Archive for February, 2006

Poor Pete again . . .

Published by pete on February 24, 2006 in Uncategorized. 1 Comment

English Pub
This is the pub we stopped at on the way back from our hockey game, everyone’s running out to the cars because it’s cold and rainy
Bristol View
This is the awesome view of Bristol we get just from sitting in the common room in the medical school!
Formal With NaiomiVedics Pub Crawlstupid mumps
This is Me and Naiomi sitting at formal last week, me in my surgical gown and Guy and Damian in their scrubs on the pub crawl, and me with my MUMPS (shoulda taken this yesterday!)

Friday, February 24, 2006

Hello,

Right now, I am watching the start of the gold medal men’s curling match between Canada and Finland. BBC runs live internet broadcasts of the Winter Olympics so I can catch lots of events in my room from my computer!

What’s new with me lately? Well let’s see. Last Friday we had a wonderful formal dinner of steak with a lovely chocolate heart for dessert in honour of Valentine’s Day last week. On Saturday afternoon I got together with some friends and we had a mini doubles tournament. We tied after two sets and it’s almost a week later and we have yet to finish the match. I just caught a film that night and went to bed early.

On Sunday, I had to meet at 9:20 for an away hockey match in a place called Shepton Mallet. It was about a 40 minute drive and we were told that it was only about half way to one of the placements in clinical years. Makes me want to get my license so I can drive in my clinical years! The players were actually mostly our age too. The game wasn’t the greatest; we had no refs, so there were a few iffy calls. We ended up losing 4-3 after being undefeated since November (except for that tournament in Cannock), but one of the iffy calls was one of their goals, so not a REAL loss! Afterwards we stopped in at a pub for a pub roast meal. I had a roast beef dinner that came with leeks, carrots, Yorkshire pudding, potatoes and some other English vegetable I’ve never heard of and also can remember the name of. (sorry). It was a great meal to have on a cold, rainy Sunday afternoon. I just worked on my biochem lab in the evening.

Monday night, we had a pub crawl that was medics vs. vets vs. lawyers. We traveled from pub to pub and there were little tasks for each faculty to compete against, eventually all ending up at the same pub. It was more social and I didn’t do any sort of competition. We (medics) were supposed to dress up as something medical, so I managed to get a hold of a surgical gown and I wore my Canada bandanna because I had no surgeon’s cap. It was a fun night and a great social event.

However, I woke up Tuesday with a really sore jaw. I assumed I had somehow bashed it in my previous night and went on about my day. At night however, I played a thrilling 7 set squash game against a medic friend (narrowly winning 4-3), and after sitting in my room for an hour before my shower realized my jaw had inflated like a balloon! (and became quite painful). After a restless sleep with a fever, I decided to consult a GP the next morning and discovered to my horror that I in fact have MUMPS. I have even had 3 blood tests and an MMR since September (which guaranteed me about a 90% immunity to mumps) – and basically, according to the uni’s GP, I am just plain unlucky! So, I have had to quarantine my self so other’s don’t get this virus (and so they don’t have to gawk at the huge lump on the side of my face, which this picture doesn’t do justice to, it’s much better today than yesterday). So it’s been an excuse to miss class and get caught up on all my essays and projects – woo-hoo. So for the last two days I’ve been hiding out in my room with the occasional phone call from a loving friend or a parent checking up on me.

So, hopefully I’ll be right as rain by Monday and able to get back to normal life. My friend Wilson was supposed to come this weekend, but after my getting mumps it was recommended he stay away (oh yeah, and he loved Spain as opposed to rainy England, so decided to stay there for a couple days), I’ll have to catch up with him in the summer.

Well, I hope everyone else is mumps free, and that all you Canadian university students have enjoyed your reading week off!

-Pete

Halfway through second term!

Published by pete on February 16, 2006 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

BristolScene
This is a picture from dowtown Bristol (in the summer) near the waterfront.
EnglandSheep
Sheep - if ever you go into the countryside in England you see sheep. This is what sheep look like on a hill in England.
Dinner
This is me and Katie at dinner on friday night. When we were out with 23 others for our friend’s birthday

Thursday, February 16, 2006

Hi,

Not been up to too much lately – sorry for the lack of posts, but not too much news. Last week I mostly just stayed in every night and went to classes during the week. Right now we’re still doing Biochemistry (along with genetics), as well we’re studying medical ethics, pharmacology, anatomy and immunology. Thursday, I had my first GP placement where I sat in with the GP. We mostly just sat and watch but we got to learn how to take blood pressure and about certain conditions we saw in the practice. That night we had our first rehearsal for the pre-clinical review. It’s supposed to be a funny play, but after seeing it acted out it’s absolutely hilarious! It’s mostly just the way that people portray our professors and what we learn, it’s great! With my accent, I seem to just get laughs without trying so I’m enjoying it.

The weekend was mostly partying at night. Friday night, there was a returnee’s formal for past Wills students so we couldn’t attend it. But, it was a friend’s birthday, and another friend was kind enough to organize a night out for 23 of her friends (medics and other friends). It started with a dinner at a nice restaurant near the university. Their specialties were Mussels and kinds of Pizza. I got Mediterranean mussels (mussels cooked in a tomato and basil sauce with chilies). I was a whole kilo of mussels that came in a huge pot with a plate of fries (chips) on the side. They we soooo good! It’s fun eating mussels, because you save the first shell and use it as a tool to eat all the rest of the mussels. The restaurant also was an independent brewery, so we were all sipping some nice pilsners and pale ales (except those drinking wine). Afterward we parted for a small bar to socialize and then headed down to one of the clubs for some dancing. On the way we happened upon a late night bumper cars. 4 of us got into two cars and had a blast smashing each other before heading into the club!

Woke up at about 10:30 on Sat, and played some tennis in the early afternoon (it was sunny and nice outside) and watched the rugby match of England vs. Italy. We all went out that night to the Corronation Tap for some cider drinking and socializing. I managed to go there with a bunch of people from my hall, but they sort of petered out and medics started showing up. By the time the pub closed (11:30 in England), I was there with medics. We decided to keep going and went back to my buddy’s flat for some more drinks and to play a bit of poker. We managed to finish by about 2:30am and my and another medic from my hall walked back to Wills Hall in the rain.

I got up on Sat for an 11:45 hockey game against the Doctors from one of the Hospitals in Bristol. These guys are fun to play because we’ve played them a few times so it’s a bit of a grudge match and I think the Doctors like trying to beat the medical students. It started off pretty great with a 2-0 lead by half time. I wasn’t quite on the ball being a bit hung over, and in the second half let in 2 goals. So, we ended at a 2-2 draw, but we shoulda won, we just couldn’t get a goal even though we spend the whole game in their end of the pitch. Mostly did my homework on Sunday night and skipped the Wills Bar Sunday night quiz.

Monday was quite an active day for me. We finished lectures by 2pm. I went down to another hall and played squash with 3 other medics from my year. After about 2 hrs, went back to Wills for some dinner and then went to hockey practice. When I play out of goal (like in practices), I can’t believe how much I run around. Field hockey players are constantly on the run, so it’s great exercise, but TIRING! Especially when at 9:00pm they’ve scheduled a fun match against the OTC (university of bristol’s officer training corps). But we had a great team out and it wasn’t tiring for me at all. They played the entire game at the other end of the pitch and I only had one shot on goal the entire match (could be boring, but when you’re that tired you’re pretty grateful you don’t have to work hard!). We beat them 5-0, which was also nice because there were some medics who were playing for OTC, so it gave us some bragging rights in class the next day.

On Tuesday, valentine’s day – I really didn’t do anything. No girlfriend at present, no energy, needed sleep and I was kinda sore from my Monday, so I took it easy. Especially because last night (wednesday) was the university’s sports night. Basically it’s a party at the Student Union for any university sports teams. Both rugby and hockey went, but I went with hockey because I’ve been playing with that team more as of late. It was great, our team wore our pink social shirts and went on a bar crawl before hand to socialize and have a few drinks (play some drinking games). There were live bands, a DJ and loads of people. It was really fun.

Today was LONG. Got up and went to lecture followed by a 3hr biochem lab where we extracted DNA from sperm taken from pigs testicles. We mainly just wanted the DNA, and apparently it’s cheap and easy to get from pigs testicles. Mainly it’s just to look at properties. I was lucky too, because we were doing a lot of centrifuging, which I am pretty expert at since all last year at Guelph I volunteered in a lab in which I spent 1-2hrs a week pipetting and centrifuging blood samples from women in a breast cancer study (for anyone who doesn’t know what centrifuging is, it’s when you put test tubes in a machine that is expensive and a bit dangerous because it spins at 15000(-/+)RPM. This is done to separate mixtures, ie DNA from pigs testicles. Just have to balance it and make sure the lid’s closed!). After my lab I quickly grabbed a soup and sandwich and caught the bus to my GP placement. I spent the afternoon at a house visit to an elderly couple with another colleague of mine. Now I’m relaxing and saving £££ by staying in for a change!

Formal dinner tomorrow night. Hopefully my good friend Wilson will be visiting me next week while he is visiting England and Spain for reading week!

Hope everyone is well,
-Pete

BumperCarsBristolSport's Night OutFoosball
Late night bumpercars - no breathalizer test required! Sports night photos - foosball at the bar before hand, and me and some medics friends on the dance floor at the event. Hockey we have pink polo shits with nick names. Mine is “IceMan”

Tournament in Cannock

Published by pete on February 7, 2006 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

Cannock Hockey 2
Cannock Hockey 1Me
These are pictures from the Cannock Hockey Tournament we had. Then there’s the not so hot one of me wearing some of my goalie kit.

Monday, February 13, 2006.

Hey,

Been a long week, but not done much. Didn’t feel the greatest last week, but I seem to be feeling a little tired after the weekend. Mostly just went to classes last week. Saw the movie Munich last week which was about getting revenge for the kidnapping and murder of the Israeli Olympic team in the 1972 olympics. It was a great film, but there wasn’t much of a conclusion and the end felt a bit unresolved.

Thursday was my first ever visit with the GP practice I am placed at. I did a home visit with another student in the class. It was a really neat experience we got to learn about the illnesses (one of which I had never even heard of), and we had to learn patient history and mainly how the patient felt about the experience of disease and going through treatment. We also got a bit of free cookies and cakes with the visit. This week I’ll be sitting in with the GP at the practice for the afternoon watching him work. On Thursday night we all when down to a bar to say farewell to our anatomy demonstrators (TAs). At Bristol, we are all put into groups of 10 for each lab and there’s one demonstrator for each group. They’re all doctors a couple of years out of high school, who are great teachers and fun to be around, so it was sad to see them go, but another excuse to get out to the bar with medics. So all the first years and the demos met up for a few drinks and went out for the night. Lots of fun!

Friday was just classes all day, and I just stayed in with people from hall in the evening. There was a Chinese New Year formal, but I didn’t attend as I had missed the sign up last Monday.

Saturday was an early start playing a few rounds of squash with some friends from neighbouring halls. It was great exercise, but I wasn’t playing too well. Must have been tired or something after getting up early. In the afternoon there was a rugby match of England vs. Wales. The beginning of a six nations tournament between England, Wales, Scotland, France, Italy and Ireland. So, it was a pretty big match. England gave Wales a pretty good pounding winning 47-13. It was a good game at the start and then England really pulled ahead. Afterwards we went out and got a great thai-curry and then went out to the pub for the evening.

I was up Sunday at 6am to go 2hrs to Cannock, a village north of Birmingham. A medical group had sponsored a huge field hockey tournament for all the medical schools in Britain. We had to be up there by 9 for registration. It was a nice tournament, there were free meals, loads of chocolate and candy, t-shirts, umbrellas and of course, hockey! I got to play 6 matches and we won one by default because on of the London schools didn’t show. In my category we played Durham, Manchester and Liverpool. Not a lot of the team could come because other years were doing exams, so we were missing most of out offense. It was pretty hard to play a very offensive game when everyone’s used to defending. Also we didn’t bring any subs, and one of our players got injured, so we had to play half of the game against Manchester 1 man down, and then had to borrow someone for the rest of the matches. It neat though because I’ve never played those universities before because we play our medics matches against the medical schools in the south of England. We only won our first match, so we were in the plate (B level) finals. Our game against St.Bart’s (in London) was forfeited, so we went straight to the semi-finals against Southampton. We were completely worn out, and managed a shameful loss of 0-5. Still had a great day though, I played goalie for Sheffield in one match, in which we lost 0-2 to Nottingham, who were really good, had a great tournament, but wished we could’ve had the whole team there.

Came home Sunday night and all of the 1st years that played got together and made some pasta with tomato sauce and watched the movie shrek2 to celebrate our not too victorious day. No champagne though (all a bit to worn out). I came back to Wills for the 11:20pm kick off the good old American Football, aka The Superbowl. It was pretty funny, tons of people were watching, but few knew what was going on. I kept getting asked which team was which, “Are the guys in yellow the Pittsburgh seahawks?” , “No, the seahawks are grey and they’re from Seattle!” It was funny, most people had no clue and flipped coins to determine which team they vote for or betted on. I am still a bit of a Steelers fan, if I needed to pick a football team, but I was pretty sure they would win. People still be against them anyways. Good thing they won, eh? Rugby doesn’t stop as much as Football, and the clock almost never stops, so people seemed to be always asking, “Why have they stopped, AGAIN!” Good fun. After a full day of hockey though, and a superbowl that started at 11:20, I feel asleep during the Rolling Stones’ halftime show. So decided to head back to bed (1:30am) and brag to everyone that the Steelers would win, even after I left – which they did.

Classes were great today. Our afternoon lectures were cancelled, so we got it off! I played some more squash, and played much better. I did a bit of work, and then this evening I went down for a play practice. Yes, I’m in a play (how do I get involved with so much stuff?” It’s called the pre-clinical review – where people in the pre-clinical years (yr 1 & 2) do some theatre that makes fun of our professors, the medical school and Bristol Uni. There’s also a clinical one too, but of course, we’re not in that. So, I got a part and we had our intro session, met the cast, talked and read the script, I’ve got about 8 or 9 lines, but I managed to make it into most of the scenes, so that’s pretty cool. It’s a bit of a secret, but I’ll let you later my part. I think I got it because of my accent – I’m supposed to be a bit American or something. Hopefully I’ll pull off my outs and abouts at showtime!

Wow, amazing how I can stretch a fairly uninteresting week into a long winded story of my whirlwind adventures in the strange land of Eng-land. Got a group of friends to live with next year, so we’ve got a house viewing tomorrow, I’ll have to take a pic or two for you to see. Have a good week!

-Pete