2003 was indeed a good one. In a nutshell, Kathryn and I were engaged, I graduated and found a job in Melbourne and to top it off we found a fantastic house.

Hope 2004 is even better for all!!!

Yes, finally, she _has_ arrived. It was a mere 61+ day wait, though it felt much much longer, but now she is here and all is well...

Kathryn is the one on the left

Welcome to Australia!

Kathryn's arrival may also be in part responsible for my lack of new entries... although this is more of a convenient excuse :-)

Mantra to self:

... "Is what I am currently doing going to help me pass my exams?"... or an even more important and relevant question:
... "Is what I am currently doing going to make me a better doctor?"...

Refer to exam countdown at main page

It was Easter Sunday, the big family day, so I thought I'd try to see as much family as possible. I'd seen my maternal grandparents, immediate family and my third cousin ( mother's cousin's son ) and next on my list was to see my father's father. He's in a nursing home now, so would appreciate the visit...

I arrived at the nursing home, was let in by one of the nurses and met by the lovely fragrance of urine which seems to be a feature of many nursing homes. It was quite dark and showed no sign that it was Easter. I walked past the residents in the common room area, some with looks of hope that I was there to visit them some seeming resentful that I was there to visit someone else and others just staring off blankly into space. Amidst this, the nurse led me through to my grandfather's room.

When we entered he looked at the nurse questioningly not realising I was also there. So I walked up and said hi and he expressed a gratifying look of recognition. We talked for about an hour. I mentioned my trip to the US and the the medical stuff I'd been up to. Strangely enough, as I was talking about what I'd been up to I had a small hope that he was proud of me. He talked about his days saying there wasn't much to do in the home so he spent a lot of his time reading. At the time he was reading Jane Eyre. Despite his love of reading, I think he would prefer to be more active, just out and doing things. He's also very fond of the guiness and we all believe that it's one thing that keeps him going on a daily basis.

We also talked about photography and his mining exploits. He was a geophysicist which meant he spent a fair bit of time in Queensland and the Northern Territory. I'd heard that he was one of the first to discover uranium ore in Australia, for better or worse. And it was cutting edge stuff back then. Very little was known about how to mine Uranium. He was explaining how Uranium was not deposited like Gold, and much effort was initially wasted in an effort to mine it in the same way. Eventually they discovered the best way to mine and extract it and my grandfather was one of the pioneers. With his interest in photography, while he was on these exploratory expeditions he took photos of the towns and country. When the family were cleaning up the house, after he moved to the nursing home, they found over 5000 photos and slides throughout the house, taken over several decades. Fascinating stuff...

We moved on to what had been happening with the family. I talked about my father's wedding late last year in Perth and how I now had two new step-brothers which was an odd concept to come to grips with. I was the only child resulting from my parents marriage and my father's only child. I mentioned how I'd also been able to catch up with my aunts for the first time in probably 20 years. I expressed how great it was for me, given that I really hadn't had any contact with my father's side of the family and how I'd missed that. At the very least, I'd wondered what had been happening with that half of the family. He mentioned how he'd appreciated having family to visit him. Then he mentioned how he had a son in Perth who had just got married and he had a sixteen or seventeen year old daughter... This floored me... I'm not sure who he thought I was...

By this stage I had to go anyway, so I quickly took a photo with us both, wished him a happy easter and said goodbye.

Despite the odd ending I think he appreciated the company and I was glad I'd been able to see him. Still as I left I had one of those "man meets his mortality" moments in my mind. My grandfather, the once brilliant quite introverted bookish man who's garage was filled with earthy smelling wood shavings from his wood working, who made his own ginger beer, who was the gourmet of the house and very fond of tripe and from where my love of sausage and vegetable soup originates. Who's german shepherd, Ginger had excited but ever-so slightly frightened me. Who had a freakish musical talent playing the violin but also loved to listen. Age has taken a toll on his memory. He had mentioned how he wasn't able to remember events and words and seemed pretty frustrated. Given his age, 93, it is probably because of his intellect that we were able to talk as we did and I'm glad we had the time. I just hope he did in fact know who I was... It leaves me feeling a little sad, that's all...

From this time on, how many times will you see your family?

When I was planning my trip to the US one of my worries was that something might happen to my family, particularly my grandparents in the meantime. Ofcourse, I would've flown back had anything happened but what if I couldn't get back in time?

And all those times that I'd tossed up whether or not visit my family or do something that was far more exciting at the time or at least not as gruelling.

So as I was heading back to Melbourne for the first time in about six months I wondered how many times I would actually see my family before the inevitable and as I estimated it amounted to a startingly low number.

If I continued my current trend ( being in Townsville ) it would be about twice per year and acouple times during each visit. So over the next 20 years that would be only 80 times.

Not the luxury of time I'd once imagined...

I was watching The American President . And while idealistically I wonder whether a US president ever lived up to such ideals; we certainly hear of the statesmanship of previous presidents, Roosevelt, Lincoln, Washington, Jefferson; in their time were they as great as we now think they were? Surely they're not as dispiriting as today's examples. There was a particular speech towards the end of the film that stated that the two interests of the corrupt opposition leader, regarding problems, were "making you afraid of it and telling you who's to blame for it." This seems to reflect the order of political scoundrel that exists today. Suddenly leaders don't seem to be interested in building the identity of the constituencies they represent, they just merely seem to attack their opposite numbers, or to seek to find an appopriate nemesis to blame. And any promotion is based purely on an event rather than what it was about the constitutuency that made that great event possible. They don't state "this is how great you are" but "this is how great you could be if that was you". It's rather unempowering in a way...

To seemingly counter this, it's one of the aspects i enjoy about film. It grants us the luxury to imagine ourselves as we'd like to be (even if some films indicate how we can be at our worst). It gives us something to aim for.

1) I must not let my emotions overcome reason. n.b. this does not mean I should not express emotion..
2) If I do get upset over something, I must ask myself "is this something worth getting upset over?" i.e. Will anything improve by me getting upset?
3) If it is worth becoming upset about, I must gather all the pertinent facts before making a claim...

I never quite know whether this is a blog, a journal or something in between.. I guess ultimately it's all journaling

I find it difficult to live for myself and find it far more comfortable and indeed satisfying to live for those around me. Must be that primitive tribal culture coming out in me.

Anyway, I'm on My Way Home eventually.

I'll have some real content soon.

It did seem a bit inappropriate to have Tom Jones singing "Sex bomb, sex bomb, you're a sex bomb" at the Queen's Party at the Palace . Does this strike anyone as being a bit odd, or maybe Tom just has a soft spot for the Queen.

It appears now that I don't exams for a while ( eight weeks ), I have even less time for oblogging. It seems that there's always a lot more time for this sort of thing when exams are imminent. Capital P for Procrastination.

This year I have 5 eight week rotations to complete with only a week's holiday between each. This is how I spent my eight glorious days in Melbourne

25/5/02
1. Arrived at 12:40 am Melbourne airport and was picked up by my buddy Pete
2. Pete and I was SW2 - Attack of the Clones.
3. Hung out at Crown casino in front of the video screens showing various sports because they've got rid of the comfy chairs in that South-Western most area of the casino. It was 4:30 am by this stage so not much was open.
4. Breakfast on the 35th floor of the Sofitel. Pity there was only 10 metres visibility. A wonderfully crisp foggy Melbourne morning.
5. Arrived at my Grandparents place at about 9:30.
6. Collapsed into bed for a few hours