Phew.. it's all over

For now at least! I won't know the verdict on whether I have passed my 3 modules until after the (mercifully pretty early) assessment board on 15th June. Worst case scenario: I'll have to resit at the end of August, smack in the middle of the last week of the advanced yoga teacher training course I'm planning to take in Quebec (and I don't think University of East London has an exam centre out in Montreal!) so fingers crossed I've squeezed through on that Anatomy exam (by some miracle)..

In other news, I tried out the super cheap student rate for a haircut at Vidal Sassoon's School of Hairdressing near Bond St station last week, for a mere STG 4.50! OK... so I had to sit almost completely still for nearly three hours (thank goodness for trashy novels :), but they did a great job. When I say they, I mean my student from Iceland and the teacher who was supervising him. Neither of them spoke English as their first language and their (slower but pretty successful) communication with each other reminded me of my friendship with a Yakutian neighbour of mine in Japan. She spoke Russian, French and Japanese, but no English, and I spoke no Russian (and insufficient French!), so we had to communicate in Japanese! I really wonder now what everyone around us thought when they heard us!

Off to Switzerland to visit Mum in a couple of hours! Back soon. M xx

So assignment no. 4 is done

bar the title page ("Melanie Shaw's Herbarium") that is.. but I'm so sick of cutting and pasting and snipping and sticking down right now that that can wait! I will write out the title by hand if necessary. Phew..


pages 6 & 7 of Mel's herbarium (Germander Speedwell and Ribwort respectively)

It's not all been a horrible drag though. It's been a new and wonderful experience beginning to pay some more attention to detail when out walking in Nature, collecting specimens to press. I can see myself becoming a bit of a Botany nerd in time (lots of time!).

For now though, I've got to pack my bag for next week and tackle those bones, muscles and cells for the big scary anatomy/physiology exam. Hope you are enjoying the weekend. M xx

3 assignments down..

one more (plus three exams) to go! phew... nearly there. By this time next week, I'll be shacked up in a Halls of Residence in Docklands, ploughing my way through three days of exams. Then my first semester will be over - hurrah! Right now, I'm compiling a list of 20 medicinal herbs, their chemical constituents and their actions for my final piece of coursework. I also have to collect specimens of each part of these plants (roots included) and press them. So far I have 6 of the little blighters captured and squished.... only 14 more to go. I hope to collect most of the rest of them while walking out in the countryside in Wiltshire over the next few days - wish me luck :) Once that's done, I can get down to the business of revising 100s of muscles and bones and goodness-knows what else for the exams next week. I find myself wishing I could insert one of those chips from the "Matrix" in my head..

more soon (and hopefully unrelated to study!) M xx

Caterwauling..

I had my first singing lesson today since leaving high school, and it was certainly very different from what I'd experienced all those years ago! This afternoon, in a vain attempt to get me to 'raise up my larynx', my teacher had me singing scales in the manner of a bored preacher (an American accent was called for, for some technical reason?), a Smurf (when I explained I had been brought up on the German version of smurfs, i.e. Die Schlümpfe, she said I should try singing as though I had just inhaled helium in stead!) a bored robot (again the American accent was paramount) and finally a Siamese cat, much to the bemusement of her ageing tabby.. who must either be deaf or has just been worn down by the continuous torture of having to listen to her mistress' students tampering with their vocal cords all day long, as she didn't flinch at all, but just gazed up at me from the edge of the piano stool with a puzzled look!

Amazingly though, all this laryngeal gymnastics seems to work, as when we finally attempted an old jazz favourite of mine, "Misty", at the end of the lesson, there were moments (only a few mind you, and brief at that) when I managed to sound less like a choir boy and more like an approximation of a jazz diva. Of course there was the small problem of the piece being hopelessly out of my range (it stretches down to E below middle C), but my teacher reassures me it's just a matter of time before age takes its toll and I'll be able to reach that note effortlessly.. So I guess there's some comfort in getting old.. ;)