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I started off the morning by waking up to three of my roommate’s alarms that started going off two hours before I needed to be awake… somehow, they woke up only me and not her. I ate some Fruit Loops as my breakfast and headed over to Lindley Hall for some group work at 9am. My group and I worked until 11:30, looking at different inhibitors and confirmations on MOE and preparing for the lab in the afternoon. 

Then, at 11:30, we went to lunch at the IMU where I got Indian food from The Globe. A big group of us sat at a long table, and we enjoyed the break from working. At around 12:15, most of us started heading over to the Chemistry building where we worked on Lab Session 11 until a little after 5. Today, we focused on one inhibitor and tried to find the IC50, or the concentration of the inhibitor at which our enzyme’s activity was inhibited by 50%. We didn’t finish, but we did manage to make a good amount of progress. 

After the lab, we went back to the dorm where a few of the girls talked until dinner at 6. Thankfully, it was extremely hot, so we could wear shorts. We ate at Forest, and I got a burger and fries. At 8, we had a dorm meeting, where we went over the rough schedule for this week (the last full week!!) and played a couple games for an hour. 

From 9-10, my lab group and I worked on our presentations taking place tomorrow (wish us luck!!). We added finishing touches to some of the slides and practiced them. After turning in our laptops at 9:55, I talked with some friends until our curfew at 11pm. Overall, it was another great day!

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The field trip is a much needed break from the endless wells to plate and inhibitors to test in the lab. Our original plan of visiting Lake Monroe was replaced with going to an escape room and axe throwing (!) due to weather. Its exciting, but the last field trip of SSP brings with it some bittersweet emotions. 

As we board the bus for our hour and a half trip to Indianapolis, I can’t help but think how in exactly one week we’ll be riding the same bus to the airport. These past 4 and a half weeks have been a test in patience and perseverance, but I’ve enjoyed every minute of it. It’s been amazing to learn alongside such talented and driven peers. It’s incredible how close we’ve gotten in such a short time, which only makes it all the more difficult to imagine waving goodbye to everyone in just a week.

We arrive at the escape room and assemble into groups. There are six different rooms to choose from, and my group chooses ‘The Island’. We escape with just 5 minutes remaining – but not before almost breaking a decoration on the wall because we thought it was a clue. We head to lunch at a local deli for lunch. Ordering food for all 36 of us (plus faculty!) was hectic, but eventually we all got our food. Next on the agenda was axe throwing – a great way to blow off some steam from the workload of our last week. 

On the ride back, I snapped a photo of Emanuel sleeping as retribution for him doing the same to me. The rest of the day was some much welcome free time to work on our manuscripts. All in all, the last field trip of SSP was one to remember. 

• Sasha 

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After delicious breakfast at the Forest Centre, we headed to the lab where our bacterial colonies should have been waiting since yesterday. For the first time in a long time in the history of Biochem IU, we failed to grow bacteria, but that’s okay. I guess we can do it again. 

Photo: Unsuccessful bacteria :(((

Then, we headed to the lectures where Dr James and Dr Hollenbeck explained to us how recombinant DNA technology and recombinant protein expression works. The lectures, by the way, were in the Chemistry building, where I have noticed Hamiltanion operator signs on the wall outside and a couple of other signs from the Schrödinger equation. 

Photo: Schrödinger signs on Chemistry building 

Next, we went outside the perimeter and tried some coconut bubble tea.

Photo: bubble tea 

Then, we went to the park where we played volleyball. It was awesome to play as a team. 

After that, we headed to the Science Library where we familiarised ourselves with Scopus, Zotero and other tools for academic research writing. 

Then, in groups of 5 we discussed how cultivating uncultured bacteria can be prototypical of how people with different backgrounds interact in society. After reading the article, we rethought some things from a different aspect. 

To get our bacteria colonies, we – Talija and Charlie headed to the lab at 9pm. Tomorrow we will find out if we succeeded this time.

Photo: lab

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(I would like to preface this blog post by saying that the TAs neglected to inform me that today was my turn to write the blog until halfway through the day.)

Otherwise, my day started when I woke up at around 7:45 after ignoring my three earlier alarms. Today we had absolutely no lab work, so I finally got to wear my new shorts (I would later regret this decision because I got really cold during the guest lecture ). I was supposed to get breakfast at 8 with Cailyn and Sophia, but we took too long to get ready (or woke up late, in Sophia’s case), so we just went straight to Lindley for our lectures. 

We spent the first three hours working on two class activities: one for comparing specificity constants that we obtained from our last lab, and one for docking a ligand into our homology model. My group went through both activities pretty smoothly, although Emanuel was very mean to me because he said his ligand docking model was better than mine (it was). After getting our model confirmed by the TAs, we went to lunch at the IMU. 

(Me with my research group)                  (Sophia with her dinosaur that she drew!)

My group was already late because we were waiting in line to have our ligand docking checked by the TAs, but I ended up only having five minutes to eat. I ordered a bowl of ramen, and ten minutes later I found out that they completely forgot to make my order, and even blamed me for not asking earlier about my food . It’s okay, though – I just brought the rest back to Lindley and finished it before the lecture began. 

After a lecture on high-throughput screening by our fearless leader, Dr. H, we started working on writing up a lab procedure for tomorrow’s lab (which will apparently take the whole day ). My group finished pretty quickly, so we sat around for a while until the guest speaker arrived. We actually hadn’t received any other information about today’s speaker besides his name, so I was pretty curious as to what he was going to talk about. 

(Bissan introducing our guest speaker, Dr. Kunzman)

Dr. Kunzman gave a really interesting talk on failure and how we should change our mindset to recover from it. Everyone else was pretty interested too – I think we asked questions for like 45 minutes straight. Then we transitioned to the guest speaker reception (shoutout to group 8 for planning such a great platter!), and some people kept asking other questions. On the other hand, a couple of us got into a really heated debate over a question from the lecture: would you rather have $150,000 right now or have an 80% chance to get $1 million? Personally, I (and many others) would gamble for the $1 million, but Matthew was very insistent about just taking the $150,000.

(Cailyn side-eying Matthew for choosing $150,000)     (Me with Sophia and Cailyn in the dorms!)

Once the guest speaker reception was over, we went back to the dorms to get changed and go to dinner at Forest. Mr. L was out with Talija to get her a new phone so we didn’t have formal dinner setup, but we still had to sit with our table groups. This week, I’m sitting with Nick and several other girls. I didn’t have to do my chore of dinner breakdown since there was no setup to begin with (thanks Talija ), so I went right back to the dorms.

At around 8PM, we headed to the Biology Commons to work on our assignments. My group just worked on our presentation for next week, but I think some other groups worked on analyzing data or something. A little over halfway through, I decided to start interviewing some people for fun! (Sorry if I didn’t get to you I ran out of time and my mics ran out of battery.) Around 9:50PM, we headed back to the dorms for laptop turn-in and started getting ready for bed. That’s about it! 

Video:https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cJ05YwZjSa3jXYJIOs2Pu3aDSMSxJXut/view?usp=drivesdk

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We had scheduled lab time from 9 AM to 3:30 PM (we can take our lunch break anytime fit), so we were going to be stuck in there for a while. Going to the lab, which is on the seventh floor, is always fun, especially when there is 10 students in the elevator, but don’t worry, there’s always room for one more  N + 1

  ^ Caroline sitting on the floor while waiting for her Assay to incubate

The Flat Blue Thing: 

Each time I look up in the Lab room, my eyes always trace back to the enigma which lives on the side of the -20℃ freezer…. 

I know nothing about the Sad frisbee in the fridge… What made it feel so blue (get it)… Well I would be sad to be trapped in a room full of teenagers for hours at a time for roughly ~5 weeks, never seeing the outside, but this isn’t about me.  

The Tape Terrorizer 

There was also a terrorizer in labs today; they were relentlessly putting huge strands of obnoxious orange tape on people’s back, most of which were either oblivious or didn’t care. I, thankfully, did not get targeted!

*John Doe #1 & #2 

Exciting Venture: 

*The view from the stairwell that leads to the 6th floor (which is always a breeze of fresh air, especially when in a concrete box for hours straight) (I am exaggerating…kinda). 

Anyways when going to the girls restroom on the 6th floor, the vibes are always off, not because there’s any sort of threat, but because there’s always a singular, random wooden chair, which honestly contains so much aura it’s crazy. Today something crazy happened to the chair… it got moved, which I never expected to happen, so that was something !

*For reference: The chair before it was moved 

The chair after its translation…

Lunch 

Then, I went to lunch at the IMU for like 40 minutes, and On the way back to the Chemistry building, for lab, I saw a chipmunk and snapped a really bad photo of one: 

*full, unzoomed photo

Going back to the Lab was a long (3 minute) journey..I had to fight through swarms of orientation students (walk to the side of the pathway), and walk up a mountain (5 stairs).

← This is a Rubber Suction Bulb

Then, at 4:00 TA talk started ,which is always fun to listen to!! It kinda went overtime, but it was worth it. 

Dinner…:

 Today, we had to go to the Read dining hall …But! It was Charlie’s Birthday!!! So, that makes up for it!! We had some insomnia cookies, which was a first for me, and they were delicious. 

After dinner, I went into the Bio commons to finish some for like two hours, and then I got ready for bed! 

Stuffed animal collection: 

Since joining SSP, I have gotten four stuffed animals….

Blue dragon: Charleston THEE 2nd 

• Charleston thee 2nd was bought at target on my first extended parameter 

Green crocodile (I think): Crinkle 

• Was my first guest onto my bed, and I got him on the trip to Holiday world (which was peak) 

Monkey: Timothee 

• I got him on my first extended parameter to @ buildabear 

Ginger bear: bibs 

• Gift from Caroline (first photo) 

P.S: Crinkle Mew-maxxing

Well bye!!!!

• K

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