The start of my final year

My final year started off very busy, and this Sunday is the first weekend I’ve had time to relax for more than a mere few hours in about a month.

I find the structure of my course unusual and pretty demanding, even veering on impossible if I were to actually attempt and do everything I should be doing. There are lectures on throughout Monday and Friday, each belonging to 1 of my two course blocks for this year. On both days, each week, a lecturer gives us 1 or 2 articles to read for a feedback session the next week, when we prepare a presentation or replies to key points about the paper. However pretty much the only time available for this is the weekend, as we work in labs on our individual Honours projects throughout the rest of the week from 9am to 5pm. In addition to that we have essay submissions and graded tutorials, so pretty much the only thing saving my skin at the moment is that the final exams from courses in both terms will be clumped into a few weeks in the April/May exam diet, meaning I can focus more on writing up my dissertation and the oral presentation of my project in December.

That being said, I can’t remember the last time I’ve consistently been having this much fun, and I’m already starting to regret that I don’t have a few more years to spend at this wonderful university. My study here has literally changed my life and I wouldn’t trade it for anyplace else.  As of fourth year, I’ve been allocated to an amazing lab for my Honours project and am currently working on examining the effect of a specific mutation in phototropin 1 (phot1) on its kinase activity. Phototropin 1 is a plant protein involved in phototropism, or light-directed movement. The mutation I’m studying has unusual effects on phot1, which in turn has interesting consequences for other proteins interacting with it and finally the function of mutated plants. This is the first time I’ve been this excited by the results of the research I’ve been doing, and I can’t wait to find out more about the mutation, even though I have just about 2 more weeks to finish the project.  

This year I made the auditions for Principal Flute in the Kelvin Ensemble, which finally gives me the much-needed motivation to practice along with oodles of stress every time our conductor notices that I made a mistake in Tchaikovsky 4. This has been my most successful year as of yet as the Treasurer – we have more available funds than ever before, the committee is working beautifully, and everything simply seems to be going smoother than last year.

The Karate Club is changing, especially this year after joining Satori Martial Arts. I’m doing my best to be an active Club Captain, and even though there are still a plethora of issues to be resolved, our training quality has steadily been improving, along with the attendance of our members. We now have additional trainer-led gym sessions on Sundays, raising the total number of in-university sessions to 4 a week. I’ve been working closely with our trainers and committee so we can deliver the best training sessions possible to students, and we are constantly improving them. It’s gruelling, especially so with SSS coming up in just 3 weeks’ time, but I genuinely enjoy helping to improve the club and look forward to our future events.

 

 

 

 

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