I'm so Young.

Why do I appear to be one of the youngest bloggers around?!
I look round at hundreds of blogs of various descriptions from all parts of life, and every author appears to be much older than me, at least 25+. No moaning about 25 being "old", don't tell me when you were 18 being older than 25 seemed a distant dream..
Everybody is an undergraduate, a graduate or have found themselves in life with a job, or something interesting to report on. Me, a little 18 year old floating about... I'm far too young to be pondering such things. Maybe "young" people (define that as you will) aren't as interesting.

I also found this blog. After much browsing, I couldn't really understand why this man is so cynical about everything. I don't know if its a cultural thing or what, or possibly just the ambulance sense of humour. However, on reflection I am beginning to think that the accounts draw from the realm of fiction to a degree, I'm sure the events happened in some fashion, just without the narrative that wouldn't feel out of place in a drama series on Fox. I am by no means making any insult towards him, just trying to relate whether or not I will start to show that kind of attitude to everything.

A Proper Working Boy.

(Format shamelessly stolen from Merys' blog )

5:00- Wake up. Groan. Stumble out of bed, eat something. Check Blog/forums/e-mail.

5:45- Drive to work.

5:55- Open shop, by my-self while listening to the happy tones of Maximo Park.

7:00- Next opener comes in. We set up the shop, chopping things, washing things and baking things.

8:00- Finish setting up shop. Being shift manager (Pah!), means I have to deal with all the money, great fun indeed.

8:01- Open safe, and grumble again because people were lazy and didn't visit the Bank yesterday.

8:30- £1,876.98 counted correctly, ready to be deposited.

8:45- Prepare order sheet for the first of three that I shall be making today.

9:15- Finish. Coke ring and ask if I'm ready to order from them yet, I tell them no and that I'll ring them later. People who work at Coke sound like they drink it all day.....

9:30-10:30- Serve people, eat food, discover yesterday that the lazy gits didn't do the Veg delivery. Bugger. Make desperate phonecall, the nice lady will send me my delivery tomorrow.

10:45- Make little boy and his sister laugh with silly facialexpressionss. Missus pops in for a quick chat and a kiss.

11:00- Discover that it will be me, opener and two trainees over lunch-more work for me.

12:00- Lunch is slow, but due toincompetencee of aforementioned trainees, feels like I'm doing all the work.

14:00- Coke ring again, I tell them I'm not ready yet. They lady is still high oncaffeinee.

14:30-15:00- Race my way through the largest pile of washing up I've seen in a long time. Consequently drenched.

15:05- I phone Coke, and give them the order.

15:20- Hand-over till to evening staff (£3.43 up, yes!)

15:30-15:55- Clean shop, make it look tidy and neat. 5 minutes to go.

16:00- Boss phones. Asks if I can stay late to wait for someone senior to come and supervise the newbies. He says they'll be 15 minutes, tops.

16:16- GRRRRR! Much aggravated toe tapping later, I phone the boss, and ask where is he. Non-committalal response given, so I leave.

16:30- Give fellower opener lift home.

16:45- Come home, watch recorded Trauma Uncut.

17:15- Check Blogs/forums/e-mail.

17:45- Steal idea for post.

18:05- Publish this.

I'm leaving this stinking job on the 21st of August. Can't wait to leave....

Carmelo the Giant Pansy.

Watching that programme with Gordon Ramsey on Channel 4 tonight. Not to say I was shocked, just shaken.
I don't often use my vegetarian roots as a soap box to shout down moral judgement on the carnivores in this world, so I won't start now. I will however express just how nasty it was to see the eel die. Thinking about this, the career I will be pursing will involve a fair amount of claret, so I suppose I'll just have to deal with it. When I deal with gore in real life, i.e. dissecting hearts/kidneys/livers etc, I don't get squeamish at all. In fact, truth be told I get a little hungry, despite the nasty smell of offal. I think its my inner-carnivore desperately trying to escape.
I have no problems touching meat, yet I couldn't quite place why I was so ruffled by this particular incident. The chef just beheaded the thing, right there!
Maybe it wasn't the actual act, but the brutality behind it. I'm quite a gentle creature, a trait which gives equally as many problems as it does benefits I'm afraid. I think empathy is the main problem...

Although, Salami looks really tasty, as does sushi. I enjoy discussing with the Missus what would be the first meat I would try, so far I have ruled out anything avian, bovine or porcine. That leaves fish, but as the title states, I'm far too much of a pansy to try it.
On the way back from the airport exercise, I killed a rabbit who ran out in the road. I was so upset, I felt like a murderer!
If it takes an accidental death on my hands for me to feel I have turned around and spat on my values, I worry a little bit what I'm going to be like dealing with it on a daily basis.

Sunset

I know it might not be as good asLola's sunset from Turkey , but I thought it was pretty good for Blackpool. Sorry about the delay, Blogger was being a stubborn child and refusing to upload photos.
The rest of the Photos are now also refusing to upload, there was a good one of the Pepsi Max Big One and some ducks, but alas you shall never see them.
On the accommodation front, St George's have said if I want Hall's, I have to wait for the Doctors and Nurses to be accommodated first. Since only 2 students on the Paramedic course (including myself) have asked about accommodation, we're pretty low priority.
I am also trying to get my C1 licence sorted out (allows me to drive ambulances), including taking another theory test with hazard perception part...great. Then its a week training in a van, a test, and we're done.
Monday was my last night at my local Red Cross centre, and we actually did something interesting. They set up a scenario, involving a simulated motorbike vs. car accident. We were supposed to be first aiders on scene, I assessed the passenger from the bike with suspected spinal injuries. Don't worry I didn't take the helmet off, or even attempt to. And yes I checked his breathing beforehand.
When I do move to South London, hopefully I'll join up with the local Red Cross there. Carmelo suspects he has found a life-time organization, I did think about moving to St. John, but I decided against it. Couldn't tell you why, but I am not prejudiced against "Johnners".

Talking of Johnners, anybody seen the front-cover of Tom Reynold's book?

My first mobile post!

Above is the best picture I could take of the Blackpool tower. Big isn't it? More photos tomorrow.

Warning: Immature Post.

He he he. Its so cool!
24" rims on an ambulance!

Blackpool

Right, so tomorrow Carmelo is off with the Missus' family to meet her Nan and Aunt in Blackpool. Never been there before, so should be an interesting experience. I'll try and get a nice photo of the tower to show you all.

I've been spammed.

Well. Didn't see that one coming. Every post on this page had an extra comment stating how great it was, with a link to various mortgage and poker sites. This meant reading through all the posts so far, and looking at comments. I would just like to say thank you to everyone for being so supportive.

Don't worry, I'm still allowing anonymous comments, I don't feel its fair for people to have to sign up to Blogger just to add a comment. I just added word verification. In an odd way, it feels nice to be spammed. Maybe this blog is attracting enough attention to be worthy of spam?
Or, more likely, I'm a plonker who didn't put adequate security measures on his blog..

Desidero Che Potrei Parlare Italiano

As the name might suggest, I am Italian, to a point. My mother hails from
Sicily, more specifically the capital, Palermo. She trained as a nurse over there, but got sick of the hot temperatures, so decided to up and leave with her sister to England. Here she met my Cornish father, and whom I am the product from.
However, my mother decided it would be best not to bring my brother and I up bi-lingual, as she felt that it would isolate my father while we nattered away in Italian.

Why?!

I sorely wish I could speak it, and have wanted to ever since I was little. My mother and aunt always speak to each other in Italian, I have always wanted to understand what they were saying, but alas I cannot. Since turning 18, I have also discovered that I have dual-citizenship, and as such have been receiving Ballot papers for about 8 months now in a language I cannot understand.
It deeply saddens me, so I intend to make a bold effort to learn the language while at University. I feel I owe it to my Italian roots, Carmelo is my middle name, Carmelo Alongi was my Grandfather, I owe him the effort. He died when I was very young, as did my Italian Grandmother, and I have little in the way of Italian family. I very much feel like if I don't act now, my heritage will slip through my fingers, along with a piece of me. This Blog in a way is a tribute to him. In real life I carry the name of my English Grandfather as a forename, so always carry him with me, I think its time I did the same for Carmelo.

Nice Photo

Feeling a bit down after that awful photo of myself, so here is a slightly more flattering one of me on my 18th birthday:

Late Night Working and What a Nice Lady!

Having just finished a close shift at work, I took a photo of myself at about 11:45:












Three things of note here:

• 1) How awful I look at night
• 2) I look surprisingly Chav-ish..if such a word exists.
• 3) Do I have a big nose, or is it just me?

If I look this bad doing a 6 hour night shift, I shudder to think how I shall cope doing 12 hour ones. However, I can't wait to find out.

So today I have been doing some ringing around, to try and get money to fund my endeavors. First I phoned the NHS bursaries agency, and was told in no un-certain terms that they did not help out Paramedic Students. It says on the website that the course has to be NHS approved, I asked myself "since when was LAS not part of the NHS?!"

Next port of call was the Local Education Authority (LEA), who deal out the loans to students in their area. I was told I can apply for a loan, which is what I shall be doing tomorrow. Great a day of huge forms!

Finally I rang St. Georges to sort out somewhere for me to live. What a nice lady. She was very helpful, genuinely knew what she was talking about, and said how it can and has been beneficial to Paramedic students to live with other Health workers. It allows people to see the "other side" of health care a bit. Personally I love the idea of studying in a medical institution, being able to bounce ideas of other people who know what they're talking about seems like a good idea. Anyway, she said she shall get back to me within the week and tell about more specific arrangements. She also said how there aren't many Paramedic students about, so the accommodation office tends not to deal with them too often. This made me feel, well, special. Its nice to know that if you persevere with what you want you get it.

Expansion.

Sorry about the last post. Carmelo is a bit pleased. Here's the letter:

Dear applicant,

Further to your recent interview, I am pleased to advise you that the Faculty of Health and Social Care Sciences wishes to offer you a conditional place on the above course, commencing on the 4th September 2006 (Eeek! That's a bit close..)

The offer is subject to you meeting the following conditions:

• Receiving a satisfactory Occupational Health assessment
• Receiving a satisfactory Criminal records Bureau disclosure ( I am not a criminal)

To paraphrase; blah blah blah, contact us on, blah blah,

Many congratulations on you successful application. I look forward to seeing you when the course starts.

( An illustration I did at work about how I felt)

Right. That's good. Now to find accommodation, and money to pay for it.

Ahem...

....I GOT IN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
London here I come!

Exceptionally Beautiful

I had to share this with the world. This is my Missus.

Photos

Sorry I didn't get any photos. I tried four times to take photos and each time a man with more pips on his shoulder than the last told me no photos were allowed. Honestly though, nothing amazing turned up, I think the most interesting that was there was this one (or something reasonably similar):



That was from the local fire brigade. The Essex St. John branch also pulled up in a massive command truck, the biggest thing there.

Triage by Firemen...

So. Yesterday I went to a "major incident" exercise at an airport in Essex. I got into it being a member of the British Red Cross, big perk.
To begin with, we all met up in a building, and were introduced to everybody. The chief fire officer for the Airport gave us a safety briefing, and off we drove to the "crash site". The simulation was supposed to be a German plane that had crashed coming out of the airport, so of course we expected to see a disused aircraft sitting on the tarmac. So when we drove up to a field with a bus in it, I was a little bit disappointed. The bus was supposed to be the fuselage of the plane, and strewn around it for about 100 meters were various bits of real plane, to add some sort of realism. Add to this two stinking great holes, and the thing was set. I was an uninjured casualty. I, along with others from my centre, were told to get into the woods and hide. We proceeded to do so, and waited for about half an hour. Then the firemen poured quite a lot of paraffin into the holes, and used a blowtorch on the fuel. Big fire. Good I thought, its getting interesting.

Next three toots on an airhorn and we were off. I positioned myself near the fence in the wood, to get a good view. Since this was a real exercise, the fire brigade had to come from the airport fire station, a good two miles away. But, sure enough 5 minutes later two hulking great crash tenders turn up and drive into the field, accompanied by the officer's land rover and some other engines. Things continued in this fashion, with various ambulances, fire and police vehicles attending. Curiously I counted at least 6 St. John Crusaders. At this point there looked to be more officers than staff, so I began to wonder in the wood.......


.........twenty-five thorn bushes later I give up, and sat by a tree. And here I sat for the next half hour, playing with my new phone, until some fireman had the audacity to rescue me! Man-handled back through the bushes, I was thrown out of the woods and another fireman places a "priority 3" plastic wallet onto my wrist. I was slightly curious how he could triage me..

More waiting. Except this time in a field. People were getting bored, so started pretending to faint to annoy the various emergency personalle. At this point I was about ready to eat my own hand with boredom, so was reasonably pleased when the bus came to take us to the "survivor reception centre". This trip was interesting, all the way through the airport, without a passport check. Or a bag check. I dread to think what would have happened if one of us had a bomb.

Next we were hoarded into a terminal, and greeted by staff who seemed genuinely surprised to see us. We then waited there for a good three hours, before going to the car and me struggling to drive home without falling asleep. Turns out the staff didn't know about it, and thought they were there for overtime. The moral? Never work in an airport.

Oopps

Oopps indeed. Typically me, today I decided I wanted the aforementioned phone. So I walked into a well known phone shop, and walked out with the new phone, a better contract and £100 in my pocket to pay off the rest of my present contract. I think I squeezed them dry..Carmelo is very proud of himself.

Hopefully there shall be an interesting post tomorrow (today! Sorry late night posting), going to an Airport to assist as a "casualty" in a major incident simulation. Should be fun (fingers crossed).

Also got a slightly reasuring e-mail from my only current trust, explaining how the mergers had delayed them knowing the boundries of their service, so couldn't yet tell anyone where they are. They're meeting on the 2nd of August, and I shall know where I am by the 5th. This shall then lead to a frantic month of searching for suitable dwellings. Yes!

Still waiting for that letter. Still.

Gadgets!

I absolutely love gadgets with much of my heart. My favourite gadget at the moment is my PSP:

I got it the day after it came out last year, and have not stopped loving it since. Ask the Missus.
I love fiddling around with it, putting movies and music on it etc.
However, yesterday we discovered a new contender for favourite gadget:
This is the next object of my adoration. Bascially this phone has a great camera (3.2 megapixels!!), but more importantly you can blog from it! It was designed wih Google blogs like this one in mind, meaning I can take photos and write posts on the move, just like Tom does. Had a nice chat yesterday with a man in India about upgrading my present handset to this one, he said in October I should be able to get it for free. So, I must wait. Like the Guinness advert says, Good things come...

7/7/2005

Just coming to the anniversary of this horrific incident. I watched the entire thing fold out in front of me in the common room on TV, with the same sense of dread that spilled over me when I watched the Twin Towers collapse in 2001. Except this was far closer to home. All I could and can wish for is that the families and friends of the victims and the victims themselves realise the support we all feel for them. Call it praying or whatever, empathy at its most basic level.
Watching it all, the one thing I did feel was helpless. I did not enjoy that at all, in general I am a control freak (terrible I know), but I enjoy power. When I do start in September, hopefully I will start to gain the confidence and knowledge to help people in awful situations like that, instead of staring like a prune at the TV.

Love Pylon.

Strange title, even stranger story.
My Missus is fretting a bit about me leaving for University. Honestly she has nothing to worry about, even though I reassure her on a daily basis that we will make it through. I don't tend to buy into the whole "long distance relationships don't work" crap, as I see it lots of people see Uni as a way to escape long-term relationships from sixth form/college. However, since I have no wish to "escape" my relationship, I intend to go through Heaven and Hell to ensure it works out, love is a rarity.

Now today I was trying to explain this to her using a diagram..

I was trying to draw a tree, and to show that while the branches of the tree may separate some times, the tree is always one. However, since my C-grade art skills were barely that, the tree ended up looking like an electricity pylon, wires an' all. Great, a love pylon!
Needless to say we both slipped into fits of giggles, coupled with the various childish noises that we make..
In an attempt to improve upon my pylon, she rubbed it out, and replaced it with what looked like to me a house. I said this, and to illustrate my point added doors and windows, very nice it was too. Our house is still up on my white-board in my room. I prefer my pylon.

Licking Ambulances.

Ok, hands up, I lied. This post isn't full of exclamation marks and the youthful exuberance I was hoping to fill it with, as that bloody letter still hasn't come. Yet.
On to more interesting things ( context sensitive)
Today at work, I saw somebody I really did not expect to.

I'll give a bit of back detail:
When I was 15, I did my work experience with the local ambulance service. This involved a week trotting about the local area in various smelly, old and dilapidated Patient Transport vans. I loved it though, so it was the icing on the cake to spend the last two days on the High Dependency Unit.
Now, on reflection, this wasn't much else than a normal PTS van with some O2 lines and a stretcher lift, but to me this was high tech kit! The guy who operated it was called Rob, along with his partner made me feel very much at home. He really helped me focus the whole ambulance ambition thing, as he wanted it too. At the time he was merely a humble Ambulance Care Assistant, with a bit of extra training so he could give O2 etc, however he had grand ambitions to start the tech course and move over to A&E. So I left that week with a concrete idea of my direction in life and I thought that was it


So, guess who wonders into work today? The crew did their usual trick of pulling up outside ( see here), and in wonders a double-tech crew I haven't seen before.

• First thought: word must be spreading of our glorious discounts.
• Second: that guy looks familiar. A few moments pondering later, I realise that he might be the aforementioned Rob.

Cautiously, I ask him "Did you use to work the HDU round here?"
He replied "Yes, why?"

"I did my work experience with you.."

"I knew I recognised you! Carmelo, isn't it? How are you?
"Fine, fine yourself?"
"Good, what are you doing working in here?! I thought you were joining the ambulance service?"
"I am, I'm starting Uni in September to study Paramedic Science"

Que a conversation with Rob and his crewmate about the benefits and negatives of in-house training vs university led. It was great!
He remembered me!!
I could see his chest puff out a tad with pride, he had inspired someone. I was also pleased he had done the tech course and got what he wanted.
The crew left with a chorus of "Good luck", so of course sod's law dictates that my voice breaks when I say "Goodbye". Instead of my usual manly baritone, out pops a squeaky adolescent "GoOdBYe!". Idiot.

Wow. Talk about a spur. Lately the whole letter business has been getting me down, but sure enough, everytime I lose a bit of faith, something or other prods me back on the straight and narrow. I know it was only something small, but it helped put a bit of perspective on my short life. I was only 15 when I first met this guy, and even before that I wanted to join the ambulance service, and yet I still have a huge drive behind me, 3 years later. However, now its even bigger than before, the goal is in sight and I can almost taste it.

No, I haven't been licking ambulances.