Cambridge Christmas

Cambridge Christmas!

Secret Santa came to visit us yesterday and gave me the DVDs of Ghostbusters I and II. I was always terrified by those films as a child, so am slightly worried about watching them again. Maybe it'll cure me, or maybe it'll reveal to everyone what a wuss I am. We shall see. Post Secret Santa, fajita Xmas Dinner and a little Cava (Taste the Difference no less. Save £4), we headed down to the cellars to see the Clare Panto, which, despite the fact that I was sitting behind the bass drum and couldn't see very much, was amazing. Really well written, acted and sung. It was hilarious.

Welcome to Hell. No singing, no dancing, no fun, no cycles, dogs, radios or picnics.

The Panto was "Paradise Lost" - which translated very well to panto form... though I would wager that the links were more then tenuous. Bethmo as a female, northern God was a sight to behold, and Alex's playing of Jesus as a troubled, mischeivous 12 year old teenager was hilarious.

Peeps!

Today I met -

• Chris Morris - As I was going into Sainsbury's
• Boycie - As I was coming out of Sainsbury's - He was trying to squeeze his bike next to mine so I moved mine along without looking to see who it was until he said "Tom!"
• Rahul - In Cindies! Were both a little over-excited. He bought me a drink. I gave him about 13 pennies, and in Cambridge, 13 pennies are worth at least as much as a drink in Cinidies.
  
• Sheldon! -As I was coming home from cindies - he was crossing over bridge street carrying some books to take to the library (he's at Magdalene). I babbled at him for a bit, poor lad.
  

Making Babies Crew hits Peterhouse

Peterhouse formal. I've been to Peterhouse three times this term, having never set foot in the place before, and the third time was certainly less weird than the 1st two. Their pool teams are weird, while going to formal with one of the rare Petorian girls who got our "Making Babies Crew*" tickets was good fun.
Peterhouse formal is very intense - all the wood (tables, wall-panelling etc.) is deep brown - mahogany coloured, if not darker, and it is lit only by candles. This results in an almost depressing experience. However, after having been pennied by a fellow before the starter had been served, it was all good. There's no wine limit... I missed the first lecture of the day... BUT was fine by 10am, and went to our presentation journal club session, looking better than many!

Quote of the Night

Katie: "So, what course are you doing Tom?"
Tom: "..."
Katie: "Oh god..."


*So named as we all do the embryology module - no sexier reason than that. This is Cambridge after all!

Went to the physiology library this afternoon, read 4 papers and wrote 1000 words of an essay!Yaargh. Unfortunately, they don't heat it at weekends, so I was typing with my gloves on. Is easier than you'd expect, but still feels mighty weird.
Also emailed my supervisor re. dissertation. Think I vaguelly have more idea where I want to go now, which is great. Though actually I don't officially know I'm doing it yet. Hmmm...
In other news, Alex and me got caught up in an uberstorm today on the way to the UL (via FML for Futurama*) which turned my new gigantic umbrella inside out. MAHUSIVELY. Was a job to get it back again.

*Yesterday I had a 5 episode futuramafest with Alex, Tom and Iona. Now we have 5 more. Eeeexcellent.

bananas

Banana smoothie. A few things to say:
1) Louisa has a smoothie maker. This is a work of genius, and allows me to pulverise my fruit. This enables me to eat an apple, two satsumas and a banana in the time it would take me to eat half the apple. This is good
2) Tom today bought 14 fairtrade bananas and 8 pints of milk.
3) This resulted in much smoothie.
4) My stomach can talk. I quote:

"There reaches a point where one just has to say - surely it is impossible for such quantities of banana to infiltrate one's sphincters in such a short timespan, but alas, I was mistaken in my beliefs. There is nothing left for me in this warm abdominal cavity that I call my home. I thought my irate response to haggis would have been enough to discourage you from further assaults to my absorptive capacities, but no. Again, I was mistaken. And so, it is with great sadness, that I extracate myself from your abdomen, with none of the glorious portentiousness of parturition, to make my way in the cold streets of Cambridge. 'Big Issue? Get it before the acid melts it'. Goodbye."

Monkey

The house of the orange monkey pure genius. In a monkeyshaped pot. Mmm.

"With internal organs of beans and kapok, a monkey like me is almost totally invulnerable to injury".

Late night ramble

I'm sure that each of the terms at Cambridge has had a single buzzword, and the word for this term so far is "tea". We've all been very civilised and drunk a lot of tea. I'm feeling so de-oxidised that... Tom tries vainly to think of a witticism that relates to anti-oxidants... I'll get back to you.

Only a week and a half left of term to go! Can ye believe it? Well, I can't, though looking back on the first day of term when Tom, Vicky and me went t't pub for dinner, it seems like aaages ago. The usual "I've been here for ages, but how has it gone so quickly" thing.

Work has been... interesting. I go through phases with embryology. It's fascinating, but it's also possible to look into something into so much detail that it loses all meaning... to an extent, I feel that's what's happening. Every gene is named... but as such, all these names are so arbitrary that there seems to be no point to them.. but then I guess all words are. Anyway - enough of the genetic biologist bashing. Some of it has been very interesting, for me the stuff on a larger scale (somite formation, mesoderm patterning, limb bud specification, that sort of stuff) is what grabs me. Fetal and placental is good at times, but gets so (necessarily) hormonal that the papers I'm reading are just a list of unconnected facts. IGFII does this, and is up regulated here, here and here, but down regulated here. here it does one thing, there it does another, unless it's Wednesday, in which case it goes shopping with Cortisol...

Humm... it's very early, and I should be in bed...

Was nearly late for my lecture this morning... went to get my bike, and realised it wasn't there - I'd left it outside old court when we went to see Tom's recital in chapel (very good it was too!), so, I had to powerwalk. Made it just in time. Missed her 1st few words, but no more. Hahah!

Tom played Brahms on Monday in chapel. A little thingie for piano and viola - started off quite simple, and really built on that in the 2nd and 3rd movements. He played really well, though I think the piano was a little too loud.. perhaps next time they should move the piano back a bit, and/or him forwards a bit?

I've submitted my dissertation applications! Stay posted for more details.

Sleeeeeep

I'm writing an essay - I've been trying to do it for 5 weeks on and off (mostly off) now - such is the problem when you have no deadlines. It's just impossible to do! Never thought I'd be complaining about the lack of essays, but they're actually really useful.

My apologies for the obsessive use of italics in this post.

Nightnight!

Random Geeky Blog

By the way - if anyone likes the new font rendering in IE7, to get it in the far superior Firefox, right click on your desktop, go to properties, then appearance, then effects, and in the second menu choose ClearType. Bargain!

c u r r e n t l y l i s t e n i n g t o

I've been listening to Andrew's Itunes (ponytime) this evening, and have discovered some suprisingly good music. I'd never listened to Pearl Jam before, and the few songs that I've heard have been really good (like a cross between Nirvana (the guy's voice sounds a bit like Mr Cobain), and Porcupine Tree). Also, Kula Shaker, a phrase I use quite often, but a band I'd never dared to cross - really good! Nice indianny influences. In other music news, Battle (who supported TCTC at the Junction are amazing, a cross between Bloc Party and The Cure.

"Cats... licking our spoons." Iona.

just thought this should never be forgotten to the depths of time.

Yesterday was productive.

1. Got up at 7.30, left at 8.40
2. Met up with another project supervisor at 9 to discuss a project. Not one I particularly want to do, but you do have to have contingency plans!
3. Found Alex in paperchase - bought more yellow paper (for Journal notes)
4. Sat in Starbucks for an hour and half nursing a grande coffee - read through two papers, one on angiogenesis (apparently there is a simple and secure 2 stage plan to ensure that segmental arteries and veins form in the same number, and alternatively AVAV etc.), and one on Kidney Tubulogenesis. GDNF and RET are the most important proteins in this, though you must not overlook the importance of the inhibitors BMP4 and Fox.
5. Went to the library, and printed off a paper for next week's journal club (one we have to give a paper on), and printed a Dissertation reading list that I made yesterday.
6. Lecture on the initiation of Parturition
7. Lunch - in Buttery. mmm.. cold couscous.
8. Went to the UL. Found two useful dissertation books, read in the West Room for a bit, and had tea in the tea-room.
9. Went to the physiology department (to photocopy some of said books), and popped in to the UCS on the way to ask about Alex's questionnaire hosting.
10. Came home in the pouring rain, read another paper, had dinner, showered, slept.

LOTS of work for one day. Was out the house 9 till 5.30... hardcore!

No Lectures = Marzipan

10 am lecture cancelled - so I had a lie in. Muwahahaha. Soon I shall go out for coffee and (possible) marzipan rings, before a quick 12 o'clock lecture. Then lunch at Braeside followed by an afternoon of libraryage to get my reading back up to scratch.

____

Update - there was no fitz billies, but we did go to the M&S cafe, which kindly gave us a cup of tea and a cup of coffee with2 biscuits for £2.60 - sounds expensive (which it is), but nowhere near as much so as starbucks.

Argh, it's been a while again. I've been working hard!

I've been up for about 50 mins, and my room is a tip. Mostly because I did washing yesterday so there's a huge washing line contraption stretched over my floor like the dark lair of some enormous arachnid. Still, it dries in about 24 hours there, so I'll be able to put it away when I stop typing.

In work news, I've chosen an assessed essay to do for my "portfolio" to coin an artsy phrase. It's based around neural tube closure and the environmental factors affecting this. Should be interesting, and I've found lots of stuff. I'm also currently going through the rigmarole of choosing a project - one of the theory projects looks really interesting, but isn't related to development at all... maybe it'll be good for me to do something different! I've applied and the supervisor thinks it'll be ok - so fingers crossed!

Tom

JenBiscuit

Jen visited! Yaargh! She came down on Wednesday and went back on Saturday, so we got to see her for a few days - ate out, went shopping (she came from Paris to Cambridge to do this ;) ), danced in Fez, drank an aftershock at 5.55 in the afternoon (hehe), ate Nandos with Omega, ate Fish and Chips, and generally did entertaining things. It was good to see her... it's been almost 5 months since me and alex blabbered at her loudly and drunkenly at the end of term last year.

I'm trying to write an essay and the smell of Curry is drifting through my window from one of the two minging kitchens. I put up a notice in one of them asking them to please use the extractor fan, but unfortunately this just moves the smell into my room from another direction. I don't use the kitchen myself as stepping across the warped floorboard and into it's misty and mouldy ether makes me want to vomit.