And I'm here to remind you of the mess you left when you went away....IT'S NOT FAIR to deny me of the cross I bear that you gave to me...you OUGHTA KNOW!!!" (Bit of angry-vagina-music...seriously bitter and petty stuff, really.)

"It's no good. When someone leaves you, apart from missing them, apart from the fact that the whole little world you've created together collapses, and that everything you see or do reminds you of them, the worst is the thought that they tried you out and, in the end, the whole sum of parts which adds up to you got stamped REJECT by the one you love. How can you not be left with the personal confidence of a passed-over British Rail sandwich?" (Aww... No, I don't feel like this, but I thought it was an insightful comment. Surprisingly insightful for the book it's from, anyway.)

"My love keeps growing more passionate and selfish, while his is dying, and that's why we're drifting apart...And there's nothing I can do. And he wants more and more to get away from me. We were irresistably drawn together up to the time of our love, and now we have been irresistably drifting apart. And there's no altering that." (Possibly an exaggeration from the queen of melodrama?? Anyway, don't really feel this way. I just thought I'd add some proper literature to this list).

"I've been dishonest to both of us, and utterly unfair to you..." (Heh. Terrible line.)

"We'd be living a lie. I couldn't do that. Could you??" (Much, much worse...and delivered in such an awfully deadpan way.)

Ok, so that was a mixture of high and low culture. And oddly enough, none of it really encapsulates this particular moment. Bitterness, despair, etc, don't really feature. It's more a mixture of resignation, disappointment, frustration and relief that it ended before it got worse. Plus some sad wistfulness, and a bit of surprise that there do exist obstacles that cannot be overcome. I've never been one to put much stock in circumstance - I've always focused on the individual, and how much they can do in situations. So it's a shock to realise that sometimes the individual really is powerless to change some things.

Anyway, there's also optimism for the future stemming from the incorrigible naivete and blind hopefulness of being 18. I really don't think anything can look black at this stage. Seriously. Much love to all my friends - you guys are the BEST. You all know who you are - all you people on the receiving end of phone calls, msn convos, or face to face chats... You are very dear to me, and I value you so much.

Aaarrggghh well there's an exam to study for, sleep to be had, and tumultuous emotions to be sorted out. I'll conclude with the best quotes:

"Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, trust also in me."

"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."

Well - at least, these are the ones that give a sense of inner peace more than anything I know. I know I must trust God with my life - literally. Give myself up to His will. And I'm praying that I'll be able to do that, and be at peace with whatever He wants me to do. Thanks again to everyone for their love and support - I am very grateful for you all. =)

PS: Kudos to everyone who manages to pick the sources of my quotes! And for the last ones - I want exact places. Hehe.

Medball and other things

Yes, I know there's MedBall to discuss, but for now I am going to lament the loss of Jana Wendt from television. Well, at least for the time being. Sad, sad day when Eddie Maguire doesn't realise the talent he has. Not that I really watched much Channel 9...meh...anyway, I just posted that bad quality photo up for you all to have a look at who is on the end at the right, and who is next to her. Lame, yes, but hey!

Now. Assignments having being completed (thanks to a brutal Matthew who made me cut, cut and CUT my assignment until it was actually really shit), there was MedBall to worry about! Flutes to be bought/ordered, champagne to be bought, food to be selected, hair to be done... Quite exciting, really. It's been a while since the whole dress up thing. Everyone looked so beautiful/handsome! Pres at mine, a bus to Doltone House, and the night had begun! It was actually heaps good to have a big med thing, because we don't really see that many people out of Phase 1. So we caught up with MedShow/MedSoc people, and generally had a great time. The music was... Ok, well, the band was great, but I can't quite say the same about the DJ. Meh... the food was good, at least. It was also very cool to see people who actually dressed to the theme, and really good to see so many people turn up to a med event (yay!!!).

By the time it got to afters, there were a couple of casualties to the 'unlimited alcohol for 4 hours', as well as post-assignment stress/tiredness. 36 degrees bar wasn't quite hopping, so after about 10 minutes, we decided to head off home. But yeah. Good night, all in all!!

Some photos will be here, but for some more, head over to: http://medball2006.myphotoalbum.com/ (username and password: medball2006). Thanks Isy for making the site!!

Lalala and I'm back!

Hello all!

I thought I might keep up with my trend of updating my blog when I'm actually procrastinating from something due very soon (in this case, my assignment on Friday). Hope you've all been gooood happy bubbies...

What's been happening around here of late? Well, quite a lot actually. First there were medshow rehearsals...and more medshow rehearsals. Which were very very irritating (at least the consistent 9pm, 10pm, 11pm nights...). But overall lots of fun! The end result was great - a hilarious show to an audience that packed out Clancy. Good old Vekram's a scream... Probably just playing himself, but funny anyway... and many of the random gags were funny as. Loved how med-studenty it was, too. Hehe...ahh...anyway, point being, great show, and if you didn't see it, you missed out. You missed out bigtime. =P

Then there was Ness's, which was pretty fun for the first half because I got mind-bogglingly wasted. For me, anyway. Thankfully not quite Slip Inn levels, but definitely tipsy to the extent that I actually can't remember a fair bit of what went on (apart from being reaalllyyy loud and obnoxious). Interesting night overall.

Johnny's was AWESOME fun, especially making him scull that flipping bucket of beer!!! Hahaha and he did such an awesome job, too!!! Plus things like cheering when he got his ID checked...ahh good times. Tim Cooper drunk was also really hilarious. We should make that happen more often, I think. There was stacks of food, but unfortunately not that much drinking for the people who DIDN'T get all their drinks bought (we hadn't realised how flipping expensive the drinks would be). Oh wait - no - there was a lowlight. That being walking 20 minutes down George St to get to the Three Wise Monkeys...definitely not worth it.

A bit after Medshow was the trivia night debacle. Now that was annoying. It's apparently some first year rep duty, and a week before the night we had ONE team register. ONE. A couple more applied, and one team registered and then pulled out. It was all looking grim the night before, and the possibility of canning it was definitely there. Hmm...anyway, a whole factors combined to make me completely break down the night before, and have a little cry about feeling like a failure. After some ringing around, a team of sorts was established...and here is where I thank them for turning up and being absolute champs!
Thank you, Scuz, for coming, and for coercing others to come!! Thanks Pat for caving into my kicked-puppy-dog look! Thank you Tony for supporting me in my hour of need! Thank you Kim for coming despite all your other social engagements! And thanks Jason for coming even though you were sick! Chris - you know I think you're awesome, but I'll say thanks again for writing questions, helping host/mark it, and for being there to help out. You all rock!!!! And Minty does too, of course, but that goes without saying.

Visited USyd recently as well, which was nice...picked up research material for my abortion assignment, randomly ran into Alison and then spent time with Celia, which was all very good. I like uni hopping. I should probably do it more often.

And after that I haven't really done much, apart from avoid my assignment/project. Which I'd been doing quite well, although it's not really that much of an achievement... Especially when it's Wednesday and I'm feeling somewhat screwed for Friday (which is MedBall anyway, and will be consumed with preparty organisation/getting hair done/etc/etc/etc). Hmmmm. No wait, there IS something else - I saw "Thank You For Smoking"! Which is a GREAT movie that I think everyone should see. Well - ok, maybe not everyone, maybe just everyone who likes debating/arguing/satire/politics/really funny movies.

Alright, I really have wasted enough time. Adios to you all! Love you heaps.