GARGANTUAN steps

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

the beginning of the end

And so the school year, as well as the football league, is coming to an end. It's just another five more weeks in St Mary's Hospital before we have our OSCE (Objective Structured Clinical Examination) examinations, which basically tests us on our practical skills and patient-contact and communication skills. Us students have to go through twelve different 10 minute stations, handling different aspects such as taking a history of a patient, doing examinations on them, doing some practical skills such as taking blood or suturing, and explaining procedures. Think it will be quite a stressful 2 hours! Following that, after a week's break, we will have our theory paper (countless EMQs to be done in 3 hours), and then I'll be home free! First, going for my cousin's wedding in Bournemouth before heading to Rome as a tour-guide for my aunt and brother. Then I'll be home for summer, which I have yet to plan anything for yet.

Meanwhile, on to the Barclay's Premier League and Liverpool, which can give anyone supporting them a few cardiac arrests. Thanks to my dear friend Hocks, I was given the rare opportunity to watch Liverpool play Arsenal at Anfield last night, in one of the more spectacular games in the season. Liverpool, still in the hunt for the league title, and Arsenal, just being a big pain. Hocks managed to get four tickets for this match and I gamely decided to drive to Liverpool, together with Hocks, Yoke and Ben Loh, the last a closet Liverpool fan I hope. The drive there wasn't too bad, but the drive back was arduous. It is a four hour drive there, and the wheel was shared between me and Ben.

All I can say is that, each time that I've been to Anfield to watch a match (this is just the second time), I've seen at least eight goals per match. An 8-0 way back in November 2007 against Besiktas in the Champion's League and last night's epic was a 4-4 draw, definitely good value for the neutral. Unfortunately, poor defensive errors cost us the win, and we were fortunate not to have lost, thanks to the dear four-goal Russian twinkle-toe, Arshavin. And to add in, Fabregas isn't a very sporting player, which I absolutely detest. And what's it with Arsenal, having a football club called Arsenal, with a manager called Arsene and a player called Arshavin?

A topsy-turvy match - Arsenal leading by a goal at the break, before Liverpool taking the lead at 2-1 within 10 minutes of the second half. Arshavin scored 2 and made it 3-2 before Torres pulled another one back to make it 3-3. And than Arshavin strikes again before Benayoun manages to level it with minutes to spare. And you wonder why half of the spectators didn't collapse from a cardiac arrest and the other half end up with stumps at the ends of their palms.

I never had much hope for the league title, because hoping in Liverpool is just such a heart-wrenching experience. They don't like to do it easy. Give up hope, and they start to do well. Start hoping and they mess up. Well, I'm going to "give up hope" and maybe there will be much to celebrate at the end of this season!

Shankly Gates and the memorial for the 96 who died at Hillsborough

Me at Lower Anfield
(My hair was a bit weird because I was wearing a surgical cap for the whole morning)

Arsenal players warming up
You can just about make out Fabregas, Nasri and the backside of Arshavin, don't know much about the rest of the Arsenal team