If the week that has just passed was a rollercoaster it would have been only suitable for training purposes for the Russian airforce!
Last Saturday started with a great day at a friends wedding. To see a close friend in such a great place just made me smile. (I have heard there are few other theories on why I was smiling). It was a truely great night.
The morning after the night before, I awoke in a bed in a friends house. Looked at the wallpaper and thought, “that could do with a change”. Then I realised I wasn’t in my own house and I wasn’t going to be changing the wallpaper.
As Sunday progressed it dawned on me that my checklist before starting medicine was now complete. I had nothing left to do apart from just turn up . Two years of planning and the last thing on the list was Nicci’s wedding. Now two years had disintegrated into one day.
So as the evening dawned I sent a few texts to people who needed thanked for keeping me sane during the planning process.
As the alarm bounced like a flea on speed on Monday morning and the backup radio sounded. I had already been awake for twenty minutes.
As I arrived at Queen’s I sat in my pre-designated seat and awaited the next five years. The morning rattled through the various intros. I soon realised that I hadn’t seen anyone who would be allowed to drink in the US. I suppose this panicked me a bit being Gramps but it took until the afternoon to realise that there were at least ten of us.
As the week continued I gradually began to realise that I had to get to know a ‘new’ generation and it slowly became less intimidating.
On Wednesday I realised that the other thing I missed since last being at Queen’s was the buzz of the uni at the start of term. The ‘freshers Bizzare’, really is a conglomerate of energy that tries to sign up students to all sorts of miscellany. It also attracts the raging hordes of freebie seekers. (Yes I did get some free pens, t-shirts and mugs). The only club which really tempted me was rowing. I await my ideas of drinking PIMM’S and Magners on the river to be smashed quite soon.
So Thursday eventually came and with it came news which I had been waiting for some time arrived. One of my longest and closest friends dad had died. As I left Belfast that day and headed towards his house I stumbled through the recesses of my thought process as to what to say. I kept focusing on making sure I avoided chat about dissection room, cadavers and all that stuff. As I got to the house and inside I realised this was one time where I was lost for words. I had nothing to say. It was then that I realised this was the first parent of my close friends and he was probably one of, if not the best equipped to deal with it.
Friday was a day of lectures which could have been done via directed reading.
Today well it was just surreal. To attend the funeral of a friends parent puts the rest of the day into context. It suddenly makes falling down the stairs, trying to work out if rugby training was on or off and finding out that the first of the next generation with my family name had been born and no-one told me seem rather irrelevant and meaningless.
So for one week I probably can safely say,
“It was the best of times it was the worst of times.” (Charles Dickens).
Posted by theofficeinthestoreroom 