Wednesday, July 3rd, 2024, is inscribed in my memory as the day I exhausted my bank account of $100 for an El Paso Chihuahuas jersey. Although an objectively unwise decision, I think it was well worth it; as they say, life is too short to always make good choices. Life is also too short to do anything but enjoy it— SSP thoroughly emblematizes this notion.
Team Genomics at NMSU started the day off with preparing for, as Dr. Duffy would put it, the most significant revolution in the history of biology: PCR. My group (Jude and Sarah) started off by epitomizing finesse, dropping our spin columns onto the table. We recovered, though, putting together a viable master mix and procuring usable DNA.
Unfortunately, things went downhill again after I forgot my bag in the lab. Consequently, I – alongside Eva – had to sing the PCR song to recover our backpacks from the TAs. I’m really not so sure why this song appeals so heartily to the professors and the TAs— if I’m being honest, I would’ve been okay with them keeping the bag.
This atrocious (shoutout Vageesh) experience was followed by a 3-hour nap and a trip to the Albuquerque Isotopes versus El Paso Chihuahuas game, which was great fun. As mentioned earlier, I dropped an entirely unreasonable amount on a Chihuahuas jersey. Another thing of note: Brett annihilated a giant turkey leg; regrettably, however, his immune system was not as successful against the boba, which appeared to have a flourishing biofilm growing on it. Like Brett, I also ate far too much: a piece of cotton candy, a hot dog, the better half of a loaded potato, and a batch of cookies n’ cream dippin dots. Thankfully, though, after a long and hard-fought game, Kevin Plawecki of the Chihuahuas pulled through with a clutch home run at the bottom of the eighth inning.
July 3rd came to a close in the same way it always does: with a routine convo with the boys from 110 and 111. There’s always something to remind me that the best part of SSP is the people.
