PSA

I have survived my first overnight shift as a medical quasi-professional! It felt very adventuresome, what with pouring coffee down my throat and setting off for the hospital at 9:45pm, and the two doctors on the NICU night shift were really nice. I went to a couple of deliveries in theatre and collected cord blood samples, and in between I shoved my skills logbook into their faces and said LET'S HAVE A SIGNING-OFF SPREE and the registrar retaliated by asking me difficult questions and making me assess sick babies ALL NIGHT, which was awesome, but also sort of like running a marathon.

Reg: Now set up this ventilator.
Me: *staring* I have never used this one. I have never used one that LOOKS like this one.
Reg: No help from me! Work it out. Follow the tubes back to the wall if you have to. And tell me some more about jaundice as you do it.
Me: IT IS FOUR IN THE MORNING AND THIS IS CRUEL AND UNUSUAL

Keeping my brain busy really helped when it came to making time fly past, though. I had one dip at 2am (treated with instant coffee. as I was wearing scrubs, I looked exactly like this icon.) and another massive one at 7am when the morning shift staff were arriving and there was nothing to do and all of my tiredness sprang out from whatever rock it had been hiding beneath and punched me in the chest. Luckily one of the special care unit nurses took pity on me and sat me in a chair with a tiny tiny baby and his morning bottle. I think my ovaries expanded to fill most of my abdomen. TINY. TINY. BABY.

Aaaand then I went home and slept all the way through lunch, so I guess now I'll have to go and get tofu pad see euw with chilli or something. WHAT a pity.

adjectives & more adjectives

I'd typed about two paragraphs of a post about Arthur and how he is represented in fandom (in short: with wild variability) and how he is to work with as a narrator (in short: FUCKING UNRELIABLE) and than I thought, Fahye, you are spending far too much time overthinking one single character and you don't need to inflict that on the rest of the internet. So then there was some judicious use of the delete key, and this post is a lot better for it.

(But ugh, ugh, I am not used to it taking this long for me to get a strong handle on my narrator! 3600 words in and I am maybe starting to feel comfortable in the driver's seat.)

Anyway. I said I wouldn't talk about the WIP.

Let's talk about the fact that drealle sent me an amazing care package as a promise of things to come when I visit her in Brussels! CHOCOLATE. IN FUN FLAVOURS. And also a set of those nifty Blair Waldorf-esque necktie things with which to preppify my work wardrobe.

Let's talk about the fact that tomorrow is Friday.