This morning I woke up early to shower at 6:30! Me and my friends headed over to the dining hall and we had potatoes, sausage, chocolate chip pancakes, and eggs with cheese for breakfast.All lab groups started our day off in the lab where we checked our plating from the previous night. We plated samples from our experiment vials to see if our bacteria had gained any antibiotic resistance. We spent some time in the lab and we started to work on a few of our other things. We then had to repurify our DNA because the concentration was not pure enough from the first step of purification, which was kind of annoying, but it’s part of biology! Since we had to repurify our DNA, my group W. Rizz went to lunch a little late but we still had plenty of time. My best friend called me and I talked to her for a while. I had my favorite drink from the dining hall, cranberry juice and a little bit of water. I got a caramel macchiato from the bagel place outside of the dining hall and it was yum! It was around 12: 45 and we had to go to our lecture for the day. For the lecture today we had to analyze the methods and materials section for various research papers. We analyzed, and it was a total of eight papers that we looked at between the twenty-four of us. And then we analyzed them and talked about the differences and the similarities. And then we went back to our group and started working on our own materials and methods. After finishing that and then we had to perform a presentation on our antibiotic resistance. For the presentation we had to compare our previous plates from the first week to our plates after we put them into the chemostat for about a week and a half. My lab group has been working with tetracycline but we also looked at other ones for ciprofloxacin and erythromycin. And then we went back to the lab and we had to take pictures of our plates again oh wait go back. For the presentation the professors choose someone random from each group and I happen to be the random person and I was super nervous to present, but then my friends started clapping for me as I was walking up before I even presented and then I smiled, and everyone started clapping and made me a little bit less nervous. We’re in the lecture room until around 3 o’clock for the presentations and then we went back upstairs to check on the lab briefly. Later in the afternoon we had a guest speaker, Dr. David Baltrus and he talked about antibiotic resistance and genomics within the realm of agriculture. The group that introduced him lit up the room with glow sticks, and it was a great way to start the lecture. After we had some cookies and drinks, we all sat around Dr. Baltrus asked him a few questions and he answered them very happily. He told us about his work life, as well as some of his home life as well. He spoke to us about his journey to his PhD and his lab. Unfortunately he was unable to have dinner with us as he told us he was gonna be on a 30 hour car ride to somewhere in South Carolina. Dinner that day was fried fish tacos and I don’t like fish so I had chicken nuggets and fries instead. But they don’t call it chicken nuggets, they call it tempura fried chicken! I also got some ice cream with my friends. We have ice cream like every day and I never really ate ice cream before this but now it’s basically a daily staple. I sat with Mr. Steinman, our site Director at dinner today and we talked about so many things. Some conversation topics included whether if hotdogs are sandwiches, does that mean that a taco is a sandwich as well?We got to talking about superpowers and he was ecstatic to tell us all the bad sides of each superpower. He also told us that once he did it for two hours in his college dorm room. We also talked about how I don’t know any geography, which started as him being shocked I don’t know where Pennsylvania is. He asked me to do my ride from my left and I put an “L” up with my left hand and he started laughing like it was the funniest thing ever. After dinner, my lab group was done with our work so I went back to the dorm and I just kind of chilled out for a little bit. I spent some time calling my mom and I was on TikTok for a little bit and then I went out to the common room where I saw a couple of friends we walked around and looked at the sunset, which is very nice. The New Mexico sunsets are unmatched. I spent the rest of the night just hanging out with my friends and talking to them. A lot of people are preparing for the talent show already practicing what they’re gonna do, whether it be piano, singing, or speech and debate spreading. The night came to a close and I walked back to my dorm with my friend.
