I’ve just got back from my 2pm tutorial, well not just; I had to walk back, turn on the Mac, take out my lenses, load Blogger, etc. Regardless, it was my last class of the week and I cannot believe it has been a whole 7 days since I was last here. This passed week has just melted away like an ice cube hurtling towards the sun. (Hmm, metaphors could use a bit of work, me thinks.)
I have done less work this week than perhaps any other since I’ve been here. Luckily this week has been filled with genetics lectures, a subject I’m quite familiar with; plus I can just ask Mum if I get stuck. Basically the times I usually work have been filled with other stuff, which I shall elaborate on in a moment, so the times in which I usually blog have been filled with work, and catching up on sleep; sooo little sleep! Luckily sleep is something I can do without for a bit, which I can assure you is the only reason I’m still comprehensible right now (and no, you may not disagree with me, this does make sense). Something had to give, and unfortunately blogging was pretty much at the bottom of the list.
To be fair, I have probably done more work than I realise, which is why I am affording myself the luxury of writing this right now; because I know I can spend the weekend doing almost exclusively anatomy instead of the normal Biochem and Physiology stuff. Speaking of anatomy: oh my goodness! There is so much to know for the Upper Limb. We’ve spent the last fortnight on it, and the muscles of the forearm are still a mystery to me. Anyway, that’s for later, I’m confidant I can get my head round this, but it’s a fair mountain still to climb.
As I alluded to a few lines back, I’ve been a very busy bee these last few days. Let’s break it down now shall we?
Monday:
First lecture was 9am at Marischal with Rod Scott. I liken his lectures to an encounter with a high speed train, perhaps the TGV: You get smashed to pieces by the sheer weight, speed and force of the information being delivered. Then, just when you think it is safe to lift your poor crumpled body from the track, the next carriage comes and hits you all over again. Repeat for an hour: ouch. His PowerPoints are also all over the place, making them very difficult to follow in the lecture and essentially useless for revising from later.
(He was teaching us “Autonomic Nervous System and Neuromuscular Pharmacology”, in case you were interested.)
Next, a break in which I did some work, then a ‘Double Bill’ (that’s two consecutive lectures with Prof. Bill Long for the uninformed).
Lastly, it was two hours of practical anatomy, finishing at 5pm. I was knackered! Indeed, I was one of the few who stayed right till the end. Then a cycle home in the dark, Steph very kindly lent me her spare rear light so I could be seen, oh, must put the lights on my new bike at some point.
I had planned on going to the Wilderness Medical Society social that night, but I decided to invite myself along to go and see Quantum of Solace at Vue instead. The film was good, but obviously, combined with dinner it pretty much eliminated my evening, from a studying perspective that is; not a “Mr. Bond, you will be eliminated” or a “H2O was eliminated in this reaction” kind of way.
Tuesday:
Was in the rather standard lecture, break, lecture, break, lecture, lunch, home, format that we’ve all grown acustomed to. However, it was our last ever lecture with Prof. Long! It was just so sad. We gave him a big round of applause at the end of it. Poor man, he practically ran out the lecture theater, I know he enjoyed it really. Home about 2pm, so I got a couple of hours of studying in before dinner. If I remember correctly they weren’t very productive, I think I was doing Carbohydrates.
Then HubGrub; I got next to nothing done for the rest of the evening because Gemma came round and we chatted, and I talked to myself for a bit…
Wednesday:
Our half day, we had the third and final lecturer with Rod Scott, which I managed to follow quite well; still, I was glad to see the back of him. We were in Meston all day so I rolled out of bed at 7:18, almost 20 minutes later than usual. I used the snooze button twice (yeah, my snooze turns off the alarm for nine minutes, weird)! We had a Tissues and Organs Problem Solving session in the morning, I hadn’t done the questions because of not working after dinner last night, still I knew more than the girl who came over to ‘help’ us; it went as follows:
Girl: “So, what are you stuck with?”
Lisa: *Blah blah blah – nerves and muscles stuff*
Girl: “Ok, so nerve 4 is this one here.”
Ross: “Er, it’s that one there… the one labeled ’4′.”
Girl: “Oh yes you’re quite right. So this afferent nerve…”
Ross: “I think it’s an efferent nerve, because it’s innervating the muscle fibre?”
Girl: *Flicking though answers*…. “Oh yes, you’re quite right, so this is an efferent α-neuron.”
Ross: *Not impressed by this point, other people in group are struggling to remain respectful* “Is a γ-neuron, look, it’s innervating an intrafusal muscle.”
Girl: *With much turning of pages and flustering* “Yes, yes so it is….. So are you ok with this question now?”
Ross: “Yes thank you, I think we’ll manage from here.”
Honestly, she was supposed to be helping us work it out, if I hadn’t been paying attention who knows what confusion she would have caused. She sort of rushed off in an embarrassed way after that, no doubt to read some of the answers before taking on anymore 1st year medical students!
I think I might have got an hour and a half or so done, no wait, I had lunch; say an hour of Carbohydrates before I went shopping with Gemma. Then I met up with Dad and Tara at Morrison’s and we went out for dinner. They dropped me off on Bedford Road at ten to seven, I was meeting Mark and the rest of the C-Blockers at 7 outside Johnston so we could walk down to the coast for the Guy Fawkes night fireworks. So I ran back, in a dignified fashion obviously, and ditched my stuff in my room before heading down. Too late, I realised we were going to the beach and changing out of my trainers would have been a good idea. Ah well.
We encountered throngs of people all on their way to the fireworks, but surprisingly few of them seemed willing to actually get their feet sandy, so the beach was almost empty.
We had a whale of a time, well I did at least. The temptation to reach out and take hold of Gemma’s hand during the fireworks was almost over powering, so I distracted myself with counting the time between the flash and the bang, giving a distance, and trying to remember which metals burn with what colour (the red of Lithium was particularly distinct). It worked to the extent that I didn’t take her hand, but it hardly took my mind completely off the issue. Little did I know…..
We all got back around 8; I went up to Gemma’s room to collect my bag and stuff, needless to say I stayed until about quarter past ten. I got back to my room and started sorting stuff out, I was there maybe less than five minutes and I heard a knock at the door. “Funny,” I thought, “that sounds like Gemma’s knock, and I can’t think who else would be knocking at my door, nobody knows where I live, come to that, why would Gemma be knocking on my door at this time. I heard who ever it is come up the stairs, quite loudly in fact, then the distinct noise of the door to the stairs, so I know it isn’t any of the people in the rooms around me having a joke.” By this point I was at the door and opening it…
My first instinct (as ever) was correct, it was Gemma, looking a bit flustered and out of breath, but I sensed this was not perhaps the best time to enquire. “Come in,” I said.
“I know this is going to ruin your early night, but I need to talk,” or something to that effect was all she said, then just stood there.
“Would you like a seat?” I enquired.
“No thanks”
pause
“Would you like me to carry on doing what I was doing?”
*shake of head*
“Err, would you like me to do anything?” I finished lamely.
“No,” was the only reply.
“Riiiight then.” I sort of placed myself against the side of my wardrobe, which twisted unhealthily under my weight. “Oops, don’t think it should do that,” I said with as much joviality as I could muster. Thank goodness she smiled, it snapped us out of the moment; I had trouble keeping my sigh of relief from escaping from my lips.
From there the exact details are a bit vague. I can remember all our little diversionary chats about things entirely unrelated to the matter at hand, and I can remember all the “Annnnnyway…… silence...”
I can also very clearly remember the internal battle that was raging in my head, the likes of which I have not seen in a good while. It was basically an amplification of the campaign that has been going on these last few weeks: trying to remain objective when talking to someone you so desperately want to choose a certain thing. It was, as Janie would say, “très difficile”.
By the time midnight came around my inhibitory neurons had taken a royal kicking and were ready to break. I was so desperately equally torn between wanting to say something for my own selfish reasons and not wanting to say it for Gemma’s benefit; I’m surprised my brain didn’t just give up and physically walk off in two different directions! Then she said something that just so perfectly set me up to say the phrase that had been quite literally kicking and screaming to get out for the last five minutes; I couldn’t not say it. It was nothing complicated she said, it was something I’ve thought many times:
“Maybe I’m thinking about it too much?”
It was a surreal moment, I didn’t actually believe I was replying until about half way thought the sentence, by which time it was too late to stop, I didn’t really want to anyway:
“So just stop thinking for a minute. Listen to your heart and just say yes. We can make this work; I know we can.”
The rest is a bit of a blur, it contained lots of hugging and hand holding and talking, which are all very good things. Also? I couldn’t stop smiling. Indeed, I still haven’t stopped smiling, a full 44 hours later!
Thursday:
Concentrating in my 9am embryology lecture was made next to impossible by a combined lack of sleep and not being able to stop thinking about Gemma. I think it was my brain’s way of protesting at the fact I had been deliberately not letting myself think about her too much.
Interestingly though, practical anatomy made a lot more sense than it has for almost the past two weeks, and the 2 hours flashed by.
We finished at 1pm so I got back quite early for a change. I forced myself to work from then until dinner time, well, I text Gemma to say I was back and needed to work, but she could come over a bit before, so I was productive almost till dinner. Apart from during my 40 minute nap. Now, I never nap. Unless I’ve been up literally all night, in which case I might fall asleep from 4 until 7, I just don’t need it. Normally even 2 hours will see me though until 9pm the next night. It seems that all this lost sleep finally caught up with me. I just couldn’t work, so I took a conscious decision to cut my loses and sleep for a bit. I felt so much better.
After dinner I went back with Gemma to her room and we tried to make her webcam work, to no avail, I really have no idea what was wrong with it.
Then came the acid test: telling the best friend, the same one who had previously been advising Gemma why doing exactly what we did was a bad idea. [Ed. Please read the first comment on this post for a more accurate description of what Clare was up to, I apologise for misrepresenting her intentions.]
I think it went well, to every one’s intense relief. At bed time I was faced with that impenetrable question, ‘kiss or no kiss’. You know when you reach that moment: just after a hug, arms still around each other, faces close, looking in to each other’s eyes. I decided on ‘kiss’. Just a quick peck on the cheek, just to say good night. I think I made the right decision.
Friday:
Today was a good day. We’re still doing genetics stuff that I’m familiar with, as I mentioned all those lines ago at the beginning of this post. Anatomy was not quite as good as Thursday, but still went well. I have a strong dislike of the administrator of the Community Course, honestly, we’re almost all 18, not 8! She was so condescending (not smarty-pants comments please). Hmm, then a good tutorial, that was a first, and as it happens the last with that lecturer, I suppose she went out on a good note.
Then a bit more work, then Gemma came round before HubGrub. We went up together holding hands, which was nice, but something I’d have rather died than do before now, as I’m sure Holly will confirm (but don’t tell Gemma that).
After dinner, during which we got a bit of attention from everyone (better to get it out of the way all in one go I suppose, not that I mind that much), we came back to my room and did some work, Nitrogen and Greek respectively. Then, just before leaving for CU, Gemma said “Already this feels more right than it did with Chris.” I’m afraid I rather messed up my reply, not because the reference threw me, but because my mind was still in ‘supportive friend’ mode, which obviously didn’t compute right, because the two things just don’t fit together. It still hasn’t sunk in yet, but it’s starting to. I don’t think I’m ready to use the b-word yet, I guess it took about 6 months last time. But then I also think I have a lot more maturity this time round. I’m sorry it made life so crap for you Holly, but I really have learnt almost every lesson possible from our relationship, in its many incarnations. I don’t know if you still read this, [Ed. I know you do actually, because I just checked google and it says someone from the University of Edinburgh has been on a few times; I'm guessing that's you.] but I suppose it’s a shame we don’t stay in touch. But then I’m not actually keeping in contact with anyone really, I speak to Anna occasionally and I’ve seen Amy, Jennifer and Suzanne a few times, but nothing other than that. I guess that’s a shame to, because I didn’t want it to be this way, but I knew I would. I’m considering just mass emailing everyone the link to this blog, they can get in touch that way if they want, or not, it’s less of an obligation really. The fact I can’t get MSN to work isn’t any help, but I’ve been telling myself for weeks I’ll go up to the help desk sometime, but then, I don’t have the time. Ahh, I’m not supposed to be using that phrase.
*Insert hour long (hmm, or a bit longer actually) pause as Gemma came over*
Gemma has just left, so I’m sad. This is just so different, it’s way outside any previous frame of reference I thought I had. It’s just so much more…. affectionate. It feels more right somehow. Not to say that anything felt wrong before, this is just more right, if that makes sense. I guess, if I think about it, I know what you meant about Chris. I’m not really sure where I’m going with this… but I think somewhere amongst all the ups and downs, the hopes and disappointments and that indefinable glow, you’ve taken a bit of me. I don’t mind, you can keep it, so long as you know you have it; and you keep it safe.
