The Book

First of all apologies for not writing many blogs in the recent past but Claire has been enjoying writing them; after all, it is her blog. Anyway, the main reason is lack of time on my part; especially since I have been diagnosed with all these conditions I currently have. Oddly, I do not physically feel any different to before the diagnoses but Claire is labouring hard to provide me with a healthy diet and police my calorie intake. She is the Diet Police. The main benefit of this and the new fitness regime that she has me on is that I am loosing weight; in fact I have lost over 2.5 stone since I was at my heaviest and actually feel better than before the diagnoses. I have little time because I seem to have been working continuously since last July. Apart from the few holidays we have somehow managed to squeeze in before I start my radiotherapy. Another factor in having so little spare time is that I started writing a book. I started it around a year ago after we met our new friends Sue and Alan but it was a slow process, even when I was not working, but these diagnoses seemed to have forced my hand and made it more urgent than it would have been otherwise.
Alan had written a book called “Colossus” which I really enjoyed and when you know someone personally, their actions somehow rub off on you and make things that you wouldn't normally do seem possible. Anyway sadly Alan has since discovered that he has a very aggressive cancer which is affecting him greatly and we haven't been able to see him. Our thoughts are with you Alan.
The idea for the book came to me whilst we were on holiday in south India around 4 or 5 years ago. Anyway, the best way to explain my reasons are to give you an exclusive preview by publishing here, for the first time, the introduction to my book which I intend to call, "Natural Creation". In fact I have already purchased the, "Natural Creation.co.uk" website which I have yet to upload anything to.

As it is hopefully, a factual book, I have spent most of my time researching almost all the sciences known to man. If nothing else I have learned more in the period of time since my diagnoses than at any period previously in my life, including school. I am constantly learning and have been through 3 sections in the Milton Keynes library already. My next step for reading material is the Open University Library which I hope to start to visit shortly. Of course, finding time to read all this material has been hard because of these jobs but I do manage to read some stuff online from wikipedia and fortunately, since I bought this i-phone I now have podcasts available to me at all times. I can download courses, articles and features straight to my i-phone and listen to them at my leisure. In fact I manage to listen to about 8 hours every time I go to work.
Unexpectedly to me I have spent most of my time learning about biology, especially microbiology and biochemistry which I previously knew very little about as I didn't really take this subject any higher than CSE level. I did do a little in the Science foundation course with the OU. I guess that because my knowledge was so lacking I never really had an interest before but now it seems to me to be the most interesting subject there is. If I had had a decent teacher to make me interested earlier on in my life, I feel certain that I would have wanted to pursue a completely different career.

This interest started by me stumbling across a podcast covering an "Anatomy and Physiology" course. The presenter and teachers name is Professor Gerald Cizadlo and he is the most incredible teacher that I have ever known. He is an ordinary guy but has an almost complete understanding of all the basic level of his subjects and somehow manages to create huge interest at the same time as getting his students to understand every subject he teaches. He somehow manages to hold your attention, almost the whole time. I suspect it’s because he had trouble understanding his subjects early on and therefore he understands how difficult the concepts are. He also understands that the easiest way to remember anything is to understand it; in fact I would say the only way. He also manages to squeeze in relevant personal stories from throughout his life which are always amusing especially when you hear the groan from the audience when he announces that a story is coming.

He did his training in South Dekota and lectures at the college of St Scholastica in Deluth teaching medical students. He started the podcasts because more and more students were recording his lectures so it made sense to record it once and publish on the web. These turned out to be so much more successful than ever could have been imagined. There are over 100 hours of listening in his Anatomy and advanced physiology course alone. I then went onto listening to his other courses which include, advanced physiology, pathophysiology, embryology, endocrinology and the biology of aging which was the first course of its kind in the world. I didn't even understand these words before I discovered Gerald. Sadly, he looks very much like professor Alfi who is a regular Wednesday night member. The Wednesday Night Gentleman's Club (WNGC) was founded in 1978 by Doctor George and Professor Alfi who were taken out, at the time by their students for refreshments once a week after lectures. Although most the faces have changed, the tradition lives on. Do all professors look like Alfi?

It took me some time to read the books as I read most of them upside down. I also read a few on my i-pad in bed while Claire was asleep, "The Origin of Species", by Charles Darwin being one. I listened to "The wealth of Nations" by Adam Smith in my i-phone with audio books as well. What an amazing book that was, you really can’t beat going back to the originals. I was surprised with Darwin’s book as he spent as much time criticising his own theory as he did plugging it. I enjoyed it but I have read so many evolution books that there wasn't really anything new for me. This new technology really has opened my life up; you have to buy them!

Anyway, I always knew that I had two books in me; one about something and one about nothing.I will publish the introduction to Natural Creation on Saturday after Claire has published her end of week blog.