this post is coming to you from europe!

hope you had a lovely christmas everyone! :)

i have shopped and shopped at the boxing day sales - crowds are CRAZY. they throw clothes etc on the floor and think nothing of pushing you out of the way to grab a bargain. humans are really animals, to think of it.

couldn't resist a bit of dorkiness when i passed by the Guy's Hospital - had to take a photo of it! (not with it, mind. am not that dorky yet!)
didn't spot any medical students (no white coats!) so too bad.

and have heard stories of how awfully screwed up NHS is. yikes!

alright time is out! i don't want this holiday to end - i have exams right after this and should be studying :( but i'm on holiday! :(

and so man u won!! a scrappy terrible game, but the luck was with the winner and that's all that matters - the 3 points!

enough of prattling on about soccer now, let's talk about something else!

there have been christmas decorations aplenty in the hospitals, mostly along the offices. NONE in the wards, where i would assume the people who need them the most would want them?

so much for spreading goodwill and cheer this season eh. apparently office staff can be bothered to pretty up their offices (is there some competition?) but not the wards. the sick and ill don't need cheering, i guess.

but the good thing is that volunteers have been popping by to say hi and sing, and it makes me happy to see small kids smiling toothily away!

a fact: i love kids too much to do paeds. and also: i don't possess enough brains to do paeds.

anaesthesia's coming to an end, can't say i've enjoyed it much. but it's been lovely sitting in the ORs - i love nothing more than seeing surgeries! scrubbing in is even better - but my complete lack of anatomy gives me away. ORs are FREEZING, by the way - are surgeons all very fat and thus well-insulated? NO. so why so cold? i have no idea, honestly. i spend the last 2 weeks freezing my arse off!

am still trying to write my report, but keep getting distracted! urghh facebook i blame you!

we had a patient stimulation earlier this week, in which we were individually brought to a dummy and given an emergency scenario where we had to rescue the patient - i managed to rescue mine! although, on hind sight, i should have done alot more things, but at least i managed to keep him alive till the end of the scenario. i have to admit, i spent more time staring at the monitor chewing my nails and wondering what the hell i should be doing next to increase his blood pressure and slow his heart rate! basic physiology - ALL forgotten. sigh.

well, a blog post very much about nothing.

it's here it's here!!!

THE day of the season when man u play liverpool. and more than that - chelsea plays arsenal!

YIPPEEEEE!!!!

this day will probably never be repeated in history, so to commerate it, let's indulge in some eye candy!

1st match: man u vs liverpool

fernando torres from liverpool

and cristiano ronado from man u! (there is only ONE red team)






2nd match: arsenal vs chelsea





and now, before any detractors cry out that i am just another air-head watching for the good-looking guys, let me assure you that they're simply a bonus.

hey, i started watching soccer before i hit my teens! i can most certainly assure you that i wasn't interested in guys at all then ;)

i can most certainly hold my own with discussing with the guys about football players and game plans, although i'm not an expert (i am undoubtedly the expert on good-lookers) and i didn't finish last in the fantasy football league. so there!

and i am most certainly a man u supporter! stand up proud and say it loud: MAN U!!!
(have to admit i fancy the pants of torres though - man u is suffering from SUCH a dismal lack of eye candy! of course, i'd have to say kaka thrashes them all hands down - a good looking lad if i ever saw one!)

so there - may man u thrash liverpool's arses and wipe them clean off the field, and may chelsea and arsenal have a lovely goalless draw littered with the red cards that arsenal is known for. how lovely! :D


most sorry if i've offended any barking mad arsenal, chelsea, or liverpool fans out there - you know how it is in football team rivalries so please forgive my own barking madness!

enough of fan-girlyness - on to the matches!

because i am tired, and sometimes you just need hope that there'll be a better tomorrow.

met a lovely ENT prof in the OR whilst pottering around waiting for things to happen. managed to ask him a few questions regarding my pawp's friend - who happened to be treated by him! i had no idea, and neither had he. i guess it's one too many patients!

but it's always lovely when profs make time to answer your questions, so you don't feel like the lowly medical student aka dirt-on-the-bottom-of-the-shoe or MRSA-in-the-OR. yay for good profs! and he wasn't even in charge of me - i'm doing anaesthesia now!

anaesthesia, on the other hand, is a whole different story. far be it from me to enthuse about anaesthesia, and far be it from me to say i have the brains needed to do anaesthesia. i have been routinely amazed at how much information the anaesthetists/anaesthesiologists (whichever they choose to call themselves - i'm clueless in this aspect) have at their fingertips, and their calm and serenity in handling all sorts of situations is nothing sort of breath-taking. i freaked out when i saw i grade 3 larynx - no glottis in sight at all!!! and yet, the anaesthetist calmly looked and asked for another blade and just intubated the patient. like that! snap fingers!

i managed to successfully intubate my first patient today! on my first try! :D

granted, my tutor was holding my hand with the laryngoscope. but still! yay! :D

although, being in the OR made me wish terribly that i was on the other side of the curtain observing the surgery instead. thankfully, my tutor was fairly understanding, and after yakking a fair bit about anaesthetic drugs, allowed me to scoot to the other side of the curtain to witness the surgery. pretty cool surgery too, a Le Fort I.

i actually couldn't see the cords when i first slid in the laryngoscope, but a little gentle traction does wonders - the posterior end was revealed immediately, and cricoid pressure allowed me to see the glottis. WAY COOL. so sliding in the tube was definitely easy.

i'm looking forward to doing more procedures, hopefully i'll get to do them in the ENT OR where there's higher turnovers compared to the spine ORs (one spine op can take 6 hours! even worse are the cardiothoracic ops) it's just too bad i'm not rostered to a GS or OB/GYN OR - life would be so much more interesting (surgery wise i mean).

my tutor seems like a pretty nice guy, he speaks with a Queen's English accent. very clipped and precise! and he reminds me terribly of my previous ortho tutor, i really have to keep reminding myself to call him by the right name!

all in all - a good day :D

hope you lot are gearing up happily for christmas! :D

having been tagged by xavier (someone please teach me how to insert links???), here goes a meme with 7 random facts!

1. i'm not from europe (sorry jess!), but i'm going to visit europe soon though!

2. i have many, many, MANY eye candies. so much so that my friends roll their eyes when i point out a cute actor/sportsmen/doctor/medic/random person.

3. when i was young, i wanted to do medicine because i thought white coats were the coolest thing alive! really. (of course it's not the only reason now!)

4. and i said so in my medical entrance interview. which got the professor snorting with laughter, and he remembers me to this date. apparently humour gets you places! little did he know i was being serious.

5. my caffeine addiction only started in medical school. or rather, when clinical rotations started. sigh

6. i am not a well person. as in, i have diseases that are considered serious by any standards, but more on that another day. (no, it was not a motivating factor for entering med school - see point 3!)

7. i used to love christmas, but since something happened it hasn't quite been the same, but it's still my all time favourite season of the year :)

and i have to cheat and agree with medstudenitis that i cannot wear high heels. sigh no pretty feet and shoes for me!

i did something stupid. uh-oh.

we were sent back to hospital where i first started clinical rotations in, and by pure chance, i saw... my very first tutor!

who, erm, coincidentally happens to be major eye candy for me. (no one else seems to think so! POOH. he's young, cute, has a great smile and great spectacles, and is always friendly! not to mention highly talented!)

and so, i saw him, turned and almost swooned, then fell right on top of my friend and gave an undignified sqwauk.

very very brilliant, ditzy. sigh. :(

thank God, being the busy surgeon that he was, he was rushing off someplace and didn't witness the entire incident. whew. thank God for small favours!

it's done it's done! i'm suffering from aches and pains and lethargy right now, but ohhhh, it feels good having crossed the finish line after the half-marathon!

it was so hard to keep going at some points though, when your spirit is telling to give up because really, it seems as though the end's no where in sight.

but along the way, there were great motivating factors :) seeing the sunrise (well, a part of it!) was really inspiring, and needless to say, crossing the finish line was the most inspiring of all!

what really struck me were the supporters though, they were so tireless in yelling and cheering and waving balloons. briliant, really. must have been tiring to keep shouting like that! and their unflagging cheer was contagious, i found myself breaking into a smile when running past them.

ahhh. life is good.

now, if only i could walk properly, then life would be perfect.

note to self: must not overdo this aging body next time!

after 6 months of on-off training and several runs in between them, tomorrow is THE big-day!

the half-marathon beckons.

i don't expect to be able to run all the way to the finish, but running most of it would be ideal. sadly, my fitness is still not up to par!

but oh well, nothing left that i can do between today and tomorrow except sleep early!

hopefully i'll still be alive when i stagger across the finish line. crikey!