Happy Halloween

Halloween yesterday. I hope all of you were having fun and frights.

For me, yesterday was a bit of a mixed bag. The first exam didn't go brilliantly, but could have gone worse. I don't know how well I did, but it was good to have seen what the exams here are like and what's expected of us.

Post-exam though, the day just stretched on and on. They scheduled a full day of lectures until 4:15 pm, which was quite a challenge to get through. My endurance gave out in the penultimate lecture... my flatmate later pointed out that he saw me fall asleep on my notes, wake up suddenly, furiously scribble a few words that the lecturer had just said, and then fall asleep again almost immediately. Apparently the lecturer had probably noticed, but not said much (perils of sitting in the front few rows). It could have been worse, the ethics lecture beforehand, the lecturer (who dabbles as a magician) who was giving us a demonstration of how people could be influenced, gave us a little demonstration which needed three volunteers... three people in the front row, one of whom was asleep much to her great embarrassment when she realised that the lecturer and entire lecture theatre had realised.

Anyway, the final lecture of the evening was about depression, a subject that I've got an obvious interest in. This week has really emphasised to me how much stigma is still carried on depression, how unsympathetic people who don't actually suffer are, and how untrusted anti-depressants still are.

It really pained me that people seemed to not really understand the difference between depression and sadness. I hated the fact that people seemed to be of the opinion that depression is something that you should "just pull yourself out of". The implication is that people are just feeling self-pity/enjoying being depressed. It worries me that this is the opinion of our future doctors: god help all of us depressives: I worry that the older generations of doctors are even less sympathetic... so it shouldn't surprise me about the very patchy treatment I've received for my depression on the NHS.

That was probably the most illuminating thing about the lecture. The lecturer was very good, but it was a bit of a "beginners guide to depression/grief/bereavement", so I didn't pick up much new. The main point of interest I learned was that the link between depression and cortisol is still unclear, whether depressives have too much cortisol or too little when they have a depressive episode. To me, this is a crucial area of research, which seems reasonably easy to carry out, so I'm very surprised that that trial hasn't been run yet.

In the evening, there was a Halloween disco at the university union which most of my course mates said that they were planning to go to. The plan was for them to go to a house party first, and then come to the disco afterwards. So between lectures finishing and the shops shutting, I tried to get a costume. Problem was, almost all the shops had shut by the time I finished the lectures. The shops which were open had sold out most of the costumes and mainly only had bad/expensive outfits remaining. In the end the best I managed was a pretty iffy kids costume that was a bit of a small fit... non-ideal.

I skipped out on the party to do gymnastics. It was one of the best weeks for gymnastics for me. I managed to land the front and back handsprings (on the sprung floor) and as there was quite a small turn out, the coach let me have a go on the "mushroom" and try to learn how to do circles. It was really difficult and I'm nowhere near managing it, but it was really good fun.

I went to the disco at about 10:30... none of my coursemates ended up coming there... they stayed at the house party all evening. It was a pretty boring evening. I tried to get into the dancing, but it's a bit odd to be the guy dancing on his own, or with people he only knows a bit (a couple of friends of flatmates who I vaguely know). It made me realise that I'm not one of the kids anymore, but also in a way how I'm glad not to be. Lots of them were genuinely having a good time (like my flatmate who as I was leaving was exchanging copious quantities of saliva with a delightful young gentleman), but plenty were clearly not enjoying themselves, but were pretending to, tipping huge quantities of alcohol down their throats just to make it more bearable, and faking having a good time. It seemed so shallow and somehow sad. I was glad to be able to leave all that behind me. I do wish that I felt closer to people though, that I was making an impact on someone, and that someone outside my family would genuinely miss me if I wasn't here. (A bit of an "It's a wonderful life" moment - I assume, I haven't actually seen the movie).

Anyway, I managed to be asleep till 3pm this afternoon, which I was shocked by. I blame the stress of the exam, so my body is catching up on its sleep deficit. It's a gloomy rainy day today anyway (can't believe how dark it is in the early evening), so it wasn't a day worth doing anything with. I'm off to write an application for an expedition (unlikely to get it, but it's one of those trips of a lifetime so I've got to try) and do some medicine. Hopefully, if I can get it all done today, I can have tomorrow off.

AcidCat

PS Congratulations to Captain Anal for becoming Dr. Captain Anal yesterday.