Review: July 2018

WORK: I went back to work in mid-July after three weeks off (the rest of the lab was going to a conference in Japan) and had to sort of start over with a new approach to the project because there wasn't enough data out there for the original approach. I'm now 3 weeks into that (5 weeks into the project as a whole) and it's going grand; I'm looking at codon usage bias in ohnologs and copy number variant genes. By the end of July, I had mostly finished setting up and filtering my datasets for this part (which turns out to be sooo much of bioinformatics) and could start analyzing them. I also got a bit less scared to talk to my labmates, which was nice.

MODERATORSHIP: I found out that I'd got into Genetics! Thankfully because I found out a month before that I'd done really well in my exams, even I wasn't worried about whether or not I'd get in because it was unlikely that many people would get higher than 86%. Also, I was told later by a professor there that I came 'top of the class by a country mile', woo. So glad I didn't get ambiguous results as I thought I might.

WATERFORD HOLIDAY: Leon and I went on a spontaneous 2-day holiday to Waterford and stayed in the Woodlands Hotel & Leisure Centre. You can read my blog post about the trip here but basically it was really nice, and it showed us how much we love swimming..... 

SWIMMING: So then when we got home we took up swimming, which we get to do for free at the Trinity pool. We've now gone swimming about twice a week for three weeks and hope to keep going! I love that I'm finally exercising and find it fun, and it's really helpful to do it with a partner for accountability, support and enjoyment.

LIBRARY: Leon and I finally got a lease, so we went to the local library and signed up! We'd been waiting to do that for ages but couldn't without a lease. Here's our first book haul:

READING: Obviously very related to 'library', but books I read this month include:

• Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett (from Netsoc library, ★★★☆☆)
• Mistborn: The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson (from college library, ★★★★.5)
• We Were Liars by E. Lockhart (from local library, ★★★☆☆)
• Implanted by Lauren Teffeau (eARC from Netgalley, ★★★★☆)
• I Have No Secrets by Penny Joelson (from college library, ★★★★☆)
• Code Name Verity* by Elizabeth Wein (from local library, ★★★★☆)

*Technically I finished Code Name Verity on August 1st.

You can find reviews for all of those except Code Name Verity (at time of writing) if you go back through July's posts on the blog.

LEON: As well as going to Waterford and taking up swimming together, we went on a few froyo dates (to Mooch and Scrumdiddly's) and also went to see Ocean's 8 in the cinema.

ART: I did some more watercolour painting this month.




LAIDLAW SCHOLARSHIP: We Trinity Laidlaw Scholars got to get in contact with some Laidlaw Scholars in Tufts University, Massachussetts, which I thought was really cool.

FOUNDATION SCHOLARSHIP: I went to lunchtime Commons every day for about three weeks and met a bunch of new people.

FRENCH: I've taken up French again with Duolingo and am currently (as of 4 August 2018) on a 35-day streak of doing (at least) 2 lessons per day. Back in 5th and 6th year of secondary school I got through the entire course so hopefully I can do it again as I've gotten very rusty.