September 29th

Hi, It's hard getting back to work after the weekend retreat at Warrington. For those that didn't make it, we arrived at the Hatherly (the Kings High School "classroom by the sea") in pouring rain but soon had the place toasty warm and David's full programme of meditation, yoga and acupressure instruction meant 5 oclock was upon us before we knew it. The potluck hamburger dinner with creamy desserts was a gourmand's delight and helped fuel a late night drumming session round the blazing oildrum fire. Sunday was warmish and sunny and allowed us to meditate and do Qigong and yoga outside, which was great. The only problem is I am now so stiff that lowering myself into a chair is a little painful and I walk as though I spent the whole weekend in the saddle. There are obviously some crucial muscle groups I need to do a bit more work on. Sasha is also feeling a bit at a loose end. She did appreciate all the attention and ball throwing.

Anyway, down to Bioscience. Today you should be finishing off the Digestive system and thinking of moving onto Unit 5: The Blood and its Components. This is an appropriate unit for what should be your holidays (sorry!) as you will find you have done much of it before. So concentrate on expanding your knowledge of the functions of the different sorts of blood cells, as well as where and how they are formed, how long they live and what happens to them when their time is up. You will find that blood clotting is dealt with in some detail as well as blood groups.
You have another week to finish the Digestive System Blackboard quiz which closes next Monday night.

Some people have been asking me about Test 2 which is on Friday October 17th. It will cover Units 3, 4 and 5: The Endocrine and Digestive Systems and the Blood and like the first test is worth 15% of your final mark.

I have just been told of a fun website that may help you with remembering those new words. It is called Wordle and is at http://wordle.net/ It produces "Wordclouds" of any document you copy in to it (try doing an 'edit" and "select all" on the print version of the notes). The most common words used are in the largest script (you can edit out "and" and "the" etc.) and you could print out the "cloud" to put it on your loo wall! Enjoy playing.

Have a good week,
Cheers Ruth

September 22nd

Hello everyone, Just to let you know that the Endocrine System quiz finishes at 11pm tonight so if you haven't doen it yet, you will need to get a move on. You should be well into the Digestive System now and hopefully having fun doing the crossword on the Workbook.

There is a practical in the block course on Friday morning and we will be concentrating on blood there in anticipation of the next unit. I should be supplying some dog's blood from my very long suffering dog Sasha, but for the unsqueamish (!) there will also be the opportunity for you to look at your own haematocrit, blood group and clotting time.

Looking forward to seeing you at Warrington,
Cheers Ruth

September 15th

Hi everyone, today you should be moving on to Unit 4: The Digestive System. You will be pleased to see there is only one course note document so there is probably slightly less information than in the previous two units. People also seem to have more general knowledge of the digestive system than say the nervous or endocrine systems. However, dont get too complacent. There are still lots of new terms to learn.

I can see that most people are doing well in the quizzes with 15 marks being the norm-even if it does take a lot of tries to get there! So you have until next Monday to do the Endocrine one.

There will be a tutorial on the Digestive System on Thursday 1pm, so if you are able to make it please do come along. I think those who have got to the previous ones thought it was well worth while. It would be good if you could do some reading before so it is not a total black hole when you get there.

Have a good week,

Cheers Ruth

Monday September 8th

Hi, I have marked the tests and most have done really well. I have sent you an email with your marks and you should get your scripts back this week. Get back to me if you have haven't got the email yet.

So now the test is over you can really concentrate on getting into the Endocrine System notes and hopefully, after the practical on Friday, you should find that the hormones names and their functions are a little familiar. Hopefully the idea of feedback control should also start to make sense. Often the explanation is a bit hard to follow but when you see it in action, as I tried to show you in the practical exercise, you can see more clearly how it works to keep the concentrations of hormones or glucose etc. closely within the limits tolerated by the body.

There are a couple of crosswords in the endocrine workbook. I have found a program that allows me to put in the words and their clues and it generates crosswords for me, not beautiful symmetrical ones as in the paper, but quite good looking ones. Tell me if they are a good idea.

Have a good week,

Cheers Ruth