CRAFT Syndrome

I did a little revision today. Started with the layers of the digestive tract, which could almost be described as histology but I'll not call it that as it puts me off. I have a thing against microscopes, having only ever seen my own eyelashes upon trying to look through them. They get in the way somewhat. So yes, revised exciting stuff about circular and longitudinal layers of muscle and all that, in the hope it might spur me to look at some things happening inside cells. See, the whole time I've been at medical school I've managed to avoid learning much about anything that's smaller than a cell. Enzymes, G-protein linked receptors (they seem to come up a lot) and the likes have always been put to one side. I think it comes from my hatred of A-Level Chemistry (and my Chemistry teacher for that matter), any time anything sounds vaguely like it's going to require me learning a molecular structure or at least knowing something about chemical bonds I tune out completely. Unfortunately for me there seem to be a lot of these sorts of things this semester, what with the kidneys doing such wonderful things with ion transporters and the liver having a lot to do with glucose. Sigh. I'll learn it all later, I've still got 9 days til my exam.

So instead of revising, I then went to Starbucks. It was a nice walk and I got to show off my new hair. My housemate coloured it for me yesterday. There was a small accident involving a large gloop of hair dye on my forehead which made me look like I'd been using cheap fake tan, but thankfully that had disappeared by this morning. I'm left with very shiny hair and no awful roots.

We also tried to create our own passport photos using a digital camera and a white wall in our living room. I have a job interview tomorrow and I need to take photos with me, presumably for ID badges, so I'm sure they don't need to be exactly to passport spec. I loathe photo booths. Being unfortunate enough to have very pale skin I always come out as a floating pair of eyebrows and dark hair. The only time I've managed to get some nice ones I'd made the schoolgirl error of wearing a strapless top, and so for all anyone could tell I was absolutely starkers. Since sixth form I've used my school photos for any form of ID, but I think I'm just going to have to accept that I am no longer 16 with waist length hair, and I do own GHDs. But if I can't get a photo I like tonight they will just have to do.

Stumbled across a brilliant facebook group yesterday, 'Good Lord I'm Dying... the Medical Students' Curse'. Reading through hundreds of members' comments I realised I'm not the only one that has discovered how dangerous a little information can be. I have previously worried about having all sorts of problems, all conveniently linked to that week's PBL case. I've been diabetic, suffering with osteoarthritis, chronic fatigue syndrome, ankylosing spondylitis, an alcoholic (before reading the contraindications for using the CAGE questions- apparently you can't use them for students, we're all too proud of what we drink), lactose intolerant (true actually, and it was nice to understand why)... the list is pretty endless. However this course did teach me that I am actually anaemic, and that I guess was fairly useful to know. I think at the minute my only big problem is a particularly common one in medics before exam time- CRAFT Syndrome (or Can't Remember A F*cking Thing).