Firstly, the cold that I was hoping wouldn't get too bad most definitely hit me over the last few days, thankfully I seem to be passed the worst of it but I spent a most of Monday, and as much time as possible yesterday in bed. It's an inconvenience as, hey - who likes having a cold? and it means I have a bit of a backlog of lectures etc. to go over but I'm more worried about it from a general health perspective. In my first year at uni I had a cold which died away but never quite disappeared and, after various other treatments, ended up having to have surgery as one of my sinuses had got so badly infected. Last year similar symptoms were appearing after a cold but being wary I caught it early and some antibiotics cleared it up before anything had the chance to take hold! Hoping this year I can avoid it all together - don't want to be having respiratory type problems with a potential impending arm op...
Continuing on with the general grumpiness I am having a bad arm day. Just getting frustrated to be honest. I'm doing a lot of physio exercises (which are remarkably tiring!) but don't seem to be making any progress now, all it does is give me a sore arm. I'm getting fed up of not being able to write neatly/quickly/for prolonged periods as its massively increasing my work load (having not kept on top of things for a few days due to the cold, as of this afternoon I've found myself with 9 hours of lectures that I need to go over and make notes from!), once this is done there's no time left for any extra reading or anything, not to mention listening to certain lectures again really does make one lose the will to live! And that's before you get on to all the other things that it gets in the way of. I know it could be worse, and I'm thankful that I'm not one of the many people that have to deal with things much more horrible, but it's enough to get you down after a while.
Less than 2 weeks now until I see my consultant again. As I said the other day I'm already pretty nervous about it to be honest, and every time my mind goes a wandering (which is an all too frequent occurrence...), that's where it's drifting too. Having had my doubts, I'm getting more and more keen on having more surgery to try and improve matters. Yes, surgery itself is pretty scary, and it's going to be a long recovery with lots of hard work required (made even worse by the fact its in the middle of my 3rd year at uni)!, but its a price I'm willing to pay to have my hand back (although realistically it's probably never going to be the same :( ). Just hoping that it can be scheduled at a time reasonably convenient for me (i.e. not his current best idea which is early January and right before exams!), and preferably not one of his other ideas which was wait until next summer - that's a long time! Anyway, nothing new has actually happened except in my head so I'll update you in due course as to how I get on...
Onto more positive things, these have kept me happy for the last couple of days! :-)
My deciding on a vague career direction has now progressed such that I'm in the process of applying for some work experience. I'd like to do it sooner rather than later but in the most part I'm waiting 'til the summer to actually do it (the arm strikes again!), but the main program I'm applying for gets quite popular over the summer so have to get in early! My aim is to do lots of small things (i.e. a day or a week somewhere) rather than longer placements as it means I can experience a bigger variety of environments, and from my work experience at Easter (that was only a week too), I found that within a couple of days I had found out almost everything I wanted to know anyway! I shan't go into the specifics of where I'm applying yet (although a few of my friends already know!), I shall reveal in due course if I'm successful but needless to say it'll be awesome if i get in! Although if all goes well it'll put me on a very long and hard career path!
Can't write a blog without mentioning Ramsoc - despite feeling pretty rubbish (and a lot more rubbish afterwards) I had a great walk at Ladybower on Sunday. Got a bit windy on the summits but we stayed dry which is all you can ask for in October! I didn't take my camera but did have new and improved iPhone camera...
We started right at the other end of that reservoir...
And here we are walking along, almost at the half way point on the walk (with 1 quite big hill still left to climb!)
Oh yes...one more thing - Drug Discovery module starts tomorrow (does mean sacrificing my day off on a Thursday!), really looking forward to this as it has the potential to be interesting and quite fun - not to mention we've been promised a free lunch including cake after the first lecture!
I best get back to work now then - thanks for reading!
