Medical Elective at Colchester Day 4

Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh so tired today

Another 9-5 at Colchester General Hospital's A&E today. Learning new stuff and revising old stuff day by day. Darn it, lots of things forgotten. Stuffs from medicine and surgery postings... forgotten them all!!! This is so lame. Oh, clerked a talkative patient today. So difficult to clerk him. Kept deviating from the his current problem. Anyways, I guess I'm warming up to the staff, especially the doctors. There's a cute and sweet student nurse here... whoops. Erhem.

FINALLY IT'S A WEEKEND! Time to explore. Haven't got to explore much due to the 9-5 schedule. Darn it. So the plan is to go to Cambridge tomorrow. To enrol at the university. Awesome... Yeah... Enrol in the guest book, that is. Well anyways... looking forward to it.

You know, back at home, if it was too cold, I could just switch the aircond off. Now how am I gonna do that here... The sun, it's not orange or red in the evening. If I had an SLR I would have taken shots of the moon. Night time in the neighbourhood is beautiful. The streets are well-lit.

Medical Elective at Colchester Day 3

Yosh!!!

It's my third day on English soil and second soon third, day at the hospital. When I first arrived I saw some ducks. They were so, so tame. Didn't attempt to run, and I didn't attempt to touch them. First things first. Went to report and got by badge to display. Had a couple minutes of chit-chat, then off to the Accident & Emergency Department. Soon after my presence was known, I was quickly brought to an on-going lecture/presentation. Everything happened so quickly I actually had a little difficulty adjusting myself. One moment I was at the office to report, next thing I was in a small room, with medical students from Barts and doctors. I quickly found a sit and sat down. "So all of you are from Barts?" The consultant from Sudan looked at me.

"I'm from Malaysia."

"Oh, you flew all the way from there?"

Anyways he started his short lecture on polytrauma. Lucky I just finished orthopaedics as well as surgery and medicine posting in the past, so things made sense.

So he was asking questions as he presented. Suddenly, "medical student from Malaysia"

Owh crap. Decent answer given.

During the coffee break, the students fro Barts introduced themselves to me. Rohan and Ana for short. After the lecture ended the doctor from Sudan showed me around. No introductions though. Oh well.

My supervisor wasn't around that time, so I just followed a nurse practitioner. Friendly lady. In fact, almost all of the A&E staff are friendly when approached. Except ONE. My dear readers, meet DR NASTY. He's not even local. Oh well, just avoid him if possible. Even the Barts student asked me what's up with that guy...

There are always patients most of the time at the department. But sometimes it gets empty... no patients, no staff... Everything got so quiet. Nothing to do. So I went to the hospital restaurant from lunch. It felt lonely... Eating alone. Can't even send a message to someone I know back home. All I could do was think of...

Medical Elective at Colchester Day 1

I looked up at the Airbus A340. The size of the thing... though incomparable to an Airbus 380, it's still bigger than the ones I sit in to travel within Malaysia. It's cool, even the staircase up the plane is wider. Well, I guess everything is more, including immigration officers and checks.

Climbed up and was greeted by an air stewardess who looked a little like Korean, lol. Yeah she was pretty. No she wasn't taking care of the rear half of the plane, which was where my seat was. So cool to be in a BIGGER plan on Airasia. Damn who needs "hotseats" on this plane! The interior didn't look new though.

Anyways found my seat, loaded my stuff into the cabin compartment and... sat down. Next came a guy from Amsterdam! I gotta admit he is good-looking. He was in Malaysia for 7 weeks. His dad owns a resort on Pulau Kapas. "... Kapas (weird pronunciation) island..." "Pardon?" "Kapas island" "Oh Kapas..." (nods head)

"Where are you from?" "Perak" "What?" "Erm, it's a state in Malaysia" "Oh" (nods head)

"So what are you heading there for?"

"I'm doing my medical elective posting at Colchester"

"That's cool"

Anyways... flight was boring after the few-minutes conversation.

There were 2 pre-book meals. First was a lasagna, second was smokey BBQ chicken (funny name). Tasted ok.

Tried to get some sleep, but it's weird to sleep upright for so long. 13 hours plus flight! Dozed off and when I regain consciousness, only 20 minutes had passed... Then thoughts of an issue back in home country kept swirling around in my head. So... nap think nap think nap think. I didn't get the window seat, so I couldn't see anything. No there were no screens and entertainment FREE OF CHARGE. Rent something that plays movies, SINGLE drama episodes and music for RM35. No way. I saw passengers handing over money for blankets. No way. I have my jacket. It's good enough. Tip: It's cold on board, don't wear those thin material jackets. You'll most probably be paying for blankets.

And then the captain made the announcement that we would be descending in 5 minutes. Hoorah! Even that was a long moment... decent only, not landing.

When I landed... Aerobridge! It's not that cold in the airport, temperature is controlled. By the way, I landed at Stansted Airport. Went down 2 floors. Saw an ad for a train to London that takes 45 minutes with the catch phrase "Fastest way to London!". A lady nearby told her friend, "That's not true. Fastest way is by helicopter!" LOL! Made sense, really.

So I kept walking and saw a transit train. Hmmm... transit train? I'm not going to transit anywhere. So I followed the arrival sign. Turned left, huh? Dead end. More people queuing up for the transit train. I was like "huh?". Then it hit me. It was a transit train to the airport's terminal building! Wow! Don't know if KLIA has that.

Train was like the LRT. So cool X) I arrived at the terminal building, and headed to queue up for "All other passports". When it was my turn, I went there, and got a little confused to whether go to the left or right immigration officer, for whatever the reason. A black lady with a stern face looked at me, I looked at her. "Do you want to be seen, or not?" Gulp.

Her questions: So what are you here for for 5 weeks? Can I see your prove? Are you going back to Malaysia after your 5 weeks here?

PASSED!

Then I went to get my baggage. Wait for quit sometime, thought mine was lost lol. Or detained, since I didn't put it through the security check back in Malaysia... At last, found it! Went through the green channel (Nothing to declare), and met my aunt and uncle. And they talked bout the lengthy wait for the baggage. Dog-sniffing. I was like "What, my bag was sniffed... I hope the professionals didn't drool all over my bag" Well that explained why the baggage flow was paused now and then. Suspicious bags getting the extra sniff?

First familiar brand was BURGER KING. Lol. Anyways, as I exited the airport, it was cold! But not freezing. Haha, my breath turn to mist. And I felt fascinated, happy and kept blowing. Like a kid. I must have been having a lot of stress?

On the way to the house... passed farmlands, cottages, road signs lol. The roads here are the same as the ones in Malaysia. A lot of chestnut trees by the roadside. Yes, when they bear fruit, people do come to collect the chestnuts! Imagine that! We had to BUY chestnuts in Malaysia. Perhaps the councils should grow something that bears edible fruits too! Like fruit trees. Duh.

There were also daffodils. But they were just bulbs, since it's still winter. Hopefully I get to see them bloom before I leave.

So then I visited the town later at noon, went to the tourist's info building to collect info, took some shots, and went back. Gonna start my first day at Colchester General Hospital soon!