I am now a Registered Nurse!

Hooray! I am now officially a registered nurse in New South Wales. I got my official looking certificate and everything. They even tried to sell me a pin which they called a 'badge'. Upon hearing the offer, I thought they meant a large mental badge, something akin to a police badge. When the person pulled the bag of pins out of her draw, I could see what she was offering. Aussie English for ya. One more thing, it doesn't feel any different now than before.

I observed open brain surgery today!

I had the coolest day today in the operating theatre observing a craniotomy, where neurosurgeons opened up the skull so they could operate on the brain to remove a patient's tumour. Normally, I am one of those people that hates the sight of blood and gore. However, I was surprised to find myself really interested in the brain surgery and not even experienced dry heaving or dizziness once. So after shaving away a strip of hair, cutting through the layer of skin and muscle, and pulling the skin & muscle apart to reveal the skull. The surgeons drilled two 1cm diametre holes about 8cm apart (think width of a rice bowl). Then they used a tool similar to that of a jigsaw cutter and starting from one of the holes, cut all the way around through the other hole and around ending up cutting a circular plate out of the skull. Exposed underneath the skull is the dura layer, slice that four ways, peel it back to reveal the brain tissue. To put it simply, they just made a small slit in the brain, and went in with some tools to cut and suck out the blood and matter. Four hours later, they complete by sewing it all back up, putting the plate of bone back in place, securing it with titanium clips and then sewing up the muscle and skin. Best day ever in a long while!

Geaorge W. Bush must be punished for war crimes!

If Saddam Hussein did not receive a pardon for his war crimes then neither George W. Bush nor his administration should receive any exemptions. As sad and wrong as it might be, George could get away with murder if the Republicans in the House and Senate pass laws to pardon him. When will the world wake up and realise that any US leader should be above the law when no other world leaders are allowed to be above the law either.

Why you should not buy Microsoft's new Zune....

Well, besides it being designed and marketed by Microsoft...the main reason you should not buy Zune (Microsoft's new digital music player and answer to Apple's iPod) is that they are setting precedence to screw the whole digital music player manufacturers! Microsoft have agreed to pay Universal Music Group a fee for each new Zune player they sell. Can you imagine if Sony had to give some music label a cut of every Walkman they sold when they first invented the portable cassette player? We might never have progressed to the iPod or other digital music players seen today. I think Microsoft is doing consumers a disservice by bowing down to a music label just so they can break into the digital music player business, and late at that!

Read the story here by Reuters

Funny videos you should see...

Cartoon about midterm elections, in the style of School House Rock by The Daily Show

Short montage of "dubbaya" set to George Michael's song "Freedom"

Democrats takes the House!

Yeah! I am glad to see all those Americans who went to vote on Tuesday and proceeded to send a message to W and all his cronies. Now if only we can keep up the momentum and get a Democrat into the White House in '08.

UPDATE: And the Senate, too.

Last day of classes!

Wow. The end of classes today but still finals to come and then a month working in hospital. The idea hasn't sunk in yet. I think I'll feel free on the last day when I am walking out of that hospital!