Thus far, life back at home has been great. I have been passing the time reading books, playing a computer game, and cleaning out our basement. As of today though, I decided to uninstall the game and simply stick with reading.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (part 4) came out late last year in movie theatres. The movie was great, and of course I ended up wanting to read the next couple of books in the series. Unfortunately I could not read The Order of the Phoenix (book 5) because I had left it back home in Calgary. So I read The Half-Blood Prince (book 6) instead. Being back at home of course has let me read The Order of the Phoenix. I also ordered books 1-4 online from Amazon, and they're sitting in my apartment in London. Hopefully I'll get to those sometime this year. Maybe I will continue the backward trend and read the books in a 4-3-2-1 order.

It feels slightly unnatural that I do not have to go to work right now. Unnatural like some basic law of nature has been violated. I love vacation.

Little Chan has been sharing her inner thoughts for quite some time now, but I never knew about it. Turns out on-again off-again Dinh is back on again.

Photos / London England - go to section

- 21 New Photos

Links - go to section

- 2 New Links - Dinh - Uben Jaginov and Janice - Little Chan's Inner Thoughts

Tomorrow I head off for home for a week. Time off means time to study, time to see friends, and time to buy goods in Alberta. Stupid Ontario with its provincial sales tax.

I have site content already uploaded for the updates over the next while as well, so it'll make updating quite a bit faster. Anyway, this is about it for now, I need to finish packing still.

Photos / Prague Czech Replublic - go to section

- 14 New Photos

There is a certain tangy sweetness to having a weekend off after having worked for twenty-six days straight. It is a kind of sugary goodness that I now greatly appreciate, but hope never to experience again under these circumstances.

The final days of the stint had a peculiar candy-coat of madness to them. I noticed that I had troubles speaking coherently if the subject matter was not directly medical. A certain tinge of delirium and insanity was present in the off-beat jokes I would make in the morning after a night of call. With a moderate degree of confidence, I can say that the medical students must have all thought I was crazy

Tomorrow is my final day on call for this rotation. I feel slightly bitter, mainly because tomorrow is a public holiday. After Tuesday, I will be taking some holiday time to regain my sanity. Oddly, despite massive patient load on our team (our census is approaching forty patients, on a team intended to manage only twenty), I feel like I will miss the medicine ward. There were still a couple of patients with very interesting and unresolved problems that I was hoping to make a breakthrough on. On the other hand, I think my brain needs a break.

Photos / Dublin - go to section

- 12 New Photos

I am now working week number four in a row without a single day off. The past few two weeks, and especially the past few days have been rough. Our patient list has ballooned, and the number of the new patients have angry self-entitled family members who strike me as people who are looking to litigate to make a quick buck. They yell at the nurses, they yell at the medical students, they even yell at the janitorial staff. One has actually threatened to "have lawyers crawling all over the hospital to destroy you all". I'm exhausted. Our entire team works so hard for these people and these jackasses blame you for the ailments they bred themselves over the years.

Enough ranting and raving for the night, I'll update for real on the weekend.

Tomorrow will be the fourteenth day in a row of work. This places me at the half way mark of my four week stint. With the lack of weekends to recuperate and rest, I find that I have become quicker and more resolute on decisions. I am able to see more patients now in less time, and when patients are unwell, I am more decisive in my actions. Or so I like to tell myself.

Off to sleep now, and then off to work again tomorrow.

Thanks Alex, for mentioning me. Now, any chance I could get a permanent link on your site? Haha.

Have a good week everyone.

Photos / Prague Czech Replublic - go to section

- 8 New Photos