This is Poland #2

Yesterday my laptop decided to call it a night while I was watching Breaking Bad on my tv through the HDMI cable. So the screen on the laptop went black while the tv screen was still vibrant as ever with scenes from this fine show I was watching. A while after I finished the episode and went on to do something else the tv screen also let me know that there was no signal between the two devices. So here I am with two black screens and Pharmacology videos that I won't be needing anymore as I can't even watch them! Wishing myself good luck for friday's midterm....

But this post really does not have anything to do with academia or the lack of studying that was last night. I thought fixing my laptop should be a number one priority so I called this laptop-repairing-place a friend of mine suggested before actually going there since it's on the other side of town after all. And a wasted journey is the last thing I can be bothered with this week....

I call and a lady with the softest voice picks up: "serwis, halo?"
"Hello!!............................." dots indicating me thinking whether or not I should try speaking in polish or english and secretly cursing myself for not having planned out a conversation before calling. "Uhm, hi, so.... do you speak english? Angieeeeeelskoooo?" Awkwardface....
She gets all stressed and I can hear the worry in her voice "uhm.. nOOOOoooo...."
"Anybody nearby speaking english.....?"
"Noooo"
"Nobody?"
"No..."
"Okay so no english then"
...
...
...
...
...
...
Waiting for 5 seconds and she still awkwardly has not hung up on me yet so I try "so I have  laptop..... with black screen..."
"Yes black screen?"
"Can you fix it?"
"YEeees, uh huh"
"Uhm... okay... so how much? Ile kosztuje?"
"Trzysta trzydziesci!"
"Okay, so three hundred and thirty?"
"Yes" she says, sounding very pleased with herself. Then I made some silly remark about potentially going over to hand in my laptop soon which she probably only caught parts of, and hung up.

Now that was not so hard now was it? I still wonder why it is a tad difficult for the general population to realise that it takes such little effort to communicate or simply help a stranger out without perfect language skills. My polish is embarrassingly limited yet I still tryyyy to get my point across as iften as I can.
To be honest I actually salute this lady for not hanging up on me (has happened 142537times in the past), while wishing others would think twice before saying "NIE' and move on in total ignorance.

This whole thing is not exactly news for non-polish speakers, but I thought it might amuse those of you who live elsewhere :p

Nepali food.

Dal-bhaat literally means lentil-rice and is from what I gather the most common food that Nepali families eat. The meal is eaten for lunch and dinner at the approximate  hours of 10am and 8pm. To me, having lunch at 10am is the most bizarre thing, but I only eat it during my days off at the hospital because I usually leave around 8am every morning. So on most days I get to drink tea and have biscuits before leaving the house. They also give me a couple of cucumber slices (which are huuuuge, almost like a pineapple slice i size!) And recently I have also had porridge with either oatmeal or rice. The rice porridge my host mum made the other day had cardamom and coconut in it which was a nice variation of the norwegian "risengrynsgrøt".

Everything is so sweeeeeeet! I thought I had an unhealthy relationship with sucrose, but seriously, I cannot even expect my tea to be unsweetened before it gets poured into my cup around here. Even when I tell my host mum to NOT add sugar she will always add a little bit, probably hoping that I won't notice.!? At this point I have given up on making more remarks, it is not like she will stop the sneakiness- the same way she tries to add more food on my plate even before I have finished half of it and it is already too much. She is a sneaky but sweet woman. Pun intended.
And if something is supposed to be savoury it is usually coated with batter and fried in oil. The snacks people eat is usually crisps, crackers and biscuits, though I have also seen street vendors selling huge chunks of fresh cucumbers smeared with pickles... No wonder protein deficiency is a reality here.

Then you have the official (?) nepali dish which is quite popular among travellers, called mo:mo! Mo:mos are dumplings that are steamed, fried or in some type of soup. I have only tried the vegetable filling but they also make them with buffalo meat, pork, chicken and potatoes (?) Quite spicy, but I can now proudly say that my spice tolerance has gone sky high, so mo:mos and the super delicious tomato-garlic-ginger-peanut-chilli paste is simply a delight to have for lunch!

Due to the bird flu I have not had any chicken and I am trying to avoid eggs. Since meat is a bit expensive they hardly ever cook it at home except for the occasional mutton, so I have turned vegetarian without even noticing. Even when eating out I automatically choose the veg option. Actually at the moment I am craving home made whole wheat bread full of grains and fibre with Norvegia cheese way more than roast chicken.... Haven't felt horribly sick so far either, so I guess that dulcolax vaccine was a good investment.

Another observation I have made is that Nepal is not huge on salads. Only these new cool and hip places do salads, so it is not a very traditional thing I guess. They have all these fresh vegetables and fruits available but they prefer cooking them until they are soft, spice them up and make curries out of them instead... which is also nice by all means, but I miss having a side of fresh uncooked, or lightly steamed vegetables. Maybe the veg cooking is an attempt to kill germs? That would be a random guess though, for I am still puzzled by the abundance of squishy greens. Raw food enthusiasts should definitely travel elsewhere for a culinary experience to their liking ;)

Travelling solo.

It seems a little strange now to say that I am here in Nepal by myself because to some extent it isn't exactly the truth. That being said I had really mixed feelings about being in Kathmandu without having known any of my new acquaintances for more than 72 hours during week 1. I don't have any trust issues so making new friends is nice and all, but where was that one person I could point out all the odd new things to? I guess Instagram helped me out a little in that respect, but you know what I mean, yea? Where was that one person I could share my frustration with at the hospital when it seemed like all the time I was about to invest there was going to be a total waste? (luckily that sorted itself out, so no worries).
However now that week 3 is coming to an end I do not feel all that gutted for having come all the way by myself.

First of all I had no idea this would be outside my comfort zone! I kept telling myself that going on my own to Nepal would be just like going to a European capital for a long weekend, only multiply the days I would be gone by 10. Most of the time you don't even want to return from your holiday, so how could this extended vacation with some work experience be anything but an adventure? Well let me tell you, this being my first time in Asia I have never felt a more exotic vibe in my life (though writing this from a franchise coffee shop under the Starbucks Company Ltd does not exactly prove my point, but the world outside its four walls sure emphasise it). And why would the exoticness suggest that I found myself in a slightly uncomfortable and unfamiliar territory? I love exotic things! I enjoy exploring new sounds, scents, textures and spaces. Why did all these new experiences (that I am really enjoying by the way) make me miss my usual habitat?  I don't have a magnificent answer, but I guess it was the uncertainty of my stay at the beginning. The first meetings with the staff at the hospital made me wonder how I was going to stand four weeks of dull days at the hospital followed by wandering around on my own and going to sleep at 9pm every day. At that point I just wanted to catch the first flight home, but I gave it a few more days and once I made myself a weird daily routine things started to get bearable and finally greater than I could have imagined!

What was I expecting, right!? Of course it seems obvious now that your mental state is going to have a bad time if you are used to organised institutions, guidelines, having things at least vaguely planned out, knowing that what you planned is usually executed the way you thought it out in the first place etc etc... I actually generally have very low expectations when it comes to most things in life- not because I have had oh so many bad experiences in the past that I have to watch out for (I'd rather say the opposite), but because it gives me a lower threshold at which to experience happiness. Thus I am pretty sure that I would have felt even more miserable with a slightly different attitude the past few weeks.

So now that I feel very content and enjoying the Nepali ways, I have merged another state of being into what I regard as my comfort zone. I tried convincing everyone before leaving that I would be fine coming here on my own, and truth is it has indeed worked out really well. I have learned a few things about myself that I never would have realised if I was accompanied by a friend, which is intriguing to think about, because there are a few people in particular I wish could have been here to experience it all with me. Some paradoxical truth right there!

I hope you are enjoying what I hear are the last days of summer in the northern parts of the hemisphere while I am still here in the monsoon-infested land of yaks and rice-fields! 

My host family.

 It has indeed been a while since my last post... though mostly I have been at the hospital and only went for a trip outside Kathmandu for a few days. Will make a separate post about that shortly. 
I just have to say that my host family is really lovely and they deserve much more than a lousy blog post and the bars of Melkesjokolade I brought them from Norway! So do read on....!

So my family lives in an area of Kathmandu called Mhepi, which is also the name of the temple which is closeby on top of a hill surrounded by woods..! It is a nice neighbourhood, lots of small shops, butchers, a supermarket, tailors etc just a short walk away. It is nice to get back from a busy day in the tourist area Thamel, to a place that is slightly calmer with only the children, dogs and roosters next door making most of the noise!

I live with my host mother Sarita, father Krishna and their son Satish. They also have another son who studies in the US who they Skype with every now and then.  Krishna is a retired government officer and Sarita is a housewife- who takes especially good care of everyone, including me! Satish is currently studying for some university entrance exams and is busy revising physics and solving papers most of the day.

Satish speaks excellent English which was my biggest relief when the driver dropped me off at the house on my first day. He translates everything that his mum and dad say when I am around which is not only nice of him to do but it has also made it possible for me to have indirect conversations with his parents in a surprisingly natural way.

These people seem to be quite content with life. They always manage to lurk out a smile in me and I have never seen either of them being particularly upset about anything. Ever! There was only one time when Sarita was telling off Satish for spilling some seeds on the floor, but obviously that does not mean anything in the greater context...

My own mum was obviously a little hesitant at the idea of me going away to the other side of the world, but we Skyped a few times at the beginning and when she saw my host family and how genuinely sweet they are I think she also felt just as relieved as I was when I arrived at their house. Having a new Nepali family is super awesome!

My host mum has a strictly food-related english vocabulary, but I have to say that it has even improved a little while I have been here :) it consists of:
.thirsty
.hungry
.sugar
.eating
.food
.little bit
.too much
.spicy
.porridge
.tea
.biscuit
.banana
.dinner
.rice
.potato
.mosquito
.hospital
.tomorrow
.going
.leaving
Well, at least these are essential words we use to communicate, in addition to a looooot of body language. Most of the time she just laughs and I laugh back when I have no idea what she is saying... to be fair, she knows much more english than I know nepali! All I can say is namaste (hello/goodbye) and dhanyabad (thank you).

I did not know whether it would be rude to decline food around here, but my family seems to be okay with me eating half of the rice that they have per meal nowadays. At first they were like "do you not like our food? You are going to get thin" and I kept saying that I did not want to waste the food that would be left on my plate. But now they seem to have accepted that I simply cannot eat the size of my dinner plate back home full of rice with the additional curries, pickles, veg, mutton, paneer cheese, lentils or potatoes and whatnot that they also have on the side. And I still quite enjoy the food, which I'm really hoping they have realised by now!

The other day was Satish' 20th birthday, so I got him some cake from a pastry shop aafter looking around for half an eternity among all the cashmere shops and wholesalers in Thamel. I have never seen somebody be so happy, thankful and humble about a piece of cake before- it really was the least I could do...!

So I feel that it really is true what they say about Nepali people being good in every way. Satish especially has helped me out with everything from finding my bearings, telling me what not to do, what acceptable prices for random things are, even driving me around on his motorcycle and staying up to let me in through the gate to the house when I come back late in the evening when everyone else has gone to sleep (they sure go to bed early around here!)

And while I think my host family is some of the nicest people I have met here I have to say that people on the street are also very helpful and genuine. So far I do not feel like anyone has tricked me or screwed me over in any way. The taxi drivers always try, but my bargaining skills seem to have improved so I usually find them to be quite nice in the end as well.

I guess I will have to pay my new family another visit some day. Asian backpacking trip in a couple of years, anyone?!

Week 1.

Kathmandu, day 1

3 days in The Hague

A day in Amsterdam

A(n) (illustrated) day in the life of a medical student in Krakow.

I decided to make this post to keep as another point-of-reference. How does a normal day during the pre-clinical years at the UJ School of Medicine in English (SME) look like?

07:30

Breakfast and the occasional preparation of a "matpakke"/packed lunch if one can be bothered (lunch is quite affordable at the 'oh so lovely' canteen/cafe at CDK, so no worries if this time is rather spent catching up on lost sleep. There will always be some soup waiting for you), followed by mentally preparing for a morning lecture. 

07:55

Frantically biking to said lecture (at Kopernika or Lazarza street), almost running over a few pigeons and hobos in Planty (park surrounding the Main Market Square) on the way.

08:00-08:10

If all goes well, the traffic lights cooperate and you're not held back by roadworks or old ladies that do not respond to "przepraszam pani" ( indicating something like: 'excuse me mrs, you're in my way, could you please be so kind and move for a moment?') by principle, then you're at the lecture on time! If not, you're fashionably late and climb up the stairs at the back of the theater or sneak into the room casually finding a chair to slouch in for the next 90 minutes or so of Physiology or Biochemistry... Alternatively, if the lecture is held by inspiring members of the academic staff, you pay attention. Here are some example shots:

If the morning lecture is called "anatomy lab" you put that lab coat on and vigorously take notes as the teacher points out 50 structures of the skull in the first 15 minutes of class. Being late can be stressful in this case and you may as well stay at home to avoid humiliation as the teacher greets you into the lab and you break into tears from the formaldehyde that instantly tickles your lacrimal glands.... 

09:45

A few options are available at this point of the day:

- Bike your way to the next class

- Bike to CDK which can offer an array of activities: have a bite at the canteen I mentioned earlier, catch up on some reading in the reading rooms...

well yeah, that's basically it...  or just chill the heck out outside like these guys:

- Head to the main market square-area for a bite and casual cafe-reading while waiting for your next class to begin

- Do some errands! Most establishments (including Galeria Krakowska- huge shopping center) opens at 10am so if you head there at this point you're guaranteed to bypass the rush of people and get whatever it is you need to do out of the way early in the day. 

- Go to the gym! Both Pure Angel City and Pure Platinum Kazimierz are within reach and a quick workout can easily be squeezed in between classes

 

12:00

Polish class! From what I hear this will from now on be obligatory throughout all years of the 6-year programme because of additional practical classes at the hospital in the clinical years and more patient interaction which means that you kind of need to communicate in the indigenous language. Here you can see the degree of seriousness around this subject as we were revising for our Polish exam last year:

14:00

LUNCHTIME. Take out your "matpakke" and buy yourself a coffee or fill your thermo cup with hot water and brew that teabag. If you forgot your matpakke at home, pull out a 5 zl coin and have some soup. There are very few things in the world of Polish cuisine that beats the soup. Soup for the people all day every day!

15:00

On most days you'd be done for the day, however hose labs don't do themselves, so every now and then there's one you have to attend as absences beyond what is allowed could cause trouble later in the year with for example permission to take the final exam, etc..
Biophysics, histology, physiology, biochemistry all tend to have labs scheduled PM (unless your surname is early in the alphabet and you're in a group that is usually first off to finish every practical aspect of the courses here at SME... *not jealous at all*)
In histo you get to play with these badass microscopes:

The labs last between 60 minute to 3 hours depending on how efficient the teacher is at explaining what you are going to do and how quickly you actually do it. Unfortunately the standard deviation of lab hours can be high and thus unpredictable at times. Be strategic about which labs to skip and just hang in there on the days when you just want to scream and shout and kill everyone within reach. It will be over! And hey, some of the labs can actually be quite fun when you get to see stuff like this:

...though if you ask me what that is I can shamefully say that I forgot all about it some time in September last year.

17:30

Also a few options available here:
- Go to the gym if you didn't go in the morning
- Go home and make yourself some dinner. Feeling too lazy to cook but too dedicated to catch up on last week's reading? Call a takeout and ask them to deliver it to Sw. Lazarza 16. Expect this to take at least an hour. This is Poland... Nuff said.

19:00

Either:
- Keep reading. You can rest when you're dead
- Be all super cool and attend a CoperniChoir rehearsal! Sing your heart out and drink some beer with the crew afterwards. Best form of recreation you can imagine:

00:00

Read a little more to let off the guilt that may have piled up throughout the day. Or crash on the couch like these guys:

And that kind of wraps it up...! So apply to UJ SME come to Krakow and experience it all first hand :p Definitely worth it ^_^



.n

Applying & getting accepted to UJ SME

I don't get a lot of questions about what studying medicine in Krakow is like from people who are in the process of applying. So now that I'm not swamped with physio and biochem for a week or so I guess I can write a few things about how I experienced the application process to be- for the minority of people reading this blog of course. But that's something I'm willing to do, seeing as I usually identify with the minority when it comes to most things in life :)

Once I decided to apply for medical schools in Poland/Czech Republic I felt quite limited as to where I could apply because I was lacking a physics requirement from high school. (this minor point is in fact haunting me to this very day as we need credits in a subject called biophysics... bleh..)

So the schools I found at the time which I could easily wrap up an application to was Pomeranian Medical University in Szczecin and Jagiellonian University (UJ) in Krakow. My hopes of applying to Charles University in Prague was crushed by their physics requirement and lack of mercy to those without it.

Both of my applications got accepted. Pomeranian did not even require an entrance exam, so I would have been good to go as I received an offer shortly before I had to sit the UJ entrance exam around June 3rd 2011.

I was really lazy when it came to studying for this because I was a tad more preoccupied with finishing my last year at Edinburgh University, writing my bachelor dissertation and academic portfolio (oh the joys... what a "fun" time that was...)

The consultant I applied through (eec.no) along with the school itself (UJ) advised us to use general biology books to study for the biology component (55 questions in 2011). If I remember correctly, the recommended book was by Campbell & Reece, which I personally think is a huge waste of time reading through regardless of what your level is in biology. I had a similar book  called "Life the science of biology" by Purves et al, and I barely looked up anything in it. For the chemistry component (45 questions in 2011) there were also some recommended books I didn't even consider looking at; even though chem has always been a pain in the ass for me.

Seeing as my academic background at this point was 4 years studying medical sciences (i.e. biology/human biology/pre med/whatever you wanna call it) at university level I felt less of a necessity to spend time "studying" and learning new things for the entrance exam. All I did was reading through the PDF file they give you access to on eec.no. I guess you could also get it straight from the Jagiellonian University as you stay in touch throughout the application process. This basically covered my revision of biology and chemistry. I supplemented this booklet with the invaluable books called "Biology for the IB diploma" and "Chemistry for the IB diploma". I would highly recommend buying or borrowing these books if you know people who have studied the IB programme at high school. They are super concise and include more or less all the information you need.

For the chemistry part I felt that doing questions from the past exams was the most useful way of revising the material.
So if you feel that you have been away from the routine of studying it might be a good idea to start revising bio and chem a little earlier than I did. I think I spent 7-10 semi-efficient days studying and got 70% on the exam which was well within the pass mark in 2011.

They called out our names and sent us into different rooms once the exams has been marked and that must have been the longest 30 minutes of my life. When one of the professors after the longest possible sentence finally announced that "we were accepted at the UJ School of Medicine in English (SME)" we all held out breaths and suddenly an immense joy rushed through the room. Such relief... and I obviously knew which offer I was going to accept when I went home that day.

When it comes to choosing the program to apply for there are some entry requirements to consider. Those who have a high school diploma (with generell studiekompetanse if you are norwegian) with the necessary subjects (sciences) can apply for the 6 year programme.  I was under the impression that anyone with a pre med degree could apply for the 4 year programme, but this seemed not to be the case as a norwegian friend of mine who did the same degree as me at the University of Edinburgh got rejected because her BSc was NOT an American or Canadian one... This is why we(even the teachers) refer to the 4YP and 6YP as the American and Norwegian programmes respectively. I have no idea why European BSc degrees are not accepted by the school..

So except for the ridiculous amount of Norwegians at the SME, there is a good portion of Malaysians a number of North Americans and Swedes (and the odd German, French, Equadorian ++). There is a strong sense of community held together by a student union called Copernica and the student governments, especially that of the 6-year programme. These bodies hold various events, both academic and recreational, which the whole school is welcome to take part in.

I think that roughly sums up a few points people who are applying to UJ SME may be interested to know about. If you come across this post and have more questions you may send me an email (nilen89(at)gmail.com) or ask in the comments section ^^



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Shut up and take my money #1

I think many people would agree that I need one of these...!



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Friday night with Kaizers.

 This week I decided to do the following:1. Buy a tablet 2. Update my instagram account for the first time ever (not all that successfully, but meh... ) 3. Jump onto the night train and g to PRAGUE to see KAIZERS ORCHESTRA!

Had a lovely encounter in the sleeper compartment of the train with a russian girl who works in the human resources  dept of a tobacco company(interesting as ive never thought of who these people actually are, and funny to hear that she did not even use any tobacco herself...). And I actually managed to sleep for most of the night even at the top bunk bed!

A friend of mine from high school who lives in Prague was also going to see Kaizers so we went together along with his friends and it turned out to be such a great time, which was much better than what I'd imagined^^ There's just something about Kaizers' music and live shows which makes your body tremble and fall in love...
They mostly played newer tunes from the last three albums and also some classics, all in all it was quite the party and my voice was rather hoarse by the end of it all. Naturally..

So for the rest of my time in Prague I just hung out with my Couchsurfing host, watched a few biochemistry kaplan videos (geek point) and met another CSer the day before my train left. Had the most tasty burger at a tiny colourful burger-diner in a part of Prague I'd probably never go to on my own if it wasn't for this CSer- fun times!

And the night train back was also a new and painful experience. Not sure how many minutes of sleep I got, but at least the neck-cushion that Weronica lent me saved me from even more pain. I didn't get a sleeper compartment for the way back so was sitting in a compartment with room for eight people, though luckily the two spots next to me were vacant and I could stretch my legs out a little. Also, quite randomly, I met two girls from my school in the very same compartment as they'd also gone to the concert like me + this annual ANSA seminar that's held in Prague. So we took turns stretching our feet and miserably braced ourselves into the cold and misty morning. My hands and feet were swollen from immobility, my hair a mess from the knotty braid I'd made to keep it in one place (fail) and my eyes like those of a panda from the unnecessary amounts of khol and mascara. But don't worry, I just came out of the shower so I'm no longer all smelly, and about to take a nap so I can make it to biochemistry in an hour! See ya!

 

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