Week 38 - Finishing & Indianing

Thursday #39 – I managed to start this Thursday with a bit of a sleep in after scoring the morning off my placement.  There was some debate over whether my cruisy 12 days up the coast counted as a placement; with M-Dizzle pointing out I was really only doing half of the 20 day placements everyone else was doing.  Pfft 12 days, 20 days; potayto, potarto.

I was relieved to have a phonecall from DTM who was finally booking our accommodation for this weekend.  An eternal backpacker, he was much more relaxed about heading to The Gold Coast with no accommodation on the weekend of a big marathon up there and the start of the school holidays than I was.  I remain blissfully unaware of what exactly he has booked and am crossing my fingers I don’t end up in some crappy hostel.

I managed to get in a much needed Simon Baker fix and finally got up to date in The Mentalist – mostly so I can say I’ve been using this ipad I’ve had on loan from DTM for the past 4 months when I really couldn’t care less about it.  It is very difficult to convince the man who sold his ipad 2 to buy an ipad 3 and then bought another ipad 3 because he couldn’t wait a week for me and the first one to arrive in Barbados; that I have no need or want for an ipad.

I headed off in the afternoon to finish off my placement once and for all.  A super blinky 3 year old boy stole my heart with his cute blonde hair and poor articulation, and is officially, The Whitest Tyrone Ever.  He came in with his 5 year old sister who was also pretty cute but didn’t have a badass gangster name like The Whitest Tyrone Ever did.  My last patient was a 9 year old kid whose eye exam involved lying on the ground and raising his arms and legs as we pointed to them…it was like having a real live human puppet…except he kinda sucked at it.  All finished at 7pm, I said my thank yous and goodbyes and headed back to The Farge’s where he was cooking up a gourmet Indian feast for me, complete with horrendous Indian music and incense.  The Souths Fan was rather jealous when she got home and remarked that The Farge hadn’t cooked for her in years.

After din dins we settled in for a night of TV with Hamish & Andy, Grey’s Anatomy and the always quality Desperate Housewives.  An interesting Thursday as I finally got to see The Behavioural Optom actually doing some behavioural optometry and I finished up my 4 weeks on The Central Coast.

Week 37 - Welcoming & Homing

Thursday #38 – another early start this Thursday as DTM flew in just after 6am.  Being up the coast on my placement, I thankfully had a pretty good excuse to not trek out to the airport at such an early hour, but I did make the effort to wake up and send a welcome home text – it really was the least I could do.  After chatting to DTM for a little while, I planned to get in another hour of sleep but struggled with all the excitement.

When I finally headed off to my placement I was crossing my fingers for an early mark after seeing on Wednesday that there weren’t too many appointments that day.  I was in luck and finished by 1 after about 4 patients, so headed to the car to down a cheeky DC, eat my sandwich and head off on my drive south.  DTM phoned whilst he was stocking up on mushrooms in woolies and I was chowing down on ham and cheese and it was super bizarre to be chatting to him like that.  After a quick call to The Weather Girl I was ready to set off on my drive home.

I finally made it back to The ‘Bra after detouring via The Weather Girl’s place to pick up some clothes and then headed off again to The BH&G Fan’s house to drop off some washing and frankly to have an excuse to conveniently be in DTM’s hood.  Washing done I made my way to DTM’s digs to say hi (and obviously to check for any potential souvenirs he may have bought me).  He impressed me with how quickly he had turned a tidy room into a disaster zone and I caught up quickly with The Cabbie.  The 3 of us then headed off to pick up The Drunk Bro and The Fiancée and to drop them at the airport for their week in Ibiza, while trying to assure DTM that it wasn’t personal his family decided to leave the country on the same day he got home.  Family airport trip done, we headed back to DTM’s with The Cabbie shouting me some Pad Thai for dinner on the way.

After dinner I headed back to The BH&G Fan’s place to finish my washing and catch up with The Marge and the rest of the gang.  No free movies and no Oporto but with DTM back in town my Thursdays are once again starting to resemble last year’s and I really can’t complain about that.

Week 36 - Placementing & Words-with-friendsing

Thursday #37 – I was woken up early this Thursday by DTM enquiring about developments in the love life of Legs 11.  After about 10 minutes of back and forth messaging about absolute rubbish, I was feeling wide awake at 5.15 when he told me he had to go and for me to get back to sleep.  I was not particularly impressed as I would’ve rathered he just not wake me in the first place but before I knew it I was sound asleep.   I was less than excited to then be woken again at 6.07 with a message from the same person who had just told me to go back to sleep.  I let it slide because the message was pointing out how soon he would be returning home.

With the morning off from my optometry placement, I spent most of my time in bed before getting up and again having to deal with The Dog and his stupid ball.  I was quite relieved to head off to the optom in the afternoon and sit in on a few patients, occasionally being asked to step in and do some simple things.  After about 5 hours it was home time and I got back to find out The Souths Fan had won tickets that night to see Daryl Braithwaite.  M-Dizzle and I have been talking about seeing him in concert for ages so it was disappointing to find out how close he was and that we wouldn’t be there singing along to The Horses.

Instead I stayed in with The Farge, playing words with friends from across the lounge room.  Normal people might have just gotten out an actual scrabble board but that’s not how we roll.  I smashed him in both games, pausing briefly to take in Hamish and Andy’s Euro Gap Year.  It wasn’t an overly thrilling Thursday but I know next week will be a big one!

Week 35 - Assignmenting & Playing Ball

Thursday #36 – it was a welcome relief to wake up this Thursday and know I didn’t have to go to uni and the dreaded clinic.  Having driven a couple of hours north on Monday for my 4 week placement, I’d managed to score a day off already so spent this Thursday chilling at The Farge’s place at the central coast.

With The Farge and The Souths Fan heading to court, I was left to entertain The Dog.  After being disappointed that he wouldn’t play with me on Monday night, I was paying for it now as I tried to do an assignment while being barked at for not kicking the damn ball to him.  The assignment took a lot longer than expected, not helped by The Dog and then the return of The Farge and The Souths Fan who seem to like talking at the TV instead of just watching it.

When I finally finished it and emailed it to The Saffa Optom, I headed back out of my room to continue kicking the ball at The Dog and wondering if he would ever get sick of it.  Apparently not.  After dinner we watched A Few Best Men which DTM had recommended I watch after he saw an advanced screening about 9 months ago.  I did end up seeing it on a plane on the way home from NYC but figured it couldn’t hurt to watch it again on a screen that was bigger than my face.

Not an overly exciting Thursday but a step up from last week.  The count-down is officially on for DTM’s return, appropriately taking place on a Thursday.

Week 34 - Losing The Plot & Late-Nighting

Thursday #35 – the day started with a bus trip into the city with The BH&G Fan and was pretty much downhill from there.  I got myself back to the eastern suburbs, changed for clinic and headed into uni early for a group meeting with The A Team.  The Italian and I have been paired up with The Quiet One and Short Skirt Short Jacket for more activities than we would wish on anyone.  We were stuck with them in Melbourne and now we were stuck with them for a business assignment.

We very briefly went over our speeches for the next day’s presentation – The Italian was yet to write hers, The Quiet One spoke so softly we still don’t know what her section was on and Short Skirt Short Jacket drove us mental with her stupid accent and weird shampoo analogies.  All in all a good group meeting.

Meeting done it was time for clinic.  With a certain number of skills to be performed each rotation, I knew the pressure was on this clinic as I had 3 DFEs, 3 Goldmann IOPs and 3 gonios to perform – a challenge given the max number of patients I could have was 2.  When I realised my supervisor was The Bitchiest Straight Guy We Know I was suddenly terrified and convinced myself I was going to fail before I even got my patient, totally psyching myself out.  As one of the supervisors for our research project, The Bitchiest Straight Guy We Know had written comments on our literature review such as “wow, could you possibly squeeze any more unreferenced statements into one sentence”, so I was a little nervous about having him supervise me in clinic – especially given my inconsistency with tears and As on the cards at any given time.

I was right to be nervous, somehow I managed to spend 2.5 hours with my patient and didn’t even dilate her; a massive achievement given we’re meant to be able to finish a full dilated consult within 1.5 hours.  I spoke to M-Dizzle before my debrief with my supervisor and already the tears were starting to come on.  She tried to calm me down but we both knew it was not going to go well once The Bitchiest Straight Guy We Know came to tell me what he thought.  In an eery premonition, I failed that patient.  No shock there.  Once again I had a mini breakdown and had to try and assure him that there was nothing else going on in my life I just genuinely was losing the plot in clinic and there was nothing else wrong that he needed to know about.  It was awkward for everyone involved and I think we were both relieved when The Greek Jesus came to interrupt and The Bitchiest Straight Guy We Know had to leave.

When I got home, I wanted nothing more than to get stuck into some wine or ciders then just go to bed and pretend the day had never happened.  Unfortunately for me, a lifetime of procrastinating meant I had a 2000 word case report to write which was due the next day.  M-Dizzle was equally unprepared and we both set ourselves up for a long night writing our reports while also finishing off our lit review (affectionately nicknamed our shit review) and preparing for the next day’s business presentations.  I came downstairs a few times for a break and was comforted to know I was doing better than M-Dizzle.  I finally finished my case report, shit review and speech at 4.30am and headed to bed, leaving M-Dizzle still typing away on the couch.  Little did I know I would find her in the exact same position the next morning, having not been to bed at all.

A rubbish Thursday from start to finish, I’m certainly glad semester one is over and done with, but would be more comforted if I hadn’t failed clinic and there wasn’t the possibility of me screwing up my final year of uni.  Oh well, it’s done now.  It goes without saying next Thursday has to be better than this one.