And that's round 2 completed!

Hey world (even though small world),

Interesting day today, had my interview for melbourne MD. Hopefully it all goes well, I thought I managed the MMI much better then I did the sydney one, and improved on all the errors that I found with my sydney MMI. At the moment my mindset still seems to be much the same as that of sydney's MMI, although I'm feeling pretty good that I corrected all those errors. There was one particular station which did me in (the debrief station), and I'm absolutely SURE that I'll get a fail for that station x( but the rest was rather okay and I enjoyed the interview.

Hopefully everything adds up in my favour, I would love to go and study medicine down there. Having looked around the city though, I have to say that some of it does seem pretty bland, although it was rated the worlds most live-able city. ... .... *deep in thought as to how this is possible*.....

Anyway, that's one hurdle over - so now I focus onto the next hurdle - to get really great uni marks :)!

Help is never far away :D

You know that super cliche phrase, "If you look for help you might just find it?"

I'm loving the people that create blogs to help people like me. So far for interview prepping, there have been a lot of people out that have blogs going through the preparation questions for interviews and how to approach the MMI. I'm adopting a lot of this and hopefully it'll all pay off by the end of the year.

On a darker side of life, Fed got ousted by Djokovic in 5 sets. I woke up at 2am to watch the game; from the way that Fed played in the first two sets, I would've thought he was unstoppable for the rest of the match. I have to admit that Djokovic is far from liked in my world, I just don't see how he's a good player (compared to the rest) but he is winning.. :(

Having said that, this year Fed made the semis, finals, quarters, and semis. Not a bad result, but I'm still hopeful of a couple more slams next year.

Anyway, back to interview prepping. Uni starts next week so this blog might disappear for a while. D:

Hats, time-fillers and rain.

How does one go about spending time before an interview? At the moment I'm on midsemester break and following the US open (tennis) quite closely. I'm rooting for another grand slam for the great one, making that 17 total and 6 at the US open. That would be amazing. Something else I find quite odd is the rain. Recently in Australia we've been fortunate to have a glimpse into the spring weather coinciding with the start of spring. But today has proven to be one of the most miserable days; rainy and very very cold :( The reason why insert this rather odd digression here is that the US open has been marred by a number of factors; firstly, pre-US-open was that visitor Irene, and the tail end of the competition has had the apple forecast for straight thunderstorms from weds-sunday. Having said this the quality of tennis has been really great and they've done a good job with the otherwise tiresome rain. I can't believe that the US open is also the last place that doesn't have a roof over the stadium. Then again, it is a massive stadium....

But in between the US open, I've been practicing for the interview and just taking a break from uni work in general. I've done some stuff for my embryology project (DiGeorge syndrome)  which is a pretty interesting piece of work. And getting obsessed with my kindle - AMAZING device. To be honest, the kindle has really re-ignited (:D) my love for reading. I'm going through some ethics book for the interview at the moment but am also chewing through some other books.

Finally, just something short on methods of thinking. I'm always looking for a way to make my study more effective, and over the course of time (and earlier in the life of this rather haphazard blog) I've mentioned things like the Leitner system and self-reflection. But an interesting fellow known as Edward De Bono proposed a method of the six thinking hats. It's ben a really interesting read and I'm looking to see more people implement this method. Have a bit of a read and let me know what you end up thinking :)

Fortunate

Given the fact that I've finished my only mid-semester exam (YES!), I figure there's no reason for me to continue putting blog entries off. Recently I received an offer for an interview at UoMelb, which is interesting for a number of reasons. For the people that know me, we have a particular friend who went to study undergrad down there who I always made fun of going to melbourne, so the fact that I may potentially end up there too (after letting her never hear the end of it) is pretty ironic. But UoMelb also vaulted to our top university in Australia (60th in the world), and the city of melbourne also got rated as the worlds most "live-able" city (over Vancouver in Canada)

Having said that, I don't want to take it for granted that I'll get in. I'm trying to keep an open mind about things, but I really don't want to be doing an honors year next year... (maybe I'll change my mind later if I don't get in :( ). I guess I feel a couple of things, as I trawl through forums trying to find out what the interview will be like, how people manage stress, how to take not getting in (if I don't get in), how to take getting in (and go to different cities).......

What I meant to say was that, of course I'm grateful for the opportunity that has presented itself - many people who have worked much harder and have impressive CVs weren't fortunate enough to get interviews, and this upsets me that people who work so hard get looked over :( I guess med is just that kind of field with endless competition; even once you get in, there's more, to always be the best that you can be.

Grateful for the opportunity, kind of overwhelmed, not quite yet overworked. That's how I feel. :) Should I get into the course, you'll hear a howler about how I'll feel then. :)