Sunday, July 30, 2006

I was away, and now I'm moaning.... ah, the joys

Okay, so I’ve done it again. Fallen off the face if the earth for a whole week, and without an excuse. I just haven’t felt like blogging. Sorry.

I’ve had a good week all in all. I’m just feeling rubbish today as it was the end of this block on Friday. It’s been really good fun, but I am so going to miss the peeps I was at hospital with. Especially the guy I have/had the crush on. It’s mixed tense because right now I still do but I am trying to STOP.

I ‘fessed up to Mirabelle while we were out and a bit pissed last night. Which has made the whole thing horribly real. And you know what, I like him muchly as a friend completely separately to the crush thing, so it’s going to be rubbish come tomorrow morning when I don’t get to meet him at 8am for half an hour of quality sitting in Birmingham traffic time. Sigh.

So anyway, I’m stopping the stupid crush thing because it is pointless. He is my friend and that’s my lot.

Although just once I would like it to be me. Everyone else gets to have flirtations and fun and boyfriends. I have not had any real interest for forever. When will it be my turn?

I’ve never been in love. Sure, I’ve liked guys, been seeing some of ‘em, but never had a serious boyfriend, never been in love. Why is that? Is it me? Is it never going to be me?

Maybe I am stupid for hoping. It’s got to the stage when even darling Mirabelle said yesterday ‘Surely someone has to realise how beautiful and lovely you are…’

And I had nothing to say to that, except ‘Oh God, when? When?’.

Now, I’m not stunning, but I’m no troll. I’m not pencil thin, but I ain’t a case for gastric banding. I have a rather generous bottom, but a phenomenal rack (I quote) to balance it out. I have a round face with a blobby nose, but big blue-green eyes and long dark blonde hair. I am friendly, easy-going, intelligent and bizarre enough to be moderately interesting.

So why the fuck does nobody else see that?

On a lighter note, I have discovered a fool proof way to get rid of crazies at bus stops. You know, the ones who talk and talk at you. One came up to me this morning at the bus stop, 8.30am, an Irish women, probably in her 60s, who said she’d fallen over, and it was terribly painful, then showed the graze, she told me what she wanted to put on it yadda yadda… she paused for breath after about five minutes and asked me if I was going to work. I said ‘No, I’m going to Church.’

She said ‘Oh, right…’ and scarpered. Fabulous. Jesus is my Saviour.

Currently listening to: Snow Patrol – Eyes Open. Suitably dirge-like for today’s mood. Marvellous.

Sunday, July 23, 2006

In Review

Due to my long absence, I’m giving you this week in review:

Cold showers: 10

Times when I’ve whinged ‘I’m too hot’: 3782

Phone calls on Telewest landline: 0

Irate phone calls to Telewest to sort our service: 3

Minutes spent on hold with Telewest: 20

Teaching sessions cancelled: 4 (out of 3 days in hospital…)

Bleeps to unavailable doctors: 36

Bleeps to our student bleep: 2 (very very very exciting!)

Units of alcohol consumed on Friday night: 10

Hours spent dancing with hospital buddies on Friday night: too many!

Lists of ‘things to do’: 3

Completed items on things to do lists: 0

Crushes on fellow medical students: 1

Presentations written on aetiology of Diabetes Mellitus and metabolic syndrome: 1

Hours spent not listening at GP day on Diabetes: 7.5

Charcoal barbecues in our garden successfully lit: 0

Emergency disposable barbecues bought at 9pm so we could eat before bedtime: 1

Walks in the park in the pouring rain: 1

Housemate’s grandparents with fatal strokes: 1

Currently singing: ‘Break down the walls’ by Paul Brain, a Northumbrian Community hymn/song, with a deliciously simple and melodic tune. Nice words too – here’s the chorus:

Break down the walls I have built, keeping you distant,

See through the smile that I wear when we meet.

Break through the pride that hides the truth of my condition.

Break down the walls around my heart, make me real.

I think it sums up what we’re all looking for. Someone with whom we can be completely ourselves, and never even think about how to be enough. Because just being is enough.

Monday, July 17, 2006

Hot

The hot weather has a lot to answer for. I am constantly hot and sticky (and not in a good way…) and incredibly short-tempered and grumpy. I am also having fantasies involving cold dark winters and the need for coats and scarves and gloves.

I fear for my tenuous grip on sanity.

Saturday, July 15, 2006

Having a good time

I went out with the girls last night. It was fun. We dressed up (heels and lippy!) and went to a bar in Brindley Place. It was really nice just to go out, have a few drinks, have a dance, get a burger on the way home (mmmmmmm). And then have a really long-in the next morning!

I also went out on Wednesday night. It was quiet drink at our local for a hospital social, that turned into a night out at Snobs, the dirtiest nightclub in Birmingham™. About 10 of us rocked up to the pub, and then 5 went on to Snobs. Pretty quickly 1 of the guys got chucked out – though absolutely no fault of his own, though I wouldn’t go into it. And his mate went with him, so it ended up as me and my 2 firm buddies – Laura and Tom. But it worked out really weel, and ended up being a fab night. Snobs is the kind of place playing fairly mainstream rock/indie type music, not really Laura’s thing at all, but she went for it with a vengeance. Both Tom and I were in our element (and yes, he is the one I have a crush on. I haven’t even worked out why yet), loving all the music. It was absolutely packed though – full of kids who’ve finished exams. Not just A-level students, but AS and GCSEs, as the club bouncers were studiously not ID-ing. Some of the kids in there looked so young. I’m sure the police would have been forced to close them if they’d been there that night. One boy (who didn’t even look 16) gave me the come on, and I was absolutely horrified. I am so old these days its untrue.

All in all though it’s been a good week. Slightly lacking in the work front, so that will need major rectification tomorrow. Sigh.

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Synaethesia

Way back in January this year, I wrote an entry on my weird ‘feeling’ of music. It happened to crop up today while me and my housemates were having dinner. Sally and I were talking about our visualisations of the months of the year (mine’s oval, her’s square) and the days of the week. I also have colours for days of the week, and a sort of number grid. My number grid is incomplete, which I think adds to my difficulty in using numbers. I also had colours from different classes at school. Mirabelle and Di were fairly non-plussed by it all.

Sally called it synaesthesia. I had heard the term before, but never really thought about it in the context of my sensations. We talked of colour scales for music, but I have nothing like that. I feel music.

But Sally (herself a music graduate) was surprised by my music thing. It’s something I find almost impossible to put into words. When a piece of music gets me, my skin tingles, and I get goose-pimples and erect nipples. It is a real solid physical feeling, but I cannot describe it. Maybe the easiest thing to equate it to it sexual arousal – but for me the two are completely separate. I have not been able to pin down when I get the feeling: it can be during complex or simple music, and when I am listening or singing, but it is not entirely reproducible. I believe it may be triggered by certain chord sequences, but thinking interferes with the feeling, and I lose it.

Intrigued by Sally’s talk of synaesthesia, I plugged it into Google (good old Google) and discovered a world of synaesthetes. Wikipedia has an article, and there is a UK Synaesthesia Association.

I think that I have mild but unusual synaesthesia. So far, I can’t find any testimonies or accounts of music and touch synaesthesia. I will keep reading about it, but I won’t get obsessed. I will simply be grateful for the chance to experience the joy of music on an extra level.

Monday, July 10, 2006

Surprising Myself

I went home for the weekend, and it was good.

Mirabelle came too, mainly to see the kittens. They are soooo cute. And so much fun to play with and cuddle.

Isn’t it weird how most people are either a dog or cat person? Ok, so I admit there are the rare oddities who are both, but they are rare. I always wanted to be a dog person, because I think there are so many negative connotations to being a cat person. The tidy and clean thing, the lack of time for a pet, the deliberate choice of a pet who is selective with affection. But these re also things I love about cats - they are tidy and clean, they don’t take up to much of your time, they are usually fairly undemanding but can be incredibly affectionate. All in all, they suit me and I suit them. I will never be a dog person – they make your house smell of dog, they need constant attention and care, they slobber.

You know, I’ve always thought I could be a dog person, but it has just dawned on me that I will not. Even if I have a dog, I will still be a cat person inside.

I like writing a blog and getting to know myself better. And I still find that I am constantly surprising myself – everytime I think I understand me, I go and do something totally unexpected.

Thursday, July 06, 2006

Unhappy in my skin

I am feeling a little bruised of confidence at the moment. I am not happy in my own skin right now, which is a very unsettling feeling. To be fair, I think it is extremely rare to be happy in your own skin all the time. Maybe that’s a little extreme. Maybe its moreture that it is rare to be constantly proud or pleased at your self-image all the time, but to be content with yourself can be a constant.

I am not content with my self, nor am I happy with my self-image.

I have resisted blogging about this for a long time. It’s a subject painfully close the centre of my being. I am deeply unconfident about the person I am. I worry that people won’t like me, that I have upset someone.

Thankfully I have a naturally buoyant personality. I am friendly and sunny and consistently cheerful. I do have a certain amount of confidence in my own intelligence and my own talents. So I am usually able to keep the lack of confidence about the way I look (which is what it boils down to) well hidden. But it is always there.

I genuinely do not think I am remotely attractive. I can sometimes fool myself, if I wear eyeliner and heels and curled hair. But mostly I just plough through life hating myself and my body and cursing all the other prettier girls.

There, I said it (note how far down the post it took me). I can’t say it again, but it’s there. And it weighs me down. Take this guy I have a crush on. We get on very well, we laugh and joke together, but I know that he does not find me attractive, because I am not. So therefore, I won’t do anything about the crush. I will be friendly and have fun, but I won’t ever flirt, because he would not reciprocate. And that would be crushing.

I think if I was more confident about myself, I would be more open to doing something with the damn crush. Confidence allows you to take risks, because you have a safe place to stand. I don’t. If I’m knocked back, then whatever final vestiges of confidence I am holding onto will be lost forever, and I’ll crawl into a dark corner and never emerge again.

I usually counter my lack of personal confidence with a good strong dose of confidence in my intelligence. But even that is taking a battering right now, which is not helping. Not helping at all. Medicine is threatening my safe refuge by asking more of me than I have.

And finally, its all compounded by the fact that my god damn housemates are all so god damned loved up, and I feel lonely. I want someone to love me. But right now I just don’t see it happening. Because who could love me?

So now you know. This is my deep dark secret. Sunny, happy Anna can’t stand herself.

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

Uncertainty

Medicine is inherently uncertain.

The very nature of health and the human body make medicine, at best, an imprecise science, a science of educated guesses. Clinical diagnosis may seem rock solid to the patient, but the doctor can never be 100% sure.

I am never sure. I am never sure of my knowledge, of my skills, of my decisions. I know there is still so much to learn, and I am terrified that in two years time I will be about to begin my first job as a doctor.

I am even more terrified that I will be found wanting within those two years, and be sent down. I sometimes wish more than anything that I had chosen another career path, and yet I would not give this one up for the world. I am both longing for the nerve to leave, and find out what else I could do, and desperate to do my utmost, to win this fight and get through.

I am uncertain, which seems fitting.

For the moment, the medic in me is winning. I have almost regained my former passion. It is a hard won gain, and I fear the slightest knock could break it down.

But for now I am concentrating on being enough, because I want to be, not because I feel I ought to be.

PS Apologies for yesterday’s outburst. I have developed a crush on one of the guys I’m on placement with (stupid stupid stupid), and was just letting off a bit of steam. Alcohol is so good at loosening my tongue. Or fingers. Thoughts? Oh, whatever.

Tuesday, July 04, 2006

warning: pissed post ahead

argh argh argh.

Never get a crush on your delightful, witty and very lovely fellow firm person. It's just not worth it.

It's rubbish when you know they think you're perfectly aimiable as a FRIEND, but that's it.

May I repeat, rubbish.

(ps I also think that I am about to become the only single person remaining in my house. There's five of us living here. I am sooooo the minority.)

Sunday, July 02, 2006

Sorted

So, I’m all moved in.

My rents have come up trumps and installed a fabulously enormous desk and stacks of shelving. The wardrobe-type-hanging-space is still over the desk, but I think I’ll get used to that. My chest of drawers is also still outside my door, but I think I’l manage with that ok.

The piano is also in place, but it was a huge effort to get it there. Thank God for beasty strong brothers and dads. We (me, Mirabelle, Dad and bro) got it out of my old house (no 60) onto some piano wheels, then wheeled it down the middle of the road to my new abode (no 200, same road). Normally it’s a fairly busy road, but due to England making their final appearance in the World Cup at the same time, we only saw 3 cars.

I’m feeling a lot happier about the house now – I think the post previous to this was a direct reaction to moving stress.

I am also intensely tired, which helps nothing. I didn’t go to bed last night til 2.30am, then woke up at 7.30am for church. On top of a week of heavy work and little sleep. Ouch. So it’s now 11pm, and as I didn’t even have a nap this afternoon, I think it is time for bed…

Sorted

So, I’m all moved in.

My rents have come up trumps and installed a fabulously enormous desk and stacks of shelving. The wardrobe-type-hanging-space is still over the desk, but I think I’ll get used to that. My chest of drawers is also still outside my door, but I think I’l manage with that ok.

The piano is also in place, but it was a huge effort to get it there. Thank God for beasty strong brothers and dads. We (me, Mirabelle, Dad and bro) got it out of my old house (no 60) onto some piano wheels, then wheeled it down the middle of the road to my new abode (no 200, same road). Normally it’s a fairly busy road, but due to England making their final appearance in the World Cup at the same time, we only saw 3 cars.

I’m feeling a lot happier about the house now – I think the post previous to this was a direct reaction to moving stress.

I am also intensely tired, which helps nothing. I didn’t go to bed last night til 2.30am, then woke up at 7.30am for church. On top of a week of heavy work and little sleep. Ouch. So it’s now 11pm, and as I didn’t even have a nap this afternoon, I think it is time for bed…