Preparing for final year

Just in case life wasn’t hectic enough right now (I’m currently finishing all my practical work, thinking about how I’m going to structure my report, and did I mention that Lindy wants me to do a talk in front of hundreds of clinical experts at the Australasian Symposium of Medical Research in May?), the deadline is almost upon me to choose my final year units for next year at Bath. I hadn’t invested too much time milling it over until now, but I think it’s about time I did, as it’s hugely important. Unfortunately, the way my degree is weighted means that I’ll still have the majority of the work to do when I go back in September; first year and placement year are worth nothing and second year is only worth 32%. To think I’ve done three years of hard graft to still have two thirds of the marks to get makes me quite irate; silly Bath!

With this year being make or break in terms of the grade I end up with, I need to make sure I choose wisely. In a nutshell: A total of sixty credits are to be taken over the two semesters. Each unit is worth six credits and the dissertation is worth eighteen credits. You can’t do the dissertation throughout the whole year; it has to be completed within one semester. There are two compulsory units in the first semester and one in the second, then the remaining credits are to be chosen from a list of units as long as my arm. The choice is overwhelmingly huge. To complicate things further, us placement students get zero support as far as making these decisions go, whereas second year students not doing a placement get a nice seminar where they give you advice. No pressure then…

This being said, I suppose I do have a vague plan. Firstly, this placement has been very helpful in identifying the areas I want to opt for; I aim to choose as many neuroscience related units as possible because 1) it interests me, 2) b I’ve spent this year learning about it and 3) it’ll look great if I want to go into that kind of career. Writing the report has also caused me to do a complete 180 in terms of the way I like to be assessed. Before this year, I would have preferred final exams to coursework (mostly because I wanted to party the whole time and worry about studying later), but now I think I’d rather work on deadlines throughout the semester and have less relying on exam period. On Monday, when the list went live, I provisionally chose the following:

Semester one
Genes and genomes
Protein synthesis, folding and turnover
Molecular and medical neuroscience
Cell membranes
Sensory and signalling networks in plants

Semester two
Dissertation (god help me)
Bioinformatics
Modern methods of researching neurodegeneration

Judging by our discussions of this topic, it appears that next year will be the first year that my twin Chloe and I aren’t taking all the same units, as our placements have caused us to take interest in different things. I have no idea how I’ll cope in hungover lectures without having her by my side, telling me to struggle through for a few more hours before I can go to sleep! It’s of huge benefit to be living with someone doing the same modules as you, even if it’s just for tea breaks to bitch about how hard an assignment is, so fingers crossed between four Biochemists we’ll be able to help each other out. It definitely makes a difference.

My upcoming Bath life may be a little doom and gloom at present, but my Asutralian life has been the complete opposite this weekend. With Pete still having a blast on the Gold Coast, Jess and I have had the most wonderful girlie weekend together. On Friday night, we went on a mission to Blockbuster and the bottle shop and enjoyed a quiet evening curled up on the sofa with Ben & Jerry’s, cider and The Hunger Games. Saturday was quite chilled in the daytime (running, food shopping, then trying not to distract Jess when she wrote her essay), before we got dressed up and ventured out into the city for cocktails. We went to Andaluz and The Greenhouse in the central business district, both of which served up some amazing alternative cocktails. In The Greenhouse, which is covered with tiny plant pots of greenery on the outside and has a rooftop bar, I had an “Apriscotch”; Scotch, peach liquer, lemon juice, whiskey bitters and apricot jam. So delicious! It wasn’t too late a night, but it was lovely to get out in the city for what felt like the first time in ages. 

Andaluz: Chic library meets late-night booze

Apple and vanilla martinis by candlelight (yes, the clientele was us and couples)

On Sunday morning, Sian paid us a long overdue visit on her way back to Dunsborough after spending the weekend in Perth with her boyfriend. We chatted about her recent decision to pay Cornwall a visit with Jess this summer (Yay!) and the small matter of what we’re all going to do with our lives. I then took a little walk into Cottesloe for a browse of the shops, before Jess and I took the opportunity to head to the beach, considering the weather was particularly warm for April. It was a little windy, but we sheltered behind the spit and had a swim in the calm (but freezing) lagoon. I had a lovely catch up with my Mum on Skype, then wound down with dinner at rubbish TV in the evening before starting my last week at work before my east coast adventure. Roll on Sydney!

Rediscovering rock climbing

Firstly, a quick update on the publishing situation: My results were sent to our collaborators at the University of Lyon (oui oui) yesterday and they seem to correlate to a similar study they’ve done on bacteria, which is hugely reassuring. The team there is compiling the information as we speak and are going to submit to both the journal of Organic and Biomolecular Chemistry and the journal of Chemical Communications, which have huge followings. Fingers crossed!

For the past month, I’ve been sharing the house with Jess and her boyfriend Pete, which has been pretty chilled but fun. I think they feel a bit sorry for me being a third wheel and are always cooking me dinner; I even came home to brownies from the posh bakery yesterday! Pete is due to return to Cornwall in a few weeks, but decided to take a last minute trip over to Brisbane before he leaves Australia to stay with uni friends and go surfing. He flew out on Monday, leaving Jess and I to have a girlie week; so, being the girlie girls we are, the first thing we decided to do was go rock climbing after work on Wednesday.

I was really looking forward to going climbing, as I haven’t done it for years and I used to be absolutely obsessed. From when we were about 12 or 13, two of my best friends and I went to a big barn in Bude to go bouldering (climbing with no ropes) every Thursday night. It was such good exercise and we got pretty good; I had biceps and abs and everything! We also did a load of trips with a climbing club to all the big spots, like Cheddar Gorge. Other things ended up taking over and I stopped going, which was a bit of a shame, so I was interested to see whether I could still do it minus the muscle mass!

I met Jess close to campus after finishing work early and we drove over to Rockface in Northbridge, just north of the city centre. The building was on an industrial street was very plain and unassuming from the outside, but inside it was gigantic; two-storeys high and lined with loads of good routes. After paying our $30, filling out a medical form and being fitted with the usual kit (a harness that makes it look like you have a package and chinese-torture shoes – definitely haven’t missed wearing those), we made our way over to the beginners’ wall to have our memories refreshed on how to belay each other. With this rather important knowledge covered, we were basically set free to do whatever we wanted. As it was a weekday afternoon, we pretty much had the place to ourselves, apart from a brief visit from a class of school kids, and we certainly got our money’s worth by trying every route possible. It’s amazing how quickly a skill you’ve not done for such a long time comes back to you! I definitely wouldn’t call us experts, but we both managed most of the easier routes with no problems, despite a few clammy-handed moments near the top. Possibly even more fun than the climbing was pretending to be secret agents and descending as quickly as possible on the ropes!

After two and a half hours, we were absolutely shattered and ready to go home. As we were leaving, the nice man “made us a deal” because we seemed like “a lot of fun” – five return sessions and hire for $49, which is such good value! We took him up on his offer as we had such a laugh; it’s also a great way to work out if you fancy something different. We’re hoping to be nicely toned after a few weekly visits and it's such a nice way to spend the afternoon after having our brains frazzled at work and uni.

We left Rockface with aching muscles and the beginnings of some nasty blisters, which were to be expected, and memberships, which definitely wasn’t. Another unexpected surprise was the parking ticking slapped on Jess’ windscreen; we were so excited about our climbing adventure that we forgot to buy one, so what we saved on return trips, we spent on a parking fine. Oh well; you win some, you lose some!

All signs point to autumn

A few weeks ago, it was difficult to believe that summer would ever come to an end. Bright mornings, soaring temperatures and, incredibly, one hundred days without rain all suggested that Perth would be soaking up the sun for the foreseaable future. The last seven days, however, are evidence enough that the seasons are changing. We’re currently experiencing longer spells between heatwaves, and even they are less overwhelming than they’ve been in past months. A few days under 30 degrees are even making an occasional appearance!

Of course, the changing climate does have some advantages. The part of the transition from summer to autumn that has the most impact on me is the fact that the sun rises a little later and sets a little earlier each day. Instead of squinting straight into the sun on my eastbound morning ride to work, leaving the house just before the sun comes up at 6am produces sights like the one below. While I’m on the subject of cycling, starting the working day with a 10k cycle works wonders for waking me up and I’d definitely carry it on at Bath if there wasn’t a ridiculous hill in the way. Everyone at work is joking that the cooling temperatures will be a relief for a “pom that can’t stand the heat”, but the truth is I’ve become accustomed to and learned to love the scorchers!

There's nothing quite like a sunrise over the Swan to start the day

The main downside, as a beach bum, is naturally the reduction in the number of days where a sunbathing session is feasible. In addition to this, the Fremantle Doctor (the name the locals give to the sea breeze that blows up the river every afternoon) has transformed from welcome respite to cyclist’s nemasis. A few rides home have felt like pedalling into treacle and I’m ashamed to say that I even caught the bus one day last week due to wind-induced fatigue. The fact that it's dark by 6:30pm is also pretty depressing; a little reminiscent of my two winters at Truro College, where the 1:45h bus journeys meant that we didn't see daylight at home during the week.

I experienced the full extent of this changing weather for the first time today. After a cool yet sunny morning run along the coastline (I appear to have been signed up for the Bath half marathon next year, but that’s a topic for another time), I spent the morning treating myself to a bit of retail therapy, then returned home to watch the Dockers game. There’s another case of time flying for you; I wrote about the Dockers reaching the grand final of the Aussie Rules Football League back in September… the next season is now well underway. Anyway, I had just got out of the shower, ready for some stretches in the garden, when an absolute downpour started. I’ve forgotten what rain looks like! It’s almost like being back home… oh well, at least the garden's happy!

The end is nigh

!Warning! This post features academic content and is not purely about travel…

Reality check: Today is the first day where I truly feel like my placement is nearing its end. Lindy is leaving for a weeklong conference in Budapest tomorrow (it’s alright for some) so, in lieu of our usual Thursday morning team meeting, we each met her individually. The purpose of our chat was to run through a few ideas for my next series of experiments, in which I’ll attempt to optimise a therapeutic protocol of red light irradation to minimise oxidative stress in slices of rat spinal cord (oo-er), but we wound up talking about how I’ll be spending the remainder of my time in EaRN. Up until this point, it had felt like I was chugging along at my own pace with plenty of time to go and no real end in sight, but Lindy pointed out the startling fact that I’m 28 weeks down with just 12 to go; 11 if you count my week’s holiday in Sydney next month. Anyway, the take home message was this: It’s time to really crack on with things.

It’s the norm for Bath students that the collection of results, data analysis and general writing up of the report takes about a month, which means I should ideally have all my practical work done by the end of April. Judging by my current workload, it’s definitely a fair chunk of hard graft, but I think it’s just about achievable. I’ll be very glad to see the back of hours spent pipetting in the tissue culture hood or chopping up bits of baby rat in a room stinking of cadavers, I can tell you that much! However, I’m the type of person who gets sick and tired of doing the same thing for too long and writing isn’t my favourite task at the best of times, so chances are the report will have driven me insane within a couple of weeks and I’ll be pining for some lab work. I shall have to remember to leave my desk and get out in the fresh air at regular intervals, otherwise I’ll come home looking like a luminous white, square-eyed cave dweller.

As far as the report itself goes, I’ve already made a start in the form of my literature review, which acts as the introduction. You can read it here; I make no promises of it being a thrilling read, but it may interest some of you to know what all this nonsense I go on about is really about. That just leaves 40 odd pages of abstract, hypotheses, methods, results, discussion and acknowledgements to compile… Oh wow. Add to that a poster on my research for inspection on the department’s poster day and I am well and truly freaking out. Let the countdown begin: 80 days until home!

Escape to Dunsborough

Work is absolutely manic at the moment, so a last-minute decision to spend the weekend down south for the first time since Christmas was just what the doctor ordered. Getting out of the city for a few days to catch up with a handful of lovely people has made me feel brand new! As usual, the only downside was getting there: Jess had finished lectures for the week and driven down on Wednesday, but I had to work until Friday lunchtime and follow her down on the dreaded Friday night bus. Four hours of hell turned into five and a half due to traffic, car accidents and an angry drunk passenger trying to start a fight with the driver and getting kicked off (nothing out of the ordinary for public transport), meaning I got into Dunsborough at 9:30pm feeling exhausted. I was very happy to see Jess waiting for me and we had a quiet drink at home with her parents before turning in for an early night.

I'm glad I woke up on Saturday morning feeling refreshed, because it turned out to be a long day of indulgence, particularly in the alcohol department. Jess and I drove into town in the morning for a coffee and a mong around the shops before it was time to get dressed up for lunch. Terry and Maggs very kindly took us, Candice and Jess' boyfriend Pete to Swings and Roundabouts, a new restaurant in the very beautiful Margaret River wine region. The atmosphere was great, the food was absolutely delicious and the six of us gorged ourselves on sharing plates of delights such as crispy skin barramundi, seafood bouillabaisse, lamb rump, duck liver parfait and rosemary roasties. Naturally, this was all washed down with several carafes of Margaret River merlot. After a dessert of stone fruit crumble accompanied by a glass of cane cut sweet white (my new favourite), we staggered back to the car and immediately fell into a food coma on the drive home. The weather was cooling down in the afternoon, so we weren't sure what to do, but Pete made the decision easy when he said he wanted to go for a surf at Bunker Bay, situated conveniently close to the Pullman Resort, which is renowned for its cocktails. The outcome of this was Pete becoming designated driver and leaving Candice, Jess and I to sample the cocktail menu when he went in the water. By the time he came out, we were very comfortable and slightly merry, sprawled out on sofas overlooking the ocean, sipping mojitos and people watching a rather bogan wedding party. Tattoos and tacky dresses galore!

Cocktails!

Feeling a little judged after Pete saying going straight from cocktail hour to the bar for pints would make it a "bender", we retired home briefly for a bite to eat and a shower. Jess and I rode our trusty bikes to the Pour House, narrowly avoiding certain death on some steep curbs and poorly lit pathways, to find Candice and Oli already sitting at a table on the roof under the fairy lights. Several pints of custard cider later and the evening chill stopped bothering us; Sian, Josh, Alastair and Flo were all working, so it was lovely to catch up with them all after so long, in a drunken state as per. Having made promises to return ASAP, we wobbled home on two wheels, which were only slightly more stable than two legs, and flopped into bed.

Tankards galore at the Pour House

This morning brought a nasty hangover (aka my most common state while in Dunsborough), but thankfully our breakfast recovery plans were already in place. Jess and I picked up Candice and Walter the miniature Bulldog and headed to Samudra for our hangover fix. The sun was shining, the coffee was strong and we dissected our very amusing night curled up on big comfy chairs waiting for our veggie fry ups to arrive. As an initial non-believer in the health-kick culture, a nice change from your typical greasy breakfast did me the world of good! Walter was very well behaved and got lots of attention from the ladies, the little chick magnet. We spent the afternoon by the pool back at home catching up with Sian, reading and soaking up the last of the Sunday sun. Our last obstacle was the three hour drive back to the city before work and uni start bright and early tomorrow. This gargantuan task was overcome with sweets, good music and the promise that Jess could slap me if I started falling asleep. We were also helped along by my first McDonald's since arriving in Australia and my goodness is it cheap! $5.50 for a Cheeseburger meal; I see why the nation's waistline is expanding. The journey actually went very quickly and we're currently winding down with tea and Downton Abbey. Another great weekend over in a flash; back to the grindstone I suppose.

Brekky with the adorable Walter

One becomes two

It brings me immense joy to announce that I’m no longer living a life of solitude! Jess moved back in for good on Friday and we’ve already made up for lost time with a lovely girly weekend. I’d been home from work for all of ten minutes before she convinced me to go to Claremont Quarter to her to do a “food shop”; putting a supermarket in a shopping centre full of clothes shops is a very dangerous move for broke students! Before we knew it, we’d both had a little slurge in Gorman, an amazing store full of lovely prints that I’ll be stocking up on before I come home as it doesn’t exist in England. New things, yay!

After a whizz around the supermarket, we cooked dinner at home before getting ready and heading into Fremantle for a few welcome home drinks. The sun was setting as we waited for the train at Cottesloe and the sky looked so beautiful against the trees. We started our little pub tour at Little Creatures, where the ciders soon started flowing. After weeks of being alone with my thoughts, it was so great to have a nice long catch up and vent my ramblings to someone; we covered all our news over pints of Pipsqueak and, when we got the munchies, Creatures’ amazing aioli chips. Our next stop was X-Wray on the other side of town, a small outdoor bar covered with vines and fairy lights. We grabbed a drink and had just sat down at the long tables when an awesome band starting playing. They did loads of Beatles covers and, as two girls who were brought up listening to their hits in the car with our Dads, Jess and I were transfixed. They even did a very pretty version of Yellow Submarine near the end, which was my favourite when I was about 5!

We strolled back through the very busy Friday night streets to the station, realising it was way past midnight and we were a lot more drunk than we thought. Another great thing about having a friend in the house: Jess forced me to gulp down lots of water before passing out in order to keep the hangover at bay; she’s a gem!

 Despite the large volume of alcohol consumed on Friday night, we were up bright and early to explore Fremantle markets on Saturday. I’d only been briefly with Vic and Catriona a few months ago, so it was nice to have a proper look round. There are so many nice stalls selling homemade treats! They also have a huge fresh fruit and veg stand that I’ll definitely be using from now on instead of the supermarket. We also browsed a few other shops before returning home for a quiet afternoon of cups of tea and our books. I finished Love in the Time of Cholera this week and have become quickly absorbed in another classic, To Kill a Mockingbird. Evening rolled round and we extended our Beatles experience by watching Across the Universe, a movie starring Jim Sturgess (swoon) and featuring all the big hits. I’d never heard of it before, but would highly recommend.

Jess had to go to uni to catch up on some lectures on Sunday morning, so I took my usual trip into Cottesloe for a banana and mango juice from Cimbalino and a browse of the shops. Incidentally, it should be mentioned that I didn’t get my normal tasty brunch of Eggs Florentine because (a) I have no money and (b) I was put off after a nasty run in with some moronic women last week. These two typical Perth girls (fully kitted out in fancy gym clothes but obviously hadn’t been working out for fear of getting sweaty) sitting at the table next to me were irritating me from the get-go with their inane chatter that they seemed to want the entire café to hear. One of them mentioned she’d been to L.A. about a million times. To add to my hatred at them interrupting my quiet morning of reading, they both gave me the dirtiest look when my substantial plate of wonderful food arrived, before one of them turned to me and said “Wow, look at that, you’re really getting your money’s worth there aren’t you”. Excuse me?! When did it become OK to talk to someone like that?! I was more than a little taken aback, so only managed a smile and “It’s Sunday, you can eat what you want” as a reply, to which she tried to dig her way out of basically calling me a fat bitch by repeating “No judgement babe” about a million times. Seriously, shut up. You can keep the piece of dry gluten free toast you’re sharing and I’ll eat like a normal person, thanks very much. Even though they were complete retards, it did get me down a little bit, which I realise is stupid now.

I was intending on going down to the beach to have a look at the Sculpture by the Sea exhibition, which apprently features a giant goon bag and a wave made of old barbie dolls, but decided to leave that for a warmer day. It’s only been 26 degrees this weekend; what’s going on?! I wore a jumper outdoors yesterday for the first time in months. Wrong. Sunday afternoon was spent curled up in bed with my book and, of course, something which seems to become our favourite hobby the minute Jess and I live in the same house: Napping. Two hours later I awoke, just in time to eat and head out to the cinema. We went to The Windsor in Nedlands, a gorgeous little retro cinema showing independent art films and serving homemade ice cream bombs. We saw Le Week-End, a film about an old couple on holiday in Paris starring one of my favourite actors, Jim Broadbent. It was a bit depressing but funny too, and it made me really want to go to Paris! That rounded off our first weekend back together; the working week will go by far more quickly from now on knowing my weekends will be fuller!

Vic's birthday

I’d just walked through the door and crashed on the sofa after a Friday cut short in favour of after-work beers with the gang when my phone rang. It was my darling host Mummy, who I hadn’t heard from in ages, inviting me down to Cottesloe for a spontaneous birthday gathering. I walked straight out the door and arrived on the beach ten minutes later to find Vic, John, Denai and Tassos (the Greek couple who moved into my old room) and Jane chilling out on blankets on the big grassy bank overlooking the ocean. Jane is an old friend of the Billinghams on holiday from, you’ve guessed it, Cornwall! She lives in Lanivet, just 15 minutes away from my house. Catriona turned up soon after and it turned into quite the reunion. Vic is looking incredible for 59!

I can’t believe I’ve never been to Cottesloe in the evening before; it’s so beautiful! It had been such a hot day and the beach was packed with people enjoying the more bearable temperature as sunset approached. You could make out the lights of Rottnest Island on the horizon and some huge cruise ships passed by, lighting up the surface of the water. John went to the fish and chip shop and brought us back some dee-fried delights, which we ate straight out of the paper with ginger beer. As it started to get dark, the fir trees over our heads came alive with the deafening sound of parrots squawking; Australia is like a zoo. After dinner, we walked along to the end of the spit and dipped our toes in the water. Heaven!

 Before we knew it, it was 9 o clock and time to go home. It was great to catch up with my old hosts and we have plans for Monday afternoon; they’re spending the public holiday at the yacht club playing with the catamaran, windsurfer and paddle boards, followed by a barbecue. Sounds like the perfect post-work activity! Jamie will be back from Cambodia by then and, as much as I enjoy chatting to his parents, it’ll be nice to have another young person around and I can’t wait to hear of his adventures in Asia!