my week #208 - four years of this feature!

I can't believe it's been four years since I started this feature. Four years ago, I was in the final year of my first degree and now I'm in my penultimate year of medical school. How time flies and if you'd told me back then that I'd be just over a year from being a doctor, I think I'd have laughed it off as a mean joke!

Anyway, this week was actually pretty good. Breast surgery is really interesting and it made me realise that I'm a much bigger fan of open surgery rather than laparoscopic stuff. Breast surgeons are also really nice and have a great sense of humour. Friday was my theatre day and it ended up being a hilarious and educational experience! I love days like these :)

How was your week?

year three: term two essentials

Third year is going by too quickly - I can't believe I'm 2/3 of the way through my penultimate year and before long, exams pending, I'll be 3/4 of the way through medical school. I definitely feel like I'm doing something I love with medicine and I don't regret choosing this journey. It's not been an easy one, that's for sure, and (without going into too much detail) balancing everything has made me grow up a lot and also made me a better student for sure.

Anyway, enough sentimental talk! Onto this term's essentials. I've mainly been on surgery (with the exception of a few weeks' where I was finishing paediatrics, had a week of palliative care and also a week of lectures).

From right to left: Hobonichi Techo, Oxford Handbook of Clinical Surgery, Diamine blue-black ink, Pilot Vanishing Point in Raden, Lamy Safari in Coral.

I've barely had time to study this term but fortunately, I'd done most of the hard work prior to this so all my revision notes are in place. My Hobonichi has been priceless in organising my daily and weekly timetables (really important for surgery as we have to keep a log book that gets handed into the admin people at university) and I love how well the Tomoe River paper takes fountain pen.

The Oxford Handbook has been super helpful when in clinic and when I urgently need to look something up! In terms of stationery, I've gone through a fair bit of Diamine Blue-Black ink this term too (I think it might be my favourite ink out of all the ones I've tried). My Lamy Safari and Pilot VP have seen the most use out of all my pens this term too.

I've managed to keep up journaling at least once a week so far this year. This journal my sister got me for Christmas has been great - the paper takes fountain pen extremely well and the prettiness of it makes journaling a pleasure. My go-to pen for writing in it is my TWSBI 580AL.

Finally, I definitely don't drink enough whilst on placement and these Bkr bottles are helping me improve on this. Each of them hold 500ml - one comes with me everywhere I go (clinic, ward round, etc) and the other one goes in my main bag. I know I said I would review these bottles and I promise I will soon!

That's pretty much it for my second term - it's just flown by and knowing that I'll be a doctor next year is a scary but exciting thought!

in search of the perfect blue-black ink #6: diamine blue-black

Here, I venture further into the bottled ink world (I am still pretty new to all this!) in the form of Diamine Blue-Black. This was actually my first bottle of any shade of blue-black ink and so I've had the chance to try it out in a number of fountain pens: Platinum 3776 Century Nice, Pilot Kakuno, Pilot Vanishing Point and Pelikan M400. The great thing is that it looks good in all of these pens and I can't imagine it looking bad in any pen at all. So much so that I think we may already have a winner. However, I still have a few others to try yet so let's not jump to conclusions...

Previously tried blue-black inks: Platinum blue-black cartridges, Pelikan Edelstein Tanzanite,  Diamine Twilight, Lamy Blue Black cartridges and Diamine Denim.

How it looks in my notes (written with a Pelikan M400 in EF):

Diamine might just be my favourite ink brand... (And no, I've not been paid to say this!)

my week #207

My two week break has come to an end (say whaaaaaaat) and I feel like I've not done much at all! This week, the weather has turned nicer and as a result, I've definitely felt my mood lift. The clocks going forward have also helped.

With the release of Me Before You in June, I thought I'd take this break as an opportunity to read it properly (the first time, I only got to half-way before putting it down). I'm always apprehensive about seeing a film after reading the book as I've found that, on the whole, film adaptations don't tend to do the book justice...

This week was meant to be the end of my three month shopping ban but unfortunately, I only lasted two and a half months. As a result of this, I'm going to do another three month block in May, June and July. I'm going to write a list of things exempt from this (food, essentials, a limit on how much I'm allowed to spend on entertainment, etc) but it'll mainly be for clothes, shoes and beauty products (first world girl problems, eh).

How has your week been?