When the results came out last Friday, and I saw that I had got through with a 2.2, my initial feeling was relief. A 2.2 was what I expected to get, but I knew that I had been cutting it fine with some subjects and the main thing was that I could continue with my plans for London. Then I had a look at the sheet overall to see how the year got on, and saw that a lot of 2.1s and firsts were given out. Add to this the fact that everyone who exchanged comments with each other seemed to get higher than me, and a bit of the shine was taken off my achievement.
As undertakings go, this one seemed to get harder towards the end, and in the last few months it was becoming an uphill struggle to the finishing line. The lack of money was really starting to get to me, and Andy passing on around the time of my exams didn't help either. It would be fairest to say though, that I could have just worked harder. Throughout my entire degree course.
Of course the whole experience of the last four years couldn't possibly be summed up by a number, and I know that I most likely got more out of Brighton than anyone else in my class. Some of the memories I will always have:
- Snogging four blokes at the same time in the Bulldog
- The two threesomes I had
- Getting entangled with Daffy, and subsequently finding out what it was like to long for someone who will never be available to you
- Copping off with a guy who felt that as long as he didn't take off his underwear while in bed with me, he wasn't cheating on his boyfriend (who happened to be in prison)
Yes, yes, I know: a trend is starting to emerge. Other things:
- Being on the piss for a solid week during international student orientation week
- Turning 30 while in first year
- Seeing Hot Foreign guy, whose name I will now reveal as Roberto Martin-Arrabal, naked in the gym showers
- Going into the Bulldog for the first time
- Going into Shwarz bar for the first time
- Changing myself completely by shaving my head and growing a goatee, and consequently getting a lot more attention from all the Brighton bears
- Drinking in the Winchester
- Moving twice during second year and still managing to pass my exams
- My first proper Gay Pride festival in 2006
- Walking out on my first pharmacy job because I hated the supervisor so much
- Trying to sell food waste digesters to the public on the street
- Skinny-dipping on Brighton beach at 2:30 in the morning.
- The Pharmacy Ball
- Getting fitter than I arguably have ever been in my life by learning Kung Fu
And of course, making friends whom I will always remember and never leave behind (you lot know who you are!).
The night before my flight back here, I went for a walk around what I knew would be one of my last nights of being based in Brighton. To be sure I'll be back, but for the forseeable future it'll be as a short-term visit. I don't think I could fully quantify what the experience of all of it has done for me, and if there ever is one place in which I could see myself putting down roots, Brighton would be it.
Before I left to come to Brighton, I was humming and hawing about whether to stay in Dublin and do the degree in Psychology and Maths that I had been offered, and if doing Pharmacy was just taking the safe option. In that regard, I know now for sure that I've made the right decision.
So there it is...
Yesterday morning the academic transcript arrived, with a breakdown of all my grades. It had the grades for all the years I sat exams throughout the course, not just my final year, and I noticed that the grades I got overall this year haven't been so good since I finished first year. I got 69% in my research project, 67% in Business studies (which I never had any interest in), and 65% in my practical clinical exam, an exam I could have failed, as I missed my allocated time slot thanks to taking the wrong time off the exam timetable. I was also VERY lucky: 40% in one exam, 45% in another, and 52% in an exam which required 50% to pass. I had trouble calculating my overall average, so I rang the school office to ask them and they told me it was 58%, 2% away from a 2.1. My first instinct was to think how I could have gotten into the next honours category if only I had gotten a few extra percent here and there, but now I can't be bothered. What I'm going to put on my CV is 'second class honours (58% average)' and then include the good marks under the sub-heading of 'Results of note'.
Overall, I don't think it's going to matter. I couldn't have got a better pre-reg than the one I ended up with, and I don't see myself being held back in any shape or form. The only thing that is ruled out is further academic study, and there is no way in hell I was going to do that anyway.
So. Great times and a great job at the end of it. And four years in one of the coolest cities on the planet. That'll do me.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Friday, July 04, 2008
I PASSED!!!!
Oh joy, oh rapture, I'm off to London!
I didn't break any records, but the main thing is that I got the degree, and I'm off to London, to a good teaching hospital. I've got the opportunity, all I have to do is take advantage of it.
WOO HOO!
More to follow when I can be arsed...
I didn't break any records, but the main thing is that I got the degree, and I'm off to London, to a good teaching hospital. I've got the opportunity, all I have to do is take advantage of it.
WOO HOO!
More to follow when I can be arsed...
Thursday, July 03, 2008
Hoovers and third-party molecules
My dreams have been getting extremely weird lately. Again.
There's always been the odd one where I wake up going 'What the FUCK?" - especially when I've initially woken up but then gone back to sleep again - but the ones I've had in the last few days have taken the biscuit.
The night before last:
I'm in a pub with my pharmacy project supervisor, where we are drinking together as part of a group. Playfully(!) he grabs my goatee, and starts to tug REALLY hard on it. "I'm going to have to pull this off!" he says, refusing to let go, and pulling as hard as he can. I struggle, doing everything I can to make him let go. Eventually he relents. Later on, I'm talking to him about the graduation ceremony that will be taking place at the end of July. "You're not going anywhere" he says, which I take to mean I won't be going to the ceremony, "You've left out key points in your thesis." "Such as?" I ask queriously. He responds by pointing out that I never discussed third-party molecules that mediate receptor-ligand binding. It was the fevered rantings of my imagination, of course: The existence of such molecules has never been established, but I'm making a note of it here anyway, in case the circumstances that transpire mirror those of Kekulé. If those molecules end up being discovered, you read about it here first boffins!
Last night was really taking the piss, though. In this dream, I left my house, which I think was in London, to get a hoover, as there was some inexplicable and urgent need for hoovering to take place somewhere. I acquired the hoover, which was yellow and grey, the same colours as that fancy Dyson one that doesn't lose it's suction, but was of modest, common-garden standard hoover dimensions. Satisfied, I started to make my way home. I arrived at what looked like an overground railway station, but felt like an underground transport facility, as it was dark, and the station was housed in what looked like an aircraft hangar. For some reason, I had to cross from one platform to another by crossing the tracks. Hoover in hand, I jumped onto the tracks, walked across, and then prepared to climb up onto the other platform. It was then I noticed that my hoover was stuck in the tracks, and no amount of yanking at it would set it free. Then I was a train, driving along the same line, coming right for me. "For God's sake, Denis! Leave it behind!" shouted someone who apparently knew me. I left the hoover behind, and walked away. I looked back, just as the train was riding over where the hoover was, expecting to hear a crunch. Instead, I saw a jet of water shoot up from the location, between the carriages. I was mystified, but wanting to dissociate myself from the incident, I turned around and kept walking. Then I looked back again.
There had been a pile-up. The train had derailed, and the carriages had all piled up on one another. Time to leave, I thought, hurrying towards the exit. All of a sudden, I noticed I was still carrying the same hoover. Well, the cleaning does need to be done, I thought, I may as well hang onto it. That I should question the fact that I was carrying a hoover that should have been previously crushed under the wheels of the train on the track didn't dawn on me for one second. My friend and I headed towards the exit turnstiles. "For God's sake, ditch the hoover", hissed my friend, "Otherwise you'll get us all into deep shit!". I refused. I had fought long and hard for this hoover, and some house in an nearby location needed to be cleaned. Holding the hoover over my head, I walked through the turnstile. Apart from attracting a few comments from the railway staff, no-one stopped us...
And then I woke up.
Hoovers always occupied a substantial position in my childhood. I had a fetish for them up until I started going to school, and there are many photos in my life album that show me playing around with them. One is of me in the garden, playing with a makeshift one that I had fashioned out of a cardboard box and a hose (after I busted the family household Nilfisk one day while playing with it, my parents had ruled the genuine article out of bounds). It would appear that this aspect of my subconcious has surfaced again, though why that is is anyone's guess.
The source of the other dream is painfully clear, though. The results of my finals are out tomorrow at 2pm. If I fail any of the exams, and have to retake in August, I'll lose the job in London that I hung out so long for, will end up in some crappy village dispensary somewhere, and won't be able to go to the graduation ceremony. Please God don't let that happen.
PLEASE!
There's always been the odd one where I wake up going 'What the FUCK?" - especially when I've initially woken up but then gone back to sleep again - but the ones I've had in the last few days have taken the biscuit.
The night before last:
I'm in a pub with my pharmacy project supervisor, where we are drinking together as part of a group. Playfully(!) he grabs my goatee, and starts to tug REALLY hard on it. "I'm going to have to pull this off!" he says, refusing to let go, and pulling as hard as he can. I struggle, doing everything I can to make him let go. Eventually he relents. Later on, I'm talking to him about the graduation ceremony that will be taking place at the end of July. "You're not going anywhere" he says, which I take to mean I won't be going to the ceremony, "You've left out key points in your thesis." "Such as?" I ask queriously. He responds by pointing out that I never discussed third-party molecules that mediate receptor-ligand binding. It was the fevered rantings of my imagination, of course: The existence of such molecules has never been established, but I'm making a note of it here anyway, in case the circumstances that transpire mirror those of Kekulé. If those molecules end up being discovered, you read about it here first boffins!
Last night was really taking the piss, though. In this dream, I left my house, which I think was in London, to get a hoover, as there was some inexplicable and urgent need for hoovering to take place somewhere. I acquired the hoover, which was yellow and grey, the same colours as that fancy Dyson one that doesn't lose it's suction, but was of modest, common-garden standard hoover dimensions. Satisfied, I started to make my way home. I arrived at what looked like an overground railway station, but felt like an underground transport facility, as it was dark, and the station was housed in what looked like an aircraft hangar. For some reason, I had to cross from one platform to another by crossing the tracks. Hoover in hand, I jumped onto the tracks, walked across, and then prepared to climb up onto the other platform. It was then I noticed that my hoover was stuck in the tracks, and no amount of yanking at it would set it free. Then I was a train, driving along the same line, coming right for me. "For God's sake, Denis! Leave it behind!" shouted someone who apparently knew me. I left the hoover behind, and walked away. I looked back, just as the train was riding over where the hoover was, expecting to hear a crunch. Instead, I saw a jet of water shoot up from the location, between the carriages. I was mystified, but wanting to dissociate myself from the incident, I turned around and kept walking. Then I looked back again.
There had been a pile-up. The train had derailed, and the carriages had all piled up on one another. Time to leave, I thought, hurrying towards the exit. All of a sudden, I noticed I was still carrying the same hoover. Well, the cleaning does need to be done, I thought, I may as well hang onto it. That I should question the fact that I was carrying a hoover that should have been previously crushed under the wheels of the train on the track didn't dawn on me for one second. My friend and I headed towards the exit turnstiles. "For God's sake, ditch the hoover", hissed my friend, "Otherwise you'll get us all into deep shit!". I refused. I had fought long and hard for this hoover, and some house in an nearby location needed to be cleaned. Holding the hoover over my head, I walked through the turnstile. Apart from attracting a few comments from the railway staff, no-one stopped us...
And then I woke up.
Hoovers always occupied a substantial position in my childhood. I had a fetish for them up until I started going to school, and there are many photos in my life album that show me playing around with them. One is of me in the garden, playing with a makeshift one that I had fashioned out of a cardboard box and a hose (after I busted the family household Nilfisk one day while playing with it, my parents had ruled the genuine article out of bounds). It would appear that this aspect of my subconcious has surfaced again, though why that is is anyone's guess.
The source of the other dream is painfully clear, though. The results of my finals are out tomorrow at 2pm. If I fail any of the exams, and have to retake in August, I'll lose the job in London that I hung out so long for, will end up in some crappy village dispensary somewhere, and won't be able to go to the graduation ceremony. Please God don't let that happen.
PLEASE!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
