It’s me, hi, Joyan (again). Long story short, I have forever and always been a major swiftie (which I think you all know). So for my very last blog, this is me trying to put as many Taylor Swift song titles in as possible (please don’t blame me for all the reminiscing).

These five weeks have felt timeless as we get closer and closer to closure. As we reach the treacherous deadline, it feels like we’ve all been working in exile, locked in and locked up. So many times have we been told to breathe and go to the outside, and sleep. But the Great War isn’t over until the Manuscript(s) (our research papers) are finished. 

Today was nothing new, 4 hours in the morning to work on our papers instead of lab and then we had lecture for the last time. During lunch, we spent some time out of the woods classroom as a bunch of us sat outside to touch grass and enjoy an impromptu picnic under the daylight.

We were also the lucky one(s) today as we finally got our Synth Chem hoodies!!!

Ft. My teammates as models for our gorgeous merch

It feels like the very first night was not so long ago when I met all these new mastermind(s). Everything has changed this cruel summer. It’s nice to have a(12 new) friend(s), especially those who feel as though they’ve been tied to you with invisible string(s).

As I get ready to say so long, London Weatherford, you might ask, is it over now?

Well, I’ll remember these short six weeks all too well, PSET bonds are greater triple bonds after all (go read that blog too). I can just imagine hearing Wei or Isabelle saying Welcome to New York sometime in the future. Or maybe we’ll all reunite and reminisce on the story of us (hopefully on someone’s private island)

I had the time of my life fighting dragons with all of you, and even though it’s (nearly) time to go. Maybe one day we’ll come back… be here, and be us.

I was enchanted to be here,

Lots of love

Joyan

(I might be a foolish one for spending so much time doing this but here’s the final song count: 34)

The post SWOSU Day 35: The Story of Us (Synth Chem’s Version) first appeared on SSP International.

Hi everyone,

Did you know that the state vegetable of Oklahoma, where I have been fortunate to live for the past six weeks, is a watermelon? Yes, a watermelon! Don’t ask! We play by a different set of rules here. Maybe take a second and look up the state meal of Oklahoma or your state.

I do not yet have the words to describe the experience of these past… how many weeks? I don’t even know!? Or has it been months? Years?Or maybe it’s only been a few minutes? I am not sure, because somehow time has been simultaneously standing still and flying by. But whatever time has elapsed between when I arrived for startup week on June 9th, and today (July 18th), has been transformative.  

So, I am going to share a few takeaways from SSP SWOSU that come to mind. I am not sure yet what they will catalyze, but here they are:

Kindness matters, even in the little things. This is true in many respects, but it was especially evident in food this summer. During our startup week, faculty shared home-cooked meals. It all started with burgers at the OChem professor’s house. The inorganic chemistry professor’s wife made some of the best chicken enchiladas I’ve ever had. There were nachos from the TA who wore many hats, and the periodic table memorizing SD’s chili. One time, at the dining hall, the staff gave us extra watermelon when they overheard that some of the participants loved it. Though small when viewed individually, collectively, these acts of kindness were the foundation of community in an unfamiliar place.

People are a beautiful mosaic of talents and identities. Gordon Ramsey, a West Coast rapper, and an East Coast scholar can all somehow exist in one person. The same goes for a fisherwoman from Texas, a balloon artist, and a scientist. Your event MC might be doing some chemistry in his parent’s garage and also has his own garden. The OChem professor from Oklahoma is also a scoutmaster, a star baseball player, basketball player, and has a great bromance with the analytical chemistry professor down the hall, who is also the GOAT at teaching. 

The best thing about my SSP SWOSU 2024 experience is the people! What a blessing to be able to say that and truly mean it. I could go on, but I am trying to keep this to one page.

Here are some scenes from this summer that I will speak about only cryptically, because sometimes trying to overly explain people or places risks reducing their magic…The aspiring stoic taught me to listen. Listen. The sound all around us is constantly making music. At this point, you should pause and just listen.

Now, this next little thing is from the flutist from Dallas, who never wants to lose a single milligram of her hard-earned ligand. Pinky promises made during dinner do not mean anything if you do not spit on it! 

This is not quite a little thing, but it is a book title I heard from a gentle soul that almost made a mistake worth a couple hundred thousand. The title of the book is “On Earth We Are Briefly Gorgeous.” I am not sure what it is, but this title makes me feel things. I will be thinking about this for a while.

Finally, stay LOCKED IN!

Well, I guess that wasn’t my last sentence. When I am not learning from the truly incredible and talented students I have been privileged to work with this summer, I watch some shows that help calm me. One of such shows is “The Office.” In one of my favorite scenes, Andy said he wished there was a way to know when you are in the good old days. I have no doubt that there is something about SSP this year that will make it into my “good old days” memory.

The post SWOSU Day 34: The Good Old Days first appeared on SSP International.

Lately I’ve been skipping breakfast for more sleep so there’s no donut pictures for today. In the morning, us participants finished our last day in lab by doing our last characterizations of the metal complex we synthesized. It was not initially planned but our dear faculties allowed us to test our complexes’ function: organic dye purification. I’m glad that one of my complexes worked pretty well. 

Heading to lab

Right after lab, everyone rushed to the bus for our last field trip. The bus ride was chill. Everyone enjoyed their packed lunch and fell asleep. Those who didn’t sleep (including me) on the other hand took some cool pictures of our friends((: Unlike on the first bus that we took to SWOSU (host of the program), there was a lot of chit chat on the bus instead of dead silence. That just shows how much bonding we’ve made during SSP (not the weak pi bonds but the SIGMA ones). 

Mario mewing while sleeping

We were visiting the OU Health Physicians and OMRF the labs. Their facilities were so nice. I got some inspiration to study biology in the future thanks to their talks about cancer research, career path, and their love for science. 

Liquid nitrogen looks like heaven

It was a rush. We quickly went back to the bus to get back for dinner. On the bus Ms. Dunn (our site director) surprised us by handing out boba tea. It was truly a blessing on a hot day far from home. My best friend (Super) Mario and I goofed around and talked philosophy for the entire bus ride. 

After dinner and the evening lecture, everyone was so exhausted, but Dr. Ellis woke us up by making us nitrogen banana ice cream and dippin’ dots live. He added banana scent, which we encountered in class before, to the ice cream as well. After that he took us on a magic tour. He let us turn copper pennies into GOLD!!! 

Dr. Ellis making ice cream in class

Cu + Dr. Ellis’ Magic —> Au

With the rebooted energy, my Allylcorn group and I locked in for our research paper. The work was exhausting but we pushed through. (Because Mario was on his phone so much Isabelle had to take it away from him.) We did joke around but we had a good amount of work done too. I’m so proud of us. 

The Allycorns only have two emotions: joy and locked in

Such a typical busy day at SSP. The program is coming to an end, and us all feel sad about that. SSP is a transformative experience that does not only open me up to conducting science research but also allows me to meet interesting like-minded peers. I made so many memories with these people through ramen nights, anime nights, nerds, BANG!, and all kinds of activities. The ride SSP gives me surely makes me grow a lot as a scientist and an individual.

Thank you for reading this blog. Now I have to sleep to get ready for another busy day tomorrow. Bye.

The post SWOSU Day 33: The Ride first appeared on SSP International.

our final VERY concentrated NMR tubes for our diamagnetic metal complexes. look how pretty!!

the long-awaited inside out 2 viewing! here we are dressed up as the emotions.  

one of our final days in wet lab! check out the team benzyl trade mark on my collar. (don’t worry, we were all done for the day hence the lack of giant splash googles).

my favorite crystal photo! the snowflake-like formation is so cool, and the microscope is definitely one of my favorite instruments to use! 

our first lock-in day for the paper. despite the smile, jenny and i desperately regretted not getting ramen like our teammate callen that whole night.

the recrystallization process featuring so many hues of pink and purple. albeit time consuming, it’s so fun and very rewarding to see all you “children” ready to crystallize!

so so many different languages. we completely covered this chalk board with everything we know from latin to calculus to french and so on.

a metal-complex-colored rainbow of a few of our final metal complexes. it is so satisfying to see all our hard work!

one of many photos from our college and career day! definitely one of my most memorable days from this program. 

peeking into a greenhouse to see some greenery!! they are so interesting to see walking to the cpp every day!

one of our very first sunsets before we started to spend our evenings collaborating at the cpp until nightfall. 

another pretty sunset. i always love our walks back to the dorms whatever time it is

from one of our p-set break walks, seeing the flowers and sitting on the steps of this building was the start of our very strong (covalent, you’d say) bonds. 

our dorm gives a very beautiful view of the sky’s watercolor effect every time we wake up earlier enough to catch it (such as one our hot girl walks!)

another blurry sunset photo taken on the way back. to be honest, the campus has grown on me tremendously for its gorgeous sky.

the first night in the swosu villa as we like to call it. don’t be fooled, our beds are covered with collected blue blankets to save us for the freezing air con.

field trip!!! here, a collective of us grabbed matching light-up astronaut pens and cards to fuel our nertz addiction. 

and to end it off, another sunset. this photo here almost encapsulates the feeling of a month of SSP already gone by. it’s bittersweet to see the cumulative joy and grief regarding our final days together, here, as a group of twelve very different yet very much all the same assortment of friends. every “last” has been devastating to announce, from an organic lecture to our final full week together. seeing our days transition from quiet, comfortable silence with the rotary evaporator or awaiting reactions to end into impassioned paper-writing and endless cascades of rushed thoughts and shared recollections of our time together has been integral to my perception of how quick and fickle six weeks really is. time here somehow flows as thick as syrup, which in all honesty i haven’t seen since we stopped going to breakfast long ago, and as quick as the flashes of lightning we saw from inside the cpp and huddled together as we ran back to the safety of what we’ve instinctively begun to call home. and to be honest, no random grouping of pictures saved in my phone nor superfluous wording can depict the memories, friendships, and experiences i have made over this month. and so, i think ill end it off here. partly because if i tried this blog post can never and honestly because i think that is for the sole participants of our homely program to cultivate in the time we have left and the forever we may have apart. 

all my love,

maia

The post SWOSU Day 32: A month’s worth of favorited photos first appeared on SSP International.

We finally had a chance to work on the bleaching experiment, which tests our metal complex’s ability to activate hydrogen peroxide to destroy double bonds for discoloration.

Characterization is incredibly cool (maybe…). We got a chance to use lots of different equipment, including UV-vis, cyclic voltammetry, and a magnetic susceptibility balance. BUT, my favorite is still looking at the crystal.

The post SWOSU Day 30: Dye Bleaching first appeared on SSP International.

It’s Joyan (from Australia) and it’s the Sunday before our final full week of the program. On today’s schedule is Balloon Making 101 from our very own Jenny (pHd in balloon making) . 

Inspired from the talent show demonstration last night, we just HAD to take a quick tutorial before we started working on our piles of PSETS.

First off we started with the basics, from the demonstration the night before. 

SWORDSSSS

After adding an ABUNDANCE of weapons to our collection, we tested them out (appropriately of course) with a DUEL.

Here you can see me and Isabelle going at it with our double wielded swords (I lost, Isabelle is quite invincible)

Next was…. drum roll please ….

TEDDY BEARS  

A more complicated creation but absolutely adorable. With a few broken balloons, mistwists and untwists, it was done!!

There were also a few other miscellaneous creations such as:

• A dog (shown below)
• A giraffe (an extended dog basically) created by our TAs
• Hearts

Next we had a SPECTACULAR demo from Balloon Professor Jenny, who made a mind blowing bow!!!!

Here we have Al as the Synth Chem Cupid equipped with his bow, arrow and heart.

Wei also took a shot as an archer (I actually did not intentionally make that a pun but it works!)

The rest of the day included PSET, a trip to the park/basketball court, more PSETs with noodles and some cards of course!

To be a little sappy for a second, but things like these, unplanned impromptu things that happen makes me realise how much I’m going to miss all twelve of these amazing people. I’ve gotten to know them so well and just be silly together, coming together to learn such a cute niche hobby (that Jenny brought to us). When I get home, on the other side of the world, there’s going to be little things that remind me about all of them and think of not the big events, but the small moments like today.

Well I think that’s enough reminiscing from me, I’ll be back in a few days for my very last blog of SSP (I signed up for another one cause I just love yapping so much )

See y’all next time!

Joyan 

The post SWOSU Day 29: Balloon Making 101 w/ Dr. Jenny first appeared on SSP International.

But before any of that exciting stuff went under way there was lab. Lab was a little different today in that it involved no actual lab work but instead processing of lab data for our metal complexes. In a way it’s a bit representative of the final stretch and more so because the first draft of our research paper was due just the day prior. We learned to work up our Cyclic Voltammetry,  UV-Vis, and Magnetic Moment data but since my complex gave no useful data for magnetic moment I pretty much just did UV-Vis and CV. Instead of getting to put on my lab coat I got to sit at a chair and work on Excel for 3 and a half hours. More representative of the boring parts of being a scientist I guess.

After that we had some Mexican food for lunch and I must say that eating salsa that was actually spicy was really nice. The carne asada tacos were also decent and took me back home for a brief while I tried big red soda for the first time and hated it, cinnamon flavored soda doesn’t sound good nor is it good in practice. Post lunch was laying around in bed waiting to go to the movie theater to watch Inside Out 2.

We all loaded on to a van and headed for the movie theater. Overall Inside Out 2 was a good movie and I give it a rating of 8.2/10. Where I got that metric from is unclear it’s simply the most appropriate number for the movie that popped into my head. Will not give any spoilers even though it’s been out for a while but I liked the new emotions introduced. I’m sure lots of feel like anxiety is in the driver’s seat of our brains. Took some post movie photos and headed back to home base. 

Then was a bit more resting and working on my orgo psets until dinner. Dinner was Italian food from a place we’ve eaten from a couple of times. It’s good, I’ve come around to liking the bread a lot more I used to think it was a bit stiff. 

After that we had our exciting talent show went under way. What better way to start off the night than with my team the Allylcorns going on stage and giving everyone our beautiful rendition of tequila. We killed it except for very end where we all forgot the single lyric. After that we’re several, several, talents from people much more talented than myself. There were two great flute performances, a cool film from Arkansas, really really good art pieces, Romeo and Juliet, a half rap half Gordon Ramsey impression, balloon sword making, and our esteemed director Ms. Dunn stealing the show by writing down the periodic table from memory in under 2 minutes. After the slew of talents we all sat down for a viewing of our homemade lab safety videos. They were all great, lots of production quality with all of them. But I do admit my teams was the best.

To end off the performances and viewing we all congratulated Ms. Dunn for aging, that is to say we celebrated her birthday with a song and some cupcakes. 

Thereafter we had a sword fighting tournament with lots of dramatic cinematic and our TA’s stealing the win just like they did in assassins :(. 

Back in the dorms we all had ourselves a little ramen and card game night. Tried seafood ramen. It was good but I would not buy it again.

That about wraps up the day. Very fun heavy day today. Tomorrow starts the 10 day countdown to the end of Synth Chem SSP. I’ve enjoyed every moment here so far.

The post SWOSU Day 28: Talent Show first appeared on SSP International.

We started off the day by collecting our powdery samples for recrystallization. My powder for this specific complex was a very pretty purplish color. 

We dissolve these into vials containing different varieties of solvents, ranging from water to acetone and DMF (dimethylformamide), and other solvents as well! Here is a family picture of all my solutions: 

We put the smaller vials containing our dissolved powder into bigger vials containing ether, and then we seal them completely and hope that in a couple days they will grow pretty crystals! Here is my roommate looking at the crystals he got from his complex! Sometimes looking at other people’s crystals makes me a bit jealous… 

Afterwards, we had lunch followed by an Inorganic Chemistry lecture. But as soon as we were out, we went to change to welcome our guest speaker! Dr. Christina Li came all the way from Purdue University to talk to us about her research in nanoparticles and controlling the binding geometry and properties of surface-active sites for optimized catalytic reactivity. Everyone seemed to be really interested in her speech, and it was very exciting to see all that she accomplished after her time at SSP! 

After having dinner with our guest, we came back to the classroom for a Spectroscopy lecture. We solved NMR challenges between teams, and had a fun time while doing it! 

After the lecture, we had to finish up the first drafts of our research paper. It was a long, but fun, time of looking through our data and making sense out of all the decisions and results we got in the lab. We have only about two more weeks to go, and I am excited to continue working with my team through any struggles that we may continue to encounter. 

See you soon! 

– Jaime

The post SWOSU Day 26: 7/11 at SSP first appeared on SSP International.

9-12 A.M.: We had a pretty relaxed day in lab. I characterized some metal complexes, got some cool crystals in my vials, and worked a bit on my paper.

7 P.M.: PSET time. I grinded out my orgo and spent the rest of the time looking for gyms (lifting+mma) in the new city I’m moving to. I found a pretty dope gym, but the membership is expensive. We’ll see if it works out.

10: Staring at this piece of art for 2 hours gave me the motivation to go back to my dorm and hit a workout. And that’s what I did. I took my weights to an unoccupied wing, turned my phone’s volume all the way up, and blasted Future. Best workout I’ve had the whole program -also why I didn’t get my blog done on time; sorry about that.

11: I showered, extended my duolingo streak, and collapsed on my bed.

-Charles

The post SWOSU Day 25: Assassins Assisted Suicide first appeared on SSP International.

Today, I woke up, checked my weather app, and decided that it would be best to wear a hoodie (chill day for Weatherford, OK).

(Woke up with a pimple on my face)

I then left my dorm, heading to the Chemistry, Pharmacy and Physics Building where we have our labs and classes. 

(Yesterday, we started a game of assassin, and I have been tasked to eliminate someone by attaching this closed pin on their clothes or backpack…tough mission.)

CPP!!  

As I stepped into the classroom, I was scared to be eliminated, but luckily I was safe. 

Our AAD directed the pre-laboratory instructions, and we were lucky to have a short–but fun– day in the lab.

I first prepared a sample for Mass Spectroscopy, and I ran the test with the help of my AD! Here is how this looks like:  

Soon after I was done with my Mass Spectroscopy, I noticed that we were falling behind on washing our glassware, so I got on the acid/base baths! Later on, Joyan came and joined me.

 Also, here is a picture of Joyan at the glovebox doing metal complexations! 

 Once we were both done, we went into the classroom and worked on our final manuscripts.

Today, I am trying to finish up our sources.  

Buuuuuuut…. we got a bit distracted, and had sort of an intercultural language learning experience!  

Scared to get eliminated, we went to get lunch but came RIGHT back. Ate in the classroom! 10/10.  

(Isabelle and Ruoyi pictured!)

We went right back to lecture after! Here is a sneak peek of my organic notes:  

After organic, we got to go to dinner, where I had enchilada casserole, waffle fries, and pizza. Food at SWOSU is always an adventure..  

The walk back from dinner:

After dinner, I sadly got eliminated from our game of assassin . Jenny clipped her closed pin on me after I stepped out for 0.2 seconds . 

I was able to work on my P-Sets in peace after! I finished off the day by printing out the wrong file… so sorry Cecilia

I think I will go back to my dorm, take a shower, look at my accidentally printed…. figures….. and hopefully sleep early! Got a lot of writing ahead of me. See you guys in two days!

Bonus… AP Score reveal!!!!!

I love you guys, thank you!!

The post SWOSU Day 24: Fortune Hunting first appeared on SSP International.