weekend update

This past Friday afternoon was excellent! I met with one of my professors from last semester and he gave me awesome news! I will now work as a student researcher in his lab, most likely doing tissue culture. So in other words, I'll grow some -- err, tons of cells. I'm excited for so many reasons, I'll name a few.

• Many biology majors graduate with no "outside the classroom" lab experience. I'm one of the lucky few.
• The skills I will accumulate while working in the lab are extremely beneficial to my future. If things pan out, I'll be able to embellish my grad school and job applications apropos.
• I'm looking forward to doing some hands on work. I enjoy making jewelry, crocheting, doing crafts, cooking, etc. I see petri dishes and pipettes in my near future!

I'm going to be extremely busy in the coming weeks! Organic and biochemistry tests are coming up near the end of the month and I have to go through training and certification to work in the lab. My set up on the fourth floor of the library will be as follows:

My netbook doesn't hold all my music, hence the iPod.

I think I'm going to dedicate a section of this blog to writing about this new experience and call it 'from the lab bench' or something of that sort. Another section I plan on creating is called 'quarks'. Quarks are subatomic particles, meaning they are the stuffs of atoms constituting atomic anatomy -- protons, neutrons and electrons. Contrary to Baskin Robbins 32 flavors, quarks only come in 6: up, down, top, bottom, charm and strange. A single quark is deemed a fundamental or elementary particle because it's thought to have no internal structure. Different flavors of quarks join forces and create composite particles, some of which are called hadrons like protons, neutrons and if you're hip to particle physics, mesons. So, why does this matter?

Particle tracks after colliding. 

Well, in regards to this blog, my 'quarks' would be a collection of different things I find elementary to making life and the world wonderful. The focus would draw away from science and onto culture -- art, music, film, YouTube, anything!

Moving on, today was ho-hum. I woke up and went to Whole Paycheck (Whole Foods) to look for jasmine tea. The only one I found was way out of my price range so I opted for a bottle of kombucha instead. If you don't know, kombucha is a type of fermented tea chock full of bacteria/yeast beneficial to one's gut flora. Doesn't that sound appetizing! It has a bubbly, acetic taste and provides antimicrobial and antioxidative support.

I did boring chores afterward like dust and pick up the presents my dogs left outside. Nothing much has gone on and I'm keeping it pretty chill before studying!