The Week After The Week Before

Wow, its now a week after my last exam. Doesn't time fly when you're having fun or, in my case doing bugger all.

What exactly have I done in the last week? Well, not a great deal really. My post-exam to-do list which was already as long as my left arm hasn't been reduced and now in fact stretches around my back and down my right arm too. Saying that I have been 'busy', after all I must have been too busy to blog right? Well, yeah, but then again, I've not had a great deal to blog about. There is only so much material one can get out of waking up, playing computer games, eating and sleeping.

My main objective for the week involved a great deal of football manager, for those of you who know, I need say nothing more. For the rest of you, it's a totally addictive, virtual football manager PC game, like a boy's version of sims according to missbliss. I also got a new gadget on Tuesday and have spent many an hour playing with it, and i've not even read the mahousive instruction manual yet (by far the most exciting part) and yes, every single page is in English - no being disappointed when 5/6ths of the book is in Japanese/German/etc etc.

Yesterday, an excursion took us to the hospital I'll hopefully be working at come August. It was the first time I'd been there, and the first time I'd even been to the city in question. The city is lovely, if slightly quieter and more serene than what I'm used to. The hospital reminds me of a hospital some of my clinical placements were at. It is relatively small, seems mainly modern, and has a few odd, but rather cool quirks. We went for a wander round, obviously to scope out the important places, those being a) the shop, b) the cafes and c) the chocolate machines, all of which, I'm pleased to say, were up to standard.

This week has gone ridiculously quickly, perhaps I should be grateful after all that we have to wait a month for results! Hopefully next week, I'll be able to tick a few things off my to-do list.

In 30 Years Time...

Technology fascinates me, maybe its because I've grown up with it but I've always felt affectionately towards it. In some ways it fascinates me more than life itself, what is a few billion years of evolution compared with with the technological advances of the last 30-50-100 years? Sure evolution is pretty dam clever but the technological revolution which allows me to type this and instantly have potentially millions (or, more realistically, about 30 - I can dream...) of readers is simply staggering.

Can you possibly imagine what the next 30-40-50 years hold in terms of technology...what about beyond that? Where are the limits? I'm sure some of my older readers can remember a time when there were no computers, no Internet, no CD players, no mobile phones. Of course now my mobile phone does all of that and a whole lot more. With my mobile phone which is smaller than a pack of cards I can calculate my exact position on the Earth using GPS, find out where my nearest book shop is and navigate my way there. When I get there and I've forgotten the name of the book I'm looking for I can use the Internet on my mobile phone to check, then, if they don't have it in store, I can order it over the Internet there and then and have it delivered to my door. I can do all that whilst listening to my entire CD collection and taking pictures of myself at the same time! Why I would want to do any of that when I could have ordered the same book online at home without any of that hassle is beside the point - I do it because I can! Oh and I suppose I could mention I can use my mobile phone to make phone calls too! I remember when my dad got his first mobile, he was quite an early adopter for business reasons, you can buy cars smaller than the phone he had back then and all it could do was make calls, sometimes. Nevertheless I was fascinated and of course I instantly knew everything about it before well before he did. Now, almost every person over the age of about 10 (although many younger people have them too) has a mobile phone which makes everyone almost instantly contactable. The pros and cons of this are another post in itself but as technological feats go its gigantic (the instant contact breaks down a bit when people have their phones tucked in the glove compartment for emergencies only *cough* older generation *cough*). It is almost impossible to imagine going back to a time pre-mobile phone, young people today cannot possibly imagine a life without it how would they possible communicate 150,000,000 sms messages worth of information per day! That is just in the UK, an average of nearly 3 messages per person every single day! Extraordinary.

The mobile phone is just one example of the technological revolution but what is the most important? In my opinion it is the Internet, not only the Internet itself but much advancement has been brought about because of the Internet. I know, that right now, I can find out almost anything I want or would ever need in about 10 seconds using Google. I can buy almost anything, I can download and listen to almost any song ever made, I can chat to people on the other side of the world.

I'd never imagined a life without technology before our Summer trip to the Solomon Islands but even there, in one of the most remote places on Earth technology is slowly creeping in. Its a long way behind and the people of Lata are a long way off plasma screen TVs and mobile phones which access the Internet, in fact, these things may never make it there - perhaps they don't need to. I couldn't live like that knowing what I do now about the world so if I ever do emigrate to the jungle I'll be taking the biggest possible satellite dish a mountain of toys. Technology is what I missed most about the developed world.

I can spend hours reading about technology, studying my favourite magazine T3 is one of my favourite things and the first blog I usually check is Engadget. If I could muster the same enthusiasm for studying, I'd never have any motivational issues. The kick of adrenaline I get when researching a new gadget purchase is only super seeded by that of opening the box and reading the instructions. Many would call it sad, I'm sure, but to me its a hobby, apart from missbliss, technology is what I live for. I love it.

Metaphorically, technology runs through in my blood, it probably won't be long before that metaphor becomes literal as nanobots sweep through my veins zapping cancer cells as they form. I know it sounds like science fiction now, but what about all that we've got now? That was the science fiction of 50 years ago. I can't wait to see what happens during my lifetime I don't think any of us can imagine some of the changes to come in the next 30 years never mind the next 100 or 200.



N.B. I recently bought myself a TomTom 520 GPS Sat Nav system for adventures ahead in new places. Whether this was the inspiration for my declaration of love to technology I don't know.

Gadgetery Goodness

If you're a long time reader of my blog you'll probably be aware that I'm a bit of a techno geek when it comes to gadgets. If I had the money I'd buy all-sorts of goodies. Sometimes, gadgets come along which are just too good to miss out on (at least in my opinion.)

This situation happened last week and I decided to splash out on a new toy. I was fortunate to find them in stock as they're very new and in demand (for those who know what they are that is.)

Its quite expensive, but also a bargain, and I hope to be able to earn the money to pay for it, well, I've already bought it, but I'd like to earn some of that money back through the following:

a) Selling my PDA on eBay - as much as it pains me because its also a gadget and I love it its sort of redundant now as I have my Nokia N95 and my new toy which effectively take care of anything the PDA can do.

b) Selling old books on Amazon - I've already sold a few, and hopefully will earn a few pennies this way whilst also freeing up some bookshelf space (much needed in our house *glares at missbliss*) 'Sociology as Applied to Medicine' is one of the many wonders now listed on Amazon, I bought that eagerly during my first week at medical school, (yes I was naive) I might have opened it once in the last 4 and half years....oops.

c) Volunteering as a 'model' for the 4th Year OSCEs - at £20 a pop, a few sessions of that will help no end (not to mention it being an excuse to get out of PBL!)

So I'm sure you're all wondering what it is that I splashed my non-existent (at present) cash on, well I could do a cal and not tell you but I'm not that mean, besides, you'd never guess in a million years.

It looks like a laptop, and is in fact a laptop, but its small, about the size of an A5 writing pad, and only 900g in weight. The Asus eee PC, is my favourite new gadget. Unfortunately the operating system is based on Linux which means its completely different to Windows but I'm slowly getting used to it and it can do just about everything that I would ask of it. Its not meant as a main PC but at £200, this exceptionally portable, sturdy and generally cool gadget can be slipped into my bag to be used to surf the web on the move, check emails, write blog posts and most other stuff your £500-1000 laptops can do.

Ok, ok, so you might not be quite as excited as I am because I am a bit of a geek but still, I'd recommend these to anyone. Few things are quite as exciting as waiting for a new gadget to be delivered - so much so that I actually looked forward to PBL this week because I knew that after it, I'd get to play with my new toy. Woo

p.s. Check out the reallm for more PBL tales.