Cheryl's Blog!

Sorry I've not been around much - I've been rather poorly over the last week or so. But as soon as I'm back to full strrength I'll be back with a vengance; and that includes scanning all your blogs and adding my extremely useful comments (as ever)!

Hopefully I'll be back soon.

Cheryl
xx

Free Ice Cream?! I'm there!

Just so that everyone knows, Ben and Jerry's are giving away free ice cream to everyone who donates blood during their tour; a few of the dates have already gone, but there are some left. I'm lucky - I'm due to give again in November anyway, just when they arrive in Durham!! Mmmmm....ice cream...

So everyone needs to get their bums down to their local university - hey, if I can go and give blood, everyone can!

Cheryl

P.S. Sign up for bone marrow donation as well while you're there!

CG
xx

Phew!
Long long week! And sooooo tough for me because there's such a difference between undergraduate and postgraduate research. I'm used to sitting down and being talked at for 4 hours - now I just wander in whenever I feel like it and do whatever I fancy!! It's bizarre. The next couple of weeks I'm expected to just follow a few other members of the group around, see how things work, see the types of experiments and stuff I'll be doing. But to be honest I'm not much for doing that! I like direction, I like to know where I'm going, and what I need to do to get there - I'm so keen to get a plan together and really get my teeth into this project! If anyone's interested, my title is:

The Role of Keratin 15 in the Maintenance of the Epidermal Stem Cell Compartment

Sounds quite complicated doesn't it?! If anyone's remotely interested in what this means, just ask, I'll go into a little more detail!
Actually, that reminds me...I started my induction lectures today and there are a series of training courses on communicating science to the general public which I'm really keen to do - it includes working with teachers and school children too so I think I'd like to do that!
Here is a picture of a hair follicle...

Anyway, hope everyone else is keeping well...I've still been reading your blogs so I'm pretty sure you are!

Cheryl xx

...As I mentioned before, my PhD starts tomorrow and I'm now getting a bit nerv-y! I mean, I know I'm staying at the same uni, but it's at a different campus with different people and doing a PhD is going to be soooooo different from an undergraduate degree! It's just a little scary, and I know that I'll be walking for the bus tomorrow with my tummy full of butterflies!

So who's got some idea's on beating first-day nerves?!

Cheryl
xx

Greetings fellow bloggers!

Just a short note really...to tell you all I passed my IBMS assessment! Yeay!
My assessor said that I would make a very very good biomedical scientist...I decided not to upet the apple cart and tell him that I was actually starting a PhD on Monday! I just grinned a lot at the complement!

He first sat down with me for the informal chit-chat bit...he asks me what I liked and didn't like about my training and which aspect I most enjoyed, that sort of thing, then I had to give him a 30 minute tour of the lab. This one was a bit tricky...as I'm sure most of you have established my now, I do have a tendancy to go on a bit, and theres lots of things I wanted to squeeze into that 30 minute tour! I probably went on for a bit longer than that, but he was asking questions as we went round too. After that the poor assessor had to sit and read through my portfolio - not an enviable job! It's not very interesting; basically the portfolio asks you a bunch of questions, and your answers determine your suitability to working in a medical laboratory. So, like I said, not very interesting.
Once he's worked his way through that, the assessor calls you back for another chit-chat, firstly to tell you whether you've passedor not, then what you could have improved on and what your training lab could do better on. And that was it!

I'm so pleased I've passed...I'm not a trainee any more!

Hope everyone else is having just as good a day too!

Happy Cheryl
xx