Värdelös

Well this week (so far) has been two words- an experience. No it's not because I've wiped my backside for the first time by myself, done any thing to scream and shout about, simply that I've started my Master's thesis. Again, to reiterate, this is more boring than watching paint dry to some, but already I've learned a lot.

The techniques and such are a student's worst nightmare as they are actually used in 'real life'...ahh, scary thought I know, haha. With any new job/experience, I feel like a lost sheep, just wandering around, trying to get my head around what the hell is going on. Now when I'm trying to calculate what size restriction fragments I get when using EcoR1 endonuclease from a novel platypus granzyme sequence, whilst putting it in to the context of what I'm actually trying to do, yes the feeling is very much that I'm värdelös or useless in my native tongue.

But I'm not alone....meeting up with fellow Masters students who like me have started their projects this week, we can all sit there and laugh at ourselves for feeling like absolute muppets. I mean thank god my supervisor allows me to ask him 'stupid questions' with out fear of reprisal.

Ok, enough about that. I guess we all feel like newbies sometimes, I even used the wrong sellotape in my log book for feck sake!! However, if things have started this strong I'm going to learn a lot, and that can only be a good thing. I guess this challenge is actually something (that although at the time potentially sucks) I really do want. At the end of every new experience that really does take vast amounts of mental thought, I know I feel good. This goes for physical aspects too: not enough people experience that gym feeling when you've spanked it and feel like dying, yet somehow very satisfied.

On a somewhat different subject, we get our new flat keys tomorrow! It's always funny explaining to someone we are actually moving 2 floors down, note this is NOT a good band name, Mr Thorpe senior. I can't wait for a place to call our own, so in about 15 hours, this time will come!! Not much else to say, just got to try and stop Johanna getting booed off guitar hero- some things are indeed impossible.....

Guitar Hero

Ok, not the funniest post, or to some, even remotely interesting, but we bought guitar hero the other day. For those who have no idea what the hell I'm talking about, man are you behind the times. Basically you strum different combinations of notes (the lovely coloured buttons) in a analogous way to a real guitar. Easier said than done, trust me. Here's pretty much the one we've got (Aerosmith edition):

It's very addictive, and as you progress through the game you get to play more songs, unlock guitars, characters etc.

There's numerous videos posted on youtube, you know, with all the world record attempts of kids and stuff. I just randomly picked this one, please ignore the stereotypical American teenager thing going on, regardless, its impressive!

Bits and pieces

To start with something fairly amusing, this made the news headlines this morning:

Now I think a picture says a thousand words, so no story needed here. All you need to know is the burger weighed 6.8kg, the extras weighed 2.3kg and the dude pictured took 4hrs and 39mins. What I think is slightly strange is the guy doesn't look particularly weird/fat, but saying that the world champ hot dog man Takeru Kobayashi, is ripped (you have to search for yourself, but his eating habits are very funny, he almost takes 'I could eat a horse' too far).

The World Open squash competition is on at the mo, which is disappointing for me: I mean I am not patriotic and if I could I would love not be English (I don't think I can be proud of this country), however we are good at squash: we had 3 English men in the last 8, 6 in the last 16, 10 in the last 32. Its currently being played now, so will keep you posted. The women has a similar situation with 2 English ladies in the semi-final, hence a guaranteed finalist. So not only have we got significant representation in this competition, it's the WORLD OPEN and it's held in Manchester!! Yet no-one gives two shiny shits about it! BBC has no coverage, nor Sky, just some timid reports on squashsite.co.uk and a weak link if you search hard on the BBC sportpage. Justice at times, doesnt exist!

Moan over, but frustration is the name of the game. On a way more boring note (yes it's possible) the title of Masters thesis is Hematopoietic Serine Proteases: a Functional and Evolutionary Analysis......yes I hear the yawn from here, but the techniques and science behind it is very interesting, the word 'Evolutionary' would make me run away in the blink of an eye. However its interesting in terms of these serine proteases (enzymes that chops up stuff), as Im hopefully going to determine how many millions of years ago this gene diverged, as its conserved among species, from cow, dog to platypus etc. So thats part of it, ok.....probably sounds boring still, but I'm looking forward to it.

Any thing else...hmm....not really, will enter some more squash tournaments soon, we are looking forward to moving in to our new apartment. Johanna's dad and brother are tradesmen, so will come up and give it a 'make over': gunna be like those DIY programs, but less gay.

On that note, looking forward to the bulk of this weekend.....writing a minireview on epigenetics.....christ I'm doing more yawning than an insomniac on sleeping pills.

Something for the Summer

Well bizarrely (spelling?) as this came up considering it's just coming up to winter, but it's just planning ahead. But GPS (Trevor McDoogal) and I are hoping to go somewhere in Africa next year to do some volunteer work- you know help some kids,animals, plant trees etc....There are many biological studies out there, with the likes of HIV, malaria, TB etc, so a lot of patient sampling in carried out: would be sweet to help out with that. None the less it's a potential idea, just thought I'd share that with you...

Two successes

In brief: yesterday I won the Uppsala Squash Club Handicap competition, yey.

More importantly, we signed contract for our new apartment that we own. So officially I own a flat in Sweden, yey.

p.s. bizarrely our flat is exactly the same as the one we are in now- the reason? Well its two floors below us.

Vasa

Last weekend we had a visitor, who cannot be named for legal reasons (he's too old)- let's just call him Sven. Anyway, we thought we'd take Sven on a sight seeing tour of Stockholm (Well actually that wasn't the case nor did we come up with the suggestion) and ended up choosing the Vasa Museum on Djurgården.

For reasons of lack of the green stuff (even though we don't have dollars I know) is probably the tight arse reason why we didn't go in there before, but forgetting we have student discount and a frivolous Sven leading the way, we took a gander at the sight that is the Vasa.

And what a sight it was. Some 60m long and weighing a potential 1200 tonnes, this well armed, apparently brightly coloured ship stood, mostly in tact (for now at least) and had people gazing at its beauty.

Amongst the awe lies a pretty funny, albeit tragic story. Now this beast built over two years, from 1626 to 1628 was built as the pride of King Gustavus fleet, to join them fighting in the Thirty Years War (again Protestants vs Catholics...you know, the usual). However, Henrik Hybertsson (note, Dutch born-hmmm) the shipbuilder continued to build a boat, basically with no plans or design, with little ballast, meaning any lateral force (from the sides) i.e. wind, could easily tip over. Coupled with top heavy weight, this was not a good combination.

No surprises that on its maiden voyage in 1628, a gust a wind blew the thing over and it sank just a few 100m from its launch site. So the boat itself is sort of mounted on a frame and supports, but there are some major storage problems even now (which I wont go in to). Needless to say, I'm glad I've seen it and understood a little about the history and what not, especially with the idea that it could (effectively) rot away. It truelly is as useful as a handbrake in a canoe.

If only the 'engineers' who designed it would have teamed up with their fellow Volvo compatriots, then something a wee bit more reliable would have been produced, but I guess we wouldn't be seeing it in all its glory, sitting patiently on a little island in Stockholm.