Has your beard grown today?

Today was a good day - and I can actually say that I have enjoyed the course for the first time, this week. I think this second semester has been very different to the last one and we seemed to have moved on to more clinically related stuff.

Our exam results are out next Wednesday and I think things could come crashing down. I worked hard before the exams but don't seem to have done enough during last semester. As explained in an earlier post, you can only fail one exam in the first year. If you fail more than one, you have to sit "THE QUALIFIER" which is the exam from hell, which is sat (I think) at the end of July. If you fail this, you have to sit a viva and if you fail this, things are grim. I think that if you have extenuating circumstances you may be allowed to resit the year, otherwise it is curtains.

Anyway, today we had reproduction which is taught by this amazing professor. He doesn't even look at the PowerPoint slides as he teaches and really is brilliant. He was telling us that in men, beard growth is directly in relation to testosterone levels and he mentioned an experiment that an anonymous chap did some time ago. This chap had a job where he spent a few weeks collecting specimens on an island and then came home to his missus and then went back to the island again. He must have been really bored because he decided to start measuring his beard clippings for growth every day, to see what his testosterone levels were doing.

He found that when he was on the island, his beard clippings got shorter over the first week and then (As he was preparing to come home to his wife) they got longer. Thinking about his missus raised his Testosterone levels and made his beard grow! I thought this was great! I don't live with my husband at the moment (Only at the weekends), but after eight years of marriage, I should think his beard shrivels back into his face towards the end of the week.




What's he been thinking about then!





I have been reading a brilliant blog by the Angry Medic. His posts are spot on and much easier going than mine! I sometimes hear a funeral march playing in my head when I am writing these posts so seeing a happy, young man who is also a first year medical student puts things into perspective for me. I keep going back to this point, but I would so love to have done this course at 18. I think I would have had a ball.

More good things - I dreamt about Patrick Dempsey last night. We were on holiday in Tenerife (As you do) and he was walking around in little shorts (I'm surprised I didn't wake up a bearded lady). The funniest thing was that, being the married old bugger I am, I even felt guilty in my dream. It was a very clean dream though! He just seemed to be keeping me company and bringing me cups of tea by the pool. I watched four hours of Greys anatomy last night, which must have been the culprit.











Last bit of news for today - Snoop and P Diddy are in Manchester on March 29th and I have managed to get great seats. Nice one!