Can't stand losin' you!
We said goodbye last night at Hyde Park to one of the all-time great bands, The Police. As I'm sure a lot of you know, they reunited for one last tour, and we saw them finish off last night with a bang in front of 35,000 fans! It was an amazing show, the energy was incredible!!! And I have to say, in spite of the salt and pepper beard, Sting still looks finger-licking good, and he knows it (he wore a muscle shirt--tasteful, but still a muscle shirt). Guess yoga really does pay off ;-) And wow, his voice sent shivers down my spine. You haven't heard Sting until you've heard him live.
We were also treated to performances by The Bangles, Starsailor, and KT Tunstall. I think Starsailor has a new fan in W, who had never heard of them before. The lead singer has a great voice, and was obviously enjoying himself up on stage. We sang our lungs out for most of the afternoon and evening and the weather was definitely cooperating with a fair bit of sunshine amazingly enough! But as W put it, The Police just blew everybody else out of the water.
Next up, Jack Johnson and Ben Harper !!! on Wednesday in Hyde Park again. Let's hope the forecast of heavy showers changes by then...generally the forecasts here can only be trusted on the same day, and sometimes not even then, so there's good reason to hope ;-)
Monday, June 30, 2008
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Running on Empty
I'm feeling a little sensitive this week. Although I am getting 8 hours of sleep a night, for the past 3 days I've been waking up seemingly from a deep sleep. I'm groggy, disoriented, in the middle of crazy disturbing dreams, and generally very unhappy. Not how you really want to repeatedly start your days.
I've been poked and prodded at for poor posture (belly dancing teacher, physio, fellow OTs), which is fine when it's one at a time. I've had a very sore coccyx bone, from what I don't know. You'd think I must have had a nasty bump to cause such pain, but I can't remember anything. And because I sit with my pelvis in a posterior tilt, the "slump," I'm in pain most of the time unless it's a really soft cushy chair. Now don't be smirking out there, most people sit like that. I'm going to start using a wedge cushion to force me into an anterior tilt so I can sit pain free until the problem is gone. Let's see, I also don't stand straight, don't use my core stability muscles to hold myself up against gravity, have one leg slightly shorter than the other (which tilts and rotates my pelvis)....the list goes on and on. It's been a week of people pushing me into different positions, and told to do it that way from now on, and it's just too much to work on at once!
I've got a big meeting with the Head OT tomorrow, which has little butterflies in my stomach, but there were big butterflies and outright knots already in there from other things going on, but it was just that little bit extra to upset the scales.
Right...I think I'm going to call the "Waaaa"mbulance on myself, as Cogger used to say. Sorry about that.
Housemate Nicole's hen do is coming up this weekend, Saturday night. Unfortunately, the forecast is for heavy rain all weekend, but then again they never get the forecast right here, so hopefully she'll have a clear warm night. Her mom and little brother arrive tomorrow morning, so she is in full tour guide mode already, having spent the week packing things up. When they leave in about a week, she'll only have two weeks left before moving back to the States permanently. Still doesn't seem quite real yet, even though her room is half empty.
I've been poked and prodded at for poor posture (belly dancing teacher, physio, fellow OTs), which is fine when it's one at a time. I've had a very sore coccyx bone, from what I don't know. You'd think I must have had a nasty bump to cause such pain, but I can't remember anything. And because I sit with my pelvis in a posterior tilt, the "slump," I'm in pain most of the time unless it's a really soft cushy chair. Now don't be smirking out there, most people sit like that. I'm going to start using a wedge cushion to force me into an anterior tilt so I can sit pain free until the problem is gone. Let's see, I also don't stand straight, don't use my core stability muscles to hold myself up against gravity, have one leg slightly shorter than the other (which tilts and rotates my pelvis)....the list goes on and on. It's been a week of people pushing me into different positions, and told to do it that way from now on, and it's just too much to work on at once!
I've got a big meeting with the Head OT tomorrow, which has little butterflies in my stomach, but there were big butterflies and outright knots already in there from other things going on, but it was just that little bit extra to upset the scales.
Right...I think I'm going to call the "Waaaa"mbulance on myself, as Cogger used to say. Sorry about that.
Housemate Nicole's hen do is coming up this weekend, Saturday night. Unfortunately, the forecast is for heavy rain all weekend, but then again they never get the forecast right here, so hopefully she'll have a clear warm night. Her mom and little brother arrive tomorrow morning, so she is in full tour guide mode already, having spent the week packing things up. When they leave in about a week, she'll only have two weeks left before moving back to the States permanently. Still doesn't seem quite real yet, even though her room is half empty.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Wooohoooo!
"I'm in the money, I'm in the money, I've got a lot of what it takes to get along!" That's partly in deference to my own musical theatre obsession where for a lot of things in life I find myself singing show tunes in my head...but it also reminds me that Aunt Sue and Emma are in NYC this week, attending as many Broadway musicals as possible. Ah, a trip after my own heart. I dragged my family to four musical and dramatic productions during our first trip to London. As I recall it was actually something like 4 shows in 3 days. Anywho, congrats on graduation Em, hope you are loving the Big Apple!
Back to the whole hullabaloo--I have won the housemate lose weight contest! Which means the kitty goes to me, albeit I don't really expect to ever see the money that one particular housemate owes, ahem!, as she has not paid into it at all and represents the largest portion of money that should have been in there. Seriously though, I am proud of myself that the only time I gained weight was whilst on holiday in SA, and I have so far lost 8 pounds overall. I'm not actually finishing now that our bet is over, I have my own goal weight set to reach and maintain, and I'm happy that along the way I'm re-educating myself about healthy foods, healthy portion sizes, and learning to recognize my bad habits.
Go Allison, it's your birthday!!!!
Back to the whole hullabaloo--I have won the housemate lose weight contest! Which means the kitty goes to me, albeit I don't really expect to ever see the money that one particular housemate owes, ahem!, as she has not paid into it at all and represents the largest portion of money that should have been in there. Seriously though, I am proud of myself that the only time I gained weight was whilst on holiday in SA, and I have so far lost 8 pounds overall. I'm not actually finishing now that our bet is over, I have my own goal weight set to reach and maintain, and I'm happy that along the way I'm re-educating myself about healthy foods, healthy portion sizes, and learning to recognize my bad habits.
Go Allison, it's your birthday!!!!
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
Well-measured words
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7434740.stm
Amazingly, given the rapid decline of America's influence in the international playing field, a lot of eyes around the world are following this election closely. Some sobering and thoughtful reflections, although the author stops short of making a prediction...
Amazingly, given the rapid decline of America's influence in the international playing field, a lot of eyes around the world are following this election closely. Some sobering and thoughtful reflections, although the author stops short of making a prediction...
Tuesday, June 03, 2008
Oooh, they make me so mad sometimes.
Sometimes you've really got to have some chuzpah (or however you spell it) to be an Occupational Therapist, because it feels like everyone else is trying to tear you down. Or I guess tear you down isn't the right way to put it, but they just sort of dismiss you, like their service is valuable but yours isn't. My supervisor has had a history of struggling with the physio outpatient service...not that they are overtly separatist or rude or mean or anything, but there have been issues in terms of who gets new referrals. Consultants and their teams of doctors have a bad habit of using an OT referral form, but writing "hand physio" as the reason for the referral, so even though it is an OT referral some of them have been "stolen" so to speak by the physio team in the past.
I recently had a lady call in to say she wasn't going to keep her next appointment, and in fact would not be coming for any more sessions with me because her physio had told her she doesn't need to see me anymore. Although there is some crossover, the OT hand therapy service would not exist if we were nothing more than a duplication of physio services! Regardless of my own opinion on the obvious differences between our services, in the NHS, anything that can be cut, will be cut. I have also recently taken on a patient only a year or two older than me who has already had physio for awhile, been discharged from physio, and was only given a referral to see me by the doctor because she wasn't happy with the end result, and he didn't know what else to try. It was kind of like, well, we've done everything we possibly can for you, and out of sheer frustration finally said, well, there is an OT, I suppose I could refer you to her.
The icing on the cake was a phone call this morning from a lovely patient...she saw the specialist hand surgeon yesterday. He discharged her and told her she's got about as much back in her arm as she is going get. So she asked about her OT sessions and he told her not to bother! She was a bit thrown off and rang me today to ask about it. Since we see people for as long as they are making progress, and when I saw her two days she had improved, I told her she was welcome to continue coming, which she has decided to do. But honestly!!! Your self esteem could take a dive if you weren't the type of personality to get fired up by this kind of thing instead. Why on earth do you make referrals to a service that you don't think is of benefit to your patients? And what business is it of yours to decide when a patient should finish therapy?! Once a referral is made to me, that patient is mine as much as yours, and what I do with them is in conjuction with what you are doing, true, but also separate. Agggghh!!!!!!!!
I recently had a lady call in to say she wasn't going to keep her next appointment, and in fact would not be coming for any more sessions with me because her physio had told her she doesn't need to see me anymore. Although there is some crossover, the OT hand therapy service would not exist if we were nothing more than a duplication of physio services! Regardless of my own opinion on the obvious differences between our services, in the NHS, anything that can be cut, will be cut. I have also recently taken on a patient only a year or two older than me who has already had physio for awhile, been discharged from physio, and was only given a referral to see me by the doctor because she wasn't happy with the end result, and he didn't know what else to try. It was kind of like, well, we've done everything we possibly can for you, and out of sheer frustration finally said, well, there is an OT, I suppose I could refer you to her.
The icing on the cake was a phone call this morning from a lovely patient...she saw the specialist hand surgeon yesterday. He discharged her and told her she's got about as much back in her arm as she is going get. So she asked about her OT sessions and he told her not to bother! She was a bit thrown off and rang me today to ask about it. Since we see people for as long as they are making progress, and when I saw her two days she had improved, I told her she was welcome to continue coming, which she has decided to do. But honestly!!! Your self esteem could take a dive if you weren't the type of personality to get fired up by this kind of thing instead. Why on earth do you make referrals to a service that you don't think is of benefit to your patients? And what business is it of yours to decide when a patient should finish therapy?! Once a referral is made to me, that patient is mine as much as yours, and what I do with them is in conjuction with what you are doing, true, but also separate. Agggghh!!!!!!!!
Incredible!
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/05/30/brazilian-tribe.html
What would they think of New York City?
I hadn't realized there were any tribes still in existence completely unaware of the rest of the world, let alone 100 of them.
What would they think of New York City?
I hadn't realized there were any tribes still in existence completely unaware of the rest of the world, let alone 100 of them.
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