Fooling around
This is what happens when you listen to too much Darren Hanlon. Though can one really listen to too much Darren I wonder – any man who writes a song about squash most certainly has a special place in my CD collection.
…
He sat down with pen and newspaper
She walked in halfway between the strips
Of comic stills and the day’s word finder,
As he studies the page’s Cryptic, he skips
Through 2 across and 15 down
Furrows his brow and throws pen aside.
She sees the paper and notes the frown
Picks up the pen, places letters inside
The empty white squares – a crucial clue.
As she runs her hand through his hair
He shows her obscure acronyms, new
Anagrams and synonyms, between fair
Kisses they fill in the missing parts.
With puzzle solved and solutions uncovered
Are completed lines and contented hearts.
Against all destiny: a pair of star-crossword lovers.
Exit music
I watch my RMO with fear; fear that I am looking into a crystal ball with even less to offer, fear of working 9 hour shifts without lunch, consultants, registrars, or passion.
I watch my friends with awe; awe as they grow and embrace their worlds, as they fulfil their potentials and more. Grace I give to them…
I watch the shifting weather for a sign. Watching, waiting…
…waiting for change, hoping for change. Realising that old habits die hard, and 10 years from now is most likely to result in further ingrained ways, rather than any revelations.
…
Yuck, here we go again. Please don’t bring this up in normal conversation, it’s embarassing enough as is, and besides, I’m sure you’ve got better things to talk about. Why I feel the desire to churn this stuff out confuzzles even me. I guess deep down, I’m just your everyday masochist.
Self-rating scorecard:
Technicality 3/10; Creativity 2/10; Subtlety -2/10; Credibility -3/10
The noise of routine streamlines past as I
Stretch between the voids of chaos and silence.
It has always been an aching series of moments,
Joined together by my actions as player, by my
Recurring thoughts, and my perpetual loneliness.
Am I alone? From what little time I have had I learnt
To recognize the primal fear that we all share,
The instinctive fear that prevents us admitting what
Might be true. Without gods and angels to guide us,
There is nothing to stop me, nothing to tear
Back to blame, I am free to die, but pinned and caught.
A free death does not always mean freedom. A reverse
In power coupling a change of mind sires
The possibility of a different path. But I live
In a safety net of someone else’s plans
And blueprints, fed their dreams and desires
By the truckload. What I have to give
Is not enough. I am not enough. I can
Live your legends, but the image you seek
And the one I offer will never merge as one.
I tread eternal on the edge of sunrise
And sunset, without existence that speaks
Sanity or clear insight, save to run
Towards the heavy question to pound the lies
Into dust – dust to dust; the answers have the strength
To burn your castles to the ground. Take back your nine to five,
Fuck my high income, separate your thoughts from my own.
Do you want to know what I feel? At what length
Would you keep my thoughts hidden from yours? I’m alive,
And dead, suicidal with reason, and I speak alone -
What is it that I want? What is it that I want? Some
People are blessed, but all my life I have never known
For sure. And for all my weary cynicism, I see
I’m as helpless and romantic as they come,
Lured by the fragile promise engraved on bone
China: Of what will pass, and what is to be.
Lessons
How to not tread on snails during a rainy day:
- Be observant of the world around you. Many snails have been inadvertantly stepped on because of carelessness and self-preoccupation.
- If in darkness, use a torch. Through what might be a milefield of snails, a way forward will make itself clear, if only by the use of appropriate equipment for the job.
- If there are too many snails, walk on gravel road. Snails don’t travel well on gravel. Cars do however, so by removing yourself from the many obstacles you may simply be putting yourself on the path of something much bigger and dangerouser.
- Stepping on snails will only make an icky-sticky mess of your shoes, for which no-one will welcome you into their house.
- If you do step on a snail, offer your regret up to the snail god – aka The Great Salt Shaker – for regret is not always useless self-indulgence, but sometimes a measure of our humanity.
Gomers gomers everywhere
…gomers gomers do I care??
Hmm!
I’m well and truly back in Gomer-City. Falls of unknown aetiology, dementia, constipation – you name it, it belongs on my ward. The median age of my patients is higher than the average Australian life expectancy.
Tonight for the first time in a very long while, I volunteered to do some evening ward cover, which is where I basically follow my resident around and generally slow her down with my multiple missed attempts at collecting blood and finding veins. Hospitals, particularly the smaller one I’m at, are (or should I say, will be - as soon as I start working) mighty spooky at night-time where there’s only yourself and possibly another doctor milling about on the wards. It will simply fuel the ever-hungry obsessive-compulsive traits. Every little decision will be – what happens if this is the wrong dose? What if I’ve missed something big? Will this kill my patient? I think I shall live in fear next year of a time when someone has a real emergency and there’s no-one else around to cover. Bugger.
I’m trying to aspire towards a more patient-friendly Cristina from Grey’s Anatomy. I’ve nailed the pigsty of a room, all I have to do is get the hair, the attitude, and the super-competency. 1 out of 4…ironically, that’s the equivalent of the rate of my successful venepunctures. Haha.
Chocolate volcanos of hell
After eating one of these, I almost had an acute coronary syndrome. Good for you if you want to develop E cups aka Nigella. Bad if you intend on reaching your full life expectancy.
Molten Chocolate Babycakes by Nigella
Ingredients/equipment
- 50g soft unsalted butter, plus more for greasing
- 350g best dark chocolate
- 150g caster sugar
- 4 large eggs, beaten with a pinch of salt
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 50g plain or Italian 00 flour
- 6 individual pudding moulds, buttered
- baking parchment
Unless you are making these up in advance, preheat the oven to 200°C/gas mark 6, putting in a baking sheet at the same time. Lay 3 of the moulds on a sheet of doubled baking parchment. Draw round them, remove, and then cut out the discs as marked. Press them all into the base of the tins.
Melt the chocolate and let it cool slightly. Cream together the butter and sugar, and gradually beat in the eggs and salt, then the vanilla. Now add the flour, and when all is smoothly combined scrape in the cooled chocolate, blending it to a smooth batter.
Divide the batter between the 6 moulds, quickly whip the baking sheet out of the oven, arrange the little tins on it and replace in the oven. Cook for 10-12 minutes (the extra 2 minutes will be needed if the puddings are fridge-cold when you start) and as soon as you take them out of the oven, tip out these luscious babycakes onto small plates or shallow bowls. Serve these with whipped double cream, the same unwhipped in a jug, crème fraiche, crème anglaise or ice cream.
Serves 6.
Cook’s notes
- Aim for a cakey outside with a river of chocolate ooze within.
- I cooked them for ~20min at 200°C cos at 10min they were still in a custard type stage.
- I used 3/4 quantities and it filled 6 muffin moulds well (don’t own pudding tins).
- I made the mistake of using an overly sweet dark chocolate so cakes turned out almost sickly diabetogenic. Adjust sugar according to taste – I’d recommend using only >70% cocoa solid chocolate.
- Will stay in the fridge for a while as a fudgey sort of dessert, or you can microwave them to revive the choc ooze.
- Have a gym membership ready. You’ll need it!
Light logotherapy for the night
Let’s resurrect this thang!
It’s been a good week. These one-week hospital attachments kick ass because no-one really expects you to learn much or even show up. With 11am starts…it almost makes up for 7 weeks of bungled Transperth operations. It was a short stint in palliative medicine, and despite all the depressing connotations and morbid considerations I actually found it quite liberating. It was relieving to discover all the services and medications out there that can take a lot of fear out of dying, particularly if one can afford private health cover. My attachment to one of the best hospices in Perth helped reinforce such a reassuring impression of palliative care. A hospice which serves alcohol-laced pina coladas to patients and associates during their weekly happy hours is my kinda hospice. Even if the happy hours feature an odd Welsh Aboriginal-phile playing the didgeridoo, who rants about the “collective spirit” of the people (had the strong smell of alcohol on him, that one). The hospice is so well organised that they have a resident diversional therapist to expose schoolchildren to a non-traumatic view of death. I’d like to think that a “diversional therapist” is someone who jumps out from behind curtains to distract a threatening consultant during tutorials (how useful would that be?) but in reality “diversional therapist” sounds like such a BS job title. They never publicise these sorts of things during Career Expos.
Dr. Oxymoron showed us a video soon to be entrenched in medical student curricula. Like our insincere “ethics” essays, this is their way of making sure that we don’t grow up to be completely amoral little psychopaths running around on the wards. It’s not a bad video though, and certainly preferable to a lecture. Among the montage of scenes, philosopher Viktor Frankl proclaims (this may be a slight misquote) “the meaning of life is found through work and love”. Although he’s simplifying his philosophy for a general public, it’s not a bad theory. Work and love are tightly connected with one’s measure of self-worth and actualisation. Work – being useful, making a difference, creating, nurturing, achieving. Love – of oneself, of others, for humanity, for music and sunshine and existing to feel love. But is it enough? Will such meaning experienced be enough to sustain, and will it be of enough quality and quantity?
(What happens when the arrow that flies fails to reach its target?
- It falls.)
I am also going to add a mention of thanks to my soon-to-be-employed Ally McBeal for encouraging me to keep flogging this dead and disgustingly self-indulgent horse – you’re a continual source of inspiration, and I say that with no hint of mockery whatsoever.
