"Name That Enzyme" and other fun family games . .

I'm still enjoying being a medical student (particularly the social aspects!) but I can honestly say that the shine has well and truly worn off.

The most fun part about learning a new skill is the point at which you see your ability level rising dramatically. You realise that with each effort you make, you will see an immediate corresponding return in your skills. Unfortunately, this tends to happen at the beginning, at the point when your knowledge or fitness is so small that any advance seems huge in comparison.

The worst and hardest part is when you are plugging away constantly, day in and day out, and the work you do doesn't vary enough to keep it interesting. This is much worse when you are in the middle of a long journey and can't see either end. You are already a little experienced, and so it would take a sudden and massive improvement for you to notice and real change. Motivation can be an elusive beastie to uncover at this stage of the journey.

Right now I feel as if I am wading through the second type of experience. We are half-way through the first semester, exams are still far enough away to not have me experiencing night-terrors, and we aren't going to be doing anything new or exciting for a little while yet.

Don't get me wrong - I am incredibly grateful to be here! It is where I want to be and there is no way in hell I am going to be returning to my previous career - they would all beat me to a pulp for throwing away the opportunity of a lifetime.

I think I need to mix it up a little. Perhaps I should change tomorrow's study into a game-show format. I have the flash-cards written out. All I need is somebody to ask the questions and some kind of reward. Perhaps if I win my own version of "Name That Enzyme" I can shout myself a new outfit for a party I'm going to tomorrow night. The more questions I get right, the better the outfit.

In that case, I had better go to bed to prepare for tomorrow - I don't want to embarrass myself in competition with the other household contestants. The cats would never let me live it down.