It’s officially cram season at SSP, the time when the clacking of computer keys echo off the walls with no sign of slowing down. That’s right, our final posters were sent out this afternoon for printing and our final manuscript is due tomorrow at 11:30 am. Our TA’s can testify to the chaos they witnessed in the Honors South lobby this morning; twenty teenagers sprawled across four sofas of varying sizes, spilling over the armrest and onto the carpeted floors. I woke up at 10:30 am, despite my 7:50, 7:53, 7:58, 8:02, and 8:08 alarms screaming in my face (I involuntarily become deaf some mornings I guess), to the realization that we had a poster to put together in two and half hours. I don’t remember what happened in the next 150 minute besides the fact that it was filled with a flurry of panic and frustration at Google Slides.
Here’s our final poster though, so maybe it paid off
SNEAK PEAK FAST FORWARD IN TIME 🙂
When the figurative 1 pm clock tower chimed and we hit submit, an odd mix of confusion, elation, and silence after the chaos hit me like a truck. I honestly didn’t know if I was supposed to sob, cheer, or sit there just to take it all in. We just turned in our poster, the final result of 5 weeks here at SSP. These emotions swirled through my head while I ate Chinese takeout in the South lobby (thank you Purdue Biochem <3), and they only intensified on the walk to Target. Every week, our group recharged by singing pop songs on the walk to target before buying a cart full of snacks. Now, we were doing it for the last time. A day full of lasts feels odd, as if each experience is a flashback of all the previous ones. The last time we bought a new nail polish color, the last time we snatched the last box of raspberries, the last time we grabbed boba from the shop next door.
It’s crazy to think that I, a seventeen year old girl from a small school in San Diego, California, am at Purdue University studying antibiotic resistance alongside a community I’ve grown to call my second family. The 24 of us have gone through everything together; from grabbing coffees from Starbucks to struggling through the weekly problem sets to belting our hearts out to to a pop song at the end of a long day to cramming our last revisions on our manuscripts (which we still had to do after our Target run), these people who were strangers just weeks ago have become some of my closest friends. There are times when I am astounded at how intelligent my peers are, yet they are all constantly willing to offer help to each other, whenever and wherever. The SSP community feels like home. That’s the only way I can put it. In the span of 5 weeks, we’ve created volumes of moments to look back on, and I can only hope the last week passes slower than the past couple. That’s all from me 🙂
About me:
Hi, my name is Audrey An and I’m from San Diego, California. Beyond STEM, my favorite things to do are debate, volleyball, and working out at a nearby gym.
