Relief!

Well it's been a mad week!Course we had this Monday off which was brilliant except for the fact i had to spend the majority of the day studying for the cell biology MCQ!On Tuesday morning it was pretty ominous going into the test since we hadn't really had a test yet......it went well :D some questions were tricky especially those where you're pretty sure it's 2 of the answers,not to mention the negative marking!whoever invented that is sick!haha
It was good to have cell biology over,but that didn't relieve the stress yet.......we had our intro to biomed 1 assessment on Thursday morning!We got our 2nd cell bio lecture on Wednesday off so we could study (thanks Lesley! :D) but we had to wait around for a physics lab so didn't get too much work done(we also went to subway....it was worth it :D)The physics lab was a nightmare!Our 3 demonstraters who i think are students themselves were each telling us different things and everything got so confusing!it was horrible(the pic of the cat proves physics is useless),i was delighted when it was over but this was about 6 o clock so the pressure was on to study for the following day!Thursdays exam went well,aside from a few tricky calculations t'was all good! :D Delighted at having finished everyone was eager to celebrate!Most people went out that night,i couldn't go cause i was 17 but thanks to Marilyn i still had a brilliant night :D She invited me,Aoife and some others to her house before they all went out,we had a great laugh!(pictures soon :P)
So that brings everything up to speed it's great relief to have everything over and done with for now.........................going to relax for the weekend :D
Happy Halloween and all that Jazz :D
Until next time,
Dylan.

A Hectic Week

Well the long weekend went really well .. definitely needed the break from all the lab  reports!! Went to my friends house on Sunday , we were having a surprise party for my friend cept she thought she was heading to town so when she arrived she was half drunk haha it was a great night!! I was absolutely shattered on Monday and I had to study for cell biology :-(. The test went well thank god ..passed it :). Not a fan of the mcq though!! I think the test went good aswell today ...I hope it did anyways. So thats all the assessments done for the next few weeks and a few of us are going to celebrate in town. Cork city limits is having a Halloween party and im looking forward to wearing my hippy costume!! Its going to be a late night so a 9-5 day at college tomorrow is not what we need :P .  Our newsletter is due in 2 weeks and I've scheduled the interview with the biomedical scientist for next Tuesday. Thats all my news for this week .... thanks for reading Aoife

An over-enjoyed weekend...

Aidan here, so remember I was telling you all about the party me and my brother were having??Well heres a slide show of pics from the night me and my uncle made up... and yes there are some messy ones in there!!  but the celebrations were a bit over extended as the party continued for nearly the whole weekend! I am seriously regretting it now as it was not the best idea when I had two important tests this week...needless to say I got no study done whatsoever!!and ya i suppose i got what i deserved in cell biology-a fail!!oh by the way negative marking, i hate you!!i also had an intro to biomed test today which didnt go down well either but i think i may have scrapped a pass...hopefully anyway!! im off now to decide weither im gonna dress up or not tonight!!I think once a year is enough!!haha

MCQ!!!!!

Another exam down-this one didnt go so well, my first negative marking MCQ ever and I just hope I didnt fail it!! They are not for the faint hearted-you read it you think "I know this" and then you realise your answer is not there-oops. Still though we will all have learned from it no doubt. One left to go on Thursday now and hopefully that will go ok.

The weather has turned pretty miserable these last couple of days no more fooling ourselves it is definitely Autumn, I kinda like it though when I am inside!! :-)

Doing up an article on mentoring at the moment with the team and I think we have it fairly sorted, unfortunately due to days off, clash of lectures and exams we have not been able to get a picture of the team with the mentors-I hope one of just the team will be enough!!

Just found out-CIT men's hockey team won the Hockey Intervarsities!! A fabulous display from a part time students team, many of their opposition play club hockey together all year around!!

Anyways until next time, Mary Claire

Well the long weekend has finally arrived :) . Its been a long week .... Monday had our first lab assessments which went kind of okay ... I realised an hour into it that I was the only person not wearing gloves (woops). We had our chemistry test yesterday which I think went good enough , glad to have it done and over with.  Our class party was last night , only half the class went out because alot of people went home for the weekend and some people arent 18 yet ( Sorry Dylan ). We got 30 free jello shots and only 9 of us were there at the time haha we still drank them all . I had to leave at 12 o clock though because I was up at half 6 today and I am absolutely exhausted now haha. I got a job in a new place opening up in town soon ... Il be making doughnuts and crepes etc . Today I was practicing making all different types of coffees , there is wayyy too many of them it gets fairly confusing .. I was able to master a cappichino (cant spell it) by the end of the day. I have to start studying tomorrow ... cell biology and microbiology tests next week :(. But on the bright side cant wait for X Factor!! Its been a hectic day ...only arrived home an hour ago and im going babysitting in a while so il finish off with a link to a really catchy song I heard on the radio earlier http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7Gpul2E3pE.   Aoife

Exams!!

First laboratory exam done and first chemistry exam done and in fairness they could not have been fairer, exam pressure however is horrible no matter how fair the exam is!!!

I think that the lab exam was a bit extra stressful because none of us really knew how it would go as we had never done anything like it before. It was ok like a normal lab only quieter!! Hard to know how we got on but hopefully everyone will pass!!

Chemistry was a bit more traditional as it was a written test and it was not too bad, I had a couple of false starts-no matter how many times you tell yourself to read the questions carefully I always seem to forget this very simple rule as soon as a paper arrives in front of me. Once I calm down a bit it is not so bad-I hope!!!

Long weekend now which is lovely but must study for two more exams next week as well-could be a lot worse!! I hope it stops raining soon though that would definitely help!!

Unfortunately I missed the class party last night as I was going home so I hope everyone had a great time :-)

Mary Claire.

17 in college......not so great... :O

Here i am in the ucc computer centre writing my blog while practically everyone else is getting ready to go to the class party in the bailey,bad times haha :( Oh well hope everyone has a great night anyway :DSo ya that's the downside of being in college at 17,and to add insult to injury i won't be 18 untill June :O.....It won't be all bad i suppose.Marilyn our entertainment rep said she'd organise a night where those of us who aren't 18 can go :D good times :D Thank you Marilyn! :)
On a college note,we had our first written assessment today,it was pretty ominous waiting around for it to start as for me and practically everyone else it was our first written college exam.Thankfully it was a fair test and i was very happy that i chose to do chemistry for the leaving cert :) For those who didn't do it i heard things went well enough for them soo that's great news :D Aswell this week we had our first lab assessment....tense to say the least evrything was soo quiet and as usual i was a bit behind everyone else, but i got there in the end and i think things went well overall :D
Looking forward to a 4 day weekend!Finally being a member of both UCC and CIT has finally paid off :P haha Got a lot of studying to do...two more written assessments :O they would be on the week after the long weekend ><
Oh well :)
Have a good(long)weekend! :)
Dylan.

Chemistry??HELP!!!

Aidan here..so weve got our first chemistry assessment coming up this thursday and i must say feeling under pressure is a major understatement for me!I am one of the few less fortunate ones in the class who havent studied chemistry since junior cert and its safe to say im not the only one who is struggling!! its the same for physics but at least the majority of us didnt do it for the leaving so thats moving alot slower then chemistry which is absolutely flying past me by the way!!  im putting most of my effort into studying chemistry this week...the notes i have are just a jumble of words to me now so if youre in the same situation as me i would recommend buying the revise wise chem book for the leaving cert...its much clearer and better laid out but the woman in the shop said they are flying off the shelves so hurry up if youre looking for one!:)  on a more positive note ive got my brothers 21st/my 18th birthday party/fancy dress this weekend so im looking forward to that!!im still looking for a costume though so if ye ave any ideas let me know!!! oh ya i would also recommend this ingenius equipment below for dealing with exam stress!!!!

Its all good

What a great week, I am really getting into the course, it is excellent.I am starting to enjoy labs a lot and am not so scared of the Bunsen Burner any more either!! We are really very busy and have a couple of exams each week for the next couple of weeks. We really don't have time for hanging around much but everything is so interesting it really doesn't matter.

                                                                                                                     

We did get our first Hepatitis B vaccine this week. I really hate injections, they make me feel queasy but the nurse was lovely and it was not bad at all.

We had our first UCC Physics Lab this week, the instructors are really nice and could not do enough to help us. I must be honest I found all the calculations quite confusing. Only thing is we only have 9 labs in the whole year and only every second week.

The Chile Miners rescue this week was really interesting and for once it made all the news reports really positive. It is really cool the way so many different skills were used to co-ordinate the rescue.Teamwork is definitely the way to go after seeing that success!!!

Mary Claire.

Well today wasnt the best... I got my hepatitis B vaccine. I have a bit of a phobia of injections so was fairly nervous in the waiting room. I must admit it wasnt too bad ....the waiting was the worst part. I was delighted to get it done and over with until the nurse reminded me that I have to get another one in a month :-( . We found out today that our chemistry test is in a week!!! We all thought it wasnt for another 2 weeks so not too thrilled about that. Our biomedical lab assessment is next Monday.... im beginning to feel the pressure a bit --> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtrEN-YKLBM ( Arent ye glad i didnt put up the Jedward version haha). I went to Captain Americas with a few friends last night for dinner and the food was unbelievable!! Got lasagne for dinner and all of us shared a volcanoe cake ..It was amazing...it was basically a mountain of ice-cream and then 4 brownies on the side!!! So thats all my news for this week . We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow 9-5.... cannot wait for the weekend!! A major sleep-in is needed and looking forward to X factor .....I suppose il squeeze in studying at some stage.    Aoife





                                                                         

Back to Tae-Kwon-Do!!

I guess the title is fairly self explanitary! so ya after about 10 months of a break i returned tonight :D.It was brilliant!i really enjoyed it!It was mostly dynamic floorwork tonight,which was pretty tiring but great fun!It's great to be back,but i'm absolutely exhausted now haha!my legs and arms are really tired and i'm walking to western gateway building tomorrow.......yay......haha.A bit of background info about my club,i'm a member of The Pyong-Hwa Tae-Kwon-Do club part of  The Global Tae-Kwon-Do Federation(GTF).It's run in Colaiste Stiofain Naofa on tramore road and it's great!It's family run,classes on Monday and Wednesday,there's small class numbers and great interaction between students and instructors.Here's a link to the website in case anyone is interested ( http://www.pyong-hwa.com/).  In any case it's needless to say i can't wait to get to bed haha :)
On a college side of things......Lab today wasn't exactly the best,ended up being one of the last to finish with some hiccoughs along the way!Ah well,there's always gonna be some bumpy days :) thanks for reading :D
P.S sorry about bad audio in the video,it's a totally new concept to me!haha

Dylan.

Another Week Down!!

Well another week has passed and to be honest im still not sure how i feel about the course. It has its ups and downs. After an extremely stressful leaving cert I expected college to be alot easier (well 1st year of college anyway). The course is interesting but its so time-consuming ....im finding it really difficult balancing college life(28 hours a week and writing up lab reports),meeting up with my friends,family,clubs and societies and on top of that i need a job so I dont know how im going to fit that into my hectic schedule. I must admit i am enjoying the course itself and i've made alot of new friends, I just thought id have alot more time to myself. Its a bit confusing .

Alot of people have been asking me which college do I prefer C.I.T or U.C.C? Even though I enjoy going to U.C.C, I prefer C.I.T ... the lectures are alot better because the class is so much smaller. Its alot easier to find your way around and its alot nearer to where I live. I like the way our course is joint between the two colleges because we get the best of both worlds. Im looking forward to use my free membership at the maradyke even though im really unfit at the moment haha. I'l probably only last 10 minutes on the treadmill!! Well thats all for this week ....thanks for reading :)   Aoife

Nothing To Report...

To be quite honest nothing much has been happening to me lately....nothing interesting at any rate.It's not really surprising though,with 28 hours a week there isn't that much time to get up to other things.....unfortunately.So ya this week was pretty much the same as usual,lectures,labs,cit,ucc,that's not to say things are boring,don't get me wrong!Labs are always good,probably due to the feeling of actually doing something rather than just sitting around taking notes :D
We're another week closer to our first assessments(Oh no! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cr-SqRWImmI ) which is pretty ominous!Lets hope they're not too hard!
Despite my lack of activity this week i've got a good few plans for this weekend and the coming week.....maybe i should have waited tilll then to write this blog.....oh well!!For tommorrow i've been roped into helping one of my friends in 6th year in finding her way around ucc on the open day,after that i think i'll finally register for the mardyke and go to the gym!On Monday i'll be going back to Tae-Kwon-Do after almost a year's break to focus on the leaving cert,should be a good laugh but i know i'll be very stiff the next morning...that would be the day i've to walk up to the western gateway building first thing in the morning!So ya really looking forward to that!:P
Anyway if you managed to stay awake while reading this or had the patience to read it all,thanks for reading and hopefully i'll have something more interesting to write about next time :D

Dylan.

The swab, the whole swab and nothing but the swab (cause I couldnt find the cheek cell)!!!

Wow labs are getting really interesting, pity I cant successfully swab the inside of my cheek for cells, had a sinking feeling at one point that I was exceptionally useless or cell-less or both!! Thankfully the lab instructor-following some serious searching-located one lone cell for me to attempt to draw-attempt being the essential word!!

We also met our mentors, Ciara and Esther, they are great with loads of really good tips on the course and general college stuff. They are both really helpful and we will meet them again soon to interview them and get a picture for our newsletter!!

There is a baby red panda at Fota Wildlife Park, it is lovely. Here is a picture I took of it, it is taken through glass so it is not a perfect photo-sorry about that. It looks really like a cute teddy bear in reality. Hard to believe that someone somewhere would probably want to use it for science research or eat it or something!!

Mary Claire.

Hypnotist :-)

Well as I think back over the past week the highlight has to be seeing the hypnotist in C.I.T on Thursday!  It was absolutely hilarious and the entertainment lasted for two and a half hours. It started off with simple things like all the volunteers believing they were driving a motorbike or thinking they were at a partay and singing songs in a drunken state. It became a lot more interesting as time went on …. They believed they were martians and started speaking the “martian” language ….. One guy thought the room was slowly being filled with water and was shouting at everyone to leave the building , but once people starting laughing the guy thought his tongue was getting longer so by the end of it we couldn’t understand a word he was saying!!! I would tell you more about it but the rest is a bit inappropriate im afraid ha-ha. I had a good weekend …. I met up with friends on Friday night which I really enjoyed , I haven’t seen them in ages because we’ve all been caught up in college life. On Saturday I went to Waterford for a surprise party for my aunt and uncles 40th anniversary so that was good crack. Sunday was the day I caught up with X Factor ….I was a bit disgusted with Cheryl’s decision to put Katie through instead of Gamu . http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yULsQIJKjyI&feature=channel. Thats all my news so thanks for reading :) . Aoife

First Impressions of Being 18!!

Aidan here.. so it was my 18th birthday last thursday and to be honest i dont feel any different!ive bin passing as an 18 year old for ages now so nothing much has changed!!!ha this didnt change the fact that there still had to be some serious celebrating done!so thursday night when i walked into my flat i was welcomed by all my friends giving a brillant rendition of happy birthday with the epic mark fitzgearld on guiter!!ha we had a few drinks in the flat (few 2 many!ha) and headed into town on the bus. as we queued for havanas in the puring rain we were informed that most of the niteclubs on thursdays were over 20s!!!!i was gutted!as soon as i turn legal the nite club age is higher???so unfair! we ended up spending the night in the bailey which was actually great crack anyway!! as you can tell my biology on friday morning were a struggle but i suffered through two hours of looking through a microscope!! The celebrations didnt stop there as me and the lads decided to go out saturday night too...back to good old hayes hotel in thurles!!we had another brillant night but it made me realise how much more expensive it is back home...As i waited at the bar,who did i notice was serving behind the bar only my mentor Esther!!haha and if by any chance youre reading this Esther,I can remember you saying you would buy me a drink in Cork some night for my birthday seems i didnt get a discount on saturday night!!ha thanks for reading..

October

So October is here,very cold,short days,dark at about 4 O'Clock,warm clothes......winter is coming :D (i know it's technically still Autumn but still..)Lots of people hate this time of year cause it's to cold etc. but personally,i love it!There's just a certain feel about it,like those evenings when you're out with your friends and you're freezing cold despite being wrapped up in the warmest clothes you own and when you come in home and your hands are soo cold you can barely move them and instead of washing them under warm water to heat them up you use the cold tap instead because for some reason it seems to warm up your hands faster......or maybe that's just me(all said in one breath :P)!Either way i just love October,November and December!..of course the negative side.......the huge amount of colds people seem to get!

On a college side of things.....it's all goin fairly good,sometimes a bit boring but i'm sure things will pick up when we start to do more specific topics of biology etc.Not looking forward to getting into physics but the class should be bearable with the lecturer we have-funny and nice,a great combination!Labs are goin good,Aoife and myself got a fairly accurate result in the chem lab the other day,delighted!haha
Assessments in about three weeks.......not something to be looking forward to..(negative marking....) :(
Off to have a cup of tea now to warm me up!haha



P.S only 82 days till Christmas ;)

Dylan.