Yes! We did in fact go to Turkey Run State Park in Indiana… No, there were no turkeys 🙁 , however, there were new people (AKA the IU Biochemistry group). Shout out to them for being really good at volleyball – I’m glad I was able to meet you all. I would start off with how my morning went, but I pretty much just woke up and ran down to not miss the bus. Luckily, the ride was an hour and fifteen, so I sadly had to miss the alluring Indiana highway scenery to catch up on some sleep.
Waking up to Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake and seeing the elegant trees surrounding the concrete parking lot with the rain slowly running down the window was honestly a wonderful experience. However, the outside of the bus had no A/C, this is not good. Walking out the door, all I felt was the morning dew build up as my skin dampened and the realization hit: this was going to be a fun day. Those two ideas seem to contradict each other, but I love nature so I was used to the flurry of gnats and the sun’s beating rays.
All would be worth it the moment we stepped foot on the trail. IT WAS SO BEAUTIFUL – check out the photos for proof. I can not put into words how mind boggling this was. It did not feel like I was in Indiana. One of our abroad students from Thailand even said, “wow, it feels like I’m back home.” Let’s just say I want to go to Thailand now.
The trail was incredibly tiring, so we got back and ate some freshly cooked SSP hot dogs. After eating this extremely scrumptious and hearty meal, I decided to play some volleyball. To give some context, I played volleyball at our school’s beefcake event and made myself believe I was a somewhat above-average player, but this thought was corrected after I witnessed how good everybody was at the game. The sun eventually got to me, so I got back under the shade and played cards with the genomics folk. Near the end, we also got to dump an entire ice chest on our TAs and site directors – check that out in the video below.
Well, that was my description of the Turkey Run State Park SSP Tri-Group Meetup Event. But let’s not forget about the chemostats and our isolated colonies. All day, I was constantly reminded of my children: V. natriegens. I have put so much time into them, so I hope that the sequencing today at IU went well and that they’ll come back safely. I know all of the other genomics blogs have talked about failing chemostats, but I finally have a different story to tell: our group’s experiment somehow only malfunctioned once! GO GROUP 6!
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_TuibPlUuLG11O-iTcc4-QPfZH9kAVBE/view?usp=sharing
About me:
Howdy! My name is Adalberto Raul Arguelles and I come from the South Texan city of McAllen. I love reading, biking, camping, and watching movies. If you ever want some amazing tamales, try out McAllen’s Delia’s Tamales; they ship country-wide and are 100% worth it.
