Looking to the future

Nothing to write, no activity to report, except revision. Either I'm revising, or I'm thinking about revision, or I'm feeling guilty because I've been staring into space for 20 minutes instead of at my books. This ridiculous urge to get high marks in exams can be quite painful. Taking this time off to write something for the blog feels very self-indulgent.

My salvation has been a) doing the odd bit of cooking for relaxation, and b) not worrying too much about the Computing module. If I could spend the next two weeks just doing revision for Medicine and Pathology, and none for any of the other modules, that would be just lovely, but Nutrition and Metabolism need a little bit of attention. Computing deserves none, it was a poor choice. I provided fairly scathing (though still constructive) module feedback, which will be discussed this afternoon. I am slightly nervous that nobody else will have written anything, and it will be very obvious that the feedback is mine.

Next year's module options are fairly unsatisfactory too. The problem is that our compulsory modules are unevenly split between the two semesters: 40 credits in the autumn and 60 credits in the spring. We can choose 20 credits for ourselves, but the recommendation is one 20-credit module that runs for the whole year. That means a 50:70 credit split between the semesters, but worst of all, six exams this time next year. I've got 4 exams this time and it feels dreadful enough.

Today I've come into school, starting with a visit to two different libraries to pick up some books, then a meeting with one of the lecturers to talk about whether I might work with her over the summer. It doesn't look like there will be much opportunity this time, but we have hatched a plan that may result in a useful project in the fourth year. It's in a really interesting area: she's trying to determine objectively whether teaching communications skills to dietitians actually leads to an improvement in their skills, and more importantly, whether the patients seen by those trained dietitians achieve better dietetic outcomes than those seen by untrained dietitians.

So it looks like this summer I might be helping out with a lab-based project at Warwick uni after all. I am quite excited about this prospect, as it will certainly be nothing like anything I've done before.