I admit that 13.43 on a Tuesday afternoon is an odd time to release, announce, launch or in any way reveal something, but the plan can be found here >> http://theplanblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/so-whats-plan.html

I'm going to bed, to try and get 5 hours sleep before heading down to Liverpool tomorrow for Andy's funeral. I'm sure I shall hear him eulogised more eloquently than I could ever hope to here, so just a picture :Eternal rest grant unto him oh Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him. May he rest in peace.

The Plan - An Introduction

I’m fairly certain I’ll live in community at some point. I always have been, although my understanding of what community might entail has changed quite a lot since the early days in convent school.

One of the things that most appeals to me about life in community is the idea of having someone to be accountable to.

The more I mention this to people, the more I find that I’m not alone – that others who no longer feel like they have to ‘answer’ to their parents in day-to-day life, who haven’t yet started families of their own, feel an enormous pressure to keep themselves to really high self-imposed standards, without much meaningful support or encouragement.

It’s hard to tease out priorities for time, and money. Uni work is important, but how important? I could find enough to study 24 hours a day, and everyone would agree that that wouldn’t be a wise use of time. For one thing, my laundry doesn’t do itself, there’s only so long I can leave the washing up before I’m eating out a saucepan with a ladle, and it doesn’t do any harm to run a duster round the flat once in a while. There’s extra-curricular stuff to be done – to be ‘well-rounded’ (as well as to appear so on my CV) – music, sport, whatever’s your cup of tea. Then how much down time do I need to be healthy and happy? I need to sleep at some point, granted. But when do I become the proverbial sluggard? And when, in all of this, do I have time to call my mum (something I’m notoriously bad at) or hang out with my friends?

That balancing act is enough to be getting on with, generally. Yet nagging away at the back of my mind is that I should be doing more. I should be reading my Bible, shopping ethically, reading good books, praying. And what about the rest? The other stuff I should be doing, but I don’t have time, or more, I don’t know where to start. Where are my priorities there? Climate change, preventable disease, child labour, gender inequalities? The poor child in Glasgow or the poor child in Ghana? I find myself in some sort of overwhelmed paralysis. There is so much that I could be doing, each as worthy as the next, and I can’t decide.

So, I decided, I need to find a way of building this stuff into my routine. I need to do what I can, in the knowledge that I can’t do everything. And I need to have someone to be accountable to in this, just as I do with my uni work. Because it’s important, but in a busy week, it’s the stuff that doesn’t need handed in that doesn’t get done.

If you’ve followed me thus far, well done. So, this is where I found myself – priorities, accountability.

On Christmas Eve, the thing going round and round in my head was ‘if Jesus really was coming tomorrow, what would I wish I’d done’. Not in a crazy apocalyptic way. More in a ‘could I really look him in the eye and claim to be his follower living the way I do now’ way.

I decided that 2010 is as good a time as any, and an idea of how to go about it took shape.

I’d like to spend a month at a time thinking about some different issues, deciding how to respond to them, and putting that into practice. In an ideal world, I would have a collection of resources and ideas handed to me on a platter, and someone to check up on me.

I know I’m not the only one.

This is how the plan was born. Watch this space.

Sausage Casserole (serve 1 hungry person)

I have been very remiss about blogging recipes for my dear father, and Herbeey the herbivore as I promised to. So here we go. Tonight I made sausage casserole. It tastes good.

In a casserole dish (or heavy-based saucepan) :

Roughly chop and fry 2-3 shallots (or 1 small onion) and 2-3 vegan sausages.

Rouhly chop 3-4 new potatoes (or 1 medium potato), 1 carrot, 3-4 medium-sized mushrooms and add then to the pan.

Pour water over the stuff in the pan until everything is just covered. Add a vegetable stock cube and 1 heaped tsp flour (optional, but makes the sauce nice and thick).

Give a couple of minutes on high heat to get things going then leave covered on a low heat for 1/2 hour.

NB : check more frequently if in a saucepan in case 1 things stick to the bottom -add half a glass of water and move to a different ring, set on a low heat 2 it boils over - take the lid off.

If a sharp knife slips into the potato / carrot easily then it's ready. If the sauce isn't thick enough for your liking, leave it uncovered for 5 minutes and that should sort it out.

Turn off the heat and add a handful of frozen peas - sneaky trick - stops you having to wait for it to cool down / burning your mouth (seriously, it smells that good).

Enjoy ! (Nomnomnom...)

2009 =]

I have an exciting new project that I will share in t'New Year.

But for now, 2009 in summary (one extra word / month) plus a selection of my favourite photos - in roughly chronological and/or vaguely thematic order :
January : Duke.February : Lizzie visited.March : Wasn't very well.April : Started top secret relationship.May : Last ever PBL. Passed exams.June : Psychiatry module, pretty interesting. ThePROJECT.July : Acute med elective - excited about medicine again.August : Last workcamp, Budapest, Prague. Greenbelt - heaven (taste of).September : Home to Londinium, back to uni, SCM visioning weekend.October : Properly started Public Health degree. My first Holy City - met Carys.November : Glasgow SCM, Sheffield visit, 3 countries in one day - Wrexham gathering.December : Tired! Bit stressed by mocks. One year at St Mary's. Turn 22.

I realise that I have told very few people anything meaningful about what I'm up to this year.

Well, a week in my life this this term has contained :
3h health promotion lecture
3h public health research methods lectures
1h conducting motley assortment of mini instru-mentalists
1h stats tutorial
1h stats lecture
2h banter with scm folk
6h core research methodologies lectures
(no, i don't know what that is either)
2h arabic class
8h timetabled project work
3h principles of public health
1h current research issues lectures
1h journal club

That's what my timetable says anyway. There's stuff for national scm (<< go and check out the shiny new website!), worrying about the state of the planet usw.

All-in-all, I'm being kept out of mischief.

A lot has happened since I got back here in September. I'm full of news ideas, new dreams, new worries. I'm really looking forward to having a few weeks to start to digest, consolidate and shape some meaningful output. A lot ties together, a lot connects. I am learning important lessons, and some it is my obligaiton to pass on if I can.

I really miss seeing patients though. The clinician's life is most definitely for me.

How odd... I'm sure I posted yesterday about my frustration at lecturer absenteeism.

Anyway. Masa al'khayr one and all. I'm curled up on the sofa in front of Spooks, drinking a pot of chai, catching up with emails and downloading pictures from this year's workcamp in Romania.

I have chosen this picture because (1) Everyone looks happy (2) It reminds me of warmer times (3) My hair looks goooood :