Happy Birthday Tress, whatever small Congan village you may be in today! Congo-an? Well, whichever, lots of love, hope you get to take it a little bit easy for your day :) Check your email for some bday wishes.

It's the end of an era...

I am extremely excited about the new boat, Sam's boat, which has a 190 horsepower engine and should be strong enough to completely avoid me being dragged behind the boat, choking on lake water and with goggles on to protect my contacts, as I try to slalom! It is also apparently a great cruising boat, with canopy and comfy seating for 10, and a built-in cooler for beer!! However, as many of you know, I have a hard time with letting things go at times...like the old green shag carpet that was in my bedroom for umpteen years, the tradition of having a live tree for planting at Christmas, the fact that I have been campaigning against my parents ever selling our house, and now the "old" boat in Vermont which I am told will be sold. But as they say, the only things for certain in this life are that things change and taxes.

If only it was "just another Manic Monday"

Unfortunately, I spent most of today trying to find ways to entertain myself (and not being all that successful since you can't look like you're having too much fun when you're supposed to be working). Why, you ask? Because I have to keep my assistant busy, so the few bits of work that needed to be done were handed over to her. Leaving me with almost nothing to do. And horrible flashbacks of working at CDH, my first rotation. I spent as long as I dared hanging out with the stroke unit crew, lengthening my half hour lunch into an hour. I made all my follow-up phone calls, finished off the few discharge summaries I had waiting, and would have spent an hour or two doing CPD stuff on the computer, except it was broken, naturally. Last week I found a great source of entertainment in a physio and physio assistant, Surinder and Kalu, who kept me in stitches in the afternoons on the ward, but no such luck this week because they only cover when the regular physio is not on the ward for some reason.

I did have my meeting with the Head OT about next rotation, and we find out the results by Friday. She said it looks pretty good for me to get the acute stroke unit, although of course she cannot yet guarantee anything. The next rotation will start on June 25, just in time for me to be on a course for three days, and then off to Vermont for a week of annual leave.

I was invited to Thailand for September or October, I can't remember which, to coincide with the infamous beach moon party. I know we talked about Thailand and Philippines for next year, Viv, but what do you think? Got any time/money left for another big trip this year? And I was also invited for a cycling tour along the romantic road in Germany, the only problem being the dates conflict with the August bank holiday, which is when we wanted to go to the Reading festival (we're stalking tickets on ebay). Well, that and the fact that I don't have enough annual leave for all of this plus a few other things I absolutely cannot miss, like Jenn's wedding. Five weeks of vacation plus bank holidays just aren't enough!! I know, I know, those of you in the States are thinking "Cry me a river, Allison" but you do get higher salaries as compensation...

Happy 40th Anniversary to my wonderful parents!!

The Occupational Therapy Song...too funny!

Happy Birthday Mom#2! Wish I could be there to help you celebrate, I hear it will be quite the weekend in PA, but you are definitely in my thoughts!

What on earth are they teaching these doctors?!

Had a bit of a shock today, regarding differences in medical care. I don't get these shocks all the time anymore, because of what I've learned about the NHS, and the way that medical professionals are trained (or not). We were discussing Mr. R today, and I was saying that from a therapy point of view, he will be ready for discharge on Monday. And the nurse made some comment about the medical team not being on the ball, or something like that, and all of sudden she was in the middle of a verbal spat with the SHO from that medical team who overhead the comment. Among all of his reasons for why the medical team is not happy for him to go, he threw in the comment that they are querying DVT (deep vein thrombosis, basically a blood clot). At which point, I had to interrupt the argument, and said, "Ummm, excuse me, we've been mobilising this patient. We did not realise he may possibly have a DVT, and there is no notation about this in his medical records." And the SHO said, "Oh, yeah, yeah, it's fine, keep mobilising him, he's comfortable mobilising, it's fine." I'm not sure I could have been more surprised if this SHO started belting out show tunes in the middle of the ward. I'm sorry, but I am not mobilising a patient who may have a DVT, until it is determined whether he does, and if he does, he is getting treatment for it!!

Consider yourselves bonked...

How a job can save your life

Interesting stuff, courtesy of Tufts Nicole

the new job thing

The Senior II, er, Band 6 (as I am supposed to call it) adventure continues... I have been asked by the Basic Grade, er Band 5, OT on Orthopaedics if I would let her shadow me one morning soon, so that she can see how someone with a little more experience organises and prioritises. I was a little taken aback initially, probably because it's only been two weeks since both of us were Band 5's. She claims that she's a bit "scatty" and therefore sometimes feels like she's doing more work than she would be doing if she were better organised. I mentioned this to my parents last night on the phone, and my Dad's response was something along the lines of, "She wants to learn about organisation from YOU??" In my defense (or his defense, take your pick), he's really only familiar with what a mess I am at home, and he'd probably momentarily forgotten all my stories from Roosevelt Care Center in NJ about balancing a daily caseload of 15-16 rehab patients. In one of the ironic juxtapositions of life, I'm generally pretty messy at home, but very organised and efficient at work. Which, if you have to pick one or the other, I suppose is the way I'd want it.

Also, I have signed up for a 3-day Educators' Course at the end of June, right before I take off for my annual Wissahickon holiday in Vermont, because I am expected to take on students very soon. I am supposed to have a student for at least 12 weeks per year as a matter of fact. And I've been asked to give a talk on the difference that is being an OT in the US. There's actually quite a bit to mention. Finally, Friday morning, we all have meetings with the Head OT, and in stark contrast to being a Basic Grade where you don't find out for a whole month, we should know within a week what our next rotations will be.

In a complete change of subject, I've just mentioned Vermont and the lakehouse...there are rumblings of big changes coming this year. Watch this space for news about motorboats and puggles!

Happy Mother's Day!!! (US, of course)

A few pics from the wedding this past weekend, from Cecilia's camera...

Me and Cecilia

Cecilia was my supervisor and is the rehab stroke unit's Team Leader. We've become good friends, and she's part of what I call my happy little family over here. She's from South Africa and has this gorgeous accent where she rolls all of her r's. She's also the most laid back person I have ever known.

The Whipps Cross Group

Physios and OTs who made the trip to Leamington Spa near Warwick to celebrate Laura's wedding day.

Angelica, Laura, and Leilah

I have some good pictures of bride and groom together, but they're currently trapped on my camera.

Floriditas

Last night I went out to a Cuban club in the heart of London. While I don't go out very often on a "work night," a good friend was having a bad day and I agreed to meet her there, along with her cousins who are visiting from the Dominican Republic. They had a live band who were absolutely fantastic and made some pretty decent mojitos too. Floriditas I mean, not the band itself! My feet are aching this morning because I danced the merengue all night-- did you know the merengue originated in the Dominican Republic? I didn't. I'm told I'm pretty good at it ;) And my new third housemate, who didn't realise I would be out so late (then again, neither did I, I was having too much fun to catch the last tube, and stayed until 2am) called to make sure I was okay. How sweet is that?!!

Angelica's cousins are named, get this, Julio Cesar, Julio Alfredo, and...actually I can't remember the third one, he's not here visiting, but it's Julio something. The first brother's name literally translates as Julius Caesar in English. Talk about having to live up to a name!

Oh, and apparently, I look like Drew Barrymore. I have to say, I've never had that one before ;)

It's official...

The staff change form went in this morning, so this was my very first day as a Senior II. It didn't feel any different ;) It turns out my work permit was fine, which means my entry clearance visa is also fine, so I don't have to do another CRB, hooray! I won't get paid as a Senior II this month because it's too late for the cutoff, so at the end of June apparently I will get a bunch of back pay.

I have photos from the wedding this weekend, but the battery on my camera has died and I have apparently left the charger in the US. So I'm afraid I can't post them for a little while. But it was a fantastic time, and felt like it lasted a really long time...I guess it did, if you take into account the whole thing, from the church at 1:30pm to the mimosas prior to the sit-down meal which was at 5pm, and then coffee and tea after that until the reception started around 7:30pm. And it went on until after 1am! I was too busy dancing and talking all night to drink very much, so no hangover the next morning either. The bride and groom had a gorgeous day, and I must say the scenery behind the church was just stunning for the photos. It was just perfect all around, and I must say I feel very settled in the UK now-- I guess it just hit home surrounded by friends at a good friend's wedding :)

And of course, yesterday was a Bank Holiday here in the UK, so I caught up on all the sleep I missed out on at the wedding. Can't wait for the next Bank Holiday at the end of this month (same as Memorial Day weekend in the States for a lot of you), I'll be going to the Lake District!

News

I am almost fully settled into my new room now- had to buy some organisational shelving and filing boxes this evening since the desk in this room has no drawers. It was strange at first, having someone else in the room I was in for a little over a year, and I do miss the spaciousness of that room, but I must say I'm quite happy with being away from the traffic noises, and the windows in this room are great! I think it's the only bedroom that gets a cross breeze, which will be more than welcome if this summer is anything like the last one! It's funny, the weather we are getting right now used to be what you'd expect for June and July here. But now we're having it in April/May and it'll be hot and steamy for June, July and August.

Some yummy events coming up-- drinks and dinner al fresco tomorrow night in Canary Wharf, which has an outstanding Thursday night social scene. There's just nothing like having a drink outside next to the water, used to love that in Boston :) Saturday it's Laura's wedding, and a few of us have booked a hotel room to take full advantage of the party and open bar! And we have just now decided to have a little house party on 12th May...both because we want to hang out in the garden and to welcome our new housemate (and good riddance to the old!). Should be a really good time!

A very dramatic pose from David Spade

Nice picture, Viv!

The Start

Crossing over the bridge from the initial checkpoint, where they looked at our passports and trail permits, to the beginning of the trail.

In which I meet a friend, shortly after beginning the Inca Trail

"Good day, everybody. If it is a good day...Which I doubt." This fellow seemed a bit brighter than his cousin Eeyore, and was very curious about me.

Group shot

Okay, one more because Blogger is posting pictures so quickly for me tonight, for a change! Here's our merry little group, including the three lovely Irish girls we trekked with for four days.

Peru

I just got the first batch of Viv's photos and they are great! But as it's my bedtime here (got up early to continue organising myself into my new room), I'm going to just post two of her pics for the moment. Enjoy!

Just couldn't get enough of David Spade, the cheeky little devil! (reference to the Emperor's New Groove, in case you didn't get that one;)

Chillin' out in a stone tunnel in the cloud forest, somewhere between the 2nd and 3rd mountain passes.

Moving Day

I got the job!! Yup, yesterday was a great day. It was Friday first of all, Leeanne left for her flight home, and I got the job! Today I'm moving my stuff into my "new" room, which is fun, except for the disgusting mess. For someone who flipped out so often about our cleaning schedule, she could have devoted more time to her room. She always kept it neat and tidy, but it desperately needs a vacuum, especially along the sideboards, I'm having to dust out every single drawer and every single surface, and there are wrappers everywhere from her cigarette-rolling supplies, although she was not supposed to be smoking in the house!! Tomorrow our new housemate moves into my old room, a Basic Grade OT. She's mad, but absolutely lovely. We're all going to get along just fine, which I am so looking forward to! The only thing that's messing up a gorgeous Saturday is that I'm missing Jo and James' housewarming party :(

No time for blogging tonight, my Senior II interview is tomorrow!

Jungle mishaps

Looking over my photos as I put together my Snapfish album yesterday, I was reminded of two big things I left out of my earlier post about everything that went wrong with my holiday. While we were in Peru, we spent the second part of our trip in the Amazon basin. To get to our lodge in the heart of the Tambopata River Reserve, we had to take a boat trip for four hours upriver. Our flight into Puerto Maldonado landed around 1 pm, so between collecting suitcases, getting over to the river, and loading everything onto the boat, I think we started our journey somewhere around 2:30pm. By around 5pm, it was starting to get dark, and I have nice pictures of sunset on the river. Once the sun had gone over the rim, we started to lose light pretty quickly. I watched our guide go to the front of the boat, pull out a battery and a big headlamp and start to connect the lamp to the battery. It was connected by way of red and black cables with clamps at the ends, and looked like the cables you use to jump start a car. Except that only the black cable had a clamp at the end. The guide stared at it for a while, looked back at the boat driver, stared at the cables again, looked at the boat driver etc. I should say here that the boat driver was about 30 feet back with the motor, as it was a pretty long boat. The assistant manager who was riding with us finally told the guide in Spanish to strip the protective covering from the cable without the clamp, and connect it that way to the battery. He proceeded to strip the plastic covering of the cable with a machete, of all things. At this point Vivien starting nudging me, saying "This is scary!" Meaning the darkness and no lamp. And me, well, I guess Tressa has rubbed off too much on me at this point, I was loving it, I thought it was a grand adventure. All I could think of in my head was her story about patching up a bus engine with duct tape in Africa, and the fact that now I finally had an answering story. I could say, "Oh yeah? Well, one time I was on a boat motoring up a river in the Amazon basin in the dark because our lamp was broken and we had no spare!" And the lamp did not get fixed, so our guide tried to use his personal flashlight, which was about as effective as a firefly. Luckily our boat driver was very familiar with the river, and did a good job getting us to the lodge.

Early the next morning, we got up at 4:30am for an early breakfast, and enough time to get an hour upriver to the macaw clay lick, before the birds arrived. Which they never did actually, we had to go track them down in other parts of the jungle. But we got back into our trusty boat, pushed away from the dock, motored maybe 10 minutes, and the engine died. We went through an hour of the driver starting it up, getting a few revs and coughs and some forward motion, then the engine dying and quickly drifting downriver with the current. We eventually ended up downriver of the lodge, at which point the guide got out a paddle, but with several stops and starts the boat driver eventually got us back to the dock. Once we were tied up it took him about 20 minutes to fix the problem, which was something to do with an obstruction to the gas line I think. Meanwhile, I was all upset, thinking we had missed the macaws. We got to the clay lick two hours late, and ran into another small group from our lodge who said we hadn't missed anything. And as you'll see from my pics, we had great views of the macaws once we found them elsewhere, with the help of our guide's trusty machete.

And finally, we went on several long sweaty hikes with our guide, the first one being a night hike right after our arrival, where we saw a lot of big spiders, including tarantulas. But we took another hike the following afternoon, after our morning macaw adventure. We had walked for it must have been an hour, tracking signs of wild pigs that we never found, when our guide decided to turn back, via a different path. We walked for awhile, then came out onto a wide path that was apparently newly blazed, since our guide stared at it in shock and then said, "This wasn't here before." We turned down the new path, but then soon off onto another one, but hadn't gone too far before he stopped, stared ahead, and then turned around and said, "Go back. The way is closed." It sounded like something out of the Indiana Jones Crusade movie or something. We went back out to the new path, and he left us standing there while he tried out two other paths, each time coming back and announcing that it was closed. Viv and I started to joke about being lost, and I think both of us were half-thinking it might be true. Eventually, the guide just decided to follow the new path out of the jungle, and we came out into the grounds of our lodge, a site where they were building two new cabins. He then told us we were never lost, and drew a little sketch on the ground to show us why he'd had trouble-- essentially, his excuse being that unless the narrow little paths are kept clear, they grow over with new vegetation quickly, hence the "ways that were closed." A reasonable enough explanation ;)

Snapfish

I now have some 200 photos labelled on Snapfish, so let me know if you don't get the email link from me!

Pictures

As you'll probably notice, my Peru pictures are now showing up on my Flickr filmstrip in the side bar. Unfortunately, the order got all screwed up in the process of uploading them somehow, and Flickr, for some unfathomable reason, does not seem to want to allow me to rearrange them. So, although a few of them have captions, I gave up when I found out I couldn't reorder them. I've put them on Snapfish, which took more than 4 hours to upload them, and they're now in the right order, just waiting for me to add captions. I will send out a link to those as soon as I've finished. Feel free to check out my Flickr site, but the Snapfish album will be better if you're willing to wait. I hope to have that finished later on tonight. And if somehow I miss you out on my mass emailing, as I always invariably seem to leave out someone, or have my email bounced back with a failed delivery message for one reason or another, just drop me a line to let me know, and I'll get the link to you. I'm also waiting for Viv's set of pictures, because there are quite a number of them that are only on her camera, so I'll add those to my album as soon as I get them.

My short work week was okay-- orthopaedics is slow at the moment, which is not the norm, so I'm trying to enjoy it for now. My interview for Senior II is on Wednesday, and to be honest, I've already stopped thinking of myself as a Basic Grade. Even so, on Friday I was honored to be asked for advice by the other Basic Grade on the unit. It's good to be reminded that although I am still a relatively new therapist, coming up on two years in practice, I also do know quite a bit, and have a good head for clinical reasoning. Hopefully, I'll change over to the Senior II paystub for next month's payday ;)

I've now been invited to the full day for Laura's upcoming wedding. Initially, I was invited for the reception only, but she told me I've become a really good friend, and wants me there for all of it. It was really nice to hear from her and Angelica upon my return that they had missed me. It's heartwarming to know that the people you care about feel the same about you. Action is most important, but every once in awhile, the words are nice too. I had them at home from Jenn and from my parents as well. I feel torn between the two worlds, but this seems to be the right place for me right now. Thursday night, I went out with Laura and Angelica and two others for some impromptu drinks after work. It was beautiful, sunny and warm, and we wanted to be out in the garden of a pub. Drinks turned into dinner, and before we knew it, it was after 10pm. As they say, time flies...

Still down for the count

Not much to update on, since my bad luck seems to have followed me home. I did go into work yesterday morning, and about an hour later, basically got sick in front of my new supervisor. So I was sent home, again. It was truly embarrassing, and I just hope I'm not replaying that moment in my head when I interview next week, since this new supervisor is on the interviewing panel. I was told this morning I couldn't come in today either, since I have to be "clear" for a full 24 hours before returning. Hopefully tomorrow. At least she knows firsthand I wasn't trying to extend my holiday with faked sick days.

I have not been up to getting my pictures online as I've been battling a pounding headache, so I will try to get to that by this weekend at the latest.

Most of you probably already know from emails that have been bouncing around, but Tressa took on her first "real" job as of Monday I believe. They gave her an assignment in the DRC as she calls it, which is the Democratic Republic of the Congo. I asked her when I could come to see the gorillas, and she told me I can't because there are currently two kinds and they're both in the mountains (gorillas and guerillas). Figures.

summer, summer, summertime

Well, I'm back. And it felt like I stepped off the plane into summer. It must have been like 20 degrees Celsius here today! And apparently it's been like this since Easter. A far cry from the snowstorms and Nor'easters I was experiencing in the US! I did make it to work before noon, but they basically sent me home, so I've been forced to use another annual leave day. Oh well, I'll take unpaid leave if I need to at some point. I had a nice long nap, and then have been trying various tricks to stay awake, but I think it's time to go back to bed at this point. I have uploaded my pics to my computer, but have yet to organise and everything-- will let you all know when they're ready. Sweet dreams all.

Entertaining myself at JFK

Well, here I am sitting at JFK, in the middle of afore-mentioned Nor'Easter, with high winds and driving rain. And I know that firsthand, because the stupid AirTrain does not connect the terminal where I landed (4) with the terminal where I needed to be for my UK flight (3). It runs direct from terminal 4 to terminal 2. So I had to walk a half mile in the driving rain and high winds, which had me at a dead stop, and actually pushed me backwards twice with a heavy suitcase in tow. However, I made it, waited two hours to check in (I couldn't use the e-check-in kiosk because of all the trouble in London at the start of this trip when my original reservation was cancelled), am now warm and dry, and have had some lunch. And perhaps most amazingly of all, at the moment, they say that my flight is still scheduled to go on time. The stewardess on my last flight explained to me, after we had landed and the nausea had passed enough for both of us to speak again (rough turbulence during the descent and landing process), that it is easier for flights to take off than to land in this awful weather, and in particular because mine is an international flight, it's less likely to be cancelled. Hope I didn't just jinx it.

Anyway, I think I only gave half the story yesterday. It makes my heart ache, the physical difficulties that my grandfather is experiencing. However, he is 93, and he proudly told me he is currently the oldest one at his assisted living facility. Though it took him 10 minutes to get from the door of Applebees to our table 75 feet away with his chariot as he calls it (a rolling walker with seat built in), he takes it all in stride, with dignity and without complaint. He also has hearing and vision problems. However, he still has a mind like a steel trap. We got to see my Uncle Dutch and Aunt Becky last night only for dinner, and he told them all about how I'd been to "Mitchu Pitchu, Machu Patchu, Moochu Poochu....and I hope they have someone to clean it up!"

7Wonders

Vote for the new Seven Wonders...of course, I'm biased, and I think y'all should choose Machu Picchu as one of your choices, but hey, it's up to you. Just not the Eiffel Tower or Statue of Liberty please, I mean, come on!

Hola from Lima, Peru!

Yes, I am still here and it is a very long story. This trip has been operating through a bad luck fog from the very beginning...I will write more when I am home tomorrow (finalmente!), but here´s the summary of the stuff that has gone wrong. I missed my initial flight from London to New York, due to a public transportation nightmare in London. So I had to go back home, and get up at 4am the next morning to go back out to Gatwick. When I arrived at Gatwick the next morning, they said even though I had spoken with one of their colleagues the night before and received a standby ticket for that morning, because I had missed my original flight, my whole reservation had been cancelled, so I no longer had a return flight. !!!! We got that sorted out though, and I did get to New York in time to join my parents for the Broadway show my mum had booked weeks earlier. When we got home after the show I´d essentially been awake for 36 hours, but only had 6 hours to sleep before I got up to get ready for my drive to Boston. Nicole and Rob had a beautiful wedding, great weather, and I had a blast at the reception. Plus, I got an invitation back out to the Cotswolds to Rob´s parents´beautiful home ;) After partying till the wee hours, I had two hours of sleep, got up, grabbed a Red Bull, and started the drive to Vivien´s house, as we were going to the airport together. I was within 10 minutes of her house when I got a flat tire. Because it was April 1, she thought I was playing an April Fools´Joke on her, and as I burned through 15 pounds of UK credit on my UK mobile in three minutes, I had to yell at her a bit to get her to take me seriously and come pick me up. Luckily, a cop was passing, told me I could leave the car there until my parents could pick it up, and Viv and I made it to the airport on time for our flight. I called my parents laughing hysterically, this being typical of traveling with Vivien, and arranged for them to retrieve the car once they returned from the Poconos with the Heilalas. We made it to Peru without incident, although sleeping overnight in the Lima airport was an experience...I´ll save that for another blog. We arrived at the hotel in Cusco where they asked me for my passport and immigration document, which I realised I had lost (the immigration document, not the passport). Apparently that is going to cost me some money later on tonight when we finally get on our flight back to Newark. The following morning, we got up at 5am to catch our ride out to the trailhead for the Caminos Inka (Inca Trail), and we had a small rest stop at a little town where I tried to put in my contacts. The left one was ripped almost completely in half, and I had no spares...the spares were in the backpack I decided to leave behind after I missed my initial flight in London! So I hiked the Inka Trail in my glasses,grrr. I also burned the hell out of the tops of both hands on the third day-- the rest of my body was covered up, and I forgot about my hands. They turned a deep red purple and became puffy. It's pretty terrifying to make a mistake like that with my family's medical history, but it's not like I can roll back time and remember the sun block. To skip ahead to the end of our trip, we spent the last three days of our holiday in the Amazon basin, about 4 hours upriver on the Tambopata from Puerto Maldonado. We had a flight from PM to Lima, via Cusco. Our flight was delayed, but we eventually got to Cusco. They had us wait on the plane for 45 minutes, then told us that due to mechanical problems, the flight was now cancelled. We got off the plane, and after much negotiating on Viv´s part, they rebooked us for the following day through Miami to land in Newark at about 11pm tonight. They gave us a very nice hotel and food and transport and telephone cards. This morning, we were booked on an 8am flight to Lima. We got to the airport, and they gave us boarding passes for the 7:40am flight. Long story short, that flight was delayed due to "adverse weather conditions" though the sky looked fine to me, until 10:40 am which was when the flight to Miami was scheduled to leave. Had we been given boarding passes for the 8am flight which we should have had, we would have made the flight, as that flight did take off at 9:15am. So we got to Lima eventually, went to the LAN desk, where they tried to tell us they were going to send us overnight to Miami, and Miami to Newark. I said no way, you're going to rebook us on the same direct flight from Lima to Newark that we were supposed to be on last night. They tried to tell me it wasn't showing up on their screen and there was no such flight, but I knew they were trying to pull a fast one because they aren't partners with Continental and didn't want to pay to rebook us. I told him he had better look up the flight, and sure enough, it was there. They then sent us to the Sheraton where we had a room for the day, gave us taxis, and really sumptuous lunch and dinner buffets, and here I am on the computer, checking email for the first time in two weeks.
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Ok, I was kicked off the computer at that point on April 10, as my "free" internet time was apparently done. It's now April 14 and I'm in Sault Ste Marie, Michigan at the Hampton Inn, which I must admit I'm pretty impressed with...however, on the way here, we had a connecting flight through Detroit, where-- you can probaby guess-- our flight up north here was cancelled. Yup. We went to a hotel overnight, and got on a flight at 6am the following morning. It's been good to see the new assisted living facility where my grandfather is now living, and he is taking us all out to Applebee's tonight (the fancy place for dinner in town, lol) because they have "everything you could possibly want, you can have whatever you want." I showed him my pictures from Peru, and gave him a hat made of alpaca wool, and he continues to tell people that his granddaughter went to Machu Poochu. We've played hearts and reminisced, and Grandpa has given me my grandmother's wedding and engagement rings, which I now wear around my neck. He says that has always been the tradition in this family.

Tomorrow I catch flights from here to Detroit, Detroit to JFK, and JFK to the UK. That's assuming the Nor'easter bearing down on the East Coast doesn't throw a kink into those plans. Considering how my holiday has gone thus far, I wouldn't be surprised if I ended up at home on Sunday night, and taking off Monday instead. Not exactly the good impression I want to make on my boss, considering I have an interview for Senior II coming up on April 25. Sigh. Oh well, what will be, will be.

Slainte!

As promised, a pic from St. Pattys. More to follow soon. The novelty hat I'm wearing is actually the 2006 version, I earned a 2007 one by drinking Guinness. But the 2007 version is one gigantic pint, whereas you can see the 2006 was three pints on my head. What can I say, I wanted to stand out in the crowd ;)

For All You Beer Lovers

an article from Men's Health: "32 Things You Can Do with Beer"
including:
Beer BBQ sauce
Steam Clams or Mussels
Boil Shrimp
Kill Slugs
Find Due North
Catch Mice
Build Delightful Patio Furniture
Tie a Fly (as in fishing lure)
and much more!

Short week coming up

Wow, time flies, especially when you don't want it to! Okay, that's unfair, I'm really looking forward to being home for a bit, Boston and the wedding, going to Peru, and seeing my grandfather. But I'd rather be coming back to my job on the stroke unit, than to starting afresh on orthopaedics. Speaking of, today I finished and submitted my application for Senior 2 at Whipps...they will be short-listing while I'm gone, and interviews will happen the week I get back! Hopefully not on the Monday I get back!

I have a "new" bike...it's actually an old one that a bike mechanic fixed up and sold on gumtree (UK's version of Craig's List), so I can now cut my commute time in half. And Nicole expects me to join her on the London to Brighton bike ride in June now as well. I wonder how long 60 miles takes on a bike?

Water world

Well, we have our third housemate situation sorted out again. An OT who started working at Whipps about 6 months ago came to see the room and house last night, and came back tonight to put down her deposit. So all that wall punching was for nothing, considering how fast the situation was resolved.

I am just back from a girlie night, which is becoming a regular Thursday thing, and attracting more people as we go along. Laura and I had been talking for awhile about meeting up for a swim at my gym once a week, and combining that with dinner or a movie or something, for a girlie night each week. Last week we decided it was high time we put our plan into action, but we called the gym first to check on swimming times, and learned that there would be an aqua aerobics class that night, or water workout as I think they called it. After the first ten minutes or so of laughing ourselves silly, we settled into what really was a pretty good workout. And afterward we had a great dinner and bottle of wine at her flat afterward. This week, Angelica joined us, and I'm just back from the pub...now we didn't undo all our good work, we each only had a half a pint, but it was nice to relax and gossip for a few hours ;) I won't be around for three weeks now for the class, but by the time I get back I think there are at least two more girls who will have joined us...I think we've really started something here!

Tomorrow is my leaving do :( I still have Monday and Tuesday next week, but Friday just seemed like a better night, so we're going out for drinks in Canary Wharf, and dinner at this Thai restaurant that Cecilia has been trying to get us to go to since I started on the unit I think. I'm looking forward to another fun night.

Only 13 days left until Peru!

Brrrrr

Happy first day of Spring! After our beautiful sunshiny and warm weather all week last week, this week we're back to chilly temps and biting winds. Haven't really used my scarf all winter, but I needed it today. How ironic.

We celebrated here by finding out that the girl who was supposed to be moving in with us in a month is backing out. I wasn't happy about it, and I let her know that I thought she handled the whole process poorly...after swearing up and down that she wanted to save money for a year to buy a house and that she was definitely going to take the room, she then applied for a loan through the NHS and local Housing Association, and is now trying to buy a house asap. However, I do understand that we all have to look out for number one and do what is best for ourselves, and Nicole and I do have a month to find ourselves someone else. The lesson learned being to keep showing the house and advertising the room until someone puts down a deposit, and no exceptions even for friends.

Now my crazy housemate on the other hand, the one who is moving out end of April, she came home with her wrist wrapped up in some crazy sort of homemade bandage. Yes, she apparently punched a wall when she got my email about the physio backing out and how we'd have to advertise for a housemate again. Nicole and I were rather incredulous and queried anger management issues-- her reply was, "Well what must I do with my anger? That was my anger management!" Considering her moaning and groaning and complaints about swollen knuckles tonight, it's going to be a long second half of the week.

However, for me the countdown is on for a week until my flight home, and a week and a half until our flight to PERU!!

A Mancunian Weekend and more

Grrr, I am not having any luck with festival tickets this year :( We had five people online and on the phone tonight, desperately trying to get Reading Festival tickets (for the 3-day bank holiday weekend at the end of August), and they were sold out within 15-20 minutes. And considering the number of tickets now being sold for exorbitant prices on ebay, they weren't sold to people who actually want to go, but rather who wanted to make a profit. Again, grrrr.

I've also been trying to purchase travel insurance this evening, which I have found to be equally frustrating-- it's difficult to figure out who is giving the best deal for the money, since their policies are all slightly different. Oh, and then there's the whole malaria and yellow fever conundrum...it wouldn't be an issue at all except that Viv and I are spending the last bit of our Peru trip in the Amazon basin. The general consensus seems to be that yellow fever vaccination is recommended but not required, and I was able to buy malaria pills at Boots today, but they are not the same kind I used in Africa (since I've taken those before, I know I wouldn't have any side effects), and one of the two types included in this Boots box is known to be ineffective against the strain of malaria found in the Amazon basin. So I don't know whether to bank on the effectiveness of the other type in the box, or just get a prescription for the kind I've used before from my GP. Well, anyway, 10 days till my flight home, woohoo!

News-- Carla is pregnant!! I'm going to be Aunt Allison!

And the weekend update: we did indeed do a ROAD TRIP (haven't had one of those in awhile) up to Manchester this weekend. I drank enough Guinness to earn my St. Patricks Day novelty hat (pic coming in the near future)- ok, so I had a little bit of help. We visited The Shambles, Manchester's oldest pub, which was moved twice, literally. The pub was moved piece by piece out of the city during the bombings in WWII. Then when the city was being rebuilt, they moved it back into city centre, piece by piece, every inch of the tudor-style pub with wooden pegs and all. We did a massive pub and bar crawl to celebrate the holiday, which included Europe's largest pub, in Deansgate...it was a Wetherspoons pub, quel surprise. Our hostel was very nice-- I don't like hostels in general, but decided I could deal with it for one night. It was relatively new, and they provided clean bedding (almost unheard of, most are bring your own bedding) with maid service, plus we took up 5 of the 8 beds in our room. Sunday we saw some of the sights, and did some shopping (window-shopping for my part). And then we had an uneventful trip back home...that is if you count snow, high winds, and a massive traffic jam upon entering Leicestershire as uneventful. The snow was pretty, it was sticking to some of the fields, and a lot of the sheep and new lambs in those fields.

Today we got some of that snow here in London, but it didn't stick at all :( I'm on my last full week of this rotation, so I've got tons of work to do, a full caseload of patients to see (ironic since I haven't had a full caseload since November), as well as my supervisor's caseload to cover since she's on a course now for two weeks. Yikes.

A Field Trip

An interesting article in Newsweek about how scientists have used the DNA of body lice (a misnomer, since they actually live in clothing) to determine that 114,000 years ago, humans lost body hair for good and had to make up for it with clothing. Huh. I'm telling you, it's the New Science of Human Evolution.

It was another lovely day, so the new physio Sarah and I took the opportunity to take out one of our patients who is very functional physically but with a lot of higher level cognitive problems. We took her off hospital grounds and across one pretty busy road to a very pretty pond on the edges of Epping Forest. She was able to order some drinks for us from the little shack with moderate prompting and produced the correct change from a palmful of coins independently. After we sat down near the pond, we noticed she was watching the birds. She was able to identify jackdaws and magpies, although we had to take her word for it given our lack of knowledge in that area. We asked her about birds in her garden at home, and she named starlings but then got stuck. We waited for a bit, and then I said we couldn't help her out unfortunately by offering names of birds as we didn't know much about birds. This lady's personality is showing up a bit more these days, and she immediately responded by rubbing her hands, and saying "Well then!" as if she were about to make up a whole list of birds because we wouldn't know the difference anyway. Only she got stuck at starlings again. We were all very loathe to return to the hospital, it was so beautiful, but had lingered long enough we all missed lunch (don't worry, the nurses kept some for her!).

I'm very excited, I get to go along with her for an assessment on Friday morning at the Homerton RNRU, which is a regional unit specialising in working with people who have higher level cognitive deficits. I've heard a lot about it, and am looking forward to having a look at the program in person. Actually, they are currently advertising for a Senior 2 OT, so shhh, don't tell anyone, but I'm going to apply ;)

This lady's husband came in at the end of the day, and was very excited to hear that she could come home this weekend for an overnight visit (she's only been doing short day leaves to home thus far). I took advantage of his presence to introduce both my patient and her husband to the OT who will be taking my place in three weeks' time. And my patient, bless, began to cry because "You're leaving me." I felt my eyes watering up, I was overwhelmed at seeing such emotion from her because she has been fairly blank in terms of emotions up until this point as a result of her brain injuries...I had to rush into the good news about her weekend overnight visit coming up to keep from crying myself.

Man, I really don't want to leave this unit!

What's in a month? A month by any other name...

For a laugh--I suppose this has something to do with signs of the zodiac? I have all the rest of the months as well, but I'm not going to post them all here. If you're curious and want to see your birthday month, let me know, I'll forward you the email.

JANUARY=SHYNESS
Fun to be with. Loves to try new things. Boys/girls LOVE you. You are very hot. Secretive. Difficult to fathom and to be understood. Quiet unless excited or tense. Takes pride in oneself. Has reputation. Easily consoled. Honest. Concerned about people's feelings. Tactful. Friendly. Approachable. Emotional, temperamental, and unpredictable. Moody and easily hurt. Witty and sparkly. Spazzy at times. Not revengeful. Forgiving but never forgets. Dislikes nonsensical and unnecessary things. Guides others physically and mentally. Sensitive and forms impressions carefully. Caring and loving. Treats other equally. Strong sense of sympathy. Wary and sharp. Judges people through observations. Hardworking. No difficulties in studying. Always broods about the past and old friends. Waits for friends. Never looks for friends. Not aggressive unless provoked. Loves to be loved. Easily hurt and takes long to recover.

Vegas baby!

I started to post some pictures on Saturday, but ran into some technical difficulties. Not Blogger this time actually though. I have this great video of the Elvis impersonator, but apparently it's too big of a file for YouTube to handle, booooo :( On Thursday night, a bunch of us went to a Las Vegas Shownight at "The Floating Chinese"-- literally a Chinese restaurant built on top of the river in Canary Wharf. The MC and the guy who did The Groovy Wonder Years, dressed in a blue crushed velvet Austin Powers suit with Austin Powers glasses, were both pretty forgettable. However, the ABBA Girls had everyone up and dancing, singing at the top of our lungs. They were the best part of the show, although Elvis wasn't too bad himself...the trouble being, when you've got a group of girls out together, the slow ballads just aren't as fun as "Viva! Las Vegas" or "You Ain't Nothin' But a Hound Dog" for example. Technically we were there to celebrate Laura selling her old flat and to give her a work hen do (she's getting married in May), as well as a leaving do for the physio who has now rotated. However, I had just pulled together in two days a major presentation on cognition which I had given that afternoon, as well as being prepared for my supervision and appraisal afterwards. So I was celebrating too! My appraisal continued on into Friday, and I had another major presentation to give today. Both went very well ;) But I'm looking forward to end of this week when all the major work should be done.

Well, that, and I'll be in Manchester for St. Patty's!!!

Not to brag---okay, to brag--- it's been 15 degrees (65 degrees F) and sunny here for the past two days, and is supposed to be 60 and partly cloudy for the rest of the week. Although it felt great, it's very disconcerting (still), as this is normally weather we wouldn't see until May-ish. Laura has a birthday coming up next week, and says she can't remember a birthday celebration where she wasn't wearing scarf, hat and gloves.

Interesting Factoid: Had to do a lot of research on the two presentations I have now given, which included research on attention. Your attention span, as you probably all know or could guess, is the amount of time you are able to concentrate on something. But did you know, the nerve pathways responsible for attention span don't fully mature until the early 30s in humans? (For those of you who know what I'm talking about, these specific nerve pathways aren't fully myelinated until our early 30s. Myelinated nerves pass signals along at a hugely increased speed.) AND, for males, it can be even later!! Hmmm, very interesting. I'll let you draw your own conclusions ;)

Laura (the bride-to-be, whose wedding invitations I addressed), and Cecilia, our Team Leader and my supervisor on the stroke unit.

Angelica, Allison & Nicole

The new housemates, as of May 2007 :)

A Leaving "Do"

Me and Nicole at her leaving do, a couple of weekends ago. When I first moved here, I used to make fun of housemate Nicole when she talked about hen do's and leaving do's, etc. I swore I'd never switch over to that phrase, it just seemed ridiculous-- I mean "do" is a verb, but it's being used to name an event-- surely it should be a noun, like party, or soiree. I guess that was the English major in me coming out. But sure enough, I talk about do's pretty regularly these days ;)

Looking out my window on the one morning we had snow a few weeks ago...

A small wooded area near to the hospital.

Lake St. Catherine

In a recent post I mentioned I've booked flights to be at the lakehouse in Vermont for Fourth of July week, which is something I try very hard to never miss. I don't have a summer pic of the lakehouse on my computer at present, but got this one of what Wissahickon (name of the lakehouse) looks like in the snow from Dad #2, so I thought I'd share it with y'all. (Try to ignore the dirty snow that's been plowed off the road...)

Stress brings out the best...

Nothing like a little rush deadline to liven the day up! I was supposed to do a presentation for nurses and therapy staff as part of my objectives on this rotation. Except my supervisor forgot to check the dates and which unit is assigned to which date (we rotate the presentations among the elderly rehab unit, our stroke rehab unit, and the nursing team), and as she discovered yesterday, I'm out of time. Two weeks from now, the elderly rehab team has a presentation all lined up about Infection Control, and it cannot be changed. For some reason, they don't want me to do my presentation next week (the trainings take place every other week, next week is meant to be an off week), which leaves....this Thursday afternoon. I was given this information this morning, as my supervisor was looking at me saying, now if this is too quick, just say so. But like a deer in headlights I heard myself saying, "No, it's fine, I'll be ready for Thursday." She has given me the afternoon off tomorrow to use some personal study time to prepare, but still! Sounds familiar for some reason-- oh yeah, I had two days to put together a power point presentation for that interview I had out in Bristol a while back.

However, I also got some good news today-- Barbara has received approval to advertise for Senior 2's, so as of next Thursday most likely, the advert will go up on the intranet, and I can apply.

Less than a month until I'm here...!!!

Catching up

A couple of things I missed from last week...Thursday was the birthday of a girl I met recently on the yoga weekend, Jules. Got a text from her on Wednesday to come out for a meal on Thursday night, and I was able to get there for the end of it at least. It was a lot of fun, got to see another new friend from the yoga weekend, Chantale, met her boyfriend, and a lot of other new people.

Also, Thursday (March 1st) was apparently St. Davids Day...St David, or Dewi Sant, as he is known in the Welsh language, is the patron saint of Wales. He was a Celtic monk, abbot and bishop, who lived in the sixth century. During his life, he was the archbishop of Wales, and he was one of many early saints who helped to spread Christianity among the pagan Celtic tribes of western Britain...It is claimed that Dewi lived for over 100 years, and it is generally accepted that he died in 589. His last words to his followers were in a sermon on the previous Sunday. Rhigyfarch transcribes these as 'Be joyful, and keep your faith and your creed. Do the little things that you have seen me do and heard about. I will walk the path that our fathers have trod before us.' 'Do the little things' ('Gwnewch y pethau bychain') is today a very well-known phrase in Welsh, and has proved an inspiration to many. On a Tuesday, the first of March, in the year 589, the monastery is said to have been 'filled with angels as Christ received his soul'. (Adapted from a talk given at OICCU Meeting Point, In Regent's Park College, Monday, 28th February 1994.) So a belated Dydd Gwyl Dewi happus (Happy St. David's Day) to you all! Thanks to Reg for his informative email on the subject, or I would not have known about any of this. With St. Patricks Day and St. Georges Day coming up soon, I figure it's only fair to include the Welsh in my commentary as well ;)

Speaking of St. Patricks Day, looks like I will be joining Housemate Nicole, Dave, and several others on a trip to Manchester for St. Patricks Day weekend. Two of the people going have lived there previously, and I doubt I would have visited otherwise, so I'm looking forward to their guided tour (read: pub crawl with various sights pointed out between each pub).

And I have also been invited to my first wedding over here--a lot of people divide up their weddings, where they will invite a select number of people to the ceremony and sit-down dinner, and then invite a whole lot more people to join them for the party/reception. I mentioned not too long ago that I helped a friend and colleague write out her wedding invitations, and I have been invited to her reception. Unfortunately, it's the same weekend as when I'm supposed to be in Dartmoor National Park, so I'll have to make a decision soon...guilt trips aside from people who are trying to get me to go to the wedding, I think I'm leaning that way anyway, as I don't need others to tell me that weddings are a once in a lifetime event.

I have my appraisal coming up this week, so I've been busy today working on updating my CV (or resume, for you Americans), my folder that contains all the evidence for my Continuing Professional Development (CPD), and the actual appraisal document. Even though they've now tipped me for the Senior II position, I will need to do a good interview and they will look through my CPD folder.

Basic Grades and Senior IIs

Rotation announcement day has come and gone. It was a very interesting Basic Grades meeting. It was our second one in a year to take place at Wheelchair Services, with the focus this time on specialist seating for postural control. Sally, the very enthusiastic and knowledgeable physio who gave the talk, tends to work mostly with kids or adults who have very unique long-term disabilities. I wanted to know more about the integration of switches (i.e. foot or head switches, sip and blow, etc) for kids and adults who don't have upper limb function, and how that fits into the creation of customised wheelchairs. When I completed my degree at Tufts, there was a fairly decent emphasis on assistive technology, plus I learned even more about it during my rotation at Franciscan Hospital for Children in Boston. I assumed that as part of OT training in the UK, others would have had similar exposure. So it took about 10 minutes into this conversation I had started before Sally and I realized the others weren't following along and had to backtrack into what switches are for, what they look like, what are the pros and cons, etc. Without getting into all of that, for any of you I may have already lost, there are options available for someone who does not have the use of their hands, and therefore cannot control a powered wheelchair with a simple joystick-- for example a button they can press with their head. It's fascinating stuff, really!

But anyway, back to rotation announcements. Not everyone was happy, by far, not everyone. The Head OT has a full Basic Grade rotation plus one, so she said before giving us our assignments that several people had ended up with their third choice, and one person had not gotten any of her first three choices at all. Two of the "older" Basic Grades, those who were on their first rotation when I started, were allowed to stay in the rotations they currently have due to difficult personal problems. At least one of those two rotations was in high demand, since it's a rehab position, and without the personal issues she needs to sort out, this OT would never have been allowed to repeat the rotation. But not everyone knows what's going on with her, and I think there was a lot of resentment. For myself, I scanned through the entire grid, and couldn't find my name anywhere. My confusion must have showed after a minute or so, because the Head OT eventually called out to me that I was at the very bottom, in a sentence underneath the grid at the bottom of the page. I have indeed been slotted into Orthopaedics, and since another OT was also slotted into that post, everyone immediately knew something was up. Plus, the Head OT announced that the finance dept had approved her application to hire new Senior IIs, and now she is just waiting to hear from the Turnaround Committee before she can advertise internally. Not that it was any big secret to begin with, but once the Head OT had left the room, I did admit to the other Basic Grades that I will be applying for a Senior II position, and assuming I'm successful, would be taking over the Senior II slot in Orthopaedics until the Senior II rotation changes in June...and that's why I was listed at the moment as the second Basic Grade assigned to Ortho. Things are looking good for me to move on up, I just hope the Turnaround Committee comes back with a decision in the next week or so, and then interviews can take place by end of March. That would be nice.

Tomorrow is my third and final Bobath module. I'm pretty sad that we're finishing up actually, I feel like I've been learning a lot on this course, so I will definitely have to apply for the more advanced and intensive 3-week course. Our tutor is definitely an expert in her field, and although it seems out of my reach, I'd love to have her skills one day.

Silver Linings

Things have been a little bit gloomy around here the past couple of days, what with Sunday's Arsenal Carling Cup loss and all...and I suppose the rainy weather hasn't helped. So, my happy list is making a reappearance:

I still have a month left on this rotation, thank goodness.

I will be going out to Michigan to see my Grandpa when I'm home in April (I missed the family reunion last summer). I will also get to see Aunt Grace and potentially others whilst there.

I will be going to Guildford on Sunday for a final final pub walk(the last one I posted about is not the last one after all), which will also be a birthday celebration for Alex.

Got to speak to Kristy on Skype last night, for the first time in awhile. Hey Greeky!

Tress heads back to Africa tomorrow after an extended stay in the States, sorting out tennis elbows. Congratulations, sis!

I have booked tickets to go home again for the annual Johnson/Heilala family extravaganza, 4th of July week, up in Vermont!

And last, but not least, Jenn sent me pics of her trying on wedding dresses, so that I could be kept in the loop and able to chip in with my two cents--awww, you're the best, hun.

Bits and pieces

There's too much to cover from the last several days, so here's the summary.

Little Golden Men: I won't bore you all with the results, I'm sure you were either watching last night, or have heard by now. However, I must add my congrats to Martin Scorsese-- it's a fickle business, pretty embarrassing that it took this long, but he finally got his due. If you haven't had enough Oscar fever, here's a web site with some amusing best and worst moments.

English Comedians: I'm not sure it's a name most of you will know, but Saturday night was the official leaving do for Rob and Nicole. At the restaurant, we ran into an English comedian by the name of Arthur Smith, who among other things does a show here called Grumpy Old Men. He regaled us for a couple of minutes on the pavement outside with bad jokes about Americans before we went our separate ways. (One was something like-- Why do Americans go to war? So they can learn geography.)

Flashbacks of Halftime: On Saturday morning, I went to the gym for a good long run on the treadmill and some weight-lifting. I was on the treadmill, headphones on, when I hear a loud "Hey!" I look to my right just as a tray with orange quarters on it is shoved in front of my face from the helpful gym attendant. I'm sure I looked surprised as I waved her off-- orange slices for someone who is running on a treadmill? It was a nice trip down memory lane to the hundreds and hundreds of soccer games where we always had orange slices for half time, but it seemed a strange thing for a gym.

"As I do my little turn on the catwalk": Sunday I went to London Fashion Weekend at the Natural History Museum with Angelica, our soon to be new housemate as of May 1. It was little more than stalls of people selling clothing, jewelry, shoes, bags, belts, etc although they did have mini catwalk shows every hour or so. Interesting, but probably not something I'd do again.

Hyde Park Calling

Guess who'll be going to Hyde Park Calling this summer?!! Just booked the tickets through the Live Nation presale! Initially, I was actually trying to book weekend camping tickets for the Isle of Wight Festival, but those were gone almost before they went on sale- in the blink of an eye. :( But I don't think I've done half bad for a second choice. Aerosmith is the first big headliner that they've announced, but there will be many more to come...all I have to say is "I don't wanna miss a thing!"

EQUUS

There's a lot of press out there right now, a lot of talk, both from people in the business and your average joes, about this play. And I think that was inevitable, given the unbelievable popularity of Harry Potter, whom- as we all know- is portrayed by Daniel Radcliffe in the movie adaptations of the books. Therefore, anything that he does live (ie theatre) is going to get a lot of attention, and you add full-scale nudity to that, you've got an international phenomenon.

I knew it would be a good show, it's been around for awhile, what with the original theatre production, and the film adaptation that followed (which I would now like to see). So this current production is a revival, really. And it's an extremely compelling story. The story of the boy and his obsession with horses, his religion really, might at first glance appear to be at the heart of the matter, and there's no doubt it is darkly gripping. However, the play is actually about the personal and professional identity crisis of the psychiatrist who is treating the boy. And perhaps since I am a therapist myself, his struggle may have touched me at a deeper level than the average audience member. But regardless, the play is his story told within the context of this one boy's treatment. I think one of the reasons I shyed away from mental health as an occupational therapist is because the world is not black and white. Right and wrong are not absolutes, and I find it all too easy to step into other people's shoes, blurring the lines. While it can be a skill, a gift even, to be able to understand someone else's perspective, it can also be a curse--because it's difficult to know your own mind, and stand your ground when you need to think of yourself first. Anywho, this psychiatrist who is treating the boy-Alan Strang- is experiencing a big, big blurring of the lines. Essentially, he realizes that he is doing "ultimate things", he is changing people through his therapy, his treatments. And he wonders whether he has the right to do that, and more poignantly, is what he is doing "right"? Does he really know what he is doing? He is actually jealous of Alan, because he has never known the kind of passion that the boy has experienced, and his treatment is essentially ripping this passion out of the boy so that he can lead a "normal" life...

As I said, it's a gripping play.

But back to the Harry Potter issue...a few weeks ago, one of the papers was quoting Daniel Radcliffe, who was doing publicity interviews for the show. And he was talking about how they didn't yet know if he could pull it off. He said something to the effect of "If I can pull it off--and we don't yet know if I can...." Well, I can tell you that he can, and he does. Anyone who says otherwise either hasn't seen the show themselves, doesn't appreciate art, or just hates him because they hate Harry Potter. There's been a bit of a backlash from parents and schools, attacking him for not being a good role model, but the nudity is central to the play, and I'm not sure that anything less than this could have demonstrated as clearly that he should not be typecast, and he will be a talented actor. Within minutes of his stage entrance, you have stopped thinking of him as Harry Potter. Yes, he smokes a fag on stage, yes, he does strip down to his birthday suit (so does his female counterpart, but for some reason no one thinks that's a big deal) and stays that way for a good 10-15 minutes. I will admit that there is some room for him to grow into the role. For as serious a subject matter as the play explores, there are a lot of laughs, and sometime during the first 10 minutes when the audience was enjoying a good laugh at one of Richard Griffith's lines (he plays the psychiatrist), Daniel himself almost broke into a smile/laugh and had to rush into his next lines to keep from breaking character. But he really does breathe life into the role, and I think it's pretty obvious that should he continue to make savvy career choices that promote his growth as an actor, he will be able to continue to reinvent himself throughout his career, and not just be pigeon-holed as the Potter boy. The play is still only in the previews actually at the moment, with it's official opening night on 27 February. Hopefully he'll be over his jitters by then, though the only time in which they were in evidence at all during the performance I saw was when he came out to take his bows with the cast (the play ends shortly after the nude scene), looked a little bit shaky, took some deep breaths, and leaned into Richard Griffith's hug for support (Richard Griffiths was in three of the Harry Potter movies with Daniel). That was the only evidence that this was a 17-year-old boy who had willingly made himself as vulnerable as a human can possibly be in front of hundreds of people.

As I started to say somewhere up in there, when I walked into the theatre, I knew it would be a good show... but I was definitely apprehensive about whether I would walk out thinking Daniel Radcliffe's performance had made the story go flat. I'm happy to say that it's an excellent production, can only get better with time, and if it does move to Broadway (according to the press they're trying to make this happen for after Radcliffe wraps filming on the next Harry Potter film), you should definitely go see it.

Knackered

I'm just back from helping a colleague/friend address her wedding invitations...she doesn't have very nice handwriting, but I can write with a flourish, so she bribed me with free food to come and insert the names, and write addresses for her. The play I saw last night-- a revival of Equus-- was wonderful, and I will write about it tomorrow, but for now I need some sleep. I had another one of those days at work where I took the brunt of a lot of misplaced stroppiness (strop being one of my favorite English terms) and outright anger, so I spent a lot of time explaining, and soothing, and fixing things, and apologising to patients and their families for the medical team, defending the therapy team to the medical team (things like, "Acutally, yes we did page you several times when your registrar did not show up for the family meeting, and no one answered those pages"), and writing last-minute 7-page therapy reports which were unreasonably requested at 2pm for end of day by the nursing staff. Then I went to the gym, and after several hours of writing invitations, I'm ready for some serious shut-eye. Sweet dreams all.

Another Anniversary

Yes, it was a year ago today, February 20, 2006, that I arrived at Heathrow airport, ready for my grand British adventure...living and working in the UK! There was definitely a rough patch in there. At first I was all excited to finally be here, having had to wait almost a year to get everything in order to move, and then a few months after being here I hit a rough patch--largely due to intensely disliking the rotation I was on, feeling bored and useless, although it also took awhile to make friends and get settled in. And since then, I've pretty much been loving it, and so I'm staying! I'm in the process of waiting to interview for a Senior II position here, but I will continue to apply for other neuro rehab jobs, though I don't expect to get very far with that since I need a work permit :(

A Canadian girl that I met on the yoga weekend told me that I should look at the Highly Skilled Migrant Visa (HSMV) again, because the regulations changed recently. So I did, I used the bloody HSMV calculator for all the good that it did me (yes, I'm still sulking about it). Ironically, if I had stayed in the US for another year, I would have qualified for the visa, which would have meant I could work anywhere I wanted to/could get a job (I wouldn't need a work permit, the visa itself would have entitled me to work). But because I have been living and working here, at a much lower salary level, I miss out on qualifying by 10 points. Argh. However, there's no guarantee I would have still moved here had I waited another year, nor that I would have been able to find work (given the current job shortage). So there you have it. I continue to require a work permit.

To change the topic completely, HAPPY PANCAKE DAY! I remember writing a little post last year on why it is pancake day, so I won't repeat myself, but I do intend to gorge myself on crepe-like pancakes with lemon and sugar before heading out to the theatre in the West End to celebrate my anniversary. Hope everyone is having a good week so far.

Warm weather and training to trek

I was thoroughly exhausted after a grueling 2-hour case conference (family meeting) on Friday, and had managed to come down with another cold-- what's going on here, I thought I had more than served my time this "winter"?!-- so I spent most of the weekend in bed. Although I sound better today, I still feel totally drained, and can't get rid of a persistent (sinus?) headache.

I will get into the case conference at some point this week, but at the moment, it's still too tiring to think about.

A couple of things. Not to brag (especially since I was stuck in bed this weekend, not out enjoying some fresh air), but I've been hearing reports of it being bitterly cold on the East Coast for several weeks now. Over here, aside from the one day we had snow, it has consistently been in the 40s to even low 50s at times this winter. It goes down into the 30s at night. I think most people are pleased about this, but not me...I like my winter thank you very much, and it feels like we skipped right over it into spring! Okay, a really wacky spring, where it was getting dark around 4pm, but these days it's now pretty light when I leave work.

Viv and I have now booked all flights, and the only thing left to do is make sure we're in trekking shape by the end of March. To that end, I'm trying to run at least 3 times a week, have started going to a very challenging class at a yoga studio in Bethnal Green 2 times a week (the athletic power flow version of yoga, not the meditative static kind), and also try to lift weights 3 times a week. Housemate Nicole wants me to sign up for a bike ride from London to Brighton this summer, so she has someone to train with, which I would do, but I can't seem to find the time to go looking for a good quality used road bike.

Happy Year of the Pig!

Tae Kwon Kitty

A new favorite of mine from the dailykitten web site :)

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Happy Valentine's Day!

Overlooking the Usk river and valley

Chantale (Canadian) and Caspar (Kiwi-New Zealand), new friends :)

We had a picnic lunch overlooking the lake

Ok, so you can say I was a little obsessed with trees during our hikes

I love derelict old stone buildings too

We were discussing Noam Chomsky, believe it or not, as we walked between these hedgerows. (For anyone unfamiliar with his work, try www.chomsky.info, articles he has written that are posted on his site are a good starting place.)

Sunday's hike in the Brecon Beacons, this was near the summit of the Alt. See- sun and mist at the same time!

Happy Birthday Dad!!!

A short interlude of snow

So, the snow had stopped before lunchtime, and at it's highest accumulation was probably about 3 inches, but that was all gone by 4:30pm because the temperature had warmed up a bit and it had switched to rain. There are a couple of places where I can see there could be trouble tomorrow on the sidewalks, because it had melted to slush, and people either don't know or can't be bothered to put down salt or sand...so there are likely to be icy patches on my walk tomorrow. Wheee. It sure was beautiful for a short time, though.

Yay!!! It's SNOWING! We've got, oh I'd say about an inch and a half on the ground, and it's still coming down fast. The BBC is now forecasting "heavy snow" all day, and if it keeps up, by the end of today it could be the most snow that Londoners have ever seen!

We had crisp, chilly morning with thick layers of frost and heavy mist, but it was all gone by mid-afternoon in the bright sunshine.

The entrance to Buckland Hall- this was early one morning as we set out for a long hike, with frost still coating everything.

View from the side of the manor

The grand staircase. They have a lot of weddings here, and I could see why!

Late afternoon sunshine on the grounds at Buckland Hall

It seems like an eternity now that the stupid car alarm has been going off-- and me without a baseball bat, erm, cricket bat, in the house! I'm dreading going to bed as sleep may not be an option tonight...