Summer placement
24th May 2005, 5:51 pm

I don't really know why I've decided to start writing this now, as I should probably go help make tea. Failing doing this, I should blatantly be revising. I guess nobody's perfect.

I went to my meeting with Professor Pam Shaw of the Neurology Department in the medical school yesterday afternoon, to talk about me possibly getting some summer work in the labs. Now it's not been officially confirmed (and consequently if it all falls through I'll be gutted) but they're going to hopefully offer me ten weeks work, starting in July, working on a specific project. This project is trying to determine whether vegf (a growth factor) is influential in stopping motor neuron death, and could therefore feature in a cure for motor neurone disease. This is basically a trainee neurologist's science degree post grad experiment, and I'll be working on the vegf gene, pulling out areas of interest and checking it with samples of MND patients' blood and CSF. The trainee neurologist is writing a report for this investigation, apparently, and I'll maybe get have my data published in it.

Sorry if that went all technical or boring, but if I get this opportunity I shall be ecstatic. We're waiting to see if Pam can secure funding to pay me for the work, which she's confident she can do. The work will look absolutely amazing on my CV, and means that I can a) live in Sheffield all summer and b) not have to get a shitty summer job. This is exactly what I want to do when I graduate - research into brain diseases and disorders. As I say though, if it falls through I'll be so disappointed.

So, a bon thing indeed, you might think. However, my evil period is nigh, and I've started to suffer from the ever unfun moodswings, which are trying their best to counteract this bon thing. I'm feeling kind've depressed at the moment, for no real reason at all, and my head hurts from doing too much reading.

I'm off to Lisa's tonight to watch Bad Girls and get drunk on cheap wine, to celebrate her finishing two exams and me getting the summer placement (touch wood). I will not drink enough to be hungover tomorrow though, as I have my first exam on Thursday and need to do really well. I do hope Bad Girls won't be as annoying as it was last week.

Michelle arrived back home this afternoon, but I haven't actually seen her, due to me living at my desk at the moment. I'm so sick of looking at endless pictures of brainstems and trying to memorize the names of all the bumpy bits. There are 7 "peduncles" alone, and the whole bleeding thing's only about three inches long.

I'm downloading the latest Doctor Who episode as we speak (loser alert). Apparently Billie's now leaving the series too, which, as Vicky said, leaves us "gutted, because we only started watching it to see if she could act."

last - next