this overdue owl is overdue.

Percy turned twenty-three three days ago. he thinks he did absolutely terrible very well at his Obstetrics and Gynaecology examination. no, his speculum did NOT get stuck into any model's cervix. he saw a pterygium in the GP clinic and heard a systolic murmur in a little girl that was just about as loud as a fulminating Thor's Thunder Cracker... and the bloke at the operating theatre thinks Percy look like an Inferi that only eats low-fat, high-protein Beater Boosts and keeps on consistently giving him scrubs that won't go up his callipygian figure.

some days, he is really sad and wishes that he'd disappear faster than Neville Longbottom after he'd mucked up his third potion of the week! but he finds that more often than not, he is very exhausted and happier than Dudley Dursley with a biscuit tin filled with Jammie Dodgers. oh, and he's put on a almost two stones since he'd last posted. fortunately, nobody noticed the fact that Percy's plump posterior is now big enough to make a centaur blush and somehow, his non-existent breast tissue managed to expand enough to give him month-long wardrobe malfunctions. today, as he did his burpees, his bra clasp snapped open and grace the exercise mat with its #freedCoopersligament status ... and no, it was not a freeing feminist statement!

also, he is very exuberant about the prospects of this immeasurable, amorphous entity called life... for he might eat overpriced Japanese noodles this Friday in a belated birthday celebration!

Child Counsultant's Magical Anxiety Reducing Potion Shop.

Percy and his hypnotising hippogriff's pastry eating has been briefly suspended for a far more important post. 

for the past five weeks, Percy has been waking up at five in the morning, driving absurd distances from his house to get to his assigned hospital paediatric ward for that week and then to his university for two-hour long lectures on children with coughs and babies with congenital heart defects. this would be after he'd spent the whole morning taking histories, botching up clinical exams and then making a fool of himself to the healers by not being able to answer half their questions. he typically returns home at five-thirty or six-thirty in the afternoon most days. at times, he would have not had a single tea break during the day. 

this following week is the last week that Percy has to go to the hospital, because after this week, he has his FINAL exams. yes, after spending approximately 1 1/2 months in paediatric wards, Percy is now expected to examine an ill child for his paediatric examination on the 23rd, followed by a neonatal exam on the 26th of October where he is supposed to examine a baby that is not even a week old. 

did he mention that this week was the first week he'd even held a baby? 

in typical chewing-tables-and-having-relentless-anxiety fashion, Percy was told to evaluate his own performance by a paediatric counsultant on Thursday. after he told the consultant that he believed that his performance was satisfactory, the man said that he thought that Percy was better than that. when Percy mentioned that he was unhappy with his neonatal exam that he did with Dr Crup, the healer said, 

                                                      "Dr Crup* was very happy with you."

and when he said this, Percy thought that he was about to dissolve into happy tears. a counsultant paediatric healer had told Percy that he thinks that Percy's problem is that he overthinks things, and that he blanks out and gets nervous unnecessarily. and then he told Percy, 

         "people are nervous when they don't have the knowledge or the skill. you have both of those." 

it is the sentences and words that everyone had been telling him all his life, but Percy had never had a CONSULTANT take an hour of his day to sit with him, and tell him that he thought that Percy was doing more than satisfactory. in fact, if Percy had to genuinely rate himself, he would give himself an etremely subpar rating. it is with this thought that Percy decides that no matter what happens during the examinations, he realises that he should take the time to calm down. there will be NO third wizarding world if he had forgotten to ask the mother if she had a standard vaginal delivery if the rest of his history is still intact. 

Percy honestly felt like crying tears of joy when the doctor told him this. he felt like the heavy weight of his own expectations of himself disappear. Percy is fully aware that he will still leave his examination feeling like he could've done much better, but he is also aware that the healers know that Percy is under stress, and that he is truly his own worst critic. knowing that how he rates himself post-exam is nowhere near how the professors are going to rate him brings him a closure NOW that he is attempting to embrace. Percy knows that he will not be calm during his exam. he will be tachycardic, talk too quickly, have a resting tremor and suffer from signs of hyperthyroidism. and he will probably leave the exam with a mixture of doom and nausea. but at least he knows that it is perfectly normal. as is passing out, and ingesting his body weight in carbohydrates straight after. 

also, apparently, because Percy asked - the healers are not bothered when Percy repeats himself, or when he does not say anything for approximately ten seconds during said examination... who would have thought? 

*the healer that Percy was referring to has a surname that is a carnivorous animal of the dog family. 

a hot, steaming cup of vacation with a side of sugar and a cupcke the size of a dragon, OR where Percy travelled to this summer holiday.

on recounting of the events that occurred this historic summer, Percy paid proliferously (twenty-six Galleons for 3 bloody sessions!) for a personal trainer during Ramadan. his personal trainer taught him how to entangle himself in a fatal contraption called the TRX and corrected his form on basic exercises, like chocolate-cream-sponges lunges, and you-shouldn't-have-had-the-Starbucks-munch-es crunches. after a period of mourning the fact that after spending five years with a gym membership and is still unable to withstand a plank longer than 30 seconds with proper form ("who am i? who is unsure of their squat jump technique and how many carbohydrates are in a single slice of breaaaad?"), he rose like Fawkes from the ashes and majored in a part of a sports film directed by Gilderoy Lockhart. Percy cannot remember this film for some reason.

during Ramadan, he also decided to take his father, Arthur Weasley, his nineteen-year-old sister Ginny and thirteen-year-old sister, Roxanne out one evening, where they consumed their weight in tasteless noodles covered in cream, and then had caramel macchiatos afterwards. Percy was not impressed because he had an holy honey and cinnamon latte before their coffee run brisk walk. because nobody runs in Ramadan.

it was in Starbucks that Percy documented the existence of this foul abomination (that did not make it near his mouth). Newt Scamander would be proud, as Percy logged his near encounter with this lolly-gagging, bloodless beverage be taketh over these sweltering lands. never will he be trying this illegal sugar rush. and Percy still asks himself with the wisdom and vigilance of Alastor Moody,
                                               what part of the lollipop does the cream come from?

in the same day, he also hit a small sidewalk and managed to drive OVER it. Arthur Weasley was not happy.

they had an obligatory family gathering during the time of Gerga'oon - to also be described as the wizarding Middle Eastern Halloween. children would insist on running around in their polished crisp clothing and golden threads with colours that would make a Pygmy Puff seem depressed. his mother made enough sweets to last one night in his house a life-time and Percy might have been caught scoffing one of his mother's homemade frosted chocolate cupcakes with chocolate ganache and crumbled flake or he may scoffed ten.

during the summer holidays, Percy went to Turkey with his family. in the first day, he recalled running down the airport wearing his mother's awfully chosen soft ashen-grey hoodie that proclaimed in bold, crisp-white letters LOVE YOURSELF. at this point, his reproductive organs were twisting and turning and producing cramps that could not be dulled by mild pain potions. needless to say, Percy did not love himself. and his mushroom and cheese toastie from Costa was stale. the flight rushed by quickly. they spent their first night in Turkey roaming around Taksim Square where they found out that the location was not particularly to the liking given the fact that they had to swim through the mass quantity of people at night. Percy had a 'fresh' pretzel served off a vendor. it was doughy, and stale and he needed to have dragon teeth to chew. he also ate Ginny's. at this point, Percy wanted it to go on record that the hotel food was absolutely atrocious. the food there was so and so in Instabul but it did not stop Percy from gobbling down mass quantities of it.

in fact, one of the first things that Percy did was stock up on foreign junk food. apparently, Turkey love their dark chocolates, chia seeds, and... crackers? wonderful. a nation without a palate.

Percy spent hours with his extended family outside in the heat with no air conditioning where they went off to see historic places (a sultan's palace that Percy does not know the name of nor cared for. during their visit, Percy sat down at the ground with the rest of his family in a picnic-like fashion and ate crackers), a giant park (Percy drank hot chocolate and saw women have their wedding photos taken in the flobberworm-infested muck), Wonder Woman in the Turkish cinema, and mini Turk. they ate near the sea, in a café with no air conditioning, and in other places that Percy did not typically eat at because where he is from, there is air conditioning everywhere to ward off the 50 degree Celsius weather. and they drank Starbucks every day. Percy noticed that the Turkish caramel macchiato is a bajillion times sweeter than the ones in his country. PERFECT. their sweets were to Avada Kedavra for. Percy drank hot chocolates, and gorged on brownies and oaty flapjacks wherever he went. Percy might have passed out in a sugar coma in a sultan's palace at some point.

then Percy departed from his extended family and just went off with his regular mini family to a luxurious (!!) resort in Antalya. to say that Percy did not fit in would be an understatement. here he was wearing headscarves, and long-sleeved shirts to the gym whilst women paraded around in bikinis and abdominals he only saw in Instagram. it was really out of a film. Percy spent his time there in the resort in the gym, particularly in the men's section where he realised that blokes actually DO bloody grunt and groan and make sounds that make Percy wonder if he should call for an ambulance. he also ate lots of big yellow apples because the gym offered it for free. along with fruit-infused water and free yoga classes.

Percy joined a KANGAROO JUMP class on his last day there. in the beginning, he couldn't even think of walking with those aerated shoes of destruction and despair, but by the end, he was running in them. jumping in them felt like he was riding a broomstick - FLYING! Percy was always terrible in his Flying classes. he was running SO slowly. he was the last back. by the time he'd come back, they were just finishing off with ab exercises. the instructor with long, curly dark hair hello, tanned Sirius and the rest of the soulless, golden-skinned fitness models were LAUGHING at him. very much out of a film. bastards.

the food there was endless, mostly free and the majority of it was amazing. every breakfast, lunch and dinner, they were serving the right style buffet style. Percy watched girls with zero body fat scarf down watermelon whilst there was a dessert table that stretched so far across that Percy felt like Mr Flume himself was giving him the go ahead to gorge on tantalising tarts and charming caramels.

at this point in time, Percy wants to mention what these were: the last one that is covered by Percy's hot-chocolate holding hand is a cross between a bakewell tart and an oaty flapjack, the one with the dollopy swirly thing was a sticky, moist date cake, and the last was a blackberry cheesecake. nobody that is sane would rather have abs when there was bakewell-oaty-date-cheesecakes involved in a LUXURY RESORT.

then they returned back to the Old City in Istanbul. they spent most of the time eating and shopping. Percy discovered a Starbucks whole-grain cheese pastry that he just immediately fell in love with. he and his parents finally got some alone time because they visited a baklawa shop, and they sat down whilst Percy was sipping on hot chocolate and eating different freshly prepared baklawa sweets with his parents. his father, Arthur Weasley, drank enough Turkish coffee to drown a small village. they found a restaurant that made a delightful vegetarian Turkish pizza. they went on long walks aimlessly and just talked about things that Percy couldn't really call right now but it made him very happy to talk about them. he remembered the feeling of gooey fuzziness. of course, that just might be the bountiful sugar and warm, toasty carbohydrates talking.

and that is precisely how he had put on four kilos this vacation. fortunately not very visible.