20/9
- I had a three hour workshop, and a three hour prac.
- In the workshop, we completed an 'online quiz' on nucleic acids, for my bioorganic chem unit. Alongside the quiz, we also had to submit a 'report' about DNA and it's interactions with some drugs. This was a fairly fun workshop, as one of the tasks was
flaling attempting to do 'DNA origami'- this proved challenging for myself and some of my friends! This finished early, so to treat myself (you should always treat yo'self, regardless) I had my first ever slurpee, and then escaped to get a burrito!
(The video we used to make the origami:
https://youtu.be/_EYBNB5ouiU)
- In the prac for my physical chemistry unit, we were making emulsions. This was an interesting prac, as we were working in groups for 4-5 to make 8 emulsions. (Emulsions are dispersions of one liquid in another liquid, where it isn't soluble or miscible, with the use of surfactants or other emulsifying agents). This was fairly tiring and exhaustive, as not only did it take forever to mix the emulsions using falcon tubes and a vortex mixer (which feels weird imo). We finished the prac on time, however I volunteered for my group to take the lab report home and fix it up, as we had until 9am this morning to hand it in.
21/09
- I got to uni at 7:40 to finish said lab report from yesterday. I also had a physiology lab, 2 lectures and a whole class tute.
- After walking up the stairs (2 floors up- I was in the common room- fave spot on campus/10) to the lab report submission boxes, I went for a large coffee so that I wouldn't fade during the day
- My physiology lab today was about sensory physiology. This encompasses the eyes, ears, nose and taste. Some of tests we did in class were the vision ones (such as the astigmatism test- a round circle, and the standard visual acuity one- think about the letters going from really big to really small and that's the one) and hearing (such as the location of a clicking sound, when the eyes are closed, and a sound frequency test). We finished early, so to soak up some of the lovely weather, a group of us went down the Yarra River and chilled- with donuts from Walker's (across from Flinders St Station- at the top of Elizabeth St) (we had to walk down from Collins street, as a tram ahead of us got derailed, but the exercise was nice!)
- I also had a bioorganic chem lecture- we were looking at the perspectives of medicinal chemistry- specifically DNA and binding sites. It was an interesting lecture, as the lecturer brought in a random toy monkey for no reason (he has a really eclectic personality).
- My second lecture of the day was another FormSci lecture- this time we were looking at a case study- propofol and a prodrug of propofol. Propofol (aka Diprivan) is a pretty common anaesthetic (or so I've been told haha!). This made for another really interesting lecture!
- My whole class tute was the last event of the day, which was for physiology. In this tute, we were introduced to our week 12 assessment- a debate. This will be an interesting assessment for me (worth 10% of my physiol mark), as I've never debated before (as far as I can remember anyways haha). We got to choose our debating groups, and I'm super glad I'm working with 3 of my friends for it!