Japanese nail show

Whilst scanning the newspaper, these pictures caught my eye and well, what can I say? Some amazingly intricate and creative designs created by a fantastically talented group of people. I would definitely class this as a work of art :)

Location: Tokyo Nail Expo in Japan.

More pictures and information can be found here and here.

It’s all in your head…

It is stuff like this that makes me think that I am slowly turning into a hypochondriac. As you learn all the theory of the human body, you find yourself mentally ticking symptoms that you might have and possibly diagnosing others around you. Some people do become quite paranoid about this kind stuff and usually in ends up being nothing, which is great news.

I saw seven different GP’s and only one spotted my brain tumour - 24 November 2009

And yet when you hear stories like the one shown above, you can’t help but go into panic mode all over again. Can you even imagine being in that woman’s place, I means she saw seven different GP’s and yet not getting any closer to finding out what was wrong! And then to find out you have brain a tumour… I mean that is as big as it gets in terms of major illnesses! Those kind of stories strike fear into your heart and I hope no one ever has to go through that kind of ordeal. Or be turned away and told that you’re imagining it and then to only go and find out something is really wrong.

With regards to doctor’s who say that their patients imagine their symptoms, it reminds me of this rather weird story*. Most of us know about phantom limb pain – common phenomenon where people with missing limbs often state that they are still able to feel the limb even though it is no longer there. Previously it was assumed that this condition only existed in the patients and that it was all psychological changes with no physiological basis. However doctors have discovered in one particular women how it actually cause physical changes in her as the doctor’s can actually observe distinct biochemical and neurological changes in her via MRI scans etc. How weird is that?

*The date of the article was 1st April... I wonder if it was an April Fool's joke :P

Eid ul Adha

Eid namaz at Shahkotla Majid

Eid-ul-Adha marks the end of Hajj – the holy pilgrimage made by Muslims to the city of Makkah or Mecca in Saudi Arabia.

What an amazing feeling it must be to perform Hajj! I hope one day I get to go to this special with all my family (iA), but until that day I shall make do with watching other people’s video’s/ documentaries, which where I came across a particular clip. I honestly never knew you could go inside the Kabah! I mean I’m pretty sure not anyone can gain access but the fact that some people can actually go inside amazes me. Well, you learn something new everyday :)

Anyhow hope you have a lovely time with all your families and wishing everyone Eid Mubarak in advance :)

Twitter – lists, retweet function???

Lately Twitter have been adding new features etc and only been piloting them on a small beta test group. This feels slightly odd, I mean why the secrecy? Hmm... Twitter lists – personally I like this feature. Lists are great! Did I, err, mention that I like organising stuff? ;P Retweet – initially I thought this was good but I’ve quickly realised that if I do retweet someone else’s tweet, I cannot add my own comments with it at the same time. This is a little annoying so twitter please can you fix this?

Seasame Street

Woowoo!!! It's the 40th anniversary of the children's programme - Sesame Street.

I remember during my initial years at primary school, I religiously used to watch the programme during lunchtimes at home. And everyone had different favourites, even between my sister and I. Aisha loved 'Big bird', 'Count von count' and the 'Cookie monster'. I, on the other hand liked 'Elmo' (the cute one), 'Groucho' (the grumpy one) and 'Bernie and Ernie' (my first real taste of sarcasm).

My attempt at collecting all the different doodles together that were produced by Google all week long to commemorate the occasion.

Someone at in the department actually made some little cupcakes that kinda similar to the one shown below! The effort/dedication required to make all those cakes! Also how obsessed was the person with Sesame Street? I have to say the cakes were really delicious though :)



Just as an aside, the last cartoon reminds me of someone I worked with at a previous hospital department :P

Medicine and Health Conference

The first conference of the new academic year; held at Weetwood hall, which is a beautiful place. I wanted to wander around the grounds after the conference to wind down and take some snaps. But unfortunately the weather had others ideas as it was freezing and beginning to rain :( The conference itself was very interesting and the research was divided into either clinical, lab based or health interventions. The poster room was slightly cramped but I still made my way around the room and catch a glimpse of all of them. Point to note – I’m pretty sure that at conferences etc, all posters are suppose to be a standard size, but in this case the sizes varied wildly starting from the usual A1 size right to an A4 poster. Some huge were but very simplistic and easy to follow whilst others were much smaller but crammed with so much text that it made your eyes hurt. I can understand people wanting to get across as much of their information as possible but sometimes you just need to know when to stop.

In terms of the oral presentations on the day, despite being on the clinical team, I enjoyed all of them equally. More to the point I understood most of them but whilst talking to people during breaks I was surprised at how many people were confused by say the lab based talks. A bit worrying seen as the room was full of medics or medical researchers. Actually to be honest, towards the end of the day I started drifted off a little bit on certain topics such as genetics – something you do need to be alert for. I did feel bad about it but to fair it had been a long day. Another thing that surprised me was that this conference was suppose to be a way for the junior medics/researchers to get some conference practice and therefore it was very informal to put everyone as ease. Some audience members however took the whole thing very seriously and completely laid into the presenters during question time. I felt this was very unfair as it was hardly helping to build up their confidence. Other conferences in the future will be much tougher and more critical of their work which is why this conference was meant to be an ‘easy one’ – one where they could get some practice and gain some confidence. So I say shame on the meaner audience members.
Anyway to conclude, we had to pick three posters/ talks each for the prize session at the end. Below is a selection of the topics that I found interesting and voted for as the best in my opinion.

POSTERS:
1) Gwen Powel – “Lives not worth living”: an exploration of how healthcare professionals make decisions about serious handicap. #3
A model that describes how medics make life and death decisions. Very intesreting talk by the researcher.
2) Jayne Hutchinson – Do women who take supplements have a greater risk of cancer? #23 *
Clear easy to follow poster and an interesting hypothesis.
3) Nicola Kingswell – Mend your own teeth. #32 *
Development of a protein paint that can applied to a patients tooth which in turn stimulates replacement/growth and the build of healthy enamel.

TALKS:
1) Juile Burke – Injectable, biomimetic self-assembling peptides for skeletal tissue engineering. #7 *
A fun, lively and engaging talk on some very promising research.
2) Huiru Zou – Switching on dental pulp stem cells to rebuild teeth. #12 *
Using pulp cells to rebuild teeth naturally.
3) Yamuna Mohanram – Can dental pulp stromal cells repair bone under favourable microenvironments? #13
Using the pulp cells to stimulate and provide material for the growth of other bones.

All in all an interesting conference where much was learnt, well for me anyway.

* Indicates some of actual prize winners on the day. And yes the dentistry group are a pretty sly bunch :P

And so it begins...

Another year :) It's only been a month and I'm already amassing a collection of manuals, handbooks, readings lists and so forth .

Samia - who is Samia? I think you'll find it's SAIMA! :P

Honestly I'm not having a rant but personally, I reckon my name is pretty easy to remember. Part of me loves the different versions of my name (in terms of spelling/pronouncation) that people come up with; it makes for an interesting conversation. Just for future reference people, Saima/Sam/Simi/Saims is fine, Samantha/Susan is pushing it, Simon is a huge no, no. Are we all good now? lol :)

The best days of my life - I totally agree! :D
I can't decide whether the new uni logo (on the white envelope) looks better or the old one (on the brown envelope)?Caught unprepared on a visit to the library resulted in me having to get a library bag... in neon green! lol. And I had to pay... :(

Also it seems that the postgraduate society is keen to play matchmaker with fellow medics in the faculty. Here are a few excepts from some Facebook emails that I received, lol
Email 1:
We now have over 80 members, and are excited about the events to come! Which brings me to item 2: our next event, a Speed Dating/Meeting evening on 15 October. Come along to have a drink, and meet other postgrads for a quick flirt or friendly chat...Email 2:
We're getting a hot reply for the speed-dating, which is excellent, and thanks to everyone who has gotten back to us so far. I don't want to alarm the girls, but the RSVP count is unfairly balanced towards the fairer sex. So guys, the girls are up for it: what say you?...
Email 3:
Our next event, the Speed Dating/Meeting, will be held tomorrow, Thursday 15 Oct, at the Faversham Pub (on the rear side of campus), at 7pm until 10pm. Those of you who RSVPed before Monday will be given priority for the speed dating, but anyone else who would like to can (and should!) still come along for a drink just to meet others.
I know societies are pretty eager about keeping everyone well informed but it seems kind of pushy seen as I got the aforementioned emails (as well as few extra ones!) within a relatively short space of time. Also the excerpt from email 2, did make me laugh – “I don't want to alarm the girls, but the RSVP count is unfairly balanced towards the fairer sex”... Yea I totally believe that the organiser was having a minor panic attack when they realised that, lol. And just in case you're wondering - No I did not go ;)

Other good news, my external hard drive has finally arrived! Woohoo! I love getting packages from Amazon, lol. Also it'll avoid the whole 'Oh-my-god-my-laptop-has-had-a-meltdown-and-I-think-I-have-lost-all-my-data' drama. Usually accompanied by me having a minor panic attack a few months into my dissertation madness, closely followed by me running over to my cousins house clutching my laptop with a sad sad look on my face. I'm glad we can all laugh about it now though eh? :P

Leeds university logo changes –

The University of Leeds has always featured in my life in one way of another...

- When I was 18 years old, being interviewed for my undergraduate degree at different universities. I came to Leeds University, had a great day and got slightly nervous during one my interviews as my interviewer was an extremely good looking professor!

- Attending lectures with my other fellow medical students at Leeds University.

- Popping in and out of the adjacent hospitals near Leeds university, when Aishi was ill

- Now I’m back here doing my doctorate :)

We all change over time and so has the university over the past few years. Whilst searching for a logo to put onto my work, I found a number of the old logos, the various changes it underwent and the final product.

They’re phasing out the individual school logo’s now; good and bad.

I honestly can’t decide which I prefer.