Hey,

It's been a busy week but I'm getting used to reading articles now, and getting quicker at it (or just learning to choose the shorter ones on the reading lists!). I went to see my cerebral palsy essay supervisor on Wednesday and watched a post mortem of the brain of a 34 year old man who had died of unknown causes - which wasn't directly relevet to my essay but was worth seeing while I had the opportunity - and also looked at slides of the brains of babies and children who died with CP-like brain damage. The man's brain turned out to be perfectly normal so I didn't really see anything different to anatomy classes last year during the post mortem, but it was helpful to see how the dissectioon is done and to be guided around the brain by a neuropathologist. The babies' brains were a great introduction to the topics I will cover in my essay, and also a reminder of the cases behind the slides.

I had a minor breakthrough with my embryology project - I'm using a very very fine piece of wire instead of the sharp needle I was using to insert carbon particles into the chicks, and it seems to be working much better. Well, it seemed to until the chicks I had marked died overnight, but hopefully that won't always happen. I'll try again on Monday.

Back to a horribly physicsy essay on neural coding of preiodic sounds. Actually it's not that bad - now that I've got my head round the physics it's quite interesting. And I've done all the research now so it's just typing up my notes into something that vaguely resembles essay format! Shouldn't take too long. Might even be able to make a proper start on the CP research this weekend...

A weekend off

Hello,

I'm working hard now after a weekend off, because I had a friend to stay. It was a big change to do no work for most of the weekend, especially since everybody else seemed to be having essay crises, but great to have a chance to do things that I don't normally have time for here, like wandering round the town and looking in the shops without being in a rush. I'm making up for it now though. This week we're doing sensory transduction in lectures, which is one of my four chosen 'themes', so I need to start doinig some background reading after lectures as well as getting on with essay work.

I went to the paediatric MRI meeting last week and met my extended essay supervisor. She seemed very helpful and the meeting was interesting, and I came away with some books and a paper to read. Tomorrow I'm going back to have a look at the brains of some babies who died with lesions in their brains. Hopefully, I'll get an essay title soon so that I can start some more detailed research.

Back to work then...

Bye.

Hi,

This afternoon I've finished my first proper tutorial essay of the term, 24 hours ahead of its due date! We have to book tutorials this year using a web-based system and I made a last-minute decision on Saturday to book one for Wednesday, which meant writing the essay for Tuesday. Last year, writing an essay in a couple of days was normal because we often had several tutorials a week, but now essay-writing has become a bit more involved, with long reading lists and more thought and less copying out of textbooks. I spent most of the weekend essaying because , this being my first essay using lots of primary literature, I had no idea how long it would take. But thankfully it's done now so I can relax. Or start writing up some lecture notes if I'm feeling particularly virtuous.

I did get out a bit at the weekend - yesterday I helped at the creche at my church, which was great fun, and I also had a night of DVD watching on Saturday. This evening I went to a debate about designer babies at the Oxford Union, which was interesting and had some good speakers.

I've found a supervisor for y extended essay now, and I'm going to meet her on Friday. She has a weekly paediatric MRI meeting which will apparently be relevent to my essay, so I am going to join her there. I'm still popping into the lab to do some work on my embryology project every day or two, and hopefully some results will come out of it soon. Today I had a look at a chick embryo that I had marked with carbon last week and allowed to grow to a older stage than I will normally be using, just to check that the carbon stays in the tissues that I put it in. It was really interesting to see the development of the embryo and how much the marks had been rearranged as the tissues folded.

Tomorrow I've got a couple of lectures to go to (one which is part of my course and another that my tutor recommended as it looked relevent to my option) and another essay to start.

Byebye!

Hello,

Term has finally started now, although I've only had one lecture so far. I had a great time in Cambridge at the weekend, looking round colleges as well as doing other important things like watching the new Wallace and Gromit film. There was nothing to put me off going to clinical school there but it does seem like it would just be extra trouble to change unless I have any particular reason that I would want to (which at the moment I don't). Not a huge number of Oxford preclinical medics go over to Cambridge for clinical school (the flow in the other direction is much larger) and from what the students there said at the open day, the Cambridge medics seem to stick with each other as they already have their own friends. Also, the slight differences between the preclinical courses might mean that the course is more geared towards students from Cambridge. None of which would be a problem if I had a great desire to change universities - but so far I don't. The Oxford clinical school open day later in term might help me to be more certain about that.

Yesterday I met my tutor to get my collection back and discuss my plans for the term. In my collection I had written about some articles I'd read over the summer on cerebral palsy, which I'd found interesting because I spent the summer working as a helper for a friend with CP. My tutor has now suggested that I write my extended essay (a piece of coursework) on CP, and given my the name of a neuropathologist to contact about finding a supervisor for the essay. So hopefully I'll be able to make a start on that soon. I'm hoping to get as much as possible of my research project and extended essay done as soon as possible because 3 out of 4 of the neuroscience themes that I have chosen to study in more detail are taught next term, so I expect to be busier then!

...and the end of Freshers week

Hello,

Fresher's week this year has been similar to last year - I've got college grandchildren instead of children now (although unfortunately only one medic because the other one got a B in an A-level and didn't make it), and although I'm not on the Freshers' week committee this year, I've been involved with some of the activities. A general lack of organisation by those who were in charge meant that the parent's teas and the smoothie night fell to anyone on hand, so I've been pouring teas and making smoothies as well as helping with a Christian Union breakfast event. The slower pace of 0th week has given me time to get things done which are harder to fit in during term-time - I decorated my room with a couple of posters from the Oxford Union poster sale yesterday, went to see Pride and Prejudice at the cinema last night, and went blood doning today.

I'm still getting on with my project as well - the techniques I'm using for the practical side of it are improving and I'm starting to put the write-up into a style suitable for the article. This work has been interspersed with a bit of article-reading because I have a collection (beginning of term exam set by college tutors) coming up on my reading over the summer and my critical analysis skills. The collection has been set for Saturday afternoon but is hopefully going to be changed to tomorrow afternoon, because we'd like to spend the weekend looking around Cambridge before the clinical school open day on Monday (and since it's a 3 1/2 hr bus journey there, we might as well stay for a while!). I'll find out for certain at a meeting with my tutor in the morning.

the start of Freshers' week

Hello,

Freshers' week has officially started now so most people are back or will be very soon. I've been meeting the new international students, who have been coming in dribs and drabs throughout last week, and going to evening events arranged for them. We've had a quiz, a trip t to an ice cream parlour, a cafe, and a film night so far. The fun continues until Tuesday, by which time there are enough things going on in colleges to keep the early arrivers entertained. I had a day off carrying bags from the station on Saturday, when I went to Ledbury to help cook at a training weekend for bible study leaders at my church. It was a long day becase Ledbury is an hour and a half drive from here but was good fun, with a walk in the Malvern hills being the highlight of the day.

I've got my timetable now, which is scarily empty after the full timetable of the last two years - we've only got 3 lectures and a seminar each week now, so there'll be much more emphasis on directing our own learning and organising our own time to get the right balance of reading papers, writing essays, doing project work, and having fun. Unfortunately, I've got to miss my first lecture because I'm going to the Cambridge clinical school open day on the same day. My project is plodding along slowly at the moment. There's not a lot I can do apart from experimenting with different techniques on the chick embryos when they are available. I've started marking them with carbon now although I still need to perfect the method I'm using to visualise them. I'm going in to the lab tomorrow to see whether the experimental marks I made last week have moved at all.