Medical Elective- Day 8

Or "Deeeah Eeeate" as my delightful Northern friends would say. It is our favourite day.

There’s an amazing feeling of freedom, wondering what to do when you get home. I’m sitting in an old tube carriage back to Accommodation, silently grinning to myself. I call this habit Pathological Grinning. It comes hand in hand with PMA. Grins are usually the product of amusing private thoughts, playing silly games (I raced a guy in a suit to the tube platform. He had no idea but he won by a margin), or just general wanderlust. Grinning at people is a wonderful thing. Mostly they will just smile back and then look down and carry on. As long as you don’t continue to stare there isn’t usually any sense of discomfort. But the act of smiling makes people feel good (that’s science that), so whilst enjoying your own little patch of Grinning you can pass on a unit of joy without any effort at all. It doesn’t always work, mind, but I’m yet to be punched in the face for smiling. Top tips for spreading a Smile: Never worry about your own Grin. Own it. Never smile at someone if you know it will look like you’re taking the piss. Try not to dribble. Unless someone goes to punch you, in which case dribble away.

I think I will treat myself to something nice when I get back. Nip to Budgens maybe. I’ve had quite a lush weekend and in anticipation of another week of tuna sarnies and cuppa-soups I think some kind of sticky bun is in order. I have an issue of Vogue (thanks Mum!) and a few sitcom episodes left to watch. Very much looking forward to it before knuckling down to another painting.

Ok, home now. Well, ‘home’. Budgens supplied me with a few treats- a block of continental cheese, a salami and a litre of mint-choc-chip ice-cream. I also discovered a copy of Left Lion (Nottingham rag) in my bag which proved, as usual, highly amusing. Today has been lovely. I spent the morning having brunch at Jam Cafe in Nottingham with a friend. Since I’m having to differentiate friends with made-up pseudo-anonymising but probably rather see-through names, this morning was spent with Hardcore Friend. She has recently taken up Roller Darby. She is on the opposite rotation to me that means instead of being on her elective right now she is doing some kind of shadowing, which actually sounds rather good. She says that others haven’t been so lucky in their placements. But she’s staying local for her elective so I foresee more brunches in the future. I then hopped on a coach back to London. Afternoon snoozey time.

Last night with The Boy was really lovely. We had South Indian cuisine which early blew my head off, despite me ordering everything mild (I have damnable low chilli-tolerance). The banana fritters were awesome. We both vowed that when we have money we will travel the world and eat all the different foods. I told him all about what I’d been up to, as he hasn’t been reading the blog (why do I bother?) and reassured him that there are no attractive men in London. I enjoy dating someone who doesn’t do Medicine and in general has no idea about it. I similarly have zero idea about what he does on a daily basis. But when we do sit down and have a genuine catch-up it’s like being told a story, rather than just a slightly different version of what you did that day. The Parrot did not seem to have missed me as much as The Boy. Stupid Parrot. That reminds me, Hardcore Friend made a joke about Canary M. Burns today and I nearly wet myself in Hockley. For those of you who don’t get it, never mind, but suffice to say I have now started giggling intractably again.

After a conversation with the Little Brother about what to buy Smallest Brother for his birthday (which was three weeks ago but fell slap bang in the middle of exams- so I have been bad Big Sister and not yet got him anything) and making vague plans to visit Dad for his birthday on Friday, I resolve to do some work. Or maybe I’ll just eat some cheese and salami and garlic crackers and watch some cartoons and then maybe half that tub of ice-cream. I had resolved to do a proper painting this evening but I started the pencil sketch and I found that pencil was working well for me. So tonight we have a pencil sketch. Of me with sellotape on my lip. And it’s wonky as I appear to have changed the angle of my face halfway through, just to foil myself. I’ll get you one of these days, self.