Ten plus days in my new abode - and now, I am connected!

The connection I chose is the one from sky.com. I purchased the internet broadband, the TV and the landline all from them. They were to come to my place on the 23rd to install the internet, but I was compelled to cancel that date as I went urgently to India on the previous morning. I had to re-schedule it - and the earliest reschedule date they gave me was the 6th of September. In between, they sent an engineer to install the TV set-top box - on the 29th of August. Hence, by that evening, Sky TV channels started beaming into my house. I was, after a long gap of over 22 months, finally able to view Indian channels on Sky. Thus, I was now able to choose between over 20 Indian channels, many of them in HD, such as Sony, Sony Sab, Sony Max, Times Now,  Aaj Tak, News 18, Star, Rishtey, etc. etc. Within the last 10 days, I have weaned off British TV and am engrossed in watching Indian TV. 

The internet guys came on the appointed date - i.e. on the 6th. By 4:00 p.m., I got connected by wireless to the worldwide web! I am now able to keep both my mobile phone and my laptop connected simultaneously. This had hitherto been impossible to do when I was staying in the hospital quarters since they allowed only 1 device to be connected at one time. The speed of the connection is excellent as well, since I am now able to download at speeds of over 1.5mbps.

Internet connectivity also allows me to view "box sets" - entire series of shows, by downloading them to the set-top box and then viewing them at my own leisure. My set-top box can download three programs at a time for later viewing. And this is an amazing feature indeed if you cannot decide which shows to save for later and which to skip.

That's it for now. Do keep reading, sharing and commenting on my blog entries. Thank you.

Sharing lots of news

Since I last wrote a post on the 27th of November, a lot of water has flown under the bridge. My appointment became formal from the 1st of December, and hopefully, my first salary should come in a few days before Christmas. That is one good news. The next one is that I have completed my health assessment and I should start my routine duties from the 15th of this month. That will definitely help me to start working with real patients, hands on. The third good news is that I have registered myself with the NHS (National Health Service) for my own health, and was able to get my medicines free of cost for the next entire month. This means that I will no longer have to lug a huge stock of medicines with me from India. 

I have also occupied myself with attending interesting talks. Yesterday, I went all the way to London, to the HQ of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, to hear the Annual Christmas Lecture by  Sir Micheal Marmot from the London College Hospital's Epidemiology Department. His talk was on "The Health Gap: Addressing inequalities in the delivery of Health care, and the Importance of Community Health care". It was a brilliant lecture indeed. However, more than the lecture, I enjoyed my one-afternoon trip to London very much. I met one Dr. Pradeep Sahare of Nagpur, who works as a Community Pediatrician in the UK. During my return journey, I met with and befriended a British woman, a struggling actor by profession, one Ms. Julie H.. as we were sitting across from each other on the long journey back from London. She turned out to be a very jovial and interesting woman indeed. As we parted at Warrington, a few stops before my own destination at Preston (where I would change to another train to take me back to my home town), we exchanged our contacts and promised to be in touch. You could say she is my first British acquaintance outside the setting of the Hospital.

Today, I attended one more interesting talk. It was a half-day workshop on Being Resilient. It was conducted by one Ms. Bec Howard, a life-style coach, and it was just super! The main message of the entire 3+ hours of learning was to dig in there, despite the ups and downs of life around you, and to retain your fresh attitude and persist in doing the right thing so as to emerge a winner and a leader that others around you can look up to. 

I am also due to appear for an interview before the Job centre in Preston in connection with my enrollment for a National Insurance number. This interview is scheduled for later this month. 

I am actually beginning to like my accommodation inside the hospital. I have made myself home here, and have organised my two rooms and the available storage in the kitchen to reflect my own needs. As I share the flat with another doctor (an Iraqui resident in Medicine), I have to respect his needs and space as well. On the whole, though, he and I live in quite different ways. He does not cook much, and gets all his food from the shops outside - but mostly from within the hospital, where we have two big brand shops, viz. M & S and W H Smith. Whereas I, with my genuine liking of cooking and self-cooked food, have expanded my larder by making lots of purchases from different places, supermarkets, malls and so on within Blackpool and from Preston, and even Manchester. I have all my needs met insofar as my kitchen is concerned. 

My family has couriered a lot of additional stuff, though, and pretty soon, when these things arrive, I will have no difficulty in living normally. 

Finally, My gymming and exercising has taken off in a good way. I am maintaining a record of the activities I do, with dates, calories burned (wherever I know it) and so on. It's too early to feel and weigh any different, but I am sure results will come soon. I am hoping to lose at least 3 kg by the year end. Let us see what happens.

Thank you for reading this entry and for your enthusiasm and for the encouragement you give me. I hope you are enjoying reading my blog entries as much as I am enjoying writing them.