Friends

Aah, the first part of my university life is drawing to a close and I’m sort of having these moments of reflection quite regularly. Friends made, funny things we said, the pranks we played. Some “in jokes” that a select few will understand and some… well you had to be there, lol. Just thought I’d share some stuff with you :)

Someone was struggling with some software late one evening. The guys being helpful as always;
Imran/Riazul: “Heh. Look at this… Intel inside, idiot outside”. A few seconds later… “Damn that was a good one weren’t it? Hai, hai?”
Fits of laughter from everyone, plus a telling off from the librarian.

1st year Microbiology lab –
Colm: “Morning all” He grabs his lab schedule from the locker and walks into the lab.
Dr Parkin: "What the hell do you think you are doing?”
Everyone turns to look. Colm still has a cup of coffee in his hand! Bad move. Especially in front of the head of department. lol

1st year lectures and everyone is really rowdy for some reason.
Dr Tobin: “Right settle down. If anyone is still talking by the time I’ve finished counting, you’re out of my class!” *Everyone rushes to their seats* “5…4…3…2…1!”
Riazul: *whispers* “Happy New Year!” as he takes a seat behind me.
Dr Tobin: “You there!" (he points at Riazul) "GET OUT!”
Riazul: “Err Saima your b/f is way out of order! Not cool”
Dr Tobin: “OUUUTTT!” Riazul was the only one to get kicked out of class that day, lol.

1st year, Iffat gets caught texting during the lectures. Dr Tobin takes her phone off her. Pretty soon everyone realises what has happened and starts sending text messages and missed calls to Iffat’s phone. It’s ringing and vibrating like crazy and Dr Tobin can’t seem to switch it off. He looks up, shakes his head, laughing with the rest of the class and beckons for Iffat to come to the front and sort it out.

Testing out lung capacity in year 1 –
Me: “Right next test. Who wants to have a go at the lung spirometer?”
Mahria: “I’ll do it and you can do what you need to do.” I get Mahria hooked up to the machine and go off to find a calculator.
Me: “Zahida, keep an eye on her, she might feel a bit faint. Stop the test if she does” and I walk to the front of the lab. I walk back just in time to see Mahria nearly faint and fall off the stool and run to catch her.
Zahida: Laughing and horrified, “Oh I’m so sorry. I forgot about her!”

Measuring our pulse and heart rate in 1st year physiology. In pairs - Zahida and Mahria Vs Meera and I, are working side by side.
Mahria: “Saima, I can’t find Z’s pulse! What shall I do?!” she says in a quite unnecessary and panicky tone. I look up at Meera and smile.
Me: *pretending to cry* “I’m really sorry Mahria, there’s nothing I can do. It’s just too late!”
Meera: “Yea we’re sorry. Zahida was a top lass though.”
Resulted in me getting hit by Zahida but a grin from Dr Wood who saw the whole thing.

1st year Biomed when we had Friday morning tutorials for the Anatomy and Physiology class. 200 strong year of biomedic’s segregated into smaller groups and “mini-teams” so that everyone got to know each other better. I think it was our fifth or sixth tutorial of the year and we separated into a mini-team - Me, Naeemunisha, Indi, Afeera, Iffat and Haroon. Somehow I’m group leader and we’re working through the questions, when suddenly a hung-over Indi pipes up…
Indi: “Wait, how do you know all the answers?”
Me: “Cos I was listening”
Indi: “When?”
Me: “This morning’s lecture”
Indi: “What? You mean the tutorials and lectures are connected?”
We all stop and stare at him ;)

Meera and I are sat in the university refectory and I’m trying to explain the rules of some card game. Mahria and Zahida walk in…
Mahria: “Ok girls, this right here…” (she taps the table where we’re sat at). “This is very sad. Even Zahida has more fun than this sitting in her little box at night”.
Cue a bewildered look from Zahida and Meera and I in a fit of giggles. The cards were abandoned.

Sat in the refectory and with Mahria, Zahida and Meera having lunch. Can’t remember who started it…
Zahida/ Mahria: “What does PETA stand for?”
Me: *being funny* “Protection of eating tasty animals”
Zahida/ Mahria: *looks confused* “Really? I thought they were meant to protect the animals?”
Meera and I can’t help but laugh.

Anatomy and Physiology lab class -
Dr Wood: “Ok, I hope you’ve all read your lab schedules, we’re studying muscle tension today. Right class, watch this video please”
After the video…
Amreen: “Oh my god, I’m glad I don’t have to do that!” Cue a technician bringing us an anesthetised frog. Amreen’s jaw hits the floor, total silence.
Me: “Err, why do you think we were watching the video?”
Later on Iffat isn’t available, I’m making the incisions and so I hand Amreen the muscle.
Amreen: *shrieks*: “Ah! What, do I do, what do I do?”
Everyone is smirking. One of the lads from the back pipes up “Amreen – EAT IT!” Everyone is laughing, including Dr Wood and all the technicians.

Year 2 Biochemistry lab. Cholesterol experiment, which involved practicing how to draw blood for testing purposes. As we enter the lab;
Nafees: “Watch all the girls faint at the sight of blood. Hahaha”.
Class ends, no girls faint. One boy faints – guess who? ;) Nafees smacked his face on the bench on his way down and managed to get his tooth chipped and have a nosebleed. Despite our sympathetic nature, the biomed year teased him mercilessly for a long, long time!

Year 2 Cell culture practical -
Me: “The standard deviation formula is typed out incorrectly on this sheet”.
Mahria: “Don’t be stupid, Dr Tobin is never wrong. You should know that, hai Saima” She says winking at me
Me: “He may be good looking but the formula is still wrong. I’m telling you!” 15 minutes later…
Dr Tobin: “Right class, it’s been brought to my attention that the SD and SEM formulae are wrong. Correct ones are on the board!”
Dr Tobin walks to my bench, winks and says “Thanks Saima” and walks away. I grin and look at Mahria.
Mahria: “Wink and grin all you want Saima. Deep down he hates you cos you made him look like a fool. A fool I tell ya. A FOOL!!!”
At which point a lot of people stopped what they were doing and stared at her, lol.

Final year of the pharmacology group, was severely lacking in numbers as everyone fled to the other disciplines such as microbiology, biochemistry etc. Something to do with all the blood and gore apparently ;)
Girls – me, iffat, Amreen, Jo, Christine, Maria (nelson)
Boys – Indi (Inderjeet), Shaun (Shaundeep), Imran, Romaine, Nafees, Ali, Rich
Cue funny moments from the lads who were a proper laugh, lol. We were soon joined by the other medics from Leeds University, which made us feel less like lepers and led to more good times, lol.

In Prof Obrenovitch’s lab for final year project. I enter from the prep room into the lab early one morning, whilst my lab partner’s (Will and Mustafa – Leeds medics) jump out at me from the office and shout: “SIM - SIMA!!!!! SAIMA!!! Argh!!!!” which made me scream, as I didn’t think anyone was in yet. After calming down, I could not stop laughing. They finally got their revenge on me for a prank I had played on them previously. What I don’t think the boys realised was that Prof Obrenovitch and Dr Urenjak were also in and were now just staring at Will and Mus thinking that they were crazy!

One of girls trying to make some formula work on an Excel spreadsheet. Screen freezes. I tell her what to do.
Me: “Press the CONTROL, ALT and DELETE keys at the same time”
Friend: “Where’s the control key?” (She shouts across the computer room. People stop what they’re doing and stare at her in what I think is disbelief)
Me: I smile… “Erm, it’s the key that has CTRL written on it in the bottom left hand corner”
Friend: She jabs away at the keyboard; “Oh ffs! Saima!!! I’ve done it and I’m still not in f**king control”.

I’m sat with the Asma’s (both tall and small), Mahria (nelson), Dina, Marya and Abbey in the computer room. It’s the PCR workshop, I’m on the phone. Abbey’s mouthing something to me and I can’t understand it. So she types the following onto a word document; “Cannot find file data. Should I fake it? (Y/N)”. Not sure why this had us in fits of giggles!

Classic Dina as she’s trying to explain something to one of the guys… “I'd explain it to you, but I’m afraid your brain would explode.” LOL

There are sooo many more, but then this post would go on forever, lol. People feel free to add whatever you guys remember.

So my final say then – guys and girls; it has been such a laugh and a real pleasure. Here's hoping there are more good times ahead :)

Photo Storage

Since switching to my digital camera many years ago, I now find I take many more pictures as I can pick and choose which shots I want to keep without wasting any film. Also I cam email the images or post them online to share with family and friends without any major problems. A good thing :) The bad thing… editing the images and storing them in a suitable order can be time consuming. Also the old photos that I have in family albums, of which there are many, I can no longer find the negatives to as they have been lost or damaged over the years. Therefore ideally I would like to have back up copies of these photo’s; the only way being sitting down and scanning each individual picture… which may take a long time after seeing how many family albums we’ve amassed over the years. Any ideas people? Or better still anyone got a lot of free time on their hands and loves scanning pictures?

P.S. Currently listening to Outkast and I just remembered something else - Polaroid pictures. "Shake it like a polaroid picture" as Outkast would say. I know I'm going off on a tangent here but I can't help but wonder where have all those camera's have gone? And yes I know, my mind works in weird ways :)

Decisions made easier

Thinking about my future career and what area I should choose. I’ve always had an interest in paediatrics from the beginning, mainly due to the number of different children’s hospitals that I’ve been to with my sister Aishi. But because of my personal curiosity in Aishi’s health, I’ve also developed an interest in neurology. Being a fan of CSI has made me think that pathology would also be an appealing choice. Confusion or what?! Whilst reading up on the different disciplines, I found this flowchart extremely helpful :P

Where would you fit? lol!

Humour

I would describe my humour as slightly sarcastic. Ok maybe more than slightly (lol), but I can also be quite goofy or just downright silly. It just depends on my mood and the company I’m in. Overall though I think I’m nice about it and hope I haven’t offended anyone. And if I have I apologise straight up as I hate bad feelings between people. Nevertheless I’ve watched others use humour as a cover, which they hide behind whilst making comments that hurt people as they make jibes or insult them. Not very cool people! Yet… it is highly satisfying when the person being attacked strikes back with some fantastic putdowns and leaves their attackers completely speechless. Classic!

I witnessed one of these classic moments in the uni library today. Ok so I was eavesdropping but so was everyone else sat on the surrounding tables. The group was talking quite loudly so you couldn’t help but overhear plus I’m pretty sure the attacker wanted an audience to hear what they had to say as they insulted the unsuspecting individual. What they didn’t count on was the quick thinking of their intended victim who turned the tables on them, leaving the group reeling as the individual exited the library with their head held high. The shamed faced group left with no comeback as they walked past the tables full of fellow uni students giggling into their textbooks after witnessing what had just taken place. Lessons to be learnt = a) never underestimate your opponents and b) don’t be an idiot in the first place. I wonder if the group members are still thinking of a suitable comeback, lol.

P.S. On a side note, don’t you just hate it when you think of a really good comeback and I mean like a really good one… but you’ve totally missed the boat. For example when you wake up at 2am in the morning and think “damn, that’s what I should have said then!”, but the moment has passed. I’m just saying that’s all ;)