This month has been very interesting, I’ve done significant progress in my dissertation’s project. However, I am starting to feel the heavy dissertation’s pressure. I have to finish the last implementation details of my project and to start writing the dissertation as quick as possible, because the submission date is getting really close (six weeks approximately). In addition, I’m getting distracted very easily. The reason could be that writing is the most stressful and boring part of the project, because you already have finished the project, and now you have to explain what you have done in an organized and concrete manner, and to try to include everything at the same time.

However, I am starting to be nostalgic, because I feel like I’ve completed my degree in a very short time, so it’s soon going to be time to go back home. Moreover, in the past few days I’ve been seeing new students arriving to my accommodation’s building, getting ready for their studies, they remind me of myself less than a year ago. This master’s degree was certainty too quick, I am just starting to get used to it and it’s already time to go back, but at the same time it’s been full of challenges and enriching experiences, in some sense I wish I could start it over, but at the same time I feel fully satisfied because I was able to complete it.

In other news, I’ve got the opportunity of watching the Olympics opening at the big screen in Manchester Exchange Square. It was a once in a lifetime experience, and a great distraction from writing my dissertation. While I was watching the ceremony I could feel the whole planet forgetting about their current economic and political problems and just focusing their attention in the ceremony. My expectations for this ceremony were very high, but Danny Boyle, the artistic director of the ceremony, had no problems meeting them. I really enjoyed it, because everything was amazing, there was comedy, action and even drama in the ceremony, he knows how to control your feelings in a beautiful way. Danny Boyle is truly a genius, and this ceremony will never be forgotten. I leave you with a picture of the screening event:

Summer has finally arrived to Britain, so we have had several heavy rains as part of it. However, according to some newspapers it could be the wettest June In 100 Years. It is very funny that many people around the world is complaining about how their summer is too hot, perhaps the following picture can illustrate how we feel about it:

As part of my dissertation work, I gave the presentation to the e-science team and the clinicians from the national genetics reference laboratory, it was a good experience and a great opportunity for developing transferable skills. However, I was pretty nervous for most of the presentation. The reason for this is that I didn’t expect to have such a large audience, there was around 20 people in the presentation, including a person hearing us through Skype. I am sure I will do it much better the next time.

In other news, we had the visit of the prominent Dr. Richard Stallman to our university. He spoke about the Free Software Movement, which fights for the rights of the users as the absolute owners of their computer systems. Diverse forms of DRMs(Digital Rights Management) exist for restricting the way someone can use their own devices, and gives the control of them to some other entity or business.

Moreover, Dr. Stallman envisions a world in which we can share anything, and for every piece of art we should be able to give a voluntary contribution. He also mentioned that a special tax should be payed towards supporting the creation of art, such as films, books and music. These are very impressive ideas indeed, and very well supported, perhaps he is able to see the future of humanity in which art is available to everyone, in which the sharing of knowledge is not forbidden, but encouraged. However, it may be too far ahead of us, and we may never see it happening. If you are interested in these topics you can find more information in the following links:

• Free Software Foundation
• Defective by design
• The GNU project

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading me. See you next month!

It’s been an exceptionally busy month, I had to study for two very difficult exams, and I had to submit my dissertation’s progress report. That report is worth almost 30 credits of my degree, so it was a very stressful report to write. One of my exams was in a very old, but beautiful university venue, called Sackville Street building, below is a picture of the building and the exam room.

Next, I have to prepare a presentation for the clinicians at the National Genetics Reference Laboratory based at St Mary’s hospital. I have to explain them my dissertation’s approach to diagnose genetic diseases in order to get feedback from them. I really appreciate this opportunity given by my supervisor, so that I can get some valuable skills from this experience. However, I am very nervous about it…

Lately, I have been thinking a lot about my future. I’ve realized that I really enjoy to do research on genes and bioinformatic, so I am seriously considering to do a PhD in this university. I would like to start in September of the current year, so I have a lot of paperwork to do.

By the way, we finally have sunny day after three weeks of rain. Spring arrived two months late to Manchester.

Additionally, I am really enjoying that there is daylight until 10 pm. This is a very unusual experience for me, because in Mexico we don’t really have seasons, so the weather doesn’t vary significantly throughout the year, particularly in my home town it’s hot all year long.

As for my nightlife, two weekends ago I got to visit a venue called Printworks, it has many restaurants and clubs inside, but the most impressive thing is that it looks like a Hollywood set. I can’t believe that I’ve been here more than 8 months and haven’t gone there before.

As I was saying I finally got some free time, so I’ve spent some of it playing Civilization V and Starcraft II, two very recommendable videogames. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading my blog, and I’ll write again in a few weeks.

This is my first entry so I would like to talk about what I have doing in the last few months. Firstly, I have been working tirelessly on my dissertation. Well, maybe not as hard as I should, but I have spent a quite a lot of time on it. My dissertation is pretty interesting. It is in the Bioinformatics area, and its main objective is to diagnose genetic diseases, and the way of doing it is designing an infrastructure for querying multiple specific-disease databases freely available on the web. This project is quite a challenge for me because I have to learn many biology terms and concepts, including some statistics’ topics, but I have always enjoyed reading these topics.

Now let’s talk about something happier. I went to St. Patrick’s Day on Dublin last month. It was an exceptionally beautiful parade with very talented performers. The streets were full of people wearing green or painted in green. And I was particularly impressed by the fact that no one was drinking during the parade, it was a very safe environment for families and kids. Another interesting fact was that all of the allegorical cars were not fuel powered, but pushed by people. I have attached some pictures below:

In the evening, we went to visit some pubs and to listen to folk music, we tried the famous Irish stew and the Irish coffee, but my favourite pub was Oliver St John Gogarty’s pub on temple bar street, because they were playing folk music with violins and guitars, so I immensely enjoyed this pub.

Among other things, I am participating in the Google Code Jam 2012 contest. I have passed the qualification round, and I am now officially on the first round (out of 4). I have to be among the top 1000 in the round in order to get to the next round. There is a $ 10,000.00 dollars price for winning the contest, and I could get a very nice T-shirt if I make it at least to the third round. It is a very fun contest I recommend it to all of you, even if you are not that keen on programming.

Thank you for reading me, now I have to go back to writing the progress report of my dissertation.