Hello, everyone!
RAG is Cambridge University's Raising And Giving, basically charity work. It encompasses everything from raids (running around Cambridge with collecting buckets) to organised, University-wide events, some of which happen every year.
One of the latter events is the RAG Blind Date, predictably enough in February (...near but not on the 14th...). You will all no doubt be thrilled to hear that four of us (Felicity, Geraldine, Jo and Julia) have entered into a pact and are all taking part. Wish us good luck...
Love,
Felicity xxx
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Startling Revelations
Well, we did promise to let you know- apologies for keeping you all in suspense:
Felicity- secret porn star?
Actually, no.
Geraldine xx
Felicity- secret porn star?
Actually, no.
Geraldine xx
Monday, January 12, 2009
Chatting Up the Medics
As it turns out, medics have something of a reputation: not only is the stereotypical medic a geek (true), an alcoholic (often true), and the life and the soul of the party (especially true when the other guest don't mind you talking dissection), but also (for lack of a better word) kinky. Whether or not this stereotype is true, it does mean that we are possibly among the most hit-on of all subject groups (though that may have something to do with the fact that we're also the most awesome).
Anyway, if you do decide to take your chance with a medic, I believe I will be doing said medic a huge favour by telling you to avoid the following lines, especially when they are followed by a leering wink:
'I think I need a medical examination.'
'So, want to learn some anatomy?'
'Can I come over and make use of those rubber gloves?'
'I have a bad case of the (insert cheesy made-up disease here), can you help me out?'
Using these, and most other medical-related chat-up lines, does not make you original and witty (just ask the last 10 people who tried them), but it will make you slightly more likely to become acutely aware of just how wonderfully easily we can cause people pain.
Just fyi, you know...
Geraldine xxx
P.S. Also, never ever employ mistletoe in any attempt to speak to us- not that that's related to medicine in any way, it's just never a good idea.
Anyway, if you do decide to take your chance with a medic, I believe I will be doing said medic a huge favour by telling you to avoid the following lines, especially when they are followed by a leering wink:
'I think I need a medical examination.'
'So, want to learn some anatomy?'
'Can I come over and make use of those rubber gloves?'
'I have a bad case of the (insert cheesy made-up disease here), can you help me out?'
Using these, and most other medical-related chat-up lines, does not make you original and witty (just ask the last 10 people who tried them), but it will make you slightly more likely to become acutely aware of just how wonderfully easily we can cause people pain.
Just fyi, you know...
Geraldine xxx
P.S. Also, never ever employ mistletoe in any attempt to speak to us- not that that's related to medicine in any way, it's just never a good idea.
Medics' Survival Guide - part 2
The GOOD BITS.
We have a reputation for drunkeness (ergo, people are shocked when we aren't propping up the bar).
Staying up to 2am drinking champagne and eating cheese (this is WHY we're not propping up the bar).
2kg chocolate cornflake cake!
Scaring other students.
We socialise HARD.
We can win any competition of trying to come up with the most disgusting thing without any impact on our mental health.
No squeamishness about anything. Ever.
Chat-up lines are funnier when people realise you are a medic.
You lose any sense of embarrassment about anything. In a few years' time, we're going to be spending alarming proportions of our working time asking people to drop their trousers (on a side note, why don't more attractive people get ill? Fewer men your father's age, more your own!)
Swirling vortex of madness.
2-4-1 cocktails.
You have the right to laugh at arts students and scientists.
Synovial twins. We get better vocal typos.
Strange arguments late at night about the consistancy of soup.
Dreams. Weird dreams.
"IT JUST HAPPENS!" is an appropriate answer to most questions.
Being told how to kill people in lectures. Twice, in about two weeks.
Resisting the urge to go out and see whether said lecturers were lying to us...
People assume you actually KNOW medicine. "I've really hurt my elbow, can you have a look at it...?" sure...pokey pokey.
When in doubt, AMPUTATE!
Anatomy colouring books: regressing to age 5 while also working.
BATMAN IMPRESSIONS!
The fact that we act with the grace and decorum of the average 3 year old and this is normal.
No other group is known so well by our wonderful porters; it's because we bulk-buy textbooks off Amazon and so get MASSIVE PARCELS virtually every week of term.
We're weirder than every other subject. Including mathmos. This is our badge of honour.
Everyone assumes we're normal. HAH!
People tend to assume we are hard-working and clever.
We can watch horror films and criticise their methods of killing.
Nearly getting run over. By an ambulance. In front of A&E. Surrounded by the students most likely to have First Aid certificates.
Morbid. Lovely and morbid.
See! There ARE good things. And we aren't even including the clichéed stuff!
Lots of love (again)
Felicity xxx (secret porn star?) (FIND OUT NEXT WEEK! or not.)
Julia (Cheered up a bit now)
Joanne (reanimated) (yes, we CAN do that. We just don't like to tell people)
Geraldine (still doomed. It tastes of raspberry) xxx
We have a reputation for drunkeness (ergo, people are shocked when we aren't propping up the bar).
Staying up to 2am drinking champagne and eating cheese (this is WHY we're not propping up the bar).
2kg chocolate cornflake cake!
Scaring other students.
We socialise HARD.
We can win any competition of trying to come up with the most disgusting thing without any impact on our mental health.
No squeamishness about anything. Ever.
Chat-up lines are funnier when people realise you are a medic.
You lose any sense of embarrassment about anything. In a few years' time, we're going to be spending alarming proportions of our working time asking people to drop their trousers (on a side note, why don't more attractive people get ill? Fewer men your father's age, more your own!)
Swirling vortex of madness.
2-4-1 cocktails.
You have the right to laugh at arts students and scientists.
Synovial twins. We get better vocal typos.
Strange arguments late at night about the consistancy of soup.
Dreams. Weird dreams.
"IT JUST HAPPENS!" is an appropriate answer to most questions.
Being told how to kill people in lectures. Twice, in about two weeks.
Resisting the urge to go out and see whether said lecturers were lying to us...
People assume you actually KNOW medicine. "I've really hurt my elbow, can you have a look at it...?" sure...pokey pokey.
When in doubt, AMPUTATE!
Anatomy colouring books: regressing to age 5 while also working.
BATMAN IMPRESSIONS!
The fact that we act with the grace and decorum of the average 3 year old and this is normal.
No other group is known so well by our wonderful porters; it's because we bulk-buy textbooks off Amazon and so get MASSIVE PARCELS virtually every week of term.
We're weirder than every other subject. Including mathmos. This is our badge of honour.
Everyone assumes we're normal. HAH!
People tend to assume we are hard-working and clever.
We can watch horror films and criticise their methods of killing.
Nearly getting run over. By an ambulance. In front of A&E. Surrounded by the students most likely to have First Aid certificates.
Morbid. Lovely and morbid.
See! There ARE good things. And we aren't even including the clichéed stuff!
Lots of love (again)
Felicity xxx (secret porn star?) (FIND OUT NEXT WEEK! or not.)
Julia (Cheered up a bit now)
Joanne (reanimated) (yes, we CAN do that. We just don't like to tell people)
Geraldine (still doomed. It tastes of raspberry) xxx
Medics' Survival Guide - part 1
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
*ahem*
We have just had our first Cambridge exam. It was horrible. We have realised that medicine at university is basically like having bipolar disorder: it's either great, or it's completely shit.
So, here's our antidote to the flowery, heart-decorated, cuddly survival guides that tell you it will all be fine. It will all be fine, but there will also be moments when it is anything BUT fine. There will also be moments when your supervisors write things on your essays that make you cry. In fact, there will be quite a lot of moments where you cry. It's "character building".
Whatever you do, you will get corpse juice soaking up your sleeves at at least one point every term. There is nothing you can do about this or the smell. Traumatise lawyers with this, and don't worry too much, you yourself will become inured to the smell and won't notice it much after a while.
All deodorants, perfumes and cleaning products smell slightly of formaldehyde. You just hadn't realised yet.
You make a 2kg cornflake cake for no apparent reason. This is not seen as particularly odd. Neither is you eating it in 3 days.
When in doubt, waffle.
When in doubt, waffles.
If all else fails, kill self. (We can do it properly, and we're morbid by nature).
There is no such thing as a "normal medic". These two words cannot be put together in a normal sentence. They are like hamsters and microwaves: you could, but the RSPCA would come and get you.
You will become a soulless, uncaring freak of nature. This is the natural reaction to medicine. Embrace it. (If you either don't become one, or don't embrace it, you might have a breakdown. Just sayin')
Chocolate. Solves. All.
When lectures are cancelled there is happiness and wonder and "OH GODS WHAT DO WE DO WITH THIS TIME??!?!?"
A good essay is one for which you get a single tick. That's all we want! ONE TICK! All work you do and hand in will take you three times as long as the supervisor thinks it will, and will be so far below their expectations as to render them speechless. This is Cambridge; bright isn't good enough. He will ask you if you did it in five minutes without looking at your notes, when in fact it took you five hours and you used EVERY TEXTBOOK YOU COULD LAY YOUR HANDS ON.
There is no end to anatomy. There is always more you don't know.
You get odd temptations to lick things you shouldn't. Like windows...
You go veggie on Mondays and Fridays, because you have dissections those days and if you eat meat, the taste and texture remind you of formaldehyde and make you feel nauseous.
Appreciation of the partially clothed male form is diminished, as all you can think is "oo, nice acromions!"
Penis cookies.
(It's true.)
Uterus and kidney cookies.
(Also true)
Hallowe'en skeleton costumes are no longer amusing; they are inaccurate.
During the holidays, you will have a moment where you realise that this is the least covered in dead body you will be for a number of weeks.
We suspect this is enough for now. We will sort these later into such categories as "things medicine ruins", "characteristics medicine gives you", "things only the medics can get away with" and so forth.
Much love,
Felicity xxx
Julia (doomed)
Geraldine (more doomed) xxx
Joanne (already dead)
*ahem*
We have just had our first Cambridge exam. It was horrible. We have realised that medicine at university is basically like having bipolar disorder: it's either great, or it's completely shit.
So, here's our antidote to the flowery, heart-decorated, cuddly survival guides that tell you it will all be fine. It will all be fine, but there will also be moments when it is anything BUT fine. There will also be moments when your supervisors write things on your essays that make you cry. In fact, there will be quite a lot of moments where you cry. It's "character building".
Whatever you do, you will get corpse juice soaking up your sleeves at at least one point every term. There is nothing you can do about this or the smell. Traumatise lawyers with this, and don't worry too much, you yourself will become inured to the smell and won't notice it much after a while.
All deodorants, perfumes and cleaning products smell slightly of formaldehyde. You just hadn't realised yet.
You make a 2kg cornflake cake for no apparent reason. This is not seen as particularly odd. Neither is you eating it in 3 days.
When in doubt, waffle.
When in doubt, waffles.
If all else fails, kill self. (We can do it properly, and we're morbid by nature).
There is no such thing as a "normal medic". These two words cannot be put together in a normal sentence. They are like hamsters and microwaves: you could, but the RSPCA would come and get you.
You will become a soulless, uncaring freak of nature. This is the natural reaction to medicine. Embrace it. (If you either don't become one, or don't embrace it, you might have a breakdown. Just sayin')
Chocolate. Solves. All.
When lectures are cancelled there is happiness and wonder and "OH GODS WHAT DO WE DO WITH THIS TIME??!?!?"
A good essay is one for which you get a single tick. That's all we want! ONE TICK! All work you do and hand in will take you three times as long as the supervisor thinks it will, and will be so far below their expectations as to render them speechless. This is Cambridge; bright isn't good enough. He will ask you if you did it in five minutes without looking at your notes, when in fact it took you five hours and you used EVERY TEXTBOOK YOU COULD LAY YOUR HANDS ON.
There is no end to anatomy. There is always more you don't know.
You get odd temptations to lick things you shouldn't. Like windows...
You go veggie on Mondays and Fridays, because you have dissections those days and if you eat meat, the taste and texture remind you of formaldehyde and make you feel nauseous.
Appreciation of the partially clothed male form is diminished, as all you can think is "oo, nice acromions!"
Penis cookies.
(It's true.)
Uterus and kidney cookies.
(Also true)
Hallowe'en skeleton costumes are no longer amusing; they are inaccurate.
During the holidays, you will have a moment where you realise that this is the least covered in dead body you will be for a number of weeks.
We suspect this is enough for now. We will sort these later into such categories as "things medicine ruins", "characteristics medicine gives you", "things only the medics can get away with" and so forth.
Much love,
Felicity xxx
Julia (doomed)
Geraldine (more doomed) xxx
Joanne (already dead)
Thursday, January 8, 2009
A pre-Lent update
Hello, everyone!
Cast your minds back to November, when Felicity the bike was stolen *sniffle*. I am still, obviously, broken-hearted (although...haven't yet reported it. And now I'd feel really REALLY daft walking into a police station. "Hi, my bike's been nicked." "When?" "...about three months ago...") but time is a great healer and I began to realise towards the end of last term (specifically when I spent two hours going to Occupational Health appointments, of which more some other time) that, in Cambridge, the bike is King (or Queen) of Transport.
So it is that I began to search for...not a replacement for Felicity, per se, but another, different bicycle to love in a different way. I have now found it, thanks to a lady who lives down my road who had a spare she didn't need. This new bike is called WENDY in honour of said previous owner, and is dark blue and about twice my age, at a guess. She is also beautiful, although with less of the whimsical nature of Felicity.
Now all I have to do is work out how the HECK I'm going to get her to Cambridge. And not forget a bike lock.
Much love,
Felicity (not changing my name)
xxx
Cast your minds back to November, when Felicity the bike was stolen *sniffle*. I am still, obviously, broken-hearted (although...haven't yet reported it. And now I'd feel really REALLY daft walking into a police station. "Hi, my bike's been nicked." "When?" "...about three months ago...") but time is a great healer and I began to realise towards the end of last term (specifically when I spent two hours going to Occupational Health appointments, of which more some other time) that, in Cambridge, the bike is King (or Queen) of Transport.
So it is that I began to search for...not a replacement for Felicity, per se, but another, different bicycle to love in a different way. I have now found it, thanks to a lady who lives down my road who had a spare she didn't need. This new bike is called WENDY in honour of said previous owner, and is dark blue and about twice my age, at a guess. She is also beautiful, although with less of the whimsical nature of Felicity.
Now all I have to do is work out how the HECK I'm going to get her to Cambridge. And not forget a bike lock.
Much love,
Felicity (not changing my name)
xxx
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