Calum's profileThe Democratic Republic ...PhotosBlogListsMore  |  Tools Help |
The Democratic Republic of CalumIrrelevancy Guaranteed |
||||||||||||||
|
October 07 Baptisms and BattlesWe had two major events happen at church recently:
Stephanie's Baptism
Stephanie, this girl in our youth group was to get baptised along with her dad at church on Father's Day (first Sunday of September...almost a month ago!). This of course is a big thing for Christians (or so I'm told!), and so when I first found out a few months prior to her baptism I thought it'd be a good idea to do something special for her! I had seen some of the other youth groups support their fellow youth group members in past baptisms and so thought it'd be really cool to show Stephanie just how much we support and love her (in the good way)! The only problem was...I had absolutely no idea what people are supposed to give people for baptisms!
I called for any donations from people in the youth group and got quite a few generous donations from a few, which was more than enough to buy something for Stephanie! I tried texting a few people for some ideas but didn't get any replies, so I went with my mum and Aonghas to a few Christian shops to have a look, and we ended up buying her this calendar thing as well as a cross necklace. Fortunately Stephanie and her sister Vanisa didn't show up to youth group the Friday night before her baptism service and so we were all able to sign the card without having to look over our shoulder!
Sunday morning was the big day! The church was twice as full as usual and I sat all the way in the back with Jireh. We were trying to organise what 'spontaneous' act all of us in our youth group should do when Stephanie receives her certificate. Gabrielle and Jenny were going to present Stephanie with her present on behalf of the youth group, but we couldn't see Jenny, so Jireh tried ringing her up just as the service started and we got a terse text message from her! It turns out she was already in the service when we tried ringing her!
After the sermon, Stephanie and her dad were the first few people to get baptised, and so Aonghas and I dashed to the front to film and take photos.
As soon as they were baptised, I went out back to Jireh and we started sorting out our 'spontaneous' act. We were planning on doing a Mexican wave, similar to the one we did at Epsom Girls Grammar's music evening (except that one failed with a measly two people). Time was running out as all the people who got baptised went up on stage to get their certificates and I had to go back to take some more photos.
As Stephanie came up on stage though, there was loud applause and a Mexican wave of sorts travelling along the back of the hall! Well done guys!
We didn't end up giving our present to her at the service but gave it to her afterwards when we took heaps of photos with her. I also caught up with my pharmacy friend Hannah after the service, even though it was really brief!
Congratulations Stephanie on getting baptised!!!
The Combined English Youth Fellowship
A couple weeks later on the 18th, it was our inaugural combined English Youth Fellowship evening, where our Oddfellows youth group got together with the City Church's Livng Water Fellowship to play some games and get to know each other better.
Because no one else volunteered, Jireh and I took it upon oureselves to organise the games for the evening, as the other fellowship would be in charge of worship. We were having trouble coming up with games though, and we really only finalised it on the day!
We showed up early and there was hardly anyone there...not a good sign! The people all started to trickle in though, with the city churchers all coming in one big lot!
They first led worship, in which they sang a few songs. None of us seemed to know any of their songs, but that's OK! We were interrupted by a fire alarm, but after that we kept going.
It was then time for the games! The first game I had planned for them was the name game, where everyone stands in a circle, and we go around the circle saying our name and an adjective preceding it with the first letter being the same as the first letter of our name, such as...
"Hi my name is constipated Calum!"
The next person would have to say 'hi' to everyone before them before introducing themselves. Unfortunately not everything goes according to plan! After a little confusion from a last minute game change, I picked someone to start, but they were too shy and spoke really quietly. The next person couldn't hear and things started to unrabble. I ended up just getting everyone to introduce themselves!
We then got everyone into four teams (which should've been six - I didn't realise the teams would be so large!), and got them to play a few games where they had to arrange themselves in order of various things like height, hand size, etc.
The next game was when we gave each team four sheets of newspaper and told them they had to get all their team members from one side of the hall to the other without touching the ground. We played it a few times but then teams started cheating by ripping up the newspapers into little pieces and everyone just shuffling across to the other side of the room! FAILED
OK well at least the last game went well - the Oddfellows vs Living Water challenge! Aonghas made a cup to give the winninng team, even if it was just a cheap cup bought from a discount store, and spray-painted silver (it still smells!). The game called 'Tunnel Ball' involved each team standing in a line with their legs apart, and the person at front rolling the ball back along through the tunnel to the last person who then ran to the front and carried on. It was quite close but...Oddfellows won! :D
Supper was a segregated affair, with the Oddfellows hanging amongst themselves and the Living Water people playing basketball by themselves. I caught up with Hannah which was cool. You could kinda see the contrast between the two youth groups - theirs is more outgoing while ours was a little quieter and reserved! Maybe that's why we're called ODDfellows!
There was also this new girl who I saw standing along by the doorway. I thought I'd try make conversation with her, which didn't get too far but I suppose at least I gave it a go!
Hopefully we haven't scared the other fellowship away though, and that we get together a bit more often and get to know each other well!
September 21 My One Second of Fame!After keeping an eye out for familiar faces in the media for so long, I finally spotted myself in the media this morning on TV ONE's Asia Down Under. In fact, I spotted myself for the most part of one second! It was a blurry close-up shot of the side of me too!
The story was actually about David Choi, a talented violinist and med student who's the leader of our Medical and Health Sciences Students Symphony Orchestra (MHSSSO) and Ann Kim, another med student and flutist who actually started up the orchestra. They filmed and showed a lot of our fundraising concert too!
You can watch the story on Youtube and on TVNZ On Demand. Fast forward 10 seconds and you can see me, and my ONE second of fame! :D
Our first ever performance was at the University of Auckland School of Music on the first Monday night of the mid-semester break. The orchestra had three dress rehearsals on the day. I ended up missing them all because of my community pharmacy placement, and pretty much only got to the performance just in time! I did make it to the rehearsal the day before though which was good. I ended up switching seats with the real pro violist who knew what he was doing, and I sat at the back. That was OK with me, as I still am not too confident on the viola, especially after not playing for quite a while!
At the concert I sat a little further behind the two violists than usual, which meant I couldn't hear them as well! It felt weird, as it sounded like I was the only violist from where I was sitting! I was also aware that the Asia Down Under camera crew were present, and so was hoping they wouldn't hear my mistakes! All I had to make sure I was doing was that I was moving my bow at the right time! I could just pretend to make sounds whenever I got lost ;)
David Choi, the concert master, performed a few solos and was absolutely brilliant! To think he can juggle both studying medicine and music is amazing!
In the end it was a great concert. I got to know a few med students a bit better and make music at the same time! The audience was also great too, despite it being mostly med students!
What Holiday? The first week of uni after the mid-semester break is over, and what a week it was! The two week holidays preceding it weren't much of a holiday either!
The first three days of my holidays were taken over with my community pharmacy placement. Of course I was filled with dread when I heard we had to spend THREE WHOLE DAYS in a community pharmacy this year! I was really dreading it after I read what we had to do in our workbook - consult patients! There was no way in a million years I'd be able to competently consult a patient!
I was assigned a small pharmacy in the middle of a block of shops along the side of a road in Henderson. At first I wasn't too happy about it as I had my placement in a small pharmacy last year as well and hardly anything happened! However little did I know that it would be to my benefit!
There was only one pharmacist and one technician at the pharmacy and they were very very nice to me! The pharmacist let me dispense some medication (usually the repeats and not medication that needed to be dispensed in 5-10 minutes!) as well as explain a lot of things to me, like their procedures etc. I also got to enter patient information into the computer!
The first day was a little slow and I stood there for most of the day not really doing much. I was given a half hour lunch break in the middle of the day, which I spent wandering to the neighbouring bakery to buy some food and then walking down the road and back as slowly as possible as I ate to pass the time away!
As part of the placement I had to interview a patient with a chronic condition on what her life was like (things like quality of life and so on) and she she was supposed to come on the first day (which came as a surprise to me) but she never showed up. Secretly I was thinking
"Please don't come, please don't come!"
but I knew I'd have to do a patient interview one way or another in order to pass this component of my course! After the pharmacist rang her at the end of the day to remind her, she did show up the very next day. She was quite nice, and didn't really have much to say/complain about (I cannot elaborate due to confidentiality stuff)! When we came towards the end of the interview she asked me where I was from, and when I asked her to guess, she guessed I was part Asian! WOOHOO!!!
I also made a very big discovery at the end of the first day of my placement - the pharmacist is the mum of one of my old intermediate school friends! I haven't actually talked to him since intermediate school but I recognised her surname from a mile away! It's quite unique, apparently they're the only people with that surname in the country so that's probably why!
The days went by faster as I was given more work to do. I still had that patient consultation to do though, which was bothering me. I had to consult someone on cough and colds medication, as well as consult a patient receiving prescription medication.
Consulting a patient receiving prescription medication wasn't too bad. It was standard paracetamol and something else. I just recited the instructions that were on the container. It was a young girl who I was talking to though, so I don't know how much she paid attention to though!
As for the colds and coughs patient consultation, talk about big fat FAIL! There weren't that many people coming in with symptoms, and so when this young woman did come in to look at cough and cold medication, the pharmacist sent me out there to see if she needed any help. I asked the pharmacist to come along for a bit of support, which I needed in the end! I asked the girl if she needed any help, and initially she said she was OK, but then she asked me
"Which is better? These medications or these medications?" (pointing to two different areas)
I was left standing there blankly going
"Uhhhhhh..........."
That's when the pharmacist jumped in and saved me! She later apologised for interrupting, but I wasn't complaining!
With the pressure of having to complete one successful consultation, another person came in later in the day with symptoms and was talking to the pharmacist. I was still standing by the medication trying to figure out what did what, when the pharmacist was making a recommendation to the man and called out to me
'What do you think Calum?"
I was a little caught out and was left going
"Uhhhh......"
I ended up doing a roleplay with the technician since we ran out of other patients for me to screw up the consultation with! I can now say that after I caught a cold the following weekend and spent time looking up information on medications, I now know a bit more about them!
During my lunch break on the final day when I went to the bakery the Chinese lady at the counter asked me if I was training at the pharmacy that week, and then asked me where I was from. When I explained to her I was half Chinese, she said she could tell!
So overall, I really learnt a lot from the pharmacy placement and the pharmacist and technician were great! They were so nice and I enjoyed myself (when I was doing something!). The pharmacist even offered to check my workbook and when I went to pick it up a week later (I even saw Edwin, my pharmacy friend, doing his placement there!), she even went through a few things and taught me a bit more about a few different medications!
It's just a shame I had to spend the rest of the holidays working on several assignments. I really should have been studying for tests, but instead I had to worry about this pharmaceutical care plan assignment and this validation report I had to write.
I sorta had an idea of what was expected for the pharmaceutical care plan. I was given a case, and had to explain how I would treat her/modify her treatment. I would read the guidelines and decide to treat her one way, but then after reading something else think that maybe there was a better way of doing it and keep going around in circles! It was driving me crazy! The night after I finished it I even had a dream about the care plan! I was lucky enough to get some advice from a few people at church who are doctors/pharmacists though.
As for the validation report, that frustrated the <insert something here> out of me! None of our notes were of any use, and the lecturer/tutor didn't even teach us how to do it! I tried asking a few pharmacy people but kept getting fobbed off by most, who would responsed with one word answers! I hope I wasn't bothering them, but it sure didn't give me much encouragement to ask people for help again the next time I need it! Fortunately Nadine, a pharmacist in my Sunday school at church came to my rescue and gave me some useful advice! I spent the night before it was due just chucking some stuff down before I was too tired and went to bed. I did a bit more at uni but found out it was due a lot earlier in the day than I first thought, and so just handed it in! It was only worth 2% anyway so good riddens to that!
In the first week back at uni though I had a test on Wednesday and one on Thursday. Wednesday's test was a multiple-choice test, and so I could get away with half-studying for that. When it came to the test though, I went through the test and answered all I could within the first twenty minutes (shows how much I know!). With so much time remaining, I ended up dozing off a little, till the invigilators told us we had 5 minutes left to go! I furiously answered (or guessed) the remaining questions. That is only the second time I've ever dozed off in the middle of the test!
I was a little concerned with the test, as I answered 'All of the Above' for a lot of the questions, and so I tried to avoid that answer for a few of the questions I didn't know, just to balance it out a bit (which is not the way to go!). It turns out a couple of the questions didn't even make sense (I didn't even notice! Shows how much I was paying attention doesn't it?), and so they're going to be removed with the remaining questions being worth more marks. Hopefully those questions were the ones I didn't know!
As for the MEDSCI test on Thursday, it wast terrible, possibly one of the worst tests I've ever sat! The day before, I was cramming as much as I could. I ended up deciding to focus on a few lectures as I had received a tip-off that in the mid-term test we'd get an option on what we wanted to write about. Boy was I wrong. There was a 40 mark question (out of a total 50 marks in the test) which was based on ONE lecture, the ONE lecture I didn't look at in depth! I tried filling in two pages of rubbish! Hopefully I get some marks out of it!
To finish off a hectic week, we had an online quiz test for our MEDSCI lab on Friday, which I pretty much had to guess! Fortunately my lab report mark wasn't too bad and Turnitin didn't accuse me of plagarism! Yay!!
September 10 Most Common Naughtiest Boy's Name?Parenting club Bounty.com has surveyed 3,000 school teachers, and has found out that they expect boys named Callum to most likely be trouble makers in the class! Fortunately boys named Callum are also fourth most likely to be popular in class as well! Here are Top Ten lists: TOP 10 NAUGHTIEST BOYS 1. Callum 2. Connor 3. Jack 4. Daniel 5. Brandon 6. Charlie 7. Kyle 8. Liam 9. Jake 10. Brooklyn TOP 10 NAUGHTIEST GIRLS 1. Chelsea 2. Courtney 3. Chardonnay 4. Aleisha 5. Casey 6. Crystal 7. Jessica 8. Brooke 9. Demi 10. Aisha TOP 10 BRIGHTEST BOYS 1. Alexander 2. Adam 3. Christopher 4. Benjamin 5. Edward 6. Matthew 7. Daniel 8. James 9. Harry 10. William TOP 10 BRIGHTEST GIRLS 1. Elisabeth 2. Charlotte 3. Emma 4. Hannah 5. Rebecca 6. Abigail 7. Grace 8. Alice 9. Anna 10. Sophie TOP 10 MOST POPULAR BOYS IN THE CLASS 1. Jack 2. Daniel 3. Charlie 4. Callum 5. Benjamin 6. Connor 7. Adam 8. Alfie 9. Christopher 10. James TOP 10 MOST POPULAR GIRLS IN THE CLASS 1. Emma 2. Charlotte 3. Hannah 4. Anna 5. Caitlin 6. Chelsea 7. Courtney 8. Holly 9. Brooke 10. Jessica Graeme's 21st!On the 15th of August it was my cousin Graeme's 21st birthday party at his house. When we first got there us three Anderson brothers joined some of the other guys from the family in the garage where they were having a few drinks and corn chips and just caught up with them. Our cousin Martyn was telling us about how he wants to try get in the army next year, or else he'll try study to become a primary school teacher which is pretty cool for him!
It was cool hanging out with the second year pharmacy students though. I also spotted Stephanie and Vanissa, two sisters from my youth group come by!
The Musical Highlight of the Year!One of the highlights of my year, the KBB Schools Music Festival was held a couple weeks ago at Aotea Centre from the 18th to 20th August. Every year I look forward to this event as it is really inspiring (and FREE) watching all these different school music groups perform.
The girls ordered some food while Aonghas and I ate the rice our mum made for lunch. During the whole time we were entertained by some lady singing and shaking some shakers, while one man played an accordion and another played a double bass. It was pretty cool!
August 30 Making up the MonthBecause so much time has past since I last posted, here's just a quick summary of things that have happened since:
- Uni...snore....because I have early mornings everyday and such large gaps between morning and afternoon classes, I've been taking naps in Philson Library! - We've been given 'clickers' to use for one of our pharmacy papers! It's really cool as they put up a multiple choice question on the big screen and we select a letter with our clicker. A graph then shows up displaying how the class answered! It's funny because as soon as the answer is said the bars of the bar graph suddenly readjust, with the correct answer shooting up! We've only used the clickers once so far though. - I've joined the MHSSSO (Medical Health Sciences Students Symphony Orchestra...they thought MHSSSO sounded better than MHSSO!), which is an orchestra one of the third year med students tried to get off the ground. We have rehearsals every Monday night, and I offered to play the viola (since there's usually a shortage of violists and I'd make it in out of need rather than choice!). This means I have to carry my viola around campus every Monday. It's proven to be a good conversation starter, despite everyone thinking it's a violin! I've missed two rehearsals though due to too much work and my over-nighter last night. We've got a performance coming up...next week I think? - We have a dispensing lab for our Pharmacy Practice paper in which we have to practise checking prescriptions and contacting patients and doctors to make sure they're correct, as well as printing out labels, counting pills and labelling the containers. Wow the tutors are so strict on how things are done! We had a practice assessment last week which had nine different stations with different tasks. - 'Jesus Week' took place at uni. I didn't attend any of the events as I was up at Grafton, but a few of my friends attended the Atheists vs Christians debate (apparently the Christians wiped the floor clean!), and I did walk by on Friday afternoon after class. I managed to catch a glimpse of some Asians dancing to some slow Christian song, which was amusing. There was also this 'Prayer Station' and people wearing bibs offering to prayer for people (I think..). Good on them for getting out there and doing something! - Our pharmacy students association (APSA) had an inter-year indoor soccer tournament. Our year which has some pretty die-hard soccer fans/players were hoping to take out the tournament this time round after failing to do so last year. I didn't get to go watch, but apparently we came oh so close to winning the final! Unfortunately the interns won with a controversial goal! - Jireh and Andrew, two guys from our youth group who play for their schools' respective soccer teams finally faced each other! It was Rutherford vs Rangitoto! While I'd tend to remain neutral, being a Rutherford old-boy made me support Andrew slightly more! Unfortunately Rangitoto won by one goal, which was scored in the dying minutes of the game!
- Our youth group...or at least us Anderson brothers, Winston and Nadine, Rebecca and Jireh, along with Fiona and On went to watch GI Joe. That was one action-packed movie! The action stretched all the way from the beginning to the end of the movie! Then again it is an action movie...We then went over to Burger King for dinner afterwards. It's a shame that more of the youth group didn't come!
- We had a night at youth group where we each had to bring a baby photo of ourselves to show! We ended up playing a game of memory where we had to pair up current photos of youth group members with their baby photos. Wow, some people looked so different as babies! It was also the last day Tristan, Jireh's New Caledonian homestay would be coming to youth group!
- Last week I was catching the bus home. I fell asleep, but when I woke up, our bus had pulled up beside another that was parked on the side of the road in Pt Chevalier. There was a man being attended to on the ground, while the front windscreen of the bus was smashed! The passengers of the bus got on our bus, and they were talking about how the man looked slightly intoxicated, walked onto the road and got hit by the bus! They sounded quite shocked and a little traumatised!
- I've been assigned this community pharmacy in Lincoln (out West Auckland) for three whole days during the upcoming holidays. This year we have to spend three full days at a community pharmacy! Nooooo!!!!! And I thought one day was enough! I'm also freaked out about it because I have to actually dispense six scripts and consult a patient or two! I'm not good at that stuff, as I can't remember anything! I really don't want to give the wrong advice and end up looking like a complete fool!
- We had a clinical skills workshop at uni, where we got to learn about/have a go at different tools found in the health workplace to measure different things, like measuring blood pressure, blood glucose levels, and body fat! I was too scared to prick myself so I got someone else to do it. The most interesting device was this steering-wheel-like device that can determine what percentage of your total body weight is fat. I have 8% body fat, which is below normal! I have to put on some fat! There was also this doll lying in a bed which has its own pulse! So cool! I think we play with her a lot more next year...
There is a lot more that has happened but I'll add to this post as I think of more... August 25 Start of Uni = End of SleepWow over a month since I last posted..don't think I've ever gone that long without posting! So here's a post to finally get things going again!
July 20 A Slippery Experience!On Saturday my brothers and I went out with Nadine and Winston to go ice-skating. It was supposed to be a bible class get-together, but it ended up just being an outing with the Tans and the Andersons!
Winston had a bit of a pepsi spill but fortunately it was a near miss! I was then reminded of my water spill on Nadine in Sunday school a few weeks ago!
The End of Another Chapter for my TeethWhat I thought would be the end of the story for my braces ended up only being the end of another chapter! Last Tuesday I went in to Middlemore Hospital to get my braces taken off. The dental nurse had to use something that looked like pliers to take the metal bits off my teeth. There were a couple that were cemented down hard though, and so she had to use some sort of drill thing to loosen them a bit before she pulled them off. I can tell you it hurt quite a bit! She also cleaned my teeth.
It felt so weird without braces! My teeth looked extra long, and when I moved my tongue around my teeth I couldn't find anything sharp jabbing my gums, and the front of my face felt a lot flatter! I was in Heaven!!
After the braces were all off, I had to get some photos and x-rays taken before I was asked to come back the following Thursday instead of later that afternoon. We just spent the rest of the day pointlessly driving around South Auckland (it was supposed to be a family trip!).
That Thursday afternoon the orthodontist at Middlemore Hospital glued this piece of wire along the back of my bottom teeth and gave me a plate to wear. I was to wear it for the whole time till Monday. It was just as well, as they were so uncomfortable and annoying, having to constantly remove them before eating, and then clean them and brush my teeth before putting it back in my mouth!
At least now I don't have to worry about my mouth getting sore, and I look a lot more normal! I'm now more cautious about keeping my teeth clean. I really want to get one of those teeth-whitening kits, but I might just ask the orthodontist first.
Now that my teeth are sorted, it's time to get the eyes fixed!
(I'll have a video of my orthodontic/surgical experience put together sometime soon) |
|||||||||||||
Send a private message
Subscribe to RSS feed
Tell a friend
Add to My MSN
Add to your network
Sign up for alerts
|
|
