Gripe: Fireflies, by Owl City. For a start, clearly a one-hit wonder and it’s got a good chorus, but the lyrics are so inane they make me want to rip the speakers out of my radio. Or re-tune it or turn it off or whatever. Either way, it was a song I really used to like until I actually listened to it.

Anyway. Meandering. Anyone got anything they want to recommend?

Musing on music.

*Actually, quite a lot of her album is good easy listening, although sadly her actual released song ‘Hollywood’ I don’t particularly like if only for it’s somewhat irritating ‘Shakira, oh wait it’s Catherine Zeta’ line.

AND today I’m not going to my usual ward round with Dr. See-no-students but instead I’m going on the neuro rehabilitation unit ward round, which is fascinating and has a brilliant consulant at its head. and then I shall come home and use my enormous pile of textbooks to finish my essay, submit it, and never think about it again. I will be free to focus on learning and revision for the intermediates, and it will be a strange kind of freedom.

Can you tell it’s a sunny morning?

No, that is not my gold car in our driveway.

]]> http://justanotherpairofeyes.co.uk/2010/03/morningwin/feed/ 5 http://justanotherpairofeyes.co.uk/2010/02/pauses/ http://justanotherpairofeyes.co.uk/2010/02/pauses/#comments Wed, 24 Feb 2010 20:49:15 +0000 Callan http://justanotherpairofeyes.co.uk/?p=1022 You may have noticed I’m not here so frequently as I might have been before. The workload is stacking up rapidly – I’ve taken today off from placement to finish my essay and a bunch of cardio notes, and been up since half six doing the same. Day off, pffft.

Not, you understand, that I’m complaining. The more I learn the more elegant everything is, and the more I can link things together, understand the consequences of things and the cascade of consequences consequent of those consequences. Why can alcoholic liver disease cause catastrophic haemorrhage in the throat, or swelling in the ankles, or rupture of the spleen, or kidney failure?* I know I’m endlessly banging on about medicine but it’s increasingly an integral part of my identity, for better or for worse. Probably for worse, but hey – in some ways it changes me for the better. Currently I’m on a one-week-on one-week-off routine in sync with Helpful Teaching Consultant’s morning ward rounds. Next week it’s back to Dr. See-no-students-hear-no-students so I’ll revert back to going to a bunch of random stuff, neuro and GI and endocrine and phleb clinic, if I can swing it.

We’ve got some new neighbours, postgrad nurses-to-be; in number, three. We were worried first that there was a family moving in, but they were just the landlords. As of last Sunday we are officially surrounded by students on both sides, which is good news. And we invited them over for cocktails, and they are pretty chilled out, which is nice. That, the discreetly unmentioned valentine’s day and a couple of sunny days and nights with sleep in have cheered me no end, life is better again.

Now, I need to crack on with my essay. It’s a bit of a strange reflection that I want to finish this essay so that I am finally free for the remainder of the year to get down to working on medicine proper. Who’d've thought that the homework-hating me of yesteryear would become so driven…

Essaytime.

*don’t get alcoholic liver disease, kids.

I think I need some sunshine, and a week off. Roll on Easter.

*last night a text woke me up. my phone was on my bedside table, on silent, and I was woken up through closed eyes by the light that the screen cast on my ceiling.

Hippocrates wrote “Some men have constitutions that are like wooded mountains running with springs, others like those with poor soil and little water, still others like land rich in pastures and marshes, and yet others like the bare, dry earth of the plain.” Today, we describe these observations as interindividual variation in disease risk manifested as gene-environment interactions.

Tell you what, the modern interpretation might be more succinct and scientific but it certainly isn’t as accessible or elegant as the original description!

Also, Valentine’s day could not come at a worse time this year.

Yes, I’m aware it’s the same time every year.

“Everything you do in medicine is a stall.”

And it is. Every disease you treat, every symptom you manage, every wound you stitch or tumour you excise; it’s all just stalling for time. It’s a pessimistic viewpoint, but the universal truth is that everyone stops bleeding one way or another. Fight as hard as you like, but in the grand scheme of things you lose. The bigger picture is a grim one.

The other day on the ward, a patient arrested. Staff performed CPR, successfully, and he was resuscitated. Three hours later, despite the best efforts of everyone involved, he died.

At first glance, we lose, death wins, but there is one more thing to this story. Three hours was long enough for his daughter to come and see him, talk to him, say goodbye to him. Before that I kind of agreed with Dr Cox, but actually sometimes, despite the worst, we still pull some semblance of victory from the jaws of defeat.

And I think that’s enough.

It’s not always about the bigger picture.

The eBook reading function is a good try but I’m not sold on the idea that it will outpace, outmatch or out-pretty-much-anything the Kindle; being specifically designed for books and with a battery life to support that function makes it a vastly superior choice. And it’s cheaper. eBook functionality seems more of a tag-on feature for people who are going to get one anyway rather than a central pillar of the device.

Yes, the iPad is functional as a portable computing device, but I’d argue that it doesn’t have the same ease of use as a netbook when it comes to typing – it is not tactile, and watching the screen and typing is much harder on a surface that is completely flat as opposed to one that has a screen at a separate angle i.e. any kind of note/netbook. Obviously I’ve not actually used one, but I may go down to the apple store next time I’m in town and have a look at one. Currently, though, the idea has not sparked fireworks.

Thoughts?

*and it’s actually a lot more similar to a giant iPod Touch.

Yes, it is entirely my fault, but I just think it’s a shame that it is. I’m aiming for a solid 40%, which I am currently over with coursework etc, so I don’t need to do well to pass. Flipside, I hate doing things badly when I know full well that I could have aced the whole course if I’d put in a bit of effort.

Shame on me.

To make myself feel better, here is something cheery I found on the internet.

Twice.

Woooo! Actual useful skills, here we come!

Mmmm, blood.

I could go on and on about all the stuff I have to learn, but I won’t because it’s boring.* Instead, I shall leave it with a pictorial representation of how much there is for me to know. I need to know, basically, the information on every single page of every single on of these texts:

There’s a bit of overlap, but that’s basically it. The top one I need to know at the drop of a hat, the others need just a working grasp of their contents. Should be interesting.

That, of course, is not the only aspect of living at the moment. There’s the social side of things, which currently is adequate but far from perfect. D and I are no longer together, due to circumstances beyond our control resulting in her being a good three hours away on a constant basis for the forseeable future. I’m sure given the opportunity to have a solid basis the whole LTR thing might have worked, but seeing as we’d only really been together for a month and a half when the challenge presented itself we decided to let things lie rather than risk seeing them fade into obscurity. Life is full of fun surprises. No doubt.

Anyway, I’ve written enough and I’m tired and I’ve got a load of washing to take out and a lot of Spanish to do. Basically got to sit down and learn the whole module. Terrific.

If I’m not about much, the above is all why!

Hasta luego.

*the going on about it, rather than the actual stuff which is brilliant.