Visiting hour

Humour to break the ice of the frosty frosty hospital ward. But to be honest, it was pretty funny. I mean, surely there's a better name for the OAP ward than 'Harold Ward'. They might as well call it Last Chance Saloon, or better still something 'down with the kids'.... maybe 'Hollyoaks'?

And then you get up to the ward and there's this massive list of names, each of the patients in there. And they're all names you haven't seen since you last read a Dickens novel- 'Theodora', 'Gladys', 'Quentin'. So you giggle at that too. And at how they have OCD handwash every 10 metres, and at how there's two orderlies having a conversation about Ant and Dec's latest T.V show, and at how your shoes make a really embarrassing squeaky noise as you walk down the pristine corridors.

But it's not really funny. It's just something. Anything. An emotion, a noise in amongst the deathly silence and the faint but constant beep of machines that breath for the people who are too tired to do it themselves. Laughing and not crying at the desperation, the absurdity of it all.

Laughing to cover up anger, anger at how he slipped through the net, and now there is fuss and attention and help and care when it's too late, when there's nothing left to do except wait for yet another set of results saying where it's gone next. 'Where?' 'Everywhere.'

Down at the end of the corridor, a room suddenly appears around me. No doors, no curtains, nothing. 6 beds. One empty. ('Someone was there last week' my mother whispers to me.) 5 stick thin, tired men whose paper white skin stretches about gaunt and hollow cheekbones, pale lips flowing into an open mouth, each expression identical as they lay still, snoring slightly.

We stand by his bed, hovering awkwardly and unsure what to do with ourselves. Even asleep he looks deeply unhappy, his face set in a permanent frown after years of pessimism and pain. 'Francis?'. Eyes flutter open. Confusion. Then recognition. I have to move into his eyeline to be seen- he cannot turn his head. Today is a bad day. Half a minute of conversation. The briefest of goodbyes, a quick touch of hands. 'You're warm' he tells me. And then we leave. Back past the scores of handwash dispensers, back past the orderlies and the board of names. Back past the sign for 'Harold ward' and out into the fresh air that blows the smell of disinfectant out from under my nose.

My shoes squeak on the way out.

You’re the catalyst that makes things faster...

Biology practical exam today. I don't mind practicals- they're not so bad. The only problem is that whilst waffling crap might work in English or Drama apparently making it up as you go along in Biology isn't the best idea (especially for practical assessments...). My usual technique of pretending I listened at the start and then picking up every available chemical, shoving it in a test tube and heating it up for a bit clearly wasn't going to work here.

Despite my best (I say best, if I'm honest they were more mediocre) efforts I still managed to muck it up. In true CCHS fashion I give you my personal metacognative plenary. Or...

...Reasons why I fail epically at biology practicals:

1) Bunsen burners. Having to light them with a match is bad enough, but add to that the fact that I have control over a methane tap and you can expect to see a small explosion. Plus burning of hair/clothes/fingers.

2) Putting me (or anyone as equally clumsy) in the proximity of hazardous and potentially lethal chemicals is like locking a 5 year old child in a room with Gary Glitter. No. Just no.

3) My lackadaisical (yes, I DID just use that word) attitude generally bodes well for Drama but when it comes measuring EXACTLY 1.25ml of -INSERT ENZYME NAME HERE- clearly causes problems. The end result tends to be a curiously odd smelling brown sludge at the bottom of a blackened test tube and a graph that looks like a stencil outline of sonic the hedgehog.

4) I am the only non medicine applicant in my class. This basically means that when I peer around the classroom during such practicals I am met with a host of calm and professional looking faces who are ALL doing something entirely different from me. They have also managed to bring a pencil, ruler, pen, rubber, calculator, thermometer and pH probe. Well MAYBE I'm exaggerating slightly, but I still always manage to forget something and end up having to use the edge of my calculator as a ruler....

5) Tables confuse me. Especially ones that require you to know the units of anything other than time. (I'm preeeeetty sure it's measured in seconds....)

6) My brain tends to think in weird ways. E.g when I'm MEANT to be thinking: 'the overall change in pH clearly shows that the effect of temperature is...' all that will be running through my mind is: 'nanananananananananananananana BATMAN! BATMAN!'

7) I have a concentration span of approximately 6 seconds. After this time I will start doodling on my test paper/ playing with the pipettes/ trying to stop the stopwatch on exact seconds whilst my Biology teacher looks on in horror at what can only be described as the devolution of the species. As a result of this, I tend to skim read the questions/instructions and only discover AFTERWARDS what we were meant to be doing...

8) For me, the best possible outcome of an experiment is one that leaves you with a load of test tubes in a variety of attractive colours, not one that shows a positive correlation between the effects of temperature and the rate of enzyme activity. However, 'they were all different colours' (for some absurd reason) apparently doesn't count as a valid conclusion.

9) Science goggles+ me= FAIL.

10) Generally speaking, when you heat stuff up in a beaker of boiling water, it tends to get HOT. In addition, if you attempt to extract said 'stuff' from said beaker with your bare hands it is extremely likely that you will burn your fingers. Therefore it makes sense to use the tongs provided. My failure both to notice these tongs and to consider the possibility that hot stuff is HOT is an example of not only my ineptitude but also of how unobservant I am. Wins all round.

In conclusion, by examining the data given in blog post A, we can clearly see that Kathryn is a bit of an idiot when it comes to Biology, and that she should on no account be given an opportunity to repeat the investigation lest she burns down the school.

Promise you won't tell anyone but....

Secrets are pain and hurt. They are desires and wants and needs and heartbreak and tears and excitement. They are a flutter of words. A rushed whisper. A slow and drawn out confession. They are trust, sometimes naive and sometimes desperate.

Secrets are smiles and giggles and private jokes, glittering eyes and barely contained excitement.

Secrets are poison and secrets are contagious. They spread from person to person in a breath or a touch quicker than a Californian forest fire. They mutate like a virus- changing into ‘gossip’, and then openly discussed.
Secrets are a hot commodity. Everyone wants to have each others, to snatch them from reluctant lips and become the proud owners, to flaunt them in front of other friends.They belong to others- someone else’s words, someone else’s life, someone else’s desires. And yet you have to keep them as if they were your own- cultivate and nurture them and whisper platitudes and thanks to their giver. They are a hallowed promise, a show of a relationship, an unwritten sign.

They are yours. Your words. But this time not whispered to another, instead whispered over and over in your head, never to escape, batting from wall to wall inside your mind, hurting you and torturing you.
Secrets are a part of a person. They grow, and they feed on your internal tears and anguish, becoming stronger and stronger, until they eat their way out, tearing you up in the process. You have to be strong and brave and mysterious to keep all the secrets you are given, and even stronger to keep your own.

Secrets are childish. Playground games and making or breaking friendships.
Secrets are dangerous. Adult lives and making or breaking relationships.

Secrets are pushed to the back of the mind in the day, hidden by conscious thought. But they pour out in the night, when the subconscious sneaks in through the darkness, when you are left alone in the black. Sleep doesn’t stop them- they slip into your dreams and force you to confront them where there is nowhere to hide. Secrets take away your freedom and trap you in their meaning.

Secrets are arguments and lies and problems, awkward silences and lengthy pauses, confrontations and reparations.

Secrets become burdens. Light as a feather- a breath of air, a gentle whisper, yet weighing more than the earth. You pass them on if only to lighten the load.

In the end they fade and fizzle away, dissapate into nothingness after their fifteen minutes of fame. Like a Big Brother contestant or the next Saw sequel. Forgotten, unimportant to everyone except you. Because they were yours for that short time. They still are. And they still affect you. You wish you could walk away, forget them, but you can't.

Secrets are problems.