Hello again... apologies for the absence!

Hello :)

Well, this post has been remarkably delayed! I had intended to turn things around this year and blog more regularly, however despite having significantly less lectures this year I’ve been enormously busy (for a number of reasons!) and have found myself confronting the Christmas holidays already!

So where am I now? Well, I’m now in my final year of my Physics degree which brings about a multitude of emotions – sadness that this stage of my life is almost over mixed with happiness that I’ve finally got here, as well as confidence that I’m actually pretty good at Physics mixed with panic about what I’m going to do next. There’s a lot going on to put it briefly! Which leads me on to be able to say I’ve actually got a lot to write about and tell you all which is quite exciting. Each of these will (probably) form their own blog post later, however to give you a brief run down:

1)     I finally finished my third year. It was tough, as I suffered from a few health problems that meant I had to take my exams in summer. However, despite everything I managed to average a 2:1 which I was very proud of, all things considered! I was glad to say goodbye to a couple of topics, but sad to have to be giving up Spanish which I really enjoyed learning alongside Physics as an optional module.

2)     Over the summer I also had the amazing opportunity to work at the Science Museum in London in their development department, thanks to the Ogden Trust. It was just the best month – I had such a great time, got to take part in some insanely cool stuff, met some really wonderful people and discovered skills I didn’t know I had. I also got to experience living in London for the first time which was mostly fun!

3)     As part of my final year I have to do a long project – something which counts as half of my final grade for the year (so it’s a pretty big deal!). I’m really enjoying it so far – it’s more or less a big extension of some work I’d done previously on modelling asteroids which is great. I’ve been really enjoying getting to approach the task much more like someone conducting real research would – reading all the available literature, constructing some good and well defined aims for the project and how I think I’ll get there and then getting down with some good old data analysis!

4)     Being the president of a student society and SPEAKING IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS! This year I’m actually the president of the Durham Atheist, Secularist and Humanist society – don’t panic we’re not just angry atheists! In fact it’s probably best described as a sceptics group – we organise talks, debates and discussions on a huge range of topics as well as socials and charity work. As part of this I’ve become more involved with the British Humanist Association, so was lucky enough to be able to take part in a debate in the House of Lords in December! More on this in another blog post – suffice to say it was AMAZING!

5)     Christmas holidays! As I lost almost all my summer to studying/working, I didn’t really get to have a proper holiday! So, this Christmas I’m attempting to pack rather a lot in – seeing friends and family, working, a hill walking trip in Scotland and a trip to Amsterdam. It should be great – it will be nice to have a good break, but obviously the work never really stops!

Well, keep an eye open for these upcoming blog posts – I’m going to try and stick to posting approximately fortnightly as I think a regular schedule will help me get back in to it. Right now, I’m off to do some reading before bed, as because it’s the last week of term I have a lot to do tomorrow and I’m knackered!