And another one!

I’ve been in New Zealand for 5 weeks now and feel like I’m starting getting the hang of how things work. I feel less uncomfortable greeting people with g’day, I’ve figured out how to negotiate the very odd chip ‘n pin machines and most importantly I’ve learnt to avoid Wattie’s Baked Beans like the plague. They’re package just like Heinz, but my god are they different.

Since I last updated you I have driven over 2000km in the rented car. This country seems small, but it really isn’t. Driving around here is so damn easy though, there are basically no roads with more than one lane and there is so little traffic that it is just a totally different experience to the UK.

Last weekend I spent 3 days hiking in the West Matukituki Valley near the town of Wanaka with my university friends Hawys and Jonny. We left the car at the start of the track and walked 12km down the valley to a mountain hut where we spent the night. These huts are dotted all over the country’s mountain ranges and are super cheap to stay in. They have no electricity or running water so you need to bring all your sleeping and cooking gear with you, but they are warm and comfortable and you meet a really cool mix of people whilst staying there. On the second day we walked on up the valley and climbed one of the mountains off to the side, before returning to the same hut for our second night. On the third day we walked back towards the car, with a detour up to the base of one of the glaciers, which was a further 9km walk. By the end of the weekend I was thoroughly exhausted, having walked about 40km in total, but it was probably the best weekend I’ve had here so far. The scenery was absolutely stunning.

This weekend I drove up to Mount Cook, the tallest mountain in the country. I’m running out of adjectives to describe how good looking everywhere is, but again, just an incredible place.

Nothing really to report here in Timaru, the hospital is still fine, but I’m beginning to feel ready to not go in any more. Only another 3 weeks to go though so not too tedious. I went out for dinner with all the junior doctors this week, which was good fun; food here costs a fortune though!

I took the day off on Friday to watch the election. Boy was that a mistake. I had a conversation with a man up a mountain today about politics; he explained that the political landscape over here is very similar to how it is back home. His solution to all the terrible things his government want to do: “I just spend a lot more time in the mountains”. Solid advice I think. I will definitely be spending the next 2 years working in an NHS, which I expect will see some pretty big changes over that time, but the thought of moving back over here for a couple of years after that is becoming more and more temping by the day.

Miss you, see you in 6 weeks!

Scottish Update

So, rather less excitingly than Billy, here goes.

Still living in Edinburgh, loving life in Geogie's stunning Morningside flat.

That's Georgie, Emma, Martha and me - on Halloween, in case you were concerned.
(Martha being the flatmate I replaced and whose old room I'm currently writing this from, Georgie and Emma being my current live-in lovers.)

Been working at the Scran and Scallie for the last 6 months. Where thanks to the insane turn-over of staff I am now the Assistant Bar Supervisor.
Is a made up title that means I have all the work and all the responsibility but without the monetary compensation that comes along with an actual promotion.

This is the Scran. This is our Twitter. Sometimes they post awkward photos of us.

That's me, Ervy and Cammy.
Plus 3 Sloe 75s, a couple of Old-Fashioneds, a Stockbridge Sling and what looks like an Amaretto Sour.

Mostly it's just photos of food.

That's our braised roe deer shoulder and roast loin.

There's some scallops, cockles, mussels, clams and wild garlic.

I essentially work all the time. A normal shift is 10am to 11:30pm, or midday to 1am. The most I've done is 10 days in a row without a day off. If I'm not working, I'm either sleeping or drinking.

Occasionally I find time to apply for shit.

So far I've had interviews for PhDs in Cambridge, Cardiff, Newcastle and Edinburgh. Frustratingly despite going well, and everyone being so lovely and positive towards me, I didn't get any of them.

Very sick of the 'You're great, but someone else was better' rejection emails.

After spending a week miserable and panicking that I'd run out of time and completely fucked myself for next year and that I'd be stuck at the Scran forever, I decided to change track and yesterday applied for Masters in Glasgow and Newcastle. 

Gloriously the deadline for a lot of Masters courses isn't until August, so THERE'S STILL TIME.

If all else fails I shall disappear into the highlands.
If you never hear from me again, please, remember me this way.

Still here

My plan of weekly updates has somewhat fallen by the wayside, New Zealand is a big place and I’m trying to spend as much time as possible exploring.

Since my last update, not much has changed on the work/hospital side of things. It has been confirmed by the lab that I don’t have MRSA growing on me, which means I am now allowed to touch people so I’ve been able to get stuck in a bit more in the emergency department. I’ve been feeling like part of the team here, as I’m allowed to see patients on my own, and get to come up with diagnoses and order tests and so on (always with the consultants supervision of course). Everyone in the department continues to be really friendly, and it is just an enjoyable place to be, even on the few occasions where there have been absolutely no patients.

Onto more fun things, I have started going to the local pub quiz with my housemates and we’ve managed to come third on two occasions, winning the princely sum of $5 each (about £2.50).  The quiz is rather New Zealand centric with questions such as “list all of the female New Zealand back bench MPs” or “who coached the 1995 all blacks on their tour of South Africa?” I’ve managed a few questions here and there, but definitely don’t add a lot to the team.

I went down to Dunedin last weekend, visiting my friends Hawys and Jonny, both of whom are electiving in the hospital there. Dunedin is said to look just like Edinburgh, having been designed by a Scottish architect, but I wouldn’t worry Juliet, it really isn’t as beautiful, although has its share of fancy buildings. It is extremely hilly and very rainy, so reminiscent of Bristol really. Whilst there I climbed the steepest street in the world and walked along the Otago Penninsula.

This weekend I went up to Christchurch to hire a super cheap car for the rest of my time here. It is so much easier being able to travel under my own steam; the public transport here is not great. Whilst in Christchurch I went up the gondola which takes you up onto the Port Hills overlooking the city. Although it was a bit drizzly and misty, the views were still pretty spectacular.

I only just realised tomorrow is a bank holiday here as Anzac day was yesterday and is a public holiday, so everyone gets the Monday off instead. I think I might drive inland to all the cool lakes and  mountains and have a walk around. I think its going to rain again though, so won’t walk too far.

No other news really. I have four friends who are electiving in Kathmandu at the moment, so that's a bit worrying what with the massive earthquake and all. I managed to get in touch with one of them, and last I heard they are all safe and sound as they were out of the city for the weekend. I’m not sure what their plans are from here, but I’m sure the hospital could use all the help it can get, so they may well pitch in there if they can get back in to the city. Fingers crossed they stay safe!

Oh, and I’ve been uploading some photos to flickr of my travels to keep the not facebooking portion of my extended family up to date with things. Link here.

Speak soon!

Its been a while

I’ve just reached the end of my first week of “work” here in New Zealand and thought I might restart some blogging to keep any of you that are interested up to date whilst I’m on the other side of the world. I know all of you guys are real busy with your proper gown-up jobs, but if you had a few moments to update me on your lives’ too, I would love to read about it.

So, I’ve been away from home for about 10 days now I think, I seem to have lost a day somewhere along the way what with time zones and all that.

I had a perfectly alright journey out here, although did spend an unexpected night in Dubai which was not nearly as interesting as it sounds. Dubai struck me as an odd and very hot place; I was pleased to leave it behind me.

I arrived in Christchurch safely and was met at the airport by a family friend who kindly had me to stay for the night. I had heard Christchurch was still in the process of rebuilding after the major earthquake in 2011, but had only expected to see a bit of building work here and there. Instead, it seemed like every other building was either boarded up, being knocked down or only half built. The centre, which was one of the worst affected areas had only three 10+ storey buildings still standing, all of which were boarded up and awaiting demolition. In the suburbs there were whole roads, which had no houses left on them, there were roads closed all over the place and multiple bridges being rebuilt. In the centre, to make up for the fact that the main shopping centre was destroyed, they had a mall set up made from shipping containers, which had been converted, into shops. It was a really interesting to see and shows just how devastating the earthquake was and still is.

I was driven down to Timaru with the same friend and found my way to the accommodation without I problem. I am sharing a flat with first and second year house surgeon (F1/F2 equivalents) who have both been really nice and welcoming, We’ve had some fun evenings so far watching New Zealand’s version of The Bachelor, its actually surprisingly good!

On my first weekend, one of my flatmates drove me up to Tekapo, a small town a few hours drive away. There’s a beautiful lake that is surrounded by the Southern Alps on one side and Mackenzie Hills on the other (picture I took below). It is apparently one of the least light polluted areas in the world and there is a big observatory there. I’m planning on going back one night and looking at the stars, which are supposed to be stunning.

Working in the emergency department has been an interesting experience. It is a small department, staffed by only one consultant most of the time. Despite that, it is the biggest hospital for about 3 hours in any direction and so you end up with some serious cases coming in. This week alone we’ve had several patients we’ve treated who have then had to be helicoptered on to the bigger centres as they’ve been so sick.

This weekend I plan on exploring the local area on foot a bit. My flat is 30 seconds walk from the beach and I’m told you occasionally see penguins and seals along it as well as dolphins out in the bay so I’ll keep an eye out for them. Besides that, there is a big rugby derby match on TV tomorrow, the local side Christchurch Crusaders are playing their big rivals the Dunedin Highlanders in rugby’s equivalent to the Premiership, so I’ll give that a watch, either at home or see if I can find someone heading to the pub for it.

I am missing you all terribly and hope you get a chance for a wee blog sometime soon. I still maintain that each and every one of you should come out here for June and we can go see the country together, it is all so beautiful, you’d love it.

Hey I still remember my password. I'll write something proper on Sunday.

Okay Matt.

I'm in the ass... The Arts and Social Sciences Library that is... What did you think I meant. 

I feel terribly out of place here, the medical sciences library is full of nerdy and dishevelled folk like me (I haven't shaved in like 10 days, don't judge) whereas everyone in the arts library looks like they've tried a bit too hard and are a bit too edgy for me. I have no other choice though, this is the only library open at this time on a Sunday night.

All week I've been thinking about blogging about the people in the library that annoy me, however that list has become so extensive that I couldn't possibly fit it all in one post. I will give special mention to the guy sitting a few seats over from me who I'm pretty sure is having some kind of breakdown, he keeps talking to himself about how tired he is and sporadically bursting out laughing. Poor guy. There is also a guy just around the corner who has been watching Arrested Development on his laptop for the last hour and a half or so, why is he here? Why doesn't he just go home?

I'm currently on practice exam question number 680 out of 750. They are multiple choice but still take a while to mark. I'm currently averaging about 60% which is okay I think.

5 hours of exams on Tuesday and then I'm done and dusted. I can not wait to see you all again.

Right, onwards with the questions, bed before 1 o'clock I think. Night.

Update: 598 out of 814 on the multiple choice questions, that is ~73.5%. Aww yiss.

Also I found this on the toilet wall, the bit about diglett it made me laugh, I am too tired for this kind of shit:

'sup?

Bloggity blog blog blog.

More to come in the morning.

And when I say in the Morning I clearly mean 1 am on Tuesday.

Work is busy as a busy thing. Had one exam last week. It was a practical thing where you are observed taking a full history and performing a full exam. My patient was somewhat tricky but I think it went okay. If we fail we had to be told on the spot, but my exmainer didn't say anything so I am taking it that means I have passed. I have 2 exams this week on Thursday and Friday. I am somewhat worried.

Spent all day until 4 today in the library, then had a teaching session with one of the junior doctors and then had a teaching session with some consultants from 6:30-9:30 this evening. It was super tiring but the person organising the evening teaching know everyone is super tired and freaking out so bought everyone beer and snacks and it was beautiful.

I have finally finished my big portfolio. It may not look like much, but I reckon this baby represents about 200 hours of work and was a huge pain in the ass to complete. I am glad to see the back of it:

I have a tutorial at 8 tomorrow. That's in 7 hours. Dang.

Here is a song played on a  moving bus and has some sweet ass mandolin in. All in all, good song:

I still read your blogs, Will!

Shall not bother attempting to explain my absences of late. Essentially, I'm just forgetful.

Buut, finished exams on the 6th, after a long period of furious revision.

All went pretty good, and all my in course stuff was above 70, so hopefully I will be able to maintain the fairly fragile grip I have on a first.

Since finishing I've been pretty crap.

I was the first one finished (along with John), and together the pair of us have fallen into a general schedule of malaise.

I have been to the meadows with John, Georgie, Rebecca plus others, followed by Singstar and pub. Had a meal at Sarah's cooked by her mum, followed by pub with Pete, Sags, Oli and John. Cath came up, we had dinner then cocktails then met Sarah, Darryl and Georgie at the pub. I did lunch with Georgie, followed by shopping, films, dinner with her flatmate Emma, then lots of drinks.

So yeah, I done things. But mostly I've just tidied, attempted to sort out my room ready for moving - including three binbags worth of clothes, one to the charity shop and two to the recyling - and watched TV. Lots of TV.

Started and finished Veep, started Childrens Hospital, mostly finished 30 Rock (I've been watching it previously with Dickie and he's just been picking random episodes, so now I have to go back through figuring out which ones I've missed).

Yeah, it's been nice, if not exciting.

Need to get on with figuring out my summer.

Should be going to Arran later in the month, back to Swindon a bit later. Amsterdam and Best Kept Secret. Italy with Pete sometime during July. Then maybe doing something else in August? Also need to find time to move into my new flat, and maybe attempt a bit of Fringe.

WHO KNOWS

Untitled

I hope the title makes me seem both deep and mysterious and simultanesouly moody and pretentious Matt.

Where is everyone?

The past week has been pretty dull. I have spent the majority of my time avoiding revision by finding awesome new music instead. More on that to come.

I played cricket this weekend again. We won again. Turns out we might have a pretty strong team this year; we are currently top of the league, maybe we’ll win a trophy or something.

I honestly can’t think of a single piece of exciting news to tell you about. It was beautifully sunny on Monday and I spent the day inside reading textbooks and the like. I have to hand in my clerking portfolio on Wednesday 6 days before the official deadline which came as a bit of a shock. I’m slowly getting there. Only 2 more patients to write notes for and only 10 or so diseases to write about. We also have to include a 2100 word essay about inter-professional learning although it seems unlikely that this will even be marked. Because of that I wrote it from start to finish this morning, finishing with references and all before 12 o’clock. I am pretty proud of that achievement.

Ben Marwood has a new album out on Monday. I had it pre-ordered and somehow it arrived yesterday and I am listening to it right now. There are a lot of songs with more instruments than just guitar on which is a bit of a change from his older stuff. At first I was somewhat sceptical about this, but I think it is growing on me. I still prefer the all-acoustic version of Lock And Key Though.

Other music I’ve listened to this week is everything and anything by Pat the Bunny. He is the lead singer of Johnny Hobo And The Freight Trains, the band I posted songs from for the last two weeks, here is another of their songs, performed at a party by Pat on his own, look how happy the ginger guy is:

 His current band is called Ramshackle Glory and they are equally awesome if somewhat more refined. He also has another band called Wingnut Dishwashers Union who I have listened to less of so far. Here is a song called Your Heart Is A Muscle The Size Of Your Fist: 

Finally, remember the ginger guy from the first video? Well he also sings songs under the name Redbear and they are pretty great too. Here is him performing a song called My Ghost-Love Jam. 

And I'll leave you with some comedy which I had never seen before:

I think that’s all folks. Someone else write a blog.

Pretty lonely around here. I think I might be the only one who even reads my blogs.

As mentioned last week, I was in hospital many an early morning and late evening. Well not many, but 2 nights and 2 7:30 starts was more than enough. I had my scariest consultant experience to date. I was asked to present a patient on a ward round which basically meant me telling the consultant all about a new patient whilst 6 or 7 real life doctors all watched. He then proceeded to quiz me on what Hartmann's procedures and Virchow's triad, I think it went okay.

I ran a 10K race today which was pretty fun. I think I said before about how I wanted to do it in under an hour. Well I finished in 59 minutes and 35 seconds, I am a boss at pacing myself. I also finished 5557th out of over 12,000 people, so above average, what up. Here is proof:

Further proof, here I am with my housemates Andy, Rachel and Andy who also took part. We got sweet free tshirts and medals. I'm never taking mine off:

Don't worry though, I'm not taking this fitness business too seriously, I have just finished an entire tub of Ben and Jerry's.

I played cricket on Saturday. The team we played were absolutely terrible. Like honestly, really not good at cricket at all. We won very easily. Update on the blackness of my thumb from last Saturday, it looks slightly less black now and I can write with almost no pain. I hope the nail doesn't fall off, that would suck:

Further to a discussion I had with David earlier, folk-punk is most definitely the best genre of music. I have had this album on repeat all week long. Its the same guy as I posted last week, but it just doesn't get boring and this is the entirety of one of his albums. He also has songs called "I'm So Punk I Hate Punk" and "Anarchy Means I Hate You":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33pis-u819w

Here is something that made me laugh in the library this afternoon (I was taking one of my numerous reddit breaks). George R R Martin loves surprising his readers.

I missed my day, sorry gang.

In the news last week I saw lots of patients. I had a teaching session which started at 7am which meant leaving the house at 6:30, not cool. This week is more of the same, I think I'm nearly done with my clerking portfolio of 32 patients, I'm not 100% on how many I've actually done but I think its 30 or 31. This week I shall I have to be in at 8am 3 days and will most likely be staying in until 10pm at least a couple of times. Work eh, what is it good for?

I saw Frank Turner with Kate last weekend. It was, as ever, an awesome live show. His new album came out last week and is currently number 2 in the album charts, what a sell out. I am actually getting into the new songs a bit now, there are a few which are a bit too poppy but some really good ones too. I am excited to see him this summer at trees.

It's less than a week until the big 10K race I'm doing. I'm slightly concerned, I stupidly didn't go running at all for 2 weeks after Easter and it has been a challenge to get back into it over the last week. I managed to run 8.5km today but it was a struggle.

Played the first cricket match of the year on SAturday which was fun. It was just a friendly but against a super good team so we lost. I didn't bat very well and got hit on my thumb and now its gone all purple and hurts to hold a pen which is pretty annoying. I didn't wicket keep very well because my thumb was sore. I caught the only catch that came my way though, so not a disaster.

I can't think of much else of note to say. David seemed keen on blogging this week so there's that to look forward too.

Here is a fantastic song by some guy who I've never heard of:

And here is the worlds happiest cat:

Better late than never

I was watching Frank Turner earlier, I'm sorry.

Proper blog tomorrow maybe but here's something to be going on with:

It's true. I forgot to blog yesterday.

But I am here today!
So all is forgiven.

Still revising.
Little else to say, really.

I have been is this God damn library every single day for my entire life, or as much of it as I can remember.
Today I went to Charlotte's flat, which other than my flat, Pete's flat, Tesco and Sainsbury's is the only other place I have been in the last one thousand years.

I am trying to maintain a decent blogging record but having spent the entire day writing a research project proposal, I am in no mood to write more things, but here goes anyway.

Spent the week living along at uni. It was fine if a little lonely. I got lots of work done which was good though.

Nothing remarkable happened in terms of university activities.

I went to see Jim Lockey and The Solemn Sun last night with Chris. First I met Chris and Matt at Chelthenham spoons ( I had a Tennessee burger, it was average at best). After that, Chris and I went to the Frog and Fiddle. It was great to see Jim in front of a really big crowd who were clearly all big fans, I think it was my favourite of their gigs I have ever been too. I then drove back home home last night to avoid further loneliness at uni.

Today I have mostly been writing a research project proposal, it is incredibly dull. I have pretty much done it now though and have sent it off to my supervisor to read through, hopefully it is vaguely on the right track.

This coming week is going to be pretty standard in terms of uni. I am starting my ENT rotation. One of the doctors is really nice so I am hoping to hang out with him a lot and watch some cool ear surgery or something.

Kate's birthday is on Thursday, I am incredibly excited for this although I might not be back from Bristol until late and then have to return to uni early the next day. Still, it will be worth it. I think I'm also seeing the majority of you guys on Friday...

One of the bands supporting last night were called the Woahnows. I thought they were really good, kind of Los Camps-y:
Woahnows – Foma