A Whole Bunch of Stuff

Here it is Friday and I haven’t written about last weekend yet! Time flies when you’re a working stiff. I suppose this means that I’m busy, which I am, but it is taking some getting used to.

MORE DRIVING
The driving is coming along nicely. I’m using the rear-view mirror more and more. I have found one new challenge. Because we drive on the left, the slow lane is the left one and the right is generally used for passing. Makes good sense. Except there is, of course, an exception. On streets with tram lines, for example, my street and seemingly every other street in Melbourne—I guess the reason it has a reputation for good public transport- the tram line is laid near the centreline, on either side. So, if you want to pass a tram, you must do so on the left. Of course, you want to avoid doing this when the tram is stopped to discharge passengers, something I realized a bit belatedly yesterday when I almost took out a senior citizen. Oopsie.

Meanwhile, I’ve named my little blue car. I’ve decided that for the first time in my 21 years of driving, I have a male vehicle. It’s a little rough around the edges, so I thought it appro. In honour of Beyonce’s recent nuptials, my little Mazda (pronounced Ma (as in map) z-da is herby known as May-Z! It’s ghetto fabulous, so perfect for the Balaclava area!

MORE WORKING
Work, as I said, has been going well. I like my boss Deb and I am excited about all there is to do for this program. In addition to returning to the Peninsula campus on Monday, we had a field trip on Wednesday that was a lot of fun. Deb is one of the Profs for the Graduate Certificate in Medical and Health Sciences Education. She’s teaching a class on simulations so we had a day of show and tell of a variety of simulation situations available for medical education. We started at the St. Vincent Hospital Simulation Centre, where they have what’s called a high-fidelity simulator. This is an expensive patient whom they call Vince, who is hooked up to a variety of computers. The facilitators run a program for students, for example, a trauma, and Vince reacts the way a patient would. For example, if Vince doesn’t have enough Oxygen, the students must either provide it—actual oxygen- or his stats will fall. It’s really cool, and I don’t even know the medical stuff.

We did a simulation with the students and I got to play the distressed wife. Finally, the hours I’ve devoted to ER and Grey’s come in handy! After that, we went to the impressive and quite British sounding Australia Royal College of Surgeons, where they have a number of computer simulations where student surgeons can practice things like a colonoscopy, using virtual reality. After lunch, we had a session on using Simulation Patients and I helped Deb lead the discussion. I also did a demonstration of one of my favourite cases from CU, so it was fun to revisit that character.

MORE SOCIALIZING
Last weekend, the first actual “weekend” I’ve had in years, where I had really earned my 2 day break, I was quite social. Friday night I went to my “friend” Maria’s house for Shabbat dinner. Adi couldn’t join us because he had to do the finishing touches on his festival but I was okay solo. I met Maria a few weeks ago at the picnic…she’s married to a cousin of Adi’s friend Nat…so Adi doesn’t really know her at all. So since she’s outside the “Central Perk” group of Friends, I consider her MY friend. We became facebook friends and a few weeks ago, in what might be unprecedented facebook history, took it off the virtual page and into a café.

Dinner was lots of fun. In addition to me there was also a couple she and her husband Jeremy met when taking conversion classes (you may have noticed Maria doesn’t usually equal Shabbat dinner). They all belong to the huge reform shul here so it was nice to be discussing things like the orange on the Seder plate without fear of stoning!

On Saturday, I went to Adi’s festival with Nat, Toby and Alon. The layout of the festival looked great and everything was running smoothly. That was Adi’s department. As far as the crowds…well, there weren’t any. The marketing of the festival was sorely lacking, which Adi knew going into it, so unfortunately, the 8000 + concert goers expected were more like 2500. But Adi’s part was good. Also, had the stages had acts like Phish or the Indigo Girls or Bela Fleck or Billy Joel it would have been preferable to the electronica noise (sorry Shannon). The so-called headliner was Tommy Lee who apparently DJ’s now. Adi walked passed him and apparently, he hasn’t aged very well. Surprise surprise.

WORKING OUT
In an effort to avoid resembling Tommy Lee in the future, I’ve joined the on-campus gym. It’s a great facility and is less expensive than other gyms, though still spendy. They take it out of my pay check though so I don’t notice. I’ve already been a couple of times and hope to get into a routine. Had a bit of a scare the first day. I stepped onto the elliptical trainer and began pedalling. I entered my program and time and then my weight. After doing this it said re-enter weight. So I punched it in again. It started flashing “TOOHEAVY SEE TRAINER”.

Now, we all know I’m a curvy girl and I haven’t’ been working out lately. But still. I didn’t think I’d gotten so huge that the machine was in danger when I stepped upon it. After my heart sank to my stomach as I thought about the dang tim tams I’d been eating I realized they want my weight in KILOS!! That made me feel much better!

Another long entry to busy yourselves with this weekend. A quick shout-out Mazel Tov to Sara on the birth of Lindsay and to Stacey on her engagement.

I’ll write again before Pesach. Til then…xxx