Well despite the suffocating, horrendous heat, I find myself writing to you with blue lips. I'm shivering away at the library, where I'm pretty sure the AC is working quite well.
It has been a long day. The "Buggin' Around" summer reading program ended at 2:00 this afternoon and beings that I have nothing tying up my early afternoon hours, I came to the library 4 hours early and have been busy ever since. I feel like I've been here for eons. But helping out with the program was worth it. We took the kids on a walk showing them "historical" sights in Yankton. It turned out to be 4 blocks of sweaty, frustrating, ornery kid-chasing frenziness. Lola, my supervisor, basically wasted energy that could have been better used for sweating, talking to kids who cared not the slightest for what she had to say. The kids preferred to run in circles, look at bugs, and pick up garbage instead. I think the most exciting thing most of them learned on our historical tour was that Lola will yell if one attempts to touch a bat floundering around in broad daylight. "Get away!! It might have rabies!!" haha.
When we arrived back at the library all slightly worn out and edgy, Megan (my coworker and fellow Mt. Marty student) and I sneaked away and climbed up onto the roof of the library. (I must point out here that it was a scary climb and I feared for my life on the ladder descent but luckily I live to tell my tale.) On the roof, a basket of water balloons that we spent an entire hour last night blowing up was waiting for us. We got to chuck them down at the conglomeration of kids down below. It was a blast! We were told not to aim, but let's just say I can't be blamed for my balloons' slight inclinations to fly through the air in the general direction of the kids who had been naughty on the walk. :)
After that thrilling escapade, Megan and I spent the next two hours making bulletin boards. And then I tutored, and I am not yet done tutoring. Good news though: the boy I was working with today did soooo well! He was working on math problems that I made especially challenging for him at his request. He was getting all of them correct, admitted that it was fun, and got excited to show his dad what he had accomplished. I was happy for him and it was rewarding to see!
But in the meantime, like before I decided to contract hypothermia in the library on this scorching afternoon, life has gone on. My mom and sister picked me up in Yankton last Friday and we went to Sioux Falls for the day to go shopping. My sister is moving to Michigan on August 16, so it was kind of a last hoorah for the Starman girls together. It was a ton of fun and let's just say I spent way too much money. We got back to Yankton about 8:00 and I then went home for the weekend because it was alumni weekend. I go through Neligh, NE on my way to my Elgin farm, and the town has one of the few remaining drive-in movie theaters. I called my brother on my way home and he told me there was a whole group from TEC that was there, so I stopped. I arrived late for the movie, The Dark Night, but somehow managed to get completely excited (gasps and everything) about the second half of the movie without even really knowing what was going on. I then decided I was too tired to stay for the late movie (began at midnight) so I drove the remaining 10 miles home. Once I got home, I decided I was no longer tired so I put in a load of laundry at 1:00 a.m. and went outside to watch the stars while I waited for my clothes to get clean. The stars are beautiful, especially out in the country!
There is always a softball tournament to celebrate alumni weekend, but I did not participate because 1) my achilles tendon has not yet recovered from it's rather irritating persistence to have tendinitis, 2) I find the game to be incredibly dull, and 3) even if I did like softball, awful is probably an understatement as to my skill level. But, I did meet up with about 6 of the girls from my class, and we spent the evening reminiscing. One of the girls is getting married next summer and has already graduated from a 2-year program and thus has her "real world job." She was talking about having kids and everything. I was a bit shocked. Hello, I still have at least 5 more years of school! I'm like Peter Pan here or something. I'm rather enjoying college and not having a "real" job yet. I don't want to "grow-up" for a few more years. It was strange to think I'm the same age as her, and we had so much in common just two years ago.
I attended my TEC (teens encounter Christ) reunion on Sunday on my way back to Yankton. It was great to see my high school and TEC friends all in the same weekend! I can't believe summer is nearly over and this week will be gone before I know it as well because it is busy, busy, busy. Tomorrow and Thursday I'm off to Vermillion for a research poster presentation, Friday I will be visiting my sister at her Cabin, and this weekend is my roommate/best friend's birthday. I find myself silently begging summer to not leave. ahhhhhhhh. Until next time, stay cool and happy summer!
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
hmmm...randomness
Hello all! Well since my last post, my life has been flying steadily by in a somewhat monotonous and seemingly purposeless string of events (suppress your laughs, please). In layman's terms, without my research job demanding set hours out of my day, I have free reign of my daily schedule. It is quite amazing, but I must admit that considering everyone I know is still actually working from 8-5 it has made for some slightly tedious and lonely days - I refrained from using the word "boring" because, Lord help me, I have tons of stuff to keep me busy. My days have consisted of working out, eating, attempting to get grad school and research papers and applications squared away, enjoying the summer sun, tutoring at the library, and going to bed - every day, with very little variation...I need some excitement in my life!
The presentation I was on the verge of being spastic about last week went fairly smoothly after all. I did find myself incapable of pronouncing the word "specificity" and have since been walking around randomly attempting to spit the word out with no luck and a lot of incredulous frustration. Additionally, despite my plea for no questions, I was asked questions I did not know the answers to. Because this wasn't the most formal of affairs, I handled the situation in a moment of panic by handing the microphone to Dr. Wu, my very intelligent mentor who did know the answers. Don't take pointers from this technique, kids! It was very unprofessional (but it did save me in that particular moment :) ).
Sunday night, for the first time this summer, 9 of my volleyball teammates and I finally got together to play. It was so refreshing to get some touches on the ball after about 2 months of very limited playing. But, let's just say I'm a bit rusty and have quite a few kinks to work out before the season begins. We're working on getting together again this Sunday night to play - hopefully a few more girls will be able to make it! In the meantime, I'm hoping to get in the gym to work on some individual hitting and such so that I can retrain my body how to do such things. You see, I am about 6'0 and that makes for some pretty powerful coordination problems that I must continually conquer. I typically end up coming up with bizarre ways of doing things and sometimes look quite ridiculous in the process, but hey, it has never stopped me from giving my best shot!
The volleyball and soccer teams move into the dorms in 2 and 1/2 weeks. Yikes, now that I said that, it makes it seem so real and threatening! My summer is down to the last threads and that is ever so sad! I'm planning on spending the remainder of this week and next focusing my cardio workouts on quickness and jumping drills we do during practice in hopes of alleviating a bit of the pain that comes with two-a-day workouts. You see, I love to run, so for the majority of the summer, I have gone for 2-3 mile runs - not exactly volleyball specific, but enjoyable and stress-relieving all the same. I work out daily, maybe taking a day off once a week. Well, after being nice to my tired body last week and taking an entire weekend off, I went for a refreshing 3 mile jog like I have been doing all summer. I woke up last Monday with an excruciating pain in my right achilles tendon. I convinced myself that it was just tight and would go away - NOT the case. I couldn't help tearing up when I walked down the stairs that morning, and as I was walking with a ridiculous limp, I let go of my stubbornness and walked down to ask Andy the trainer what sort of bizarre injury was suddenly and unexpectedly crippling me. He told me I had tendinitis in my achilles. OWWW! I haven't run since then (about a week and a half now and probably a record for me). I have attempted to do some of the jumping and quickness drills though, and though the pain is not nearly as bad as it was, it's still hanging on. I think I'm going to have give in and do some serious resting before the season starts to hopefully let my poor aching heel recover!
Now that I've spilled all of my tedious life's randomness, I should be taking off. I have a date at the library with some adorable kids and multiplication tables. Keep living it up in the summertime....I read an entire book yesterday, Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas by James Patterson (absolutely amazing) and words of advice from that book: ONE TODAY IS WORTH TWO TOMORROWS! :)
p.s. Read the book if you have time. I loved it!
The presentation I was on the verge of being spastic about last week went fairly smoothly after all. I did find myself incapable of pronouncing the word "specificity" and have since been walking around randomly attempting to spit the word out with no luck and a lot of incredulous frustration. Additionally, despite my plea for no questions, I was asked questions I did not know the answers to. Because this wasn't the most formal of affairs, I handled the situation in a moment of panic by handing the microphone to Dr. Wu, my very intelligent mentor who did know the answers. Don't take pointers from this technique, kids! It was very unprofessional (but it did save me in that particular moment :) ).
Sunday night, for the first time this summer, 9 of my volleyball teammates and I finally got together to play. It was so refreshing to get some touches on the ball after about 2 months of very limited playing. But, let's just say I'm a bit rusty and have quite a few kinks to work out before the season begins. We're working on getting together again this Sunday night to play - hopefully a few more girls will be able to make it! In the meantime, I'm hoping to get in the gym to work on some individual hitting and such so that I can retrain my body how to do such things. You see, I am about 6'0 and that makes for some pretty powerful coordination problems that I must continually conquer. I typically end up coming up with bizarre ways of doing things and sometimes look quite ridiculous in the process, but hey, it has never stopped me from giving my best shot!
The volleyball and soccer teams move into the dorms in 2 and 1/2 weeks. Yikes, now that I said that, it makes it seem so real and threatening! My summer is down to the last threads and that is ever so sad! I'm planning on spending the remainder of this week and next focusing my cardio workouts on quickness and jumping drills we do during practice in hopes of alleviating a bit of the pain that comes with two-a-day workouts. You see, I love to run, so for the majority of the summer, I have gone for 2-3 mile runs - not exactly volleyball specific, but enjoyable and stress-relieving all the same. I work out daily, maybe taking a day off once a week. Well, after being nice to my tired body last week and taking an entire weekend off, I went for a refreshing 3 mile jog like I have been doing all summer. I woke up last Monday with an excruciating pain in my right achilles tendon. I convinced myself that it was just tight and would go away - NOT the case. I couldn't help tearing up when I walked down the stairs that morning, and as I was walking with a ridiculous limp, I let go of my stubbornness and walked down to ask Andy the trainer what sort of bizarre injury was suddenly and unexpectedly crippling me. He told me I had tendinitis in my achilles. OWWW! I haven't run since then (about a week and a half now and probably a record for me). I have attempted to do some of the jumping and quickness drills though, and though the pain is not nearly as bad as it was, it's still hanging on. I think I'm going to have give in and do some serious resting before the season starts to hopefully let my poor aching heel recover!
Now that I've spilled all of my tedious life's randomness, I should be taking off. I have a date at the library with some adorable kids and multiplication tables. Keep living it up in the summertime....I read an entire book yesterday, Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas by James Patterson (absolutely amazing) and words of advice from that book: ONE TODAY IS WORTH TWO TOMORROWS! :)
p.s. Read the book if you have time. I loved it!
Thursday, July 17, 2008
An entire afternoon in the library...in JULY?!?
Yes folks, that's right. It is the middle of July - the hottest, most carefree month of the summer. The time when we're feeling the tug of the sweet summer days too quickly slipping by. What to do about it? Well, go to the beach of course! Run! Read a book outdoors! Do anything that involves soaking up the sun and feeling the freedom of summer. ........ hmmmm.....well....what am I doing about it you ask? Ironically, I find myself sitting at the Yankton Public Library two hours before I am scheduled to work with full intentions of staying here all afternoon. I know, I know, it's summer. Gosh, Kelly, get a life! Well you see I have my reasons and I'm pretty disappointed in them myself, but here goes: 1) it is cloudy outside to go along with the smothering humidity, so a day at the beach would most likely be miserable and unproductive, 2) I cannot run because I somehow managed to mysteriously contract tendinitis in my achilles tendon and it hurts so bad that even being OCD about running, I simply can't, 3) Despite it being mid-July, I find myself with the icky assignment of putting together a 20 minute presentation over my research that I must present for a bunch of science goo-roos tomorrow afternoon, and 4) I'm working on applying to grad school and studying for the PCAT, so combined with reasons 1, 2,and 3, today seemed like as good a time as any to delve into that mound of mind-boggling information.
So anyway, I have this presentation prepared in PowerPoint and the slides sitting here staring at me. I'm thinking I deserve somewhat of a pat on the back for getting that far. But my pride ends there. I'm actually incredibly, slightly ridiculously, nervous about giving this presentation tomorrow. I've done okay going over the presentation by means of talking to myself about four times now, but I have this nagging fear that my facts are wrong or that some genius chemist is going to ask me an "easy" question that will make me wither like a dandelion fried by the sun. My only comfort is that in these 80 minutes now that I have talked to myself about what I've done for the last month and a half, I have actually managed to plow through it with an inkling of confidence and "wisdom." The challenge comes tomorrow when I find out how true my explanations are. I'll probably have nightmares of Dr. Wu sitting there shaking her head in the back because what I'm presenting is completely wrong - if that is the case, I just hope to high Heaven that no one else picks up on it, and everyone just sits there lost by the difficulty of the material, oblivious to my made up knowledge. Wow, okay, I think it's time to stop psyching myself out.
My other task of the afternoon is to dive into Pharmacy grad school applications and PCAT information. You see, I am a terrible decision maker. I hate saying yes to one thing when it involves so many "no's" to exciting possibilities. So as you can likely imagine, picking a major and a career was no easy task for me. One evening this summer though (a Tuesday night to be exact) I was sitting in this very building (library) when out of the blue, for no reason whatsoever, I starting googling pharmacy grad schools. I'd been thinking about going into pharmacy for quite some time, but was holding off on making the commitment because I want to do so many different things. But on this Tuesday, as I was deeply involved in my research, I decided that pharmacy grad school fit. It just seemed right. For reasons I can't rationally explain, I've just felt sure of this decision since that night, and I'm pretty pumped about it. On top of that huge decision right there, my goal is to apply to grad school a year early, a.k.a. this year! When I started looking into it, I realized that it only requires two years of pre-pharmacy school to get into grad school. I will have 3 years of undergraduate studies after this coming year and all the pre-requisites for grad school. I realized that, and despite the huge challenge and commitment ahead of me, I decided I'm ready to move on and I'm going to take on the challenge! :) YAY!
Okay, but before I get ahead of myself here, I have a LOT of work to do. Number one is the PCAT - pharmacy college admissions test. I will have to take the exam on October 18. That gives me three months to do some crash course studying, reviewing, and even some teaching myself new material (the stuff I'll be taking this coming fall and spring, but won't be covered in class before the test date). I'm excited about it, but also terrified. I've always been up for challenging myself, and this will definitely be one of the biggest challenges I've faced. I have nothing to lose, so I just need to stay focused and study adequately prior to the date. Focusing may be the problem though - there is so much information covered and after all, it's still summer! :S BUT, it has to be a good start to be in the library for an entire afternoon, right?? :)
Alright, while I sit here attempting to meet a challenge (or maybe just completely losing my mind...) you should definitely stop reading my crazy summer melodrama and take advantage of your own summer! Run! Go to the beach! Read a book outside! Soak up the sun and be a kid! :)
So anyway, I have this presentation prepared in PowerPoint and the slides sitting here staring at me. I'm thinking I deserve somewhat of a pat on the back for getting that far. But my pride ends there. I'm actually incredibly, slightly ridiculously, nervous about giving this presentation tomorrow. I've done okay going over the presentation by means of talking to myself about four times now, but I have this nagging fear that my facts are wrong or that some genius chemist is going to ask me an "easy" question that will make me wither like a dandelion fried by the sun. My only comfort is that in these 80 minutes now that I have talked to myself about what I've done for the last month and a half, I have actually managed to plow through it with an inkling of confidence and "wisdom." The challenge comes tomorrow when I find out how true my explanations are. I'll probably have nightmares of Dr. Wu sitting there shaking her head in the back because what I'm presenting is completely wrong - if that is the case, I just hope to high Heaven that no one else picks up on it, and everyone just sits there lost by the difficulty of the material, oblivious to my made up knowledge. Wow, okay, I think it's time to stop psyching myself out.
My other task of the afternoon is to dive into Pharmacy grad school applications and PCAT information. You see, I am a terrible decision maker. I hate saying yes to one thing when it involves so many "no's" to exciting possibilities. So as you can likely imagine, picking a major and a career was no easy task for me. One evening this summer though (a Tuesday night to be exact) I was sitting in this very building (library) when out of the blue, for no reason whatsoever, I starting googling pharmacy grad schools. I'd been thinking about going into pharmacy for quite some time, but was holding off on making the commitment because I want to do so many different things. But on this Tuesday, as I was deeply involved in my research, I decided that pharmacy grad school fit. It just seemed right. For reasons I can't rationally explain, I've just felt sure of this decision since that night, and I'm pretty pumped about it. On top of that huge decision right there, my goal is to apply to grad school a year early, a.k.a. this year! When I started looking into it, I realized that it only requires two years of pre-pharmacy school to get into grad school. I will have 3 years of undergraduate studies after this coming year and all the pre-requisites for grad school. I realized that, and despite the huge challenge and commitment ahead of me, I decided I'm ready to move on and I'm going to take on the challenge! :) YAY!
Okay, but before I get ahead of myself here, I have a LOT of work to do. Number one is the PCAT - pharmacy college admissions test. I will have to take the exam on October 18. That gives me three months to do some crash course studying, reviewing, and even some teaching myself new material (the stuff I'll be taking this coming fall and spring, but won't be covered in class before the test date). I'm excited about it, but also terrified. I've always been up for challenging myself, and this will definitely be one of the biggest challenges I've faced. I have nothing to lose, so I just need to stay focused and study adequately prior to the date. Focusing may be the problem though - there is so much information covered and after all, it's still summer! :S BUT, it has to be a good start to be in the library for an entire afternoon, right?? :)
Alright, while I sit here attempting to meet a challenge (or maybe just completely losing my mind...) you should definitely stop reading my crazy summer melodrama and take advantage of your own summer! Run! Go to the beach! Read a book outside! Soak up the sun and be a kid! :)
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
TEC - a super great weekend!
Hi everyone!!
First off, WOW! I am sorry for the time lag between now and my last post. I can't believe how ridiculously fast summer seems to be flying by and how busy I seem to manage to be.
I received the most exciting news last Thursday afternoon at 1:00 p.m. After spending yet another miserable day in lab running time consuming, uncooperative computer tests, Dr. Wu decided that our machine was not high-tech enough to get appropriate readings. The result? We had to get our information the "easy" way - "easy" being the shorter, less complicated, and in my opinion, quite marvelous way. So, I ran a seemingly endless serious of micro-pipetting, computer scanning tests, and then Dr. Wu turned to me and said we had completed our summer research goals and that I didn't have to come in anymore....WHAT?!?!? I think I stood there dumbfounded for a full 30 seconds before responding and registering that I had in fact heard correctly. I am free of research for the rest of the summer. I just have to give a presentation on Friday and write a paper. WOOHOOOOO!!!! I'm pretty pumped about it. Don't worry though, I have PLENTY of things to keep me busy for the next month (you'll probably be hearing about them in future posts).
Now to the subject matter of this post. For the 4 Sundays prior to this past weekend, I had been making trips to Norfolk, NE to attend TEC (teens encounter Christ) meetings. TEC is a three day Catholic retreat put on for the group of teens in the range of juniors in High school to 22 years old. This past weekend, the event went down, and it was phenomenal. I was a member of the kitchen crew for rural NE TEC 25. We made a ridiculous amount of food and had enough junk food (a.k.a. cookies and brownies and sugar up the wazoo) to feed an army. And beings I was working to make the food, I believe I ate enough for 20 people. I honestly had more to eat in three days than I normally eat in a week or two. We're talking cheesecake and grilled steaks and hamburgers and tacos and pancakes and all sorts of heavenly food.
But beyond the fact that I think I gained 10 pounds, the food isn't the important thing here. I love working TEC! I made the TEC retreat when I was a senior in high school and since then have worked at three of them. It is a life-changing experience. Candidates come in and experience a serious of talks mingled with awesome surprises and fun and prayer experiences. It's not like anything else I have ever been a part of. It is so hard to explain and is one of those things that just simply needs to be experienced. Everyone leaves with the feeling that they can get through anything. The people I've met there are truly amazing and I get incredibly sad every time I have to leave and say good-bye to them. If you ever have the chance, I would strongly recommend attending TEC!!!
I had a couple of cool personal experiences at the TEC weekend. I got up at 6:00 on Saturday morning and went for a run before having to cook breakfast. It was spectacular. It was cool and sprinkling a little. The retreat was held at Tintern outside of Oakdale, NE (a.k.a. middle of nowhere) so it was super peaceful. As I was running along, 4 dear bounded across the road in front of me. It was sooo cool! :) Saturday night's events took place outside around a bonfire underneath the clear sky and gorgeous stars. I love star-gazing! Sunday I had about an hour of free time, so I ventured off and took a walk. It was good to get away and have time for myself to think about whatever my heart desired - in normal day-to-day happenings, that doesn't happen often. I found some beautiful orange flowers and watched a couple of butterflies (don't judge me, I know it sounds super cheesy but it was nice all the same). On top of all of that, my little 6'9 brother was also working on the weekend. It was great to spend some time with him. He's a super cool guy and I'm super proud of him. :)
Sadly, the weekend ended Monday at 8:00 and it was back to reality. I now have 2 days left to prepare a 15 minute presentation over my research for Friday. ugh.... I'll just have to use my good spirits from the weekend to motivate me to be studious in the summer. Speaking of which, I should work on that now. bye!
First off, WOW! I am sorry for the time lag between now and my last post. I can't believe how ridiculously fast summer seems to be flying by and how busy I seem to manage to be.
I received the most exciting news last Thursday afternoon at 1:00 p.m. After spending yet another miserable day in lab running time consuming, uncooperative computer tests, Dr. Wu decided that our machine was not high-tech enough to get appropriate readings. The result? We had to get our information the "easy" way - "easy" being the shorter, less complicated, and in my opinion, quite marvelous way. So, I ran a seemingly endless serious of micro-pipetting, computer scanning tests, and then Dr. Wu turned to me and said we had completed our summer research goals and that I didn't have to come in anymore....WHAT?!?!? I think I stood there dumbfounded for a full 30 seconds before responding and registering that I had in fact heard correctly. I am free of research for the rest of the summer. I just have to give a presentation on Friday and write a paper. WOOHOOOOO!!!! I'm pretty pumped about it. Don't worry though, I have PLENTY of things to keep me busy for the next month (you'll probably be hearing about them in future posts).
Now to the subject matter of this post. For the 4 Sundays prior to this past weekend, I had been making trips to Norfolk, NE to attend TEC (teens encounter Christ) meetings. TEC is a three day Catholic retreat put on for the group of teens in the range of juniors in High school to 22 years old. This past weekend, the event went down, and it was phenomenal. I was a member of the kitchen crew for rural NE TEC 25. We made a ridiculous amount of food and had enough junk food (a.k.a. cookies and brownies and sugar up the wazoo) to feed an army. And beings I was working to make the food, I believe I ate enough for 20 people. I honestly had more to eat in three days than I normally eat in a week or two. We're talking cheesecake and grilled steaks and hamburgers and tacos and pancakes and all sorts of heavenly food.
But beyond the fact that I think I gained 10 pounds, the food isn't the important thing here. I love working TEC! I made the TEC retreat when I was a senior in high school and since then have worked at three of them. It is a life-changing experience. Candidates come in and experience a serious of talks mingled with awesome surprises and fun and prayer experiences. It's not like anything else I have ever been a part of. It is so hard to explain and is one of those things that just simply needs to be experienced. Everyone leaves with the feeling that they can get through anything. The people I've met there are truly amazing and I get incredibly sad every time I have to leave and say good-bye to them. If you ever have the chance, I would strongly recommend attending TEC!!!
I had a couple of cool personal experiences at the TEC weekend. I got up at 6:00 on Saturday morning and went for a run before having to cook breakfast. It was spectacular. It was cool and sprinkling a little. The retreat was held at Tintern outside of Oakdale, NE (a.k.a. middle of nowhere) so it was super peaceful. As I was running along, 4 dear bounded across the road in front of me. It was sooo cool! :) Saturday night's events took place outside around a bonfire underneath the clear sky and gorgeous stars. I love star-gazing! Sunday I had about an hour of free time, so I ventured off and took a walk. It was good to get away and have time for myself to think about whatever my heart desired - in normal day-to-day happenings, that doesn't happen often. I found some beautiful orange flowers and watched a couple of butterflies (don't judge me, I know it sounds super cheesy but it was nice all the same). On top of all of that, my little 6'9 brother was also working on the weekend. It was great to spend some time with him. He's a super cool guy and I'm super proud of him. :)
Sadly, the weekend ended Monday at 8:00 and it was back to reality. I now have 2 days left to prepare a 15 minute presentation over my research for Friday. ugh.... I'll just have to use my good spirits from the weekend to motivate me to be studious in the summer. Speaking of which, I should work on that now. bye!
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Pre-holiday vacation!? :)
So, I have no right whatsoever to complain about my research job. Because it is science and science takes time, I bounce back and forth between hardly working and working hard. This week has most definitely been hardly working and I absolutely, positively have loved it!
We finished phase one of our research this summer and officially have "purified protein" amongst our stocks of chemicals. Phase 2 is sure to be incredibly monotonous and lacking in any sort of excitement (my science-loving professor even stated that this will be the case). With this in mind, last Wednesday, I was in a dreadful mood willing myself to acquire a learning attitude to make it through the next few boring days. Low and behold, we searched an entire chem lab top to bottom 4 times over and could not find the little 2 inch tall cuvette that we needed to run our tests in the spectrophotometer. As my mentor stood there completely crestfallen and repeated over and over, "Ah, this is terrible!" I was secretly ecstatic. No cuvette meant that we had to order them, which in turn meant that the experiment could not proceed. So, Thursday and Friday, I came in in the mornings to do some cleaning, work on the poster presentation, and finish up a few tidbits. AND, the super exciting part, I've spent the first three days of this week on vacation from research! WOOHOO! yay summer! :)
Normally I would take advantage of such a thrilling and unexpected "summer vacation" and go home or visit friends, but I have still had to work at the library during my evenings. Therefore, I have spent three amazing afternoons at the beach thoroughly enjoying the sun, water, sand, and everything about summer. Yesterday, Brittany, my roommate, a fellow researcher, also had the afternoon off, and she joined me. We soaked up the sun, jumped in the water, decided to go for a run, didn't make it very far because I was drained from the heat and dehydrated, and then came back, jumped in the water again, and took off for home so I could make it to the library at 5. We hit up the Dairy Dock for ice cream on our way back to our apartment, and I had exactly 28 min to get and eat my cookie monster sundae before work. It was absolutely delicious and I think it may even beat Dairy Queen on my list of ice cream heavens.
In the mean time, I've spent my mornings, working out, reading, running errands, and biking. I haven't had to work, but I certainly haven't gotten bored either. My fun ends today though. I received an email this afternoon stating the following: "Finally we receive all we need. Please come tomorrow at 9:00 am. We meet in my lab." And so my fun ends. I'm not yet sure if I'll have to work on the 4th, but even if I do, it will only be a two day work week, and it's been a very relaxing and enjoyable pre-holiday vacation.
I'm looking forward to seeing two different fireworks shows this weekend and many friends who visits with are long overdo! Enjoy the holiday and try not to work too hard!
We finished phase one of our research this summer and officially have "purified protein" amongst our stocks of chemicals. Phase 2 is sure to be incredibly monotonous and lacking in any sort of excitement (my science-loving professor even stated that this will be the case). With this in mind, last Wednesday, I was in a dreadful mood willing myself to acquire a learning attitude to make it through the next few boring days. Low and behold, we searched an entire chem lab top to bottom 4 times over and could not find the little 2 inch tall cuvette that we needed to run our tests in the spectrophotometer. As my mentor stood there completely crestfallen and repeated over and over, "Ah, this is terrible!" I was secretly ecstatic. No cuvette meant that we had to order them, which in turn meant that the experiment could not proceed. So, Thursday and Friday, I came in in the mornings to do some cleaning, work on the poster presentation, and finish up a few tidbits. AND, the super exciting part, I've spent the first three days of this week on vacation from research! WOOHOO! yay summer! :)
Normally I would take advantage of such a thrilling and unexpected "summer vacation" and go home or visit friends, but I have still had to work at the library during my evenings. Therefore, I have spent three amazing afternoons at the beach thoroughly enjoying the sun, water, sand, and everything about summer. Yesterday, Brittany, my roommate, a fellow researcher, also had the afternoon off, and she joined me. We soaked up the sun, jumped in the water, decided to go for a run, didn't make it very far because I was drained from the heat and dehydrated, and then came back, jumped in the water again, and took off for home so I could make it to the library at 5. We hit up the Dairy Dock for ice cream on our way back to our apartment, and I had exactly 28 min to get and eat my cookie monster sundae before work. It was absolutely delicious and I think it may even beat Dairy Queen on my list of ice cream heavens.
In the mean time, I've spent my mornings, working out, reading, running errands, and biking. I haven't had to work, but I certainly haven't gotten bored either. My fun ends today though. I received an email this afternoon stating the following: "Finally we receive all we need. Please come tomorrow at 9:00 am. We meet in my lab." And so my fun ends. I'm not yet sure if I'll have to work on the 4th, but even if I do, it will only be a two day work week, and it's been a very relaxing and enjoyable pre-holiday vacation.
I'm looking forward to seeing two different fireworks shows this weekend and many friends who visits with are long overdo! Enjoy the holiday and try not to work too hard!
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