Demonstrating and tissue culture

Hi everyone

So in the past couple of weeks:

1. Demonstrating:
I have begun to do some demonstrating on animal handling, I am assisting in an  undergraduate class where they learn about handling and the requirements of rabbits, guinea pigs and chinchillas. I have so far found that I am extremely fond of guinea pigs, I feel that I would like to have one again one day. I used to own a guinea pig his name was Sir Eat a lot. Which i think described his personality perfectly, we got him from a small zoo in Derbyshire when it closed down in 2000. Anyway enough about my previous guinea pig.

I am enjoying demonstrating, its nice to see how the undergrads are so enthusiastic, and wanting to learn and handle the animals. I am also learning a lot about these animals, especially about chinchillas, I had never handled a chinchilla before until I was trained for this work. I think its important not to talk down to the students, which I thought I would have a problem with but in the end it has been ok. Many of them have pets at home and they already understand a bit about the animals.

So from doing this kind of demonstrating I have so far learned, the requirements for keeping rabbits, guinea pigs and chinchillas, how to sex them and common diseases/illnesses and problems.

2. Tissue culture
Ok, so I have started to do some tissue culture which has been eventful. I have managed not to infect any of them yet and none of them have had to be thrown away yet.... watch this space.

3. Life outside uni
Since i last posted, I have moved house to be closer to uni which has been been great and very helpful as now I dont have a long commute as I did before. 

The last few weeks...

I know I have not posted for a while, I have been extremely busy and I have also been on holiday to Norway.

I had an amazing time visiting stavanger, olden, eidfjord and krisiansand . I climbed upto the briksfdal glacier which was an amazing experience.

Work wise I have now completed 4000 words of my literature review which I am very very pleased at, I have around 25 sections to complete and I have written about 10. I will do a separate post on literature review searching as I feel I have knowledge I could pass on.

I am currently working on some samples from a zoo, so I will be spending more and more time in the lab in the upcoming weeks.

Yesterday (13th July) I decided to have a baking day, I made Victoria sponge and rainbow cakes for the first time, I am extremely happy with the results. I am unable to taste the Victoria sponge as I am on a diet and it's full fat, I will be giving this to my family.

I have been having trouble sleeping for the past few weeks so if anyone has any tips please let me know.

Brain frazzle....

So its my first week starting my PhD project.... I have read for around 12 hours a day at University and at home filling my head with virology knowledge.

I attended at interesting seminar yesterday evening on the chemistry of cocktails where I tried an interesting green cocktail which was rather strange. I am also attending another interesting seminar today on herpes in fish, I honestly never knew fish could have herpes.... you learn something new everyday.

This weekend I am intending to relax a bit as I now think my brain is starting to frazzle with the amount of information I have crammed in this week.

Presentation complete.......

Well I managed to do my presentation, it was infront of around 15 people which was a nice number.

I was sat in my seat before hand and my heart was racing I tried some breathing techniques to try and get my heart rate under control but that didnt seem to work.

So then it got to my turn, I stood at the podium and loaded my presentation onto the screen. By this point my breathing had got worse and my hands were shaking. My mouth was so dry I found it hard to talk at some parts. I felt that I spoke slowly but I'm not sure if I actually came across that way. I managed to actually say the words I had previously had difficulty with which was good.

When my presentation was over I felt a Hugh sigh of relief, I think I need to do it many more times before becoming confident at speaking in public. Even tho I find talking to people easy I found presenting my work very hard.

I can now move on to officially starting my full PhD project next week