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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Whats new?

Lots!!! Labs are great, unfortunately some of the stuff is hard to get the hang of but it is really amazing how patient all of the lecturers and instructors are. Binocular Microscopes and Gilson Pipettes are new to me, I had seen them on the telly :-) -but are great to learn how to use. I am finding it hard to get the pipetting correct but I am getting there. Chemistry is really different from anything I have ever done before but it is set to be very interesting ... as soon as I get used to the bunsen burners!! Lectures are all really interesting. We are already finding out dates and details of mid term exams which is a bit scary and certainly brings us back to reality with a bump!! Hopefully a bit of hard work will pay off though. Mary Claire

Progress ????

Computers... a wonderful invention, modernising communication, sharing information and allegedly getting easier to use all the time. Unfortunately they seem to break if I go near them!! It is not intentional-it just happens. Imagine my horror to realise I had two college systems to negotiate and my relief to find out that they were somewhat similar. Arming myself with all necessary information, including letters, students numbers and proof of identity (just in case-I really do seem to break them) I commenced registration of password etc for CIT, it worked!! A truly fool proof system in place it seems. Perhaps lulled into a false sense of security I proceeded to UCC registration, this also worked ... a minor miracle, both worked- perhaps too good to be true but on a bright note maybe I have gotten over my jinx!! Unfortunately due to an old student number my UCC success seemed close to crashing to the ground, thanks to the helpful IT people, however, all was not lost and all problems were remedied following a step by step explanation of "what you have to do now". All fixed and up and running now-I hope!! Mary Claire

Labs started this week too, they seem pretty cool the lab reports sound hard but we will all get the hang of them soon I imagine.

First week back

Hello, this is also my first blog and it is a little daunting to know what to write. It has been a busy week or so though, CIT registration-done, first week of CIT lectures-done and UCC registration-done. I am a college returnee and I certainly feel lucky to be here. Even luckier to meet such a decent class of people who are all really nice. As our class is based between two colleges we have two registrations in order to get our two student cards. CIT registration and orientation was run over two days and it was a good mix of interesting and informative. UCC registration and orientation was done over one day and bar a rather lengthy presentation by Students Union it was interesting. There were a few extra questions from UCC regarding fees as we are between two colleges which I guess were pretty necessary. I managed to escape with both student cards intact however-god those pictures are bad though-haha. CIT lectures are great, I never knew what I was missing-science is the way to go. Loads of new stuff happening next week again, some labs starting and some UCC lectures starting! Mary Claire.