Things Fall Apart
The Race That Wasn't
My alarm rings at 04h00 and I hop out of bed, making the two strides to my desk to turn it off. Due to a combination of nervous anticipation and tuneless singing of drunk students returning from a night out the hour before, I am already wide awake. It's Sunday the 19th of October; the day of the Cape Town Marathon. I go through my routines and am about to leave when my brother knocks on my door asking me if I have got the message. Naturally I assume he's sent me something that I have missed. He opens the door, as I check my phone. An official communication sent at 04h56: The Marathon has been cancelled. DO NOT report to the start.
The immediate reactions were shock and disbelief; surely they couldn't cancel barely an hour before the scheduled start with no apparent reason given. Within a couple of minutes, the WhatsApp group messages were going off with everyone trying to figure out if this was a legitimate cancellation and what the reason was for it. It seems that one of the temporary structures set up for the marathon had fallen due to the wind at night. I suppose the cancellation was then the only possible course of action. If the scaffolding from the temporary structures had fallen when there were thousands of people underneath them, there would definitely have been casualties.
It is extremely disappointing, and to be honest, it's unforgivable that the structures weren't sound. I fear any hopes of the Cape Town Marathon achieving world major status have been dashed. It was interesting to note that the weather on the day was actually very good. Some friends and I ended up going for a run from Greenpoint along the coast. We did a 21-kilometer run, and had no problems with excessive wind. Indeed, there were thousands of other runners who were supposed to partake in the marathon, also running on the promenade and towards Hout Bay and Camps Bay; some even completing the full marathon distance. Among several interesting topics of varying importance that came up in our Fake Town Marathon, the most unusual and erudite was a discussion of value of fiction and poetry. James brought up the Rudyard Kipling's If– , and I think it would be fair to say that we (together with thousands of others) were doing our best to:
"...fill the unforgiving minute, With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,"
We didn't discuss Yeats' The Second Coming, which inspired the title of this blogpost, but I guess I'm just lucky that I'm not one of the international runners who traveled at high expense, and whose tickets cost more money in the first place. I cannot foresee too many international runners coming to run the Cape Town Marathon in the future after this disaster; I just wouldn't bother. I feel especially sorry for those whose first marathon it was supposed to be.
Putting My Foot In It
In other news, I've been on orthopaedics this week. I had possibly the most embarrassing experience I've ever had in medical school, on Tuesday when we were in a tutorial with about 30 students, which was supposed to be on the foot exam. The demonstrator, an orthopaedic surgeon, came in and put down two chairs in front of the audience, saying he needed two volunteers. Nobody was jumping at the opportunity to have their feet examined, and the doctor went out of the room to attend to something.
Eventually, my good friend Nicholas and I decided that we had better go to the front because no one else was going to. I thought it would be a good opportunity to observe the doctor performing the foot examination on myself at close range and learn it well. Needless to say, that wasn't what happened. He returned to the room and said one of us was going to examine, and the other was going to be the model. Nicholas and I looked at each other, both knowing very well that we didn't know the first thing about the foot exam in orthopaedics.
We decided that the only fair way to decide who would do what was to play a game of rock-paper-scissors. At the end of the tutorial, Nicolas told me he thinks that was the most important game of rock-paper-scissors he's ever won in his life. So anyway, I had to do the foot exam on him. I basically had to wing it and make up some platitudes, some things to do on inspection, some deformities that you might be looking for, and then some of the special tests. I don't think I've ever felt so inept in medical school. It didn't help that during cadaveric dissection in 3rd year, my group didn't actually get around to dissecting the foot. About halfway through, I just had to tell the doctor, "I'm really sorry. I don't really know what more to do here." That wasn't good, but I think quite a large proportion of the students in that room might have had a similar experience, so I don't feel too bad about it, but it was certainly very embarrassing.
Pure Glazing
The highlight of the week, was the Rectors Awards dinner on Wednesday evening, which I was invited to on the basis of my academic performance. I am not exactly sure what the rector of a university does but I assume the role is roughly analogous to that of the headmaster of a school. And I didn't really know what to expect, but I figured it would be a nice event on a beautiful Stellenbosch wine farm and that is pretty much what it was.
There were academic awards for students from the different faculties in the different faculties of the university: engineering, economic and management sciences, education, arts, and agriculture as well as awards for student leadership and culture. It was quite an enjoyable evening. I had some good friends there - there were 7 of us from my year in medical school.
I found it a little strange that the main banter between the different faculties was trying to say why their faculty is better than everyone else's. It's good to value your own job and academic pursuits and see them as important. And you would hope you are passionate about what you do. But it did remind me of a George Bernard Shaw quote from his satirical play The Doctor's Dilemma:
"All professions are conspiracies against the laity."
Jakob, one of my colleagues in medical school who I was sitting next to, expressed a similar sentiment describing some of the proceedings as pure glazing.
Premier League Postscript
In other news from the week, Arsenal managed to win away at Fulham, and I've just seen Liverpool lost, conceding a late goal after equalising against Manchester United. So it's a good week for Arsenal and a good week in the Premier League.