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.

It’s taken me a while to write my next blog post. You will all get over it, soon. Promise. (I’ve been insanely busy. I can’t even put photos up, which irritates me a lot, but I’m running out of time to get all the blogs out that I want to before term starts. Sorry.)

In the Corrie-news this week is the fact that I just spent six days at Towersey Village Festival. Due to the “what happens in Towersey stays in Towersey” rule, I can’t talk too much about it. You can probably guess what happens when a load of musicians get together and spend five days drinking, not sleeping very much, playing fiddle at 3 in the morning and sleeping in very not-waterproof tents. There was grumpiness, there was cheeriness, there was CHEERINESS, and I got home very tired.

After that, a friend from America came to stay for four days, then Tom and I went home for Tom’s birthday. We (his parents and me) gave him a Nintendo Wii, and we are enjoying that in our spare moments.

I’m now in the last eight days of my internship, finishing off writing up everything, finishing off my design project, working late to get some measurements on a Redlux….but nothing new, so on with Fresher’s Excitement!

I’ve had a lot of responses to my last blog. I’m very pleased! I received an email from someone accepted into Materials (hello!) asking more questions about Welcome Week – and a lot of “Oh my God, we have a maths test?” I thought I would do a brief rundown of what I did in my own Welcome Week. It’s very Materials specific, but might be an idea as to what happens in the rest of the University.

The first thing that happens is you meet people. Specifically, your tutor and head of year. You will meet so many people from the Materials Department, that you won’t have a clue about who is who for a long time. The most important person you will meet on the first day is your new tutor, who will also assign you a poster project in your tutor groups. In your year, there will be four people, give or take one, per tutor group. We had to make a poster about artifical heart-valves – our tutor is a Biomaterials God, which is the reason for that little gem. It will obviously depend on your tutor’s special subject. This is the main ‘work’ thing you will have to do in the department.

The other work thing is the dreaded maths test. I really scared one of the Fresher’s last year by going on about how difficult Maths is. He looked really scared and said he was going to transfer out of Materials – I saw him during exam week, sitting our exams, and am pleased that I didn’t actually scare him away. I’m really sorry about that, but I hate maths, and tend to get a bit over-exuberant when talking about it. Anyway, the test really isn’t that difficult. It’s multiple choice, and is just a way of them making sure you know what level you are expected to have. If you fail (yes, I did), you resit it two weeks later, and are expected to go to a refresher course in the meantime.

You will also do a lunch with your tutor, where you will meet all of their other tutees (mine is Prof Molly Stevens – if you have her, you are very lucky for two reasons! A), you get to meet me, and B), Molly is the most amazing academic you can ever wish to have assigned to look after you for 3/4 years. She is severely inspirational, and my personal hero.) In the Buddie’s Lunch, an older student gets assigned to you and answers any questions you may have. Of course, you won’t have any questions that haven’t been answered, because you have me. But, free lunch! (You might get assigned Coranda Berry as your Buddy. I’ll give you a clue: she is AWESOME)

You get given a LOT of information about how to access all the files you might require on the IC Servers, how to read your timetable, how to hand in coursework, how to write coursework. It’s hard to pay attention to everything, but it is important, so try do so. This year, there will be an added bonus, where one fourth year student will be teaching everyone how to use a referencing programme. (Hint: it’s me.)

Apart from anything else, this is a really good time to get to know people on the course before you have pressure. Second week is where the fun really starts – they don’t ease you in gently. It’s a bit of a baptism of fire. But Welcome Week is plenty of free lunch, lots of time to spare (even if the starter timetable doesn’t look like it) and a really good way to get used to the department.

If anybody has any more specific questions, please do ask. Like I say, I’m incredibly busy – a brief rundown of my life for the next month includes an 8,000 word piece of coursework, a 20 minute presentation to prepare for, hospital appointments (hayfever sucks), a week in Portugal, the end of my internship, a weekend-long celebration for Tom’s birthday, preparation for tutorials I’m giving…you get the picture!

I’m trying to get some more specific info about my clubs and societies up, I’m sorry it’s taking so long. I will try sit down tonight and do it. The good news for everyone is that I signed up for another year of blogging…so you all get to find out exactly how I’m going to juggle all my commitments while trying to find a PhD, earn some extra money, and enjoy my last year as well!

I don’t know when I will next blog. If you want to follow me on Twitter, you will get a slightly better idea of what I’m doing, and I’m generally very good at answering questions on there cos I get them on my phone and it’s a bit like a text message. So if you have urgent stuff, you know what to do. (And if you don’t have Twitter, get it. It will replace Facebook for you.)

Ciao for now!

AveryrushedCorrie

On the commute to work.

I haven’t had a lot of time to update recently, I’ve been so tired. It’s really difficult getting back into full-time work after such a long study leave.

So I started my internship last week. It is incredibly interesting stuff. I’m doing a lot of biology, and reading through a lot of journals – it’s hard going when you don’t know what most of the biology words mean. I’m learning a lot, and I’m hoping that my courses next year will be a lot easier as a result of it. (Also, I got my results! I did pretty damn amazing this year…so happy, I thought I’d failed at least one module. Yay!)

The unit I'm working in.

The company is based in Leatherhead, and is much larger than I first thought. It takes up three warehouses on an industrial estate, and employs 160 people. I have my own desk, my own computer login, and most excitingly, my own company email address. It’s the little things! I’m working the Research and Development section. Having done the dreaded Design Study, it’s pretty awesome walking around here. The company is an orthopaedics one – they have samples of hip and knee replacements lying around everywhere, mounted on walls, a dozen skeletons lying around. I’m actually in heaven.

My office mug.

I’m currently involved in a massive project which is a collaboration between Finsbury, Imperial College and a few other companies. On Tuesday last week I went to their quarterly meeting at IC, where I went down to the Incubator in the BioEng department. I’d never been down there before – it was amazing. It’s underneath the Upper Dalby Court, and so nice. You wouldn’t know it was part of IC – I guess it’s cos not many students get to go down there!! Very posh and sunny, even though it’s underground. We got shunted off to the SAF though, and ended up in a tiny office which was sooo hot and horrible. The first part of the day was just scoping and planning – a project management exercise with no science. It was really interesting to see how they work together when compared to how we did our design studies. The project manager is external to the project (which we obviously couldn’t do) and it makes such a difference.

Partying at John's

In the afternoon we did the hardcore science. I can’t say what it actually is (which so makes me feel like a spy), but it was really interesting. It made me love Materials even more – you can’t do science without the materials, and they treat me like a bit of a celebrity at Finsbury, because I apparently know stuff! I don’t feel like it’s very true but anyway. The sad part about this bit of the meeting was that it was so hot and humid in the room that I was starting to fall asleep, and had to have some Coke to wake myself up. I was trying so hard to not have fizz, grr. But it worked, and I managed to concentrate and learn some really interesting stuff. It was also very useful networking.

View of the Thames from Putney Bridge

I’ve now been given so much stuff to do that I don’t think I’ll finish by September. I have to do three literature reviews, one market review, a report on a funding application that was rejected and summarise some research that has just finished. I’m starting to realise there is a lot of paperwork that we just don’t see, and stuff you would never think ever existed.

I’ve only been here seven days, but it’s convinced me that a PhD is what I want to do more than anything else, even with the UROP. They get to do the actual science, which is what I really want. I think I will get a chance to go in a lab here, but most of the research is done in collaboration with external labs, so I’m doing a lot of the literature reviews. Well, in my case anyway – it might not be like that in other parts of the company, but I’m not experiencing any of that!

Another group shot showing John's lovely Tequila Sunrises.

My first deadline was Friday, when my planning for the literature review had to be done. The meeting went really well, I was feeling so at sea, but my supervisor (who is a legend, by the way, even if she is French ) made me feel so good. Yay!

My life outside of the internship barely exists. I get home, eat, fall asleep! That said, we have done some stuff. Tom and I had a picnic in Bishop’s Park the other day, and I did a quartet mess around sesh with John, Tom and Ben. I made some cupcakes for this, which completely failed. The (lovely) hot weather does not like butter icing. We’ve decided our ‘rotating’ quartet on an availability basis is going to be called the Cupcake Quartet – thanks to John for the name! Website to be appearing soon. I sometimes think I give myself too much to do, but when I have nothing to do I start missing it.

Excursion around Fulham to get antihistamine.

I had an AMAZING weekend again. We partied hard at John’s, again, all of Friday night, then late on Saturday night too. It was pretty damn cool. Despite the football, when Tom discovered that I do actually have a few patriotic bones in me. The worst part of the weekend was Dr Who finishing! So sad about it I might just cry…never mind, we have next year to look forward to!

I’m doing a lot of overtime at the moment as I want to take the day off on Thursday (to move!!). My room is such a state, but I’ve signed up to StreetCar and we are almost ready.

I can’t put photos because I haven’t got the right programmes to resize them, and the ones my camera takes are too big. I’ve packed the computer with that one away, so you will have to wait with bated breath for next weeks update. [Edit: They're now up, obviously - but I'm not deleting the previous sentence because I like the use of the phrase 'bated breath']

Ciao for now!