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 :)
Thursday, November 30, 2006
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.
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 :)
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.
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.
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.
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!
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