18/6/11

Since my last post there have been numerous rides including nature reserves, I think I've been bitten by the bird watching bug. Although I am not brilliant at identifying a lot of the birds I could just sit and watch them for hours, all interacting with each other in their different ways. Many photos were taken, so I'll just give you some of the highlights...
This is a very vocal reed warbler, until I worked out what it was me and my friend just referred to it as "the loud bird"

A very cute young mallard which I followed around for a while:

And a wren (I think):


The big news of the week however, is results! I had a very nervous couple of hours yesterday morning waiting for 10am to roll round so I could go to my feedback meeting. My year average was 72, so not only is that a 1st I improved on last year so happy with that. My best achievement was getting 85% overall in the inorganic module, getting this overall means that, due to coursework counting for 30% of the module) that I got 91% in the final exam so very pleased with that! I got 65% in the organic module, so again very pleased with that as I knew coming out of that exam that getting past the 60% mark was going to be touch and go! Slightly disappointingly (but made up for my all the good bits) were the physical chemistry modules which I got 61 and 64 in, I came out of the exams feeling confident so was expecting slightly more, but still happy.

It was also the announcement of marks from labs and the literature and communication project. I got a safe 74% in labs which again I was very pleased with - I'd been hovering consistently around the 70 mark with the results we'd previously been given but I had some disastrous experiments as well (which means there must have been some good ones to balance them out!). Got a solid 80% in the communication project. Can't grumble with a mark like that, although I think our group project was awesome enough to earn more points than that (but I would say that!)

For anyone that hadn't seen it, part of the project was to make a kind of wiki page about Grignard reagents, so for that little bit extra we made a video of a reaction in progress, there were a few changes and corrections made after this but it shows the effort we went to!
http://www.twitvid.com/KH8NL

So that's it. Second year is all over - 2 years left now. Well probably. There is much thinking about the future and stuff going on at the moment, but I'm waiting to see how labs go this year, we will be much more independent and coming up with routes to get to final products by ourselves so hopefully I'll enjoy that, if not I may end up ducking out of 4th year and leaving with a BSc instead of an MChem (and maybe a phd to follow!). Haven't had a lecture since April, and it sounds a bit sad I know, but I already miss it! Will hopefully have an awesome summer to make up for lack of chemistry though!

Ciao for now!