Irritability

Arghh .. one of those nights when there's just something unidentified bugging me, and it's making me extremely irritable indeed. From the stupid TV programs to the stupid room to the stupid place. Might be cos of the silly heart problems that came back this evening, it lasted particularly long this time round. And it's a really bad one, I feel breathless just sitting in bed. =( Can't be stress right? I'm going for a holiday. OK, maybe it IS stress. All the planning and shit. Might as well open a tour agency.

Had some comfort food today - finally cooked something decent! Bought a nice rainbow trout and a few other emergency foods to last till Saturday - trout is SO GROSS. It's actually slimy, and I can't seem to wash the slime off! Ended up scalding the thing in hot water before marinating it. Anyway, I made a honey and lemon rainbow trout stuffed with egg and rice (and I pinched some packets of salt and pepper from the dining room to do this). Tasted pretty good!







Had a nice chat with parents just now, needed to talk to people pretty badly today. Something's just not right.

OK, feeling extremely sleepy now, and just received an email that caught my attention. Hmmmmm. Wonder if I have the time to commit.

The Big Day Out

Phew!! All 180 plant pictures all resized, saved and uploaded onto 3 separate Flickr accounts. Thank goodness I prepared them all beforehand. The train journey was plain murder. At the end of it, however, I had no doubts at all that all 10 hours of transport was definitely well-spent. I'm not putting up all the pics I have though, that'll bore you all to death. Just click on the pics to get a larger version. Let's start with the train station!


The inside of Glasgow Central station, it's got lovely hotels jutting out from one of the walls. It's definitely a lovely station, after seeing all the rest. The entire ceiling is made of glass.

Next, the hotel room. It's quite a lovely place, with excellent room furnishings - just the kind of thing I like! And quite a steal for the price. However, they didn't provide any toiletries (except for the usual very fluffy towels, soaps and shampoos and paper), so that was a bit of a nasty shock. I arrived without a shaver, and came back to Glasgow looking very messy indeed.



Dream meal - Thai vegetable curry with rice, a huge baked potato with cheese, and 2 beers. =)Got it delivered from the restaurant next door, and prices are really reasonable - the soft drinks are just 15 pence more than the ones I get in the hall. The beers were really very good, you can taste the fruitiness. I guess it's a nice change, after drinking bullshit like Tiger.


Sunset as seen from my hotel room window. It's around 11pm, and very nice peachy sky.


Meeting the man himself .. Mike and I in the Sarracenia flava greenhouse! Had a really good impromptou lesson from the master himself, and I'm surprised he doesn't own more of the original Adrian Slack cultivars. Slack's a personal friend of his and a hero of mine, and definitely one of the world's best Sarracenia hybridisers. He's now incapacitated, unfortunately, and the price of his second book has shot up sky-high. I received it as a gift from a lovely CPer from Ireland, and somehow misplaced it. Shit. It now fetches a staggering S$2000, no shit.



The works - 3 of his 4 greenhouses!


Looking very lost in one of his greenhouses. I would too, if I had that many plants.


If you think my DIY deioniser and water barrel are quite something to provide pure water for these plants, think again. He's got 16 of these all over his garden, and 4 gigantic 600L black tubs hidden right at the back of the garden. The gutters on the house and greenhouse roofs are filtered and sent by gravity into these water butts, from which he manually gets the rainwater out.



OK, you've got to blow up this pic to see it properly. See the droobles of nectar around the rim at the mouth? This is Sarracenia leucophylla, it's not quite at its best at this time of the year - the most spectacular pitchering occurs around autumn.


For Kenneth .. a field of HOT PINK. A new, very nicely-furry hybrid.


Dionaea muscipula "Spider" - an upright form of flytrap.


The UK National Collection of Dionaea


Dionaea muscipula "G14" - this particular clone has been infected by a peculiar virus that causes a variegated colouration inside the trap.


Sarracenia oreophila in full bloom. OOOOOH! This is the one species I've had a 100% mortality rate with. They are just too difficult to grow. Being a montane species, they require hot dry summers and only pitcher during a cool winter period.


Beautiful "weeds" - those tiny little white flowers you see? Those are Utricularia bisquamata "Betty's Bay", also a kind of carnivorous plant. The traps are hidden underground, but those flowers are just so sweet! A very nice kind of weed to have, and it's all over the place invading the pots! I'm going to get me some of that stuff.


THE definitive collection of red Sarracenia flavas. All these look pretty much the same, but they are subtly different and all are from different localities. Yeah, only freaks (me) will go for the plants' locations.


Nice pic of Sarracenia flava var. rubricorpa, kissed by just a touch of sun.


Adrian Slack's famous and elusive clone of S.flava var. rubricorpa, cv. 'Burgundy'. Look at the rich, wine-red colouration!


Sarracenia leucophylla 'Tarnok' - a mutated form that produces normal-looking pitchers but only shows its true self when it flowers. These multi-petalled flowers are, unfortunately, sterile.


Ahh ... extreme rarity. Only 4 people have this unimposing, normal and drab-looking plant in cultivation (I'm hoping to be next on the stupid waiting list). This is an all-green mutant of Sarracenia purpurea ssp. venosa, var. luteola.


Another rarity - Sarracena leucophylla 'Schnell's Ghost', named after Don Schnell from the states. This is an anthocyanin-free form of S.leucophylla, which means it contains no red pigmentation at all. Not to be confused with var. alba, which is if anything even rarer, since it contains no pigmentation whatsoever except for green.


Adrian Slack's legacy - another elusive (and not so attractive to most non-CPers) cultivar. Sarracenia x excellens "Loch Ness". Most S.x excellens have brick-red flowers derived from its both parents S.minor and S.leucophylla, but oddly enough this particular cultivar produces yellow flowers. The pic below shows both colour forms of the flowers.


Drosera slackii - one of those nasty South African sundews that simply don't grow in Singapore.


Sarracenia x 'Copper Vase' - an exquisite shape and colouration on this rare cultivar.


Sarracenia x 'Red Ruffes' - photos simply don't do this plant justice! Plant originally from Dean Cook (USA), who incidentally was the first person ever I imported plants from. =)


Sarracenia x 'Red Sumatra' - the waiting list for this one is just starting to pile up like mad.


Backlit photo of Sarracenia x mitchelliana.


OOOOH. The Holy Grail of Sarracenia! Sarracenia x moorei 'Adrian Slack'. There's a 50-person waiting list for this plant, and Mike only produces 2-3 extras a year. Crap.


Field of Sarracenia rubra flowers. OOOOOOH!


Yep. Had a really memorable time in Telford over the weekend, and it's definitely the highlight of my trip so far. Yeah, really nerdy,I know. Poring through 4500 different forms of Sarracenia (most of which look exactly the same, as yx will most definitely complain), stalking around the greenhouses to find root-boring caterpillars and Botrytis fungus, talking about plant genetics and debating on the perfect peat:sand:perlite ratio to use. And of course, the man swears by Osmocote while I insist on using 40:10:10 foliar feed. Admittedly, his method works better if you have that many plants to fertilise, but I love tinkling about in the garden - this just gives me an excuse to do that. ;) It's all very satisfying in the end, and I'm finally all the wiser about what works and what doesn't, and good plant husbandry. All of a sudden, I miss my plants too.

Photos are coming!!

Ting, I'm afraid you'll have to put it off till tomorrow morning to show mom and dad the photos I took. Only have half hour from now to grab a lunch and go back to clinic, I've been spending the last 2 hours here in the library resizing and uploading almost 200 photos! =) Will blog all the photos properly tonight when I'm back in the hall (which is tomorrow morning for u).

In the meantime, here's a little teaser for everyone.

p.s. The best is yet to come!!


The Yellow Trumpet
Sarracenia flava var. flava

A weekend of travel

Oh dear, I suddenly realised that there's no one to talk to this weekend! Parents are not around, yx is in China, and Mr. Ye is in Canada. Alas! And for my part, I probably won't have access to the net this weekend either, will be away in Telford.

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Gross. Feeling a little nervous about making the trip into England this weekend .. never taken the train before! Shit. Would have been so much better if I had company!! Also can't figure out how I'm going to settle my lunch tomorrow and my dinner the day after, since I'll be on the train. Brought a Mars Bar and 2 muesli bars in my bag, just in case.

I spent this morning ironing clothes in preparation for the coming week, and walked to Currys to get the HP digicam. It's working well right now, and I saved about £25 from rechargeable batteries, since the camera came with 2 rechargeables and 2 Energiser Lithium batteries. It's rather on the cheaper side, since Currys is having a Bank Holiday weekend sale. Alas! The camera also came with a portable HP travel photo-printer ... shit. I'm trying to see if I can throw things out of the luggage so I won't exceed 20kgs. Looking bleak, unless mom or yx have a few kgs to spare in theirs.

Spent the rest of the day trying to figure out what else I need to settle. It's going to be a flurry of activity next week, I need to settle a lot of logistics before mom and yx arrive. Calling B&Bs up, calling certain tour trips up, finalising the car hire etc. ARGHH!!

TV here is extremely gross, btw. The Saturday mornings are filled with cartoons in 4 out of 5 channels, and VERY slapstick ones at that. They have a lot of talk shows which are FON and freakishly dull. And whatever little real shows they have are like - OMG. To truly understand the state of TV here, just imagine: you have 5 channels, and 1 plays repetitive news ALL DAY (BBC), while the other 4 play Days of Our Lives ALL DAY. Yes, as bad as that. I'm no TV fan, but I know bad TV when I see one. Perhaps it's just the scottish channels?

Bought more microwavable food for tonight, and the following week.

Dreary morning

Urghh .. more bad weather. It's grey, freezing cold and drizzling. Going to be quite a bad weekend, temperatures in the day are about 11C or less with the wind. Had really lovely weather the whole of yesterday though!

Dreading breakfast. I've never been too fussed about eating breakfast anyway, and the rich fare here is turning me off.

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OK, the rain turned into one of those misty floaty things you get in the Nepalese mountains, which was doubly bad - I could feel my corneas freezing up. Reached hospital to find that my supervisor is STILL sick (meningococcaemia maybe?), so I joined the eye casualty instead. Ah hah - pretty doc! The one who wears mini skirt and stilletto-heeled boots to work. She's the equivalent of an MO, and seriously, she teaches well. Usually I get terribly nervous in clinics here, but I was sitting there chatting away with her and she even asked for my opinion once in a while. How cool is that, huh? She's really odd though - writes in block letters, and has a very strange tic.

Summary of cases:
1) Contact lens keratitis, developed toxic epithelitis from preservatives in eyedrops.
2) Type 1 DM with peripheral corneal ulcer and corneal oedema. Demonstrated positive Bell's phenomenon and corneal ulcer later developed satellite lesions.
3) Rheumatoid arthritis with history of ocular hypertension, ?iritis/uveitis and now presents with episcleritis. We did the phenylephrine blanching test, and it really was quite a dramatic change.
4) Man with pHx of rheumatoid arthritis and healed corneal melt now p/w peripheral ulcerative keratitis and corneal thinning, resulting in a "contact lens cornea". Very very nice! Also neovascularisation on the cornea. His RA hands were truly spectacular - one of those prime exam cases. Assisted in doing a corneal scrape. =)

5) Man with pHx of chalazion (S/P curettage), now p/w preseptal cellulitis.
6) Ooooh this case. We had a good time gossipping. =) It's got to be the strangest thing I've ever seen so far. Superficial corneal burns from - get this - a tanning salon! OK, there were more .. but I shan't elaborate in public. Hahaha.

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Anyway, the doc I was with had a Gaelic name. I was so enthralled by this beautiful celtic language after I watched a comedy show in Gaelic yesterday. Lovely-sounding, but as with all other older languages, it did lack some of the newer terms. Internet etc etc, and those were spoken in English. I'm going to try and learn a bit of this before I start touring, since most of the Western Isles and a large part of the highlands still speak Gaelic.

*************

OMG. Gaelic (it's pronounced as Gaa-lick) is tremendously difficult. I found some online lessons that come with sound clips, and it's so unpronounceable! Shit.

BBC's (touristy)
The Gaelic homepage (grammatical - much more satisfying)
A huge list of similar lessons

Trying to speak it here in the library without people casting me odd looks. Chinese guy + Gaelic = WTF.

Mushroom Day

I'm going to die from eating mushrooms here. Had mushrooms for breakfast, and mushrooms for lunch. Oddly enough, I think I'm gaining a LOT of weight after coming here. It's really odd, since I eat quite little. Maybe it's the quality of the food - sausages, bacon and yoghurt every day!

Saw a £28 digicam for sale somewhere, very tempted to get it before going to Mike's. It would be extremely sad indeed if I splurged £92 on train tickets and leave with 1Mpix photos using my phone's camera. I've finally got the train tickets for the trip, I'm leaving at 11.26am from Glasgow central station this Sunday, and reaching Telford central station at 4.42 pm. Checking in at a hotel in Telford, 1 km away from the station, since the B&B that's very near Mike's is fully-booked. Shit right? Meeting Mike sometime on Monday late morning.

Then for the return trip, I'm leaving Telford station at 4.15pm and reaching back at Glasgow at about 10pm. Decided to take a taxi from the Glasgow central station back to my Hall, it's simply too scary to take a bus at night.

Alas, I'm spending hundreds of dollars just to see plants.

Anyway, supervisor's off sick today, so I spent the entire day out from clinics. OH DEAR. He might ask me what I did today. Just tell him I was in the library lor. It's true what! I *am* in the library .. just that I'm using the net. =)

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Points of nostalgia ...

1) Had egg noodles for lunch today. Spoiled by the chicken, but egg noodles still taste like egg noodles no matter what you do to them.

2) Clinics - when I'm doing a direct ophthalmoscopy, I switch off all the lights except the doctor's table lamp, a yellow light. Sounds familiar? Sigh. I miss my room so bad. Greatest room in the world!!

Sad

Feeling a little sad today. It's 2.45am, and I just woke up. Yes, unearthly hours. Made a dinner of boiled potatoes, turkey ham sandwiches and pasta with beef bolognaise. I think the dinner was too much, that's why I fell asleep after that at around 7.30pm. Got to get up to read some stuff before going to school today. Sigh .. going to join clinics in the morning, then OT in the afternoon. I'm not too keen about OT (never have been) - it's not productive spending time there.

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Today's breakfast was excellent, and saved my ass in hospital today. Had black pudding (which became exceedingly gross after I found out what it was), scrambled eggs, hash browns, sausages, bacon, yoghurt and orange juice. Ended clinics and went down to the OT reception at 12.40pm, only to find out that the first procedure starts at 1pm!! OMG. Only had 10 minutes to eat, so I bought cream of chicken soup in a styrofoam cup to fill up in the meantime. Baaaad idea. It was so hot, I could only finish 10% of it before I rushed into the changing room to gown up. Stowed the soup in my locker, and in-between patients, I'd run back to the locker to take several gulps of the soup.

The nurses in the OT were such darlings! Very motherly indeed, and everyone was very nice - especially the anaesthetist. Had a fun talk with him, he's a bouncy kind of guy, fun to be with. The anaesthetists here always hold the patients' hands if they are under LA .. I think it's a really good practice. It's reassuring, and the patient knows that they can get help when they need it, even if their tongues are numb. The nurses brought in very odd CDs though - one of them was a Sarah Brightman album, and right after the first (blotched) phacoemulsification, just as my supervisor finished up, Brightman ended with a protracted, dramatic soprano note, resulting in giggles round the room. Anyway I ended up watching a vitrectomy, cos the posterior capsule became damaged during the surgery, and the vitreous humour came flooding out into the front of the eye - gross.

Dinner was a much more satisfying affair, bought some groceries today. Heated up some cottage pie (5 for £4!), garlic bread, vegetable soup and orange juice. Fell asleep right after dinner, and woke at midnight. This sleep cycle is getting very nasty.

A load more troubles cropping up. Called mom up this afternoon regarding a sticky bank trouble that can only be settled after I get back, and my skin is now so parched, I got a huge patch of broken skin just above both knees. The skin cracked and it looks like I've been slashed with a scalpel many, many times. Painful. =(

An Alarming Day

Nice sunny morning. Woke up freezing and realised I've slept on my specs again. After a round of cursing, I tried to take a walk around to warm up a bit but I ended up getting even colder!! Started shivering and having chattering teeth once outside.

Went back in for an early shower, and just as I finished lathering up my hair, the horrid fire alarm rang. CRAP. Didn't complete my shower, just got dressed quickly and got downstairs. False alarm again, I betted. And I was right. WTF. Had to go back to the room and take a second shower.

Met my supervisor for the first time today, and I'm not awfully happy about it. I don't know why - maybe it's the Telford trip looming over my head or something, but I've just been feeling very unhappy the whole morning. Maybe it's seeing so many dogs getting walked and missing Brownie so much today. Supervisor just trotted past me with a quick "Hi" before I could even introduce myself, and I stood there like an idiot wondering if he thought I was a patient. Turns out he knew I'm his student. He expects me to do quite a lot of reading though. =( Arghhh. He softened up considerably after he found out that I had brought a notebook, some ophthalmo texts and my own ophthalmoscope. Not your typical Glaswegian student. I'm from the bookish and prim regime of Singapore.

Anyway, saw a lot of very rare conditions today, many of which were eye-openers since we didn't do too much of corneas during out posting eh? Here's a summary for this morning:

1) Got a slit lamp biomicroscope and a patient all to myself. I messed it up, hahahahahaha. Trekked back to supervisor's room claiming the patient had nuclear sclerotic cataracts, pseudoexfoliative material on the lens, and admitting that I struggled damn hard to do a fundoscopy but couldn't see a damn thing. HONESTLY, the moment I located a vessel in the eye, the silly patient would move his eyes and it would disappear. He didn't seem to expect me to do it though, no scolding, hahaha. Turns out that he also had no idea why the patient complained of progressive loss in visual acuity. No cataracts, and fundus is normal. Apparently the yellowish lens discolouration is normal in this age group ... nuclear sclerotic cataracts, my ass. =( So he told me to read up on "unexplained visual loss" (my first thought was - the patient's psycho.) and also on toxic/tobacco amblyopia, which he thinks the patient has.

2) Plenty of corneal grafts, some with complications. The very last patient I saw had the graft not sticking properly together, then he decided that I should be banished from the room since I'm quite wasting my time there frowning and looking confused over some extremely technical details. So yeah .. here I am, in the hospital library. But shit. Was asked to go back to clinics in the afternoon, and today's an extremely busy day, so I reckon knocking off at 5pm would be bliss.

3) A really dramatic case of band keratopathy with calcium deposition on the cornea, resulting from chronic uveitis. It's the kind of stuff that gets put into textbooks, the eye looked so horrific.

4) Corneal graft with astigmatism, requiring astigmatic keratotomy.

5) Sympathetic ophthalmitis, a rare complication of penetrating eye injuries. 29 y/o guy, past history of penetrating eye injury when he was 5 years old (inflicted accidentally by his mom when she was trying to open a parcel ...), delayed seeking treatment, and an autoimmune reaction caused a progressive loss of vision on the good eye. Quite interesting.

Sigh. I don't like today, I really really don't. Been too spoilt the last week I guess, cos I've been skipping the afternoon clinics.

Decided to spend only 1 night in Telford, Mr. Ye. I don't know if this can work out, cos frankly I'm scared of being alone in Birmingham, it's quite crimey too isn't it? So leaving on Sunday late morning, reaching Telford in afternoon. Spend time going around in that ulu place, then meet Mike on Sunday late morning, taking the 5pm train from Telford back to Glasgow and reaching here around 10pm. Costs £80 though, I'm jiggered. Then I realised that Mike's place is a 5 minute journey by car from Telford station, so it doesn't make any bloody sense for me to spend the night in Telford at all does it? I could jolly well spend time in Birmingham on Sunday, then take a 1 hr train to Telford on Monday morning. The only trouble with this is, I'll have to link 2 trains, and it'll be a bit of a trouble when I'm on my return journey.

With this in mind, I would have Saturday free - which I can spend either here in Glasgow, or take a 45 minute train ride to Edinburgh.

Loads of decisions. Might as well give up on the whole thing and spend the long weekend being sad in Glasgow, hahahahahahahahaahahahahahahhahahaha. Anyone can help me out in making the decision?

Bunnies, Foxes and Vets

Oooh, just saw my first fox! Was at the front garden this evening, when I saw a bunny streaking past the lawn into the woods ahead. Shortly after, this longish creature came jogging along - could only see its silhuette, but I'm guessing it's a fox or stoat or weasel kind of animal. No wild dogs here, and way too large to be a cat.

Anyway, remember that first girl I met on the first weekend here, who so kindly logged in to her account for me to use? Met her again in the com lab just now, and finally got her name. =) Had a nice chat together, another one of those people I'm comfy with. She's a 3rd year vet student with half caucasian and half sri lankan parentage, and we were just talking about human vs animal anatomy. =)

Was again watching Big Brother on TV just now, it started getting absurd. Shahbaz started makign a huge fuss over nothing again, and the other big muscular gay guy did a show of immaturity by herding everyone up and getting them to treat Shahbaz as invisible. The worst of it came right at the end, haha .. Shahbaz actually took ALL their stock of food and drinks, and put them all into a thrash bag so they won't have anything to eat! Aiyoh!! Also quite a few XX scenes ... Sezer was seen prancing around with another girl while he was naked, and his balls could be seen at one point. Later, Pete (who supposedly has Tourette's Syndrome but I'm entirely so not convinced at all) flashed his extremely large member at all the ladies in the whirlpool. Hmm. I'm not sure about this Pete character. Gut feeling tells me he's not gay, but he definitely acts one in the show. Just a weirdo. No breasts in this episode .. was half-hoping for Lea to remove her bikinis .. never seen fake boobs before mah - and the self-proclaimed largest ones in the UK some more!

Oh dear. And I just realised my sisters read my blog. (Quoting Jessica) : "Don't watch this kind of show, it's bad for you. Really really bad."

Oddities, Fatigue & Headaches

1. Oddities

Q: When does a medical student get praised heartily for taking a good history, by asking only 2 questions?
A: When the doc made a mistake himself about the diagnosis (a terrible one at that - they almost operated on the patient), was trying to do you in by trying to trap you, and you somehow hit the nail right on the head. =)

Elderly 70+ year-old Caucasian gentleman as a "short case" in the clinic, he presented with right-sided ptosis. Dr. C: "What questions would you ask in this history?"

Q1: "Is the onset acute, or gradual?"
A1: Acute, patient noticed it suddenly.

Q2: "Is there ptosis first thing in the morning, or does it get worse at night?"
A2: Patient launched into a lovely explanation of how he can't watch "the pictures" because his eyes would droop halfway through.

There you go. =) Seems like ocular myasthenia gravis is not really common here either. It was a brilliant stroke of luck, mind. I had absolutely no idea what the man had - was about to follow up with a history of stroke, facial asymmetry, limb weakness, diabetes and ocular trauma. In any case, that Dr. C was definitely a (word block) kind of person. Initially he took very little notice of me, but after I accidentally (he wasn't to know that) got the diagnosis, he started being extremely friendly. Hmph.

I'm not in Dr. C's clinic though, I'm with the HK doc, Jason, in the oculoplastics clinic. Quite interesting, learnt a few obscure things like a phenomenon of droopy eyelids causing corneal abrasions on a pillow (reminds me of our dear HypoC and his proclaimation to an alarmed taxi driver that his eyeball was about to burst). Also saw plenty of lacrimal syringing, a particularly difficult patient with tardive dyskinesia, and also a Schirmer's Test being done.


N.B. This is not the patient we saw.

Decided to take the afternoon off, before my supervisor comes along tomorrow, so as to settle a few things and to take away this awful homesickness inside.

2. Fatigue

Fell asleep in front of the TV last night, and woke at 3am! Didn't sleep till now, and I'm now paying the price for it. Just plain tiredness. Not just from last night's early morning awakening (DSM-IV criterion for a major depressive episode?) but generally from everything that needs to be settled. Which ties this to the next section -

3. Headaches

Arghhh so many things to settle!!

May not be able to make the trip down to Birmingham after all. He made a mistake about being free on Sunday, and asked if it's alright to meet on Monday, a bank holiday. Of course it's alright. The only problem is TIME. Let's say I turn up on Monday morning, 11am-ish. We do our plant stuff till 3pm? That's short already. And I make my way to the Telford train station at about 4pm. 5 hour train to Glasgow - that's 9pm. That's really awful, it's a case of more time spent travelling than on plants! Trouble is that I'm limited by the time I need to come back, rather than the time I leave. Of course, I could make it more worthwhile by doing a Glasgow -> Birmingham -> Telford trip, instead of a Glasgow -> Telford trip. ARGHHH. I really want to go, but it's not quite fun going alone. =( And Telford's damn hell far from London too, else I could go with mom and yx at the end of the trip. This trip's going to be terribly expensive; I might as well fly over to Toronto to join everyone there.

There's the car hire too, but that's relatively minor. Should be settled by mid-week.
And also the Skye itinerary. Brrrr.

A Second Day Out

Managed to drag my ass out of bed this morning. I distinctively remember waking up at 6am, then again at 7.30 and realised I don't quite have time to settle domestic affairs before meeting the girls at 9am. Arranged to meet them halfway through their tour, at 10.30am instead - and thank goodness I did. They went too early, and none of the attractions opened till 11! While waiting for B & gf to arrive, we took an uphill walk along St. Vincent Street to reach the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons (Glasgow). Yes, very odd. The 2 schools are grouped into 1 here, instead of the usual separation into medics and butchers. It's a tiny, decrepit-looking building, quite a disappointment actually. Took some photos anyway, on the phone.

We initially wanted to go visit the Lighthouse, this tall dome where you can see most of the city. Obviously I wouldn't want to climb up. Heights are bad. Was just about to make up some silly excuse ("Oh, I'll be visiting this with yx and my mom later, so I'll skip it.") when they decided they won't go in. Phew.

Traipsed to Pizza Hut along Jamaica Road for the £3.99 lunch buffet, and once again I was horrified. Tried not to let too much show on my face - maybe it's just me who's getting bothered by this. Just some very odd, ironic things that really sparked off in my head, during the lunch. S didn't join us - she packed lunch and said quite rightly that she didn't want to spend her time here eating, since the others swore they'd eat for hours to make their £ worth it.

1) 3 out of 4 of them ate the pizza's stuffing and left the crust. Not that the crust wasn't tasty (on the contrary - it was delicious, just about the best stuff I've tasted here), but because you'd fill up quickly.
2) All decided not to have drinks because it'd make the bread expand and fill you up quickly.
3) £25 for a £22+ bill would have been reasonable tipping, isn't it? Ah ... they picked the bill tray clean. Even the £0.05.

So where's the irony? Ha. Everyone started behaving like prim, civilised model-citizens and picked at their pizzas using knives and forks. What the hell?!? Fuck it. I ate my entire meal using hands and had heck of a fun time to boot.

OK, after lunch, it was sight-seeing time. We went to only 3 today, and all within 2 minutes of each other.

1. Glasgow Cathedral
It's really so much nicer inside than it looks from the outside. Lovely, intricate architecture, once again Victorian, with loads of minute little details. Went down to the crypts, which supposedly houses the tomb of St. Mungo, the patron saint of Glasgow. I saw no saint in there. Just some stones claiming to be the tomb. I really don't know why people don't want to know for sure, it's not that hard to dig it up is it? Ah, and all of a sudden I realised that they probably wanted it that way. Better to have a mystery to draw the faith, rather than an outright rejection of the truth. Anyway, it got extremely creepy down in the crypts. I was standing on an interesting slab on the floor, trying to read the engraved writing on it - before I realised too late that the slab was actually a grave. They were everywhere! You can't help stepping all over these poor people! Bought a souvenir booklet on the cathedral from its shop, such a beautiful place deserve some patronage. Also bought a book on scottish folklore and myths for £5 - kind of regretted after I've finished the book. Mainly because I've finished with it. =)

2. Necropolis
YESSSS .. We went to the graveyards!! Oooooh! S and I were the only excited ones though. I could tell most visibly that B's gf couldn't wait to get the hell out of there. It was a really nice walk, with a good view of Glasgow city right at the top of the hill. The higher we climbed, the richer the dead people are, and therefore the larger the tombs became. It came as no surprise that the largest monument (i.e. the richest) was some church leader. Yes, even surpassing the wealth of a Professor of Anatomy, whose tomb was passed by slightly lower down. Really should have gone later in the evening, when it's creepier.

3. St. Mungo's Museum of Religious Art
The part that I least liked. It was SO BORING, and was in no way representative of many religions, even though it boasted of showcasing EVERY religion in the world. Of course, you'd expect a skewed representation towards a certain religion. It was a very bad exhibit.

So far the impression I got of Glasgow is that it tries too hard. Jack of all trades, master of none. Take the Museum of Transport, for one. If you want to do something, never do it in halves. You can't pick out certain crowd-drawing cars and claim that you are a Museum. They don't seem to try to do their best for these museums, these are really quite lame attempts, IMO. If you want to showcase christianity, you jolly well do it on the scale of that "Journey of Faith" Vatican Collection exhibit we had in Singapore some time ago. If you want to showcase buddhism, you jolly well get a stupa to show for it - they seem really confused about what they're saying, and mixing up the Theravada, Mahayana and Tibetan buddhist traditions. What about Japanese buddhism? These people obviously need a teaching even from a novice like me. And how come only 2 Hindu deities were shown?!? Bottom line is, it's all very disappointing. They obviously don't have an inkling of what they're talking about at all, and trying too hard to be too many of "the only whatever" in the uk/europe/world.

Well, I truly started having a better feel of the group dynamics today. Obviously B was tending to his gf, and trying to make us conform to her wishes while trying not being too obvious about it. ;) I quite understand, of course. However, the interesting stuff was the 3 girls. H lives in glasgow alone, while S and W live right at the outskirts, 40 mins by train to Glasgow, and almost right next to the sea between Ireland and Scotland. The odd thing is, W and H are very close, and kept talking to each other only. Works well anyway, I get along well with S, as mentioned earlier. Poor S, she seems to be overruled by the other 2 all the time though, as to which attractions they want to see. Ah, the troubles of going out in a group. We do share very similar tastes, so now we all go where I wanna go. =) Hahahaha. Like a power struggle, you know? I added quite a bit of muscle to this side of the camp. S is also another one of them sublime, mild girls, but she's really so into the supernatural ghostly stuff. Had a fun talk about cemetaries and haunted castles, and how I'm freaking poor mom out by booking us a stay in a famous haunted castle.

So yeah .. I'm starting not to feel too left out in this group. They're going on a day trip to Stirling next weekend, btu I'm flying down to Birmingham so I won't (psst .. don't want to) join them. Might be having a Bank Holiday sometime next week, rumour is that it's on Fri and Mon, so my plans will have to change somewhat. Might end up having an awful time all alone again. Let's see the plans:

Plan A
Saturday:
Plane to Birmingham, visit the Bullring as Mr. Ye recommended, then train to Telford. B&B in Shropshire, Telford.
Sunday:
Meet up with Mike, spend the entire day talking about plants and hopefully buying some, and in the evening, train back to Birmingham, plane back to Glasgow. Might end up reaching here rather late in the evening.
Monday:
Train to Greenock to visit the 2 girls. =) Yes, I've been invited!

Plan B
Saturday:
Rot around here .. somehow. Maybe a solo tour around the area. Maybe a visit to Edinburgh.
Sunday:
Early morning flight to Birmingham, transfer to train to reach Telford, and meet Mike hopefully in early afternoon. Then B&B in Shropshire.
Monday:
Train from Telford back to Birmingham, visit the Bullring, then flight back to Glasgow.

I guess it just hinges on whether I want to be late in meeting Mike, or be late in coming back to Glasgow. I'd prefer neither, honestly. Then again, I'm assuming that I get the day off on a bank holiday - it works differently here than in Wales and England, it's not a mandatory public holiday.

Ahh ... school again tomorrow, and somehow I'm not quite looking forward to it. Somehow. The weariness has started setting in, but it's this week that my posting's really starting. Someone's here to stay along the corridor, but further down in a single room, haven't met him yet. He left the (as yet undiscovered, for me, until several hours ago) bathtub room open though, which gave me a shit fright. I walked past it, and there was this pot of shaggy-looking plant on a shelf. Which looked like a head. Grrr. Closed the bloody door and hoping that it remains that way.

A Day Out

Here's what transpired since I last blogged -

As the night wore on yesterday, I started having doubts about meeting up with the Singaporeans. Not entirely sure why, but it's just the gut feeling. Wanted to just back out of the whole thing.

Spent the rest of the night eating yet another banana that I found in my coat pocket, and watching Will and Grace! It was the final 2 episodes of season 7, and alas - what cruel mockery. I had the final episode on my laptop, which has now died on me. CPR has failed entirely, and no amount of IV adrenalin could kick-start this ischaemic machine.

Woke at 6 as usual today, and bought my bus ticket at the station before moving on to this area called George Square, where the Glagow City Council is. It's really a very nice place, set in an entirely-Victorian area - here's a link to view a live webcam of George Square. George Square was flanked with the City Chambers, various statues, the tourist information board and the Museum of Modern Art. Met up with the girls there, and .. alas. As expected, I didn't even know these people existed in my year! The tourist information board was a lovely place, I picked up tonnes of brochures there which will make for an excellent read. Excellent venue to buy maps too. Before I go on to bitch about people, here's what we visited today:

City Sightseeing tour
For £6 (Student discount + discount voucher), I have 2 days' worth of free trips on the sight-seeing bus, free to hop on and off as I wish, and there's an excellent tour guide on board too. The tour consisted of 2 sections - the Old Town and New Town of Glasgow. So we went past things like the Central Station with glass ceilings, the Lighthouse, Science Centre, Convention Centre, Kelvingrove Park, Huntarian Museum, University of Glasgow, Provand's Lordship, St. Mungo's Museum of Religious Art, Royal Infirmary (the hospital which B. is at) and the People's Palace & Winter Gardens. Quite a nice ride, but it was SO COLD. We were sitting on the upper deck which is open-air, and ARGHHHHHH IT WAS SO COLD. My face froze, my hands froze, my feet froze and I was huddled in a heap despite wearing jeans, shirt and windbreaker. Would have been fine for normal walking, but no when you're just sitting down with the wind blowing at your face.

Stopped to visit H's room (to use her toilet actually, while the girls frantically donned more layers of clothes), took the city tour bus back to the University, then walked up Byres Road and stopped at a 2nd hand bookstore to look at medical books, then up Queen Margaret Road, then Maryhill Road (the other end from my Hall) and to visit B.'s room. B. didn't join us earlier on because he went to pick up his girlfriend from the airport, who's here to visit him too. After that we walked back down to the Hunterian Museum at the University, stopping at a supermarket to pick up some lunch.

Hunterian Museum
Chris and Fiona told me that there's a medical history exhibit at the Hunterian Museum, so we all proceeded there. It was nice! You know the guy Lister, of Listerine fame? Well, there's a bottle of his urine on display. He tried to prove that air contained stuff that contaminated surgical wounds, so he urinated into a flask, pumped out the air, and sealed it. The display card proudly said that "After all these years, the urine is still clear!" What nonsense. I'd like to see the bacterium/fungus that survives without glucose. Chances are, it probably did get contaminated at some point, the food source got used up and whatever micro-organism in there died. Still, it was a good exhibit. Saw the most hideous surgical tables made of wood, and early ophthalmoscopes.

There also was some kind of physics exhibit there, I visited it just to play with the stuff. Kind of cool! There was this radio (ok technically it can't be called a radio, it doesn't use radio waves) that works on signals transmitted by light waves. So I block the light and the sound goes off. And I finally understood all the yammering by yx about sopranos breaking glasses due to (insert "blah blah blah blah" - it didn't quite register) natural frequency. There was this wine glass in front of a huge speaker that emitted a really nasty squeaky sound, and the wine glass started warping!! Eeeks.

Last of all, the best part of the museum - the dinosaur exhibit. Saw the famous "Lucy" (some mummified early human), a silly normal-looking rock that's supposed to be a 40 billion-year-old thing that fell from the sky, another silly normal-looking rock that's supposed to be the first meteorite that fell in Glasgow (what nonsense. Plenty fell before, it's just that you idiots weren't looking or weren't even born yet) and a lot a lot a lot of choice fossils that I'd have loved to add to my tiny collection. I'm not even sure if the "fossils" I have are real. Huge crinoid stars!! And absolutely apalling 1 metre-long millipedes.

Hopped back onto the city tour bus

Museum of Transport
I have no idea why the girls suggested going there in the first place. Utterly boring. Just loads of cars, bicycles, trains, buses etc. A very British national past-time, I gather - I seem to recall numerous Enid Blyton stories about little boys taking photos of locomotives to compile albums.

Hopped back onto the city tour bus, then took a walk along Sauchiehall Street into Bucchanan Street and reached The Willow Tearoom. OK, the bitching starts.

Now, out of all 5 people I was with today, I only knew B. At the end of the day, however, I know who I'm definitely comfortable with; this girl S. She's really the most sensible of the lot, and B. was too busy taking care of his gf. (More stories here, but they are not suitable for blogs in case my very poorly-disguised codes are broken by unintended audience - knowledge only for the priviledged couple of people who have given me calls so far, upon request. =) Hahahaha .. you know who you are.)

The gist is, we never went into the Willow Tearooms. The others (except S) were grousing about how they ain't going to part with £4 for a sandwich (my eyebrows went up).

It's not the sandwiches, my dears. It's the architectural masterpiece by Charles Mackintosh we're here to look at.
S later told me in an undertone that she'll only be able to tour properly when her sis joins her in Glasgow at the end of the posting.

There's a difference between being sensible about your money, and being miserly. £2 to eat sitting on a pavement bench vs. £4 to eat in a warm, historical teahouse.

Another very embarrassing example. H went to the delicatessen at the supermarket while I was trying to choose which grilled chicken/pie I wanted. She asked for a fried chicken breast and a pie. After the woman packed it up for her, something I really really really really really really never never never never never expected from any (non-PRC) person came from H:

"Is that the largest piece? Can I have the largest piece?"

OK. Pray tell, how much larger can one fried chicken breast be from another? As far as I could tell, the difference was in millimetres.

I have never been so exasperated before. I've really had quite enough. Anyway, one of the girls asked me twice (or maybe 2 of them asked me once each) whether I'd like to stay for dinner. I turned it down, of course. First, it's been awkward enough. I have no intention AT ALL in letting these people know I can cook. Secondly, H's place is in an extremely dodgy part of town. Saturday night + dodgy areas + possible late dinners = no way.

I ended up going with B + his gf to Tesco to buy stuff, and I picked up a foot-long Subway for dinner. Tesco's actually midway between B's room and mine, so it's an ideal location. Never knew we were quite close to each other's places.

Talking about rooms, apparently everyone else thought I'm having the best deal. Here's the breakdown:

B's room
The good:
Good location, near the University
Internet in room (DAMN!!!!!!!)
The bad:
Tiny room. I really mean tiny. Half the space was taken by the bed already.
Shared toilet too.

H's room
The good:
Smack in the centre of town
Internet in room (but she had to pay a monthly fee for it. STILL. I'd pawn my undies to get internet access in the room.)
The bad:
Tiny room, once again.
Even tinier toilet. Just think Airplane Toilets.
Dodgy neighbourhood. The kind that you can get raped right at your doorstep.

The other 2 girls' room (didn't visit, just what they told me)
The good:
It's free
It's hospital accommodation. i.e. negligeable distance to hospital.
The bad:
No net in room, and even worse - no computer cluster. And hospital computer rooms close at 11pm. So no midnight blogging eh?
MILES away from town. Really MILES. 20 or 30 minutes' ride by train. Oh dear!

Now, I may bitch about people, but I don't hate them for what they are. In truth, the other girls have really been quite alright today, and I appreciated the dinner invitation. Turns out I was wrong about the group dynamics, Mr. Ye. They *are* a group in the first place, just at different hospitals. So (B+gf), (3 girls) and - oops, out pops ME! Same arrangement for dinner, so most probably that's why the 3 girls asked me over.

Anyway about Tesco. It's kinda cheap, the stuff, but STILL. B was going on and on about how large it is. You need to go to Morrisons.

Today's expenditure was modest. £20 on phone top-up, £8 on bus ticket - essentials. £6 on city tour bus ticket - tourist stuff. £0.51 on a keepsake penny (yx, they have these penny machines here too!) £5 on a very nice glass bottle of wild honey mixed with Tobermory single malt whisky (the scots! OMG. Everything has whisky in it.) and Edradour whisky fudges. £8 at Telco for a box of baby potatoes (going to microwave them!), 10 slices of cheese singles, loaf of multigrain bread (been getting loose stools), box of sliced turkey ham, carton of orange juice, and 3 boxes of various confectionaries. Wanted to buy cherries but the silly Tesco didn't have them. I love Morrisons all of a sudden.

Was back in room watching the telly, and felt sudden, very strong urge to go pubbing. But pubbing alone is really out of the question. First, I'll feel stupid. Second, the Red Fish Pub incident (see Chicago blog) may happen again. I'm scared, haha.

Surprised

Ah, looks like the contingency plan doesn't need to be put into action after all. This is the ultimate awkwardness - you see, the only person I know in that group of 4 (or 5) won't be meeting us until 11am, and that's at his place. The others, all girls, want to visit the city first. And of course remember I have to buy a new bus card? I figured that should work - reach by 8-ish, grab the bus card, then meet the girls at 9. Sounds good, no?

Problem - I don't know who the hell I'm supposed to be looking out for. Yeah, I'm that detached from the class .. can't attach a face to the names. Oh well. Just look for the most bookish-looking ones maybe? Haahaha.

But anyway it's nice of them. So I was wrong eh, Mr. Ye? Then AGAIN it would otherwise have been too obvious, you never know. Or maybe I'm just being skeptical.

In any case, I almost missed dinner tonight. This place is odd, come Friday, all work-related places close early - including the hospital library. So by the time I went back to the Hall, it's only like 5.10pm and they were closed. Re-opening at 6.30pm. Oh dear, and I don't have a dinner voucher! And dinner stops serving at 6.45pm! Slightly grouchy, but in the end although I cut it real fine, it went well.

First because being Mr. Agarophobe, I usually arrive for dinner very late anyway. This way, I can avoid the crowd and prevent awkward situations where I find myself sitting amongst an entire group of people who obviously know each other very well.

Second, it ended up being interesting. Wolfson Hall is a beautiful place for clinical spot diagnoses, as you shall learn soon. I got to know 2 more new acquaintances, Sharifah and Amie. Sharifah is from Afghanistan but had been staying here for 8 years, while Amie's a Chinese, and both are law students. Sharifah's been really nice - asked me where I'm staying, and that I'm really welcome for tea with her after her exams end on Monday. I actually overheard her on the phone, "Would you like to come and have some tea?" ... Urghh. So typically British. Anyway, Amie's an interesting one, because she can't really speak. At first I thought she was trying to be funny, but later I realised she REALLY can't articulate words. Her intention speaks perfectly good English, mind. Some sort of dysarthria, I'm thinking. Took a quick look in her mouth, no tongue-tie. Anyone can supply other differentials? Of course, she also could have had a tracheal stent or removal of the trachea? It was very intruiging. It got embarrassing though, because Sharifah introduced me to Amie as what my profession is, and there was just this quick cloud that passed right over; hardly noticeable. But we all understand better eh. X-ray eyes. I see your fingers, and I know what you've got. Fortunately for her, I do not know what she's suffering from, but it sure got me interested. She sounds almost like a mute person trying to speak? And in law? Don't get me wrong here, she's a perfectly lovely person and I warmed up to her immediately. Not because I felt sorry for her - you know most of the time the least people want is pity - but because she is just so plainly friendly and forthcoming and honest.

I also suspect this is one of those "I'll look you up later, I promise" things that never do happen, but hell .. I now have 2 more people to say hello to, at least!

And there's Ken, the security guard, who's probably having dementia. Sigh.

Anyway, there's this reality TV show here that's REALLY big here - Big Brother. Chris and Fiona expressed utmost shock when I told them this show hasn't reached Singapore, and probably will never be shown because the girls' tits can be seen. Fiona's looked like she's just seen a 3-headed human, and asked me incredulously why, and if there are any places in Singapore where people can sunbathe nude.

F: "So what happens if someone goes to the beach and takes off their bikini?"
Me: "First, people will stare, and you'd get quite a lot of mumbling in the background, some amused, some disapproving. Well if you're *really* unlucky a policeman could come along and maybe give you a warning or tell you off?"
F: "What?!? Is that the Secret Police or something??"

I really couldn't stop smiling. Thanks a lot, Mr. Lee. Yx, reminds me of the conversation you had with the Crazy Dominican Bitch about drugs and the death penalty. ;) Really miss having a da4 jie3 figure like Gisselle here. Ask her to fly over from France leh, I've got an extra bed in the room!!!

Anyway, in this episode of Big Brother, the new contestants come in. These 12 (I think) people are all placed together in a house and scrutinised 24/7 by CCTVs and microphones. So yeah .. you get strange hanky-pankies, and then one by one they get voted off by both the other inhabitants and also the public. This run of the show was interesting - 3 out of the 6 men were gay, and not in the dignified metrosexual way. I mean gay as in fag. Make-up. Shapely hip movements. You get the idea. There's also this Chinese woman who's a total disgrace. The moment she stepped into the house to meet her co-inhabitants for the first time, she started behaving like an absolute tart. 2 of the other women rolled their eyes while she tried to hug them .. she won't last long. Being born in the UK and having an accent with good english is fine. Being obviously foreign and having an accent with ATROCIOUS english is just plain idiotic.

That's all for photos

No more photos I think - that's all I have in my flash drive. =( Shall think of ways to transfer the photos from the phone to these computers in hospital. Was thinking of installing the bluetooth connector here, but I realised that the server is centrally-administrated and you can't install software. Darn. Nokia's fault - they should really have just made their phones to function as discreet USB flash drives, just a cable connecting phone to PC and having the PC recognising the phone as a separate drive. But noooo - they JUST had to be fancy and insisted on having software to transfer information. Complete idiots.

A pang of nostalgia hit me, regarding Madison. Compared to Glasgow, it's such a beautiful place. Perhaps it's because I was so much less lonely there - there was yx and her cranky room-mate. Or perhaps, it's because I was there during a most beautiful snowstorm. Or perhaps, it's because Glasgow is a post-industrialised area (i.e. loads of slums still) while Madison is really a nice University town place, mostly students where I stay at. Or perhaps, it's because I miss the happy-sounding greetings of, "Hi! How're ya doin'?" every time I go into a shop. Yep, starkly different. I'm hoping the highlands would be nicer. I've been told countless times that even Edinburgh's nicer.

* * * * *

Oooh, just had vegetable fried rice with curry, at £1.50! Apparently the staff get a hidden discount =) It's really not too bad, except that the fried rice is again very odd, and the curry's not quite spicy enough. It's good curry at least - I was expecting Japanese-style "curry". Wonder if it's worth coming here on weekends fully dressed-up just to get cheap lunches.

Anyway, one thing is that I've brought my labcoats for nothing. Students here don't wear that stuff, they've been told it's unhygienic. And so we've been told, too. Apparently NUS thinks that labcoats can poison perfectly-normal people eating at a canteen, while it'll be totally harmless when we wear them to see immunocompromised patients? You either get rid of it totally, or you don't bother. It just ends up making no sense at all.

I wonder what happened to all the hoo-ha regarding the patho exams. I simply love the fact that people do stand up for wrongdoing on the dean's office's part, but how come it died down?

10 more minutes till teaching ... I can jolly well skip it, since it's part of the other students' schedules and not mine, but otherwise I'd have absolutely nothing to do anyway. Fretting about lunch on Sat and Sun if the Singaporeans don't meet up. Wonder what I should eat, or where I should get food from.

1) Fast food in town
2) Convenience foods in room
3) I'm really not feeling all that adventurous right now about finding exotic locations for food, especially not when I'm totally alone.

* * * * *

Chris and Fiona have just gone home. Suddenly feels terribly empty and lonely here in hospital, even though we don't really hang out all that much. It's just that Monday feeling, you know ... when I was quite alone?

Soup in styro cup

soup2
Originally uploaded by Weirdoctor.

£$^%"$%"£$ - I've been eating out of these things before I realised yesterday that there's a REAL canteen in hospital. Grrr.

This is lentil and bacon soup. Their soups are really thick and actually very filling (for the moment). Not bad for a cold day.

Friends with swans

swan1
Originally uploaded by Weirdoctor.

Yeah, the swans always come over when I have my lunch by the pond. Very nice things, but initially a little scary. The side of the pond looks quite shallow, but if swans can waddle in it the middle should be really deep. There are 2 islands in the middle too, where I think all their nests are.

White flowers

White flowers
Originally uploaded by Weirdoctor.

Mr. Ye - perhaps an ID?

Outside Room

Outside Room
Originally uploaded by Weirdoctor.

View from my large window downwards, this is an enclosed courtyard flanked by other blocks in the hall. There's this crazy person reading out there in the glaring sun. It's either very gloomy here, or so bright you have to squint.

Saffron

PICT0190
Originally uploaded by Weirdoctor.

Yes, wonderful cooking when I get back - 5g of really nice saffron from Dubai airport! It's much cheaper than the measly 1g I have at home, BTW. Hairgel next to it for size comparison.

Maryhill Road again

PICT0205
Originally uploaded by Weirdoctor.

The big roundabout just outside the Hall, it's quite a major road. I don't use this road except for taking buses to the city. To get to hospital, I go through the woods to reach another road on the other side, which runs parallel to this road.

So blur!

I rushed to hospital today, thinking there was a teaching at 9am. I checked my schedule and OH. It's at 1pm. Would actually have skipped the day, if not for the fact that my supervisor and the ward sister were *supposed* to be here today. Alas, no. Supervisor will be at the Royal Infirmary on Monday, so I only get to see him on Tues. Oh heck. Just spend the morning surfing the net!

Oh - and that Singaporean girl? Met her AGAIN this morning, and this time a funny thought occurred to me. According to Kirithi, there's been a new law in the UK that gives preferrential employment of doctors to the locals. That means even if you're trained as a doctor here but are not born here, you get put indefinitely in the waiting list. Which means there's a very high chance that she'll need to go back to Singapore to practice. Which means if she wants to get her MMed she'll need to be employed by a hospital. Which means ...

MUAHAHAHA. She might be a junior doctor in whichever team I'm in. Excellent. Odds of that happening ain't high, but hey it's possible.

I finally did the one last thing I never wanted to do - I called up my colleagues that are also here in Glasgow. We'll see. I have a certain suspicion that this weekend will not come to anything much, i.e. I'll never hear from them. Whatever. I'll plan out something to do then. Here's a list:

1. Top up SIM card in preparation for next week, still some credit left but I definitely don't want to end up credit-less in the middle of next week.
2. Do some shopping at Morrisons again, or M&S which is in town. Need to get emergency dinners, TV snacks and see if there's Milo here (fat hope).
3. Finalise plans for flying to Burmingham next weekend. I'm cutting it very fine. I'm still feeling extremely upset that the digital camera died on me, so when I'm in Burmingham I won't be able to do Mike's plants any justice at all.
4. Go to Buchannan bus station to buy another weekly concession bus card for £8. And while I'm there, I might visit the Buchannan Galleries right opposite, and find my way from Sauchiehall Street into Buchannan street where the fab shops supposedly are. Still very green down here, not sure of how to go to places but I'll manage. Been advised by Chris to steer away from the Eastern side of Glasgow especially at night, and I fully intend to heed his advice.
5. Do laundry. I refuse to use their laundry room, which is so messy and full of other peoples' clothes, so I've been using the sink in my room. Works very well, except on my white jeans but who cares, everyone else here is grimey. I start by soaking in hot tap water for 15 mins, then soaking in hot detergent water for 15 mins or longer. Pull out the plug, then run hot water into sink and clothes to reach an equilibrium where water from tap = water going down the sink. So what I get is constant circulation of hot water around my clothes in the sink, without the sink overflowing. Isn't that what happens in a washing machine anyway? ;) I do this automatic water swirl thing for like half hour - hey, I don't pay for the water what.
6. Figure out what to do next week, each day after work. I really can't buy any more story books, that's too much to carry home. =( Computer died = no games. SO. WTF.

Week 1 almost over - 2 more to go.

Case of the apparating fruits

For 3 days in a row, I've been putting all sorts of fruits in my coat pocket and forgetting all about them. First was the banana (which turned black). Then this morning I found an apple in my pocket which I had put in during dinner last night. It was still good, so I ate it for tea. After dinner, I remembered another banana I had in my pocket.

* * * * *

Met that Singaporean girl again during dinner tonight.

Girl: "Oh hi" (notice: no exclaimation mark)
Me: "Hi" (again, I reciprocated without the exclaimation mark. I was so expressively nonplussed.)

Well, at least you acknowledge that I'm here.

Then we walked off. What, no small talk?

I know what you're made of, girl. You're just like that fruit I found in my pocket.

* * * * *

The place is strangely deserted tonight. I got a very bad fright this evening though. I was sitting out in the yard enjoying the breeze (that turned into a gale 10 minutes later) and having fun with the mp3 player when I heard a rustle behind me. Turning behind, I saw a SWAMP THING. This groteque green creature strode out of nowhere and walked past me. Almost before I had recovered from the shock, a NINJA quickly followed behind. WTF?? I think it's some kind of costume party - sure as hell made me jump!!

Imagine turning round to see this thing right behind you.

Also watched House and Grey's Anatomy just now. I do not approve of House. It's bad medical practice and his voice is extremely irritating. If he thinks making that sort of grunting baboon-like noise is sexy, he's dead wrong. And what kind of stupid consultant only introduces himself to the patient just as she is about to die? (I'm talking about the black plague episode here.) The whole thing was just awful, it's a stupid exaggeration of real work, and a very bad one at that. Even Grey's was much more convincing. Like, those doctors on the team were rattling off differential diagnoses faster than my brain could register what they were saying - why don't all of you just shut up and DO SOMETHING to show whether you're right or wrong? And each time a differential was mentioned, it was shot down - and get this - just because a single sign/symptom wasn't there? Hello. Get real man. Not everyone who has haemorrhoids have blood fountains shooting out of their asses, yes? They excluded meningitis without doing a spinal tap? =/ Dubious. This episode would have made the dream ethics case writeup though.

Grey's was rather more satisfying. It did make me extremely homesick though, which explains why I'm down here in the computer cluster in the middle of the night. Again, medical ethics - drinking and performing surgery - not likely in Singapore, but I wouldn't put it past the scottish. Did I ever mention that the Glasgow people are fei1 chang2 nan2 kan4?? OMG. Not a single decent one. All quite kong3 bu4. YUCK. Only Chris and Fiona look even decent, and that good-looking doc I was with on Monday. He's definitely Glaswegian, dumbass accent. (Which, incidentally, was the very first thing Kirithi talked to me about .. hah.)

Will be meeting my supervisor for the first time tomorrow, pray that everything will be alright. Even if it's not .. well, I'm still gonna be out of here in another 2 weeks.

=) More new friends

The hospital student's computer room is a nice place to hang out at.

1) There's broadband internet
2) It's quiet but not desolate (I've learnt the difference the hard way)
3) The USB drive works
4) There's a free printer (catch: you need to supply your own paper)
5) The library is just outside
6) You get to meet new people

Just met this girl, Kirithi, from Sabah who's been here for 2 years, and she was such a joy to chat with, we didn't stop talking for the last 20 minutes. Her next posting (next week) is at another hospital that's so much nearer the Glasgow International Airport that she actually had to buy a car last week so she could go there easily. And so she was grousing about how the car arrived but not the insurance papers, and so now she has the car sitting around but she can't drive it! Hmm .. that's what happens when the place is big and your transport system is bonkers.

And what's more, she shares my interest in ophthalmology too, haha. Now, that's rare - people don't usually like this subject. "Boring"; "Too sterile"; "Too small to look at" etc etc. Exactly why I love it. Eye surgeries are remarkably clean and has pinpoint precision, and I do love all the microscopes and gadgets you have to use to make a diagnosis. So instead of writing out silly forms and sending the patients away for the day to do CT scans and whatnot, you actually do the laser photocoagulation therapy with your own hands. Simply because non-ophthalmologists just can't do it. =P

Anyway, Kirithi was nice, she left me with an email addy to get her at. Too bad that this is also her last week here at this hospital, but she did mention that she'll be pleased to bring me around the city if she's in town. Now that's really very nice of her. Chances of that happening are kinda remote, but still it's nice to know that help is here when you need it.

Today, Chris and I went to the eye casualty clinic, while Fiona was in another doc's clinic (I think the doc is from Hong Kong). It was really quite interesting, despite the lack of bulgeing eyeballs ready to explode in your face. There was this case of a lady presenting with angioid streaks in her retina, with a history of Holmes-Adie pupils. Apparently the angioid streaks are classically associated with Paget's Disease of the bone, Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, sickle cell disease and pseudoxanthoma elasticum .. very interesting! Recurrent iritis associated with ankylosing spondylitis, herpetic corneal ulcers and stuff like the Weiss ring in complete posterior vitreous detachment. There was also this Egyptian ophthalmologist who's doing a clinical attachment here, so I'll be seeing him also for the next 2 weeks. Had a nice talk about Egypt.

I'm not sure if I mentioned this before, but I met a lot of interesting people en route to Glasgow, on the plane. From Singapore to Dubai, I was sitting next to this family from Cyprus, who were then residing in Australia. And from Dubai to Glasgow, I sat next to a 70+-year-old man from Kenya who was bringing his wife and his 90+-year-old mother-in-law to France to attend a wedding. Had a really enlightening talk about Africa with this man - he's the 4th generation of the first few white people who went to Kenya, and he was expounding to me the virtues of having a holiday in the desert. Odd huh? I also highly endorse flying on Emirates - service was great, food was excellent, inflight entertainment was top-notch, and there's this CCTV thingy in the plane too so that you can see the land falling away from under you as you take off. So in the space of several hours, I managed to see aerial views of Vienna, Munich, Turkey etc all spreading out under the plane. Very nice.

It's nice to have people running up to you from behind and calling out Hi, then walking to hospital together (Fiona). And nice to have lunch with Chris and having him tell me where I should be visiting. But they won't be here for the next 2 weeks. Need some friends here. Maybe I'll contact the Singaporeans and ask if they want to catch The Da Vinci Code movie this weekend.

Now I can't upload ANYMORE pics, because laptop doesn't work = no bluetooth = pics are stuck in phone. I'm beginning to suspect that the room has got something to do with it. I took pics of the room, and when I was about to upload them, the digicam died. Then, I took pics of the room using the phone, and when I uploaded them, the laptop died. Coincidence?!?

A Series of Unfortunate Events

No, it's not about the movie (which sucked by the way). The final straw came last night - my laptop is spoilt. It is. I'm so pissed. It boots, gets into the Windows loading screen, gets stuck there for 1 minute, then a blue screen comes up and it reboots, and goes into a black screen saying "We're sorry but Windows did not start up normally. This could be due to a recent hardware or software change.", and there are 5 options on the screen including safe mode, safe mode with networking, normal, last good setting and blah blah blah, then it counts down from 30 and reboots, and the whole story starts. Could it be the stupid bluetooth dongle software? But it doesn't quite make sense, cos after I installed the bluetooth software, I rebooted the computer and it worked. Next morning, it still worked. By night, the laptop died.

As far as I'm concerned, this is the last straw. Every single electronic thing seems to go haywire here. Now I don't even have games in my room anymore, and I've just finished my second Dan Brown book. And I've run out of stuff to read except textbooks. The TV is awful here - plain awful. At least, there was Desperate Housewives yesterday. It was an excellent break from the awful English accent.

The Road to Hospital

Sorry for the sudden influx of photograpyhs, my freaking hands had been ITCHING for days to use a PROPER computer. Not silly things that don't work. So here I present to you the road I take to hospital each day. Parts of it, at least. I'll edit this post along the way, as I take more photos.

1. The fields
Looking back towards my hall from the football field. The hall is not visible, but it's about 5-8 minutes' walk away, along the road to behind the trees. I was standing on a bridge while taking this photo.


2. The Forth & Clyde Canal
Nice little stream, flowing just under the bridge I'm standing on. To the right of the picture is my way to hospital, to the left is the way home. I like seeing this bridge everyday, it means my legs can rest in about 10 minutes' time.


3. Narcissus
Further walking into the woods after the bridge, into a field of narcissi and daffys.


4. Bluebells
Loads of bluebells in the woods. The small white flowers in the foreground are daisies I think, and some of the bluebells are actually pink. The tall, yellow flowers in the middle are daffodils. I think. Mr Ye .. I got that right?


5. The cANAL Restaurant
Out of the woods, past the Vet School, and out to the main road, and about 1km down this main road (Bearsden Road) I get to another crossing of the Clyde Canal. Apparently someone thought it funny to remove the letter "C" from this restaurant's signage.


6. Plant shop
Another 1 km down from the cANAL Restaurant,I get to this lovely plant shop.


7. Where petrol is cheaper than diesel
After the plant shop, a 2km walk to this BP petrol station. Diesel is more expensive than petrol!!!


8. Gartnavel General Hospital (Western Infirmary)
At last. The hospital. Looks quite gross actually.


9. The Eye Clinic
Oooh, the clinics! The big machine in the middle is the slit lamp biomicroscope, and the long black thing sticking out is the attached teaching scope where I peer down hopefully to see stuff that the doc is seeing. As I mentioned, NO COMPUTER!!