So, this week has gone by incredibly fast. Too fast for me to even appreciate what it was. This week, was the last week of term. This week I went to my last lecture, handing in my last essay, and turned in my last piece of course work in my undergraduate career. Unfortunately, I'm not done just yet. My last undergraduate exam is on June 2 and then I will officially be done. Unless I really screw those two exams up, I will graduate in July and leave Aberdeen in August.
It's hard for me to believe that it's almost over and that I won't be here in three months. I'm...sad. And excited. And scared. There are a lot of feelings swimming around in my head right now, but "sad" is definitely the front runner. I knew that it probably wouldn't be forever, but I still can't believe that four years is almost up. How do I move four years of things? How do I leave four years of relationships? I suppose everyone has to do it at some point in their life, but Aberdeen has been my home for four years...I just can't imagine leaving it.
I think maybe it would be easier if I weren't going back to the states. Keeping up friendships across seas is difficult. And I have some good friends here. Friend that I have no intention of losing. I've been going over it in my mind and I honestly don't want to leave because of some of the friends I've made here.
Anyway, enough of all of the reflection. Currently, it is what it is. I will be leaving in August and heading back stateside. Maybe I'll be back in the UK for good some day. I'd like that. But it's not now. Time to look to the future. The friends who are meant to stay friends will.
Showing posts with label Fourth Year. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fourth Year. Show all posts
Friday, May 16, 2014
Friday, November 15, 2013
Half Way of Half Way
So, here it is at the tail end of week 7 of classes. Each semester is 12 weeks of class, so that means that I'm half way done with the first half of my last year as an undergraduate student. (OK, technically it means that I'm more than half way done, but you all understand what I mean right?) So, what have I been doing these past 7 weeks? Actually, that's a pretty good question. I'm not sure I even know.
I know I've been going to class. I have two core psychology classes; Vision & Action and Advanced Topics in Language. The first half of the vision lectures were all about visual impairments due to brain lesions (really cool stuff guys...the brain is amazing) and we'll be getting into the 'action' portion of the series next week. And we've just gotten through with dyslexia and other language disorders and have moved onto sign language in the psycho-linguistics class. All in all, I'm enjoying my lecture choices in psychology. What is either a hit or a miss depending on the lecturer is my "extended studies" class; An Appetite for Food and Health. It's all about food...and health. I guess the topic itself is pretty interesting, but some of those lecturers were pretty bad.
I also know that I've been working on my undergraduate thesis. I can't really say what it's about just yet as I don't know if some of my friends who have agreed to take part in the study are reading, but I can say that it's visual psycho-physics. It's a dense topic, but I'm slowly understanding it and should get my ethics in today (fingers crossed) which means that I can start testing next week...you know, as long as the ethics committee approves it.
And I've started up with tae kwon do. I wanted to join up in first year and then for some reason, never did. So, I did this year. I'm having a good time with it and it means that two times a week I get to punch a pad repetitively which I've found to be a great relaxer.
Oh, something that did happen last week was that I got pretty sick. It was terribly. I hate getting sick and I hate it even more, I've discovered, when my parents aren't around (I know, almost 3 1/2 years in Scotland and I've only been sick once). Unfortunately, I was unable to get to the bathroom in time and ended up ruining a bunch of journal articles and notes for both my critical review and my thesis which I had been reading before bed and mistakenly left on the floor...never again. It's actually the worst feeling in the world waking up the morning after having terrible food poisoning or the worst stomach bug of your life, being ordered on bed rest, and then realising that as you were cleaning up the night before those paper you threw away were ALL notes for large pieces of work. I may have cried a little. Or a lot. You know. I'm still chasing down some of the articles I had for my thesis, but think I've mostly got the Critical Review covered. At least I hope it's covered.
Oh, what's my Critical Review on? Well, that's a post for another day as it's pretty long. Probably Monday when I really start writing it all down. That way I'll know if I can explain it properly.
Also, I've decided to start something called "Soapbox Saturdays". You see, I'm a highly opinionated person. I may not always have the time to research issues that come up on a daily basis so I tend to stay pretty quiet about my own ideas. I don't often grab my soapbox and start a speech because I know that I don't have time to research these issues so I don't want to say something stupid, but also because I have an obsessive personality. I don't let things go (hey, at least I admit it right?), so on those rare occasions I do grab my soapbox, I find myself unable to sleep at night because I'm thinking about what I said. So, I've decided to grab my soapbox once a week and post it up here. Not a lot of people read my blog so I figure I can get my rants out there without offending too many people. Not that the point of this is to offend anyone. I'm of the opinion that everyone is entitled to their own...well, opinion and I'm pretty open minded and love hearing other people's points of view. So, this won't be to tell anyone that they are wrong or stupid or ignorant, it's just a way for me to get my ideas out there so I can stop obsessing over them.
I know I've been going to class. I have two core psychology classes; Vision & Action and Advanced Topics in Language. The first half of the vision lectures were all about visual impairments due to brain lesions (really cool stuff guys...the brain is amazing) and we'll be getting into the 'action' portion of the series next week. And we've just gotten through with dyslexia and other language disorders and have moved onto sign language in the psycho-linguistics class. All in all, I'm enjoying my lecture choices in psychology. What is either a hit or a miss depending on the lecturer is my "extended studies" class; An Appetite for Food and Health. It's all about food...and health. I guess the topic itself is pretty interesting, but some of those lecturers were pretty bad.
I also know that I've been working on my undergraduate thesis. I can't really say what it's about just yet as I don't know if some of my friends who have agreed to take part in the study are reading, but I can say that it's visual psycho-physics. It's a dense topic, but I'm slowly understanding it and should get my ethics in today (fingers crossed) which means that I can start testing next week...you know, as long as the ethics committee approves it.
And I've started up with tae kwon do. I wanted to join up in first year and then for some reason, never did. So, I did this year. I'm having a good time with it and it means that two times a week I get to punch a pad repetitively which I've found to be a great relaxer.
Oh, something that did happen last week was that I got pretty sick. It was terribly. I hate getting sick and I hate it even more, I've discovered, when my parents aren't around (I know, almost 3 1/2 years in Scotland and I've only been sick once). Unfortunately, I was unable to get to the bathroom in time and ended up ruining a bunch of journal articles and notes for both my critical review and my thesis which I had been reading before bed and mistakenly left on the floor...never again. It's actually the worst feeling in the world waking up the morning after having terrible food poisoning or the worst stomach bug of your life, being ordered on bed rest, and then realising that as you were cleaning up the night before those paper you threw away were ALL notes for large pieces of work. I may have cried a little. Or a lot. You know. I'm still chasing down some of the articles I had for my thesis, but think I've mostly got the Critical Review covered. At least I hope it's covered.
Oh, what's my Critical Review on? Well, that's a post for another day as it's pretty long. Probably Monday when I really start writing it all down. That way I'll know if I can explain it properly.
Also, I've decided to start something called "Soapbox Saturdays". You see, I'm a highly opinionated person. I may not always have the time to research issues that come up on a daily basis so I tend to stay pretty quiet about my own ideas. I don't often grab my soapbox and start a speech because I know that I don't have time to research these issues so I don't want to say something stupid, but also because I have an obsessive personality. I don't let things go (hey, at least I admit it right?), so on those rare occasions I do grab my soapbox, I find myself unable to sleep at night because I'm thinking about what I said. So, I've decided to grab my soapbox once a week and post it up here. Not a lot of people read my blog so I figure I can get my rants out there without offending too many people. Not that the point of this is to offend anyone. I'm of the opinion that everyone is entitled to their own...well, opinion and I'm pretty open minded and love hearing other people's points of view. So, this won't be to tell anyone that they are wrong or stupid or ignorant, it's just a way for me to get my ideas out there so I can stop obsessing over them.
Saturday, October 12, 2013
The Peach Body Wash
Unfortunately, we lost one of our flatmates this year. She decided to move out of our house and into a flat with some different friends. I won't say that I didn't see it coming, but I will say that I am sorry at how it all turned out.
But we thankfully found a new flatmate, a friend of ours. She's very sweet and is technically in our year, but because she had to spend a year in France for her degree, she has to do third year here as well.
She had moved in her stuff to the bathroom in a nice basket on the windowsill. In Marlene's words "she was nosy and happily poked through the basket". She said she found some peach body wash in the basket from The Body Shop which smelled amazing. Now, I just though this was Marlene being hyperbolic albeit she isn't hyperbolic all that often. But Marlene has a poor sense of smell so I just figured that it was strong enough for her to smell, but not so strong that it was overpowering. I thought nothing of it for a couple of days.
Then thee was a knock at the door and I receive not one, but two parcels from The Body Shop online store. One was for Marlene and the other for Alice. Marlene talked about the peach wash and said that after she smelled it she just had to have it. Again, I thought little of this. I mean, how good could a body wash smell right? Really, couldn't be that good.
That night Alice took a shower.
I think that evening our bathroom turned into heaven. Seriously, that smell must be what heaven smells like. It was like...raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens. It was like all the familiar and comfortable things from your childhood in one small bottle of body wash.
I had to have this shower gel.
I've been a little lazy lately. Haven't been sleeping well, the whys are of little importance. What is important is that this means that weekends have been particularly slow for me (and that I have had to rush to class and work, but I'm sure this next week I'll be better). So, for a week I have been dreaming about this smell just waiting for the day that I would be able to smell it again. Today, I was able to get up and out and take a trip to The Body Shop.
But, I couldn't find the peach stuff when I got there! I was sad and disheartened at the prospect that I had missed the limited edition peach scent. But I did find some lovely massage oil and I've had this horrible crick in my neck and tight knot in my shoulder that I just can't get out. So, a ten pound bottle of massage oil was small change if I could make my back feel better. When I got to the till, they told me that it was buy 1 get 1 half off on body care. I had to ask. Did they have any of the peach!?
They did! *cue the happy dance* They brought up all the peach products, but because I didn't want to spend my whole paycheck on peach body care stuff, I had to choose. So I got myself some lovely, overpriced peach body scrub. I don't even care that it was overpriced because I have that smell.
Three out of four of us have something peachy from The Body Shop. Surely we'll convert the fourth soon.
But we thankfully found a new flatmate, a friend of ours. She's very sweet and is technically in our year, but because she had to spend a year in France for her degree, she has to do third year here as well.
She had moved in her stuff to the bathroom in a nice basket on the windowsill. In Marlene's words "she was nosy and happily poked through the basket". She said she found some peach body wash in the basket from The Body Shop which smelled amazing. Now, I just though this was Marlene being hyperbolic albeit she isn't hyperbolic all that often. But Marlene has a poor sense of smell so I just figured that it was strong enough for her to smell, but not so strong that it was overpowering. I thought nothing of it for a couple of days.
Then thee was a knock at the door and I receive not one, but two parcels from The Body Shop online store. One was for Marlene and the other for Alice. Marlene talked about the peach wash and said that after she smelled it she just had to have it. Again, I thought little of this. I mean, how good could a body wash smell right? Really, couldn't be that good.
That night Alice took a shower.
I think that evening our bathroom turned into heaven. Seriously, that smell must be what heaven smells like. It was like...raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens. It was like all the familiar and comfortable things from your childhood in one small bottle of body wash.
I had to have this shower gel.
I've been a little lazy lately. Haven't been sleeping well, the whys are of little importance. What is important is that this means that weekends have been particularly slow for me (and that I have had to rush to class and work, but I'm sure this next week I'll be better). So, for a week I have been dreaming about this smell just waiting for the day that I would be able to smell it again. Today, I was able to get up and out and take a trip to The Body Shop.
But, I couldn't find the peach stuff when I got there! I was sad and disheartened at the prospect that I had missed the limited edition peach scent. But I did find some lovely massage oil and I've had this horrible crick in my neck and tight knot in my shoulder that I just can't get out. So, a ten pound bottle of massage oil was small change if I could make my back feel better. When I got to the till, they told me that it was buy 1 get 1 half off on body care. I had to ask. Did they have any of the peach!?
They did! *cue the happy dance* They brought up all the peach products, but because I didn't want to spend my whole paycheck on peach body care stuff, I had to choose. So I got myself some lovely, overpriced peach body scrub. I don't even care that it was overpriced because I have that smell.
Three out of four of us have something peachy from The Body Shop. Surely we'll convert the fourth soon.
Been A While
It's been a while since my last post. Last year wasn't my easiest of years, emotionally or mentally. So I've been a little MIA online recently. But, a nice rest at home for the summer and I'm...well I'm getting better.
I did fairly well on my exams last semester. I could have done better overall in the classes if I had been completely present, but I did well enough to be comfortably sitting on a 2:1 if this year goes well and a 1st if I do extra amazing this year. I'm definitely going to try.
I'm currently working on my undergrad thesis in visual psychophysics. I unfortunately can't explain much about the experiment itself because I'm still working on the ethics to begin running it and I can't have people read this then take part in the experiment. But I can say that I am looking more into S-cones. I love S-cones. They are weird, quirky, little things. Much different that L- or M-cones. Anyway, I'm excited about it and my adviser is really proactive and helpful. I've hear of a few classmates who keep trying to get in touch with their supervisors and mine responds to my emails within a couple of hours at the most. Long story short: she's awesome.
Can't believe that I'm already 1/6th of the way through my first semester of my final year at University.
I did fairly well on my exams last semester. I could have done better overall in the classes if I had been completely present, but I did well enough to be comfortably sitting on a 2:1 if this year goes well and a 1st if I do extra amazing this year. I'm definitely going to try.
I'm currently working on my undergrad thesis in visual psychophysics. I unfortunately can't explain much about the experiment itself because I'm still working on the ethics to begin running it and I can't have people read this then take part in the experiment. But I can say that I am looking more into S-cones. I love S-cones. They are weird, quirky, little things. Much different that L- or M-cones. Anyway, I'm excited about it and my adviser is really proactive and helpful. I've hear of a few classmates who keep trying to get in touch with their supervisors and mine responds to my emails within a couple of hours at the most. Long story short: she's awesome.
Can't believe that I'm already 1/6th of the way through my first semester of my final year at University.
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