Work, eat, play, repeat

Saturday I got up at a reasonable time, not early exactly, but not bad for a weekend, and got straight into studying. I simply have too much work to do and too little time to do it in to be faffing around. My only goal was to complete the gastrointestinal system by the end of the weekend, which I achieved.

After a late lunch with mum I got my hair cut in Kemnay. It was actually done by a girl who was 2 years below me at secondary school, she recognised me, which was awkward as I couldn’t remember her name. She didn’t do a bad job, although it was a little more severe than I was really looking for. With that done I came back into town and to the flat. I decided that since I had finished GI, I would give myself the rest of the day off, I watched a couple of episodes of Gilmore Girls to pass the time. I had chili left over from Thursday night for tea, then I stayed up late reading a book I ordered off the internet the other day. I won’t tell you what it was, but let’s just say the target audience would probably be a few years younger than I and lacking a Y chromosome. I enjoy a good hard SciFi novel as much as the next geek, but occasionally it’s nice to spend a couple of hours munching through 178 large typeface pages wrapped in a pink binding.

Sunday was, unfortunately, a simlilarly unproductive day studying-wise. I had hoped to get some respiratory system written up, or start on cardiovascular instead, but it just wasn’t happening. I played a few games of badminton with Becky at 3pm, resulting in a three matchs each draw. Then I hopped the short distance across to Catriona’s flat (maisonette, technically) for a three course meal! Originally I had just been expecting stew, but then I was bombarded with texts about butternut squash soup and apple crumble. Either way, it was all lovely, I especially liked the soup, and it was a very welcome break from left over chili (which, incidentally, I’ll be eating for the next two nights). I hadn’t realized Catriona was such a good cook, or I would have gotten off my ass and asked her out sooner! Well, that’s not exactly true, in fact, if I knew how many times she was going to prove me wrong, I may never have asked in the first place. But life’s more fun without a crystal ball.

Anyway, archery this evening was hard work. There were only a few of us because it’s exam time for most people, so we were shooting constantly. I could honestly not even raise my bow by the end of the night, let alone draw it. A little more training required before our first competition next Saturday I fear.

And that was my weekend. I exchanged a couple of emails with an old school friend who wishes to start nudging her life in a slightly different direction, hopefully we’ll be able to meet for coffee soon so she can tell me all about her “grand plan”. I couldn’t tell you what the Gilmore Girls episode count was for this week, although I suspect it would be somewhere between five and ten. I’m almost into the final season now, I’m aiming to make them last until the exams are over. Then I don’t know what I’ll watch. The week ahead is looking nice and busy, something on every night but Friday, so with any luck I’ll have something to blog about. Wednesday night should be particularly interesting, but you’ll have to come back then to find out why!

First day back

What a day!

We got the usual general introductory crap for an hour, exactly the same as last year. You know; we’re “different from other students”, we “mustn’t discuss patients down the pub, on the bus, etc.”, we “must dress appropriately”. Can’t believe I got up at 7:30 to listen to that all over again. Then we got another more specific introduction to the course by Dr Peter Johnston, whom I really like. I went to speak to him after a lecture last year and we had a good 15 minute rant about the state of post graduate medical training. I think he’s on a steering group or committee or something, it’s reassuring to know that at least someone with some kind of influences feels exactly the same way as me about the whole thing. He did, unfortunately, swear during the lecture. All he said was “shit”, which I have no problem with; it was reasonable in the context, I mean we aren’t 5 years old! But I remember reading though the Student-Staff liaison committee minutes from last year and seeing someone complained about a lecturer swearing, I believe it was him then too. Some people need to wake up to the realities of life. It wasn’t as if he was swearing at us, I think he just said something about being “up shit creek without a paddle”. He’s very tall anyway, so I’m sure he could keep his head above water up shit creek.

Our last lecture was communication (s)kills with Dr Cleland. Usual junk. Yes, it’s important, but that doesn’t make it interesting to listen to. Finally we formed two huge queues to collect our learning guides (and pay £25 for the privilege) and collect our new, icky looking ID cards. I mean, that garish orange stripe looks horrible to other people right? Orange isn’t even a University of Aberdeen colour. All the staff have ones with nice dark uni read across the top, but not us. And we have to keep these until we graduate, they aren’t issuing new ones every year any more. (By the way, yes, this is an edited picture of my ID card, but as well as removing personal information, I’ve doctored the barcode so that it won’t work in any of the scanners.)

I had the first badminton club session at the new sports village at 3pm, but Julie, Kevin, Catriona and I went for lunch first. I stopped off at a cash machine on the way and met Eilidh and Arthair, two friends from my class at school who started Uni this year. We had a bit of a catchup cause it was a really long line. When I eventually made it to the Bobbin, we discovered it would be a one and a half hour wait for food, which wasn’t really an option. So instead we went back to Eat at Johnston, just to remember all the good times!

I got to the Sports Village 30 minutes early so I filled in an application form and waited in line to pay my £10 to join the Sports Union. This is a single payment to cover your insurance, no matter how many clubs you join. I was waiting in line and who should appear beside me but Janie! I had a good chat with her as well; again, it was a really long line. She’s applying for a job at the Sports Village so had to give them a photocopy of her passport. I waited in line for ages only to discover that I can’t pay union membership at reception, there was another till set up at the other end of the cafe, out of sight and with zero signage. I’m not the only person who’s done this.

Janie came down with me to badminton, but was only sticking her head in to say hello as she had to dash off, but I’ll see her there next week. She did challenge me to a game sometime, I’ll have to avoid that one for as long as possible cause I’m going to get thrashed by her. Indeed, everyone at the club was pretty much better than me too, but I think I’ll still go, cause I’d like to get better. I played for two solid hours, my name kept being pulled from the draw; other people got to sit a game out. All this physical exertion once again emphasised how unfit I have become. Indeed, my calves have been threatening to crap all day, and my racquet arm doesn’t feel too great either. Maybe I should have taken it a bit slower to start with, but then where’s the fun in that?

After badminton finished I had to cycle all the way back to the hospital to meet Sarah, president of the Wilderness Medical Society committee, so we type up all our new members’ details in to the stupid Student Association database. In all, I cycled 9 miles, hence my calves being jelly by the time I finally sat down for dinner. When my right hand started shaking I assumed it was a low blood sugar thing, I didn’t have much lunch either, but it was still doing it after dinner. In fact all the next day, whenever I kept my hand poised to do something, type, write, it would start shaking. I just hope it stops in the next few days, I normally have very steady hands. Let’s just hope they don’t have me doing any delicate procedures on wards tomorrow! (Who am I kidding, it’s our first day, I doubt they’ll let us within 50 feet of an actual patient. Although that might turn out to be a good thing, as I discovered yesterday that the respiratory ward where I am on placement has been made the designated swine ‘flu ward.)

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Swine ‘flu cartoon © Copyright Telegraph Media Group