Today’s the start of our first weekend at SSP! I was really looking forward to getting a good night’s sleep, so I went to bed at about 10:30 Friday night and woke up at 8am in order to make it to breakfast. I definitely felt more well-rested than the weekdays, haha. Most other SSPers decided to skip breakfast so they could sleep in, but I decided to head to breakfast with a few others before they closed at 8:30.
At Wiley dining hall, we (mostly) ate a nutritious breakfast consisting of oatmeal. I usually drink a cup of milk with my breakfast, but because we got there so late there was no more milk left. I was actually able to get a little bit from the machine, but barely enough to cover the bottom of my cup. I compensated by getting chocolate milk, which had a thicker consistency than I expected. Hmm…
In our designated SSP dining room, there were only three other people from the biochem program eating, including Ms. Bana and TA Colin. The Genomics side, however, were all eating in one big group, sharing laughs and having a lively conversation. Turns out they had a lecture today though, so I’m not too bummed out. Lol.
After breakfast it was time to do our first load of laundry at SSP. Everything went pretty smoothly except for the fact that Victoria *ahem* tricked us into thinking we were locked inside the laundry room, even though we did test whether the room would lock us in prior to entering. We almost fell for it.
Moving on…
At 10am it was time for Ms. Bana to take us to Target. I joined in because I realized that my tube of toothpaste was already half gone. Many of us bought expensive fresh fruit as well as other necessities. Several people bought blankets because the ones in the dorms are kind of thin.
We also walked to the university bookstore thinking there were actual novels to buy, but it ended up being a university textbook store that also sold Purdue University merchandise.
For lunch we headed to Purdue Memorial Union, only to find that only Starbucks was open. I combined lunch cards with Diego and bought two pastries and a drink. Diego bought two different drinks. It was Diego’s first time ordering Starbucks, so we commemorated it by taking a selfie.
About Starbucks names, some SSPers shared that they use similar but easier to spell names because it’s too inconvenient to spell it out to the barista. Lots of interesting conversations on the walk back to the dorms too.
At the dorms, we collected our laundry and socialized more. I took the time to call my parents. (I hadn’t called them for the past three days due to… working on SSP assignments) I then took a power nap and woke up to discover I had three missed calls from Alina and Victoria knocking at my door.
Victoria and I headed to CHAS to work on assignments and use the laptops. We found that one of the whiteboards outside the lab had some SSPer signatures, so I told everyone to sign their names so I could take a picture.
Below, the board and a “0.5 selfie” we took.
Well, we’re just about headed to dinner now, but I’d like to say that SSP has been an incredible experience so far. I’m learning things that I would have never had the chance to learn from school. While SSP will inevitably come with late nights at the lab and working on assignments, it’s all a learning experience. Hopefully weekends will make up for lack of sleep though, haha. I’m so glad I’ve met the wonderful members of the biochemistry program and know I will make lasting friendships here.
P.S. Cookies with Colin… 😬
Hello! I’m Isabelle from Southern California. I love reading, traveling, and music. I’ll refrain from listing my extracurriculars… but at SSP I’m using SnapGene to splice plasmids, creating protein diagrams, and trying to avoid getting sunburnt. Lol.
