Blue Gold, and of course Training ad infinitum

I can't remember whether we decided if this was an internal communication tool, or an external one... naturally you'd expect me to tow the safer line in this case wouldn't you... Moving on swiftly.

I'm not so sure I like this WYSIWYG editor, it seems to be a bit meh.

Medsin-wise

I completely expected this, and I knew it was what I would be getting myself in for. But emailing is key. Email is king. Email is deity. Luckily I'm a technoamorant (I just made that word up, I think; it means technology lover in my mind), and going abroad for a week (which I shall come on to!) makes it hard to catch up, and you do end up missing deadlines for communication. Sorry guys!

I had the pleasure of attending the National Conference at Nottingham this month which I found immensely enjoyable. It was an incredibly well run conference, on an interesting and engaging subject and I left feeling invigorated and not brain-drained, as I usually do after conferences. Arranged for a couple of Training sessions to be run while I was there which seemed to go down a treat!

A lot of my time this month has gone into preparing Training New Trainers (TNT) in Iceland and in Manchester. This naturally, is the highlight of my time since I love Training and everything to do with it!

I had the pleasure of being invited to FINO (Federation of International Nordic medical students' Organisations) to hold TNT and then to attend their conference. More pleasure was had when I got there and met my amazing co-TNT Trainer, Karolina Tuomisto, and the amazing bunch of new Trainers that came.

I've decided that running TNT is the best thing ever. It's like crack, the enthusiasm and invigoration that you get from doing it is amazing. The rapidity that a group of people gets to know each other is amazing. You don't necessarily learn facts about each other, but you learn how each other work. It's a gruelling course for the new Trainers, but a journey that is frankly beautiful to watch and be a part of facilitating.

People-watching is fun.

My mission for this year is to run TNT at every possible opportunity. Capacity building for Medsin Trainers++++

I also have liased with the IFMSA Training Support Division Director as is part of my role. :)

The boring bit... my life outside of Medsin (at least there are pictures, right?)

Not really much going on here. Iceland was great fun. On the first day we got to go to the Houses of Parliament given a guided tour by Siv Friðleifsdóttir (pictured below), ex-Minister for Health and Social Security, ex-Minister for the Environment, ex-Minister for Nordic Co-operation, which was great fun.

Learning about Icelandic politics was fantastic, and learning about their economy especially. It was quite interesting talking to such a high level politician after Medsin Question Time a few weeks ago where a some of the local MPs were, how can I put this, might not have been so well read?

Below: TNT Team go to Icelandic Houses of Parliament

Alas, due to business, tiredness and a few other things I actually didn't experience any of the typical things people think of when they think of Iceland: Geysers, lagoons, and geothermal awesomeness. I did enjoy the view where we were though, but I have shamelessly stolen these pictures from one of the TNT attendees. I don't regret having too much work to visit this stuff, I was out there for business, and I only hope to go back one day when I can devote more time to pleasure.

The conference was entited Blue Gold (a reference to water), and the conference was opened by Iceland's President Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson (pictured below)

He was an exceptionally good speaker, who seemed very, very into his Climate Change issues. He clearly understood the importance of the changes that the world is undergoing, and how we need to fix it now. A very inspirational and motivational speaker! He did namedrop Obama once or twice though... ;)

Post Scriptum

This WYSIWYG editor is driving me mad, randomly changing the line-height settings, inserting 's (actually it made me add a because it is crazy.) as it feels necessary, and then when it breaks something... You try to read the HTML, it's horrible. For shame Google, for shame. (I still love you).