First semester nursing school

I managed to pass my first semester of nursing school. The biggest shock was that every class required an essay that was around 40% of the overall grade. Oddly, my favorite (favourite) class was the one that I just barely passed. That class was about Australia's (theoretical) approach to health care, which is different from (to) the US approach. I completely grasped the concepts, but the final exam required writing three essays, and I hadn't memorized nine specific points requested by one of the questions about community capacity building. I never imagined essay writing, community capacity building, and Freudian theories would be such critical components of nursing education.

Winter swim :-)

We took a stroll today along the eastern shore from Bronte Beach to Gordon's Bay and back. As the day warmed, we decided it really might be warm enough for a dip, so we took the plunge. Once acclimated,the water temperature on the skin seemed ever so slightly warmer than the air temperature, which is to say very nice for the middle of winter!

How Australia works

I am slowly figuring out how the Australian mind works. Oh sure, some things are obvious. Other things, not so much.

Construction nearby

Since they're building an apartment complex up the street, I'm getting a view of how the construction progresses, as well as what the soil subsurface looks like in the neighborhood. I had never thought much about ground stabilization where it's critical. In the photo, you can see the concrete ledge they've created. First they dug down to that level. Then they drilled holes all around the edge. They poured concrete into the holes and to create the ledge, but apparently had forms to make the columns hollow - as you can see wires protruding from each "pillar" which was underground when it was poured. Once that concrete hardened, they dug below the surface concrete, which now appears as the ledge. The columns (which were holes with forms inside) are now visible, and they ran what looks like electrical conduit through them to supply the parking garage lighting system. I recall hearing about a project in Indianapolis (USA) that didn't use adequate stabilization, and a nearby building settled and cracked as a result.

As you can see, the soil is pretty solid clay. We're basically on a large hill, so when it rains the water drains off pretty quickly. Our back yard has dirt that seems much more fertile, but from the construction site I can see our soil is probably just a thin layer that may have been brought in. We've had a couple of heavy rains since they started digging, and the clay accumulated surprisingly little water. I think they have some deeper holes on site that catch the water or may connect into subterranean drainage.

Exam "reading time" ?

Yet another confusing thing about the educational institution I'm attending. I have three final exams, two multiple choice, one essay. All of the exams have a 10 minute "reading time", two hour duration (plus that 10 minutes), and you're not allowed to leave your seat for the first 90 minutes. I guess the "no leaving" policy is to prevent people from somehow copying the test and transmitting answers to someone else. I get that. I have a policy - once I've concentrated on and answered questions, I don't go back and second-guess. Technically, I could have gone through every question again and made sure I marked the answer I wanted to mark, but that to me only seems like prolonging the pain. I'm not one to quibble over every single grade point.

The part I really don't get is the "reading time". You're supposed to read the exam; you're not allowed to use your pencil or mark anything. I can see how this could be helpful on the essay exam - you need to think through how you're going to compose your answers to an allotted word count, and you can start that in your head during the "reading time". But for a multiple-choice exam of 100 questions, it seems a bit silly to read through the exam and not be able to make any marks. Sure, maybe your brain can start ruminating over the questions you read and don't immediately know the answer? But if you're ruminating, you may be concentrating less on each of the other questions as you get to them. I suppose there's some scientifically derived strategy for using this reading time for a multiple choice exam of 100 questions? Personally, I'd just as soon get on with marking the answers.

Americans in... Paris?

Act one of this podcast is amusing. David Sedaris says,"He's drinking wine, he's smoking a cigarette, and he's picking his nose. Those are three good reasons to live in France."

Act three, though, is phenomenal for its encapsulation of race in the United States, and also the core of what it is to be "American." In Paris, African-Americans are accepted; African-French rejected? Or is it just a class thing? Race... class... Here in Australia, for some time there was actually a "White Australia" policy, and it might be said that racism is worse than in the United States. In Sydney, brown skin is common; very dark skin less so, and I had been here 18 months before I realized aboriginals have the same spectrum of skin color as do African-Americans. There are separatists and assimilationists, but in general, it's the same "us" and "them" mentality as in the United States. But the story told of an African-American woman in Paris speaks to another factor. When I see people with very dark skin in Australia, my mind sorts through the features and clothing; Aboriginal. Melanesian. African. Every now and then, what I'm looking at adds up to "American." I want to run up and ask them if they're American, with the sense that I have more in common with them than 99% of the people on this continent. But I think it would be rude, and I refrain. Still I think - ...former military? ...athlete? ...tourist? Being white, I am the invisible immigrant. That is, until I open my mouth and say something. This American Life: Americans in Paris

Prison work

Was talking with a classmate. He is a Muslim, moved from India to Australia as a teenager, and has a job working as a nursing assistant in a prison. He said the thing that shocked and surprised him the most working in the prison was condom distribution. Apparently they are very proactive in distributing condoms among the prison population in New South Wales.