I'm no superman

I can't do this all on my own,
'Cause I'm no superman.

--(Scrubs Theme) Lazlo Bane - Superman.

Just listening to Radio 1 (rare occurrence as I dislike the tiny playlist and most of the moronic DJs, but have a bit of a soft spot for some of the evening DJs like Colin Murray) while doing my last minute tutorial work for tomorrow, and the Lazlo Bane - Superman song came on. I'm not a huge fan of the song, but hearing it gave me a little lift, due to the happy association with Scrubs. I love Scrubs, and while I was having my little mental breakdown due to the romantic break-up "Scrubs" was one of the things which kept me going (My little highlight of the day on E4). Anyway, although I'm tired and still a long way from finishing, it's just given me a small push towards the finish line (as soon as I've finished this blog post).

I'm very behind tonight as I was ill last week, and instead of just going straight into this week's work, I decided to start with the work I missed from last week (as last week was the basic "innate" immune system and this week is the "adaptive" immune system). It's now coming up to midnight, and I'm about ready to start on this weeks work... In retrospect, that might not have been the right decision. My body is reaching its limits. I tried working late yesterday, but it hit 10pm, I decided to sleep for one hour and get up and work again, so setting my alarm for 11pm, I was slightly dismayed to wake up at 7:30 am after my body conspired against me and refused steadfastly to wake up. Fatigue has caught up with me.

On the plus side, I'm feeling positive about life. And the exam that I thought I had done very badly on, I actually passed solidly. In fact, I managed to do better than average. The paper was difficult (pass mark 43%), and I scored 67% on the science section (average 56%), and 71% overall (average 59%). I'm absolutely thrilled, but need to work very hard to make sure I score just as well for the real thing in December.

Lets go and learn some medicine!

AcidCat

Higher and higher

It's a slightly strange feeling, but things seem to be going so well at the moment. My mood is brilliant, even though I haven't done enough work, and I don't understand the work well enough, it isn't bothering me.

When life is going well, things just seem that much easier to manage. I think some people who don't suffer from depression can't really understand how hard it is when you're depressed to just keep going on an even keel and think positive. I mentioned how shocking I found it about the lack of sympathy for depression showed by my classmates: the doctors of the near future. I think it can be hard to grasp until you've been there, and sadly I'm not eloquent enough to express it to them.

Anyway, just a quicky. Had a lovely dinner with some of my ex-lab mates from my previous life as a PhD student. They very kindly bought me dinner which was very touching, and it was brilliant to catch up with them and see them so happy. It's funny how people stay the same in certain ways.

Am learning all about the very complex human immune system. Have got a very good book, which aims to be a nice, simple introduction called "How the immune system works" by Lauren Sompayrac. It is fantastically clear and easy for beginners, but I do find the casual language he uses slightly over the top. I'm really enjoying it though, and I'm saddened that there aren't more medical text books written in such a clear, simple, introductory manner... there is a gap in the market out there!

Anyway, back to the immune system. It's thrilling to actually start understanding what antibodies, B cells, T cells and all the other bits with the immune system really are!

AcidCat

I should be so lucky

I got taken out for lunch by my family today, to celebrate my birthday. I had a fantastic, amazing time. It was wonderful to see my beloved family, who are so kind and lovely to me. They also bought me some amazing, incredible gifts, which really was the icing on the cake. On my desired gift list (See Birthday wish list - November 5 post), they bought me clothes and a DAB radio (which was hugely unexpected and equally hugely appreciated), and tasty food too.

The fact they bought me gifts off my gift list made me have a look at that blog post. The post was meant tongue-in-cheek, to have a list of things that I really wanted but knew I wouldn't be able to have, and then frivolously and facetiously list a few of the material goods which would be nice. However, reading the list made me realise that I had been given quite a few things off them.

Nothing at all has happened with the points to do with love and my current obsession. Similarly, I haven't had a huge financial windfall either. However, the kindness of my flatmates and some of the people on my course has made me realise that the world is a kinder place than I thought. I feel I do have a group of friends who do care about me (tick), and that means I (slightly) fit in (tick). I've been riding such a high since my friends threw the party, that I haven't been feeling depressed (tick). I don't know if I should be doing chemistry or medicine, but the way the guys have made me feel has made me more keen on staying around to give medicine a chance, so I'll count that as a success.

Basically, I'm feeling so amazingly lucky. I have such a wonderful family, I'm starting to feel like I have friends, and I'm feeling happy. Life is good.

AcidCat

What a wonderful world

Hello everybody!

It may be largely down to the amazing evening I had last night putting me on a bit of a high, but the world just seems like a better place today. As proof I'm quoting a BBC news article I read this morning.

Life is good

AcidCat

Thief sent 'sorry' letter to shop

The owner of an Indian food store in Bristol has received a apology letter and £100 from a former drug addict who stole cigarettes from the shop in 2001.

Imran Ahmed, 27, who runs Raja Foods in St Marks Road, Easton, said he was stunned to open the remorseful letter.

It begins: "Dear Sirs, I am writing this letter to make amends to you for something I have done in the past."

Mr Ahmed said the thief's change of heart was "really good" and intends to give the money to a drugs' charity.

The night-time raid left Mr Ahmed with a broken shutter and windows.

Make amends

The thief's letter continues: "About seven years ago I was walking past your shop late one night when I noticed that someone had broken into it.

"I used this opportunity to enter your shop where I stole 400 cigarettes. The money enclosed (£100) is to pay for those cigarettes which I stole from you.

"At that time I was heavily using drugs and my life was in a mess, now I no longer use drugs and I strive to lead a decent and honest life.

"As part of my ongoing recovery I try to put right all of the wrongs I have done in the past, at least where I can, and this is why I am giving you back the money which I stole from you.

"I regret the harm I caused you in the past and I sincerely apologise to you for it.

"I was very wrong to do this and I hope that returning the money will make up for this harm, at least in some small way."

Overwhelmed

Wow. I'm a bit overwhelmed.

I'm on a new course, and really felt like I didn't fit in. I hadn't mentioned to the people around me about my birthday as I didn't really want to make a big deal about it. This was mainly so I didn't get disappointed when people would blow me out.

Instead, this evening, I found out my amazing flatmates found out my birthday on Facebook, and threw me a small surprise party and invited some of my course-mates to come along. This was a huge surprise, partly because of the party but partly because I don't think I've really had this kind of thing happen to me before. I don't know if any of my friends have ever organised a surprise party for me (except my ex), so it's a really amazing feeling to think that friends care about you so much that they'll do something like that for you.

Seriously, it was a birthday present that I wasn't expecting and found truly overwhelming. I didn't know what to do or how to act. Words truly failed me. It left me in shock.

In that one act, they made this place seem a lot less cold, and made me feel like I fit in much better. A birthday present that money couldn't buy. I couldn't believe that I had been given the gift of all these people's time and care. Where I was expecting to spend the evening of my birthday quietly on my own, I ended up having a really interesting evening feeling like I was part of some people's lives. For a rare change, I felt part of something bigger, that I wasn't just an insignificant thing who didn't have a purpose or place.

For a while, I felt like I was accepted.

Thank you everyone. Everyone who turned up tonight, thank you so much. And to all of those of you who helped organise this (especially my amazing flatmates) - I love you all. I mean that, deeply. I'm grateful to you in a way that will sound hollow with words.

Thank you

AcidCat

Birthday wish list

It's my birthday this week and for my birthday I would like:

- To find my place in this world (the place where I feel like I fit in).
- A group of friends who actually seem to care about me.
- To recover from depression without medication.
- To be more confident and outgoing.
- For my grandma to get better and my mum to feel happier.
- To know whether I should be studying medicine or should go back to chemistry.
- To have requited love (ideally with the amazing one).
- To just spend more time with the amazing one.
- To win an obscene amount of money so I can start funding some of my secret world-changing plans.
- To understand and "do" hypnosis (I've been trying self-hypnosis and don't know if it's working).
- To live in a world where people get what they deserve (a sort of fast-acting karma).

And if I can't have any of the above, clothes, a dictaphone or a digital radio would be nice.

Life sucks

When you're ill, (even with just a cold) and your alone and lonely, with no-one to look after you and no-one to care about you, life really sucks.

AcidCat

Destiny's Child

From the excellent "Girl vs Pig" webcomic, issue 222


I've spent a lot of time today (when I should have been working) wondering why the hell I'm here at medical school. It's really hard work, and I don't think I'm a natural at it. I'm not in the lucky position of some of my friends who are desperate to become a doctor and it's their dream job. I could (probably) find work as a chemist and it would pay pretty damn well, would give me a reasonably fulfilling, challenging occupation and would scratch my itch to learn science.

I'm slightly worried that I'm the girl in the "Girl vs. Pig" comic above, bouncing from one situation to the next, not really knowing what to do. Just doing whatever takes my fancy until I get bored of it and all of the hard work goes to waste.

However, one thing I've been wondering is: am I destined to be a doctor? Not saying it would necessarily be the right decision anyway, but it made me wonder. I had been dabbling with the idea of studying medicine on and off between finishing my first degree and throughout the PhD... One inspiration was a chance meeting with one of my labmates in the computer room one day, and I saw her looking at a website about joining this course. I hadn't realised that she had an interest in it, and we had a bit of a chat about it. She said she was interested (and had clearly been looking at it more seriously than I had, as she had found out far more details), but wasn't sure whether or not to apply, and the closing date was coming up. I suggested it was a good idea to just apply and see where the pieces fell, as she had nothing to lose by just applying. She got in, took up the place and thanked me for helping her choose her pathway. She's now in her final year and is abroad in India on a placement.

The other event which was pretty pivotal was getting dumped. I was already planning on applying to do medicine by this point, but wasn't really sure about it. The med schools I had chosen to apply to were selected on the basis of allowing me be close to her... i.e. the London ones. When I got dumped, it really shook me up (you never would have guessed, the way I've been going on about it, would you?) and it left me wanting more from life. I started feeling that I had a yawning chasm in my life that could never be replaced, so it pushed me into coming to med school as a chance to do some good in the world. My thinking was that if I couldn't be happy myself, at least I could try and bring in some happiness by proxy by making other people better.

Weird thing was, if she'd dumped me before then, before the germ of the idea was sown, I don't think that I would have gone through with it. Similarly, if she hadn't dumped me, or dumped me much later, there was a fair chance I would have changed my mind and gone to do something else, maybe a research job, maybe a post-doc, just something so I could be with her.

This has made me wonder if I'm just meant to be here. On the other hand, the rational, scientific, logical, reasoning side of me wants to brain myself for being so dim. The Richard Dawkins in me is screaming at me to tell me that it's just coincidence, or just my reading significance into chance events. That's probably right, but just maybe...

To be honest, at the moment I need something to hold onto to keep me here. I feel like I'm drowning without it. So the thought that I'm meant to be here is just something I can cling to occasionally. Whether or not it's true is irrelevant. I need more motivation. The opportunity to be around the amazing one occasionally is good, but it's also torture. I spent the weekend wondering if it was too much to drop in on her flat without a reason, or trying to concoct an excuse to drop in on her or her flatmates. In the end, cowardice prevailed and I haven't seen her at all. I know her influence is good on me: I never could have written this (overlong) post before her, she's managed to ease the pain, even at the distance she's at.

Let see how long I can keep going for...

AcidCat

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.

No more Mr Nice Guy

Tomorrow I have my first exam for my course. Fortunately it's "formative", which means that the mark doesn't matter at all, it's mainly for our benefit. I have taken this to mean that it's effectively a mock exam. As such, instead of revising hard, I'm tapping out a little blog entry and then going to get a comparatively early night.

Main thing today was a chat I had with one of the amazing one's flatmates (one of my study friends). We spent a little bit of time putting the world to rights (the NHS in particular), and bemoaning the portrayal of doctors by the media and particularly the government. Our experience of doctors has been pretty positive, and people seem driven to study medicine out of an overwhelming desire to help people. It seems a bit odd to vilify them as the government seem intent on doing (but we worked out it's probably out of political expediency: if the NHS is going badly, it's nothing to do with the government's poor management or chronic long-term underfunding (which has stretched back many governments - especially under the Tories), it's got to be those greedy, incompetent doctors. She also gave me a bit of a pep-talk about trying to stick with the course.

Anyway, she also said that I was a really nice guy for buying the amazing one the small birthday cake. I didn't really know what to say... I thanked her and tried to move the subject on.

Problem is, I don't know how much of a nice guy getting the present really makes me. I'm sure that the wonderful one appreciated the thought, and her flatmates all enjoyed having some cake. However, I don't know if she'd really enjoy the fact that her "friend" is obsessed about her and puts her on a pedestal. I suppose the gifts were altruistic in that I wasn't expecting anything back for it, and I just want to see her happy. I got a lot out of giving the gift though: just from her response and seeing her pleased, and the fact I got to spend a little time with her and a few of her flatmates, and also the little hug of thanks she gave me - made it certainly worth the time and effort of traipsing around shops trying to find things which she wouldn't be allergic to!

I did discuss with that flatmate about whether there was such a thing as a truly altruistic act (fortunately it had come up in a discussion with another workmate). We came to the conclusion that everything is done for self-interest to some extent. Even if the act seems selfless, it generally gets done for the gratitude, or for self-satisfaction (or the warm fuzzies as I put it). It doesn't make the act less worthy, but I'm just trying to get my head around whether it was the act of a nice guy or whether it was just me being selfish.

The final point on the matter was, it made me realise why I'm not very good at receiving compliments. When she said I was a nice person, it made me realise it changes people's perceptions of me. It means I have to work harder to live up to these expectations (and to some extent means that future acts are harder/more expected). In a way, I think I'd like to cultivate the reputation as a bit of a bastard who occasionally does some bizarre, nice, kind, unexpected things - but I don't think I'm very good at this. I wonder if this is related to my low self-esteem and self-confidence.

Anyway, I've procrastinated plenty long enough. I'm off to do a little bit of last minute reading, and then finally get some sleep.

Goodnight
AcidCat

Happy birthday

It was the amazing one's birthday today. I had a bit of a dilemma as I'm constantly wondering what I can do around her as a friend without crossing the line of becoming a stalker. In the end, I settled on buying her a small birthday cake and a small box of chocolates (which was a somewhat challenging task as she's allergic to nuts, Belgian chocolate (and incidentally fish, but that didn't really rear it's ugly head today)). Fortunately she's not super-allergic to nuts so I erred on just buying things that didn't contain nuts but had the "may contain traces of nuts" warning (which seems to be all chocolate or cake. Fortunately, I was in an area of London which happened to have a Waitrose which had a good range of chocolates and I found something which seemed suitable.

I dropped by her flat this afternoon to give them to her. She was in the kitchen with two of her flatmates, and she seemed genuinely pleased to receive birthday cake, and said it was completely unexpected. She invited me to stay for a slice, so I spent a decent portion of the afternoon chatting with her and her flatmates, eating cake and drinking tea. To be honest, I wasn't brilliant conversation as it's starting to feel a little weird being around her, as I've got such strong feelings towards her swirling around my insides, and when I look at her I literally find it harder to breathe. It's just her beauty and her smile that makes my brain melt into a grey lump of jelly. I lose any ability to be suave and sophisticated around her, and I'm losing the skills of speech which really does bother me.

Anyway, I'm glad I did buy the small gifts and also glad I didn't buy anything more over the top. I think it was a discreet thing to get that a friend might have just bought for another friend even if they weren't mad about them.

Enough daydreaming and navel gazing for today. I'm off to start work, which is very long overdue.

AcidCat

Random musings

Don't have much to write today, so it's going to be a random stream of consciousness, where I just put down whatever I want, and floats into my mind.

My family are awesome. It just feels really good to know that some people in that big, cold, harsh, cruel, uncaring world give a damn about you. I might not have any close friends, but I've got some family who are amazingly supportive and really do everything they can for me. I hope I'm as good to you guys too. I love you all.

I've wasted this weekend. The only worthwhile thing I really feel I've achieved is going to the party for kids with special needs yesterday. I meant this to be a big work weekend, as I've got a mock exam on Friday. In the event, I've barely got my normal work done, and managed to achieve no revision whatsoever. If I'd got my act together and just put my head down and worked, I could have worked for one day and gone home to see my folks today, and still got as much done, but achieved some relaxation into the bargain... Oh well. Instead, I've been wasting my time playing a stupid online game pretending to be a space pirate in the future as I think it's a game that the girl I'm moping after is playing. It's rather pathetic. I wish I could just shake her from my thoughts, life would be so much simpler.

Prozac seems to be giving me some kind of refluxy-heartburny type feeling. It's not enough to stop me taking it, but it's somewhat uncomfortable.

And as it's gone midnight, I'll stop there.

AcidCat

A kiss on the hand may be quite continental

I've been kissed and hugged today by a girl called Sarah...

Only problem is, she's literally young enough to be a my daughter, and she suffers from a learning disability.

I went to help at a party for children with learning disabilities and it was a lot of fun. It was really enjoyable, even before we talk about the warm fuzzies you get from doing something for the kids and the parents (who really appreciate an afternoon off from looking after some pretty demanding children).

We were playing with Play-Doh, threw balls around, used rubber inflatable rings as improvised frisbees, took them to the park to play on the roundabouts and swings, danced, played music, played pass the parcel, ran around, played hide and seek, ate cake and chocolate and crisps.

And now I'm tired. And haven't done any work yet. But it was fun.

I find working with children really refreshing. They will tell you if they're bored with you. They've got no pretensions and will be direct and honest. They've also got a huge facility for affection and having fun which I love.

It was nice to get distracted. I didn't post anything yesterday as I was in a foul mood. Partly over my non-existent love life and the fact that I think the object of my affections is starting to get a bit annoyed with me. I did land my first handspring at gymnastics without help from the coach (admittedly on a sprung floor, but it was still an achievement).

So now, I'd better do some work.

AcidCat

Dance to express, not to impress

Oh. My. God.

I have had such a shit day.

I tried to do my tutorial work after a nap at 10pm, having set my alarm for 11pm. I woke up, vaguely having remembered hearing my alarm, by my second alarm set for half past six in the morning. So the tutorial work remained very much incomplete.

The only bright point of my day was the reason I set my alarm for that god-forsaken hour: I was trying a yoga-type thing which was a bit like Tai-Chi called Kalari. It was fun and quite tiring (especially bearing in mind how little movement it all was).

The tutorial went as well as could be expected bearing in mind I had literally done none of the work for it. Thank goodness that a fair amount of this week's work was to revise stuff we had previously done.

Then I came home for a nap. I set my alarm for an hour, woke up exhausted, and slept for a further 20 minutes with the snooze function before finally emerging. I feel seriously sleep deprived.

Then to complete my bad day: I started losing things - my keys, my mobile phone, my access pass for the university (all of which I later found), but also my bandana and earphones, both of which are still missing. Most annoying thing I lost was my temper:

Basically I went for a dance audition today. It said to turn up for 6:30pm, so I turned up a few minutes early and they sent me to another room to wait for a few minutes while they finished getting ready (which was noisy and I couldn't work). About 20 minutes later, they finally told me we'd probably be starting around 7. I got a bit pissed off at this and wandered down to the library.

I came back at 7, and saw the dance they wanted us to audition to.

I was horrified.

It was the most appalling dance, with no skill, and all about doing grinding motions, both in the air, and facing the ground. In addition, the music it was done to was a dreadful dirge by that child molester - R Kelly. The guy taking the "class" was an appalling dancer, and couldn't teach. I tried sticking it out for a bit, but it all was a bit much for me, so I grabbed my bag and started to leave.

One of the committee organising it said that if I was busy I could either do the audition piece there and then, or come back on Monday to audition. I was pretty angry and frustrated at this point and shared some of my grievances with him. He tried to suggest that not all the dances they would eventually perform were that tacky and crass, at which point, I told him that the audition piece was shit. And left.

I get the feeling I won't get a call back from that audition.

Then on the way back, I discovered how few cars understand that if someone is trying to cross at a Zebra crossing that they're meant to stop.

I've managed to get rid of most of my anger by dancing hard when I got back, to some proper music.

Still, very annoyed and need to do lots of work for tomorrow.

I really hate life at the moment.

AcidCat

Give.

Just an incredibly short post today, as I'm horrendously swamped with work due in tomorrow.

Thought for the day:
It really is better to give than receive. I did a few good deeds today, and they gave me the warm fuzzies more than if I'd received the similar treatment. It can make you happy.

AcidCat

Mini update

Today was a bloody long day. 9am to 5pm was lectures, 5-6:30 was an induction for an opportunity to volunteer with children with special needs, and then dinner with my tutorial class that I've just got back from. On the plus side, with the mock history taking practice, I was complimented on my easy and reassuring/relaxing manner.

Felt a bit out of place at times at the dinner. Felt like the alien. Have taken the Prozac, hoping it'll help, and haven't had time for reading through the hypnosis recently, which might be making a difference.

Spent a little time at the dinner talking to someone on my course. That was fun. I'm a little better at conversations in smaller groups than larger ones.

I got a little arm around my shoulder from the fantastic one today. Bliss.

Sometimes it's the little things that make life good.

AcidCat

Medical trivia

Just random trivia bits I picked up which I love.

1) If you have a defective ovary, and a defective fallopian tube (ovarian tube) on opposite sides, you're probably not infertile. The working fallopian tube will move across the uterus, and reach over to the working ovary, and hoover up the egg expelled from the ovary. Really freaky, a bit like an alien tentacle.

2) We have about 2 metres of DNA in each of the nuclei of most human cells. This gets packaged and folded into nifty chromosomes which are only 5 micrometres big. (A human hair is about 80 micrometres wide)

Three posts in a day! Caffeine is a mighty, but dangerous thing.

Sunshine on a rainy day

Whee! I'm buzzed as I normally don't take any form of caffeine, but I was meeting an old uni friend this evening at the pub, and as it was miserable outside and I didn't want alcohol, I stuck to tea. Three teas later, and finishing drinking at half past eleven and I'm flying and a little bit jittery...

Today has been a good day. I got very despondant about work as I still didn't get the work complete: did my classic falling behind thing. I barely had time to grab a quick bite to eat over lunchtime as I needed to rearrange MMR and hepatitis B vaccinations and a solid day of tutorials and lectures fried my brain.

However, a walk home with the amazing one made my day. Yes it was pouring down with rain, yes I had to share her with one of her flatmates, but she really is a ray of light. Life becomes good. I was soaked by the time I got back, but I didn't care.

It kept me going in my study session when I got back, despite the fact I was shattered, didn't understand, started to realise how behind I was, everything else.

Nothing else seems to matter. Life is good.

Let's go!

AcidCat

Dilbert and Dogbert

Dance like it hurts.
Love like you need money.
Work when people are watching

Dance, dance, dance

"Work like you don't need money,
Love like you've never been hurt,
And dance like no one's watching"

Hi guys!

Had a bit of an unexpected day. Tiredness due to the late nights (phone calls with the friend - hoping he doesn't ring again tonight, not sure if I can manage another one) so have been sluggish and struggled to get my work done (currently procrastinating, and will restart work after this post).

I agreed to teach a flat mate the basics of breaking (aka breakdancing, but people who do it tend to call it breaking or bboying). So this afternoon, we were in the kitchen, with some music playing, and I was running him through the basics of "toprock" (the bits of breaking where you're standing and dancing upright). After a while, the flat's doorbell rang, and another one of my flatmates answered it. He returned with three female random strangers, who lived in the flat opposite and had been watching us dance, and asked to join in!

I was a bit taken aback, and a bit disturbed that people had been watching us mucking around like that. I love to dance, but am quite self-conscious about it. When I dance in front of people, I have to work hard at "dancing like no-one is watching". When it transpired that not only our three guests were not the whole audience, with other people from their flat seeing our dance lesson, and other flats looking in, I was starting to feel somewhat embarrassed and thinking that I should have drawn the curtains (couldn't though as we needed the windows open for air).

Anyway, as they didn't seem to be taking the piss, I started running through some basics. They ran off pretty quickly so I wonder if it wasn't what they were expecting, but it was just a bit bizarre. I think they were enjoying it, as one of my flatmates who does enjoy staring (spying) out of our kitchen window saw them practising in their kitchen.

In the end, I thought it was quite fun. I admire their gutsiness and courage to go to a random flat and say "We were in the flat opposite watching you dance and want to join in". Not only that, they had originally got the floor wrong, and rang the bell of the flat below us. I would have loved to have seen the confusion on the face of the guy who answered that door.

Anyway it's been fun. But I badly need to work. In a way it's probably the most fun thing I've done since getting here. A good memory of this place for my future.

AcidCat