Album round-up

My studies have taken me through a vast array of music of late – anything to hang my concentration on when it drifts!  If you’re looking for something to listen to (or to avoid listening in some cases), here’s a list of what I’ve been through recently.

1. London Grammar – If You Wait.  Awesome album, 4.5/5 stars.  Soaring, emotive music and beautiful songwriting.  Think a less stadium version of Florence and the Machine.
2. He Will Have His Way – The Songs of Neil and Tim Finn (Various Artists).  Easy listening, good summer sounds, give it 3.75/5 stars.  I love intelligent covers and am a huge Like a Version fan (hit and miss as it may be!) and this is a well produced and thoughtful album.
3. Nine Inch Nails – Hesitation Marks.  I used to be (and still am to some degree) of NIN, Reznor is amazing live, but this album misses the mark (pun not intended). It’s almost like awesome sound production has become too easy NIN and it’s not held up by their lyrics at all.  Stick to Pretty Hate Machine, 2.5/5
4. Buddha Bar XV – I threw this on the other day in a moment of stress and it’s a good, relaxing album.  I’ve always found the Buddha Bar albums pretty hit and miss, this one is a hit for me, great for doing yoga to, drinking wine to, or just generally passing out in the sun. 4/5
5. Crucible – The Songs of Hunters and Collectors.  Another cover album!  I really like good covers!  I’m not fully through this but I think I like it even better than #2 so wont rate it just yet but it’s worth a listen.
6. Pretty Hate Machine – Nine Inch Nails.  Okay so it’s REALLY old but is hands down their best album ever.  This is where industrial electronic rock started (others may argue and yes I know there was an EP before it, but look at the year this was done and listen to the sound production and do what I do and die a thousand times.  I’ve been listening to it over and over for 18 years now and never get tired of it.  How many albums can you say that about?

What have you been listening to?  I’m always looking for new music to listen to for studying and would love to hear your recommendations.

How I Cured My Bald Patch.

In my previous post I mentioned all my hair fell out from stress.  It was thin and breaking and terrible and when I finally fronted up to my horrified hairdresser, she loaded me up with such good advice, none of which involved buying overpriced products from her salon.  I originally thought about titling this ‘How to cure a bald patch’ but seeing as this only worked for me, and to prove that something works you have to prove it in well over a hundred people, get it peer-reviewed and then published, I thought I’d give you my anecdote instead.

First – exercise, food, vitamins.  Everyone needs these.

My hairdresser told me to take silica and fish oil, or alternatively, eat fish.  So I did.

Then she told me to put organic coconut oil through my hair before washing it and leave it in for a while.  I don’t think there’s a hard and fast rule about how long.

It smells amazing!  I use it as a moisturiser, instead of butter in cooking (if you don’t mind the coconut flavour) and for frying.

She also told me to keep putting treatments in my hair.  She didn’t care which ones, and didn’t try to sell me any.  I got a sample of Terax Crema from Adore Beauty and haven’t looked back.

I think they’ve changed the packaging now, I hope the product itself hasn’t changed.  I only wash my hair twice a week because all of that is such an ordeal but it’s looking a million trillion times better and I love my hairdresser all the more for giving me a half hour long lecture on looking after myself and eating right.  I wish healthcare was more focused on wellbeing.  I’ve always said that if I don’t make it through my physician exams, then I’m becoming a GP that incentivises good health.

The most important thing to get my hair back though, was relieving stress.  Some stressors I couldn’t change (like my job or location) but some exercise here, some good food there, and the knowledge that ‘this too shall pass’ got me there.

As did my Yoga Studio App!  If you’re like me and would like to fall out of poses in private, then this one’s for you.

It is hands down the best Yoga app out there – I even took it to the park and fell out of poses in public I love it so much.  Great to do right after a run.

I’m happy to report that with all that on board, my hair started growing back, and my bald patch is now covered in hair.  Short and cowlicked hair, but I don’t mind at all.

Phew, enough posting for one day I think, time for some more study >__<.

And while I’m procrastinating…

Did I really not post since last September? Let me catch you up on the last year:

• I started physician training.  (For those not familiar with the system, when you finish your internship and residency, you often then thinking about the pathway you want to do: surgery/physician training/obstetrics/general practice/anaesthetics and so on.  Physician training is what you do to become a medical specialist something, don’t ask me what yet!)
• I spent six months at The Regional Hospital From Hell.  It wasn’t all that bad, but it was really really hard.  Like, you pick up the phone 24 hours a day for 7 days a week, every three weeks, for four hospitals spanning a large country region.  And you deal with questions like, chopper or ambulance?  And you keep your cool when people call you at 3am for a medical issue not even remotely related to your specialty because they don’t want to wake up the right person who is known to not keep their cool and figure since you’re so junior, you’ll just say yes.  You come into work for all seven of those days too.  The sleep deprivation was a bitch.  As was seeing my husband once a week (when I wasn’t on call).
• Lots of my hair fell out from the stress and I discovered a bald patch! I have the best hairdresser ever though, and it all grew back.
• I made some new friends in my new network, and started working at my new home hospital which is great! I found a lovely study group…now to just err, study (more).
• I stopped being vegan because it was too hard, I realised that the population examined in Forks Over Knives (i.e. I’m not an overweight type 2 diabetic who required bypass surgery) and there’s some great evidence for The Mediterranean Diet.  So rather than treat myself for something I don’t have, I switched over to preventing something that I may easily develop.

In short, life has been boring for a blog, but exciting for me.  Interesting election huh?  I wasn’t surprised by Tony Abbott winning it, and I got a sausage AND a cake at my local voting station.  What have you been up to?

Food for thought.

Hello readers, it’s been a while! I don’t have a lot of time these days, but want to keep this going. Here’s a quote from an article I read from a while back that gave me pause.

‘At an event in Amsterdam recently, I was ordered by a woman on the stage to take the hand of the woman next to me, who happened to be 76-year-old Hedy d’Ancona, and tell her she was beautiful. This would be more conducive to her self-esteem, apparently, than reminding her that, having served as a minister under two Dutch governments, as a member of the European Parliament, and as chairman of Dutch Oxfam, she was immensely distinguished and I was honoured to be sitting next to her.‘ – Germaine Greer.

Think what you like about Greer, but we are so much more than our physical attributes.