Kelley Bromley

We got a notice a few days ago to not open our windows because they were going to be cleaned – well, just now we heard some thumping outside and the guy was coming down on his ropes! I took a shot and said “Smile!” and he swung out from the building so I could get a picture in mid air! He wanted a copy of the picture, so I got his email address, lol. Unfortunately the first set of pics didn’t come out because he was backlit, so I went out a second time and took some with flash :D LOL. Now that’s something to scrapbook! LOL! (more…)

No more electives! No more electives! No more electives!

I only need 12 credits for my degree instead of 18! No more electives for me! All I have to do is finish NRSC 501 and I have no more courses EVER! More lab work time!! YAY!!! Ok, so I’m being a bit odd, but after 17 years of studying and being tested I am about to be freeeeeeeeeeeee!!! WOOOOO!!!! (more…)

Ok, so I’m in a bit of a predicament. I thought I had to do 18 credits of course work in the first year of my program. NRSC 500 and NRSC 501 are 6 each, which means two 3 credit electives. I did Bioc 510 last semester, and was going to do Bioc 521 this semester, which is a research critique course, but it overlaps with the NRSC course which is core to the program. So my other option was to take Bioc 535, a course on genetic techniques used in yeast systems – would be very informative, but half the class usually fails the final (50%) and only one person has finished the final since the course was introduced, heh. The good news is that the undergrads in the course have 8 assignments, but as grad students we would only have to modulate class discussions then write the final, which isn’t too bad. It’s based on problem solving and is open book, but if you can’t think of something or you have a headache it might not go over well.

Well, anyway, Blair found out that if you go direct from Bachelors to PhD and get A’s in your courses that you only need 12 credits… so only the core NRSC courses. What we know is that you need to do 12 in the first year, but we don’t know if you have to do the other 6 credits later. Personally, I want to get all my courses over with so I can focus on research (the good stuff!). We all talked to Liz and she confirmed only 12 were required, but didn’t specify if 12 were for this year, so I emailed Dr. Vincent and hopefully he’ll straighten all this up! I really think Bioc 535 would be useful, but not worth the stress, so I might just audit it. (more…)

The Christie lab got together today to make a card for Dr. Christie. I brought in my pigment ink, embossing powder, and the Christmas Slab I bought yesterday and everyone loved embossing! We had a great time, and the card came out looking awesome. Alina had some really nice corrugated paper that looked AMAZING! I just have to get some of it! It really made the card pop!

After the card making business was over, Lionel, Alina, and I went to get sushi for lunch – yam rolls are sooo good! Lionel wants to start eating sushi more often – I like that idea :)

I also did my first semi-unassisted surgery today! Even the anesthesia injection!! I didn’t quite get the rat on the ear bars properly, so Kyle helped me there, but after that I did the surgery part all by myself, albeit with questions posed to Kyle every now and then, hehe. It still felt like an accomplishment though! I had the signal and then lost it, so at 5pm I had to start all over again… ugh! But it worked out really well, and in 10 minutes I had a strong CA1 response again. Andrea helped me set up the software as I had missed a few details when I wrote down the instructions last time, and Kyle showed me how to twiddle the settings to make sure the response was good, and then I was on my way. I never finished until about 8:30pm, but it felt good getting back into lab work. I’m going to start another guy tomorrow and try to do it on my own – ear bars and software too if all goes well! *crosses fingers* :) (more…)

Sorry for not posting in so long – I’m recovering :) The exam actually went quite well, despite the fact that the development notes weren’t as thorough as I’d like. I only really got to read over the last chapter because I was so tired and decided that sleep would be better for problem solving – and I’m so glad I had a bit! It went really well… a choice of 3/6 questions for module 3 and 3/5 for module 4. Everyone I talked to said it was much better than the midterm, and they all thought it was a fair exam.

Everyone tried to go for beer after the exam but apparently the bar doesn’t serve at 11am, lol. I was just going to stay to chat (I don’t drink) and they were going to go back in an hour when the bar opened, but I was anti-social and headed home to have a much needed nap. Alina (of the Christie lab) said people would be recovering on Tuesday, lol, so Lionel and I went Christmas shopping and tried to get Lionel’s BC license – unfortunately the Newfoundland license wasn’t good enough and he needed his citizenship papers… they wouldn’t even accept a passport! Sheesh! And parking downtown on Robson St. was $1/20 minutes!! I fed it $2.50′s worth and we ended up just leaving *Sigh*.

The good news is we picked up Christmas gifts for Sam, Sharene, Steve, and Dad. So now all we have to do is pick up Lionel’s parents’ gift and we’re all set! I still have to get Hiu Ming something though… I saw some more of the 3D crystal things downtown – they came with light stands this time! doh! – but I gave her one of those last year… I’ll come up with something!

We actually found a half decent shopping area with real parking lots. I miss parking lots. Here you either parallel park, park on a roof, pay $7/hour at a parkade, or spontaneously teleport from your home. Crazy business. But yes, a real mall! And a nice feel to it too… set up like a little village, with a normal mall in the center. It’s called Park Royal and it’s in West Vancouver (the city, not the direction, heh :) I got the Christmas Slab III for a great deal ($10!), a 12″ paper trimmer for 37% off, and gloss heavy gel medium! Yay! The gel medium is the coolest stuff – it adds texture to your layouts and it can also be used as a glue and sealer. Can’t wait to try it on the Pearl Ex pigments (colored, acid free, powdered mica) I got on ebay! (more…)

Ok, it’s 12:30am and I have two chapters left… synpatogenesis and cell migration or something like that. The neurodevelopment module actually wasn’t that bad… although I’d rather answer questions on glia, Ca waves, and apoptosis than on the actual neurodevelopment stuff, heh. Too many names, I can never keep them in my head – I’m a pathway person. Anyway, if my approximations are correct, it will take me 4 more hours to complete studying. At least I’ll get some sleep, which is more than I can say for the midterm!

I must say though, Lionel’s been great through all the stress, heh. He made super tonight, and he was going to stay up with me until I was done studying but I noticed he had his eyes closed in his chair – turns out he had a migraine and wasn’t going to bed because he wanted to stay with me! I said it was ok and he went off to bed… but isn’t that amazing? I’m a lucky woman :) (more…)

Ok, so it’s Sunday and 3:48pm, but I’m half way done. I feel confident with module 3. Now it’s time to do development, which I’m not particularly fond of. I’m taking a much needed break right now – been studying since 10am, bleh. Ahhh… tea….

In the meantime, I’m sure my posts will become more frantic when it’s 5am and I’m still studying development (more…)

I’m so tired… but I have to get the details done at least half way through, otherwise I’ll have a hell of a lot to do tomorrow. I can barely keep my eyes open… I’m exhausted :( I think I would actually cry if someone told me we had until Tuesday or Wednesday instead of Monday – just because then I could get some sleep… I need sleep sooo bad =/ Ugh… back to the books. (more…)

I’ve decided you cannot curl into a ball small enough to make exams go away. I hate exams. HATE THEM. They cause stress, and headaches, and indigestion, and overall unpleasentness. I have to get an A in this course so that my PhD comprehensive isn’t on any and every topic in neuroscience – the process leading up to writing an A paper on Monday morning at 8:30am is a long, agonizing one equivalent in torture to slowly boiling yourself alive… sorry to be so gory =/ I just really hate exams… I never did like them, but in undergrad I could suck in information quite quickly, and as I’m getting older it’s harder and harder to do, heh. And it’s not just that – I’m dead tired to boot. As you can tell from my previous posts, I haven’t been getting much sleep lately, heh. Lionel and I watched “Fantastic Four” last night (good movie by the way) to take a break, but it doesn’t help the impending doom feeling… nothing can prevent the inevitable MONDAY from coming, and time only gets shorter *sigh*. I don’t imagine anything else in life could be so stressful as this… I mean, my PhD defence is going to be on research I’ve worked on for years and I’m the expert in what I did, because I did it, lol. This is entirely different. I don’t even like neurodevelopment!! It is VERY difficult to study something you don’t like… grrr… I hate exams :(

I just want to go to sleep and wake up with all my courses done so I can research like a good little grad student… I think I’m going to be sick =/ (more…)

Well, for the last assignment, I worked on it on Tuesday until 10:15pm, went to bed till 4am, got up at 4 and worked on it until 8am, went to class at 8:30am, came home and had a mental break, a nap, and then got all my notes for NRSC 500 collected together, hunted down the papers I needed to study, etc, went to bed at 11pm. This brings us to Thursday, some studying, and AN INSANE AMOUNT OF LAUNDRY! I haven’t done laundry in over a month, so times that by two people and that’s the amount of laundry I have done today, heh. Got some studying in while it was in the wash, although the laundry room is quite noisy. It took me an hour to fold it all! I shrunk some of Lionel’s clothes… it was quite upsetting, but Lionel being the wonderful man he is didn’t mind, heh. *Sigh* – I just want some holidays… my weekend will be a constant mass of studying, but then the hard part will be over, and only one assignment will remain… the days are going by in a blur and everything is mushing together, so it feels like it’s passing quickly. (more…)