Dreamy Decisions

The dream I had last night, it was too weird! I was sitting in a sports shop, no-one there, empty apart from this little Brazilian boy who's brother worked there I think. Anyway I saw these amazingly nice orange and black trainers and asked the kid to see if they had any football boot versions of them. They were a hybrid between these (my old ones)...


and these...


The young Brazilian kid came back with completely the wrong ones (wrong colour and everything) and so I got his big brother to come down from the hut (which was weirdly upstairs) and have a look. He came back with some orange ones, and whilst I marvelled at their beauty, I compared them with the ones on display, and noticed they weren't the same! So I asked him to get some more, adamant that I would get the same ones as on display. But again, the wrong ones, albeit quite beautiful; so I asked him to look again, and so he went back up to his hut, this time taking ages. I mean, it felt like hours, and I don't remember what I did to entertain myself during that time (I know, great dream). But he did finally come back, near closing time, but again, they were the wrong shoes, and I was beginning to think that they didn't have the ones I wanted (and now that I think about it, they didn't even ask my size!). But the ones he gave me were quite cool; orange and white with funky ridges and bumps and the studs underneath were nicely designed. Then it was closing time; no chance to find them today, and I realised that the shop for some reason had been booked for a party, and all the tables and everything had been folded up and moved against the shelves.

Quite strangely, I was invited to play football against two of the partygoers, in a large caged pitch that was underneath the hut (which I hadn't noticed the whole time I was in the shop!). It had a goal either side, and the two Brazilian brothers watched through the cage as I put on these white and orange football boots with the funky ridges and beat the two grown men at football, with me amazed by the shoes' ability. After the fun but brief game, and not noticing anyone in particular at the party, I went back into the dimly-lit shop and looked around the shelves where I first saw the trainers of my dreams (literally :P). Squinting up at the top shelf, I noticed the pile of boots I'd earlier turned down (under a spotlight), took them off the shelf, and had a nice look at them; quite beautiful, but they weren't the right ones! Funny thing but I don't remember having any worries about how much any of them would cost. "Hmm," I thought to myself, "could I still take all of these pairs home, even after they find me the right ones tomorrow?" I never found out... I woke up.

But today whilst at Brent Cross, I did see some white and orange football boots that did look very similar to the ones I saw last night... and for one moment, I did believe that I was still dreaming!

Alarm clocks shouldn't exist because...

1- They're technically not 'alarm' clocks; I just looked up the definition of 'alarm' and here are a couple, among others:

*fear resulting from the awareness of danger
*a device that signals the occurrence of some undesirable event (hmm, waking up maybe?)

So personally they haven't caused me much alarm, apart from when they don't flipping work, which brings me to...

2- They don't flipping work. Today was quite an important day for me, not only was I accompanying Ismael to Oxford for an open day, but more importantly, today is the day facebook bring in usernames (at 5:01 AM... thanks facebook), and I wanted to get my preference in early before some awesome like-minded person got there first... and well, they got there first. This morning I didn't wake up to the sound of an alarm clock, but rather to the sound of silence; I randomly sat up in bed and stared at the clock for a while, analysed it. "Hmm, I set my alarm clock to 6:10 so I could make a username (and go to Oxford), but it says here 7:05. Hmm. And I need to leave in ten minutes, interesting." There's always that pause before the panic ensues, before jumping out of bed, giving breakfast and shower a miss, and getting clothes on whilst cursing the alarm clock, which I probably sleepingly snooze-buttoned, and which brings me to...

3- They have snooze buttons. They are just asking to be pressed. Even if the alarm clock is 100 metres away, I make the effort to reach over and press it, just for that extra few minutes in bed, and those few minutes more, and those few minutes after that. What I'm saying is, I have a snooze button addiction (yep, and I've joined the facebook group); I don't need it at the moment. Snooze is quite a funny word by the way.

4- Alarm clocks are just annoying. I know you can change the alarm tones on your phone, but anything that has no compassion when waking you up deserves to be hated, and I ended up hating certain phone ringtones. Even if it was in the middle of the day and coming from someone else's phone! Annoying.

Anyway, I'm sure there are more reasons why alarm clocks shouldn't exist, but I wonder how people managed without alarm clocks, or clocks at all for that matter! Was everyone late for everything? Or weren't there things to be late for in those times? Maybe the invention of the alarm clock caused everything to change; before we just 'did' and things just 'happened', and now there's the wait for clocks to tell us to 'do' and things to 'happen'.


Back to my waking up story; I found a few minutes to switch on my laptop and get on facebook, fairly sure that no-one could have the same username in mind as me And be bothered enough to log in two hours after it started. "Orangepeeler, perfect!" I thought to myself. And to my dismay, someone had already taken it! Orangepeel... the same! My world was beginning to fall apart in front of my eyes. So I thought I'd think of a good one on the way to Victoria coach station and so I logged off.

On the way I tried logging on with my phone but it wouldn't work; and I had a few ideas: orangesoda (probably already taken by an avid Kenan & Kel fan), redambergreen (after getting desperate and looking at some traffic lights :S), then it hit me... apatheticorange! Yes! It's 'apathetic orange' AND 'a pathetic orange'... something people would point out, and I'd would say "Yeah you loser, I meant it that way, I'm awesome." (and yes, I did consider awesomeorange)! But yeah, it would be a good icebreaker in conversation :P So anyway I got to Victoria and went into the nearest coffee shop to hog their Wi-Fi and get my username in, but guess what, there was no Wi-Fi, and I was distraught until I discovered they had Wi-Fi on the coach we were taking! So I logged in and after first trying orangesoda (surprise surprise it was taken), I did it, I typed in apatheticorange and clicked 'check availability'... "Please please please... YES!" So for the rest of my life now, my facebook profile page will be identifiable as facebook.com/apatheticorange ... mwahaha! I'm sad. And I'm taking my sadness to Oxford.

(Edit: all of the above has been made redundant as I've changed my username to something much better in my opinion: yasinspiration!)

Perfection, Paused.

I've just discovered the most amazing thing! Well I personally found the experience quite serene; about a month ago my mum ordered some caterpillars through the post, and since then they've all become butterflies (as you'd expect, even though we missed them all hatching from their coccoons, still an amazing feat), but, I was just going downstairs to get an apple, with the fruit bowl on the same table as where we keep the butterflies, and I found them all asleep! I assumed they were, since they weren't fluttering their wings but were motionless and still, and I tried hard not to wake them. Now, is it just me, or is that something extraordinary? Seeing the most innocent of creatures sleep just had an amazing calming effect on me; what can such beautiful, pure creatures ever be dreaming about?

May Mmm and Mmm

After a long month of randomness, I've lost the ability to think of words befitting May... Magnificent? No. Mishaps? Not really. Murderous? Definitely not. It's weird, sometimes when trying to think of something, your mind comes out with useless nonsense... M words, "Mmm, mmm, minkling! No, that's not a word... mighty? melodramatic? magnesium? margiplums??" Maybe it's the trauma of witnessing Man United lose the champions league final, or my phone camera breaking, or getting blocked by the Imperial network for a bazillionth time.

At the beginning of the month I was a volunteer patient in some mock OSCE exams, quite fun, where third year medical students have to examine 'patients' and answer questions properly to get marks. And I learnt quite alot! Yep, I now know which areas of the body to prod and poke and twist to see if everything is working. Neurones 1 (opthalmic), 2 (optical) and 8 (some long-named one I always seem to forget) are purely sensory! And the method for a motor exam is Inspection, Tone, Contraction, Power, Reflexes and then Sensory. I'm just listing them down here so it can stick for the future inshaallah :) And I also learnt that volunteering for a cardio or resp exam involves taking your top off! ¬_¬


I've been going to Wilson House halls quite regularly, where they play football every Tuesday and Thursday from 10pm, but the turnout was dwindling as exams drew nearer, still fun though, even with just 5 people! One quite memorable night was when I watched the Chelsea Barcelona semi-final there, with everyone (except one friend) anti-Chelsea, the atmosphere was amazing! Even though Barcelona were behind for all of the game, we knew a goal was coming, and when they scored in the final final minute, the room erupted, and the anguished look on my friend's face was priceless! Playing table tennis afterwards in the recreation centre (at a time I should've been home) was amazing, and so was paying a visit to Southwick Mews! There was the other night when we watched the final, but forget that :S

I also went ice-skating! What I thought would be just a family day out, ended up being a two-family day out, meaning I couldn't chill with both my parents as they were talking to their respective friends, but I did have some fun, until my sister dared me to do a mid-air somersault, resulting in a laughing sister and a suspected dislocated shoulder. Well it hurt like mad. Anyway, it was the uneven ice's fault!


And apart from going to the Palestine demo and watching Angels & Demons (which was actually quite good, especially since I hadn't read the book!), I was part of something awesome! Our Imperial dodgeball team were invited by Doritos to take part in their competition where six players have to stand in front of ball-shooting cannons, controlled by people logging on to the website and seeing a live-feed of us trying to dodge them! It was too fun, especially with the wigs and masks we could put on, and something I'd never done before, so I told any friend I could, and apparently they did get me a few times. We weren't best team, so we didn't get the £10,000 prize and the trip to Las Vegas, but we still got free Doritos and Gatorade, and since I didn't have a bag to carry anything in, I had to improvise by tying the ends of clothes. It was the best fun I had, until we were invited a second time! Yes, a second time! We were much better, but gutted when we discovered we came second overall; so close to making it, but more doritos to take home, and this time, I'd brought a bag to carry it all in!


But what this month has made me realise most, is how lonely I can really feel. Standing outside, with all my friends doing their own thing revising or being 'busy', I noticed how comparable we can be to the lives of pigeons. Yes, pigeons. Sometimes we're all just wandering around looking for that piece of bread, occasionally bumping into each other. And at other times we all have oversized pieces of bread in our beaks looking for somewhere to put it down and eat, dropping it now and then, and having other pigeons peck at it; we're all busy pursuing our own lives and do sometimes share them with others, but ultimately we pick that piece of bread right back up and move on. But I've realised that there are some people who, once they have come into my life, I can't ever imagine them not being a part of it; they ARE my piece of bread.


My maniacal mind magically magnetises money making me metallic!

London and its Layers

I once thought that all London consisted of was my house, Brent Cross to the north, Ealing to the west, Fulham to the south, and the paintballing place far to the east, with Hyde Park and Edgware Road somewhere in the middle. And that's it. But recently that all changed; during (yet another) Palestine demo at Trafalgar Square, I took a friend to my favourite place next to the Thames, and after he left early, I had the freedom to go virtually anywhere I wanted to with the rest of my friends at home 'revising'. I began with the National Gallery, looking at a few decent Van Gogh paintings, and where I bumped into another friend, whom I also took to the Thames. Then, going away from Trafalgar Square down a narrow alley-like side road, I discovered a small looking Waterstones. But inside it was massive, and I stayed there for about half an hour scanning mainly the humour section. It was the Covent Garden branch, and when I stepped outside, I found myself in a completely different place; it was like magic! Waterstones was so big that it had multiple entrances, and so I carried on with my adventure, soon finding myself on the Strand. I was actually in search of somewhere to eat, and this was the perfect place with restaurants everywhere, but I settled for the usual Pret a Manger dolphin-friendly tuna baguette :)

I then backtracked looking for my way to Leicester Square but found myself wandering into a comic book shop, expertly flicking through a few comics as if I knew what I was doing, before stepping out into another seemingly different street, even though it was the way I had come in; I'd realised I had no idea where I was, just the way I liked it! I'd always heard of a chinatown in London, but never actually knew where it was, but I somehow stumbled across it, and I found it quite enchanting! The roadsigns were in chinese, the smell of oriental food wafted through the air, yellow-skinned people everywhere; as if I'd walked into Imperial College China itself! There were a few street 'magic' performers doing the old 3 cups and a coin trick, and after I witnessed a hapless woman losing the £20 she bet on a cup, I thought it was time to move on, venturing down more side roads and discovering more wonders until I found myself back at Piccadilly Circus (where I took note of a Cinnabon tucked away in a corner). I then walked around HMV and Trocadero for a bit, which has somewhat lost its girl pulling reputation amongst the gangster-wannabe community.

Regent Street next, and I slalomed my way through the crowds of tourists; Hamley's toy shop my destination; I hadn't been there for more than ten years, and once I stepped inside, I felt like a child again, spending ages exploring its many floors, admiring the new wacky inventions to pull in kids' dosh, as well as spending a while pic 'n' mixing my jelly beans. Once outside, I thought about walking straight to Oxford Street and eating at Cinnabon until I discovered an almost uninhabited side-alley place, with an arty rainbow structure standing in the middle! That's what I love about London; you have all the standard attractions: the streets, palaces, monuments, aquarium; but then you have all the small hidden things tucked away that tourists regularly fail to pay attention to; the quaint little bookshops, the age-old bakeries, the hidden-away parks and gardens; and on top of that, you have the history of the whole place; a layer underneath another layer, all proudly documented with plaques and memorials. And on another level, there's Southwick Mews :)


My journey continued through more side-streets in the general direction of Oxford Circus, past some amazing street performers, through places I never knew existed! Carnaby Street: there's something about it, just its character, a place rarely found elsewhere in the world, a place that remains untouched by outside influence, like (and I can't find a better example) Hyrule market in The Legend of Zelda! It clings on to what makes it, it.


After thoroughly enjoying Cinnabon on Oxford Street, it was a walk down to Edgware Road, and then Paddington through (yes, you guessed it!) Southwick Mews, from where I took a bus all the way back home... a lovely day! There is still so much of London I have yet to explore, and my daily bus journeys to uni, peering out of the window have made me realise that; all the places seamlessly flow into each other! Just today I walked from Edgware Road through the posh back roads to Kensington Gardens and stumbled upon picturesque scenes, childhood memories and Kensington Palace!

My Bloomer of a Tumour

About 2 months ago, I was diagnosed with a pituitary adenoma after receiving results of an MRI scan I had in January. I was taking part in some research into psychosis at Cambridge when I had the scan, otherwise I still wouldn't have known about it until too late and I was suffering from symptoms. But what is an adenoma? A good thing about having medical student friends is that, unlike a GP, they don't tiptoe around something when you ask them, "What's an adenoma?" I ask, pretending to help with their revision, "It's a tumour of the gland!" They reply unhesitantly. So yeah, I have an 8mm wide (and growing) lump on my pituitary gland in my brain, or as a friend so aptly put it:

"You got a pink kink in your think."

There's a long list of (mainly hormonal) symptoms associated with it, which, alhamdulillah I'm not feeling the effects of just yet, but the two ways to remove it are by surgery (through the nasal passage :S), the most effective, and by drugs. So how am I feeling? I don't know. I'm always putting on a brave face in front of my friends, but there's a hint of uncertainty that everything might not turn out alright in the end. I've had blood tests, I have to see an endocrinologist (hormone guy) on Monday, and I don't know what to expect. It'll probably end up with him saying I need more tests and another MRI scan, and then I'll have to wait another month or so before the next appointment, by which time I'd probably have enough prolactin to start my own dairy farm!

April, again.

In the end I couldn't resist not writing an April 'poem'... plus I want to see what it feels like to actually have a short blog-post, so here it is:

April: a month of rest, play and paintballing.
My friends' attendance is too appalling.
My arm covered in pen,
Oh no, not again!
Now the psychiatrist is calling.