I am finally here!

I've finally got the oppurtunity to sit down and blog! Every night since arriving here in Queens I've been so tiried i just slept, I'm in 9-5 everyday! Most people have no more than 10 hours a week!

But so far it has been fun, I'm very excited. The Med-School is awesome, the people are awesome and the accomodation is... ok. The folk on my floor are wonderfully amiable, but it's shared sanitaries. I was supposed to get en suite...

Today we did a First Aid course, it was fun if not a bit tedious. I've done it all before, it was like revision. The manager of the instructors however was wearing one of those copper bracelets. The ones that "rectify your aura" and "resonates with your natural frequency." And he's a qualified medic. Oh dear.

On the Republican candidates

The candidates for the 2012 Republican Presidential nomination are abysmal... All 3 of the front runners are young-Earth creationists and anti-science. The worst two are Michelle Bachmann and Rick Perry, the former against vaccinations for cervical cancer, the latter publicly praying for rain to alleviate drought and both avid deniers of human caused climate change.

It's actually so bad that Nobel Prize winning Paul Nurse, president of the Royal Society, wrote an editorial on the issue in this week's New Scientist. This is why politics should have more room for scientific discourse, the public needs to be swayed by actual evidence on issues like climate policy and science education as opposed to rhetoric as is so often the case.

So true about funding

With all the cuts by the conservative government, I've had to defend science funding before. Phil Moriarty, from Sixty Symbols at Nottingham University, puts up a good case way more eloquently than I ever could.

Religion's manipulation of the young

Meet 4 year old Kanon. A preacher.

This makes me sad. It just shows how unfortunate it can be when children are exposed to one faith over another before being old enough to make up their own minds. It's disgusting how they cheer him on...

Richard Dawkin's new book

Richard Dawkins has a new book announced for the 4th of October, and this excited me because he is one of my favourite authors. He has a rare talent of being able to communicate complicated scientific ideas in an easily understandable and interesting way.

It's called "The Magic of Reality", and marks a significant departure from his usual works. Namely it's for kids, and from the sound of it it seems fantastic.

I think stuff like this is so important, most lovers of science were captivated by the wonder of science as children. It was the "Horrible Science" series that caught me. I got the one about bugs when I was 8, and loved science ever since. Hopefully "The Magic of Reality" will captivate a new generation like Horrible Science and Carl Sagan's Cosmos did before it.

New Symphony of Science release

It's about the quantum world this time! Featuring Brian Cox, Michio Kaku, Stephen Hawking, Richard Feynmann and, oddly, Morgan Freeman. Frank Close appears briefly too, exciting for me because I've read some of his stuff. It's good.

I got into medicine!!!

I am so happy! 2 years of work finally paid off!

I got the call from Queen's University last night, and the wonderful lady gave me an offer!

I am so freaking excited, my halls are all sorted and I move up on the 18th!

All I still have to do is navigate the hell of UCAS Clearing...

Anyway, stuff to do! I'll blog more at Uni, but for now my life can be summarised thus: excitement and confusion!