WED, 1st Nov 2017
The most soul-destroying sound on Earth has to be the default iPhone alarm that greets me every morning at 7am.
I go to bed with the best of intentions to have an early night but with my mandatory scroll through Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook and endless YouTube spiral (predominantly about food) it rarely happens.
The end result is a rather bleary-eyed, groggy me that tumbles out of bed in the morning. Nevertheless, there’s always time for tea and a quick breakfast before I’m dressed and out the door.
This year has been rather interesting as I’m not as bound by a fixed timetable as most medics are. Intercalating sure has its perks (shameless BMSc plug)!
9am:
On Wednesdays however, I’m in for 3 hours of lectures from 9am-12pm in the Medical School. Its long and laborious but its distinctly different from the traditional lectures I’m used to. There are only 9 of us doing the Cardiovascular Medicine and Diabetes BMSc so it’s more of a tutorial style class. We sort through various cell signalling pathways, proteins I’ve never heard of and research papers.
12pm:
After class I gather what’s left of my brain (now a lot more like mush) and rush off to the wards to meet my supervisor who I’m conducting a project with. I won’t deny I do miss being a medical student and having access to wards and seeing patients during my BMSc year, albeit just passing through, is a welcome reminder of the familiar.
When you work in labs you quickly realise your schedule is dictated by your protocol, hence on some days I stop by (lab days are Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays) to get the next step in for the right timeframes.
1pm:
Then it’s time to grab a quick lunch and head back to campus for the Global Health Challenge meeting. Until 5pm in the evening we discuss, debate and share what we’ve learnt since the last meeting to get us further in our project. It’s been incredibly enlightening to work with students from different faculties who work in such different ways. It’s a space that allows us to bring different life experiences and viewpoints to the table to work on issues that are common to everyone. A massive plus point here: tea and cake
5pm:
It’s been a long day, and I’m getting a little weary. I head back home and sit down with, quite predictably, another mug of tea. I really enjoy being able to do things outside my course subject and being able to meet people with different ways of working. It sounds terribly cliche, but in my 4th year of university as some of my friends slowly prepare to graduate, its become apparent how special university life is and the many opportunities at our fingertips to grow and learn.
Well now there’s time to get the laundry in, make dinner (fuelled by my recipes off YouTube), get some reading done for classes and get into bed with an episode of Stranger Things or whatever Netflix decides to suggest next..
Thankfully, not all days are as long! I spend a lot of my time at the moment in the labs in Ninewells or in the library. I would love to hear about what you’re most excited about in your week – or what you’re watching on Netflix!
Until next time x