6 days and 3 transformations later, after figuring out that I was using the wrong bacterial cells this whole time I was here (which explains why my transformations throughout this whole summer haven't been working), I finally finished the cloning experiment I started on July 22. And cloning was a success!
Life is getting pretty busy because I have a journal club paper to present on Monday and then my poster needs to be printed and ready to be presented by Thursday. It's scary how fast everything is coming to an end. On my first day, I was worried that 9 weeks might be a long time. Now, starting my 8th week, I wish I could spend more time here. I've met so many incredible people and although my expectations for this were pretty low considering I have never had lab experience before this, I've learned so much and I'm definitely the master at minipreps.
I would like to take some time to talk about Christina though. We've slowly settled into this routine of eating lunch together. I know that the first few times were just by chance, where she happened to be in the break room eating lunch, on her phone with headphones in. I would walk in, start talking and eating, and she would take out her headphones, put her phone away, and we would just talk. Everything about food to books. She reads lots of classics. We never tire of talking about that. And so from then on, despite how crazy lab work might get and how there's never a set time for lunch, we've managed to eat lunch together for every day except for one. Eventually, neither of us brought our phones to the break room and we would sit there for an hour, talking and eating, other people from our lab occasionally joining us if they happened to have lunch then. It wasn't until a week ago that we started asking each other and trying to plan lunch time (if things were busy in the lab). Up until then, we would just get really lucky. It started off when I asked her when she was done with her current step (and had some wait time) so we could eat lunch together. The next day, I was a little busy, but I was surprised when she asked me when I would be done. And from there, come noon time, we would find each other if we weren't busy, and go eat.
I've never met someone before who I could really talk about classics with. I love the consistency of eating lunch with someone and knowing that it'll be an interesting, relaxing break. I'm glad I met her, she's made this summer amazing, and I know she'll absolutely kick butt at Brown for grad school. Thank you Christina for our conversations and being my lunchmate. We'll keep in touch because you need to read some books and let me know what you think, but I also don't think that I'll stop reading classics any time soon, and so we'll forever have something to talk about.
No comments:
Post a Comment