One Heck of a Story - And it Really Happened to me

Fck you life, for just having to punch me in the face one more time before the year ends. (It better stays at ONE more time.)

Yesterday, a friend of mine celebrated her birthday and we went to the Christmas market in the city center. When we arrived at the market, I went to lock my bike to a place about three meters away from where my friends were waiting for me. Out of habit, I put my bag on the basket of my bike and proceeded to fish my keys out. That's when a stranger approached me from the front and started to ask for directions in a somewhat broken German. I talked to him for about fifteen seconds, turned around, and my bag was gone.

It happened so fast.

A too-tired-to-write-properly-post

1. My eating habit is getting worse and worse. For the past couple of weeks, my food consumption consist of way too much pizza and popcorn and cookies and chips. I started several attempts at getting 'healthy' back on my meals plan but unfortunately none of those attempts lasted for more than a day. Gaaaawd, I need to pull myself together, quick! Before it gets too late. :(

2. My scoring at basketball is getting worse. My stamina, too. I partly blame it on my unhealthy nutrition. One more reason to cut it down on the pizza! The game last Sunday was a catastrophe. We lost 51:30 so undeservingly. :(

3. I'm becoming such a busy womaaaan. Da Lab is starting to fill up my everyday schedule, even on the weekends. I still like it as of now, 'coz it means I'm getting things done! Last Wednesday I gave the very first official introduction of my project to the entire lab. I'd like to believe it went well. I'm so fascinated by all the science going on, really. Today I was in Marburg with my professor and my mentor. We spoke to another research team about some sort of collaboration. I don't think I understood everything they said. I'm still so fascinated though. I feel very humbled. Science is fascinating. 

4. I am well aware that my free time is being cut down on. I haven't made any progress on 'How to Win Friends And Influence People'. After that one, I want to read a book written by a superstar amongst the psychologists. Twinnie recommended it to me, so it's a must-read. Kinda sorta. ;)

5. I'm hitting the sack now. So many things I want to do, so little time to get them done. I just feel as if I'm constantly sleep-deprived. At least this way I don't have time to ponder on negative feelings. There are sadly quite some situations where they really are prone to arise. But I'm busy enough to just ignore them nowadays. So I guess I'll keep myself busy for the time being. 

But sleep is something I can't pass on. So, good night!

What do I do With This Urge to go Abroad

I'm not sure if being caught in the hamster's wheel called daily lab work is the cause of this, but the last few days, I've turned quite crazy about going abroad to study and doing internships. Maybe it's also because of my talks with people who have amazing stories of their time spent in foreign countries, like my old school mate Hai, who exchanged to Singapore for a semester and lived in the most breath-taking flat I've ever seen. Hearing his stories made my feet itchy again. Or maybe it's the fact that the plan of interning in a Vietnamese hospital next summer is getting more and more real for me and two other friends of mine. Gosh, I can't wait already.

I can never repeat often enough that, at least during this phase of my life, one year can change so many things. Last year around this time, after the Physikum basically, I didn't think about going abroad to study. I always thought the German educational system, particularly for medical schools, is quite good already; so why bother going somewhere far away to study? Internships, yes, doing them abroad was definitely on my list; but a whole semester? Nope. Not until now. I guess it wouldn't hurt to check out the education in a country like, I don't know, the USA maybe, or Canada, or the UK. And now my goal of a semester spent abroad isn't solely to receive good education anymore, but obviously to see more of the world, too. That should have been in my head since the beginning already. I don't know why it wasn't. Spending months in a country, living there - that's something completely different than visiting it like a tourist for a few days.

The plan now is to apply for ERASMUS next year. I'm favoring Scandinavian countries, not least because I've heard great things about their way of teaching from other German students who've been there. Then I want to do one third of my intern year in the USA. Brr, thinking of that excites me, but the thought of money comes parallel to it, too. Of course I'm gonna apply for some scholarships, and I'm pretty sure I'll get them, but I doubt that will be really enough (especially for the States, when overly ambitious me wants to intern in famous hospitals in expensive cities).

Soooooo. I just have to work my butt off, don't I?

Even though there might be some time conflicts, I really hope all my plans can come true. If not, then hopefully some parts. At least I can be quite sure about Vietnam already.

Gosh. I can't wait.

Food Addictions

Gosh, this Book Bucket Challange on Facebook is totally ruining my hobby priorities. I get reminded of books I wanted to read since ages ago everywhere I look. How am I supposed to live with this urge to read when I actually planned to focus a little more on filmmaking, wanting to complete my very first short film in the near future? I can see it already, I'm gonna ditch my film project very soon. :((

Gosh I hate this. I mean, I have absolutely no control over my creativity surges. When I feel like reading more than filmmaking,  my cinematographic whim will automatically fade away so fast I won't be able to do anything about it. And when there's no whim, there's no creativity. This just sucks! :(

Yeah, yeah, I know, Ebola is spreading in Africa and Ukrainians in the East can't sleep at night over the sounds of gunshots. I'm in no place to complain over such banal things. So, moving on... :(

I have a new food addiction. It's pizza. (Not much of a better topic, is it?)

Anyway, I realized that I tend to have temporary obsessions with many different kinds of edible... stuff. And 'temporary' comprises of the timespan from weeks to months to years. Let me just list them already.

Raaaaandom, Because I Again Had The Urge to Write

Bleh, I'm sick. No more than one week autumn-ish weather and my throat's already swollen.

I partly blame it on the cold rooms in our lab but then again, no one except me seems to run around in long-sleeved shirts and jackets and still freezes like we had temperatures of the coldest Siberian winter. Guess it's my immune system. I have a faint suspicion that everytime I neglect doing sports, I'm like ten times more prone to getting sick. Nowadays the only thing I feel like doing after work is slouching on my couch until bed time...




Yesterday I had a quarrel with my dorm mate. Well, I could also call it a discussion because is has less the 'fighting' character than just arguing and being honest with each other. After the argument, we were actually on better terms than before.

It's been a while since the last time someone slapped the fact that I'm way too dominant in my face. Shit, I've really tried to tone it down alright, but sometimes I just forget to adjust it when I talk to certain people. It's also absolutely not helping that my dorm mate has this way of challenging my patience (or the lack thereof), for example, when he doesn't answer when I ask him something, or when he bluntly says, "No, I don't feel like it," when I asked him if he had time to talk. Like seriously, how much respect does he have for me if 'not feeling like it' is more than reason enough for him to put me off.

Nah, but talking about his faults or justifying my wrongs is not the purpose of this. Basically, I think I have a very justified reason to be all kinds of mad at him, but I'm also thankful he reminded me that I might have let a bad side slip out too much.




Let me just say that I won't ever take shit from anybody. For one, I'm stubborn. Secondly, I can't stand suffering injustice. With that, and my seeming luck to always all of a sudden be perfectly able to express my thoughts in an argument, I'm not the type to shy away from discussions. Adding impatience as a non-virtue to that, I was actually born your typical short-tempered and hot-headed person.

My parents, of course, have realized that soon before anyone else. They brought that to my attention as soon as I was intellectually able to receive criticism of the kind. It took a few painful failures on my part to finally get me accepting the truth, though. But since then, I did try my best and continuously work on that flaw. It's just, like I already said, old habits die hard... Sometimes I forget to tame my temper. Therefore, getting the bitter truth slapped in the face would help from time to time, too.




Yesterday got me thinking a lot. Plus me being sick, plus the cold weather, all that led to my being emo. :P And what happens when I feel emotional? No, I don't cry, silly. I get a surge of motivation for writing. At least five story ideas popped up in my head, counting from yesterday night till this morning.

We'll see how productive I can be in the next couple of days. :)

*ETA: I decided my Blog design was too gloomy. Changed it to something happier.

The Start of Something New

So this week, I've officially started my labwork-semester.

Honestly speaking, my motivation for anything lab-related was sooooo low the past couple of weeks, and that situation lasted even until last Sunday. I don't know, I guess the hospital internship in March and the quite clinical latest semester made me kind of dread a nine-month break from disease study.

With that feeling, I had serious trouble to act like I was happy when showing up to the lab on Monday. My first day did no job in swaying my mood, either. Basically, the only interesting thing I did was preparing a medium bottle for my future cell cultures. Up until now, and today is Thursday, I haven't touched the tissue culture hood again. :( 

But well. By now, I've become more accustomed to lab-life. And luckily, I'm also feeling less unmotivated. I'm looking forward to next week when I'll finally be able to cultivate my own cells. Now I'm still enjoying my immense freedom, hehe. When I do my own experiments, I won't be having so much free time, but still, I like this feeling of being able to plan my whole day without any obligatory, strictly timed attendances for classes or seminars. 

Plus, in the end, this is what I've been needing the whole time. A new environment. It comes with a special challenge this time - in form of my first real work environment. I mean, I've experienced work environments before for sure, but a place where I have to come to daily and over a longer period of time (nine months - not four weeks like my usual hospital internships)... this is a first. Also, being a newbie in an established circle is always a challenge, too. But I consider myself lucky because it seems like everyone in my lab is nice (so far... lol).

So, yeah. I think I can handle this. Nine months being a full-time pseudo-scientist - here I come!

Alert: Travel Bug Infection

I'm having extremeeeeely itchy feet.

It's a mistake to put the least important exam at the end of an exam phase. It's even more of a mistake to put the heaviest one right before it. I finished my Pharmacy exam on Friday, and now I have absolutely no movitation left to study for my last test - Radiology.

Instead of studying, I've been rummaging in my HDD for some pictures and came across old travel pics. And now I'm sitting in front of my computer, thinking why the hell I'm stuck the whole weekend in Gießen, doing nothing but staring at books and Radiology websites. (Well I just kind of pigged out on a barbecue with some Vietnamese neighbors for two hours, but that's beside the point. Not what I meant.)

The Elbe river in Dresden - Sometime around March 2014

I never managed to make a post about my Dresden trip. It only lasted for two days, but it was great. I visited Sophie, one of my best friends from high school, who is also a wonderful host.

The famous Semperoper in Dresden

It's sad how I have seemed to forget way too much about that trip. All I remember are bits and parts flashing as copies of those pictures in my mind, and then three things that obviously made an impact: 

1. Watching the Champions League game between Manchester United and Bayern München in a student pub with Sophie - both of us rooting for ManU
2. Having breakfast with Sophie and her 5kg Nutella jar
3. Eating out for Lunch with Sophie and her boyfriend on the day I left, and the restaurant took so long with the food that I missed my train

And of course I failed to take pictures of all that stuff. :( 

Except for the Nutella, of course. Notice how the Nutella jar is bigger than the 1 liter water kettle?

For the next trips, I definitely have to take more pictures. And after taking them, I have to put them on a platform I frequent more than my HDD. It kinda worked with Paris, and especially my Vietnam trip last year. I'm still relishing the memories everytime I see the pictures.

Anyway, what I really want to say with this entry is: I'm re-infected with the travel bug. Strasbourg is coming up in a few days, but there's still a Radiology exam between now and Strasbourg, and that's pissing me off. 

Even worse, I know what's waiting for me in the coming six months. Lab work. Work that will cuff me to watching over some brain cells and restrict me from seeing the world. Do I need to say more? 

Zero motivation for doing anything routine-ish right now. Stupid, stupid travel bugs. Now's so not the right time to make me sick. :(

I just want to chill, okay?

Quick update on my life

Before my blog dies, I'm taking a few minutes to just update what's going on in my life nowadays.

I'm studying. Exams next week, this time we have 6 of them in 2 weeks and I'm soooo behind. I think this is the first time I indeed feel a little panicked inside... I don't know why I started studying/revising for the exams so late when I really planned to start early at the beginning of the semester. Looking back at the past few months, I don't know where my time went. T_T

Well, for sure, one weekend was well-spent in Paris. I can't complain.

This be the Notre Dame. 

The view from Arc de Triomphe on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées. Beaurrrrifurl :3

And a classic Eiffel Tower picture, too, of course.

My God, Paris is so dreamy. Next to Amsterdam and Hamburg, it has definitely become one of my favorite European cities. ♥.♥

On a completely different note, Germany is so gonna win the World Cup this time! I'm gonna watch the final with some friends in a pub this evening. Can't wait for it. My books just have to accept being abandoned for an evening. 

I gotta get back to studying now. Maybe I'll come back for some ETAs later. :)

The tough decision of sacrificing parts of my life T_T

"Một nghề cho chín còn hơn chín nghề."

That's pretty much the one proverb applying to my life 100% the past few weeks. Not that I'm actually carrying out that wisdom.

Haiz, mình thích nhiều thứ quá, gì cũng muốn biết, gì cũng muốn thử, nhưng rồi cứ ôm cho lắm việc vào ng rồi chả việc nào làm được ra hồn cả. Phải chỉnh đốn lại thôi. :(

Dạo này mình lại thêm cái tật tự nhiên ôm toàn những việc đâu đâu vào người rồi sắp xếp tgian kiểu gì để không còn đủ tgian dành cho thể thao nữa, thành ra vụ đau cột sống lại tăng, vụ cơ thể ỳ chệ lại tăng, vụ ăn nhiều ăn lắm ăn toàn đồ k tốt cho sức khỏe cũng tăng nốt. Huhu chán quá. :((

Mình quyết định đợt tới phải cắt bớt những thứ cắt bớt đc. Ví dụ như hobby đi du lịch, thôi hè năm nay mình gạch luôn. Cũng đáng thôi, tại năm ngoái mình tự thưởng nhiều lắm rồi mà. Buồn tí nhưng mà cũng phải chấp nhận thôi. T_T Chơi đàn, gạch. Chụp ảnh quay phim, gạch. Nấu nướng thử nghiệm, gạch. Mấy cái hobby phải hi sinh không thương tiếc. Thay vào đó mình sẽ dành tgian nhiều hơn cho việc xem đá bóng. I mean, come on, it's the World Cup! Rồi cũng phải dành lại nhiều tgian hơn cho thể thao (bóng rổ). Tgian dành cho phim ảnh và viết lách thì mình vẫn cần, nhất là viết lách ý, giảm cái đấy mình k chịu đc đâu. :( Always this damn urge to express my thoughts, ruins me. :(

Vụ công việc thì nói thật mình chả bỏ cái khỉ gì được cả. Học thi thì vẫn phải học. Thêm cả vụ phải apply cho cái học bổng nữa, huhu mình ghét nhất là phải viết mấy cái motivational letter shit. :(( Thật ra k khó và cũng k quá nhiều, nhưng mà việc thì vẫn có đấy và chúng vẫn cần phải được giải quyết...

Về những gì thuộc về xã giao thì chắc mình phải giảm vụ đi chơi với mấy đứa bạn thân đi thôi. Đành rằng nếu k chơi bời gì thường xuyên thì bạn thân sẽ thành bạn thường rất nhanh, nhưng mà chắc mình phải chịu cái giá đấy quá. Mình k nghĩ ra bỏ bê những thứ gì khác được. Mà cũng chẳng đáng lo lắm (nói thế này hơi phũ), nhưng mình vẫn sẽ có giao tiếp va chạm với những người khác, đâu phải là mình sẽ cuộn tròn mình lại trong mớ công việc và những thú vui riêng đâu. Đi xem đá bóng thể nào mình sẽ chẳng kiếm bạn, đi xem phim cũng vậy. Chơi bóng rổ cũng thế. Còn không trong mục 'social' mình cũng phải tăng mức độ hoạt động của mình trong CLB Sơ Cứu Cấp Cứu nữa, cố gắng làm sao để hết semester tới mình sẽ thành instructor được hành nghề chính thức. Trong CLB cũng sẽ có những mối quan hệ mình có thể thắt chặt được hơn mà, lo gì. Vụ làm tutor hai môn GRIPS và Neuro thì cũng quá vui, nhưng chắc kỳ tới mình phải nghỉ làm tutor Neuro thôi chứ k thì lại thiếu tgian. Eo ơi buồnnnnnnn! :( Dạy các em ý học vui ơi là vui mà. :(

Haiz, tại sao một ngày chỉ có mỗi 24h thôi chứ. Và tại sao con ng mình cái gì cũng muốn ôm lấy thử, thử xong thì kiểu gì cũng thích, thích là cứ mê mệt muốn làm. Rồi cuối cùng kiểu gì mình cũng phải hi sinh cái này hoặc cái kia, rồi lại ngồi đây than vãn là chán. T_T Phương ơi là Phương. T_T

I guess it's always been one of my, more or less, weaknesses. Let me give up on some things this time, let me go through with it and let's see if the proverb at the beginning of this entry really applies to me. (I honestly think it does. But it still breaks my heart. T____T)

Ôi giời ơi entry than vãn là đây. Thôi kêu ca xong rồi mình lại phải quay ra chuẩn bị mấy thứ cho CLB đây...

(Yeah I wish.)

Haaaappy busy me

It's been a while since I've last been here... Nowadays when I don't blog, it usually means that I'm too busy with my life to find any time to sit down and write. Not that I'm lazy. In fact, I've had the urge to blog a billion times wthin the past two weeks or so, but never did I find time to do it. :(

Since the beginning of this semester, I don't think I've ever had a week without plans that I've put several weeks ahed to do. First there was my birthday preperation and the actual celebration itself, which took a lot of organizational efforts but paid out really well. I was happy, yeah I think I really was. (Which is still very weird if I think about it, because this is like the second birthday in a row that I didn't hate that much... and somewhat even enjoyed. What's happening?)

Well, and then came uni stuff like presentations and some early-ass exams. And then I had to prepare a thank-you-dinner for the people who helped me on my birthday. I made summer rolls for 14 people. Do I need to say more? :P Well it wasn't too stressful but I sure didn't have any time for doing-nothing. Plus, Quynh was also there and stayed for the weekend. It was awesome. It's always fun with her. :)

These days I'm also going to the lab from Tuesday to Thursday. Even though I only stay the morning, it does add up some more stuff to my pile of work. It's very very interesting, but I have to read up on so many techniques and study so many more papers. On top of all the reading I already have to do for regular university subjects. Because at the end of this semester, I'm gonna have to take 6 exams in 2 weeks. That's crazy! And beccause I'm such a nerd, of course I don't want to just learn those subjects by doing some old exams but actually want to read books. I still get that satisfying feeling everytime I read something really interesting, this so-called 'aha-moment' especially when I can see a connection between the new information and the knowledge I already have. It's a little bit of an addiction somehow, probably also a huge argument for my decision to take a free semester. I just need that time to concntrate on one thing - either uni or research - because doing either of them will eat up a lot of my time. And I'm gonna enjoy it. If I do both, I guess I'll just feel stressed all the time.

Yeah, so this is my life the past few weeks. I'm happy busy. Maybe I'll be happier if I have more time for writing. Sometimes I'm sitting somewhere, like in the middle of a lab meeting, or in a lecture, and some thoughts I just really wanna jot down somewhere pop up continuously. Then during the rare minutes when I finally have a little time (like now), those thoughts are gone. So typical, lol. 

Maybe the next post will be more interesting. I have to stop now because I have to prepare for my neuro class. I'm a tutor, not a simple participant. Feeling so responsible and all. :P

P/S: I love summer! I love summer fruits! Watermelons for the win!

Recent cinema trips

These days I'm enjoying my freedom immensely. My internship, as awesome as it was, did wear me out quite a bit. Now that it has ended and I have no real obligation anymore, I should be working on reading through that tumor research stuff Nuray sent me. But no, I've become way too lazy to sit down and activate my brain in full concentration for anything. Instead, I'm 'wasting my time' for movies, sports, playing Pokemon (don't judge me) and travelling. The only way I can still my conscience is with the thought that this is probably my last chance to 'relax' before the very stressful next semester starts. 

Within the past week, I've been into three new cinema releases. The first one is The Veronica Mars movie, for which I travelled to Frankfurt and would've gone watching without any company needed, like a true fan. But Saskia was nice enough to accompany me. I pretty much spent the day with her, catching up with the past few weeks we barely heard from each other. But yeah, that day was brilliant just as the movie was awesome. The coherent suspense I have been spoiled with by the series did not disappoint in the movie at all, and all the insider jokes and references made a fan like me just squeal inside. I would have loved to go watch the movie again, too bad that the theatrical release of the movie is so limited. About the storyline, without spoiling too much, let me just say that Rob didn't go easy on Veronica at all, and I feel so sorry for Piz and Gia, but LoVe makes me super happy. When the DVD is out, I'll need to buy it and rewatch the movie at least five more times. Then maybe I'll write a decent review that includes less 'omg omg asuibfaisuhfiuash' hehe. 

The second movie I've watched is Liam Neeson's Non-Stop. It was okay, suspenseful for sure, a quite unpredictable plot-twist included and the visual effects were satisfying for the eyes. Still, there's something about it that stopped me from being awed. Maybe it's Liam's performance, which I find to be a little too exaggerated on the psycho-side to be a respectful Air Marshall, despite the tragic story of his daughter's death and all. 

The third movie which I just watched yesterday, however, set me in a spazzing mode all over again. It was Captain America: The Winter Soilder and it was awesome because:

1. Chris Evans doing everything Captain America 

2. Chris Evans being hot

3. Scarlett Johannson being badass (I don't get why she gets hate, she's pretty and she can act well in my opinion. I love her as the Black Widow.) 

4. Cobie Smulders having more than two minutes screen time and more than no fight scene. Unf, enough said!

5. Favorite of all, Chris Evans being. Just being. (I sound really fanatic...)

The only 'downside' of the entire movie is that I find Chris to be a little too bulky for my taste. T_T He definitely trained hard for the role, but I found him hotter in the last Captain America movie, as well as in The Avengers. Well. That's just a tiny little complain I have hehe. Otherwise I pretty much loved everything. Most of all, I'm starting to really ship the Cap with Natasha. I can't help it, they're both awesome and both extremely good-looking. And they're so different, yet the same in the basic things that there's just naturally a very good chemistry. Anyway, the storyline, despite being predictable in a few things like Fury's death, was pretty convincing. It's just that I'm a little confused now that S.H.I.E.L.D. is taken down, what is going to happen to the series? At the end of the movie, it shows that Fury goes into hiding with his fake death while continuing the investigation on HYDRA, Sharon becomes a CIA agent, Maria joins Stark Corp., Natasha does some investigating on her own past, and Steve goes looking for Bucky together with Falcon. Without the high-ranking functionaries, how is Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. going to last? (Maybe I should just catch up with the series.) Gah, I really love the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Too bad that they don't include Spider-Man and X-Men in the series... 

So yeah, that was my film-freak side. XD I'm on the train to Dresden now to visit Sophie, and I'll let my travel-obsessed side out for the next two days. Maybe there'll be a Dresden post with lots of beautiful pictures soon. But just maybe. ;)

I'm Interning Again

My past two weeks have been very heavy on the medical side and I really can't complain. 

I spent one week in Bad Hersfeld with two uni mates for an obligatory chief-supervised internship, which serves as preparation for the four one-month unsupervised, doc-supporting internships - called Famulatur - we have to absolve in the coming 3 years. I surely learnt a ton after that one week in Bad Hersfeld, but honestly speaking, it felt more like a vacation than anything else. Our hotel stay was paid, our breakfast was paid, our lunch was paid, and we even received evening snack packages. Our working time was completely flexible, and we of course chose comfortable options - coming to work at around nine in the morning, leaving at around three in the evening. That left us with a lot time for chillaxing afternoon and evening activities like sports, going to the cinema, or even having poker nights. ;) 

But yeah, back to the working part of that week. We were assigned to the Chief of Cardio in the Bad Hersfeld Clinic. It was the first time I personally experienced what it is to be a "demigod in white" - a German metaphor for the godly image of doctors. It is true though - I mean you get treated completely differently when you run around in the hospital with your white coat on. Patients greet you nicely, other hospital staff smile at you politely. Whereas without white coat, no one really pays attention to you. We sensed the huge difference just between when we went in and headed to the changing room in normal clothes and when we walked to the chief's office in white coats. It was really, really obvious. lol

Another thing we learnt in Bad Hersfeld that I think is quite valuable is the Chief's advice to us: Always set an opinion on things you see, especially when in the process of learning. It doesn't matter if it's right or wrong - you can only improve with mistakes made. No one was born with the ability to differentiate between the pathological sounds of the heart or lung, that's one thing for sure. Obviously, the few first times we auscultated patients, we had no idea which sound was physiological and which one was pathological, let alone differentiating between the pathological sounds. But the Chief encouraged us to make mistakes, and I can only say that it really helped. People tend to remember more things learnt from mistakes anyway. Now I'm at least already very sure of how normal lungs and a normal heart should sound like, so yay. :P

Yeah, so that's that. After the Bad-Hersfeld-week, I instantly went back home to start my internistic Famulatur in the Helios Clinic in Schkeuditz. Until now it's been only one week but I think it's already quite safe to say that this Famulatur is amazing. ^_^ 

I already absolved two months of nursing internships in that hospital before, one of which was internistic. So I already knew how nice most of the staff working there was, and some of them also remember me (and how nice I am, too :P). Back then, I befriended one young doctor named Marlene and we kind of kept in touch with each other over the years. I will always remember how she showed me so many things back then, and one thing I'll always feel so grateful for is that she explained to me how to draw blood and let me try it on her. Even though I don't feel as crazy about drawing blood anymore and have kinda realized that it's no big deal, I promised to myself that I'll have to be as cool to fresher med students as she was to me. And I'm keeping that promise now - I have let two younger med students who are doing their nursing internship draw my blood already. :P 

Anyway, because I had such great experience with the staff - including doctors - in the internistic department of the Helios Clinic in Schkeuditz before, it wasn't hard for me to choose where to absolve my first Famulatur. And well, as I've already said, my first week there has pretty much lived up to most of my expectations - which were in no way low expectations. 

I have so much freedom. Beside drawing blood every morning, I don't have any other obligations.  Which means that I can always choose what I want to do or see throughout the day, and everyone, really everyone, is nice enough to give thorough answers to pretty much every question I ask. I am also given the opportunity to practice the most basics skills, like - beside drawing blood - doing physical examinations from A to Z, collecting anamnesis data, wising patients up on different diagnostic and therapeutic methods, etc. That's exactly the things I've intended to learn - the basics - because, well, I have yet to learn and thus don't know much about diseases per se. 

A funny thing that comes with the current situation at the hospital (which is also to my advantage, I guess,) is that every Assistenzarzt - the German equivalent to American residents - is a young female doctor. :)) On my first day I had to suppress my amused chuckles at the sight of the one male Chief sitting at one end of the table during the daily morning meeting, surrounded by two female middle-aged attendings and a dozen of young female residents. And a young female intern that is me, too. lol I know of two male attendings during my stay for the nursing internship, but one of them was on leave, and the other didn't show up at the meeting that day. So it was really just the one male Chief, and otherwise a strong oestrogene overdose. XD

The girls there are all so nice, I think for one it's because they are all so young (definitely still in their twenties), and then the clinic is a small one, too. I guess it's true what people always say about small hospitals, that the working atmosphere is less stressful and colleagues tend to help each other out more than trying to outdo and destroy one another and stuff. It also reflects in the way they treat me - a newbie and little still-know-nothing interning med student. And well, because of my enternal weakness for very competent yet still humble and kind people, I am, of course, head over heels in love with all of them. :)) It's funny that I hang out less with Marlene than I spend time with some of the other girls, like Julia who's already taken her internistic consultant exam and tends to over-explain almost every detail to me (which I find super awesome <3, but surely slows down her work a lot :P) or Franzi, who is probably the funniest doctor I've ever met. Meng, cute people are cute!

The only downside of interning is that I have to wake up early - in this case, six in the morning every day. I was so happy to sleep in on a Saturday today, but when I woke up - feeling actually really satisfied - it was only eight. :P Oh and yeah, catching some pathological bacteria or a virus isn't so low a risk, either. Since yesterday evening I've been having a light diarrhea and angina tonsillaris, and I just can't shake off the feeling that it has something to do with the one patient I draw blood from last morning who turned out to have a norovirus. >< Ugh...

But hey, by all means, medicine is my thing, and it's awesome. This statement just reaffirms itself to me over and over again. <3

My 2014 so far...

Time really does fly. We're already half past the second month of 2014 while it felt like just two weeks to me. Well what can I say? Life goes on and it waits for no one.

I finally found a dissertation thesis to work on. My employer will be the director of the neuropathology institute. I'll be researching about brain tumors, isn't that the shit? I don't know about other people but that topic fascinates me so much, I can't believe I really got the job and will start working there in summer. I'm not dreaming about revolutionarily finding a new therapy concept for brain tumors - no, just the thought of "getting involved in the scene", learning more about it and maybe, just a little bit, contributing to some scientific epiphany of my supervisor (who I hope will be the revolutionary one) sounds exciting enough to me. I'm still super motivated even for lab work, so I hope it won't turn out to be as bad as the stories everyone tells to warn me beforehand. 

It's like studying medicine - everybody says it's hard but I'm having so much fun with it that the 'hard' part doesn't even really occur to me. Of course I have my up and downs, but not ever did I regret, not even for a second, that I have made the decision of taking up med school. So if lab work can provide me just as much fun, I believe I won't be discouraged so quickly as people are afraid of. (Even though knowing my patience span, I do have to worry a little bit. But we will see, the answers will come in summer when I really start working.)

Apropos summer, my grandparents are coming to Germany for three months, starting in May and they'll be staying till August. Even if I probably won't see them much, I still can't wait for it. It will be an awesome time for them and my family.

On another quite positive note, I have started and currently am keeping up with a steer of my lifestyle into the healthy department. I'm eating a lot healthier, I pay attention to squeeze in excercising time between school and other life duties, I sleep more, etc. The hardest part is of course planning healthy meals since I'm just a natural food lover, and food includes junk food. But the upside of loving food is also that I love every kind of food, which means I get satisfied with healthy food, too. Having cheat days for junk food makes junk food even better, though the past week I have allowed myself a little too many of them. We'll see how well I can manage the food thing when I'll be home at my mom's for the whole next month... :-s

Well, so that's that. Two of my 2014 resolutions are being handled quite well. But coming to the less exciting stuff... I'm still feeling so stuck with myself. Stuck and caged in my own world. Most of the time I want to be alone now. But then not really. I'm having a phase of not wanting people - or just the few I'm always around lately - around me. It's definitely nothing personal against them, hell no, it's all just me. The other day, I read somewhere that people who moved a lot in the past tend to have deep-rooted commitment issues. I really wonder if that's exactly what is happening to me. 

Having to say goodbye too often, I may have developed it into a habit or worse, an essential part of my life. How long have I stayed in Giessen? This is the third year. How long have I seen the same people, done the same stuff over and over again? Already two years. That's my rhythm exactly. Since I was seven, that is the exact time span I stay at one place before moving to another. And shit do I feel caged now that change isn't happening to me. 

Gosh, this sounds so unfair to the people who befriended me for the past two years. I'm such a jerk. I appreciate all of them, of course, but I can't help but to feel caged. If I had a choice, I would chose to be normal and be content with the things I get. Because damn, all my relationships here are great ones! But no, I have to feel caged, I have to want to break free, I have to destroy it all for no valid reason. I kind of have given up on the idea of having a best friend, something I used to long for, because well, I'm not material for any kind of long-lasting relationship. People call this phenomenon emotional crippledness. 

Some change is going to happen to me soon, though. I have decided to take one semester off for my dissertation. This will shift my studying environment quite a bit. This is the best solution I can come up with, and it comes in handy for other things like having time to apply for scholarships and stuff, too. To solve a problem, either change yourself or influence your surroundings. Changing myself is the only way to solve the roots, but that's so much harder and isn't going to happen anytime soon. Mainly because I just don't know how... 

But hey, the bright side of changing my environment is that having a little distance always betters my relationships. It has applied to every single one of my personal bonds with people. Even with my family. I have always been quite close to my parents, but ever since me living far away, we've had the best relationship ever. 

I also hope that once I feel less stuck, I will turn back into the nice, kind, friendly, helpful, non-judging version of myself. Now I'm mainly just grumpy to people and at the end of the day, when I look at myself, I just think, "man, I acted exactly like the type of person I used to strongly dislike." Yep, that's me the past few weeks.  

Admitting it here and now is the very first step to stopping it. I will try and be less of a jerk, I promise. Because I'm actuall a really nice person, I swear. T_T 

So hey 2014, don't run so fast. I still have to work on a lot of stuff, okay?

A Somewhat Rewind of 2013

The reason for the delay of the 2013 version of my annual year-end review is a trip I took to Budapest. This year, I celebrated New Year's Eve the Hungarian way, which involved a lot of colorful wigs and ear-defeaning trumpets. Definitely something refreshing, but that's a story for another day. 

In hindsight, 2013 could be seen as a very successful year to me. I'm quite satisfied as the resolutions I put up at the beginning of the year have pretty much all been implemented. For the sake of simplicity and succinctness, I will use bullet points to list the most important events. 

• March-ish 2013: my Vietnam trip. This was probably the highlight of my whole year. Loving medicine, I got my 2-week internship at the National Children's Hospital where I learnt a ton and lost another chunk of naivity about "the Vietnamese way of living". Loving adventure, I got my 2 weeks travelling along the coast of Vietnam from Hue southwards, during which I also learnt a ton and lost a (luckily almost empty) backbag to some random robbers. I fell in love with Hanoi and had a happy time forming new bonds with strangers as well as refreshing good old relationships with both family and friends. I will always be able to look back to this time with fondness and a smile on my face. 
• April 29th 2013: a birthday I didn't hate but, on the contrary, somewhat enjoyed. I think something like that only happens once in a decade to me. I still hate being the center of attention on occasions of the kind. 
• May 2013: Mai a.k.a Dr. Fly visiting me in Giessen. One of the most important realizations I made after her trip was that Matrix' Morpheus was right: Some things in this world change, other things don't. Mai is the perfect example for both. Dang, now I miss her. :(
• June-August 2013: the preparation and subsequently exam phase of the Physikum. All I can say is: it wasn't an Abitur fail. At all. I still don't know exactly what the key to my success was, maybe it was both luck and my new studying method, but the important thing is, that success gave me new hope, courage and a hint that I've finally found the right path that leads to effective studying. And, admittedly, it stroked my ego a little bit. :P Damn I forgot how good that feels. 
• August 2013: losing my Vietnamese citizenship and becoming German on paper. I always thought that it wouldn't change a thing, but I was wrong. I said I'd always be Vietnamese at heart, but now that I'm somewhat German too, I can tell that my heart's opening up to "being German". If not, I can't shake off the feeling that I'd be selfish and unfair. That's just great. I mean, it just adds up to the trouble of me not knowing where I belong...
• September 2013: my Ibiza trip with uni friends. One of the many gifts I rewarded myself with after the Physikum. That trip took away a lot of my firsts: first time getting away so far and for so long with friends, first time drinking Sangria (which leads me to the conclusion: nothing beats Tequila), first time riding real motorbikes and speeding up to 100 km/h, first time coming in contact with fire jellys (only one word: ouch). All in all, still a very nice and relaxing trip. 
• October 2013: trip to Amsterdam to visit Thảo. A lot of talking, laughing and bonding happened. A lot of happy for a mere timespan of 3 days I'd say. Also, I kind of have a huge and most likely long-lasting crush on the city. :3
• December 2013: trip to Budapest to visit Ngọc Anh. This one I'm still processing. :P But hey, this trip stole my first NYE's spent abroad!

Well wow, look at that. I remember my struggle to find stuff to write about for the same post in 2012. This year, the whole post almost just wrote itself. So much for succinctness, haha. :) Not to mention that there's quite a lot of stuff I didn't list because they couldn't be described as "events", which not in the least make them any less eventful. 

For example, to stay to true a 2013 resolution, I did get a tutor job at uni and earned some extra money. This partly made it possible for me to finance the numerous trips I took this year. Then, trying to fulfill the resolution of getting more me-time, I picked up basketball which was my holy source of endorphins and hence savior in a lot of stress situations. Also, I finally read a book for fun - my first after 2 years of uni: The Hunger Games trilogy. Writing, music and filmmaking are the three things I didn't get around to yet, but hey, one step at a time. I still consider the me-time resolution implemented. The feeling of having reached the goals you put up for yourself, well damn that's a brilliant feeling. I love 2013 for that. 

The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that as much as 2013 was my year of "action" so to speak, 2014 will very likely be a year of character development. It's like writing a book. Actually, it is exactly that in a sense, because I'm writing my own life story, aren't I? While character development always more or less happens parallel to story progression, at some point, the writer needs to slow down and focus more on what's happening on the inside of the character than what happens in his/her surroundings. I have a gut feeling 2014 will focus on what's inside of me. 

Why? Because my predicted character development isn't just a hunch, it's a real thing that has already started. Towards the end of 2013, I had my first personality crisis since a very, very long time. The dimension of "crisis" hasn't happened often. I got hurt and hurt people. A lot. Currently I'm still stuck, though not in crisis mode. 2014 will be a busy year for me to figure myself out. 

Sometimes I really hate my complicated self. I'm tiring even for me at times, how are other people supposed to live with it? I'm definitely not someone easy to be with. Yet apart from family, there's always one person who always comes to my mind, the only one who has enough patience to put up with my shit: Quynh. While I put all my relationships in jeopardy the past couple weeks, worsening the bonds I shared with people I care about a lot, including family, even if I didn't mean to and didn't know how to stop it, my friendship with Quynh remained without a change. I think the first day I visited her in Mannheim was actually victim of my emotional crippledness, but then she won the fight I couldn't win with her unearthly patience and simplicity. I don't know if she knows she kind of saved our friendship, and somewhat pulled me out of the bottomless pond of misery I was drowning in. I can't describe how much appreciation I've felt for this girl who's becoming more and more "family" to my entire family when she left after Christmas. 

Anyway, I don't want to get into too much detail of that troubleling stuff. This post serves a different purpose. I shall get to my 2014 resolutions now:

• Finding and starting to work on a dissertation thesis. I will get my doctor title! Shall! Must! Will! Preferably together with my medical degree or sooner, just don't be later. 
• Geting back on track with basketball to the point of at least knowing all the rules. 
• Maintaining the hobby-work relation I've established last year, but paying more attention to do-nothing time too. It has proven its importance since the beginning of this semester after I underestimated it when creating my weekly schedule T_T
• Gaining better control of unhealthy eating habits (before it was chocolate, now it is popcorn). 

This already sounds so much less exciting than last year, except for the first point, haha. :) Whatever, I will try my best nonetheless, because in 12 months I want to sit somewhere and be as content about those months as I am now about 2013. :)

I'm ready for the next challenges, so bring it on, 2014.