back to the real world

*warning, this post contains some details of a sexual nature which I myself find gross, so if you are young and/or as easily scandalised as I am, just skip down a few paragraphs*


So I am now back to the real world. I finished my 4 weeks at the hospital an hour from my house, and am now back at home and will be based at our local hospital for the next 5 weeks. I then spend 6 weeks at a different hospital again away from home, but that's okay because

a- I'll be doing paediatrics & I am sooo looking forward to it (little kiddies! how cuuute!)


b- It'll be just before my horrible horrible horrible scary exams in June so I'll need to be isolated from society (and most importantly, the time-wasting internet!) in order to revise.


So I have just finished heart and lung medicine, and now will spend 2 weeks doing 'infectious diseases' and oncology (cancer medicine).


The infectious disease is gonna be kinda gross because, as well as learning about things like diseases you catch from infected water in Africa and stuff (which I don't mind), we have to learn aaaaalllll about sexually transmitted diseases.
I can cope with that, but it's just that we also have to learn a bunch of communication skills in order to elicit a 'sexual history' and talk with people all about their gross distorted sexual behaviour

e.g.


"How many sexual partners have you had recently?"

"Were they male or female?"

"What type of sex did you have?" (OH GROSS. that one always makes me feel ill)

"What protection did you use?" ( I HATE the word 'protection'; do people not understand that if they are engaging in a behaviour which requires 'protection', it's probably somewhat foolish to engage in that behaviour?!)


anyway, enough of that for now! I am sure I will rant some more about it over the next two weeks!

In other news....our new house is starting to feel more and more like 'home'.
It was kinda hard at the beginning because the house hadn't been cleaned and the people living here before us were....well...let's just leave it at 'dirty'.

So we had A LOT of cleaning to do over the first 10 days...every surface was sticky and stained, every drawer, cupboard, shelf needed cleaning, the fridge had hair and bits of food in it (*shudders at memory*), we shampooed and vacuumed the carpets, we steralised the bathroom, we painted a wall....

so it was all a bit difficult at the beginning because we had so much to do before being able to unpack, but now we are starting to get settled in nicely.

By the grace of God the owner of our old house let us take ALL the furniture and kitchen appliances with us for FREE !! Thank God too as this new house had a bare kitchen, a microwave full of rust, a chest of drawers where the drawers had collapsed and were falling to pieces ( I could go on!)......so to get a bunch of nice furniture and all kitchen appliances for free was a real grace and a huge huge help.

But on the plus side, this new house is actually a pretty big house (bigger than our old one) and the rental agency is installing a new shower for us (let's not talk about the state of the original shower that the house came with...!), so I know it'll be super great once it's all done!


In other news....Chris is so wonderful!



I know I go quite a lot on here about him being so great (one of my friends the other day described my blog as a place where I spend all my time complimenting Chris!!)...but I can't help it if he constantly behaves in ways which leave me outstanded at his wonderfulness!!


Like today, where he yet again spent 3 hours coaching and coxing my rowing boat because our coach was ill, and then even after I left early he stayed on for an extra 1.5 hours to coach the rest of the crew....even though he then had to rush to his own rowing race.

and not one word of complaining or self-pity or resentment! Not even a mild flicker of negative emotion from him.


I mean, he doesn't have to spend his entire Saturday mornings coaching & coxing my women's novice boat; he not connected to the club I row for in any way and he already has loads of his own rowing & rugby commitments, but yet he is always there to help out, and re-arranges his own rowing committments so he can come to help out my boat. and he never ever ever ever ever complains.


But that is just one small example. He is so consistantly an amazing example of patience and self-sacrifical love, and I am always amazed by the extent of it, and the perpetual joy that permeates everything he does for me.
He never complains, he's NEVER EVER resentful, he's never selfish with his time or energy....it's such a stark contrast to my own innate behaviour that I honestly can't help but sing his praises!!

Oh, and that picture is of him in Italy 2 years ago when he gave my parent's entire appartment a new coat of paint, just to make it look nicer. He wasn't asked to, he just thought it would be nice to!

(I sat on butt the whole day while he worked...)

(and yes, my parents were delighted with what he did!)

and now the final part of this mish-mash random post...this girl has been in the news recently; a 13 yr old who paints increadibly well and says that God talks to her and inspires her to paint.

I obviously don't know the extent to which Divine Intervention influences her paintings, but she certainly has an unbelievable gift to paint.
Here are two of her paintings that I found particularly thought-provoking:


"On my knees"

" Here is young Jesus by the moonlight talking with God. By the same moonlight he will be praying at the Garden of Gethsemane many years later. Both as a child and as an adult he depends on the guidance of his Father in Heaven. "

"The Forbidden Fruit"

" After my prayer I began painting a young woman’s portrait next to a branch of fruit. Suddenly I felt God say, blend all the races, because this is Eve, the mother of all mankind"

Here is her site again

anyway, hope you're all well!

God Bless!!

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