I was at the university centre earlier today and was in a discussion about the number of people who used to find my website through unsavoury searches. I realise that this must have changed recently, after having adapted the title page. So after getting back I decided to check what people were currently finding my website with:

Now, none of these are unsavoury but I do wonder what the person searching hoped to find. Now, the uni photos are obvious, it being just before the start of a new year a lot of future students are getting nervous or interested, and a lot of current students are attempting to find photos for various fresher’s guides. But some of them almost seem as though they are trying to narrow it down to my site alone. (Including one that even reproduces a miss-spelling of concrete.) Still, I shall endeavour to meet demand and will try and deliver a photo of myself eating pickles, and an announcement for the new Stephen Fry shopping mall.

I have already partially introduced myself, but feel I should provide more detail as to who I am and where I am at the moment.

For the past few weeks I have had a summer job working in the Medical Research Council’s ‘Laboratory of Molecular Biology’ or LMB in Cambridge. This has meant that I’ve spent much of the summer in Cambridge, rather than in Wiltshire, which is where I spend the other half of the year. You see, the awkward thing about being a student is you live in two places, and not only does the constant shifting from one place to another get annoying on my part, but it also acts to confuse all manner of forms and websites. Having said this, this will all soon come to an end. As I am about to enter my last year of uni life I will soon end up establishing a more or less permanent address myself, and with it all manner of REALLIFE(TM) problems that I have so far only heard of.

Now this summer has been interesting, as my place of work has pretty much been my target since I was very young. I don’t mean to say that at six I wanted to be working at the LMB, I didn’t even know about the place, but I did want to be a scientist, or an inventor, or an easter egg tester. The third didn’t last for long, mainly for an easter, but slowly the first two coalesced together as I gained a better understanding of what exactly ‘being a scientist entailed.’ By the time I started my A-levels I knew I wanted to go into research and become an academic, and yet it was only this summer that I really began to get a taster of exactly what that entailed.

But what about practicals?
Practicals, even up into the first two years of a degree don’t really entail research. Instead they are more like a recipe which you follow, and rather than a cake at the end you will instead gain results that more or less (usually less) correspond with what you learnt in theory. This isn’t real science. In real science you don’t know exactly what you will find, you may have an idea, but if you knew for sure there would be no point in doing the experiment. In research the results you find tell you something new and, if you are lucky, have paid attention to the journals and haven’t been beaten to the mark, you will be the first person to know that, ever. All practicals do is give experience with the skill set that allows you to achieve this.

But what about the rest of you?

I never know how to describe myself, whenever I do so I end up falling into cliches. It seems, in trying to avoid pigeon holing themselves, everyone tries to say in one form or another, that they are unique. However everyone is unique, and all this achieves is creating a new slot for people who like to class themselves as unique, and thereby just move themselves into another pigeon hole. Like the scene in Life of Brian we are all shouting ‘Yes, we are all individuals,’ and ‘Yes, we are all different.’ Thus, in keeping with this train of thought, I shall say ‘I’m not!’ and be done with it.

And in non-pretentious form please…

I still don’t know what to say. I’m me and I suppose that should come across here. I’m sceptical, occasionally overly opinionated (Though try to avoid this) have a scientific approach to ideas, occasionally applying it when it doesn’t work, or ignoring it when it would be perfectly suited. I try and be kind and considerate, though like all of us I will occasionally fail. I’m dedicated to my work, yet balance it with a social life. I’m left wing in my own views, or though believe that a stable and balanced government will have to be more central. I dislike the representation of controversial and moral subjects in terms of polarized viewpoints, and more-so when viewed in terms of polarised solutions. I feel its important to try and respect others views, although occasionally fail in the implementation of this. And like all people, I’m human. I make mistakes and fail in good intentions, as does everyone. So whatever I say, whatever I argue, I’m may be, and in many cases probably am, wrong, so don’t take anything I do say too much to heart. Besides, in some cases we may both be wrong.

I’ll make another, slightly more down to earth journal entry soon. I apologise if this one comes across as slightly pompous, I sometimes get carried away in my own thoughts.

Welcome to my blog, future home of my ramblings and incoherent thoughts. I’m James, a 20 year old genetics student, currently in the third and final year of my degree and frantically trying to ignore the future. Unfortunately it seems the future has different ideas and is trying to barge in my way before I feel I’ve even gotten comfortably settled in on the fact I actually have a life to live. Still, at least I know vaguely where I’m heading, I’m just slightly unsure on the route to get there.

So, before I go on and say more about myself, lets get the details about the blog itself sorted. Now I’m not the most organised of people, and this clutter and disorder penetrates right down to my own thoughts. Many a friend will vouch for my stunning jumps, nay, somersaults, in mid conversation. So in order to avoid confusion I have invented a number of categories under which blog entries will be made.

Journal

Journal posts. These update you on what is going on in my life. Most posts will probably fall into this category.

Link

These posts will discuss a website and provide a link to it. The reasons for doing so may be many, from sites I find amusing, to articles I’ve found interesting.

Photo

Photos, usually taken by me. These may be coupled to a journal entry, or just be particularly nice photos.

Fun

Fun things. Many and varied, fun things may even include a weblink, just to throw a spanner in the works of my categorisation system. The distinction between which symbol used will depend on the nature of the link and my reason for posting it here.

Ponderings

Random thoughts and musings, possibly mini-essays on a particular subject or a reaction to recent news.

Opinion

I will try and avoid being to opinionated in these sections and will try and avoid politics as much as I can. However we all occasionally have our soapbox rants and any I do have will be found under this heading. Remember, anything under this is an opinion and I don’t expect you to agree. Feel free to post your views in the comments. I won’t delete people just for disagreeing with me, but if you get rude or the argument escalates out of control (ie. mud-slinging) then I may have to take action.

Dreams

I have many dreams, many of them are odd. Any dreams of particular note may be recounted under this logo.

Recommendations

Like the section on my website, these entries will point you in the direction of things I’ve found to be particularly worthwhile. This may include websites, software, books, movies or almost anything really.

As you can see there is some overlap in categories, but nothing that should cause too much of a problem. Some of the entries also have smaller logos associated with them which may decorate box-outs in other entries, allowing me to, for example, recommend a website within a journal entry.

The first journal entry, and more information about myself will follow shortly. (Read three months knowing me.)