Ali and Health Assessment

Posted on 2008/10/25 11:50:12 (October 2008).

[Thursday 23rd October]
Slightly against my better judgement, Chie had signed me up to go for a BUPA health assessment this morning, just off Harley Street. It was all included in her healthcare scheme from work.

I was initially a little annoyed about the whole thing - I originally thought it would only be about an hour, so I could be back in the office by not longer after 10. However on arrival they informed me it would be a full 2 and a half hours! I did however manage to impress on them I was quite a busy man, and managed to reduce the amount of time I'd just be sitting around waiting, so it was more like 2 hours in the end.

It started off with all the usual stuff: height, weight, waste size, body mass index, blood test, urine test, sight check, hearing check. It then went onto the bit I wasn't particularly looking forward to - the exercise check. They attached me up with lots of wires to an ECG, gave me a hugely uncomfortable snorkel like thing to breathe through, and then had me do a few minutes cycling on an exercise bike. Once I got into my stride the actual cycling wasn't too tough, but the horrid snorkel thing in my mouth meant it was a bit hard to breathe normally and I was dribbling all over the place, which was none too pleasant.

Anyway, the end results were exactly as I expected - in fact they gave me a big form to fill in beforehand, one section entitled "what do you hope to get out of this health assessment?" in which I rather sarcastically listed all the conclusions they were going to come to. Probably a bit facetious but I was right - yes indeed I need to drink less alcohol (although they only said that based on the fact I was very honest about my weekly alcohol intake - there was no actual physical evidence this was causing me any harm), do more exercise and eat less salt and fat. Overall my weight, blood pressure and cholesterol were all in normal safe bounds. However apparently there are two types of cholesterol, and whilst my total cholesterol was not a problem, the balance between the good kind and the not so good kind was a bit less than ideal. Which just means I need to eat a bit less junk food basically. Well, duh.

Well anyway, despite my general cynicism about the whole thing, I suppose it was of some value - it is nice to know there aren't any major health problems I'm not already aware of, and I suppose it probably is a good reminder that now, 3 months on from my hernia operation, it probably is the time to be getting back on that exercise bike again.

In the evening I had arranged a long overdue appointment to meet up with Ali, who was my PhD supervisor. We had dinner at Kulu Kulu - a sushi restaurant in Soho, followed by dessert at the Haagen Dazs cafe in Leicester Square (not the sort of place I'd normally frequent, but Ali seems to like it). It was still fairly early after that so we decided to go for a bit of an evening stroll - across Trafalgar Square, down through Whitehall to Parliament Square, then over Westminster Bridge and along the South Bank from there. We ended up walking all the way back to Ali's university (LSBU, which is by Elephant and Castle), and I then got the tube back home from there.

It was a very pleasant evening - we spent the whole time chatting constantly, mostly about computer science, but also about economics given the current state of the world. It had occurred to me recently that a lot of the technical innovations I've come up with at work in the last few months, which I'm really quite proud of, owe a lot to the ideology I absorbed whilst at university, and whilst doing my PhD - and particularly things I learned from Ali. It was great to be able to talk to him about some of that stuff this evening - and to have the opportunity to say thank you. Hopefully it is a similarly gratifying experience for a teacher to hear that kind of thing.

Post a comment