What country, friends, is this?
Canada, apparently.
My last post was about snow but the weather outside right now puts that day to SHAME. There is almost a foot of the white stuff outside our door. The section of the ringroad nearest our house has been closed and the country is coming to a standstill. Because we're British and we just can't cope. I'm at work again tomorrow afternoon and I have a feeling we'll be short staffed (more so than usual that is) because people will have difficulties getting in to work. I fully expect there to be even more patients than usual though.
I just came off nights so although it's midnight now it feels like midday to me. I meant to go to London today and I had every intention of going even though I didn't fall asleep until almost five. However, someone called me (in error) at 7.15 and woke me and then I nodded off again and woke up at 3.45. D'oh. I wanted to see Nush too :(. Although in hindsight it's probably best that I didn't go as I might have had trouble getting back. But I hate that I always sleep through my off day post-nights because I'm so sleep deprived that I can do nothing else.
Christmas at the hospital was super busy. The emergency room was full of people who'd slipped on the ice and had angina attacks due to the cold. I left over an hour late on Christmas day. My parents came to pick me up (it was super cold) and I had to leave them waiting in the staff room for a while as I ran around the department trying to finish up with my patients. One of the regs dressed up as santa though and that was pretty awesome. My mother also managed to slip and fall on the ice BEFORE we'd even left the hospital grounds. Luckily, she was fine which is a good job as I really didn't want to have to go back to work! And some muntjac deer crossed a busy A road in front of us on the way home. Perhaps they'd seen Rudolph and his buddies the night before and wanted in on the action.
New year's eve was fun. We had a few drinks, played some games, and then our friend Sarah missed the vital few seconds because she was in the bathroom. Epic. I don't usually make new year's resolutions because I never keep them (in fact one year I made the resolution of "never making another new year's resolution" and I broke that too) but I've decided upon one for this year. I'm going to read a book every week. I might stretch this to one every fortnight because with my schedule I think this may prove difficult. I love reading but I find it hard to devote the time to it, mostly because I'm tired after work. I've done a little better recently. In the last few months I read Flowers For Algernon, Brave New World, The Great Gatsby, Zuleika Dobson, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler :), Intern: a Doctor's Initiation, and some other things I've forgotten.
So then- book one. It's almost the end of the first week of the year and I'm not doing too well. But I've been on nights so I'll cut me some slack. I've started reading The House of God which is yet another "I'm a junior doctor- get me out of here!" book. But this is the most talked about one. I picked it up in Blackwell's second-hand some time back but never got around to reading it. Now is the time.
It's also "lunch" time I think. I'm gonna fix up some food and snuggle up with my book. Happy twelfth night!
ETA: I'm quite excited at the prospect of all this reading. I've read some more of The House of God tonight and then I got distracted by Edgar Allen Poe stories. Does anyone have any good suggestions for interesting reads? I have several books adorning my shelves which are longing to be read and re-read. Below are novels I have lined up.
FRESH READS
To Kill A Mockingbird- Harper Lee
Sons and Lovers- DH Lawrence
Nineteen Eighty-Four- George Orwell
The Egyptologist- Arthur Phillps (I picked this up cheap in a wonderful little bookstore in Chicago but have yet to begin reading it)
The Portrait of a Lady- Henry James
OLD FAVOURITES
Matilda, The BFG, The Witches- Roald Dahl
His Dark Materials- Philip Pullman
And I just ordered Kafka on the Shore, The Five People You Meet in Heaven, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, and The New York Trilogy from Amazon.
Obviously these will keep me going for some time but, in the words of Tom Lehrer, "more, more, I'm still not satisfied!".
My last post was about snow but the weather outside right now puts that day to SHAME. There is almost a foot of the white stuff outside our door. The section of the ringroad nearest our house has been closed and the country is coming to a standstill. Because we're British and we just can't cope. I'm at work again tomorrow afternoon and I have a feeling we'll be short staffed (more so than usual that is) because people will have difficulties getting in to work. I fully expect there to be even more patients than usual though.
I just came off nights so although it's midnight now it feels like midday to me. I meant to go to London today and I had every intention of going even though I didn't fall asleep until almost five. However, someone called me (in error) at 7.15 and woke me and then I nodded off again and woke up at 3.45. D'oh. I wanted to see Nush too :(. Although in hindsight it's probably best that I didn't go as I might have had trouble getting back. But I hate that I always sleep through my off day post-nights because I'm so sleep deprived that I can do nothing else.
Christmas at the hospital was super busy. The emergency room was full of people who'd slipped on the ice and had angina attacks due to the cold. I left over an hour late on Christmas day. My parents came to pick me up (it was super cold) and I had to leave them waiting in the staff room for a while as I ran around the department trying to finish up with my patients. One of the regs dressed up as santa though and that was pretty awesome. My mother also managed to slip and fall on the ice BEFORE we'd even left the hospital grounds. Luckily, she was fine which is a good job as I really didn't want to have to go back to work! And some muntjac deer crossed a busy A road in front of us on the way home. Perhaps they'd seen Rudolph and his buddies the night before and wanted in on the action.
New year's eve was fun. We had a few drinks, played some games, and then our friend Sarah missed the vital few seconds because she was in the bathroom. Epic. I don't usually make new year's resolutions because I never keep them (in fact one year I made the resolution of "never making another new year's resolution" and I broke that too) but I've decided upon one for this year. I'm going to read a book every week. I might stretch this to one every fortnight because with my schedule I think this may prove difficult. I love reading but I find it hard to devote the time to it, mostly because I'm tired after work. I've done a little better recently. In the last few months I read Flowers For Algernon, Brave New World, The Great Gatsby, Zuleika Dobson, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler :), Intern: a Doctor's Initiation, and some other things I've forgotten.
So then- book one. It's almost the end of the first week of the year and I'm not doing too well. But I've been on nights so I'll cut me some slack. I've started reading The House of God which is yet another "I'm a junior doctor- get me out of here!" book. But this is the most talked about one. I picked it up in Blackwell's second-hand some time back but never got around to reading it. Now is the time.
It's also "lunch" time I think. I'm gonna fix up some food and snuggle up with my book. Happy twelfth night!
ETA: I'm quite excited at the prospect of all this reading. I've read some more of The House of God tonight and then I got distracted by Edgar Allen Poe stories. Does anyone have any good suggestions for interesting reads? I have several books adorning my shelves which are longing to be read and re-read. Below are novels I have lined up.
FRESH READS
To Kill A Mockingbird- Harper Lee
Sons and Lovers- DH Lawrence
Nineteen Eighty-Four- George Orwell
The Egyptologist- Arthur Phillps (I picked this up cheap in a wonderful little bookstore in Chicago but have yet to begin reading it)
The Portrait of a Lady- Henry James
OLD FAVOURITES
Matilda, The BFG, The Witches- Roald Dahl
His Dark Materials- Philip Pullman
And I just ordered Kafka on the Shore, The Five People You Meet in Heaven, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, and The New York Trilogy from Amazon.
Obviously these will keep me going for some time but, in the words of Tom Lehrer, "more, more, I'm still not satisfied!".