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.

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

I think its time to get a bike!!

So this is my first blog and id like to begin by apologising to my team members for being so late posting it!!!sorry lads things have just been hectic recently!
Its the beggining of my third week in college and im finally getting used to the place but this morning was just a disaster! First of all I had a bit of a late one last night so i wasnt feeling very energitic this morning but I still managed to get up for my bus to UCC at half 8...or should i say the 'anytime between 8 and half 9 bus to UCC'. You see i am living close to CIT but the majority of my morning classes are in UCC so i have to be up earlier to catch the no.5 bus. It supposedly passes every 15 minutes but I have yet to see this happening!! Iv been late 3 times already this year because of it! Anyway this morning it was no different as i arrived into the kane building at 20 past 9 for my 9 o clock physics lecture.I was dreading facing the lecturer 20 minutes late. But I was delighted when i saw the sign on the door informing me the class had been cancelled!!! All that panicing for nothing and most importantly I could of had a lie in!!But the worst was yet to come... I was waiting for my bus back to CIT when a pisky crow decided to perch right above me, and thats when it happened...SSPLAT!!! Right on my head!!:(:(:(  some say this is a sign of good luck so hopefully things might change for me!!haha bloody crows!! Thanks for reading!! Aidan...

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.

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.

Freshers Week :-)

As ye already know it’s Freshers Week in U.C.C so I decided to begin it with a trip to gorby’s uv part-ay J . I met up with a few girls from class and we had a few drinks beforehand in one of their apartments ( wayy cheaper ). We arrived at gorbys at half 10ish and were greeted with a massive queue!!! Eventually we got in and all the waiting was worth it ….. UV paint ( which always makes things fun ) and good music http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjzEV7tqGTM ..JOKE . I danced for most of it but as the night wore on the club got really busy so the dance floor was jam-packed!! And it was absolutely boiling in there!!! The music stopped at half 2 and we got a taxi home ( using our 2 euros discount card ) at 3. I was thrilled when my alarm went off at half 7 the next morning ( im being sarcastic in case you didn’t realise ) . Had lectures from 9 til 12 in U.C.C and then got the bus to C.I.T to join some societies. I ended up joining family guy  , paintballing and badminton . I got free toast and nutella which I was delighted with…best freebee so far!! The U.C.C society day was today so I joined the science society and hot beverage society 
                  
( this is definitely the one im most excited about) . Well that’s all my news . Il be going to the Freshers Ball tomorrow night in gorbys so il tell ye about that next week.


Aoife

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>>>

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.

Freshers Fest

So.... this is my first blog, not really sure what to do but i'l give it a go. I went to the U.C.C today to go to the physics workshop. I didnt do physics for Leaving Cert so I thought the workshop might help me out a bit. Within 10 minutes of starting we were given a physics test ....... I got 2 out of 6 right which to tell you the truth I was happy with, haha. When that was finished I strolled around the campus for a while , there was a few societies there but I didnt join any.... I'l wait til society's day on Wednesday. I got some free food nd bumped into some old classmates and a few new ones. Didnt get to see Crystal Swing today....... that didnt bother me too much . There was a nice atmopshere around the place ... glad I went. Looking forward to all the nights out this week . Should be fun!!                Aoife.