finding it genuinely hard to relate to freshers 'Oh what course?' 'Ah is that hard?' 'Oh what hall?' 'Ah I see...' 'That's pretty far isn't it' 'Ahhh...'
and I wonder if it's because I'm not trying hard enough, or if maybe I'm just too old
or maybe a bit of both
why is it - so hard to be interested all of a sudden? am i maybe asking the wrong questions - or maybe not asking for the right reasons
---
The skin of the knuckles of Mrs. Tagus is drawn tight and dry, and when she unfists the fist to let me comfort the hand I feel the skin crinkle like paper. Me: unfortunately also skin like paper. I look at our two hands. If my late Sandra were here with us this night I would say, to her only, things concerning oldness, coldness, trouble with stairs, paper-dry skin with brown sprinkles and yellowed nails, how it seems to Labov we get old like animals. We get claws, the shape of our face is the shape of our skull, our lips retreat back from big teeth like we're baring to snarl. Sharp, snarling, old: who should wonder if nobody cares if I hurt, except another snarler?
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
---
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
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.
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.'
(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
---
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
--- 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
