Bella Italia

Yesterday evening was my flatmate’s birthday dinner and we ate at Bella Italia. Bella Italia is one of my favourite restaurants. One of my close friends from school had her birthday dinner there and I had my birthday dinner there too. And yesterday my flatmate celebrated her birthday there. So the restaurant brings back some wonderful memories and was a place where I had some really enjoyable evenings with my friends. It is by no means a cheap restaurant especially if you are on a student budget, with a main meal costing around £6.50 for a mozzarella pizza to £15 for a steak; but the food is really nice and the atmosphere is very traditional and romantic. The food comes in really big filling portions not like in some expensive restaurants where the plate is huge and the food takes up about an eighth of the plate and you feel really hungry afterwards.

You really feel like you are in Rome for an evening. With an interesting and quirky décor of old Victorian style photographs and wooden tables and chairs it is hard to feel like you are in 21st century England. With mood lighting and soft candles Bella Italia is a beautiful restaurant. From my experiences the waiters are all very pleasant and conversational which for me is always a delight and make your experience all the more enjoyable. As students, most of us skipped starters. I ordered a pollo E spinaci calzone for my main. A calzone - for those who have never encountered one - is like a folded pizza. The one I ordered had spinach, cheese and sliced chicken breast with garlic butter served with a chopped tomato sauce. It was not only beautiful to look at, it was absolutely delicious! I ate most of mine in almost complete silence.

For desert I ordered my favourite - cheesecake. Bella Italia makes a delicious baked cheesecake with a soft base served with blueberry and black current compote. That too was delicious! Cheesecake is all time my favourite desert and no matter which restaurant I go to I always look at the desert menu to see if they do cheesecake and if they do I usually don’t read the rest of the desert menu. Once in a while I might try something different if I was feeling adventurous!

We ended up having a really nice evening and were there for over 3 hours! I would definitely recommend going to Bella Italia. If you have a birthday or a special occasion coming up going to a nice restaurant once in a while is well worth it. Most of the time you will end up having a pleasant evening with friends and loved ones that you will remember for years to come.

PBL third session

I am in my second week of the module. I just had my third and last PBL session of the module and I am quite happy with how it went. I am quite pleased with my PBL group as well to be honest. This is my first module of the second semester which means we got put into new PBL groups. Everyone is chatty and is eager to contribute in my new group and there is no one that just sits there quietly. This is a far cry from my last module when most of my group was quite shy and needed much encouragement from our facilitator. This hasn’t been the case so far in my current group.

We go through each of the objectives and discuss what we have found and each person contributes something different to add to the knowledge. Then if there are any irregularities we discuss even more and make sense of our findings. If there is anything that anyone doesn’t understand then we explain it to them. I like this way of learning. Sometimes it seems like we have so much to learn and in such a short space of time but we cover a lot. We also cover so many different aspects to the topic. For example we don’t just learn anatomy and physiology; our course is structured so that we cover sociology and psychology too as well as wider aspects that are relevant to the topic. We have 4 headings that we have to formulate objectives under.

Structure and function – this is all the anatomy, physiology, histology etc that is relevant to the scenario.

Population perspective – these are the issues that are raised in the scenario that are to do with the population as a whole. These include government measures, statistics and epidemiology.

Personal professional development – this is quite an obscure heading. This involves aspects of medicine to do with career progression and life working as a doctor. For example we learn about other healthcare professionals that doctors work with as well as the NHS as an organisation.

Individuals, groups and societies – this heading covers issues to do with people directly. This encompasses psychology and sociology issues.

Usually the structure and function takes the most time to cover.

I quite like the people in my group too. We seem to get on in the social sense too. That’s good. In my last group we used to sit awkwardly before our session and often run out of things to talk about. I guess your personal experiences of PBL and your enjoyment comes from the people in your group and how much you are willing to contribute and take part. Many people will say negative things about PBL but it depends on your individual experiences and how willing you are to make the most out of your opportunities.

PBL

Today was such a long day. I had a one hour lecture this morning at 9 and from there, I went straight to the library to get a good chunk of work done. I breaked once for lunch and then again to get a hot choloate from the Costa nearby and worked till about half 5.

I am so knackered. Sitting in the library and working so intensively has worn me out. The module I am doing now is on the first two trimesters of pregnancy. There is so much anatomy, physiology, histology etc to learn about the female and male reproductive systems not to mention the different changes that occur each week during pregnancy. Besides that we have to look at other changes that take place in a man and woman's body to prepare for reproduction. I have so much to learn before my PBL session on Monday. Because my course is set out in a PBL format that means that we have to do much of the work ourselves. We have one hour pleneries each morning but they are not great in terms of content. They are just introductory lectures to guide us in the right direction.

For those of you who don't know what PBL is - it stands for problem based learning. This is a relatively new format used by medical schools to structure learning. Quite a few universities have introduced it; moving away from a traditional degree programme made up of lectures, tutorials and lab sessions. We have 3 PBL sessions per module. Each module last two weeks. We are put into groups of about 8 and each group has a facilitator who is there to guide us in the right direction. In the first session of each module, we are given a scenario of a patient with details of their ilness as well as some relevant background info. We have to pull the scenario apart and come up with key learning objectives. We then go away and learn the key concepts for the module and come back a week later to disucuss what we have learnt. This is done to check our understanding and share our knowledge with others in the group. We then go away and learn anything else that we may have missed for the 3rd session three days after and do the same. At the end of the two weeks we should know the body system i.e. cardiovascular, reproductive etc highlighted in the scenario back to front.

PBL is a rather intensive way of learning and does have its disadvantages. But we have control over our learning and can go into as much depth as we see fit. I have my next PBL session on Monday and have quite a few objectives yet cover. So it looks like I am going to be spending saturday and sunday in the library as well.

I came back at about 6 and after having a shower and chatting with my family over the phone I sat down to watch a movie "no strings attached" on my laptop with some chocolate cake that I bought from Tesco on my way back from the library. It was nice. I could relax, lie down and enjoy a good easy going film. I am now going to get some sleep and get up tomorrow and go the library again. Fun times! This is the life of a medical student!

Insecurities

It’s Sunday afternoon. I have been slowly whiling away time. I do have some work to catch up on but I can’t seem to get on with it. So I have decided to wait until I go back to lectures and get stuck into a routine again before I tackle the work that I need to catch up on.

I start second semester tomorrow and am eager to just get on with it now. My course is made up mostly of small group tutorials and skills teaching. Last term we were with a group of people who we have slowly gotten comfortable and familiar with and this coming term they are swapping round the groups so we are back to square one. We will be with new people. The nerves I felt at the beginning of the year are back. I struggle with making friends and so for me it’s daunting to get to know new people and establish working relationships with group members. Last semester was 12 weeks long so eventually after the weeks passed we slowly became more confident and became comfortable working together as a group. Now we have to start again with new people. I guess that it’s a good thing that I will be constantly put in new unfamiliar situations. It will help me develop my confidence and get over my fear of the unknown. Yesterday my flatmate asked me if I was willing to come out for drinks with her and her friend. Usually I would say no because it would put me in unfamiliar territory and I hate that. But I said yes. I thought about it. I would have had a lonely evening and gone to bed early. So instead I decided to face this fear of the unknown and just see what happened. What was the worst that could happen right? I ended up having a nice evening. We went to a few bars and pubs and listened to some live bands and danced a little. It was nice. It was a relaxed evening and I didn’t feel uncomfortable or out of place as I usually do in these situations.

We have a community placement this semester. We have the opportunity to meet a family with a young child as our next few modules are about child development. I am really excited for this. It’s the first time we get to meet real patients and go out into the community. I am not as nervous about this. I am more excited than nervous. Although this too is the unknown, meeting patients and learning about them for me is interesting. It’s not as scary for me as making friends and getting to know people. I guess with patients it’s about them and helping them and trying to get the best out of them but in friendships and relationships it goes two ways. My insecurities come to light and there is the fear that I am not good enough or interesting enough.

14th February.

Year after year, Valentine’s Day comes and goes. Every year, I would watch as friends got cards, boxes of chocolate or flowers from boyfriends. As a girl, naturally I would go ooh and aah and secretly hope that one day that that would be me. I was never bitterly jealous just sad that it was never me. This year I have to listen to my flatmate making plans about which restaurant her and her boyfriend should eat at or what should she get him. I went into hallmark with her to get a card and all you see is red when you walk in. do birthdays, anniversaries or even bar mitzvahs seize to exist at this time of year. It’s nice to see her so happy but the more I listen to it the more depressed it makes me. I know this sounds pathetic but that’s how I feel.

For the first time, I admitted this to someone other than myself. I told my friend who is also single and we made a pact together. We made a pact that by this time next year me and her will have boyfriends. This reminds me vaguely of the teenage film ‘Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging’ but I’d like to believe that my teenage years are well and truly in the past. Okay, they weren’t that far away. I am only 20. But I have tried listening to the advice from others who say “it will happen when you least expect it” or “don’t worry, you’re still young, enjoy life”. I have tried listening to that and it does no use. I still feel that I will never meet anyone and that I will be alone forever. At least if I actively try and do something about it, it may make me feel better.

Thus I made the pact with my friend. But I have no idea how I will go about trying to make it happen. I am okay in clubs tbh. After a few drinks down me I feel more confident but I am never that way during the day. I have no other ideas of how to meet more people but I have made the first step. I have made a pact. I have a goal. Now I need to find to find a way to achieve the goal. That’s the hard bit.

Religion helping me through bad days

I have always had a fascination with churches. I have always admired their beauty and the feelings of serenity and clarity that you can feel when you are inside one. I don’t think you need to be religious to experience this. Religion has always fascinated me and God has always been a part of my life. Sometimes it’s nice to think that there is something else out there other than what we see in the world around us. We can endlessly debate about the existence of God but religion is a personal thing and it should always be that way. My faith in God has helped me through many tough times when I have had no one else to turn to.

But recently I have wanted to learn more about other religions and broaden my understanding of the idea of God and a spiritual being. There are two cathedrals near me. One is a catholic one and the other is a protestant one. I have visited both and when there I feel a contentment that I cannot quite describe, a feeling of inner peace. I can just sit there quietly and my mind feels clear. The simplicity and grandeur of the cathedral can be very humbling. I remember that I am one small person in this world. Sometimes I needed to be reminded of this to put my feelings into perspective.

Sometimes during the day I feel lost and have to remember to have faith, that God has a plan for me and that I will be okay. Sometimes when things aren’t going too well I have to tell myself that things will get better. God has a plan for each of us. Remembering this makes me feel less alone and it feels like a weight is lifted off my shoulder. Feeling that someone is guiding me makes me feel less like I am wondering down an aimless path with my eyes closed.

Today is a bad day and there is nothing that can make me feel better. I have tried talking to the people around me but they don’t really care. Sometimes I feel like I just want to cry. I cried a lot today and am feeling so low. I will get some sleep and hopefully things will get better.

An afternoon in Richmond

I spent most of Friday with a friend who I went to school with. I hadn’t seen her since July so we spent the day in Richmond together. It was really nice to catch up and see a bit of Richmond as well. Last time we met up, we spent a summer afternoon in Brighton. This time she suggested Richmond. I had never been to Richmond before. It was a bitterly cold day in contrast to the summer sunshine in Brighton. We sat by the river side and took a walk around the town browsing through some of the shops.

It’s a pretty place - very quaint with lots of little shops, bars, pubs and restaurants. It’s a very up-market part of London. The narrow winding streets and the little coffee shops made it very homey and like we were in a country village not London.

We wanted to go to a little café for some cake but as students we couldn’t afford most of the places so we went to Starbucks. My university doesn’t have a Starbuck’s nearby, only a Costa and I must admit it’s not the same. A mug of hot chocolate and a slice of cheesecake from Starbuck’s is pure heaven! I used to have this after work during the winter months of my gap year and remembered how I used to look forward to finishing work so I could relax with my hot chocolate and slice of cheesecake. Simple pleasures!  

Me and my friend chatted some more and as the light began to fade, we said bye to each other and headed our separate ways. It was nice to catch up with my friend. It’s strange how we went to school together and now we are in different places in our lives, going on different journeys, growing and learning as people through our experiences.