Monday 15 August 2011

6 weeks...

Firstly, thanks for all your lovely comments on my last post, they really cheered me up. This last week I've had Mr down to stay so I've been really spoilt being able to come home from work to him every night. We went out for meals, had nights in front of the telly and went strawberry picking for the biggest, reddest, juiciest strawberries I've ever seen. It was great. That went some way to lessening the blow that came with me doing a sensible thing and extending my contract at work for another week, since we start back a week later than I thought we might. I now have 6 weeks to go. I am currently wading through 100 divorce cases to compile a tracking spreadsheet so you can easily see where we're at with every case and see if I can find some we haven't charged for yet. Each case gets us £1,500, so I'm potentially going to generate lots of money for the company. Divorce is expensive! Unfortunately for me, the files are all stored on an online/intranet storage website and there's so much paperwork and correspondence to sort through to see what's happened. It doesn't help I've never had any dealings with divorce before, so had to have a quick divorce procedure 101 before I started. To say my Monday is dragging is a serious understatement. 6 weeks, 6 weeks, 6weeks….


In other more exciting news, I've started planning my elective!! :) Slightly ahead of schedule… I wanted to see what the options where, to give myself plenty of time to raise funds if an overseas one was feasible, or time to decide it wasn't and plan a UK one. I've had my heart set on an overseas one since I first started considering medicine as a degree. Seeing all my college friends go off on their gap summers and gap years while I went to work in an office with very little natural light and an over active air conditioning system only made me more jealous. I've always known it was somewhat of a pipe dream, and not getting a fee loan further put the kibosh on any hopes of me doing an elective somewhere hot and sunny. Doing a bit of digging and it turns out it may not be as unachievable as I first thought. It will be a lot of money, but if I can put some away I should be able to afford it. If the Student Loans Company decides to be silly and not pay me in the intervening years, well then I can use the money for fees, and still have plenty of time to plan a cheaper UK alternative. For now though.. I'm dreaming of Fiji or Malta, or the Bahamas…. I have a dinghy, a Laser Radial XD (with an interchangeable 4.7 rig), that I never sail anymore. I just don't have the time. It's such a shame because I love that boat and I have a horrible feeling if I sell it I'll never get back into sailing again. It was a present, a beautiful boat and it clears my head so much sailing it. When I'm in it it's an extension of myself; I love being out on the water. But being realistic and cold-hearted and grown up I haven't been out on it in years, and because of where I have to keep it, I probably won't for years more. I can't keep paying for club membership and boat mooring fees if I'm not going to use it. I'm going to try and sell it and put most of the money towards paying for the awesome elective I've always dreamed of, and use a little to buy myself a kayak so I can still get out on the water that's a little closer to home.

4 comments:

The Young Mummy said...

Id love a boat can you not just store it in someone garage for a few years

Dr Sunshine said...

Samoa! Samoa! Go to Samoa!!

Grumpy Biomed said...

Wow, I didn't know electives were planned so soon. But better sooner than later I guess. One of my school friends came from Fiji (or rather his family did), from what I can tell it's very peaceful and idyllic there. Just my 2p worth :)

Alice said...

I'm thinking of doing half my elective in UK and half abroad. Also going to try and get funds from bursaries and sponsors; you don't have to pay for it all yourself :)