I've finally found out what getting As or Bs relates to in University words here in Bangor, and so far I have achieved:
3 Outstanding Firsts (A*), 6 Excellent Firsts (A+), 2 Good Firsts (A), 1 Low First (A-), 1 Good Upper Second (B+) and 1 Mid Upper Second (B). So 11 firsts and 2 2.1's basically, all in all I'm very pleased with myself, but am still waiting on the 2 coursework marks and 2 exam marks so keep your fingers crossed!
I'm loving the brain and mind module we've just started, it's really challenging but incredibly interesting. It's taught by Professor Guillaume Thierry who is French (as you may have guessed) and is very amusing. It's got a very steep learning curve to it I feel as there is so much specialist language involved, for example you can't say top, bottom, front, back, you have to say dorsal, ventral, anterior, posterior (I think!) and then of course there's all the different parts of the brain, very complicated, but really interesting.
Oliver Sacks and 'the man who mistook his wife for a hat' were mentioned today, and I was glad to have a bit of knowledge on same of the cases Guillaume was talking about having read the book (thanks Chris Harris!), we also watched a video of a man whose excessive binge drinking had damaged his limbic system, in particular he'd damaged his mammillary bodies and his fornix had detached from his hippocampus (spellings may not be right as I'm doing this off the top of my head!) this essentially left him with a 2 minute memory, and it is a very strange thing to observe.
Even better yet we'll get to see the first human brain dissection here at Bangor University, and should even get a chance to hold the brain in our hands! I am super excited about this, when do you get a chance like this?! Some of my peers don't seem so psyched and some seem utterly repulsed, but oh well I guess it means I'll be able to get closer to the front. =]
So yes, that's enough brain chat for now, but I'm sure you'll here more soon if it stays as interesting. I'm off to go re-read my Oliver Sacks books. =)
Wednesday 28 January 2009
Monday 26 January 2009
Lectures.
Lectures start up again today and I have to say I'm glad, I've wasted the last couple of weeks sleeping, watching movies and sitting in the kitchen; it'll be nice to get back into a proper routine!
My timetable's very different to the last semester, I only have one hour of lectures in the morning! and even that doesn't start until ten, on a Thursday I don't start until 2pm!
I don't have anything particularly interesting to say, I'm just ready for my 12 o' clock lecture earlier than I had anticipated and my soup is too hot to eat so I figured this was a good way to waste some time!
It's Sandra's (my new flatmate) birthday on Saturday and Phil seems to think this is an ideal time for her to get drunk, I feel I'll be doing my very best to protect her from him as she obviously doesn't want to! But I can see where he's coming from, it is now part of the student life these days, but still everyone has the right to their own decision and if she doesn't want to drink then hats off to her.
Right I think my soup will now be cool enough, I figured I should have a proper meal (if soup and crumpets counts as that) because I don't really have any 'portable food' left and I'm in lectures for four hours today!
My timetable's very different to the last semester, I only have one hour of lectures in the morning! and even that doesn't start until ten, on a Thursday I don't start until 2pm!
I don't have anything particularly interesting to say, I'm just ready for my 12 o' clock lecture earlier than I had anticipated and my soup is too hot to eat so I figured this was a good way to waste some time!
It's Sandra's (my new flatmate) birthday on Saturday and Phil seems to think this is an ideal time for her to get drunk, I feel I'll be doing my very best to protect her from him as she obviously doesn't want to! But I can see where he's coming from, it is now part of the student life these days, but still everyone has the right to their own decision and if she doesn't want to drink then hats off to her.
Right I think my soup will now be cool enough, I figured I should have a proper meal (if soup and crumpets counts as that) because I don't really have any 'portable food' left and I'm in lectures for four hours today!
Sunday 18 January 2009
Home Sweet Home.
The weather is terrible. I mean phenomenally bad, winds of 93mph were measured last night in Betws-y-Coed which is not far from here and things were equally bad in Bangor I would say, I was nearly blown into a bush when I left the flat!
Sadly for me we were meant to be viewing a house at 6pm yesterday (the height of the storm) and I was soaking by the time I arrived back home due to the fact that the rain was going sideways, so a hood made no difference what so ever and even the clothes under my waterproof coat were soaked! Things have calmed down a bit here now but there's still wind and rain around, I hope it gets better soon!
Find the penguin has reached new levels of popularity with Will and Phil now joining the game. Will is ridiculously good at it; he credits this to a 'misspent youth'.
Sadly for me we were meant to be viewing a house at 6pm yesterday (the height of the storm) and I was soaking by the time I arrived back home due to the fact that the rain was going sideways, so a hood made no difference what so ever and even the clothes under my waterproof coat were soaked! Things have calmed down a bit here now but there's still wind and rain around, I hope it gets better soon!
Find the penguin has reached new levels of popularity with Will and Phil now joining the game. Will is ridiculously good at it; he credits this to a 'misspent youth'.
Tuesday 13 January 2009
Back Home.
This is a bit of a belated post as I have now been back in Bangor for over a week, but I've been rather busy. =] With exams coming up I've been doing a lot of revision, in amongst looking for a place to live next year and just chilling out and catching up with my friends.
I did not sleep at all well last night, for some reason I just couldn't switch off and it was 3am before I finally managed to drift into sleep. This sadly did not last long though as at 3:23am an incredibly drunk lad claiming to be called Luke decided to ring the doorbell continuously as he "wanted to talk to Sean". I'm glad that I chose not to answer the door as it took Phil about 7 minutes of arguing to get rid of him. Sean and Will somehow managed to sleep through this cacophony, but the rest of the flat was woken up, and apparently his name isn't Luke it's Fred.
Fred now has a £75 fine for breaking exam period silence and he's going to have a disciplinary hearing, hooray!
Other than that life has been good though, we don't have many of these sorts of problems here, it's quite a chilled uni compared to others I think! Welsh monopoly has been played a few times now and everyone seems to be loving it, the other one hasn't been used yet this semester, and me and Mo are now embarking on a game we like to call 'Find the Penguin' which involves taking her tiny penguin figurine and hiding it in the kitchen, when it is found it is then rehidden and so on and so forth. Good fun. =]
I've been trying to expand my cooking horizons slightly. Still remaining in the safe domain of pasta, but I did make a pasta bake big enough to serve 4 the other night and very nice it was too, so that was something a bit new.
And I'll end this incredibly long blog on a word of caution, to you Rob more than anyone else. Never play a drinking game called 'Face Your Fear'. It involves either kneeling or standing with your hands behind your back and falling forward, you have to be brave enough not to put your hands out to stop yourself. Whether he was the only one brave(/stupid) enough or just the first one to try it I do not know, but 3 cracked teeth and 9 stitches later I don't think Will will be playing again anytime soon. I think it's a boy thing. On the plus side the kitchen has gained a fancy blender though, as Will is now living on liquid food until he can get to a dentist.
Right that's enough rambling I reckon you're probably up to date now. =]
I did not sleep at all well last night, for some reason I just couldn't switch off and it was 3am before I finally managed to drift into sleep. This sadly did not last long though as at 3:23am an incredibly drunk lad claiming to be called Luke decided to ring the doorbell continuously as he "wanted to talk to Sean". I'm glad that I chose not to answer the door as it took Phil about 7 minutes of arguing to get rid of him. Sean and Will somehow managed to sleep through this cacophony, but the rest of the flat was woken up, and apparently his name isn't Luke it's Fred.
Fred now has a £75 fine for breaking exam period silence and he's going to have a disciplinary hearing, hooray!
Other than that life has been good though, we don't have many of these sorts of problems here, it's quite a chilled uni compared to others I think! Welsh monopoly has been played a few times now and everyone seems to be loving it, the other one hasn't been used yet this semester, and me and Mo are now embarking on a game we like to call 'Find the Penguin' which involves taking her tiny penguin figurine and hiding it in the kitchen, when it is found it is then rehidden and so on and so forth. Good fun. =]
I've been trying to expand my cooking horizons slightly. Still remaining in the safe domain of pasta, but I did make a pasta bake big enough to serve 4 the other night and very nice it was too, so that was something a bit new.
And I'll end this incredibly long blog on a word of caution, to you Rob more than anyone else. Never play a drinking game called 'Face Your Fear'. It involves either kneeling or standing with your hands behind your back and falling forward, you have to be brave enough not to put your hands out to stop yourself. Whether he was the only one brave(/stupid) enough or just the first one to try it I do not know, but 3 cracked teeth and 9 stitches later I don't think Will will be playing again anytime soon. I think it's a boy thing. On the plus side the kitchen has gained a fancy blender though, as Will is now living on liquid food until he can get to a dentist.
Right that's enough rambling I reckon you're probably up to date now. =]
Thursday 1 January 2009
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