My cold is still present, though I’m feeling much better now. I took Friday off because I’d gotten so little sleep after a coughing fit most of the night. Silly me went rowing Thursday night since I was starting to feel better. I thought I could sit somewhere in the bows and we could do a simple light outing, focusing on technique. Silly coach put me back at stroke and then decided to practise a new racing start and high rate pieces ready for our home regatta in a couple of weeks. This properly woke my asthma up and I had my first real asthma attack in a year and maxed out my inhaler. They kept telling me how bad I looked and I need to move faster on the start, so as well as feeling pants from being ill, my confidence as a stroke was knocked too.
Saturday I zoomed up to Sandhurst for mr’s company ball. It was very posh. There was polo and croquet and duck breast and wild boar tureen – very posh for this bean. It was strange. It was really nice to meet his friends and have a fancy night out, but it’s such a different world for me. After seeing some of the other cadets wags, I felt so unglamourous. There were ladies with feathers in their hair and very fancy dresses and I just felt so out of place.
Mr’s been given his first posting and it won’t be too far away, which is nice and I think it’s a really good one. I have a feeling I’m more excited about it than he is, he just keeps saying it’s a job, a job’s a job, but I was positively bouncing when I heard what he’d be doing (not too sure he or the army would be too happy with me posting the nature of his job on a public blog though, so I’m afraid I’ll have to keep you in suspense). Apparently all the guys in his platoon will have to salute me because I’ll be the boss’ partner, which is a crazy thought. I still haven’t quite got the hang of this army etiquette yet.
We spent Sunday wandering round Sandhurst and it’s so pretty, I’m really looking forward to going back for his commissioning ball now. It was back to work Monday to find that over the weekend the systems providers have been changed from HP to HCL and so nothing works, sigh.
I rang Peninsula admin last night as it’s been ages since I sent my paperwork back and I still hadn’t heard anything with regards to my offer being made unconditional. This is required for the accommodation people to start placing me, and has to happen before August for me to be placed first. I had seen that some people who confirmed after me had already had their statuses changed so I was a little worried there was a problem. They said they were still waiting on my Occupational Health clearance to come through, and once it did they would be confirming me. This got me even more worried as my health background isn’t exactly clear, but I didn’t think bad enough to cause me a problem. I rang OH who thankfully said I’d been cleared on Wednesday so the certificate would have been sent Thursday and is probably still in the internal post. I am now obsessively checking my emails, waiting for the ‘Your status has changed’ email from UCAS which should be coming any day now. On a lighter note, I went rowing last night and swapped sides to row bowside and pulled a muscle in my bum. Ouch!
Wednesday, 30 June 2010
Thursday, 24 June 2010
Sniff
You know when you have a little niggling bit of an illness and you ignore it and push through, and then it dumps on you from a great height and completely floors you? I’ve had that this week. It hasn’t been fun. Last week I was having problems with my ears, which isn’t unusual for me as apparently I have small ear canals so they are prone to becoming blocked. I put some olive oil in them and carried on. I had a bit of a sore throat on Friday, but I put that down to coxing on Thursday night without a coxbox - I had no microphone and had to yell my commands. I sucked a cough sweet and carried on.
Saturday was Totnes Regatta and I was due to cox my mens novice 4 and then a mixed (men and women) novice 4. It was a beautiful day and the guys were all in high spirits despite being up against some tough crews including Exeter A – our A crew who were only racing at novice level on a technicality but should be seniors, and Dart Totnes A who had beaten them the last two races. We lost our first heat against Dart Totnes A, which wasn’t a surprise. It was close, it was taken from them in the last 50m. We won the second heat against Dart Totnes B by a good 2-3 lengths, but then came last in the final against Dart Totnes and Exeter A crews.
We had been told our mixed race had been moved earlier because some of the crew members of our opposition, Exmouth were supposed to be in the race leaving straight after ours. So we came along side, two guys jumped out, two girls jumped in and we were off to the start line again to wait. And wait, and wait. The earlier race time, 45 minutes before its scheduled time came and went. The race officials said they hadn’t heard of a change, so we waited some more – by this time I’m shivering as I’ve been sat in a puddle of water for 3 hours. The proper race time came and went, with no sign of Exmouth. An Exmouth single scull next to us told us one of the girls who was supposed to be in the mixed crew was in the double about to start up ahead, and it was the double event they had moved the race time for. Fantastic! So after telling us to come early, they pull out, without telling us. We told the start officials, who put a call out for the Exmouth crew to come and when they didn’t we had to do a row through – row the course as if we were racing, but without an opponent. This confused the commentators mightily, but we were cheered home across the line and they collected our names at the end as if we’d won, so I don’t know if the guys will get points from it or not. No shiny things as there were only two of us supposed to race anyway :(
After that I raced home and then to Bristol because….. mr had got tickets to Bill Bailey!!!! After his Women’s Henley crew hadn’t qualified on Friday so didn’t have to row on Saturday he had checked to see if there were still tickets available and amazingly there were, and really good ones too – we were four rows back, just at the side of the stage. I was a bit sniffy getting ready in the hotel before, so I packed my handbag with tissues and carried on. Bill Bailey was fantastic, as I knew he would be and I had such a good time. Within five minutes I couldn’t breath I was laughing so much as he had us trying to sing California Dreaming by the Mamas and the Papas in the style of Slayer – I guess you had to be there.
I drove home Sunday morning, wished my Dad Happy Fathers Day, gave him his presents and we went out for a nice carvery lunch. I had an amazing gingerbread panna cotta for pudding, which it’s probably just as well I was bunged up and couldn’t taste much of as it was packed full of ginger and might just have blown my head off. By Sunday evening, I was snotty, coughing, couldn’t think straight and was generally in a bit of a mess. Monday morning I added feverish and dizzy to the list and called in sick. Tuesday the cold woke my asthma up and every time I breathed I wheezed and when I lay down I couldn’t breath. Mr got quite worried about me wheezing down the phone which was sweet, I was fine – breathing’s very overrated. Wednesday was much better but after waking up to call in sick at 9, I didn’t wake again until 2.30. Now it’s Thursday and I’m back at work. I’m still sniffy, and coughing, and have a fever, but I’m feeling much better in myself.
There are a few things I do like about being ill. I spent my time watching trashy films, tennis, sleeping and knitting; the fever means I’m finally ‘normal’ (for everyone else) temperature and can sit in a t-shirt out of the sun without getting goosebumps; and it’s the easiest way I know to lose weight. I’ve lost 4lbs in 3 days, which is good because I’ve put on a stone since coming back from uni. I would say I haven’t learnt my lesson yet though, unless an illness wipes me out, and I have to stop, you’ll still find me soldiering through, armed with tissues, Lucozade and alcohol hand gel so I don’t give it to anyone else.
Saturday was Totnes Regatta and I was due to cox my mens novice 4 and then a mixed (men and women) novice 4. It was a beautiful day and the guys were all in high spirits despite being up against some tough crews including Exeter A – our A crew who were only racing at novice level on a technicality but should be seniors, and Dart Totnes A who had beaten them the last two races. We lost our first heat against Dart Totnes A, which wasn’t a surprise. It was close, it was taken from them in the last 50m. We won the second heat against Dart Totnes B by a good 2-3 lengths, but then came last in the final against Dart Totnes and Exeter A crews.
We had been told our mixed race had been moved earlier because some of the crew members of our opposition, Exmouth were supposed to be in the race leaving straight after ours. So we came along side, two guys jumped out, two girls jumped in and we were off to the start line again to wait. And wait, and wait. The earlier race time, 45 minutes before its scheduled time came and went. The race officials said they hadn’t heard of a change, so we waited some more – by this time I’m shivering as I’ve been sat in a puddle of water for 3 hours. The proper race time came and went, with no sign of Exmouth. An Exmouth single scull next to us told us one of the girls who was supposed to be in the mixed crew was in the double about to start up ahead, and it was the double event they had moved the race time for. Fantastic! So after telling us to come early, they pull out, without telling us. We told the start officials, who put a call out for the Exmouth crew to come and when they didn’t we had to do a row through – row the course as if we were racing, but without an opponent. This confused the commentators mightily, but we were cheered home across the line and they collected our names at the end as if we’d won, so I don’t know if the guys will get points from it or not. No shiny things as there were only two of us supposed to race anyway :(
After that I raced home and then to Bristol because….. mr had got tickets to Bill Bailey!!!! After his Women’s Henley crew hadn’t qualified on Friday so didn’t have to row on Saturday he had checked to see if there were still tickets available and amazingly there were, and really good ones too – we were four rows back, just at the side of the stage. I was a bit sniffy getting ready in the hotel before, so I packed my handbag with tissues and carried on. Bill Bailey was fantastic, as I knew he would be and I had such a good time. Within five minutes I couldn’t breath I was laughing so much as he had us trying to sing California Dreaming by the Mamas and the Papas in the style of Slayer – I guess you had to be there.
I drove home Sunday morning, wished my Dad Happy Fathers Day, gave him his presents and we went out for a nice carvery lunch. I had an amazing gingerbread panna cotta for pudding, which it’s probably just as well I was bunged up and couldn’t taste much of as it was packed full of ginger and might just have blown my head off. By Sunday evening, I was snotty, coughing, couldn’t think straight and was generally in a bit of a mess. Monday morning I added feverish and dizzy to the list and called in sick. Tuesday the cold woke my asthma up and every time I breathed I wheezed and when I lay down I couldn’t breath. Mr got quite worried about me wheezing down the phone which was sweet, I was fine – breathing’s very overrated. Wednesday was much better but after waking up to call in sick at 9, I didn’t wake again until 2.30. Now it’s Thursday and I’m back at work. I’m still sniffy, and coughing, and have a fever, but I’m feeling much better in myself.
There are a few things I do like about being ill. I spent my time watching trashy films, tennis, sleeping and knitting; the fever means I’m finally ‘normal’ (for everyone else) temperature and can sit in a t-shirt out of the sun without getting goosebumps; and it’s the easiest way I know to lose weight. I’ve lost 4lbs in 3 days, which is good because I’ve put on a stone since coming back from uni. I would say I haven’t learnt my lesson yet though, unless an illness wipes me out, and I have to stop, you’ll still find me soldiering through, armed with tissues, Lucozade and alcohol hand gel so I don’t give it to anyone else.
Thursday, 17 June 2010
Geek, me? Never.
This weekend saw me doing fairly practical things for a change. I managed to get my car parked close enough to the house to wash and vacuum it, which is not an easy task considering all the workman that are still around my estate. The car park at work became like an ice rink when it was snowy at the start of the year, so the landlords dumped piles of grit salt everywhere – it’s almost a gravel car park now. So my poor little car got filthy dirty inside as the girl I give a lift to and I tracked the little stones into the foot well each day.
On Sunday I cycled down to the rowing club and me and another girl from my crew did some maintenance on a boat we’ve been allocated. It used to be rigged as a junior quad but the riggers were hastily changed so we could row it sweep. The shoes of the girl at bow were too small, the slides were all too short and the rigger heights were all different, so armed with Allan keys, screwdrivers, rigger jiggers and a fine adjusticator (a hammer) we set to work configuring it for our crew. It’s not the side of rowing I’m used to as at uni we elected a boat man to do all the maintenance work and if there was something we wanted doing we just logged it in a book. Now mostly it wouldn’t happen until all the problems with the guy’s boats had been fixed first, but that’s boat politics for you. It wasn’t really difficult, and it was good fun working in the sunshine. I got so dirty though, completely covered in oil and grease and general muck. Combine that with walking into a ladder and getting a bruise and a graze on my knee I felt like I was 5 and playing in the mud in the garden again :)
At work I’m doing a quarterly project of mine where I track all the retirements on all the schemes to check we haven’t missed any and the scheme owners are on top of all the upcoming ones. It’s a fairly dull job, it just involves running a load of reports and compiling them all into one massive spreadsheet and putting some code in to compare retirement dates with work completed and in progress. It’s my baby – I came up with the idea and have generated the spreadsheet from scratch. Every time I do it I make it a bit whizzier. It’s this project that was mentioned to the head of our division of the company I work for as being an example of how good an office we are and why we should get more work. Eeep! Anyway, my systems are going sooo slowly at the moment, and the spreadsheet is fairly large and takes a while to compile; it’s taking forever, not helped by the fact it keeps deleting bits of itself. On Tuesday the whole computer shut down, lost all my work for the morning and then couldn’t reconnect to the server. I spent three hours learning anatomy and watching it try and fail to log in: attempt 237…failed, attempt 238… failed. Roll on university is all I can say!
I really can’t wait now, I feel like I’m just marking time. All the people I know at uni are all finishing and having end of exam celebrations and I sort of miss that - the celebrations, not the exams - so I’m filling the in between time with exciting things to look forward to. I’m going to my first ever festival with a girl from work – a local one called Chagstock which the Hoosiers and Adrian Edmundson are playing. We are both so excited. I’m looking at tents and praying for sunshine. Apart from that, there’s a couple of balls at Sandhurst with mr, I’ve got tickets to Les Mis at Bristol with my parents, a comedy night with some guys from work, a couple more regattas I’m coxing, our club regatta where I’m racing, and the free work summer event where they open a local kids theme park for us and families/friends to play in after hours and put on a hog roast. I have something every weekend for the next month and half, it’s ace. There was a little excitement as I nearly got tickets to see Bill Bailey in Brstol for this weekend with mr, but he’s coxing the Sandhurst girls at Women’s Henley so couldn’t get away. Never mind, I will see Bill Bailey at some point in my life :) Right, back to seeing if this spreadsheet will behave. Bye for now,
Your geeky bean.
On Sunday I cycled down to the rowing club and me and another girl from my crew did some maintenance on a boat we’ve been allocated. It used to be rigged as a junior quad but the riggers were hastily changed so we could row it sweep. The shoes of the girl at bow were too small, the slides were all too short and the rigger heights were all different, so armed with Allan keys, screwdrivers, rigger jiggers and a fine adjusticator (a hammer) we set to work configuring it for our crew. It’s not the side of rowing I’m used to as at uni we elected a boat man to do all the maintenance work and if there was something we wanted doing we just logged it in a book. Now mostly it wouldn’t happen until all the problems with the guy’s boats had been fixed first, but that’s boat politics for you. It wasn’t really difficult, and it was good fun working in the sunshine. I got so dirty though, completely covered in oil and grease and general muck. Combine that with walking into a ladder and getting a bruise and a graze on my knee I felt like I was 5 and playing in the mud in the garden again :)
At work I’m doing a quarterly project of mine where I track all the retirements on all the schemes to check we haven’t missed any and the scheme owners are on top of all the upcoming ones. It’s a fairly dull job, it just involves running a load of reports and compiling them all into one massive spreadsheet and putting some code in to compare retirement dates with work completed and in progress. It’s my baby – I came up with the idea and have generated the spreadsheet from scratch. Every time I do it I make it a bit whizzier. It’s this project that was mentioned to the head of our division of the company I work for as being an example of how good an office we are and why we should get more work. Eeep! Anyway, my systems are going sooo slowly at the moment, and the spreadsheet is fairly large and takes a while to compile; it’s taking forever, not helped by the fact it keeps deleting bits of itself. On Tuesday the whole computer shut down, lost all my work for the morning and then couldn’t reconnect to the server. I spent three hours learning anatomy and watching it try and fail to log in: attempt 237…failed, attempt 238… failed. Roll on university is all I can say!
I really can’t wait now, I feel like I’m just marking time. All the people I know at uni are all finishing and having end of exam celebrations and I sort of miss that - the celebrations, not the exams - so I’m filling the in between time with exciting things to look forward to. I’m going to my first ever festival with a girl from work – a local one called Chagstock which the Hoosiers and Adrian Edmundson are playing. We are both so excited. I’m looking at tents and praying for sunshine. Apart from that, there’s a couple of balls at Sandhurst with mr, I’ve got tickets to Les Mis at Bristol with my parents, a comedy night with some guys from work, a couple more regattas I’m coxing, our club regatta where I’m racing, and the free work summer event where they open a local kids theme park for us and families/friends to play in after hours and put on a hog roast. I have something every weekend for the next month and half, it’s ace. There was a little excitement as I nearly got tickets to see Bill Bailey in Brstol for this weekend with mr, but he’s coxing the Sandhurst girls at Women’s Henley so couldn’t get away. Never mind, I will see Bill Bailey at some point in my life :) Right, back to seeing if this spreadsheet will behave. Bye for now,
Your geeky bean.
Thursday, 10 June 2010
Birthday Bean
Hiya. Soo, it was my birthday on Saturday :) I’ve been so excited about Peninsula that my birthday just sort of crept up on me without me noticing. My family hit my wishlist hard, so most of my presents were textbooks but that’s awesome. I got Memorising Medicine – a book of medical mnemonics, A Crash Course in General Medicine, Kumar and Clark, Macleod’s Clinical Examination, an anatomical chart of the skeletal system, The Anatomy Colouring Book, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information (it was mentioned as a must read by the xkcd guy), the DVD of Will Smith’s Seven Pounds (I love Will Smith :D ) a pasta maker with lasagne and ravioli attachments (I love to cook), some smellies and a self watering plant tray, as I’m very good at killing plants over the holidays :-/
I was out for most of the day at Plymouth Regatta coxing my novice men’s crew. It was lovely and sunny and they did so well. They came third overall out of four, but it was really close and they were winning until the 500m to go mark, so since it’s only the start of the season and their first ever race I’m really proud of them. They went off a bit hard and got so carried away they didn’t bring the rating down when I asked them to. We think if they can hold it steady all the way through they have a really good shot at winning which means shiny stuff :)
I went out in the evening with some guys from work. We went to La Tasca for a meal and then on to a local nightclub. It was my first night out in Exeter, so I didn’t really know what to expect but I had a great time. Had such sore feet the next day from all the jumping up and down I did, and realised I might dance like a bloke. I’m sorry, but else can you do to Pendulum except jump?
It was really weird to go out without mr, since I’ve been going out with him it’s very rare that he doesn’t come to, or he isn’t waiting for me when I get home. I guess it’s something I’m going to have to get used to though. I’ve been a really lucky bean and have had phone calls everyday from him whilst he’s been away, although he did frighten me somewhat when he called the first night as I only expect calls if he’s injured. It was tough hearing him sound so tired and broken though, knowing there’s nothing I can do to help. I sent him a letter and a big bar of chocolate he can devour when he gets back to Sandhurst, hopefully that should score me some good girlfriend points.
Sunday was a bit of a conveyor belt of family members all managing to just miss each other and it was nice to see them all. Our cat was a little confused as every time she left, when she came back there was a different person sat on the sofa. Talking of cats, next door’s cat, Marmite, has realised what time I come home from work each day and has taken to sitting behind the hedge at the end of our path and ambushing me. He’s a very affectionate cut and loves rubbing up against your legs. He also dribbles. And moults. So not only do you get covered in cat hair, he sticks it to you with drool. He’s like a little fountain. And then he shakes his head and it all flies everywhere. Beeeaauutiful puss. He has this adorable habit of rubbing up against your foot whenever you move it. So if you’re trying to walk anywhere he gets between your legs and rubs against your foot, then you move the other so he dives to that one and you end up having to zigzag shuffle down the path. Or, you can pick him up and he’ll give you a proper cuddle, paws either side of your neck, burrow into the crook of your neck and contentedly dribble down your front and back. Having said that, there’s nothing quite like starting the day with a Marmite hug as you walk to your car to go to work. He’s so happy to see you, and my cat moults so much I don’t notice the extra cat fur. I find cat fur on clothes I haven’t bought yet. Mr’s found it on his beret. I’ve never seen his beret, the cat has certainly never seen it, and it’s been ages since he saw my cat, so that’s transfer from her to me to him to it.
Still no word from Peninsula yet…. 66 working days left!
I was out for most of the day at Plymouth Regatta coxing my novice men’s crew. It was lovely and sunny and they did so well. They came third overall out of four, but it was really close and they were winning until the 500m to go mark, so since it’s only the start of the season and their first ever race I’m really proud of them. They went off a bit hard and got so carried away they didn’t bring the rating down when I asked them to. We think if they can hold it steady all the way through they have a really good shot at winning which means shiny stuff :)
I went out in the evening with some guys from work. We went to La Tasca for a meal and then on to a local nightclub. It was my first night out in Exeter, so I didn’t really know what to expect but I had a great time. Had such sore feet the next day from all the jumping up and down I did, and realised I might dance like a bloke. I’m sorry, but else can you do to Pendulum except jump?
It was really weird to go out without mr, since I’ve been going out with him it’s very rare that he doesn’t come to, or he isn’t waiting for me when I get home. I guess it’s something I’m going to have to get used to though. I’ve been a really lucky bean and have had phone calls everyday from him whilst he’s been away, although he did frighten me somewhat when he called the first night as I only expect calls if he’s injured. It was tough hearing him sound so tired and broken though, knowing there’s nothing I can do to help. I sent him a letter and a big bar of chocolate he can devour when he gets back to Sandhurst, hopefully that should score me some good girlfriend points.
Sunday was a bit of a conveyor belt of family members all managing to just miss each other and it was nice to see them all. Our cat was a little confused as every time she left, when she came back there was a different person sat on the sofa. Talking of cats, next door’s cat, Marmite, has realised what time I come home from work each day and has taken to sitting behind the hedge at the end of our path and ambushing me. He’s a very affectionate cut and loves rubbing up against your legs. He also dribbles. And moults. So not only do you get covered in cat hair, he sticks it to you with drool. He’s like a little fountain. And then he shakes his head and it all flies everywhere. Beeeaauutiful puss. He has this adorable habit of rubbing up against your foot whenever you move it. So if you’re trying to walk anywhere he gets between your legs and rubs against your foot, then you move the other so he dives to that one and you end up having to zigzag shuffle down the path. Or, you can pick him up and he’ll give you a proper cuddle, paws either side of your neck, burrow into the crook of your neck and contentedly dribble down your front and back. Having said that, there’s nothing quite like starting the day with a Marmite hug as you walk to your car to go to work. He’s so happy to see you, and my cat moults so much I don’t notice the extra cat fur. I find cat fur on clothes I haven’t bought yet. Mr’s found it on his beret. I’ve never seen his beret, the cat has certainly never seen it, and it’s been ages since he saw my cat, so that’s transfer from her to me to him to it.
Still no word from Peninsula yet…. 66 working days left!
Wednesday, 2 June 2010
Stethoscope!!
The bank holiday weekend was awesome. I didn’t get done everything I wanted to, but what I did do made me really happy. My parents gave me a stethoscope on Friday. A stethoscope of my very own :D It’s purple, and it has my initials engraved on it. I was very excited on Friday night! I’m pleased to say I have a nice strong heart beat, couldn’t find Dad’s though, which was a little worrying. Well I could but it was really quiet. Little bit embarrassed about that. I was expecting to not know the specifics of what I was hearing, but to not be able to find it at all? Oops. I was expecting it as a birthday present (it’s my birthday Saturday), but I got it as a congratulations-for-getting-in present instead. I’d quite like to take it in to work to show some people there because I’m sure they’d be just as excited about it as me, but I have to keep reminding myself it’s not show and tell and I’m a proper, real person, working bean now. However when I told someone about it at work he said “Wow, a stethoscope of your own? That’s like getting your wand if you were going to Hogwarts isn’t it? It’s the sign that you are a proper wizard now.” Totally is!!!!!! Interesting fact of the day: JK Rowling went to Exeter Uni and Diagon Ally is based on Gandy Street in town. Gandy Street is my favourite part of town, it’s a cobbled street full of boutiques and bakers and there’s the Phoenix Arts Centre which has a metal phoenix statue on the front that moves every hour, it’s lovely.
That’s everything on the kit list sorted. I’d quite like my UCAS status to change to unconditional now. I’ve sent all the paperwork back, about two weeks ago, and I was only conditional on CRB and Hep B antigen, and they’ve got the proofs of those.
Saturday I went to a garden centre with my parents and got some herbs to replace the ones I neglected and died this year between uni :-s oops. My chives survived, and now I have parsley, thyme and apple mint to go in a trough on my window sill. I love to cook, and it’s nice to have plants in your room, so herbs are the obvious choice. All that’s left to get before I go now is some saucepans. I bought a really cheap set from Argos last time and they kept getting holes all the way through the bottom. They did have a lifetime guarantee and I did take them back and got a new set once, but for a £5 for 4 pans set it really wasn’t worth it. The guy behind the counter had a little chuckle when he asked what was wrong with them and I held one up and you could see daylight through the bottom.
Ah well, 17 weeks to go!!! Then I can stop being a working bean and be a fresher bean instead. Have a good week guys.
That’s everything on the kit list sorted. I’d quite like my UCAS status to change to unconditional now. I’ve sent all the paperwork back, about two weeks ago, and I was only conditional on CRB and Hep B antigen, and they’ve got the proofs of those.
Saturday I went to a garden centre with my parents and got some herbs to replace the ones I neglected and died this year between uni :-s oops. My chives survived, and now I have parsley, thyme and apple mint to go in a trough on my window sill. I love to cook, and it’s nice to have plants in your room, so herbs are the obvious choice. All that’s left to get before I go now is some saucepans. I bought a really cheap set from Argos last time and they kept getting holes all the way through the bottom. They did have a lifetime guarantee and I did take them back and got a new set once, but for a £5 for 4 pans set it really wasn’t worth it. The guy behind the counter had a little chuckle when he asked what was wrong with them and I held one up and you could see daylight through the bottom.
Sunday I cycled to rowing because I was due to be coaching some of the Juniors. Oversaw a couple of juniors in single sculls who completely ignored me the last time I went down but were much more receptive to me this time and seemed really happy with the criticism I was giving them. Was then asked to jump in and cox a boat of three novice men, one of which was a complete beginner, it was his second outing, and bow was a girl from my squad who had also come down to coach. We were making really good progress with them on the water and they got so much better. We were challenged to a race by a coach of a Junior under 18 quad, so on paper, the quad should have won – more blades (each boy is sculling so two blades to our sweep oar rowing with one blade), they’re lighter, younger, fitter and have been rowing together for a couple of years. Amazingly, we won! I was really proud of my guys; they were down at the start but took it back steadily throughout the race and beat them by quarter of a length. I cycled home and spent the rest of Sunday and Monday making my Goddaughter’s Christening present. I’m decoupatching 9” high MDF letters spelling her name which will be hung from a curtain pole to make a wall hanging. It’s torn bits of brightly coloured patterned paper stuck on with glue and varnished with glue. The paper is thinner than normal, so when dry it looks painted on. Here’s a chair done in it I found through Google Images (http://www.sussexcraftsltd.co.uk/)
I’ve done the letters and I’m doing the curtain rings, whilst trying to decide whether or not to do the pole too. It’s looking really impressive, not home made at all. I’m thinking about doing Christmas presents for my aunts and cousins in it – things like tissue box holders and flower pots. Last year they all got hand knitted stripy socks, the year before was home baked fudge and sweets and before that was hand made soaps. I don’t have a lot of money to buy them nice Christmas presents and there’s a lot of them – 2 aunts, 2 uncles and 11 cousins/cousin in laws/second cousins, so I like to try and make them something nice instead.
Mr went on exercise Monday, and won’t be back for about two weeks, so I shan’t be getting a birthday call from him :( I’m really worried about this one because he’s being petrol bombed. I don’t like it when he’s on exercise anyway because I worry about him, but fire?! Am trying to keep busy and not think about it, but I’m keeping my phone close by in case I get a call saying he’s been injured. He’s good at his job, I’m sure he’ll be fine (if I say it enough, I’m sure I’ll believe it soon).
Ah well, 17 weeks to go!!! Then I can stop being a working bean and be a fresher bean instead. Have a good week guys.
Friday, 28 May 2010
Warning: You Should Not Vex a Bean
So a real mixed bag of pantsness and awesomeness this week. It all evens out to happy smiling bean, because the good stuff is just too good. Last weekend I was due to see mr in Salisbury. His present still didn’t arrive, so I cycled to town (I’m trying to be fitter see?) and bought him a Turnbull and Asser collar stay set which he was very pleased with. The hotel was nice enough, in the middle of town this time and the meal was as delicious as ever - of course we went back to Charter 1227, how could we not? We watched Iron Man 2, which was good, but I didn’t think it was as good as the first one, though it had some good action sequences. The cinema itself was weird, it was a proper period building with the black wooden beams and white walls, and the lights were on wrought iron chandeliers. There were only about 6-7 rows in our screen, and the seats were really squeaky, so I felt like a naughty school kid every time I leant into mr to hide from the scary bits. Sunday was spent wandering around the cathedral and sitting dipping our toes in the river whilst watching the ducks. It was perfect :)
When I came back I found an email from a member of my rowing crew saying they had gotten together on Thursday after our outing and had decided there should be no talking in the boat except cox and we should elect a boat captain who can direct the outing, and to make it fair we should have a rota so everyone gets to be boat captain. Basically, they are saying bean, shut up. A bit of background info – I can row both sides, I can stroke the boat and I can cox. Our cox is a 12 year old boy who hasn’t had a lot of practice, doesn’t know the calls to make, can’t feel when we’re doing something wrong, and when he does, he’s too shy to tell us to change it. So since I’ve been at stroke, I’ve been giving him some ideas of things to say, because otherwise our outings are silent from him and we don’t get much out of it. Our coach isn’t that useful either, he doesn’t really speak much or give any critical comments – I haven’t been picked up on anything since our last coach left last year (left because he was fed up of the rest of our crew not doing what he said). Now my aim for the year was to lose my novice status, so I have to win one more race, as was the aim of other members of our boat. This isn’t going to happen unless we get better as a crew, which isn’t going to happen if no one ever picks us up on anything. They’ve already told me I’m a good cox – I coxed them to a three boat length victory at Bideford last year in a higher level than we’re at. So I’m pretty annoyed really. Alright, I know I’m not perfect and I can see how they might not like someone keep picking them up on what they aren’t doing right, but cox has asked me to do it to help him get better. One of the girls can’t take Saturdays off work, doesn’t think we’re good enough to enter races and the only sub we have is a senior C so can’t race with us at novice level. No races for beans then. I volunteered to cox a novice men’s four because I want to win something, even if I can’t get any points from it, and they’re a really good squad with great chances this year. I had my first outing with them Tuesday and it went really well, though I didn’t have a microphone so had to keep yelling and consequently swallowed a lot of flies. Protein anyone? They seemed to really like me, we have a laugh and I’m down to cox two races with them.
At work I’m super busy and have to keep dropping things to deal with silly queries from another office about a data validation exercise they’re running – checking that we hold all the data we should for schemes, as dictated by the pensions regulator. The project’s a good idea, but it’s not ready yet. It works by running a series of rules against the data we have, eg. Member has service pre 06/04/1988 and the scheme is contracted out so they should have Pre 88 GMP recorded on the system. If they don’t that’s a major fail point, so they lose 4 marks. At the end they tot up the fails and I get a final score, a rating a bit like the washing machine energy rating and list of errors. I make an error log and tell the scheme owner what to fix.
The project got put on hold because I flooded them with parameter forms for schemes to put through it and they couldn’t keep up. Then the administrators weren’t fixing the problems it found so the schemes couldn’t have their second run and be cleared off and the whole thing seized up. Admin manager is trying to get a rush job through to please the Scheme and so the Validator team have been sending me little pernickety questions which I have to ask scheme owner about. Then it turns out every thing scheme owner told me when I did the original form in March was wrong and I have to drop everything to do new forms >_< The nice guy I deal with from the validations team was on holiday and I got his boss asking me questions instead. He sent an email attaching one of my forms, asking me to remove some of the details form it. In the form, he’d struck through what he wanted removing. So it would have been less clicks for him to remove himself. He then went on to ask me to change the pension data splits so they fit in with the standard splits they can accommodate. Pension splits work on dates. Between these dates your pension will escalate by this much, then until this date it goes up by a different amount and so on. Pensions is silly. If the dates aren’t the same, there’s nothing I can do, the scheme has its own rules. I snapped. I sent him a very carefully worded, venomous, shouty email back telling him to amend the functionality of his tests as this was the way the scheme works, it’s correct and it differs from his and since the Trustees of the scheme are paying for this, and it’s not the first time this problem had come up it would be better in the long run to change his test. He’s four pay grades above me. Oops. I got a meek email back from him saying he’ll change it, and a nice phonecall talking about what changes would be best. Oh, and a high five from my boss :D Bean wins! Aww yeah, that felt good.
Yesterday I had another cracking outing coxing the guys in the sun and called the student finance people because I hadn’t heard anything and my online account said I wasn’t entitled to a fee loan (PANIC!!!!). They checked and said that as I am a med student I will definitely be getting the fee loan, they just haven’t calculated that bit yet (and breathe...). I also got a letter from the uni saying I'll be getting the full £1,500 bursary for being from a low income family. Financing thins degree is def becoming more doable. This weekend will see more rowing, coaching, cycling, maybe some sailing and making a Christening present for my God daughter. Should be good, if the weather’s nice. Good luck with the last of your exams people!
When I came back I found an email from a member of my rowing crew saying they had gotten together on Thursday after our outing and had decided there should be no talking in the boat except cox and we should elect a boat captain who can direct the outing, and to make it fair we should have a rota so everyone gets to be boat captain. Basically, they are saying bean, shut up. A bit of background info – I can row both sides, I can stroke the boat and I can cox. Our cox is a 12 year old boy who hasn’t had a lot of practice, doesn’t know the calls to make, can’t feel when we’re doing something wrong, and when he does, he’s too shy to tell us to change it. So since I’ve been at stroke, I’ve been giving him some ideas of things to say, because otherwise our outings are silent from him and we don’t get much out of it. Our coach isn’t that useful either, he doesn’t really speak much or give any critical comments – I haven’t been picked up on anything since our last coach left last year (left because he was fed up of the rest of our crew not doing what he said). Now my aim for the year was to lose my novice status, so I have to win one more race, as was the aim of other members of our boat. This isn’t going to happen unless we get better as a crew, which isn’t going to happen if no one ever picks us up on anything. They’ve already told me I’m a good cox – I coxed them to a three boat length victory at Bideford last year in a higher level than we’re at. So I’m pretty annoyed really. Alright, I know I’m not perfect and I can see how they might not like someone keep picking them up on what they aren’t doing right, but cox has asked me to do it to help him get better. One of the girls can’t take Saturdays off work, doesn’t think we’re good enough to enter races and the only sub we have is a senior C so can’t race with us at novice level. No races for beans then. I volunteered to cox a novice men’s four because I want to win something, even if I can’t get any points from it, and they’re a really good squad with great chances this year. I had my first outing with them Tuesday and it went really well, though I didn’t have a microphone so had to keep yelling and consequently swallowed a lot of flies. Protein anyone? They seemed to really like me, we have a laugh and I’m down to cox two races with them.
At work I’m super busy and have to keep dropping things to deal with silly queries from another office about a data validation exercise they’re running – checking that we hold all the data we should for schemes, as dictated by the pensions regulator. The project’s a good idea, but it’s not ready yet. It works by running a series of rules against the data we have, eg. Member has service pre 06/04/1988 and the scheme is contracted out so they should have Pre 88 GMP recorded on the system. If they don’t that’s a major fail point, so they lose 4 marks. At the end they tot up the fails and I get a final score, a rating a bit like the washing machine energy rating and list of errors. I make an error log and tell the scheme owner what to fix.
The project got put on hold because I flooded them with parameter forms for schemes to put through it and they couldn’t keep up. Then the administrators weren’t fixing the problems it found so the schemes couldn’t have their second run and be cleared off and the whole thing seized up. Admin manager is trying to get a rush job through to please the Scheme and so the Validator team have been sending me little pernickety questions which I have to ask scheme owner about. Then it turns out every thing scheme owner told me when I did the original form in March was wrong and I have to drop everything to do new forms >_< The nice guy I deal with from the validations team was on holiday and I got his boss asking me questions instead. He sent an email attaching one of my forms, asking me to remove some of the details form it. In the form, he’d struck through what he wanted removing. So it would have been less clicks for him to remove himself. He then went on to ask me to change the pension data splits so they fit in with the standard splits they can accommodate. Pension splits work on dates. Between these dates your pension will escalate by this much, then until this date it goes up by a different amount and so on. Pensions is silly. If the dates aren’t the same, there’s nothing I can do, the scheme has its own rules. I snapped. I sent him a very carefully worded, venomous, shouty email back telling him to amend the functionality of his tests as this was the way the scheme works, it’s correct and it differs from his and since the Trustees of the scheme are paying for this, and it’s not the first time this problem had come up it would be better in the long run to change his test. He’s four pay grades above me. Oops. I got a meek email back from him saying he’ll change it, and a nice phonecall talking about what changes would be best. Oh, and a high five from my boss :D Bean wins! Aww yeah, that felt good.
Yesterday I had another cracking outing coxing the guys in the sun and called the student finance people because I hadn’t heard anything and my online account said I wasn’t entitled to a fee loan (PANIC!!!!). They checked and said that as I am a med student I will definitely be getting the fee loan, they just haven’t calculated that bit yet (and breathe...). I also got a letter from the uni saying I'll be getting the full £1,500 bursary for being from a low income family. Financing thins degree is def becoming more doable. This weekend will see more rowing, coaching, cycling, maybe some sailing and making a Christening present for my God daughter. Should be good, if the weather’s nice. Good luck with the last of your exams people!
Friday, 21 May 2010
Friday!
Hello people :) It’s Friday and it’s sunny!!! Can you tell I’m happier today? :p Firstly: it’s Friday, which is pretty much as good as a working week gets, bar the odd dress down day or bank holiday Monday. Next, an update on the Hep B antigen fiasco: Dr rang PMS, Dr rang lab, lab said they’d do the right test. Intriguingly, I got the results as a screen dump printed from my records the next morning, which hints slightly of ‘well, we’ll just fill the screen in as though she had it to keep the med school happy’, if I was being a cynical person. Especially because they said before it would take three weeks to get the results back, and I know I’m not that much of an important person to get a rush job done. Ah well, stop complaining bean. I sent the screen print off yesterday and so I am all sorted and should soon be a fully confirmed Peninsula Medical Student. How exciting!
Things aren’t entirely all going my way however as I’m under a mountain of work – to the extent that everything’s out of target and it’ll only be moved up the pile if I’m chased for it, which is not how I like to work, but needs must. Mr’s present STILL hasn’t arrived, and it was his birthday Wednesday, and I found out this week that my cousin in law’s cancer has come back, which is pants because she’s only been in remission 2 years. Fingers crossed for her. Aww, and my cat’s got an irritation of some sort with her eye so she keeps blinking it shut and looking at me mournfully, however it does make her look a little like a pirate which is hilarious. She is not amused with me keep laughing at her though. I’m getting grumpy faces from my pirate puss.
However all of that is out of my mind, a) because it’s Friday, b) I’m seeing mr tomorrow (eee! – but panic - where do I get a decent birthday present from?) and c) Hey, Soul Sister by Train. How can you not smile when you hear this song? They were on CSI the other day and I found the album and the first 4 songs on it have been on repeat for the last two days :) Enjoy the sunshine guys.
Things aren’t entirely all going my way however as I’m under a mountain of work – to the extent that everything’s out of target and it’ll only be moved up the pile if I’m chased for it, which is not how I like to work, but needs must. Mr’s present STILL hasn’t arrived, and it was his birthday Wednesday, and I found out this week that my cousin in law’s cancer has come back, which is pants because she’s only been in remission 2 years. Fingers crossed for her. Aww, and my cat’s got an irritation of some sort with her eye so she keeps blinking it shut and looking at me mournfully, however it does make her look a little like a pirate which is hilarious. She is not amused with me keep laughing at her though. I’m getting grumpy faces from my pirate puss.
However all of that is out of my mind, a) because it’s Friday, b) I’m seeing mr tomorrow (eee! – but panic - where do I get a decent birthday present from?) and c) Hey, Soul Sister by Train. How can you not smile when you hear this song? They were on CSI the other day and I found the album and the first 4 songs on it have been on repeat for the last two days :) Enjoy the sunshine guys.
Monday, 17 May 2010
Pickled Bean
Well today finds me in a bit of a pickle, but overall happy. When I had my first offer for Southampton, they asked that I start my Hep B vaccination straight away. I never finished the course because I didn’t get in. One of the conditions of my Peninsula place is having a clear Occupational Health test, which involves having a clear Hep B surface antigen test. After the fun of having my blood taken (see last post), I rang up the next day to double check the right test had been asked for, which it had. When I went to collect the results on Friday, the receptionist happily told me I was Hep B immune. Now, this shouldn’t be possible to tell from an antigen test. Here comes the science: Antigens are little bits of the pathogen cut up and displayed on the outside of cells, ready for the antibodies to come along and try and recognise, which they would be able to do if you’ve seen something before. If they do, they replicate and mount the appropriate specialised response which helps you beat it quickly and efficiently, if not, you have to tough the buggy out with your normal non-specialised, less effective approach. So in short, an antigen test would say whether or not I had the thing, an antibody test would say I had seen it before or was immune to it. So you can see I was a little perplexed. The test that had been asked for was indeed an antigen test, but the lab had decided an antibody test would be more appropriate. Grr. Now logic says if I’m immune to it, I can’t have it, so I bundled all my paperwork together and sent it all off to PCMD. I called them this morning to check that given the results, the antibody test would be fine, but they were adamant they wanted an antigen test. *Sigh* I called my Dr’s and explained, and then got a very shouty call back from my Dr about time wasting and money wasting, and he doesn’t seem to want to listen to me saying that I know this and I’m sorry and I’ve told them but they won’t budge. Eeep! And my Dr’s always been so nice to me 0_0 He wanted PCMD’s number to yell at them himself, so I’m waiting for the fallout from that. Oh dear… How can I be in PCMD’s bad books when I haven’t even started yet :(
Other than that, it was a good weekend. I finished the jumper, and apart from being a little tight across the, er, chest area (making me look massive, lol) it’s lovely. I’m hoping it’ll be better with a shirt under it, squishing me in, and not the horizontally stripy thing I was trying it on over. I had a club day at the rowing club learning about safety and welfare and proper warm ups and I super-duperly passed a hamstring flexibility test :) Flexible bean.
I also went sale shopping and am very nearly all sorted for uni now. PCMD has two balls a year – a summer and winter. I bought a load of dresses off ebay before I went to Southampton, but then I lost a load of weight whilst away, so my old size 12 wardrobe doesn’t fit me now I’m a size 8. I’ve been slowly replacing things over time as required – like jeans and jumpers and work stuff, and now I also have a summer coat, and some dresses, including a beautiful floor length dress perfect for mr’s commissioning dinner. I had to get a cardi as well, because the army has some silly rule about dresses not being allowed to show the ankles or the shoulders (because the sight of bare ankles and shoulders drive men wild don’t ya know?!), and it’s nearly impossible to find one that does both and doesn’t make me look about 50. I’m so excited, I can’t wait for an excuse to wear them now, they’re so pretty! I wouldn’t say I’m terribly girly, I normally can’t stand giggling silly-ily dressed girls (what’s wrong with jumpers and coats?), but I do like a nice swishy dress :) Don’t worry, you’ll still never catch me in pink or anything flowery. All that’s left to get now is another pair of work trousers, chocolate brown ones I think, some stationary bits and a couple more textbooks. And then I’ll be an all sorted bean, exciting stuffs!
Mr’s birthday present hasn’t arrived yet, and it’s his birthday this week, eep! I’m seeing him at the weekend, so hopefully it’ll arrive before then, and I’ll only be a couple of days late with it. Aww, and in other rubbish bean news, I lost my seat in the boat because I had to miss that one outing because of the silly nurse. Boo! I’ve been demoted from stroke to 2. Altogether now: thiiiiiiiiings, can only get betterrrrrr, can only get…… :D Have a good week guys.
Other than that, it was a good weekend. I finished the jumper, and apart from being a little tight across the, er, chest area (making me look massive, lol) it’s lovely. I’m hoping it’ll be better with a shirt under it, squishing me in, and not the horizontally stripy thing I was trying it on over. I had a club day at the rowing club learning about safety and welfare and proper warm ups and I super-duperly passed a hamstring flexibility test :) Flexible bean.
I also went sale shopping and am very nearly all sorted for uni now. PCMD has two balls a year – a summer and winter. I bought a load of dresses off ebay before I went to Southampton, but then I lost a load of weight whilst away, so my old size 12 wardrobe doesn’t fit me now I’m a size 8. I’ve been slowly replacing things over time as required – like jeans and jumpers and work stuff, and now I also have a summer coat, and some dresses, including a beautiful floor length dress perfect for mr’s commissioning dinner. I had to get a cardi as well, because the army has some silly rule about dresses not being allowed to show the ankles or the shoulders (because the sight of bare ankles and shoulders drive men wild don’t ya know?!), and it’s nearly impossible to find one that does both and doesn’t make me look about 50. I’m so excited, I can’t wait for an excuse to wear them now, they’re so pretty! I wouldn’t say I’m terribly girly, I normally can’t stand giggling silly-ily dressed girls (what’s wrong with jumpers and coats?), but I do like a nice swishy dress :) Don’t worry, you’ll still never catch me in pink or anything flowery. All that’s left to get now is another pair of work trousers, chocolate brown ones I think, some stationary bits and a couple more textbooks. And then I’ll be an all sorted bean, exciting stuffs!
Mr’s birthday present hasn’t arrived yet, and it’s his birthday this week, eep! I’m seeing him at the weekend, so hopefully it’ll arrive before then, and I’ll only be a couple of days late with it. Aww, and in other rubbish bean news, I lost my seat in the boat because I had to miss that one outing because of the silly nurse. Boo! I’ve been demoted from stroke to 2. Altogether now: thiiiiiiiiings, can only get betterrrrrr, can only get…… :D Have a good week guys.
Tuesday, 11 May 2010
What a Difference A Day Makes
After my grumpy post last time I did indeed go home and curl up on the sofa with knitting and hot chocolate. I have nearly finished my jumper now, just have the neck band to put on, although I have to do a bit of repair work on it because in my eagerness to see what it would be like I managed to undo the stitch holder and a whole load of live stitches slipped off it. It has been gingerly put down until I can take a crotchet hook to it to pull the stitches back up, else the whole thing is going to unravel :-s I did buy some Sirdar Crofters self fair-isling wool to make some tank tops for when this silly jumper finished.
Oh, and the final verdict is that I love the jumper, it’s very me: nice and long in the sleeve and short on the body, so now I just hope I can rescue it! I also used a bit of retail therapy over the weekend too, and bought some super comfy new black heels for work, and a backpack with laptop compartment for uni. Also quite excited because I noticed some more things have gone off my Amazon wishlist.
When my alarm went off Monday I was super happy for some reason. I opened the curtain, saw the beautiful, blazing sunshine and was wide awake with the first alarm, whereas I’m normally still groggily trying to sneak a few more minutes of sleep by my third alarm, 20 minutes later. I would like to think that when I’m doing a job I actually want to do and enjoy, getting up won’t be such a struggle as it is now. Hopefully. I was early to work, and even though I was on my own all day because the rest of my bank of desks was on holiday, I was smiley and happy all day.
Today was completely different. I opened the curtains and it was grey and miserable. No wide awake bean raring to get up and start the day here. I wasn’t too late for work, only about 10 minutes, and as long as you do 7 hours a day and are here between the core 10-3 hours, they don’t mind. I did my morning reports and then an Internet Explorer window opened and started loading. Three seconds later and another one opened. And another, and another. As fast as I was shutting them, they were opening more. I got 65 windows in the end, which I thought was quite impressive. Ever get the feeling today isn’t going to work?
I had my blood test scheduled for thismorning, so off I poddled, straight in to the nurses room, on goes the tourniquet and the nurse asks if I have any problems having my blood taken. I explain not really, but I do have quite a low pain threshold. She says she's the same, so she’ll be gentle. She started tapping an odd vein I thought, not the normal one I get my bloods taken from, but the cephalic, further over. I looked away for the scratch and when I looked back because it seemed to be taking a long time, there’s no blood going into the tube and she’s wiggling the needle and digging it deeper and deeper into my arm. I can see the vein is going diagonally across my cubital fossa just under the skin, but she seems to be putting the needle vertically up my arm. She eventually gets a little dribble by waving the needle and sometimes it orientates in the same direction as the vein, quarter fills the tube, and grabs another tube to fill. I asked what the second tube was for because I was there for a Hep B surface antigen test. She says one is for a full blood count and one is for ferratin levels. I corrected her and I guess that threw her a bit because when she went to take the needle out she yanked it straight up out of my arm, rather than drawing the needle out of the same path it went in by. Suffice to say, it’s quite painful now, and I’ve had to drop out of rowing tonight because I can’t really bend my arm without it being painful. Rather than having a nice neat little dot, I have two large dots, a centimetre apart and a line joining them, like a cat scratch. She smiled at me as I was leaving and said she hopes I recover and isn’t it funny how it’s always the people with the low pain threshold who it’s hard to get blood from. I’ve never had a problem before…. o_0 I will be very surprised if I get the right test done after all that, though I did tell her a few times. I really hope she was having an off day and not like that all the time. Ah well, I guess bad experiences will only make me a better Dr, since I’ll know what it feels like. I went to Sainsbury’s on the way back to work and got a pain au chocolat for being a brave bean at the Dr’s :) The afternoon is so far bringing lots of computer crashes, email server’s down and it’s raining. Today def should have been a duvet day. Although, I have found this interesting website, which looks promising. I have to admit the idea of MTAS scares me a little, since it doesn’t seem to have had the best track record. The week can only get better, right?
When my alarm went off Monday I was super happy for some reason. I opened the curtain, saw the beautiful, blazing sunshine and was wide awake with the first alarm, whereas I’m normally still groggily trying to sneak a few more minutes of sleep by my third alarm, 20 minutes later. I would like to think that when I’m doing a job I actually want to do and enjoy, getting up won’t be such a struggle as it is now. Hopefully. I was early to work, and even though I was on my own all day because the rest of my bank of desks was on holiday, I was smiley and happy all day.
Today was completely different. I opened the curtains and it was grey and miserable. No wide awake bean raring to get up and start the day here. I wasn’t too late for work, only about 10 minutes, and as long as you do 7 hours a day and are here between the core 10-3 hours, they don’t mind. I did my morning reports and then an Internet Explorer window opened and started loading. Three seconds later and another one opened. And another, and another. As fast as I was shutting them, they were opening more. I got 65 windows in the end, which I thought was quite impressive. Ever get the feeling today isn’t going to work?
I had my blood test scheduled for thismorning, so off I poddled, straight in to the nurses room, on goes the tourniquet and the nurse asks if I have any problems having my blood taken. I explain not really, but I do have quite a low pain threshold. She says she's the same, so she’ll be gentle. She started tapping an odd vein I thought, not the normal one I get my bloods taken from, but the cephalic, further over. I looked away for the scratch and when I looked back because it seemed to be taking a long time, there’s no blood going into the tube and she’s wiggling the needle and digging it deeper and deeper into my arm. I can see the vein is going diagonally across my cubital fossa just under the skin, but she seems to be putting the needle vertically up my arm. She eventually gets a little dribble by waving the needle and sometimes it orientates in the same direction as the vein, quarter fills the tube, and grabs another tube to fill. I asked what the second tube was for because I was there for a Hep B surface antigen test. She says one is for a full blood count and one is for ferratin levels. I corrected her and I guess that threw her a bit because when she went to take the needle out she yanked it straight up out of my arm, rather than drawing the needle out of the same path it went in by. Suffice to say, it’s quite painful now, and I’ve had to drop out of rowing tonight because I can’t really bend my arm without it being painful. Rather than having a nice neat little dot, I have two large dots, a centimetre apart and a line joining them, like a cat scratch. She smiled at me as I was leaving and said she hopes I recover and isn’t it funny how it’s always the people with the low pain threshold who it’s hard to get blood from. I’ve never had a problem before…. o_0 I will be very surprised if I get the right test done after all that, though I did tell her a few times. I really hope she was having an off day and not like that all the time. Ah well, I guess bad experiences will only make me a better Dr, since I’ll know what it feels like. I went to Sainsbury’s on the way back to work and got a pain au chocolat for being a brave bean at the Dr’s :) The afternoon is so far bringing lots of computer crashes, email server’s down and it’s raining. Today def should have been a duvet day. Although, I have found this interesting website, which looks promising. I have to admit the idea of MTAS scares me a little, since it doesn’t seem to have had the best track record. The week can only get better, right?
Friday, 7 May 2010
Apathy
So the rest of this week has seen a somewhat deflated bean. Not for any particular reason, rather a collection of small ones. I seem to get like this every now and then, you may have noticed it in some of my other posts. I have been completely and utterly bored at work. I am doing the same thing day after day after day. When I first got promoted, I was really excited about being on a more technical team and all the spreadsheet playing I’d get to do. While it is true that I am working with spreadsheets every day, for the last month, and probably the next one coming as well I have actually been doing the same thing every single day. Argh! I get a slight respite when someone comes to my desk and asks for some help with something, but 9 times out of 10 they want something that I’ve already written up how to do in the instructions I was asked to write for them, which they could find by scrolling to the document and reading a single paragraph detailing very clearly how to do it. I made the template for the document they are trying to use, and I included a helpful instruction sheet on basic troubleshooting with what could go wrong. Do they read it? No. Even their boss, the person that asked me to make the template and include the instruction sheet, he doesn’t even read it! I get chirpy little emails from him asking if I could help so-and-so because the contents page just isn’t working, no matter what he tries (read: nothing)! Grr. Now my work is building up because I’m getting back the items I’ve sent for checking, but can’t complete them yet because I’m waiting on data I requested from another department back in March.
At home we have two types of workmen at the moment. There are gas men replacing the pipes and builders building a new set of flats. They’ve coned off loads of areas so there’s nowhere to park and every morning they are blocking me in so I’m late for work. Combine that with the bin men trying to squeeze through and I was about an hour late for work this morning. I had to squeeze myself through a tiny gap this morning, and missed hitting my neighbours car (parked next to the cones because he couldn’t find anywhere else) by 0.5 cm. Spatial awareness win. This has been going on for 2 weeks so far, and there aren’t even half way done yet.
We also had a visit from my aunt last night, who’s been told that the cause of her severe back pain is vertebral discs disintegrating. The only treatment options she was offered were pain killers and physio or spinal surgery to insert rods to immobilise the two vertebrae and keep them apart, but then she would lose all mobility in them and the problem would move to the two above. I’m sure I’ve heard of disc replacement surgery, so I’m a bit confused as to why that wasn’t an option. Suffice to say, she’s in a lot of pain, and it’ll only get worse. I’m doesn't help that mr has gone back home and I think it’ll be ages before I can see him again. He's brilliant at cheering me up. Continuing the moan, since I'm on a roll I turned up in all my kit for an outing last night, only to find half my crew hadn’t shown up, and the other girl was busy taking out a single, and didn’t even offer to go in a double with me. Rude, and nice of the rest of them to let me know it was off. Our Sky plus box broke at the weekend, so the engineer came and took the box away and replaced it with a shiny new one. It turns out the problem was actually the dish, which they fixed the next day, but they won’t give us the box back, so I have lost the episodes of Lost and Heroes I was saving up to watch in my own time because Mum doesn’t watch them. I was only sticking with Lost because this was the last series! Grrrrr.
I shall put the ranting bean back in her box now and medicate her with knitting, biscuits, hot chocolate, maybe some shouty music and a sofa to curl up on.
My boredom has lead me to discovering a couple of new blogs which were good, but possibly doesn’t help lift the mood any, rather puts me deeper in it, because I want to be doing what they’re doing. I had an email from the accommodation people at Exeter uni and so have now applied for my accommodation. Applications aren’t dealt with on a first-come-first-serve basis, but those with an unconditional firm status before August are dealt with first, so that kick started me into trying to get my application to have that status. I was quite surprised to see that I could only apply for the Rowancroft halls, I was certain I’d seen somewhere you could live anywhere, but those were kept for medics primarily. My offer is conditional on CRB and OH checks. I’m not sure how to fulfil these any more than I already have, as I took the completed forms with me to my interview. I have arranged for a Hep B surface antigen test next week, I’ve signed the rest of the forms that came with my offer and I just need to print off 4/5 passport photos and send them off with the forms, blood test results and vaccination history which my Dr has already kindly printed off for me. Hopefully I’ll be able to send the whole lot off some time next week.
In other exciting news, I have found an amazing new app for my phone that I’m somewhat addicted to: Speed Anatomy, and what’s more, it’s free! It displays the name of a part and you have to tap it on the diagram of a dissected body before the time runs out, with bonus multiplier points for accuracy. There are different levels, so you start with easy stuff first like skin and heart but then it gets harder (well, I haven’t looked over those bits in my flashcards yet, so they’re hard to me). I can get to level 9 at the moment, which is about the different vertebra, and level 8 nearly caught me out because I couldn’t work out my left and right when identifying blood vessels. Level 6 proved tricky for a while; it’s about muscles. Why is the gastrocnemius in the leg? I keep thinking it’s abdominal. There are 28 levels in total so I’ve got a while to go. Have a good weekend, hope the weather clears up (maybe I have SAD?).
At home we have two types of workmen at the moment. There are gas men replacing the pipes and builders building a new set of flats. They’ve coned off loads of areas so there’s nowhere to park and every morning they are blocking me in so I’m late for work. Combine that with the bin men trying to squeeze through and I was about an hour late for work this morning. I had to squeeze myself through a tiny gap this morning, and missed hitting my neighbours car (parked next to the cones because he couldn’t find anywhere else) by 0.5 cm. Spatial awareness win. This has been going on for 2 weeks so far, and there aren’t even half way done yet.
We also had a visit from my aunt last night, who’s been told that the cause of her severe back pain is vertebral discs disintegrating. The only treatment options she was offered were pain killers and physio or spinal surgery to insert rods to immobilise the two vertebrae and keep them apart, but then she would lose all mobility in them and the problem would move to the two above. I’m sure I’ve heard of disc replacement surgery, so I’m a bit confused as to why that wasn’t an option. Suffice to say, she’s in a lot of pain, and it’ll only get worse. I’m doesn't help that mr has gone back home and I think it’ll be ages before I can see him again. He's brilliant at cheering me up. Continuing the moan, since I'm on a roll I turned up in all my kit for an outing last night, only to find half my crew hadn’t shown up, and the other girl was busy taking out a single, and didn’t even offer to go in a double with me. Rude, and nice of the rest of them to let me know it was off. Our Sky plus box broke at the weekend, so the engineer came and took the box away and replaced it with a shiny new one. It turns out the problem was actually the dish, which they fixed the next day, but they won’t give us the box back, so I have lost the episodes of Lost and Heroes I was saving up to watch in my own time because Mum doesn’t watch them. I was only sticking with Lost because this was the last series! Grrrrr.
I shall put the ranting bean back in her box now and medicate her with knitting, biscuits, hot chocolate, maybe some shouty music and a sofa to curl up on.
My boredom has lead me to discovering a couple of new blogs which were good, but possibly doesn’t help lift the mood any, rather puts me deeper in it, because I want to be doing what they’re doing. I had an email from the accommodation people at Exeter uni and so have now applied for my accommodation. Applications aren’t dealt with on a first-come-first-serve basis, but those with an unconditional firm status before August are dealt with first, so that kick started me into trying to get my application to have that status. I was quite surprised to see that I could only apply for the Rowancroft halls, I was certain I’d seen somewhere you could live anywhere, but those were kept for medics primarily. My offer is conditional on CRB and OH checks. I’m not sure how to fulfil these any more than I already have, as I took the completed forms with me to my interview. I have arranged for a Hep B surface antigen test next week, I’ve signed the rest of the forms that came with my offer and I just need to print off 4/5 passport photos and send them off with the forms, blood test results and vaccination history which my Dr has already kindly printed off for me. Hopefully I’ll be able to send the whole lot off some time next week.
In other exciting news, I have found an amazing new app for my phone that I’m somewhat addicted to: Speed Anatomy, and what’s more, it’s free! It displays the name of a part and you have to tap it on the diagram of a dissected body before the time runs out, with bonus multiplier points for accuracy. There are different levels, so you start with easy stuff first like skin and heart but then it gets harder (well, I haven’t looked over those bits in my flashcards yet, so they’re hard to me). I can get to level 9 at the moment, which is about the different vertebra, and level 8 nearly caught me out because I couldn’t work out my left and right when identifying blood vessels. Level 6 proved tricky for a while; it’s about muscles. Why is the gastrocnemius in the leg? I keep thinking it’s abdominal. There are 28 levels in total so I’ve got a while to go. Have a good weekend, hope the weather clears up (maybe I have SAD?).
Wednesday, 5 May 2010
London, Anatomy and the Best Mussels in the World
I had a big exciting week because mr came to visit and all the plans we had so carefully made fell into place beautifully. It was so nice to come home from work to find him there to greet me, but it’ll be a long time before it’s like that again. He came down Wednesday and we went out that night clutching an Orange Wednesdays voucher for 2-4-1 pizza at Pizza Express and cinema tickets to see Kickass. The film was really good - a little more violent that I was expecting, but awesome nonetheless, and I can now be mostly found singing under my breath ‘Don’t give a damn ‘bout my bad reputation, na na na na na na naaaa’. Thursday saw rowing, with mr coxing (he’s an amazing cox :-D) and a lovely meal in On the Waterfront. Friday we went to a comedy night which wasn’t as good as Mitch Benn last time, but was still pretty funny and a good night out.
Saturday we were up super early (for beans, I don’t really like being up before about 8.30-9) to go to London! Being from a little city (city only by default because of the cathedral) London’s quite scary for me because it’s so big and busy. I get quite excited about going, and I’m always really proud of myself at being able to navigate the tube and not have anything stolen (I might have a slightly naive view of London!). I say always, it’s only the second time I’ve properly been to London, other than school trips to plays. The first time was when mr surprised me with a trip for New Years to watch the fireworks. This time he was surprising me with tickets to watch Avenue Q – I love musicals. This one was good, not my favourite - I feel a little bit wrong having watched puppets have sex, but it was very funny and cleverly done, with some amazing singers. We walked through Kensington Palace gardens, Hyde Park, stumbled across Harley Street, which was very exciting, (mr asked if I wanted to wander down and pick out my office :p) went to Camden Lock and went to the V and A but quickly left for the Natural History museum, science geeks that we are :) We had saved up our Tesco vouchers to have a meal in Loch Fyne where I had the nicest, most creamy, melt in the mouth, biggest pot of mussels in the world! The pot was as big as my head, I was in heaven getting very messy in the middle of the posh restaurant, can’t take me anywhere! :p I had started to eat them with a fork and spoon, but they put a finger bowl on the table so I tucked in :) Another thing about me – I love my shellfish (apart from oysters. I read a book where the murderer killed by hypnotising people to swallow their tongues like oysters, can’t have them now). Mr’s smoked roasted salmon was pretty awesome too. I think we’ll be going back there. There was much sleeping and more rowing on Monday, and in the evening mr kicked my ass at Mario Kart for Wii. I will beat him at something!!!!
Back to the medic-ing. I had the best time on the train journeys up and back :) We took the flash cards and blitzed bones of the body - front and back, parts of the ribs and most of the major arteries of the body. On the way up we were sat opposite a lady whose daughter’s a second year at UEA med school. She was telling me that only UEA and PMS do PBL (wrong? V v wrong…) and she was going up to drop off a fancy cardio stethoscope she had bought for her daughter because her daughter was too poor to buy one and had been borrowing one o_0. She did tell me of a web site to try and get some funding. I’ll check it out, but given her other medical knowledge, I don’t hold out much hope. It was fundfinder.org. On the way back, we were sat opposite a PMS third year who had been based at Exeter for his first two years who was really nice. Apparently, I’m a medic-related magnet (there was a microbiology Dr on the last train journey I took before this back from Derby). He was telling me all about the course and the PMS ethic that they don’t like revision or cramming, nothing in the first term counts at all and the pass mark for the first exam is 3%. He was really nice, and gave me his email in case I had any more questions. This encounter only made more excited to go - there is renewed bouncing. Also, when mr came he was bearing a present from his parents – Grey’s Anatomy for Students (spoilt bean again!) So I shall be genning up on some surface anatomy before I go I think - the third year said that would be useful, and trying not to forget the bones and vessels I learnt on the train :) I’ll bounce off now, have a great week, and good luck in your exams IB people!
Saturday we were up super early (for beans, I don’t really like being up before about 8.30-9) to go to London! Being from a little city (city only by default because of the cathedral) London’s quite scary for me because it’s so big and busy. I get quite excited about going, and I’m always really proud of myself at being able to navigate the tube and not have anything stolen (I might have a slightly naive view of London!). I say always, it’s only the second time I’ve properly been to London, other than school trips to plays. The first time was when mr surprised me with a trip for New Years to watch the fireworks. This time he was surprising me with tickets to watch Avenue Q – I love musicals. This one was good, not my favourite - I feel a little bit wrong having watched puppets have sex, but it was very funny and cleverly done, with some amazing singers. We walked through Kensington Palace gardens, Hyde Park, stumbled across Harley Street, which was very exciting, (mr asked if I wanted to wander down and pick out my office :p) went to Camden Lock and went to the V and A but quickly left for the Natural History museum, science geeks that we are :) We had saved up our Tesco vouchers to have a meal in Loch Fyne where I had the nicest, most creamy, melt in the mouth, biggest pot of mussels in the world! The pot was as big as my head, I was in heaven getting very messy in the middle of the posh restaurant, can’t take me anywhere! :p I had started to eat them with a fork and spoon, but they put a finger bowl on the table so I tucked in :) Another thing about me – I love my shellfish (apart from oysters. I read a book where the murderer killed by hypnotising people to swallow their tongues like oysters, can’t have them now). Mr’s smoked roasted salmon was pretty awesome too. I think we’ll be going back there. There was much sleeping and more rowing on Monday, and in the evening mr kicked my ass at Mario Kart for Wii. I will beat him at something!!!!
Back to the medic-ing. I had the best time on the train journeys up and back :) We took the flash cards and blitzed bones of the body - front and back, parts of the ribs and most of the major arteries of the body. On the way up we were sat opposite a lady whose daughter’s a second year at UEA med school. She was telling me that only UEA and PMS do PBL (wrong? V v wrong…) and she was going up to drop off a fancy cardio stethoscope she had bought for her daughter because her daughter was too poor to buy one and had been borrowing one o_0. She did tell me of a web site to try and get some funding. I’ll check it out, but given her other medical knowledge, I don’t hold out much hope. It was fundfinder.org. On the way back, we were sat opposite a PMS third year who had been based at Exeter for his first two years who was really nice. Apparently, I’m a medic-related magnet (there was a microbiology Dr on the last train journey I took before this back from Derby). He was telling me all about the course and the PMS ethic that they don’t like revision or cramming, nothing in the first term counts at all and the pass mark for the first exam is 3%. He was really nice, and gave me his email in case I had any more questions. This encounter only made more excited to go - there is renewed bouncing. Also, when mr came he was bearing a present from his parents – Grey’s Anatomy for Students (spoilt bean again!) So I shall be genning up on some surface anatomy before I go I think - the third year said that would be useful, and trying not to forget the bones and vessels I learnt on the train :) I’ll bounce off now, have a great week, and good luck in your exams IB people!
Tuesday, 27 April 2010
Thick Letters
On Friday I got the very thick letter from Peninsula I’d been waiting for, and I was very surprised at how quickly it came, given that I had only firmed them Tuesday evening. I’ve been placed at Exeter. This means I’ll be in Exeter for the first two years and I will be a University of Exeter student for my five years of uni. I’m happy about this, I guess weighing up the pros and cons of Plymouth and Exeter, Exeter would def come out on top. Plymouth has a better nightlife, which would be good for my first year when I’ll actually have time to go out. Although, they do have a field hospital on Union Street where all the clubs are for all the drunk injured clubbers, which is a bit scary given I’m not really a loud party animal type. I do like going out for a dance, but I’m just as happy not drinking, I don’t really like the feeling of being drunk that much. I can have just as good a time sober, it’s much cheaper, and I know what I’m doing at all times, win-win, surely? One of the students on my interview day said Plymouth had better teaching for third year. Exeter has much nicer halls, living with medics, sports scientists and PGCE people, although I think I’ll miss not being on the main campus, especially since it’s one of the prettiest in the country. Apparently the St Luke’s and Streatham people don’t mix much, ah well, medics are cliquey; I just hope I can fit in. I’m going to have to be a bit more outgoing and less sit-back-and-observe-slightly-scared I guess. And here’s where I have to admit to a small snobbish side of me – another reason I’m happy I’m at Exeter is because it’s a top 10 uni at number 9 in the country, and I found out that Plymouth used to be a polytechnic. I know, I know, there are no such things as polys anymore but I just can’t get over it I’m afraid. There was a poly in Southampton - Solent Uni, and it offered such wonderful degrees as Football Studies and Stage Makeup. Now, I’m all for people going to uni, it’s a fantastic life experience and I’m happy they can find something they want to study to a higher level, but really, these things should not be a degree. A BA in History should not be held in the same esteem as a BA in Stage Makeup. Similarly, a BSc in Football Studies? I discovered something brand new and proved 10 years of study by proper academics wrong to earn my degree, what on earth can they do that’s similar in football studies? Sorry, rant over *bean hangs head in shame*. I’m a nice bean really!
My thick letter came with my student agreement that I won’t abuse patient’s trust and interestingly, I thought, I won’t cover my face when dealing with patients or in lectures unless it’s for sterile reasons. There was a very short kit list – stethoscope (got a pretty purple one picked out :) ), shorts and t-shirt for clinical skills practice on each other, a scientific calculator and no white coat. :( It’s a shame. When I was little, I didn’t really know what I would do when I grew up, but I was certain I would be wearing a white coat and doing something science-y. Now I’ve finally gotten here, they took the white coats away!
To make up for the very short kit list, there is a monster of a book list (around 4 sides A4), of which I’ve gotten 2 already from biomed - Pharmacology by Rang, Dale and Ritter and Albert's The Cell. There’s a couple I already had on my wishlist, and I’ll look at reviews of the rest and maybe add some more. I know I won’t need all of them, and that they will be in the library, but I do like having books and being able to look at them whenever I like, without having to break my back carrying them back from the library, plus they’re well under half the price of my biomed text books, which is nice.
I was also told to email the accommodation office at Exeter uni to get my student number to start applying for halls, but they said they haven’t had the details over from PCMD yet and to try again in a week. There isn’t really much choice in the accommodation tbh: ensuite in Rowancroft (built in 09), or standard or enhanced at Rowancroft Court or Rowancroft Mews. Ensuite for me I think :) I had an ensuite in halls last time and it was good. I’m a bit of a lush addict, so I have a lot of stuff to put in a bathroom and I like to keep it nice and tidy. When we shared a bathroom in the house we moved into for years 2 and 3 I swear they had radios and would time it perfectly so they would all go in the bathroom one after the other when I was waiting. Surely that will only be worse if we’ve all got the same timetable.
It’s mr’s birthday soon and I have no idea what to get him. Apparently I’ve got the reputation in his lines of being a thoughtful, awesome girlfriend because they previous gifts I got him were so good, and now I have to live up to that and I have no clue! He’s so hard to buy for. He likes things that beep (being an electronic engineer), but I can’t afford them, and I don’t really know much about army life so I don’t know what would be useful. Any ideas people? I’ve asked him three times now and he’s helpfully avoiding giving me an answer. He’s coming to visit Wednesday-Monday and we have lots of exciting things planned, so maybe I can press him a little more then. I’m very excited, it’s been about 2 months since I saw him properly, not including Street watching him swim. I’d best leave it there, this has become a bit of an essay! Have a great week people :)
My thick letter came with my student agreement that I won’t abuse patient’s trust and interestingly, I thought, I won’t cover my face when dealing with patients or in lectures unless it’s for sterile reasons. There was a very short kit list – stethoscope (got a pretty purple one picked out :) ), shorts and t-shirt for clinical skills practice on each other, a scientific calculator and no white coat. :( It’s a shame. When I was little, I didn’t really know what I would do when I grew up, but I was certain I would be wearing a white coat and doing something science-y. Now I’ve finally gotten here, they took the white coats away!
To make up for the very short kit list, there is a monster of a book list (around 4 sides A4), of which I’ve gotten 2 already from biomed - Pharmacology by Rang, Dale and Ritter and Albert's The Cell. There’s a couple I already had on my wishlist, and I’ll look at reviews of the rest and maybe add some more. I know I won’t need all of them, and that they will be in the library, but I do like having books and being able to look at them whenever I like, without having to break my back carrying them back from the library, plus they’re well under half the price of my biomed text books, which is nice.
I was also told to email the accommodation office at Exeter uni to get my student number to start applying for halls, but they said they haven’t had the details over from PCMD yet and to try again in a week. There isn’t really much choice in the accommodation tbh: ensuite in Rowancroft (built in 09), or standard or enhanced at Rowancroft Court or Rowancroft Mews. Ensuite for me I think :) I had an ensuite in halls last time and it was good. I’m a bit of a lush addict, so I have a lot of stuff to put in a bathroom and I like to keep it nice and tidy. When we shared a bathroom in the house we moved into for years 2 and 3 I swear they had radios and would time it perfectly so they would all go in the bathroom one after the other when I was waiting. Surely that will only be worse if we’ve all got the same timetable.
It’s mr’s birthday soon and I have no idea what to get him. Apparently I’ve got the reputation in his lines of being a thoughtful, awesome girlfriend because they previous gifts I got him were so good, and now I have to live up to that and I have no clue! He’s so hard to buy for. He likes things that beep (being an electronic engineer), but I can’t afford them, and I don’t really know much about army life so I don’t know what would be useful. Any ideas people? I’ve asked him three times now and he’s helpfully avoiding giving me an answer. He’s coming to visit Wednesday-Monday and we have lots of exciting things planned, so maybe I can press him a little more then. I’m very excited, it’s been about 2 months since I saw him properly, not including Street watching him swim. I’d best leave it there, this has become a bit of an essay! Have a great week people :)
Wednesday, 21 April 2010
A New Chapter
Following a bit in the theme of last time because I seem to be in a bit of a reflective mood for some reason – bye bye Track. No more obsessive checking. No more mashing the F5 key in the frantic but slim hope I logged in a second too soon. No more getting frustrated with your extra pages keeping me from finding my fate. No more will you make my heart catch in my throat and my stomach turn as you load the page sooo slowly, only to find the decision column is blank, still, again, like I knew it would be, and then I feel silly for thinking it may have changed. I have moved on, I have no need for you anymore. Your bookmark is deleted.
Nottingham put out their results last night and I had an email telling me I was on the waiting list. Now Notts aren’t as nice as St George’s in that a waiting list place isn’t a ticket to an automatic place next year if you aren’t called for this year, it’s really just a holding status. ‘We don’t like you enough to offer you a place, but we do like you enough not to reject you’. You may be offered a place if enough of those who were offered in the first place turn down their offers, or if people don’t get their grades come results day and the uni has places to fill. This means you could be given as little as a few days notice to pack up your things and come to uni. When I saw the email, I have to admit I was a little disappointed. I’d thought the interview had gone really well, so to only be on the waiting list? I kept trying to rationalise it that maybe it was because I still had some documents to send to them, or because my GAMSAT wasn’t that high, or because they’d seen me on the different forums talking about wanting to go to PCMD, but I guess in the end it doesn’t really matter. At least it was better than an outright rejection, and it’s not like I wanted the place anyway. So I logged onto Track for the last time ever, withdrew from Nottingham and firmed Peninsula. There we have it then, my path is decided. After three applications, five years of stressing, one degree, 3 entrance exams spanning a total of 7 hours, 5 interviews, countless amounts of money spent on preparation books, entrance exams, train tickets and a degree, and so many tears and sleepless nights, I am finally in to the place I wanted to be in from the very beginning. And to think that I didn’t want to try again this year, I was ready to give up. My family had to coax me into it (according to Dad, I’m a bean, and bean’s don’t give up [for bean, insert surname]). Peninsula College of Medicine & Dentistry class of 2015. Hopefully I will hear from them soon with a campus allocation and all the other paperwork I need to fill in. I am now Bean the medical student :)
Nottingham put out their results last night and I had an email telling me I was on the waiting list. Now Notts aren’t as nice as St George’s in that a waiting list place isn’t a ticket to an automatic place next year if you aren’t called for this year, it’s really just a holding status. ‘We don’t like you enough to offer you a place, but we do like you enough not to reject you’. You may be offered a place if enough of those who were offered in the first place turn down their offers, or if people don’t get their grades come results day and the uni has places to fill. This means you could be given as little as a few days notice to pack up your things and come to uni. When I saw the email, I have to admit I was a little disappointed. I’d thought the interview had gone really well, so to only be on the waiting list? I kept trying to rationalise it that maybe it was because I still had some documents to send to them, or because my GAMSAT wasn’t that high, or because they’d seen me on the different forums talking about wanting to go to PCMD, but I guess in the end it doesn’t really matter. At least it was better than an outright rejection, and it’s not like I wanted the place anyway. So I logged onto Track for the last time ever, withdrew from Nottingham and firmed Peninsula. There we have it then, my path is decided. After three applications, five years of stressing, one degree, 3 entrance exams spanning a total of 7 hours, 5 interviews, countless amounts of money spent on preparation books, entrance exams, train tickets and a degree, and so many tears and sleepless nights, I am finally in to the place I wanted to be in from the very beginning. And to think that I didn’t want to try again this year, I was ready to give up. My family had to coax me into it (according to Dad, I’m a bean, and bean’s don’t give up [for bean, insert surname]). Peninsula College of Medicine & Dentistry class of 2015. Hopefully I will hear from them soon with a campus allocation and all the other paperwork I need to fill in. I am now Bean the medical student :)
Tuesday, 20 April 2010
In Which Bean Gets a Bit Touchy-Feely
This week saw more failed attempts to complete student finance. They took the whole system down on Sunday, so I was hoping they were going to fix it then, but whatever they did, it didn’t work. They have put a caveat on that you can fill in a paper form, but I really don’t want to have to do that. They already have most of my details on the system, and for the whole of my last year at uni they sent all my letters to a made up mash up address of my home address and term time address. That was a gem, they made it up, and no matter how many times they changed over the phone when I told them it was wrong, the system still sent my letters to it. So all in all, I don’t have a lot of faith in them and trying to merge paper with computer applications is just asking for trouble I’m sure.
I got a lovely congratulations card from mr’s parents filled with some really pretty beads that his mum had picked out, which was lovely of her. I am now trying to decide what to do with them. OOooo, and the first book is gone off my amazon wishlist! Super excited bean :D
In other book related news, I gave away my UKCAT book to a guy at work who’s son wants to go to med school. That was quite an odd feeling. It was nice to know that I wouldn’t need again, but it’s still quite weird thinking that next year I won’t have to apply again, because for the last 5 years or so my life has been about applying to med school and now that I don’t have to anymore, well it’s odd. Obviously I’m really happy that I don’t have to apply, and I got to where I wanted to be, for the moment anyway. The next step will be passing exams, and passing the course. I suppose it’s just been force of habit – “What are you doing? I’m applying to med school.” It’s been long enough since I found out, it really should have sunk in by now. Lol, I guess it’s just my impatience again – I want to start now, and I won’t quite believe it until I do. It’s still a long way off yet, a whole 22 weeks, even though 22 doesn’t sound like much. 101 work days left, according to my clever formula. And I expect when I get there, I’ll be craving a break again, the grass is always greener isn’t it ? :)
Well your all very boring people not playing the conundrum I set in last weeks post. The answer was bookkeeper in case you wondered silently. Round up of the rest of my life: the rowing is going better, and since it looks like I’m sticking at stroke, I guess I’m going to have to start going back to the gym to get my fitness back up. You can’t slack at stroke and I can’t let the rest of my crew down cos I’m lazy :p My blisters are nearly completely healed thanks to the newly discovered miracle lotion that is Palmers Cocoa Butter Formula. I have great tan lines from rowing on Sunday morning, a proper farmers tan, and awesome plans are slowly falling into place for when mr comes down in a couple of weeks.
I had my first washing disaster last week, and ironically, I did it at home. I felted my favourite tank top, oops. I can’t find a replacement for it either, so I think I may have to knit one. To do that though, I have to finish the jumper I have on the go, which I am procrastinating because the next bit is hard, and I’m not sure I like the colour anymore, and making pretty jewellery gives instant gratification. Lol, I am such a fickle scatty girl sometimes, which is funny, because I’m sure none of the people who know me would say that about me, it’s just how I seem to be coming across here. Ah well, that’s it for me for now. Let’s see if our ‘upgraded’ systems are working at work yet (read: put in place before testing and now failing horribly, a bit like Windows Vista). Nottingham decisions out this week, good luck people!
I got a lovely congratulations card from mr’s parents filled with some really pretty beads that his mum had picked out, which was lovely of her. I am now trying to decide what to do with them. OOooo, and the first book is gone off my amazon wishlist! Super excited bean :D
In other book related news, I gave away my UKCAT book to a guy at work who’s son wants to go to med school. That was quite an odd feeling. It was nice to know that I wouldn’t need again, but it’s still quite weird thinking that next year I won’t have to apply again, because for the last 5 years or so my life has been about applying to med school and now that I don’t have to anymore, well it’s odd. Obviously I’m really happy that I don’t have to apply, and I got to where I wanted to be, for the moment anyway. The next step will be passing exams, and passing the course. I suppose it’s just been force of habit – “What are you doing? I’m applying to med school.” It’s been long enough since I found out, it really should have sunk in by now. Lol, I guess it’s just my impatience again – I want to start now, and I won’t quite believe it until I do. It’s still a long way off yet, a whole 22 weeks, even though 22 doesn’t sound like much. 101 work days left, according to my clever formula. And I expect when I get there, I’ll be craving a break again, the grass is always greener isn’t it ? :)
Well your all very boring people not playing the conundrum I set in last weeks post. The answer was bookkeeper in case you wondered silently. Round up of the rest of my life: the rowing is going better, and since it looks like I’m sticking at stroke, I guess I’m going to have to start going back to the gym to get my fitness back up. You can’t slack at stroke and I can’t let the rest of my crew down cos I’m lazy :p My blisters are nearly completely healed thanks to the newly discovered miracle lotion that is Palmers Cocoa Butter Formula. I have great tan lines from rowing on Sunday morning, a proper farmers tan, and awesome plans are slowly falling into place for when mr comes down in a couple of weeks.
I had my first washing disaster last week, and ironically, I did it at home. I felted my favourite tank top, oops. I can’t find a replacement for it either, so I think I may have to knit one. To do that though, I have to finish the jumper I have on the go, which I am procrastinating because the next bit is hard, and I’m not sure I like the colour anymore, and making pretty jewellery gives instant gratification. Lol, I am such a fickle scatty girl sometimes, which is funny, because I’m sure none of the people who know me would say that about me, it’s just how I seem to be coming across here. Ah well, that’s it for me for now. Let’s see if our ‘upgraded’ systems are working at work yet (read: put in place before testing and now failing horribly, a bit like Windows Vista). Nottingham decisions out this week, good luck people!
Tuesday, 13 April 2010
Blisters, Rowing and Finance
I keep forgetting to say I actually met Mitch Benn when I went to see, him, which was awesome and I got totally star struck :) We were hanging around in the room so they guys I was with could finish their drinks and he wandered back in to get his stuff. One of the guys (rather drunk) turns to him and said “Oooo, it’s you! She loves you! She’s the reason we’re all here!” *Bean blushes and wishes the ground would swallow her – she isn’t drunk. Never mind, it was awesome and I shook his hand :D
In other, more Doctor-y related bean news, I’ve been putting my application for student finance at last, now I know I’ll definitely need it. I’ve been doing it online because they’ve still got all my details from last time so it’s easier that way. Just before you click ‘send’ they show you a summary screen of what you’re likely to get (with a rough estimate of the means-tested bit) and I was very surprised to see them offering me a fee loan after a comment I got after mentioning it last time about someone else not being able to have it. I shall have to wait and see if they cotton on and retract that bit, though I did say that yes I had already done a degree. Maybe it’s because it’s a five year course? I don’t know. I should get the max means tested bits (excluding the London extra) and a bursary from the uni themselves, so… shock horror, don’t panic people, this might actually be fundable by myself! (However, all this will take my student debt up to around £55,000, and I dread to think the interest on that. It’s all fake money, isn’t it, I can’t possibly owe that much and only have a bit of paper and some letters [Dr Bean MBBS BSc Hons :p] to show for it). I’ve been trying to put my Dad’s figures in to the support a student’s application bit, but the clever, clever people have decided now, in the middle of application season, would be a good time to take the system down to upgrade it, so it’s not working and won’t let me link Dad to me. Bean is not amused.
The rest of this week brought a busy week at work with system failures a-plenty (aircon down leading to a flood in the main off-site server room – useful!), a surprise birthday outing to a pub quiz for someone on my team (what English word that describes an occupation contains three sets of consecutive double letters? Answers in the comments, solution next week people), successful haggling of my phone network to give me the shiny new phone I wanted and a great package for not much monies at all (leading to a jealous mr because he wants the shiny new phone and good contract) which is being delivered today, a lovely congratulations card signed by everyone at work waiting for me on my desk Friday morning and I’ve been asked to put together and captain a team from work to enter the Bell boat race as part of the local Business Games. All in all, a pretty good week, as long as I don’t have to hold anything… I went rowing again Sunday in the beautiful sunshine. Our four combined with a novice four to go out in an 8, which is a bit like trying to manoeuvre a lorry when it’s full of a novice crew. We were using their novice blades, which have cheese-grated my hands – 11 blisters in 3 hours including two sets of blisters on blisters, or rather in them, once they burst - luuurvly :p. It’s a toss-up see, I need calluses to be a rower, but soft hands to touch patients as a Dr. On the plus side, coach is happy with me and the novices said I was the best stroke they’ve ever had (sshhh, I know they haven’t had much experience, just let me bask in the compliment for a while, ok?) and I got a nice tan (which is secretly the whole reason I row). So now my hands can mostly be found covered in as many moisturisers as I can find to try and heal them before my next outing next weekend. So I shall leave you scratching your heads over that double letters conundrum and wave you a shiny, manky-handed goodbye for now. Hope you can get the opportunity to take some time off to enjoy the lovely weather.
In other, more Doctor-y related bean news, I’ve been putting my application for student finance at last, now I know I’ll definitely need it. I’ve been doing it online because they’ve still got all my details from last time so it’s easier that way. Just before you click ‘send’ they show you a summary screen of what you’re likely to get (with a rough estimate of the means-tested bit) and I was very surprised to see them offering me a fee loan after a comment I got after mentioning it last time about someone else not being able to have it. I shall have to wait and see if they cotton on and retract that bit, though I did say that yes I had already done a degree. Maybe it’s because it’s a five year course? I don’t know. I should get the max means tested bits (excluding the London extra) and a bursary from the uni themselves, so… shock horror, don’t panic people, this might actually be fundable by myself! (However, all this will take my student debt up to around £55,000, and I dread to think the interest on that. It’s all fake money, isn’t it, I can’t possibly owe that much and only have a bit of paper and some letters [Dr Bean MBBS BSc Hons :p] to show for it). I’ve been trying to put my Dad’s figures in to the support a student’s application bit, but the clever, clever people have decided now, in the middle of application season, would be a good time to take the system down to upgrade it, so it’s not working and won’t let me link Dad to me. Bean is not amused.
The rest of this week brought a busy week at work with system failures a-plenty (aircon down leading to a flood in the main off-site server room – useful!), a surprise birthday outing to a pub quiz for someone on my team (what English word that describes an occupation contains three sets of consecutive double letters? Answers in the comments, solution next week people), successful haggling of my phone network to give me the shiny new phone I wanted and a great package for not much monies at all (leading to a jealous mr because he wants the shiny new phone and good contract) which is being delivered today, a lovely congratulations card signed by everyone at work waiting for me on my desk Friday morning and I’ve been asked to put together and captain a team from work to enter the Bell boat race as part of the local Business Games. All in all, a pretty good week, as long as I don’t have to hold anything… I went rowing again Sunday in the beautiful sunshine. Our four combined with a novice four to go out in an 8, which is a bit like trying to manoeuvre a lorry when it’s full of a novice crew. We were using their novice blades, which have cheese-grated my hands – 11 blisters in 3 hours including two sets of blisters on blisters, or rather in them, once they burst - luuurvly :p. It’s a toss-up see, I need calluses to be a rower, but soft hands to touch patients as a Dr. On the plus side, coach is happy with me and the novices said I was the best stroke they’ve ever had (sshhh, I know they haven’t had much experience, just let me bask in the compliment for a while, ok?) and I got a nice tan (which is secretly the whole reason I row). So now my hands can mostly be found covered in as many moisturisers as I can find to try and heal them before my next outing next weekend. So I shall leave you scratching your heads over that double letters conundrum and wave you a shiny, manky-handed goodbye for now. Hope you can get the opportunity to take some time off to enjoy the lovely weather.
Tuesday, 6 April 2010
Bean: Queen of Cupcakes
It was so good to have the Easter break. It is one thing I like about having a regular 9-5 job and not being a student –weekends and bank holidays mean so much more. I’ll miss that. I was about ready for a break too, so it was lovely to have the Friday and Monday off. Short weeks are brilliant. A pretty unremarkable week before that: nice and quiet at work, although I’m not sure why because I have a lot of work to do. It’s possibly because I know I have an end date now. On my work flow spreadsheet I put some formulae in to count number of working days left :) I’m such a geek sometimes.
I didn’t get a lie in Friday because I went rowing for the first time in months. The weather was atrocious, so we did an erg first. Blergh, I hate ergs and I haven’t done one of those in even longer. They are just hell, pain and errm, hell. But, I did it and we had an outing after that when the weather cleared up. It was so nice to be back on the water. It’s like my calm place, being on the water – whether it’s rowing, sailing or kayaking, it’s lovely to just get away from it all and think of nothing bar what you are doing on the water. I did have a little more to think about unfortunately, since I was stroking. This means (for you non-rowers) that I was at the head of the boat setting the rhythm – no-one can move before I do and everyone must move at the same time as me. This is quite hard in itself, as you have to be perfect – you have no-one to follow, but being a little rusty, and being shorter than the rest of the girls, I wasn’t setting a very good pace, and they have to move faster to keep up with me. Never mind, I’m rowing again tonight, I’ll do better this time.
The rest of the weekend was pretty much spent in the kitchen baking cakes and muffins. Mum volunteered me to make some to take to see the family for Easter, and I had wanted to make some to take to work to celebrate my good news. This mainly involves me throwing flour and icing sugar everywhere, and even getting some in the mixing bowl, but mostly over me and the kitchen. I could totally be five :) The cakes I make are very good, but I’m also extremely good at making a mess. I broke out my new Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook and made 2 batches of Red Velvet, and 1 batch each of Marshmallow cakes, Black Bottom cakes and Banana and Cinnamon muffins, oh, and some soup for work, and some earrings for me. It was a properly creative weekend, and the cakes are lovely :) I normally bake when I have exams and essays to have a break (and a reward for when they’re finished).
Oo, in other exciting news, mr got into the regiment he wanted, so his interviews did go well and he is a happy, but tired boy. He is happy two-fold because Cambridge won the boat race and he briefly went there for a year before switching to Southampton so we have a slight allegiance (even though the Oxford blue is prettier than the Cambridge one, he pokes me when I say that). What an awesome race it was! He is also happy three-fold, because it is his Easter break coming up (the army do things odd) and we are plotting a trip to London to see Avenue Q, which makes me a very happy and excitable bean, because it’s one I’ve wanted to see for ages. Might also see if we can fit in a trip to the hospital museum which was shut when we went to London for New Years. All I have left to do is book the train tickets, which I very nearly did last night, but had to stop when I realised I was booking them for the wrong month – oops! Don’t panic about me being a Dr, I’m not normally this scatty, honest! :) Have an awesome short week people.
I didn’t get a lie in Friday because I went rowing for the first time in months. The weather was atrocious, so we did an erg first. Blergh, I hate ergs and I haven’t done one of those in even longer. They are just hell, pain and errm, hell. But, I did it and we had an outing after that when the weather cleared up. It was so nice to be back on the water. It’s like my calm place, being on the water – whether it’s rowing, sailing or kayaking, it’s lovely to just get away from it all and think of nothing bar what you are doing on the water. I did have a little more to think about unfortunately, since I was stroking. This means (for you non-rowers) that I was at the head of the boat setting the rhythm – no-one can move before I do and everyone must move at the same time as me. This is quite hard in itself, as you have to be perfect – you have no-one to follow, but being a little rusty, and being shorter than the rest of the girls, I wasn’t setting a very good pace, and they have to move faster to keep up with me. Never mind, I’m rowing again tonight, I’ll do better this time.
The rest of the weekend was pretty much spent in the kitchen baking cakes and muffins. Mum volunteered me to make some to take to see the family for Easter, and I had wanted to make some to take to work to celebrate my good news. This mainly involves me throwing flour and icing sugar everywhere, and even getting some in the mixing bowl, but mostly over me and the kitchen. I could totally be five :) The cakes I make are very good, but I’m also extremely good at making a mess. I broke out my new Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook and made 2 batches of Red Velvet, and 1 batch each of Marshmallow cakes, Black Bottom cakes and Banana and Cinnamon muffins, oh, and some soup for work, and some earrings for me. It was a properly creative weekend, and the cakes are lovely :) I normally bake when I have exams and essays to have a break (and a reward for when they’re finished).
Oo, in other exciting news, mr got into the regiment he wanted, so his interviews did go well and he is a happy, but tired boy. He is happy two-fold because Cambridge won the boat race and he briefly went there for a year before switching to Southampton so we have a slight allegiance (even though the Oxford blue is prettier than the Cambridge one, he pokes me when I say that). What an awesome race it was! He is also happy three-fold, because it is his Easter break coming up (the army do things odd) and we are plotting a trip to London to see Avenue Q, which makes me a very happy and excitable bean, because it’s one I’ve wanted to see for ages. Might also see if we can fit in a trip to the hospital museum which was shut when we went to London for New Years. All I have left to do is book the train tickets, which I very nearly did last night, but had to stop when I realised I was booking them for the wrong month – oops! Don’t panic about me being a Dr, I’m not normally this scatty, honest! :) Have an awesome short week people.
Tuesday, 30 March 2010
Still smiling
So not much has changed since I posted last, other than my smiling muscles getting a through work out. They did get a bit of a rest last night when I got back from work and saw my book and flashcard pack had arrived. How on earth does anyone remember that much stuff? I don’t think I’ve ever seen a book with that much tiny writing crammed into it. Do I really have to learn it all? The flashcards weren’t much better either to be honest. Even just the first one had bits I’d never heard of before, like an acromion, or a cubital fossa. And I thought the first card of the pack would be easy. Hmm, I was planning on learning a couple a day on my lunch breaks at work to give myself a bit of a head start and I guess it’s just been a while since I had to learn anything by rote. Never mind, it will happen and it will be worth it (and hopefully it will make more sense once I get to doing a bit more about it).
The rest of last week was spent by me wandering round in a fuzzy, grinning daze, getting congratulated by people and thinking I should probably be a bit more productive at work. I still can’t quite believe it’s true. I keep waiting for Peninsula to send me a letter apologising for getting it wrong, they didn’t mean to offer me a place at all. I want to firm it, but I can’t until all my offers come in. I could withdraw from Notts, but after such an awesome interview, I really want the confirmation from them that I did well at it too, and for them to give me an offer. Each time I’ve applied I’ve only ever gotten one offer, and I really feel this cycle went much better and I’m much better prepared mentally for it. Part of me feels bad that I might be taking an offer from someone else, but they do over-offer for those that decline and I believe they have a waiting list for those that don’t quite make it.
The weekend brought congratulatory surprise flowers from mr (spoilt bean :) I was really excited when the door bell went because I thought it might have been my textbooks, but they were just as good), a shopping trip to buy Easter eggs (how did it get to be Easter already), a new pencil skirt in the Next half price sale (bargin and I have to be a smart [Dr] bean from now on) and an awesome pair of purple tights (no reason why smart tights can’t be slightly interesting in lieu of the stripy socks I would be wearing if I wasn’t wearing tights). I had gone to have a look in Waterstones at textbooks, but all the interesting ones like Tortora, Moore and Daley and Kumar and Clarke were cellophane wrapped, which wasn’t useful. Although I did find a new one to add to the want list – a book of mnemonics, which I will find really useful. So glad I have a birthday between now and the start of term.
On Sunday I drove to Street to see mr compete in the Royal Navy Masters Swimming Competition. He used to swim a lot when he was little, but gave it up and hasn’t trained properly since. It was great to see him, and it was so lovely and warm sat in the stands by the pool. It was funny to see all the other clubs bright, peppy and raring to race, and Sandhurst lying around sleeping, taking the opportunity wherever they can. He didn’t win any medals, but he did come close with a couple of fourths, and only being a second or so out. He enjoyed himself and had a good result with the Sandhurst 8 competing at Head of the River in London the day before, beating the RAF and coming second to Army, but pulling up massively from 235 place to 163 (out of about 350-400). He’s got his regiment selection boards this week, so I have my fingers crossed for him. He hasn’t done as many interviews as me, so I have no idea what his technique is like but I’m sure he’ll do fine.
Thanks for your lovely congrats messages on NMM, TSR and this blog, it’s lovely of you, and I really am so happy. More from me later, back to work now…
The rest of last week was spent by me wandering round in a fuzzy, grinning daze, getting congratulated by people and thinking I should probably be a bit more productive at work. I still can’t quite believe it’s true. I keep waiting for Peninsula to send me a letter apologising for getting it wrong, they didn’t mean to offer me a place at all. I want to firm it, but I can’t until all my offers come in. I could withdraw from Notts, but after such an awesome interview, I really want the confirmation from them that I did well at it too, and for them to give me an offer. Each time I’ve applied I’ve only ever gotten one offer, and I really feel this cycle went much better and I’m much better prepared mentally for it. Part of me feels bad that I might be taking an offer from someone else, but they do over-offer for those that decline and I believe they have a waiting list for those that don’t quite make it.
The weekend brought congratulatory surprise flowers from mr (spoilt bean :) I was really excited when the door bell went because I thought it might have been my textbooks, but they were just as good), a shopping trip to buy Easter eggs (how did it get to be Easter already), a new pencil skirt in the Next half price sale (bargin and I have to be a smart [Dr] bean from now on) and an awesome pair of purple tights (no reason why smart tights can’t be slightly interesting in lieu of the stripy socks I would be wearing if I wasn’t wearing tights). I had gone to have a look in Waterstones at textbooks, but all the interesting ones like Tortora, Moore and Daley and Kumar and Clarke were cellophane wrapped, which wasn’t useful. Although I did find a new one to add to the want list – a book of mnemonics, which I will find really useful. So glad I have a birthday between now and the start of term.
On Sunday I drove to Street to see mr compete in the Royal Navy Masters Swimming Competition. He used to swim a lot when he was little, but gave it up and hasn’t trained properly since. It was great to see him, and it was so lovely and warm sat in the stands by the pool. It was funny to see all the other clubs bright, peppy and raring to race, and Sandhurst lying around sleeping, taking the opportunity wherever they can. He didn’t win any medals, but he did come close with a couple of fourths, and only being a second or so out. He enjoyed himself and had a good result with the Sandhurst 8 competing at Head of the River in London the day before, beating the RAF and coming second to Army, but pulling up massively from 235 place to 163 (out of about 350-400). He’s got his regiment selection boards this week, so I have my fingers crossed for him. He hasn’t done as many interviews as me, so I have no idea what his technique is like but I’m sure he’ll do fine.
Thanks for your lovely congrats messages on NMM, TSR and this blog, it’s lovely of you, and I really am so happy. More from me later, back to work now…
Thursday, 25 March 2010
Can This Week Get Any Better?
I had my Nottingham interview Tuesday. I thought it went really well. It seemed to be much better organised than the St George’s one, the interviewers were all really nice and there was only really one question that flummoxed me but I managed to cobble together a response eventually. It was also nice to see three of the people that had been at the Peninsula interview again. Dare I say it, but that interview was actually fun? I have never had 6 minutes go by so quickly. The main question came with several follow up questions, so it really felt like a proper mini interview and let me really show my strengths, opinions, think on my feet and have a proper probing conversation with them. All in all, apart from Derby being so grey and miserable after such a sunny day for the PMS interview, I had a really good time.
So a group of us took a taxi back to the station and we bid each other farewell and good luck, I sat waiting for the train and rang mum to let her know how I got on. While I was on the phone she checked Track – nothing. Never mind, I thought, maybe tomorrow. I got on the train and after about 15 minutes I had a call from Mum. She said “Hello Dr Bean”. I was quite confused, I knew Track was blank, and I just thought she was being a bit presumptive about Notts. I was wrong. Peninsula offered me a place!!! EEEEeeeeeee!!!! Since I was on a train I knew I couldn’t really scream, but then totally out of my control my eyes started leaking and I was crying all over the place. I don’t normally cry, especially not with happiness, so I felt a bit of a ninny crying on a train and was getting some very odd looks. Apparently Mum had checked again just before she logged off the computer (can you see Track obsession runs in the family?) and had seen the golden words Peninsula – Conditional. I was loon grinning for the whole ride home, and actually have been since I found out, and expect I will be for quite some time. After ringing round friends and family and sharing the good news, I didn’t quite know what to do with myself. What with all the unspent adrenaline from my interview and now this good news, what I really wanted to do was jump up and down, but that’s a bit hard to do on a train. The girl opposite me offered me a celebratory cookie, which was nice, but not quite the same somehow. Of course, the person I really wanted to tell was Mr, but I can’t because he is still in France, but he’s going to be so excited.
So yesterday at work I got to tell lots of people and re-live it all again – suffice to say I didn’t get a lot of work done, I was simply too excited. Mum sent me a link to a stethoscope I want – it’s purple!! And I bought my first textbooks after scoping the threads to see what would be useful – Oxford Handbook of Clinical Medicine and Grey’s Anatomy Flashcards so I can start learning bits before I go.
We had a meeting with the head of Employee Benefits, the division of JLT Group I work for, who told us about our financial position at the end of the last year and improvements we need to make moving forwards. Imagine my surprise when our Consultant Client Manager told the EB heads that one of the changes we’ve made to improve systems is by having the retirement tracker. Hi, that’s me. *Shock* You shouldn’t say things like that in front of such important people, what I do can’t possibly be that important, right? This is just a holiday job for me. 0_0
Anyway, it also bonus work at time which has traditionally been a time where everyone gets individual short meetings with their manager and told that they haven’t got a bonus this year, and from the murmurings I’d heard about people who’ve already had theirs, this year wasn’t any different. In the big boss’ eyes, he pays us to work hard so he shouldn’t have to reward us for doing our jobs. When my manager called me in, I was expecting the same, so I was very, very surprised when he told me I was getting a pay rise and £250 bonus this month for working hard. That will certainly pay for some textbooks :) I actually didn’t think this week could get any better but, when I got back to my desk there was an email saying we’re having a dress down day this Friday, and a reminder that I’m going to see Mitch Benn on Friday evening. I don’t know what I did to deserve a week like this, but I am so happy, it’s amazing. Please don’t let something happen to bring me back to earth with a bump for a while.
So a group of us took a taxi back to the station and we bid each other farewell and good luck, I sat waiting for the train and rang mum to let her know how I got on. While I was on the phone she checked Track – nothing. Never mind, I thought, maybe tomorrow. I got on the train and after about 15 minutes I had a call from Mum. She said “Hello Dr Bean”. I was quite confused, I knew Track was blank, and I just thought she was being a bit presumptive about Notts. I was wrong. Peninsula offered me a place!!! EEEEeeeeeee!!!! Since I was on a train I knew I couldn’t really scream, but then totally out of my control my eyes started leaking and I was crying all over the place. I don’t normally cry, especially not with happiness, so I felt a bit of a ninny crying on a train and was getting some very odd looks. Apparently Mum had checked again just before she logged off the computer (can you see Track obsession runs in the family?) and had seen the golden words Peninsula – Conditional. I was loon grinning for the whole ride home, and actually have been since I found out, and expect I will be for quite some time. After ringing round friends and family and sharing the good news, I didn’t quite know what to do with myself. What with all the unspent adrenaline from my interview and now this good news, what I really wanted to do was jump up and down, but that’s a bit hard to do on a train. The girl opposite me offered me a celebratory cookie, which was nice, but not quite the same somehow. Of course, the person I really wanted to tell was Mr, but I can’t because he is still in France, but he’s going to be so excited.
So yesterday at work I got to tell lots of people and re-live it all again – suffice to say I didn’t get a lot of work done, I was simply too excited. Mum sent me a link to a stethoscope I want – it’s purple!! And I bought my first textbooks after scoping the threads to see what would be useful – Oxford Handbook of Clinical Medicine and Grey’s Anatomy Flashcards so I can start learning bits before I go.
We had a meeting with the head of Employee Benefits, the division of JLT Group I work for, who told us about our financial position at the end of the last year and improvements we need to make moving forwards. Imagine my surprise when our Consultant Client Manager told the EB heads that one of the changes we’ve made to improve systems is by having the retirement tracker. Hi, that’s me. *Shock* You shouldn’t say things like that in front of such important people, what I do can’t possibly be that important, right? This is just a holiday job for me. 0_0
Anyway, it also bonus work at time which has traditionally been a time where everyone gets individual short meetings with their manager and told that they haven’t got a bonus this year, and from the murmurings I’d heard about people who’ve already had theirs, this year wasn’t any different. In the big boss’ eyes, he pays us to work hard so he shouldn’t have to reward us for doing our jobs. When my manager called me in, I was expecting the same, so I was very, very surprised when he told me I was getting a pay rise and £250 bonus this month for working hard. That will certainly pay for some textbooks :) I actually didn’t think this week could get any better but, when I got back to my desk there was an email saying we’re having a dress down day this Friday, and a reminder that I’m going to see Mitch Benn on Friday evening. I don’t know what I did to deserve a week like this, but I am so happy, it’s amazing. Please don’t let something happen to bring me back to earth with a bump for a while.
Monday, 22 March 2010
Fret Fret Fret
So, another week of fretting, surprise, surprise. I am soo tired this morning. Last night was the worst night’s sleep I’ve had in ages. I seem to have gone back to thinking that I’m not good enough to be a Dr, why did I want to do it again and maybe I should just stick with what I know as a Project Officer. I was also a little dismayed to see that I had forgotten a whole week of March. I thought this week would be the last week, so the PMS decisions would be given out by Friday, but there’s still most of next week in March as well. Rubbish. It doesn’t help that mr is going to France for this week and so won’t be around to help calm the fretting bean. Also, what with his leave weekends and the train strikes, it’s looking like we won’t be able to see each other for another 5 weeks. There’s no one on my bank of desks this week, I’m sure no one will notice if I just curl up under the desk and go to sleep for a while.
I’ve been having really strange dreams this week. I normally start sleep walking when I’m nervous, so it doesn’t surprise me. One night I dreamt my boss had died suddenly at work the day before. I woke up crying and I was so upset, I really thought it had happened. He comes in later than me, so I was trying to work out how I could tell if it had actually happened or if it was only a dream, as obviously no one was going to be talking about it. The next night I was trying to work out how to send loaf cakes, cupcakes and flapjack to mr at Sandhurst. Then last night I had a letter from Peninsula saying I had scored 35 points at my interview and they were offering me a place. The extra points that had decided it had come from the rifle shooting round of the interview, but could I please not bring my rifle with me to Uni. I haven’t done any rifle shooting for a very very long time, so I’m not sure where that one came from. Silly bean.
Last week went very quickly indeed. We had a dress down day and bacon baps on Wednesday for St Patrick’s day fundraising for charity. Mufti days are actually just as exciting as they were when you were in school, it’s silly. Although for me it’s more that I get to wear jeans and a hoody and be warm and comfy at work for once. Everyone’s much happier at work when it’s dress down and there’s a proper Friday feeling in the office. Which therefore makes it very confusing it not being a Friday 0_o
When it actually came to Friday I totally did not have the Friday feeling (although we did have popcorn Friday on my team, which helped a bit as the guy that does it makes the best popcorn in the world, salty and sweet, mmmmm). I got asked to do a rush job fixing and updating a report to make it fancier. This took all day and meant I didn’t get anything done that I was expecting, although the geek in me does enjoy playing with formulae and spreadsheets on projects like this. The admin manager I did the report for was so pleased he asked me to email it to the other admin managers to show them how clever ‘he’ is in sorting out this report, so I am fully expecting emails saying that’s good, can you do it for my team too please. When I came in today though, I was pleasantly surprised to find he had copied me in on an email to my boss telling him what a good job I had done. Bean mutters a humble apology for thinking bad thoughts about said admin manager.
The weekend was spent organising bits for Notts, shopping and playing tennis and baseball on the Wii. I am determined to beat mr next time he’s down. I’m nearly a pro at tennis with 702 points. Bean on a mission.
That’s all from me for now. Tomorrow Bean’s going up North! (I am from Devon, there is no Midlands, it is merely a myth. The North starts above Bristol – Geography according to bean.) Have a good week and good luck to all the other Notts GEMers.
I’ve been having really strange dreams this week. I normally start sleep walking when I’m nervous, so it doesn’t surprise me. One night I dreamt my boss had died suddenly at work the day before. I woke up crying and I was so upset, I really thought it had happened. He comes in later than me, so I was trying to work out how I could tell if it had actually happened or if it was only a dream, as obviously no one was going to be talking about it. The next night I was trying to work out how to send loaf cakes, cupcakes and flapjack to mr at Sandhurst. Then last night I had a letter from Peninsula saying I had scored 35 points at my interview and they were offering me a place. The extra points that had decided it had come from the rifle shooting round of the interview, but could I please not bring my rifle with me to Uni. I haven’t done any rifle shooting for a very very long time, so I’m not sure where that one came from. Silly bean.
Last week went very quickly indeed. We had a dress down day and bacon baps on Wednesday for St Patrick’s day fundraising for charity. Mufti days are actually just as exciting as they were when you were in school, it’s silly. Although for me it’s more that I get to wear jeans and a hoody and be warm and comfy at work for once. Everyone’s much happier at work when it’s dress down and there’s a proper Friday feeling in the office. Which therefore makes it very confusing it not being a Friday 0_o
When it actually came to Friday I totally did not have the Friday feeling (although we did have popcorn Friday on my team, which helped a bit as the guy that does it makes the best popcorn in the world, salty and sweet, mmmmm). I got asked to do a rush job fixing and updating a report to make it fancier. This took all day and meant I didn’t get anything done that I was expecting, although the geek in me does enjoy playing with formulae and spreadsheets on projects like this. The admin manager I did the report for was so pleased he asked me to email it to the other admin managers to show them how clever ‘he’ is in sorting out this report, so I am fully expecting emails saying that’s good, can you do it for my team too please. When I came in today though, I was pleasantly surprised to find he had copied me in on an email to my boss telling him what a good job I had done. Bean mutters a humble apology for thinking bad thoughts about said admin manager.
The weekend was spent organising bits for Notts, shopping and playing tennis and baseball on the Wii. I am determined to beat mr next time he’s down. I’m nearly a pro at tennis with 702 points. Bean on a mission.
That’s all from me for now. Tomorrow Bean’s going up North! (I am from Devon, there is no Midlands, it is merely a myth. The North starts above Bristol – Geography according to bean.) Have a good week and good luck to all the other Notts GEMers.
Wednesday, 17 March 2010
Calm Before the Storm?
Last week I noticed a deep sense of calm in me. I was smiley happy all week from a combination of small things: the fact my shoes click when I walk in the office (when I was little I couldn’t wait to be grown up and wear shoes with heels that clicked like Mummy’s shoes, and now I do :) ), I bought a new cardigan from Topshop the weekend before and it has a waterfall front which swishes nicely when I walk and I had a quiet week where I got to solve a lot of people’s small IT issues as it’s like a little win for me each time. They normally aren’t very difficult problems, but I like helping and they have such a big smile when I’ve fixed them.
I found myself switching between thinking ‘Of course I’ll get in, why wouldn’t I get in, my interview went well’, to ‘Well, what will be will be, I can’t change it now, I probably haven’t gotten in because I should have said this and this, but that’s alright because I probably wouldn’t be any good at being a Dr anyway.’ I noticed on New Media Medicine that someone interviewed the day after me had an offer, but she was an undergrad, so it didn’t stress me that much.
It was also an odd week because mr (my bf) was off on exercise all week from Monday to Monday evening and incommunicado. It made me feel like I was kind of on hold all week, wondering what he was up to, hoping he wasn’t too tired and watching the phone in case I had a call to say he’d been pulled off injured. I find it quite strange going from functioning fine on your own to suddenly realising that you care this much for another person that isn’t family and it seems to have snuck up on you without warning.
The weekend went quietly, just like the week really. I got my car insurance sorted and saved £100 by adding Mum as a secondary driver. Score 1 for me :) We went for a nice pub lunch for Mother’s Day, she loved the chocolates I got her for her present and I got some nice lentil and pasta soup made for lunches. Buying lentils is actually quite difficult, believe it or not. Having never tried them before, I thought I’d be brave, but this led to me spending a good 10 minutes with a packet of green lentils in one hand and a packet of lentilles vertes in the other and trying to work out what the difference was between them and wondering if I was just being silly or if the world had conspired on a big joke without telling me. I was actually looking for brown lentils, which are not green lentils or even foreign green lentils. I found out after Sainsbury’s in their wisdom store the brown lentils in the world food section, not with the pulses and other lentils…obviously o_0 But I still don’t know the difference between green lentils and lentilles vertes. I did have a slight geeky moment when describing the only discernable difference between the two to a girl I give a lift to work was that green lentils are smooth and lentilles vertes are like Mendel’s wrinkled peas. *Hangs head in shame, spot the Biologist?*
The start of this week couldn’t be more different. I feel calm, but I think my body is just fretting at a really deep level. I keep waking up every two hours when I’m asleep, all the traffic in the world is on the roads when I’m trying to get to work, so the 15 minute trip is taking me 45 minutes, people at work keep stopping me to ask if I’ve heard anything, my Notts interview is next week, I’m very light on work which leaves me sitting doing nothing while people prepare stuff for me (I hate not being busy) and mr keeps falling asleep on the phone when I’m talking to him (makes me feel mean, like I’m keeping him up) – all in all, this makes for a stressed bean. Peninsula decisions soon perhaps? I really really hope so. I read Internal Optimists blog and I wanna do that!!! There’s a little bean in my head jumping up and down and pouting and stamping her feet because she wants to know now and wants to be reading textbooks and journals and learning interesting things and poking people, now. Arrgh! Patience is so overrated. Pretty please Peninsula?
I found myself switching between thinking ‘Of course I’ll get in, why wouldn’t I get in, my interview went well’, to ‘Well, what will be will be, I can’t change it now, I probably haven’t gotten in because I should have said this and this, but that’s alright because I probably wouldn’t be any good at being a Dr anyway.’ I noticed on New Media Medicine that someone interviewed the day after me had an offer, but she was an undergrad, so it didn’t stress me that much.
It was also an odd week because mr (my bf) was off on exercise all week from Monday to Monday evening and incommunicado. It made me feel like I was kind of on hold all week, wondering what he was up to, hoping he wasn’t too tired and watching the phone in case I had a call to say he’d been pulled off injured. I find it quite strange going from functioning fine on your own to suddenly realising that you care this much for another person that isn’t family and it seems to have snuck up on you without warning.
The weekend went quietly, just like the week really. I got my car insurance sorted and saved £100 by adding Mum as a secondary driver. Score 1 for me :) We went for a nice pub lunch for Mother’s Day, she loved the chocolates I got her for her present and I got some nice lentil and pasta soup made for lunches. Buying lentils is actually quite difficult, believe it or not. Having never tried them before, I thought I’d be brave, but this led to me spending a good 10 minutes with a packet of green lentils in one hand and a packet of lentilles vertes in the other and trying to work out what the difference was between them and wondering if I was just being silly or if the world had conspired on a big joke without telling me. I was actually looking for brown lentils, which are not green lentils or even foreign green lentils. I found out after Sainsbury’s in their wisdom store the brown lentils in the world food section, not with the pulses and other lentils…obviously o_0 But I still don’t know the difference between green lentils and lentilles vertes. I did have a slight geeky moment when describing the only discernable difference between the two to a girl I give a lift to work was that green lentils are smooth and lentilles vertes are like Mendel’s wrinkled peas. *Hangs head in shame, spot the Biologist?*
The start of this week couldn’t be more different. I feel calm, but I think my body is just fretting at a really deep level. I keep waking up every two hours when I’m asleep, all the traffic in the world is on the roads when I’m trying to get to work, so the 15 minute trip is taking me 45 minutes, people at work keep stopping me to ask if I’ve heard anything, my Notts interview is next week, I’m very light on work which leaves me sitting doing nothing while people prepare stuff for me (I hate not being busy) and mr keeps falling asleep on the phone when I’m talking to him (makes me feel mean, like I’m keeping him up) – all in all, this makes for a stressed bean. Peninsula decisions soon perhaps? I really really hope so. I read Internal Optimists blog and I wanna do that!!! There’s a little bean in my head jumping up and down and pouting and stamping her feet because she wants to know now and wants to be reading textbooks and journals and learning interesting things and poking people, now. Arrgh! Patience is so overrated. Pretty please Peninsula?
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