It's my birthday tomorrow, which will make me 23 and old. Or feeling it, anyway.

It's my first day of placement tomorrow too, which officially makes me feel very nervous. Doesn't help that I'm practically dead with exhaustion, or am feeling it, even without the prospect of twelve and a half hours of work tomorrow. I want to go home. I'm already at home. And I really really do not want to have to go to start a practice placement on a ward specializing in goddamn colorectal surgery tomorrow. Surgery is good. The colon - not so good. And really, why did I have to start this placement on my goddamn birthday?

Think of starting placement as starting a new job, which you will hold for a little under two months. A job for which you have not been interviewed, for which you are getting paid about half the salary of the rest of the staff, and during which you have to prove that you have learned and improved, sometimes significantly, in a list of predetermined ways, over the course of said two months - and if you don't manage this you will have failed, which will mean going back to do it all over again. Only for no pay at all.

Can anyone out there see why this might be a little nervous-making?

I don't want to do this at all. I'm scared. And tired. Did I mention I was tired?

Can anyone get me a plane ticket out the country by 5:30 tomorrow morning? And a box to hide in? I could be your pet fanficcer. Just feed me pencils and paper (or better still a laptop) and several pictures of Ken (hey, I never claimed to be a difficult person to please) and I'll be perfectly happy. I'm housetrained, obedient and quiet, provided I have headphones. I promise you I won't bite your ankle or insist on walkies. Just get me out of here.

Damn, I hate starting placements. Once I've got the first few days done, I know I'll be fine. It just doesn't help that the last time I did a placement at this hospital, the ward I was placed on and the staff therein were - how shall I put this delicately? - slightly strange people. I didn't realize it at the time, it being my first ward, but looking back on it that's definitely how it was. Strange. To say nothing of permanently short-staffed. Meaning I am not exactly looking forward to resuming my acquaintance with this hospital.

Yes, different wards have different cultures - and thank Christ for that. I'm praying that ward was the exception rather than the rule.

I wanted to get my isotype post out before I started this placement, but that really doesn't look like it's going to be happening. I should have a day off Wednesday though (I hope - I haven't had my off-duty worked out yet so although I know I'm in Monday and Tuesday after that I genuinely have no freakin' idea), so with any luck I should be able to get that out sometime then. Damn twelve-hour shifts. After one of those mothers it's impossible to do anything in the evenings when you have work the next day but come home, get changed and collapse into bed. I want to finish my Ken Obsessive Email too, but no chance of that happening any time soon. I am sad.

Anyway.

All things considered it wasn't such a bad day. My parents showed up at an embarrassing time of the afternoon - well, embarrassing because I was still in bed and din't wake up until my father yelled my name from the back fence. Anyway. I dragged myself up and dressed in an indecent hurry and let them in. After exchanging pleasantries and having them give me more books we went out. I like books, so this was good. Anyway, they took me clothes shopping. We ended up in Camden Lock Market, which was great, because it meant I got to buy more insane, impractical Goth Clothes. Yay Goth Clothes.

Anyway, I ended up with a long black velvet skirt and top likewise, only the top's red and black and I like it. Them. A lot. I like buying random clothes. I swear, when I have more money I am going to go to Camden far more often, I love the clothes you can buy there, and the atmosphere is absolutely fantastic, so that took my mind off the whole placement thing for a while. They sell crepes in Camden Lock Market. It's been ages since I've had a ham and cheese crepe.

(I still want Weiss Side B Four. Damn you, Ken Hidaka...)

So yeah - good day. I just wish I wasn't so freaking nervous about this placement tomorrow. I do not want to go and do it. I'm burnt out, aching, really feeling the need for a holiday and in absolutely no mood to be initiated into the mysteries of colorectal resectioning and transverse colostomies, all of which genuinely are just as dire as they sound. I really hope I get decent mentors. I had a lousy mentor for my first placement - it really does not help. At all. About the only thing she was good at was reminding me to go for my breaks (often an hour or so before I even wanted to go for my breaks, at that). Everything else - feh, forget it.

I don't like the hospital I'm going to. It doesn't help that the building is practically falling apart. The whole place is being wound down because everything's being transferred to a new building. All in all, the situation is hardly what i would call ideal.

Guess I really need to stop thinking about this placement. The wretched thing is going to happen anyway. I might as well just handle it and make the best of it.

I'm scared.