September Streptomycin and October Oncogenes

Well, it has been a HECTIC month and a bit, and here I sit, faced with a backlog of notes on what I did during September and October, with my daily tube journeys filled with thoughts that I feel I have to record on here, but not find the time when I arrive home to type up, and forget by the time I wake up the next morning.  So far, my new uni has been amazing, which I obviously have been planning to delve deeper into on this blog; like the MedSoc days where we go for our GP placements and (unique to only a few practices) go on unsupervised home visits! We have to write reflective pieces of writing after each time we have these days, which I've found myself typing up the night before (as with every deadline I'm meeting so far), and this past week has been a week where I've found myself having the most free lessons, intending to wake up early on Friday (deadline day for our module choices) and write on here finally, but I didn't, and later found myself joining the afternoon 'Practicing Medicine' session with a lady theatre director.  We did some cool exercises on self-confidence and public speaking and the different possible states we could all be in as doctors (although, I didn't know when we'd ever be tired enough to be 'floppy'). She asked us how we were finding the course, and I could relate to every response the others gave; hard work during the day, long journey home, tiredness in the evening, and then waking up the next morning for the same, and really only Sunday to sit down and think about working (that's if you get home early from football), otherwise it's just doing the work the day before the deadline. With exams coming up in a couple of weeks, I need to change my ways!

So, September was obviously Ramadan, and for a couple of full weekends I went on a course that more or less covered the whole Quran, and then there was the 27th night spent in the mosque, and how we had to go home straight after fajr. And then there was the start of the football league; quite difficult especially as we were fasting and couldn't drink at half time.  But it's been good.

On the last day of Ramadan I went to a Japanese culture festival with Ismael which was cool; seeing a culture I haven't really delved that deeply into, and going around the stalls was very insightful. I bought a few things, including my name written in Japanese, which apparently means 'strong desire and ambition', met with Ismael's friend called Akira, and his mum and little sister. Afterwards went to a little introductory lecture to uni, and met a few new people, but left for the mosque as everyone went to the union for drinks; wanting to spend my last hour of Ramadan somewhere worthwhile, cramming in as much worship as possible!

Eid was enjoyable alhamdulillah; we left for the mosque at quarter to seven (we had to be ready at the park for a league match at 9:30; yes, football on Eid!) but the tube wasn't working and the bus drivers must have slept in or something, so we were walking back past our house about to pray locally when my dad offers to drive us down to Fulham to pray. I'm glad we did; I met a few old friends (and I mean ancient-old!) The khutbah after the prayer I thought was quite inspirational, and even though alot of people don't like the shouting style of sermon, I thought the message he conveyed was quite powerful.

We got home, played our match in the local park (for once, and with my mum and dad catching most of it!), lost the game which was mostly down to the sorry state the pitch was in, and went back home to discover a chocolate fountain, strawberries and marshmallows waiting to be consumed! Then our unique Fatine party games; the traditional treasure hunt, a blow-the-marble-with-a-phenomenally-long-straw competition, and an alphabet game where you have to think as many words as possible starting with that letter (like when you're on the phone and trying to spell out your postcode). Then presents: a stress ball with ears, a t-shirt with a large light-up digital clock on the front, a few funny books and some other nifty gadgets, as well as the prizes we got for coming second to the girls in every party game! Then pizza hut, then home, preparing for enrolment the next day!

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Hmm, October has been so busy that it's difficult to remember what exactly went on every day, but some memories stick out more than others:

Getting my new Blackberry with more texts that I could shake a stick at, and unlimited internet.  And with the nifty keyboard, I could find myself reflecting on the day without forgetting what happened by the time I got home :)

Ah this post is long overdue so I'm just going to polish up the rest of my notes without going into every little detail...

Family reunion for Grandma's 70th, it was good seeing all these half-posh (and in one couple's case full-posh!) people who were in some way or another related to me, and I found I could mingle with them quite comfortably. There are some amazing people in our extended family; like our great uncle Don who used to go deep-sea diving and defuse sea-mines for a living!

Freshers' football tournament- We had 3 people who don't even play football and lost ridiculously badly

Sunday league football- internal politics are tarnishing our team spirit- a new team has formed and we lost a game we should've easily won, and we are now sitting dangerously near the foot of the table. The manager has since left and we have our captain/chairman doing the team-picking.

Imperial ISOC freshers' dinner- I had to recite Quran, again, but I'm happy that they let me (and our uni) join the Quran competition this year! And there were various other dinners I found myself taking part in one way or another, but no breakfasts curiously.

Met my old Imperial buddies, including Annas, finally... 'twas good catching up with them.

So in a nutshell that's what happened.  So I'm off to do more hectic things like reflective pieces of writing (which I could put up here I suppose), and think about how I'm going to remember everything I've done in November!