Thursday 14 April 2011

RIP Laptop

I'm not sure what I do to laptops.  This is my second in 7 years, and this one only lasted  3.  I love them, I treat them well, I don't spill stuff on them.  I do use them all the time.... maybe that's it.  I was kind of hoping that because everything was backed up I'd banked some karma, you know?  I was prepared for it so obviously it wouldn't happen?  Apparently karma doesn't work like that :(  So I'm switching from a laptop to a desktop and hoping that will be a little more hard-wearing.  As such this is my final post on my beloved laptop.  I have two essays to write but can't because Word won't work in safe mode and I can't back up my work in safe mode either.  I should be packing to go home tomorrow and I should be cooking tea after a long day of comparing laptops and desktops and 6 hours of censusing.  What I actually want to do is go to the Slackers Club free film showing tonight.  It's not a film I desperately want to see, but it's free and it has an actress I like.

Haven't done a lot of medical stuff since I last post.  Nothing interesting anyway.  I sat in a nurse's paeds eczema clinic and listened to teenagers explaining they hadn't followed the treatment regime they were given and look their eczema isn't any better.  What a surprise.  We were told to come back to see a Phototherapy clinic but when we got there no patients were due to arrive.  We got shown around instead, which was fairly interesting but there isn't really much to see.  It's a bit like a walk in tanning booth.  I was half contemplating telling my facilitator that my colleague hadn't been ill for a week, he'd been watching the cricket.  He wasn't able to answer the questions he was asked in the tutorial, and waiting and watching while he stalled and ummed and ahh'd was painful at times.  Especially since the answer he was looking for was the same as the one he'd given not 15 minutes ago.  However, knobbling other students isn't really me, and certainly not the type of person I want to be.  I joked at the beginning of the year I'd only have to knobble 7 students in order to pass the year since the bottom 5% have to fail.

I went to quite an interesting lecture about how Exeter is the leading centre for blood saving.  No blood is crossmatched from the blood bank for any elective surgeries.  Instead, the blood the patient loses is collected, centrifuged to remove the plasma, diluted with saline and given back to them.  Apparently blood treated in this way recruits pro-inflammatory factors and capillaries which helps the healing and antibacterial process.  1 unit of blood costs £150, which I did not realise.  Clever stuff.  It was a filler lecture because Professor Ellis was too sick to lecture.  He'll be coming back to lecture at Plymouth and we'll be linking in telematically, but he can't sign my Lecture Notes on General Surgery from Plymouth.....

3 comments:

Half a doc said...

Ahhh laptops hate me too! Bad luck tho :( . I like your blog :), good luck with all your second year exams.

Lily said...

THE Prof Ellis?! He not only lectures us but teaches us anatomy during dissection... he is hilariously awesome!

The Hippocratic Oaf said...

I had the same problems with laptops for years, until finally I switched over to mac.

My life changed a little for the better that day!

And Prof Ellis is indeed a living legend. I have been to some very inspiring talks he's given. I'm sure he'll be back at some point.