Scultpture

Going to see my sister last week, I got the train to the new station at Alloa. To celebrate it opening, they have built/commissioned a new sculpture outside the station....

Living life to the minimum?

Today set me thinking. Painful so soon after exams I know, but anyway.

Seeing the pics that Rach posted on her Facebook about sunny beaches and fireworks made me realise just how you can spend ages of your life only noticing what you are doing and failing to notice the world around you.

Sunday and today I achieved very little beyond the basic activities of life. I spent half of yesterday afternoon, despite the sunshine, and warmth in the flat tidying up and watching the F1. I spent yesterday evening packing for my week away, and then had a long lie this morning on another sunny warm day.

I'm not saying i could or should have climbed mountains, forded stream or followed rainbows, but I could probably have worked through some of my 'To-Do' list, or gone for a walk, or down to the seaside, or met up with some friends.

I guess what I am saying is that the weather puts me in a very positive mood at the moment, despite the exams uncertainty, and I should relish it, use it and take advantage of it to live life, and enjoy the world around me and do some life affirming things this summer - hopefully with a car.....if I can sort out the money

Traveling, traveling far.

This coming week, I shall probably not be blogging. Due to not having an SSM this block, I am taking the opportunity to have a week off, well kind of:-

• Monday - Sorting cables and testing video cables
• Tuesday - Writing a long presentation, then a technical production meeting
• Wednesday - Early morning train to Birmingham then helping sort out my late Grandad's house
• Thursday - Back up to Mum & Dad's maybe with a day walking in the Peak District
• Friday - Back to Glasgow
• Saturday - Away to Callander to act as Front of House sound engineer for the evening.
• Sunday - Back to Glasgow at some point

This strikes me as not being particularly restful for a holiday!

Saturday as a day off

I woke up early this morning (5am) and realised that the perils of being out celebrating the end of exams and having a subway on th way home is that you become dehydrated. 1.5 litres of water I went back to bed, and had another 1-2 litres as I dozed fitfully until 9am. Then I fell asleep and woke at 10.28. I was supposed to meet Butcher Boy, Little Miss P Gavin & Linzi outside work at 11 for a trip to IKEA.

I texted butcher boy as I dive in the shower, then realised I had my phone in the shower and decided I should wake up before I caused an accident. Suitably showered and dressed, I set off for Byres Road. Once we were all assembled, we wandered across the road to wait for the bus - the 747 to Glasgow Airport - today was it's last day of running up to work, and from next week it will have a different route sadly.

Once on the bus we had a big debate about whether to go to IKEA first (meaning lunch) or to Braehead for general shopping then back to IKEA for lunch then IKEA shopping. The second option won, and so we spent about 40 minutes wandering round IKEA as various people bought aerial cables, tap shower adapter things, teabags and a teapot.

Once we wandered over to IKEA, we rapidly headed for the restaurant where we all opted for meatballs and pasta - though some of us had dessert, and others had garlic bread with it. Once full of IKEA goodness, we headed off for a tour. Little Miss P had not been before, and was initially confused by the pencils and order sheets, deciding to take one, then put it away, then pick up another one when she decided what she wanted, then going on to buy something else instead.

One we had cleared the market hall, we were stood outside with a bedside cabinet, a shelf, and various carrier bags with lights, coathangers, skillets, plates, baking trays and such like. We then had to wait to get the bus back across town. The sun was out and it was rather pleasant standing in the bus stop watching the world go by.

Picture has been altered to protect the identities of the innocent.

Once back in the west end, butcher boy took his stuff home while the rest of us popped into work, where I obtained a summer job - start a week on Monday, and the others stood round waiting until I finished and Butcher boy came back from dropping his shopping at home. We then headed up to Little Miss P's new flat, which was about a 10 minute walk, with Butcher Boy carrying the bedside cabinet flatpack for most of the trip, though I helped for a wee bit. Once there, we helped build the drawers and cabinet - easier than feared, before helping Little Miss P fit her new shower attachment to the taps in the bathroom.

All in all a fun day out for all, and a reminder how much nicer Saturdays are when you don;t have Uni work to do.

OSCE-ness.

They came, they went, they happened. Probably because the OSCE doesn't count for me this year (formative only), I didn't really get too stressed about them. They seemed to go ok, despite having very little practice this year. I guess I will wait and see. I know I messed at least one of the 26 stations up, but thats life I guess.

The night out to celebrate the end of exams was a good one - with many of the year tehre, and a couple of the old year (class of 04).

Exams

Well I am still to write this post, so I haven;lt jumped off the Kingston Bridge yet, though the bells in the chapel ringing this morning did drive me mad as I waited for my exam. At first they just made it seem like across between Hogwarts; a posh public school (or rather what I imagine one of those to be like); and Oxbridge.

Anyway to the exams. They seemed to go ok. I'm saying no more about how I did until mid June!

Paper 1 was a romp through most of the course - cardiology, depression, rheumatoid arthritis, pharmacology, TB, HIV and blood films.

The MCQ bit as ever wandered here and there through anatomy (just what is trigone...) and LFT's, Immunity, cytology and an interesting trip to haematuria.

Paper 2 today was more detailed and visited respiratory (COPD vs asthma), Genetics, alcohol addiction, colorectal cancer, breast cancer, melanoma, optic neuritis, epilepsy and something I have forgotten.

All in all a fair and good test of knowledge not to see whether I passed.

Because I sit tomorrow (and Thursdays) OSCE formatively, I really couldn't give a stuffed monkeys. This means I will be more relaxed and possibly even do better than I did last year, but since it is formative that won't matter. Still 11.20 on Thursday and it is all over!

D-day -1

Sorry for the lack of input the past few days. Like many med students (though not all - dundeemedstudent) this week is exam week. I am less worried about the OSCE's since for me, they are formative this year. the written tomorrow will be the 3rd sitting for me of the 3rd Year exam and I am left feeling that if I can't do it this time, I never will (and won't get a chance to) so tomorrow & Tuesday decides my career, and whether I have wasted 4 years of my life. So all I need to do is to get nice questions and stay calm and write everything I can in answer to the questions. I know I still have gaps in my knowledge, but this year there have been several large hints from lecturers, especially in the last 2 weeks of teaching.

Anyway, here are some pictures from the last few days.

Random photos of Glasgow

Where Selfridges want(ed) to build their Glasgow store.

The central services tower rises out the top of the old GPO opposite my flat.
That tower should be the height of the new building...so a good bit taller than the old building.

Subliminal messages?

I saw this in the window of a clothes shop on my way home from Tesco metro yesterday. Are they trying to tell us students something? Oh and on a related note I slept straight through my alarm today.

"Sunshine and revision all over me"

With apologies to Semisonic for the title.

I was with a group of friends on Saturday evening and we were discussing general stuff and someone was saying that she was off to a wedding on a beach in a couple of weeeks. The beach is in Fort William. This set off a discussion on the weatehr in May.

After about a minute, one person said "Of course it will be hot and sunny. It's exam season." and today, the first full day of exams at Uni, there was brilliant sunshine and it was very very hot - 19C according to the BBC.

Tomorrow promises to be very similar, in fact it won't drop below 20C for teh rest of the week, even despite some rain on Saturday.

So yet again a hot sunny exam revision season!

Stir Crazy

Stir Crazy
def: anyone that becomes restless from being stuck in one place too long.

Can we define too long? Today I have filled a bin bag with rubbish - like totally filled, washed down the kitchen unit doors, done the laundry and run the dishwasher twice, cleaned the filters in the vacuum cleaner, vacuumed the flat (including skirting boards, under the freezer, under my desk, under the cushions on the sofa and the bottom of the wardrobe. I also washed the laminate floor in the hall and bleached my dishcloths.

I think I may have been restless.

Splurting coffee at the screen

If you are in the UK I recommend this (6 days left). Brian Blessed hosting "Have I Got News For You". It made my coffee break so much fun I was happy to go back to revision.

Click picture to go to iPlayer, or the link below.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/page/item/b00b4vmf.shtml

A mildly political blog

We didn't get a vote in Scotland tis year (we had Council and Scottish Parliament votes last year, and Europeans next year and big Gordon hasn't really made his mind up about the General Election yet) so this year has been a chance to watch the machinations in England. Obviously we (sadly) missed out on he all the Party Election Broadcasts and such like, but BBC News 24 and Question Time had all the debates, especially the London Mayoral one.

My home bourgh (must remember the o when talking about England!) or North Tyneside went blue in a surprise move. Since its formation in 1976, North Tyneside was bright red, dyed in the wool Labour right up until 2004 (with a brief NOC in 1986 for a year) and after 3years in NOC, it finally flipped and went Tory. Part of this is demographic - the council built more nice new houses for middle class people in its traditional heartlands, and thus diluted its core vote. But also North Tyneside is changing - the Conservative Mayor from 2003-6 (the second one after the first was forced to resign due to sex scandals) was deemed to be an efficient operator of the council and there were suggestions in the media at easter than her Labour successor needed a Conservative council to keep him in check.....interesting idea.

Which brings us to Boris. Two of my friends who are fairly similar in many ways, have totally opposite views about him. Mr Pete, who lives in London is a Green Party member but found himself out leafleting for Ken as he fears for what Boris will do to Transport & Housing (incidently Mr Pete has also threatened to "defecate in the lobby of City Hall if Boris wins so keep an eye out on the BBC News...). On the other hand Sarah claimed that she will "absolutely and utterly relocate to London if Boris becomes mayor." We'll miss you when you move Sarah.

And who knows about the next General Election, the future of the NHS in England etc????

I think that many will look to see if Boris is his own man or if he runs what could be described as a model of what Cameron's Conservatives will be like for the whole country?

Travelling, travelling, travelling far.

Just realised - when emptying receipts out my wallet, that in teh past week I have travelled a long way

Thurs:Glasgow-Birmingham (351 miles)
Fri: Birmingham-Newcastle-Stirling-Glasgow (420 miles)
Sat: Glasgow-Edinburgh-St Andrews - Crieff (170 miles)
Sun: Crieff-St Andrews - Crieff (100 miles)
Mon: Crieff - Glasgow - Edinburgh - Glasgow (170 miles)
Total 1210 miles apparently - in 5 days...

End of term feeling?

Today was the end of the timetable.....my life is technically empty from now until May 19th, which is kinda scary. I am thinking of getting together with some others for some brainstorming and clinical skills practice stuff. there is a minor issue that the Clinical Skills area is closed due to flooding this week, and the Year 5 final OSCE for the next 2 weeks.

I now have all my exam details - candidate number, OSCE locations (Victoria Infirmary * Med School), OSCE times (Wednesday 21st 3.30-5.20pm and Thursday 22nd 10am-11am), written exam location - Kelvin Gallery - no idea where that is though!

I also bumped into the head of year yesterday after the lecture, and we had a quick chat - she thinks I will be fine in the exams and that I should have words with my family about their decisions to die near exams! It was all said in a nice way though. So everyone is telling me that I can do well and will do well.....

Hmmmm catchy....

It came.......

Yipeee.......in the pile of post that Mum gave me at the funeral is my full driving licence in all its pink shininess. I suppose I should get the address changed to my Glasgow one, but since I don;t see Mum & Dad moving soon I'm not sure that I have to.

Now just to get a car - in some ways I want the end of may to come very soon so I can get one, but on the other hand I want the exams to still be a long way away.

Highlight of the week.

On Tuesday I was sat doing some revision as the afternoon sunshine fell upon my desk and obliterated anything on the computer screen. I got a text from Phil saying he was bored. The conversation went on until I suggested he come to Glasgow for coffee. Phil being impulsive and having a disabled card allowing free train travel thought this was a fantastic idea, and he came through.

I met him at the station at 5.30 (I was late due to reading the next chapter of my book in the adjacent WHSmith Reading Library). We wandered to my flat, where Phil expressed his approval of the lift, and that my flat was cleaner than he thought it would be since I am a student! Hrumpf!

We then went round to my local restaurant which although an italian restaurant has mostly eastern european staff and also makes rather good steaks and burgers. I was stuffed after only a starter and main course....(garlic and rosemary foccacia to start and a plain burger (with what looked like a whole salad stuffed in the bun as well with fries and I had a couple of Phil's side of Oion rings) and had no room for dessert sadly. Phil said he had room but would sacrifice the calories as I had Uni work to be getting on with. Phil also insisted on paying which was very kind of him.

I put him on the 9pm train then wandered home to study.

I thing when i get my car I hope I shall be as random and just pop to see people because I can - my friends may hope this is not teh case though.

Updates...

It has been a very busy past week, so I'm going to do a few little updates which I wrote at the time but didn't upload yet.

My grandad's funeral at the crematoria yesterday was very nice. It was the first time I had been to a humanist funeral, and apart from some humourous comments about where you found a humanist minister from, the whole thing was very composed. I missed some of the more usual bits of a funeral, and there was no singing just some organ music......

This was then followed by a 9 hour trek back from Birmingham to Glasgow via Newcastle and Stirling. It was long... and my knees hurt......and I was shattered when I got home - the first time in months I just fell into bed and fell straight asleep.

Please help me, readers!

You may notice that my last post had a couple of interesting comments from an author who wants to quote a bit of a blog post from last year.

I'm not sure...would any of the regular readers care to comment / offer advice?

I've underlined points you've mentioned (for me to address) .. if you scroll down, you'll see I've numbered them; as an example, for you to see and ok - I've posted the intended reference here as an example for you to see -
dr-dyb.blogspot.com/2007/10/smoking.html

- to be cited at the end of the book in Acknowledgements/Bibliography - as a full reference to the actual page in which I found the initial comments on smoking - In the text, I would probably only use the name of the Blog - Adventure, mistakes and successes; in varying proportions with your pseudonym, dr-dyb

**If there is a specific way in which you would prefer to have the referencing done - it shall be done - you have the right to remain anonymous and I welcome any suggestions you make, as I want you to be happy with what we do.

With the dr-dyb.blogspot.com/2007/10/smoking.html in the back of the book -comments from you, taken from the blog, would be not be easily identified - however, to have any validity, I need to reference the comments in some manner, but you, of course, maintain anonymity in regard to your actual name.

In the post in question, I said:

"Unlike many Med students, I am not a zealot about smoking - for starters, I would have had few friends in high school, sixth form, scouts, Uni or work if I hadn't frequented with those who smoked. As long as they know the risks, I honest;y fail to see the problem. After all drinking, eating and not exercising are more likely to kill you, and anyway sick people = more work in the future - I call it 'security of employment'. I have never smoked and don't see the attraction of it, and never want to smoke, but as long as my friends realise the damage they are causing, I don't feel the need to endanger my friendship with them by going on about the issue..."

I still hold with the general premise of my post, that Smoking is bad, but not the worst thing you can do to yourself, and that as long as people are aware of the risks, it is not the ‘bogeyman’ that many medical professionals see it as. For politicians, smoking is a much easier target than exercise, alcohol, or illegal drugs, because all they do is boost tax and restrict sales (by age, economic factors etc) in order to claim to be ‘doing something’. These same measures are not adopted with respect to alcohol, which arguably causes greater damage on society.

I'm just not sure about being published.....any opinions?