Unleashing the geek within

Hey guys, its Sheems here.

Wow, I haven’t updated my blog in absolutely ages. I have missed these pink little walls. Alas, I feel it is time to update you all on what is going on in Shima world. It’s pretty exciting here you know. I have just completed my finals and as long as I don’t have any resists, my exams are over!!! Four years, down the drain, LOL. Nah, it’s been fun really. I don’t start my project (which I shall give you some more insight into later) till next Tuesday so I have a few days to relax and socialise with people. My housemates are quite shocked really because I don’t think they have seen me out of my room for such long periods of time.

Anyways, I feel I ought to explain the title of this entry, “Unleashing the geek within”. I thought it was a suitable title since I have completed my final exams and am coming towards the end of my time as a student. It is common knowledge and dare I say it, a fact, that I am a “geek” or a “nerd”, or whatever you kids like to call it these days, but this past year I have surprised even myself with my geeky qualities. As ever, I will list these geeky qualities in an organised fashion.

By the way, before I start, I thought I would share a little story with you about how I subconsciously knew I was going to be a pharmacist from a very early age. On Christmas day, Lora and I were talking about the times our parents smacked us when we were children (random, I know!) and there was one vivid memory which came to my mind. I think I was about 7 years old and Shaz had a cold, so my mum gave her some Calpol. Anyways, while my mum was checking on Shaz, I decided I quite liked Calpol so I just casually started to drink it like most people would drink a bottle of coke. Naturally I got a smack from my mum, which is good because I could have killed my liver, LOL. But isn’t it funny that the one smack I remember is drug related. I shall leave you to ponder on that.

Better get back to those geeky qualities, which are as follows:

1. I have a Dictaphone. In case any of you don’t know what that is, it is a little device which allows you to record things and I actually purchased one to record my lectures. And, afterwards, I listen to my lectures again at home. It is quite funny though, listening to me laughing at my lecturers jokes. I hate my laugh, lol.

2. I laugh at lecturers and pharmacy related jokes. I just can’t help myself.

3. I also laugh at my own jokes. Is that a geeky quality?

4. I dream about pharmacy. In my most recent pharmacy related dream, I married my project tutor. We just came to a mutual agreement after my project. Strangely enough, we were in Mount and I remember him saying to me, “Shall we get married straight away, or get engaged first?” to which I replied, “Maybe get engaged first”. I don’t think I saw him after that. He’s French you know.

5. I answer questions out loud in lectures. I have always inwardly mocked those people who speak up in lectures but in my third year, I had a sudden urge to do it myself.

6. I remember page numbers in textbooks, for chapters which are relevant to me. For example, I know that in the BNF, the section on infections starts on page 271 and the section on palliative care starts on page 14. That is not an exhaustive list. A few days ago, I went to ask my lecturer about some past paper questions and I mentioned that the question was in the 2001/2002 paper. When he opened that paper, it wasn’t there so I apologised. He then said to me, “Don’t worry, it would be really sad if you remembered ever single question in all the past papers”. Inwardly, I laughed to myself and thought, “If only you knew!”

7. I get excited about exams. I know this is extreme but this year I did actually get excited about one of my exams, which actually didn’t go well at all. It was an oral exam and we had actors come in to play the part of patients and we had to pretend to be the pharmacist. I was mainly excited about what the actors would be like. I of course wasn’t expecting Brad Pitt or other ‘A list’ stars but I was excited all the same.

8. Lastly, I am always in the library and I have had a lot of fines on my books.


I am sure that you guys also have some reasons for why I am a geek but I feel those are the main ones. As for my dissertation, I am sure that many of you will be excited to know that my title is as follows:

“Evaluation of the effectiveness of using contact plates for monitoring microbial environment – recovery of Candida albicans”.

It is a lab-based project, which I am sure will shock many of you, considering my track record in the lab. For more details on my amazing lab skills, see my previous post entitled "The end is nigh". I feel for my tutor. I don’t think he will want to marry me after he has seen me in the lab. Indeed, I don’t think he will ever want to marry me because he is already married. Oh well.

Finally, (I bet many of you are glad to hear that word, but somehow you don’t quite believe it) I would like to throw a question out into the stratosphere. I have watched the Truman show quite recently and was thinking that if there was a show about my life, entitled “The Shima show”, would people watch it? Would you watch it and do you feel you would be amused? How many viewers do you think I would get?

Thanks for your co-operation. I am sure I will be back here in the not too distant future to inform you of another interesting lab incident or accident rather. I am off to enjoy my time. I can’t be social for too long as I get withdrawal symptoms from my studies.

Love Sheems xxx