Paradigm Shift

So much for spending the weekend with books. On-call and post-take on Friday were horribly busy enough for me to want to get away from Carlisle and do something totally non-medicky for the weekend. The lack of medical beds ensured that Dr Burke, Dave O and myself had around 40 odd patients to take care of (Dave and I also had to take care of Dr Mac's patients, which numbered around 15) and getting bleeped every 15 mins wasn't the most pleasant of experiences.

But all's well that ends well. Except for the fact that it hasn't really ended and the work has been dragged into this week. It's rather unfortunate that my SHO ain't around, but at least I've got a good reg and a good consultant who dig in and stay back to help as well. Dave and I were only finished around 1930 on Friday, and thankfully he was kind enough to give me a lift back to Geordieland.

The weekend was beautifully spent doing nothing but relaxing. Ate lotsa chocolates (courtesy of Shanti), drank lots of tom yam (courtesy of Elly), ventured out into the freezing temperatures with Elly n Ellina in order to grab a few pics and to comment about the weather. Even managed to catch a movie with Yus n CT - Syriana. It's a good film, with well-paced action scenes that are reminiscent of Traffic. It's kinda anti-neocon America, and it was almost amusing listening to the sound of silence in the packed cinema when the movie was over. You could always listen to the gears grinding in everyone's head as they tried to make sense of the scenes they've just witnessed - basically, it's a tale of what parts of America would do in order to take control of the oil reserves in the Middle East and the consequences of such actions. George Clooney wasn't too bad in the movie, but I'm not sure why he won Best Supporting Actor for the Oscars though.

Add in the chat with Sweetie, and it was a great weekend.

Of course I'm now back to the news that the Home Office and DOH are changing the rules that're governing the employment of foreign doctors in the UK. This won't affect me until I'm done with my Foundation programme, but it pretty much fucks up what little career plans I had post-Foundation. It's funny that this had to happen during the days that I'm closer to making up my mind about the career pathway that I want for myself.

Now I'll have to broaden my viewpoint and consider a good many factors before I make up my mind again. A friend has graciously offered to marry me in order to help me gain a place, but that only resulted in me laughing for a good 15 mins. Looking at the bright side though, at least I've got a good year or so to make plans, as compared to the poor sods who'll be left in the lurch post July-2006. And heck, it just might be the omen that I was waiting for to help me make decisions. We'll see.