Last Week 1st Year Classes

This past week was me last week of classes and I still can't believe that first year lectures are all done already! Since the classes were finishing up this week, then my lectures mainly consisted of several review lectures. Aside from all the review lectures, in a two of my classes the professors tried to squeeze in a bit more material, and actually presented new material. In my Optics and Medical Imaging (OMI) course we learned a fair bit about MRIs and how they work and how they can be used to assess various structures of the eye. The other course where we learned new material was in Ophthalmic Lenses (OL) where we learned about many of the British/EU standards/tolerances for lenses and frames, as well as some of the more obscure techniques that are used to make sure frame and lenses meet these tolerances. In my labs, unlike my lectures, it was very much business as usual. In OMI lab we did an interference experiment to measure the thickness of some aluminium foil, while in OL we learned and played with many of the various frame materials from the past and ones that are currently being used. In my other lab, Clinical Optometry, we had an assessment on retinoscopy and subjective refraction, and so I'm not sure how well I did, but I think I did pretty good since my retinoscopy results weren't too far off, and I ultimately got  my patient down to the 6/5 (about 20/15) line. With this assessment we had to put a "dummy" lens in a trial frame to simulate a prescription in our patient, which isn't too big of a deal, but the dummy lens that my patient was wearing created a large prescription (specifically a high cylinder power) so they were very sensitive to the orientation of the lenses. Unfortunately with the dummy lens can easily move in the trial frame when the patient moves, so I just hoped that my patient didn't move before the professor was able to mark my refraction.

Aside from classes this week I have been a bit more active than last week...

On Wednesday I had a meeting with several of my peers and some of the executives of my schools optics society. In total there were 8 of us from my class that showed up to the meeting, all of whom were interested in taking on various positions on next years optics society executive team. Surprisingly we managed to figure out all of our roles in a very fair and efficient manner, since it turned out that there were very few roles in which more than one person wanted. Basically it was just the Vice President (VP) position which had about 4 or 5 of us who were interested in taking on this role. Ultimately we discussed it and 3 of the 5 were willing to take on other roles, so we decided as a group to just have two VPs, since we could not see a downside to having two VPs instead of just one. I had originally thought of president or VP, but ultimately I didn't think I could do either of those roles any justice, since there is a lot of phone calls and meetings in the summer that those people will have to do, and I just wouldn't be able to do that from Canada, with the cost to call the UK and the time difference. I believe that the group of executives we have for next year are a great group of people, and I think that we will manage to make next year's optics society the best ever!

On friday after our last first year class a group of about 14 of us ended up going out for lunch to Sac of Potatoes (an on campus pub that I commonly refer to as Sac's). Unfortunately Sac's has recently changed there menu (for the 3rd or 4th time in the last 7 months), and in the past it was always a good thing when they changed the menu, but this last change was very dissappointing as they have increased many of the costs and decreased the portion sizes, but so hopefully they will change the menu again soon. But even with the disappointing new menu we still managed to have a great time, especially since it was great that we were able to hang out all together once last time before our exams. Our exams begin on May 24th, so many UK students have gone home for a week or so, and afterwards when ever they do get back I think we'll all be a bit busy studying :P.

Friday night one of my friends and I were ended up going out to an Irish pub in hopes that they would have some traditional Irish/Celtic music. On our way we ended up hearing some fairly loud music coming from Victoria Square (which is where the German Market was held back in December). So we ended up walking towards it and found out that there was some sort of huge out door dance performance going on. We ended up watching about the last 20min of the show, which was taking place on a two tiered stage that they had set up on top of the big fountain. It was a really neat show to watch, as the dancing seemed to be more Eastern European, with all the swords and some of the Russian style moves they were preforming. But once the show ended we continued on to O'Neill's Irish pub on Broad street. We choose to go to this pub since we had read somewhere that they have music on Friday nights, plus broad street is much more heavily travelled at night than the streets around the Digbeth (the Irish quarter). After having to show my ID to get in (because I apparently look like I'm under 18, while my younger friend didn't have to show their ID :P ), we went in to find it was fairly busy. We found a quieter area closer to the back and ordered some pints of Guinness Red, which as it turns out tastes just like normal Guinness, but just not as heavy, plus it had a cool deep red colour to it. Shortly after getting our pints the music began, which turned out to be a DJ who was playing a mix of music from songs from the 70s to some modern songs, but unfortunately nothing that was remotely Irish, so we didn't stay too long.

On Saturday one of my UK friends invited me and another one of my friends to a Birmingham City (Blues) football match.

I had heard of many football matches that get out of hand, but Birmingham City was playing Burnley and well neither of the teams had anything to gain (or loose) from this game, so emotions were a bit more calm.

When we got there I ended up grabbing a burger outside (since they don't really sell food in the stadium). I was hoping to grab a drink in the stadium, but once I got in I quickly realized that unlike North American sporting matches, here they don't serve any alcohol; which probably is a good thing, as it likely helps to minimize the number of riots at the matches. We ended up getting to our seats which were in the 3rd row right about centre field (across from the TV cameras); we were basically eye level with the pitch and so close we could practically touch the players.

Unfortunately being down so low also meant that we weren't covered by the roof so if it rained (which it threatened all afternoon, but only ended up spitting a few drops), and also we had to watch out for the football coming into the crowd. The game turned out to be fairly good, as play was moving quickly with lots of great chances by both teams. Luckily Birmingham City scored first (around the 25min mark) and then just before the first half ended they scored again. Birmingham held the lead until around the 75min mark when Burnley scored to make it 2-1. As the rest of the match progressed it was much more exciting since the crowd really started to get into it and began singing, cheering and chanting. Fortunately Birmingham ended up winning. After the match we filed out and slowly made our way from St. Andrew's stadium and headed back to the downtown core and Aston (which was only about a 20min walk from the stadium).

It turned out to be a great non violent match, and so I hope to next year go to see a Manchester United match (provided I can get tickets, since their much harder to get).

Now that classes are over it's time to start studying for finals :S

Cheers,
Jeff

*word of the week: in North America we have "aluminum" but in the UK they call it "aluminium", which yes they look very similar, but trust me it sounds very different. Since Aluminium it sounds like they are saying something like al-i-min-e-um instead of al-u-min-um.