I had set an alarm for 7:30 AM last night. Unlike some of my peers here, who can (probably) thrive on an hour of sleep, I’m not really the guy who can function unless I get my beauty sleep. So sleeping at 11:30 PM last night should have sufficed—8 hours is pretty good after all.
At least, that’s how it should’ve been. However, I underestimated the tenacity of Hugo, who was a dedicated 6:00 AM early bird. Way before I should’ve woken, I was startled out of my sleep by a loud banging on my door.
Groggily, I did a 180 around my bed (which was conveniently next to the door), gave the handle a good smack, and swung it open with the little strength I could muster.
There he stood, in the brown polo we bought at Target together last night. Behind him was Lucas, and the two impatiently urged me out of bed. I quickly washed up, changed, and hurried to catch up with them to grab some grub at the Corbett Center Student Union.
But hurrying turned out not to be the greatest idea. The day before, we had a (much needed) pool day at the NMSU Aquatic Center. Being the daring kid who was hungry for some action, I decided that running off the high diving board would be a fun idea. In fact, it probably would have been great—except for the fact that I forgot to jump up high at the end. The diving board sprang straight back up, and I ended up with two crippled feet that bled like the Vernal Falls. Maybe being vascular isn’t so great after all.
Everyone called me nonchalant, but in reality, it really, really hurt. However, being in SSP Genomics is an advantage, you know? We got some great TAs who know first aid because it’s probably essential for anyone doing Pre-med. Thanks to Ms. Alexa, Ms. Ceilidh, and Mr. Joey, my wounds got patched up in no time.
Back to the present. When I first arrived, I had low expectations for the food at NMSU. Turns out though, their cafeteria is actually pretty great. The eggs are done right, they got great sausages, and most importantly, Arthur taught me how to make milk tea.
Any future SSPers reading this, take note: Add some hot water, black tea, and honey together. Mix until it’s well combined, and add about equal parts milk depending on your preferences. Trust me, this easy recipe will come in clutch for your tired mornings.
After that, it was basically just lab work for the rest of the day. And I really think this is why SSP is a great experience—being able to work with antibiotic resistance, and do crazy techniques like PCR and gel electrophoresis; this is definitely not something that any other summer program I applied to would offer. But even better are the students and TAs here who gave me joys like nowhere else: Whether it be asking Dr. Catalan “English or Spanish” (I’m referring to the UEFA finals here, don’t get any weird ideas) or autoclaving chemostats for the fourth time (I swear it’s not Team MEH’s aseptic technique; the bacteria are just flying in), even my failures here somehow get turned into laughter.
Dinner was almost as good as breakfast. I guess the cafeteria underestimated the number of people, because I ended up standing for over 20 minutes waiting to get my food. However, my table group (Mr. Joey, Kano, Vageesh) was super chill and easy to talk to, so that made up for the time wasted standing in line. Being in New Mexico, the burritos and enchiladas they served were top-tier as well.
The day was almost over. So far, nothing had gone terribly wrong, and I hoped that it would stay that way.
Pro tip: Don’t hope that something won’t go wrong, because if it can go wrong, then chances are it probably will.
Back in the lab, me and Hugo were chilling in the study room. Suddenly, someone walked in and told us that Emily urgently needed our presence. We rushed back to our chemostat, and saw something horrifying.
There were BIOFILMS inside our chemostat vials! I couldn’t believe it. Contamination had already ruined us before, and I didn’t want to autoclave and restart our experiment for the sixth time.
However, there was no need to panic. Instead, it’s important to approach these situations carefully and examine any possible factors. First of all, Ms. Alexa pointed out that previous literature indicated that tetracycline promotes biofilm formation (thanks Nature). In addition, there were no biofilms in our positive control, and no bacterial growth at all in our negative control, indicating that what we saw was probably normal!
Either that, or we’re just coping real hard. At this point though, there was no turning back. So let’s just hope and pray for the best.
I ended off the day with an hour-long session of frisbee. Honestly, being in New Mexico for three weeks has definitely changed my sensitivity to temperature. I no longer care when the temperature hits the 100s, probably because there’s just so much to do outside with the others here at SSP.
Also, I saw Arthur’s message on his blog, so I wanted to let my parents know that I’m having the time of my life here too. Also, don’t worry about the injury, mom and dad. It’s recovering just fine, and I (probably) won’t get sepsis.
