So a couple of weeks have passed since Rheons visit, and I have started my placement in gastro, the days are crazy long, the worst being 8 am till 7.30pm but they're going fairly quickly, and since i was prepared for them i'm trying to just greet them with graceful resignation rather than red-faced rage. Also the other externes are nice and helpful and I do slighlty feel like i'm getting better at the whole externe malarkey.
My parents keep telling me how useful this is all going to be for F1 and i continue to disagree with them. Most of what I do is taking histories and the ward round, with a bit of menial secretarial work on top. All of which i can already do in english, my prescribing knowledge feels like its gone back 3 years cos I don't know what any of the drugs are by brand name and I generally feel a lot like an idiot the whole time....but at least I'll be used to long days!
The weekend after rheons visit we went dancing at the LU on the friday night and got to experience the joy of french mens flirting technique - they dance up to you, they poke you or do something else equally annoying to try and get your attention and then when you don't instantly fall into a quivering heap of desire at their feet they dance away again. We also did a bit of shopping (including a 2nd hand bookshop but more of that later!), some wine tasting and made delicious thai green curry.
Another week at hospital flew by and then last weekend Marie's friend Laura came to visit us. Friday night italian disco at the LU wasn't really jumping so we ended up going to the club that had the indie night on, altho this time it was an african music night dj-ed and mc-ed by 2 particularly white looking men, but it was fun to dance to! I'll leave marie to add one of the sweaty pictures of us all if she so desires. Saturday we showed laura the town and did some shopping and then had delicious tapas for dinner then chilled out with a bit of high school musical 2. Inspired by the classic zac emo-golf course dance in HSM2 (if you haven't seen it then you really should)we played mini golf on sunday and threw some shapes:
I did lose horribly, but it was still fun;
on the plus side it seems spring is arriving as evidenced by blossom:
and baby ducks:
Somehow in between all this crazy excitement I managed to fit in one more trashy novel, no i don't know how i find the time either. So without further ado welcome to:
French Literature reviews with Alex part 3: Intrigue a l'hopital (intrigue at the hospital)
I have to say its good to know that french romance novel translators have become equally lazy in their title giving as the english authors have.
So, we've reached modern times and a medical setting which obviously means that linguistically this book was a useful use of my time.
The title wasn't lying either, this book actually manages to create a vague sensation of intrigue for maybe 2 chapters before it spills the beans, by telling us that our heroine Annie, and her ex-lover/new colleague (nightmare!) Nathan (who has rippling muscles underneath comfortable sweaters, just what every girl dreams of) don't entirely see eye-to eye ( i wonder how you say that in french?) on why they broke up. Turns out it was because annie was a crazy baby obsessed nutter who took nathans suggestion that maybe they wait a while to spawn as a rejection then refused to see him ever again. I know right - totally reasonable reaction, this woman isn't high maintenance.
Another sign of modern times is that annie has a GBF (gay best friend) who naturally has to pretend to be her boyf for a while to put off nathan in a slighly underused subplot that has of course been done many times before elsewhere.
Things take an exciting turn before reaching their predictable end when annie is stabbed right in the heart by a tattooed ruffian, I think they were going for some ER-esque excitement here with the emergency thoractomy and what not except it was in no way as well written and if it were ER the staff member probably would have died instead of getting a happy ending. But we being in mills and boon territory it's all fine, and annie gets better and just feels a bit sleepy and sore and then her and nathan get married and have babies, once the thoractomy scar heals i assume although maybe not, i was getting pretty bored by this point.
Whilst i always consider the people in these books to be total jack-asses this pair were a particularly fine example. So overall i'd have to declare it average, but with some nifty medical language that I may well use if ever called upon to do an emergency thoracotomy on a tattooed ruffian.
much love
alex
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