Friday 28 December 2007

Random Ramblings, UCAS, MSc and MRes applications

Christmas was dull, holidays have been poorly spent, and i have found a new desire to read novels.

Will first (after my coursework) read The Devil in Amber by Mark Gatiss, it's a sequel to the very good The Vesuvious Club, which follows the story of Lucifer Box, who isn't exactly your typical secret serivce agent. It was a fun, refreshing book to read, and i truly look forward to reading the sequel which is sitting on my shelf yawning to be read. I will then aim to finish the remaining un-read books on my shelf before i buy anymore books.. i have the tendancy to walk into a book store and pick up a few books, and leave them on my shelf for a very long time! (i will break this habit, and shall therefore finish the books before i buy anymore!)


I wake up every moning eager to check the post and my email account to see if i have received anything in regards to my application, its almost as if i get a small adrenaline rush every morning as soon as i wake up or hear the post coming through the postbox i rush to see if anything is there from the universities... however i have only been dissapointed so far in not hearing anything.

I'm not sure why, but i am starting to have doubts on wanting to study medicine, i am probably just going through a phase because i havn't heard anything yet, or whether i am awakening to an interest in science research. Why do i want to study medicine - this is truly a question i find hard to pin point, i have so many reasons which edged me into applying for medicine in 2005, and once again this october. Although my ideas of life have changed and i don't really know what i want to do anymore, its almost like im having a pre-mature mid-life crisis!! Well, i'll leave the life decisions when i hear back from my applications, including those for MSc and MRes of which all are for London Universities.

Is it obvious i love London? I'm not sure if its because i love living here, or if its because i have never lived elsewhere and i have a very bias view of the countryside? I would love to try living in the tranquil countryside, but i like having a supermarket nearby and the convenience of a nightbus to get me home on late nights... I like the options, the choices, the shops, my friends who live here, the restraunts, the busy fast-paced lifestyles, and i love my bedroom haha.. perhaps a bad reason, but i honestly can't iamgine having a different bedroom, or living without my dog now.. sad as it may sound.. but one of the reasons i want to stay in london is for my dog's sake.... ok i sound a little silly, but i don't want to ever have to give him away.

Anyways, thats random rambling over.

Sunday 23 December 2007

December application update

December:

.....nothing! >.<

As its now the 23/12 most people have gone on holidays now, and royal mail are on their hols, so .. im not going to hear anything now until after new years... so im pretty certain december is going to be a month of no news ~.~
Which is annoying as im starting to develop false hopes, and would now be more upset in the case of 4 big R's to come in the new year.

November:

30/11 - BMAT results

October:

5/10 - Form sent
8/10 - Manchester confirmation
11/10 - Ucas welcome letter was received
12/10 - BSMS asks to see a copy of my transcript
15/10 - Ucas deadline
17/10 - UCL confirmation
19/10 - Sent my transcript to BSMS via recorded delivery
22/10 - Royal mail delivered my transcript to BSMS
25/10 - Barts confirmation
31/10 - BMAT test

Tuesday 18 December 2007

UKCAT - vr section scrapping~

Got this via email this morning :

"Dear __________________,
Extensive quality checks on all the tests that have been taken have beenperformed. UKCAT has some concerns about the Abstract Reasoning subtestthis year. To ensure absolute fairness to all candidates, medical anddental schools have been informed and therefore have not and will nottake into consideration this component of the UKCAT results forselection for 2008 entry only."

Midly glad, as my ukcat score goes up to a slightly better 620.. well.. im still a weak candidate so not much of a BIG difference :S Am slightly glad it was AR (my worst section) and not any other.. im sure if i had my highest mark in AR i would be complaining and whining a bit now, though it just goes to show how useless the UKCAT actually is..

i still think the BMAT is a far superior test.. ok i didn't shine on that test either, but i feel it tests candidates for skills which actually do come in quite handy for medschool.. unlike the ukcat ..

Status on application.. still... nothing .. not even a squeak or even a spot of false hope!
have been reading on the NMM forum, some applicants ahve rung barts up and made enquiries about their application status..well... if only i was brave enough to pick up the phone, i feel getting a rejection on a bit of paper, or on the computer monitor in my bedroom will be more comforting that one over the phone... followed by a long silence, or perhaps some unintentional swearing.. so...

i will just wait ~

Handed in my essay for protein sturcture and function, so thats out the way now ~ got 95% on my practical write up ^.^YAY! ...though when i trhink about it.. it was only worth 10% of the module so the difference between a 2.1 and a 1st in this case was only 1% to the overall grade.. so.. well.. 9.5% is better than nothing, just hope my essay will score highly too, that oens a ickle bit more important, worth 20% of the course ~.~

X'mas soon, and my rents are leaving the day before, so i'll be alone with my dog and some notes a book and perhaps some instant noodles...sad... i know... but will be having my friends round the day after, .... though yes.. xmas is going to be pretty crappy this year round !

So... whats with the work load this xmas :
free radical critique - 30%
bioinformatics assignment II and III - altogether worth 80%! (100% cwrk module ><)
Note writing
journal reading
research project reading... this one is quite worrying.. its 3 modules worth of my final year.. and .. well neuroscience doesnt seem like such a good idea anymore ~.~

Sunday 16 December 2007

New printer, hot salt beef and an essay ~

Something a bit different from my normal posts, i spent some money on a new but severely needed printer today!! ^.^hopefully this will now last me another 5/6 years ... my previous printer has been with me since ~1999 ! its almost 10 years old! ..so i thought i'd let it retire '.. good bye lexmark 3200... hello epson DX7450 ^.^

previously:
6 pages per minute (>.<)

resolution = 1200 x 1200 dpi

paper - well it had the tendency to take the whole bunch and tell me its stuck.. no wonder if it decides to suck in over 20 pages at a go!!! ~.~

New printer:
32 pages per minute (^^ yay my essay should hopefuly now print in one minute as opposed to the 5 minutes previously including the time i had to sort out the jams!)

resolution = 5760 x 1440 dpi (much better than previous one!)

paper - yes like normal printers just one piece of paper every time as its 'spose to!

oh..and what the hell i thought as i was there i would buy some paper.. so i bought one of them boxes for companies and yep theres now a pile (2500 pieces) of paper in my room~ .. well i do itend my printer to last a while ..and im not a fan of computer shopping so i bought everything i needed ..and hopefully i won't need to go back until i run out of ink.. though now thinking about it.. i should have bought more ink whilst i was there!

Mum and dad decided to go shopping today, and bought back a hot salt beef sandwich from selfridges food court.. and it didn't fail to be extremely good!!! Admittedly it is a bit pricey for a sandwhich but it would easily feed two and well... now and then its nice to have something different than my cheese and cranberry toasted sandwich.
(i have a jar of cranberry sauce i bought from borough market after a thursday lecture, and im finding it hard to finish it. So i've started to make cheese and cranberry sandwiches for the past month or so.. but theres still a bit left >.<) Anyhooots my molecular mechanisms of beta-amyloid initiation and aggregation leading to alzheimer's disease is due in tomorrow 4pm.. so i best get on with that now ~^.^ p.s ...still noy heard anything from the bloody unis ~*sigh

Saturday 15 December 2007

End of Semester 1 ~

So its the end of semester 1 at king's yesterday, and well, it was apparent as only half of the class turned up, as most have left the night before to head off back home..sadly nothing intersting like that for me, i live... just over an hour away, so not much of an exciting journey for, but none the less, it does feel good to have the term over, and know i get to lie in next week ^.^!

Its been an ok interesting semester, i really enjoyed my courses this year, really enjoyable and really interesting for once actually!!!!

On a not so cheery side I have a friend who has been getting on my nerves a bit, he graduated with a 2.2 for his degree yet everytime he asks me randomly how my coursework went etc, he seems to enjoy saying that the lecturers are lazy and aren't responsible markers when i do well, and says i should have worked harder and not been so lazy when i get a 2.1 score.... its slightly annoying..as he is dead serious about it, and especially when its coming from him, as he obviously didn't do very well himself. I don't exactly expect him to be giving me compliments or anything, and in fact i wouldn't have told him how i did unless he asked, but it would be nice to just say "ah ok", or something neutral than have to spend time criticising my score everytime.. its like he enjoys making me feel inept about my performance :S

STILL WAITING~
anyways .. on the ucas application side of things.. well i havn't heard anything still.. (sorta of annoying..) >.<

i had a friend who was sitting infront of me in the computer room and she turns round and says shes got a ucas update (a rejection as she has had no interviews), i really wanted to ask where her rejection was from as i wanted to know if it involved any of the unis i had applied to aswell, but i thought that was slightly rude and just not very nice..... so i am still left guessing whats happening with my application.

Friday 7 December 2007

Impatience

Though i havn't heard back yet i do feel this year everything seems out of reach and i feel especially that ucl is very out of my league.

It's frustrating, as i am such an impatient person, and any news, even if it was to be a rejection would be some news.. and i'll be able to accept that.. just please unis.. tell me something...rather than have me flapping around on a piece of string wondering wondering wondering.. perhaps im just worried of waiting till feb having some hope and Bang Bam Whallop 4 rejections in one month.. wow that would hurt.. !!

Haha i feel that this blog is gradually becoming a place for me to whine whine and yes.... whine some more!

Wednesday 5 December 2007

another wednesday

BIOINFORMATICS --> sooooo glad assignment 1 is over now.. can't be more glad its over and out the way!!

now only 9 days until my last semester 1 at KCL ! WOW .... biochem BSc has gone by so quickly, quite sad its almost over.. and also quite scared as i don't like the uncertanty of what i may be doing next year (¬.¬" )

i've decided not to go to the IC open day, as im pretty much sure what i want to apply for , and well i need to start on my alzheimer's essay for next thursday, its only 4000 word limit, so thats a healthy 444 words a day from today..

Ucas application form 2007 is almost 2 months old now.. i wonder when i'll hear its firsts words ?! - very anxious and getting a bit impatient now ... i hate the wait !