Inez’s First Year Blog: Insanity and Elevators

Hey everyone,

Hope you all had a lovely Friday…Manchester was sunny for the first time in ages today! I looked like a crazy person, walking in a zigzag pattern on my way to uni, avoiding all the shady places and trying my very hardest to soak in as much sun as possible.   

I’ve been hovering on the border of insanity for a while now, ( 18 years approximately) and I think the crazy week I’ve had has given me that final push over the edge!  I got stuck in an elevator a few days ago.  Very appropriate, given that I had just watched James Bond perform death-defying stunts on the highest floor of a skyscraper.  Luckily, the emergency button was  working ( !)

The charismatic Mr. Bond

and the engineers responded quite quickly.  Somehow I felt that I wasn’t adding enough dramatic flair to the situation, so I did what everyone trapped in a lift should do. I asked Google for advice and followed the first suggestion I saw…That’s how I ended up banging on the elevator doors until the engineers arrived. Not as stylish as 007, but just as effective…right?  

I had a very interesting lab session last Friday.   My classmates and I had to measure our lung capacities and check the total volume of air we could hold.  We had to blow out into these basin-like machines called spirometers, whilst wearing nose-clips.  It must have seemed quite strange to an on-looker, to see all these white-coated teenagers huffing and puffing away like the wolf in “ The Three Little Pigs.”   We had to measure our height and weight before we started, and I was ALARMED to find that I’ve put on 2 kgs since I came to Manchester.  I’m definitely going to be visiting the aquatics centre soon… I’m really short ( about 5”1 ) so I was pleasantly surprised to find that my lung capacity is 3.6L.  This was a little suspicious though, considering the fact that I’m a couch potato.  Hmm… maybe the yelling in the elevator magically increased my lung size. Stranger things have happened!

One thing I’ve grown to love about Manchester: the cinema!   It’s right in the city centre and really accessible.  They play all the latest movies as soon as they are released, and the student discounts make tickets relatively reasonable.  The Ben and Jerry’s ice-cream doesn’t hurt either! ( EEK! That’s where the extra 2 kg has come from! I’m doomed!!!)  I’m a huge fan of Bollywood movies and I was delighted to find that they play all the newest ones at the IMAX.

 

The contentious discussion we had at the workshop was essentially physics v. biology

Yesterday I attended a very interesting workshop, run by the BBC head of Science, Andrew Cohen.  He described the integration of film and science, and provoked some contentious discussions.  He said that physics was a more popular genre to televise than biology, because it answered “big” questions about the universe.  This led to further discussions on how biology is underrated and perceived as a lesser science compared to physics or chemistry.  There were some rather outraged biologists in the audience…

Hope you all have a grrreat weekend,  

Until the next post

Xoxo

Inez