Another year over

Or should I say, another year is beginning? 2011 has been a big year, I became a final year student, I went to live in South Africa for two months, I set up my Etsy shop, I got diagnosed with a serious chronic condition, and I got engaged.
 

2012 is going to be even bigger - I'm getting married, graduating, moving into our marital home, and starting work as a doctor. I've passed my first set of finals, have a job somewhere in the West Midlands lined up, just don't know where exactly and doing what just yet. Peter is still amending his thesis, so it's all hands on deck. 

I'd be lying if I said that none of this worries me but the truth is, I'm not nervous about my wedding day. Well, apart from my dad's speech perhaps. I'm more worried about my studies and working on the ward.

The news was just talking about an elderly man celebrating his 85th birthday by flying from one village to the next by zip wire, which made me think of my favourite superhero grandma:

'I knew I should have washed at 40.'

All taken by Sacha Goldberger of his 91 year old grandma, Frederika. He realised she was feeling lonely and came up with this idea. 

'No power in the 'verse can stop me.'

I only hope I'd be half as cool, if I ever live to that age. People moan about feeling old every time their birthday comes round, another year is over. The way I see it, we should just embrace our age. My last new year resolution was to learn to knit, I knitted a white fringe with the help of my future mum-in-law, just in time for 2012.

'Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift of God, which is why we call it the present.'

Wishing each and every one of you a very Happy New Year.

Racism

I realise I haven't blogged for a while since starting my final year of Medicine, had so much going on with foundation year applications, finals, deadlines that it was all I could to hold onto my hat! 

During the months leading up to and during South Africa, £53.61 ($88.08) was raised from 30% of my sales on your behalf for the British Red Cross Tsunami Appeal, which I was really happy about. Thank you so much.

I'd like to talk about something else though today, this was what made me blog again after my relatively long hiatus.

Let me share something with you reading this now. On my first day on the school bus in year four, the kids told me to go back to my own country and pretty much acted like this woman - I was nine then. In secondary school, older kids would pelt me with ripe fruit on the way home and the whole bus would laugh. That kid on her lap is likely to grow up like that - I see where it comes from now and it's sad. 

One of the girls said whilst we were in South Africa that she had never felt so racially-aware in all her life. I felt differently myself, no one there pelted me with anything, they just wanted to know where I came from. The kids in the orphanage liked to play with my hair and touch my skin that was very different from their own. True, people did point at me from outside the window, presumably as they had never seen someone who was neither white or black, but the kindness we encountered on those cramped minibuses where strangers would make sure you knew where you were getting off, give you half of their maize snack, and ring hostels on our behalf... I never felt so happy on public transport before. 

The way I see it, we are all ONE race. The human race. Sure we have different languages and cultures, we eat different foods, our skin burns under the sun in varying degrees and some of us don't like wearing skirts, but fundamentally to me, there is no such thing as different races among humans.

On a more cheerful note, here's one of my favourite listings. She's named  'Beatrice' after a lovely lady I met whilst visiting the Children's Feeding Programme in Guyana, where I first saw live hummingbirds.

Here's to celebrating diversity and understanding! More Etsy listings coming soon. If you haven't seen this already, I think Disney Pixar - 'Day and Night' sums it up pretty well. Good day to you all.