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 :)

Things on my mind

Haven't gotten all the info together to do that post on my health-related thing yet... mm.... Sensing procrastination... So it'll still be a bit of work in the making. But here are just a couple of things on my mind.

• It's raining. Hard. Rain seems to make everything go slower. I still find it impossible that it transformed a normally-twenty-minute journey-by-car into a two-hour-sit-and-wait-for-traffic-to-move-but-it-never-do... you get the point... 
• There are some really clever learning systems out there. Just had a look at a fellow from the US's blog who is studying medicine and was asking about different ways of learning. One of the guys that commented suggested something called the Leitner System. Check it out if you want a really interesting way to learn stuff (good for science students, not sure about the rest :3 )
• It really ticks me off when other people are just too lazy to care about things that are really dear to them, or if they can't be bothered to expend energy and effort to be considerate. Guys just keep it in mind that you gotta be considerate to everyone else; it reflects badly on you if you're a bit of a slob :P
• Appreciate what you have, whilst you have it. Yesterday, when I went to feed my dog for dinner (it's been pouring where I live), he was nowhere to be seen (shocking, because he always goes spastic when he sees us walk downstairs, let alone feed him). Started getting worried, looked around the house and then ran out in the rain for about 40 minutes looking for him. Needless to say, due to the crazy rain I expected the worst, and it was definitely the longest 40 minutes of my life (running around in the rain too didn't help) but it turns out that he was hiding underneath my brothers desk the whole time, and he was now whimpering and scratching at the door because (we think) he needed to pee. Chances are he just wanted to eat dinner; but the whole emotion of worrying cracked and I just cried uncontrollably. :( So those people who probably know me a little better think I treat my dog badly, but I love him very much nonetheless. 
• And finally, but very very importantly, the iTunes festival is running at the moment! Tomorrow morning at 6.15am (Sydney time), COLDPLAY will kick off their live section of the iTunes festival which should be really exciting :D I am totally waking up to watch this, check out the details here, and then watch it! It should be excellent (Really hoping to hear every teardrop is a waterfall LIVE). AMAZING-UUUUUuu.....

That's it :D