G r d Y r H r t

this song is called mistaking enthusiasm for kindness

Autumn Son

I have woken up at 6am and ridden the tram into and away from the city as the sun comes up and the mist dissipates and the streets are still and lit with soft autumn light and most are in cold dark rooms under warm sheets sleeping soundly or bleary eyed and properly dressed already with little clouds escaping their mouths waiting for a bus into work or for a light to turn green and bags under their eyes

...

and i don't love the city the same way i did last year,      and i doubt anybody ever will

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on the empty tram gliding through early gray neighbourhoods on an electric hum - a kind of peace that feels like loneliness - that lingers, and stays with you even afterwards. Nottingham's version of the enoden

should've done dentistry

Abandon all hope ye who enter here 

- Dante Alighieri, Inferno 

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I started work as a doctor 20 years ago, when the start date was 1 August, regardless of which day it fell on. It was a Saturday. I had moved 300 miles for the job and knew no one. Home was a single room above one of the surgical wards, with a collapsed, plastic covered mattress on the bed, a worn sticky carpet and an ancient wardrobe and desk. I paged the outgoing doctor at 7.30am. She arrived, shoved her pager at me and a tattered piece of paper with about 12 names on it. “These are [the emergencies] all coming in this morning. There’s 18 people needing bloods [tests]. Get all the bloods to the lab by 8.30am or they won’t run them. I am never coming back to this fucking shithole.” She walked away. 

I went to the first ward. A nurse turned from the desk and asked if I was the new house officer. I said I was. ‘Well, I’ll tell you now. you’re all fucking useless. We hate all junior doctors. And we didn’t want a bloody female one – at least the last guy was cute. Do what we tell you or we will make your life a fucking misery.’ 

It was utter misery. I worked from 7.30am on Saturday to 7pm on Monday with no sleep, one meal and about eight cups of cold coffee. That was standard for six months. I have no idea what the patients thought. I passed the time in a haze of exhaustion, fear and misery. Support was almost nonexistent. The only thing that kept me going was the thought of the years and years of work it had taken to reach this point – everything I had given up through my teens and early 20s in order to pass one exam after another. During those six months I know that at least five first-year juniors killed themselves or died unexpectedly in the UK. I understand why. I could easily have been one of them. 

- First day on the Job

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it's always puzzled me how some senior registrars seem to carry about them an apparent resentment and palpable disdain towards medical students they've never met before - how they treat we hapless fetuses so unsympathetically - but now it all makes sense. I used to think they were just having a bad day. That it was because they didn't remember being a medical student themselves, but now I see it's the opposite. They remember it all too well. From the moment you lock eyes, the first thing that goes through their head is this: 'you lot have no idea how good you have it now.'

public enemy

caring for people isn't as simple as it used to be

song of the month #1 / shinseiki no ringo san (???)

(Disclaimer: I'm no expert at music - these are just my opinions and everything I say might be wrong. Now, with that out of the way, let's get this show on the road!)

September's song of the month is 'Machine' by Chirinuruwowaka, a Japanese rock band formed in 2005 by Yumi Nakashima as a side project to her other band GO!GO!7188 (which if you like what you hear here I recommend you to check out.) The band's name comes from a sentence from the traditional Japanese poem / alphabet Iroha.

I think the main thing that catches my ear is the song's energy and verve. Right from the start, the bass drum and bass line have that stomp-y, grunge-y, in-your-face, kind of rebellious insistence that catches your attention and doesn't let go until the end. Another thing is the attitude - it reminds me a lot of that song Cherry Bomb by the Runaways - that girl power anti-anthem, take-us-seriously-or-we'll-kick-your-ass kind of attitude. And the melody is just great in my opinion, there's just enough brightness to balance out the dissonance and create a really unpredictable tension in the verse that steadily builds in intensity all the way to the chorus and then gets released once the band kicks into gear. Then it's back to a slow and steady simmer.

The other thing that really makes the song interesting for me is the vocal performance. Those little flourishes in her voice add a lot to the song. I think the fact that she has a high sort of voice - as opposed to a deeper or husky voice - not really powerful, not exactly refined either- just short of shrill- works to her advantage strangely. Her voice is high pitched, girly but she sings in a knowing and assured manner - she gives off a little bit of that worldy-wise, post-modern, everything is ironic and tired kind of vibe - if that makes sense. A kind of sweet-bitter way of singing. It might just be the diminished chords affecting my judgement but she reminds me a bit of shiina ringo, particularly from her stem and poltergeist days. And also i guess the chorus to Yume no Ato.

In summary, this song is a real rush. It gives you time in between to catch your breath, and just when you're about to catch up it goes speeding off again. That guitar tone as well. Ugh. It's got that bare, raw Pixies meets Weezer stripped down feel going for it and an uncomplicated but amphetamine inspired rhythm section that drives the song forward.

tl;dr this song is cool and fun

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Runners up:
Hoshikuzu no Pipeline by JUNK Fujiyama.
Heard this on an episode of Space Dandy. It's just - well... it's fantastic.

夜明けの街でサヨナラを [to say goodbye in the dawning city] by indigo la End
So far, it's been a J-rock kind of month. Standard upbeat 4-piece power pop with moody philosophical hipster lyrics with plaintive wailing bridge and uplifting sublimely catchy chorus. I just really like this band because everything just works. It's like they've got catchy melodies and harmonies down to a science. It's also super bright tonally, while still packing a punch. This song is off their Ano Machi Record mini-album, which was a bit too avant garde for my tastes at times but there are a handful of gems in there.

So I guess that's it for September. I enjoyed doing this post and I may or may not do another one next month, depending on whether another song really grabs my attention and if I have enough time (read: am able to overcome my incumbent laziness long enough) to write something. if you enjoyed any of the songs or have any songs to recommend leave a comment below!


alright, well y'all take care now -- don't be a stranger, hear.

oh, hold up just a minute! I almost forgot. Here, something kawaii for the road



now g'on, git

they call me doctor worm

what happened to being kind?

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i feel quite far from God at the moment. this past week i've been declining steadily, gradually deteriorating - i tried to fight it. but i can almost feel myself shrivelling up, losing mass, folding into myself again

how to ruin a sunset

Death and Destruction are never satisfied, and neither are human eyes. 

- Proverbs 27:20

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my heart only knows how to possess

memory and desire

思わず、私はカウントダウンされた

---

September is the nostalgic-est month, spewing
Freshers from hopper buses, mixing
alcohol and anxiety, stirring
gastric contents with cheap liquor.
Registration kept us busy, traipsing
gingerly across campus, feeding
a little life with hall food
and meal deals from Boots.

相変わらず

don't write 'em like they used to

wake up, my heart

maybe the reason you like sunsets
so much is cause they never last
for long
the days are getting shorter
and so long feels like forever
don't you know
that Summer is for lovers
and nights are for sleeping, fella
ain't you glad to see the sun?

pandemonium

i had sleep paralysis again last night. i had stayed up the whole night to finish writing up a case report and was feeling incredibly sleepy, but i had to be in Derby for a 9am meeting with my clinical supervisor. it was already 7am. in the end, i decided to take a 30 minute nap, just to freshen up before catching the early bus to Derby. i lay down and covered myself with the duvet and very quickly consciousness faded and was replaced by a curious scene. i dreamt i was in a classroom watching a young boy and girl converse. they stood before me, among rows of neatly arranged tables and chairs, facing each other. neither of them noticed me. it was as if i wasn't there. pale blue light streamed in from the windows and coloured everything a cold turquoise. there was no sound. i was transfixed by the two of them, but told myself not to get too involved. i reminded myself i would have to wake up soon. i didn't want to miss the bus. i continued watching them with mild fascination, in the back of my mind knowing i would have to wake up very soon. eventually, they finished talking and headed out of the room. as they were leaving the classroom i tried to follow after them, but suddenly i the observer - that is, my point of view - stopped suddenly in its tracks, unable to advance any further as if it had reached the end of an invisible tether, and i was astounded to see a phantom doppelgänger emerge forth from right where i had been standing. i watched it walk forward, away from me. i was still rooted to the spot. with a completely neutral expression on its face, it followed after the boy and girl and left the room.

my eyes were suddenly open and i was in my bed. the sun had come up and a grey light filtered through the curtains. i tried to get up but i could only move my eyes. 'oh great. not this again,' i thought, and braced myself for what was to come. gradually a ringing in my ears started getting louder and louder and a raspy voice like grating steel started speaking, gradually increasing in speed and volume, till it became too fast for me to follow - the sound was deafening. i willed myself not to listen, to ignore the roar that had filled my skull and to just focus on keeping my eyes open. my eyes darted around the room. there's no one there, i told myself. the voice in my head started to cackle. it'll be over soon, i told myself repeatedly. hang in there!

i felt my back arching ever so slightly and my body tilting like it does on ships, like gravity had shifted by a single degree. it felt like being in the middle of a stampede. like being assaulted from all directions. i felt that if i had allowed my resolve to waver, i would have been swept away into some kind of abyss. despite the delirium, i clung to fact, for if i had loosened my grip on it just a little, i felt i would be dragged under and drowned in its violent current. i quickly abandoned that thought and submerged myself in fervent concentration. i lost all track of time. i am fine. it's all in your head. you will be fine. you will be fine. i refused to think of anything else. i guess it must have been around 5 minutes but it felt like longer. as suddenly as it had come, it had gone. the rigidity and fear had left my body and just like that i could move again.

what sleeping early and eating healthy has to do with Godliness

For if because of food your brother is hurt, you are no longer walking according to love. Do not destroy with your food him for whom Christ died. 

- Romans 14:15

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I said it before and I’ll say it again: All food is good, but it can turn bad if you use it badly, if you use it to trip others up and send them sprawling. When you sit down to a meal, your primary concern should not be to feed your own face but to share the life of Jesus. So be sensitive and courteous to the others who are eating. Don’t eat or say or do things that might interfere with the free exchange of love. 

- Romans 14: 20 - 21

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But Daniel resolved not to defile himself with the royal food and wine, and he asked the chief official for permission not to defile himself this way. 

- Daniel 1:8

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“I’ll try to remember,” Tim said. “But at the moment, I’m thinking mostly about this weight. Is there a reason I’m carrying it? Is it to make me stronger?”  

 “It’s possible to get stronger by carrying the weight,” Paul said. “But for runners, strength training often happens while we are not running. This time, I wanted to help you understand something about the challenge of weight. If you are planning to run a long distance, wouldn’t you want to have as little unnecessary weight as possible?”

- Jon Swanson, Running with Weights