Random rant and update

Hey guys,

Omg I'm so knackered from that exam, I have no energy in me to do work for my next exam and practical work. The exam went okay-ish. Not as bad as I expected but not as well as I hoped either. Hopefully the result are out next week. 

If I get a 2.1 in this, then I know I'm cut out for this. 

Next exam is next Thursday and there's a 50 mark piece if work due on Monday. 

This year has been an interesting road to self discovery, one journey I didn't even know I was taking, at the age of 20 I learned who I am, who I'm not, who I'd like to be and where I stand and most of all my worth and most of all to be more open to people. Which my best friend from uni hates lol because she feels as though I talk to anyone and gets jealous. Haha I had to call you out dude, you know I love you :p

Maybe I'll post a blog called '20' just before my birthday. 

I've been trying to keep it to myself that I'm performing at an open mic event and well today I find out almost all of my friends from uni and the ISOC are going. Dayum. Everyone's going to know I do poetry, which will kind of compliment what I said in my last post. Where I said I want it in a more interactive space. Now I feel nervous. 

Man I need to find a gym pronto, too much junk food mixed with me sitting down for so long means that any abs that were ever there at some point this summer are gone. 

 

My thoughts don't have any commitment right now lol, just jumping from one topic to another so uglyly? That's not even a word. 

Random rant and update over, 

Peace out 

Amina 

3 days before the proteins exam

Hello readers, 

This will be a really quick post today, a) because I have an exam around the corner and b) I don't really have anything interesting to say. 

so it's almost university week 7, which is when my midterms for the proteins module is. And I probably have done more maths in these 7 weeks than I have done in my entire AS maths year (slight exaggeration but it most certainly feels like that) 

Enzyme kinetics is not a joking matter, I spent a couple weeks understanding how to derive each equation and then in the next lecture notes there's some more maths. I've just started the 5th lecture out of a series of 6 which is on allostery. It's 2 am so I have no idea how much will stick.

Enzyme kinetics is just one half, the other half is protein and amino acid purification, that's not too bad. I mean it did take me a while before I could purify an unknown protein on a simulation called proteinlab but all is well in that department i think. The exam is this Tuesday *bites nails* 

On top of that I have 2 questions worth 30 marks in total to hand in on Monday and I haven't even had a look at it yet, in that module I guess I have room to mess one piece of work up (not that i want to) so if I get like a 2.2 (C)in it I think it'll still average a first (A).Not a risk I want to take but yh. My life has literally been the library almost everyday so there isn't anything new for me to post. Oh I may be performing at a spoken word event next week. Looking forward to that. I've been thinking about something I could do with my poetry lately, to express it to a platform that is interactive, unlike my blog. But right now I'm just drained to be honest, it's so hard to balance everything that I want to do. I need to really sort out my time properly because after a couple years I don't want to look back and regret. 

One thing that did happen this Wednesday was I went to sleep in the prayer room lol. 

I literally had 3-4 hours of sleep the night before and after doing work for an hour I couldn't stay awake, i went to the prayer room way before it was time to pray. Lied in the corner and set an alarm. To my surprise I actually slept comfortably and felt better after. 

Anyway that's enough procrastinating from me for now, till next week inshaAllah.

Take care, 

Amina :)

A week in the life of a second year biochemistry student

Hey wassup readers,

I hope you're all doing well. Since the point of this whole blog is about telling prospective students how it is. I shall break down this very hard week.

Monday, as with almost every Monday I had to give in a report, this one was about the gel electrophoresis picture that I posted sometime last week. that was due at 2pm so I strolled into uni late. around 12 ish and was going through some finishing touches with my friend who was also my lab partner. we realised we accumulated some mistakes along the way and had to sort a lot out.
this resulted in us printing the work at bang on 2 and turning up 5 mins late to the practical itself. consequently missing the instructions for that practical. its Saturday now, the work is due on Monday and I still have no clue, simply because of 5 minutes. it's sad really. Life's unpredictable.
after the practical and after eating we had a study session in the library covering enzyme kinetics, or shall I say trying to cover enzyme kinetics. My poor maths skills let me down on a couple of equations.

Tuesday: normally I have a 9 am lecture which finishes at 11, followed by a tutorial which is then followed by a workshop. This week I skipped the tutorial and workshop and went to a society meeting instead. Because I hadn't covered the material I didn't see the point of me attempting questions. The society meeting lasted for about an hour, the student union had called for a meeting with all the societies and because im the secretary of the biological society I went. After that, this is 1 ish now. I started to finalise things with the gym and some girls, because im trying to make a girls only gym hour at the uni gym.
Following this, I started to research some prospective companies and speakers for an event I want to plan with the BioSoc.
And then I went to teach, it was a nice finish to a long day because on Tuesdays I teach my nephew. And he amazes me with his writing skills (MashaAllah) I wouldn't be surprised if he became a writer. No, I'm not trying to be biased.

Wednesday: This technically is my day off but I went into uni to try work on Mondays practical work and enzyme kinetics again. I understood and worked on more of enzyme kinetics, and made some neat notes. It doesn't sound like much but I was literally in the library for like 5 hours :/
Thankfully when me and my friend took a break there was a talk about Malcolm X and racism that we went to, this led to some sort of debate. Which was nice, but it wasn't my cup of tea.

Thursday: I went to uni quite late again because my lecture didn't start until 2. I got to uni around 12. this time me and a couple more friends tried to make sense of the work, not one of us understood it. When we did go to see our demonstrator she said she was busy and to email her. So we just went to the lecture instead. Thursday lectures are really long, theyre timetabled from 2-6 but most lecturers finish around 5 thankfully. Following this I went to an Islamic society event which I was looking forward to. This was literally the highlight of my week. The talk was very motivational, just what I needed. And I've met some more wonderful people. I got home around 10 pm for the 3rd time this week. Which would then lead to today

Friday: For the sake of my sanity I had a lazy day, I've done nothing university related at all. Just lounged around listening to poetry and watching TV. I honestly think the stress is getting to me, I've got a cold for the second time in 4 weeks.

Saturday: My Saturdays just make me cry, 9.30-11.30 I have Arabic lessons. 2-5 I have mosque, 5.30-7.00 Im teaching, the hours for teaching aren't even very formal and they do over run the majority of time, because were family friends etc etc.

Sunday: again I have mosque from 9-11, teaching 11.30-1.40, then again 6-8. This sunday though i'll be meeting up with a friend I haven't seen in a very long time. Looking forward to it inshaAllah.

That's literally my life right now as a second year, on top of that theres alsmo applying for placements. I've applied to 5 places so far and the status is still 'considering'. But I have this horrible gut feeling that I'm going to be rejected. Because for one of the positions the interview date is the 10th. If I was going to have an interview i'd be informed by now. *bites finger nails*
inshaAllah I hope it all goes well.

And waheey, I now have readers in Australia?

Clearing things up

Hey guys, 

I understand I may have caused some confusion on my results day blog about biomed. Well basically I wanted to change to biomed because I could then become a hospital biochemist faster and easier. However after I shadowed a biomedical scientist at a hospital, I didn't like it at all. 

So I have stuck with biochemistry. And after my 2 work experiences this summer I have more of an idea what exactly that I want to do. I want to do something research based that's hands on. And hopefully if I get a placement year that's appropriate I will know if that's what I want to do for the long term. 

Therefore, I am still a biochemist, only difference is I'm slightly less confused.

Have you noticed my posts are shorter this year? That's because 1- I don't really have the time to write a massive post and 2- I got the blogger app on my phone. So I can post shorter blogs more frequently as I commute etc.

That's all for now folks, I'll see you soon inshaAllah