Busy is the word for it!

This is me and mom atop Cabot Tower (below) while she was visting me in Bristol earlier this week.


This is a picture of Bristol University from atop Cabot Tower

Wednesday, March 08, 2006

Hello,

I have just seemed to be so busy lately!!! I should be doing work, but instead I’ll procrastinate and update my website.

After a lovely bout of MUMPS, I spent the Saturday afternoon in my room trying to do work, but mostly just finishing my novel: “Jonathan Strange & Mr.Norrell.” It was a pretty good book (long), but it was as if a scientist had written it and it had little footnotes in it, but it was all fiction. It was a basically about 2 English magicians in the early 1800’s and how they helped Wellington beat Napoleon and brought practical magic back to England. I’d recommend it as long as you can get past the first few chapters. I’m now reading DaVinci Code, enjoying the story.

By Sunday, I was pretty much normal (see bottom photo), so I went out around Clifton again for a hike. We went across the suspension bridge, that’s been in my photos before, we went up into a tower and saw this 150year old sort of camera that took the scenery and bounced it off a mirror onto a HUGE white dish. You could see people amazing clearly outside, it was really cool. We also went down into a cave that was on the side of the cliff. It wasn’t one of the ones that had stalactites and stalagmites, but it was still pretty cool, because the cave just opened out onto the side of the cliff that we had previously been on.

On Monday, I returned to lectures, face back to normal. After getting back into it, I did a medical school tour in the afternoon again for visiting interviewees of next year’s medical school class. It was fun to take them around, and I got to do it with my buddy Rich who I’ll be living with next year. We had a Bristolian bus driver who took us to all the sites and told us facts about Bristol that we didn’t even know. Eg. Bristol is built on 7 hills, because most of it’s in the valleys, that’s why it never gets snow (melts before it gets into the valleys). We also went by ‘the Matthew’ the replica of the ship that took John Cabot to Newfoundland in the late 1400’s. That night we had a hockey practice with the interns (PRHOs in Britain) from the Bristol Royal Infirmary. It was a fun match and I did manage to score a goal for my team (which is hard seeing as how I’m a lefty and all field hockey sticks are right handed). It was nice to get back out and do some physical activity.

Tuesday and Wednesday was mostly getting caught up. I played a few games of squash and worked on my GP essay which is due next week. I did purchase my Wills Hall Summer Ball ticket (at a wonderful £65) – this is sorta supposed to be the event of the year. It’s after my last day of exams in June, it’s a black tie event that they spend something like a couple thousand £££ budget on – so I’d better be awesome! Same thing Thursday and Friday, went back to my GP and had a lovely house visit. Friday, we had a long rehearsal for the play I’m in, which is getting more hilarious each day I go to practices.

By the way, I must mention our newest course. It’s call whole person care. It’s learning to study the ‘whole person’ and not just the disease. It’s just really hard to take seriously because it seems very inventive on principles and methods. New words come out like ‘Holons’ which are mostly just interrelating the person with their surroundings. I’m not trying to bash the program (too much), I think I can understand why we’re examining this area of medicine, but often it just feels quite silly. For instance we looked at a case about a sore elbow, but then we record all this extra information about a troubled marriage a pregnancy, depression, smoking, trouble at work, he had a good day, etc. Then we relate everything together and try and help the whole person, not just the sore elbow. It’s all new medicine, as they say in whole person care, we’re onto level 5! (I digress)

So, back to my life. This weekend I had another interesting run in with the men’s hockey teams at the University of Bristol. Due to lack of field hockey goalie’s last weekend, I was asked to play for the Bristol 4ths hockey team to give them a goalie, no matter how bad I played. There we playing about 5 mins away from where I lived so it wasn’t a problem to accept. But, a few hrs later I was contacted by someone else, who plays on the medic’s team. He told me that he needed a goalie for the men’s hockey team. I said, not to worry and that I was already playing. He said, ‘Oh no, this is for an away match for Bristol 2nds’ – they apparently were allowed to steal me because they’re higher up. But, in the end, their normal goalie came and I was able to play a game for the 4ths. It was a great game we (Bristol Uni) won 4-2! That night (Saturday) was a Wills event, called the ‘Back to the Future’ party. Basically, you take one of the 3 eras in the Triolgy (old western, 1950’s, 1980’s and go in a costume). I went as 80’s which consisted of a bandanna and a shirt that said Costa Rica ’83 on it. It was loads of fun. There was an old Delorean (the back to the future car!) with a photograph (I’ll put up a photo of it later). There was a big band playing 50’s music and a rockin’ DJ playing songs for mostly 80’s but some 50’s and western. It also had a mechanical bull with pads all around if for when you got thrown off. It was good fun, and a good night in at Wills Hall.

On Sunday, I got up at 10:00 to play Rugby for Wills. There was not a full team, so I just went back to bed. Got up for 12:00 to go to my hockey game. It was a weird game. We played well, but I didn’t seem to play so hot. Every time I tried to kick the ball ( a big part of a field hockey goalie) I’d flub it. The other team’s first goal too, went off our teams stick and got a spin on it and rolled in the net! We played well, and lost 1-2. Our other team played that day on a real grass pitch (like in Canada, here – most hockey is played on Astroturf, so it’s like ball hockey in Canada), but they also lost 5-2.

That night my Mom arrived in England with her friend Louise. They had flown all night, and upon arriving in Bristol found no one at their hotel! We walked down to a nearby bed and breakfast and they found a beautiful room there with 2 beds for three nights. I took them out for a pub roast dinner that night, upon arriving there the football (soccer) was on, so they got to see how busy the bars are here when sports are on. On Monday, I skipped class in the afternoon and took them on a massive walking tour of Bristol. I took them from the university to Cabot Tower (in honour of the guy who found Newfoundland), then through Clifton to the suspension bridge then around the downs and up to Wills (took us about 3 hrs of walking). Showed them my room and hall, and then we went out for a nice dinner that evening. They went on Tuesday to Cardiff. Sadly, it rained on them all day, but they still really enjoyed the city. They got to try the Welsh beer BRAINS, and mom found a store that sells tartans. She ended up buying a Roberts scarf tartan (her maiden name) which is a beautiful blue and red tartan that I’ve never seen before. Today they headed up to York and will be arriving in Newcastle on Thursday. I’ll be flying up there from Bristol this weekend! ( we may also go to Edinburgh in Scotland)

Tuesday, I just went to lectures, had another ‘wonderful’ afternoon of Whole Person Care and went out for a nice dinner again with Mom and Louise. Today I spend the afternoon filming a scene that’ll be shown in the play, and the evening rehearsing.

Now I’m swamped with work to get done before the weekend.

Hope all is well,
-Pete

Us on our walk to Clifton Suspension Bridge

Me, Lulu and Andy at the ‘Back to the Future Party’ – me (in my bad attempt) and Lulu are 80’s and Andy is 50’s – but you can’t see.

Me, practically Mumps-free