Thursday, November 30, 2006

adventures continue

After shooting up with caffine, Jeff and I were ready to hit the road. We had interesting conversation on the road, talking about everything from Coon hunting to politics...
Once in houston, we went on an exploration around the Intercontinential airport to find the United Airlines ticketing counter.

The woman at the counter refused to help and said that I needed to book the ticket on the phone, again. eek! Not the automated service all over again! Jeff took the inititive and assertively demanded that they assist me. It wasn't long after this that the moment finally arrived. Everything fell into place and I had my ticket from Memphis to Sanfransico! I could hardly believe it and had to have Jeff confirm that all the details on the ticket were correct. Finally, I'm going to Memphis Tennesse, home of Elvis Presley!

Then... lunch, great food, great service, you know- the usual Texan goodness :)

We went to a market, where we found some of the essentials (eg. lemongrass) in order for me to cook for the Abt family. Mmmmm, generic asian food. This is the conversation that Jeff had with Abbey
A: Thida's goin to cook Thai for us
J: I thought Thida was Cambodian?
A: She is but... you know how "all Asian's look the same"? Well, it's the same with their food. lol

Abbey was kidding! (Just in case you all couldn't tell)

I am going to interject into my story now because I should probably explain why I'm going to Memphis.

Back in July of this year, I went to an International Christian Medical & Dental Assoication ( ICMDA) conference in Sydney. This is where I met a Sydney Dent student (Jesse). After the conference, we stayed in touch and became pretty good friends. Jesse is orginally from Tennesse and his parents still live there. AND to make things even more interesting his mother is a Pediatric anesthesiologist! With my free ticket, Abbey adamantly refused to let me go anywhere in the states without knowing people at the destination or having someone go with me on my trip. This seemed really limiting at the time, but then Jesse came to the rescue and suggested I go stay with his parents.

I get to shadow a brilliant doctor ( Jesse's mum) and see another part of the United States, having even more fun adventures!! I'm also really looking forward to going to Jesse's home church. From what I've heard about his church and the sermons I've listened to, it sounds really great. It'll also be cool to meet Jesse's family, whom I've heard so much about.

So, things seem to have worked out beautifully now that I've got my plane ticket :)

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

The Lumberjacks

I went to a university basketball game tonight. Stephen F. Austin State University (the Lumberjacks) vs Texas Collge. It was great fun. One of the highlights is as follows: The Lumberjacks were on the defence - One of the players got the rebound and next thing we see a breakaway - The closests player is many meters away from him - He gets near the hoop, jumps to acheive a spectacular slam dunk - He puts the ball into the hoop- pulls the hoop down and the ball flies back out! Hmmm... poor guy.

I'm off to Houston tomorrow morning with the hope of getting the plane ticket. It's turned out that Jeff is going to fix the car problem himself but we're still going to Houston anyway. Like I said, he was prepared to go for my sake in the first place. I'm sure that we'll have lots of fun on our roadtrip.

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Problem Solved

It's all sorted. Jeff Abt (Abbey's dad) and I are going to Houston on Wednesday morning. He's great and was willing to make the 2hour trip (4hours return) for my sake so that I could redeem my free ticket. It would cost over US$600 for a flight from Memphis to Sanfransico otherwise.

Even though it can be thought of as a substitution for my planned trip into Houston to catch my flight there on the 13December, I couldn't help but still feel a bit guilty (for obvious reasons). But the great news is that he's going to get work done on his Lexus (under Warrentee) on Wednesday in Houston so I'm not the only reason for the trip. We're just doing it earlier than he would have otherwise. Woo hoo! I couldn't have asked for a better solution. I'm thankful and guilt free. God is awesome :)

Good Medicine

I had some good medicine for my anxiety today; General Medicine to be more specific ;) I went to Dr Cline's clinic today and followed him around. It helped me to take my mind off the whole traveling issue. It was great to see a general practioner in Nachodoches in action. He has Physician's Assistances and nurses that help him out so the clinic is able to get through a lot of patients dispite having only 1 doctor present.

It was 10 times more interesting than my perclinical years. The time went by so quickly and I managed to understand pretty much all of it which was great. My reading speed also managed to increase drastically. I guess that I wasn't really challenged in med school to read at a quick pace.

We came across a couple of patients that "knew better than Dr Cline". It was amusing to hear what these patients had to say. I could understand how they came to their conclusion given what they looked up and the resources they used. However, luckily for them, Dr Cline is a DOCTOR and has more advanced resources up his sleeve. He handled it very well. He listened and allowed them to say what they wanted to say. He then acknowledged that he had heard and took their suggestion into account. the patients were wrong but we both could still respect their suggestion.

I've had the opposite thing happened to me once. I went to the doctors and self diagnosed myself (as subtly as I could). She preceded to reason with me and say why I was wrong (she thought I had med student syndrome). She told me about my body and reasons for certain things. I said that I knew my body and that we should go ahead with tests. She said that I should wait it out and to go back in 2 months if the symptoms didn't go away. I went back in 2 weeks. She relunctantly ordered the tests that I wanted. Surely enough, I was right! Ok, so it wasn't a life or death situation. And yes, I was slightly paranoid and she had good reason to doubt. However, I did get immense satisfaction from finding out that I was right when originally I was told that I paranoid.

Worst than WINZ

Many NZ students have applied for a student loan using the voice automated phone system. The voice says "I can understand what you say", but sometimes it has issues understanding. Well, what happened last night was much much worst.

Let me explain the situation first. My flights back to Sydney goes as follows: Houston-Sanfransico-Sydney. I had decided to go to Memphis and we thought it best to go straight after my honkie-tonk experience in Forthworth since we would be closer to an airport (Dallas) than Nachodoches. I had one free ticket for a round trip and could use it for part of my trip (Memphis to Sanfransico) and just needed to purchase a ticket from Dallas to Memphis. This seemed perfect since it would save someone a trip to Houston to drop me off at the airport.

Abbey and I had no issues purchasing the ticket to get me to Memphis. It took probably 5 minute intotal to book and pay. The silly thing though was it was cheaper to a round trip (return ticket) than it was to buy a one way. Secondly, I needed to buy the ticket to connect me to my international flight. This proved a lot more challenging. Over an hour of talking to a voice automated service and speaking to travel agents (who had hearing issues and had english as a second language), everything finally seemed on track.

One of the conditions for using my free ticket was that it needed to be booked at least 14days in advance of the trip taking place. Since it was yesterday and the flight wasn't until Dec 13th, it would be ok. Well, so I thought! 14 BUSINESS days! so what does that mean?

It means that, for me to use the free ticket, I need to be at an airport to take the ticket within 24hours of booking a flight. I checked for flights for this coming Wed to get a comparision of the likely available flights, if I were to wait until I got to Dallas (Dec 9) in order to book and get my ticket then. There were flights, but they were early morning and would arrive AFTER my international flight. I'd have to leave on the Tuesday and stay over in Sanfransico (if I manage to get a ticket). Oh, the drama. So... here I am, Monday 6:43am, writing this, thinking... hoping... praying... for a good solution and for God's peace in me.

Monday, November 27, 2006

My Thoughts

I came to the realisation of something quite obvious yet quite profound last night. My blog is called: "Thida's Thoughts" and not "Thida's regurgitation of her procedural memory". I'm sure that some of you may like the step by step walk through my life but that wasn't really the purpose of this blog.

The purpose of this blog is to stay in touch with you all but it is also suppose to serve another important purpose. This purpose is for me to be able to read it in the near (and distant) future and reflect on how I've grown as a person. Hopefully I will have. I've been so catch up in doing things in Texas that I've neglected to just be. Of course in order to "be" I need to actually "do" certain things but hopefully you all know what I mean.

One of the things I wanted was to read books that would feed my creative mind and also books that would help me to have a better perspective of my Creator. i've been neglecting my quiet times with God over the pass many days. Fortunately Abbey and I prayed together last night. We both really didn't want to, yet somehow we both knew that we really needed to.

It's ironic how sometimes when you least desire to prayer to God, it's when you need to the most. Thankfully we both knew this.

The rest of my holidays may or may not be filled with travel and outrageous adventure. I now don't mind either way. But hopefully what this holiday will mean is that I'll leave Texas knowing that I've been changed for the better. That I will have a better idea of; the Texan culture and lifestyle, who I am, God's purpose for my life and God Himself.

Sunday, November 26, 2006

It's official, I'm a clinical student next year!

I checked my exam results today and I passed. For those that aren't familar, Otago Medical School doesn't give students grades on our results but meerly tells us whether we "passed", "failed" or got a "distinction". I'm happy to have had them confirm that I will not be needing to sit specials or repeat 3rd year. Woo hoo!

A new tradition

I think that I may have started an "anti-thanksgiving" day. It's the day after thanksgiving and consists of lots of fresh fruit and vegetables. I'm trusting Abbey to continue it in years to come. I was feeling a bit unwell yesterday and really craved my "5+ a day". So Abbey, Abbey's friend's (Katie and Amy) and I went to the grocery store to get supplies. We then came back home and cooked; like good woman should! ;) We all toasted to anti-thanksgiving with a glass of California Cab Sav.


Katie and Amy are now newly converted "Singstar" fans.

So overall, it was a very successful girl's night and for a "visual" idea of the evening read Abbey's picture blog

Saturday, November 25, 2006

the moment...

I tried to teach Abbey how to say the word, "no" and "yes" in a New Zealand accent...she got "yes" pretty quickly ( what does THAT say about her?! ) But, noo was a bit more difficult, as you can tell:

bday dinner

Post Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving dinner at the Abt family was great. The food was fantastic. however, I didn't do the meal justice since I was still full from thanksgiving lunch. The dinner made me appreciate how much americans love fruit pies. A few quotes about pies were read. Later on, we even toasted and drunk to pie. lol My first thanksgiving ended with us all watching "miracle on 34th street". The start of the movie was very similar to the start of our morning; watching a parade while sitting on the window sill.

Abbey's parents took Abbey, Anna and I to go see "Stranger than Fiction" today. We all really enjoyed the movie. It was funny, clever and left a good after taste to ponder over. The secret to a great movie.

I patted miniture horses.

Girl's night tonight.

Friday, November 24, 2006

Abbey's Brithday

What a day! November 22nd might just be the highlight of my summer. Wow!
Abbey, Anna and I went to Houston for Abbey's birthday. Shopping there was definitely an experience to say the least. We all bought lots of great things. Abbey and I sent a small fortune. Anna was more well behaved HOWEVER she did pay for the hotel and the concert tickets and the birthday dinner. This was all for Abbey's birthday. What an awesome big sister hah?

The concert was amazing. The open act was really good. He was a local singer Levi Weaver But then there was this guy Kid Beyound who not only beat box but made all these sounds that I didn't think was possible for a human to do. It was insane! He had a loop box and made music using only his mouth. he imitates instruments like the base, the drums, symbols and the celo. How crazy is that? He did everything from hardcore house to a Portishead cover.

Somehow, Imogen Heap managed to out do Kid Beyond. She was adorable and and blew our mind with her talent and personality. Overall, we pulled of a fabulous concert. WE very very impressed.

This morning Abbey and I went to breakfast and found that we could watch the thanksgiving parade while sitting on the deeply setted window sillls because it went straight pass our hotel. We had such a great view.

I'm off now to a thanksgiving lunch.

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Abbey's Birthday Dinner

I went to a Rotary lunch this afternoon to network with local business people with Anna (Abbey's sister). It was a thanksgiving lunch with the classics like turkey, cranberry sauce and apple pie.

Wall Mart was fun. Abbey and I bought SingStar. I can't believe that it took so long for it to come out in this country! Insane that NZ has had this PS2 game for over two years. We're a hip little country after all :) I bought an American cell phone today. For some crazy reason it turns out to be cheaper than just buying a sim card. It was such a mission to to activate my phone. The machine couldn't understand my acsent. It was so sad. I don't have a speech impediment I swear! I had to ask Abbey to speak for me.

I also bought lots of sweets. Mmmmm Reeses Peanut butter cups... Peanut butter M&Ms.... Mr Goodbar and much much more. Man, Americans knows how to make fat taste so good!

Went to Abbey's parents for dinner. Great company and good food. However, the company did manage to talk about pie and pizza for well over half an hour. lol. To be fair, intellegent conversation did sandwich the food talk ;)

We watched a couple of home videos of Abbey from 2 decades ago! Reminded us all of our mortality and the fact that it doesn't matter how old and tough we are, we were all cute and little at one stage.

I still haven't decided where in the states I'd like to travel to so if anyone has good suggestions, please let me know. We're off to Houston tomorrow to shop and then later, to an Imogen Heap concert.

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Jetlag

I woke up at 3am this morning, took some antihistamines and then eventually fell alseep again.
Woke up at noon and went for a jog so I won't feel like a complete bum. Got lost so my workout was extended. I kepts calm and eventually found home. A little scary? Yes.

Abbey's sister Anna came over to bring me takeouts for dinner tonight. What a sweetie. My "tacos for 1" was enough to feed a family! Seriously! It's insane how big everything is here! It's not a complaint for sure. It just meant that I could eat dinner twice tonight. Mmmmm, TexMex is good!

Bible study tonight was great. I got to meet the girls in Abbey's lifegroup, they're such innocent darlings. Abbey and I tried to shock the girls by jokingly saying things like: "I'm really thirsty and need to get drunk really soon!" We studied the Shunammint woman tonight and then prayed for one another. After that, we all had a better perspective on life and we more at peace about the future. We were reminded about how God is perfect and has everything under control.

Monday, November 20, 2006

Church in Texas

Getting up this morning was hard. Jet lag is not cool. It was worth it though. Abbey's little church is very sweet. I enjoyed singing the hymms and the people were very friendly. They have two sermons in the morning service (hard out!). It was a good thing that both sermons were interesting and required me to think otherwise I would have fallen fast asleep!

Lunch out with Abbey's family. The Abt family is adorable. The meals here are huge! Abbey and I went halves and still didn't finish our porkribs!

Girly chats and fun times with Abbey.

Evening church - good times with God

Dinner out with Abbey's sister's husband's father's family (hope you got that!) - more wholsome texan family time. Another huge meal and again, I'm very full.

Sunday, November 19, 2006

Lov'n America!

New Zealand is a luscious, vibrant, friendly, giant farmland and I adore it; but the US is one big adventure at this very moment in time. I'm definitely a fan of adventure :)
I arrived in San Francisco on Friday morning and connected through to Denver. I arrived that afternoon in Denver exhausted. I hadn't slept properly in about 48hours at this stage. My own fault for not getting a decent night's rest before my flight. I thought that I could just sleep on the plane. However, I flew with United. Not comfortable at all!

Anyway, United had oversold tickets for my flight to Houston. They needed 4 people to stay the night at a hotel and catch the morning flight the following day. I selflessly volunteered ;) For my good deed, I got to stay at The DoubleTree Hotel (5 star hotel!), meal vouchers and a free return ticket to anywhere in the states. I just wanted to sleep, so what a bonus! The luxurious king sized bed helped my fatigue and jet lag. For sure!

So far, I've found that the service here in the states in great! However, I just discovered that the minimum tip in this country is 15%. It's a good thing that I was being "generous" by tipping 15-20% while I was ignorant otherwise I would have been ripping the waitering staff! opps

I arrived in Houston around 2pm and Abbey along with her girls (Christa and Esther) came to pick me up. The two hour drive to Nachodoches went by pretty quick. I noticed a lot of SUVs. We arrived in time for me to weigh myself (I plan on gaining weight here) and relax to an episode of Grey's Anatomy before heading off to dinner with Abbey and her friends. We had Sushi. The sushi in this country is REALLY delicious! I couldn't finish it though cos I was too full. Then they handed me a piece of heavenly devine mud cake (Abbey's early birthday cake). How could I refuse? I was completely stuffed afterwards!

We watched fireworks and walked around the town for a bit. The Chirstmas lights were out. Very beautiful. America has given me a good first impression. I'm lov'n it