Adieu

Wow, I cannot believe that the first term is nearly over, one eight of the course almost finished it is amazing. I cannot believe the lovely class that is Biomedical Science, everyone is lovely and I have never heard a bad word uttered by anyone-well no bad word that is memorable anyways!!

A bit up the walls at the moment with study and work but it is a nice up the walls it is good to be busy and liking what I am doing. I am really very lucky. Looking forward to the holidays though!!

I love the weather-boy is it cold but it is nice and dry, with a little snow which is nice and hopefully the rain will stay away at least for another while.

I guess it is a sign off from me on this blog, it has been fun!!

Mary Claire.

The End!

Really can't believe this is my last blog!'m so used to doing one a week at this stage that it'll feel weird after this.........i'm sure it won't take to long to adjust ;)It's also hard to believe that the first semester is almost over it feels like we've only been in college a few weeks,i suppose it's been such a whirlwind of change that time just flew!not that that's a bad thing but it's nearly christmas and i'm pretty much full on in the festive mood and ready to just relax!!.......problem is there's that little matter of all the exams :(It's a pretty scary thought it's gonna be pretty full on untill the 9th of December.It'll all be worth it in the end,i've never been finished so early before Christmas!i'm delighted!
Can't wait to start putting up all the decorations and make it proper christmassy.....if that's a word !It snowed today so that really added to the feeling!Walking to college was another story though....i was slipping and sliding all over the place..it was kinda funny though :) hopefully no one will get hurt by it!
Our group gave our liver presentation yesterday,i was nervous but i enjoyed it all the same and i am very happy to have it over haha :D
So that's it!finished!Hope my blogs were worth reading and enjoyable over the past few month,thanks for reading!

For the last time,Dylan.

The Last Blog

So this is my last ever blog! Its coming to the end of our first semester , cant believe how fast the time went.
We did our presentation today which went well , absolutely delighted to have it over with I was really nervous about it.
The other presentations were really interesting , especially the rescue remedy one. Disappointed I didnt win a candy cane haha.
So our tests are starting this Friday and some serious cramming needs to be done :-P.
I cant wait for christmas , the mixture of the toy show , the freezing weather and listening to christmas songs when im at work have really got me in the mood. :-)
 Its brilliant that were finished on the 10th , plenty of time for shopping and just relaxing. Alot of my friends are'nt finished til the 20th!!
Well not much more to say I have to do a lab report now , so thanks for reading my blog and i'l leave ye with my favorite christmas song http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXfd5ATIogc&feature=fvst

Aoife

Mentor Interview :)

I totally forgot to put this up a few weeks ago when myself and Mary-Claire did the interview with Ciara and Esther!Oh well better late than never!!

1 What is your favourite memory of 1st year Biomedical Science?Ciara and Esther:We liked meeting all the new people,it was really easy out in C.I.T in UCC the classes were so big you couldn't really get to know anyone.


2 What were your first thoughts when you were asked to be a mentor?Ciara:I volenteered to be a mentor,because we only got mentors at the end of 1st year and they were'nt much use to us then,so we wanted the new first years to have someone to ask questions about the course especially the maths and physics.


3 What do you feel the most important skill a mentor should have?Ciara:A mentor needs to be friendly.

Esther:They deffinately need to be able to communicate

4Very briefly,where are you from?Do you like Cork and do you like the course?Ciara: I'm from south Tip and i love cork iwas orginally going to go to Limerick to do biochemical engineering(was that what ciara said she was going to do i forgot to write it down? )andover all i love the course but obviously there are some parts i don't like.

Esther:I'm from North Tipp.I love Cork!I love Cork soo much i lived here during the Summer,i had the time of my life!I love the course it's really interesting.

5 on a social side of things,where do you think is the best place to go out in Cork?Esther:Suas!The bailey is good for class parties as well!

Ciara:I really liked the bailey,we had some great times in the bishpstown bar as well.The mardyke was god too(Esther) Maybe once a year!

6 If you could give one piece of advice to us as 1st year students,what would it be?
Esther:Tty not to fail any exams!it'll ruin your summer!I failed physics and it ruined my August!

Ciara:Try to as much as yyou can in labs,assessments to get a good percentage going into the final exam,it takes a lot of pressure off you.

7How does 2nd year compare to 1st year?
Ciara and Esther:we're in UCC a lot more,which i don't like,the classes are soo huge you don't talk to  much people and there isn't a big incentive to go to lectures as the lecturer wouldn't notice if you were there or not as well as that it's a lot more difficult to navigate in comparison to C.I.T. Also the materials you do in 2nd year are much more interesting than in 1st year.

8 Have you any funny lab stories?

Ciara and Esther:The UCC labs were funny,you know the way the aseptic technique is thought in C.I.T,like flaming the test tubes?UCC don't do that for safety reasons.we were in a lab once and this girl told a guy that we had to flame the test tubes for aseptic technique,the demonstrator was just walking over as he was about to put it into the flame and she goes No!you not supposses to flame the test tubes,the demonstrator said to her that she was very observant!

9Any exam advice for students?
ciara:Attend all your lectures,something's bound to go in and print notes as they're put on blackboard,don't leave them build up or you'll be waiting for hours at the last minute and get nothing done.

esther:Don't panic!Exams aren't the end of the world.

10 what's your favouriute biomed topic?

Esther:haemotology!it's really interesting and the labs are good too.

Ciara:Human biology was my favourite,i loved the labs!......except for THAT RAT ONE

The Toy Show!!

Yeah!! Late Late Toy Show, it is great :-) I like Ryan's jumper and although I never watch the Late Late show I would never miss the Toy Show!!

The Toy Show is also the highlight of my week, it is all study and work at the moment, it is great though so nice to be doing such interesting stuff and even better first Maths test is over!!

Unfortunately I am finding that CIT library is a bit of a noisy place to study, answering phones and have great conversations about nights out etc seem to be the norm-they would probably even be interesting conversations if I didn't have stuff to do but I am sure could be worse. Got ear plugs now so that will definitely help although I will probably look a little silly!!

The budget could be interesting-I guess we will find out more about it over the next couple of weeks, seems like a minor victory for college students as registration fees going up less than expected but it still seems a lot to me and I am sure to anyone who is or has family paying them.

Until next time, Mary Claire.

Good day :D

I guess the title doesn't really need to be explained but ya i had a good day today :D haha
Physics tutorial was a bit of drag but afterwards me and Aoife got like half our physics homework done....damn that stupid helium balloon!!
Anyway :) so we had our last micro-biology lab today,have to admit i enjoyed them much more than the biochem labs :P.We were finished after about an hour which is always a good thing.On top of that i was actually doing my work well today :O and i wasn't one the last to finish i was shocked :DGood times :)............i have got to stop saying that!
Then we went to the canteen for an hour and talked and all that jazz.We went to CMOD then for the first presentations.They were both really good!!and very interesting,kinda looking forward to our one next week but at the same i'm pretty nervous about talking in front of everyone......ah well it'll be an experience!
Continuing this good day the class are going to see the latest Harry Potter,really looking forward to that!
My friend told me about this band Flyleaf over the weekend,they're really good!Check um out>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-X5lbZi6UUo  they have a lot of other really good songs as well :D
Just thought this is gonna be one of my last few blogs....wow time flies!!
Thanks for reading!
Dylan.

Another Weekend Over

So another weekend over.. Friday I wrote up my lab report to get it done and over with and then went to see Harry Potter!!
It was pretty scary to be honest haha but really enjoyed it!!
I was working 12-7 on Saturday so was home in time to watch X Factor :-). Was kind of disappointed with Matt's performance though.
I was working on Sunday aswel. Exteremly stressful day!!
It was wayy busier than Saturday which wasnt expected and there was only 3 of us on the shift.
To make things worse when I covered myself in crepe mix accidently so my clothes were destroyed.
Cant wait to get paid :-P. So my weekend was fairly busy and I didnt have time to study.... starting to get a bit stressed, I might do a bit of chemistry tonight.
Our maths test is this Thursday, cant believe its so soon.Its on the same day as cit christmas day so looking forward to that , especially because we have no labs on Friday!!

Exams-not so far away-Bummer.

Got our Christmas exam dates, CIT and UCC ones, gonna be a busy week  and even busier weeks leading up to it. It sounds far away-December that is-but it is a lot closer than I thought in fact I nearly had a heart attack gonna have to stick the head down and work hard. I feel like I am on a count down but the lovely Christmas Hols will be great.

Must admit it is the Chemistry I am finding the hardest at the moment, not that I am getting into physics much either!!

Town is getting busy for Christmas it is quite nice cause most people are in good form and that makes work pretty easy. Have heard quite a few domestics in the street and stuff though, girls giving out to their boyfriends that they are sick of them following them around and the poor guy looking half scared saying I am carrying your bags and I don't have any shopping to do-ha ha poor guys that will teach them to be nice.

Suffering serious hockey withdrawal as I am working during all the match's now!! Hopefully there will be a mid week game on soon.

Mary Claire.

So much to do......so little time!

I've been having some hectic day today!!First of all i forgot my pencil case this morning,had to get a loan of a pen all my notes ended up totally in black so had to re-write them when i got home,took about 2 hours!Then i started on the microbiology lab report due for this coming Monday that took roughly an hour :( then started on the 2nd m/b report,still have to finish that.....i had to get some of the results online because i ran out of time in the lab the other day cause we didn't start the experiment till about twenty till three(i'm slow enough as it is! haha).So i thought it better to get results than to leave some blank stuff :D Obviously i'm doing my blog now but i'm multitasking as i'm watching emmerdale as well :D who said men can't multi-task?!:P

So after i finish my lab report i'm going to start putting my part of the prezi together!After that?...Desperate Housewives of course!! So ya lots of work to be doing!i'll leave it there:)

Thanks for reading!
Dylan.

Online Homework??uurrggh

Aidan here... so things in physics are getting tougher. it was fairly basic in class so far and some of the stuff we are doing is fairly interesting to honest!but unfortunetly that only applys to a small part of the material we have covered! The online homework is by far the hardest part..there was only one week so far that i have completed it so you can tell thats its a bit difficult!!ha last weeks was a pure disaster..ill be honest and say i left it too late to do it but when i got help on what formulas to use i figured out how to get the answers!this was on friday so i said id give it another go during my break but of course the whole mastering physics website was not working all day on friday due to updates being installed or something like that...so im gonna have to do it a bit earlier this week.

I also got my second hep B vaccine yesterday...it was alot worse then the last time!!my arm was kind of dead all day and i was wrecked tired after it but im grand again today thank god!!the final one ill be getting in april and then i think were fully protected against the virus which is a big plus because some of the stuff we have been working with lately sounds a bit dangerous...with E.coli and  that stuff being passed around I was being very cautious.

On a more positive note I got a text last night saying my brother had won the local lotto...im delighted for him (but only if he gives me some!!haha) so maybe it is true about the myth of the bird dropping on you bringing you luck...it just brought it to the wrong brother!!haha

A busy weekend

So on Friday we had our last chemistry lab. I tightened the retort stand a bit too much which caused the burette to break..... glass everywhere :-(. Oh well!! When I went home I felt exhausted and kind of sick .. I think it might have been from the hepatits shot I got on Thursday. I fell asleep from half 7- 10pm ..woke up , ate some dinner and fell asleep from 11 til 12 the next day!! I've never slept that much in my life. Then I had to get the bus into town to start my first day of work. I started at 2 and didnt get home til half 8. Work was fairly stressful I must say. I didnt get time to learn how to do the crepes doughnuts and coffee so I was in charge of the cash register and ice-cream for most of it. On Sunday I had to catch up on lab reports and I attemped to do the physics homework... it is impossible I spent an entire hour trying to do it and couldnt even get one question right!! So its a start to another week and I planned on starting studyin tomorrow, the tests are alot sooner than I thought. Just found out that im working this Friday, Saturday and Sunday!!! So probably wont get much study done.. Im absolutely gutted because I was hoping to see Harry Potter this weekend. Really looking forward to seeing it :-). Thats all my news.
Aoife

First news letter-done!!!

What a mad week, was good though it went very fast. We got our first news letter done which I have put in our Mahara account. and am trying to figure out how to put it up here!! It was fun to do and really nice to see finished-I hope that the second one will be as fun!!

Found out a bit about the physics exam at Christmas as well it is going to be an in class one which might not be so bad fingers crossed. The maths one is a two hour evening one so not so nice.

There is the CIT exams and labs too so I guess we will be kept busy!! :-)

Got the second Hep B injection too was not so bad at all I hope that I remember to go back in April for the next one I have reminders on my phone to try and make sure I don't forget!!

Gonna go and do some physics homework now-I think-although X-Factor has started.

Mary Claire.

Bit of everything

Well we had our first chemistry lab assessment last week. It didnt start off too smoothly ..we had three titrations to do but in our first titration there was no colour change. So myself and Dylan replaced everything but it still didnt work so finally we figured out our indicator was contaminated ..Just our luck haha. Overall it went grand. I was delighted to hear that this Friday is our last chemistry lab for this semester :-) so we'l be finished at 1 every Friday!! I used the gym for the first time last week and lasted an entire 30mins. Im really unfit so I was kind of proud of myself. My legs were killing me after the treadmills!

I didnt get up to much for the weekend , just met up with a few friends , babysat and relaxed. Still havent started work but I think Oso ( the place il be working) is supposed to be opening this Thursday but I wont be getting trained in til the week after. Thats all my news for this week. Thanks for reading. Aoife

All Ireland Scholarships!

So i went to Limerick this weekend for the award ceremony of the All Ireland Scholarships :)Basically this scheme was set up to help students continue into 3rd level education.It's sponsered by JP McManus and it's like a grant in that the person receives money every month for the costs of college.I was one of the lucky 125 this year to receive a scholarship :DSo immediately after college on Friday my family,including my mom,nan,granda,two uncles,aunt,godmother,and gran aunt,collected me and drove straight to Limerick :)We stayed in the Absolute hotel,which was one of the nicest hotels i've ever stayed in!the food there was delicious!The award ceremony was on Saturday morning which meant an early start for me!Registration was at 10:30 in UL,we left about half 9.After i met with my old principle and registered we had to wait around and be organised into a long line around the room.At 12 we walked in a kind of procession upstairs and into a theater.We took our seats,the crowd was then addressed by the trustee's including JP McManus.Afterwards people were called onto the stage to receive the certificate for the scholarship and a gift.A picture was then taken with JP McManus and another member of the trustees.Needless to say my stomach was doing flips as i walked up for mine!After everyone had received their certificates,Dermot Desmond(a successful Businessman) who was the special guest gave a speech.There was then a group photo of all the scholarship winners together and the ceremony was over.This was followed by a lunch which was delicious!JP McManus was really nice and stayed around to take pictures with everyone :) He even complimented my suit! :DThe gift turned out to be a gold pen engraved with "All Ireland Scholarships '10" It's really cool :D
I had a great day and it's definitely a day i'll never forget :D

Here's a pic of me with JP McManus and My old Principle Mr.Culhane>(here's a link to my facebook if you want to see more pics                                     http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2100123&id=1230721593&page=5 :) )


Thanks for reading,
Dylan.

off the fags!!!

Aidan here..its half 11 on a monday morning and im glad to say i had a great lie in this morning!!which is very hard to come by when you have a timetable like ours!!anyways your probally wondering what the title of this blog is about...I decided to give up smoking!iv a few reasons why Im doing it...firstly i just cant afford it anymore...secondly i suppose theyre bad for you!!ha...and thirdly,this year ive been plagued with chest infections,sore throats etc.,so ive started to realise maybe smoking has something to do with it!!!ha ive been smoking for the past 3 or 4 years so im not gonna go on the patches or anything like that...its all down to shear will power anyway if you ask me!!i really think i can do it...the hardest part will be going out with my friends because the majority of them smoke but im gonna give it a go!  oh no all this talk about smoking has given me a serious craving!!:(:( and its chemistry next...ahh no!!!!!

Time to start juggling!!!

Just got a part time job at Boots-how cool is that. The people there are all really great and am learning new stuff all the time, first full day tomorrow so hopefully I wont make too many mistakes!!

Got the physics homework done early this week and boy am I glad now I think I would cry if I had to face into it now!! Chemistry lab today was very interesting it was on the hardness of water. Cork water is very soft and the tests for it were interesting to do.

Fair play to everyone who went to Dublin and protested about the fees-not condoning the violent part of it but I don't think that was students-overall it was a really impressive protest and caught a lot of attention. 

On that notes I will sign off, Mary Claire.

Protest!!!

Yesterday i went to the student protest in Dublin,organised by the Union of Students in Ireland(USI),we left from the western gateway building in UCC where we got free T-shirts promoting the cause :D woo :)Our bus left roughly about quarter past 9 and we arrived in Dublin about half one,having stopped at a food court along the way.I got a chicken burger and me and Marilyn shared some cheesey curry chips(just felt everyone should know about my eating habbits :) )We started protesting from parnell square and i'm not really sure where we went from there as even though i've been to Dublin a few times i'm not familiar with it's streets haha :) The number of students at the protest was huge!apparantly about 44,000 :O Needless to say the streets were packed with people in yellow shirts.The crowd was shouting,singing and chanting things like "no if's,no but's,no education cuts!" or "they say cutback we say fightback!"(here's a clip i found on youtube of some speechs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncj6tjAcTQs )We eventually reached a point in the city were the crowd could no longer proceed and the majority of people dispersed we then headed back to our bus,which took us ages to find :/The journey back was extremely long at 6 hours,2/3 of which was spent leaving Dublin! :O As if things were'nt bad enough there was about 3 or 4 lads on our bus who started drinking,got drunk,and proceeded to urinate in bottles and down the emergency exit of the coach.Needless to say everybody on the bus was absolutly disgusted!I got home about half 10 and i was wrecked!It was only then that i learned things had gotten violent in Dublin :O I realised then what was happening when some people were climbing over a spiked fence.....an evenful day to say the least!
On a totally unrelated note,the video for P!nk's new single,raise your glass,is out :D here's the link,check it out! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4mtDr3gNHw&ob=av2n

I did the interview for the newsletter yesterday with medical scientist Helen Keeffe. Shes my friends mom so I knew her previously . She was the person who got me interested in biomedical science. The interview went well and I found it really interesting. Helen even showed me around the labs afterwards so that was nice of her!! You can read the interview for yourself and hope ye like it.

Interview with Biomedical Scientist - Helen Keeffe

1) Why did you decide to become a biomedical scientist?
My career guidance counsellor thought I had all the right skills for it and that this job would suit me perfectly. I didn’t even no what it was.
2) What is your favourite aspect of the job?
I like the variety of work involved in histopathology - health and safety, training, quality etc. I love the bench work and the fact it’s a hands-on job.
3) What do you like least about the job?
Well first of all the current state of the country - lack of funding and budgeting. Also the introduction to extended working days . The whole career path has changed , there is an uncertainty for the future in the labs.
4) What are your working hours like?
Well in histology the hours vary. The core hours would be 9 to 5, but other days  I could be working 8 to 7. On average it’s a 35 hour week.
5)What is the most difficult thing you have examined?
The Air India disaster in 1985. It was an extremely difficult time in the hospital, 130 post mortems were carried out and at the time we only had basic facilities. The entire hospital was grief stricken by it.
6) What qualification did you receive?
I received a diploma in med lab in D.I.T and I did my dip in training and education in NUI Galway.
7)How relative is what you learnt in college to your everyday work?
I use about 50% of what I did. All the science subjects I did were completely relative but I also had to do French and maths…
8)What advise would you have for someone going into a career in Biomedical Science?
Go straight through and do your masters because it is so difficult to get a job at the moment.

Pendulums!!!

Wow physics is really hard, I am just going to keep going through it and hopefully it will eventually stick. The homework stuff is helping though cause you have to keep practising the stuff so every bit helps!! We had a pendulum experiment last week-sounds lovely and the practical part was, except I kept losing count of the pendulum swings-it was only to twenty so felt pretty stupid-but the write ups are really difficult I struggle with it but hopefully it will get easier every lab-only 7 more to go!!

Getting stuck into our first newsletter now it is going well, Aoife has the interview with a biomedical scientist tomorrow so I hope that will go really well for her.The rest of us are doing our bit too so we are splitting up the tasks and stuff now, hopefully it will be interesting in the end. If its not it wont be from lack of trying!!

I am starting part time job with Boots this week-am so lucky to get a job I really hope it will work out now, it seems like a lovely place to work so am very very lucky.

Had a few trick or treaters visit my house last night some of the kids (and adults) had great costumes!!

Other than that it is a quiet week after the exams and everything last week-nice!! Pity about the weather, I like rain but i don't like wind and rain so hopefully it will improve over the next few days!!

Until next time, Mary Claire