Languages

Hi everyone

I have recently taken up learning German, i thought it would be easier than it actually is. I am currently doing 2hrs of taught study per week, I am supposed to be doing 2 hours of self study also, but I am finding this a challenge at the moment. 

This week had been one of the most tiring weeks ever, I have just had so much to do everyday, I just dont seem to have the time to do much else except work at the moment.

I am very much looking forward to going to see my family this weekend, as I haven't been home for a while will be a nice weekend, besides the fact that I also have work to do.

Laura

Now on twitter

Hi everyone

I am now on twitter if you wish to follow me please go to https://twitter.com/Giddypig1987 

I will be tweeting various things on there

:)

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.

Weekly update

I haven't posted for a couple of weeks, I have finally started writing my literature review and now have 1000 words write, probably not very good words, but at least something is written down. I have had a couple of meetings including with a UK zoo, which was very interesting.

The plan for my project is going to be written so I have know which direction my research is going to go in, I know that I am studying various aspects of Endotheliotropic Herpesvirus in Asian elephants. I feel this is an interesting area and I feel that i will be ale to contribute to the research in this field.

I think elephants are amazing creatures, from researching information for my literature review, I have found they are much more complex than what I thought. Rather than just being big and grey, they have a very complex social structure which has taken up a lot of my time allocated to research this week.

Its already been a long week.......

Its felt like a very long week so far, trying to get my head around bio informatics. This is an area I am pretty unfamiliar with, I have spent hours researching sequence alignment which I think I now understand the basic principles of.

I feel like I have not achieved very much this week, on my week to do list I have only managed to tick off two things, I am feeling a little disheartened this week. Creating a to do list was possibly not as good of an idea as I thought, especially when you can barely tick anything off. I feel that I do know enough and I'm worried that I will look stupid.

I have a busy weekend as well, Science in the community outreach program on Saturday, where my colleague and I have created a stall on anatomy. Where we are going to enlighten children and give them some information on the human body. We are also providing chocolate and sweets.

Literature review....part 1

So I am doing a literature review as part of my PhD, which is proving to be tougher than I thought, especially in such a niche area of science.

I have made a plan of what I want to put in my review, just a plan of content headings for the moment... which is a start. I have also started a collection of notes which I have made from reading books and journals.

My head is full of information now to start writing it down......