Saturday Summary 3

It's not Saturday again and I have many months to summarise.
I've had mostly a very nice time this summer, I am really a very lucky guy. I had the time and money to go on three holidays, to Malta, Holland and France, on top of my trip to Budapest in Easter and my upcoming adventure in India at Christmas.
In very few words;
Malta is lovely, sunny, friendly and full of ornate and beautiful catholic churches. There is so much to see on this tiny island, and we never even got to the ancient (really ancient; before the pyramids.) at Ggantija and Tarxien. We tried but Ggantija wasn't open on a Sunday. I'll have to head back sometime. Maybe when I'm middle aged like most of the other thousands of tourists.
Holland is always fun and we were blessed with perfect weather for a week. I went with my brother and a good friend and our bikes. We played lots of ping-pong and saw an art museum in Utrecht, walked around Amsterdam, had some heinekens in nice bars, went to a pre-season friendly at ajax, smoked a few spliffs and met some cool Finns and Americans.
France was very lovely, staying with my girlfriends family and seeing their many friends and her very cute guadaloupien cousins. Listening to French and occasionally trying to speak it kept my mind very active too. I do appreciate that nice language. Another decade of this every summer and I'll be fluent! Well, hopefully before that. I might be swayed to moving there with my lady at some point...
Budapest seems long ago now, a long weekend in a really wonderful city. It's got amazing old buildings everywhere, a massive palace come art museum, great views over the danube to the enormous parliament building. Nice food too and cheap accomodation in a cool hostel (the maverick hostel, if you're thinking of going), where we got tasty home-made liqueur and met a friendly German. On top of all this is the profusion of fantastic spas, some many hundreds of years old. Rudas is the best I think, although I've not visited the many small ones around, it is really remarkable, so old and solid and beautiful.
Also I went to bestival, which wasn't too great, but I was volunteering, so at least I didn't pay for tickets. I enjoyed the world cup despite England and won a few squid on it too... And I got a car! She's called Valerie Mabel Yersinia, and she's a lovely green skoda fabia. It's so nice to drive and so liberating...
Much other funness happened over the summer, but I also took an exam. I got 60% in it, so that was pretty cool. I didn't think I'd do that well, and I should have prepared more, although in the three hours I had enough to write that I couldn't finish in time. Anyway, 60 is OK. If I get a good mark in the project (more about that soon) and courseworks then 60 at the end of this year may well be enough... but of course I can do better than that, if I do my job of learning much better this year.
Fortunately my modules appear to be much more interesting. One of the example questions for the exam in Infectious Diseases and Their Control is "Discuss the global importance of infectious diseases". That is just perfect for me, I was thinking of possibly doing a masters in something like that... And this year we have a whole half of a module devoted to virology (viruses and all that), which I really want to get more into. I'm gonna post on here the work I did on a poster about virology last year; it was about the only piece of work I was quite proud of, and hopefully someone might find it interesting. Hopefully I didn't lose it on the memory stick that's escaped my pocket with my keys...

This is a model of a Sattelite Tobbaco Mosaic Virus virion.

Saturday summary 2

So what's been happening is exams mainly. Skip the next bit if you don't want to hear that whole sorry saga.

I haven't really studied much. Even the day before my pharmacology exam, I didn't get started until after 6pm, and after that I only concentrated on it inconstantly.

This is strange and disconcerting; leaving it until the last few days to do revision is pretty bad, but leaving it until the last few hours is really bad, and quite unexpected. Where's the rush of adrenaline? Or cortisol or whatever should be bathing my brain in order to give me focus and impetus. Some dopamine maybe? I don't know, but seriously I even surprised myself in the way I avoided looking at what I needed to learn. I could've done better in that exam; it didn't go very well. I'm about 70% sure I passed.

Yesterday the same compulsion to avoid the necessary action happened again; I'm a bit hideously unprepared for tomorrow. I'm writing this with the knowledge that I will come back to read it next year.

Next year counts for three times as much as this year, so even if I have to do retakes, I should still be able to achieve about 63 next year to ensure a 2/1. This is going to be hard though, I will clearly need to have a different mindset; I will have to actually study over the whole course of the year, as well as work hard on my project. I'm actually still confident about this happening though. Why not? It'll all be brand new; I've got a great house lined up, I'll have a car, everyone else in my year will be working harder...

I will be having fun once these exams are over, in a few days, and I'll try to forget about my marks until they are released. After that though, I will attempt to start the year before it even begins, doing some researches. I will actually post stuff on here too. If anyone's still reading now, you're going to be in for a treat, I promise.

Skipped?

OK here are my titbits of my recent life.

• I've eaten jackfruit, from a can. It's pretty horrible, really stringy, and not very pleasant tasting, although not disgusting, just fruity in an oddly bland way.
• I've also eaten blueberry and strawberry chocolate. Which is marvellous.
• I've bashed my knee again, slipping on the step in my flat, which was extremely angering. Although it wasn't better anyway, I probably have set back the recovery. Still yet to see the doctor. Must go on Tuesday.
• I've actually made some songs, and they're OK sounding. This was many weeks ago, but now I will put them up on here too.
• I've designed a building, that looks really nice, to house the university I would one day build in an ideal world. The Schifferes Open Research Trust for Education and Discovery. SORTED. I will post pics...
• I've read many interesting things, some that I've forgotten, that now I sorta wish I had of written down to put on here. Some I can remember, like penrose tiles, probably the nerdiest thing I've ever been interested in.
• I've planted a spider plant, in a nuttela jar. Another set of clones is on the way soon, from the battered old mother plant, but no sign of any flowers as yet.
• I've walked around in a big thunderstorm, getting absolutely soaked. This was most excellent.
• I've thought way too much about the world cup, before it's yet begun. 

Something cool...

Saturday Summary 1

I've decided to make saturdays my day of reckoning. Every week henceforth I shall make some record of my activities, successes, failings and short term plans. So it begins, in simple form.

What I have done:
Lived without tobacco for a third week running
Went to a market research session for free ice cream and £3 in vouchers. Bonus.
Exchanged my penny jar for scratchcards. Didn't win. Bummer.
Threw water balloons off a very high balcony. Glad that we didn't hit any people but did hit cars.
Went to the doctor. Filled in a form. Complimented on my blood pressure and pulse rate. Sadly no cure for my injured knee other than weeks of rest.
Went to the gym. Tried to exert myself on the crosstrainer, after three and a half minutes felt faint. Threw up soon after. Weights felt good, but muscles were sore for two days after.
Spent hours and hours reading the internet, finding loads of new comics to read
Uploaded a photo album to facebook.

What I haven't done:
Developed melanoma (that's what that pic I took is of, a skin section.)
My microbiology coursework, nor any revision or research.
Any amnesty organising

This week I will: 

• Do that microbiology coursework. Hand it in on Monday.
• Give a presentation on Friday about Krabbes disease.
• Organise an amnesty meeting and hopefully a new committee. 
• Go to all my lectures. 
• Go to the gym again but avoid cardiovascular overexertions.
• Make a song.

Let's see if this writing it down helps these things happen.