Too many things

I don't really know what to say, other than I'm simply too busy. I drew up a timetable of my school/work/volunteer commitments so you guys kinda know what I'm up to.

"Want to have a team meeting on Friday at 12:00?" "Dear God no."

So, as you can see, I'm a busy man. A few notes on it though. The class and lecture slots are only for the three nursing subjects that I'm taking. The chemistry subject has an internet lecture and a couple of chapters each week, and the physics subject has two internet lectures and a chapter or so a week, plus a bunch of questions (questions which, for a student new to the subject, take a long time to answer). So you can see how all those free-looking slots start to fill up with crap. One other thing is that the work I do on Friday, Saturday and Sunday only happens once every two weeks, so I do have time to do school stuff on those weekends.

In other school-related news, I present to you this letter, which I received on Friday:

Yolanta is one of my favourite lecturers, we call her Yoyo.

It basically says that I had the highest grade in my year last year. I was quite elated to find that I had achieved it, and also very happy with the money they're giving me.

Oh! This week I had my first session in the in2science program. I visited the grade seven class I will be with for the rest of the semester and it was pretty interesting. First off, I don't think the chemistry teacher likes me. I hypothesize that it has something to do with him being a physical education teacher and not actually a science teacher. Nevertheless, I went around to all of their little tables and was helping them with their posters they were making on the properties of solids, liquids and gases. 

It was frustrating though, because 12 year old children really have no interest in doing school work. I would sit there and ask if anyone knows any properties of gases, and get responses of silence. I then basically forced them to know what some properties were by using really simply examples like saying "what does a small amount of gas do when you put it into a open area". So I basically ran through a few different things in that manner and went to another group. When I got back to the first group they hadn't put anything on their poster, so I made sure they all knew what the properties were and went away again. About ten minutes later I return; again, no work had been done. I naturally have a calm demeanor, so it was easy not to let my annoyance physically manifest, but on the inside I was like this:

No, I do not want to know why you two are the besterest friends in the world.

Even so, it was still a great experience. I go back every week on Tuesday for the rest of the semester and I'm looking forward to it immensely. Sorry again for not being more active everyone. Semester is only seven weeks long, and I'm just about to start week four, so even if I'm not that active for the next few weeks, I will be soon thereafter.

Thanks again everyone for taking interest.

New Books!

First, I want to apologize for not getting a post out yesterday, I worked until 10pm and just didn't feel like using the computer when I got home (although it's not that valid of an excuse because I worked just as late tonight). Anyway, I'm not going to do a huge post tonight as I have to be at the Wodonga Middle Years College in the morning to meet with the teacher that I'll be spending the semester with during the in2science program. Exciting, to say the least.

I also got my physics and chemistry books that I've been craving oh-so badly. The semester for both subjects technically started last week, but the book store is slow and I haven't had any books, so consequently couldn't do any reading. I was happy to sit down and read the first couple of chapters of the chemistry book, which made me think of tonight's comic. I really wanted to do something simple because, as I said, it's late and I need to be up in the morning, so I hope you guys enjoy it, or at least get it.

And before you know it, she'll want to have quarks!

I've also decided not to join the Golden Key Society, as I've heard far to many bad things about it to justify risking 90 of my dollars on it when I can barely afford food. Thanks to everyone that offered advice on the subject, I appreciate it.

So to finish off the post, another competition! It's simple enough, and I'm sure someone will get this very easily; just name the phenomenon that this picture is illustrating. I would also appreciate a short description on what's going on.

I'm all up in your planes, makin' dem fly, yo.

As always, a personalized picture for the winner! Have a lovely evening everyone.

This is science

So after a painstaking three hours, I'm finally finished with the drawing that I promised Layman Researcher for winning my competition a couple of days ago. I'm pretty proud of it, I was thinking about what I wanted to do for it all day while I was at uni. A couple notes, I refer to the pseudoscientists and the mathematical fallacy, as Layman Research has posts about them on her blog. Be sure to check it out btw!

In other news, my birthday went pretty good. My wonderful fiance made me a great breakfast before I left in the morning, and made a fantastic steak dinner tonight. She's also making a delicious smelling cake as I'm writing this. It really made my day, as I'm not a huge fan of spending nine hours at university on Monday, but I got through it alright. 

On the subject of uni, I thought I would ask the advice of my fellow bloggers. I received a letter from the Golden Key International Honour Society on Friday congratulating me on my good grades last year and inviting me to join their little club. Great, I'll be in this cool club for smarties, one problem though; they want 90 of my dollars. I looked around on the net a bit and found that some people don't recommend going with them, as you never get anything in return. So I was wanting to hear from all you lovely people; has anyone joined the society? Why? Why not?

Some of my earlier followers may remember that I had signed up to participate in the in2science mentoring program. Basically, it involves going to a high-school and spending a few hours in a class once a week. My role there is to try and inspire young minds with the intrigues of the scientific world and encourage them to become future scientists. I brought this up because I'm meeting the teacher that I'm going to be with on Thursday to go around the school and get orientated. I'm really really excited about the whole thing and can't wait to inspire young minds.

As one last thought, and just in case I ever look back at this blog years from now, I finally cleaned out the bowl of potato salad that has been in the fridge since Christmas. Surprisingly, it didn't smell at all, but was unfortunately filled almost to the brim with bacteria spores. I wonder if my lawn is going to benefit from having so much bacteria spread all over it.

I'll be off now, thanks for all of the fantastic birthday wishes and interest. I really want to try and keep up with comics, but it does take time and I'm a busy person, so please stay tuned!

One last sentence so the text lines up with the bottom of the picture, because I'm crazy like that.

University peer mentoring program

I attended another training session today, although this one was more intense; 0900-1700. Augh, it's definitely hard to sit at a desk and listen to people tell you what you already know for a whole day. Reminds me of some of the first year subjects about professionalism and communication... Anyway, I digress. As I said in my earlier post, this mentoring program is for first year university students that may be finding it difficult transitioning into university life.

I'm excited for this program, but in a different way from the middle school program. In this one, I'll have my own group of five students that I look after for the whole semester. We meet once a week and talk about how things are going and I give them guidance and whatever they need to help them get along in uni. It's the program's first year, so it will be interesting to see how it works without have the guidance of previous mentors to help us. However, I'm sure if things go to plan, it will be very helpful to the first-years (as myself and others would have definitely benefited last year). I'm also sure it will help me with my social skills and teaching skills (only a little, as we're not actually allowed to teach them things). The main thing is that it will look good on my resume, and also counts towards a La Trobe award.

On a side note, I got my guide books and things from Murdoch University today for my chemistry and physics subjects. I can't access any of the course work until the 26th though. Exciting!

Just can't wait to start!

in2science mentoring program

Late last year I applied to be part of this mentoring program called in2science that involves university students, that have completed at least one year of a science-related degree, going into middle-schools and acting as a mentor to the students encouraging them to keep an interest in science. The story behind it is that the Victorian government recognized that there is a decline in specific science-related university graduates (mainly mathematics, physics and chemistry), and they are funding this program as a long-term solution to that problem. I was invited to participate in the program earlier this month and attended a training session yesterday. Which is the reason I didn't blog yesterday, as I was at this thing from 0900-1400 and then at work from 1430-2200.

So yeah, I'm really excited to participate. I'll be going into a school for three hours a week and assisting in a science-related class and just generally encouraging kids to take an interest in science. If I complete one semester of this, I get a nice certificate and a shirt, if I do two semesters I get morning tea with the dean of the university, and then subsequent semesters they work out other prizes and badges for you. So very eager to get in and inspire young minds.

I'm sure it will also help me build my communication skills, my teaching skills and should help me revise and subjects that I may be rusty in. The trainer guy even said that we can run presentations or demonstrations for the class! I'd love to do a physics-related demonstration, something akin to what Walter Lewin of MIT does in his physics lectures that are hosted on Academic Earth. And just a note about Academic Earth; I really have to recommend it to anyone that is considering studying certain fields, or even is already studying. It has entire semesters-worth of world class lectures from Harvard, Yale, Stanford et cetera, and is an invaluable resource for anyone interested or studying particular subjects.

I'll wrap up now; in my next blog I'll talk about the training session I did today. It was for another mentor program, but this one is for first year university students in my course, nursing.