Other voices...

I've been following the happenings of the CEC assembly via Twitter / the blog, and it stirred up an oft-voiced frustration.

Only the first day of the Assembly and already complaints are being made as to the under-representation of women and young people. As a woman involved in church ‘politics’ (and also studying medicine – still a male-dominated profession) all I can do is roll my eyes and say ‘what’s new?’. Not that anyone would ask my opinion anyway; what can I possibly hope to know about the world at the tender age of 21 (and a half)?

In the planning stages of every church event it is said that 'we really must allow the women and young people to contribute'. Not only a patronising statement, but, inevitably, a futile one. And why? Church hierarchy is necessary (for the sake of argument) to the running of a denomination - and the majority of those in positions of leadership (in most denominations) are men. But these leaders have no more ownership of their tradition than any member of it.

Women and young people shouldn’t only be invited for the sake of balance, out of a sense of duty. We should be welcomed, because we have something to say. We have something to say that you may not like – that doesn’t mean that we should not be allowed to say it. We have brains, faith and life experience just like you.

I for one am tired of having to nag, and shout, and repeat myself until I’m blue in the face to get my voice heard. I am one of the lucky ones though – if I kick up enough of a fuss I can have some small impact. In CEC terms I am one of the lucky ones because English is my mother tongue. On a global scale a university education, internet access (not to mention access to clean water) and the right to vote give me more of a voice than others can even dream of. And with that voice comes responsibility, but that is a sermon for another day...

We – man, woman, rich, poor, old, young, gay, straight, Orthodox, Catholic, shades of Protestant – are called to one hope. We hope, together. We hope in a Saviour who embraced ‘the other’.

I have said this so many times I almost tire of it. But each time I voice this frustration it shakes me out of my own complacency, and reminds me to seek out other voices. It reminds me to listen, really listen, even if I don’t like what I hear.

I've had a pretty productive week. Mainly, I learnt to levitate :
Also, but decidedly less importantly, I passed my 3rd year exams and got a place to do a BMedSci in Public Health next year.

To celebrate, I finally got round to de-exam-cluttering my room. 2 hours and 3 bin bags later is ceases to pose any major health hazard.

I am much enjoying the community psychiatry block. I've discovered that my new favourite ward rounds involve getting the patient to come to you, while you sit in an armchair and drink tea. It's been great to gradually feel more and more part of the team, and to be able to contribute in meetings etc. Some heartbreaking stories, some great banter and some moments of absolute hilarity.

I was informed, very indignantly, by 3 separate patients yesterday, that I had a man's name. One of them still hugged me goodbye though!

Very excited for thePROJECT at the weekend - A day for the deliberate exploration of the arts, culture and faith. A comfortable place for insiders, outsiders and maybe especially those at the margins of the church.

Alas Sunday marks the last week that our lovely Shona will be at church, before she leaves to take her awesomeness to her new congregation.

So that's me!

How to make orange* soup...

*the colour, not the fruit

Vegan friendly =] dedicated to Herb the herbivore to whom I keep promising a soup recipe.

Gather some ingredients. Generally you want a portion of protein, a portion of carbohydrate and a portion or two of fruit/veg for each serving. So for this (4 servings as a main course) I chose 2 cups of red lentils as my protein, 2 cups of brown rice for carbs, 2 peppers for my veg. You also want a large onion. For this recipe I add a tin of tomatoes, a sweet potato, 2 red chillies and a thumb size chunk of ginger. Pink chopping board optional, but awesome.
Find a decent sized pan, preferrably quite a heavy one with a nice thick base. (Then figure out how to get the damn thing out the cupboard).
Roughly chop the onion, top/tail and de-seed the chillies and chop them into tiny pieces, peel and chop the ginger into tiny pieces.

Put a large dollop of oil in the pan and put it on the heat. Wash your hands thoroughly, with washing up liquid - you don't want chilli juice in your eyes, trust me. Fill the kettle and put it on to boil.

Fry the onion, chilli and ginger.Peel the sweet potato (you can use a regular potato peeler) and chop it roughly into thumb-size pieces. Chop the peppers - don't worry about being neat, it's all going to be blended anyway...
Whack it all in the pan and give it a stir.At this point you want to check you remembered to boil the kettle.

Then chuck in your lentils and rice. Keep stirring it so it doesn't burn to the pan.

Yes, that is a Jack Daniels whisky glass.

Add the tomatoes and 3 cups of boiling water. Stir it all together.
Let it all come to the boil (big, slow bubbles) then pop a lid on it and leave it for about 1/2 hour. Keep an eye on it and give it a wee stir once in a while.

If it's boiling over, take the lid off. If things are sticking to the bottom, add some more water.

Once it's done, take it off the heat, add a couple more cups of water and blend to the consistency of your choice.Once it's blended you can keep it in the fridge for a good few days, or freeze it (best to split it into individual portions to make defrosting easier...)

When you're re-heating you can add some other veggie goodness to change it up a little. Today I put in a handful of frozen peas, but sweetcorn or spinach would work well also.
Eat with yummy bread...

Omnomnom...

I'm back...

So, nearly 2 weeks after exams finished, what on earth have I been up to? Bullet points methinks...

-Firstly, during exams I managed to (in no particular order) pull the ear off the auroscope dummy, hit myself in the nose with my tendon hammer and introduce myself variously as a first year, a second year and errrr... one of the GPs here, I think. I also spectacularly failed to find a lump in the most ridiculous plastic-breast-things I've ever seen.

-Also, you know you're a medic when... the last line in your exam paper is the patient died. You know you're a Glasgow medic when... the last line is the patient died at home surrounded by friends and family who had been appropriately counselled.

-Saw In the Loop. Amazing. Best film ever. Learnt some wonderful new insults which I have struggled to avoid using in relation to a certain former minister of mine.

-Enjoyed the shortest post-exam holiday of all time (a leisurely three days), of which a good portion was spent studying.

-Started my next module, community psychiatry. Soundtrack in the car has been somewhat interesting (spotify 'whalefish' by mr scruff for illustration). I am forcefed tea on an approximately hourly basis and spend a couple of soul destroying hours every day reading through the world's longest patient file. Learning a lot, especially about schizophrenia, and looking forward joining in with art therapy on Friday.

-Eating lots of ice cream. Well ice pseudo-cream. Realised how much I love living in the city when I was able to buy vegan ice cream when the fancy took me at quarter to midnight one evening.

-Still entirely in love with St Mary's (or should I say the Episcopal Cathedral of Saint Mary the Virgin?). There is so much love I don't even know where to start, so instead I shall tell you that if you ever visit you should look out for the rocket painted on the ceiling.

-Myself and Holly (with regular guest appearances by Beth, Coralie and Emma) have perfected evensongchipsday. It is a thing wonderful in its simplicity. First there is evensong, then there are chips. Sometimes pakora. Then there is Desperate Housewives (although, the season finale aired last week...*sob*).

-The first barbeque of the season was rained inside, but was awesome nonetheless. Then there was Emma's wonderfully sunny birthday barbeque.

All-in-all a rather spiffy couple of weeks. I have however failed in a most epic manner to return my room to something approaching tidy. I should get on that...

Winter photos that make me smile...

Lutzi at my birthday
Stevo bashing out some carols
Dad and Marcus taking a break from carol singing
Emma chilling out in the awesome chair
Emma and Holly with post-yogi chai smilesCat the cookie monster

Hannah the fencing queenAndy - high five!
And finally George being a tad emo...

My Sunday afternoon...

We sat on a train, but it didn't go anywhere, so we took a picture.Then we went in a car, and it did go somewhere, and this is where it went :


There was a paddling pool...
And Uncle Robert got splashed...
(as did the author, but the camera was unfortunately misplaced at that point in proceedings...)

A lovely afternoon was had by all.
Happy birthday Emma!

If you happen to bump into me in the next 10 days, please overlook the fact that I will compulsively wash my hands before gabbling hellonamegeorginathirdyearmedicaskyouquestionsok?

It's that strange time of year again. Exams are looming and we medics have even less chat than usual. We wander round with a strange, and slightly manic, glazed expression muttering strings of greekylatiny oddness that sound like magic spells, but are in fact the buzzwords of such-and-such-itis-mc-opathy acanthosis, leucocytosis, hyperchromasia. That's not to mention the random strings of letters MI, MEOS, Gly380Arg, COPD. Please don't get me started on drug names. According to my rheumatology notes, injecting God into muscles can help with arthritis. That's some interesting theology right there. Hmm.

Aside from all things medic there's been awesome (new since January) church, and I'm still trying to drag the orchestra brats and bratettes through Ode to Joy. That and lots of girlybrainlessamerican tv, too much diet coke and the occassional hot-cross-bun.

You can find me hanging out on Twitter if you're missing my bloggyblatherings too much - I'm @george_ina - I'll be back after exams, promise.