Of cabbages and kings

Hi hello~ It's been ages, you guys!

Since the last post (over two years ago! I am so ashamed of myself), I have finished two and a half years of medical school. That's right, I'm back in the northern hemisphere and halfway through my third-year clinical rotations.

Which means I really shouldn't be blogging right now. Shhhh.

But can I just say, it's true what they say about med school: every year is better than the last.

The workload increases every year, for sure, and there is less time to study more material, which is utterly overwhelming. But I am learning so much, every single day. Most of that learning comes from the best teachers out there -- real patients who are nice enough to take the time to talk to a medical student -- with guidance from some awesome doctors doling out wisdom.



So... If you are ever in a teaching hospital and a student asks to talk to you, please say yes. It may seem like a waste of time to have to answer the same questions twice, but students have more time and fewer responsibilities than a resident or attending, so we can focus better on you as an individual patient. Besides, just by talking to a medical student, you are contributing to his/her education.

That makes you a teacher! Of medical students!

YES.

I am actually serious. Say yes to medical students. You just may see us a few years later, looking exhausted and harried, but proudly sporting the long white coat in place of the short one.

Anyway. When I'm not at the hospital, I'm usually passed out at home. I know. I am properly ashamed. I'm in NEW ORLEANS, for goodness' sake. But I have been squeezing in a bit of exploration whenever I could!




And of course, Mardi Gras! This year it fell smack in the middle of exam week, but my roommates and I managed to see a few parades and get lots and lots (and lots) of beads.




We also ate so much king cake, you guys. Apparently it's a thing here -- people bring king cake to share at work.

So I found a recipe and made king cake to bring to the hospital.

I mean, what else is a girl to do?

In which there are adventures

It's the rainy season here in Aus. That means wet and hot (bleargh). Oh well. I'm thankful it hasn't flooded like it did last year.



Mostly I just feel very cooped up, and will be very glad when the rain does finally let up.

We did get a lovely respite from the rain on Australia Day, of which my friends and I took full advantage for a day at the beach in Miami (oh yes) on the Gold Coast.

And of course the pre-rain days were filled with explorations and adventures, as is only right. :)








Guys, a kangaroo ate out of my hand.

I felt like such a cool kid.

We also got to pet a koala, and saw loads of other cool animals like platypuses and wombats and Tasmanian devils, all at the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. It is by far one of the coolest zoos I have visited, because seriously, what other zoo will let visitors mingle freely with kangaroos and wallabies and emus?

In other news, school has been chugging along nicely (contrary to the impression I may be giving my readers, I am actually here to study, not to frolic about and make you all madly jealous). We just finished the introductory module, and will be diving into the "real thing" tomorrow.

So, uh, if you find this blog rather neglected in the months to come, please pardon me.

Last week some friends came over to make pizza dough and bread. The pizza dough was just allowed to rise, then divided and frozen for later use. It will be used tonight, and I've been invited over for dinner, so maybe next time I'll write about how that turned out.

The bread was shaped and baked that day, and proved to be quite popular.



This was based on a recipe I made up while I was in Madison, just before coming here.



The thing I love about baking bread is that there is infinite room for experimentation with ingredients. The recipe I'm posting is the original one I came up with, but the one I made with my friends had some ingredients added (e.g., Craisins, sunflower seeds), some substituted (e.g., raw sugar and honey for brown sugar, sultanas for raisins), and others omitted (e.g., flaxseed). I'll probably revisit this original recipe once I've had a chance to visit the organic foods store for some flaxseed and wheat germ.

Coquo ergo sum

A couple of weeks ago, we had a discussion in one of my classes about the evolution of the human brain in relation to the gut, and its effect on our diet.

See, humans evolved to have such huge, fuel-hungry brains, but managed it without significantly increasing our metabolic rates. We didn't even have to evolve a correspondingly large gut to provide all the fuel demanded by the brain -- in fact, the human gut shrank as the brain got bigger, which conserved on fuel by not needing quite so much energy to digest.

Okay, but wait. Doesn't that actually complicate things, since now it's even harder to digest food?

Here's the secret: cooking.

Yeah, that big brain's gotta earn its keep somehow. By cooking, humans are able to eat more easily digestible and calorically efficient foods, like meat. (As opposed to, say, grass, which requires a cow an entire day of chewing cud, plus four stomachs, just to get enough fuel to get through a day. Doesn't leave much time or energy for rocket science, does it?) A diet of easily digestible foods allows for more efficient metabolism, and, consequently, the reduction of gut size.

Totally brill.

Now me, I love meat: it's delicious. And I gotta hand it to our ancestors, they came up with some ingenious ways to cook meat. Plus, you know. Fire!

But a hunk of meat can never look as pretty as a perfectly ripe lemon.



This, my friends, was a beautiful lemon, perfectly yellow and oh! so fragrant. It added a great tanginess to these zucchini muffins.