…unfortunately, it also brings with it the ability to misuse the English language.

This exchange took place between my friends on a comment I posted on Facebook about the cake I made for Ben.

Corrie on Ben’s Wall: I find myself hoping that you may post a status about cake.

Comments:

Ben: I am thinking of an appropriate pun! But it was awesome!

John: That’s pretty half-baked Ben…would’ve thought you at least would rise to the challenge.

Ben: Layer off john! I saw this post very chocoLATE and fell asleep while thinking…. sorry to dessert facebook before coming up with something though.

Not really the flour of my creative punning if I’m honest.

Corrie: Oh God. Overload.

Ben: John asked for it by ‘eccling me.

John: Sorry…I just wanted a slice of the action. Anyway…”flour of my creative punning”…that’s pretty crumby if you ask me.

Ben: I hope you aren’t trying to beat me at this game john, it is definitely a bit whisky.

or maybe you’re trying to egg me on

eggs are nothing to yolk about. I’m sorry.

John: Oh gateauver it, your puns are crêpe. I d’éclair a duel.

Ben: I look forward to croissant swords with you!

Corrie: I can’t cope with this.

Ben: Stay with it Corrie, John needs to be torte a lesson.

John:  Leave her out of this, she’s got muffin to do with it. It’s the yeast you can do.

Ben: Butter cake started it! Yeast isn’t used in cakes anyway, maybe in more cultured cooking.

Corrie:  Like the bread that John is going to bake for us?

And, FINE, that’s the last time I make a cake for YOU, Ben!

Ben: ‎:( I’m sorry, I was on a roll.

John: No knead to get so upset Corrie, just roll with it. OK I’ll get started…saves me just loafing around all day.

Ben: I call deviation! The currant topic is about cakes not bread! I dough’nt like it.

John: You don’t have to make a meal of it just cos something’s gone slightly a-rye…

Ben: ‎??? stop raisin complaints. I think our bread puns are causing Corrie pain (in a french way). hmm, I reckon it is bad puns baguetting bad puns.

John: Hmm…fairie nuff. I doughnut want to cause her even a petit pain. I just thought it was getting a bit stale.

Ben: I toast your latest effort, you really spread yourself there. I get the feeling you now have the urge to make cereal puns ingrained into you as well!

Nikita: This just had me and Hannah in stiches of laughter. Oh, the pain.

Hannah: I’d say it was less laughter and more groans of despair.

Ben: wheat a minute, that joke has already happened nikita! Although I suspect you were just chaffing us.

Nikita: Actually that was unintentional, Mr Phippsulator

Ben: crumbs. I thought you were trying to join in.

John: Ben, that’s a trifle unfair, no need to be so tart with her. She can’t help it if whatever she waffles about doesn’t match up to our wondrously humorous ba(n)tter.

Ben:  Mallow out john! I wasn’t being tart. Normally, Icing her praises. In this case though, the joke had already been aired. It paves the wafer more though.

Toby: Djam! How did I nut see this before??? I’m a big flan of making puns. I really should stop pudding work before facebooking. Someone should have meringue (….) me to tell me. I’m thinking of sueting all of you.

John: You need to lighten up Toby, don’t bake me come over there. Anyway, it’s all Coz Berry Fool’t (…) innit.

Toby: My head is choc full with sweet ideas, about to be put down in the comMINTs box. You’re all in truffle.

‎(Actually, make that ‘Nou gar’ instead ‘you’re (you are)’)

John: Desserting from the baking puns eh? I suppose it is vittle to the profiterolation of the thread…

Toby: You should put me in custardy.

Ben: I think this patisSeries of puns mars everyone involved

Corrie: Ben, you know the treat thing I made such a fuss about? This eclipses (eclairpses?) it.

(treat=tree, in case you didn’t get that)

Ben: I have no idea what sugar referring to

Corrie: Walking to HP last week.

Ben:  ah. Now I get you. I think we should leaf that well alone

Toby: Leaf? I’m not sure how that’s dessert-related… Appley more branpower to this, Ben. Currantly it is going off-topicnic.

Ben: I refuse to rolo-ver toby! I was answering corrie. Fudging words toffee this madness is nuts. So many puns nestleing in this thread.

Toby: There are orange of directions this conversation could bread off in now. Desserts, chocolates, bread and hundreds and thousands of others. Afterwards, we’ll definitely regret where it scone though.

Hannah: I think this kneads to stop, I’m breading where it will go next.

Toby:

We’re all glutens for PUNishment.

(wow, that was perfect)

Ben: thats running against the grain for you toby.

Sam: I would join in but I barley know any puns Some of yours are berry good!

Corrie: Sam, you’ll notice how jelly quiet I’ve been.

Ben: I refuse to rice to this any more

Toby: Under mousse circumstances, ice cream with pleasure when I get given the opportunity to pun. This could go on until at least leaven o’clock. Unless we all go crackers by then.

Go on, Ben! Come up with a snappy retorte!

Ben: Its getting to the stage where I have to sponge off the creativity of others. But Jammily, I have the JMC here to help me! They want me to head to the pub for a spot of Bourbon though.

could be a bit whisky

Toby: I’d biscuit if I were you. Does that mean victori(a sponge) might be mine in this who-can-pun-last marmalarkey (…)? Snickering puns from other mathematicians is cheating, they all know far too much about pi.

Hannah: I don’t know Hovis conversation has lasted so long, but I oat to be doing my LaBrea-tory work instead of following it really.

Toby: Whoa! But tons (Warburtons) of puns are still being made! Yog hurt people’s feelings if you doughn’t follow this whole thing. Ungrapeful.

Chorley this can’t be the end?

Hannah: But if I don’t do it, my SOUPerviser, ROLLand Smith, might get dis-herbed.

John: All I do is take some Time Out and I see you’ve made the Topic of puns Drifter way completely. Better stop Lion around, you Dweebs seem to be Reese-ing the Bar and giving this conversation a real Boost. Well it’s Crunch time, Yorkie problem’s gonna be me from now on, I don’t give a Daim what you think, I Cadbury you all right now cos I’m a Bournville-ain.

Toby: Leave him to stew. There probably isn’t mushroom in the lab anyway. You might as well just see him tomato (tomorrow).

Corrie: I’m actually going to cry.

Hannah:  I have RI meating minutes to compleat too.

Toby: Yeah, we’ve had a bit of a Breakaway. There is a whole Bounty-ous Galaxy of puns to be made on this subject, although some of them are slightly Flakey. Let’s take this to the Caramax, I’m Revelling in it.

Hannah:  Oh, and I have a leakture at 3.

I mean a leekture.

Toby: I just went for a leakture.

Hannah:  But leaks aren’t relevent to this corn-versation as they aren’t a type of soup.

Corrie: Eww.

Toby: Or should I say a pea?

Hannah: That would be a souperior way of putting it.

Toby: We need to get back to a more wholesome topic. I’m not sure there’s muffin (much in?) this one, it’s a bit croissant (crass and) disgusting.

Hannah: Oh, yes, peas.

Toby: We’ve pretty much milked the bakery stuff dry. Anything else would be the icing on the cake.

Nick: Looks like I’m gonna have to get a pizza the action…

Sorry, wasn’t very good but I’m distracted by listening to Dr Pepper’s Love Heart band…

Toby: We might be the pepperonly ones left doing it though. Everyone else got scared off by the cheesy jokes. Never mind, it doesn’t omato, we can pun happily (pineapply? erm….)

Nick: Sorry to layer it on thick but I’m relishing the opportunity to mustard the strength to ketchup to you all… Condiment game tie-in – boom!

Nick:  There’s bean so many gouda puns there’s very little margarine for error here, but I’m fairly confit(!)dent of throwing my hat into the iced ring

Toby: There are stiltons of cheese puns waiting to brie made. Your condiment ones are full of holes, I camembert them. But don’t cheddar tear, it’s OK. I’m sure you’ll be gouda t this eventually. You just need to do it Caerphilly.

Corrie: Toby, everyone needs to just Take a Break. Doughnut worry.

Toby:  ‎(camembert – can’t bear. Hmm.)

Nick: They’re not holy, but the Swiss is and they’re good negotiators… We can revell in their opinions

Toby: Some of these cheese puns are grate, some of them stink. We’ve ricotta come up with more though! I could literally do this until the Laughing Cows come home. I think I might be going slightly emmental…

Ben: There is still an Abondance of cheese puns left…We should let corrie take a break though, Leicester sense of humour is turned permanently cheesy.

John: Indeed Toby dhaling, chowder you say such cress things? Please soup-ress your fowl info about your latest celery-bratory gazpacho (gas patch?), it makes miso sick. It’s like onion (an eon?) ago when you were all like “ma-leg-go’-tore-knee” (mulligatawny…?), and goulash-ed out whenever your blood got pumpkin just bisque-cause you had some beef with us or an oxtail grind. Lentil afterwards when you’d ginger-ly take stock, use your noodle and realise that your not really broth-ered. As the local church minestrone-arby chapel might declare, “lettuce say ramen to that”.

Toby: OK, no-one’s going to beat that. Ever.

John:

Thanks fêta très bon mots…are ela-borate (mozzarella?) puns da-niche (danish?) or are they a bit bour(s)in? Its nacho fault I’m on fine formaggio. Maybe you’re thinking “Hey, ‘edam goat…in fact leerdammer sight better than me.” It’s OK…at least you didn’t pass-n-day-all (passendale…?) just making stinking puns, trying to mould them around some story in order to add a bit of gloucester them. I raclette ever making the decision cheshire those initial puns with you. Oh well, when’s-le-day-all over, bu’-for-low points when they got so bad I felt quite quesa(dilla got over it anyway) and maybe even sprouted some grey-’airs, it hasn’t been all that blue. Gouda been worse.

Whey

The culprit...

I realised yesterday when I went into the lab that when I ring my family and say “I was in the lab today”, they have no idea what that means. Probably, nobody else does, so have a nice description of what I’m doing at the moment.

I made a cake for Ben. Death by chocolate.

If you haven’t read my new and updated “Me, me, me, me, *Me*” section, I’m in the fourth year of a Materials degree, and I’m currently doing four lecture courses and a final project. The final project is what involves the labs. My topic is bone regeneration – basically, if you have a defect in your bone that your body can’t fix by itself, human intervention aims to place a material in there that will give your body a helping hand and allow the bone to regenerate. This is the alternative to just putting in a totally artificial, unnatural material like metal, and replacing it as it gets worn out.

When I’m in the lab, I’m synthesising materials that aim to do this. I’m not going to describe exactly what I’m doing, as my supervisor may not be too happy with unpublished research going out on a blog (I think there are laws…), but in general, I’m making a composite and adding in some stuff that should tell the body “Oi, put bone here”. As the body does this, the implant should resorbed, which means broken down by the body into a load of harmless by-products that can be easily excreted/used up without a trace.

MASSIVE poster at Fulham Bway.

So, how do I do this? Well, first thing that I do when I get in, is relegate my stuff to a corner, put on my lab-coat and safety specs, and don a pair of beautiful purple nitrile gloves.I do all my calculations on quantities etc before I get in, so I can collect up my equipment straightaway and get going. First step is measuring. Yawn. Powder 1 goes in to the beaker, followed by some water. Then it goes on a mixer to stir while Powder 2 is measured out. Once this is right, I add it (SLOWLY) to Powder 1/Water mixture. If I get this wrong, the whole thing explodes.

It gets left to mix for an hour, during which I mess about either working out more calculations or just doing whatever I can do in an hour. After the hour is up, I measure out Liquid 1 in the fume-hood (it can murder my lungs if I’m not careful), and add it to the beaker. Then I go have lunch for two hours while it reacts (making sure to wash my hands and remove all my safety gear before I go).

When I get back, I get another load of beakers and equipment, measure out Liquids 2, 3 and 4 into the beaker (in the fumehood again) and place them on a stirrer. They mix until they have reacted (should take 45 minutes, but my samples on Monday managed 10. Fail.) and then get heated up. I replace the stuff that evaporates with water for a while (depending on final volumes etc), then take it off and leave it to cool.

Teacup Piglets!! OMGosh WANT.

Exciting stuff now, cos up till this point (about FIVE HOURS) it’s all been really boring and slow. I add Beaker 2 to Beaker 1, mix for 3.5 minutes and then syringe my samples into sample holders. They get left to set (should take about 20 minutes, took 1 hour and 7 minutes the other day. Fail.) and I label them all prettily. I put on my exciting respirator (as seen in previous post), shove them in the furnace, wash up and leave for the day.

Three days later, I take them out of the furnace and remove their lids. Two weeks later, they are done. The next step is testing, which takes a month. At this point, I know whether or not my samples are good.

I hope you can appreciate that I only have four months of project left. That is 16 weeks, which leaves me enough time to make a grand total of two sample sets (and so far every set I’ve made has had SOMETHING go wrong). Who says this research business is easy?

This has been a photo-sparse topic, so have a few from the last few days instead. In other news, I’m spending today in the hospital having hayfever stuff. Tonight is the ICSO concert again, we have John for another weekend (delightful!) and I’ve realised I have only 5 weeks until my first exam of the year. Best get working…

Something that I would LOVE to make.

John-monster...Johnster?

Ciao for now!

Working in the lab...

There were so many titles I could have chosen for this blog (you have no idea how difficult it is naming each post), but as you can quite clearly see, I went for the rather lame one I’ve just put up. I can’t remember if I’ve ever talked about the Sainsbury’s Epiphany, but the message is an important one (if I do say so myself), so it gets a dedicated post. Woohoo.

Anyway, the story goes something like this. In first year, way back when labs, tutorial sheets and revision were all fairly new experiences, Tom and I were sitting in his room in Weeks one night. Tom had been going on a lab report for about six hours straight, and was totally stuck on something that he just couldn’t get right. I eventually got sick of being inside, and suggested we go down to Little Sainsbury’s for a Coke and some yummies. Met with a lot of argument “I need to finish my lab report and don’t have time to take half an hour to go get it”, he eventually agreed, and off we strolled. As we rounded the corner and Harrods came into sight (I’m only adding that to reiterate the awesome fact that our local Sainsbury’s was opposite Harrods), Tom suddenly looked at me and said “I know what the problem is!” We went back, the report was finished quickly, and I heroically restrained the “I told you so” that was trying to get out.

The stage pre-show.

I’m a firm believer of ‘the minutes you take a break are sometimes more important than the hours you spend working, and this confirmed it. Smugness aside, every time either of us gets into that situation again, we remind each other of the Sainsbury’s Epiphany, and it makes it that little bit easier to remember to take a break, refresh with a cup of tea/walk around the block, and get our heads straight. I’m sure everyone knows/will know the pain of an aching head after staring at the same sheet of paper/calculator/computer screen for too long. I can assure you, this is probably the only blog I’ve never exaggerated on (haha). [Hopefully Tom will add a nice little comment to confirm the truth of what I'm saying.]

I’m now in Fourth Year (how did that happen?) and when I start thinking about the comprehensive paper/final project/Systems exam in January/Nano notes I haven’t written up yet, have to remind myself of this daily. It still helps.

The support act, who were brilliant.

Obligatory advice aside (prompted by a conversation via Twitter with someone I’ve never met before who goes to IC and tweeted “@darwinkk really needs someone to cheer me up right now (” at  midnight last night, allowing me to start with the generous advice “Got any sugar in your cupboard? Melt it in a pan and make Toffee out of it. Sugar high and occupiedness to interrupt depression” and move on to the more serious stuff), what have I been doing the last few days?

Well, back in October, I got a parking ticket for parking in a restricted bay in South Kensington on the night of graduation. I didn’t hear back from them after I appealed, and ignored the fact that I really ought to find out what was happening. I got a letter the other day demanding payment, which was doubled because I’m now a month late. I’m going to spend an hour on the phone trying to sort it out, and never again will I pretend something isn’t a problem just because it’s uncomfortable to think about.  Another life-lesson right there.

Being...happy?

John stayed the weekend again, and we went to a folk concert on Saturday night at Shepherd’s Bush Empire. This is a lot in line with Chris’ most recent blog, and was awesome. I spent the night in my penguin hat, we met one of the fiddle players from the band in the bar afterwards, and we went home to watch “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo”, in which Simon and Ben, the only two who weren’t actually staying in the flat, were the only ones who managed to stay awake for longer than about ten minutes. Sunday was the String Ensemble concert in Holy Trinity Church, followed by a folk session at a pub in Hammersmith and another late night.

Over the last few days I’ve also seen Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 (twice), learned how to make my samples in the lab (and exploded one of my samples with too much sodium bicarbonate) and finished knitting a Christmas present for my Gran.

It’s getting harder to balance student life with real life as I slowly realise I will in all likelihood be leaving Imperial in less than 7 months and try to make the most of it. Take advantage of the people/clubs and societies/living in London while you can, because you can never get this time back.

The cellist...the most chilled out person I've ever seen on stage.

SAM the violinist "I LOVE YOU SAM"

Two more chilled out peeps.

Beth the Penguin Hat "Corrie, your hat just made my day"

AWESOME

Bellowhead...Stage Right

Wow, I’ve churned out a lot of probably misguided advice in this one. I’m gonna wrap it up now and toddle off for yet another visit to the doctor, some violating (which, if you’re worried, is what Ben calls it when I play viola) and more career decisions. More on that later!

Ciao for now.