So I still havent finished exams yet as of writing this, and i’ll be sure to update it accordingly if something under one of these categories occurs, but for now…

The exams ‘Good , bad and the ugly’!

The good:
Cell Signalling lecturer ‘Davey’ gave the most blatent hints as to what the essay questions in this years exam was going to be, everyone wrote down what he said during the lectures, everyone powerrevised for those questions, praying that they would actually be there. Exam time, and lo and behold- there they were, both of them, in the exact same wording he said ‘might’ be in the exam. I have never written so much for one essay question ever, i think i wrote about 4 pages (including a diagram) on phosphorylation in signalling pathways – which will hopefully give me a decent mark…

The Bad:
I think it was ‘Enviromental Health Microbiology’, one of the questions worth 3 marks were ‘name the reservoirs for the following diseases’ (In English – disease is commonly found in…… ) and then went on to list a bunch of diseases (tuberculosis, salmonella… etc) , I…. had no idea, didn’t revise it, didnt even see it in the lecture notes. I wrote ‘cows’ for tuberculosis and moved on. I usually come back to check that i’ve written something for every answer after i finish doing the questions but I ended up using up all of the time in the exam writing on the essay questions.
After they announced to stop writing, i noticed I had essentially left the front 2 pages of the answer booklet empty. I peeked up to see where the invigilators were, and without skipping a beat went down the list of 6 diseases and wrote ‘birds’ ‘birds’ ‘birds’ ‘birds’ (cows) ‘birds’. Closed the booklet, handed it in. Why birds? I have no idea. Will i get any marks? well… one of them has to be birds surely.

The Ugly:
The first exam we had, the essay question came up (we get a choice of 2), one of them… I didnt really know in much depth at all – “discuss repeating regions” or something. The other one I sort of knew, but the question threw me off…. “Discuss phase variation, relate it to one pathogen”
Now… I had revised phase variation in a fair bit of detail, thinking it might come up, its basically when the organism is able to flip around abit of its DNA, letting it make a different protein (letting it do different shit [variation between phases] ), the example we had studied it in was ‘Salmonella’ – I looked at the exam question again, I don’t know this, i thought to myself.
“or well.. i know what phase variation is, but we didnt study any pathogens that use it, I only that it happens in Salmon”
……….
That was my genuine thought process.
Thats right, I did not answer the essay question I knew the answer to because I thought I had learnt about something which occurs in Salmon instead of Salmonella.
Fuck. Sake.

just a blog post to let you know im still here.

Have had 5 exams out of 12 so far, with my 6th one tomorrow and then 3 more on saturday ~.~

Have to say, its not looking great so far, the exams I have had have all been really hard :<

1 – Molecular biology – Hard / Bad
2 – Cell Signalling – Hard short questions, Easy essay question which will hopefully help me pass
3 – Neurobiology – Horrible, didnt know the essay question at all which is worth half the marks. FML
4 – Clinical Microbiology – Nice short questions, meh essay question (wasnt that bad but I couldnt remember alot of the stuff :<)
5 – Enviromental health microbiology – Hard short questions, okay essay question

Tomorrow: Immunology – I can already tell its going to be hard and horrible, at best it’ll be ‘meh’ but i already know I wont be walking out of it smiling, its probably my worst subject.

Eg. This is a simplified version of what we’re supposed to know. a SIMPLIFIED one =(

Fucking unsavoury to the core.

And then it’ll be the next 3, the next 2 days is pretty much the gauntlet from Gladiators except replace the gladiators with Cena, Kane, Undertaker and the Big Show. And its for the grand final, and if i lose then I lose £18,000… (and if i win i still lose £18,000 but i get a nice piece of paper at the end)

Just a heads up, my exams are starting this week (or.. tomorow rather) so don’t expect many blog updates for a fortnight.

Will still be updating via twitter or facebook though so feel free to follow me there

http://twitter.com/mengplex

[and i imagine everyone who would want to find me on facebook already has me added, but if not - its pretty easy to find me....]

Exam layout..
10th – 1 exam
14th – 2 exams
16th – 2 exams
18th – 1 exam
19th – 3 exams :<
23rd – 1 exam
25th – 2 exams

Times will be in military because it saves me time formatting it

0700 – alarm

0800 – alarm

0900 – alarm – wake up , brush teeth, check ‘dailies’ (daily webcomics, FB, Twitter, gaming blogs eg. siliconera etc)

0930 – Start revision

1100 – Probably bored by now, take a break and play a game for a bit (maybe split second or mario galaxy 2)

1130 – revision

1300 – Get lunch , eat it whilst watching Anime (fairy tail, durarara, working!!, K-on!!) or Modern Family

1325 – Attempt revision, get sidetracked by websites every 5-10 minutes , wonder downstairs every hour to see whats happening

1800 – Get hungry, cook dinner , eat it whilst watching Anime or modern family

1830 – Attempt revision, get sidetracked lots because of sheer boredom

2200 – Possibly some sort of house activity, or maybe i’ll still be revising

2300 – Depending on how much work ive done, Gaming or TV time!

0100 – Sleep

Repeat cycle every day until 25th Jun (and its been going like this for a good few weeks too)

Been a week since my last update, and although nothing has happened, i feel obliged to post something.

University Bit:

Ive finished writing up condensed notes on 8/10 modules and am currently working on the 9th.
Its a long and boring process but unfortunately it has to be done, this year counts for 30% and i flopped last year pretty hard so i gotta make up for it.

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Music Bit:

Have been listening to a fair amount of touhou music recently, I found some violin/classical arrangements by TAmusic which are very nice and relaxing.

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Gaming Bit:

After modding my wii, have downloaded a few games for that, including Red Steel 2, Trauma Centre: New blood and Tatsunoko VS Capcom

Red steel 2 is alot of fun, the artstyle and visual effects remind me alot of borderlands. The swordfighting doesnt always work as well as id like it to, but theres a very satisfying feeling when you take out a gang of guys with an array of cool techniques. Knock an enemy into the air, juggle him for abit and then drop down from the air and stab him in the chest , or maybe slash at him a few times before running up to him and putting your gun to the bottom of his chin and shooting him…

Tatsunoko VS Capcom has been played alot recently, me and my brother have both gotten pretty good at the game – good enough to know how to air juggle , cancel into ultras, cancel ultras into ultras into ultimates… etc.
I used to think the game was really bland and standard, then after a discussion on sows i thought i should give it another try, they explained the game mechanics to me and i ended up watching an instructional video going through advanced game mechanics, showed it to my brother and Since then we’ve been having a blast with it – playing for an hour or so with the same characters each time sometimes.
If you have the game but havent really played it much, you should check this video out and maybe you’ll GET HYPE – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2iyi2pEwSY

On the xbox front ive been playing Army of two TFD (finished it on hardest recently) and trying to finish up Beautiful Katamari, ive got about 24 more items to find to get a full collection. Havent played any MW2 for a while, not really sure why.

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Anime bit :

Still watching Great Teacher Onizuka, dropped ‘kimi no todoke’ because it was too srs and just not very fun to watch
My latest find is ‘A certain scientific Railgun’ , set in a world where people have abilities and stuff. Feels abit like a japanese take on the lives of students in Xaviers school (x-men), except the school is an entire city. The anime itself is a nice blend of action and comedy, totally worth a watch.

University bit:

So, making some revision notes atm whilst listening to the remixed Wii Cave Story OST. Came across this prime example of why being a biology student sucks dick.

———–

“Pol III Accessory factors:-
Assembly factors:
- TF IIIA – Binds to C box
- TF IIIC – Binds to B Box, large subunit complex
Transcription factor:
- TF IIIB – Binds to A Box, multi subunit protein, composed of the TATA binding protein, TBP and other polypeptides.”

———-

What the fuck is wrong with you people! if it binds to ‘C Box’ , why not call that fucker ‘ TFIII C’ !
12 Exams coming, FML.

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Gaming bit:

In other news, Army of two 40th Day came today, pretty reasonable game – nothing mind blowing but its some good fun in split screen co-op, Which – aside from abit of anime or films, is the main way we bond.

I Hacked my Wii the other day with a little help from some online guides and a friend, one of my housemates has already hacked his wii so I had a little bit of what to expect and really basic stuff which i think helped somewhat. It was actually pretty easy to do, dump a bunch of stuff onto an SD card and then follow instructions. I still dont really understand A LOT of things about it though, there are tons of options and files which I dont really get, but im sure i’ll work it out eventually. Ive managed to get NSMBwii running off my USB stick for now, my brother went out and bought a wii motion plus and we ordered an external HDD which will hopefully be compatible with the console. With any luck we’ll be able to stick all the games on the HDD and everything will be dandy.

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Anime bit:

Started watching ‘G.T.O’ or Great Teacher Onizuka yesterday, didnt expect to end up getting a little carried away and watching 1/4 of the series (and its a 40something episode series too). Funny anime, although it has its fair share of serious bits too.

*sigh*

so one week into my holiday and I havent been out anywhere really, went to the carvery the other day for lunch and I went to tesco once with mum.

Life is so much more fun in Leamington with the housemates, which sort of makes me wonder – what is life going to be like after University finishes? Will i be doomed to loneliness in a boring job? They all live pretty far away from each other so I wont really be able to see them much.

So part of the reason I havent been out (aside from the fact ive few friends here) is that as usual, im swamped with work.
The vent lot will know this certainly isnt the first time ive been swamped with work – which reminds me , i should at least make more of an effort to get on vent while im on the 360.
Ive got exams for 12 modules coming up, each consisting of 15 lectures worth of material , ive been going through the lecture slides and notes and making condensed notes , the pharmacology module was around 18 pages at normal font size, molecular endocrinology is at 13 pages and im on lecture 10/15…

Ive got to make and learn 20 x 12 pages of information in about 2 months?
2nd year is supposed to be the hardest year thankfully, and its worth 30% of my entire degree and considering I got a shitty 2.2 in my first year I kinda wanna do well this year to make up for it. How fucking depressing.

So… anyone remember…  ‘£800 worth of software =/= good quality film.’
Well apparently thats a load of bullshit because our video won ‘Best Video’ award at the bioscience ‘WAFTAs’
Sooooo.. im pretty much made of win.

“he said all videos were 2.1 to high 1st and that crazy lady who also talked to us loved ours the best”
So surely that means our video is worth a High 1st right? Since its the best? RIGHT?!

Im pretty sure anony helped me at some point, so nigguh gets a mention fo being a beast.

In other news, My birthday present arrived yesterday, at last – Bayonetta!~
She’s so ridiculously over the top its brilliant.

Also, My term 2 workload is coming to an end, The 4 Lab reports (1500 words each) , 3 Lab Abstracts (250 words each) and Essay (3000 words) are almost done, I still need to polish up one of the lab reports and do one more lab abstract but other than that im almost in the clear!… Just in time for term 3 and final exam revision. Fucksake. T_T

Also, ‘obey the game’ is awesome and has amazing music. my highscore is level 105 (11.4x speed)

So last night decided to watch ‘Transporter 2′ because apparently I downloaded it ages ago in 720p , go me.
Film was actually amazing , I sort of forgot how awesome Jason Statham is (like i knew he was awesome , but not the level of awesome he presents in Transporter2).
This led to me checking out what other films he’s in on IMDB , this is when i came across a film called ‘The Expendables’….

The term ‘Holy shit’ doesnt really cover it really , a film with Stallone , Jet Li AND Jason Statham? The fuck. All it needs is ‘The Rock’ and it would be guaranteed ‘action film of the millenium’.

Going to watch Transporter 3 today at some point.. maybe now considering i just woke up and have nothing to do…. well… thats a lie , I have plenty of work to do but ugghhhhh.

Lab reports are really not something i want to do right now , they’re confusing and tbh since we did them up to 4 weeks ago i cant even remember the details of them that well anymore ~.~

Ive also recieved my next Essay title, due in on week 20 (March 18th) , the title is…
“Molecular diagnostics in medical microbiology : Yesterday , today and tomorrow’
Which is… idk… It doesnt sound particuarly nice but then again it doesnt sound TOO hard to write , surely its just researching molecular diagnostics in the past , where they are now and what they will be able to do in the future… I hope anyway