Rebuilding

My poor computer has had enough. It has been going steadily downhill over the past few weeks with more and more problems like refusing to start, freezing and crashing in the middle of work. The usual things that are really annoying.

Today I ordered the first parts for my new device - 4gb ram from crucial. They seem to have a special offer on at the moment making it about £40 less than I expected. When I manage to raise the rest of the funds I will spend a fun day building, and then a not so fun week resetting my system to normality. The question is, do I upgrade to windows vista, or stay with XP?

Silly Things I've Done - Part 1

Just ran home with a dodgy leg, back and throat. Can't stop coughing, but the back and leg don't hurt much which is a bonus. I may feel this tomorrow.

Theatre Practice

My theatre practice session was yesterday afternoon, and I had a brilliant time. So many things made it great - small group size, interesting content, practical content we will use at EMS, and fun instructors.

There was a little confusion about scrubs and exactly how much clothing could be worn. I think we may have embarrassed our poor nurse asking what could and couldn't be worn. In the end we decided on underwear only! At least the changing room wasn't too cold. We were given a quick tour of the surgical ward, then split up. My group headed off to hand washing first.

For the first scrub of the day it should take 6-9 minutes to wash your hands. We were following the counting technique - 30 scrubs on the front and back of the hands and 20 on each side of the fingers, not forgetting the webbing. I found the most difficult parts were remembering to use the elbow to pump the hibiscrub and washing afterwards. My elbows didn't want to point downwards so soap was just sticking to my arm.

We were then shown the proper way to gown up and put on surgical gloves. I didn't have a problem with this and found it surprisingly easy considering I hadn't done it before. The rest of the group and the nurse were sure I'd been practising before or something.

The second section was naming instruments, and there were a lot of them. The regular stuff like Mayo scissors and haemostats were fairly easy to remember, but the various types of retractors threw me for a bit.

I only hope the rest of the practicals are as much fun. I fear the diagnostic imaging computer practical on the physics of imaging may be less thrilling.

Bluetongue

In my current useless state I took to surfing the net for the new and found this. Bad news!! The case has been confirmed by DEFRA, but it is not confirmed as an outbreak yet as there is only 1 case. Bluetongue plus FMDV is all we need at the moment. I really feel for any farmers down South.

Larygitis

Well I can't speak. Not any more. I of course blame the Freshers. Must heal quickly.

Survived

Work is over for another week and everyone survived intact, even the customers. Friday night was a bit of a bad time, but Saturday reminded me why I enjoy my job. Friday was a night with noone really in charge. I was senior at the bar, but not in charge. NL is a supervisor too, but he's only been there for about 3 weeks now. All very confusing. Today's shift was more like the good old days where everyone knew what they were doing and when. But then again team Saturday Day is amazing.

Well I'm meant to be doing something tonight, but I can't remember what. So I'll wait until people find me and ask where I am. Maybe a nap or a walk up the seat is in order. It's a nice night.

MRI Results

The hospital has written to me and said my head isn't going to explode any time soon. The MRI looked normal to the nice doctor type human. Rather happy. I'm still going to see if I can get my hands on a copy though.

First Day

Actually today was the second day, but yesterday was really not very exciting. Today we were introduced to pharmacology, pathology and the surgery section of the course, and I'm glad to say it all looks really interesting. Except for pharmacology which just looks scary. My timetable isn't too bad just yet - quite a few half days, or at least some form of a break in the morning. I'm not entirely sure what to do on my break apart from go for a walk. At Summerhall there is always somewhere I can find to hide from everyone else because its in the middle of the city. At Bush there are less places to hide, especially on a rainy day.

I'm also perplexed by the message I have just picked up - apparently we are required to wear steel toe-capped boots tomorrow, not steel-capped wellies. I thought the entire point of the wellies was to use them through the years. Plus I'm due in classes in less than 12 hours. When exactly am I meant to find, buy and break in new shoes? Confused. This practical course looks like great fun though, and really interesting. Can't wait!

Nearly Ready

Well it's back to Uni tomorrow, although an easy first day. We first have to register and see various people about being in 3rd year, then a quick lecture on diagnostic imaging, then lunch before the 3rd year photos. Personally I quite like my current photo and don't want it replaced. I can also think of better things to be doing all afternoon instead of sitting about for an hour waiting for a photo. Looking forward to the diagnostic imaging lecture though, that could be fun. Everything is packed and I'm ready to go.

First Shift

First bar shift of the term is over. There were quite a few people, and some of them were rather annoying. These included:

• The drunk person who decided to come and sit and chat with me on my only 10 minute break.
• The fresher who asked if it was ok to steal glasses and got upset when we said no.

I'm sure there were others, but at the moment I'm too tired to think straight. And I'm awake again in about 4 hours to await the arrival of builders. Then work starts at 0900 until 1800. After that I plan to sleep, but things never go according to plan.

Sports Fair

The annual torture of the sports fair has begun. It involves packing as many people as possible in to the gym and then closing most of the doors and windows making everyone hot and sweaty. I am usually to be found behind one of the desks or hiding away in the club room, but the freshers still manage to find me.

Today was less than fun - I have yet to eat a proper meal, it was really warm and standing up for hours hurt my back. Shouldn't whinge really as there were other people at the fair for a lot longer than me, and new members are important to the club. I'm tired and term hasn't even started yet!

Coat hangers

I just figured out that I own no coat hangers. This isn't a problem. There is nothing to hang a coat on. They aren't useful as a weapon. They can't be used to pick a lock. The TV has an aerial. I'm out of ideas on why I'd need one.

Freshers Week

Well it's started. They are officially here and there are a lot of them. They also seem to be getting very young these days, or that could just be me getting old. I plan to stay out of the way as much as possible over the next week. Pubs become uninhabitable, shops empty of bread. Evil creatures. On the plus side it does mean third year starts soon :-)

Silly plan

Looked at some climbing kit today online. I miss it! Debated going up on the crags for a bit of bouldering but my back is feeling a little dodgy today. It felt better after some ibuprofen, so hopefully there won't be a repeat of that Tuesday night. I think it was the heavy backpack that did it. Must remember for future running places.

Night walk

I just arrived home from a lovely walk at night up the crags. It was great to be alone behind the crags without too much light with a clear sky and the stars. Amazing how old habits resurfaced too: I had forgotten the incoming car trick, but automatically closed an eye to preserve some night vision.

I sat on top for a while just thinking about things. It was wonderful. There was possibly a lack of company, but that wasn't too much bother. I'm used to being alone up hills.

Cops

Not too sure about this post. May remove it at a later date. Just because.

Tonight I was watching Cops, a terrible TV show following American police around. They had their usual car chases and chasing people, but the last item was different. It was a murder-suicide type thing. The police entered the area to find a distressed male in one room and two people down in another. It appeared that a man had shot a woman and then himself. To me it really felt like the viewer was intruding on this first person. He was present when his sister/wife/daughter was shot and trying to relate the story to the police, but the camera got in the way. He was upset and needed to just be allowed to speak and do his own thing. It upset me. I wanted to leave him alone to find his way of coping without the hassle of people asking questions, without a camera following, without a microphone recording his last words to someone he loved. Why do that?

MRI Fun

Well that was fun. Lie in a small plastic tube and try not to move your eyes for 30minutes. It wasn't as easy as it sounds. There was no problem with claustrophobia or anything like that. In fact it was quite comfortable. I also enjoyed the music selection. No spice girls for me, I had Queen greatest hits 1. Overall I rather enjoyed it, I've had a lot worse before. There was no stabbing with needles, no poking sore bits, no removing of anything. It was a little sore on the back though.

My back is getting better slowly as I'm doing less silly work. It is sore when I lie down and if I walk for a while, but in regular life it doesn't slow me down at all until I've finished what I need to do. Went for a long walk yesterday without too much bother until the last hill when I was glad for the forward planning and lack of rucksack. I should try to do of the same just to get used to the motions again. Then running. Then climbing.

MRI time

Tomorrow is the big day where I get to stick my head in a large revolving magnet. This should be quite good fun, although I have been reliably informed that their music selection is at best bad, and at worst crap. Must remember to take my own. A few doctor types have told me they aren't too worried out the problem, but it will be nice to get an MRI and know for sure what is going on.

Broken Again

Just when I was getting slightly better I go do stupid things like moving 5 tons worth of container. Probably a rather idiotic plan, but it needed to be done and no-one else wanted to play. There was slight pain with lameness appreciated on the right and left hind limbs. Lunchtime was spent lying on the floor working on my back stretches so walking was less of an issue afterwards. Really, really must stop doing this kind of thing.

Oh and also managed to insert a large screw in to my hand. A interesting one as at least 1cm of screw was in my hand, but the hole sealed itself rather nicely. Yay!