3rd year

Ranting two days before I enter my 3rd year over here at Murdoch Uni.

Got asked how life is over here and I might as well write a bit about it, really need to keep up the blogging since it's so good to write regularly. Will make it a habit to post on here once a week this semester.

It's actually amazing that we're starting 3rd year. It went fast but everything in life goes fast when you do stuff you like. Life here is truly amazing. I'm thinking and saying it out loudly almost every day. Sure we all have days when we think it sucks and that whatever we do is pointless but for the most part, shit is good.

Last semester we studied these units.

Anatomy all muscles and nerve innervation, bones and brain.
Was a great course and it's hard to believe that I didn't know all that before because it's second nature to me now.

Biomechanics What muscles do in your body, forces acting on your bones and some basic palpation of all the joints in the body (adjusting them will come this year)

Physical Examination What you basically do is that you do a physical examination of the patient's lungs, heart, head, skin, intestinal or other system.
Was a great deal of work and me and another classmate have committed to practice our skills once a week for this semester since these skills are so important to know from the top of your head. Our teacher used to say that he was going to phone us at 3am and drill us and damn the one who could not answer, funny guy and I really liked his teaching style.
You definitely did your homework before each class because he would throw questions at you all the time and would not hold back on the humiliation factor if you didn't knew the answer.

------------------
This semester we're finally being taught officially to adjust. I'm looking forward to this a lot. WE have a great teacher for this course as well. In fact, many of our teachers are great. I mean the kind of persons you rarely meet.

However I've been going to evening classes every week of this semester since the Chiropractic technique (Gonstead) taught there really impresses me. The University does not allow this technique and their clinic. They only go with a technique called Diversified. Which with my limited knowledge seems easier to learn, but don't take my word on this since my knowledge is virtually zero when it comes to this.

I can see what Murdoch is trying to do. They are trying to legitimatize the education we get as much as possible. Making it more medicine oriented but that puts more pressure on the student to get out there and learn and practice adjustments and hands on stuff, since there is not enough time spent on that at Murdoch according to me. But that's just fine and I just have the feeling that this is the way it goes. We do 5 years here and they do 8 years in the states so more responsibility to the student to get good on their own over here.

I don't have any references on this one but I think they learned 3 or 4 different techniques at Macquarie in Sydney where's at Murdoch we are only being taught one which is Diversified.
Politics politics...I still think that what you get out of your education is exactly what you put in. I've changed a lot since I first got here. These days we've been going in to Uni just catching up on stuff every fortnightly. I've now a deal with a good class mate of mine to arrive at uni 30min before we start to get some practice in everyday, that's how you learn - I know!

We had one guy in our class that after the first year transferred over to England and I spoke to him a month ago. Now this guy know what he wants and got his head right. He said that the academic standard over there was very low and their facilities were crap.
Result: he's coming back to study with us.

I've also been out there, observing Chiropractors. That has been of even greater benefit than I'd previously thought. They practice with different styles and techniques so you get to develop your own thought of what you want to do in the future. I think this is important questions to have in your head from the start.

I've now twice been observing the Chiropractor who is doing our Tuesday evening classes and this guy is amazing. Every time you walk out from his office you feel fresh and motivated.
It's been great to see that this stuff actually works. I was very skeptical and still is even though my Dad and Grandpa were Chiropractors. You should always be critical even if the person sounds very sure of his thing. Always do your own research.

Enough for today, now I'm going to enjoy my last two days of summer break before I'm back to were every minute is scheduled again.

Also have to add that I've started with Olympic weightlifting and will hopefully compete in State Championship in June 2011