Bubbling Broodyness

Both the baby, the boyfriend and I survived an overnight babysitting session. Part of me was hoping that looking after a 12 day old baby overnight would put me off for the next few years, but it was actually a lovely experience. Apart from an hour of grizzlyness before her midnight feed the baby was an angel. Once she'd had her midnight feed she slept through until I woke at 6.30 am to feed her again and then she curled up on my chest and had a 3 hour doze with me in bed until her next feed. It was the nicest feeling in the world. Needless to say I am even more broody now then I was before.

After all the fun of babies and cuddling I had to go back to the real world and do more DIY and decorating in my flat. It never ends. The huge telly is now mounted on the wall, unfortunately none of the cables to plug it in are long enough now so although it looks lovely on the wall it doesn't actually turn on. On a more practical note I now have blinds in my bedroom. No more being woken up by the rude rude rude sunshine at 6.30 in the morning.

Tomorrow night my Dad's business partner's daughter, who is like a little sister to me, is coming to stay at my flat and then on Thursday we're off to the Natural History Museum and then back off home. As she's only 9 years old this is a HUGE responsibility. Not only do I have to keep her overnight, I also have to not lose her in London. Once I've succeeded in not losing her I then I have to get her back to Kent in my car. I'm so nervous about being distracted by her being in the back. It sounds strange, but the idea of being in a crash when it's just me in the car doesn't freak me out that much, however the idea of having a crash with someone else's child in the car freaks me out a lot. I'm a fairly sensible driver, but I haven't even had my licence a year yet. Fingers crossed we'll both be OK.

Lily xXx

3rd Year is Getting Closer

I've finally found out the details of my first rotation. I'm going to be doing the chest rotation first. Although I can't remember anything about the heart or lungs since I've done a whole year of Endocrinology I'm pleased I've got this rotation first. I was dreading getting the neuro rotation first which I personally find a lot harder than any other part of medicine. The hospital I am placed at is a fair journey from my flat (I think about an hour maximum at rush hour), but students in the year above say it's the best place to do the chest rotation. Excitingly both my ex flatmates are also at this hospital, although one is on a different rotation and the other although on the same rotation is in a different firm. It'll be nice to be able to meet up for lunch or after uni, allowing us to all stay close. One of my biggest fears was that we'd all be placed miles away from each other and would completely drift apart.

I feel an awful lot calmer about starting 3rd year now I know where I'll be and roughly what I'll be doing. I've also started getting myself organised for the charity who's committee I'm on. I'm starting to make a big colourful journal so that the group as a whole can record their memories and feelings about everything we do this year. Fingers crossed not only will it give us something nice to look at, but it'll be useful for next years committee too.

My biggest worry at the moment is finding smart clothes suitable for the hospital. It's proving impossible to find some nice shirts which have short or 3/4 length sleeves, as we have a naked below the elbow rule for infection control. I'm hoping the bank holiday Monday sales will prove fruitful as the shops try to get rid of all of their summery smart clothes.

Lily xXx

Postcrossing

I've discovered something cool. Postcrossing. The idea is that you sign up, get some addresses of random people emailed to you, send them a postcard, and once they get your postcard and register it on the site, your address is released to other random people who then send you postcards.

This is the solution to the only post I receive being bills. I can't wait to get some postcards from all over the world.

Today I sent my first 5 Postcrossing postcards. They went off to China, USA, Finland, Germany and Switzerland. I wonder how long they'll take to get there and where the one's I'll be sent will come from?!

Lily xXx

Random Googles Part 2

The second to last person to visit this page found their way here by googling "hairy student".

1. Why?
2. I'll have you know that although I have hair I'm not a yeti.
3. Why oh why?

I'm starting to think google has it in for me. It seems to think that I'm lazy, hairy and suck in bed. At least it gives me a giggle.

Lily xXx

Happy Bed Day To Me

Finally. I've actually got furniture. My flat is starting to feel like a home.

The sofa delivery was straight forward, they just turned up and lugged it upstairs in pieces, then put it back together and left. The downside is that I haven't finished painting the living room, so I have to wrap them up in dust sheets and try not to get them painty. The upside is that they are amazing. The sofa is long enough for my boyfriend to fully lie down on and he is just over 6ft tall. The armchair is very cosy too. It's the most comfy armchair I have ever curled up in. In fact it was so good that I read two books in it the day I got it.

The bedroom delivery from Ikea was not so straight forward. They got lost. They then phoned up to say they weren't delivering because of a road block. I had to call them back to tell them the road block is for a totally different road and talk them through directions on the phone. Finally it arrived. Unfortunately the boxes were too heavy for me to move and open without squishing myself so I had to do without furniture. The boyfriend surprised me by taking the afternoon off work and turning up to help me put the stuff together. It's so nice now it's all together. Unfortunately the bed squeaks as the joints are metal on metal so I'm going to try putting some WD40 in its nooks and crannies. Amusingly my Dad phoned while the boyfriend was helping me (read: actually doing all the work himself) put up the bed. I proudly told my Dad that the boyfriend was being amazing and assembling my bed, who shouted "well thats not without self interest is it?" on the other end of the phone loud enough for the boyfriend to hear. Mortifying!

I have the rest of the weekend working behind a bar to try and make up for all the cash I'm spending. Fortunately it's less than a month until student loan day. Hurrah!

Lily xXx

The Plan for This Week

I'm back to my internetless flat this afternoon to do some more decorating before the furniture arrives. As fun as I thought decorating would be, it sucks. I'm completely rubbish at it. I can't get the paint colours even and I can't help but cover myself, the floor and and walls I'm not supposed to be painting in paint. It's so frustrating.

I'm pretty much going to be on my own at the flat during this week which is going ot be a bit dull. One of my ex-flatmates is going to try and come over on Wednesday, it would be really good if she could come over. Unfortunately she'll have to find her own way to my flat because I can't actually leave the flat until the sofa is delivered. Thursday and Friday my other ex-flatmate is coming from all the way up north to look at more flats and visit occupational health so hopefully I'll get to see her too. I haven't seen her for ages, I realise it's only been a matter of a couple of months but it feels like years. The worst thing about the summer holidays is definitely not seeing my closest friends as often as I would like. I'm lucky that in term time none of my home friends live more than 2 hours away, in fact I can drive from my flat back to my Dad's house in about an hour, so I don't get to miss them as much.

The other rubbish thing about this week is going to be lack of the boyfriend. He hasn't been feeling too well so I feel so guilty just abandonning him when he definitely needs some TLC. I also think it'll be the longest we haven't shared a bed since we started dating. I guess it's training for when uni starts again.

Yesterday, when visiting the gorgeous new baby, I ended up talking to his Mum about what's going to happen between the two of us when I start Uni again. I really hope we can make it work. To be fair, if my flatmate has been dating her boyfriend for over a year now and he lives a 3 hour train journey from London, I should be able to cope with less and an hour and a halfs drive.

The baby is adorable. She is totally perfect in every way. The whole situation was a bit intimidating because I was introduced to the boyfriends whole family, but I survived. I got to give the baby a nice long cuddle and now I am actually broodier than I have ever been in my life. I'm so broody it physically hurts. When I was in town later on I saw a toddler and my Dad started talking about how children are the most wonderful gift in the world I actually started crying. I didn't even think I really liked babies that much until then. My sensible side realises that I have a long time to wait before I should start thinking about having babies, but my hormones are definitely screaming at me to have one now. In fact I better stop thinking about it because my brooding pains are coming back...

Lily xXx

Random Googles

Should I be concerned that when googling "hot med students suck in bed", my blog is the first result? This leads to two other questions... 1. Why search that? 2. Should I interpret that the good or the bad way?

Other concerning google searches which lead to this blog include

"Can my DFS sofa cause allergies?" ... Well I certainly hope mine doesn't.

"Day in the life of a lazy student" ... Oi cheeky, I'm not that lazy!

"An eternal hangover" ... Ok, sometimes it does feel that way.

Randomly "Sunburn behind window vitamin" also leads here. What crazy vitamin is this? Noone told me of this strangely named vitamin and its purpose in life.

Flatteringly "Coping student doctor" also leads here. It's nice to know that even though google thinks I'm lazy, it also thinks I'm coping.

Lily xXx

The Baby is Here

The baby was born at 10 past 3 this morning and was a healthy 7lb 14oz little girl. Apparently the whole process of being in labour was a little traumatic. The boyfriend and I left the hospital about 5pm when his sister was having contractions but was only 2cm dilated. The plan was to induce her to get her into active labour quicker. Unfortunately the department at the hospital was so busy noone came to help so she stayed pretty uncomfortable, having contractions, being stressed out and being only 2cm dilated until about 1.30 this morning. After that everything just took off. She went from being hardly dilated to being fully dilated and then having the baby in less than 2 hours. Understandably she is totally knackered.

Apparently the little baby is absolutely beautiful. After she gets home this evening the boyfriend and I are going to go and see her. I don't know if I'm intruding a bit as I'm not actually family and haven't known her that long. Fingers crossed they won't mind me turning up. While in London I got the cutest little baby-grow from david and goliath as a present. It's baby pink with "Just Add Milk" written on it in colourful bubble writing. All of this baby stuff is making me so broody. Thankfully knowing someone else who has had a baby should allow me to get all my broodyness out by cooing over their baby and then I can just hand it back at the end of the day.

Lily xXx

Insanely Busy Week

As predicted my week was pretty busy.

Tuesday I managed to get a bit of decorating done, thankfully I found the perfect colours. Wednesday I saw Wicked (again) in the morning and went out to the Roadhouse in the evening. Wicked was as amazing as last time even though the seat I had was possibly as far back as I could be. The view of the stage was still impressive, so much so that I'd happily have the same seat again. My night out in the roadhouse was as fun as always. I never fail to be impressed by the bar staff flairing and making cocktails. Fortunately the evening was made even better by the fact I woke up the next morning with no headache. Unfortunately I woke up after only 2 hours sleep. I really struggle to sleep with other people in my bed if I can't snuggle them. Apparently in the middle of the night I tried to snuggle my girly friend, she was unimpressed.

Thursday was a girly shopping day and then we went to see Mamma Mia in the theatre. My lack of sleep made me pretty irritable so I didn't really like the musical. To be perfectly honest the last kind of thing I enjoy watching is something about a Mum and daughter getting all mushy and planning a wedding. Especially when it's the music my Mum used to listen and sing along to at home. I managed to keep a smiley face and act like I was loving it, but especially when it got soppy towards the end it took all my energy not to just curl up into a little ball and cry. After 8 years I'd have hoped that I didn't still react like this to things that remind me of my Mum, but I still miss her so much. So many things remind me of her. The smell of dove soap from when I used to cuddle up close to her skin, the taste of tea when she'd give me a kiss before school or tucking me up in bed, the sound of her singing along to things whenever music was playing. It's so hard.

After the musical, on what was in fact Friday morning I drove back to the seaside to drop some of my girly friends home. This was my first ever longish night drive. I think if I hadn't have been so melancholy after moping during the musical I wouldn't have stayed awakw, but as it was I didn't feel tired at all. I met the boyfriend when I got back at 2am and went for a late night drive to a big lighthouse. It's surrounded by carrivans, huts, huge expanses of nothing and a power station. It looked like the kind of place zombies would jump out and devour my brains. Thankfully the zombies must have all been asleep by then, so I survived. After that the tiredness hit me and I was so glad to just curl upto my boyfriend and fall asleep. Just being with him seems to make the things that usually upset and worry my go away. We got up about lunchtime and set off to London and spent the day decorating. Unfortunately the day got off to a bad start when some idiot had kicked the wing mirror off the car, thankfully the day ended on a good note with a delcious homemade curry and how to look good naked on telly.

Saturday we decorated more. I also put together my Ikea coffee table. It looks good. Unfortunately the plum colour is hard to get even because it is so dark, but I think it's as closet o perfect as it's going to get. In the evening I curled up in bed and finally told the boyfriend a story about something that happened in my past that not many people know about. I get nightmares about it all the time, but I can't bring myself to explain what happened. It makes me feel physically sick trying and quite often the words just fail to come out. It took me ages but he was so patient and afterwards really made me feel better about it. It was such a relief as he knows about the nightmares I get and I knew he was feeling hurt that I felt I couldn't tell him what they were about. Maybe one day I'll write the story in the blog. I think it would be easier to write than to talk about.

Sunday we got up late because we're lazy and found out that the boyfriends sister was having contractions, 2cm dilated and in hospital. We drove down to the hospital to say hello and try and cheer her up for a bit. It's her first baby and is 2 weeks late. They'd planned to induce her today so it was pretty convienient that she was in labour anyway. Worrying there seemed to be a baby boom. The delivery suites were all full, one woman was giving birth in the room nextdoor and shockingly 10 minutes after giving birth the girl in the bed nextdoor was wheeled back in and all we coudl hear was someone saying "I'm just going to give you this injection to help you deliver your placenta". Not what we wanted to hear on the other side of the curtain. As far as I'm aware she's still in labour, fingers crossed the boyfriend will be an uncle to a lovely healthy baby by tomorrow morning. I was so impressed with how brave his sister was being. She was clearly in pain but shrugged it off as a little uncomfortable and still tried to be cheerful. In her position I would be petrified.

Now it's time for me to go to bed I think. I have another busy week coming up what with the delivery of the baby in the next few hours, my sofa on Wednesday and my bedroom furniture on Friday.

Lily xXx

Where's My Motivation?!

The realisation of how much I've forgotten during the last year has finally hit me today. My anatomy knowledge is about as comprehensive as being able to sing "heads, shoulders, knees and toes..." while just about pointing to the right parts of the body. Oops. I also can't remember the smallest bit of pharmacology, all I know is that paracetamol is quite good at getting rid of my headaches.

You'd think that this would kick me into gear and I'd start revising, or more accurately relearning, the stuff that I can't remember. No such luck. I just can't get the motivation. I have tried, but I've got as far as colouring in a few pages of my anatomy colouring book. It's surprisingly addictive.

I've also lost the motivation to clean my room in my Dad's flat. It's a bomb site. He's hoping to turn it back into his living room when I leave in September. At the moment he'd be lucky to get through the door. In fairness half of the "mess" is boxes and bags of stuff to be moved to my flat once I've decorated. Unfortunately the other half is lots of random junk I've collected over the years and just dumped in various places. I wish I was less messy and much more tidy and organised. I'm sure it's genetic because my Dad is just as bad as I am.

I'm starting to get somewhere with decorating. If only people had told me things that they thought were obvious before I started. I didn't know you were supposed to lightly sand gloss before you painted over it again. From the incredulous looks I've got while telling people this I'm guessing that I'm the only person on the planet who was born without this simple fact ingrained in my brain. I'm going to start to paint the walls of my bedroom tomorrow. One wall, the one behind the bed, will be plum, while the others are going to be a rich cream. My bed frame and drawers are white to lighten the whole thing up, while my curtains and bedding are going to be varing shades of plum and purple with hints of gold. The plum wall is also going to have some really nice huge gold flowers put on it. It all sounds a little much, but it's going to look amazing. Now I just have to go on a hunt to find the right shade of plum and cream before I set back off for London.

Lily xXx