Holidays, uni and a special person

5 08 2009

Photo5 competition ribbon Nelson Herbert 172Ok, so its been a while, so bear with me :)

Since the last post that I wrote during the middle of exam weeks a lot has been going on. Exams went well and results were a pleasant surprise. Holidays then came along, and for the first time in a couple of years I actually found time to relax and chill out in them! What is annoying about the june/july holidays normally is that exams have just finished, and then a week and a bit later results come out. Then before you know it, course selection and timetable signing up is upon you. In between all of that you try and relax. This year I blocked it all out and had a very enjoyable couple of weeks off. The weather wasn’t great up the coast, so little fishing and no surfing happened. Strangely this didn’t worry me though. It was the act of being away from home for a week and just chilling out that really helped me to focus on having a good time.

After that week up the coast, the holidays seemed to be long enough, but blurred slightly. It’s a weird feeling when time just seems to roll along and you do lots of things, but not much registers. It’s not that time passed exceedingly quickly, it was the fact that nothing really of note stuck out (well there was one event :) ). So the holidays came to a very enjoyable ending (not that I wanted them to end, it was things that happened near the end that were enjoyable). And reluctantly I started my final semester in science at UQ. It was slightly annoying that course choices are kind of crap bad in second semester of 3rd year, but oh well, I still got some that were interesting at least. Having your friends do very similar courses is a massive advantage at uni. Not only can you do group assignments together, but you can also confer within lectures and tutorials etc. If anyone is entering uni and has no one that they know around, just be friendly and reach out, generally you’ll start to find people that have similar interests and it’ll make the experience sooo much easier.

So if you follow me on twitter (twitter.com/nelpix) you may have noticed that I have been going through some interesting times as of late. In my everyday life with uni and photography I am constantly thinking through everything to make sure nothing is missed or completed incorrectly, so when this certain situation started to arise, I had to change tact quite quickly. There is someone that I go to uni with that, to put it in the words of one of my long time friends, “I am courting”. What is interesting for me is that I have never actually had a personal relationship with a female friend. So it was for me an intrepid journey of new experiences. It is a type of situation that requires me to turn off that part of my brain that constantly and overly analyses everything. In everyday life I would consider myself a confident person, but when it comes to certain things like wording of messages and the right thing to say I start to doubt myself. For me this is weird. I don’t mind sticking my neck out for a lot of experiences as the first person, but for this situation where I want something to work, I’m so reluctant to just jump in and be spontaneous. I think the main reason that I feel this way is that it is such a new thing for me. Sure there have been people in the past of the opposite sex that I have liked, but never to the point that I’ve wanted to ask out. For this reason I ask advice of some of my closest friends/relatives. To me it’s all fascinating. It is likely the analytical scientist inside me buzzing with ideas and thoughts about what to do next as so much information on the topic is gained.

It has certainly been a little while in the making, as messages flew back and forth, coffee meet ups were set and then had to be postponed, but eventually it has got to the point where I just need to ask her out. So right now that is what I am working towards. We are good friends, and have been for a year and a bit now, but I want to find out if it can go to the next level. With the variety of ways that people can contact each other nowadays it is so easy to come off too keen; and when you have heaps of spare time it is so hard to just put down the phone, close facebook or any other networking site, and just be patient. Patience is just so important, but then you start to wonder, how long is too long? This is when my brain starts to really act up….

Word choice for me is a big thing. What to say and when to say it. This is a hurdle that I run into as part of this situation as I will over analyse what I plan to say. When I send a message I will always read over it half a dozen times just to make sure that it says what i want it to… Dam it is infuriating! For me it is like a type of OCD. I find the same thing when I am handing in an assignment at uni. I will get to the chute to drop it in, and although I have checked it through quite a few times, I will still flick through it once or twice to make sure that everything is in the right place. That’s just me I suppose. So when it comes to chatting I just need to get the analytical foot out of my mouth and say what comes to my mind. All the time I make sure that I don’t anger people talking to them. I am a listener, and will happily absorb all that someone says and be happy to provide minimal input, that’s just who I am. But in this new type of situation I just think that I become too analytical and worried to a certain extent. See I want this to work, but I want to say the right words to get the ball rolling at the same time. Make that step beyond just good friends :)

Coffee is on for tomorrow, which is good, but I need to be able to communicate the words that get across the message that I want to try moving to the next level. Arrghhh! To put it bluntly, ask her out face to face. Often I’ll just get caught up in conversation or start talking about something else, and then we’ll have a lecture or something else, and I’ll be left pondering what I could have or said or done. So for tomorrow I want to try putting my thoughts into words. No longer just dancing around the fact, and being just good friends. I want to test the waters and see what happens, either way.

If you’ve read this far, then I have to congratulate you. For me this was kind of a ‘get everything off your chest’ session, and hopefully it provided some insight to people out there as to how the human brain reacts in such a situation.

For those interested, I have been accepted within the pool of applicants for medicine at UQ in 2010, and will receive offers on August 11. I’ll let you all know how I go. Fingers crossed.

I promise to update this very soon, perhaps in regards to this certain situation that I have outlined above, or maybe something entirely different…

Chat with you all soon! Comments welcome :)

Nelson





Transformers 2 + State of Origin + end of exams

17 06 2009

photo5 competition 191So it seems like some sort of astrological formation is aligning for me (not that I believe in most of it :P ). I finish exams next wednesday around the middle of the day and a couple of very awesome things are correlating together around that time. Firstly, the second state of origin match. I’m a pretty big QLD supporter, and can’t remember ever missing a game. In my first year of uni the 2nd state of origin match was held in the middle of exam week. I had an exam until 8pm that night, but luckily thanks to some awesome organisational skills my friends are I watched the game in my friend’s dad’s office. Close call, but unfortunately the maroons went down that night :( Since then, it has just been up and up for the boys in maroon. We’re looking at a 4th straight win this year, and judging by the teams, I think it’s gonna happen (*touch wood*). Since my exam finishes during the day on wednesday I will have the afternoon to prepare for a night of yelling “QUEENSLANDER” at the TV. However, the second origin match isn’t the only thing that is awesome about next wednesday.

Think to yourself, what could be better than the first Transformers movie? hmm A second Transformers movie! And in what seems like fate, it premieres officially next wednesday. Therefore I proposed to a couple of my friends that we see the movie in the afternoon and then relax and enjoy the 2nd origin game at night. Unfortunately most of them will have work (since it is a weekday), which seems to have foiled my plan… blast! No matter though, because we’ll just reschedule and watch it another time :) I mean honestly, what is more awesome than cars turning into robots, fighting each other, and then turning back into cars and driving off into the distance? Nothing. It is likely a guy thing. In fact I’m sure it is. Plus, from all the previews that I’ve seen, and the fact that I’ve heard the new Linkin Park song made for the movie (it has optimus prime’s voice in it!!), it looks and sounds like an action packed movie. Basically it is the perfect antidote to exams.

So as you can see, I’m thoroughly enjoying the fact that some quite awesome things are aligning for me. There are other things in my life which are also coming together, but that stuff stays with me and not on the internet (ok so maybe on twitter :) ). My question to you is, has anything in the recent past aligned for you and made that time period even better than you hoped? Whether it be birthdays, special events, or even a special someone? Comment away or get onto twitter and start following me. Chat it up!

Oh and in case I haven’t said it enough in this post “QUEENSLANDER”.

p.s. Get onto following one of my good friends Troy in his enthralling blog at http://troytyped.wordpress.com/. He’s currently in the process of carrying out a very calculated plan to woo a certain girl that he likes. I wish him the best of luck!

Nelson





The ramblings of a study-addled mind

16 06 2009

Pressured

Pressured

So it seems like I have posted for a while. Laziness, preoccupation with other tasks, and photography are a few reasons why; but the main reason is uni. I am currently in the middle of exam block for semester 1 of 2009. And thus far it has been so enjoyable enthralling. Stay with me over the next few sentences, I’m just having a bit of a ramble. It gets better :)

3rd science has some quite interesting and engaging subjects, don’t get me wrong, but it is the fact that you have to know so much that puts a strain on so many. On saturday I had my first exam of the period, Developmental Neurobiology. I went in pretty relaxed and apart from a question or two, came out of it pretty relaxed. That feeling of relaxation after an examination is weird. I studied for a week leading up to that exam, and then it passes almost without a blip on the radar. I’m not one to go back and look at notes to find out where I went wrong, and this certainly wasn’t the case on saturday.

My next exam is on friday and it will be Cardiovascular Science. This will then be followed by Human Reproduction and Fertility on Monday and Psychology of Sport and Exercise on Wednesday. Then I’m done! Although the finish line is just over 1 wee away, it seems way further than that. It is going to be a fun weekend after Cardio as I desperately cram in female reproductive knowledge such as LH, FSH, ovulation, menstruation, fertilisation, progesterone and oestrogen. I really enjoy repro, and there is a lot of knowledge still sticking there from lectures, so that’ll help. It’s probably one of the reasons why I want to go into Obstetrics or OBGYN. The subject is just so interesting.

So that is basically me for the next week or so. After that time it’ll be out with the friends for movies, games and general lazing about. I’ll be up at mooloolaba for a week this holidays as well which will be awesome. The rain that has been around might mean that there are lots of bream in the river. My mooloolaba week every year is like a fishing trip for me. Due to uni I’m unable to get away around Easter to Evans Head for the annual fishing long weekend where I’ve caught everything from mullet and tailor to an octopus. If you ever have the chance to get to Evans Head I’d highly recommend it. It is a small fishing town on the North Coast of NSW, and is great for a couple of days to get away from things. Or you could just go about an hour further north to Byron Bay. I’ve been going there annually since I was 3 y.o and it’s always so relaxing. Just do your own thing and no one cares.

Well I guess I better get back to learning my Cardiovascular Science. Basically it’s drug actions and effects and the development of the the cardiovascular system, as well as what happens in a disease state such as Cardiovascular Disease (CVD). If anyone has any questions pertaining to my study or is just interested in one of the subjects that I’ve eluded to to, drop me a comment and we can have a chat. I love a good science conversation (god I’m a nerd).

In other news, I sent off my medicine application a couple of weeks ago and just got notice that it is in processing. If everything runs smoothly, this means that I will be beginning medicine in 2010. It’s going to be a long and grueling journey ahead of me. Fortunately I will likely have a number of my friends doing the course with me, so that’ll make it more enjoyable.

If you haven’t noticed already, you can follow me on twitter @ twitter.com/nelpix

All the best, and I’ll keep this updated more regular from now on in between study and listening to awesome music. It’s almost relaxing and therapeutic :D








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