Today is seven days from last Monday, the beginning of our program. It was difficult for me to get back to work after the weekend, especially after I stayed up so late on Sunday night. Still, I was both excited and nervous to get back to the lab and continue with inoculation. Aside from the progress with our chemostats, Dr. Carter also gave many fascinating lectures about how PCR and gel electrophoresis work. I’m still not confident in my pipetting skills, but I think I definitely learned a lot from today’s practice run of preparing the DNA samples for PCR analysis.
Our lab group messed up a little, but I know we ultimately benefited from the failure. I would much rather make mistakes earlier rather than later, when everything matters much more. Dr. Lamana’s lecture was also very fun— she played some entertaining videos that finished off class strong. I think the highlight of the day was dinner, when everyone agreed to wear blue. There were so many good outfits— even the boys all participated this time. The food was also more decent than usual, since there was mint chocolate chip ice cream, my favorite flavor.
After dinner, we had a group meeting and team building activity that proved insightful but surprisingly difficult for my group. Mr. Shorey calls activities like these “mandatory fun”, but I do think they were genuinely enjoyable for most of us. We also went over the basic schedule for the rest of the week, and I can’t wait for the upcoming guest lecture and field trips.
The program has barely started, but I’ve already learned so much. I’m really starting to appreciate the work hard, play hard mentality that SSP encourages. I can only imagine how much I’ll grow and experience with everyone throughout the next few weeks. (Christine)
