Free with purchase . . .

We just had the funniest experience of our week this afternoon.

We bought a couple of work shirts for my husband at Myer (an Australian department store). Being a man and the shirts being standard fit, he didn't try them on, he just picked them up off the rack and bought them.

They were folded and put in the bag and we took them home. I took them out of the shopping bag to hang them up in the cupboard, and didn't notice anything amiss.

However, when I was about to close the cupboard door, I noticed the edge of something that looked round and shiny in the breast pocket of one of the shirts.

I checked the pocket, and found a pair of mens reading glasses, with prescription lenses (long-sighted, by the look of it)! Somebody must have tried the shirt on, put his reading glasses in the pocket out of habit (although God knows why), taken the shirt off, decided not to buy it and then put the shirt back without remembering to take his glasses out again!

My husband recently got a new pair of glasses, and this pair are not particularly fashionable, so I think we'll take them back to the store. ;) (Just kidding - of course we would take them back! Somebody is probably panicking somewhere.) I have called the store to let them know, in case somebody rings them to ask if they have been handed in, but as my husband says, anybody who leaves a pair of glasses in a shirt pocket that they are only trying on is unlikely to know that they left them in a store in the aforementioned piece of apparel. :)

I hope they do return and find their glasses. They need them more than either the store or we do. Who knows how long they have been sitting there in that shirt pocket, waiting to be found and returned home.

Break time!

We are pretty much one quarter of the way through the year and I have decided to take a break from study for a few days, to refresh and relax.

So far, it has been simply devine!

Any Friday off is a Good Friday

However, this one is followed by a Monday off, which I suppose makes it better than all of the others!

Plus, come Tuesday, the best cheap chocolate-buying time of the year begins. ;)

This year, I plan to be eating lots of chocolate bunnies!!! 

Yes, the picture is much, much longer than the blog post.

But look at those bunnies! Don't they just scream, "Take me home and make me yours"?

I feel a personal responsibility to give several of them a good home. They will be very loved. >:D

Fresh is best

 Stupid busy supermarkets - making me save money and be healthier!!

We went to the supermarket today to buy groceries. When we got there, it was PACKED - there were huge queues in every line and it looked like a solid 30-minute wait just to get through the checkout. There were so many people walking around the store that it looked like the lines were only going to get bigger.

Seriously, what is it about long weekends that makes people panic as if armageddon were around the corner and they need to stock up on foodstuffs just in case?

We decided that this was ridiculous, so we went to the butcher directly outside the store (very friendly, helpful and good quality) and bought a variety of meat for about a week.

Then on the way home we picked up just over $50 in fresh vegetables, eggs and milk. I even went crazy and bought sugar snap peas and sun-dried tomatoes. Madness, I say! :D

All up we paid less than we would had we gone to the crowded supermarket (due to lack of processed food and junk food), saved ourselves a tonne of stress, and now have healthier fresh food for the week.

Not bad, all things considered. Now I just have to source some Tim-Tams from the corner store, bread from the local bakery (mmm, fresh bread!) and all will be well with the world. :) 

Aha!

I was wondering why Rang and Dale's Pharmacology was getting so many votes, but today I am using it for some study and have worked out why. It is such a good text for explaining a difficult topic.

Drugs scare me a little, but this book helps it all make sense, so I now see why so many people love it. :)

(BTW, this isn't a sponsored plug or anything - it is just a good book!)

The poll is yielding some interesting results - I am interested to see that Kumar & Clark is getting a LOT more votes than Harrison's, but I suppose that the former is more of a medical student-level text than the latter. 

I am looking forward to seeing how it all pans out in 30 days time. :)

Blech

Studying is just like every other job. Some days you just don't want to have anything to do with it.

Today is one of those days. 

Often I try to harvest the power of fear in order to motivate myself. It seems that I have built up a resistance to this kind of stimulant, so instead I am trying for a different method: interest!

Wow, look at these pathology diagrams - aren't they interesting.

Even more interesting are the drug names, classes, side-effects and interactions.

Memorising the fiddly parts of anatomy makes them possibly the most interesting parts of the lot. (You know - the interesting parts that only seem to have relevance to future microsurgeons.)

But don't forget about EBM and Public Health - they are so interesting they deserve to be in their own course. 

Yes . . . interest . . . 

Hopefully I'll find some clinical correlation and it will all fall into place, going from interesting to being genuinely interesting.

Well done! Now go celebrate!

Today, thousands of hopefuls flocked to examination centres throughout Australia and sat through hours of painful questions in the torturous process that is the GAMSAT exam.

We were all thinking of you today.

Remember, most people walk out of the exam feeling like they have failed. It is MEANT to be hard, in order to separate the candidates from each other. Your marks will be mainly based on where you come in the pack.

Many of us who are now in medical school felt like they failed the exam but ended up with solid scores. A lot of people have to sit it more than once, and then got into great universities. It is character-building, really tough, and you should just be proud that you have given it your best shot.

If it helps, think of it as a rite of passage. Congratulations. :)