the marriage state

From waking up, I forget my dreams rapidly, unless I try and hold onto their memory.  All I can remember from this dream is that I was trying to contact a friend (X) on their phone, because I had recently heard that he wanted to get married, and I was trying to ring him on his actual wedding day.  So the first time I called, he answered and said something like "where are the caterers?" and then I was like, "hello?" and he replied that he would call me back.  And I was wandering around through this house, which had a lot of white furniture, like a house I once saw in another dream, it had white bannisters, and lots of white chests of drawers... there was a roof window thingy and it was sunny and it was very pretty.  Anyway, then I became involved in some argument involving a younger kid overstepping their boundaries, quite what it was I do not remember.


And then I thought, fine, it's been a few hours, maybe X has gotten married now, so I rang back and instinctively knew who his new bride was, without any prior knowledge and without X's saying.  So I wanted to know what was the sudden haste to get married and why did he not tell me?  "Because I really love her" was his answer.  And then I said," well, I'll say something generic like "when you know, you know""... and apparently, X had known her for a long time  (in real life, they do know each other and I do not like the girl) and one day was making her dinner and suddenly "it clicked that [he] loved her".

- - -

So, what the moral of this dream is, I am very unsure.  But maybe it just means I want to know if anyone has any big news.. and not be left in the dark.  And that this person who got married in my dream is probably very unlikely to get married anytime soon, as he is a) a serial womaniser (or used to be), b) indecisive and c) fickle.  Maybe it just means that I miss talking to this person.












Image from google images

you're the heart that i call home

Hey everyone,


Not been doing much since I wrote last.  Started my BSc on Monday, it's not been so bad so far.  My flat is finally tidy, I sorted out my files from the first three years.  I watched The Nanny Diaries, with Scarlett Johansson (I have no idea how to spell that).  For a long time, I've always thought of Scarlett as a very Marilyn like actress, without the drama in her life.  She can look like Marilyn, and she is a good actress, although how I know this without watching any of her films is a little weird.  So I thought I'd rectify this situation and watch one of her films.  The Nanny Diaries was cute, it made me cry at the end and it shows you that sometimes you just need to escape reality to realise who you are and what you want from life.


Went to see District 9 yesterday at the cinema.. I know there were rave reviews because it was something different, the mockumentary style and handheld camera use is relatively novel in cinema world.  I was scared, typical, by the violence... it was a little bit excessive to be honest.  But to be fair, if you had an alien hand, you'd try to get rid of it too. Especially if you've spent ages trying to evict the aliens from District 9.  Yes, you would.  And it glamourised swearing a little bit too much I think.  Yes, it made it more real but I just thought it was a bit over the top.


So it went well at the beginning, Wikus tries to evict aliens, sometimes it works.. then one alien realises that he needs 24 hours notice... Wikus confiscates some black liquid that takes a very long time to distill and accidentally gets some on him.  So it slowly transforms him into an alien.  I DID like it, I just didn't buy the whole "please make me human again, I know it's going to take three years, yes take me to the mothership.... but I'm going to sacrifice myself for you Christopher so you and your son can go to the mothership without me".


Wikus reallllly wanted to become human again, so that he could see his wife Tanya again.  And he begins to empathise with the aliens, especially after his encounter with that Nigerian leader.  But ultimately, he makes a huge sacrifice as he becomes wholly alien at the end. Christopher and his son did not truly recognise the sacrifice he made, they just go to the mothership without rescuing any of the other aliens, who all move to District 10.  Wikus does not get to see Tanya anymore.  Christopher's son doesn't even stick up for Wikus, even though I thought they were bonding.  Wikus' mobile phone lasts a lot longer than any normal phone would do, especially if you've been running a lot and changing clothes, moving about lots and falling lots.


And the whole language thing.  We're going to have to get pretty smart to be able to understand alien language, which wholly seems to be based on phonetic sounds and recognising different sounds and their intonations.


BUT I know what it does do.  It paves the way for a possible District 10.


It highlighted the theme of xenophobia exceptionally well I thought, with the clear hostility towards the aliens and forcing them to pay lots of money for cat food, moving them into shacks and then evicting them.. But when all is said and done, it was a good film, sure it had plotholes but I liked it.  It wasn't just for pure CGI glory and shoot out violence.  I liked the undertones of segregation and prejudice.


I've not dyed my hair yet, for lack of time and lack of decision making.


Found out a couple of things recently, not really sure how much detail to go into here.  But needless to say, I let my heart rule over my head more than I should do.  I just go into things based on my feelings and instincts, I judge a lot of things by how I would feel personally in that situation or what I would do, instead of going for the most logical thing.  And I think, well if someone said something about me, I think I would like to know.  I would rather know and deal with it, rather than not know and wonder "what if".  Do you understand what I mean?  I think I'd rather be upset by something, which someone could have prevented by not telling me, because then I would at least know and come to terms with it.


But sometimes it is a good thing with the heart ruling over head thing.  It helps me.


But knowing something when you gained information when you should not have i.e. reading someone's facebook messages is not right.  One of my friends is trying to woo a girl, unsuccessfully so it seems.  And the only reason he knows it is thusfar unsuccessful is because he guessed her facebook password and then continues to read her mail.  Shocking.


I have a crazy amount of suture thread and sterile gloves, and syringes and cannulas.  I sorted out my stuff today, there is lots of it.  And there are lots of loose suture threads still left at home: when surgeons suture internally, a lot of the time they just use instruments and the follow technique, without use of a needle.  And for some reason, I have loads.  Maybe I can give them to my OSCE tutees.  Assuming I get some.


Oh.  I also got History of Medicine.  Several people have commented how they didn't expect me to pick a specialist course.  And it made me feel a bit... unsure because a project sounds interesting, but I know I want to do HoM.  There will be time to publish later, but no time later to learn about history of medicine.  And I have made it one of my goals before 30 to get something published.  So I will do it.


Oh yes, what is this new A* for A Level system?  When is it introduced?  I think it is a great idea, but also a bad idea.  It further discriminates university applications, who can see the breakdown of marks anyway.  So many people get A's now so I know something further is needed.  But surely, to get into university, it doesn't matter how many A's you get, especially if you want to study a course that is oversubscribed (which is what all the A Level success/failure stories seem to be about), it is about the application.  So sure, you can have 10 A's but that doesn't mean you can get into Oxford or Cambridge.  You need to be a good all round person too.


What else can I ramble about?  As part of my very rare attempt to educate readers in my style of music preference listening, I've been looking on youtube for a video that a) won't get taken down because of copyrights and b) that reflects positively on my music tastes.  So here we go.

how ya been feeling, how ya been feeling?

Firstly a dream.


There was a shiny black car driving around, erratically without a driver in the driver's seat (?) but it was being controlled by someone, a guy, but I don't know who.  And I was refusing to imprint on it, (by that I mean change its colour psychically) but this guy was relentless and then I gave in, and it became a baby pink colour.  Don't ask me how.


And then I was in a tutorial with the people from my Endocrinology firm at CX, with K, one of the SpR's who's probably had her baby now.  And she was telling us how she wanted to focus on the immunology aspect of endocrinology, and she had submitted a paper on it whilst she was in Canada.  It was the end of the tutorial, and we seemed to be saying "goodbye" as opposed to "see you next tutorial", in one of the H rooms (History) at my school.  So we left early, and I was commenting to A about how I used to hate it when teachers let us out late of class, because the next class would be queueing up outside the room.


(At my school, we used to move to different classrooms for every lesson.)


I gathered it was lunchtime, but then suddenly it was the end of school - the time passing wasn't a big deal to me in the dream - and I met E, a girl I used to know three or four years ago, so we got chatting on the way to the school bus home, which we both used to take, catching up over what had happened.


So we got to the bus, and some of the kids were annoying the bus driver, and he was threatening to leave without letting them on.  So anyway, I was like, please can we get on, I'll stop them annoying you, but I found that the first step was too high for me :(  so this boy helped me get on.  I made my way to the back, where my group sat, and I saw D doing her maths homework, using one of those... what are they called now?  STA?  SPA?  Anyway.  They were maths textbooks we used at school, and they were about 1000 pages long.


Then the bus left, and I remember checking the time and it was 15.36.  My sister wasn't on the bus so I rang her and she said she had lost something, but refused to tell me what it was, and wanted to ask a teacher to locate it for her, as my school had this tracking system to locate stuff that was lost, (not in real life!) and I told her, "how are they gonna know it's yours?"


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Back in London now!!!  Got a couple of days before I go back to uni where my BSc awaits me...  It's going to be weird to get back into lecture mode, after a year of hospital related activities.  I'm going to miss hospital :(  But obviously, not the hours.  I am glad to have normal waking up times.


I've been having chest pain when I breathe :( (can't remember if I mentioned this before, but oh well) and it really hurts, but isn't there all the time.  It's also been moving about, and I had it checked out by the GP who decided it was musculoskeletal pain.  So that's why I haven't been doing much, or talking much.  Just, y'know, recovering and watching lots of films and trying to avoid packing for London.  I hate packing, even more than unpacking.  At least with unpacking, you know you're just taking stuff out.  Packing (for me at least) involves putting stuff in, and taking it out to rearrange it or compress it or make more room or take stuff out :(


But I did it eventually.  There must be some special gene, that codes for amazing packing skills and finding ways to fit everything in instead of sitting on the suitcase and forcing the zips to close.. seriously, that's what I do.


Helped my sister move into her uni halls - her room is like mine was except a little smaller.  She had loads of stuff and we had to drag it up two or three flights of stairs because her halls have no lifts.  NO LIFTS.  I don't know what it's going to be like when she moves out again...


Got to figure out what to get a couple of people for their birthdays.  We've never really given A a proper birthday celebration, like with cake and an actual present.  His birthday falls early in September, so most of us aren't around and we've not gotten him a present in the time that we have known him.  So.. suggestions people?


I reallllllllllly hate organising things for my friends.  I love them, but it's such hassle sometimes.  Some people just don't reply, some people are insanely late, some people just don't turn up even though they said they would... and friendship politics blurs things a little bit.  But we must all have a huge reunion, after summer, before people go off to their new Masters / degrees / jobs / lives.


Also, I'm going to dye my hair in the next few days.  Every time I do it, I think "I'm never going to do this ever ever again".  I hate the smell of the dye more than anything else, and that's what makes me swear off doing it.  But then after time passes, I think, mm, why not?  So it's been a year since I had these "never again" thoughts, maybe it's time to try again :)  I've done it purpley and browny in the past.  This time, I am hoping for a reddy/browny color.  What dya think?  The thing is, having black hair means that most dyes aren't (very / at all) effective and I don't want to dye it permanently because then you have to wait for the colour to grow out, i.e. the dyed hair has to grow long enough so you can cut it off.


P is currently in chocolate land, aka Belgium, a fact I have been lamenting, because a) I want to go abroad again and b) I want some Belgian chocolate.  So I have been promised purchases of Belgian chocolate.  He's back on Saturday :)  For those who don't know or who I haven't told yet or who are just curious, he is in the very last stages of thesis completion, which is in "Galerkin projection of discrete fields via supermesh construction".  (I have NO IDEA what that is.) 


Theses (?) are submitted and read by an internal examiner, and by an external examiner, both of whom must be familiar with the work you're doing, but not familiar with you, and you have a "viva" where presumably they ask difficult questions to prove you actually wrote the thesis and know what you are talking about.  Passing of the viva indicates you are now a(n academic) doctor :)


Normally, PhD candidates have 3 years of funding or scholarships but the deadline where you must absolutely hand SOMETHING in is 4 years.
P hopes to do it within the next couple of weeks, thereby becoming the first student in his group to submit on time (on time being within the scholarship funding time).  I have read his thesis, "read" meaning looked at it briefly.  He is incredibly eloquent though, the result of reading lots and lots and knowing everything.  I have been angling for a thanks in the acknowledgement, but didn't think I would actually get one as I have not contributed to the thesis in any way, except to point out one grammatical error.


But, not to sound boastful, here it is.

The last word of thanks goes to Carol – her kind soul furnished me with a world outside of work, and thereby kept me sane.

It made me a bit teary to read that, at the end of a very emotional acknowledgement of everyone else.  A LOT of people got mentioned, and their thankyou's are much more eloquent than that for me, but not as meaningful for me.


Aaaanyway, this is probably a very long post, much to say and update.  Hope you are all well!!!

20 questions

1.Thing you cannot leave the house without
Depends actually.  I often go out without my phone if it's just to the supermarket or if I just don't want it near me.  I leave money at home if I don't want to spend anything while I am out.  I guess... keys.  Yes, otherwise I would never be able to get back in...


2.Favorite brand of makeup
Don't use make up that much.  I buy Bourjois make up when I do though.. it's made by the same people as Chanel apparently.  Or is an "in house brand".


3.Favorite Flowers
Roses :)  Or tulips.  No, wait.  Orchids!


4.Fav clothing stores
Pimkie, a European clothing store whose clothes fit me better than English stores' clothes.  Topshop is good though, for everything, even though I hate venturing into the one on Oxford Street - it's too big and the clothes aren't really ordered.


5.Fav perfume
Lancome Hypnose


6.Heels or flats
Flats - I have bad balance, and can't wear big heels :(


7.Do you make good grades?
Er.. yeah I guess so


8.Fav colors
Pink, purple, pastelly colors


9.Do you drink energy drinks?
No, they're full of caffeine aren't they! Bad for the heart and skin and all that.


10.Do you drink juice?
Yes, if it's all natural.  I don't like drinking it if it's fortified with loads of processed sugars.


11.Do you like swimming?
 Yes, I used to be really good at swimming and I could swim 25m front crawl in 12 seconds... we used to have timed swimming every term to see who was the fastest and the teacher would write it down in her register book thing.  But now I'm not so good anymore


12.Do you eat fries with a fork?
Yes, I don't like getting my hands dirty and/or greasy


13.Whats your fav moisturizer?
Ponds moisturiser


14.Do you want to get married later on in life?
Yes, eventually.  I think most people aspire to, but whether it works out or not is up to them


15.Do you get mad easily?
I'd like to think I have a fairly un-mad temperament.  Things make me mad but it passes quickly.


16.Are you into ghost hunting?
No?


17.Any phobias?
the dark.. according to thephobialist.com, that's called "lygophobia": fear of being in a dark place. Check it out.. there are some very extraordinary things you can be scared of.


18.Do you bite your nails?
Yes, but not so much anymore


19.Have you ever had a near death experience?
My sister driving badly... but other than that, no


20.Do you drink coffee
I can drink it, I mean, it's not wholly unpalatable to me, but I don't make it a regular thing.


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I like these tag things.  Maybe you guys get to know more about me.  Thoughts?  Or any more tag games you'd like me to do?