Girls - new HBO drama

“I'm in the corner, watching you kiss her, ohh

I'm right over here, why can't you see me, ohh

I'm giving it my all, but I'm not the girl you're taking home, ooo

I keep dancing on my own”

- Dancing on my own, Robyn -

The heart breaking lyrics of the song ‘Dancing on my own’ sung by Robyn echo at the end of the third episode of Girls. Girls is a new HBO drama which has recently been brought to UK screens. It is set in New York and follows 4 girls in their early twenties as they experience of love, life and heartbreak.

A lot of American TV dramas often show the glamorous side of New York being presented as a land of opportunities, hope, new beginnings and exciting adventures whereas Girls presents the contrasting harsher realities. It shows that life is not always pretty and perfect and sometimes you can be faced with so many struggles and you just have to get through it. Often no matter how much you want something or how hard you try, sometimes it’s just not enough. We have to accept that sometimes things are out of our control. We have to just pick ourselves up and just get on with it. This is echoed in the lyrics of the Robyn song. In the series, Hannah the main character comes home after a terrible day and just puts on this song and dances around her bed room. This made me smile. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve done that. After a tough day or hours of curling up on my bed crying, sometimes you feel exhausted just being upset, so you just want to get it all out. A good song and dance feels good! It’s like you’re physically releasing the pain.

Girls follows Hannah, who is a university graduate who struggles to find paid work and is struggling to support herself after her parents withdraw financial support. Her love life also presents with difficulties where she is in an awful relationship with a guy who shows her very little genuine affection and care and sees her as a sexual object with whom he can play out his porn fantasies. She is compelled to stick at this relationship as he is all she has. She holds onto and accepts every scrap of affection he gives her however infinitesimal because that’s all the attention and love she feels she receives.

In contrast there is Hannah’s beautiful flat mate Marnie, who has a stable job and a loving caring and attentive boyfriend who would do anything to make her happy. Yet she is unhappy in her relationship and craves fun and excitement which is not in his nature. It’s interesting to see how Marnie has two things that ­Hannah craves while Marnie is unsatisfied with what she has. This shows that what can make one person very happy may not fulfil the needs of another.

Then we have Shoshanna an innocent and inexperienced girl who is unhappy about being a virgin and hopes to have sex. Lastly there is Shoshanna’s cousin from England who is a keen traveller who lands in America to seek support and stability after finding out she is pregnant. She is lost, confused and unsure about what to do with her life in light of her new news.

The 4 girls are very unalike and their experiences are vastly different but they could easily be someone we know in our world. I like this drama. It shows what it can often be like to be a young woman today. That it’s not always going to be sunshine and daisies. We can have an idea of what we hope but the reality can be somewhat different and often disappointing. And often we do things that we hope will make us happy and often that can be detrimental to our happiness but we may not realise this. I guess life is one big learning curve.

Taylor Swift

Her fourth album Red came out last week and since it’s been out I’ve been listening to bits and pieces of it each day and have a couple of tracks which I particularly love:

Begin Again

We are never ever getting back together

Everything’s changed ft. Ed Sheeran

I have always loved Taylor Swift. I know I’m probably a bit older than her average fan base but her music is just easy to listen to and she always writes about things that I can relate to – young love, heart break and hope. I love her soft country pop sound and the fact her lyrics just speak honestly and openly about what means most to her.

These three tracks stand out to me at the moment. Begin Again is a great song about hope. It’s about moving on and finding love after heartbreak. It’s a great song for me at the moment. We are never ever getting back together is just a great fun anthem for girls!

Everything’s changed is my favourite at the moment. It’s been on replay all night! As I write this, it’s playing in the background right now. I’d never have put Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift together. The same way that I’d never have put Dolly Parton and Norah Jones together but somehow it just works. Although they both tend to write about similar themes of love and heart break their styles are very different. But here their voices just work so well together and the song is just beautiful. The sound is very Ed Sheeran. You can hear Taylor swift do all the little tricks that Ed Sheeran does with his voice. There’s a particular bit in the song when Taylor sings “And all I feel in my stomach is butterflies the beautiful kind. Making up for lost time, taking flight, making me feel right” where you can hear Ed Sheeran’s style coming through. This bit is my favourite and gets me every time.

But it just works so well. It’s such a cute song. The lyrics echo that attention to detail that both artists have when it comes to writing about love. They have that way of making your heart melt with their words.

Yet another post about LOVE :D

Today I had a discussion with one of my friends about love. He is in my year at university doing the same course as me. He told me that I was stupid and naive to believe in real love and that he thought it didn’t exist. Maybe he was trying to be a ‘lad’ and appear macho but he told me that I was deluded and that real life isn’t like Twilight or the Notebook or P.S. I Love You. I told him one day he’d fall in love and that if I knew him when that happened I’d say I told you so. He laughed. Although I’ve had two failed relationships and have been hurt very badly, I haven’t given up on love. I am still young and I hope to meet someone new and have that feeling again.

We were both waiting to go into clinic together at hospital and if I had two hours I could’ve easily persuaded him that love existed and that one day when the right person walked into his life, he would feel it and he’d know it. He laughed again. I told him one day he’d find a woman that he will see as more than just a sexual object and that he will genuinely care for her and want to be with her. He said he gets bored really easily and that that was unlikely. He told me he couldn’t be bothered with relationships.

But it got me thinking about how different people can have such different views on the topic of love. I got thinking about what love is and what it means to me. I think the different views on love depend strongly on age and personal experiences of it as well as your individual needs as a human being. With changing hormones and needs, people’s views and feelings of love adapt to meet the changes. I can’t quite define it but I have lots of quotes which seem to reflect in words exactly what I am feeling and what it means to me.

I watched The Lucky One last week, a romantic film about an ex-marine who finds love after finding a photo that proves a lucky charm and inadvertently saves his life. This quote from the film particularly stood out to me.

“She was struck by the simple truth that sometimes the most ordinary things could be made extraordinary, simply by doing them with the right people...”

― Nicholas Sparks ―

I like this quote and I realised that it made perfect sense to me.  I remember in my last relationship of which unfortunately most of it was long distance, my ex asked me while we were apart, what I look forward to doing most when we see each other again.  I remember saying that I really wanted to walk down the street with him and also just do simple things like going to Tesco with him. Even though both of these seem like completely normal everyday things and can often be taken for granted by couples, it was something I looked forward to doing with him because I just wanted to be with him. It didn’t matter what we did, as long as I was with him, it’d be special.

I am currently reading Bared to you, an erotic novel by Sylvia Day. A particular line in the novel stood out to me. I remember reading it and the words stayed with me.

“I’ve always seen you, angel. From the moment you found me, I’ve seen nothing but you.”

― Sylvia Day ―

I found this quote simply heart-warming. That when you find someone that you love, everything that you previously may have thought of or wanted goes out of the window and the love that you feel for that person overwhelms you. It takes over your senses until it consumes you. Also I like the idea that someone can rescue you, not in a needy or dependent kind of way. I like the idea that it’s as if you can be wondering along – lost and alone and someone comes along and notices you and sees you for the first time. They ‘find’ you.  You are no longer just you but you have been noticed by someone.

Another quote which I really like is from the film Like Crazy which I mentioned in my previous post.

“To you who made me see things I could never see alone”

― Drake Doremus, Ben York Jones ―

In the film, the main female character is a keen writer and keeps a journal of her romance and dedicates it to her love in the inscription. I thought this quote was so beautiful in its meaning and simplicity. This is something I strongly believe in. I believe that a good love is one where you appreciate and learn things that couldn’t see on your own. In a way the person you are with opens your eyes and you see things with a new perspective. Whether it’s a different outlook or mind set, they can bring out positive things in you that the world may not fully get to appreciate when you’re single.  

Like Crazy

Last night I watched a heartrendingly beautiful independent film called Like Crazy. It follows the story of Anna and Jacob two young adults who meet at L.A. University. She’s a budding journalist on exchange from England and he has a passion for designing and building furniture. She had noticed him in her classes and after plucking up the courage, she left him a message on his car - giving him her number and telling him how she felt. He calls her and they arrange to meet for coffee. This is the start of their long complicated but intense relationship. As a writer she had always struggled with wording her emotions and instead kept a journal of photos and thoughts as their relationship progressed and about what her relationship had meant to her. She would more often than not show him these instead of telling him. However their happiness is short lived as she was on a student visa and had to return home during the holidays. They both hated being apart and so on one occasion; she overstayed her visa instead of going home so that they could spend more time together. A decision with had severe consequences affecting several years of her life, when she was unable to return to the USA and thus fuelling subsequent rejections to grant her permanent stay.

This is a simple story of love in the real world. It’s not glamorous and neither character is perfect or beautiful like those out of a Jennifer Aniston movie. They are two people who are just like you and me who have normal jobs, ambitions and face life’s obstacles. They are just two people trying to make their way and find happiness at the same time. Anna and Jacob are two young people who are in love but cannot be together. Their love was so strong and mutual that the only thing that kept them apart was the physical distance from each other. He was unable to shift his budding business to be with her and she was unable to move to the USA. He’d travel to be with her and then fly back and continue his life. This was heart breaking to see. Sometimes obstacles in relationships aren’t solely within one’s self but sometimes the outside world can intervene. They both start seeing other people but always thought of the other and felt that what they had with each other meant so much more than what they’d had with anyone else. The emotional connection they had, devastated their subsequent relationships.

This film had me in tears throughout. I think the fact that it was a very low budget heavily improvised film made it more real and therefore easier to relate to. It made me see how beautiful LOVE can be. I believe that despite all you can see, achieve and experience in life yourself – no matter how successful you are in your job or financially, your successes in love can mean so much more. It goes straight to your heart.

I believe that one of man’s greatest achievements has always been the ability to love - the ability to love another with all your heart and to look beyond your needs and fulfil another’s wholly. To love someone truly incorporates the ability to appreciate and respect another person fully and learn from them. You can learn so much about yourself, about what is important in life through your love of others. As William Shakespeare wrote in A Midsummer Night's Dream ‘the course of true love never did run smooth’ but that’s the beauty of it surely. Love is a constant learning experience. It pushes you to your boundaries again and again and again. Hence why people fall in love and get heartbroken but if asked whether they’d do it all again, they’d say yes without hesitation. The feeling is unlike anything else in the world. It consumes you, possesses you, and goes right through to your soul. It’s amazing!

How to make Simple Mashed Potato

A popular British invention, this has now become a regular component of my meals several evenings a week. It’s such a quick and simple thing to make and fills me up quite well too. I used to be really bad at making mash and because one of my housemates last year was Irish, I was reluctant to keep trying to avoid further embarrassment. She is such a natural with potatoes and so effortless with a potato peeler too! I am so clumsy with cooking utensils. The first few times I made mash I used the potato peeler the wrong way round and wondered why it was so difficult.  I blamed the potato peeler! The first few times I made mas I either kept undercooking the potatoes or didn’t mash it for long enough and as a result there were so many lumps in it.

This year I’ve tried several more times and I’ve gotten much better at it and I’ve also learned how to use a potato peeler too. Mash is also quite cheap to make. I always buy a cheap 2.5kg Tesco everyday value bag which is less than £1. It lasts me for weeks.

Here’s how I make mash:

1.       Fill half a large pan full of water and allow to boil on medium heat

2.       Peel 2 medium sized potatoes using a potato peeler

3.       Using a knife, chop the potatoes into thin slices – this increases the surface area of the potato and allows it to soften quicker when boiled

4.       Add the sliced potato to the boiling water

5.       Allow the potatoes to simmer gently in the water for about 20/25 minutes

6.       Assess the softness of the potato by seeing how easy it is to break it using a fork. If it breaks easily, it’s soft enough to mash

7.       Drain the water from the pan

8.       Using a fork crush the potato and then slide your fork through the mixture to remove lumps and smoothen the texture

9.       Add 3 tablespoons of milk

10.   Add 2 teaspoons of butter

11.   Keep sliding the fork through the mixture until the mixture appears smooth, light and fluffy and there are no lumps visible. This should take 5-10 minutes maximum

12.   The mash is ready to plate and serve.

If you want to jazz your mash up a bit, you can grate some cheese over the mash at the end.

Alternatively you can grate the cheese into the mixture while mashing for a stronger flavour. Enjoy!

 

Cheryl Cole

It’s almost here - Cheryl Cole’s new autobiography. I have waited ages for this. It’s out tomorrow and you can bet that I’ll get a copy asap and read it from cover to cover!!!!

Cheryl Cole – love her or hate her she is arguably one of the most recognised British celebrities today. From humble roots, she has worked her way up using the best of what she has, often more determination and hard work than genuine musical talent, to get where she is today. She has carefully chosen a career path making good well-timed decisions to maximise her fame and celebrity status therefore bringing her lots of success. Besides this, the strength of her character which is evident from the dignified manner in which she handled her turbulent relationship with Chelsea footballer Ashley Cole has made her a respected smart and independent modern celebrity icon to young women today.

For these reasons I am a fan of Cheryl Cole. I have been a fan of hers for some years now since her divorce to footballer Ashley Cole, the deterioration of her physical health when she caught malaria after a trip abroad and then her subsequent hiring and firing as a judge on X Factor USA. It seemed as if this woman had gone through so many highs and lows in her life but has always dealt with things with such dignity, inner strength, composure and humility. She has a strength that is so often not evident in many of our celebrity ‘idols.’ Also she comes across as quite a normal woman who has a feisty yet simultaneously warm natural personality which is so refreshing on TV. After being bombarded with egos and eccentric often annoying personalities on TV shows, Cheryl was refreshing and likeable and not to mention stunningly beautiful. She was not beautiful in an intimidatingly hateful way that some girls would feel about attractive women but Cheryl possesses a beauty that young girls can respect and admire and take inspiration from. Her beauty gives her confidence and not an ego.

Although often her outfit choices gained much disapproval in the media, it is undeniable that Cheryl Cole is a trendsetter.  I am not immune to this. I remember a few years back I saw a photograph of Cheryl Cole wearing a pair of green trousers. I immediately went out to get some. I just thought it looked quite cool and different. I still do love those green trousers.

I have been reading the little extracts of her new book that the press have serialised and am now so eager to get my hands on the book and learn so much more about this interesting woman who most people have an opinion on. Whether good or bad, people have an opinion on her and this book may give people who are interested more of an insight into the woman behind the high profile celebrity face.  

The Great British Bake off

This has probably got to be one of the best shows on TV at the moment. It’s on every week and because I don’t have TV at uni, I eagerly anticipate when it will be on I player so I can catch up to see what amazing treats will be baked each week and who will be nominated.

At hospital, each morning they have handover, which is when the night staff inform the day staff of the events of the night before and give them updates on patients treatments and test results. This allows the day staff to be fully informed preparing them for that coming day. Handover is also a down time for the staff and they get to have a laugh with their fellow staff and talk about other things. A recent topic of conversation was the Great British Bake off and it’s surprising how many of the doctors watch the show and many also secretly enjoy baking too. They were all so inspired by this refreshing show which has now become a somewhat British icon that they all agreed that once a week one doctor would bring in home baked goods for the rest of the staff.

All the contestants battle it out in 3 rounds where they will ranked by the judges – the delightful Mary berry and the sharp Paul Hollywood in order of worst to best. Then the judges will pick a ‘star baker’ and one person to send home. One of the contestants is a critical care consultant and there is also a medical student participating too. So I am hoping one of them will win!

After watching an episode of the show I am always so inspired to bake. I enjoy baking at home but at uni I rarely have time to set aside to bake. It’s always such an amazing feeling when you put in the effort to make something from scratch and the outcome is good or better than you expected. On the show they’ve made so many exciting things that I am eager to try – tarts, biscuits, pies, flatbreads, tortes, doughnuts and many many more. I’d love to be a good baker someday!!!

 

 

Mother and Child

Last week, my flatmate and I decided to have a movie night. We huddled up on the sofa and decided to watch a movie. We hadn’t done that in a long time and it was Saturday night and after a long hard day of doing uni work we decided to take the evening off. We decided to watch Mother and Child. This was a beautiful film about 3 families and their different experiences of motherhood.

The story began with 14 year old Karen who after having sex for the first time finds herself pregnant. She decides to give her baby up for adoption, a decision which will stay with her and affect much of her adult life. Karen grows up and as an adult tends to the care of her frail and elderly mother. She is unhappy and lonely and often thinks about the child she gave up long ago.

Then we meet Elizabeth. She is hard working, career driven, successful and independent. She was given up for adoption and has a bad relationship with her adoptive mother. She is strong and solitary and an in my eyes an inspiring character. She talks of her childhood and how she was never ever ‘part of sisterhood.’ Girls were often intimidated by her and didn’t like her. She had multiple casual sexual relationships in her adult life to stem her loneliness including with her widowed boss. They develop feelings for each other. She becomes pregnant and decides to bring up the baby, despite being unsure who the father is.

Then we meet Lucy, a married woman who is unable to conceive and decides she wants to adopt. But after a failed adoption arrangement and her husband’s lack of enthusiasm about adoption in general, her marriage ends, with him leaving her. The 3 three main characters are not all unique in their experiences but the uniqueness in the characters are what gets them through the troubled times. They are all very different but it’s interesting to see how your experiences give you the strength to deal with anything. As human beings we are constantly adapting and learning and changing.

Elizabeth is my favourite character. She was played by the amazing Naomi Watts who conveys with such conviction Elizabeth’s strength and independence. What I loved about Elizabeth was that she was a no ‘b*******’ kinda girl who wasn’t going to take any nonsense from anyone. She was always the outsider but made a life for herself though her sheer strength and determination. She was always judged by others through life and hated when people made assumptions about her when they didn’t even know her. To the outsider, she appears cold and disconnected but that was a result of years of disappointment and upset. It was so nice to see this character unravel throughout this movie. To see how happy she was when she became pregnant and was given a new lease of life and hope. Although she was alone and had no close family or friends to speak of, she didn’t let affect her. She just carried on with life and didn’t mope or feel sorry for herself. This shows such courage and inner strength.

Lucy’s story began with such heart breaking experiences. She was unable to conceive naturally and that made her feel ’worthless.’ She couldn’t have the one thing that she wanted. To see her pain and to know that fertility can sometimes be luck of the draw was such a harsh reality. As human beings the need to reproduce is a carnal human need. Some people say that’s our ultimate purpose on earth to continue the race. Some people are so lucky and can conceive straight away. Some people conceive without even trying while others struggle and that affects their relationships. Fertility can be cruel and unfair and your luck can affect your life’s course. Some women say that you haven’t lived until you become a mother and that that’s the most fulfilling thing you can do. Others say that for those who decide not to have children you have the opportunity to fulfil your full potential as a human being. Especially in today’s society after so many changes with women getting more rights, women have so many more opportunities. It’s possible now for a woman to achieve so much more than was possible just a few decades ago.

This was a really beautiful film that was so inspiring. With a bitter sweet ending, this is such a great film that highlights the harsh reality of the difficulties that people go through in life. It also shows how as humans we have the remarkable capability to grow strength and courage and can deal with so much and still retain our inner strength.

 

At a cross roads...

It’s interesting how change happens. When you think you are so sure of the world around you and of your situation, something can come along and knock you off balance and send you spiralling in another direction that you didn’t even know were possible. I was dealing with things. I had learned to move forward. I learnt to leave the past in the past and move on with my life. I was struggling but I took each day as it came and dealt with issues as they arose. I am one of those who likes to plan and be prepared for any given situation should they arise but when the situation does arise I am back to square one and don’t know what to do. Some situations can catch you off guard and then when you have time to process events, you can make the right decision. Should I follow my heart or go with my head? If I was stupid enough to follow my heart, I’d regret so much. So I go with my head instead, at least I do most of the time. I rationalise and think and often do what is best for me rather than what I want at that precise moment in time. Often what I want changes and I get caught up in the moment and make bad choices. So I try and think objectively and go with the right decision. I go with what is the right thing to do. It may not be the best decision at the time but often when I look back I feel stronger and more confident that that is the best decision for me and that makes me happy. I think now with a new fresh perspective and knowledge I can finally put the past behind me and move on. I feel free.

I realise that at this moment in time, I am at an interesting cross roads. I am so happy doing the course I am doing. Medicine continues to surprise me every day and I love the adrenaline rush that I get when I am at hospital. I am on ICU at the moment and often a lot of the medicine is very varied and you will not know what you’ll be faced with from day to day. One day you can be faced with an OD, the next you can see someone with alcohol withdrawal seizing as a result of developing Delirium Tremens. The doctors are pushed to their limits and have to use all their knowledge, experience and skills from all their years at medical school and training to treat the patient in front of them. This is incredible! I am only in 2^nd year and each day we learn something new and that adds to the reservoir of knowledge that we have that one day we will hopefully be able to use. These are real people and without medical intervention, they will die! That’s the harsh reality. Often the medicine you see in ICU is advanced and acute and the doctors have to act fast. I am still at that stage where I love everything that comes with being a doctor – I admire their skills, knowledge, experience and hard-working ethic. I hope one day I can be like that.  

I am in hospital 2 days a week and have to wake up at 5.45 to get the bus at 7.50 and then I get back around half 5ish. It’s a long day but I love getting up in the morning. Yes, it’s pitch black and cold but I love the fact that don’t know what I will see and learn about that day and I will get to meet some amazing inspiring individuals who have gone through hell but still come out fighting and stronger than ever.

I can feel the adrenaline rush of excitement as all the doctors hush around the patient, analysing the patients’ saturations and looking at x rays and findings from CT scans and blood tests. It’s about using everything that you know and have access to and piecing it all together to figure out what’s wrong. Only then can you can fix the problem. It’s like a jigsaw. You have all the pieces but when you piece them all together you will finally get the bigger picture. At first you try and you don’t succeed because the pieces don’t fit but eventually they do and the patient can get better and go home to their life and their families.

Each day on the bus journey on the way home, we like to talk about the exciting things we’ve seen and learnt and share perspectives and experiences. By the time we all get home we are buzzing with a new rush of adrenaline get stuck into our work for the coming week.