James and Rob have tweaked around and now we have my website on a new wordpress install!

Supercheryl.net still works as long as my domain redirection works :D

RSS feeds are here

Forgive the ongoing tweaks, and most of all, enjoy!

Church is all good and benign, but what do you do when they tell you to stick evolution in the bin?

Yes.  Serenading the serotonin out of our neurons is great condition for generating new ideas and epiphanies… But why block the questions?

I have far too many!  It is disturbing and I cannot stop them.  Just like how I was disruptive and frustrated at catechism, I suspect I will have a long way to go and perhaps be making it my life’s mission to reconcile advancing human thought and the practice and justification of organised religion.

Image via Wikipedia

Holy shit!  I decided to zip back to the blog of the olden days, (which is now private!  Allow me to come to terms with myself before I re-post everything.)  and bejeezus, it’s been a decade!

What have I found?  I’ve found that this factual and inorganic writing is boring as crap, and the meandering rubbish, self exploration and journaling was juicy stuff, and astutely written!

This grown up life is killing my creativity.  As I’ve inadvertently judged others I’ve expected others to judge me and now I’m boring as hell.

I need to focus on shining through and staying dry in this freaking rain-before-the-rainbow, and start dreaming again about what my rainbow shall be.

Like my dear friend Khalid said.  Remember this til you die, “Never be a quitter”.

Peace, love and kisses to the invisible blog hoppers, the privileged ears to my life’s confessions.  May these simple epiphanies lighten your burden in your journey of life.

pick one Cheryl, just f*cken pick one.

Image via Wikipedia

So…how much sleep should we plan for, each night?

In a recent study of 3,430 chinese adults, a group of public health clinicians looked into the relationship between duration of sleep and cerebrovascular disease and all cause mortality.  A linear association with CVD was found, and a U shape was found for all cause mortality.

This means the more you sleep, the more prone you are to developing cardiovascular disease.  I guess if you’re less active your heart isn’t going to be so toned.  Regarding all cause mortality, insomniacs and those who sleep more than 9h a night had the worst deal.  It goes on to suggest 7-8hours being linked to fewer deaths.

Not too long after, Carpuccio et al noted there was increasing evidence of the above, and went on to do a systematic review and meta analysis of 16 qualifying studies carried out in 1966-2009.   From that they concluded that both short and long duration of sleep are significant predictors of death in prospective population studies.

In any case, I do feel dead with any less than 8hours and after any significant amount above 9hours’.

Image by purplepick via Flickr

Many thanks to the predecessors who ammased great resources and shared them via the www.  Here is the cream of the crop, high yield knowledge!

There are loads on the net, but do not get distracted (like i did, looking for resources for you!).  Apart from the few key things to memorise, there is nothing that is going to replace question crunching, hundreds and thousands of them, like a machine.

Use Passmedicine, Pastest and Onexamination to your preference.  Books are overrated.  Save them for when you’re not studying for exams, and for tried and trusted non-pharmacological insomnia therapy.

• http://mrcp1and2.blogspot.com by a Malaysian doctor who regularly posts pearls.  It already full of concise and recurrent MRCP topics, explained very simply!

• A free ten week course by Dr Peter Windross to supplement and spur you on in your revision best for when you hit that brickwall (it will happen at some point or other), with very effective flash cards of recurrent topics and ridiculously random but recurrent facts.  Also includes finals and OSCE stuff.

Other high yield stuff here!

100 most common questions in the RxPg forum

Channelopathies 101 – The elusive Bartters, Gitelman’s and Liddles in one digestable page!

High yield Basic sciences, Renal, Cardio etc notes at MRCPass

Hell, have it all here!

Human knowledge belongs to all.

2.  Get mad, then get over it.

3.  Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it

4.  It can be done.

5.  Be careful whom you choose.

6. Don’t let adverse facts stand in the way of a good decision.

7.  You can’t make someone else’s decisions.  Don’t let someone else make yours.

8. Check small things.

9.  Share credit.

10.  Remain calm.  Be kind.

11.  Have a vision.  Be demanding.

12.  Don’t take counsel of your fears or naysayers.

13.  Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier

-Colin Powell, 65th Secretary of State USA (2001–2005)

that I cannot help from thinking of religion from a purely psychological point of view?

Here’s a justifying essay from the Royal College of Psychiatrists about this.