Not a happy bunny

I’ve had various aches and pains for a few days, including really bad period-type pains that radiate down into my legs. At first I thought I was pregnant, but I tested, and I’m not. Then yesterday I wondered if maybe I had a UTI as the pains were really strong just after I’d been to the loo. But I had no stinging, burning, frequency or anything like that.

Anyway, I emptied the bathroom cupboards and found some dipsticks from somewhere. I had large leucocytes and large nitrites in my urine – so I’m guessing I do actually have a UTI. But the pain actually seems to be a bit better now, and I don’t like taking antibiotics, and the doctors aren’t open until Tuesday, and I’m working then anyway – so I may just drink loads and loads of water and see how things go. I’m sure it’ll run its course in time, and I’ve managed thus far without antibiotics, so I’m sure I can manage a few more days.

Some minor progress on the essays, I’m getting there with ‘The Role of the Doctor in Maternity Care’, and I’m hoping that I’m going to make that fit quite a few performance indicators, which should help with the workload. I need to get quite a lot done today, and then I’m going to send off what I’ve got to my tutors so that maybe they can get back to me by Thursday, when I finish work.

Friday Five

1. You have the summer and plenty of money to travel abroad. Where all would you go?

Possibly Egypt. DH has always wanted to go, and I’m quite interested too. We’d probably do a cruise down the Nile. Then maybe onto Morocco or Tunisia, then back home via Italy and France.

2. What foods would you be sure you got to eat?

Well, if I’m going to go to Italy, then I’d have to eat LOADS of pizza and pasta. Outdoors, enjoying a beautiful view, or watching the world go by.

But wherever I go, I’d like to try the local cuisine whatever that might be, but being veggie, it’s not always that easy.

3. What landmarks would you be sure you got to see?

All the usual stuff in Egypt – pyramids, sphynx etc. In Italy I’d like to see the Colosseum and the Sisteine (sp??) chapel.

4. What airline would you use?

If money is no object, probably British Airways, and I’d fly first class. But to be honest, I’m not that bothered. As long as it gets me from A to B safely.

5. Would your knowledge of other languages influence where you went? (i.e. would you be more likely to go to France if you spoke French?)

It wouldn’t really affect my choices – but then I don’t really speak any other languages. Enough French to get by if people are kind and speak slowly, but that’s about it. So that would really limit my travel, although I do feel much more comfortable in a country where I can speak the language.

I need to moan – just ignore me

I’m fed up with my portfolio! I mean so fed up that I could literally scream. I hate it soooooo much. I don’t know what I’m doing, I don’t have enough words, then what I do is wrong anyway. I can’t find the references that I need. Ovid is stupid and doesn’t understand what I mean, and the fact that stupid Americans spell things wrong isn’t helping me either. Nor is it helping that most of the journals are from other countries and I need ones from the UK – but Ovid doesn’t understand that either. The RCOG is unhelpful – apparently nurses and midwives need detailed documents specifying their remit, but doctors are a law unto themselves – just do what you please, we don’t care.

Whoever wrote the performance indicators clearly cares not one jot for my mental state. Why, why, why are some indicators repeated time and time again? Why are other indicators completely irrelevant to the area of practice I’m in? And why do others make no sense whatsoever? Stop playing with my head!!!!!

I hate portfolios so much. I’d rather write a thousand essays than do another one of these $%^*$^£* things.

Thank you. I feel slightly better. Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.

Nearly had a heart attack yesterday

I was sorting out some work, and trying to come up with some kind of plan to get all my work finished by the appropriate deadlines. So, I decided that I’d better check what the deadline is for my dissertation. I thought it was the 16th July, but then someone at work said that it was the 28th July – which made me very happy. I found my handbook, found the right page, looked at it, read it three times, and then screamed. 30th June. That’s right. JUNE!!! Not July. That’s where I went to pieces. I could have had a nervous breakdown, but instead I managed to stave off such mental instability by eating seven Wagon Wheels. I felt much better (and fatter) after that. But still not in any fit state to do any work.

Later on in the evening I managed to chat to a friend from Uni – who also said it was the 28th July. So I then managed to get her to have a similar breakdown by informing her of the Truth. However, later (much later) I was speaking to another friend on MSN – and she filled me in on the full story. She reminded me that I wasn’t actually at Uni on the first day of term when the handbook was given out. Consequently, I didn’t hear the instruction to cross out “30th June” and replace it with “28th July”. Ahhhhhhhhhh. Order is restored, and my sanity is beginning to recover (aided by another Wagon Wheel). But I still need to apologise to my other friend for taking 10 years off her life.

In work related news, I went on a Obstetric Emergencies study day. It was fantastic. Really, really useful. We got to practice emergency scenarios in a much less scary environment than real life. Our ‘team’ did really well with the eclamptic lady, but we did almost kill someone having a haemorrhage – but that’s what it’s there for, so you can learn from your mistakes. And we didn’t kill her – she was fine in the end.

I’m still plugging away at my portfolio, and hoping to get that more or less finished by Saturday. Then I’ve just got four more days at work, then hopefully I can finish my essays, and then start on the dreaded dissertation. I think I need another Wagon Wheel……

Who should I vote for?

Saw this on Lorna’s blog, and had to join in. This is actually the third of these quizzes that I’ve done, and got exactly the same result each time. So I’m nothing if not consistent. I wasn’t at all surprised by the results, but I won’t be voting Green I’m afraid. I’ll be voting for the Lib Dems in the hope that we can get Labour out. Where I live a vote for Lib Dems is probably irrelevant (we’re a Labour stronghold), but a vote for Green would definitely be lost, which is a shame because I do support virtually all of their policies.

Who should I vote for?

Your expected outcome:

Liberal Democrat

Your actual outcome:

Labour -6
Conservative -13
	Liberal Democrat 38
UK Independence Party -1
	Green 52

You should vote: Green

The Green Party, which is of course strong on environmental issues, takes a strong position on welfare issues, but was firmly against the war in Iraq. Other key concerns are cannabis, where the party takes a liberal line, and foxhunting, which unsurprisingly the Greens are firmly against.

Take the test at Who Should You Vote For

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Created by bart666

Saw this on Querimonious’s blog, and had to give it a go. 15 seems acceptable for a woman my age – not too tame, but probably past my worst (or best, depending on how you want to look at it!).

Feeling narky

For no particular reason. Yesterday was a crazy day at work, which I don’t think helped, and I think I’m starting to get a cold, and I’m tired because I’m not sleeping well because I’m worried about not having written my essays and so on, so consequently I feel too tired to write my essays – so it’s a vicious cycle really. Of course, the one thing that would solve it would be me getting my act together and actually writing the essays rather than constatly whinging about it. But there you go.

So I must apologise to anyone I may annoy during the course of my narkiness.

One thing that cheered me up slightly today was installing some extensions to Firefox; one of which enables me to not only block adverts, but to block annoying pictures. So now rather than turning off all animated gifs, I can just block the more annoying ones! Yay! So I wandered round the internet blocking pictures from (and of) people that I don’t like, or who are just downright annoying. Great fun. I also picked up an extension that tells me when I get new Gmail, which was also good because I only run Windows 98, so I can’t use the standard notifier that Gmail provide. I then found an extension that makes it a bit easier to log into my Athens account – so while that wasn’t exactly doing any work, it was work related, and therefore still counts.

As promised

photos of my new toilet seat in situ. As always, click on the thumbnails for a bigger picture.



A general shot of the bathroom, so you can see the general colour scheme.

And while I (well, OK, my dad) was messing about fitting the toilet seat, he also put up another picture for me.

I hate Word

or Windows, or both. I’m not sure who’s fault it was. But after I finished my perineal pain piece last night, I started on ‘The role of the doctor in Midwifery care’ or something like that. However, when I look today – it’s not there. Granted, Word crashes every time I try to shut it down, but it doesn’t normally randomly delete stuff. I’m not very happy. I hadn’t done much, but that’s not entirely the point; I now have to redo it, and try to refind all the info.

I do, however LOVE Endnote. Because Endnote doesn’t often crash on me, and doesn’t randomly delete stuff because it’s tired or in a foul mood. So fortunately most of the references I found yesterday are in Endnote, which makes redoing last night’s work much easier.

I’m a bit worried about tomorrow though. I’m supposed to be on an Obstetric Emergencies course – which is scary enough in itself, especially as we have to get videoed. But the thing is, I know that one of these courses has been cancelled, and I *think* it might be the one tomorrow – but if that’s the case, then why does it say on the off-duty that I’m on it. Thing is, I’ve got all this work to do, and it takes me near on an hour to get to work when I have to go by bus, so I don’t really want to go in if the course has been cancelled. But then I’m worried that if I call up and someone tells me it is cancelled, but it isn’t, and then I don’t turn up – well, that’s really bad isn’t it? I know this shouldn’t worry me – I can either call up and find out tomorrow morning, or just turn up and see what happens. But I’m kind of irrational at the moment, and it’s worrying me!

Finished!

I’ve finally finished at least one piece of work! A piece for my portfolio on various aspects of perineal care. Woohoo! Alright, it’s only one piece, and there are a LOT more to go, but I now feel that I’m finally into the swing of things again – so hopefully, it should be a lot less painful from now on.