Unfortunate musings of a first year medical student

I pondered, more times than I care to count today, for the first time ever why I'm bothering with this course. Being a doctor is the only career choice I've been genuinely serious about, but for the very first time I actually questioned myself. Whilst taking a nice warm shower earlier this evening, I searched the depths of my miserable, unquestionably boring mind to try and find out what the actual reason was for me wanting to be a medic. I couldn't remember. The horror literally brought tears to my eyes, and I stood there, stark naked in the shower with tears pouring out of my eyes. Of course you couldn't tell there were tears pouring out of my eyes, because I was in the shower. But that's beside the point.

Medicine has taken over my entire life. I realised this when earlier today I saw the word 'cleavage' and the first thing that popped into my mind was proteolysis, not and incredible pair of pert breasts being pressed together with a magical thing we call a Wonderbra. Later on, as i was writing a message on the wonder we call Facebook, I noticed that I'd written the two letters 'tb'. I stared at the screen for... well, a relatively long period of time, struggling to think what tb actually stands for. I thought for a moment that it must stand for 'tuberculosis', but then I thought, why the hell would I put an abbreviation for 'tuberculosis' on the end of a text message?!

You may be wondering, dear reader, where my enthusiasm for life has gone. I'm wondering the same thing. Actually, no I'm not. I'm almost certain it's due to the fact that some bastard virus has wriggled its way into my body, deposited its genetic material into my cells and has started to transcribe its bitchin' proteins inside me. I frickin hate that. I despise being ill [useful when my life ambition is to hang around with ill people all day every day].

As I sit here coughing and spluttering all over the place, with [too much] paracetamol being metabolised in my liver, I would like to reassure my lovely readers that despite the fact that my outlook on life is currently so negative that it's almost explosive, it will not last too long, for I'm about to go to bed and dream away my miseries.

On a final note, I'd like to mention what it was that stopped my tears spewing out in the shower earlier. As I flicked open the lid of my shampoo, I noticed a small warning on the back of my 'Timoteí Dream Volume', with three beautiful words. Had I continued to cry, my tears would have been from amusement. No three words will ever be so lovely on the back of a shampoo bottle as 'DO NOT DRINK'.

Things I simply cannot explain

1. Why I stay on my laptop for hours on end doing very little and being incredibly bored in the early hours of the morning when I could just go to sleep is forever a mystery to me. I am actually tired. I just don't know why I can't seem to draw myself away from it.
2. Why I set my alarm for 8:30am every morning and still press snooze every five minutes until noon. I have every intention of waking up at 8:30 the previous night, it's just in the morning when my bed is warm and outside is cold... I don't know why I do it.
3. How I manage to turn my room into a complete tip five minutes after I've tidied it up and put absolutely everything at perfect right angles to everything else, including the walls... actually, at the moment my door won't fully shut for some reason and its about 4 degrees out, and weird as it sounds, it kills me inside to see it like that but not be able to do anything about it! xD
4. Also, I just realised that I much prefer the font 'arial' to 'times new roman'. This doesn't really fit in with the rest of the list but oh well. At least now you know why this particular post is sans serif. Actually I went to a lot of effort to get it so the bullet numbers were Arial too. Not sure why.
5. Why I'm still here trying to think of another thing I can't explain even though I'm desperately sleepy. So I'll go to bed now.... wait, I'm already in bed... I'll just go to sleep shall I? :P Good night dear reader. Oh wait...
6. Why anyone reads this pointless old drivel! xD Much love :) x x x

Why my life is great... mostly

It's weird, I always seem to find myself coming here to write when something's up then I end up not posting at all. So I may as well fill you in on all the good stuff that's happened since my Buffalo post.

Exams are OVER

My term of being ill finally ended, but not before exams did. I was on two courses of two different antibiotics, neither of which actually worked. I think I had glandular fever. Anyways, I missed the MPC1 resit which I was gutted about - £25 down the drain.

My next scheduled exam was the Decision exam. Which doesn't actually count for anything really, but still. That went just fine.

After that was MPC4. That went fine too. I messed up a question somewhere but I've blocked it out of my memory now.

Then came biology. This paper was a bitch. It was HORRIBLE. I'd spent such a long time learning the syllabus til I could recite the entire specification in six languages. Okay, no I couldn't but you get the idea. Of all the stuff on the spec, maybe 3% of it actually came up. Didn't like it. I don't like OCR.

Then was mechanics. I think by this point I'd given up actually caring cos I went into the exam, did the questions and didn't even panic at all when I came across a question I found hard.

Finallyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy was chemistry. I sauntered in, did the paper, and rushed off out to live my life again.

Life

It's surprising how close you can get to someone who was but a mere acquaintance. I regret nothing.

Habitats

I moved house for the 18th time since the day of my birth. On average, I've moved once per year of my existance. I live in a bungalow now. My room isn't a colour that makes me want to wretch any more, though none of the furniture matches and it's still a mess. I have new curtains though, finally. My mum said it looks like they're made of the fabric a prom dress should be made of. They're nothing like the beautiful cocktail dress I wore to my prom though.

Celebrations

I got an award at the college Award Ceremony. Wore my 'beautiful cocktail dress' again, it felt good. I felt good. Who am I kidding, for the first time in my life I felt HOT. I dunno whether it was due to the fact that under my 'beautiful cocktail dress' I was wearing... we'll say, 'interesting' underwear, my hair was freshly dyed, or because I actually looked as hot as I felt. I'm hoping it's because I looked as hot as I felt. Though I probably felt hot because of the underwear, and if I looked hot it's probably because I felt hot because of the underwear. Anyway, I'm thinking into it a little too much. Check hot me out!

That's moi accepting an award from Liz Bower, an actress that went to our college. She's been on just about every BBC drama, incuding Doctors and My Family. Can I just say, I look short there admittedly but she's literally about six foot tall and I'm just a very average 5'3 :P

Results

My results have come back, and for once... I'm happy. I'm very happy. Although I know [you're expecting something very typically 'Neda' and you will be rewarded with something very typically 'Neda'] I could have done better, I don't actually care. I'm happy with what I got, and I've never been happy with what I got before so I'm even more happy about it. Check my happy results out:

• Biology: A
• Chemistry: A
• Maths A* [yes, A*]
• Further maths: a
• Physics: a
• Extended project: A
• Critical Thinking: C

Yeah, there are seven things there. Meaning that if an A-level is split into an AS and an A2, I actually have more AS/A2's than I have GCSEs. I'm allowed to be proud of myself, I've done well!

Fame

I'm in the newspaper, the college advert, and on the front page of the prospectus. I've been interviewed by a real life journalist. It's not much... but I feel famous.

University

I have my official place at Leicester now. I'm no longer a student, but a Student Doctor. People told me I wouldn't amount to much. Suck on that. Yeah I know, I still need to actually graduate and all the rest.... but I got in didn't I ;)

Habitats II

I have been offered a Premium Catered room in the student halls at Leicester. It wasn't my first choice of room but being the only catered room I put on the list I think I was quite lucky considering I can't actually cook. Nah thats a lie, I CAN cook but I doubt I'll be able to avoid nasty things like atherosclerosis and type 2 diabetes without the aid of the healthy stuff they'll give me at uni.

Smiles

I bought a beautiful copy of Gray's Anatomy for £2 from Oxfam. It's 25 years old but its still beautiful. I'm now a member of the British Medical Association and, once I've filled out a form, I have a year's subscription to the studentBMJ, as well as a voucher to get a free engraving onto a stethoscope.

Money

Okay, not everything in this section is 'good' I guess. But here goes. My student loan doesn't cover my accomodation. I'm not even in uni yet and I'm already in the negative by £180. Student life FTW.

Words

I hate how a five-word sentence can pretty much ruin a friendship.

Michael

Yeah, it's totally gay, but he made me a better person. My smiles aren't always genuine but they make others happy. My intentions aren't always selfless but they have good effects. My beliefs aren't always right but I'm true to them. I won't be able to do everything I've ever wanted to do but I've had a good chance at most of my things, I'm grateful for it.

Sleep

I have WAY too much of this!

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

Believe it or not, that is an actual, genuine grammatically correct sentence. And because you probably don't believe me - like I didn't believe it when I first read it - I went and found out WTF it's supposed to mean.

Now. There are three meanings of the word 'buffalo'. A noun, a proper noun and a verb. One is the animal [noun], one is the city in America [proper noun] and the third is the less-known word for 'intimidate' or 'bully' [verb].

The plural for buffalo is, like sheep and fish, just buffalo. But for the sake of simplicity I'll call it buffaloes or this won't make much sense.

The first 'Buffalo' refers to the city [notice the capitalisation of the PROPER NOUN], the second refers to the animal; Buffalo buffalo, ie buffaloes from Buffalo.

The third and fourth are also the city and the animal respectively. The fifth is 'bully'.

So so far, we have Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo, meaning 'buffaloes from Buffalo that buffaloes from Buffalo bully'. In other words, in a population of buffaloes, there are some buffaloes that bully other buffaloes within the population. Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo. The capitalisation of the first and third buffalo is a hint here.

The sixth buffalo means bully, and the seventh and last are the city and the animal.

Now we have Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo [ie, from what we worked out before, buffaloes from Buffalo that buffaloes from Buffalo bully] bully buffaloes from Buffalo. Here, we have a human-like situation; bullies that bully people because they get bullied. Make's 'em feel big. Lulz. Anyway.

SO. Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo could be re-written as:

Buffaloes from Buffalo, that buffaloes from Buffalo bully, bully buffaloes from Buffalo.

Another example of this same sentence could be: if you replace the city with Manchester, the animal with dog and bully as itself, the sentence would be:

Manchester dogs that manchester dogs bully, also bully manchester dogs.

In other words, the dogs in manchester [the ones that get bullied by other dogs in Manchester], they themselves bully other dogs from manchester.

In conclusion, Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

Is this, or is this not THE most genius sentence in the world?!?!!? YUS I DO THINK SO.

Oh the long, beautiful days of summer.

I can never tell what that gnawing feeling in the pit of my stomach is. It could be down to a whole load of things, which I will cleverly and conveniently list here:

• Exams - I only have one left but I'm still terrified of what's going to happen with it. Chemistry is a wonderful subject. This exam however, may well be the end of my life as I know it.
• Results - I've done four of my five summer '10 exams. D1, C4, Biology and M2. [funny how the vast majority of my exams are always maths ones, yet I'm never going to need any maths whatsoever, ever during my life at med school. Well, other than the ability to count to ten when giving injections.
• No more college - my college days are officially over. Which also means that any authority I've ever had [class rep, health ambassador, teacher's pet etc][for once, I'm not actually joking about the teacher's pet thing... freaky]
• Summer holidays - *utter screams of delight* I want to call them honeyed hours. Why? Because they're going to be sweet, slow, sickly, bright and will make me very thirsty. Does that appeal to anyone else? Hah. Love it.
• People - I'm not sure about this one. Ever get this scratching feeling in your guts when you think about someone? I'm not talking about like... lovey-dovey icky sickening crap or anything. Just.. I dunno, it's kinda hard to explain. Like recently I've got back in touch with a lot of people and whenever I think about it I kinda get this feeling that says 'this is what happened, you'll never see it again, it's all memories'. Think of it this way. When you fill a hole in the ground with concrete, if a bug or a leaf or something falls into the cement mix, it'll be there forever. You'll never find it again unless you dig up the concrete and smash it to bits. In fact, you might not even know what you're looking for. And if you do find it, whatever it is, it'll be dead. Does that not frighten you? Or is it just me?

All these seem like pretty plausible explanations. But it could just be as simple as I haven't been to the gym for about three months and I'm absolutely gagging for it.

Waiting, waiting, waiting...

These days I seem to spend the majority of my time waiting for things that, deep down, I know aren't going to arrive yet, but even so I can't help but.. well, wait.

• Waiting for the post/email to arrive
This is probably the most annoying of the lot. I'm waiting for a letter that's going to decide whether I'm moving out in 6 months time or whether I'm going to spend the next year stacking shelves at Aldi. It's coming soon, by April 5th at the absolute latest. But it's killing me.

• Waiting for people
Any time I detect the slightest hint of the person I'm waiting for.. but then realise it was my mind playing tricks on me.. my God, worst feeling ever. But every single time, every single time I find myself getting all excited before realising there's nothing to get excited about.

• Waiting for something to happen
In other words, procrastination. I am a master at procrastination. In some ways, I'm a workaholic. I can't get enough of it. But that's untilI get that nagging feeling in the back of my mind that I should (A) I should go back and check if that letter/email has arrived yet or not, or (B) the person I'm waiting for has arrived.

OHBOY.

I am the music man, and I come from far away.

When I was little, I used to go to this Playgroup thing... it was like preschool, only the 'teachers' were just volunteers. We used to sing all these different songs like I Am The Music Man and Hot Cross Buns and Five Little Men. The one song that I'll never understand though, is Wind The Bobbin Up.

Wind the bobbin up,
Wind the bobbin up,
Pull, Pull, Clap, Clap, Clap.
Point to the ceiling
Point to the floor
Point to the window
Point to the door
Put your hands upon your knee.

What's that even about? How are kids meant to know what a bobbin is? I didn't learn until GCSE textiles for God's sake. My mum says it's just a way of teaching kids new words. I call it a mass of useless words.

We only ever use 10% of our brains to learn. I don't know what percentage of my brain that's taken up, but it's a percentage too many.

As much as I love Gaga, what the HELL is this?!

She looks like a goddamned victorian lampshade. NO, GAGA, NO.

So anyway, Gaga aside. Have you ever noticed how there are some people out there that could screeeeeaaaammmmm their utter heads off at you and be really scary, yet it has no effect on you whatsoever? Other than the obvious 'pfft, what a pile of cow shit' of course. Well, there are some people who could give you a look that makes your insides twist and contort before ripping themselves to shreds? It's not even a look of 'you fucking dumbshit' more a look of 'weeelll... I sorta disagree...' Now, I shan't mention any names, nor will I go into it further because it's a long story without a point xD

Mr Sandman,
Bring me a dream,
Make him the cutest,
That I've ever seen...

That is one GOOD song.

You know what's been on my mind for a while? When I was in reception, we had a competition once. We were given a bag of rectangles of paper cut from magazines and some of those split pin thingies, and we were told to make the longest chain we could using the rectangles and the split pins. At the end of it, each of us were given a smiley-face sticker. At break time... erm... this bit of the memory is missing... onto the next bit. Now. There was this girl whose name I don't remember. She came up to me and *scene missing*. Then she peeled my smiley-face sticker off my cardie, stuck it onto hers and pomposly walked off.

In primary school, I was that strange little kid everyone has in their class. One of my front teeth were missing, my hair, which started off in pigtails, was all over the place by the end of the day, my uniform covered in stains and my shoes covered with mud... all that was missing was the monobrow. I could'a been a cavegirl. This girl [who I thought looked like a pig] was the most immaculate, cute little child ever. She had a neatly cut bob, rosy cheeks, all her teeth still intact etc etc... so, when I go up to a teacher and complain that my sticker was stolen, who do they believe? Immaculate little angel [or pig in a wig], or cavegirl? No-one believed me. Oh, life is hard.

On the other hand, my teacher gave me some tinsel later that day, I guess that makes up for it ^_^ It's all good. Meh. I'm not sure why I'm saying this. Makes a better blog than the rubbish I usually post though.. I think?

Meh. Night y'alls
xXx

Oh, le heavens. If I ever get my hands on those bloody cold germs...

... I'll wrap my fingers around their er.. cell body, then squeeze as hard as I can until they die of oxygen starvation.

My cold has been there for a good two months.

You little bastard.

I've come to the conclusion that despite all our fabulous scientific advances and modern human ways, the human race is getting more and more stupid. The lack of winnings on The Weakest Link is quite a good indication. Plus the fact that I first spelt 'weakest' as 'weekest'. What the hell is 'weekest!? xD

I don't know how to describe it really, it just seems like the world is getting dimmer and dimmer. For example. Cycling home from college today. I cycle down a path. Not a narrow one or anything, just a regular path. A girl was walking along on this path. I asked her to kindly move, she didn't hear me as her headphones were in. So I thought, fuuuuuuuuuuuuuurck this, I'll cycle on the grass. She shrieked, and moved TOWARDS me. TOWARDS. What the HELL. Dumbshit.

Ah, I'm feeling lazy. Cannot be bothered to write any more. Oh, except that my sister has a word for 'sugarcube'. Chingan. Chingan chingan chingan chingan chingan chingan. Wonderful word xD

Meh. Good evening fellow blogger xD

xXx

Back pain. A woman's worst nightmare... well, except wrinkles. Apparently.

I did some research on back pain. Apparently all your weight rests on two joints in your back, sitting isn't a natural position, bedrest makes it worse, 80% of people get it at some point in their life and mattreses have to be firm O_o

If and when I get into medicine, I'm going to pick something back pain or joint pain related as a student selected component. My doctor has about 10 models of skeletal parts in his room thing. I want a skeleton. A REAL one :O

My mum thinks I'm crazy, she seriously does. Here's how the converation went:

Neda: *whilst looking at a photo* I don't like my chin...

Mum: Why, what's wrong with it?

Neda: Well... I don't really have much of a chin...

Mum: What?

Neda: It's not... there really. It's more of a....... I dunno, some people have a double chin, I just have a no-chin

Mum: *weird look*

Neda: What's that look for?

Mum: You need therapy.

Neda: Why?

Mum: Because if it was up to you you'd go to a surgeon and ask them to replace your face with playdough. You have problems.

Gee, thanks mum.

You know what I find scary? The thought that if a tooth falls out, I'll never have a real tooth again. It's been there since birth, but suddenly it's gone forever. My mum chipped her tooth once and she went to the dentist and had veneers put in to fix the weird gap-toothed thing that was going on. If it was me, I'd be bothered by it. A lot.

Cheryl Cole has veneers. Her teeth before were frickin weird o_o

I now feel that I have proof that with a nice bit of cosmetic dentistry, a load of hair dye, some false eyelashes and a bucketful of makeup, anyone could look good. Heck, I want to be a plastic surgeon! =D

Lady Gaga is fabulous. Not as fabulous as Naomi Campbell of course, no-one could be as fabulous as Naomi Campbell. Not even Diana Ross. But fabulous all the same. I mean seriously, what in God's name is THIS?!

I thought she was naked underneath at first until I noticed she has no genitals. Meaning she's probably wearing a beige leotard underneath. And that her fishnets finish at the knicker line. Well, unless she really doesn't have genitals and her fishnets are either tattooed on or they're a genetic defect... which I somehow doubt. I'm going to get her album. You just can't have someone THAT weird in the music industry and not get her album. A physical copy though, not a download. Pffft the whole point in music is the CDs.

Ah I dunno, my back is killing me. I'm off.

Exams? Fin.

It's been a while...

Right, well.

Not much has happened. Actually, feck all has happened. I've just had my last January A2 exam. I'm dreading results day now, not sure how badly they went this year :-/ Overconfidence is a terrible thing, I was smarter before I knew I was smart...

The exams were kinda crap all round to be fair, Fmaths was okay I think, I only need 75% for it to get an A even though higher marks would be nicer lol :) Normal maths was a bit of a shocker, it had a few questions in it that made me want to cry o_o I want an A*, I REALLY want an A* but apparently last year out of 200 people only 4 people got the marks they needed for the A* which is quite the :-/. Then there was Critical Thinking which was okay-ish, I only need to pass it but I really want 72% in it o_o Then Biology. I knew the specification and the textbook back to front, upside down, inside out. Only the really obscure little bits of it were on the paper though. Seals? Lolwut? And chemistry today. I honestly don't know how that went but I reeeeeally hope it went well, thats the other one I really want an A* in. Again though, last year very few people [not sure how many] had the marks for an A*.

At the end of the day, I only need A's. It's a personal goal to get the A*s so it's not thaaaaaaaat important... but still! I mean, I bascially could get C's in maths and chemistry and I'd still get an A and a B in biology and I'd still get an A but that means no A* :O :O :O

Siiiiiiiiiiiiiigh.

I'm upping my driving lessons from one a week to two. Is there a possibility of me getting my full license by April? Is there? IS THERE?

I want this car.

It's beauuuuuuuuuuuutiful.

Blah I'm bored. What a boring post, thank god no-one reads this xD