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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Final Goodbye To Secondary School :O

That's it!It's over... after five years it feels weird to be truly finished :O moving onto bigger and better things i suppose :D so ya last tuesday i had my grads,the day got off to a great start,lectures seemed to be flying by,the sun was shining,everything was going my way :D Unfortunatley for me things didn't stay that way........on the way home at 12 O Clock(our only short day in a hectic timetable)i got a jambon in a certain shop on college road and continued home to prepare for that night.Fast Forward about 4 hours and after returning from visiting two gran-aunts i began to feel really queasy,at first i didn't think much of it,maybe my shirt was too tight round the neck or something?

 soon reallised that wasn't the case when i broke out in a sweat and my stomach pains had me hunched over in agony-i felt soo sick......and soon i was,i felt awful especially since it seemed i would miss the grads as i couldn't lift my head from the pillow :( As a last shot to try and get to the grads my uncle gave me a lift to south doc who deduced i had food poisoning(remember that jambon......yup).So anyway i got an injection and after a bit of rest i was feeling fine and i made it to the grads and had a brilliant night!The band were excellent!They were called clockworks,they're from Glanmire :) The band played for 2 hours(10-12)then the DJ took over from 12 till half 1 playing all those usual songs to get people on the dancefloor,Taio Cruz's Dynamite,Basshunter's Saturday and many more that kept people on the dancefloor.College the next morning so got a taxi home at half 1,shared with 3 of my friends(much cheaper)I had a bad start to what turned out to be a brilliant night!!So yup guess that's the final part of secondary school...........and of this blog haha,hope it wasn't too boring reading bout my food poisoning turmoils. Thanks for reading!
Dylan.

The (Social) Life Of A Biomedical Science Student

Hi!
As this is the first blog i've ever written i'm a bit nervous i'll mess up......but i'll give it a shot anyway!
A totally unique aspect about the biomedical science course is that we attend both C.I.T and U.C.C,allowing us to take part in events etc. organised by both colleges,such as Freshers Fest last Saturday.Following on from that was the beach party that night,which i attended.Starting at 8 o clock with a pre-party in the new bar in the student centre-this was a great start to a brilliant night.There were great offers such as cocktails for 3 euro,however this was wasted on me as i don't drink (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjfvv8qeHlU)
The main event(beach party) began at 10,the venue was excellently organised for the occasion! we all received hawaiian leis upon entering,there were pool toys all over the place,beach balls,buckets full of glow sticks,bubbles and a great DJ-in summary,all the essentials needed for a great night!!The DJ played an array of excellent songs(or as said in cork-"some bangin' choones") and really got the crowd going!It wasn't long before the whole crowd began performing the macarena(myself included!).Other hits that the DJ played in accordance with the theme of the party included Katy Perry's California Gurls,Grease Lightning,Summer Nights,Shakira's Waka Waka and many more which kept the crowd on their feet the whole night!Aside from a foolish accident with a glow stick in which some of the UV paint within got in eye(really really stung!)the night was a total success,one of the best i've had in a long time!
Monday looms yet again and we must return to our frantic note taking and the rest of the academic lifestyle for another week but i suppose the sooner we can get the week over with,the sooner the weekend can begin!

Thanks for taking the time to read this....hope it was worth it! Untill next time.....

Dylan.




two friends and me at the beach party>>>