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April 9th, 2008
04:34 pm - Snippets From The Hall
Gawd bless lecturers. The silliest, lightest little faux-pas that you'd never think of saying in normal circumstances come crashing from their oral orifices (easy!) on a regular basis. From the mouths of babes and tutors… Especially when you’re into your midwifery module and learning about sexual health…
(I cannot accept any responsibility for the content of the herein contained clangers. But they are absolutely, without a shadow of a doubt, all gods’ honest true and direct quotes. I just report'em for a quick snigger.)
First up, the sexual health lecturer, talking about forms of contraception:
“Oh- what’s the word…?” (Annoyed, thoughtful pause). “Condoms? Aw, fuck’em.”
Er, I thought that was the idea.
She’s quite clear about not giving handy tips while in school:
“I don’t expect to turn people on- they do that between themselves.”
And she’s quite sure about where her brief lies:
“I never expected to teach people to suck eggs- or anything else for that matter.”
Oooo-kay, so what are we meant to take from this series of maternity/ sex ed. lectures, miss?
“’I want’ does not mean ‘I get’.”
Right on, sister
Apparently getting jiggy is breaking out all over:
“Groups set up in Essex have been particularly sexful- er- successful…”
And we must get to grips with a national problem to do with teenager sex ed.; the cascade effect down the generations:
“Children of teenage mothers, especially their daughters, are likely to go and get pregnant themselves.” Because we all know about that rising national trend- pregnant teenage males…
Mind you, the breastfeeding lecture wasn’t much better. Once we’d calmed down from the excitements of sex ed., along came the next maternity lecturer- with her knitted breasts that she… fondled… as she spoke.
I kid you not; these were carefully constructed depictions of breasts made in wool of cheerful hues with varying nipple shapes on them. Apparently very useful to teach trainee midwives about baby latching onto breast... or possibly a really cheap, smutty giggle prop. If my nipples ever get to be that very particular shade of yellow, however, I think it’s definitely time to see a specialist.
As if these visual aids were not enough, then we were treated to some DVDs to aid our audio-visual learning channels. The animation for breastfeeding showing how the milk ducts open with the baby’s sucking was especially disturbing to my colleague:
C: Oh god, that nipple just split open!
Me: That baby is deep throating that nipple.
Don’t look at me like that, it was.
Although, if anyone was in any doubt about the events thus disturbingly and pictorially illustrated- say if any of us girls were getting worried about our anatomy, our sprightly lecturer had this to say about the effects of the baby's suck mechanism:
"The nipple is attached- it will follow."
Phew, that's a relief. I thought it'd drop off with all the excitment.
Mind you, we must count our blessings, ladies:
"The pain at the end of labour is bad- in 2nd stage it is bad- but it is intermittent. So you're really only in pain for about... 3- 4 hours."
Oh, good. So not FOREVER, then.
Just a few HOURS.
This woman should never do pep talks.
Me: Fuck a duck!
C: I would.
Obviously the sex ed. lecture had sunk in, too.
But the prize for Speaking The Most Bloody Obvious has to go to the lecturer today. Mind you, speaking on ‘spiritual care’ and ‘holism’ to a bunch of predominantly cynical nursing students must have been hard. I left before the poetry started. Yes, there was poetry- the final lecture was on ‘humanities’, and how we should use the arts to gain a deeper appreciation of ‘people as people’ and thereby make better, more sensitive nurses.
Pass me a baggie. I will be ill.
Hence, I left. Alright, I made an executive decision- and escaped as fast as I could.
But I did give the holism lady three full lectures to do her funky thang. If ‘funky thang’ can be equated to the disco effectiveness of wet lettuce, that is. And not even nice, crispy lettuce, all moist and ready to eat- crunchy, crunchy, yum, yum. No- this is the lettuce you find in slightly elderly sandwiches and hamburgers- limp, sweaty and just a little ineffectual.
Alright, maybe not the sweaty part. She didn’t move around enough to build up a sweat. In fact, ‘drift’ might be a better locomotive adjective.
Not a patch on Eyeballs and Incense- our lecturer on ‘spirituality’ last term, who stoned up the first two rows with her burning joss sticks, and hypnotised up to the twelfth row with her amazing googly eyes. As for the rest of us, I think the back rows were hiding behind us poor bastards at the front to escape the onslaught of anecdotes about getting in touch with her inner being and meeting her spirit guide. I remember thinking; I hope it was a cactus. And you sat on it.
Still, here is today’s half-dunk’s* little offering:
“My background is in palliative care- very often I was working with people who were dying.” So- when were you working in palliative care with people who were getting better? Miracles abound!
*Half-dunk: the sort of person/ thing who resembles what a biscuit looks like when you’ve dunked it in your cuppa. Yes, that sort of a look.
But thank gods we’re still one up on medical students, who, according to our midwifery module introductory speaker:
“When asked recently to name two famous historical doctors, came up with Harold Shipman and ‘that guy from Scrubs’.”
Bless.
Current Location: The Flat, Southampton, UK
Current Mood:  amused
Current Music: Black Holes and Revelations- Muse
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