I had an awesome weekend at home - lots of good food, dog walking and quality time with my family, and I did almost no work which is always nice for a change!
That's the last time I'll be home until the Christmas holidays...24 days and counting!
Yesterday brought the start of labs proper. It didn't fail to deliver on the promised boredom, 4 hours to set up 24 vials with various saturated solutions in, and then a couple of hours of database hunting. This morning was 45 minutes to set up another 12 vials and yet more databasing. Not that I'm complaining the much - its simple to do, which is just as well as my current skills with a pipette and micro spatula leave much to be desired (thanks for that one nerves...). Did manage to stab myself 3 times with a needle whilst putting holes in vial lids (twice yesterday and once today) - enough blood from my finger today that the demonstrator thought I needed actual first aid (it looked a lot worse than it was!).
Don't know what we're going to do next week, even if we have crystals we can't use the x-ray crystallography machine (yay for maintenance) and we've already for information from 50+ compounds from the database so not much we can do from that side of it either, I guess we'll just start doing our write up and preparing for the presentation a bit ahead of time...
How's the arm? Sore! I think various bits of lab work and lots of writing, combined with various exercises is probably slightly too much to be doing but I shall persevere. It will get get better. I hope. Am doing my best to avoid painkillers where possible too. Still can't manage to put enough weight on it to ride my bike properly (also means climbing is still out of the question!), but I am now officially back in training. Had my first turbo session in a long time at the weekend, nothing too strenuous, a bit of a spin to get the legs going and a sprint at the end for good measure. Turbo trainer is now back with me at uni. Not sure our damp and mouldy cellar will do my lungs any good whilst training but it'll be good to get going again - means I can hit the ground running when I'm back on the bike for real!
Got my tutor meeting scheduled for Thursday, spoke to my parents about it all in a bit more detail over the weekend. I know they'll support me whatever but I think they're happy enough for me to continue with "the plan" because as long as I have a plan its good with the (they don't want me hanging about not dong anything though!). Will let you know how it goes!
My "things to do before I'm 25 list" (made in February) came up today, I've made a pitiful amount of progress...here's an update! :P
1. Meet my Mr. Right - can't say as there's be any progress what so ever to report here!
2. Get a piano (or keyboard!) and learn to play properly this time - or here, this may be one for when I have somewhere to put a piano...
3. Stand inside the Arctic Circle - nope, no progress here either, watching Frozen Planet on the BBC has made me want to even more though
4. Visit somewhere on the other side of the equator: - I wish...
5. Climb the highest 10 “mountains” in England, Scotland and Wales again no, but I have now passed my grade 2 training with Ramsoc, which means I can read a map (and am a bit more confident in doing so), so this one should be able to happen soon (especially as rambling can be done without the full use of arms!)
6. Achieve a podium in a cycling race - gutted. How close did I get to that one? Well...I only made it into a fraction of the 1st lap, but I would have got 2nd place! Hopefully motivation to train hard over the winter and get racing again next season!
7. Get a photo I’ve taken published in a magazine / online - not managed this either, have got a DSLR now though, and have taken some photos that I'm happy with, will keep going with this and hopefully one day it will happen!
8. Skydive or bungee jump (or both!) - may have failed to get this one done so far, definitely happening this summer though. I'm putting some money aside for a sky dive. Going to be awesome. Can't wait!
9. Learn to snowboard - This probably needs to wait until my arm stops hurting. Hopefully another one for the summer though!
10. OK, this isn't on the same level as the others but hey, it needs deciding - Organic, Physical or Inorganic? - Never got any closer to deciding, but looks like I don't need to any more...
11. Take a photo every day for a year - Will probably start this in the new year. 1 photo every day in 2012!
All in all been a bit of a fail so far, good thing I've still got 4 and a half years left to do it all! Lots of exciting things to look forward to at least!
Bye for now folks!
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