Dancing Teddy Bear

A light-hearted, easy and quick-to-read post.

Dancing in a Teddy Bear suit is surprisingly not easy.  You can't really see through the eye holes =)

Teddy Bear Fundraising event.

Caving/Pot-holing

24 October 2009

Dark adrenaline.

Simply breath-takingly amazing.  Unexpectedly. 

Didn't take a camera down into the caves unfortunately.  But I would recommend to take a waterproof, solid case or camera.

A discounted (£15) session included our 2 'leaders', transport into the Peak District, and gear.

The entry required waddling in a stream, then disappearing into the ground via a ladder with the water stream rushing us down.  It was followed by crawling, transversing with pitch-blackness between our legs (even with torches/headlamps, we couldn't see the bottom), side-stepping along fine grooves, squeezing through small crevices...and admiring fossils and ice formations. They were beautiful.

You end up soaked.  It wasn't too cold - the temperature was higher than ground level, and we were offered cake and thermos tea by our leaders, a bonus.  We ended our experience with a celebratory dance.

Not for the claustrophobic or acrophobic.  Having some form of climbing/bouldering technique helps - footwork technique, relying more on leg strength instead of arm strength (otherwise you'll just burn out).  It was like climbing...but underground and in the dark!  So some arm strength definitely is needed.

Difficult in terms of money and time to sustain as a hobby, but definitely would be something to certainly do once, if not twice. 

Medical Textbooks MEDSOC Fancy Dress

Medical students mean serious business when it comes to fancy dress.  Like an 'incidental finding', the idea popped up randomly in a group conversation after first year exams.

The planning and collection, purchasing and transport of materials started 2 weeks prior to the event. Then last 4-5 days involved intensive constructing, drawing and painting.  Intensive meant until 2-3am and 'ready-to-launch' at 8.30pm on the night.  My friend and I created the Kumar & Clark's Medical Textbook, and 6 other friends created the rest of the five 'Recommended Reading' textbooks.  It was physically tiring and at times got just a tiny tad frustrating/stressful - both the time-restrained creative process AND the carrying and waddling in the boxes and cold weather down a 2-mile Barcrawl.  I wouldn't say 'I love Art'.  But I certainly love and enjoy creativity... and attention to detail, so the time and effort was definitely worth it and enjoyable.  By the end of the night, these artworks ended up in the skip bin behind the club venue, and we ended up winning both Best and Worst MEDSOC Fancy Dress Awards.

 

Of last note, my friend and I admire Professor Parveen Kumar, so we sent some pictures to her just to make her smile.  She later forwarded it to the publishing company and it got posted on their blog... and that's the story of how we both started 'working' with Elsevier!