Beautiful Weather, Birthdays and Keeping Busy

This is me sitting at the back of the boat on the Champagne Cruise

Friends of mine playing Baseball on my birthday on The Downs near where I live. I’m already on first base.

These are pictures of a)Bristol b) ‘The Matthew’ – the replica of the ship that carried John Cabot to find Newfoundland and the SS Great Britain – first cruise liner.

This is a pic of Clifton – the area where the Uni is located. From the boat.

Thursday, 18 May 2006

Hey,

I can never seem to keep up with these updates. After all that studying, I seem to keep myself busy with all the free time I’ve had. But now, my last exam is 3 wks away, so it’s getting back to the books again!

What have I been up to lately? Well, after my last post, I had my 23rd birthday. On May 3rd, I was at a sports club dinner with my hockey team, and the other medics sports teams (rugby was also there, but I haven’t played as much with them this year). Everyone donned their fancy dress – typical in England, so, the hockey team when as convicts/burglars. I came as a sort of gangster . . . or who knows what, but at least I looked dressed up! I did manage to drink enough that night, before my birthday, which began on May 4th at 12:01 am, when a series of shots arrived the moment I turned 23. I did make it home in one piece and to my 11:00 lab the next morning. Except hangovers don’t seem to help on your birthday, and when looking down microscopes! I was fine by the evening of my birthday. We ate dinner at Wills and then I took loads of people out to try and play baseball. Everyone was very keen to play, but there’s a sport here called ‘Rounders’ which people think is similar to baseball, but it is really quite different. (It involves a tiny bat, a tiny baseball, an extra base, you can run without hitting the ball, and you can hit it behind the plate, which are only some of the rules). So with no one know the rules of baseball except me, everyone seemed ot think I was making up all these rules. I’ve never seen so many people make baseball seem so complicated! It ended up being a sort of mix of baseball and rounders – everyone had great fun though. Afterwards we went into the Wills pub for a drink.

The weekend was pretty relaxing. We had our end of the year formal on the Friday night. Sadly, it ended in a food fight – getting loads of chocolate cake on people’s suits and gowns, and there’s not going to be a returner’s formal for us to return to next year. It was the last formal of the year though. Everyone did get cleaned up and went to a club for the night. On the weekend we went and saw one of my future housemates row down the Avon in a competition against University of Bristol’s rival university (University of Western England – also located in lovely Bristol). After watching his team win – we headed downtown to watch Mission Impossible III – a great action movie!

On Sunday and Monday of last week I didn’t get up to much (or much I can remember this far away). I know I mostly stayed in and socialised with people in hall. I did manage to take part in some ‘Morris Dancing’ – another of my future housemates is a Morris Dancer. Morris Dancing is an English Folk Dance (mostly with skipping and hitting sticks – reminds me of going to watch something like Irish Dancing). Jack taught us the dance and we did it at a Wills music night – great fun.

Classes are going pretty well, we’re doing ‘systems-based learning’ now. Meaning, we study a concentration on body systems encompassing Physiology, Anatomy, Histology, Pharmacology, Pathology, etc. Right now it’s Cardiovascular – we’re learning about Heart Attacks, Arrhythmias, Angina, Blood Pressure, etc. It’s feeling a bit more medically relevant at the moment from what I was learning in the first two terms (although they formed a basis for what we’re learning now).

Tuesday night, we had a bar crawl with all the first year medics. It sounds like all I’m doing is going out drinking, but we were finished exams, and non-medics are finishing their year’s and starting to study for their exams now, so everyone was up for partying. The dress-code (again) was ‘School-kids.’ In England, most high-schools still require uniforms, so we were all out in ties and slacks, and the girls were all in pig-tails and skirts. It was loads of fun, and a good celebration of the end of exams!

Wednesday, I got to play this ‘Rounders’ game. It was great fun, but I’m still more of a baseball fan. We were having such great weather all week, so it was nice to spend the afternoon outside, soaking up the sun. Thursday and Friday I attended my classes, and stayed in most of the nights.

On Saturday, Wills held a champagne cruise. We all dressed up in Lounge Suits (girls in dresses) and we headed down to the waterfront for a boat ride up and down the Avon through Bristol. It was lovely, however, slightly chilly that evening. I was glad I was wearing a suit! The jacket kept me nice and warm. We had champagne on the boat, and then headed to a bar for some munchies and dancing/drinks/etc. This was the sort of end of the year event – so great to be out with friends from Wills!

Sunday – I played in another Rounders match against friends from Hiatt Baker – a neighbouring residence (rivalry again). It was a great game, I played a sort of centre field position and made loads of great catches (memories of the days when I played centre field as a kid in baseball). We won by ½ a rounder – yes, rounders even has half-points. I then played in a doubles tennis match with my partner Izzy, we won 2 sets to one against two other future housemates (Rich/Naomi). We finished off the lovely afternoon with a barbeque – you can buy these portable barbeques here – so it’s easy to have one anywhere (as the name suggests).

On Monday I got my NHS (national health service) ID card for the hospitals next year. So now, I’ve got an ID card to say that I can be in the hospitals as a student (we do a couple weeks in hospitals in the 2nd year to get used to being there). We also got our white-coats. Bristol has you wear a lab coat on the wards, but it’s short and only goes to your waistline – so they look really funny. They’re meant to be to identify the students from the Doctors/Consultants. I went over to a medic buddy of mine’s for some fajitas and a movie with a couple other friends that night.

For the past two weeks we’ve had stunning sun and warm weather – now it’s rainy and cold every day so I’ve not been doing as much outdoors lately. Tuesday – classes, squash in the afternoon. Wednesday – classes, squash in the afternoon. End of the year hockey meal. We went out as a team to a restaurant (I had mussles – mmmm) – then to a pub and a bar. I got the award for “Male Newcomer of the Year” -> so I’m guessing I might be continuing to use my goalie skills next year!

Today – labs all day long. However I did get to meet S.T.A.N. STAN is a ‘standard human’. He is one of two STAN’s that are part of the medical school at Bristol. STAN is set up to have several areas for taking pulse, he can have blood pressure, ECG, cardiac output and much more measured/controlled by computers. He is controlled in a room, so he can have a voice, blink, vomit, etc. He, along with his counterpart cost the school almost £250,000 each. That’s over $1,000,000 CDN together! They’re quite important because they allow medical students to observe and treat effects that we cannot induce in volunteers and patients. For example – today we observed a loss of 3000ml of blood to the system. 3 litres is a lot of blood, you could never voluntarily take that much blood from someone! Stan can be defibrillated as well and can be given drugs, and will even change what is expired in his air! It’s pretty amazing! I’m sure I’ll be spending more time with him during my time at Bristol.

I came home today and got in another game of squash, and now I’m off to bed. This week I’ll be getting caught up on all my work for the term, and will be at the last hockey of the year on Sunday (hockey tourney in Weston).

Also, I passed all my exams! It’s a relief. I don’t know the marks yet, as there’s a strike on with the lecturers at the moment, but we do know if we pass/fail.

Hope everyone is well, and all the mothers and grandmothers I have/know had a great Mother’s day last Sunday!

Hope all is well,
-Pete

This is me and Jack at the last formal dinner

This is me getting my award at the Hockey dinner – my nick-name is “Ice Man” if you’re wondering and I got the award for best male newcomer.

‘Morris Men’ – the guys I morris danced with and some of us school kids (1st year medics)

Me in my Ganster oufit, with two other gangsters of different eras, and a random pic of me to fill in the space