Liver damage

Clare the chemist

I am back! York was AMAZING! Collected my fridge for my insulin. Turns out I was the only one with a personal fridge, my first thought was alcohol!!! Met up with my friend Sarah at the briefing on the first night, was also sat next to a guy called Shane. Briefing ended, the 3 of us went straight for the pub! Nice to find like minded people. We were joined by a few others, Nick, Elliot, David and Colleen. Was a great night.

The next day we were in the laboratories form 9-12.30, with a short coffee break, the 2-5.30, again with a coffee break (the OU revolves around coffee). Then back for tutorials 7.15-9pm ish. It was amazing spending time in a lab. We went in quite reserved doubting everything, and ended the week barely having to ask the tutors for any assistance. The tutors were fab, really helpful, as were the demonstrators. The food was good, which is unusual, just often there wasn't enough of it. This was the timetable for every day except wednesday when we had the night off....

What residential schools are all about

We did a pub crawl around York. We had a schedule of 6 pubs and a time to be in each. Myself, Elliot, nick, david, Shane, Tom, Marcin, DD and Kate went in about half an hour later. We met everyone else in the first pub, but they left on schedule, we decided to skip pub number 2 and go straight to 3. Everyone eventually joined us, and again most people went straight to pub number 4 but we decided to have a few more in pub number 3. During this time we gained some tutors Robert and Grahame. We started to make our way to pub number 4, when David realised we were near a cocktail bar, The Evil Eye, so we decided to go in there. It was like a shop at the front, but you walk behind the counter and it is a bar with hundreds of cocktail outlets of spirits packed on the wall behind the bar. I had a woowoo, and it was mighty good. We stood outside for a bit, then went up to the toilets(unisex of course) to discover some of our group on a very comfy four poster bed. Time was getting on by now, so we thought we best try and make it to the final pub, the cellars. We got there about 20 mins before last orders. So we managed a couple in there before getting a taxi back to the university. If the night had ended there, that would have been classed as a super night.

We kept drinking when we got back. About 8 of us had been doing this most nights after the pub, and I was quite regularly doing beer runs to the supermarket on campus every lunch time to keep us going after the pub closed. Wednesday night though will be known as pizza night, due to pizza being ordered about 2am...

Working hard...

Thursday was a very hard day..... We got through it in the end, nearly all the way to the final step in our synthesis of farnesol. I got as far as ethyl farnesoate, and am quite please with myself. Had tutorial again on Thursday night to prepare for our presentations the next morning. We weren't going to go to the pub, but realised we didn't quite have enough alcohol to see us through the whole evening, so we went. It was nice and peaceful, only about 10 of us in total which was nice and chilled. We went back at last orders, collected alcohol from my room, and went to warm Stella hill.

It was hard to say goodbye to everyone the next morning. OU residential schools have always been a complete eye opener about chemistry, laboratories, other students, alcohol, student life. It is like being a full time student for a week, and the work is so intense, but so enjoyable. I have met some great people over the 3 I have done, and not too many idiots...it is sad that this is the last year the OU is running them. I have got a lot out of them. I only pray I pass this one, as there is no way of retaking it....

On the America root, not much has happened. I have some emails to go through, but have not looked at the yet, as I have only been home a day!



Should mention before I come across a selfish cow, that I really missed paul and the boys soooooooo much. It was lovely that they all came and picked me up from the train station yesterday. I am trying to get back into the jist of having 3 kids to look after, and a house, and I am also trying to sort out for holiday on Tuesday night. This is when things get fun. This is one of the things before America to get out of the way done.... Next up is France....