I have now been at University for two months, as of last Thursday. I have changed so much as a person in that time; I’ve met so many new people here and had a lot of new experiences. I’m loving every second of it, except of course the times when upstairs and downstairs are both having parties and I’m trying to sleep in the early hours of the morning before a 9am lecture!

Being here has led to a lot of changes. I’m more relaxed, I’m perhaps more fun – I’m definitely more confident so I’m hoping that makes me that way – and I’m definitely more knowledgeable about what I’m doing and what I want to do. I’m loving my course. The molecular biology isn’t as thrilling as I thought it would be, hence I’ve decided to opt out of the second module next semester in exchange for marine ecology. I’m far more interested in the animals and habitats than the molecules in their cells now. Yes I love genetics and studying how each characteristic is displayed and passed between generations, but I don’t want to learn about carbohydrate structure or trans-membrane proteins in cells!

I have so much to write about the two months since I have been here, but I don’t know where to start…

Ok firstly, my flatmates are lovely. There were 9 of us, but two (that we didn’t talk to as much) have moved out. Hung Wang from Vietnam moved to be with her friends in different halls, and said goodbye and good luck and everything, but Rebecca that we did talk to just disappeared. She said she was going home for the weekend, but the next weekend we noticed her kitchen cupboards were empty. We called student services but they couldn’t tell us where she was, whether she had dropped out or just moved, they just said she was fine. Which is good, but we were disappointed she didn’t even say goodbye!

Those left are Sarah from north Wales, Philly (Philippa) from west Sussex, Zoe from Essex, Mabel from Malaysia, Rosie from Poole and Sophie from down the road from me at home! I’d met Sophie before on a mixed school trip to Wales, and we saw we were in the same halls on Facebook and now we’re even in the same flat! We all get along really well.

We’ve had some good nights out in Fresher’s week, on Halloween, and especially for Zoe’s Maths social that was ‘Tight and Bright’ at Reflex, the 80s and 90s club. I won an angry bird on one of those claw machines, and also won the game of twister on the dance floor to win a bottle of bubbly! Not bad for a night’s work really!

Speaking of work, I absolutely adore my course. Ok, there are a couple of modules that aren’t as amazing as others, such as Bioanalysis. It’s not like I don’t like it but the lecturers don’t make it as interesting in the lectures and they should be more enthusiastic about the modern techniques and stuff than they are. Some of it I really enjoy, like gene labelling and transferring a gene from one species to another and seeing how it still gets expressed. They took the gene from a jellyfish that makes it fluorescent in UV light and put it in a mouse and a kitten embryo. Every cell of both animals glowed in UV!!

The other modules are the molecular basis of life (as mentioned above) that isn’t as genetic based as I thought it was. I’m more interested in how the phenotype is expressed not what the molecules that make it look like. Then there’s physiology, which is interesting, if a little easy since its almost a repeat of a level for some bits like nervous transmission and the cardiac cycle. But I didn’t do kidneys at a level so that was good.

The final module is Life and Evolution which is finally getting interesting. After spending weeks on single celled Protists, fungi life cycles and plants, we’re now working our way through the phyla of the animal kingdom. We’re starting Chordata next week, which is all vertebrates, so that’s going to be good fun. This is the module that leads on to the Easter field course, which is a free holiday to somewhere near Malaga for 12 days. It’s not going to be all play as it’s a whole module, but I’m really looking forward to it.

So what else is there to say? Every week is the same, except for the practicals. I have a molecular practical one Tuesday and a physiology one the next, and life practicals every other Wednesday. But lectures are all clustered on Thursday’s and Friday’s. It’s a good week to be honest.

More stories are going to follow this I’m sure, especially since its nearly Christmas!!!