Flow

When we are talking, all it really is, is just the transfer of information from one person to another, in a similar way to computers interacting with each other; you get a query, and then a reply. Emotions are the same sort of thing; electrical information travelling from the brain which has responded to other external information, and the expression produced; laughing, frowning, crying, body language in general, is interpreted by other people in the form of information, telling them how you're feeling or what you're thinking. Basically, we are just complex computer programs, in a complex computer network, bound by laws and limits... I wonder when the patch is being released.

November Nervousness and Nonchalance

What a day it has been! Eid celebrations, and two exams; rushing back from the mosque in the morning, taking the bus to the Mile End campus where I was due to take my Funmed exams, before realising they started half an hour later than I thought they had.  There was enough time to take out my notes and frantically memorise a few more names of drugs we may have needed to know (and yes, I am a supporter of last-minute revision!).  The night before, all I dreamt about was of all the Medicine I'd learnt over the 9 weeks, and this whole month (with me turning 21 in between) has been filled with on and off revision. To be honest, apart from all the extra lectures I've been attending since the beginning of the year, I don't think there has been a solid few days of just revision. If you plotted a graph of my revision activity against time (rediscovering the geek inside of me), it would look alot like a camel, with hemorrhoids.  You could say that in the run-up to exams I've done the least revision, as the day before I had MedSoc, and the day before that I was writing reflective pieces of writing for it.  But anyway, the 2 and a quarter hour exam was alright, apart from it being held in the noisiest exam hall EVER. Someone's table kept squeaking as they wrote, and the district and hammmersmith and city undergound lines were running underneath the hall (yes, really!), so everytime a train passed, everything would rumble. But the most annoying thing was the invigilator's shoes... tap tap tap clock clock clock. She knew she'd be striding along the rows of nervous exam-takers that morning but still insisted on wearing her tap-dancing shoes.

The second exam was computer-based, and as I always have the fortune of being in the group that goes first for everything, we took the exam at around 2pm whilst the rest took it at 3 (them having another hour to revise anatomy and the oft-confusing microanatomy).  We all sat down at the computers, knowing that we had 45 minutes to answer 45 questions; and from my calculations that makes it a question a minute. So we were 15 minutes through identifying bones and tissue and nerves and blood vessels, until the invigilator (yes, the tap-dancer again) said that we actually had 30 minutes to do the exam, and so she reduced the end time on the board by 15 minutes. Great. I almost had enough time to finish, but for the timer in the top right corner of the screen showing the actual time rather than the minutes elapsed like it usually does.  I guessed the last few and then finally, freedom! It didn't feel that great to be honest, but we bumped into our eccentric 'head of Funmed' lecturer and thanked him for his entertaining lectures.  Then I and a few friends sat in the campus Costa with my green tea and carrot cake (and chocolate cake, because I didn't want to pay the 25p charge for an under £5 card transaction), and just chilled. And where I discovered that I got clinical hypnosis and then brain structure and function for my module choices, which is quite good, although not my top (most competitive) choices of reconstructive surgery and dissection. But I'm still happy :)  Oh, and on the tube home whilst I was finally completing my delayed learning objectives for MedSoc, I turned to the pregnancy page, and just as I did so a pregnant lady boarded my carriage! So in exchange for my seat, I got to ask a few questions and fill in my page without having to do any research. Sorted.

So, I'm in need of a solid weekend of sleep before our next module which starts straight away on Monday, and more intense than the first, Human Development. I just hope in the meantime I can develop myself a good work pattern and not leave things til the last minute! Yawn. Bye bye November!

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!

~~~~~~~

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!

Return

I could not have been at a better place than Edgware Road tonight; as I listened to the voicemail my mum left me, as I heard the words, "Call me back, it's serious', I knew what had happened.  Standing in the middle of Edgware Road, receiving the news of my Grandma's death, seeing people enjoy life, wasting it away here, I could see the stark reality of everything, of life and its purpose; it was all laid out there in front of me.

Jiddah, as I called her, wasn't very well for the past month or so, and she went into hospital this morning, falling into a coma after her heart failed.  For a while now she's said she wanted to die and to meet her Creator, with the past few weeks particularly painful for her.  It's so sad thinking back to all the special moments in my life that involved her, no longer going to happen.  Even though she was miles away in Algeria, we always used to send home videos of ourselves saying hi to her. I remember the time when I first met her since I was two, and the amount of love and care she showed me, a part of whom is inside me, treating the son of her eldest son so preciously.  I didn't need to spend years with her to know of the unconditional love she had for us all.  I remember how the wrinkles in her face so perfectly defined themselves whenever she smiled, which was everytime I walked into her room and sat down next to her.  Every morning I used to have breakfast with her, and she sat on her bed with her fan shooing the flies away from me.

We don't exactly know her age as records weren't kept during the colonisation of Algeria, and neither could she read, but she was extremely wise, probably as with most elderly people, solving family disputes and giving her many opinions on the world from her small window-viewing bed.  I hear the family out in Algeria are extremely shocked and upset at her death; she's been there for them all their lives, and it will probably be a while before 'mum's room' becomes just another room.  It will be a very difficult night and morning for them, and my dad. We can only pray that she's met her creator and waiting for us on the other side.

It must be a terrible feeling when you lose your own mother, the one who went through the process of carrying you, staying awake for you, worrying about you; a bond you will find no stronger elsewhere.  That's why this has taught me to value the mother I still have even more.

To Allah we belong, and to Him we shall return.

Are You Not Entertained?

A few of weeks back I went to see a film that Vue were re-showing for one night only, nine years since it was released. The film... Gladiator. There so many people in the cinema ready to watch a film you could easily get on DVD for the same price, but then again for such a good film, I'd expect nothing less. If I was obsessed enough to watch a film I already own, there definitely would be others, and I brought my brother and his friend to come along so I wouldn't seem like a lonely weirdo (everyone else I knew couldn't see the point), but I did bump into some old friends who were there for exactly the same reason. It was fun, experiencing something I enjoy with a load of strangers, most of us probably knowing (and lip-syncing :P) all the lines of the script, watching it on a big screen for the first time. I loved it, and I'm sure the couple behind me loved it too, judging by the tears the lady was wiping away by the end. This was a once-in-a-lifetime moment, and by the end, the cinema-goers went their separate ways, satisfied that they had re-lived a special moment in their lives once more and as if saying, "meh, I knew the ending anyway".

I may as well take the opporunity to talk about the film I consider to be my favourite hands down; it's got everything, and you just feel so attached to the characters because of the sense of injustice you feel that has befallen them, and of course, the real tearjerker at the end when he dies. I believe real heroes in films should die; you just got that much more respect for them (even though, yes, they are fictional). There are so many layers to the film, not just story-wise or how characters' relationships with one another develop, but with how deep each character goes; like with the 'villain', Commodus. It's explained that he's not a 2-dimensional villain but a 4-dimensional human being, and you can swap the roles of hero and villain in your head and almost relate to where he's coming from. On the high-quality picture in the cinema I noticed the backgrounds of alot of the scenes, like in the markets, and it looks like they've paid so much attention to detail! All in all, this is the film by which I judge all others. This is perfection in my eyes.

10/10

Captivating.

Starting Again

Wow, what a couple of weeks it's been! One week into the start of new life at uni and I already needed rest! We started on a Saturday which was unusual, with the groups of new people huddled outside the Medicine building which you have to join and introduce yourself to, before moving on to another group and forgetting everyone's names. The building is actually amazing! It sticks out like a sore thumb from the rest of the rather run-down Whitechapel, all futuristic and quirky-looking! And the main lecture theatre is too cool; award-winning design: all green with a few red chairs representing a poppy field (for some reason). But the library does retain its traditional look, maybe a bit too traditional...

Almost every night of both weeks there's been an event, obviously involving alcohol and the usual frolickings of freshers young and old, which I avoided, but which hasn't been an obstacle to my friend-making. We had loads of introductory lectures; a recurring theme this week, before having to go down to the Mile End campus for enrolment, for which we had to queue up for three hours! But it was a good opportunity to make friends and have proper chats. I'm actually surprised at the number of people I've become acquainted with during my first week; not only the 'hello and go back to your life' kind of friends, but the ones who would actually stop and talk. One guy I met on Monday was too cool (and still is), from Singapore, I have a feeling I'm going to get on well with him; having the same kind of humour and chilled-outness as my old maths buddy at college. Actually, forget that, I've just discovered that he has to go back to his country to finish off his national service. That really sucks!

Of the few highly-interesting lectures we had on the history of Medicine and everything, one was particularly eye-opening. A lady came in with her Doctor, and was HIV positive (the lady not the Doc). It was so enlightening hearing her story; that Medicine can't only take a person's well-being into account but also has to consider the social and political environment around that patient. It was sad learning that after she arrived from war-torn Northern Uganda, she contracted HIV and was kicked out by her partner after mothering her first (thankfully HIV negative) child, and then a second, and then learning of all the terrible side-effect inducing drugs that she had to take to suppress the virus inside of her. Very enlightening.

The first week ended with a lecture that terrified the hell out of us all, and is apparently an annual tradition at this university. We were all sitting there expecting "An Introduction Lecture on Clinical Medicine & Dentistry" and boy did we get it! The lecturer is apparently head of the Brain and Behaviour module, quite a large guy and the way he spoke made him the perfect pantomime villain. He went on about the rules, about people who turn up late not being allowed in, about our dress code and about his book that he wanted us to buy, and then there was the mobile phone incident. Someone's phone went off in the lecture and he warned that the next phone to ring would be dealt with. Sure enough, after a few minutes, a girl's phone did ring, and she was asked to come to the front, where he took the phone and dropped it in a jug of water! Everyone gasped! Later on he randomly read out two names who had to come forward, and to emphasise his point about buying stethescopes, he made the boy take off his top and the girl put her head to his chest and listen to the heartbeat. Towards the end we were all wondering who this freak of a lecturer thought he was, whilst he was showing dodgy pictures and figures from last year's fail rate, and that because extra students accepted the uni as a first choice, they'd have to kick out 55 students by the end of the year. Basically, we were all 'shook'... and that was until his last slide showed that the whole lecture was a spoof involving upper-year actors... Phew! But it really gave me an unexpected boost to make me start work.

The second week involved me meeting my new PBL (Problem-based Learning) group, and we had our first session dealing with a case of a guy who'd tested positive for HIV (it's like there are no other diseases in the world!) I volunteered to chair the group, which was me basically going through a set of points, making sure we'd covered our bases in terms of learning objectives, and getting a few members of our rather shy group to talk, but it was OK, and the next day (apart from sports trials and me forgetting my kit) we again sat in our group thinking up poster ideas for "Don't Believe Everything You Hear In the Media". Ah yes, sports... I wanted to do something different for a change, so instead of choosing football again, I went for badminton (which was way too crowded so I left early), and then the hockey trials, which were way far up North-East London somewhere. After a few drills we got down to the match, which is a bit like football, apart from the ball; which if you happened to kick with a bad toe, would hurt. They took my number down, and I went home.

And how can I forget Monday: Learning Landscape! We went down to Mile End in our labcoats and were given 'True or False' sheets to fill in about the human body and we were allowed to walk around the lab with all these bodies, bones and organs on display for us to touch and examine! Holding the brain was probably my highlight of the day :D

Thursday and Friday were mainly full of long Ethics lectures; quite interesting when you got into the swing of things, but initially very long-winded with very long words, but then he asked people what the definition of 'good' was, and then everyone started to pay attention. By the end, I left the lecture questioning loads of things that people could initially assume being 'right' or 'wrong', but with my new frame of mind, I now knew more than just patient consent and confidentiality. Learning about 'legal fiction' was particularly interesting!

Friday was also the second of our MMD (Muslim Medics and Dentists) events: a house party with a quiz on general/Islamic/Medical knowledge which really gets me going, and I began to answer questions I didn't know I knew the answers to! And, as with every evening of the past fortnight, I left for home shattered, and glad the weekend was ahead of me. And it's just the beginning of a hopefully long and successful time inshaallah.

July and August

Ah, recording my monthly musings have been rather delayed because of everything else in life I'm up to, and I thought since July and August had a similar theme (not really), I'd just do them together!

It all began with my slightly chipped front tooth getting rechipped, sustained from my July the 19th 2004 episode. My mum superglued it back in after I retrieved the small enamel jigsaw piece from my lollipop, and it felt weird until I finally lost the fragment down the sink, and constantly prodding the gap with my tongue didn't lessen the weirdness. The dentist sorted it all out in the end :) Lasered in and everything (although there was some stuff that did suspiciously smell like superglue). The dentist said it was the best mouth she'd seen all day (and then she saw my teeth :B).

I again went paintballing with my St. George's friend Haseeb and his lot; we got there after a chilled-out train journey where I was reading my Yes Man book in between catching up with my mate. We got things going after his friends finally arrived, and the weather was quite nice; not too hot and not too cold, but that all changed later on, with the thunderstorm raging on and off, the rain pounding down like it had a vendetta against us. The other team was full of cheats; people who didn't go off once you shot them, so I decided to get out of the castle I was supposed to be defending and navigate through the thorns all the way around the edge until I was behind their base, stealthily shooting them in the backs before disappearing again, take that! On the way home the thunderstorm raged on, and Victoria station was evacuated because of the leaking roof and flood, but it was an experience, and if I wasn't in the 'Yes Man' phase, I probably could've enjoyed a nice dry day at home.

I saw Ice Age 3 with my brother and his mates (my friends were practically non-existent at this time), and I liked it, certainly better than number 2!


Then an Iraqi charity dinner, £25 per ticket, me and my brother and his mate, waiting ages for the food and doing bizarre things in the process. And afterwards the raffle, which my brother bought FIVE tickets for, before we had any chance to discuss whether we should be getting them or not. Our eyes were on the two Wembley tickets up for grabs, but what did we win? A women's arab dress. And then another! My brother went up to collect the first, I went for the second, but I was gobsmacked even the first time that one of our numbers was called!

Obviously the thing that stood out most in this month was the trip to Spain and Morocco (which I'm still typing out the diary for!). My final thoughts being quite mixed; Spain looked amazing, clean and was full of character. It's just sad seeing an old Muslim land no longer in the hands of the Muslims, with them being relegated to less affluent parts of town, and the old landmarks turned into tourist attractions, adorned with crosses. But nevertheless, it was an enlightening experience, and to be honest, I enjoyed the character of the place more than I did Morocco. I'll try and elaborate further after my diary's finished inshaallah.

My brother and I also joined a newly-formed football club, Cricklewood United, and the first day of training didn't go too well for me; I collapsed every so often because I'd twisted my ankle in some slim and unstable red football boots, which weren't the most comfortable in the world. But luckily, I had another pair I saw in a sale recently, exactly the same type as my red ones, and which also happen to be my mum's favourite colour.


They look nice, but a training session in these beauties left blisters and rubbed heels. But it did make me appreciate how cool blisters are; the body making cushions so you could feel more comfortable, that's what they essentially are!


~~~~~~August~~~~~~


The month kicked off (literally) with my first proper official-like football match in more than ten years (with my last time being in the under-10's league at Lillie Road), if you don't count the couple of matches I had at Imperial. It went alright, until I came off with cramp in my left leg, and we lost, but it was good getting to know our new team-mates, and how greedy some can get with the ball!

We went to Brighton as a family, ate freshly-made doughnuts (where you see the machine making it and flipping it over in the oil) and ice cream that we had to run to the car in the heavy rain. Sea-world, a very old Victorian aquarium with a cool tunnel so you can see the sharks and the big 40 stone (I think) turtle swimming along from underneath. I also saw a couple of smaller turtles getting intimate with each other, not making the '5th leg' mistake again ¬_¬, and managed to touch a shark fin before noticing the 'Do Not Touch' sign. And that's about all Brighton had to offer, apart from the pebbled beach of course.


Another match, we drew this time, and I came off with a cramp in my left leg. More training, but with the new boots I bought from Niketown. I noticed their bright colour behind the counter days before they got on the shelves (I saw some footballers wear them before... yes I'm a sucker for subliminal advertising), and just as I was about to leave and contemplate getting some non-orange ones as well, but I'm sure you'll agree they are quite nice. They're just like the ones in my dream!


We got an ice cream machine which is supposedly like the ice cream vans make, and they do taste the same, but it also needs you to freeze parts of the machine beforehand, which I think is a bit of a cheat. The ice cream at Hamleys was also nice; we went around London as a family, on the boats in Hyde Park, the pet section at Harrods (and the fossils weren't bad either!), and stood where my mum always used to stand when she was working there all those years ago... 'twas good. The next day three of us went to my afghan friend's house and chilled playing FIFA, and we liked it so much, we went to another friend's house the next day after my mate's wedding to do the same! Oh yeah, the wedding; we sat ourselves down in the packed venue and played with the toothpicks whilst some guy at the front was speaking Somali, and the occasional cheer as we picked up our friend's name being mentioned. Not many of our secondary school friends turned up which was sad, but the food was nice, and the lesson learnt that day was that if a Somali guy offers you some green sauce, politely decline; it's hot!

There was another dinner, this time for Palestine, and they had an auction at the end (after the nice asian food), and to get things going, I bid for practically every painting out there, until others bid higher. This did work out until the guy who I was mainly bidding against decided that he'd bought enough paintings that night, resulting in me having to lug home a massive £55 painting on the bus!

(It looks better upside-down I think)

And another friendly football match, winning this time, and my first goal! Oh and how can I forget the awesome family picnic we had in Richmond park? Sheltered by an old tree enswathed by the bracken, spotting a few deer and their fowl on the way, and eating food we could've easily had at home, but without the wonders of the wilderness all around.

I've just realised how much waffle I have to delete go through in my monthly notes before I can call this a legible monthly memoir. I haven't written anything on September yet; maybe it's better that way...