A Spoonful of Sugar- insanipi's PharmSci journey

[sweetiepi]

Not quite sure what to add for the first post here, but here goes nothing!
(Also if anyone has a better title, let me know haha )

A super brief overview of "Pharmaceutical Science"

Basically the degree I'm doing covers how medicines are made, from drug target identification to formulation and being placed on the market.
In this first year, I've covered a lot of chemistry and a bit of physiology, as well as some research aspects and a 'taster' unit which gives me the opportunity to see which major/specialisation (Drug discovery biology, medicinal chemistry or formulation science) tickles my fancy the most.

Last semester: was really enjoyable, especially with one of my chemistry units having the lecturer/unit coordinator know us all by name, made the transition from school-life to uni-life just a little easier. I found that I did particularly well in my physiology (biology + a mix of neuroscience and health) unit, which was interesting, as I hadn't done any biology since year 9.
I also have found my cohort to be really close-knit, as we're quite a small cohort, which means that we all basically know each other now.

Today (22/8/17): Was a relatively chillaxed day, we started covering medicinal chemistry in my 'taster' unit. I'm really interested to see how this particular series goes, as I'm currently tossing up between medchem and formsci as a major currently, and the next few weeks will most likely solidify my choice. I also have just started the research for my next group presentation, still looking at psoriasis, but we get to modify a current drug- which is kinda exciting!
I also had lunch with one of my uni friends afterwards, as we recently discovered there's a general store and a sushi place right across the road from campus.

[strawberries]

Love it!

[sweetiepi]

23/08

Today was fairly brutal, considering it started with an 'interview' with the lecturer assessing my next group assignment. I'm actually a more unclear on the task requirements than before that.

I had a cruisy 3 hour 'break'* before my lab, which gave me the opportunity to print off my next week's worth of lecture slides and to let me type some of my notes from the past week.

To finish my day, I had a 3 hour lab which was fairly brutal- considering the strictness of the safety concering some of the chemicals we used- we were basically required to change gloves every hour or so and then we had to wipe our pens down with ethanol. Safe to say I was working with some highly toxic poisons today hahaha.

Tonight I was planning to do some study for my physiology quiz on Friday, but now I honestly don't think it'll do me any good- I won't remember anything :p

*it is never a break, there's always stuff to be done

[sweetiepi]

25/08
Yesterday:
Only had 2 afternoon classes- one of coordination compounds, and one on drug receptors. Both were very interesting, although I was very thankful for the late start- I needed the extra sleep!

Today- A day in the life of me:
6:45- woke up
7:20- speed walked to the station to catch the next train out.
7:30- started last-minute studying for this morning's quiz
8:20- got to uni; chose to read my book (I'm currently reading Take the key and  lock her up by Ally Carter)
9:00-9:30- had my quiz (physiology); was probably my least favourite quiz I've undertaken so far this year.
10:00- had a physiology lecture, the third in the series for the reproductive system.
11:00- had a physical chemistry lecture, the second for looking at surface properties.
12:00- was supposed to have a lunch break, but I snuck into the earlier session for a computer lab (I was supposed to be in the 1pm session, but attendance wasn't recorded )
1:00- go to Brunswick with some of my uni friends for Lebanese pizza and pies
3:30- eventually arrive back home

Tonight:
- I'm aiming to study a bit for my upcoming midsem for bioorganic chemistry- that's by far one of my harder units this semester
- I'm also going to research what other medications treat psoriasis, given that my group's interested in the pd4 (I think) receptor.
- I'm also going to make time to start reading over the next week's worth of notes and revise over my annotations on this week's lecture notes.

[sweetiepi]

The past few days have been fairly up and down-
- Late Friday night: I ended up in a bit of a panicked state because I realised that I felt like I barely knew much of what I'm being tested on for my midsem which is coming up- it made for a very unpleasant night; unsure of what do to at that point in time.
- Saturday: I was fairly unmotivated, and I didn't do very much, considering the most notable thing that happened was my younger brother's last cross country race occurred (he beat his PB, I'm uber proud of him).
- Sunday: As I haven't been doing so well for the past day and a bit, I chose to not push myself right out to the point of burnout (I was feeling like I was on the verge of that by this stage) by instead only doing some very light study/research- posing questions for my group project and going over the last few week's worth of bioorg and physchem.
- Today: I had a relatively short day- had 2 chemistry lectures and a physiology lecture (all back to back). Again, haven't really done much since getting home, but I hope to *attempt* to pick up my game again before the busier end of the week comes, else I fear that I'll be snowed under- which is never fun.

[babushka818]

The past few days have been fairly up and down-
- Late Friday night: I ended up in a bit of a panicked state because I realised that I felt like I barely knew much of what I'm being tested on for my midsem which is coming up- it made for a very unpleasant night; unsure of what do to at that point in time.
- Saturday: I was fairly unmotivated, and I didn't do very much, considering the most notable thing that happened was my younger brother's last cross country race occurred (he beat his PB, I'm uber proud of him).
- Sunday: As I haven't been doing so well for the past day and a bit, I chose to not push myself right out to the point of burnout (I was feeling like I was on the verge of that by this stage) by instead only doing some very light study/research- posing questions for my group project and going over the last few week's worth of bioorg and physchem.
- Today: I had a relatively short day- had 2 chemistry lectures and a physiology lecture (all back to back). Again, haven't really done much since getting home, but I hope to *attempt* to pick up my game again before the busier end of the week comes, else I fear that I'll be snowed under- which is never fun.

Nice to see that you've taken some much needed time off hope you feel better soon!

[sweetiepi]

Nice to see that you've taken some much needed time off hope you feel better soon!

Thanks babs <3 I hope so too!

[strawberries]

The past few days have been fairly up and down-
- Late Friday night: I ended up in a bit of a panicked state because I realised that I felt like I barely knew much of what I'm being tested on for my midsem which is coming up- it made for a very unpleasant night; unsure of what do to at that point in time.
- Saturday: I was fairly unmotivated, and I didn't do very much, considering the most notable thing that happened was my younger brother's last cross country race occurred (he beat his PB, I'm uber proud of him).
- Sunday: As I haven't been doing so well for the past day and a bit, I chose to not push myself right out to the point of burnout (I was feeling like I was on the verge of that by this stage) by instead only doing some very light study/research- posing questions for my group project and going over the last few week's worth of bioorg and physchem.
- Today: I had a relatively short day- had 2 chemistry lectures and a physiology lecture (all back to back). Again, haven't really done much since getting home, but I hope to *attempt* to pick up my game again before the busier end of the week comes, else I fear that I'll be snowed under- which is never fun.

insanipi <3

[EEEEEEP]

The past few days have been fairly up and down-
- Late Friday night: I ended up in a bit of a panicked state because I realised that I felt like I barely knew much of what I'm being tested on for my midsem which is coming up- it made for a very unpleasant night; unsure of what do to at that point in time.
- Saturday: I was fairly unmotivated, and I didn't do very much, considering the most notable thing that happened was my younger brother's last cross country race occurred (he beat his PB, I'm uber proud of him).
- Sunday: As I haven't been doing so well for the past day and a bit, I chose to not push myself right out to the point of burnout (I was feeling like I was on the verge of that by this stage) by instead only doing some very light study/research- posing questions for my group project and going over the last few week's worth of bioorg and physchem.
- Today: I had a relatively short day- had 2 chemistry lectures and a physiology lecture (all back to back). Again, haven't really done much since getting home, but I hope to *attempt* to pick up my game again before the busier end of the week comes, else I fear that I'll be snowed under- which is never fun.

There there <3. Try not to work yourself too hard lou :33

[sweetiepi]

insanipi <3

There there <3. Try not to work yourself too hard lou :33

Thanks guys! <3

29/8
Today's been a much better day- I did some light study before my lectures this morning, then grabbed a coffee- decided to shake things up and get a different coffee today (That's probably why my day was better than the past few ) .
In my lectures today: we covered a lot of exam questions in physiology, as well as learning a lot about what goes down in medicinal chemistry- including looking at/interpreting Lipinski's rule of 5, total polar surface area and membrane permeability.
I've also started going through and making flashcards for my chem unit that has a midsem test, after realising that my pal Quizlet has most of the reactions I need to memorise already in pictures!
I'm also lowkey excited for my prac tomorrow- we're doing some ion exchange chromatography- I'm not entirely sure how that links into my physchem unit, but made for an interesting read (and reread/rewatch of prelab stuff), as I hadn't heard of that type of chromatography before about 3pm

[peterpiper]

Thanks guys! <3

29/8
Today's been a much better day- I did some light study before my lectures this morning, then grabbed a coffee- decided to shake things up and get a different coffee today (That's probably why my day was better than the past few ) .
In my lectures today: we covered a lot of exam questions in physiology, as well as learning a lot about what goes down in medicinal chemistry- including looking at/interpreting Lipinski's rule of 5, total polar surface area and membrane permeability.
I've also started going through and making flashcards for my chem unit that has a midsem test, after realising that my pal Quizlet has most of the reactions I need to memorise already in pictures!
I'm also lowkey excited for my prac tomorrow- we're doing some ion exchange chromatography- I'm not entirely sure how that links into my physchem unit, but made for an interesting read (and reread/rewatch of prelab stuff), as I hadn't heard of that type of chromatography before about 3pm

What coffee did you get? And what coffee do you normally order?

[sweetiepi]

What coffee did you get? And what coffee do you normally order?

I got a medium flat white today, and I usually get a small cappuccino
(also I don't have sugar in my coffee- sugar makes me kinda sleepy, and that's not the desired effect )

[Joseph41]

I got a medium flat white today, and I usually get a small cappuccino
(also I don't have sugar in my coffee- sugar makes me kinda sleepy, and that's not the desired effect )

I've never had sugar in coffee (or tea), but I honestly can't imagine it being pleasant in the slightest.

[sweetiepi]

30/8

Today I finally found some motivation to study- I got up early and went to the campus library to study for the good part of 4 hours- I should probably do this more often haha.
Today's prac was highly enjoyable (and easy)- titrations and filling tubes with not so highly dangerous chemicals is always so relaxing and repetitive, a great mid-week prac.

Tomorrow is going to fairly full on- I have another lab, this time making methyl salicyate (aka deep heat), but before that I have a tute for that same unit. I'm most looking forward to the lecture tomorrow, which continues upon the medicinal chemistry series- has been super interesting so far!

I've never had sugar in coffee (or tea), but I honestly can't imagine it being pleasant in the slightest.

My thoughts exactly haha

[sweetiepi]

31/8/17

The day of trying new things (not necessarily to do with uni but still my day so ):
- Having something different for breakfast (cream cheese toast in case anyone's curious )
- Using new things in my lab class such as separating funnels, and rotary evaporators (the second sorta reminds me of a shrinking gun that a villain would use haha)
- Testing out something different at the uni caf- some stirfry noodle thing that was actually really nice haha
- Finding a new spot to read my book (New books for the week- the second Dark Tower book by Stephen King and A Court of Wings and Ruin by Sarah J Maas)
- Sitting at the back of a lecture theatre with the others- only 12 of us showed up to the only lecture of the day
- Trying chatime for the first time

Generally it's been a pretty decent and relaxed day, my 3hr lab only took us 2 hours, so the day didn't seem to drag on. I also got my results back for one of my pracs last week (I didn't like this one whatsoever lol) and I was pleasantly surprised to find that I passed haha. However now I smell like deep heat- which actually is an ester of salicylic acid- so not at all surprising, given that esters generally have a scent.