The Commute

On an Obstetrics and Gynaecology rotation at the moment (would rather not talk about it to be honest) in a town called Drogheda, north of Dublin. Drogheda is about an hour's train ride away and, as my luck would have it, the train station is a five minute walk away from my house. I commute on a daily basis, usually leaving the house at around 7am and coming back at 6pm. The rotation is two months long.

There is much that could be said about my distaste for the subject matter of the rotation and my arduous daily trek to the hospital, but the topic of this post is "the commute" and so it shall remain faithful to its heading. Commuting is an interesting concept, having to leave your home on a (week)daily basis in order to reach your location of work, the place where you make money to feed your family, cloth your children and spend on other worldly joys (such as cars, and "bling"). When I first started "commuting", I was amazed by the whole thing. It filled me with a secret sense of pleasure that I'm doing a very "grown up" thing, travelling many miles to reach "my workplace" the hospital. Of course, at the hospital I'm just another useless, corridor-obstacle medical student.. but that doesn't sway my sense of pride in my commute. I travelled far to become a useless corridor-obstacle, and I'll be damned if I'm gonna let Mr. Bigshot Consultant ruin it for me.

Now, the first few weeks or so I managed to wake up and attend purely for being able to ride the train back and forth. I would pack a book and read it on the way, and then look forward to catching the train back and reading some more. I must admit, I'm a sucker for trains. For some reason, I love taking trains. I make it my sacred duty to commit to memory any underground rail map that may exist in any city that I may visit. Weird, I know, but hey.. we all have our quirks, so back off buddy.

So, being that I've rarely used the railway system in place in Ireland, I found this opportunity very exciting. And I was going to do this on a daily basis too, so its gonna kick ass! Right?

Wrong. Five weeks, three books and countless commuting hours later and I've become completely jaded. No longer do I walk to the station with a big, youthful smile plastered across my face on those cold and rainy mornings. Now I just stare blankly ahead and look like all the other commuters. Just wanting to be somewhere else, doing something different.

message from an intoxicated beauty: "Don't forget the soldiers of The Great War".
Appropriate, especially since I'm in a knowledge-thirsty WWII phase right now.