Year Reflections

It took me forever to figure out how to post on this blog =].

Anyways, ever since last summer when I got the email saying that I was accepted into this lab, I was excited - maybe it was because of how exciting it sounded from the description or maybe it was because upcoming freshmen are excited about everything ;). I remember on the first day of class we were handed these awesome lab notebooks and then being told by the professors after giving a brief introduction to the class, "We have a long and busy schedule ahead of us, so lets get our hands dirty and find some phage!" Amazing.. it was only my first day in a college lab and we were already venturing out into the abyss to do fieldwork. After that, things started to get exciting. Fall term was marked with memories of using petri dishes, microcentrifuge tubes, micropipettes, and the incubator, day in and day out. Every week I would give myself a pat on the back for hitting another checkpoint in the process. Spring term, I got to run a gel for the first time (I remember using the super tiny tubes) and I got to watch the operation of an electron microscope. This term, we got to experience first hand what genome analysis was like. Finally, after having a wonderful year, we met in class for the last time today.

Even though a lot was accomplished, it doesn't even feel like the first day of class wast that long ago. Time flies when you're having fun :p