Hello,

My computer is working again! I got it back on Monday so no more working in the computer room! I've had quite a busy week as it gets near the end of term. I've filled in my application form for clinical school - I'm putting Oxford as my first choice, with Brasenose as my first choice college again. I've been working hard to keep up to date with reading from lectures so that I will have a complete set of notes to take home and learn over Christmas. I've also started a chemical pharmacology supplementary subject. So far I've had two lecture on it - one was a general introduction with an overview of the history of pharmacology. The other was a summary of cell biology, aimed at chemists who haven't done any biology for a long time, so there wasn't anything very challenging there! The course seems to mostly cover pharmacology that we've done in first year, since it is primarily designed for chemists not medics, so unless the chemistry gets complicated I don't expect it will be too much new information. It's still worth doing though, as a pass can help boost a borderline degree grade up to the higher level. There was also an option to do a supplementary subject in the history of science, and the people I know who have chosen that subject certainly seem to be doing a lot more work for it - they have tutorials as well as lectures so there's essay-writing involved. The chemical pharmacology course has some practicals next term but medics don't ave to go to them because they're repeats of our first year practicals.

I wasn't able to get on with my research project last week because the supply of eggs has temporarily dried up while the farm supplying them to the university changes. I went in on Friday to learn how to use the camera that is used to take microscopic photos but unfortunately there wasn't anyone available who could teach me so I'm trying again today.

Thaings are getting Christamassy here already - I had Christmas dinner in hall on Wednesday, with some friends on Friday, and I went home yesterday to have a pre-Christmas get-together with my family. I'm also going to a carol service on Wednesday.

Better go - lectures calling...

Bye!

Still Computerless

Hi,

As you can probably tell from the lack of recent blog entries, my computer is still not working. However, I have now got my work off it - the university computer people rescued it yesterday. I haven't been able to get on with my extended essay this week because of it being trapped on the computer so I won't be able to get as much done this term as I had hoped, particularly as the lectures over the next two weeks are on a theme that I have chosen to study in depth (sensory processing) so I will have more reading to do for that.

I had my first seminar of the term yesterday. It was on virtual auditory reality and we had to present a research paper in pairs to the rest of the group. It seemed to be a good way to get an overview of several papers and to be able to ask questions about them without having to read them all in detail. I have one more seminar booked for this term, right at the end.

I also had a tutorial yesterday, on the role of spontaneous activity in develpoment of the nervous system. I found that quite useful too, although it relates to a theme that I don't have lectures on until next term so I think it will fit in better once I've done them. Apart from that, I've had a meeting with my college tutor and the rest of the 3rd year medics in college to discuss extended essays, and I have an individual tutorial with him on Tuesday to talk about my essay in more detail.

I better get on with the essay now that I have it back, before I go to see Harry Potter tonight!

Bye!

Computerless

Hi,

Sorry for the lack of blog posts recently - my computer stopped working on Sunday! I've got a username and password to use the computers in the college computer room now (I did have one before but I hadn't used it for over 2 years so I have no idea what it was!). Fortunately I have a back-up copy of my project but at the moment I have lost my extended essay work - hopefully the computer people here will be able to rescue it from the computer soon so I can arry on working on it.

Having no computer and no open libraries meant I got no work done at all on Sunday but my parents came to visit so I saw them instead, and did not a lot else. Last night we had a medics' dinner and talk in college. The speaker was a historian who talked about sciences in Oxford over the last few centuries - a bit of a difference to the normal talk by some kind of doctor, partly because the original speaker pulled out at the last minute, but interesting all the same!

I went to the clinical school open day last Wednesday. We had a look around the teaching part of the hospital and had some talks by clincal school staff and students. They also showed us some very funny videos made by the clinical students drama group, including one where the clinical dean and other staff danced around to Amarillo. Even without the entertaining videos, I preferred the Oxford clinical school to Cambridge - there is a clinical student union called Osler House which doesn't seem to have much of an eqivalent in Cambridge, the course seemed to suit me, and I'd rather stay with everyone I know rather than join a group of Cambridge students who already know each other. So I'm planning on putting Oxford as my first choice on my application form, which was sent to me yesterday. I'm also thinking of staying in the same college - colleges are less important in postgraduate life, especially with Osler house providing social fascilities, so the decision is mainly based on good teaching (a proportion of teaching still takes plae in colleges in the clinical part if the course) and elective grants. The only disadvantage of Brasenose is that it doesn't provide accomodation in the first year of clinical school, which some colleges do, but I am thinking of living out anyway because it would be nice to have a proper house instead of just one room to eat, slep and work in, when I am here pretty much all year round. My potential housemates and I are now talking to students who already live out to get an idea of where we might like to live.

Little chicks and big fireworks

Hello!

Finally, my embryo-marking technique is working!!! I'm using really really really fine wire to pke carbon into the embryos (so fine that it's only just visable without the microscope), but instead of trying to hold it with big clumsy forceps like I have been (well, actually very pointly little forceps but big and clumsy compared to the wire), I'm using it mounted into a glass handle so it doesn't keep bending in the wrong direction and breaking. I marked two embryos on Friday, with reasonably neat little tracts of carbon, and my supervisor has just emailed to say that they are still alive and that the carbon has moved. So hopefully I'll be able to start making several marks in each embryo and collecting some results now. I was starting to wonder whether it was actually physically possible to make tracts of carbon through the body of very young chick embryos - my supervisor has done it before in the limbs of older embryos but as far as I know it hasn't been done in such small ones before.

Last night I had dinner with some of my friends and then went to a bonfire night with the biggest bonfire I've ever seen, and some big fireworks to go with it. Today I'm doing more research for my CP submitted essay. I'm aiming to get enough done so that I can make a rough plan and then arrange to meet my essay supervisor to discuss it sometime soon, and I've also got the Oxford Clinical School open day coming up this week. I'll let you know what I think of it!

Bye!

busy busy

Hi,

Nothing very exciting to report here. I finished the last essay and now I'm doing one on spontaneous activity in neural development (how little bursts of activity in nerve cells help the brain to wire itself up properly). I've spent most of the day in the library researching that - just popping out a couple of time to try to do some work on my research project but finding that the chick embryos never quite got mature enough for me to use today. Those ones will be far to big by tomorrow but some that went into the incubator around midday today might be ok so I'm going to go and try again then.

I did a bit of research for my submitted CP essay yesterday but with the more pressing deadlines of tutorial essays popping up all the time its hard to get far with it at the moment. I'm planning on waiting until I've made a good start on the planning before I contact my essay supervisor again because I'm only allowed to see her once more (more than 2 hours with her and its not considered to be my own work).

I'm off to cook my tea now! Bye!