Aaaannnddd I'mmm baccckkk!!!!

Hello all!

A hearty New year to you all!
I realise I'm a little behind the times with this post, mainly because I spent my Christmas holidays revising for mock exams, the first of which I had at 9am on the first day back - how cruel is that?!

How I looked

How I felt

Anyway, I had my final mock yesterday and I thought it was a breeze, although that probably means I completely fluffed up!
So I thought I'd try and squeeze a post in between my psychology homework and my biology homework.
On the subject of school, I'm really enjoying my lessons this year, much more so than in year 12 at AS, I'm finding biology much easier, although I'm glad we finally finished Unit 4 last week - no more photosynthesis! I'm telling you, I've studied photosynthesis every year since year 4 - I'm extremely bored of it! Anyway, Unit 5 of AQA Biology is really cool - there's DNA technology and genes and the nervous system, and all the cool human stuff, much better than plants IMO!

As for psychology, there were four options for OCR, of which two must be studied: Forensic, Health, Education, Sport.
My school does Forensic (as we offer law at GCSE) and Sport (because we're a sports and technology thingy - apparently). Personally I'd prefer education over Sport, but we don't start that section until next week so I'm not going to make my mind up yet! The other unit comprises of approaches and perspectives and evaluation, but we also have a section in the exam where we have to plan our own practical study based on the criteria we're given - I really enjoy this bit, hence why I liked yesterday's exam!

And finally, OCR B History (I dropped geography - I don't like the human side and that was all A2 consisted of). This year we study British imperialism with one teacher, 3 lessons a week, and have a controlled assessment in May (a really nice exam as long as you are properly prepared!) and with the other teacher we are doing coursework 1 lesson a week - "personal study" on the significance of a topic of our own choosing. I was originally going to do Pioneering Palaeontologists, but my research told me that would be extremely difficult in the time-frame, so I chose something I am even more passionate about - Scouts. My question is: "How significant was the birth of Scouting?" I've completed my first full-draft and am now changing bits as necessary, although I am over the 3000 word limit so I need to do some cutting down. There are 6 other students in my class and their topics are: The Aztecs, Leni Riefenstahl, The French Renaissance, Something to do with Poland, and Karl Marx.

I am also doing an EPQ (Extended project qualification) for AQA, as you will know if you have read my blog before. I was originally going to do it on settlement structures and build models, but I was advised against this and have instead decided to ask "Have human needs changed, and how has this affected our lifestyle?"
I'm actually quite enjoying this, but I am panicking about getting it completed to an A grade standard, I know that I'm well ahead of my classmates as we have just been told to begin writing and to have 3000 words by the 29th January - I'm curently on 2,700 while most haven't yet begun, however, I have a tendency to write what's in my head and am then unable to work out what order I should place it in. I follow the principle of "Don't get it right, get it writ", however, I often lose motivation to then get it "right" after its been "writ". I am getting better though and I'm going to spend Saturday on my EPQ and Sunday on the bits of homework that I should be doing as I write this post.

I think that'll do for school, I spend enough time with school work as it is, without writing about it endlessly!
I'll tell you what I'm looking forward to in 2014, perhaps that will help motivate me to finish this homework...

1. Turning 18 and going to the Warner Bros studio tour with my best friend - I will buy EVERYTHING!
2.Getting my EPQ done and dusted by March 26th - more free time!
3.Having my History coursework done by Easter - more revision time!
4.Having my history exam done by the second week of May - Only two subjects left!
6. Super long summer holiday!
5. Spending a long weekend with my oldest friend camping while everyone else is at prom - my logic was this - £35 for one night I won't enjoy with a bunch of people I don't like and also have to get a dress Vs £19 for 3 days with my oldest friend doing something we both love, camping by a beautiful lake before I leave for Uni......It was a pretty easy decision really. This is also instead of spending a fortune going to Marbella or somewhere with my friends who will spend the whole week in the hotel pool. I like adventure.

6.Results day - This may seem weird because it could make or break my future, but my thinking is, my fate is decided on the day of my last exam, that means I can't change my results and the atmosphere on results day is pretty electric!
7. Moving to Uni - hopefully! I'm really looking forward to packing, is that weird?

I finally watched Toy story this Christmas and it made me want to take all my toys with me to Uni! Of course, anyone that has ever seen my room will understand that that will be impossible, so I don't doubt there will be many moments like this:

I told you earlier I spent the whole of the holidays revising - that wasn't strictly true - for the days before Christmas, up until Christmas eve, I was doing homework and sorting out my stuff in the attic - having a proper clear out, I'm not yet finished though so I'm continuing with that on Sunday if I get all my work done.
I also tried my hand at some new Jewellery, and I'm really happy with how it all turned out!
I'm so proud of the snowman earrings, but they took aaaages to make, I had to have a massage after each completion because I was in agony!

Aren't these snowman earrings adorable! I made a pair for myself to wear on Xmas day! £4 a pair 

My new rubber band bracelets - £3 for top two, £2 for third one, £1 for bottom.

£1 each

How did I forget this - who saw the new series of Sherlock?! I loved it! The second episode had me in stitches, and the final one was brilliant! I do think Benedict Cumberbatch is excellent in the role, and the way he can pretend to show emotion and then immediately be nonchalant is brilliant! I'm halfway through reading Arthur Conan Doyle's Hound of The Baskervilles and I'm really enjoying it! I even managed to quote it in my History mock (something about free trade), which was pretty cool.

Anyhoo, I think that's a pretty good round-up of everything since my last post, and I should probably get on with this biology homework - I seem to have "inherited" procrastination from my Dad. See what I did there? eh?!

Alons-Y!

Psychology - Turning to crime - Upbringing

TURNING TO CRIME

UPBRINGING

LO: How might someone's upbringing cause them to turn to crime?

Disrupted families

-Farrington et al.

    -> Cambridge study in delinquent development.

Aims:

-Document the start, duration and end of offending behaviour, from childhood to adulthood in families.

-To investigate influence of life events.

      -> Risk & protective factors

      -> Intergenerational transmission of offending and antisocial behaviour.

      -> Influence of family background.

--> Longitudinal study with many male participants.

      - Latest data gathered from interviews and criminal records at age 48.

--> Range of risk factors found including family and poverty.

Learning from others

-Sutherland

  - Theory of differential association (the way people react with different people).

  - Intended as a comprehensive explanation of criminal and some non-criminal behaviour.

  - 9 principles that may make someeone more likely to turn to crime.

Poverty and disadvantaged neighbourhoods

-Wikstrom

    - The Peterborough youth study

--> According to government figures:

       -The most disadvantaged 5% are 100x more likely to have multiple problems than          the most advantaged 50%

        *Conduct disorders

        *Police contact

        *Cannabis use

        *Mood disorders

        *Alcohol abuse

  -Cross-sectional

  -Very large sample

  - Interviews identified a number of risk factors of living in poverty that may cause             someone to turn to crime, including:

     *Family social position (class)

     * Social situation (e.g. truancy)

     *Lifestyle

       

Year 13 - A2

Well, that's it, year 12 is officially over!
Final exam was on wednesday 5th June, I then had 4 days to recuperate before coming back to school today to start my A2 courses.
The whole applying to uni has really hit me now, considering how sure I was just a few months ago that I wanted to do psychology, i'm now somewhat torn between psychology, palaeontology and archaeology; not helpful when I need to churn out a personal statement tailored to my subject... I'm thinking that my AS results in August will make the decision for me (or at least, i'm telling myself that for now). Right now I'm doing rough drafts of statements for each subject and i'll make the final decision at a later date.
I also need to make a decision about which subjects i'll be continuing with as I believe it's highly unlikely that I can continue with 4 subjects and an EPQ as well as starting up my business and getting more involved as a young leader while doing my silver DofE - I might just keel over!

Over the weekend I was working at Gosfield shopping village near Braintree (do feel free to visit - seriously!)

My display

While there, I spotted an item that I fell completely in love with and I'm not entirely sure why, perhaps I found it charming, let me know what you think:

It's a Raleigh folding bike, priced at £75, I might just ask my family to club together for one christmas present haha!

Got my first A2 geography lesson tomorrow, I'm going to need all the relaxation I can get, I think i'll treat myself to 10 minutes of personal statement-ing followed by a good old movie, perhaps Matilda, one of my all time favourite stories. :)

Alons-y!

I'm still here - honest!

I can't believe it's been over 2 weeks since my last post, it's all got a bit crazy here with exams and whatnot, but I am still here - honest!

Totally snowed under with Biology and Psychology revision this week as I was ill during the first exams and messed up big time, so I need to ace these ones to bring my grades up.

Snowed under Psychology

Those of you that are observant may notice that i'm wearing shorts - DO NOT BE FOOLED! I'm only wearing them to convince myself that it is in fact, summer (it's not working). At 10am this morning, it was 10 degrees celcius, on the 30th May...less than a month before midsummer...

I've rediscovered a childhood love - My parents are aliens, I've actually ended up scheduling revision breaks for 14:30 and 17:30 just so I can tune into CITV and watch it! I know, I know, It's a bit sad for a 17 year old to be watching a kids TV show, but it makes me laugh and there's so much humour that I didn't pick up on 10 years ago!

I also spent a good few minutes exchanging "miranda memes" with a friend - and formed an entire conversation! (This was before settling down for revision)

In fact, all this Miranda talk is making me want to watch it, I'm going to have to dig out the DVDs any minute now! (Well, I have powered through todays revision and I need a good laugh!)

In fact, I can't contain myself any longer, I must leave now while I still have time before dinner.

Alons-y My hearty reader chums! (Anyone see what I did there...No? Just me then.)

Psychology - Maguire et al. (2000)

Maguire et al. (2000)

 

The hippocampus:

 

• Located in the medial temporal lobe.
• One on left, one on right side.
• Major function is to do with memory and spatial navigation.
• Argued that after a time, some memories are moved from the hippocampus to another part of the brain after it has been consolidated.
• Damage to hippocampus = inability to form new memories but previous memories are often spared.
• Gage

 THE ROLE IN NAVIGATION:

-Small mammals and birds that rely heavily on navigation have a much larger hippocampus relative to body size than those that rely less on it.

-Animals and birds have larger hippocampi during migration seasons than at other tie – plasticity.

-Neurons in hippocampus have spatial firing cells which fire when an animal finds itself in a particular location.

-Place cells have also been found in humans involved in finding their way around a virtual-reality town.

Aim of the study:

·        To determine whether changes could be detected in the brains of humans who have extreme experiences of spatial navigation.

Participants:

·        16 male black-cab drivers who had passed “the knowledge”.

·        All were right-handed

·        Aged between 32 and 62 (mean age – 44)

·        Licensed for at 18 months to 42 years (mean – 14.3 years)

·        Average time taken to pass the knowledge was 2 years.

·        All healthy medically, neurologically and psychiatrically.

CONTROL

·        50 MRI scans from the structural MRI scan database @ same centre cab drivers were scanned.

·        Healthy, right-handed males

·        Similar ages

Method:

• Quasi
• Data collected from 2 techniques of analysing MRI scans – Voxhel-based morphology & pixel counting.

VOXHEL-BASED MORPHOLOGY

-Voxhel represents the image in 3-D

-used to identify changes in a variety of neurological disorders, including schizophrenia and temporal lobe epilepsy.

-Also been used to identify structural abnormalities such as those found in patients with Alzheimer’s and multiple sclerosis.

PIXEL COUNTING

-Pixel represents the image in 2-D

What is an MRI scan?

·        Magnetic resonance imaging

·        Aligns atomic particles in body tissues by magnetism, then bombards them with radio waves.

·        This causes the particles to give off radio signals that differ depending on what type of tissue is present.

·        Computer software then converts this into a 3-D image of a greyish x-ray.

Results:

•  Analysis using VBM showed brains of cab drivers had significantly increased grey matter volume in right and left hippocampi.
• Difference was found in posterior hippocampus only.
• Control group had relatively larger grey matter volume in anterior relative to cabbies.
• No other differences found between 2 groups.
• Pixel-counting showed no significant difference in overall volume of hippocampi but confirmed regional differences as VBM showed.
• Volume of right hippocampus showed a positive correlation with the length of time as a cab driver, negative correlation in left side.
• Also a correlation between volume of posterior hippocampus and length of time as a cab driver in right side.

Conclusions:

•  Results suggest evidence of differences between hippocampi of licensed cab drivers and control group.
• Also suggest that more experience = larger volume of posterior hippocampus.

Evaluation:

 STRENGTHS:

-Quantitative data

-Used precise measuring equipment

-Unlikely to be subject to bias

-No demand characteristics

-MRI scans are safe.

-High control (No right-handed people or women)

WEAKNESSES:

-difficult to draw conclusions from quasi experiments as extraneous variables may have been involved.

-MRI not suitable for patients with pacemakers or metal plates.

-Children may not lie still

-Unsuitable for claustrophobics

REPRESENTATIVENESS:

-Cab drivers are not representative of general population, but researchers were not trying to apply the results to whole population.

-Good choice of cab drivers – all had good navigational skills in one particular area.



Decisions, decisions....

Well, today was a day full of decisions: "Do I take up the EPQ or not?", "Do I buy chips tomorrow, or save my money?", "Which bus stop should I go to?", "Should I do a revision post or save it for tomorrow?".

In case you are wondering, I haven't yet made a decision on EPQ, I'm saving my money, I went to the second bus stop and i'm saving the revision post for tomorrow.

I really like the idea of the EPQ, but i'm having diffiulty choosing a topic, my intesets include psychology, dinosaurs and scouts....is there any way I could combine those? "Do scouts have a similar cognitive ability to that of dinosaurs?" I think that'd be pretty difficult to research somehow....

I've also been improving greatly at my time management recently (hence why I have time to write this blog), I read my textbooks on the bus and do as much homework as I can in the mornings before school - I work best between 7 and 10am for some reason, that generally leaves me with quite a few frees, which I use to do revision in the library, and sometimes I do some more work for 20 minutes after school as my bus doesn't arrive till around 4pm. This means that while I do still do work at home, my load is lighter and I can relax a little more, it's taken me 6 months to get into this routine!

Obviously, this time will decrease once I start being a young leader, and i'm planning a lot of charity events at school, but I think i'll cope, just about.

We had a speaker come into school today about independent living, it got me thinking about having my own bedroom again if and when I go to Uni - I live in a one-bedroom house and after 3 years of having the bedroom and my parents having a pull down bed in the living room, I got kicked into the attic, but we discovered that it's impossible to sleep up there in winter so i now sleep on a tiny mesanine floor, which is too small for me to do my work effectivey as it's impossible to keep tidy, but downstairs is too noisy.

Hopefully, my room at uni will look less like this:



My old room - messy

And more like this:

Note the big window - lots of light!

Not that i'm excited to have more independence or anything....
Just as a heads up, I won't be posting friday or saturday as i'm away, I may post on sunday though.
I shall probably do homework friday evening till around 10pm, then watch a film/play on xbox.
Then saturday I'll get up at 8/9 depending on whether I have any homework left, I'll work till around 11, either on homework or revision, or both (I'm such a model student...) and then I'll probably run into town to buy a couple of birthday presents, get back and settle down to make some bracelets for the afternoon, perhaps meet up with a friend, and watch a DVD in the evening while pigging out on mini poppadoms, sausage rolls, cocktail sausages, chocolate and scotch eggs.
Much the same will follow on sunday, minus the DVD and pigging out, and if the weather is ok, i'll nip down the tennis courts to burn off all those calories from the night before, and get picked up around 4, arriving home by 4:30pm.
This is generally how a weekend spent at my nans is spent, I quite enjoy them, but I'll probably be staying less often now as work mounts up and I need the internet over the weekend.

Off now to get ready for explorers - 3 course meal to be cooked on a makeshift wood-burning stove! I'l ttry and get some pictures. :)

Alons-y. x