This Thursday I have to give a presentation in the weekly lab group meeting. They have asked me to speak about Ireland, my course and all the European projects and tasks I have carried out while being here in Biocant. Today I am making my power point and tomorrow I will show it to Liljanna and practice my presentation with her for Thursday. The tasks I have carried out so far involve using a lot of excel and word. I have learned to work the 'gotomeeting' platform to organise interviews, I made an excel file on contact details of universities around the world to advertise the open position of ESR13 in science communication. I have done a lot of data analysis from the recruitment stage of the FOIE GRAS project and I have created several different charts and pie to display the information. I used my data analysis to write deliverable 7.6 that will be sent to the European Commission as one section of this report. I also wrote the first newsletter for the project that after being sent to the graphic designer will be disseminated to the public on social media, the website and sent to the state holders. I also created several budgets. In the evening we went for a walk around the park and decided to play a game of tennis in the tennis court across the road from us.
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Carlota was not working today as it was just me and her all last week. I was working with the 'president' and I had the same tasks that Carlota was giving me so I was at the reception all day. My tasks today were entering data about healthcare for dogs and the vaccinations that they got and when their cards expire, the type of breed they are and what doctor was in charge of them. It was a little hard to understand the 'president' as she has no English but somehow I managed to do everything correctly, she checked all my work and let me study for a bit. Then we went for coffee and she was showing me the places to go and eat and the places around Portugal that are good to travel. In the afternoon I was entering data for peoples medical cards and printing their files out, organising them for them when they come back to collect them.
A girl that I work with suggested we go to Averio as she studied in the college there so on Saturday we got a 7.45 bus from Cantanhede to Averio. We all cant believe how public transport is so cheap compared to Ireland. The bus journey is a little under an hour and we travel through loads of different villages. All the house have bathroom tiles on the outside of the houses and have big gardens growing fruit and veg. Portugal is a very clean place. Aveiro is beautiful, it is called the Venice of Portugal as it has canals navigated by colorful boats (barcos moliceiros), traditionally used to harvest seaweed. We went on one of the boats and got a guided tour. We saw historical buildings and salt drying. Averio is a large fishing place as it is situated on the west coast of Portugal set along a lagoon called Ria de Aveiro, there is a huge fresh fish market in the middle of the city and the smell cant be missed. Averio has a lot of tourists and we met an English and Irish person while waiting for the bus to the beach. We went to Praia de Barra. This beach is known for it's 203 ft tall lighthouse. Today was a very busy day in the Museum. A big press conference was held in the Auditorium. The conference was about the famous cycling tour that takes place each year in Cantanhede. The Urva Bike Team will hold the IX edition of the Route of the Wineries - Marquês de Marialva, a mountain bike ride that aims to combine the promotion of physical activity by tasting the flavors that the region of Bairrada has to offer, Namely the wines and the famous piglet.
The tour will start in the City Park of Cantanhede, followed by several paths in the vineyards and rural areas and in the already famous paths of the Sarilho. Two stops will be made for supplying and tasting the best flavors and nectars of the region and will end with a great lunch at the Adega de Cantanhede, with the traditional roast suckling pig. Press from all over the region came to the Museum today for the press conference. It was a big affair, the whole Auditorium were packed with the press and photographers. I had to set up the Auditorium with Carlos. The president attended as well as other board committees. Afterwards there was a wine tasting downstairs. Today was an eventful day, lots of work and fun was had. So the day started off with me and Carlota organising files and talking to a lot of people about their documentations. These documents were put on the system by me with a bit of help from Carlota. I wrote out cheques and organised them in order so that she could check them in her own time. After this we had lunch together and she asked to hold the fort while she was gone, this became a little bit stressful, phone calls coming in and people in a rush. I had a little bit of Portuguese, which helped me handle the situation, with assistance from google translate. That day Carlota invited me over for dinner and for lunch on Saturday. She offered to take me to Mira beach and wanted me to meet her family and friends so that I get to experience the way that the Portuguese live, eat and learn more about their culture.
I get the bus to work from outside the Library everyday and arrive at Biocant at 8.30am. To get into the building I have to scan my fingerprint. The building is very modern with loads of windows, plants and the color scheme is white and grey, it is a huge contrast to the old colourful buildings in Cantanhede. Today we were interviewing people for the Foie Gras projects that will be starting in June. We used Skype and GoMeeting to carry out the interviews and we were joined by lecturers and the project supervisors from around Europe who carried out the interviews. The students being interviewed were from all over the world. I had to ring the applicants to remind them of their interview and that the interview is in Portuguese time. We had technical difficulties with the GoMeeting so I had to ask the interviewers for their skype usernames and set up the calls. Today the Prime Minister, António Costa came to Biocant Park to open one of the new buildings. Yazia is a Spanish Phd student who has been working in Biocant for last 3 months.Today was her last day so she bought in Spanish hams, cheeses and cooked two different types of frittatas for everyone to try. Today when I went into the office I share with Patricia there were two students there aswell. They come once a week for work practice. They are studying child care in Coimbra which is about 20 minutes away from Cantanhede. They were studying and I helped them plan and organise for their work practice activities for next week when the children will come. They told me that next Wednesday is their last day in the Museum and then they go back to Coimbra to finish their exams. They didn’t have much English but we were able to understand each other through broken sentences and hand gestures. I have been in Portugal for over 11 days now and my vocabulary is growing every day by communicating and interacting with the people through Portuguese. I am enjoying my work in the Museum and everyone tries to help me in any way they can. If I get confused or if we can’t understand each other we use Google Translate. I thought I would be using Google Translate a lot but I am able to understand now. For work I do a lot of translations and also office work like I would be doing back in college such as documents, letters, designing and putting up notices and leaflets for the different exhibitions and workshops in the museum and also printing, photocopying, using the computer and similar things like that. Everyone is really friendly and they make the experience a million times better. Not only are my work skills developing but also my social and communication skills. It’s been a really positive experience so far and we are all enjoying ourselves.
Feliz Páscoa!! Happy Easter :) This year we are very lucky to be celebrating Easter in the beautiful city of Porto. Orlaith and I went on a big Easter egg hunt to celebrate the day but unfortunately majority of the shops and restaurants are closed on this day so we didn't get to eat any Easter eggs. We did however find some tiny chocolate bunnies and ate them with a cup of Barry's tea, but they were no where near as tasty as Cadburys chocolate. For lunch we tried one of Porto's famous dishes "Francesinha". This is a Portuguese sandwich made with bread, wet-cured ham, linguiça, fresh sausage like chipolata, steak or roast meat and covered with melted cheese and a hot thick tomato and beer sauce served with french fries. The portion was huge!! We looked around the market stalls and tourist shops and bought some souvenirs to bring home to our families. A lot of the shops sell beautiful bags, shoes, jewelry and hats made out of this cork material. I had never seen any material like it, I loved it so much I bought a purse. A lot of the souvenirs had the Rooster of Barcelos, which is an emblem of Portugal on them and a lot of the jewelry had the famous Viana heart on them. We got the train back to Coimbra and went to a outdoor BBQ and listened to a group playing amazing Portuguese music before heading back to Cantanhede for a good nights rest. This morning when we woke up in Mim Hostel we explored around it. It was a really nice hostel that had a cool garden full of hammocks and beanbags to lie on. There was also two dogs there which me and Kate were very delighted about! We made friends with a boy from Amsterdam called Neills. Our friend Chiara who is from Naples, Italy and works in BioCant joined us and we went exploring around Porto with another friend from the hostel, Shannon from Australia. We went to visit the local churches and the castle and walked across the Dom Luis I Bridge. The views were spectacular. Me Kate and Chiara took the cable car down to Porto and it was truly breathtaking. After dinner we went on a sight seeing boat trip that brought us around Porto. The weather was really good and there was a lot of tourists out. We then shopped and looked around the stalls beside the water. Later we walked up to the Palacio de Cristal - Crystal Palace and explored around the gardens and parks. When we were in the park a video crew and people came up to us and asked us would we want to feature in a music video so we said yes. We had to dance and sing to "Shut up and Dance". The video was for a couples wedding. It was a really fun experience and we all enjoyed ourselves making the music video. In the evening when we went back to the hostel we got ready and went out for a pub/club crawl with other people from the hostel. We heard a lot of Portuguese music and really enjoyed going out in a different country and meeting new people. In Biocant I am working on the Management of European Projects with Liljana and I am doing General Laboratory Management with Caroline as a member of the Mitochondrial Toxicology and Experimental Therapeutics Group. My main objectives for the Management of European Projects are:
a) Understand the concept of MSCA actions b) Understand the concept of ETN/RISE actions c) Understand the structure of both consortium d) Introduction to the FOIE GRAS webpage - Foie Gras is a Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease e) Collaboration in setting up interviews with ESR and organizing next deliverables f) Collaboration in organizing a document with CVs from the ESR that will be selected g) Understanding FOIE GRAS social media h) Perform statistics on the origin/background/gender/academic record of the ESR applicants My main objectives in General Laboratory Management are: a) Understand how the laboratory is organized b) Understand how consumables orders are processed and the protocols for receiving supplies c) Attending laboratory meetings and seminars d) General troubleshooting of laboratory problems e) Organization of reagent and antibody catalogs; collaboration in the organization f) Integration within the group (Portuguese language/culture) g) Confirm list of expenses per research grant with official records and evaluate expense maps of past research grants We had a meeting today where every two-three weeks one member of the team picks a YouTube video that is outside of their normal field of study. Luciana presented us with "Follow Your Gut: Microbiomes and Aging with Rob Knight - Research on Aging" and then we had a group discussion on the video. youtu.be/2iKHMyWzclM |
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