Back to the Tables

I made the schoolboy error of checking my bank balance today, and of course I regretted it. I'm not flirting with the overdraft limit but for this stage of the term I'm certainly running low. So, seeing as my essay is 90% done with three weeks until the deadline, and my hospital work is going well, I decided to see if I could make some cash back on the online poker tables. I won't bore you with the details (because to the layman it is boring), but I'll just say that my $50 is now $170, after fairly little effort. Ah, just $50, I remember the days when I was a highroller with $6,000 in an online account. I withdrew it all, for a good reason. No matter how much I improve at poker, no matter how good I get and how much money I win, it'll only ever be a stopgap job to top up my loans until I qualify. Keeping that much money online would've only served to trick me into taking it more seriously and hence getting more emotionally involved.
In fact, I had the opportunity to discuss my views on gambling on tape for a PhD student's study today. She interviewed me about my opinions on problem gambling, the opinions of my family and friends towards my gambling, and related topics.I made it clear than I regard poker as a game of skill (despite common thinking) and that I'm not naive about the perils and unavoidable losses involved in casino gambling. I hope I came off as genuine.
Teaching today was based on infection in the morning and I had my Global Health session in the afternoon, this week about poverty. I find contributing in these sessions easier than in other subjects, probably due to my personal interest. Just a quick fact, one in seven mothers will die during pregnancy in Niger. In Sweden, it's one in 29,300.
Tomorrow is the biggest hockey game of the season, Sheffield are coming down to play us in the national medical schools semi-final. I for one am sick of them beating us by the minutest of margins in the semis, and it's about time we changed the tune.