Has it really been that long?

I've been on call today, and for the first time, chatting with various nurses, it dawned on me.  I have just two days left of my current placement.  And who would have ever thought it, but it actually fills me with a great deal of sadness.  In the two and a half months since I last blogged (!) I've come to love my job.  I've found my rhythm and I can actually say I enjoy my job.  There are now only fleeting moments when I'm feeling a little swamped that I slightly begrudge it all.  And I actually feel like I can cope, actually, it feels rather natural too, and dare I say it, at times I actually think I may be rather good at it.  There are moments when clearly I'm not... but still!  I can't believe how far I've come in what is such a short amount of time.  I've just read back at my previous few entries, and I feel like a different person to that overwhelmed and green doctor.  I still can't quite believe that this is where I am now, and that I'm actually here, doing this, that thing that was a pipe dream for so long.  And now, I have to prepare myself for all new adventures in my next rotation.

So, what have I been doing since I last posted?  Well, besides that crazy 10 hour days that I barely notice anymore, and sleeping, I have:
1) been on holiday to Dublin with Lorri, which was fun and exciting, and soooooo grown up - a girls weekend away.  With complimentary champagne courtesy of the hotel apologising for the 5am fire alarm, facials, shopping, getting Lorri to love and stroke the pretty yarns at the local yarn shop, Japanese cocktails over sushi and tasty food, the search for "real" Irish music, sipping Guiness whilst posing for photos, and then ditching the foul tasting stuff, looking in the window of EVERY jewellry shop we past, being gently reminded of the violent and colourful history of the country, crazy traffic lights with awesome robotic sounds, kicking up the leaves on St Stephen's green, admiring the beautiful autumn around us!  It was awesome, thanks Lorri!

2) Buying more stuff for crafting that I could even begin to think I had the time for!  But I have still squeezed in several hats, a couple of cowls, a couple of adult jumpers, a couple of scarfs, two pairs of socks, 100g of spun fibre.

3) Spending Halloween in Bristol with my nearest and dearest, after spending the day at Fibreflurry with Mary (bless her!) then shopping at the Bullring, on a whim!  Playing mini-golf and not coming last!

4) Many meals out, some just because, some to unwind, some to catch up, some for celebrating being paid!

5) Making peace with my SHO long enough to have a lovely photo taken with him and the other two doctors on my ward.

6) Obtaining 2.6kg of alpaca fleece, which I have no idea when I'll ever get round to finish washing, let alone picking, carding and spinning!

7) Enjoying Yeovil and pretty sunsets over the hospital

And that pretty much sums up the last few months for me.  It's not been too bad at all, and boy has it sped past!

Day five - finally some positive feedback

I took an extended weekend.  My original plan of coming back to Weston on Sunday morning, turned into Sunday afternoon, then Monday morning... Eventually got back at about 9pm Monday (oops!), so needless to say, didn't really do that much clerking.  But I did have a really enjoyable, relaxing, catching up, crafting weekend.  I saw friends, went to the cinema (Cemetery Junction, not bad), ate out (admittedly just at McDonald's with Harry), and did lots of spinning (literally till my fingers were sore!) and did loads of knitting, for a mystery project ;) (Those on Ravelry will be able to find out, I'm just aiming for the intended not to be on Ravelry, so that's okay!).  All in all, not the most productive revision weekend, but wonderfully relaxing and I managed to catch up on lots of sleep, which is never a bad thing.

This morning, determined to make up for lost time, I got a short list of patients deemed good for clerking by one of the junior doctors, and went to track them down.  Typically, none of them were around and then one of the other medical students called dibs when one of them appeared.  (Forgive me non-medics, we're not as heartless as that may make us sound!) After a while it got too late for me to have time to do the other patient, so I gave up and decided to go on a walk to get milk and check up on the bluebells, since it was lovely and sunny.

I think it has finally reached its peak.  And it's truely gorgeous.  There were several other people out there with their cameras (making me feel quite ashamed of mine, theirs were all newer and shinier and had nice big screens, oh envy is evil, but I still want!!), and how I do wish I was better at photography, it's just such a wonderous subject to play around with.

Following some book work this afternoon, I heading in again to attempt to find available patients, when I bumped into the SHO who was on the team I shadowed back in March.  He had done a practise long case with me then, and said he would do another and check on my progress.  And by chance, he was free.  He was very positive about my progress and said he definitely thought I'd pass if I perform like that on exam day, so I was very relieved.  He actually had very few negative things to say and was very complimentary.  I know he's not a consultant and he's never marked exams before, but he took the time (twice) to watch me and provide me with feedback, so I am very grateful and I'm sure he can't be too unrealistic about it all, especially as he still remembers his exams and what it was like.  So, that was my good news. Yay!  Now to keep it up...

Colourful days, mucky hands and a guilty conscience!

Yup, that title pretty much sums up my Easter break.  Lol!  I've had a fantastic time, so far.  Even the delights of public transport on a holiday weekend (think sardine can) could dull my spirits.

My folks are away on holiday (gone to South Africa to visit family), so I've had very little reason to stay in at home... well... besides revision, which I really should be doing!  As a result, I've pratically lived at Sarah's house (ohhh, you bad bad bad enabler) thanks to her generosity and open house policy.  I've had lots of time to catch up with friends, have baby cuddles, play with the kids, eat good food, have a thoughtful Passover celebration and play, yarnie style!

Connor has been growing like crazy.  I can't believe he's already starting to experience the delights of eating food.  He has got the most gorgeous big grin of a smile and is so quick to laugh and charm whoever catches his eye.  He's absolutely lovely!

And Chris proving to me why I don't get people to pose - they pull faces!  Lol!

And this little toddler, who is soooooo not up to any mischief!

Morgi being typically opinionated!

Jenna polishing off the olives!  Mmmm, tasty food!  Thanks to Sarah who's feed me almost everyday this week!

Including very tasty choc chestnut torte, which the baby found too irrisistable!  Even if that meant having to lick the plates left within arms reach.  Yum!

And the joys of happy laughter filling the days with just the simple things of a hideout created by the tablecloth from dinner.

And on to adult games.  Following the amazing time I had on my hand dye workshop, I decided it was something I just had to do again, especially if I could use it as an opportunity to share the fun and excitement.  So Sarah and I got planning and set about getting ready to play.  And apparently I can't say no!  We ended up with the most ginormous pile of wool to experiement with (approx 4kgs), and a whole host of colours (I think a total of 11!).

 Piles of yarn and wool fibres

Starting the epic pre-soaking

We decided since we had so much to play around with, we would experiment with loads of different techniques.  So we:

Painted

 Steamed

 And used a pot for immersion type techniques

We also used it as an opportunity to try out some other things that I haven't attempted before with dying, namely, playsilks (clearly, not for me, but I did get to paint one which is for Emma and Connor) and "raw" wool fibres, which are going to be for me to learn how to felt.  And I also got a couple of sock blanks to play around with and hopefully eventually get some socks with some pretty cool effects - stripes and a green of varying depths of tone, hopefully should work out as light at the cuff, getting darker down the leg and onto the foot.  We'll see...

Sarah making her massive rainbow play silk.  It looks very impressive (I'll have to get a picture of it at some point!)

The playsilk I made for Emma, all wet and clinging to itself.  I was actually quite proud of it especially as I thought I had screwed it up a little when I was painting it.

(The baby didn't want to get out of the shot!! There was too much pretty wool to play with!)

Most of the haul from Day 1 of dying.  Most of this here is for Sarah or Emma.  The purple and red (bottom), massive rainbow hank (under the yellow and purple in the middle) and the earthy rainbow (near middle next to yellow and purple) are mine.  The two rainbow ones were done in a similar way, but gave very different effects!

We eventually had to do a second day of dying as there was so much yarn!  (Apparently I have issues with self control when it comes to ordering yarn online!)  The products of this day are still at Sarah's drying, but once they're all dry, I will catalogue them all and show them off in all their full glory.  I can't wait to see them in their final forms, all dry and in proper light to see what I got in the end!  And I can't wait until I get an opportunity to create things with them.  Can't wait at all!

And in terms of other non-dying events, I've spent some time with Sam, who came to dye day 1, and later had me round to a very tasty Indian diner and a bit of a games night.  Appparently I'm a dreadful gambler (in that I loose money very quickly!) and a movie buff  (well when teamed up with Sam!).  I had a bit of an upset tummy over the weekend, but it turned out to only be a 24 hour type thing, so I spent most of the day half heartedly watching tv or asleep in front of it, before bouncing back to be in the swing of it in time to dye and eat out some more.

"And the guilty conscience?" I hear you ask.  Well, that would be down to the shockingly small amount of revision that I've done.  Especially compared to Easter last year.  I'm just finding it very hard to focus and find the motivation, and there's been so many other more exciting things to do.  I know I'll get there eventually, but it's so hard.... No I don't think "hard" is the right word.  But it's just so.... blah.  Anyhows... enough blogging.