Swings and Roundabouts.
Musings and Ponderations.
Doubts and Celebrations.
Megalomaniacs and the Meek.
Surrounded and Alone.
Ecstasy and Dispair.
Intoxication and Sobriety
Guilt and Rebellion
Whole, yet incomplete.

Here’s a novelty for you. I’m sitting in my garden offline typing this watching an almost cartoonish sunset with pink and purple fluffy clouds on a deep blue background. Exactly like this in fact:

Even complete with plane. I’ll spare you a photograph of my washing drying on the line.

Today was a good day. I have only two cases and one of them only needed feeding. The other is absolutely fascinating and required an anaesthetic, which gave me an excuse to be in the same room as my current favourite person. As it was a light day, I even had a chance to research my case and present an informed report in rounds, which resulted in me looking somewhat intelligent. That is, up until one of the clinicians discovered my fervent note-taking was in fact a shopping list. I did get lucky in one aspect though – the Opal Fruit I chose turned out to be purple.

Sun’s gone now. Would you like another photo? Same view, different angle.

Gorgeous. Next will be purple.

Anyway, where was I… Ah yes, good day. After work (which did not end particularly early, so that can’t be the reason for my good mood) I went to the library, paid my fines (a-hem) and looked up a journal on the case I am working on. By a stroke of luck, an article in the same journal was on the disease my own cat has, and as a further stroke of good luck another article in the same journal was suitable for my presentation next week. Bargain!

Although this will be yet another 6 day week in the past 2 months of 6 day weeks (which seriously buggers up my hay buying ability as the pet shop is only open for about 3 hours a weekday and puts Rabbit on Atkins as a consequence) I have a 4 day week – yes – a FOUR day week to look forward to! Pure luck and nothing to do with me, I have two days off in one week as part of the rota and that is Fri and Sat. By chance I swapped my Sun with another girl so she’s covering for me that Sun in exchange for me covering one of hers. Result? 3 day weekend, baby! Rock!

See? Purple. The light is now too dim to focus properly or get the red so the purple isn’t as purple as it looks in real life. Imagine the vaguely pink bits are garish fuscia and the darkish blue bits are flower purple.

More like this:

But the red should be darker.

So. I sit in the fading light having read 3 journals in the last of the real sunshine (thought I’d better generate at least some Vitamin D this week), having done the washing, a little shopping, and having dinner on (defrosted and microwaved Disappointing Stew combined with likewise previous Successful Stew = probably Mediocre Stew), I get ready to watch House (hilarious for any medic-like people or infact anyone with a acerbic cynical view on life) and then snag an early(ish) night. The air smells hot and baked like being abroad. I even managed to avoid the heat of the day by working in an A/C building and spending my evening in the cooling garden instead of the cooked house. And I even got a 40 minute lunch break. You can’t say better than that.

The End.

And so commences week *does quick count up* 13 of 48. 25% total down, 75% total to go, 29% internal rotations down, 71% to go. Lucky for some. Hopefully I’m some.

I’m on call again. Sadly a certain good looking anaesthetist isn’t working this weekend. *le sigh* Otherwise I’d be willing the phone to ring.

Did you know? I get marked on my rotations. Yussum. We get graded on 6 areas which generally includes Professionalism, Knowledge, Proficiency, Problem Solving, Communication Skills, Responsibility & Involvement. C is satisfactory, but some rotations over or undermark. For the sake of having something to write, I’ll tell you my scores so far:

Small Animal General – 69% (C B C C C C)
Pathology – 81% (B B B B B C)
Equine Medicine – 76% (B C B C B B)
Anaesthesia – 86% (B B B B B A)

Suffice to say, I’m pleased with my Anaesthesia mark. Given that I enjoyed it so hugely and would have happily worked there for life, I cared quite a lot about my mark. So big smiles all round! Not everyone enjoyed it – one member of my group hated it after having a personality clash with one of the anaesthetists. The rest of us adored it and are having a BBQ tomorrow to mark the end of it.

My housemate departs for ever on Wednesday. She wasn’t leaving for another week or so, but it’s been brought forward by a job interview. It’s weird – life will be easier and indeed less messy and fluffy without her and her menagerie, but also a lot quieter and less people to vent to.

Busy day tomorrow – BBQ at lunchtime which I have to make my (mother’s) renowned potato salad for, and then Father’s day meal at a tiny rural pub in the evening. It’s all go!

* like come to bed eyes, but a slightly different kind of sleeping. Not that come to bed eyes implies sleeping anyway, but you get my pun. Don’t over analyse me! Jeez, I won’t bother next time… *huff*

I had a good day today. 2 hours spent revising anaesthetics for fun, 1 hour spent writing emails, 30 mins eating lunch, 30 mins doing “rounds” (talking), 5 minutes checking a dog, 2 hours spent chatting in the coffee shop, where we discussed wanting to learn languages properly (hence the title). If only every day could be filled with mostly loafing and 35 minutes of work to let you know the trip in was worth it.

Another link with the title – I bought Gorden Ramsay’s Makes It Easy and just watched the DVD that comes with it. Fab DVD, book is also fab and I will hereby become a supreme and fantastique chef. Tomorrow? Broccolli soup. Just you watch.

And not on the subject of cookery, chefs or food (mmmm….am hungry…) I might be moving rooms. I may be moving from my big room into the box room as we’ll find it easier to rent out the big room. Bit of a lifestyle change, though if it’s quieter up there I’ll prefer it. The view is fantastic – over fields. Better than the north facing almost basement room I currently live in. Hard question though – is it the right move to make? Might go have a bath and ponder….

* “I like his kitchen” – a line from Me Gustas Tu, a song from the Once Upon A Time In Mexico soundtrack. Entertainingly coinscidentally preceeded by the line El – “You want me to shoot the cook?” Sands – “No, I’ll shoot the cook. My car’s parked out back anyway.”

Next book in the Harry Potter series…?

Today was The Day of Make Good. That which was bad has been made good again. The lawn mowed, the washing washed and on the line, the seedlings planted out, the room thoroughly hoovered, the hoover bag emptied, the shirt button sewed on, the bean bag repaired, the rabbit cleaned out (again), the rabbit vaccinated and the phone bills mostly done.

The Disappointing Stew was made on Friday. Tescos were selling decaying vegetables for 10p a pack, and being a skinflint I bought a selection and some beef to complete a stew. I normally add it all to a pot and simmer on a low heat until I remember it’s there (several hours). Instead I decided to follow the instructions on the beef packet – namely “place into a casserole dish with vegetables and stock and braise in oven at Gas Mark 4 for 2 hours.” End result 6 hours later (I fell asleep) was raw vegetables and tough partly cooked meat. Bah humbug. In an attempt to save the dish, I have just placed it onto the hob on a simmer as per my normal plan. Iwill keep you updated on it’s progress.

Am on call tonight, 8pm to 8am. Yuk. Please don’t call me out – I like my sleep.

You’d think after several years I’d learn that procrastination doesn’t make for a happy Lyn. And yet, with a seminar tomorrow I haven’t yet started work on (it’s 12.10am now) and a planned bedtime of 10pm it appears I haven’t.

Week… what week is it… 11? yes 11. is going well. Pansy and Filly didn’t like this rotation (Anaesthesia) much at all – but since they also don’t seem to be enjoying the Equine Medicine one either this perhaps says more about them than the rotations. I thoroughly enjoyed EqMed and and rather enjoying Anaesthesia too. Except when files get nicked like one did tonight and I spent 30 unfruitful minutes searching for it, and trying to fill in forms without a pen as one of the staff pinched mine. In circumstances like that you can only laugh, leave work and get a MaccyD’s.

*cackles* suddenly remembered entertaining skit from the Final Year Revue. ‘Twas a Harry Potter spoof, and they were at Kings Cross going to get on the train at Platform 9 3/4 . Hagrid tells Harry to run towards the solid arch to the left of the sign. Harry questions this – “surely it’s the one with the sign?”. “No, no” says Hagrid. “It’s definately this one”. *thud* “…or maybe it is that one…?”

Also have a look at this site linked too above…. “it isn’t completely clear which came first and whether this sign was inspired by the books or the other way around. England is so full of curious and oddly worded (to my eye) signage” hehe!

Oo joy! I’ve been miscounting my weeks! I’ve been ignoring my work experience weeks. Happy times!

Week 11 of 48 begins tomorrow. And yes, I will continue to count down my weeks. Tomorrow begins 6 weeks in the small animal hospital area. Two weeks of anaesthesia, which is according to my friends hellish, and according to my housemate 90% boring. I’m happy as long as I know what my jobs are, and apparently small animal isn’t very good at that, so we’ll see. After those 2 weeks follows 4 weeks of small animal medicine, which is apparently 4 individual weeks of various areas of the hospital. Should be interesting. I might have forgotten what daylight and indeed trees look like by the end of the 6 weeks.

And when the 6 weeks is over I will have completed week 16 of 48, and will be 33% finished in terms of the whole 48 weeks, and a happy 43% finished in terms of clinical weeks (the rest being 4 weeks work experience, 8 weeks research and 4 weeks holiday).

S’funny – in non-clincal years we counted down the weeks to exams in panic, with the average number of lectures to be revised each night rising as the weeks went by (up to “if we cover 48 lectures a day we’ll cover the entire syllabus before the exam”). Now we’re wishing the weeks away.

Roll on March 13th 2006. Lucky for some.

*Mark Owen’s song – 4 Minute Warning.