Lab Rats

1.10pm. Had an amazing morning looking down microscopes on various magnifications at irradiated and non-irradiated (control) scrapes from wheat plant leaves, to measure the effects of radiation on different parts of the plant, and on growth.

The control wheat leaves were fairly straightforward but the irradiated leaves were much harder, as they had to be delicately sliced open from the coleoptiles.

Took loads of photos, in fact it looks like I am going to run out of battery power for that camera before the end of the week. I wish now that I'd included the battery charger in one of my cases. Still, I have the other camera, whose battery generally lasts ages, so I have that as a useful backup. The only disadvantage is that I can't upload the photographs from the big camera onto my laptop as it doesn't have compact flash card reader, but it's not so vital, it can wait until I get back to Birmingham.

Got to Bramber House, and decided to go straight up to lunch rather than dropping my things off first. Food came in the form of a weak but tasty lamb madras with rice. I could have eaten plates and plates of food but one of my informal objectives for this week was to try and shed a few pounds, so eating like it's going out of fashion is probably out.

I am sure that I've lost a couple simply on yesterday's field trip and walking to and from different buildings.

Ran into Psychology Chris who I met in the bar last night, we exchanged hellos. Commenced shovelling and wolfed down my food in about 15 minutes, as I wanted to get back to my room in time for 1pm to phone Alan.

It's pretty clear that he is not enjoying the time on his own. I'm not surprised, I'm sure I'd be the same if I were the one left at home. I know it will be different from here as he is at work during the day, but the evenings must still be rather strange.

I have not had much time to sit and gaze into my navel, but I am missing Alan too. I am enjoying this course but the breakneck speed is very hard to take sometimes.

I wish not for the first time that I knew Pitman shorthand, as it would make note-taking so much easier. There's barely any time to think about a question before the answers have to be given so that people can move on to the next question.

At least with the level 2 and 3 residentials, the subject areas are more specialised, so there isn't so much jumping around between disciplines.

This afternoon it's back into the lab in the John Maynard Smith building (thoroughly characterless looking from the outside, with no apparent lifts, so God help anybody who is mobility-impaired). The labs inside are impressively equipped but they seem cramped somehow, despite their huge size. My labs at school and even at 6th form seem like shoe cupboards in comparison.

Right... loads to do, need to sort out some notes for this afternoon, change the battery in my digital recorder, charge up the mobile for a bit and then head back for the afternoon session.