Where have all the mountains gone?

Having been back just over a week, I thought it might be time to report briefly on my trip to the Alps, which was excellent. Rather than spouting out a load of boring words, I thought I'd provide the following, in imitation of (and tribute to) a certain Mr Breakey.


(See big versions of the above and a few others at my Flickr page.)
Lest I give the wrong impression, I should say that most of what we were climbing was low-level rock, not big snowy mountains. But unfortunately, when actually rock climbing, one's photography is limited by one's requirement to keep one's partner alive by belaying him :)

Strangeness

Hoo-ray, exams are over and I have spent the last few days lying in parks, shooting small coloured balls at friends and strangers, sleeping a'plenty, and spending obscene (but worthwhile) amounts of money on climbing and camping equipment, in anticipation of heading off to Chamonix next Monday. Exciting!

On a much more interesting note, they've found an old piano under a cairn on Ben Nevis. Fantastic. I love it :) They say it's a mystery how it got up there, but I found this site which, along with mentioning the successful conquering of the Ben by a Ford Model T, a horse and cart, and a bed (pushed by Glasgow Uni medical students, no less!), names one Kenneth Campbell as having "carried a piano to the summit and back". Now I'm not one to point fingers, so in the spirit of fairness and justice, I think we should come up with some non-Kenneth Campbell-related explanations for the presence of a piano on the Ben. Over to you guys!

Hot tips and brain blips

Well, first practical exam of the finals over and done with. It was not particularly pleasant, but I'm hoping it will be the worst one, and the exams on Friday and next Thursday will be like a warm jacuzzi in comparison. I'll keep those fingers crossed!

In other news, my dear flatmate Chris Gaston has been hiding away in his room for some time crafting some wonderful songs which he has now blasted into cyberspace through his site on MySpace. I think he's got some great songs; check them out and leave comments on here if you like (you need to be a member of MySpace to leave comments there).

Oh, and here's a picture of a snow leopard, which could yet be my new favourite animal. Am I good to you, or am I good to you? Don't answer that.

Adventure

Snatched a few blissful hours of sun and rock yesterday and today with Adam, Iestyn and Dave Leonard. Climbed the two hardest routes I've yet done outdoors. Struggled on both; hope I was safer than I felt. Succeeded; enjoyed myself immensely; but thought a bit about consequences and risk - occasionally sobering, amidst the fun.

"A life without adventure is likely to be unsatisfying, but a life in which adventure is allowed to take whatever form it will is sure to be short." (Bertrand Russell)

What form will I allow my adventures to take?

The passing of time

Woohoo! Well, my first final exam paper is behind me, and I have just one written paper (tomorrow mornin') and three clinical exams (over next two weeks) between me and some kind of medical career thing. And it seems like only yesterday that I was in first year: fetching water from the Murano St well for my morning ablutions, cycling down to Uni on my penny-farthing, and... er... whatnot.

My colleagues and I were noting today the extremely rarified patient populations that written exam questions seem to be based on. You don't even need to know their symptoms to diagnose them; just their age and a few key adjectives will do. In exams (but thankfully not in real life), all smokers develop lung cancer, all IV drug users develop hepatitis or HIV, and every youngish female has anorexia, orSLE or some other autoimmune disease. Everyone develops classical consequences of their disease too, which is also handy in diagnosing them. If only real life were like that.

I'm compiling a list of interesting medical facts for medical geeks and "laypeople" alike. The fact for today is: smoking protects against Alzheimer's dementia, Parkinson's disease and ulcerative colitis. (The list of diseases it predisposes you to is, however, too large to put here).

I can tell I may need to work on the "interesting" bit.

We haven't just been told, we have been loved.

Listen (legal and free). If you fancy it. Unfortunately, I could not find Happy Birthday, by Sufjan Stevens, online, which is my song of the moment.

Amusement

I'm so glad that things like this still happen (in Northern Ireland, at any rate), to remind us of the persistence of happy chaos in this often overly well-ordered world.

Can you imagine how the pilot must've felt when he realised? You can't exactly cover it up...