Revision Again

For the last 3 years, my main worry throughout that time has always been exams. I've always been stressed out about them and always have been trying my hardest to revise and have always come out pretty good. Some people may call me clever for going university or doing a course like I do which is deemed hard but really I never really think of myself as clever because I try really hard to do well in my exams and that effort pays off. I find the people who are clever are the people who don't really have to try as hard

Motivation is also a big issue at this stage, sixth form it was all about ensuring I don't have to live with my parents after the 2 years, now it's all about Jobs and I feel everything is starting to turn much more serious was my worries!. 

Revision

For the first time ever I've tried revising without a plan, as normally I feel i disregard it but now I feel as if the plan helped me keep organised as mainly i've been doing what interests me most the Human Biology module and have been doing very little of the rest. So today I'm going to make another plan.

Jobs

Keele often post Job oppurtunities onto their notice boards relating to the field of study and I noticed something tutoring younger people Maths which I used to do throughout my sixth form years voluntary, so i'm going to try and take that up

Holidays

Over time I've thinking i'd be losing contact with my friends but I don't think that's really the case, I mean I still see my friends perhaps less often but we haven't lost contact or feel less close, which I'm pretty happy with. 

In one more week I'll be going back to keele, for the last 2 weeks of lessons then we'll be going into the 2 weeks of exam period which will decide whether i stay on for Canada or not, I need 60%!. So I best get revising
 

Easter Holidays!

Hello readers, how are you all? Good? I'm glad to hear it.

I'm in my last week now before the holidays kick in and my god it couldn't have come soon enough, it seems the terms are just the perfect amount of time any longer would have just put me in an endless bad mood, I hate routine!.

My Mathematics is pretty much out of the way until after the holidays!, all i have to do now is attend lectures which shouldn't be too hard, it seems a few of the maths lecturers are really crazy with there jokes, like one lecturer constantly makes jokes that are so unfunny they are funny!, e.g: putting a band under the projection and saying ''this is my favourite band' or him seeing this is the key to it all thinking he's going to point to the statement but instead getting a key out :P Hilarious.

Biology I want to ammend / rewrite some of my Drosophila paper but the deadlines tomorrow so I don't want to do too much.
In Human Bio, we got set work yesterday in for Friday which is annoying but it's on ECG's which are very interesting, so I'm sure I can get through it!

Study abroad application went perfectly, no issues suprisingly... All i really need to do now is get good results and that'll be that :D

Varsity came up, I didn't get chose for the squad but i think it was best as the position i would have filll defence sub only got played for 50 seconds, it was much better standing at the sidelines drinking! and making chants at the staffs players. Suprisingly Lacrosse was the sport with the most fights at one point staffs squad got reduced from 11 men to 7 for starting fights. There's always good chants at varsity games such as
'we go somewhere you don't go, uni, uni'
'we pay your benefits'

 That's it for now I may get a nap of something before my next lecture!, see you all next week

 

Varsity & Deadlines

I have a Mathematics test on what we've learnt recently on Thursday, that needs to be revised for pretty soon, I may start after this Article. Currently tired from training today and going gym!.

In about 2 weeks as well, I have a Lab Report due in which is worth 25% of the module, I need to start that very soon as well so i can be happy with it!. That's going to require alot of research i may go library a few times to get a load of sources and concentrate without distractions around!.

I also have a group presentation due in at the end of the holidays, which means we have to work on doing it before the holidays, that's going to require doing loads of extra work as well!, so i've got a few busy days ahead.

In other news I've been aiming to get onto the varsity team, (Varsity is a big event in terms of sport, Keele vs Staffs. Rivals. Each sport plays the university the one with the most wins, wins varsity. Biggest game of the year and hopefully with some luck i'll be in the squad. I just need to attend every training and i should be fine!, so i've postponed going home for the weekend. and with all that i need to keep up to deadlines!.

So what else have I been up to?

I've volunteered to be a mentor, my mentor was brilliant so thought i would volunteer for the programme to help other people. I've completed the modules i'm going to take at Guelph. Submitted an assignment for maths. Currently watching Sherlock. Went out on Friday night at the union. In Biology we've been continued learning about inheritance and in Human we're learning about the hearts relation to the Central Nervous System.

I have 2-3 weeks left, Month holiday and then 2 weeks more of learning, after that it's the Exam Period which will determine if i get into next year and if I will end up studying abroad.

Going so fast!

Semester 2 is going so fast!, it's scary to think that i'm already half way through it. I'm just reflecting on my experiences here while being at university and it's amazing what I've learnt.

I think socially I am a better person, I am more confident, I enjoy myself much more and university has opened up much more oppurtunities for me to develop my skills in the job world.

Sports

Recently I've been getting much more times getting chosen for the first team of Lacrosse, although Study Abroad lectures often conflict with the game time so I cannot go, which is annoying but I suppose it's a nescary sacrifice!.

I've been going gym much more often and am beginning to enjoy it, I always thought it was superfacial but there really is a good feeling going with friends to lift weights and you get a feeling of self betterment

Next month i'm entering the Born Survivor which is a 10km run for Cystic Fibrosis, that probably will be hard as i'm not much of a long distance runner!, so I may get training myself up for that soon!.

Academics

My maths assignments are producing high marks, my Human Biology course i'm doing well in. It's just the Genetics and Evolution module I think I am struggling most in at the moment and there is another examination for that this thursday which I'm not looking forward for! But I will be revising loads for it. I may hold off going out until thursday to make sure I'm in shape for it!.

In Human Biology in my lab this week we got to perform a blood test to determine blood types which was interesting and we also performed a urinalysis.

My study abroad module I am finding a bit easy and boring in lectures but I am enjoying researching the Canadian culture and progressing through my application. I have chosen my modules for Mathematics and Human Biology at Guelph now. (Second year we get optional modules! :D, so I feel like i'm making my degree) I am taking Applied Differential Equations & Linear Algebra for Mathematics and for Human Biology I'll be taking Population Genetics and a Neuroscience module, Which I had to consult my subject tutors about and get them to approve it, I've enjoyed the process as it's helped me learn more about my next modules and helped me look more at the Canadian education system.

So there will be plenty to look forward to in the future!

Thanks for reading!, I'll upload another one next week.

Pressure

Academics
I don't know what much too tell you, In Maths i'm learning about vectors and 
series tests. In biology i'm learning about inheitance and immunology, I do love immunology it's so interesting but sadly it's coming to the end and we're looking at the anatomy of the biliary system. Alot of terms to learn for that!. 
In Biology we had an exam that was a small percentage of our overall mark I got a mediocre 8/15 which is still a pass so i suppose I cannot complain. I found the test had little biology in and more like your ability to comprehend long questions. In my latest maths assignment I got 88% which is outstanding for me! and counts for a larger percentage of my overall degree. At the end of the day as long as i get higher than 60% at the end i'll be over the moon!.

I'm a student academic representative for my course and had a meeting this week, i'm enjoying volunteering for this i feel like i'm making a difference to my course and also get to communicate to the friendly admin staff who are so helpful!.

Recreation
I've been having a nice sobeur week and concentrating on my studies, I played for the first team of lacrosse and Leeds Met we sadly lost but the journey and the experience was great!. 
I'm home this weekend due to my dads birthday, I went ice skating for the first time with my brother and did suprisingly well, I want to learn skating fr when i go canada as Guelph my international university has a ice rink so figured i may need to learn it there.

Next week
Next week is a busy week, loads of lacrosse trainings, people wanting me to go out 3 times next week, another biology exam and maths assignments I need to control all that and not let my education pay for it as much as possible. The skill of balance is a skill i need to obtain!.

Thanks for reading i'll post again next week hopefully!! 

Life in the wide world goes on

Study Abroad
They're many issues you have to consider when thinking to study aboard, I think my main issues are what will my grades be like which I find out by the end of this week and the accomodation for when I come home. I have already signed a contract for a year so I can either find someone to sublet my room to for 6 months which I don't see as being very likely or I could transfer tentants with a guy in my Block.
Difficult things to think about. for study abroad as well I have to complete a 12 page documents half on completing questions about my destination country things like politics and heritage, the other half which I haven't completed yet is a SWOT Analysis which i'm fairly clueless on.

 Biology
Right now the modules are really interesting in Human we are learning about the blood and the Immune system which I find very interesting!, I did a pratical yesterday where we had to prick our fingers and examine the blood under a microscope which was interesting as we could examiine each of the type of cells one we administered a stain. In Genetics we're learning all about how every trait is inherited we are conducting an experiment on the Drosophila melanogaster (Fruit Fly), where we use genetically altered flys combined with various mutated ones mate them and see what the outcome is.  I'm loving the Biology modules at this point I am finding them ever so more interesting then last semester.

Events

Keele student union always has events on, last wednesday I was attending a mixed Disney social (Dress up as a disney character) with womens and mens lacrosse, on valentines day I went to a traffic light party and yesterday I went to the night where it was a pound a pint but unlike my block mates I only went to play Pool and after that went home prettty early, I had a 9am lecture the next day, we also had a fire drill at 5am today interupting my sleep further so I'm certainly not the most awake person in the world right now.

Burton

Last weekend I went back to burton for my sisters Birthday which was Niice, we had a take away on the friday, then on the saturday I went to the millhouse with a group of friends from my secondary school and later on went into town with friends from sixth form and on the sunday I believe I went town with my 13 year old brother. I like the fact that even though time passes between each time I see my friends we are all still pretty close, we certainly haven't losst as much contact as I thought we would had.

Thanks for reading I'll try to post more periodically I hope i will be posting next week, hope you enjoyed it! 

Exams and Being back

Exam revison
I had 4 different exams, 2 exams from Human Biology: Cell and molecular biology and introduction to human physiology. 2 from Mathematics Calculus I and Algebra I.

First came Algebra I, I thought this would be the hardest exam so I overly revised for that and that turned out very nicely suprisingly I could answer every single question, 60% of my mark came out of this (40% from in class tests and assignments).

Second came Cell and Molecular Biology, this was all multiple choice but suprisingly still very hard unlike A Level where the multiple choice questions were pretty obvious. I think I revised enough for this but I think i slightly underestimated it as I only used the slides where I had forgot about the module handbook which contained all the Praticals. This was 75% of the mark (25% from a scientific paper).

Third came Calculus I, this was suprisingly hard I thought the majority of it would be A Level I still revised the hell out of it but they were about 2 questions I was unsure about, this was like algebra: 
60% of my mark came out of this (40% from in class tests and assignments).

Lastly today was Introduction to human physiology, 50% of the exam mark was through an Essay, I chose to do one on the GI System i did 4 pages (Hopefully enough!), and the other 50% was multichoice. The exam was 75% of the mark and the other 25% was from an Assessed Pratical.

Being Back

After the first semester I think I have learnt some pretty valuable lessons which I could hhave only learnt from experience, I have started writing up everyone of the Biology presentations at the end of every week in order for me to have a running knowledge of the content as well as this for Maths i'm going to rewrite the examples so i can master the method of everything i've learnt so far. Semester 1 was quite expensive so I've learnt not to go out on every instance to spend money and more budget myself with food and everything. So far i've been to 3 out of the 5 events I've had an oppurtunity to go to and have managed to save myself money by restraining myself :).

New Modules

 I have 5 new modules!, I have one for study abroad and I managed to get my first choice university which I am extremely happy about as it was quite a popular choice Guelph!. I have 2 new modules for Biology both of which seem very interesting compared to last years which I found the content reasonably dull, This semester we are learning more about genetics related to disease and get a conduct experiments on fruit flys. In my other module I get to learn about the Lungs, Heart and Blood which is going to be very interesting and cannot wait for that to progress throughout the year.