Food Commodities or Molecular Pharming?

I haven't taken any photos for a while, so this is another one from Portsmouth, when the weather was still showing the last vestiges of summer. It has been raining all day today so far, preventing me from working in the garden. So that's good.

I did go in for the first lecture in the GMO module on Friday, catching the bus from Sutton Bonington (SB) to the University Park (UP) campus. It was also very interesting, leaving me with a dilemma about whether to continue with this one or go with Food Commodities.

Inherently the GMO subject matter ('Molecular Pharming') is likely to be more interesting, but also likely to be harder. Food Commodities is taught at SB, the multiple choice exam is 60% of the module, and the coursework consists of two academic papers to summarise in one page each. The exam for Molecular Pharming is 50% of the total and comprises two essays out of five and the coursework requires one 2000-word critique of a research paper. Both schedules include visiting experts from the leading edge in the field - the last lecture in Molecular Pharming is from Professor Keith Campbell, who had a hand in the creation of Dolly the cloned sheep.

After much thought and a look at past exam papers and asking the views of a couple of my tutors, I'm going to go with Molecular Pharming on Friday mornings at UP. The other consequence is that I will have a late start on Tuesday, which makes playing badminton on Monday nights less of a problem. But that's not why I'm choosing it.

Interesting to note that my two particular uni friends went to the first Management Science lecture (the module I took against, that has caused me all the trouble about what to choose instead). They both hated it and are now scrabbling about trying to work out what alternative options to try.

So that's the first week over; just ten more until the Christmas break. I haven't had to sleep in the afternoon again, but I do have to go to bed earlier, ideally at about 10 o'clock. I've been sitting on my new exercise ball instead of the office chair, which has helped with the back/leg pain, but is a bit too low for writing or typing at my desk. I can't sit on the ball for much more than an hour, though, and that's OK too because it makes me get up and walk around for a minute or two.