Entries 3,4 and 5. It's totally legit.

Alright, get this. I had adventures.

From these I have learnt a few lessons that I would like to share with you.

So on the 3rd Blaugust night I sat down to begin my post knowing that my boyfriend would arrive for a weeks visit at some point that evening. As it turned out though, my boyfriend had not planned his fuel very well and got himself stuck in the small country town of Robe late enough at night that nothing was open.

Lesson 1: After 9pm country SA closes for the night.

Naturally the best course of action was to go save him.
I pulled into the petrol station to go see if I could purchase a can of some sort so that he could drive his car the rest of the way. As I pulled in however, in the darkness I was unable to see that there was a curb where I was heading and this lead me to burst one of my car tires.

Luckily though, I had a spare.

Lesson 2:  Make sure you have a spare tire.

I have only changed one car tire in my life, it was under supervision when my parents told me that should I be living in the country I need to learn how to change a tire

Lesson 3: Listen to your parents (sometimes)

As I was getting the spare tire and jack out of my car friend of mine from work pulled in, she asked me what I was doing. Upon explaining the situation she said that while she can't help she would call her boyfriend who can.

Lesson 4: Good networking gets you places

I continued to change the tire, began raising my car when a car pulled up at the station, a man got out and asked me if I needed help. I told him what I did and we both laughed at how stupid I was, at this point my friend's boyfriend arrived and the other man left.

Lesson 5: Being nice to people brings joy

With the car tire fixed I went and bought a 10L petrol can, filled it with petrol and set off to go save my stranded man.

I arrived an hour later, took the can out of the boot, sat it next to his car when we realized that the can didn't come with a funnel. It looked kinda like this:

Fuckkkkk

A few minutes later with a frantic phone call to his parents for ideas, I was taking rusty screwdriver to an old water bottle that had left in my car, to use as a funnel to get the petrol into his car.

Gotta keep it until I buy a funnel

We managed to get safely back to my house, with another 20 minute detour because as we also learnt...

Lesson 6: Road signs in the country take you on the scenic route

All went well in the end and I am thankful that my boyfriend is safe. I will admit my heart sank when I saw 7 missed calls and I originally thought my boyfriend was dying in horrible car crash using his last ounce of strength to call me to give me a tragic parting goodbye message.**Disclaimer: This is not something my boyfriend would do.   

I got to bed in the end at about 2am then woke up for a 7am start at work. I was surprised I was able to function at work the next day but I guess a part of me had accepted that I did what I needed to and that I felt I made the right choice.

Lesson 7: You don't have to be good to get the job done.


And finally:

What song have you got stuck in your head?

Till next time~

Havra

Why Lara doesn't like me - Starting the run, breaking the game

A few months ago I was watching my good friend practicing his speedrun for LaMulana when I said to myself: "Yeah, I wanna speedrun a game".

Lord knows why, half of the time I was watching it was him swearing or saying how shit bats were. It was decided though, so I had to decide a game to start with. My friend suggested a short game that I was familiar with. I wanted a childhood game of mine, one that I would take pleasure in breaking.

The first game that stuck to mind was Tomb Raider. While this is not a short game it is easily segmented and that was probably more what I was after. Tomb Raider was a series that I got into as a child that helped me realize how great boobs are. More so though, it was a game that even as a child I could break.

It also helped that there is a ton of information about how to speedrun Tomb Raider games here: http://www.tombrunner.net/. Do check it out.

So here we are, Tomb Raider III. While Tomb Raider II had more childhood trauma for me I found that TRIII was a little easier to break in ways.

The old man that follows you around everywhere in this one farts. Constantly.

I took some screenshots of my efforts today as I practiced a few things. There were 2 things I used to do a lot when I was younger and I am going to show you here. 

My First Glitch

It isn't complex, it isn't that wonderful, but when I was a child it was the most amazing thing I could ever do. I found a way to get to the top of Lara's mansion. This technique is used throughout early Tomb Raider speedruns. 

Note, how easy it is to put Lara into objects. 

As Lara jumps up and down she drifts slightly. Using this, you can place her in walls. 

And when the game doesn't know where she is. 

She gets spawned on top of whatever you stuck her in. In this case, she is now on top of her house. 

Look. Lara. Everything the draw distance touches, is our kingdom...

This led to more fun with me finding the strange textures and the magic floating platform. 

Looks like there's nothing at all! Nothing at all! Nothing at all!

Old Man Antics

What probably made me like TRIII more than TRII was the old man antics and the addition of a quad bike. The old man antics was something I was sure to do every time I played this tutorial level. 

You get access to guns at the end of the assault course. 

Not sure what Lara is shooting but she sure is keen

In this the poor old man becomes a target. Just so you remember how much of a bitch Lara is.

Of course, you shoot him. 

He only groans a little when he gets up. It's not like he may have arthritis...

It's okay though. It's all for queen and country!! 

Now here is the cruel bit that I couldn't stop laughing at. This is for if the farts get too much.

In the kitchen there is... the Freezer. 

Get yourself all ready....

Hello gorgeous!

Kbye

Aaaaaaaaand you shut the door. 

Thus, preventing him from following you. You do still however, hear his farts from the rooms surrounding. 

Now, back to the going fast. Over the months I looked up a few ways that people went through the levels, practiced the techniques and finally today was the day I gave it a go. 

The First Level

The current best time for the first level is 38 seconds. You will find it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgcioHGIBXU

This is the route I decided to go for. 

Different techniques and a slightly different route have had a lot of runners complete the first level in just over 1 minute. 

First attempt at me doing this, did not end well. 

No matter! I will just have to jump a little differently. 

Finally I got to the first area where I could do something silly. You jump through the edge of the wall and can get yourself on top of it. 

I got stuck. While there is "quicksand" I wasn't sinking but in this case, I had wedged myself in something and couldn't get out. 

It doesn't even look like I am stuck...

No matter!

Close but not quite on that. 

Again not quite. It was a good try Lara.

Aha! Success! Now to jump over to the other side. 

Easy so far. Now here comes the bit that I spent hours... to try and get. Grabbing into the block so that when you pull yourself up, you hit the trigger for the level exit. 

If you can see it, Lara's shadow is in the block.

And this is what happened: 

Yaay out of bounds! 

Lets try again. 

Hooray! I did it! But...

Something didn't seem right and the start of the next level.... Is this Ninja Croft?

No Matter! I will load again. 

Okay then... I didn't wanna see Lara's face anyway. Load again...

Okay I didn't want to see the level either. Bah. 

As it turns out, one way of hitting the level exit means you skip the cut scene after it. Useful? No. Every time this happens you will load a level or a save that is either missing the art for Lara, or the art for the level. 

Restarting and having another go, I completed it. 

Yaaaay! Go me with breaking the game. Does this make me a speedrunner? 

Learning and learning lots

Yesterdays attempt at a blog post had me listing all the things I had learnt from placement. Good news is that I have learnt so much that I spent 2-3 hours and I still wasn't done explaining. Bad news is that it still isn't finished and after amazing cake tonight I am a little too brain dead for the task.  So again, ranting.

... okay I am not sure what I am meant to be ranting about. Maybe if I start it will just come to me. Hmmm.

Placement is good. Over the weeks I have been in to assist (where I can) with Tilt Table Tests, Angiograms, Pacemaker placements, Biventricular Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator placements and Loop recorder implants. I have only just begun to work in the operating part of the day surgery so I am still learning a lot of what goes on in there. I know what to explain to the patients and what the rationale behind the intervention is but as far as the details, I didn't follow the flow of conversation. I somehow seem to be talking to the right people though. I started a conversation with a radiographer today asking about his role and how you interpretate the results given, for him to print out a worksheet he gives to his students that detailed all the major arteries around the heart. He then talked me through what was happening during each step of the operation. I have then been mistaken a few times by doctors and radiographers as being a medical student for asking these questions. Rarely in this area have I come across a person who said: "You don't need to know that in that much detail" and leave the conversation there.

Oh that struck a nerve, prepare for the rant.

This is an issue I have had throughout my education, people not explaining because I don't "need" to know. In all likely hood I will forget most of what I have learnt here on placement if I never end up working in a heart specialty area. That is fine. It doesn't mean I shouldn't know or shouldn't be told these details. In my mind it helps to solidify the important bits because without the overall rules the details and exceptions don't fit. It is also now a part of my job. I don't want to give something to a patient or treat a patient the way I was told to by the doctor without having at least some idea of what the reasons are behind it.

This "you don't need to learn that" issue happened with my older brother in primary school where the teacher refused to tell the little 6-year-old how to spell a really long word because it wasn't a part of what he was set to learn at that age. The school agreed as well and wouldn't do anything about it. What did my parents do? Pulled him out of that school and found a new one.

The issues that I had, were teachers in high school not understanding how I connected information. I have a pace, and often I find you don't need to go over information again if you meet that pace. Going too fast isn't an issue with me unless I have no prior knowledge of the subject area. What is worse for me, is people being too slow.

So in high school, I had a lot of teachers willing to explain or teach me things inside or outside of class. However, they felt that because I needed to ask again or request for them to sit down and run it through with me, that they had to be slooooooooooooooow and take me through each baby step and have me repeat it before I could get to the next bit. I also found this annoying because running through things from the beginning helps me to remember the broader details before I get to the smaller ones. Often when I sat with a teacher, I would have to slowly go through things I already remembered for an hour before I got to the things I wanted to learn from them, only then for the lesson to be over. Useful.

Maybe though, this is something I have gotten better at through nursing. People only try to say things once. If you don't catch what the doctor is saying has he runs away it is a hassle to find out what they said and becomes a waste of time. Forcing yourself to quickly understand information and commands to allow for the next spurt is natural for the type of work I have found myself in. It also makes the hours pass by quicker, so you have to pay attention. It is hard at first when you have spent 8+ weeks playing video games until 4am only to start working again and find that your brain is not as sharp as you thought it was.

I find it also infuriating when people wont accept that they don't know. Don't send me the wrong way, don't look so unsure because if you don't know you don't know

Having someone say that they don't know isn't a reflection on how bad they are, no one is expected to know all the details and if someone is good at their job they will know where their span of knowledge is and work to increase it. What I have done for people I have taught stuff to is look it up with them. see if it makes sense to me and hopefully this will help me to remember as well.

This happens in my video game life too as a younger person often finding myself talking to a slightly older crowds at conventions. "Oh yeah, that was the best game, remember?" No... I don't. I didn't play that game. I didn't grow up in the loving arms of Nintendo. The first 'new' game I got for myself and myself only was Final Fantasy X, in 2005. You can't fake that you played that game or know all about it when you simply didn't. You can't magically add loved childhood games to your list when you didn't play them. An old friend of mine used to do that and it drove me up the wall. Younger than I, kept on going on about the Atari generation and how great that was. Come on man, you can't bullshit like that, you weren't even a part of that generation nor did you own an Atari console until you were 17. Lord.

I guess the take away message from this is that learning isn't easy but it makes life easier in ways. Through weeks of focusing on knowing as much as I can from this area in such a short time I have found the general nursing practices a lot easier. Mixing medications becomes easier because you know where it is going and why we want it to be there. Talking to worried patients becomes easier because you know what their care is. I will be sad to leave this learning experience but happy to be able to sleep and play more video games.