Been a while.. oops.

Life Goes fast.

Where did the last 20 days go? I cant believe it, time goes so fast! This is a good thing, I'm getting into a good routine with uni, life, etc. I will explain my routine a bit and ramble a bit also.

So basically my day starts when I arrive at uni between 9 and 9:30am. Sue me, I like my sleep, I do not start early. I however do stay late(r), I hardly ever leave before 6:30pm. These are 9-9:30 long days, lunch/tea breaks get pushed around the experiments, so taking breaks are quite rare. And yet these days are not killing me like internships did. Not sure how, maybe my health has gotten even better? But I'm happy about this.

Every other day I also got lectures, the professors are great teachers, they tell an inteligent, well structured story. There in my opinion also lies the problem, they tell a story for an hour long. There is no engagement with the students, we sit in a lecture hall with 50-100 students? (not sure how many exactly, big/overwhelming to me). Learning science to me is discussion, debate, THINKING, asking questions. I much prefer the HBO-Avans/classroom-style we had in Holland. Those classes were 3-4 hours straight, but it was lecture and workshop in one. At the end of a class you could say with certainty you understood a whole chapter of organic chemistry.

Ah well, the lectures to me as a post-grad Master student are simply extra knowledge, I do not get exams. (SCORE!)

The Lab.

I will never be able to express how wonderful the organic laboratory at Philips was, at TNO I did inorganic / electro chemistry which is another field and cannot be compared equipment wise (Glovebox, how I do not miss you). For the chemistry people I will summerize what we do and what was normal at Philips.

- Recyling of NMR tubes, at Philips these were disposable. Yes, I really said that we clean NMR tubes and reuse them.

- Cutting TLC plates, at Philips we got pre-made ones. While at Avans Hogeschool we also cut ourself, its still a pain when you would prefer just getting a pre-made one.

- Making TLC spotters ourself, I suck at this. Luckily there IS a jar of industrial spotters that I'm using, I dread the day this runs out, I should find out how to buy this myself ...

- Column/Flash chromatography, At Philips this was almost automatic, which means: put pre-made column in machine, make sure machine has enough solvent, put reaction mixture in machine, fill in program and take an  hour (or two) break as the machine moves to the next tube on its own!!!
Here at uni we make the column ourself: 15/30min work before you can start the process and then you have to exchange the tubes yourself. Imagine brainless/mindless work for 2 hours straight (which I had today).

- We get all our (disposable) stuff from a store, two floors down from our lab. It was so much nicer to just walk 10 meter to the cabinet and get everything you could ever wish for...

- However, the NMR program they use here at uni is much nicer than the one they had at Philips, its called ACDLabs and does not give me a headache at all. Also helps that I got some pretty good results.

While I liked the people at Philips, I do prefer the people here as they are of my age and in the same phase of their life. Friday pub lunch, friday-afternoon drinks at the pub... good atmosphere. ( I do miss the TNO people <3, I will visit you guys around Christmas if I can!)

So it has been a tough adjustment to uni-life, at TNO I was not involved at all with organic chemistry so I forgot most of my skills. Feeling like a 2nd year bachelor when you know you can do better is FRUSTRATING. Anyone, please, give me an ionic liquid question and I will show off my knowledge!

My Project.

If you want, I can explain my project in depth, but I doubt anyone except chemistry people really want to know. For now I will just summerize with the following images.

My main project is this:

 

What I'm working on right now, to get used to the lab and everything is this: 

Free Time.
So far I have spent the weekends in Bristol: rewinding from the week, shopping. Oh my, the shopping in Bristol is the best. England is cheap for clothes, food, stuff! Which means I may be going through my money faster than planned...

I'm planning on going somewhere coming weekend, I want to travel at least one weekend a month. Any suggestions on where I should go? (No, not Bath, that is for when people come to visit)

English/Dutch
Did you know that even though in Holland all our books were in English, we used English terms for names and I even wrote my theses in English. That being in an English (chemistry) environment full time is confusing, culture shock and did I say confusing. In Holland things are pronounced in a Dutch way, that I have to think or ask how they say things here. They also use the wrong word for things.. an Erlenmeyer is an Erlenmeyer not a conical flask!!

With that I leave this blog, what do you want to read next? More about Bristol with pictures or more about my life at uni (pictures from group mates/the building)? No need to ask for travel blogs, I will write those.

4-5 oct

4th
Uni has started! On monday I met my supervisor Kevin Booker-Milburn and read phd theses most of the day. Also got officially registered with the university and was suppose to get my ID card - which was not ready yet >_<

At the end of the day Kevin and I spoke about my project and I understand what it is about! Need to double check if Im allowed to publically talk about it before I post it in here.

5th
In the morning I just read a bit more and then there were a free lunch, a chance to meet all the people of the school of chemistry (post grad) - big groups like that are actually not a good way to meet people - you only have time to meet the people in the near vicinity of you. After that came introduction-welcome / safety/ intro to library/computer lecture... *tireding*. Then we want to the pub, to celebrate freshers week / black tuesday. Good chance to get to know my group on a more personal/fun level :) 

In all I am very lucky with my group, they are nice people and I fit right in!

Promise I will try to explain my project soon.

Moved in

Recap of the last 1.5 week :) 

23rd of sept.
Today my mother and I flew to Bristol, I do not like Easyjet. We "bought"  an extra bag for me, but the website was confusing and we did not buy extra "kilos" so I had to leave a bag behind in holland :(  We stayed in a good hotel "Premier Inn" which also has a good restaurant :)

24th.
We explored Bristol and went shopping for basic stuff I would need in my room and for mom to sleep in the room too. <333 to Heather for suggesting Argos, its great! Bristol is just amazing for shopping.

25th
Moving day!
We arrived at my building around 9am and it was suprisingly quiet for the amount of people who were moving in that day.

We got brought to my studio and I like it! See pictures at the bottom, they provided basic furniture and its all pretty good quality. The building itself is not done yet, people are still painting things and making sure other studios are getting ready. We did more shopping this day because you do need stuff like pans, plates, cutlery.

26th
More shopping and Ikea trip! There is one about 10min away by bus, ikea is more expensive here imo and has less inventory :/

27th
Bristol has a nice hop on/off bus tour through the city, its a gorgeous city!

28th
Mom went to Bath, I stayed home and I did some stuff on my computer, order computer stuff, looked up big supermarkets and ... a guy from uni (Chris) emailed me, asking if I wanted to come by and introduce myself to the group and find out what I have to do and stuff.

(mom had a great time in Bath, said it was gorgeous)

29th
Went to uni, its about a 15min walk UP hill. I am getting some serious excercise from just being in this town and walking every where. Why this is a cycle town I do not know, these people need to visit Holland understand what cycling should be like - so safe you dont even need those icky look protective hats.

Any way, uni.
So I met Chris and the group (6 other post grads I believe), all are really nice. I got a tour around the building (amazing view over the city as its on a hill and the city is below it). The lab is like a normal lab (I will take pictures for those people who dont regularly hang out at a lab) and they (roughly) told me what I will be doing as soon as I really understand it I will post it on here.

In the afternoon they had a meeting and did a problem, basically you start with product A and you want to get to B, C, D, etc - how do you do that?

I AM OUT OF PRACTISE :| After 1.5 year of not doing them, Im out of practise. Cannot wait till my Chemistry book (Wade) arrives so I can practise this again as it is fun to do. They also gave me 4 books from phd students, explaining my topic.

I also got to read 2 dozen safetey pages that did my head in. Yes I know electrical equipment can give you a shock if you do not handle it properly - anyone in their right mind knows that. And yet they leave out information that is slighly important (at least it was in Holland): at the lab wear your long hair back and do not wear open shoes or short throusers... that is important to have as a rule if you ask me :/.

Told them I wouldnt go back till monday as I had things to do thursday/friday.

In the evening there was a house-meeting where I met Nadia (from France) and Sarah (from near Bournemouth). The meeting was mostly to make sure everyone knows when there is a firealarm, we should all leave the building ... duh?

30th
Mom went home this day and it hit me, this whole being alone in another country is hard and scary!

1st
Besides general cleaning up and hanging about in the room I went to tesco extra that is near ikea, its a really big version of the supermarket. So I got the stuff I could not get at the smaller supermarket that is nearer by.
Brits like their cheddar cheese. Seriously.  Tough to find other kinds of cheese and I wanted to make pasta carborna badly... (Annalisa would be upset if I used cheddar in the pasta :P)


2nd
Today I got the lovely news from the ibgroep that they dont know yet if Im getting my loan.
"We onderzoeken of er voor jouw opleiding financiering mogelijk is", I told them I wanted a loan at Aug 4th.. so its been almost 2 months since that and they need another 8 weeks to decide this? Bristol is on the list of univerisities, I checked that stuff :| how hard is this. And their phone line is always busy, 15min waiting time. GET SOME MORE PEOPLE. Ibgroep is there to help students, but all they seem to do is screw you imo. Got a feeling when they finally make up their mind I won't be getting money for September or October.

So I went outside to cool down, walked to the other side of town and registered at the library :) Libraries are free here! In Holland they do not always have a good collection of english books and of course they do have that here ;) so that will be good to have :D

Tonight I finally took the pictures of my room that everyone has been asking me about:

View from the door, two windows with aqua coloured blinds. You can see my sofa and bed.

The front door so you could have guessed.

Turning right from the previous position you see my (slightly messy) desk area with tv (came with the room!). I can hook my laptop to the tv and watch movies on it :D. That pile of books on my desk at the right are the ones I get to read for uni.

Turning slightly left you can see my wardrobe and kitchen. This is also explains a bit more what the rooms layout is. 

Kitchen, its good enough, the only downside is only two cooking places that are small :/ Does not allow proper cooking imo.

Place where in theory I can eat dinner, however I will just eat at my desk and use this as a table or something.

Bed as you could have guessed!

Comfy sofa that came with the room :)

Bathroom ;)

Great shower!

Bathroom again ;)

In the beginning I was not happy about the aqua color, but its a heck of a lot better than orange that most of the other rooms got.

I will get pictures from the facilities in this building soon, the lounge, cinema, gym, game room and laundry :) Its very luxury.