Greeting dear readers! I’m still alive, although apologies to the Student Bloggers Team for having gone AWOL in recent weeks. The end of term was hectic to say the least! I am currently back home, enjoying some quality time with the family before slogging it back to London to complete my final term at Imperial. It’s only mildly terrifying. So what am I up to with my holidays?
Well I spent Easter weekend in London as I’d signed up to teach Sunday school that week at church. It was super fun to teach the story of Jesus’s resurection to the children at church and we had a great time eating chocolate eggs, making pictures and talking about why the resurection is so exciting for us as Christians. I’d recommend this short video dispelling a few common myths and objections about the death and resurection of Jesus if you’re interested in learning a bit more about why Easter is so exciting!
After Easter weekend, I came home for a few days before heading off to Wales with my church. Every year we go to a conference called Word Alive, where thousands of people from all over the country come to hear Bible teaching, spend time together as church family, go to seminars that deal with different aspects of life and how to live as a Christian in different situations and just have a nice holiday near the beach. The weather was excellent for Wales (read as: chilly but there were no severe weather warnings this year!) and I had a lovely time with friends.
I’m now back at home for a couple of weeks and I’m about to start reading for my dissertation. I’m excited to get underway and move on to job applications and other fun adult things, but it’s also rather intimidating to know that I’m about to leave the cosy, oblivious bubble that is academia at Imperial. Stay tuned as I venture in to the adult world for the first time and try not to have too many mental breakdowns!
Wow has it really been over a month since I last blogged?! I am now back at Imperial after a long Easter holiday and it’s lovely to be back in London after such a long time away. The trees are in blossom, the skies are blue, the grass is green and no one can judge me for buying ice cream on a (very) regular basis given how lovely the weather is.
I spent the first week of the holiday in Prestatyn, North Wales, at a five day Christian conference. It was great to spend some chill time with friends and go to some interesting seminars about how Christianity relates practically to different areas of life. We spent quite a lot of time on the amazing, giant beach, some of us even dipping our toes in to the Irish sea
The beach just went on forever
The evening meetings took place in a massive marquee but unfortunately we were only able to use it for the first couple of nights due to the extreme wind and rain! When I went to this conference last year the weather was sublime but this year there were severe weather warnings for the area we were staying in, the wind was absolutely brutal and it rained persistently. After the first night of extreme weather, many of the smaller marquees on the site we were staying on were damaged and declared unsafe for the seminars the next day, we were warned to stay inside our accommodation and it was all very scary! Luckily I survived, we had a fantastic week and I went home feeling refreshed and ready to tackle all the work I had over the holidays.
My feet remained safely inside my wellies and rightly so, I was informed by the other person in this picture that the water was freezing!
The second year biologists have all been hard at work over the break writing our tutored dissertations. The TD is a 4000 word mini dissertation which is written in the style of a scientific review (a paper which looks at lots research that has been done on a certain topic and collates it in to a concise article). We were given a choice of about 40 different topics and then asked to submit 6 choices in order of preference. The topics ranged from the ecological (How should we expect the earth’s vegetation to be responding to climate change?) to the cellular (The role of ion channels in plant development) so there was a lot to choose from no matter what your interest is. I was gunning for malaria vaccinations as my topic but, alas, it’s usually a very popular choice so I didn’t get it. I got my 4th choice which I was initially not too happy with but it ended up being really interesting!
My dissertation was about how plant pathogens mimic plant molecules and compounds to trick the plant and promote their own virulence. It’s very interesting and very clever! Plants and the pathogens that infect them are often engaged in coevolutionary arms races, meaning that the plant is evolving mechanisms to overcome infection at almost the same rate as the pathogens are evolving mechanisms to overcome plant defense systems. The result is pathogens that have very sophisticated methods of colonising the plant for their own gain. For example, one type of bacteria produces the hormone coronatine. Coronatine causes the stomata to open (openings in the leaf which allow gas exchange to occur) so that the bacteria can easily enter the plant. It also interacts with signalling pathways inside the plant to weaken plant defenses and divert resources away from attacking the infecting bacteria. Pretty clever right?
The TD has now been submitted which I couldn’t be happier about! Although it was interesting to write, I can’t say it was all that fun to spend literally the entire break at my desk writing it. College life is still busy as ever but hopefully things will slow down a little now I don’t have the threat of the TD deadline hanging over me! The next deadline is French coursework, revision is, of course, ongoing and today I start my final course of the year – immunology. I’m finding the prospect of getting back in to a working routine quite daunting but I love immunology so I’m very much looking forward to getting stuck in to my new course!
I hope everyone had a great Easter holiday and has returned to uni or college feeling ready to face the new challenges that this term will bring!
FEAR NOT FRIENDS I am back in London after a lovely Easter and ready to regale you with exciting tales of what I did over the break (no really, I’m not being sarcastic, it was fabulous)
In the first week of the four week break (Uni holidays are THE BEST, they are SO LONG!) I went on a mini break to Madrid with one of my school friends to visit another friend who is currently working there as an au pair. We arrived horrendously early for our flight as we’d never flown without our parents before and were terrified of being late! All was well however, and we arrived safely in Madrid where we were met at the airport by our friend. We found our hostel then immediately went to get pastries (if you are ever in Madrid, go to the cake shop on the West side of the Puerta del Sol. You will not regret it). We also visited the Mercado de San Miguel which is a big indoor food market with loads of tapas and desserts and everything smells amaaaazing.
We met this guy at the Mercado de San Miguel
We did loads of cool stuff in Madrid, like eating paella, seeing a flamenco show, spending HOURS in the art museums, rowing a little boat in El Retiro park and having a delicious farewell meal at a teeny Spanish restaurant. 100% worth it to experience Spanish culture and get to visit my friend!
Lake at El Retiro Park
I spent the second week of the holiday at a Pontins holiday resort (that’s what they call butlins in Wales!) in Prestatyn, North Wales, attending a big Christian conference called Word Alive. I went with a group from my church and got to live in a little chalet with three of my best buddies for the week, cooking together, hanging out and attending some great seminars and hearing some fantastic Bible teaching. We were right near to the MAHOOSIVE beach so we got to see some beautiful sunsets and dip our toes into the Irish sea. There were also some great evening events, such as a student only giant inflatables session (let’s just say that there are some highly amusing photos involving the members of my chalet and an enormous bouncy slide) and a barn dance. The icing on the cake was the beautiful weather we had ALL WEEK. I have never spent so long in Wales without a single drop of rain.
Sunset at Prestatyn Sands
After that, it was time to come home and get my head down… As great as it was to get out of London and have an amazing time with my friends, I can’t ignore the fact that my finals are getting steadily closer and I can’t afford to get the same results in the summer as I did in January! Best of luck to everyone preparing for their final A Level exams… I remember that being one of the most stressful experiences of my life but just remember… it’ll be worth it when you’re at Imperial in October 😉
