I always seem to be running out of time. Let's just recap very briefly on my doings this past week. Took train to Bath on Friday evening and stayed at Backpacker's Hostel, which was crowded and not very clean. The bathrooms were located in the basement and my bed was on the 4th floor. I met an American girl who was on an exchange-work program at the hostel. She had just found a job working at a hotel outside the city. Also met another girl from Australia. Walked around the city, Circus, Crescent, Roman Baths, all very beautiful limestone. Also lots of bars and young couples mulling about the centrally located park. Next day I took a tour bus to Stonehenge. Was impressed even though I thought I would be disappointed because I would expect too much. Really incredible. Also went to site called Avebury. Met and had a lunch and a pint with girl from Perth Australia also on the bus. In the afternoon we visited some quant little towns called Lacock and Castlecomb. As soon as the bus got back, I took the train to Oxford where I stayed the night at the YHA hostel, which was much cleaner but also had much less interesting and younger people. Single sex rooms. Teenager in my room was from Hong Kong and did not speak English well. He said he had to went to school near Oxford, presumably highschool because he was so young. Another guy in the room, older, balding, was reading a chess strategy book. He looked Russian and did not seem to want to speak. Walked around the city in the evening for a little but it started to rain so I went back to the hostel and took a nice hot shower and went to sleep. In the morning I had a nice breakfast, walked around Oxford campus which was old and impressive, bought some souveniers, then took train to Stratford-Upon-Avon. Stratford was less tourist than I had imagined. Went to all 5 Shakespeare houses, 4 of which made no sense. They included houses of Shakespeare's mother, granddaughter, son-in-law, and whatnot, all very tangentially related to Shakespeare himself. Only the birthplace house was interesting, because a lot of famous people had visited and scratched their names in a glass window. Was proud that I had gone to all 5 houses, and even had time to squeeze in Shakespeare's tomb at Holy Trinity Church at the last second, even though I had to run to barely make the train back to Sheffield. Overall, it was a packed weekend, and I learned that I can do a lot of things if I take chances. Most of the time, I will win. I had only planned on Oxford, but then I squeezed in Stonehenge, then I squeezed in Bath, then Stratford-Upon-Avon. At Stratford, I squeezed in the full tour, all 5 houses, and the grave, bought souveniers at the Royal Shakespeare Co. and still made the train. The highlight was the Stonehenge tour and having lunch with the girl from Australia. She was working as a Nanny for a year in the UK. It was interesting to hear her story. If I didn't have to be in Oxford that night I would have stayed in Bath and probably gotten to know her better. But as it was, I had the reservation in Oxford waiting for me, and I did not want to have to look for another place to stay in Bath.

Only about 45 minutes to write this entry before the library computer lab closes and I have lots to recap on. This past weekend was the 4 day easter weekend, which I had mistakenly assumed would be a quiet holiday, so I planned a trip to Edinburgh in Scotland. Unlike Easter in the states which goes by relatively unheeded except for maybe a visit to the church, the Easter weekend in the UK consists of Good Friday and Easter Monday making a four day weekend and one of the most travelled weekends of the year. So to my surprise, but no one else's, I was not able to find cheap housing in Edingburgh and ended up paying 50 pounds for a night's stay in a hotel next to a nightclub/bar. The city itself was beautiful, though, seemed haunted which maybe I mistook for old. The buildings in the old part of town called the "old town" were built in the 1300s said the bus tourguide, with some buildings as old as 1100. The "new town" as it were was built in the 1700s. The new and old towns are separated by a wide swath of depressed green land that was once the castle moat. The Edinburgh castle sits atop the rim of a volcano towering over the city and provides the primary defensive position for the city until tdday where an active Scottish regiment still resides. I spent several hours just walking around the old and new towns, taking a city bus tour and visiting the Edinburgh castle. The highlight of the trip was probably seeing the Scottish Crown Jewels and jumping at the loud cry of the protector of the jewels "NO PHOTOGRAPHS PLEASE. THANK YOU!" when a tourist tried to snap a photograph. The Jewels are only viewable after meandering through a series of wax-like exhibits depicting the origin of the jewels and their various adventures through centuries of strife. Apparently the Jewels were given to the Scots in the 1400s by the Pope, consisting of a sword and a scepter. I'm not sure whether the crown was also given by the pope or fashioned by the Scots. There is also the King's Stone, or something like that, that is purely Scottish and dates back to the earliest periods of recorded Scottish history that is basically a rectangularish stone upon which new kings were seated when anointed. That was kind of neat to see. All of these Crown Jewels were hidden from Oliver Cromwell who wished to destroy them as he had destroyed the English Crown Jewels, but two peasant women smuggled the Jewels out into the countryside where they remained safe. After unification of the Scottish and English parliaments, the Crown Jewels were locked away in a wooden box as remnants and reminders of a past era. However, some bloke in the 19th century got permission, from whom I don't know, to open the box and brought the Jewels back into light. During WWII the Jewels were again hidden within a wall of the castle just in case the Germans invaded Scotland. After the war they were taken back out and are now on display at Edinburgh castle. So that was my trip to Edinburgh and the Crown Jewels was the highlight. But the highlight of my weekend was not Edinburgh, but the trip to Edinburgh, during which a particuarly pretty college girl sat in the seat next to me. She was one of those women who cause men's head to turn when they don't even know why. Her figure and perhaps her scent can catch the periphery of your senses and force you to find the source. So she was when she walked onto the train, and it was apparent that every man on the train was looking at her. A middle aged man twice her age was ahead of her and smiled at her as she placed her luggage on the rack near my seat as if he was about to speak to her, but she didn't respond. Instead she sat next to me, without paying much attention to me at all. A blonde haired dude, probably another tourist/backpacker from the US, changed his seat at the next station so he could get a better look at the girl from the diagonal table seat across from us and he sneaked peeks every 30 seconds. It was quite obvious to me because I was sitting next to her and it must have been quite obvious to her as well. Anyway, as the train moves along, I'm trying not to be so obvious, and I haven't even seen her face yet, but I'm sure it would be perfect. I have seen her legs, and most of them, because she was wearing a skirt that barely covered her thighs. It was the kind of short skirt that looks like it might be a pair of short shorts, but when you look closely (and I did) there was no fabric between her legs. So there I sat shifting in my seat uncomfortably for 30 minutes, when I start to feel warm and achy so I stretch my back by turning around as if I wanted to see who else was on the train and I surreptiously took a glance at her face. She had a girly girl face with a mole on her cheek, a permanent smile and big blue eyes. I guess she had noticed me shifting about and when I turned, she accidentally invaded her space with my elbow and said, Sorry. She interpreted this to mean that I wanted to get into the aisle so she stood up. I was embarassed, but had enough courage to make eye contact and blurted out, No I didnt mean to get out, I was just shifting. She smiled and maybe thought my comment was more clever and flirtatious than I had really intended. I had meant it to be a purely explanatory statment, I had been shifting around. Ah, but WHY had I been shifting? In that moment of panic, I could not anticipate that question. So that was the end of the conversation for the next hour. After about an hour and a half I leaned over and said, Ok I really have to get out now. And she again got out of her seat and let me through. When I got back she had a sweater over her legs, so I thought this was a bad sign, maybe she thought I was some kind of perv who kept asking her to stand so I could see her legs. But a few minutes after I got back she initiated a conversation by asking me whether I knew where the train had originated. Apparently she writing a text-message on her phone to whoever was going to pick her up and wanted to let them know what train she was on. I thought this was a good sign, which it probably wasn't, a sign that is, but just a question, but I interpreted it as a sign and continued the conversation by asking her how much each text-message costs in the UK. She asked me whether I was from the states, and voila a real conversation was born. Of course every single person who was sitting near us was eavesdropping, wondering what this Oriental was doing talking to this babe, and the blonde American kid across the aisle was ready to scream it seemed. So we had a nice, albeit awkward flowing conversation about how she was from Edinburgh and I was not, and what I should do with my one day there. Nothing else came of it, but I was happy to have made a connection with someone for the first time in the UK with whom I had absolutely intended to make a connection with. That is, it was not one of those random encounters that just happen. This was something that I had planned and thought about every second while she was sitting next to me. Of course the fact that she was sitting next to me was purely an accident. Well, enough about Edinburgh, let's talk a little about Kinder Scout before I get kicked out. Kinder Scout is a large hill or a small mountain in the Peak District only 10 minutes away from Sheffield. It is the tallest peak in the area and has many hiking trails around it, one of which is called the Pennine Way which seems to be the English equivalent of the Appalachian trail. So I went to the little town of Edale on Monday, which is the starting point of the Pennine Way intending to follow it for a little tiny bit. Interestingly, the Pennine Way goes straight to Scotland where I had just come back from. But I only walked less than half a mile, but still it was quite beautiful to be out in the country amongst sheep and rock walls and hills and clouds. I met an old man on the train there who I asked if the train was going to Edale, which I pretty much knew it was. Again, the old stupid question trick. So we had a little conversation at Edale about what to do there and he told me how to get to the Pennine Way and other hiking paths that might be more interesting. He also told me about a bus that I could catch that would take me to Castleton and back, but why would I want to take a bus in a circle from a place I had just taken the train to? It didn't hit me immediately, but the old man probably wanted company because that was what he was intending to do. It didn't hit me until I had walked a bit on the Pennine way and realized that it was not suitable for old men, as it required the frequent and fun climbing of rock walls, navigating slippery muddy thin paths, and stepping up steep slopes. So while I was having fun, I thought of the old man and wondered whether he had wanted company on his bus ride, which I'm sure would have been very beautiful and had I not been set on hiking and been having such a good time on the Pennine trail, I would have turned around and waited for the bus at 1:40 which I said I would. I hope he was not waiting for me there at the bus stop. I hadn't promised to take the bus, and he hadn't even said that he was intending to take the bus, but in retrospect, I recall that he stopped off at the visitor's center and indicated he was going to stop there for a while when we separated. He must have been biding his time for the bus and he probably does this all the time. Wow, so that was another "almost" connection I made on Monday. I had 2 "almost" connections this weekend, which is pretty good for me. I'm hoping to build on the momentum and build up my courage and skills to start conversations. The "stupid question" trick seems to have worked 2 out of 2 times so far, though I know I have to develop more refined tricks if I am going to be successful and develop full connections. Hmmmm... things are looking better, not only personally, but also at work, and also in regard to my residency situation in Minnesota, but I don't have time to go into that right now. I'm signing off for now. Cheers.

Not much to report today. Arrived at work at 8:15AM and was surprised to see one of the forensic pathologists already busy at work. It was one who I hadn't worked with before so it was nice to see a different style of post-mortem. In the afternoon, I met another of the senior forensic pathologists at the center who had been on vacation last week. He is a specialist in forensic toxicology and asked if I wanted to go with him to Doncaster for a trial, but the trial ended up being cancelled so we didn't go. I did read up about the medicolegal aspects of drunk driving which I am finding very interesting. I could definitely see myself specializing in a laboratory aspect of forensics like toxicology and being at the Mayo clinic with its reference laboratory should be a great exposure, although I doubt they do much forensic testing. I think it is really the interface between science and the law that I am interested in. Actually when I think about it, I have always been interested in the impact and influence of science on a social, cultural or historical level. In college, it was really the history of science or relation of science to religion, especially with regard to eastern religions, that drew my interest. In medical school, I have always been interested in the relationship between science and medicine, which many now take for granted, but the two really have as many differences as similarities in my mind. And now, I find myself interested in the relationship between science and law. Hmmm, maybe that is the kind of continuity I have been looking for, which means I should focus on forensic pathology during residency. Anyhow, I still have a little time to decide, although I don't have much time anymore. When I checked my email I found that my residency director at the Mayo clinic had emailed me next year's schedule. This is all getting too real. It's no longer in th planning stages. I will start out with 2 months of surgical pathology followed by 2 months of autopsy, then a couple of CP rotations. All in all I will have a lot of exposure to CP in my first year with 2 months of microbiology, 1 month each of coagulation and cytogenetics and 1 month of cytology. I will also have 3 months of autopsy and 4 months of surgical pathology. Hopefully, I will also have time to do a couple of papers for the CAP meeting and maybe the AACR meeting as well. We'll see how things go I guess. I really shouldn't be worrying about this too much at this stage. I should be trying to enjoy myself since this may very well be my last vacation in a long time.

Overall I'd have to say this journal is working out pretty well. I can't think of a better way to keep a traveling journal.

It is now day 9 of my trip to England and I am doing swimmingly with regard to finances mostly because my accomodations are completely free at the hospital residences so all I have to pay for regularly is food. As far as experiences go, I would have to say I am doing ok. Most of my experiences so far have been through my observations at the medicolegal centre which is where the forensic pathology department is located. Typically, I arrive around 8AM and watch one or two post-mortems until noon, at which time, I may hangout in the coffee room and get lunch, and then spend an hour or two reading in the library before I head off home. Sometimes if there are coroner's inquests in the afternoon I may attend, or if there are post-mortems or crime scenes away from the MLC I may tag along with one of the pathologists. Yesterday, I went along with one of the pathologists to 2 post-mortems in Wakefield and Leeds which are 2 adjacent cities. They were interesting but I did not get home until 7PM. Still it was nice to see areas outside of Sheffield and to have spent some time talking casually with the forensic pathologist as we drove. This past weekend I took a trip up to York which is a little town 1 hour north of Sheffield that is somewhat of a historical tourist trap, but there is a beautiful gothic cathedral with magnificent stained glass of which I snapped plenty of digital photos. I also spent about an hour walking through the narrow cobblestone streets and along the York city walls which were designed as a defense against northern marauders, though I have no idea who those marauders were supposed to be. My guidebook, unlike Lonely Planet, is a little skimpy on historical background, but more detailed on practical matters. Anyhoo, it was my first "sightseeing" excursion since arriving in England so it was nice to get my feet wet and start to rid myself of that initial tourist anxiety thing I tend to get as a lone traveller. I only spent about 3 hours in total in York, though, but with the 1.5 hour train ride both ways, it turned into an all day affair. While I've been in the UK, I've also done quite a lot of reading. I read this novel called "Spy by Nature" about a 24 year old guy who is recruited into the MI5 of British Intelligence. Yes, it was trashy, but I needed a break from DeLillo's Undeground. I also read Coehlo's The Alchemist, which was a perfect book for this point in my life, because it is about travelling and taking chances and following one's destiny. I bought the book just as I was leaving the bookstore with the trashy spy novel in hand, because I noticed it's bright orange cover on a shelf and somehow it seemed familiar. I'm still not sure whether I've picked it up before, but I'm sure I've never read it before. Right now, I'm about 150pgs into another trashy novel called Executive Orders (I think), by Tom Clancy, but it's getting pretty boring and I'm becoming irritated by his stereotypical portrayal of asians so I may stop. The fact that the book is thicker than it is wide or long also makes it unwieldy. That reminds me off the Alchemist where the traveler buys a thick book so it will last longer, but also so that he can use it as a pillow. He never gets past the first couple of pages though. Fortunately, I have pillows in my room, but who nows I may use it as a pillow when I start traveling. I'm a little ambivalent about traveling right now. As I've settled in here in Sheffield, I don't feel like I'm traveling at all. In fact, I could imagine myself very comfortably living here in my current situation for quite a while. Ever since I discovered the shower down the hall, all of my basic living requirements have been met. The only differences now between living in Brooklyn and in Sheffield is the lack of a television in my room and the fact that I have stopped smoking. Suprisingly neither of those deficiencies are making much of an impact at all. Oh yes, I still have to find a place to do my laundry. I know there is a laundromat at the Student Union, but the place where you buy tokens for the machine closes before I get off work. Anyway, its a minor problem. Yesterday, I had an incredible pan pizza from a pizzeria near my home. It was baked fresh while I waited, crust and all with whole olives, onions and lots of cheese. One of those meals so vividly memorable you can relive them for days. Man, it was good. I ate the whole thing at one sitting. As comfortable as my life situation is right now though, I still don't feel like I'm traveling, and of course there is the social aspect that is missing but that was missing when I was in Brooklyn as well. I still have the prospect of returning home and moving all my stuff to Minnesota hanging over my head too so its a little hard for me to think about seeking real adventures in just these few weeks I have left. Oh well, maybe I'll lose all my money in Europe and end up on an entirely different path once I start traveling, like the traveler in the Alchemist. This weekend I'm planning to take the train up to Edinburgh just to see what's going on up there, though it will be Easter weekend, so I'm not sure whether there will be anything going on. I'm going to go anyway since I need to get my feet more wet and since my finances are holding up pretty well.

So that was an account of my first day in Sheffield, UK. I have now been here for just under a week and I have to say I am becoming much more comfortable in the city, which has almost all of the amenities I was used to having in NYC. The only difference was what I had thought was a lack of a shower in my dormitory so I had been taking regular baths in a tub, splashing myself with a towel and bucket filled with soapy water. It was an odd way to bathe and I often felt I did not get all the soapy water off myself when I had finished since I usually take a shower after a bath in the states, on those rare occasions when I do take baths. Today, I explored the dormitory a little more and discovered that there IS a shower right down the hall, which people have apparently been using since there are bottles of shampoo lined along the window sill. The bathtub I had been using did not look like it was being used for anything, and I suspect that it may not be a bathtub at all, but a wash basin for laundry! I'm still not certain though, because there is a toilet next to the wash basin/bath tub thingy. Anyway, no one had seen me leaving the bathtub room after having washed myself, so I have not gotten any strange looks. In fact, I have had very limited contact with the other people in the dorm which has been a disappointment, since I expected many other visiting students myself to be staying there. I had two contacts with other residents, both very similar, if not identical, in occurence and both very anti-social and involving the common room. On one occasion, I was sitting in the common room watching television and reading book simultaneously and a middle aged woman walked in. I said Hi and thought to introduce myself but she immediately asked how long I was going to be in the room. I told her I didn't know but she was welcome to come in and watch whatever she wanted on the television. She said that she would come back at 8 because she wanted to watch East End, with the presumption that I would have to leave by then. So I did. The second time, I heard someone in the common room and thought I would try again to introduce myself to whoever was in there. To my surprise it was another asian girl so I thought I had a good chance of making a friend. I opened the door and she just sat there ignoring me. Didn't even turn around. Then she did and asked me if I wanted her to leave. "No, not at all, I just didn't know there was a television in here." What I really should have said was no, I just was wondering who was watching the telly. Anyway, she then muttered something about having a television in her own room and literally ran out of the room, forgetting her drink. As she walked by I told her she forgot her drink, but she just ignored me. So I had no intention of watching television now and making it look like I kicked her out so I went back to my room. After I closed the door, she went back and got her drink. Strange... Maybe I'm not approaching this in the right way... Work has been a much more sociable experience though, which I will describe later, but I would like to have some social experiences outside of work on my own as well. I still have 3 weeks here in Sheffield so we'll see...

Sheffield, UK, the fourth largest city in England, the tourist book says, but I'm not here as a tourist. I'm at the University of Sheffield taking a four week course in Forensic Pathology, which is essentially the investigation of suspicious or unnatural deaths mostly through post mortem examinations. I arrived in London from New York last Sunday, spent the morning walking through the parts of London I did not see on my last visit, checked out the new Tate museum and then took the 2 1/2 hour train ride from London to Sheffield arriving around 4 PM. By the time I arrived I was exhausted because I did not get any sleep on the plane and the time difference deprived me of 5 hours of sleep time so I had caught a wink for the past 24 hours by the time I was trying to figure out how to get from the Sheffield train station to the hotel I had booked for one night near the university. Fortunately, I took the right bus, but got off at the wrong station and ended up walking at least half a mile with my heavy bags in tow. The hotel sat at the top of a hill, was made entirely of stone and looked like a Victorian castle. My room had a window that faced downhill so I could see the entire of Sheffield city which was quite larger than I had imagined. But I was so tired, I went to sleep before the sun went down and woke up around 5AM. At 7:30AM the porter had arranged to have breakfast ready which consisted of ham, eggs, mushrooms, toast, coffee and juice. It was a hefty meal and kept me going well through supper that day. Immediately, I went to the dormitory where a room was supposed to have been arranged for me and to me delight the room was reserved and had everything I needed, which was just a bed, sheets and pillows. In the room, there was also a closet, a desk with lamp, sitting and reclining chairs, and my own sink with a deep wash basin and mirror. And it was all provided free of charge so I was very happy about that. I tried to register with the medical school as I had been instructed but the woman who was to meet me was sick that day so I proceeded immediately to the forensic pathology department which I was surprised to learn was a 20 minute walk away from the hospital and my room. It was a pleasant day anyway, and an extremely pleasant walk, through Weston park, past several museums and old university buildings and down a very steep hill. I felt a bit like Jude the Obscure walking down the hill to my new workplace for the next 4 weeks. What adventures would lie ahead of me?