Beating the Heat

Moments ago, the Miami Heat emerged victorious from the finals game, which  everyone just watched on Solomon Hall's giant projector. But, the ultimate triumph  was ours over the 97 degree weather.
My whole day has been a flurry of smoothies, lemonade, and passionfruit ice tea. It's the first time I've appreciated the cool concrete walls of basement living, and the first time I've had to use a fan to circulate the humid air.

I brought yoga pants to lab this morning, so I could easily slip them on over my shorts. We worked on mapping and photographing the effects of different restriction enzymes today. While I had run gel electrophoresis experiments many times in AP Bio, it was nice to get back in practice for our bigger lab tomorrow on mapping methylation.

This time I was also dealing with much smaller amounts of reagents, so careful micro-pipetting was crucial. I'd never used a fluorescent tagger before in my previous gels, which had been just dye, so seeing the UV light flicker on and the bands of sliced DNA set aglow was awesome!

My fluorescent gel run of 3 different restriction enzymes and
one control with water on the far left. I named it Angelica.

Aside from that, today was a very studious day. Staying in and avoiding the soggy walk to the dorms meant more time spent in the book store and library. Honestly, it's the most I've studied during the entire  first week, so thank you heat! I give props to the humidity for inspiring me to finish my assignments and readings early. On the same note, I really must remark on how cooperative our study group has been.

Like I've mentioned, it's a completely different experience working in a classroom where everyone eagerly wants to be there- not just because they have to be. The subject matter is just as much their passion as mine. In eleven years of schooling, this is the first time I've enjoyed such a learning environment, and I'm going to bask in it as long as I can.