Death, not death and cartoon death

"Death is one of the attributes you were created with; death is part of you. Your life's continual task is to build your death." - Montaigne

So begins one of the online units that I've been importing in to the new system at work. Michel de Montaigne was an awfully cheerful character, wasn't he? His attitude doesn't exactly make the most encouraging introduction that I've ever seen for a course. It's a guide to coping with patient death for nursing students, in case you're wondering - there are also specialist units for things like bathing a patient in bed and assessing injuries (which includes a form where one of the questions is for the patient to grade their level of agony from 1 to 10).

On a side note about importing modules, in a moment of boredom I decided to take a Management exam, and to my delight (but not, I have to admit, surprise) passed it with flying colours despite not having read any of the course material.

My mother's old flatmates were over the other night - they had last visited when I was doing my Standard Grades, and I pride myself on being able to remember events that no one expects me to, but the only thing that came to my mind about that visit was that we sat in the dining room on the old sofas and had a discussion about the word "Numpty". This time they asked what Brian was up to, and we informed them that he was dead and therefore not up to much apart from possibly applying to be a Management lecturer. After they'd left, though, it occurred to my mum that they'd actually been talking about a different Brian - one who is still very much alive. I hope this doesn't lead to any awkward moments if they bump in to him in the supermarket or anything, I wouldn't want the elderly flatmate having a heart attack from supposedly sighting one of the undead.

Out of nowhere, I remembered about "The Animals of Farthing Wood" yesterday morning, which I used to watch about ten years ago. I'm surprised that I didn't suffer severe emotional trauma after watching that series; it's the only children's programme that I know to have had anywhere near that amount of major characters killed off throughout the story. The scene that particularly stuck in my mind was when the pheasant returned to the farm to find the bones of his cooked and eaten wife visible through the window. Only Watership Down can possibly compete with it - it's a wonder I didn't grow up to be a vegetarian.