FREEEEEeeedooommmmmmmM

it's no wonder...

and these are a few of my favourite things (that i have been indulging in of late):

• burying my nose in books
• watching a significant no of films (11 films in 14 days)
• going for walks on the beach and stuff
• travelling to northern shores
  
• trimming ferrets
  
• playing poker (and winning rather ruthlessly... *evil laughter of a wud-be-rich girl*)
• blinding cows
• burying myself in my sea of thoughts

watching a significant no of films :

• charlie and the chocolate factory
• monty python: and now for something completely different
• candy
• volver
• finding neverland
• ever after
• batman begins
• lara croft: tomb raider
• gattaca
• love actually
• the shawshank redemption

has been a very thought-provoking experience for me. it's the brilliant geniousity of geniuses i allow myself to be taken in by, rather than subscribing to the hackneyed contrivings of the mediocre.. so yes, mr. e, i am quite happy sitting in my palace of elitists, intellectuals and lofty attainments... worry u not about the length of my hair, for i am in no need of rescue. i shall prove u wrong cos i so lurve a challenge.... (as if u didn't already know that ;P)....

reading... for i oft wander in wonder at wonderment of wonder.

right.. enough of this grandiose garrulousity and prodigious verbosity, i hear u cry, o wearied reader...

photos of my trip up north to the crazy country of the nooks and crannies, neeps and tatties...

the simpson's farm

losing a dog in a shelter home full of old people was a very memorable experience! (running in and out of rooms full of wizened, elderly people on their tripods and armchairs, calling 'kirsty, kirsty!')

scotland is beautiful

at the heart of winter

my kind of beautiful place

venturing into... hell's luuuuummmppp... ooooooooooo

a christmas carol

sometimes we need that comfortable silence.
in the midst of the people and mirth and the festive goodwill,
that familiar presence,
beckons.
in the back of the mind, mid-conversation, at the core of our being, it exists, waxing, then waning, but
ever-felt.

the familiar one calls to you, longs for you, speaks to you.

and slowly but surely, she unravels (not unsurely) and yields.
and in that dialogue, she realises (years) that the conversation is never-ending.. and its potential: limitless as Heaven's power...

She looks, and slowly, she sees,
that the greatest mystery of all, is unfolding in her life. a great love, a great Grace, like a blanket of snow, fills her inner being and breaks forth joy,
like the sun.
a helpless, scared, trepidating light,



but not without peace.

"And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit." - Ephesians 2:22

legendary

oh... loookie what pete has in his hand... the ticket to carol's happiness....

so yes.. continuing on from my last post, i would just like to add more photographic evidence to the pool... the fact is that the season of partying is here. :)

a tribute to the legend last night:

mr legend did make us wait a wee while...

let it be known, from this day forth, that carol's love for the legend knows no bounds...

strictly come dancing

ceilidh, ceilidh, ceilidh!

it's alll about the chat, really.... nothing is complete without the banter.. i know i say this tOOOoo much, and i know if u google my blog, the word 'banter' probably appears more than 500 times, but i just cannot emphasize how great the craic has been of late...

this can be attributed to the following reasons...

• HOLIDAYS ARE HERE!!!!
• carol loves dancing
  
• proper, sweaty, scottish ceilidh (there have been many of late...) and a good ol game of knights, horses and cavaliers.
• immunology students kick ass!!! (big time)
  
• carol's rnb club rules. (both meanings)
  

mmmm... carol loves a man who can dance.

the side effects of having great craic...

• coming home smelling of weed (don't worry mom, didn't touch the stuff!)
• coming home at 330 am in the morning absolutely shattered and having to be up in 4 hours
• coming home at 2am the next night even more shattered
• having to do the same tonight
  
• seeing drunk medics immersed in debauchery
• having to look after drunk friends with lowered *ahem* inhibitions

the joys of immunology.

the joys of the celts

mad mad mads's

meanwhile, conversation topics have been of a seriously diverse scope of late... 5 hours today at mads's was EPIC.... carol loves like-minded people... who not necessarily have to share the same morality or perspectives on things, but who has a mind which thinks in the same way as mine....

carol loves intellectual fodder... mmmmmm.....

Run, run, run, run... in the right way, toward the right goal.

On being a Christian medic:
There is the risk of being prideful and elitist, but there is also the milieu of being surrounded by complete idiots, incompetency, inefficiency and utter oblivious-scatter-brained-pod-scum-of-bottomdweller-scum-phytoplankton-scum people...... GRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrr...

beware the contempt of a very organised medical student.

meanwhile, carol is in need of the banter of another very-busy-person who can understand the frustration, isolation and support that is needed by a miserable very-busy-person.

indeed, misery loves company.


on a less miserable note,
i love amalgamating with a certain eponymous character (oh, i love how this is so apt!) and a certain other southpark-ish character... meetings most oft take place at night, most oft banter-full and absolutely wonderful. :)

BeholdddddDDDD....

behold... i have found... the new BLANKET...

• I'M UR HOMIE.
• i am no fun.

i say, glasgow, u dark horse...

getting enough

once your needs are fulfilled, u realise that u can be back to normal again...

gartmore.

"Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life."
- Proverbs 13:12

the national scottish cmf conference at gartmore was amazing. of note was:

• the best ceilidh i've ever participated in.
• the best banter-masters in da house.
• the Word of life.
  

yes, we all have needs...

the dark side

sooo... since coming back from london, i've had a renewed obsession with goth ways...
now, if only i had the time to dress goth. but... i guess if i had the privilege, i'd also ask for the time to do more important things, like... have a decent social life... read and reply letters and emails, sort out the bills, etc etc....

alas, i am condemned to the futility of the musings of the workaholic...

"We are condemned to futile efforts, and our happiest moments are those in which our consciousness deludes itself with the dream that its constructions are perceptible and meaningful to others"-- Beckett

londonium

right out of the sea into the frying pan, i lept, painstakingly, into the arms of cellular adhesion molecules and electronica... but not before a well-deserved break in the biggest bestest place in the world... and i really mean IN THE WORLD....

right, i think i've done enough talking of late.... photos...

more

today i watched in silence as a star fell from the sky, as a leaf fell from the tree...as it gave up its life and descended. today i watched, helpless, not knowing the words to say, as a soul cried, as a boy died, as the world swept by, not giving a care or even a nod as a life was lost. today, i watched as Beauty faded away, as Life lost meaning, as Man failed. today, i watched, as a stranger to this sadness, i watched and i didn't know what to say to them, because they could never understand... today i watched as i was helpless, my words powerless in the face of humans and their way of knowing that they know best... today, i watched, helpless, and so very sad. joy... is not the absence of pain, but the presence of God.

the gentle whisper

halloweeners

so after that pensivity, i've realised that.... the ipod is ruining my life! as much as i love the long walk home, i love missing the last bus and i love losing myself, i also love the sound of my thoughts, and i really love speaking to God...
soo.. on my walk home tonight, facing the silence of the winter night boldly, i realised that slowing down is utterly essential to my being a better person. yes.. you could say God has been trying to tell me that of late...

"The LORD said, 'Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by.' Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave. " - 1 kings: 11-13

achilles tendon

the combined effect of Medicine and Immunity in Health and Disease has the corollary of robbing me of my conversational skills, my vocabulary and my creativity. the limits of the human mind in terms of delving into different subjects is evident of late. spreading out = lack of depth = a jack of all traits and a master of none. but hyperfocusing (the direction i seem to be headed) has left me with little to say about other aspects of Life. (which contributes to the paucity of blog entries of late)

of note was the case study of the one time i deviated from my usual west end / city centre hangouts and ventured into the wild realms of greater glasgow... that day just utterly threw me off.. i was struck, so much by the randomness of the place, the novelty of taking a public bus in the middle of the night, the thickness of the working class accent, the sight of the teenage mum pushing her child in a pram, the druggie stumbling along the path, a dwelling that was not a student flat! my goodness... i balked at my naivete! i was never so dissociated that i actually FORGOT what the rest of the world was like.. damnnit, i need a holiday.... and non-medic friends, and time to relax and see the big picture, to listen, to speak less, to refresh my eyes... i hate going round in circles..
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

anyhow, halloween and trick or treating was great fun like... cheap wine + non-medics + heavy metal music + crazy costumes = a merry, merry night.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

a tribute:

kenneth and xiaoling-

the lovely people who delivered the doughy goodness of a krispy kreme all the way from london to me. i'm sorry, i know i was meant to take a photo of it before eating it...

ivanna-

the lovely lady who turns 21 today!

army of me

*deep breath* wow. where do i start??? there are several reasons that orchestrated my being able to blog today. firstly, my class was cancelled this afternoon, and i only found out when i was at the outpatient reception. secondly, i am finally myself again after a protracted, at times unbearable, week or so, because i got 7 hours of sleep last night. thirdly, the arrival of a blogworthy event : i'm going to get my hair cut soooon. pardon le narcissism. fourthly, the unexpected protracted visit of an italian musician has left me too relaxed to want to delve into 'immunity and beyond' just yet...

also of note.. the cutest mittens in the world are in town... i now have the urge to dissect anything with fur.... i'm totally loving autumn.

medicine men

so despite the fact that i should be blogging about more ecclesiastical things, the little devil in me still can't forget the rapture of the sweet sweet conversation i had with my medicine men last thursday evening.

alas, it is true, as pointed out by my dear flatmate, Amy, that there are only so few 'cool' people in medicine. and i am soo utterly grateful to God for dropping these lovely men in my lap... for those of you who know my comings and goings in my wee university life, u know the two men of whom i speak of...

so anyway, it was such a respite from the new people and faces i meet in my new course.. the loveliness of familiarity, of unforgiving bitchiness unrestrained by the antiquated social-norms demanded by the sense of propriety required when meeting new people. so the merry three of us were reunited in the SL (study landscape) on that merry thursday evening, our insides acheing from all the giggling and laughing and utter taking the piss... oh my life in medicine is made so much merrier with these men...

also of note was my very stress-relieving time spent last night, post-Confident Christianity weekend, ensconced in the newly created niche that is my digital-tv-equipped kitchen, watching America's Next Top Model season 6 with Amy and being totally..... blase.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

on watching angelina jolie drop the last piece of the puzzle on a biplegic denzel washington and attempting to pick it up with a pair of tweezers in 'The Bone Collector'...

richard: do u know you can still get an erection if you have spinal injury? you just have to stroke the feet.

issaam: yeah, but doesn't that cause the urge to defaecate as well? kinda loses the mood, u know?

richard: yeah, but some people like that.

sojourn

brilliant..

a more robust , all-out impressiveness and in one word, spectacular. 15 hours on and i'm still in recovery.

attrition tears

you know that feeling that you need to jump out of your skin? when there's an inner something in you that needs to get out and needs to get out? i'm feeling like that right now. when i'm surrounded by all the things money can buy, all the friends and banter a university student in the uk can have, when work's piling up beyond what i can manage and deadlines are looming in the near and present future - when i've got ALL THE THINGS IN THE WORLD TO DO... i feel like there's not one of them that i feel like doing. that's how i'm feeling right now.

but what do you do when you want to burst, but there's noone lurking around to mop up all the pieces and sew you back together? absolutely nothing. you keep it in, you wrap yourself up with another layer of woolly fleece, you sip up your peppermint tea and study the autumn away.

but all the trees will clap their hands...

• and this is a typical day in the life of an intercalating student....

	Monday 9/10
0900-1000	0900-1015 IHD Lecture (403) - Intro to Chemokines - G. Graham
1000-1100
1100-1200	1100-1215 IHD Lecture (403) -Neutrophils, Mononuclear Phagocytes - JAG
1200-1300
1400-1500	2-5 FRS (403) - Nature of Immunity & Immunopathology - M. Thomas
1500-1600
1600-1700
1700-1800	5-? Immunology students social	545-700 CMF meeting (Rob's flat)
1800-1900			630-10 girl's bible study (Gill's flat)
1900-2000
2000-2100
2100-2200

statistical bias

so.. amidst studying statistics, carol took the opportunity of boredom to surf for her good old friend's band on myspace.... and found it! and laughed at their lyrics and was very entertained for a while... she also reminisced of how anachronistic her wee drive to tesco, maryhill earlier that day in her colleague's car was... full on 70-80s classics blasting throughout byres road, queen margaret drive and maryhill... pure funny like.. she also found this interesting piece of news:

• sweet success for 'oldest' brand...
  
• carol once had to pour this shit all over all her carrot cakes just cos she couldn't finish the stuff.. (but man they made them carrot cakes taste sooo goooood.)
  

speaking for herself : it has come to my attention that non-Christians (and Christians who aren't born-again (whatever your intepretation of that may be...)) complain a lot more than Christians.. it's something that makes sense when you think about it, but something i've just recently noticed. hmmmm...and so... i shall take this opportunity to tell all you complainers out there that...

"God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing." - C.S. Lewis

"I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." - Jesus


yup yup yuppers... meanwhile, here are some snapshots of fun-tastic Christian idiocy :

unfortunately, there has been the recent exodus of the above-photographed-good-ginger-man from the glasgow crowd... :( we'll misssss you simmooonnnnnnnnn!!!!! xXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

a life less ordinary

after running away from this for the last few months, i have finally realised, to my unease... that life is settling into mediocrity again. it's funny how my life as of now seems more ordinary than it has ever been in the last few years... studying in the library at night, carrying groceries back in the rain, grilled chicken breasts, cream cleansers for toilet tiles, housewife pillows, scaling ladders, changing lightbulbs, hanging out the laundry, furniture catalogues, social novels, cooking for one, kitchen conversations : i have become the one thing that i have feared most of becoming... but at the same time, it seems my resistance is futile.

dancing in the freedom we know

the uni today

bounce with me.. because it is one of those moments. sleeping with monkeys, going in the buff, detuning and retuning, driving to swedish soils, unravelling a curtain lady, flipping swatches, climbing, walking, waxing (lyrical about epithets, portmanteaus, metonymy and eponyms) jogging, cooking... and dancing (lots of dancing!)... maybe i'm too settled or maybe i'm lost, but really, i am just putting things in their place. As You open my eyes to the work of Your hands. For what is the point if we do not give thanks to God?

so, back in glasgow and recreating my niche! la la la la la la la la la la la*

(*to the sound of the music in ur heart)

butter makes it better

i reckon i've drank more in the last week than i have in the last 6 months... like for example last night...

what else i've been doing in my remaining days left in singapore...

• hanging out loads with the craziest bunch of girls...
  

shen! (who will be misrepresented by a hamster until she passes me her photos...)

junice... everyone loves a junice.

prissssssssss! i'll love you foreverr!!!!

• skirting around a lot (and being terribly vain)
  

• packing (not so fun)
  

• eating butofcourse... because deep down inside there is a stomach.

• disturbing the peace of every public place we're at...

these include : lavender street market, a spiritual-yoga-zen-themed cafe, the new NUS law faculty, Tampines basketball courts, etc...

• playing silly drinking games (please click here for Lester's amazing drinking game!...and when i say here, i don't mean here.. or here.. or here..)

what can i sayyy... carol is living it up real hard with everyone here in singapore. what more can i ask for? great friends, great food, great banter. sleep? who has time for that.. (sharing a bed with two other people is not advisable.. especially when we go to sleep when the sun comes up) money? we thrive on a communism-based fraternity.. down to the last S$2... (right, pris?) medicine, law and our careers? (a good research team is based on their ability to hypothesize... and we have ours... *drumrolll........* 'The Right Hand is Slower than the Left'.)

it's okay if you don't get it. you're not meant to... you just had to be there...