This week has been a rather interesting week. It started off rather busy as the previous resident and registrar in my ward (Geriatric Rehab) were replaced by another pair of doctors.

Goodbye Adam and James. Adam is a pretty cool doc, really friendly dude, he was from penang too. And James, who is cynical like Dr House, but very funny. And hello Alice and Leyla, our new supervising docs.

As I said, Monday was pretty busy as the docs got me to do discharge summaries for the patients about to leave. Ward rounds took longer than usual as the new docs were familiarizing themselves with the patients. The patients at my ward are old timers, and some have interesting stories to tell. One elderly gentleman, Frank, is a veteran who fought in WW2 against the Japanese stationed on Borneo.

Tuesday was pretty interesting. I went to Dandenong town, and basically explored the area. I walked into one of the shops and guess what I found?

A dumbell.

Just what I needed to keep in shape! And at 11 dollars, it was a bargain :)

I realised I had to present my patient's case to the other final year students later in the afternoon, so I hopped onto a bus labeled "Station", assuming it will take me back to Dandenong station, where I can take another bus to the hospital. That was smart of me...

Instead, I ended up stranded on a bus sign in the middle of nowhere. It was 1pm and the Aussie summer sun was scorching hot. The next bus arrival was half an hour away. There was no shade around, and all I had was a useless dumbell I had just purchased. There seemed to be no one around, so I took off my shirt and tie (as the heat was unbearable) and started doing exercises with the dumbell (because I had nothing else to do). Anyone passing by would have noticed a strange shirtless Asian dude lifting weights on the roadside! But I wasn't that self conscious to bother. The endorphins from the exercise made the wait more bearable plus I got a nice tan (unintentionally).

I arrived at Dandenong hospital just in the nick of time as the case presentations were just beginning. I screwed up my presentation a little as I told everyone my patient had hypokalemia, even though his potassium level on my powerpoint slide was normal. How can I ever be a good doctor next year if I can screw up something so basic! Well don't ask me...

I was free today so I woke up late and headed down to the suburb of Oakleigh to buy some groceries. I bumped into an old friend of mine, Melissa, on the train! I hopped off at Oakleigh station and walked around town. Oakleigh is a town with many immigrants from the Mediterranean. There are many Greek coffee houses and butchers in this quaint town. It hasn't really changed much since I last left Melbourne 4 years ago. I bought blackcurrants (awesome stuff), king prawns (pricey stuff, 32 AUD a kilo), 3 boxes of bacon (only 2 dollars!) and some Greek pastries (baklava, eclairs etc.)

Tomorrow's gonna be another long day. I'll be having law tutorials on campus. Yawn. Law.

And my brother Fred is flying down to Melbourne tomorrow! Can't wait to show him around the city.

I'm beginning to love my new iPhone. Yeah, I'm hard to please when it comes to gadgets. But I'm glad it hasn't disappointed me yet. I had it jailbroken within the hour I had it and now it has all the apps and games I would ever want. Hundreds of dollars worth of medical applications and games (actually worth more than the phone's price) for FREE...shhhh :P Amazing little gadget!