for future reference

"I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own, than when you almost broke it eight years and a half ago. Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant. You alone have brought me to Bath. For you alone I think and plan. - Have you not seen this? Can you fail to have understood my wishes? - I had not waited even these ten days, could I have read your feelings, as I think you must have penetrated mine. I can hardly write. I am every instant hearing something which overpowers me. You sink your voice, but I can distinguish the tones of that voice, when they would be lost on others. - Too good, too excellent creature! You do us justice indeed. You do believe that there is true attachment and constancy among men. Believe it to be most fervent, most undeviating in 'F.W.'"

Note to future "My Mr Knightly": if, for some bizarre reason, you need to spell it out, there is your model letter! Actually, I think all guys should read Jane Austen novels, just to understand what to say and how to say it. Honestly, why aren't there more Mr Darcys, Mr Knightlys and Captain Wentworths in the world? Although, I have to admit, I don't think it's necessarily a 19th Century thing; there were plenty of... not-so-perfectly-amazing guys back in Austen's time... but these grand declarations made by men so in love just makes me... sigh...

As you can probably guess, I just finished Persuasion and absolutely loved it! My exam is tomorrow, but I think I'm done studying. I can't do it anymore and I think I have enough to pass; I'll take my chances. "I'm okay with being unimpressive. I sleep better." - Garden State

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After watching videos of endoscopy procedures performed by a gyno-surgeon:

MALE classmate: So are you interested in this kind of stuff?
Me (most notably, female): Surgery or gynaecology?
M.C.: Surgery - the blood and guts of it all.
Me: Nah, probably not, ay. What about you?
M.C.: Yeah, surgery seems pretty cool.
Me: What, you're not interested in gynaecology?
M.C.: [laughs] I'd think it'd be more something for you guys [as in girls] to get into.
Me: Why would we wanna be looking at that kind of stuff everyday? I thought guys would be more interested!
M.C.: No way! You don't wanna be around that all day, everyday. [Pauses] It's like... working at an ice-cream factory.
Me: Dude, you did not just compare gynaecology to working in an ice-cream factory!
M.C.: Yeah!! If you spend all day of everyday making ice-cream, it ruins it for you!


Had another *great* lecture on SPERM TRANSPORT today. I know it hasn't even been a week since we started Reproduction, Development and Ageing, but I think I'm starting to get sick of... working in the ice-cream factory.

Oh, to be thirteen again...

I'm starting to really miss being "young". I mean, I know I'm only 19 still, but when did I suddenly become this person who, in three years time, will actually have to be a doctor?? I think it was the combination of seeing a group of little kids touring the anatomy museum this morning, and my mum running into a former high school teacher of mine, but I've started to realize that I've done the very thing I dreaded growing up - I've chosen what to do with my life. What happened to my nine lives? I was gonna be an astronaut; magazine editor; travel writer; professor; pilot; historian; restauranteur; novelist; human rights lawyer... now I'm just a med student. Period. I know medicine is amazing in the way it provides so many different opportunties, but why is it that all of a sudden I feel so... trapped? I don't regret doing medicine; even if I could do the past three years over again, I wouldn't do anything differently. But I miss... reading for pleasure without feeling guilty... not knowing what I'd be doing in five years time... dreaming of possibility...

I shouldn't be surprised; once the excitement, the unbelief and awe, has come and gone, you find yourself knee deep in shite and thinking, they hardly ever show this part on TV and when they do it always seems so damn sexy. But it's not. It's really not. I found myself thinking the same thing three years ago at Harvard, and if that's the price I have to pay for getting older, I'd much rather be thirteen again.

I think I'm just stressed. And tired. I get philosophical when I get stressed. Philosophical and emotional. And confused.

Oh - and when did little kids get so smart? How is it possible that a bunch of eight-year olds know there are four chambers in the heart, and that the main branch off the heart is called the aorta?? Seriously?!