cheeky

one of the biggest things i've taken on this year is doing up a flat for someone very dear to me. it's a labour of love because omgosh i've been on a home-improvement fix for the past few months. of course, there's a builder for the professional stuff but i offered to decorate, without realising how much time it'd take. and how much harder it'd be to coordinate deliveries as, well, it's not my flat and i'm not there normally. but i did truly enjoy the process and if i may say so myself, it's looking mighty fineee. scored these sweet placemats (cute but poor quality, boo!) and thought they were so funny. and maybe i'll post more photos of the "after" to show you the finished product. instead of doctorlawyerindianchief, maybe i should rebrand myself as doctorlawyerinteriordesigner. ah, if only. i love how what's in my head manifests in real life when it comes to decorating. spent hours and hours sourcing for furniture and cute little things to make it a home. like the funniest poster of a monkey sitting on a crate drinking gin, to match the pallet coffee table we found on ebay. and the little banksy wall mural for some edge, and using mirrors to make the place look bigger. it's stuff like that that really gets my creative juices flowing and hmm i'm just so happy it's a good place for N to be based for the next five years.

the travelogue thus far

so at the beginning of this year i wanted to travel every month, something that didn't seem all that realistic given the mister's crazy work schedule, and my being a full-time student. ah take that back, if i don't travel when i'm in school, then when would i? :) so far we've been really lucky to escape london on a monthly basis. popped by a beautiful hotel in the lakes for a cheeky long weekend right after my january exams, and went to norway the weekend after for some breath-taking fjords. we spent chinese new year back in singers with family and friends, then come march we used my easter break to go to the galapagos! this stretched into april and that brings us to may. 

may's exam month but we do have a couple of bank holidays which may or may not (pun unintended!) be spent ignoring roadtrip's siren call. in june, we turn one (or six!) depending on how you look at it and will be eating our way through paris then barca for our first wedding anniversary. and because we can't get enough of france, it's back to paris (yay eurostar!) but probably roadtripping wine country in july. the mister has something up his sleeve for august, and so do i. might just be our busiest month yet with singers, phuket and bruges lined up. 

clinicals start in september so we might be limited to a monthly weekend getaway, be it national or continental and come december, why do i have the feeling santiago might be calling...

 

(photo from the hotel website!)

almost there

now i know i bang on and on about living next to the local but really, what good is having local pub that isn't next door? then it'd actually involve effort to get there and that defeats the purpose, doesn't it. love how i can rock up at all hours, sometimes in pjs, for a naughty pub grub lunch, or a cheeky pint if it's within acceptable drinking hours. there's something about when the shadow of the dog's tail is longer than (?) which i take to mean after noon. or three pm in the northern hemisphere. the local has a good mix of, well, locals and their dogs, and lots of students who emerge at happy hour. it's been the centre of many a good catch up and i feel sort of sorry for dragging my jetlagged friend, C, there at 11pm just because. she ordered a whiskey sour and uhh they didn't even know how to mix it! the bartender had to ask one of the regular ahpeks for help. hilarious :) 

anyhoos after we were mostly done with osce yesterday, we'd a little debrief at the local where everyone contributed one "wish i'd..." to the table. as they say, there's no perfect osce and it could've gone a bit better, or worse. thankfully it was a short list and we concluded we're unlikely to fail :) then drank up! last year at this time, we congregated at a little hippie tea shop in town and re-auscultated each other over himalayan monk chants and vegan sandwiches. how time flies and second year is almost over! soon to embark on my annual venture into to the amazing clubs (haha) this city has to offer. having had a ghastly experience with the mister at f*abric when we got back to lunnon after our wedding, i've been most wary.

and while this isn't the local, couldn't resist snapping the spring flowers by the fire escape.

covent garden spoils

one of the nicest things about being based in london is the steady stream of visitors. we spend most weekends entertaining friends in town and despite it being the height of exam season (eek!) was no exception. one of the other nicest things about london is a lovely, almost instantaneous, support network of family friends who check in on us recent transplants every now and again. on friday, aunty L happens to live just a few streets away (aha! a benefit of living in taitai territory) and invited us to our local italian. but a dinner invite on its own just would not suffice for this classy lady, and we started with an aperitif (or three!) at hers before moseying over to lucio's for a fashionably late dinner. now i'm hooked on the idea of aperitifs at home and fingers crossed i can convince our next dinner date to come all the way to ours for pre-dinner drinks :) saturday was a whirlwind of activity. we'd met a lovely sydneysider in ecuador last month and madame jetset happened to be visiting the chelsea flower show this week. as we'd bonded over our shared love of fine dining, it seemed apt to invite her to JR's l'atelier when she was in london. the food was amazing and because of some a miscommunication (oopsy, our bad) we somehow scored complimentary amuse bouche round two and extra starters all round. whoop whoop! my inner el cheapo was pleased. the mister and i went wandering around covent garden after and quite accidentally stumbled upon an early first/sixth anniversary present.

Y, my oldest friend, also landed in london saturday evening and made her way to ours for drinks. so glad to have caught her in person before she disappeared to camby to walk down memory lane. having not seen her since our wedding, it'd been too long even if we are in nonstop whatsapp contact. oh the wonders of technology.

linked up with my darling didi on sunday and finally made it to patty*bun. ugh. it's so faddy and i detest having to queue but we went by relatively early and didn't have to wait too long. phew. after an abortive attempt with C a few weeks ago when the queue was just ridiculous, those burgers were sweet satisfaction, as were the chicken wings so tender the meat fell off the bone. the stuff of dreams...

monday has been amazing so far with osce prep and i think loving mondays is a sign that i'm in the right place, doing the right thing. yay :)

some days

especially after a good clinical session, i'm on cloud9. venepuncture with a vaccutainer in under 90s? check! OSCEs in two weeks and i can't wait to start clinicals in september. i'm bursting with enthusiasm, overwhelmed with gratitude and so so happy to be en route to becoming a doctor. finally! medicine tickles my brain in a way nothing has before, and i find myself subconsciously mulling over strange names and stranger viruses.

and other days, i want to be a stay-at-home mum. granted i need a kid to qualify and uh they're not on the agenda for awhile. in fact, i'd a nightmare last night when i told a recently preggers friend what i really thought. which i think makes me a horrible person because in real life i acted thrilled for her and, well, happy she's in a place where she's ready for a family. but then in my dream, i told her i felt really sorry for her for being saddled with child so young and how she'll never get to enjoy being a wife without being a mother. and then i asked if it was unplanned because they're religious. and then i woke up and was all like, "why am i so mean?!" so i wonder if i'm secretly envious, if that's secretly what i want and it manifests in some strange way where i'm hating on some innocent pregnant woman. then i think about how i am already having trouble keeping my poor potted basil plant alive (we are on v5 in as many months) and how i like being footloose and fancy free, i like having a comfortable disposable income (thanks mister!) and how i don't like / want children enough to have my own at this point.

SO.

i mean why have a kid now and take time off at my own expense when i can get 6 months maternity leave from the n*hs in a few years.

maybe it's just the imminent exams talking. was chatting with G today (she's got 5 kids...) and she said her exam-time fantasy is to stay home and grow vegetables while tending to chickens. point being, when having kids no longer seems to be a viable "out", something else will inevitably take its place.

and that concludes the easter travelogue

thank you for reading thus far :) it was a whirlwind trip and we're so grateful for the luxury of time. to be able to disappear for almost three weeks is not something we've done since undergraduate days. ecuador was amazing and i think we're onto something here! we really need to keep going west because anything east of lunnon can wait till we're back in singers, much as i miss our friends down under. on a side note, someone commented that she wished she'd gone to my uni because it looked like i was always traveling. uh, i wish? have been quite good about only traveling during uni holidays and was wondering if maybe she didn't get holidays while at uni. but holidays are only good when you know you've worked hard before, and need to work hard after. a perpetual holiday (not working, not studying, no kids) sounds great on paper but would probably meander into some aimless existence if it played out in real life. plus i don't think my family would be too pleased if i suddenly kicked my feet up and did nothing! come to think of it, they already think i'm doing nothing! it's as if i'm housewife first and student second ;) and that's when i realise looking after a husband and home is really such a doozy compared to school. it's fun! i love cooking and cleaning and decorating our flat. i maybe like pharmacology a bit less. 

and then on the weekends when the mister goes for schmoozy lawyer lunches, i get to tag along. which's great because it reminds me of my past life, when "hearing" takes on a different meaning than what i'm used to. it's no longer examining the cranial nerve VIII "so, have you noticed any changes in your hearing lately" but appearing in front of a judge-type person. and "fighting fire" is no longer what i do in the kitchen when yet another culinary adventure goes horribly wrong but real life client management. little things like that, really. had a friend in town last weekend who used to be a big four consultant before crossing over to medicine. funnily enough, her office was on the same street as where we'd dinner and we were talking about how different our lives have become since the quarter-life crisis. she's 10kg lighter than her corporate self, runs marathons and has also qualified as a yoga instructor (!!!)  how awesome is that? i don't think i'm very different, but maybe that just shows how ill-suited i was for the big bad concrete jungle. shrugs.

but summer is coming and in a couple of weeks i'll be done and dusted with school. we've some interesting plans. a couple of short jaunts lined up, siblings and cousins in town and lots of exploring londontown because the weather's good and i'm trying not to use my oyster*card till i've done 70 rides on foot instead... ohnikewhydoyoumakesuchawesomeshoes :(

ocelot

this baby ocelot the hotel is trying to reintroduce to the wild followed us for a good part of our intro walk. oopsy. it was so cute and attention-seeking but we were warned that it was vicious (having bit our guide last month :/) and you know how nasty infected cat bites can get. shudder. but the trail was super manageable, it felt a bit like bukit*timah hill even! and i liked how our guide tailored it to our pace and interests. upon learning that i was a medic, and the other youngling at the lodge (it was basically the mister and i, a lovely canadian lady who didn't look a day over 30, and 8 almost-octogenarians...) was a GP, he took it upon himself to point out every single plant with medicinal value. which was good fun as we tried to think about pharmaceutical compounds that went into making the meds, and got into big debates about big pharma and its exploitation of ecuadorian resources. such nerds, i know.

a little luxury

after what we'd presumed to be a rough n' tumble time in the galapagos (it wasn't. we actually put on weight despite the full day activities. just goes to show how well we were fed! and those hotels, ohmy, ultimate comfort) the mister thought he'd find something in the highlands for us to chill. little did we know that it'd be as action-packed as the galapagos, but in much better weather. it's a humble hut in the middle of the forest and what i really liked was how it's changed the lives of the locals. they've gone from being cow farmers to butterfly spotters and naturalist guides. and the hotel has given them training and health insurance. of course, the staff must think we're crazy to spend so much on a mere bed. i mean, how do you staff a hotel with people who've never left the village, much less set foot in even a guesthouse? before the hotel was built, it was untouched wilderness. and now it's minimal impact building but construction nevertheless. the chef shared a story in the car ride back that the staff were almost all from the nearby villages and how training them was an exercise in patience. one young cook even tried to garnish chocolate cake with pickles, because "if you can do it with kiwi, why can't i use a pickle?" now how do you begin to explain why...

cloudy day in quito

having bid guayaquil goodbye once again, it was off to quito. much preferred quito and the weather was perfect! if only singers had 18deg weather too! taxis were safe to ride again and we found ourselves at old town. of course, trust the mister to navigate us to casa G for lunch -_- so many places in old town but nooo, we've got to go to where the brits hang out... but it was a good call and lunch, casual as it may have been, was impeccable. little did we know that the chef at the lodge we were going on to had come from casa G. small small world!

why being married is good for me

back on mainland, i'd a little surprise waiting. knowing how hard it was for me to spend 10 days in the sun, sea and sand, the mister had ordered blooms, bubbles and a massage :) oh the mister, he spoils me so. now i feel like a right royal ingrate for whining about how he was pushing me out of my comfort zone and making me do all these outdoorsy activities i ordinarily would stay very far away from. and yes, i did have a great time in the galapagos and recognise how blessed i am to have been there with such a wonderful group of people. when i told S that the trip was the mister's idea and how i don't usually go out in the sun, he was almost hurt when he asked incredulously, 'so you didn't enjoy any of it then?!' and no, that's not true. i'd go so far as to say i enjoyed the 10 days immensely, in spite of myself, despite not being able to bathe for the first 48 hours. and that's why i need the mister - to constantly push me to my limits and beyond because i'd be a very boring person if left to my own devices.