Plaisir and Jouisance: About exams, lab and scientific research methods ;D

Howdy-ho!

Period 2 is going on full speed already, so I'd like to quickly conclude period one and the exams, write a bit about what we are doing now in period 2, and what I've been up to besides studying :).

Exams went fine :). I passed epidemiology, but don't know the grade yet, and got 7,5 out of 10 for statistics. Maybe the results aren't quite what I expected in the start and what I am used to get, however, I feel like I understand these subjects now better than I have before, when I've passed with higher grades. This is nice to know - it shows that the level here, at Wageningen University, is much higher, and when normally it is not to say easy, but at least doable for me, to get high scores, then here, with the same amount of studying, I am only somewhere in the middle with the "medium" grade, showing how much more they actually expect us to know. That is very motivating, and I am willing to put hard work into it, to learn as much as possible here.

Now period 2 has started, and I like it much better than the first one. The workload is bigger, and study material is a bit harder to grasp, but my two courses are Nutritional Physiology and Methodology in Nutritional Research, which are somehow much more "real" to me. We learn what goes on in the body and how to research that, and it is easy to see the relevance of that and its connection with my future career. This is not to say that epidemilogy or statistics is not relevant, but they are just a means of understanding the real thing, which is what actually happens in the body when we eat, starve or exercise.
And we are really finding out much about that! There are lectures, group work, and lab practicals. I have never been to a lab before in my life (actually my entire experience is limited to looking at a piece of hair and a slice of onion through a microscope once in my life, in about 9th grade), but now I suddenly have my own personal lab coat, glasses, and I know how to do things at a lab! It's very exciting. It is also easy to study it all with my course, because most of us seem very at home and know exactly what they are doing.
In my first practical we looked at how protein is digested in human body - in the stomach and in the small intestine. Basically, nothing which we expected from reading the book, happened (:D), but it is still such a nice way to learn! It makes things much more clear and easier to remember, when we go like "ok, now we pretend we are in the stomach so we add a little bit this acid; and now we are going to small intestine, so this one comes in and makes the environment more alkaline again". And all the steps our protein has to go trough according to the protocol, are exactly the ones which were described in the book, so in the next lecture I totally remember the things, what happens and why. Also, it turns out that I am not too clumsy for lab at all, I was fine :).
Here I am, little happy lab nerd ;)

Currently, we are designing and carrying out our own little intervention studies, and participating in our course-mates' studies. That is so odd. Basically we are learning about biomarkers. Knowing how full of errors the information from lets say a food records can be, when wanting to measure the actual energy intake (people cant remember or cant´describe exactly how they were cooking, or want to pretend that they eat more than they do or less and we dont know the exact nutrient composition of the type of food they're eating etc etc), we would like to know if there are components in the diet (and therefore in the body after you've eaten your diet), which we could measure. So each of us has to record what we eat, what we do, and then gather 2 times 24 hour urine samples.
A 24 hour urine sample means that you gather your entire urine for these 24 hours in a container. There are pills we have to take, so we could later check in the lab if the urine sample is complete (the pills are not used for anything and therefore excreted in the urine in the same amounts as they were in the pills), so we cant cheat. And so we all just walk around with a 3-liter container in our purse or packbag and pee in it every time we have to, for 48 hours in total. It is so strange. I went to lecture today, and normally after the lecture we all sit and chill and study at campus; today, as soon as we were off, people were rushing home to pee :D. Also, if you do have it in your bag, the liquid in the plastic container makes the sound, so everyone can hear how much pee you're carrying around and...ooh...it is all so so so strange. Also, it needs to be stored in a fridge. I really dont know. At least it totally increases my respect to people when I read studies like "..Thirty 24-hour urine samples were collected for each participant.."
It's Helen's birthday today and we are going to a restaurant for dinner later. That should be good fun with the containers ;D.
Well anyway. After we have gathered the samples, we will analyse them, and try to see if the intake reported on the food record is in any kind of relation with the biomarker (eg. urinary sucrose for sugar and sucrose intake, or nitrogen for eating protein). And then, if we discover that it always corresponds the same way to intake, then in the future we could just make everybody collect their pee for us rather than having a food diary or a recall, so we would know exactly what they're eating and could give them good advise, or at least could know if and how much they are lying about the food records. Obviously the teachers already know the answer, so we are not actually discovering anything, but all the nastiness aside, I think it is actually a rather cool way of studying ;). Eventually we will write a report on everything we did, which is basically like an article which could be published in a scientific journal or like a mini masters thesis.
This is the big lab work for one subject, and there will be plenty more in the other. So I get to use my lab coat many times, so cool! :)

I have really lived into this student life, and gotten used to the constant overflow of all kinds of study materials and texts (as opposed to the start of period 1, when it frustrated me so much that I felt I never have any time for anything besides reading at all). Suddenly I feel how I am in a constant rhythm of studying and doing other things, little at a time, but enough of everything. I am keeping up with the same hobbies - I run, yoga (also with youtube, still ;)), debate and learn Dutch. With winter coming, I have also started to do a little bit chrocheting (? heegeldamine ;D), which is fun, and I can do it while I read for uni, so even better.
One day, the Saturday after the last exams, I went to a bit bigger city than Wageningen, to Utrecht with my neighbor Ben and his Belgium friend, and spent a nice day there. It's funny, I am originally a small town girl and should be used to peace and quiet like in Wageningen. But when we went to Utrecht and I saw the first H&M, my heart jumped with joy of recognition like "whoow, we've gotten back to real world with H&M and traffic and not one cow in sight" :D. Yeah, it was very nice to be there, but even better to then come back to our own little peace and quiet Wageningen, which I've really started to appreciate and consider much homeish.
On top of that I've had some nice dinners with my Indian, German and Indonesian neighbours, with my AID "dad"-s and couple of other friends. I've been to one party too, but no..I think parties here are too much like a high-school disco, and possibly I myself am becoming too old or academic to enjoy them the same way I did. But anyway, life is totally happening, and I like it :).

The next weeks are also going to be interesting :). On 11. November, I will go to Denmark for a long weekend, to bring some of my stuff, attend an early Christmas party, see friends and have a lot of fun! (I guess whether or not I still like partying will be demonstrated there :D). After that I will be back at Wageningen for a week and then go to a 10-day debating training camp in Slovenia. I am so looking forward! And in December, I am going to participate in my first debating competition! After that there are already exams again and Christmas with home and family in Estonia!! Time goes so fast. But I am sure that plenty of funny happenings will fit between right now and Christmas, and I'll make sure to write about them ;).

The blog has recently again become so much about me and what I do, think, and am, but I am thinking, and will try, to write about something health-related and more interesting/relevant to everybody, soon. Just not about urinary sucrose :/. I wait til I get a better topic ;).

Long post as ever, maybe next one will be short and precise ;D.

I wish you all all the best, be happy, be active and enjoy the last autumn weathers before very soon welcoming the winter and Christmas! ( I joined gym!! :) in case it gets too cold or muddy for running).

Ciao!