2021 Week 3

Monday: Today was successful; I started the penultimate assessment of the maths course, imaged another region of the hippocampus in my slices from last week, and rearranged this week's surgery slots to better fit my schedule. In case my next antibody arrives during the first half of this week, I'll write my email request for slices so that I can hit send as soon as I know it's arrived. In general, I was pleased to have put a wash on before 9am, and making my bed and washing my hair this evening between episodes of The West Wing wasn't too taxing. 

On Tuesday morning I had another successful surgery practice, but couldn't help feeling disappointed that I wasn't trying it for real. I made a little more maths progress and started working through the figures from the journal club article, which I finished reading today (Wednesday). I also finalised the plans for next week's surgery attempts and found the second week of the Programming for Biologists course very straightforward. This broccoli pasta dish I made for dinner will definitely be added to my rotations, it was the perfect way to use up the broccoli I had leftover from Sunday lunch!

The rest of the week was pleasantly productive, and over the weekend I made good progress on the final element of the maths course, as well as attending some fun online events.

2021 Week 2

When I began writing this post on Thursday, I was very pleased with my progress this week; my double staining protocol to identify pathological markers in brain tissue was going well, I had submitted my first of two conference abstracts, and I felt confident enough to retry recovery surgery for my EEG recording project next week. Two thirds of those things were resolved successfully, but I found out on Friday that the latter is effectively on hold until the current lockdown ends. I have been exceedingly grateful to be able to continue working during the tier 4 and lockdown restrictions, but the circumstances are not ideal for PhD projects that require lots of training like mine does. 

Outside of the lab, I baked this delicious marzipan loaf cake for the third time, which was even more moreish warmed along with poached plums.

I bought some reduced kale during my weekly shop, which motivated me to finally make this sausage and kale hash; it was so good I made it twice! I also made the most of a bunch of spring onions by making tasty Chinese and Greek-inspired recipes. I watched a few more films, including Castaway and La La Land right now, and concluded season 4 of The West Wing. 

I'll use next week to consolidate my surgery practice and notes, making sure I can get up and running as soon as possible after lockdown, and make a push towards completing the mathematics course. Onwards and upwards!

Just like that, it's 2021!

It's a new year and I'm feeling refreshed after using my student privileges to spend the festive period across the border. I'd been back in my uni city barely an hour when another round of national lockdowns were announced, but thankfully the labs are continuing to operate as they did in tier 4. After a negative lateral flow test result on Wednesday, I popped into the lab to check on my antibodies and transfer some piping to the animal unit. Today was very email heavy, but speaking to two of my supervisors was useful, and my plans for the next few weeks are taking shape nicely. 

I'm also trying hard to to improve my work-life balance from last year. Paradoxically, a lack of TV in the flat has made it easier to switch off in the evenings, because I now use my work laptop to watch TV and films. So far this week I've watched Point Break, Kingsman: The Golden Circle, Guardians of the Galaxy, and the first two episodes of Pretty Little Liars. Relaxation has also taken the form of making new recipes, including delicious spinach and ricotta gnudi and a healthier beef chilli recipe. This weekend I have my second test, and so long as it's negative, I'll pop into the lab to make a buffer ready for next week. 

Week in Review: 31st Aug to 4th Sept

Five-day weeks just fly by! This week was productive in some ways I hadn't envisaged, hence I only completed one of my aims, but I did so thoroughly, getting feedback from my supervisor on my poster and setting up a practice talk next week. 

I made a little progress on the other two aims by finding previous notes I'd written and completing one more exercise of the SysMIC course, but since I had a late start today, I'm going to spend a few hours on it at the weekend. I'd also like to read through all of the notes I've made to date and make sure I have copies of the papers before I do more summarising of my notes. 

I'm not planning to do more experiments next week because I'm off at the end of the week, but I will use a different imaging technique on the IHC samples I already have to hopefully improve the way the staining looks. I will also work towards resuming my original experiments by arranging training, writing a risk assessment and tying up the results from my previous project. 

Till the next time!

Week in review: 24th to 30th Aug

This turned into a 7-day week because I didn't get samples for IHC till Friday and they took three days to run, but I'm hoping to take a couple of shorter days during the coming week to make up for it! 

I achieved two of my aims from last week (the late start on Friday was justified by coming in both days this weekend!) I presented my IHC images and had a useful discussion about my experiments in the lab meeting on Thursday, which gave me more to concentrate on the past few days, but I managed it!

Organising my notes hasn't gone so smoothly, but I'm hoping to take a new approach inspired by a highly-relevant review article, which listed key findings in a table alongside specific references. This should help to build my awareness of which findings are consistently repeated, but I also need to be clearer about what my focus is: for example, I reviewed key findings in prion disease models last year, but do I want to keep that as a standalone or integrate it with findings from other models of neurodegenerative disease, and even the human condition? Also, the main technique in my PhD is electrophysiology, but I need to keep some focus on complementary techniques such as MRI, PET and calcium imaging.

As the new academic year is rapidly approaching, I'll also spend time this coming week working on my poster and turbo talk for the 2^nd year poster event at the end of September, as well as dedicating a couple of hours to finally finish part 6 of the SysMIC course, which I've been struggling with for most of this month! Till next time!

Week in review: 17th to 21st Aug

 As I continue doing my PhD in a "blended working" mode, I thought it might be useful to write (weekly?) blog posts to keep on top of what I've accomplished and define my main goals for the next week.

I haven't felt very productive this week despite going into the lab each day to run two antibody optimisation immunohistochemistry (IHC) experiments. My main struggle with the blended working model is that travelling to and from the lab now takes time out of the working day; even if I get in before 9am like in pre-pandemic times, most days I only have a couple of hours of work to do, so my walk home feels like dead time. I've been working later to make these 20-odd minutes up, a strategy my partner questioned when we video chatted this week, as arbitrarily working for a bit longer won't necessarily improve my productivity, especially if I'm wishing the time away so that I can get dinner or watch TV. I think instead I'll keep going if I'm really engaged in something, or take an hour or so after dinner one night to catch up.

I've also felt bad about taking time out to make more elaborate lunches, but I remind myself that I'm entitled to a lunch break, and eating a homemade soup or salad spurs me on for the rest of the day. Moreover, there was always "dead time" during my day, I just didn't see it as such when I was buying coffee or waiting outside my supervisor's office! Today I made a tasty spicy carrot soup before returning to the lab to image my IHC slides.

In terms of what I've actually accomplished this week, it's been mostly a deep dive into A-level mathematics which, as earlier blog posts show, I did not study. In April, I started a distance learning course called SysMIC, which provides mathematics and computing training to bioscientists. My experience with MATLAB software helped me through the first few topics, but the second session of Calculus has been a struggle, with the explanations of differentiation going way over my head. I ended up on Khan Academy, where video demonstrations and proofs have made it start to make sense. I worked through the course while my slides were washing, thankful that (mostly) good weather meant I could study outside and not occupy precious office space. 

Goals for next week: 

• Consistently get up at the time my alarm goes off!
• Organise notes on papers I've read recently
• Clarify experimental design for future IHC experiments

'Till next time!

A-level playing field?

Today, six years on from the day I received my A-level results, another cohort was just awarded their grades. Unlike those of us who came before, this year's crop weren't able to sit exams to earn the results, but have to settle for widely-criticised moderated grades, which were lower than teachers' estimates in almost 40% of cases. I can't help wondering what might've happened to myself and other high achievers at my school had the distribution of our grades depended on the school's past performance and largely ignored our own individual trajectories to GCSE and AS. 

I also wonder whether the bitter disappointment felt by so many this year would have been lessened if AS exams still counted towards the final A-level grade, because that would've allowed other forms of mitigation, such as students not dropping more than one or two grades below their AS result. I appreciate that there was not time to administer a replacement formal measure of progress over the 18 months of A-level education completed before schools closed, and not everybody would have achieved as highly as predicted, but surely there could have been a mechanism to submit work that the centre-assessed grades were based on for moderation instead?

Shifting the entire group based on performance of previous cohorts does not seem fair, particularly when many university places won't be held in time for appeals based on meaningful individual factors, such as mock grades. These results influence the course of lives, so it is unfathomable to me that pupils were marked down simply because a lower proportion of previous years' students achieved high grades.