Detox Evian, can of beer!

Yep my title to this blog entry doesn't really make any sense. I just couldn't be bothered to think of a proper title. But it does have some connection to this blog entry.

The other night after getting home from Central London (i'd been there since early morning) and then getting my rejection letter I decided to go with my sister to some club in town (some friends of hers also came and I wanted one of my other friends to come but he was ill). So my sister and I left the house.

As we were walking down the road there was this quite freaky looking little girl walking towards us with her father. She had her hair covering her face and looked very much like the ring girl (my sister made the comment that she looked dead). So my sister freaked out and wouldn't walk by the empty, derelict garage on our road. To add to the weirdness this strange music started playing as she walked past. This wasn't the last we heard of this music.

So we made a bus journey to town where we then had to wait for my sister's riends in Trafalgar Square (it was freezing!). While waiting we went to buy something to drink and a strange role reversal occured. I bought some water (of all waters it turned out to be detox water) and my sister bought a can of beer. But this role reversal didn't last long as my sister came to the realisation while walking back to the meeting point that she didn't really like the beer. So guess who had to drink it. And then we heard the strange music again.

The club actually wasn't that much fun. I kind of just wasn't in the mood for it. And then it was a long bus journey (well a couple of buses) back home (which took ages because it seems not many buses run at night, we waited over an hour at one stop in freezing weather).

To end the night, as we walked past the derelict garage on our street we once again heard the strange music play. But there was no sign of the freaky girl so my sister didn't freak out that time.

Rejection............again

I got rejected from Manchester. If i'm honest I was surprised because I expected to at least get an interview. I just don't see what else I could have done to convince them that I at least was good enough for an interview. I got my 9 A's at GCSE, I got my 4 A's at AS level, I got my 3A's and a B at A level, i've shadowed in hospitals in 3 different countries, helped in the Pre-prep at my school, done my Duke of Edinburgh Gold and got sponsored by the Czech government to do a czech language course in the Czech Republic.

I know doing all these things don't necessarily show you to be doctor material. I just thought it would be good enough to get an interview from which I could then prove to them that I am someone they want at their medical school.

I guess its their loss (to quote a cliche) and I will do medicine (whether I have to do biomedical sciences first and then go into medicine or not). Its just a bit disheartening to start getting the rejections again. Oh well, back to making the most of my gap year.

One long trip down memory lane

Today felt like one long trip down memory lane. I was making a delivery to a court (and would then have to bring back some paperwork to my parents office). So I walked up to the underground station whilst occupying myself with music. As I got to the end of one of the roads a song started playing on my mp3 player at exactly the same spot I first heard the song (it had been playing on some builders' radio as I was walking past them on the way home from school one day).

On the tube I saw a friend of a friend's brother who always seemed to be around at my friends house (like I did and no nick you are not the friend whose house I always seemed to be at that i'm refering to...............which i guess you guessed seeing as you don't have a brother..........). I hadn't seen this person in years (which is no loss as he was a complete bastard, I would apologise for my language but thats what he was). But he was on the tube. Luckily he didn't recognise me. I also thought I saw someone from school (again someone I would rather not see again) but on closer inspection (well I didn't actually go to inspect them) I don't think it actually was that person, it just looked like him.

I was worried about getting to the court I needed to go to as I didn't really know the area it was in. And to make it worse I had to get there by a certain time. But it turned out fine. I got there with time to spare and when I got there I realised I had been there before. It turned out to be the court we went to Nick in that really posh and sort of old fashioned looking part of town, the one we had to deliver a file to a couple of years ago. I also remembered I had been there one other time with my dad even before going there with Nick. We went to a library there on a Saturday morning (not that details really matter) but that was a long long time ago................if you count about 5 years ago as a long long time.

On the walk back from the station I saw someone who looked exactly like this person from the czech course I went on. It obviously wasn't him but it was a perfect likeness. Funnily enough this person happened to be the only person on the czech course who I can say I disliked.

I would just like to end this blog entry by saying I don't hate everyone. It just happens that three people I saw (or thought I saw, or even just happened to look like someone I know) today were people I have met and not liked.

New drawing

Its time for another drawing. Its of Utada Hikaru copied from the cover of her english language album Exodus. I'm not that happy with it, something just doesn't look quite right (I think its her left eye). But I thought i'd blog it anyway:

Whats your beer?

I was in a chinese restaurant and happened to overhear a neighbouring table's (which consisted of a family) drinks order. The conversation went like this:

Waiter: 'So what would you like to drink?'
Father: 'I'll have a beer, a tiger beer,'
Little girl: 'I'd like a drink!'
Waiter: 'So what would you like?'
Little girl: 'I'd like a beer too!'
Father: 'Oh really, what beer?'
Little girl: 'I'd like a Duff!'

Another drawing

Heres a drawing of Shakira:



















Don't know why I drew her but I was looking through my albums trying to find something to draw and her album cover looked challenging (because of all that hair!). I also remember you hate her josh so.......well.........sorry for drawing her (although i'm also guessing you won't care that much).

'The lump, the lump, the lovely toilet lump!'

The floor in the downstairs toilet has always had an uneven part. But now that uneven part is growing. Its turning into a lump. The floor is growing a lump!

Maybe its the floors form of a spot. Maybe the floor is calling out for its equivalent of pores, the cracks inbetween the planks of wood, to be cleaned? I guess it shall remain one of lifes mysteries............well until we investigate whats under that lump that is.

Court drama

As Nick will tell you my day didn't start too well (and as a result nor did his). He was asleep trying to get back into English time and I was getting my things together as quietly as possible to go to court to help out my parents. When trying to get my mobile out of my jean pockets which were hanging above where Nick was sleeping I dropped the mobile............onto Nick's head. I'm still really sorry about that Nick!

Then I rushed off to court in a cab (as there was a tube strike), arriving there before any one else involved in the court case. The usher came out of the court room and asked who I was acting for, the claimant or defendant. I stared at her. I didn't have a clue. This was kind of a last minute, helping out my parents job and, in the rush to get to the court, I hadn't been briefed on that fact. So I reached into a file I had for the case and tried to find out the answer. Luckily it told me on the first page and so I proudly exclaimed, 'the claimant!'

But this answer prompted the usher to say, 'well then we haven't received your file for the judge,' I just replied ok, thinking to myself i'll have to phone my mum to ask about it. But I hadn't explained this to the usher who replied, 'no, actually its not ok, we need that file.' I said, 'yes, sorry, i'll just have to phone the office to find out about it.' The usher walked off.

The equivalent of me from the defendants side then walked in. She came to shake hands with me and so I got up to do so. I forgot I had files on my lap. They flew all over the floor. The woman just said, 'don't worry, i've been there.' She wasn't lying. During the court case, when it was a break, she got up abruptly and managed to knock all her files that were on her desk all onto the floor.

Luckily it turned out they had actually got the files for the judge and so they had been wrong.

The client that day was difficult (thats actually quite an understatement and its a feeling shared by all those who have had to deal with him). He also didn't come across as the brightest of people, as was shown by the lift incident. The client very kindly offered to give me a lift back as I had many massive files to carry (they couldn't all fit into my bag) and I had a very long way home. So we got into a lift to take us down to the ground floor and the client pressed the button. Then he proceeded to tell me about something which he'd already told me numerous times that day. After a minute or two I said, 'this lift isn't moving,' and pressed the lift button again. The client then said, 'Oh, you're meant to press the button!' I just stood there in disbelief.

In the car, when driving, he swerved to avoid a plastic bag. God forbid if we'd run it over.

Tis a funny thing

Its funny how things just fall into place. I didn't have lunch one day as I wasn't hungry at the time but when I was hungry I was too busy to get any food. But it just so happened that that day there was a leavers lunch which I was invited to. So I was able to eat then.

Then when I got to the station on that same day I realised that, if I had bought a lunch that day, I wouldn't have had enough money to buy the train ticket (the ticket was 4 ringit 50 and I would have only had about 2 ringit left).

So as I was saying, its a funny thing how things always end up falling into place.

Blogging backlog

I'm actually back in London now but I have a backlog of blogging to do so here goes.

Things I saw in the hospital since my last blog.............there was a woman who came in with burns on her left arm and leg after being caught in a gas explosion. She came to have the burns cleaned, some cream put on them and then have them bandaged. She actually seemed quite calm about the whole thing seeing as she'd just been involved in quite a nasty accident.

After shadowing in the paediatrics department I went to shadow in the physiotherapy department. It was an area of medicine thats quite different to the other areas i've seen as it involves the use of things like waves and hot wax. The wax treatment i'm referring to was used on a woman who'd been involved in a car crash. She'd dislocated her shoulder and broken her wrist. Both injuries had healed but her shoulders had become stiff due to her muscles having not been used in a long time. So the hot wax was put on her shoulder. Heat relaxes the muscles and so reduced the pain the woman was feeling. Then, while the muscles were still more relaxed, the physiotherapist moved the womans arms repeatedly in a certain way, loosening the shoulder. Even though the wax had relaxed the muscles you could still see the woman was in a lot of pain. Poor woman, there was still quite a few more appointments to go.

Another treatment used by the physiotherapist was waves. A machine was used to produce waves of a specific frequency, decided on by the physiotherapist. They were used to get rid of some pain in another patients leg as they, like the wax, had the affect of relaxing the muscles. This patient had had a fall and, although she didn't break anything, she had developed pain in the leg. Her treatment was to go on for 3 consecutive days. This was a common feature of physiotherapy, the treatments tended to happen over a period of time with the physiotherapist having to make appointments with the patient. So, apart from this one man in the treatment room who kept coming in to have his diabetic ulcer cleaned, it was the first time I was seeing a patient more than once. Its a weird thing seeing a patient more than once, makes you feel like you've been in the hospital for ages.

A third patient in the physiotherapy department was a boy who'd sprained his ankle in a football injury. He had pain in the soles of his feet and so was having ultrasound administered there. The ultrasound was supposed to reduce inflammation.

I found the treatments used in physiotherapy to be quite weird, mainly because they weren't tangible things. In some ways I felt untrusting of it, almost like it was some sort of traditional medicine relying purely on peoples' belief in it but not actually proven to work. But I know it is a proven treatment and this was proven by the people I saw whos joints got less stiff and painful over the time I saw them.