Ventilate and inspirate

No, they're not related. Yes, I know it's not a word.

I definitely lost any 'blogging mojo' a bit back there, somehow I felt it was all pointless - with the advent of Facebook and given how addictive it is - why painstackingly post pictures and write lengthy descriptive paragraphs when a few clicks will give me more likes and comments? Fine I'll admit I'm superficial like that. Responses from an 'audience' - it just feels good when people take interest in your comings and goings, even if the 'like' is merely following a fleeting glance and a moment's amusement, to be forgotten forever in a second.

Damn that sounds shallow.

So perhaps now I will blog for the sake of it, even if no one reads or comments. This shall be the first step in mastering the art of Not Giving A Fuck. Or further honing of self-righteous pompousness. Whatever.

Okay so there is a reason behind this sudden and unexpected post. To put it simply, I have a few reports to write and it's stressing the hell outta me. I thought a little venting would help. It usually does.

It's eerily uncharacteristic though. I definitely haven't made it this far into medical school without writing a few scrummy reports. Yet why has this ordinary task bothered me to the point of snapping out of a blogging stupor?

The answer is simple my friend. (Oh great now I'm talking to myself.) You've just been lazy. I've been lazy. Incredibly lazy. After the last frenzied exam season and starting on this pseudomedicine called psychiatry, I may have lost a bit more overall motivation than I normally do in the relaxednoexam--->stressedexam cycle I've been living for over a decade.

And now, thrust into Old Age medicine and needing to write - well, passable reports, I think I've hit a brick wall. It's like trying to go from nought to a hundred on a rickety manual car and then killing the engine.

I just need to get back on track I suppose. There's just many factors that pile on the stressors, stuff I won't go into detail simply because there is no need to. Besides I feel better already.

Hmm I should write more. I've forgotten how strangely therapeutic it could be.

Perhaps this is a good time and place to have a picture dump. Just because.

Oh yes. Snow. The recent big thing. But seriously, February? And I had to wait a full year to get my first sight of snow (while my juniors got it 3 weeks in - where is the justice?) But anyway. It was exactly like how it's been described. Pretty, glittery, cold, wet, slippery. I built a snowman (more like a snowpile) and threw some snowballs. That's one off my provisional (aka not yet existent) bucket list.

Did make for some pretty pictures, though.

My parents came recently for work purposes and we spent a few hours in York, an absolutely pretty city up north. This is the Yorkminster, trademark massive church of York.

But perhaps even more 'trademark' would be the walls of York, a battle frontier functional several hundred years ago. (I seem to have a thing for tilting my pictures.) York is also famous for its tea rooms, particularly this one called Betty's, which had a queue snaking out of its doors the entire time we were there. Needless to say, we passed it up.

Somewhere alone a quaint stone-paved street, a little Harry Potter themed play was being filmed. They'd even got Dementors. Onlooking muggles gawked at the colourful display of dark robes and delighted smiles and childrens' faces.

Guess who? :)

Dropped by London for a few days after the new year began, on a whim. Met an old friend and yet another superb host. Spent most of the time wandering around Chinatown and eating Chinese food, being so anything-oriental deprived in the east midlands. I used to assume there were lots of east asians in the UK, but outside London that isn't really true.

I also used to rank Korean food as rather low on my list of favourite cuisines, but this spicy-tofu-seafood (still a newb at food names here) dish bumped it up a few spots.

Going in reverse order now. This was a Christmas market in Nottingham - relatively small but had all the atmosphere one needed.

I also discovered roasted chestnuts here - where have you been all my life?

Christmas Day was spent in Boston, Lincolnshire with a bunch of mostly IMU seniors. It was like the good old days. I whipped up a not-so-little Christmas dinner a few weeks before - this homemade fruitcake being one of the highlights. I've still got the crumbs.

I'm still cooking, just taking far less pictures than usual. I did say I was lazy.

Made lomaikai during one of my sudden chinese-food cravings. Dimsum was one of the many things I'd only sampled after leaving Kuching for KL - those three and a half years in the capital really broadened my culinary horizons and made me realize how sheltered my tastes were.

If you've not discovered eggs in a basket, well - you should.

Sleep beckons. Hope I fare better tomorrow.