2018 In Review

                     

What a crazy year it's been! Here's a little look at the highlights of 2018. 

January:
January was a busy month! My uni holidays were much shorter this year and I started back at placement again quite early in January. I started my General Practice rotation, helped my boyfriend move house, and had a big party in the backyard to celebrate my 21st birthday!

February:
My boyfriend and I went for a very spontaneous trip to the beach for Fish and Chips and discovered a new favourite takeaway place. We managed to catch the most gorgeous sunset while we were there!

We also had a rather cute homemade valentines dinner of salmon and roast veges that was so amazingly tasty!

I  started on my Mental Health rotation near the end of the month and discovered that I really seemed to enjoy it!

March:

I continued on my psychiatry term and absolutely loved it, and happily all the doctors also seemed to love me! I'm definitely considering it as a future speciality choice now.

The local book store had a massive sale with all the books for $5 so I bought a few, then went back a couple of days later and bought more! Big Magic was my fave out of all the ones I bought.

I also continued my tradition of going slightly OTT with decorations and decked out our living room for Easter.

April:

After a solid 13 weeks of placement, I had my first break of the year. I had two weeks off and went to visit my boyfriend and his family in Adelaide. We explored the city and went for a lovely weekend trip away to the beach. It was colder than I'd expected but a really nice change from the North Queensland heat!

I also got to meet up with one of my friends from high school times which was so nice!

Once I got back to real life I started on my Surgery rotation which I had been dreading since the start of the year. We still made time for a weekend trip to explore Mossman Gorge though!

May:
May was another massive month! I successfully managed to survive my surgery rotation, somehow. As I'd been dreading I did get my fair share of mean surgeons and not-so-nice comments, but I took it one day at a time and made it out the other side thankfully! I always knew surgery wasn't the path for me, so although I'd hoped I might be proved wrong, I always knew it was a rotation I would just have to get through.

On a much happier note, I got to share one of my great passions with my boyfriend-I finally took him sailing! I sailed twice a week for most of my high school time and absolutely adored it, so it was really exciting to be able to introduce it to someone new! 

Another weekend, another trip- we went camping with some friends! We fitted 5 of us and lots of gear in the ute and had great fun in rainforests, beaches, waterfalls and everything in between all in 2 days. It was a great opportunity to relax and not think about uni for a little while.

This month my rotations for 2019 were confirmed and I got the very exciting news that I will be spending half the year on Thursday Island and a lot of the rest of the year in India!

June:

I started on my Medicine rotation, which was very interesting but so complicated!

My parents finally came home from their few months away in Europe and the whole family was reunited for a brief but lovely time!

One of my favourite events, the Lifeline $2 sale, came back to Cairns and I scored some awesome bargains! You can check out that thrift haul here if you haven't seen it.

July:

I finally had another break after a very stressful OSCE. This time I went to visit my bestie in her new home in Newcastle! We had an amazing finally catching up, going to movies and having a christmas in july party!

I also got to meet her boyfriend's adorable border collies which was definitely a highlight of the trip!

Once I got home I was really starting to feel the stress of exams looming and struggled to keep my anxiety in check for a few weeks. A really nice ray of sunshine during the stressful times was one of our friends from the first year of uni coming back to Australia. We were reunited for the briefest of times but it was so lovely!

I also organised for our rural health club to attend a fun run and it made for a super energetic start to our Saturday morning!

August:
I started on my Paediatrics rotation while in August which I found very enjoyable. Both my study and stress were ramping up a bit by now, but I still tried very hard to keep some balance and do some nice things on the weekends! My family and I went camping at Davies Creek for a couple of nights and did a really cool hike which was fun!

My study group met for coffee to discuss how we were going to tackle preparing for exams, and on the way home we took a nice detour to the botanic gardens for a bit of exploring.

I also spent a big chunk of this month stressing and preparing for our rural health club's big gala ball. I was in charge of decorations which gave me plenty of headaches, but we got there in the end and I think it turned out pretty nice!

At the end of the month I booked my flights to New Zealand for Christmas which gave me something extra to look forward to.

September:

September was a good month for family catch ups! My boyfriend's Mum came to visit us from Adelaide, and she got to meet my Mum which was pretty cute. We went on a sunrise kayaking trip together and had lots of yummy brunch and coffee together.

Later in the month we also had a lovely family weekend back at home, with my sister home from uni and her boyfriend and his brother also joining us! We had an amazing roast dinner, campfire in the garden and still managed to squeeze in some study on the side so it was a pretty amazing weekend.

October:

Believe it or not, this is actually the only photo I took in October! I made banoffee pie for my boyfriend's birthday and we ate it while celebrating booking our flights to India.

I was very busy this month whilst on my Obstetrics and Gynaecology rotation, and I got to catch some babies during my birth suite week which was super exciting!

November:
The big time was here, November was the month of my final medical school exams! I spent most of my time studying at the kitchen table with my housemates, practicing OSCE cases and trying not to panic. The exams went fairly well but I was quite worried about the multiple choice paper that we had last, as it's impossible to know if you got the right answer or went completely wrong!
Of course, we had a big party to celebrate finishing.

I was then super busy organising myself for overseas trips and moving out of our apartment, which required a whole lot of driving right in the middle of a massive heat wave!

In the middle of a day spent cleaning the old apartment I found out I had passed my exams and literally just sat on the floor and sobbed with relief. Medicine has been a hella tough ride for me and I just couldn't believe I'd actually done it! As the cherry on top, it turned out that I got a Distinction for this year which is way better than I've ever done before. It was so nice to have a bit of a confidence boost at the end of such a tough year!

December:
December came and went in a blur of travel, organising and placement!

We jetted off to New Zealand for Christmas with my grandparents and the rest of the family. Unfortunately I didn't have much time to relax because I was super busy organising my electives and completing a two week emergency department placement.

We rounded out the year with a tramp up the mountain and a lovely quiet Christmas day at home.

Whew, what a year! It's been both better and worse than I'd hoped in many ways, and I'm really looking forward to the new adventures that 2019 will bring me!
What was your favourite moment of 2018?
Kate x