keep telling yourself that "i'm a diva!"

Do your friends ever do something that makes you want to give them a bit of a shake and wake up call?  I hate it when people are obviously looking for attention and affection, as if the number of tweets or likes/comments on a facebook post indicates level of affection.  After studying the personality disorder classification in psychiatry revision properly and in depth, it made me link them with people I know, just so I can remember them a little bit.  I tried not to do it, but the traits reminded me of some people I know.  Anyway, I am not entirely sure what I want to say.  It's obvious what is going on, they're going through a rough time, they don't love themselves as much as they could, they're reaching out a lot and getting rejected and therefore more hurt and are unable to lift themselves out of it easily.

It's not because I have any malicious intent at all, it's just distant concern for them.  I don't think it is my place to do anything, because I am not as close to them as other people are and thus advice from me may notbe as useful as it would from someone else.

Maybe it's just down to insecurity.  We each have our own insecurities, and maybe this person just feels like they might be defined by a relationship, and that they need someone else's affection to feel like a whole person, because their general situation isn't so fun.  Just because I have a boyfriend, that doesn't mean I have no insecurities.

i've got a rock and roll house

Not blogged much recently; study is taking a big priority, and I've just been so tired recently. On a critical care placement at the moment, which I am really enjoying, but I want to give a higher priority to my own study.  Met one of the coolest consultants ever whilst helping on a BBA course.  I got to have fake make-up applied to me, which made up 15% total body surface area burns.


Critical care is very interesting: almost considered it as a career, but I am not sure that it's for me to be honest.  Ward rounds at 8am are killing me: I have no idea how I left my house at 6.30am to go to my GP placement back in January, or how I stayed up for 38 hours for labour ward, but clearly I have been spoilt recently, as waking up at 7 is tough :(


Went to see Pirates of the Carribean 4 on Friday: Rotten Tomatoes had given it bad ratings, but usually I pay no attention to ratings.  I prefer to make my own opinion of films.  I enjoyed it a lot: the storyline had a lot of threads that came together at the end and there wasn't much backstory to a lot of the new things introduced, to be honest.  As a continuation of the third film, it doesn't really follow much at all except the map of the Fountain of Youth is in it, but it works as a standalone film.  Characters are meant to progress right?  There were a lot of funny lines, a lot of cool effects and it made for an interesting film.  Thought I spotted Amanda Seyfried as the mermaid but Wikipedia tells me I am wrong.  It was Gemma Ward. :(


Feel like I'm being pigeon holed into my film likes.  Went to see POTC4 with 2 of my friends, and they expressed surprise that I wanted to see the new X Men film (First Class).  I've seen the triology and I want to know what happens. Okay, of course I know what happens but I want to see how it pans out.


The reply was that I'm not into comics, which is true.  I would be the first to stand up and say comics don't "speak" to me like books or films do.  I mean, I watched Iron Man + Iron Man 2, Spiderman 1, 2 and 3, all the Batman tv series and films - okay, I can't currently think of any more comic book characters that have films - without knowing any of the back story at all.  (okay, except the first Batman film.  But that's because all the main bad people get together and do bad things to Batman and Robin.  Oh how times have changed.)


Apparently, I have a funny knack (note: FUNNY) of summarising film plotlines into one or two lines (according to the boyfriend).  I mean, maybe I just look for things in films that other people don't care so much about.  So yes, maybe people are right to know already what kind of films I want to see (it's worked so far.  Never seen a film I did not enjoy.  Except Burn After Reading.  That was rubbish) but most of the time, if I can't find someone to see a film with, I'll just wait and download it.


I think I just need to see these "guy" films with my boyfriend, like X:FC, Captain America: The First Avenger, Spiderman 4 : he's read comics in the past but is not totally au fait with the whole goings on so at least I won't feel stupid for not knowing who is a comic character and who isn't, and who is related to who, and also I enjoy his mocking commentary of adverts a lot and how they falsely represent whatever they are trying to advertise.  I am not saying girls can't enjoy them too, by the way.


I have complained at length at how I don't want to be seen as "one of the guys" and how sometimes I feel singled out as a girl, AT LENGTH, in the past.  I wrote about 5 paragraphs about it in this post, and then deleted it.  It's all there somewhere.  When I feel like this, I just say something about it to my boyfriend, and when he was away last year, I made a second blog (which is still up) to write about my feelings more freely.


On a more cheery note, I got gifts!  Made my night, it did.


Carol xxxx


PS. by "much", I mean more than a paragraph and "live".  Most of the time, they're prewritten from weeks ago.

it's like looking for a treasure when it's already mine

So with great enthusiasm, I watched the Royal Wedding; had made plans to watch it at a friend's house but it fell through and so just ended up watching it at my boyfriend's house, streaming it on the BBC and/or youtube.  Me and a couple of other friends who have twitter were tweeting during the ceremony - there were so many people doing a live commentary!  The hashtag, if you care, is #royalwedding .  It goes without saying that I loved it immensely!!!

Been sort of... down recently for many reasons.  I guess it's the study getting to me.  I wish I could cope better, and that I believed in my (small) ability better.  It's just.. too many things and I sort of withdraw and shut down if I feel down about too many things.  It lead to me writing the post which I published just before this one, then removed it.  The first paragraph is the same though.

Met one of my friends from school last week - he had an interview with Accenture, who gave me free stuff once for winning a prize (long story), so I approve.  Basically, I have had conflicting views about viewing our friendship in the past and have acted with my heart rather than my head on multiple occasions.  Suffice to say that I am now glad that we are mature adults who have coffee together in Paul. (I love Paul.  I always say "I love Paul" when we talk about that store - guaranteed).  Hopefully it will not be several years before we speak again!

This Live Below the Line thing is incredibly hard.  I have relied on donated food A LOT and not included it in my budget.  I realise this is not within the rules, but I intend to do the five days.  Just not all at once, maybe one day at a time.  The reason for this is because of social occasion, and my circumstance.  I am a small BBC/V girl, with a fast metabolism.  It gets a bit scary sometimes and almost GP appointment worthy.  My boyfriend and I were talking about fasting - he can fast for 4 days without food (just water and some disgusting olive oil/liquid thing mix) and I can fast for 22 hours.  I tried it once during BSc revision time, just for fun really.  I went 22 hours without food, and suffered psychosomatic symptoms of blacking out and fuzzy vision.  I know I know they are psychosomatic symptoms and it's because I can't handle the idea of not eating food for a long period of time.  Apparently, the way I view hunger is basically out of proportion to my situation and if I calm down, then I can go longer without food.  I wouldn't like to, and I thank my lucky stars every single day that my parents came to this country.  (The story of how they ended up here is quite long too, and not for public reading).  I thank my lucky stars every day that I live in a society where I can live with freedom and have the choice to eat a varied diet.  I am incredibly thankful - a massive sequence of events had to happen so that I can live this way (not in a societal way, in my parents' timeline).

Anyway, I am rambling.  I can't go without food for more than 24 hours.  Believe me, I have tried.  More than once.  It's desperately unhealthy, but I like (weirdly) to set myself challenges to push myself.  The not eating thing was one of them.  The weird eating habits was one of them.  The decision to stay up for over 30 hours on three separate occasions in 10 days was my choice - I wanted to prove to myself that I could pull an "all nighter" and not suffer badly.

So I am doing the Live Below the Line challenge, but slowly and my own way.  But I am doing it!!  I have spoken to some people about it actually and I think they're just unwilling to break out of their comfort zone and think about the cost of food they eat.

I anchor values quite a lot - this is obviously evident when you ask me how much I spend on food, or what is a "good salary" and a "bad salary", and what is an "expensive house".  My ideas about money and price are distorted because of my anchoring - it is what I have known and what I have seen.  But it has shown me what money can do to people, and just how important it can be, and how unimportant it can be.  A lot of my attitudes towards buying things has come from my upbringing - I do not regret it at all and I have never been able to properly explain what I mean by my attitudes towards money.  As with most of my procedural memory, I cannot explain what I mean......

i want your everything as long as it's free

Sometimes I find it odd that we hide part of ourselves away, and yet make it obvious in a different medium.  Don't pretend like you've never ever done it.. browsed someone's facebook or twitter or whatever social media thing they have, just to see what they look like now, or what they have been doing recently.  Sometimes, some of the things that might come up might be a surprise to some people, or a confirmation of character.  It's so passe (plus accent on the e) to stalk someone online (I can understand looking for people on facebook just to see if the face matches the name and then you realise you did know all along who they were).

I suppose the point of this is to say that people can hide parts of themselves away, but sometimes you can guess some of it, or all of it.  My boyfriend and I were once talking about what 'friends' mean, and he said something about a study or a theory concerning friends where part of the theorycriteria is that you can guess their mindset in different situations.  I forget what it is exactly, and I am too lazy to go and ask him, so we can therefore proceed with the idea that friends can guess what their friends would do in certain situations.

Recent events have lead me to believe that there might be feelings between people I know, whether or not they want it known, I am not entirely sure.  It's sort of hard to explain what I mean here without going into specifics.  Or maybe it is just my willingness and readiness to want my friends in relationships.  My boyfriend also jokingly remarks sometimes that some of my friends should get together, as they seem well suited (from what he knows of them and what I have told him about them) as then I would have a wedding invite guaranteed (see previous posts).  But it is more than this, (not just the fact that it would halve my wedding invite count -_- ...) sometimes I really do feel as though my friends have feelings in the romantic department for people I know.  Whether or not they are friends I cannot say as that would give too much away.  Call it crazy, call it unfounded or call it female intuition..

two can keep a secret if

In reference to my twitter, I locked it for a while, so I had time to go through it and remove tweets pertaining to my friends / personal information, and to avoid any drama.  Now satisfied that I won't post anything with anything that would easily identify my movements / where I go / what I do etc.  Still unsure about protecting the tweets though (that's what it is called)... I am a bit mercurial about this point.  I need direction.


I feel that being at university, it sort of prolongs your state of not grasping the full concept of what it means to be an adult.  I have mentioned before that I see adult life being one where you pay taxes, and have a pension and are making serious decisions about the future.  I feel like that phase of adulthood is coming upon me soon, and so it's lead to me bringing up the topic of the future with people, and where they see their lives going, including where they want to live, how many children they want, what they want to do in the future.  My stance is that it is nice to daydream about things that have not happened, and to be prepared.  It won't do to have a life in front of you that you have not really thought about.  But... those decisions seem so big and so far away, and recently, some friends and I have been discussing it.  Mentioning no names, there is someone who doesn't want her future husband to have his own bank account, and she wants a pre-nup saying she will get a major portion of his future earnings.  I relayed this to my boyfriend, who said she will never get anyone to marry her if that is what she truly believes.


Surely it makes financial sense to spread your assets and keep your own bank accounts, but when marriage happens or if a very steady state of relationship is assured and marriage is not necessary, you could set up a joint account, but also keep some of your monetary assets elsewhere.  Her thinking makes no sense.


Over the past few months, I have encouraged people to 'get married soon', in a half jokey half serious but that kind of thing is a serious commitment.  I could never imagine getting married more than once - although this is not a certainty in this day and age - so I want to be sure before I do get married, and though I encourage people to think about marriage in their future, I want them to be sure, and also to be happy with whoever they marry.  Starter marriages are becoming more and more common, because that ideal of the happy life with a happy family is being pushed on us more and more by the media.  I feel like films depict a false representation of what it is like, and people rush into what they think is their ideal future, without really thinking about the consequences.


A little bit glad it's been getting sunnier; spring is truly here when you really cannot predict the weather.  I am always one of those people that goes out dressed unprepared for the weather, such that I am too cold.. and then I have the radiator on full all the time in my flat and so feel a bit too hot.  Have been having bad headaches recently, aggravated by the light :/  I've been having bad headaches and bad dreams every day for about a week now.. not so fun.  I think that it might be because my mind is too active in the day, and I probably do not eat properly, particularly when my boyfriend goes away.


Been having a very productive week - been looking for a new skincare routine for quite a while: I keep adding to it, and seeing how things go, and I stay with the same brands.  Saw this thing in one of those free London magazines a few months ago about the best things for different requirements of skin care, so been doing my research and finally got some things. I still amn't sure whether it's weird that I buy anti-ageing things: I have been doing so for about 3.5 years; whether or not it has made any difference is unknown.  I had a consult a while back, and things seem to be going alright?  I don't look too old yet!


Finished O&G this week... it's been one of the best clinical attachments, where you bring new life into the world and are fully involved in every step of the patient's care.  I have enjoyed it so much, but I am glad for a break now.  The hours were not amazing, staying awake for 30+ hours three times in 10 days makes you feel rubbish, it turns out.  I have no idea what I was existing on, as my diet suffered during that 10 day period so badly.  Your body only has a limited supply of glucose and glycogen, right?  So I must have been using up my fat, and therefore losing weight.


Was at a friend's house: he has a balcony and it's nice to sit out there when it's sunny and when the sun is just setting.  We always have interesting conversations: I like to converse with people who are open to talking about topics I talk about.  I can talk politics, economics and current affairs to a limited extent, but I prefer not to air my politico-economic opinions because it just gets into murky waters where people judge you for believing a certain thing.  I like to have my confidante (is that even a word?)  Sometimes it helps me to process things by talking out loud about them (with the ever recurring phrase "d'you know what I mean?") or writing about them.


Feel like I haven't blogged for quite a while, nothing about my life anyway.  There has been music and fashion and pictures but nothing about how I have been.  I mostly blog when I feel sick or when I am tired and can't really concentrate on study, and then save the posts so sometimes you see a load of posts posted regularly.  Guess I've been a little down recently, tired and whatnot.  I always put on Just Dance by Lady Gaga - it never fails to get me dancing.  I love it! ♥


Excited about the new Gossip Girl episodes.. only 5 left in this season.  And there's some way I can download BBC iplayer things without needing to watch it via bbc... watch this space.  If it works, I will write about it!  Been in a very talky mood... my boyfriend says that it's because I learned to talk early, so that I could get my opinion across.  And ask for cake...


Been listening to The Pierces recently; they have a very haunting and old-school style to their music which I can't quite put my finger on.  They sing about quite varying things but very well.... Sort of folksy-rock.


Anyway.  Enough rambling!


Carol ♥
xx

isn't this a pretty advert? (from google images)

Poverty is the worst form of violence - Gandhi

How do you feel about the way you live your life now?  Do you feel like you have enough food and enough water?  There is a significant proportion of the world's population who survive on such a small amount a day (£1 a day for food and drink).  The £1 amount is taken to be 'the line', thus 1.4 billion people are living below the line.  How can we, in the developed world, truly appreciate what this means for them?  It is only circumstance that separates us.  We should count ourselves as very lucky, in that we live like we do, and we have the means to by whatever food we like, and can choose what to have for a meal.  A lot of people I have spoken to about this challenge fall into several categories:

1) they are indifferent to the cause and the whole point behind the challenge

2) they are not interested and make up some excuse about why they cannot undertake this challenge

3) they are interested but make up some excuse about why they cannot undertake this challenge

4) they are properly interested

Challenge - eat/drink for less than £1 for 5 days

It is only for 5 days.  I can voluntarily choose to live this way for 5 days.  Over one billion people do not even have the choice to live like this: they have to.

You might say... well, what is this going to achieve?  It will raise awareness of the meaning of poverty - you cannot know what it is like until you try it, and even then, it will only hold a fraction of the truth because we will still be able to travel freely and have a safe place to go to during the day or night.

Can you break out of your comfort zone for 5 days to do this LBLuk challenge with me?

Live Below the Line is an incredible new awareness and fundraising campaign that's making a huge difference in the fight against extreme poverty.

Quite simply, it allows thousands of people in the Global North to better understand the daily challenges faced by those trapped in the cycle of extreme poverty, and builds a movement of passionate people willing and able to make a meaningful difference for those who need it most.

The week of Live Below the Line is a week like no other. From 2-6 May, thousands of people across the UK will spend just £1 each day on food, and use their daily experiences to bring extreme poverty to the centre of conversation in homes and workplaces. We'll all be challenged, we'll struggle without caffeine, and have a faint feeling of being not quite full for the whole week. We'll pool money with housemates, colleagues or family to make that one pound stretch just a little further...

We'll do all of this because whilst we choose to struggle to Live Below the Line for one week, there are 1.4 billion people who have no choice other than to do it every day.

Think about that figure - 1.4 BILLION - that's over 20 times the population of the UK - living every day to live in the most abject poverty.

"It's not that bad," you might say - "£1 goes a lot further in developing countries". - Unfortunately not. The £1 figure represents the amount someone living in extreme poverty in the UK would have to live on.

And for people who live in extreme poverty that £1 has to cover far more than food and drink - we're talking everything - health, housing, transport, food, education... It's impossible to imagine, but it's the incomprehensible reality for an incredible number of people.

Also, please play on www.freerice.com  By getting answers correct (AND learning new words), we can help to donate rice through the World Food Programme.  10 grains might not mean much to you, but it can go a long way to help those who need it most.  Even getting 20 answers is 200 grains of rice.  If 1,000 people did this per day, in a year this would become 73,000,000.  And I am fairly certain you will agree that this is A LOT.

Carol xxx

livebelowtheline.org.uk (quote from this site)
twitter.com/LBLuk
facebook.com/LBLuk (images from this site)
youtube.com/user/livebelowthelineuk

give me a dancefloor

An eventful few days have elapsed,.. I use the word 'eventful' in a very loose way.  Hung out on labour ward clerking everyone there and watching sections and assisting in sections.  I really enjoy the atmosphere on labour ward.  I love how everyone is happy to help everyone else, I love that it is always busy and there is something going on, even when there are no actively labouring women.  It seems like a big family.  People I have spoken to in the past and recently have had mixed reactions to being on labour ward, but I can honestly say I have never had a less than positive reaction.  I have never been turned away from a birth, I have always had something to do.  I never left my shifts early, and in return for my dedication to being there, I got a lot of opportunities.  I've been able to scrub into quite a few sections, often where I have acted as the assistant surgeon (as opposed to the fourth scrubbed up person around the table: 2 doctors + scrub nurse).


As part of an ongoing process to redecorate and change my blog, I have removed some more entries, or parts of entries.  A few months ago, we received emails from the medical school office saying that our actions in the social media are important, and that we should maintain patient confidentiality.  I have removed people's names and changed them to initials (as far as I was able to) and removed personal information.  Over the past couple of days, I have been more vigilant about doing this, further removing more and more entries and images, and I locked my twitter for a while so that I could go through and remove any tweets alluding to where I live / where I go etc.  Someone who is fairly close to me was involved in an incident involving confidentiality - I wrote 

I want it to be publically known that I do not spread gossip concerning my friends, especially where it can be used with malicious intent

on my twitter.  Friendships can be formed easily or slowly at university.  The way people act now does not always correlate with the way people acted back then.  There are a few people of my acquaintance who may not act in the most appropriate manner currently, but there is some redeeming feature for them in my eyes, in that they have done something for me which has meant a lot to me.


I know what it is like to be gossiped about; it is something unpleasant and you can only wait for it to die away itself.

i've been looking for a new direction

Eagle eyed and avid readers will notice that quite a lot of blog post titles come from song lyrics, and sometimes the relevant youtube video appears in the post.  This has been something I have done ever since I started this blog, over 4 years ago, although there has been an obvious move to different types of posts.  The statistics tab always amuses me... to some extent, I can see where my readers are from, and how they got here to reading certain posts.  I was not aware that people in the Netherlands like to repeatedly refresh the page...  And it confuses me somewhat about how people come by this blog.


Been catching up on Gossip Girl.  This season (season 4) is split into two halves, where the first one is where Katie Cassidy plays a character who tries to get revenge on one of the main characters, Serena, but it is resolved in a most extraordinary and unbelievable manner.  To explain it would involve a huge backstory, and you probably need to watch Gossip Girl all the way through - I don't feel it is a show where you can just start when you like.  This half revolves around the sale of a company belonging to one of the other main characters... maybe Gossip Girl is just riding out its successes in the past and coming up with poor plotlines.  Gossip Girl doesn't even feature anymore.  And megavideo is annoying.  I watch 15 minutes then the clip insists I have watched 72 minutes, the grand sum of my daily allowance.  Does anyone know how I might bypass this interference?  I suppose I could just download the episodes....

Of late, P and I have been watching Sherlock Holmes, which was on TV in the 1980's or something.  We've only watched four episodes, in about 2 months.  Anyway, they are very good - the actor who plays Holmes, Jeremy Brett, is considered to be the definitive Sherlock Holmes, with great command of facial expressions and perfect eloquence, despite the fact he had speech issues in his youth.  I have come up with theories about how each episode pans out (as each is unrelated to the next) and they are always totally wrong.  Maybe it is just my imagination.  The solution is always logical and just requires some thought.  I quite like it though - the story lines are always very clever, and interesting.  It is more than people being murdered or crimes being committed.  Watson also appears to be at Sherlock's beck and call, appearing to have no job of his own.... he claims to be a doctor, but really, is he really?


I was 'speaking' to a friend through the medium of e-mail about something I feel passionately about... in the past, I have alluded to ideas of eating disorders and psychiatry in general, and why I find it interesting.  It angers me that people still take such a negative view of a medical speciality, and it offends me even more that people whose opinions I care for fall into this category.  I know that you can never get everyone to agree with you, or to see your point of view, but it is a little callous especially when people have had indirect experience with the result of a psychiatric diagnosis.  It made me annoyed, so I wrote an email that took me a long time to write - which is silly.  Normally, I just write like I speak.  It comes out a little rambly, and I don't delete many things, save huge grammatical or spelling mistakes.  But I found it hard to phrase politely and succintly what I was trying to say.. a loss of eloquence / loquacity is a sure sign of that "difficult to phrase" feeling.

One of P's flatmates is trying to woo a girl he likes, and has been trying for some time now, and has failed spectacularly.. or so I feel anyway.  He is Canadian, and perhaps it is just his loud and brash manner that is preventing their potential relationship from forming, and he is too much in the friend zone.. having missed his opportunity.  I don't claim that I am good at relationship advice, and relationships in general.  I have never asked anyone out, I have never been on a proper date, I have never really followed any conventional rules regarding relationships.  But it provides great storytelling when this flatmate tells us of his endeavours and the new ways he is trying to get her to like him.  It seems to be a little bit high-school.. well, more than just a little.  When we were in high school, I suppose relationships are made by the communication between what seems like two camps.  The girl's friends and the boy's friends exchange messages from the girl and boy and somehow they co-ordinate a date.  It's even less than high school.  Maybe middle-school / early teens.  It just seems so childish, looking back.  P has told me a lot about his university pre-London life, and there, girls used to just date every guy in their friendship group, which I find totally bizarre and something I could just never imagine doing.  But nevertheless, whatever my feelings are about P's flatmate's personality etc, I still hope he ends up with someone.


Going to Southampton, just for the day, this weekend - one of my friends lives near there and she works for a branch of the government which reports on data (or something?) and has a contract to work there for 2 years, and then will move to another part of England to do a similar thing, again for 2 years, and so on.

It will be lovely as I have not seen her properly for a long time and I have never been to Southampton.  I also have a very restless feeling inside, and I have had it for a few days - when I sit down to work, I can only concentrate for a few hours at a time and then I need to get up and do something else, and then perhaps I might return to it later on in the day / evening / whatever.  I can't really describe how I feel.. it just feels like a restless feeling (like akathisia is a syndrome marked by subjective inner restlessness... except it's not as extreme as that.  I have no weird movements) and for some reason, I feel that going to see my friend will help.  I think I have been working myself too hard since I got back to university from the Christmas holiday.  I worked really hard over the holiday and I guess never really had an extended period of time when I could just do nothing (extended being a few days...?) partly because I had a lot to get through, and partly because I feel guilty when I haven't done something productive work-wise that day.  Even though this will be just one day - hopefully it will be enough.


I need to learn to relax properly.

apparently these are real - this Dutch man treats the roses with "natural pigment"....
(from google)

xoxo
C

reconciliation?

Being a student of something that has the effect to change people's lives and to make them feel better is exciting.  The ideas behind medicine are constantly evolving, and theories have been proved or disproved, depending on their foundations.  It was not so long ago that in Western medicine, the idea of the four humours was the dominating idea, with an imbalance leading to illness.  Now we scoff at those ideas, the idea that some herbs can help cure the body.


Growing up in a household that largely shunned Western medicine, apart from the ubiquitous cough/cold/flu medicines, always makes me reconsider medicine.  After all, now Western medicine is starting to look to traditional medicine, to see why exactly things work and can cure sickness.  I am eternally grateful that I have had this upbringing; it has followed me to university, where I have a half drawer full of Chinese medicines.  It is acknowledged that traditional medicine has many of the answers that western medicine searches for.. but the more.. let's say "traditional" methods are still queried.


For example, I have a medicine section of one of the drawers I have in the chest of drawers in my flat.  I do not use medicine much / often but it is there just in case.  It mostly consists of Chinese remedies, including aniseed stars to stave off bird/swine/normal/any flu, ginseng (which is real), a cream which is the cure - all for all external conditions and Kwan Loong, which is my most favourite medicine.  It has a strong minty smell, and cures pain.  I use it if I have bad stomach pain .. the smell of it is strong enough to make me cry because of the very strong mint / eucalyptus smell.  When I was young, my dad always rubbed it on my tummy, so it is probably no surprise that I like it so much.


The idea of the four humours is still prevalent in the ideas behind the medicine my parents use.  I use cupping, which I've written about before, but I can never really eloquently explain what I mean.  I am not sure if it works; the set my mum got a few years ago came with a DVD and one of the uses of cupping was apparently to lose weight.  I didn't really think it was true.  It feels nice though.  It looks odd to have your skin sucked into suction cups, but it feels strangely good.  I think it must mostly have a large psychosomatic effect, because I like to use it because it feels nice, not because I think it is the ultimate cure.  I am open to these ideas though, and perhaps they do play a small part.


I often worry about telling my parents that I do not feel well, as if I am home, they brew up some mixture of flowers/roots/seeds/plants or all of the above +/- some other strange looking things.  I always drink these things knowing that they do not taste good, yet they seem to work.  This then brings in the question of how much can the mind do to affect the body's status.


Once, I found a book at home which was talking about the pros of a vegetarian diet (It was called, Eat Green Lose Weight) and one chapter talked about an experiment where they split a group of participants into three groups.  One practiced shooting basketball hoops every day for half an hour.  One group thought about shooting the hoops for half an hour every day.  The third group did nothing different.  It was found that the second group did just as well, if not better, at shooting basketballs through hoops.  Perhaps it is a similar concept...

i can't tell you what it really is

The lack of life posting is because nothing exciting is happening in my life.  I am a bit homesick as it's been a long time away from my home.  Just finishing the end of my Musc / Derm firm.. thinking about what Christmas gifts to buy (why does it get harder every year!?!) and trying to organise a dinner before Christmas to see some friends.

Hmmm.... I have refrained from speaking about the student fees protests so far.  I walked by the places where the protests happened last week.  I don't want to get into a huge rant but I find the violent protesters to be incredibly disrespectful and disgraceful.  I know they were only a small proportion... but all the same.  Violence, in my opinion, does not solve anything, and I cannot believe that the Cenotaph was defiled.  Even if some things in the protest could be justified, the boy who was photographed on the front pages of most of the newspapers at the weekend, even the broadsheets, showed a complete lack of respect for those who gave their lives for this country.  It makes me a bit angry; he is a Cambridge history student, and I hope he will be reprimanded upon his return to Cambridge in January.  It totally lowers the meaning of what it is to be a student at a very prestigious university, and it goes to show that there is a fine line between being famous and infamous.  And Winston Churchill's statue.... Both these monuments are NOT related in ANY way to student tuition fees; why can't people respect history and understand that these monuments have a purpose?  They are not merely decorative.  It made me angry to see those things on TV and I had to leave the place where I was watching it and I believe my most uttered phrase that day was "it's completely disrespectful!"

Excited about Christmas... I've been hearing stories that it might snow these next few days?  Hope I can still get home okay..

Hope you've all been well!

C x x x

"Love me when I least deserve it, because that's when I really need it" - Swedish proverb

Body image is a very big thing for people as they are growing up; they become more aware of who they are and how they relate to the world.. how they are seen, how they fit in and so on.


I feel as though the media has too much a pervasive command of people's thoughts, by promoting a certain body shape.  The ideal body shape changes with time and is different in various cultures.


It is this control that makes it hard for me to talk about how I feel, and to share with people what I think.  It bothers me that I get preoccupied with my body image sometimes; this is one of the things I am most reluctant to talk about with my friends.  National health education schemes push an anti-obesity and anti-too-thin approach and this makes it hard for me to speak freely about how I feel; I am worried about being judged.  Largely, I don't care what people think yet I feel like this is some sort of taboo topic.


I can't remember if I have mentioned this already, but a few weeks ago, a friend once said he felt about something the way I felt about obesity.  This hurt me a bit, and I have not brought it up since with this person.  This is for several reasons; I haven't felt brave enough to bring it up and I'm not sure whether I care enough to bring it up.... Even though they may have meant it trivially, I am not sure whether I care enough about this person's opinion enough to want to encourage them to be a little bit more open minded.


The way I feel about obesity, and in fact, all weight issues, is because I have problems with the way my body looks.  I fluctuate along a fine line of "dealing with it" but sometimes I have a dip :(


I will probably remove this post in a few days; I can't decide how I feel about publishing it.

it goes on and on and on....

Last Tuesday, I finished my Psychiatry rotation (apart from an ethics presentation and a revision session).  I think you can tell by the number of posts I have mentioned it in, that I have enjoyed this rotation a lot, and it has affected me a lot, both positively and negatively.

one    two    three    four     five

I will miss it a lot: I brought one of the patients I had gotten close to some chocolate, and wished her well in the future.  I always felt that in Psychiatry, it can get hard to maintain a proper doctor patient relationship, because the patient seems to let you into their life a little more, more than a normal other speciality doctor patient relationship.  I guess Psychiatry had a very profound effect on me; I hadn't really had any experience in this speciality before, and it is something I would like to explore in the future.  It seems to be a sort of 'dumping ground' for the things that other specialities in medicine do not want, like dementia or learning disability.  But I feel as though Psychiatry has taken them up well, with good team working and the like.


Went out with some friends towards the end of the week; it was good.  Sometimes I just get this feeling where I really want to go and dance, so this was very well timed.  I thought I wouldn't have heard of a lot of the songs, which was true, but equally, I also knew quite a few too!


At the end of the week, I went to the North, to my boyfriend's brother's wedding.  It was held in the place where I had my "debs" (as it is known in Ireland) so it was lovely to see that everything was still the same, and that I could recognise all the places.  On the Friday, we got in quite late, and then went for dinner.  The wedding was on the Saturday afternoon, so I drank all the complimentary tea for lunch to stave off hunger (it failed) and had a hot bath, then got ready :)  The actual ceremony part was very short - I suppose I just had preconceptions from seeing them on TV or whatever that the ceremony would be quite long.  Maybe it was because it wasn't very religious.  It was a little nerve wracking to meet the majority of both sides of P's family, and had trouble remembering everyone's names.  Yes, there were that many of them.  It was such a good first wedding.  Now here's to the next ones!... yes, you reading there... please get married soon and invite me!


So this week has been my 'consolidation week' which I used to, er, consolidate... This week has been one huge blur, and now it is Friday (at time of writing),  All the days have meshed into one, where I have slept, studied, eaten at the wrong times and been rained on a lot.  I finally opened my graduation present - it was a little artificial as I knew what it was already and there wasn't anything I wanted. (although, there is now).


I think my conception of present receiving / buying is a little unconventional to other people's.  I don't think that Christmas represents the buying of presents, and now I am legally recognised by the state as an adult, I don't feel I have a right to ask for Christmas presents from my parents.  So Christmas doesn't mean buying presents for my family (sorry family).  Surely, the whole religious concept behind Christmas is to celebrate the birth of an important religious figure.  I know it is celebrated a bit early, and the timing is a little bit off and also stolen, but the idea behind it makes sense.  It seems okay for a religion to want to celebrate what they think is the birthday of someone important to that religion.  So buying a present.. that does not really represent a birth does it.  A present does not have a birthday itself, so it doesn't make sense.


But I have no qualms about buying presents at random times.  Sometimes it is just good to treat yourself after a long spell of very hard work.  A reward system, if you will.  So whilst the things I want to buy for myself may coincide with the time that others do Christmas shopping, I am not buying myself something for Christmas.  Does that make sense?


I find present buying a very difficult affair generally anyway, because I never know what to get them.  I haven't gotten P a present for a very long time; we called a gift amnesty so we don't get things for birthdays, anniversaries, Valentine's Day, Christmas, graduation, passing of PhD's etc.


But I may heavily hint at the Lanvin x H&M collection; I do this quite a lot but a lot of the things I want, I just have a passing want of.  I want them but then time passes and I feel that the amount I want them reduces significantly so that I don't want them anymore.  But you know, a girl can always do with more dresses.  And Lanvin designs great clothes :)


I was on the bus the other day, and it just happens to go past a football stadium (sometimes).  There was a Champion's League match on, and half the road was blocked off. No one looked happy, and it got a bit rowdy and ambulances were involved.  I never really understood the emotional investment that people put into football.  You can buy the clothes, the merchandise, the tickets, the books, you can go to all the matches but still, the players will not know who you are, they will not acknowledge your spending (well, they might in the fact that they like the fact they go home in top of the range cars).. they will never say thankyou to you... There is something unique to football, unlike any other sport, that reduces people's mentality in a way.  People support teams that belong to cities or towns they have never been to, or were not born to.


I can understand that people might want to support the team of the place where they were born.  You know, home loyalty and all that.  But a lot of people I know support the most popular teams.  Is that just because they know they will win, so they can share somehow in that glory?  Or is it because they genuinely believe they are very good?  I have asked a few of my friends about that, but maybe they are too proud and their support is so long established that they won't like to admit that 'their' team has done badly.


(That's another thing.  I can never imagine being so invested in something such that I would refer to it as though it were mine, e.g. "we played badly today", when in fact, "we" means "the players I do not know in real life")


I can also accept that people may be brought up supporting the same team as their parents / family.  A lot of people are introduced to football in this way.  But similar to religion, where people are brought up (generally) in the religion of their parents.  But you grow up and you form your own opinions and then you can choose whether or not to keep being a member of that religion.  So if your parents bring you up supporting one football team, does that mean you need to keep supporting them?


It is one of those things I feel I will never understand.


This song was playing a few times when I went out last week.  I had heard it before, and realised I did know it.


This is a cover version of the song, which I quite like.  This song in general makes me want to get up and dance :D


Hope you are all well!!!!
Carol xxx

"there is no sincerer love than the love of food"

In Psychiatry, there are elements of various psychiatric presentations in many patients.  I have seen a few who have eating disorders.  The criteria is various, and this is the ICD-10 criteria.  These criteria are one version that psychiatrists use (as well as DSM-IV.  These will be updated soon to ICD-11 and DSM-V)

For a definite diagnosis, all the following are required:

1. Body weight is maintained at least 15% below that expected (either lost or never achieved), or Quetelet's body-mass index is 17.5 or less. Prepubertal patients may show failure to make the expected weight gain during the period of growth.
2. The weight loss is self-induced by avoidance of "fattening foods" and one or more of the following: self-induced vomiting; self-induced purging; excessive exercise; use of appetite suppressants and/or diuretics.
3. There is body-image distortion in the form of a specific psychopathology whereby a dread of fatness persists as an intrusive, overvalued idea and the patient imposes a low weight threshold on himself or herself.
4. A widespread endocrine disorder involving the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis is manifest in women as amenorrhoea and in men as a loss of sexual interest and potency. (An apparent exception is the persistence of vaginal bleeds in anorexic women who are receiving replacement hormonal therapy, most commonly taken as a contraceptive pill.) There may also be elevated levels of growth hormone, raised levels of cortisol, changes in the peripheral metabolism of the thyroid hormone, and abnormalities of insulin secretion.
5. If onset is prepubertal, the sequence of pubertal events is delayed or even arrested (growth ceases; in girls the breasts do not develop and there is a primary amenorrhoea; in boys the genitals remain juvenile). With recovery, puberty is often completed normally, but the menarche is late.

I got these from http://counsellingresource.com/distress/eating-disorders/anorexia.html, via google, so apologies if they are not correct.

It's a bit harrowing.  I have had preoccupations with food in the past, and I took the Eating Attitudes Test.  I originally found it via the wikipedia article for anorexia nervosa a few weeks ago, but I could not find the link for it on this page, but this link has the same questions.


My score worried me slightly :(


Carol


(quote by George Bernard Shaw)

sorry is an afterthought. i am not an afterthought

たぶん私は十分な少年ではない。


私は、コンピュータゲームをしない時々私はローマの合計戦争や他のゲームをプレイPを見るのが好きです...ダークオーメン？ボールドアのゲート？私は正確にどれを忘れてしまったが、私はそれを見て知っている。 Geman一？何か少し彼が彼の兵士のうちの一つが印象的です多くの成功、しばしば、死ぬせない情熱的な取得方法については愛情があるようです。私はどのように演じ方を知っていると私は、あなたが徐々に国を引き継ぐどこに（？）が、これらを再生する私の生来の自然の中ではないことイベリアゲームをプレイすることができます（が、それが正しい話す兵士とは？）と言うすべてのほとんどのことを知っているゲーム。私は、それらを再生することができます知識は能動輸送ではなく、浸透を介して受動的に得ていた。どのような印象を私は過去に与えている、私がいないコンピュータゲームをする人を見下す/私はそれを行うために使用するものであり、また、ゲームボーイだったにもかかわらず私は、そう私の休暇中に年齢を過ごすと思います（理論的には）ゲームコンソール事前にエミュレータと私はスーパーマリオとカービー（私はおそらくまだソフトウェアが働いている場合は、私はそのゲームを追加しました。それは雲だった）遊んで好きに使用されます。私は、人々はあまりゲームをコンソールで再生する方法を理解していないので、おそらくのためのI'を理論的には'と言う）/戦争銃を持つコンピュータの人々を殺して私の嫌いな/ etcおよびb）私は貧しい人々の手に目を光らせているコーディネーション。しかし、これらの時間は私の友人と私はPS3で再生するために使用、私はゴミだったが、私は友人とだったので、楽しかったです。また、誰かを殺すために私の失敗の大部分は、私はのようにしたいので、だった"と椅子を見て！oohのは、ショップ、部屋をああ！"そしてビッグバンは、私が射殺されると思います。


彼は'オタク'だから私のボーイフレンドは、'クール'されていることを言われています。両方の単語に関連付けられているステレオタイプがあるので、私は一重引用符を使用しており、私はどちらもそれらを偏向または補強しています。私はしない彼がコンピュータゲームをプレイできないことと私は遊んでの彼の意見に影響しないゲームは言った。我々は、お互いの生活を制御することはありません。私はよく彼が（彼の博士課程でやったことを正確に理解するために過去にしようとした手術の単語をされて'試し'..も書き直さバージョンダウンはあまり私のためにされた（：）、その付属の私の非常に基本的な、限られた知識をコンピュータプログラミングが010（101はもっと基本的なように）。ことで広く（上記参照）OSとしての'オタク'を使用すると考えられているLinuxに私のスイッチ来た。そして、コンピュータといえば...私は、1つを持ってはい。しかし、私は、プロセッサとグラフィックスカードとコンピュータの内部を構成する部品についてのことを知らない。


私が'クール'に何人のステレオタイプではないことを、私は'オタク'ではないという事実を説明するためにこれらの異なる例を使用しています。しばらく前に、私の友人の一人は、私は彼らが話していることに対して何に興味を持っていなかったので、私はしなかったように感じたと述べた。私はそれがちょっと差し出がましいとビット不公平だと感じた。私はそれらをプレイしていた場合私はコンピューターゲームをチャットすることができます！レッツトークスーパーマリオ、私はあなたにすべてのショートカットを伝えることができます。ニンテンドーWiiを話し、私はプレーする方法私はあなたを伝えることができるしてみましょう。私は政治をチャットすることができますが、私は非常に不透明な水が、常にそれを見つける。私はまだ多くの問題は、環境に起因すると主張している。私が投票したと私はイギリスの成分を保証最もトーリー席に住んでいるという理由だけで、私はそれをしませんでした。それは少し錆びているが、私は、非戦争の歴史をチャットすることができます。私は医学の歴史をしたので、私は実際には、歴史をやったのは、その新たなスピンと私は私は西洋と東洋医学と思うときに感じる並置ありません。


ほとんどの時間、私は会話のトピックがされている参加することはできません。しかし、それは私に無関心なことはありません。それともは？私の友人と私は受け入れること（彼らは私たちが興味が異なっていることが好きです。悪くされていることは）これらのことについて話しています。私は誰もが異なる利害を持って受け入れ、私はすべてのそれは'無関心'のラベルを再送私は十分にそれらについて知っていないと私は余分な車輪のようなビットを感じる私は話題には参加できないということですがこれらのトピックは、会話を支配し、私は観客のような詳細を感じる。それは私のgirlinessを実現するこのような時代です。






What I wanted to say got totally lost in translation.

"the meeting of two personalities is like...."

Our personality is what makes us who we are and what makes us interact the way we do, and see the world as we do.  It is one of our very unique characteristics, and is very hard to define precisely.  I came across these a few weeks ago when starting Psychiatry.  It was interesting to read the clinical criteria for narcissistic personality disorder (which is in Cluster B) as I had drafted a blog post about this PD (personality disorder), and wrote about how I could see it in some of my friends.  (It was inspired by the Evening Standard Friday magazine, ES, which I get mostly for the fashion)


So here they are: (courtesy of Wikipedia)


Cluster A (odd or eccentric disorders)
Paranoid personality disorder : characterized by irrational suspicions and mistrust of others.
Schizoid personality disorder : lack of interest in social relationships, seeing no point in sharing time with others, anhedonia, introspection.
Schizotypal personality disorder : characterized by odd behaviour or thinking.


Cluster B (dramatic, emotional or erratic disorders)
Antisocial personality disorder : a pervasive disregard for the law and the rights of others.
Borderline personality disorder : extreme "black and white" thinking, instability in relationships, self-image, identity and behaviour.
Histrionic personality disorder : pervasive attention-seeking behavior including inappropriate sexual seductiveness and shallow or exaggerated emotions.
Narcissistic personality disorder : a pervasive pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration, and a lack of empathy.


Cluster C (anxious or fearful disorders)
Avoidant personality disorder : social inhibition, feelings of inadequacy, extreme sensitivity to negative evaluation and avoidance of social interaction.
Dependent personality disorder : pervasive psychological dependence on other people.
Obsessive-compulsive personality disorder : characterized by rigid conformity to rules, moral codes and excessive orderliness.




Without referring to anyone in particular, I recognise a lot of these things in people I know. It could be argued that PD is just the end of the spectrum of personality.  Just as it is hard to define, there are many facets to one's personality, such that we each have a little bit of some traits, a lot of some and none of others.  Personality is a spectrum, and so PD can be seen as just the extreme.

Do you see aspects of the above in people you know, or even in yourself?


Carol
xo

".... the contact of two chemical substances.  If there is any reaction, both are transformed."

Carl Gustav Jung

try something new today

I am a proud patron of Sainsbury's.  I do the majority of my food/household shopping there.  I tend to base shopping on looks, thus I don't shop places where I don't like the layout of the store... I don't buy something from an online website if I don't like the way it is laid out.  But my local Sainsbury's is very familiar to me - I should think so, the number of times I have been there!

But I can't really taste any difference between the normal thing, and the more expensive thing.

Except for cookies.  Although I'm not sure I would spend lots of pennies on cookies.

Many supermarkets have own brand cheap and own brand expensive foods, but often the latter is more unhealthy, and you can taste the fat / oil / grease / sugar and it makes me feel bad.

What do you think?  Do you think it's worth spending the extra money to get a "better" product? 

Carol

xxoo

there's something going on anywhere i go tonight

It has been a very full week this week, and I've been really glad to have a lie in :-)  I don't even know what it has been, but this week just seems to have been very hectic.  I am a little sad my Psychiatry attachment is over in 2 weeks; it seems to have flown by.

One of my friends spent a lot of money a few weeks ago for several reasons - nothing bad - and we were talking about money management, in a sort of roundabout way.  He told me he had £80 to live off for 12 days, and wasn't sure how he would manage it.  I am not sure if it is due to my thriftyness or frugality (?) but I am fairly sure I could manage on that amount for that length of time? (rent excluded)  Non rent shaped money just goes on travel and food, and then entertainment related things if there is money left over.  I just didn't understand why he thought he wouldn't be able to manage on that amount for so short a time.  Maybe people spend a lot more than me on things in general.  I buy lots of supermarket own brand things because it's cheaper and often it is a lot healthier too, but it still comes to a normal amount that you pay for food - I think I just buy a lot of it.

I try to budget every week, and unless I need to buy a travelcard for the month, I usually manage alright.  I would not say that money is there to be spent, and I do not think that experience of having no money makes you more likely to spend it more.  I do NOT come from a rich family, whatever things may seem like.  My family does NOT have much money, and the money that I do have has come about from lots of saving, and not buying expensive things, not spending more than I need to on things and being smart with investing.  Money I have to spend on things I like comes about from me budgeting for myself, and being strict with myself about spending on certain things.

So whilst I might /want/ a Vivienne Westwood purse or a bag from ASOS or whatever, these wants are mostly fleeting, and I realise it would not bring me much enjoyment from buying these things, as I could have spent the money better.  I do think that growing up in an enivronment where the importance of money is made very clear from a young age is hugely beneficial - the things I have wanted / needed in the past that cost a bit of money have come at a price.

Whilst I sometimes lament the fact that I don't get physical gifts for my birthday or for Christmas, I then think that there isn't anything I would want anyway.  Now I am (in body) an adult, I feel as though I am responsible for buying the things I want for myself, and so I usually only ask for things from my parents rarely, and if I can't afford it, or if there has been some special occasion, like A Level results.  But not receiving physical gifts is fine now... I haven't gotten anything for Christmas for 5 or 6 years now, except gifts from P... I like getting gifts but it does not bother me that I don't get things.  I would never ask for something from my parents for Christmas, unless it was something I /needed/ as opposed to 'wanted'.  For the things I like, if I feel as though I can afford it, then I buy it for myself, as a gift for myself.  I bought my own birthday gifts, I can buy myself something little for Christmas.

Christmas is becoming more and more and more commercialised every year, and soon children will only associate this time of year with getting gifts, rather than what it actually means.  Because I am not a Christian, the Christmas period now means a time when I can go and see my family - a rarity in itself.  I value that significantly higher than any physical thing I could ever receive.  I don't like how stores are putting out their Christmas things out so early, trying to get people to buy things.  Christmas is NOT about spending crazy amounts of money.

Without the need to preface this paragraph, as I think I have addressed it elsewhere, I don't like to be told, 'oh, you won't like 'x' because you're a girl'.. well, why don't you ask me my opinion first before you assume what I think about it?

And lastly, hope you're all well!  Time for bed now!

Carol xx