I’m now 4 months into my dissertation, which is a scary half-way through. A lot of interesting uni-related things have happened in the last week.

I had originally planned to have collected most of my data by now, which didn’t happen as one of my approval forms went missing. (My uni is good at teaching, but not at organisation- a recurring theme throughout the last three years).

Luckily, as my study is low-risk, I was approved quite easily. The delay meant I couldn’t do anything towards collecting data over the Christmas break, so I instead started writing the other parts of the dissertation such as the history of what I’m studying, the method I’m using, and the introduction. This has been going surprisingly well, and its now about 25% done.

However, I got some very good news yesterday- my lab pass is now ready, and my first participant has signed up so I can start experimenting in about 5 hours. I’ve been waiting for years to be able to experiment on people.

During the Christmas break I also got my measures and all the materials the participants will need: a bedroom carpeted in 500 sheets of paper (300 mine, 200 for a friend’s dissertation) is a good, yet messy, way to feel like a grown-up researcher :P

Also, we had an exam two weeks ago, and already have to results back: it’s the first assessed piece of work this year, so the first time I’ve had any idea of my performance. Thankfully, I got 62 which, while a low 2:1, is still a 2:1. My Psychopharmacology presentation in November seems to have been lost in the ether, but its provisional mark was 73- if that does hold up, that’s another really good mark this year, which would be amazing, especially for a presentation.

Finally, there’s one more piece of news, which is big enough to get its own post. I’ll be giving you that news tomorrow :)