While I was

Browsing youtube for the sake of doing something just so I didn't have to be studying, I stumbled across videos of a guy playing christian songs on his guitar. Got so caught up with learning new chords that before I knew it, the magic hour 10pm was upon me. The hour that I know if I haven't done any work at all by, I'd feel pretty guilty.

Anyway, before I stumble off unwillingly, here's something else I found:





It's finally happening; the long-awaited follow-up to Revelation by 1a.m. If you're back home in April, this is one event you should go to. We're talking divine stuff here k. They're really friendly people too, which helps! :-)

Rom 11:22

'Consider, therefore the kindness and sternness of God; sternness to those who fell, but kindness to you, provided that you continue in His kindness. Otherwise, you also will be cut off.'

Romans 11:22

The apostle Paul is speaking to the Jews in Rome of their salvation, the fact that God chose them, the Jews, to be His chosen people. The same salvation that was also extended to the non-Jews, or Gentiles was a matter of some dispute, which Paul wanted to address. In this passage, however, a warning seems to be sounded to both groups of people.

Paul seems to break God down into being kind or stern here. To both Jew and Gentile, God issues a warning of the consequences of a life spent without involving Him at all. Having read this and countless other warnings in various parts of the Bible, sometimes I'm not surprised that many people see God as

someone who forces people to make a decision that:

1. they don't want to make.

2. they don't see the need to make.

Whereas few grasp the fact that God has made the decision easier for us, by going some way to investing Himself into the process. Where many see God as the 'enforcer' of such decisions, even fewer see Him as the saviour; the one offering a solution to the problem.


In light of this, the verse above seems not so much a rebuke, or even a warning to us. Rather an earnest hope expressed by our Father.

'Consider...'

Day 5

Forgot to take my camera out as I slept before dinner. Had 2 hours of tennis which wore me out no end today. Plus the realisation that I'm not studying enough made me a bit desperate.

Anyway, tonight's dish saw a 2 course meal, starting off with breast of chicken stuffed with herbed cheese and wrapped in a rasher of bacon. It would have made a nice photo, especially since I recall we didn't use any of the floral plates Jeng and Ling were talking about (they're hospital plates btw, not ours).

Dessert was bread pudding with double cream. The downside is we have half a pot of unused double cream now sitting in the fridge, with a short half-life. I'm open to suggestions as to how we should dispose of it.

Day 4

French onion soup and Thai pork toasts were the order of the day today. However they failed on a number of levels: the onion soup was a bit too salty probably due to the beef stock being inadequately prepared. Possibly the lack of wine helped out there too. And the pork was a loser from the start due to the fact that we only had minced beef to play with.

I was quite happy with the softiness of the onions, however, and I made so much beef toasts that I'll be eating them all the way into tmrw at least.

Day 3

Ed managed to up the ante today with Chicken Kiev. Describing it to us as we ate, he apparently rolled up a cut-open chicken breast with frozen butter flavoured with garlic and other stuff. Then dipped it successively into egg, breadcrumbs and left it in the oven. No mess, no fuss. The kitchen was relatively clean when I looked so that was good news for me. Less stuff to clean up. I think we're doing pretty well so far.

Day 2

Today was a masterpiece. HP came up with a so-called 30 min recipe consisting of baked salmon with rosemary, with an accompaniment of asparagus and lemon drizzle. Roast pots on the side completed the dish.

1 hour plus plus later, dinner was served. And though a stray plate of fried rice stole its way onto the table, all of us knew the bar was raised for the week.

Day 1

The short and long of it: The 3 of us Chinese flatmates have decided to go a week without using any rice in our cooking. Why? Just to prove to ourselves that we can, really.

I started the ball rolling with grand plans to make Welsh rarebit.

Trouble was, I hadn't planned ahead, and when I found out Welsh rarebit was more a supper dish than a substantial dinner, I realised I had to come up with something else. Reasoning that Welsh rarebit involved utilising some beer, I decided to use the rest of the beer with some leftover casserole pork that we had lying around.

Remembering that we had some lettuce that was going bad, I decided to make a salad using some carrots and fried breadcrumbs.Narrowly missing burning the toast and cheese under the grill (which is what Welsh rarebit basically is), I served dinner with lettuce, pasta and beer pork about 1 and a half hours after starting.

Overall, it was a pretty poor start to the week, but because everyone had waited so long for dinner,everything got finished up all right.

OMG

My cousin can always be depended upon to come up with brilliant recipes for something or other...however (bad culinary pun incoming) this has to take the cake!

Check out a recipe for badger stew.

Medicine

Last 2 weeks was easily the busiest I've been since coming to the UK. I finally started Medical rotations with the forewarning by HP and Ed that this would be the fun-nest and also busiest rotation of the year. Which is not good news as it stretches out all the way to exams in June....have to keep on my toes, and blog less, possibly.

So there I was, starting with Rheumatology for 2 weeks. Simply put, it was a lot of fun, plenty of gripping moments where I had to decide on the management of MY patient: what tests to do/order, whether I'd missed out anything important before deciding someone was fit to be discharged, interspersed with moments of boredom on looonnnnggg ward rounds.

Things I've particularly enjoyed:

- Finally getting a successful cannula in a patient(!)
- Having the responsibility of managing a patient (well, within limits) in the admissions unit
- Getting used to venepuncture and examining patients
- Brushing up on my Xray, ECG readings and interpretation of blood test results
- Presenting cases, being quizzed about my patient
- Having docs who write "Thank you John" in their notes after a successful clerk-in (ego boost!)

Things I could do less with:

- The responsibility wave that comes crashing down when you wonder if a patient you discharged is actually fit for discharge, even after senior review.
- The realisation that once my name is signed on a test result, case notes, etc means I have been recorded as having participated in the care of this patient, and if something were to go horribly wrong....
- Realising I still have a long way to go to build up my stamina for long days and the ability to make critical decisions even at 6pm after being in since the morning.

Things go downhill a bit from here I'm told, due to the fact that the team I was with gets their students involved the most. Was fun while it lasted though. Back to the books for now, however.

Not everyone is having a good day

"Blessed is He whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord his God" Ps 146: 5

Though things get rough, they could always be rougher and this would still be true.

"When hope is lost I'll call you saviour,
When pain surrounds, I'll call you healer,
When silence falls,
You'll be the song within my heart."