Success!

Am I Wonder Woman? I just might be! (Sshhh.... it's a secret!)

With a little help from my superpowers, after an 8 month battle with the people from whom I bought my cell phone, I went into the store and kicked some major ass today, resulting in a beautiful, shiny and very expensive new phone. For free! I was even mature and managed to resist choosing one of the phones just because it was pretty and pink. Yah me.

The laptop is back as well - it is not 100% better but it should last until I can save up for a new one. Welcome back to formatted text and images for added blogging pleasure. I did promise the regular features would be back...


SVEN OF THE WEEK Thankfully, there are not really many contenders this week. People who are jerks to me at work are a constant in my life, but I guess they have been the biggest stressor this week. It is not worth listing here the reasons people feel they must urgently call an ambulance and attend the ER, as you would not believe the ridiculous crap people attend with even if I told you. But why bother to come, wait around to be seen, then refuse to accept the recommended treatment and kick up a fuss? Stay at home and save yourself and us the stress.

And while I'm at it, if I manage to get the chance to offer you a drink (and no, it is not my job, I'm not a waitress, I do it out of the goodness of my heart and a desire to care for people), PLEASE dispose of the plastic cup or at the very least leave it somewhere visible. I only have a short space of time to clear the cubicle before bringing in the next patient, and it does not help when you hide them under the mattress, stuff them behind the door or in the storage drawers. Why do you do this?!?! The garbage can is right there and surely the easier option!

Rating:

4 penguin pokes, out of a possible 5

They win: A free plane trip to a third-world country, so they can see the kind of healthcare the world's less fortunate people have to contend with, and maybe realize how lucky they are to have free, effective health care.

WARM FUZZY OF THE WEEK

Well, that was quite a rant! This much nicer award goes to another family I encountered at work. Let's call them the Kaur family. They were absolutely delightful, the whole family. They were friendly, polite and understanding. There is a long story behind it, but basically, they were my favourite patients ever, we had a good chat, and the next day they returned twice to the department (I had not started shift the first time) to give me a hug and some chocolates as thanks! This is fairly normal for nurses on the wards but we never get chocolates or even a thank you in the Emerg!

Rating:

5 creme eggs, a perfect score, for making me float on air and grin like the Cheshire cat the rest of the day. My first proper thank you in 2 years!

They win: A great big smile from me. What more could you need?

T.Y.P.D.K.A.M

4) I skipped a week of university to go on an all-inclusive holiday to Greece and drink lots and lots of alchol. I then worked 14 shifts in a row, starting 7am the morning we arrived back in England, to make up lost time.

Fashion Tips From The Crypt

I am a devoted waxer. It is true. Some of you have been fortunate enough to hear my horror stories. But yesterday I decided to go a little different and get the old eyebrows threaded.

For those of you not familiar, you get tilted back in a chair and a woman leans over you with a skein of thread, which she holds between her teeth and somehow uses an ancient technique to shape your brows. The exact process, I'm not sure of, because my eyes were screwed shut tight. Slightly painful, but it was a success. I came away with brows beautified.

I should have stopped there. But I didn't. I got obsessed. I decided they were not celeb-worthy brows (what is our generation coming to, hey? Constant comparing to celebs). I read somewhere a while ago that celebs trim their eyebrows. My precision nursing scissors were sitting there, beckoning. And the mirror, telling me my eyebrows were not up to scratch.

So I did it. BIG mistake. Remember the trend for boy-bands in the early 90s to have that 'notch' in their brows, a la Vanilla Ice. Think like that.

It's bad, girls. Let this be a lesson to you all. So for the next few weeks, brown eyeliner is my friend.

Sigh.

Thanks for the comments. They have inspired me to blog :)

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

It is snowing here. No, really. Sometimes, as a resident alien in this country and a patriotic Canadian, I have an inner struggle against making American-style ethnocentric comments, ie:

"You call THAT steak?!"
"You call THOSE mountains?!"
"You call THIS snow?!"

But for once, this is comparable to a real Canadian blizzard! It has been coming thick and fast for over 24 hours now. Slightly exciting! And compliments to the Limeys, who have coped surprisingly well, unlike last time it 'snowed' (for about 2 minutes, melted as it hit the ground) and people were stranded in traffic jams for over 8 hours. And my plane to Belfast was cancelled due to "unpassable snow on the runway".

RANDOM THINGS I AM THINKING ABOUT THIS WEEK:

~~I can never write the word 'beginning' without thinking of Mrs Sewell. It must be a disease.

~~The things people put in their baskets at the supermarket never cease to amaze me. I wish I had a job where I could reasonably interview people and find out why they are buying these items. Case in point: This Sunday, while buying ingredients for my steak and ale pie (yummy, thank you), the young university students in front of me had in their trolley:
5 boxes of Ferrera Rocher chocolates
2 packs of coconut milk
16 2-litre bottles of Nestea Ice Tea
6 loaves of cheap white bread
Tins of peaches and tomatoes
4 cheap air fresheners
Some baby cough medicine

What could they possibly be planning? Discuss.

~~I wish I was not so driven by whim. I decided today I wanted my hair cut and coloured. Now. But of course I can only get an appointment next week. I am now grumpy. I always do this. No foreplanning, just a sudden desire to cut my hair/book a holiday/get a new tattoo or piercing/cook an exotic meal/go to a local attraction I have heard about. And always, the attraction is shut (due to it being the middle of winter), the ingredients are not in my store cupboard (really, who among us has ready to hand 8 pounds of goat cheese, or whatever these things require) and more organized people have rudely and thoughtlessly taken the appointments I desire (If you are one of those people who take their diaries to the hairdresser, and book their next appointment while they are there, I mean you. Damn your perfectly planned lives)

~~In normal life, I am not a raspberry fan; give me strawberries any day. Yet, my shopping basket always has organic raspberry youghurt in it, and I had a personal crisis this week when they only had strawberry flavour left (I didn't buy it)

~~My laptop is back. Alas, not working. I miss it so much, and there are so many fun things I want to share with you guys (photos, videos, fun features) that I just don't know how to do on this Apple.

~~No comments from friends and family. Hmmm. Google Analytics has completely flatlined my blog, apparently I have had zero visitors for about 3 weeks now. I miss the little map the most, that shows you where people have been visiting from, and guessing who it was.

~~Neighbours is getting so good. It ended with a real cliff hanger today: Who is the real father of Sky's baby? Is it Dylan or Stingray? Will this ruin the brothers' relationship forever? Can I possibly wait until Monday to find out, or should I search the Internet to find out?

~~I want veneers and laser eye surgery.

T.Y.P.D.K.A.M.

3) I was in the Model United Nations in high school. Yes. I represented the grand nation of Costa Rica. Yes.

Happy Anniversary to Me!

Who would have thunk it. I have been in England 5 years today! Ah yes, good old 2nd February, 2002 (02-02-02, how could I forget!) So innocent I was.

Lindsay: The Innocent Baby Student Nurse, 2003

All your favourite regular features, as well as some semblance of text formatting, will be back whenever I get my laptop back, sometime next week I think. Until then, Flatmate Matt has kindly let me use his Apple, which although fancy and expensive, doesn't like letting me do very much (that's right Lindsay, blame the computer!)

I'm off to celebrate. I'm sure the etiquette guide says the appropriate 5th year anniversary present is a free trip to New Zealand....

Have a cup of tea on me to celebrate with this handy voucher: www.freecupofteafromlindsaybecauseshelovesyou.com

*Voucher only redeemable in Iceland*