Coming to my senses

I have been quite lazy these days as after the Intervarsity games, we all feel fatigue and lethargic. To add to matters are that the cycle I am having now has a really hot teacher which has a model kind of body figure and looks tat could make people faint with a smile(ok, maybe I am exagerating a bit). She is my dermatology teacher, and what less can one expect from a dermatologist? Her facial skin is like so delicate and nice. We could not really see any pores or any facial defect, acne or spots even when we see her face up close (we get to see her quite close up since the classroom is very small)
After we came back, we were invited by a sports complex manager to join in a volleyball competition and after some thought, we thought we might want to give it a try. Since I was still partially out of shape to play 100%, they asked the two indian players which are in a whole different level from us(somewhat equivalent or better than Alex Lye) to play with us as a team since we were lacking from a setter.
I was absent on the first day of competition as I had lecture and thought that I would not be needed. Yesterday, which was the second day of the match, I tagged along upon the request of my friends to see how the indian setter played so as to learn stuff from them.
It was quite an eye opener playing against the Russian youth school teams here. I somehow was pulled on court to play as the indian setter was tired or sick (not sure there) and had to set for the Indian player which was our king card/star player of the competition.
During the game, i could see how bad my setting is, seeing the ball flying here and there, causing the indian player (Surya) to run around just to spike the ball that i send flying to him.
My friends even jokingly said it was the first time seeing Surya panting in a game and seeing him so tired and this was all due to my "excellent" setting skills. I hope I will get to be better and do a better job so as to bag the gold for our male volleyball team in the intervarsity games next year.

Back In Kursk

Finally, the yearly intervarsity games has ended. It has been quite a journey, 700km away from our home ground, our university gave it our best in an effort to get the overall champion cup once more, but we fell short of our goal with a few near calls.
As for our volleyball team, as this year, the guy who played in the national level when he was younger(Alex Lye) came to compete, after a grueling semifinal match with the Russian State Medical University's team which is getting better and better by the year, we manage to secure a spot in the finals with Alex's team.
Our female volleyball team also did as well as our male team and advanced to the finals without much resistance.
The final matches for both the male and female volleyball team was held on Sunday while on Saturday night, there was a concert that was being held which is a tradition of the intervarsity games. Having seen what the concert looks like in the previous few times, I decided to go out with my friends to have dinner ourselves in the town.
With the help of a friend of mine, we ended up in a restaurant near the RSMU hostel in which we ate korean food. Despite of the long journey from our hostel we were staying for the time being to the restaurant, we enjoyed our time during dinner with much laughter and enjoyment of the delicious food which can't be found in our native town.
During the finals, due to the fact that the organizing committee did not want to pay extra, we had to bear through the gruesome decision that the finals of both male and female teams will be held at the same time rendering the female team without a coach (because he is the captain of our male team).
The male team lost the 1st two matches again Alex's team before regaining the 3rd. Though after a close call, we the lost to Nizhny Novgorod State Medical Academy (Alex's university) and was left with a silver medal.
The girls played very well despite the absence of their coach, after we lost, we rushed over to aid the female team who were still in battle with the RSMU's female team which were playing the 4th match in which we won the 1st two set and lost the 3rd. With the cheer and support from our male team, they took down the set and bagged the gold.
I felt very guilty while seeing the guys playing the finals knowing that the results would have very likely be different if i were not down and out from the games due to a last minute injury.
By the way, since we had to check out on Sunday morning before the games started, we had to bath in the sports complex which only had a bathroom without cubicles and only a common bath area. Most of our volleyball male team were so embarresed to bath naked in front of each other and said this was the first and hopefully the last time something like this would happen since as asians, we are not really used to bathing with a crowd.

Sad !!

Today, I was quite happy that I was able to finish my exams early and allowed myself to have time to study for the final practical skills test for my current cycle class (operative surgery class) tomorrow.
Since I came back early, I had time to laze around before going out again for my volleyball practice. After a short rest at home, I jogged to the university for my training.
Upon arrival at the sports hall, I saw the captain if we were playing against the Indian students as practice matches today, and he said yes. I was pretty excited because we had not been playing with other teams for a long long time.
Though, I was a bit disappointed after knowing that it wasn't the whole team that came and only 3 of their players came to play with us.
I told myself to be careful and not to injure myself but at the middle of the game, I landed on one of the player's foot and heard a terrible crack sound. I immediately groaned and sat on the floor. The captain came rushing to me with a disappointed look knowing that most probably i will be out of the game.
I paid for a taxi fare back home as I was unable to walk and only to call the ambulance to bring me to the hospital for an X-ray scan due to the fact that my leg was really painful even without movements and the swelling is a bit weird.
Then I was given a cast around my legs and told to not walk for 3-4 weeks which means I would not be able to play in Moscow Intervarsity Games that will be held on next Friday,Saturday and Sunday.
Then I had to pay for another taxi fare to get back home from the hospital though I was relieved when I heard that there was no need to stay in the hospital and there were no serious problems with my ankle and foot.
I'm really sad that I won't be able to play on court with Alex Lye who is the star player in the volleyball teams which was something I wanted to do since 3 years ago.(1st year I was benching, last year he did not come for the competition, this year I will be benching again). I hope even though I won't be able to play on court, I would at least be able to walk around without clutches and my cast since I want to look at my best since there are students from other universities that I could meet.

The return of Medical Check up and my first operation

Today is the first time me and my groupmates were given a chance to have a go at working in an operation. After doing practices on corpse materials, our operative surgery teacher gave us a chance to do a real operation on a rabbit.
The operation we were about to do was an abdominal surgery which is a side to side anastomosis of the large intestine (resecting a part of the large intestine and reattaching the remainding intestine back with each other)
We were divided into 2 groups, one group is assigned to cut open the rabbit for accessing to the intestines and its closure after the operation, while the 2nd group was responsible for doing the intestinal operation.
After giving anaesthetics to the rabbit, we prepared it for the operation by removal of the hair. Though, the rabbit seemed to be a bit resistant to the anaesthesia and was still moving around especially after we started to cut the rabbit's abdomen open which in turn cause a lot of commotion in the operation teather as it was our first time doing such an operation and were all nervous.
I was in charge of suturing the posterior wall of the intestine (sewing up one part of the intestine together) while others were assigned different jobs. Another situation arised when we were putting back the intestines into the abdominal cavity after we finished the operation on the intestine.
The narcosis the rabbit had was wearing off and when we tried to put the intestines back into the abdomen, the rabbit cried out of pain. Its cry was such a pitiful cry and will always ring in my ears. Luckily, no more problems turn up after that small incident and we managed to finish the operation without too much of an error. We took more than 4 hours for the operation and finally understood how tiring a surgeon's work is.
I hope that the rabbit survives from our operation and am very sorry for causing any pain to it during the operation. We are all also thankful to it for being our first ever hands on experience of an operation.
Tomorrow, me and my groupmates will be having our anual medical check up during which, we will be poked and violated all over, with the worse being that we will have a cotton bud shoved up our arse and urinary tract to get a sample of our tissues there. That is what I am not looking forward to. Hope that I will be exempted from the excruciating pain.

April's Fool

It's Friday, and the weekend is coming and with it being April Fool's day I left home feeling very happy and excited for unknown reasons. By the way, yesterday during my operative surgery class, we had hands on experience creating an side to side anastomosis of the intestines but due to inadequate time, we were going to finish it today.
We started the class by crapping some jokes with our teacher whom was quite stern with us during the 1st semester but is now very friendly with us. After that, we started out discussion and then we continued with out practical skills training (creating a side to side intesinal anastomosis)
After learning our lessons from yesterday (although we wore glooves while working with the God knows how long that intestine was soaked in formaline intestine, our hands still stink from the contact with the intestines), today, we tried to limit our contact with the intestine and made full use of the surgical equipments.
After completely finishing the practical skills we asked teacher to check how my group did our anastomosis( we were divided into 2 groups and worked with one intestine for each group) by injecting water into the part of intestine which we created an anastomosis and check for water leakage( the leakage of water indicates that we did not do our so called operation correctly) since we might have an exam of the same kind of Monday if we are not doing our 1st hands on experience on a LIVE ANIMAL (rabbit).
The result was a small part of the intestine which my group worked on had some leakage of water and we were kinda disappointed with it. Seeing our faces, our teacher said that we did a relatively good job as it was our first time doing it and hence she usually does not check the results in the student's first trial and agreed to check ours only after we had asked her to do so.
We were then dismissed after we had finish our "operation", packed up and head home for a quick lunch before heading off for volleyball training.
While training our practical skills and doing suturings and incisions today, I felt that I was enjoying what I was doing. I guess, a surgeon is really what I want to become in the future. Hopefully, my dreams will come true!!
Oh yeah, I will also be attaching a photo of me before and after my hair cut that I got on the day before with the help of my friend.