Purdue Biochem II Day 34 – Raymond

Hey everyone! My name is Raymond and I’m from Pennsylvania. Today was Day 34 out of 35 at Purdue Biochem II, I can’t believe we’re already at the end of Week 5! I originally planned to wake up at 6:00am to finish up my research paper but the sleep deprivation finally caught up to me. I slept through 5 alarms and woke up at 7:40am instead… But we started off the day at Lawson where we had to complete the 2nd half of a research survey following up the one we took at the beginning of the program.

After finishing the survey, I headed over to CHAS to begin working on my research paper. I had the discussion section of the paper to write before my paper would finally be finished. Writing was getting tiresome at this point since we’ve been constantly writing for the entirety of Week 5 🙁

I got to CHAS where I was joined by my lab mates, Arham and Ta’Lia, who were also trying to finish up their papers. After working on the paper for a while, I was feeling really zoned out. I decided to take this as an opportunity to go get coffee. I went with Holly and Yuri to go get coffee on one of the last Starbucks runs of this program (they messed up my order).

After grabbing Starbucks, I felt a lot more focused and finally finished up the rest of my research paper. At 12pm, I went with some friends to go get lunch at Panera. Then, we went back to the dorms to dress up formally and got ready for our research poster presentations.

At 2pm, we had our research poster presentations which were combined with Genomics. It was really interesting seeing everyone’s work and all the effort that everyone put in throughout their 5 weeks at Purdue. The founder of the SSP Biochem Program and the founder of the SSP Genomics Program were both there looking through posters so it put a bunch of pressure on everyone to not mess up and give a good presentation.

After our research poster presentations, we had Extended Boundaries from 4 – 8pm. I went with Kevin and Elliot to downtown West Lafayette to try out a local mexican restaurant called the Fiesta Mexican Grill. I got their shredded beef tacos (pretty good) and tried a horchata for the first time (didn’t really like).

After the Mexican restaurant, we went to Mango Mango for like the 6th time at SSP. I got their Strawberry Mango Juice Sago with Lychee Jelly (really good). We walked around downtown for a little bit and checked out some of the local shops before heading back to Lawson for the cohort’s weekly game night. This week’s game night was Jeopardy.

After Jeopardy, I went back to the dorm basement and continued the nightly routine of playing pool before bed. I stayed up until 12 making ramen & popcorn with some friends before going to bed. It’s crazy to think that tomorrow is the last full day at SSP. I want to thank all the faculty (Dr. Donald Spratt , Dr. Jeannine M. Chan, and Dr. Mark Vincent dela Cerna), TA’s (Grace M. Bennett, Danny Kanj, Hassan Sohail, Sophia Burick), site director (Mr. Shorey), and my peers for curating an amazing and unforgettable SSP experience!