I didn’t know it at the time I picked this day to do the blog, but Saturdays have become my favorite days at SSP – the morning doughnuts, lack of psets due, and the ability to stay up super late without having to worry about getting up at 7 (well, more like 7:30 with how many times I snooze my alarms) the next morning for lab have made them certainly worth waiting for after a long week. And part of me can’t believe that this is the last one I’ll spend here.
To be quite frank, my day did not start off too well. I opened my eyes with a jolt realizing my alarm had not gone off – and I checked my alarm to find that it was 7:41! 11 minutes later than usual, but nothing I couldn’t handle. I jumped out of bed and made it to announcements right on time. I snatched my usual glazed doughnut and I was ready for the day.
When I walked into lab, Dr. Lamanna did not tell us to “glove up,” but instead to stand in a line based on none other than feet sizes. Just like we did precisely 34 days ago, on our first day of wet lab at SSP. She then proceeded to lead us in an exercise of giving compliments to each SSP participant on their lab skills. It ended up failing because we got confused and too much time, but the we certainly enjoyed the compliments we did have the time to receive.
I thought our last wet lab was going to be mostly normal after that, but it’s never a normal day here at SSP. Turns out we had to get in our Sherlock Holmes era solve a mystery – a mystery of how all of our replicate plates yielded different results after our natural transformations lab the other day. After a long morning of intense investigation, pondering, and brief philosophizing by Veronistotle, we eventually decided human error must have been the cause of our strange outcome.
Following work on our posters and manuscripts, my friends and I headed over to try out this boba shop called Feng-Cha (the lunch menu at the dining hall didn’t look too appetizing). We stopped at the Purdue bookstore, and Noa bought a unicorn named Veronicorn Skibidi Johannes III. I proceeded to do (even more!) work on my manuscript for a couple hours there and then headed back to the dorms to do my laundry since the GERIs are not allowed to infest the basement on Saturdays (yet another reason I love these days!).
I walked over to dinner and got my usual order of salad: baby spinach, tomatoes, chickpeas, balsamic vinegar, and olive oil. Not to brag, but I finally figured out how to pour the balsamic without it dripping everywhere! I also made myself a chicken sandwich, which surprisingy I’d rate the sandwich an 8/10 – not too shabby for dining hall food. But what I have to say was the best part of my dinner was the mint chocolate chip ice cream. Fresh, green, creamy, and perfect, it has to be the best item Ford has served in my entire time here. I haven’t seen it at the ice cream bar in weeks, so I knew the universe must have heard my dreams of tasting that ice cream again before my departure.
I went back to the dorms and locked in on my poster and manuscript (for the third time today!) and then entered an intense fight in the boys dorm over the movie to watch. Apparently, many people have terrible taste and prefer Jurassic Park over the masterpiece that is Disney Pixar’s Cars. Fortunately, it was ultimately decided to watch Aladdin, one of my favorite animated Disney movies of all time. And that’s what I am watching now, right as I type these words.
As I’m writing this, there remains to be precisely one hour and twenty-seven minutes left of my last Saturday at what has become my home. I have learned so much more here than in an entire year of school, I’ve been challenged more than ever before, and I have made so many memories with people that have become some of my closest friends. I didn’t believe it when they told me, but SSP is truly the experience of a lifetime. I will forever remember all these little moments – the laughter, the tears, the late nights at ABE (and especially the mint chocolate chip ice cream). 4 more days at the best program ever 🙂
signing off,
jaya (like zendaya iykyk)
