15/10/11

I know I said I wouldn't post again this week but I couldn't resist. I will keep it short though.

I'm very much enjoying home (there's lots of food for one thing!). Being home means I'm always with a few metres of my bikes, and sitting in my room looking out of the window I just couldn't ignore them...

Today may have been a perfect day for a long ride on the road bike, had my riding season not ended rather abruptly in early July today would have been a very good candidate for my first 100 mile road road, but as things didn't work out that way it was definitely not an option! But, although I have been advised that riding isn't a good idea at the moment I took the decision to go for a little pootle. Only did 4 miles, and not very fast so hopefully won't have caused any problems (other than the fact I now have a rather sore arm!). I expect that really will be the last time I ride a bike until I recover from surgery in December (assuming I go ahead with it...), but I can definitely hang the bikes up for winter happy now...

I never thought that riding a SS mountain bike (complete with slick tyres and backwards brakes) for 4 miles on the road would make me smile so much!

12/10/11

My weekend was a bit of a damp one, but still made it out to the peak district with Ramsoc - took the easy option of doing a walk 2 (definitely glad I did - that was hard enough work for me!), the weather was OK for the first half but then got wet, windy and cold! I didn't take my camera (due to the forecast), but still had my phone with me. Here's the view from The Roaches:

So far, uni has been pretty good this week (I did have Monday off!), definitely going to be enjoying some lectures a lot more than others this term - but thankfully the good ones out weigh the bad! Haven't heard from the note taking people yet, and another addition to the group of lecturers who don't do powerpoints or handouts and rely solely on writing made today far more difficult than it should have been!

That said, contrary to what you might think, it's not the writing that is causing me the most problems. It's the small things that I can't do anymore that make it frustrating - things like carrying a drink, using a light switch and tying shoe laces. All things that I could do not only before the accident, but before I had surgery. I know they did their best, and it's just one of those things that happened but that doesn't mean I'm OK with it, an operation to explore (and hopefully mend) an injury shouldn't result in things being considerably worse. Before: 2 non-straightening fingers; after: 4 non-straightening fingers, a dodgy thumb, a weakened wrist and on-going pain. So clearly something didn't go to plan. And it's the same consultant that wants me to let him loose again...I'd be unlucky for things to go wrong twice though right?

3 and a half weeks 'til I see my consultant again, and we make the "what next?" plans; after a considerable amount of thought and deliberation, and despite the still on going doubts, I can't see how I could say no if he offers to go ahead with the next surgery (which was the plan before I left for uni). I was willing to take the risk before, and now I'm in a worse position so it should be a no brainer - I want my hand working again!

Actually, I'd say it's closer to a need than a want. I may have spent much of the last 2 years complaining about labs (yes I know undergrad labs are not like "real" labs), but I always did quite well, and had fun in my brief experience of a proper lab too. So whichever route I go down (Bsc vs MChem vs PhD), as that is still to be decided, I would like to think that I will, for at least a while, end up working in some sort of lab doing some sort of chemistry; and as much as I have enjoyed aspects of chemistry which lend themselves quite well to "thought experiments" and computational chemistry, I'd like to be able to do "real" chemistry and play with chemicals - not sure I'll be much good at that with 1 and a bit working hands though...

I seem to have been rambling a bit again, probably ought to stop now! I'm off home this weekend (as I have a hand therapy appointment early next weekend), it'll be nice to have a few days away from Nottingham and back with the family (I've had to promise my Grandma I won't speak to any strangers on the train home!), so assuming there's no drama's I expect I won't be blogging again until sometime next week...

So until then - hei hei! (which I'm assured is goodbye in Finnish...)

7/10/11

Well I've been back at uni proper for a week now so I thought a blog post was in order...

I have to say, overall its been a pretty good week - and nice to be back in the swing of things! Perhaps one of the more surprising things from the week has been that we've had 2 organic lectures, and I've actually enjoyed them! Just as well really as it counter-balances the 2 lectures we've had on solid state chemistry (which I remember as being almost interesting in first year...) - they can be described as nothing less than soul destroying! Pretty sure the lecturer is new, so hopefully the lectures might improve!

Don't want to go into a detailed account of all my lectures this week (as I'm sure you'll just find that really boring!), but I thought it was noteworthy that we have one of our 1st year lecturers again - our first impressions were "oh no, this is going to be bad!", but it turned out to be quite the opposite. I'm sure the man in question will go down as a legend in the chemistry department, somehow he manages to make copying down pages and pages of stuff from the board interesting! Although perhaps I particularly enjoyed it this week because I knew I had a friends notes to photocopy (seen as I can't write well enough) so I just sat and paid attention to what was being said, rather than panicking about getting everything down - I think his lectures may become the highlight of my week at uni!

On the subject of taking notes, having just about managed this week, uni are going to provide me with a note taker for a couple of modules next week, just to make it a bit easier for me. That said, my current system of just copying down things from the board (or photocopying someone else's notes) and then listening to lecture again and taking notes from the recording (with the aid of the pause button), means that, although a very time consuming job, I am ending up with a very good set of notes at the end! (Although apparently not a good enough set of notes that I can do any of the tutorial work we've been set thus far...).

Being a Friday, and because I have a 3 day weekend I'm at lot more cheery now than I was earlier (having the usual argh work is hard/don't know what I want to do after uni etc. feelings) but that's all pushed to the back of my head now, so - away from uni stuff The weather's looking a bit damp for tomorrow so I don't suppose I'll be going very far, although I really need to go shopping... Sunday on the other hand is ramsoc day! Managed to get one of the last places on the walk - this week we're off to The Roaches, an area I've not been to before so really looking forward to it. Hoping to take a spare map with me on the walk so I can practice my map-reading without the responsibility of actually leading! Weather depending you can expect some photos to appear from that at some point...

But for now, I'm starving (apparently a cereal bar is not a substantial enough lunch!) so off to "make" some bolognese (or at least just heat up the portion my mum sent me up to uni with!).

3/10/11 - Ramsoc

The morning after Ramsoc walk number 1 - I always forget how much you ache the next day!

I was up nice and early yesterday, excited by the promise of a walk in the sunshine; it turned out ti be cloudier than we were initially hoping but we were thankful for that as we were still roasting on the ascents!

Ramsoc offers a choice of 5 (or 6) walk, with 1 being the easiest - I picked 3 as it looked scenic but not too strenuous. It didn't take long for us all to be huffing and puffing our way up the first hill (Lose Hill), glad to see I'm not the only one who lost a lot of fitness of the summer! Thankfully most of the walk was along the ridge, so once we'd got the "big" climb out of the way it was just gentle ups and downs.

This provided a great opportunity to catch up with some old Ramsoc friends as well as make some new ones (never ceases to amaze me how many chemists there are in Ramsoc - 4 of us out of about 14 on the walk were!); also provided so very nice views! Some of which I managed to take a half decent photo of:





Next was supposed to be a nice gentle descent into Castleton, via the castle - but the leaders missed a turn and we were confronted by a "chasm" instead! The first bit wasn't too bad, just required some balance and bum sliding!
It's steeper than it looks:

We came down the right hand side...


The next bit was much trickier (particularly with only one arm available for holding on!), I didn't get any pictures as I thought it might be a good idea to put the camera safely away, but it was steeper, narrower and with a path of loose rocks and earth! Thankfully we all made it down safely and it wasn't too long before we were in the pub. Just as we got there it started raining (good timing!), felt very civilised having a cream tea!

Saw lots of very happy mountain bikers out and about too, made me a bit jealous but then I saw how many of them had Orange Fives so thought the better of it! ;-)

Next week is another walk; I might even be doing my first assessed walk for grade 2 leading (or I might wimp out...), something tells me the weather won't be quite as friendly though!

In the meantime - first proper week of uni (yay!), a lab talk thing this afternoon, and then lectures start for real tomorrow!