Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Aww, too much work :(

Like the title says, TOO. MUCH. WORK. That being said, I have gone out and had fun. And I even have a few restaurant reviews coming up (although no pictures, sorry)!
I have been trying, and trying, and TRYING to get this behavioral pharmacology experiment hammered down. But the snails don't want to work and the statistics aren't significant. So I'll give it one more shot. And if it doesn't work this time (AND the snails are actually working, so it can't be animals flaws) then I will cry many many tears and have to completely revamp my research ideas. The snails forced me to go into work last weekend and I'll have to again this weekend. So it'll be awhile before I have a day off from work. But (hopefully) all of this hard work will pay off and I will be able to have some down time where I can write up my research, instead of physically researching.
Since we are on the research path- let me tell you the exciting news! While the behavioral experiments aren't working, the electron microscopy experiment is working BEAUTIFULLY. And my first electron microscope experiment is officially done. I just have lots of analysis and write-up. Then, I get to take my results in different directions which I am VERY happy about! So even though the behavior aspect might fail, I can still make something work with the pathway I've taken.
Besides the actual researching, I had another professional skills course on Monday- which was actually good! They gave me a program to keep track of "employable" skills and examples of them. Its great and got me thinking more long term; it also helped me realize certain skills that are lacking for me. There was another skills course on Thursday for using Zotero, which is a bibliographic tool. I definitely want to use Zotero as opposed to EndNote (which I'm using now). However, I need to actually get everything transferred between programs.
Besides work, last week was quite enjoyable (as I'm expecting this week to be as well!). Last Tuesday was, of course, Fat Tuesday. And while I didn't have any Cajun food ( :[ ), I did celebrate the British version of Fat Tuesday- Pancake Day! A few of my friends got together to have savory crepes for dinner and sweet pancakes for dessert. Delicious and perfectly fatty! I also went out to eat three nights in a row this past week- which was a little ridiculous, but SO much fun. AND SO DELICIOUS!
First restaurant review: Little Bay. It is a baby chain, as in it has a few other restaurants in London. However, since it just moved to Brighton, everything is half price. It is French food, French DELICIOUS food. The interior is swanky-theater with velvet curtains, balcony seats, and paintings of famous people. I had cheese and garlic stuffed mushrooms for an appetizer, cheese stuffed pork in a mushroom/red wine sauce, and french fries fried in goose fat. And OMG was it good. All for under 10 pounds :)
Second restaurant review: El Mexicano. It was the highest rated Mexican restaurant in Brighton and it was... decent and expensive. I had the Chicken Tinga, which was pretty authentic. However, it was really expensive and the portions were small. Plus, and this must be said, Mexican food isn't healthy. But I feel like over here, they try to take a healthier view on it. And that's just not how Mexican food works. Mexican food is meaty and cheesy and saucy. Which is why its SO delicious.
The third restaurant is The Geese, which is the pub that we went to for trivia. The burger and fries were good, especially since they were served with a garlic dipping sauce. The trivia was fun, although there were too many music questions and the science questions were all ecology-based. Which made for a very unhappy me haha. We got second to last place (which seems to be a reoccurring theme). We will continue to try different pub quizzes and have a team goal to move up to third to last place haha.
And on Sunday, I decided to walk into town from the University. It took me about an hour to get into Brighton (I walked through two cities to get there) and it was so nice! I love long walks and it was something I've wanted to do since I got here. There are two parks along the way, pretty close to the University. And I'm looking forward to further exploring them when its springtime.

Don't worry, work isn't completely taking over this week. I'll have interesting things to write about for next week :)

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