In the past week, I’ve spent almost fifty hours working. You might be thinking that it’s not much different to working a 9-5 office job, but you have to remember that 9-5, when lunch is removed, is only seven hours, and that legally includes a number of breaks, and I’ve taken all breaks out of my ‘working’ time. And I’m still above the European Working Time Directive level.

But let’s just imagine that I do a similar amount of work to a typical office job. You have to remember that when I’m working, I have to be concentrating constantly, so that I can recall any fact that’s spouted to me at any point several months later. It’s the equivalent of me coming up to you today and asking what phone number you dialled at 14.30 on 29th July 2004. It requires an enormous amount of concentration for an extraordinarily long period of time. Much longer than you probably spend in your office. Oh, and I don’t get paid. In fact, I pay for the priveledge.

I think it’s also fair to say that, on top of a fifty hour working week, it would be very difficult to get a part-time job and stay sane. I also need a faintly ridiculous number of books, specialist equipment, and printer paper and ink. I’ve printed well over 1000 pages in the three weeks alone.

Don’t you think, therefore, that’s it’s slightly bizarre that medical students receive exactly the same level of student support as those doing International Human Rights Law at the Univeristy of Ulster, who study for just three – yes, 3 – hours per week? Where is the sense in giving the same support to someone working 50 hours as someone working for three? I don’t see it.

The last day of the exercise! Seven-and-a-half hours sleeping, seven hours working, three hours of TV, and one-and-a-half hours surfing. I’ll be looking back over the week and totaling up all the headline figures. Which, I guess, you could do now, and then you wouldn’t have to look here tomorrow. But can you really be bothered to do that? The details for Thursday…

0.00 Sleeping
1.00 Sleeping
2.00 Sleeping
3.00 Sleeping
4.00 Sleeping
5.00 Sleeping
6.00 Sleeping
7.00 Sleeping (~20 mins), Showering and Dressing (~25 mins), Breakfasting (~15 mins)
8.00 Printing Notes (~15 mins), Packing things (~15 mins), Walking to College (~20 mins), Chatting (~10 mins)
9.00 Case Presentation Lecture (~50 mins), Break (~10 mins)
10.00 Anatomy of the Back Practical
11.00 Anatomy of the Back Practical
12.00 Anatomy of the Back Practical
13.00 Walking back from college (~20 mins), Watching News 24 (~40 mins)
14.00 Eating Lunch (~20 mins), Web Surfing (~10 mins), Driving to college (~20 mins), Chatting (~10 mins)
15.00 Disability Lecture
16.00 Disability Lecture
17.00 Driving to Tesco (~30 mins), Shopping (~30 mins)
18.00 Shopping (~30 mins), Driving back from Tesco (~30 mins)
19.00 Watching Channel 4 News
20.00 Filing and Revising Notes
21.00 Web Surfing
22.00 Web Surfing (~30 mins), Watching Question Time (~30 mins)
23.00 Watching Question Time and This Week

A good relaxing day today, and I managed to finish my Community Placement – finally – which has ended up (including apendicies) at 46 pages, and nearly 16,000 words. So that’s good… I think. I also had a long phone conversation with someone this evening, but I don’t want to say too much about that right now – it might become significant later in the week, though, so keep an eye out. Headlines: Eleven-and-a-half hours sleeping, five hours working, four-and-a-half hours of TV, and one hour surfing. The details for Wednesday:

0.00 Sleeping
1.00 Sleeping
2.00 Sleeping
3.00 Sleeping
4.00 Sleeping
5.00 Sleeping
6.00 Sleeping
7.00 Sleeping
8.00 Sleeping
9.00 Sleeping
10.00 Sleeping
11.00 Filing, printing, and revising notes
12.00 Watching The Daily Politics while eating Breakfast
13.00 Writing Community Placement Report (~45 mins), walking to town (~15 mins)
14.00 Walking to/round/back from town
15.00 Web Surfing (~15 mins), Writing Community Placement Report (~45 mins)
16.00 Priting Community Placement Report (~30 mins), Washing up (~15 mins), Sorting Washing (~5 mins), Web Surfing (~10 mins)
17.00 Watching Richard and Judy
18.00 Watching The Simpsons (~30 mins), Anatomy of the Back (~30 mins)
19.00 On the phone (~30 mins), Anatomy of the Back (~30 mins)
20.00 Anatomy of the Back
21.00 Watching Wife Swap
22.00 Watching Deperate Housewives
23.00 Web Surfing (~30 mins), Sleeping (~30 mins)

It was an exhausting day today, probably because I got up earlier than usual and didn’t get a break all day. Headlines: Eight hours sleeping, Seven-and-a-quarter hours working, four hours of TV (including the bits I missed when I dropped off!), and one hour surfing. I’m not in university tomorrow, so I should get a decent lie-in! The details for Tuesday:

0.00 Sleeping
1.00 Sleeping
2.00 Sleeping
3.00 Sleeping
4.00 Sleeping
5.00 Sleeping
6.00 Sleeping
7.00 Showering and Dressing (~20 mins), Breakfast (~15 mins), Making Lunch (~5 mins), Putting Rubbish Out (~5 mins), Driving to Hartlepool Hospital (~15 mins)
8.00 Driving to Hartlepool Hospital (~45 mins), Finding Postgrad Centre (~15 mins)
9.00 Personal and Professional Development Session
10.00 Personal and Professional Development Session
11.00 Personal and Professional Development Session
12.00 Personal and Professional Development Session (~15 mins), Driving to College (~35 mins), Lunch (~ 10 mins)
13.00 Muscles Lecture
14.00 Arterial Supply of Lower Limb Lecture
15.00 Arterial Supply of Lower Limb Lecture
16.00 Arterial Supply of Lower Limb Lecture
17.00 Driving Home (~15 mins), Web Surfing (~45 mins)
18.00 Watching The Simpsons (~30 mins), Eating Tea (~30 mins)
19.00 Watching Channel 4 News
20.00 Watching Dragons’ Den (and briefly falling asleep…)
21.00 Watching Brat Camp
22.00 Watching CSI (~40 mins), Web Surfing (~20 mins)
23.00 Sleeping

It feels like it’s been a fairly hectic day today, and I’m confident that tomorrow will be even more tiring since I have to get up extra early to visit a patient in Hartlepool. Recording all of this is also becoming remarkably tedious, but I’m determined to carry on until Thursday so that I’ll have covered the full week, and can make my points on Friday. The headlines: Eight-and-three-quarter hours sleeping, nine-and-a-half hours working, two hours of TV, forty-five minutes web surfing. The good news is that I’ve almost finished my Community Placement Report now – it’s just a case of reading through it, making some final changes, and then printing out the final copies. Then it’s on to the Patient Study and Special Study Module. The details for Monday:

0.00 Sleeping
1.00 Sleeping
2.00 Sleeping
3.00 Sleeping
4.00 Sleeping
5.00 Sleeping
6.00 Sleeping
7.00 Sleeping (~15 mins), Showering and Dressing (~30 mins), Breakfast (~15 mins)
8.00 Web Surfing (~15 mins), Gathering notes (~15 mins), Walking to college (~20 mins), Chatting (~10 mins)
9.00 Case Round-up Lecture
10.00 Human Electromyography Practical
11.00 Human Electromyography Practical
12.00 Walking home (~20 mins), Eating Lunch (~10 mins), Writing Community Placement Report (~30 mins)
13.00 Writing Community Placement Report (~30 mins), Walking to college (~20 mins), Chatting (~20 mins)
14.00 Dementia Lecture
15.00 Dementia Lecture
16.00 Break (~10 mins), Dementia Lecture (~50 mins)
17.00 Walking home including visit to Iceland (~35 mins), Watching Richard and Judy (~25 mins)
18.00 Eating Tea and Watching The Simpsons (~30 mins), Writing Community Placement Report (~30 mins)
19.00 Writing Community Placement Report
20.00 Writing Community Placement Report (~45 mins), Printing Lecture Notes (~15 mins)
21.00 Watching Bodyshock
22.00 Web Surfing (~30 mins), Sleeping (~30 mins)
23.00 Sleeping

I think I must have been tired… But then, it’s a day of rest, so I feel entitled. Eleven hours sleeping, six-and-a-half hours working, two hours watching telly, two hours surfing. The details…

0.00 Web Surfing
1.00 Web Surfing (~15 mins), Sleeping (~45 mins)
2.00 Sleeping
3.00 Sleeping
4.00 Sleeping
5.00 Sleeping
6.00 Sleeping
7.00 Sleeping
8.00 Sleeping
9.00 Sleeping
10.00 Sleeping
11.00 Sleeping
12.00 Eating Breakfast (~25 mins), Watching The Politics Show (~15 mins), Sorting Washing (~5 mins), Web Surfing (~15 mins)
13.00 Replying to Emails (~15 mins), Showering and Dressing (~15 mins), Filling Car Screenwash (~15 mins), Washing Up (~15 mins)
14.00 Writing Community Placement Report
15.00 Writing Community Placement Report
16.00 Writing Community Placement Report
17.00 Writing Community Placement Report
18.00 Writing Community Placement Report (~40 mins), Eating Tea and Watching CSI (~20 mins)
19.00 Writing Community Placement Report
20.00 Writing Community Placement Report
21.00 Watching The Bachelor
22.00 Watching Two Pints…. (~30 mins), Web Surfing (~30 mins)
23.00 Sleeping

The headline totals for this Saturday are: I spent eight-and-a-half hours sleeping, seven hours working, four hours watching TV, and four hours surfing. Eek, I wouldn’t have said I’d spent that long on the computer today – surprised I haven’t got a headache or something! Tomorrow, I hope, will be a more relaxing day, I just wanted to blast the Community Placement today. Or yesterday technically, I suppose, since we’ve passed midnight. Oh, the confusion. Anyway, here’s the details:

0.00 Web Surfing
1.00 Web Surfing (~30 mins), Sleeping (~30 mins)
3.00 Sleeping
4.00 Sleeping
5.00 Sleeping
6.00 Sleeping
7.00 Sleeping
8.00 Sleeping
9.00 Sleeping
10.00 Sleeping
11.00 Finding research papers for Community Placement Report (~50 mins), Breakfast (~10 mins)
12.00 Writing Community Placement Report
13.00 Writing Community Placement Report
14.00 Writing Community Placement Report
14.00 Writing Community Placement Report (~30 mins), Web Surfing (~30 mins)
15.00 Writing Community Placement Report
16.00 Web Surfing
17.00 Anatomy of the Back Workbook (~30 mins), Web Surfing (~30 mins)
18.00 Writing Community Placement Report
19.00 Eating tea (~15 mins), Sorting Washing (~10 mins), Web Surfing (~35 mins)
20.00 Watching Kilroy: Behind the Tan
21.00 Watching CSI: NY
22.00 Watching A Beautiful Mind
23.00 Watching A Beautiful Mind

Friday is generally quite an easy day, because I get the morning off and so have time to sleep in. Anyway, the headline totals (details below): I spent nine hours sleeping, seven hours working, three hours watching TV, and two hours surfing (though much of this was spent reading emails from uni anyway). Now you can see why I like Fridays! Lots of time to lie-in! Tomorrow should be similarly enjoyable, but I’m going to try to get some serious work done on my Community Placement, so I might end up doing a lot of work.

Here are the details for Friday (and I know it’s not midnight yet, so that 23.00 figures are predicted):

00.00 Watching ‘This week’ (~20 mins), Tidying bedroom (~20 mins), Filing notes (~20 mins)
01.00 Marking down timetable changes (~10 mins), Web Surfing (~30 mins), Sleeping (~20 mins)
02.00 Sleeping
03.00 Sleeping
04.00 Sleeping
05.00 Sleeping
06.00 Sleeping
07.00 Sleeping
08.00 Sleeping
09.00 Sleeping
10.00 Sleeping (~40 mins), Web Surfing (~20 mins)
11.00 Showering and Dressing (~20 mins), Eating Breakfast whilst reading anatomy of the foot (~10 mins), Studying anatomy of the knee (~30 mins)
12.00 Studying anatomy of the knee (~40 mins), Driving to college (~10 mins), Talking with friends (~10 mins)
13.00 Muscle Fibre Lecture (~55 mins), Walking to different building, and changing (~5 mins)
14.00 Anatomy Practical: Leg, Knee, Ankle, Foot
15.00 Anatomy Practical: Leg, Knee, Ankle, Foot
16.00 Anatomy Practical: Leg, Knee, Ankle, Foot
17.00 Changing, meeting up with housemate (~5 mins), Driving to Tesco (~15 mins), Shopping (~30 mins), Driving home (~10 mins)
18.00 Unpacking shopping (~10 mins), Noting further timetable changes (~15 mins), Filing notes (~15 mins), Surfing (~15 mins), Web Surfing (~5 mins)
19.00 Watching Channel 4 News whilst eating Tea (~40 mins), Web Surfing (~20 mins)
20.00 Forming plan for Community Placement report (~30 mins), Watching Friends (~30 mins)
21.00 Watching The Simpsons
22.00 Watching The Apprentice
23.00 Web Surfing (~30 mins), Bedtime Reading – Executive Summary of a DoH white paper on choosing health (~30 mins)

A very good friend of mine has decided to take some time out from the medical course for the time being. Discussing this decision, my friends and I came to the conclusion that people who have not previously experienced a medical degree course do not appreciate quite how intense it is. So, in something of a departure from my normal blogging activities, I’m going to try and post a detailed blog of what I do during each hour of each day for the next week, starting a midnight just passed. I will upload a new post for each day, with my activities for each hour listed. This could, of course, backfire horrifically and make me realise that I actually spend an awful lot of time dossing about, but at least that will make me feel more relaxed. So keep an eye out for these special posts, or click on the category “Week in My Life” to see only these posts as they are added. And I offer my apologies in advance if I get fed up with this idea before the week’s out!