Fred the pants guy

This made me really happy on Wednesday! ((: His name is Fred the pants guy, which made me even happier. Now I can drink my loose leaf/flower teas!

Japanese manju! ><  Gonna try making some in my spare time since I'm free for the next few weeks (: Naturally, mine won't look anything like that. But always good to aim for the trees and land in the bushes. Best not be over ambitious P:

Hello bloggy. Haven't seen you in a while.. Hummm-dee-hum. Waiting to do GMC registration now so just wasting time. Hence the floating jellytopus.

ENT in Lincoln now. Not as chilled out as I thought. Our consultant is quite a character though. Very very warm person. A bit too emotional and close for comfort for a conservative stick like me but I guess he is nice at the end of the day. I wondered if it crossed the boundaries of professionalism when this sweet, nervous old lady said something that must have been very endearing, coz Mr C pinched her cheeks and went "... Youuu are sooo cuuooote! *Iggoowiggiegooieieieie..!*" and happily turns to us to say, "Isn't she cute???"

Finally seeing some blurry optic discs and stuff. I really suck at examinations in general. I can never pick up anything. Opthalmoscopes and otoscopes really take it to another level with me.

Got a cool room with weird flatmates. I like the double bed and alarm clock radio and personal electric kettle tea set, which just about makes up for the weird flatmates and daily hike to the hospital.

Listening to muttons on the move now. Nice and nostalgic (: I like how they manage to speak well without using a Western accent. They still make me laugh :D

Last 2 days!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is really the longest week ever. Feel like I have been here for ages even tho I only arrived the day before having spent it lao-saing and getting jelly legs.

Not that the people here are not nice. And to be fair I feel like a real pro (--,) talking about kidneys and fluids and all that now... which I guess means I have achieved my aims for this block.

Dunno wat to expect tomorrow. I guess it should not be as aimless as today in any case. At least I know there is teaching at lunch and that I'm going to pon the rest of the afternoon to let the accommodation people check my room.

I miss home. At least I can go home and complain over a plate of rice and kang kong and... belly pork. Mmm... belly pork is nice.

See. I feel sleepy already. It is 12.39a.m. in Homedom.

I was called a child in clinic today.

Back in UK for the longest 5 days ever :/ Was telling Yi Ling how these 3 weeks in Lincoln feels like an extended wait in Dubai airport alone, where I am stuck in the airport and cannot/don't dare to go out to play.

The last 4week holiday was 1 of my most awesome Uni holidays so far (: Everyone being home again and all that. To be honest it actually did feel long enough. Made full use of my time to stretch the 4 weeks to its maximum enjoyment potential. Made the same mistake as always of bringing home too many books to study. I'm driven by this keen enthusiasm at the end of every academic year, telling myself (and the people around me) how this time I have planned it all and I AM going to make good use of the abundance of spare time I would have over the holidays to catch up on my work. Definitely. I never learn my lesson...

Anyway.

Lincoln is nice. Ish. A bit anal in terms of paperwork but I've managed to creep past the 1st week without anything being flagged up (--.) I know I was pushing it, arriving in Leicester and leaving for Lincoln on Sunday after a more or less 24h journey, but every day spent at home counts. At least I got to eat pseudo-steamboat before I flew. The 1st week here, therefore, has been spent desperately trying to settle everything back to pre-holiday conditions while trying to blend in amongst those who have had a normal, uninterrupted August, and spending the remaning time hibernating.

Still getting lost in the hospital. But I'm learning to read the signs :/ 1st day back was a stack of bloods (and 1 cannula) waiting to be done. A bit of a shock seeing as I was still in transition to normality (still am actually) + I hadn't done any in my previous block. But the doctors were nice. And I used the usual "I am just a stupid medical student" defence to give myself a bit of a leg-up 1st. At least I had free lunch that day (: Which is good, judging by my very sad food rations I brought along from Leicester to tide me through my 1st week. But now I'm starting to wonder if I overdid it, because everyone seems to have really low expectations of me, and are assuming that I don't know stuff/are bringing me back to basics :/ Dunno if I should feel offended/relieved. Only the Leicester graduate seems to be grilling me (somewhat).

Wish the next 2 weeks will shoot by! Although the people here are really nice so far and my consultant is super cool and super funny. I need to be in contact with civilization again.

Ugh. I want to become an assassin. I want to kill time. 10 more hours to boarding :/

Almost finished reading shopaholic.

Hum dee dum...

Ngeh. I swear time in Dubai passes way more slowly compared to the rest of the world. Arrived here at 7ish with a good 24 hours to kill and yet, surprise surprise, the queue at arrivals was abnormally swift and the suspicious questioning person-at-counter was unusually indifferent.

The story is that Yuv spotted this awesome flying option where my transit time is only like 45min + the ticket was relatively cheap and me, thinking I had seen the same thing, had swooped down and grabbed the ticket. A good month later or so, I was in disbelief when I saw

Arrive Dubai Int 24th July 0700hrs
Depart Dubai Int 25th July 0745hrs

Shock shock horror.

That was why I was particularly nervous when the arrivals guy asked

"Where you fly from?"

tgo: Huh? Um. Er. Ummmmmm... UK...? Yea. Yea. From Birmingham.

arrivals guy: What hotel you stay in?

tgo: Ahm... No hotel

arrivals guy: *raises eyebrows*

tgo: Uh. Oh. I mean. I'm just transiting, but for- a long time. 24h I mean.

Ouch.

Normally that would have warranted a fairly high degree of suspicion, or at least I would've thought. Luckily the person just shrugged and said something like "Ngh." and let me through. Phooooo...

And this explains why I don't do well in OSCEs/when consultants are all nice and chatty and suddenly shoot, "So. Tell me everything you know about atrial myxoma."

So... I was kinda aiming to have finished checking out by... 9a.m. Earliest. But for once everything (even my luggage on the carousel) was quick and when I checked the time it was 8bloodya.m. :/ I had even taken the extra step of slowly going into the toilet, letting others walk before etc. ://

So for the past 4hours (omg it is finally 12p.m. 19 more hours to kill. oosh.) I have taken my time with checking back in again, hoping for a queue but again, no luck there. Check in person was being friendly and said, "So your flight is...... later this morning at........ nnnnaaaaiiiinne..?"

(polite smile) tgo: no. 7 something tomorrow morning. I know. I saw the date wrong.

And then it was 8 twenty bloody seven so I shopped. And the shops are really zzzzz. Milka chocolate? Random dunno what perfume? Wth?? I was done in about 3min. And I had made the effort to pick everything up and convert all the dirhams to pounds too.

Didn't realise how tired I was. I guess I had barely slept on the plane. Was feeling quite nauseous and almost vomited when I tasted the casserole. Which is strange because I usually have an exceedingly wide resistance to weird tastes. Plus I was starving 2hrs before boarding. Anyway, I managed to get internet (but not Whatsapp) and did the usual hotmail/fb etc. checks --> read shopaholic after that and kept falling asleep. Quite embarrassing coz I dunno if I am allowed to splay myself out at the main departure hall and sleep properly so I kept waking up. I was determined to stay at each spot for at least 3 hours so I wouldn't run out of spots and so I finally left for another long toilet trip at the furthest toilet and am now all settled in burger king with chicken fries (SIX pieces -.-), an apple pie, and the coffee that I need but spilt onto my pants. At least it dried up pretty quickly. And my pants are kind of coffee coloured. Thank goodness I decided to wear my long 3 random cats top.

Ah. I better go to the power charging point. Acer is dying again...