Biology Practicum

How do you know if some tissue contains cancer-cells? How can you make them visible? How can you locate those cells, to destroy them later?

Those questions were lain down before us. Two students from the University Leiden came to our high school and gave a short college and a practicum. Really interesting.

We had to put a fluorisenting liquid on the cells, which will show the structure of the cell so we could see if it was a cancer-cell or not. And it was. Simply great.

And how did it affect my vision on the University?

• First, I learned that you have much more cool stuff on the University. They brought a special microscope, simply fantastic.
• That even if you study Medicine, you can learn a lot about DNA and how to show it. This guy studies Medicine, and this is his side-job. So instead of working at the McDonalds, he worked for the University and gives presentations at high schools, pretty awesome!
• When you study on a University, you learn to presentate even better. These guys just explained some really hard topics, and they made it understandeble. Of course, they did it a couple of times before, but they have a really easy way how they present the topic and themselves.
• I know now that University is going to be great. Of course, I already knew it, but I'm even more sure. It is going to be great, if I see those guys, I really look forward to become like them, really.

I learned a lot about biology, but also about the University, so I think it was a afternoon well spend!

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School Hacks: 7 things to do in an intermediate hour

In the list of school hacks, here are some tips to use your time between your lessons good.

I got 6 of them in a week. Scheduled.

6 hours between my classes. Plus the hours I get when a teacher is ill.

So during this year, and last year when I had 7, I learned some things to do during that hour.

• Make homework. The one who will be praised by the teachers. "But you will have so much extra time, you can do so much homework!" It is true. It is good spending of that time.
• Going to the market and buy chips. Just great. Say to your classmates "Let's go to the supermarket" and they will join. Buy chips, eat it outside and feel good the rest of the day.
• Making your callings. If you know you have an intermediate hour, and you know you have to do some phonecalls. Schedule them then.
• Read your reader. This is where I put most of my time in. Read the items on my reader. Read all those blogs!
• Write a blog! I don't do it, but I do write ideas and work them out. But if you have acces to a computer, you can do it.
• Driving lessons. I want to do it in a couple of weeks. I just turned 18 (the age when you may start lessons) so I will try to plan lessons in my intermediate hours.
• Assemble with some persons in whatever kinda project. If all the other projectmembers also have an intermediate hour, it's the perfect time!

So you can use your time usefull in intermediate hours. I think it is a important thing to use your time on school usefull, it is a good way to getting things done!

What do you do in intermediate hours? Share it in the comments!

Quoting: Huxley

Try to learn something about everything and everything about something. -- 

I like this quote, I really do.

Knowing about everything something, that would be great. So if you read a book, and there is some tough material about a tough subject in it, you will understand. You won't understand it completely, but you will understand enough.

And the know everything about something is even better. Don't try to know everything about everything. You will not make it. But know everything about something is good.

I think that highschool is the base of you knowledge. So in highschool, and primary school of course, is where you learn something, about everything. But at the university, there you will learn everything about something.

You will go deeper into the subject. Seek every little piece of information about a subject. You will get to know everything, about that, about something.

I'm looking forward to go to the university, I really do.

iPod Studying

I have read something about recording the stuff you need to learn.

Call it mini-lectures.

After I have read that, I started to think. How can I use this, and how to apply.

I am actually a more visual student, I think. But I will definitly try it.

I have to cycle to the swimming training, every week. Then I have to cycle for a half an hour. So that is the perfect moment to relisten some mini-lectures. The perfect studying.

I will start the recording this evening. Just like the girl in the article did, I will start with biology. Things like math is hard to record, and to understand without any visual support.

How I will do it:

• Make a summary of the text. I will do this for biology. It contains over 90 pages, which I can reduce to less than 20. So that will be a good start.
• Add your notes to the summary. I will add the notes I took during class to it. So it will be complete.
• Record it. Record it in pieces. So you can choose the subject you want to listen, later. I will record it with my mobile phone, that is good enough.
• Play it, and learn. Cause I recorded it on my mobile phone, I will also play it on my phone. That will work. I will play it when I am on my bicycle, cause that is the time I am looking for something to do (without falling).

So, starting this evening! I am curious if it will work.

If it does work, I will defenitly use it with other classes also!

I will write another blog about it, next week I guess, when I have tried it!

I have tried it, and wrote something about it! Here are some pro's and cons

10 other things to do during class

I have already written about the boring teachers and how to stay awake.

But if the lessons are really boring, and you think they are useless, try to fill the time with usefull stuff.

Here is my top 10 to do during class, when I am not that interested.

On 10: Make the most fantastic drawning. And then upload it and show it! On 10, cause I can't draw..

On 9: Work out your notes, colour them, write them again, to make it more clear

Make the notes more clear to yourself. So if you look to them 5 weeks later, you will still understand them.

On 8: Think of a good deed you want to do. Good deeds make you feel good. So think of one you can do. Things like 'cook, so my mom won't have to do it'.

On 7: Play games with your neighbour. Allright, not that usefull. Only on the social side. And you neighbour has to be bored also.

On 6: Plan your day. Think of what has to be done today. Make a to-do list, you won't have to do it at home anymore!

On 5: Make homework. Pretty tough cause the teacher won't like it. But it is a very usefull thing.

On 4: Think of subjects you can blog about. Make a list of subjects where your next blog will be about.

On 3: Work on those subjects. Make a mindmap, start to think about the lists. Work those subjects out, it takes creativity, and it will make me enthusiastic. I love this one!

On 2: Read a book/reading assignment. Read read read!

On 1: Play games on your calculator. The most useless in this list, but the best. I love it. Compete with your classmates, play games. (755 at snake, beat me!)

Now I'm curious, if you will be bored in class, what will you go do!?

So I decided to become a hippy

Saturday I had to compete in the Dutch Championships debating for students, in Leiden.

Debating is something that is extremely underestimated in Holland, but it is coming up.

There were three kind of debates on the championship.

1. The Parlement Debat, the 'real' debate. 3 vs 3. Debating about a thesis.
2. The trouble speech. You get a situation, and you have to speech yourself out of it.
3. The balloonspeech. You are a person, and you are with 4 others in a balloon, which is descending. Four have to jump, you have to say why you aren't among those. The public has to decide who is going to jump.

I did the balloonspeech.

The first round I had to be Barack Obama. Not that hard. "Change we need", "I have hope" and "Yes we can". Ended third out of seven. It was a bit different than I expected. There was a jury who decided who had to jump. Pretty weird.

Second round, I had to be a medicinemaker. With thick glasses from my father (from the '60) on my head, I ended second! Yeah.

The parlement debaters won 1, lost 3, the trouble speecher ended 5th and 7th, bummer.

So we were in the great auditorium to watch the finals. And suddenly I had to compete in the finals! Wow! Great!

I had a half an hour to prepare myself. Now you can choose your personality for yourself.

I decided to be a hippy. Got my shoes of, some kind of ribbon on my head and put the two fingers in the air. Peace!

But I had to prepare my speech. If I wanted to have the public vote for me, I had to be funny. But I couldn't make up any jokes. I thought (after reading all those blogs about creativity) I just sing a hippy song in my head, the jokes will come. They didn't came. So I decided to sing the song. On stage. In front of an 500 heads counting audience. And with one handicap. I can not sing.

Just do it, with the nike slogan in my head I stood there. "Yo, I, euhm, decided to sing a song for you. "Here is a little song I wrote. You might want to sing it, note for note. Don't worry.. come on.. Be happy!"

And everybody sung with me! That was a great feeling!

But, unfortunatly, after a close call I was voted out of the balloon. Ended 4th. 

Nobody sung in that debate before, I heard afterwards.

I was satisfied. And happy. Don't worry.

I'm dutch, so my English is pretty good, but not perfect, please correct me when I'm wrong!