As we move into term 2...

As hard as it may be to believe, I am now in the second of the 'taught' terms of my MSc. This means I have lectures until the end of March, and after that I will concentrate solely on my research project.

But before the second term could start there was the small issue of the exam for Marty Sereno's module, 'structure and measurement of the human brain'. This was the module I had been struggling with a little bit, as had many of my cohorts, as it straddled cellular biology, the molecular physics of magnetic resonance imaging, and topics such as chemistry and embryonic development. This was a bit tough for poor old me, who had not done any science or maths since my GCSEs, and had always been stronger in the humanities.

If you are interested, you can see the practice exam paper here.

Anyway, it wasnt half as bad as many of us had feared, and frankly as long as I pass (of which I am pretty confident) then I'm happy. Plus there is the added bonus of knowing that this will probably be the last exam I ever take.

Now the exam is out of the way the pressure if off for a little while, but I do have a couple of essays to be getting on with, as well as getting on top of my research project. This quiet moment won't last long, so I intend to try and get a head start on the assignments for this term as soon as possible.

I did, however, award myself the weekend off.

Weeks 4 & 5

Over a month into the course now, and my predominant feeling is exhaustion. I can't particularly explain why, but I am bloody tired. How handy it is then, that next week is a reading week, and it couldn't have been timed better.

There isn't a great deal to report about the last fortnight. We had some interesting lectures and some achingly dull ones. We learnt a little about how computational modelling can help us to understand the brain, had another case study at the hospital, and a whole load more stats.

I got my marks back for the first statistics test as I was handing in the second assignment. I did reasonably well, considering the conditions under which I wrote the last one (see my previous entry on my late-night rewrite). The marks I dropped were, I think, due mostly to the length of time it has been since I had to do any statistical analysis, and a couple of silly mistakes. I feel a lot more confident about the second test, and it would seem that I am back into the swing of things.

My main worry now is the exam in January (the only exam on this course), which is on the neurophysiological side of the course. Of course, this stuff is bloody hard, and Marty has just put a few example questions on his website, which really put the fear into me. As I was rereading my notes on how brain cells communicate with one another, I was struck by just how easy this would be it the brain were intrinsically self-aware. My neurons are firing right now, in many different parts of my brain, as are yours, as are all of ours, all the time, many many times over. We should be experts in this. Given the frequency with which our neurons fire you could argue that it is the single most practised act any human has ever performed.

So why then is this exam shaping up to be such a struggle?