Dunham Massey.

As previously said; as a environmental and geographical science student we do a lot of field work that involves a field. Yesterday was spent in Dunham Massey near Trafford. We started the morning by identifying trees and birds, then we had lunch on a very cool fallen tree that contained this fungi.

Then as we started walking through the deer park we cam across this doe and her faun (which you can only just see in this picture).

Then we measured a lot of trees. 42 in total!!!! That's just how exciting our field trips get.

Finally after a long cold day we headed home but not before spotting a whole herd of deer in this field (once again you can only just see them).

Geographical concepts is such an interesting subject!!

It's such an enthralling lecture this is what we did all lecture!!

Field activities lecture!

This morning began with a unit called 'field activities', it's mainly about the practical skills required in being a environmental and geographical science student. It can be a little dull but has the potential to be good fun as it will involve field work (and in our department field work normally involves an actual field). Plus it's taught by Chippy (Paul Chipman) who is immensely funny.

Today was particularly entertaining as George was added to the end of the register that we all sign every session. This is mainly funny because when that register gets back to the admin department they will try to find him on the system and add him to the register in the future, the problem being: obviously there is no "George the monster" enrolled at the university.

Once the lecture was over we had a session in the labs, Which today consisted of counting smarties. It did have a genuine purpose: it was about enforcing a hypothesis about populations using statistical data and rejecting nul-hypothesese.

To be honest it was an excuse to eat chocolate I think!!

It's not all work

Student life isn't all working hard and partying till you pass out. Sometimes we get a moment to sit and enjoy the surroundings.

So George and I stopped off in the centre of Manchester and enjoyed the little bit of sunshine in Piccadilly gardens by this lovely fountain.

Then we had to go home and read biology text books!!

Library!

After a long day of lectures yesterday, George decided to stop off at the library for some light reading.... on evolutionary biology!

To be honest the main reason for being in there was to kill time between lectures and it's nice and warm in the library.

Genetics lecture!

Well it's a Wednesday so what else do we do but go to the incredibly difficult Genetics, population and biodiversity lecture. Which George did't really enjoy as it's a cold lecture theatre and he couldn't see the board properly from down there on his seat.

This is a bit of a pants lecture as the woman giving it assumes we're all biomedical students so go to all the other lecture and know exactly what the hell she's on about. Not only that but we're expected to own a book called Biology by Reece and Campbell, which is no less than £60!!!!!!

Oh well!! This is what being a student is suppose to be like; turn up to the lectures, not understand a word of it, fake it through the assignments, make it up in the exams and hope for the best. Or alternatively we could just read other text books, get the hang of it and pass the unit with flying colours!!!

Wish me luck!!

Working on a monday.

As we have no lecture on a Monday we aren't required to be in uni but this doesn't mean doing nothing.

Oh no!! Lying in bed is not the way to get through university with a good grade. So today George and I have been doing some work for the Ecology unit. We have been constructing a dichotamous key for moth species. This is a tool that allows you to identify a species from a selection of animals (or plants) quickly using a series of 2 answer questions (normally yes or no answers).

Simple to use, difficult to construct!!

But this is your average monday, granted we weren't out of bed till about 11 but that's better than the rest of the house!!!

Living: our room!!

Ok first thing's first!

This is our room, very nice isn't it?

That would be because we don't live in student halls, we live in a sort of house share with 2 pets snakes (the reason for not living in halls) and 4 other people. so who do we live with?:

• Bellatrix the desert king snake.
• Arsenic the jungle/jaguar carpet python.
• Chris the 2nd year computer science student.
• Joe the 3rd year computer science student.
• Richard the computer science Phd (who is also the landlord)
• And John the free lance computer science consultant.

All in all, quite a nice bunch!!!

Introductions!!

This is George!! He is a fluffy blue finger puppet monster.

I am Thymian, the ecology and conservation student at MMU (manchester Metropolitan University). I've only been here about a month.

In this blog George will show you a little bit of what it is like to be a student; life, lectures, attempting to cook, and maybe the occasional night out!!

we'll also see how long it takes for one of my lecturers to notice the addition to the class and how many of the other students find this strange!!