London

The weekend was pretty much what I had expected it to be – a little bit of exploring bits of London by myself interspersed with the odd coffee or meal when hanging out with friends. Surprisingly, the course I attended was actually better than expected; i.e. I did not fall asleep and actually participated in various discussions on highlighted topics.

The best physical bit was probably the food I stuffed myself with – from the compulsory Krispy Kreme doughnuts to a visit to Wagamama to a peanut butter milkshake to the variety of Malaysian food that I found myself gorging on e.g. nasi lemak, nasi ayam, kangkung masak belacan (in Gold Mine, Chinese M’sian restaurant in Bayswater that Ilyaas took myself, Yusra and a couple of his mates to) and char kuey teow (in another Chinese M’sian restaurant called Melati, which I came across whilst wondering aimlessly in central London). Was I sated? Most definitely.

Also spent a small fortune at various shops, since it was during the last days of the summer sale. Did more window shopping than actual purchasing (thankfully), although I’m quite satisfied with a pair of shoes I purchased for a rather reasonable price. Also took the opportunity to purchase the customary tins of biscuits and tea from Harrods for the folks back home.

When I had actually arrived into London, I suddenly realised that I wouldn’t be able to visit all the places that I had wanted to initially. Gone were the opportunities to catch a performance during The Proms, or a musical or a show at the Globe. But it was more than compensated for by the company I had, which consisted of individuals I have not been able to meet up with for quite some time.

One of them, Jaja, accompanied me to the Bodies exhibition over at Earl’s Court. It was actually done in a relatively tasteful manner, and we came away thinking that anatomy back in university would’ve been so much better and more interesting if we had such specimens to play around with. Of course the exhibition highlighted the amount of anatomy I had actually forgotten, although Jaja was pretty excited as the whole ‘over-riding aortic arch in Fallot’s tetralogy’ suddenly made sense to her after looking at a specimen of a heart. Yes, we were 2 geeks excitedly pointing various specimens to each other.

So now I’m back in boring old Carlisle where part of me just wants to have a cuppa with some doughnuts and watch the world go by. The more rational bit of me is quite terrified at the prospect of starting F2 in a couple of days in Cardiology. Especially after 3 months of orthopaedics have served to slice a couple of dozen IQ points off my total score. That, along with the combination of new F1s, is not something to look forward to. Here’s hoping we don’t screw things up too badly.