A “Normal” Day At SSP - SSP International

Author | Xinrui H.

Editor | Rex S.

A “Normal” Day At SSP

Good morning SSP @ Biochem,

To start the blog, this was me when I found out (the last of the program to find out also) I was doing the blog today

This morning I woke up 2 hours before the lecture at 9:00 am, went outside for a nice walk while enjoying the beautiful views of nature, with just enough time to stop by Forest for a healthy breakfast to start off the day strong.

Okay, enough of the imaginary perfect life.

This is what actually happened………

I woke up at 7:50 this morning, not bad, especially early for me when I usually never wake up half an hour before lecture starts (lll￢ω￢). Thank you to the amazing SSPer Jiya for forcing me to go to breakfast with her ☆⌒(*＾-゜)v THX!!

And special thanks to my roommate Monica for letting me wake up before her today σ`∀´)σ

QUICK PSA ANNOUNCEMENT!!!

Do not call her out for skipping meals; she eats breakfast, lunch, and dinner all day, everyday (I am not being blackmailed into writing this, totally).

We walked out the dorm, setting off to IMU for breakfast

Oops (°ー°〃), wrong way

There we go, that’s more like it []~(￣▽￣)~*

On our way to IMU, can you guess the shadows?

Breakfast photos:

(Our friend Jeremy posing for a lonely photo, depressed because he doesn’t get to do more MOE today (～o￣▽￣)～o 。。。)

And our undercooked biscuits:

This is extremely sad ╥﹏╥… ╥﹏╥… ╥﹏╥…

After breakfast, we stopped in Lindley Hall for a quick overview of the day and lessons before, and then headed for lab.

We spend the next 6 hours in the lab, working on our steady state assay. Some of us were even too busy to stop that they did not go eat lunch (＞﹏＜) (Not mentioning name, but you know who you are)

Many of us tried to make a really concentrated pNPP solution, including my group that tried a 2M, other groups that tried a 2.3 M, and even 2.5 M (⊙ˍ⊙)

Our struggling times:

(SSPer Brian and SSPer Leon (mainly) struggling to stay sane)

The pNPP would not dissolve any more at this high concentration

A certain someone’s group when they calculated that they need a 800 M solution →_→

(They didn’t actually need a 800 M solution)

Most of the day today involved being in the lab and trying to finish the assay

More hardworking SSPers working on their labs:

Aren’t they working so hard? Good job on the hard work today everyone! ＼（＾▽＾）／

(Doodle by an anonymous SSPer that is waiting on their assay to incubate)

Beautiful assay gradient (≧∇≦)ﾉ

Some of the many not so beautiful graphs o(╥﹏╥)o

After the lab that ended at 3:30, we went back to Lindley to attend a lecture about enzyme mechanisms given by Dr. L.

Look at the SSpers that are paying close attention even after class

After dinner, Mr. S told us that a corpse plant is blooming in the nearby greenhouse. SSPer Gracy, Sophie and I raced down stairs to go look at it, only to find this:

So after the tornado on Sunday, we are hit by horrible air quality. Thank you to our Canadian neighbors for the fires!

(￣△￣；)

Also good luck to my roommate Monica that decided it is a good idea to go outside to play tennis in this weather ◐▽◑

Back to the plant.

We went inside the biology building by walking all around it first, only to find there is a door that is 10 steps away from our dorm (。_。)

The plant smelled awful, like rotten flesh, just like how Ms. S described it to us.

It looked…..like a plant……… (I know, so creative ︿(￣︶￣)～)

Anyways, my day pretty much ended there, it was a long and fun day, and I’m very excited for tomorrow ^O^ ^O^ ^O^

It actually didn’t end yet

Brace yourself for the amazing work of SSPer Anna, Brian, Gracy, Jiya, Mina, Mona, Monica, Sonia, and of course, myself (name in alphabetically order by first name （*＾-＾*）

3 puzzles in 2 weeks, and the 4th one is under construction right now. By this rate, it should be finished very soon. Totally not asking for more puzzles =￣ω￣=

Also, computer crashed while I was writing this blog（＝。＝）