Milo: The Great Pronunciation Debate

You say to-mah-to, I say to-may-to, right? Apparently you can have either way right? It doesn't matter right? Wrong! Well, it's wrong when it comes to this  famous energy food drink.

I've noticed recently that my Southern African friends pronounce it as 'My-lo' like it's a name, whereas my friends above the equator and particularly in West Africa pronounce it as 'Millow' (like it rhymes with willow).

My opinion - you can't drink a person. I was raised on 'Millow'. Am I right? Comment below or use the poll to the right.

Pimsleur Twi Review

As you know over the last few months I have been attempting to learn Twi, an Akan language of Ghana, where I am originally from. To do this I bought a Twi-English dictionary and the Pimsleur Twi Audio CD set. Here are my thoughts on it.

The Pimsleur Twi Audio course is a 10 lesson audio course with a short accompanying reading booklet. Each audio lesson is about 20-25 minutes long and the course is designed for you to complete one lesson a day, everyday if possible. Reading lessons are much shorter (2 – 5 minutes) and are separate from the main audio part. The reading lessons took place roughly every other day. The material covered included basic that you would encounter as a tourist in Ghana e.g.: introducing yourself, asking for directions, and buying food and drink etc.

I have to say that this is the first ever teach-yourself-a-language course that I have ever managed to complete. Usually I get bored or find the language too difficult to learn and give up.  The Pimsleur course was actually engaging and enjoyable. It also went at a pace that was easy to follow. It may have helped that I was already a bit familiar with the language. However there were days that I did have to repeat because I struggled with the lesson the first time round.

Let’s play the Plagiarism Game: the cite is right!

My university have an incredibly boring plagiarism lecture every year for which attendance is compulsory. A register is taken. During the lecture we have to complete exercises where we look for evidence of plagiarism in (supposedly) real submitted pieces of work. At the end of the torture we have a quiz (oh joy!) that you have to pass. It is two hours of your life you are never going to get back.

So during this last torture session I had an idea for fresh new delivery of the material.

Introducing (drum roll please)…‘The Plagiarism Game: the cite is right!’

You play the character Student [insert your name here] as you struggle through the perilous terrain of coursework-land battling the evil plagiarising creatures therein. The twin demons of ‘copy and paste’ shall fall before your sword of citation and your quiver of quotation marks. Beware the deceptive mist of’ just-rearranging-the-words’ though that will confuse your avatar and deplete your timeline more quickly. Traverse or avoid the murky swamp of ‘misinterpreting-common-knowledge'. And finally battle the most difficult enemy of all the shadow avatar of self-plagiarism’. It knows all your tricks, all your moves. How will you fare? With your arsenal of appropriately sourced references nothing should stop you from attaining your goal of a publication in a prestigious scientific or medical journal however you must get through the game first.

Let’s be honest though, this would only really appeal to people who would be into games though. Oops! I forgot what field I’m in.

There may already be an app for that.

To be a good surgeon...you must play 'Call Of Duty'?

Apparently doctors that end up being surgeons are more likely to be male and play video games. Particularly with keyhole surgery, playing video games can apparently help to build the brain's ability to integrate and understand a 2D image on a screen and how it relates to a 3D response with the hands and fingertips. That's not even mentioning the manual dexterity it helps with.

I'm not sure if there are studies to confirm this idea, but in my opinion, it might also help with getting used to seeing blood, guts and gore on screen.

Being more of a Nitendo Wii girl myself, does that mean I should abandon any dreams I may or may not have of becoming the world's greatest brain/heart/any-kind-of surgeon just because I'm not addicted to 'Call Of Duty' or other console games? The fact is I'm just not very into gaming as a past time although from time to time (mainly when I supposed to be revising) I do become engrossed in the sims.

Is that just me? Or is that a female predicament? I haven't done any rigorous investigation into the topic but from anecdotal evidence it seems that more men than women play video games? I know for a fact that the games industry has a 96% male workforce. Maybe they are just not designing games I want to play? Or maybe the games that I would play won't sell? Or maybe I'm just not interested in gaming as a pastime?

There are many questions. And many possible answers. (Sounds like something for some bright medical student to go and research)

Just as a closing thought, there's often another person in the operating room who has to hold the camera during keyhole procedures. That person is often a more junior doctor or at times a medical student. Now you may think that holding a camera is an easy compared to the difficult job of doing a whole surgery inside a tiny space. However I can personally say that it is in fact quite tiring doing it for hours on end without moving or changing position much. My question is: does doing an activity like yoga, which strengthens core muscles, help with doing this task? Or does the ability to enter a zen-like trance at will help make the hours fly by? Who does more yoga men or women? Could this mean that women are more suited to assistant type roles?

Very controversial I know.

Either way, I think it raises lots more questions.

Brave

I sometimes wonder why I write this. Or why I write anything.

I like to think that I have something meaningful to say. Something worth listening to. Something worth reading. But the thing is I don’t tell people about my writing or indeed that I write at all. Very few people know about this blog or my stories or poems. And to be completely honest, I am loath to tell them. I’m not very good at self-promotion. I’d rather be discovered by chance. A happy accident.

I envy people who are brave. Brave enough to show the world what they are made of. What they think, feel and believe.  To expose themselves to the potential ridicule of others and take the risk anyway.

Right now, I’m not even brave enough to put words to a blank page.

I wonder where did my courage go?