Day 4: Stretching the Mind

I have rarely felt, since becoming a Mother, that my intellect has really been challenged. There has been plenty of challenges, and problem solving, and learning, and reading and other things, but nothing that has made me feel like I really had to work to understand it.

The result is feeling very unstretched and to be honest quite wasted.

So lot long ago Mark introduced me to something: futurelearn, and after quickly browsing through the list of free short online courses (known as a MOOKs) I chose two, one on the genetics of cancer, and one on creative writing. I have already started the genetics of cancer course run by the university of Bath and it is absolutely fantastic. It is not only building on knowledge I gained (and had forgotten I had gained) at university but is also giving me fresh challenging concepts. I thoroughly recommend them.

So for a few hours today I recapped DNA replication, gene expression, mitosis, epigenetics and how all these things are important when trying to understand the disease.

I have missed learning, and it's something I plan to do more of, though I will have to exercise restraint so that it doesn't take up too much of my time.