![[dr. bob]](/dr-bob-sm.gif)
Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 392 to 416 of 495. Go back in thread:
Posted by alexandra_k on December 31, 2014, at 19:48:03
In reply to Re: wrecked the bar, posted by alexandra_k on December 31, 2014, at 19:18:08
Sigh.
It's not so bad. I know it isn't. I do have some kind of faith...
I've lived with the masses and... I can't function in that kind of environment. I fought to get back to where I am because I didn't do so well back there...
I do have a hard time identifying with the young 'uns who have had their blessed lives, though. the structured exposures... but then... looking through the medical curriculum and seeing the structured exposures to things like... having a baby / handling infants. and so on... i feel grateful. that it isn't 'just get in there and drag yourself up / work it out somehow'. a lot of my childhood felt like that. i guess that is how come i tend towards bitterness / cynicism...
it is coming from fear.
we weight UMAT a lot less than Aussie places do. They sort of need something that is applied to all students. Becuase their med applicants are coming from a diverse range of universities. Some students went to a competitive one and earned A's... Some other students went to a smaller / more rural / less competitive one and earned A's... UMAT scores help distinguish between applicants.
NZ... Doesn't need it so much with our applicants having done the same first year... It is more about... Demonstration of committment, or something. Takes effort to get organised to pay the fee and get to the testing place etc. During the holidays, too. It means that the applications they receive are serious applications. One wouldn't organise that because one thought one would 'have a go'. Or in a moment of whimsy...
The interview... They don't want to hear a rant. Cynacism. Bitterness. Resentment. But if I can put that to one side I probably can say something pro-lottery. I mean... I got the idea from a research paper I read ffs and the main issue was that they thought it wouldn't have public acceptance. Because the public wants to think they have the best. Because (the missing part they haven't told the public) the public doesn't realise that there are around 2x as many people wanting to do it as people would would likely go on to be terrific. We have some arbitrary difference-makers to discriminate... But they reward wealth and heredity... Which makes it more likely our medical doctors will aspire to move to Australia for better pay and 'better' (according to section II assessed culture and values) working conditions.
4 minutes? Maybe I can do it... Perhaps. I think the idea is more to engage with the interviewer rather than ranting at them, anyway. Say a little... See how they respond. Let them coax me into saying things we both agree with. Empathy. Yeah.
I do worry that I can't trust my judgement... But I honestly think... That I honestly mostly can...
I felt... From my Otago interview... That if I erred... It was in the preppy / rich white Australian direction. I thought... They would be wanting that (mostly because of my mates applying to Aussie Medical schools). I got myself a preppy outfit and accessories (that I felt comfortable in - so it would have come across as natural)... Insofar as the interview people were dubious... It would have been because they felt me to be too much in the way of rich white Australian... Becuase I actually can pull it off really rather well (after however many years of working on my PhD)... I was initially suprised and then something clicked with the girl I met who was more... Well... Who was used to working with doctors in nursing homes and was dressed clearly more appropriately for that setting...
And at one point I said about how I had done some work with this street kid outreach thing with xxx and they knew xxx. And they looked rather shocked at that point. That they had me pegged wrong.
And they did.
Because I don't know how to convey that I know I'm comfortable with hospitals because of the amount of time I've spent there. How to convey that mentally ill people are mostly chillaxed with me. That I have good empathy with them... For things... Intuitive... When they want a cigarette... Of course I know it is different when you are in a different role.. Making people do this and that against their will... But generally speaking... The idea of graduated exposures to mental health wards seems funny to me... As would the graduated exposures to ob gyn to a person who was towards the eldest end of a 13 sibling family...
Or the little hyperactive glue sniffers. with severe behavioural dyscontrol. who can't keep their hands to themselves. the little kleptomaniacs... I'm not entirely comfortable... But I do better than most. And I have empathy... And I've seen how most of them can come to attach to a pet... And how the ones who can't... Well... And the gangs... The people in gangs... How most of them attach to pets too... And how some of them are much more honourable than professionals out there who are supposedly on the side of the patients...
Sigh.
I don't know how to convey all that. That blend. That contradiction that doesn't make sense to me half the time.
I choose to believe... I choose to hold onto the idea that they want people like me. That they want people like me to succeed. That it really just is about my science grades. And about me not losing my sh*t / undermining myself this year. Not completely flunking the UMAT (people with 30th percentile scores are being offered places from terrific GPA's). Not ranting during interview.
It will be okay.
Posted by alexandra_k on January 1, 2015, at 18:18:00
In reply to Re: wrecked the bar, posted by alexandra_k on December 31, 2014, at 19:48:03
so...
if i don't get to do medicine... i think i'll do a double degree in law / science. the science part... i'll try and pick up psychology... forensic / neuropsychology... yeah.
Posted by alexandra_k on January 1, 2015, at 18:47:44
In reply to Re: wrecked the bar, posted by alexandra_k on January 1, 2015, at 18:18:00
I remember being absolutely fascinated by the mind...
Perhaps it started out with the whole God thing... With a phase of not really believing - but really, really, really, really, really wanting to believe. With not saying I was a Christian... With not being saved... Because I didn't feel I could be in good conscience. Because I thought that people who were saved / were Christians (really properly in their hearts) didn't smoke and swear and so on. But I wasn't prepared to give those things up. But I couldn't deal with being a hypocrite... And I read the whole bible... And I really really really really really tried to believe... But I couldn't quite...
And then I did get saved. And stuff. And felt bad for being such a hypocrite / such a bad christian. And then the hypocracy I saw in the church with so very many people being really very bad christians in so very many ways (adultery and child abuse and alcohol and...)
And then I didn't want to believe... But I felt so very much guilt. And it was like I still believed with my heart even though I had rejected the whole idea of God with my head.
And I was really interested in that... In the relationship between emotion and belief and action and in how... F*ck*ng slow some of that can be to catch up to alterations in one of those...
Spiritual things used to freak me out, too. Ghosts. Haunted houses. The usual nonsense. Telepathy. Supernatural phenomenon. UFO's. The x-files... I didn't rationally believe, but I was emotionally terrified. And then I wasn't sure whether there might actual be rational reason to believe.
Then things a bit more 'real'. The idea of psychopaths / sociopaths who are only pleasant to the world but who do horrible things hidden away. About whether there could really be people like that. About whether x or y or z might actually be like that... About the idea of multiple personalities... And split brain people who grab this with one hand but push that with the other... All the... 'popular science' cool... Fascinating... Stuff... I was really taken by it... And I needed to sort it out to my own satisfaction.
What did I want? Probably a job that doesn't exist. Thank you TV. Some kind of a psychology person... Some kind of... Genuine knowledge / understanding of what was going on with the mind... Yeah. Yeah...
Something psychoanalytic... A deeper understanding of human psychology... The sort of deeper understanding / insight you see on TV sometimes... In a more psychologically complex novel...
I still do feel the force of that. But the job description... Doesn't really exist. Was the biggest myth of all... Only exists in TV and in novels... In the occasional journal article that people write to immortalise their clients in flattering ways (how much is that worth!!!) And I feel some kind of... Squeemishness... At... Some kind of... Well... Things are starting to blend back to belief in ghosts and UFO's... The unassailable authority ones parents had when one was, like, two years old.
I wonder how many kids out there want to be forensic pathologists or whatever whatever... Because of TV shows with made up jobs... Where people get to do the 'best' / 'funnest' parts of so very many other jobs... Doctor and lawyer and police detective and computer scientist and burglar and so on... Unemployed... With all the free time these people get... Sigh...
My ranting... Could be taken for good lawyering... For reals. I mean... It sounds like some kind of a joke... But it isn't. it is about mounting a case... An insurmountable case a number of reasons that compel the jury or the judge or whatever to agree... I'm good at staying however many steps ahead. At anticipating likely objections... And counter-objections... And counter-counter objections. I'm pretty quick to see that that line of reasoning will be aborted several moves down the track so better leave that line alone... This other line over here is much more promising and after 3 or 4 counters and counter-responses - I win!
And this whole idea of framing... Of framing being crucial. Of how there isn't any objective truth or fact of the matter for the things that are most important... And I do have some understanding of human psychology and the things that people find so very hard to tease apart... E.g., confusing liking with innocence and so on...
I, uh, would make a good lawyer. Yeah.
But I kind of feel... I wish I could employ those skills in advocating for my patients.
But probably the health system doesn't want that. Sigh.
It would be kinda fun to go after big tobacco etc... In theory, I mean. In practice... It would be reading and writing reading and writing so some actor can have their (scripted) day in court.
Yawn.
Parts of Boston Legal were pretty good. The show peaked around season three. One good season. Where Schore (and others) were, in fact, brilliant. Then... What happened? The writers change? The election got close and someone decided to use the show to rant political ideology. Over and over and over. No originality. No brilliance. It never recovered. Them winning cases that were implausible. Them not being able to distinguish the idea of brilliant lawyering from winning. How it isn't about winning or losing... How it is about how you play the game... What you do with the cards you have got...
I was amazed at how... Human things were here. When I had my day in court. Technically... The judge isn't allowed to consider anything that isn't brought before them by the lawyer. Because we don't have an inquisitorial legal system. So if you have a sh*t lawyer who doesn't raise things that are relevant then the judge isn't allowed to consider those things. In my case... The judge used her ability to put 2 and 2 together (which my lawyer lacked) and her summation of my case was... Well... The most charitable thing to say was that it was just a tad synthetic. Which was just as well since my lawyer couldn't manage to raise all of the relevant points that I clearly laid out / gifted to her in writing several weeks in advance of the actual court appearance. I mean... I got her to send me a copy of the Word file she was going to submit and all she really needed to do was 'accept changes' ffs...
Probably she had too many cases...
That is what needs to change... We need to get better at letting people work from home etc. We need to get better at letting people have less people on their workload. We need to get better at assessing the elusive *quality* of care...
Why do we put our faith in psychopathic economists??
Posted by alexandra_k on January 1, 2015, at 19:28:57
In reply to Re: wrecked the bar, posted by alexandra_k on January 1, 2015, at 18:47:44
oh, i'm going to learn about the health system this year. first semester, looks like a course in the economics of health care. second semester, some social psychology (the stuff i used to love...) the stuff i... still do. milgram experiment and so on. stuff on attachment. some of the best parts of psychology. not the simplistic CBT that they teach later... in the graduate school... some of the wonderful ideas...
the economics thing... disturbs me. how the qualitative needs to be made quantitative or it... isn't worth anything. how people in vanuatu (highest quality of life in the world with respect to self rated happiness, ease of access to high quality protein, nuts, fruits, stuff to make houses with beautiful views etc etc) get to be rated as 'most impoverished' since they don't have any money...
how people get shifted from the main waiting room in the ER 'who has been waiting for over 2 hours?' into smaller waiting rooms that aren't called waiting rooms so that whoever whoever gets to say they managed to 'cut waiting room times down'. how people get to redescribe signs / symptoms in order to cut epidemics or create epidemics or... how much work goes into little tricks like that... not verbal tricks, exactly. there seems to me to be something fundamentally morally corrupt...
Posted by alexandra_k on January 4, 2015, at 22:20:20
In reply to Re: wrecked the bar, posted by alexandra_k on January 1, 2015, at 19:28:57
so... i got a phone call from a work and income office... they want me to come in for an appointment since i applied to study full time this year. i pointed out that i don't fall under their regional service coverage area anymore, since i moved into the city... so after some deliberation they want me to see someone from this service coverage area.
i pointed out that my disability doesn't come up for renewal until december... that disability means my obligation to look for work has been lifted... that one of the officers told me that when i asked whether i could study full time...
now they want me to talk to a manager. i guess they are worried about precedent. which, uh, would be understandable... i was expecting some bad news... but i was expecting it back in September when i checked in with them, not now... months later... not once summer school has started already...
anyway... it might just be starting to sink in for them that i might actually possibly get a place in medical school. uh, in which case, uh, i'll need a helping hand for the next 5 years or so... just until the final year stipend starts to kick in... second full-time year of hospital placement...
it is in the back of my mind to see about... reduced time / workload status. but later... down the track. i don't want to be raising it now.
because the biggest stigma there is about disability... both physical and mental... comes from WITHIN the medical profession. there are some cases of doctors with disabilities... what seems common to all is that they acquired their disabilities AFTER they got accepted in to medical school...
where law and engineering etc etc etc have TAS (targeted admissions) for disadvantaged groups the medical admissions people have decided to make everyone send over two hundred nz dollars to australia for the privaledge of learning to think like a rich, white, Australian.
anyway...
just after i decided to do physics for summer school... since having something on my daily schedule is crucial for keeping me doing productive stuff and rescuing me from the lures of computer gaming... they put up a 'simple calculus: how to do it' document. uh, if that is like ALL the calculus required for the course maybe i can pull another B-. If, uh, that is like ALL of the calculus required for the first week then I'm well and truly screwed.
Ah, maths. or aw maths. or something. :(
Posted by alexandra_k on January 4, 2015, at 22:42:01
In reply to Re: uh oh?, posted by alexandra_k on January 4, 2015, at 22:20:20
hmm... i guess it's a stocktake.
the people who wanted to see me... they were the regional office that put through my application for disability in the first place. i started out saying that i did in fact want to study full time. i enrolled in 2 summer school classes (more than full time) and i started out enrolled full time in Bio-Medical science degree, too...
then i cut back to part time... and i was scared that the student loans people would be upset... but that was cool...
so now the work and income people want to see me... so i guess i point out to them that nobody questioned my ability to study full time when they approved disability. i made it clear in my application that i intended to study full time. at the time of application i was working full time on my thesis, even... i was honest about that...
i took a year because of the whole 'general chemistry' thing... so... i think... if i do well... at medicine or law... it'll be okay. they might just be having a cow that i suck at physics :( just wanting to check that i don't intend on sticking with physics until i become a theoretical physicist or something... which i may have threatened at some point, hur... maybe they just feel like arguing with me since i did well in law... maybe they think i'm morally dubious now...
Posted by alexandra_k on January 5, 2015, at 2:42:12
In reply to Re: uh oh?, posted by alexandra_k on January 4, 2015, at 22:42:01
oh, i know what it is. they helped me pay for accommodation and i said i'd pay them back. so now... they are calling me on it.
and i can pay them back... a little bit later. because i spent the money on textbooks, already. and on molecular model kits. i kept most of the receipts... they might be more impressed if i take the pile for demonstration...
when my textbook money comes through (2 weeks before classes start at the earliest) then it will be too late for the textbooks to be particularly useful. i mean... i've got good mileage out of them already and still another couple months to go...
but they can have their money back then. will still be 'early next year' (first third of it) like i said...
if i give the money back to them then, then i wonder if they will help me buy compression gear? i really need more of it...
Posted by alexandra_k on January 5, 2015, at 20:59:00
In reply to Re: uh oh?, posted by alexandra_k on January 5, 2015, at 2:42:12
i didn't spend the money, i realise. it's still there, sitting in my rent account.
i did the right thing, physics for summer school. it will make more sense going through things a second time...
and i've met the lecturers for the course, and i like them well, enough.
and i much prefer to focus on just one class at a time...
and it gives me something to do.
i did a spin class today, and it was good. i might get into a routine of class and then gym class and then homework / working through problems. i feel like i have a much better grip of what we are supposed to be up to, now. following through worked examples so i can replicate them. getting the right answer out of a few homework problems. that's the idea. and just keep up with things as best i can...
i think... i'm going to have to stop posting, hey. i wonder how long it will take for me to vanish into the archives?
?
:(
Posted by alexandra_k on January 7, 2015, at 19:20:29
In reply to Re: uh oh?, posted by alexandra_k on January 5, 2015, at 20:59:00
so things got hard, already. after only 2 days. he went a bit easier on us today... but test next week. summer school is only a few weeks long, really. we do mechanics in like, 6 lectures.
i really didn't follow the calculus stuff that went up before the class started... but in class he did geometric derivations of 5 mechanics equations. i found the geometric derivations much easier to follow. not that i'm confident in my following... but parts made sense, which is more than i could say for the calculus...
anyway... i sort of have a head-ache. get to the point where my head hurts and my brain feels full. went for a big walk yesterday then had trouble sleeping and woke up achy and cranky and tired. a few people looked tired... the heat is pretty bad, too.
apart from the icky humid heat... this time of year is the very best time of year. only graduate students and professors around... and students enrolled in summer school. and, as our lecturer pointed out, we are the smart motivated ones who would rather do summer school than go to the beach. and... we are. people are dispersing... i don't see any clumping. and everyone is smart... and very anxious about being stupid. he said something about how we are smart and we all looked really scared...
get something right and you feel like god, honestly. get something wrong and you feel dumber than a rock. over and over. i think everyone goes through the same thing. everyone is their own worst critic. it makes it hard, though. egos are so very fragile. including my own. anyway... onward ho...
i think i learned how to rearrange for time...
Posted by alexandra_k on January 8, 2015, at 17:21:53
In reply to Re: uh oh?, posted by alexandra_k on January 7, 2015, at 19:20:29
i know why... it is because either you get it, or you don't. either it's obvious, or it's incomprehensible. when you get it you can't imagine how people can possibly miss it. and when you don't get it... and you see how it is so very f*ck*ng obvious to everyone else... you feel really rather stupid, indeed.
like when you grasp the cogito. in it's obviousness. and kant on how suicide can't be rationally willed.
though the obviousness (even the truth) of the latter two come and go...
and people have written rather a lot on how obviousness might not be truth tracking...
Posted by alexandra_k on January 16, 2015, at 23:33:33
In reply to Re: uh oh?, posted by alexandra_k on January 8, 2015, at 17:21:53
I got a B+ for my physics test :)
of course, that was the easiest part of the course... but, still, i got a B+ for a physics test WOO HOO!!!
Posted by ClearSkies on January 17, 2015, at 11:15:49
In reply to Re: uh oh?, posted by alexandra_k on January 16, 2015, at 23:33:33
Woo hoo indeed!
Posted by alexandra_k on January 24, 2015, at 17:24:11
In reply to Re: uh oh?, posted by ClearSkies on January 17, 2015, at 11:15:49
thanks.
i think i'm starting to understand some of the basic math stuff that everything else is built on.
unit conversions... the idea of an inversely proportional relationship... as one increases by a factor the other decreases by one over the factor... which makes it smaller... a decimal... less than one... whereas dividing a number by 1 is just that same number...
and inverse square laws...
and area... and about how half base times height isn't specifically about (half base) times heigher... it is syntactically equivalent to (base times height) divided by 2 (same as times 1/2 or .5) just reading things...
2 pi r... looks odd, too... it isn't (2 times pi) times radius... it is more that it is 2 x the radius (because we really want the diameter) times pi (which is just the number you get when you divide circumference by diameter and hence the number you multiply diameter by in order to get the circumference).
anyway...
i'm also starting to see how having the equation is one thing... but the equations aren't 'in their most general form' (I think that is the problem). so... it is problematic to figure out which equation you need... because you need to know about the constraints or assumptions of the equation. for instance... it might take a mg value... or it might not... you might need to normalize mg by taking the... uh... sin of the angle and use that value in the mg place in the equation...
of course... if you really understand the relationship between the physical quantities... equations are.... easily remembered. or made up. or something. sigh.
i have learned so very much this year.
Posted by alexandra_k on January 24, 2015, at 17:36:32
In reply to Re: uh oh?, posted by alexandra_k on January 24, 2015, at 17:24:11
and yet, strangely, the physics people give us a pull out page of equations (though often not in their most useful form...)
the chemistry people make you remember your equations, but they give you a periodic table (with mass values etc)...
Posted by ClearSkies on January 25, 2015, at 14:56:23
In reply to Re: uh oh?, posted by alexandra_k on January 24, 2015, at 17:36:32
My mind is boggling just reading about it, and I get to relive my high school anxiety. I tried so hard in every subject, but struggled so much in math and chemistry. I loved physics, though, in every way. Biology was way cool.
But it was the kind of school where (I sensed) you were encouraged to excel as much as you could wherever you could.
So, fine art. Theatre. Music, dance. Keeper of memoirs. That's how I went through school.
Posted by alexandra_k on January 25, 2015, at 20:45:18
In reply to Re: uh oh?, posted by ClearSkies on January 25, 2015, at 14:56:23
ah.
drugs and alcohol and inappropriate relations with one of my teachers.
that's how i got through secondary school... and my first year at university, i guess.
Posted by alexandra_k on January 25, 2015, at 20:46:38
In reply to Re: uh oh?, posted by alexandra_k on January 25, 2015, at 20:45:18
of course that strategy also got me into hospital... and nearly got me killed... a number of times... meh... ancient history.
Posted by ClearSkies on January 26, 2015, at 13:15:35
In reply to Re: uh oh?, posted by alexandra_k on January 25, 2015, at 20:46:38
May our ancient history ossify as it should.
Posted by alexandra_k on January 27, 2015, at 20:34:52
In reply to Re: uh oh?, posted by ClearSkies on January 26, 2015, at 13:15:35
tee hee I had to look 'ossify' up... i needed to be reminded of it's general meaning after learning about bony fishes...
i learned i came first in class for law! yay me! so happy! i mean... most of the serious law kids did it the semester before, but who knows, i might have kicked their *ss*s too... i guess we'll never know... unless i do some more law...
feeling happy about physics these days. i'm starting to get a general sense of... the physics curriculum that relies on algebra. starting to feel... comfortable with it. like it is reminders. i mean, not entirely... but parts of it. getting the sense of it being a finite amount of material that seems realistic...
how... in later years you would look back on it with fondness. at its ease and simplicity. like how i look back on (well written) first year philosophy of... well... anything, really. perhaps especially descartes... or religion... or mind...
getting little glimmers of how if i could differentiate i could figure out this and that... or whatever...
i remember a great philosopher... once said that what he aimed for in his talks was a 'rule of thirds'. the idea was that 1/3 of the talk should be comprehensible to a general educated audience. 2/3 of the talk should be comprehensible to philosophy grads / professors. and that last third... was for the specialists. people who worked in his area. philosophy of mind or... perhaps... a more specific aspect of the philosophy of mind.
i liked that.
i'm getting a sense of the physics lectures as being something like that.. where expecting me to master 1/3 is realistic. that middle third is work - but do-able. that last third... parts of it... i'd really need to give a bit more of a crap. to learn how to differentiate etc... and... i won't. so... i won't be getting any kind of an A... which seems completely fair, to me... but i hope to get a good B+... and come out with some good basic understanding of physics. yeah.
and chemical bonds are like springs, yeah. masses on strings... dammit. they bloody well would be haha. seriously, though, i'm liking it. yeah. it is... conceptually really f*ck*ng cool. and hard... but once you get it so freaking simple. rearranging equations is like... doing forwards and backwards flips... i still don't entirely have it... but i'm getting there. for reals. and the soh cah toa thing... i finally get that. i mean... i get why it is helpful. i didn't know what the hell it was supposed to be good for before... and square roots... i'm starting to feel a little happier about those...
we're doing waves now.. then we do maybe sound... but a bunch of stuff with prisms. i still don't get all the stuff with the eye so... looking forward to that... i f*ck*d up most of optics last time round but i don't understand why because i thought i was the boss of those damned drawings...
:(
i get a dyscalculia screening test tomorrow.
Posted by ClearSkies on January 30, 2015, at 12:45:55
In reply to Re: uh oh?, posted by alexandra_k on January 27, 2015, at 20:34:52
Congratulations on the law grade and your general kick *ss status.
Posted by alexandra_k on February 1, 2015, at 15:26:29
In reply to Re: uh oh?, posted by ClearSkies on January 30, 2015, at 12:45:55
thanks, pc :)
it helps to feel that i have some kind of a backup... that should lead to some kind of a job... i mean... law jobs are fairly hard to find these days, but if i do well...
anyway... it means something to have that there, on my transcript. whenever people deal with first year students the first thing they want is your student ID so they can check you out... because there are so very many first year students... and it is fair to say that at least half of them are just pissing about... having a first recorded in anything means something. most especially since i don't have some rich private school recorded as last secondary school attended (which probably has similar effect on how respectful people are to your queries once they've looked you up)... and law is competitive... so... that is very nice indeed. very nice.
i mostly feel relieved, honestly.
clawing my way up... eventually...
i really don't know if medicine will want me :(
but then... they do bitch and moan about how much paper work needs to be done these days... which is part of why they are offering this pathway of people who are good at paper work. heh. it will really matter rather a lot how well i do for organic chemistry... especially the math-sy second half. and the dreaded UMAT. and population health... stats stats stats all these messy measures of... whatever you want to find, really. i think maybe that is the take-home?
Posted by alexandra_k on February 6, 2015, at 21:28:58
In reply to Re: uh oh?, posted by alexandra_k on February 1, 2015, at 15:26:29
i'm having a hard time with physics... the lecturer changed, and i don't like the new one. i... don't think he enjoys his teaching, particularly. and he doesn't really work through problems with us... mostly gives us text blah de blah that we could get from the book... shows us derivations that we won't have to do... doesn't really work examples for us so we can follow the number magic along the way...
anyway... it has killed my motivation. just like how the kinetics lady killed the later part of chemistry. and the thermodynamics guy killed the later part of the last physics class. Partly... i guess the stuff just does get harder later. partly... i think they poop out (even though they are just starting)... i think part of it is just putting the crappy people at the end...
so... i did say that it wasn't so helpful to have been given a big list of exercises all in a clump... instead of 2 or 3 each night... and without worked solutions / numeric answers we couldn't even see which ones of them we could do... and he defended himself (of course he did) and then... after other people hit him up (i guess) he gave out numeric answers... but i, uh, don't want to work for him. have no motivation whatsoever. not after that.
which is bad, huh. i didn't know i was like this... i'm not entirely sure what it is about... it is faintly concerning...
the learning disability people have been terrific to me. i had a dyscalculia screening and i got, like, 97%. so... i don't have dyscalculia... not even a teeny tiny bit. i can go on the same way from the patterns etc... it is just that my number fact knowledge is crap etc.
apparently it is standard (from autistic spectrum dx) to get a examination room of less than 20 people and 10 minutes extra time per hour of exam. she said it would help my UMAT application if there were precedent... so we put in an application... and they have got back to me about the accommodations being approved for my physics exam, already. wow. the extra time will help me with the maths-y bits for chemistry... and population health (where we don't get a calculator and need to do basic statistics) etc. yay. and the UMAT, of course. since half the battle with it is about 1,000 people all cramped into a warehouse... and it takes them over 2 hours to seat everyone before you get close to starting...
physics test on monday... exam in a little over a week after that. then one week and a half until classes start. for reals. wow. this is it. wow.
Posted by alexandra_k on February 12, 2015, at 23:07:13
In reply to Re: uh oh?, posted by alexandra_k on February 6, 2015, at 21:28:58
So I finally registered for the UMAT... And they have done little youtube videos working through the answers for some of the problems! I haven't looked at them, yet. I... Want to try and do them myself, first. I don't know what the quality will be like, etc. But I feel... Excited about it. I have been feeling... Despair... About the UMAT. But the Khan Academy website... No matter how low into despair you feel about physics or chemistry or whatever... You can always watch a little youtube video. Of course you can. And you are getting into your work, before you know it :)
I hunted out a medical journal for this country, too. A few articles on the selection process and stuff... One on people's reflections on their first year (later year pharmacy and medical students). So... I feel like in reading that... I have some quality advice. Reliable. Stuff on the selection process... And I can read between the lines a bit, too. They DID do me a favor in not letting me into Otago. I WOULD have bombed out on their first year curriculum (as I would have bombed out here if I had have done this years work last year...) Most other students do, you see. The ones they let in on the pathway I applied to... The ones without the chemistry / physics background... The main interviewer... One of the paper authors... So... I accept that now. I mean... I would be delusional to think it was written for me... But things feel like they make sense.
Also... Discretion, yeah. For diversity. I think that is a good thing. It is something they... Down-play... I guess because they think the public won't understand. I think... Science communication rah rah we under-estimate the public, sometimes... I think there is still a little of the old school 'we need to believe they are the best of the best of the best!'... And a little of the... Incomprehending (honestly, some of the articles people seem barely literate the standard of writing is appalling!)... Times are changing... Something about... Giving people an out, too. The interview. It helping the community feel involved (interview panel) and it helping give people an out. As... I guess... I guess I took with the last interview. In saying what I did. In giving them the opportunity to give me an out for (it turns out) probably the reason that they did.
This time... Well... I decided I wanted it enough to take the preparatory year... And pay for the UMAT... And purchase the prep books (as 1/2 of the interviewed people who were accepted said they did)... And so on... I really do think... It is going to be okay. Yeah.
:)
Posted by alexandra_k on February 13, 2015, at 16:12:27
In reply to Re: uh oh?, posted by alexandra_k on February 12, 2015, at 23:07:13
Dr-Bob?
Where are you?
Posted by alexandra_k on February 13, 2015, at 16:12:40
In reply to Helloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo, posted by alexandra_k on February 13, 2015, at 16:12:27
Dr-Bob?
Where are you?
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