atomkinder

The most jaw droppingly stupid man is sat opposite me on the train. For the last several minutes he has been trying to talk to someone on the phone using a pair of headphones which clearly do not have a microphone and, I suspect, don't actually fit the phone he is using as his music was still coming out of the phone's speaker before this call.

He has now given up with the call and is subjecting the carriage to a blast of static. Oh joy. Just as well it's pissing down with rain otherwise I'd have nothing to look forward to.

I've been reading the proposed changes to the current NHS student support arrangements because you know, I'm that kind of fun guy and I'm giving myself the afternoon off from assignments as I always try to do when I've handed something in.

One of the reasons I'm back at university at all is because of the differences in student support arrangements for NHS funded students. We have our tuition fees paid and we receive a means tested bursary, although this does disqualify us from the means tested portion of the student loan but is importantly, not repayable.
I do however feel somewhat cheated by the National Health when selling me this course, the implication was that as I would be supporting myself I would get a full bursary and the same loan as other students. These were the figures I used to make my calculations with and ultimately made my decision on. It turns out that I do get the same loan as other people, other people who have independent means or rich parents, as my NHS bursary is taken to be an income, where as a part time job for which I earned the same amount would not be. I also don't get the full bursary, I get the full basic rate of bursary to get the full £6000 a year as I was quoted one has to be supporting one's self and have dependants and a disability. While I don't begrudge people with children getting a higher rate of support, and heaven knows some of my friends with children find it harder than I do to make ends meet, it would be nice if I'd known the the quoted figures didn't apply to the 'average' student. The nature of the support I receive makes it more complicated, read it leads to a labyrinth of paperwork, in order to access hardship funds and such like. I have no illusions that I am disproportionally hard done by, all students are being screwed over by a supposedly Labour government, the less said about the recent CBI recommendations the better, and what I understand of America only the rich are allowed to go to university at all.

The options presented in the public consultation mostly consist of re-balancing the means tested, bursary and loan amounts, adding more here, taking some there. A couple of options listed talk of minimum income levels, a surprise when it comes to student support as I have always been under the impression that we don't count when it come to calculating those living below the breadline. One in particular stands out as it is what most people I have spoken to on this subject take to be the ideal situation, that of the NHS actually paying student nurses, student radiographers, and students of all the included healthcare professions a wage for the time they are training. Under this proposal we would receive national minimum wage, which is higher for those over 22, those classed as mature students, paid as a salary from the NHS along with all the NI and tax contributions this usually includes. This seems to be the best option for students, especially mature students, it would provide more than just a non-repayable source of income, it would provide a sense of security and link the work we do in placement and in academic to our earnings. We have longer terms than almost all other students in the university, no undergrads have longer, a fuller timetable, more assessments and are expected to maintain professional standards throughout our course today, for example today we were advised not to use facebook as unbecoming photo's and comments can appear all to easily and lead to allegations of unprofessionalism which are on the rise. I have also worked in departments where student radiographers have been relied upon to fill gaps in staffing cover over short periods of time, only to have to be unable to come into work as I have run out of money for train fare. While we are unqualified and only ever working with supervision I can't help but think that if we were paid for the time we spent working in department then we would feel more a part of the team and it would not be unreasonable for us to be relied upon more.
There are many details to be clarified with this proposal although I'm certain they will never be, as it is by far the most expensive of all options put forward and as option one is to do nothing, the cheapest suggestion, I have no doubt that the government will fall short of providing the best possible future for the NHS.

You can keep your digital manipulations and megapixel arms race



This is what portraiture and fashion photography is all about.
RIP Irving Penn.

The last few weeks have been interesting. I'm back at uni, almost a month before the rest of the university started, meaning that anything I wanted or needed (like food, or a printer) has been unavailable in any of the university buildings near the science faculty. I handed in my first piece of work only to be told off for handing it in to the wrong office despite the correct office not being open and my self imposed system of work dictating that work must be handed in as soon as it is complete to stop me going over it and spoiling it. This whole second year thing is scary in all my years in higher education I've never been in the second year and I'm not sure I like it, there's a lot of work although frustratingly much of it can't be started until I go on placement next month, which is driving me mad with a to do list which isn't being done (I live through lists, I swear one day I'm going to realise they have "breath in, breath out" on them).
On the subject of the rest of the university, they started back today, you could tell they were students, I had three people step out in front of me on my way in. Good job I'm getting good at dodging moving targets, ringing my bell (I do love my bell) and shouting profanities all at the same time.
Other than looking forward to placement, which is at a hospital I'm less enthusiastic about than I could be, uni isn't all that great at the moment, a summer of not really working has left me financially worse off than I was before the break and my brain's response to this is to work harder and longer which would be fine if the student loan company paid overtime, if you see me off visiting people and places but looking hungrily at passing children you'll know why.

Back to my bumper book of anatomy and physiology and the chapter on the renal system. Joy.

Yes, I am still alive. This is all.

Because I can't think of the words right now.

Picked up my camera the other day, finally got a film processed. There are about half a dozen I'm quite pleased with but I've put more up on flickr (linked from the image) just to have something up to show. I do miss film and playing with filters, I know people like Adobe Potatoshop but you don't always need it when you can get results like this without it.

I have just seen on the university portal that my marks form this year have been confirmed and I seem to have passed. Although my brain won't actually accept this, I'm still waiting for a letter telling me something has gone wrong or it was a clerical error.
Regardless of this I have a gripe with my marks, perhaps best explained in this email I sent to my lecturer.

Hi Mark
A quick question. I have just seen that the unit marks have finally
been confirmed on the portal today, however my work based leaning mark
has almost halved in the process. I turned in reasonable performances
in both talk-throughs, reflected in the artifact marks on the portal
and received 75% for my patient journey, an assignment I re-wrote in
it's entirety this yeah without reusing material. As for the clinical
paperwork and competency framework you said that I have "met (and in
many instances significantly exceeded) the minimum clinical thresholds
for progression". The only grey area is that of the Polly's signature
on the white paperwork, which has yet to be updated and still says
fail.
Is this the reason for the reduced mark, in so much as that unit will
now count as referred despite me not having to actually produce
another item of coursework? While of course I am please to have finally passed
the first year (over the last nine years, this is my third attempt,
although not all radiography) the lustre has been taken off slightly
by what I considered my stronger area becoming, statistically
at least, my weakest.

I'd be grateful for any clarification you could offer.

Jon.

The answer I receive basically amounts to "Because them's the rules" plus a lot of explanations of things I already know.
So yeah, passed, with a good mark in some units but a really shitty mark in the unit I actually cared about and I felt exemplified my abilities and worth as a radiographer. I am beginning to feel that the emphasis on this degree is more on teaching us to fill in paperwork and jump through clerical hoops rather than actually teaching us to be radiographers.
Here's to the second year.

Also: My bluetooth mouse has stopped working and may now be broken as I've just thrown it at the wall on the other side of the room. I hate fucking laptop trackpads.

I don't know how many people still read this, and of those, how many people know that once, many years ago I went off to university to study photography.
Well it wasn't a real university but that's not important. Even at sixth form I didn't have the shiniest camera, being the poor son of a retired post office clerk, and felt rather limited in what I could achieve technically so I concentrated on darkroom work, and achieved what I thought were some interesting effects. Once I got to the Institute I realized that this and my lack of an art and design background plus my greater interest in the technical aspects of photography, was holding me back, especially as people were increasing experimenting with emerging digital technologies, which despite being 'good with computers,' wasn't exciting me in the same way that the smell of developer and the art of hand printing did. I seriously doubted that the course was right for me and got a job and dropped out, everything went a bit squiffy in my life for a while after that. I kept my camera and had a flirtation with digital while working in a photographic processors/camera shop, I decided digital is all well and good for snapshots and as a tool in multimedia work but is not like real photography, it lacks, for me, the essential properties of photography, even with a digital SLR it's just not the same.

Recently I've been feeling a bit directionless during the summer break and watching a couple of bits of television about artists (mostly desperate romantics if I'm honest) has made me want to revisit what I've come to realise is best left as a hobby. This combined with The Din being rather good and ever so enthusiastic, if somewhat digital, has inspired me to get out, and literally dust off, my old, classic film camera. I've gotten a little carried away looking at lenses, filters and vintage cameras on ebay and have decided to remove from my photographic sphere all the things which put me off in the first place, I've been trying to find a cheap source of Ilford FP4+ and HP5+ and someone who does dev & scan a reasonable price (my one concession to digital, the end, rather than the means) in the local ares. As it happens the local shop who does do this has had their machine break so I am sat here with an exposed, unprocessed test roll of HP5 and a roll of XP2 ready to go so expect black and white film images to start appearing online some time soonish.
As for the undeveloped roll of B+W, I have always wanted to develop my own pictures at home, I have the know how, just, if I can remember but not the chemicals, having found a recipe for developer I am very tempted to give it a go but at the moment I can't really spring to the ingredients needed for such a venture. One for the future perhaps.

So two months ago today I was hit by a car. My bike was totaled, the frame completely bent, the guys in the shop I took it to said I was lucky to have walked away from it. The people who hit me didn't want to do things legally, they seemed to want to keep it off the books as it were. So I decided in the interests of peace and cooperation to just get them to replace my bike at what i paid for it, rather than drag them over hot coals through court and get the >£1000 personal injury claim I would have won plus a replacement new for old bike on their insurance. They seemed to have other ideas, despite telling them on the phone that the bike was unrepairable, even my little knowledge told me that it was so obvious, they seemed to have a repair budget of about £50 in mind. Any assertion by the repair shop that the bike was fuckered was met with disbelief and suspicion even though both wheels were now being held at a diagonal to the centerline of the bike. Nothing I could do would convince them that I was not trying to pull a fast one and get a new bike out of them unjustly. Eventually I convinced them to give me £220 and piss off, this was approximately what I had spent on the bike second hand a couple of years ago (down from £995 new) plus the service it'd had a week before the crash (although they don't know I tagged that expense on too). I believe the last words they said to me were something along the lines of "There you go, you've got your two hundred sheets and I don't want to hear another fucking thing about it". Which I thought was a little harsh as I'd been so accommodating, if I had their address, or any contact details other than a mobile phone number, I'd be tempted to sue them out of malice for being such arseholes. So I'm now the proud owner of a ridgeback comet, a bit a change form the old-but-top-of-the-range mountain bike I had before, faster but then it would be, it's set up and geared for the road.

A couple of weeks ago I started to feel fairly rough, I thought it was a combination of physical work to which I wasn't accustomed and working outside in the rain so I persevered, after all, don't work, don't get paid. On our last day Brad and myself said that we were glad we had some time off as we were both feeling unwell, in different but potentially similar ways. That evening I fell asleep on the sofa as I am wont to after a day spent lifting and carrying furniture and when I woke up I felt like I'd been hit by a train. A big one. Carrying headaches, tiredness and fatigue, joint pain, muscle aches and chills. This continued over night and upon calling the doctor in the morning she confirmed that I fitted the profile of symptoms and probably has swine flu. She prescribed Tamiflu and faxed the prescription through to the pharmacy for my 'flu-friend' to pick up. This strategy didn't work so well as she managed to fax it to the wrong pharmacy who then forwarded it to the branch of their company who did carry Tamiflu, which was fucking miles away. There was no way I could make it that far in my state, even on the bus and I'd been left on my own for a couple of days while my flatmate went out to London and Southampton to some gigs. I convinced them to deliver it the next day, which they didn't do, the day after that I was beginning to feel very slightly better and they finally delivered the pills late afternoon. Gradually after that I began to regain my health, apatite, thermo-regulation, that sort of thing began to return after a couple of days and soon enough I was feeling much better. Once the symptoms had gone and my one weeks quarantine was up I was able to leave the house, although I didn't know how, or how to react to things I'd all but forgotten about: weather, other people, you get the idea. Eventually I made it out to go job hunting, unsuccessful, people haven't even returned my calls, I'm not sure I want to play phone tag chasing minimum wage. Although I live in hope of Jessops and Moss Bros. calling as they were the only two who looked pleased to see my CV.

Today I was visited by two characters from my past, and very pleased to see them I was too. It's funny how people's lives progress and continue on when you're not around to see. They stay the same person but change over time just as you realise you have yourself. Funny old thing time.

A couple of days ago I was going to write some musings here about sifting through the kipple of the National Health Service and what the things I've seen says about the way we treat our sick and ill. And then I caught swine flu so it seems rather a moot point I was going to make.

Here is something from Dina's journal:

Comment and I will:

1. Tell you why I befriended you.
2. Associate you with something random, a song, a colour, a photo, etc.
3. Tell you something I like about you.
4. Tell you a memory I have of you.
5. Ask something I've always wanted to know about you.
6. Tell you my favourite user pic of yours.
7. In return, you must post this in your LJ.

KMFDM are playing in London in a couple of weeks and I really don't think I can justify the expenditure involved in going. I have so many things I want to do this summer but such limited funds. It's not just the ticket but the journey costs involved too. I hate not having a car, public transport is so expensive and untrustworthy.

Quick update before I get out of bed and go get some breakfast.

I have, for the last week been doing manual work for an agency as they couldn't get me into something more genteel and more suited to me skill set quickly. I've been down at St. Mary's hospital which is closing down, we have been sorting furniture so basically I've been lifting and carrying bedside cabinets, desks and assorted bits of medical equipment on and off of lorries all day for five days. Not the sort of thing I'm really built for but it pays none the less. To be honest I really don't like it, the working environment and people with whom I'm working are so far outside my comfort zone that it puts me off going in even though the work isn't actually to terrible. But as I said, it pays.
Yesterday, in one room of the warehouse appeared the first ever x-ray equipment I used, where I learnt my most basic techniques. I knew it was being decommissioned but I had no idea it would end up with us, I checked it over and it was definitely the same machine it was held together with duct tape where my lecturer pulled one of the handles off while demonstrating how to move the equipment safely. As I was looking wistfully at it one of the chavs salt of the earth working class chaps I'm there with came over and started poking it, asking what it was so I told him what it did and just as he poked the tube head said "that's the bit which produces the radiation" I've never seen someone jump so far from a bit of scrap. Little things keep me amused.
The main problem with this job is the need to wear safety boots, I have plenty of very comfortable boots but none which are proper safely ones or that I wanted to get wrecked working in so I bought some cheap ones which would conform to their requirements but the trouble is they rub, even through two pairs of sock they rub. Everywhere. After five days on the job I have what amounts to open sores around my feet and on the bottom too, making it hard even to walk to the sofa as it sends shooting pain up the nerves of my leg, I tea-leafed some dressings from the junk we were taking to the tip so I might bandage my foot on Monday, to see if that's any better.

I'm only looking one week ahead there at the moment as The Din is coming to visit for Industrial Fallout next weekend, which is pretty much the only though keeping me going as I'm lifting filing cabinets heavier than I am off the backs of lorries. It'll be so nice to have her here again, hopefully with less cat related allergies this time. Also after Nightshift last week I'm looking forward to going out dancing again, I know I dance like to loon sometimes but it's the best way to replicate the drunken dancing feeling while sober. Dancing, I find is very much like sex, fun, until you wake up the next morning bruised and sore you get out of it what you put in, I've given up the Slimelight punchy dance for exactly that reason.

In other news, Griggs Senior is out of hospital and seems much better than he was before hand too. While no one's expecting vast improvement he's better than he has been in a long time so things might finally be starting to look up.
I have decided not to resit the exams from after the accident, I passed them (by a hairs breadth is some cases, but passed them none the less) and the actual mark doesn't count towards my final classification so I'm happy to leave it at that. Unless anything else comes up, I still have some unconfirmed marks which I have yet to hear back about, I should finally be finished with the first year! Four years I've spent at university over the last nine and I've never passed the first year, as soon as those marks go purple on the student portal I shall be so pleased.

That turned into a journal entry of the old school, a long ramble about thing's that have been going on in my life rather than short cryptic entries. Feels good man.

Right, breakfast.

an aardvark.

So most people here will know that I don't smoke and that I no longer drink alcohol or do drugs. I've been wanting to write something about this for a little while, not that I have anything to get off of my chest, I just thought it was worthy of comment.

I quit drinking for two reasons, well that's not quite accurate but it's close enough. The main reason was that my drinking was getting out of control, I've never been one for half measures (literally or figuratively) and living alone with an Iceland store on my way home from work didn't help. I'd tried cutting down which was fine until the next time I went for the 3 for £10 deal and ended up with two empty bottles the next morning, every morning. At the same time I was also very interested in a girl who because of her cultural background and past experience didn't really trust people who had been drinking.

She introduced me to the Qur'an which has some interesting things to say about alcohol, firstly it says that alcohol (and games of chance) have benefits for man but also dangers, so it is advisable to avoid them entirely. Later it goes on to say that the consumption of alcohol makes the drinker behave in ways he would not want to otherwise and takes you away from the things which you should be doing in your life. While I appreciate the text actually means prayer and such like when it says this but it was no less true for the access course I was almost failing and the relationship which was not happening. Armed with some eloquently written thought on the subject (as well as some concerned phone calls from friends and ex-lovers) and topped off with an absolutely horrible experience at a party a week or so earlier I decided that I would indeed get the girl, kill the baddies and save the entire planet.

This was a little over two years ago. And I haven't touched a drop since. Even the free Baileys shot in the restaurant the other week. I know it's a control issue and I know that out with a friend I could probably just have a couple, and probably have a good time but once it's ok in my mind to have one I'm certain I would slip, probably slowly to start with, back into my old habits. There are a couple of my old friends who think I should start drinking again, I'm probably more fun when I'm drunk and I don't blame them for wanting to see me having a good time, I'm sure they would stop me going too far but they won't be around all of the time and I can't afford to mess up my education again. I also don't like the idea of needing someone there to keep an eye on me, that's far from the person I think I am capable of being.
The other thing keeping me from drinking again is that I have, at risk of sounding like a self righteous straight edge kid, come to spurn people who absolutely have to get shit-faced in order to have a good time and measure how good a night it was by how drunk fucked were, probably as this is far too close to home for comfort. Although that said I have only recently started having a good time when out around drunk people while sober, I also did something recently which I have never done before and probably was a catalyst for being able to commit all of this to keyboard. I went clubbing with someone who was drinking and got fairly drunk, I had a good time and felt thoroughly comfortable around them. This may have been because of the particular person I was with, who I do think is rather great, but I think that I have turned a corner and am finally more comfortable with myself which may mean I shall finally be able to feel less self righteous as a personal defence mechanism.

So perhaps I finally feel comfortable with the decision I made all that while ago. It's taken time to incorporate it as part of who I am rather than having it like a hump that is all people see when I walk into a room.

They first came for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.

Then they came for me.
And by that time, no-one was left to speak up.

Pastor Martin Niemuller

Right, I suppose I should finish the story.

I did indeed take myself off to hospital yesterday afternoon, although in retrospect I may have been a little concussed as it took me over an hour to get on the correct bus in order to get a couple of miles down the road. The nurse gave me something of a bollocking for not seeking medical attention sooner as I was still bleeding 5 hours after the accident, he cleaned me up and did all manner of tests to make sure I didn't have any sort of interesting brain damage. He also made sure that I'd not damaged my kidneys which lead to much hilarity a I was still too shaky to hold the sample pot still enough to piss in without dropping it. Eventually he stitched the hole in my head, which included shaving a section on my hair, I have yet to be brave enough to look at how much he took off yet and I now have six sutures about three inches above my left ear. As he stitched me I could feel him doing it but thanks to the local anaesthetic, not the sharp sensation of the needle going through, which was very strange. I took my mind off it by talking to him about extended role practitioners in the NHS as this is an entirely nurse practitioner run unit and I had just been reading about how radiographers are to start reporting, prescribing and discharging patients over the coming years. I've been told not to get them wet until I have them out in a weeks time. I can see me wearing a hat quite a lot for the next few days, especially as the wound has been weeping during the night and my hair is once again matted together, lovely.

Well it looks like my bike is a write off, I'm sure it could be fixed with time, money and skill but I have none of these at the moment, which is a shame as walking is slow and buses are inherently not to be trusted to get one anywhere on time. If anyone knows of a nice light men's mountain/commuter bike going for pennies, do let me know. Also my favourite glasses have been totaled too, which I think explains the bony tenderness above my left orbit, I have spares but they're really uncomfortable and i spend more time taking them off and looking at them than I do wearing them. And again I'm looking at £60 for some basic ones.

Anyway, enough moaning, I'm still alive and at least I didn't break any bones.

Also: Having been up and about for a few hours now, my head is clear enough to tell that my head isn't entirely clear still, but I suppose that's normal given the circumstances.

I was knocked off my bike again this morning, realy propperly, like you see in the telly when the cylist goes up on the windscreen of teh car and everythign. I'm ok, but I pitty the fool who has to mark my biology exam, i don't think is was my finest work.
Feel free to send tea/pizza/triage nurse.

So far this week sucks.

What the actual fuck!? I have another puncture, the second this week and the ebay seller has shipped the wrong item. I give up, I might torture some patients for the lulz.

Placement has been going pretty well, with the exception of today when everything in department broke, two x-ray rooms, the CT scanner, the processing machine, you name it, it wasn't working.
I had another puncture this morning on the way to the hovercraft. Oh my dear gods, I'm sure it can't be acceptable to have to repair a puncture every two weeks. I'm getting really sick of getting half way to my destination and having to get off and push because my back tire has gone flat, again. I even had my bike serviced at the weekend at no small financial cost so it can't be something wrong with the bike it has to be the lousy streets of this shithole of a city. I may give up cycling if this continues much longer, I means it's fun but I'm really not sure it's worth the arse-ache.

Today also seems to have made me unacceptably hungry, I've had two meals already and snack bars in my breaks too, what's wrong with me. All of this added to the fact two people accused me of looking French has made today quite strange and I'm begining to wish it were over.