University of Guelph Biochemistry Day 12: Saturday… Going on Sunday
Today was, to say the least, a deserved restful day. After a gruelling week of early mornings spent in the lab or in lectures, I was definitely missing out on sleep. I crawled out of bed at around 7:20 am, almost missing my alarm entirely if it wasn’t for a friend who has his dorm right across from mine. Since my morning routine is quite barebones, I managed to swiftly leave Maids Hall by 7:40. I stopped by the UC to scarf down some eggs, potatoes, and fruits, within 5 minutes and departed for the lab.
Today’s task was to destain our SDS PAGE gels from yesterday in order to view a clear image of the proteins we’ve extracted and obtained thus far. It didn’t take long at all, and we were out of there by 8:50 ish. Our next stop was Alexander Hall for a few lectures by Dr. Chan and Dr Greene which brought us to lunch. Like always, I got the classic lunch from Mom’s Kitchen which usually consists of pasta, veggies, and some sort of protein, which is chicken today.
After lunch, I decided to attend Dr. Hebda’s lecture about the applicability of ggplot, essentially a library, in the R environment with some friends. It was quite interesting, and my understanding of the coding language definitely improved by the end. Then, it was open classroom! I took the chance to work on some leftover assignments and ask the faculty any remaining questions I had. But, at 4, my group was pulled up to the lab to briefly take a picture of our destained gels which was exciting! Our results didn’t align too well with what we expected, but it was definitely a feat to see our proteins in action.
Before dinner, I stopped by the dorms to get dressed up formal-ish before rushing back to the UC to reserve tables, as it is my chore for this week. I was starving! Then, after dinner, we had free time! Yay!
The TA’s took us to beach volleyball courts and I played 6v6 while others did some crafts and played around on the field. Even though I rarely play volleyball, the weather was perfect and I had a bunch of fun. I even got a few good hits here and there!
After a couple hours of volleyball, we were fortunate enough to be taken to get some ice cream nearby! It was around a 20 minute walk away, but it was so worth it. Shout out to Marble Slab Creamery :))) I got a large cup with 1 scoop of mango paired with another scoop of praline topped off with raspberries. Safe to say it was gone within a few minutes.
Finally, I rushed back to the dorms to get a shower in before calling it a night. The next day was a lazy Sunday, which meant I had the chance to sleep in until whenever, so I stayed up pretty late hanging out with my roommate.
All in all, today was really fun and exciting. It was definitely one of my most favourite highlights so far in this program.
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Bryan Z.
Participant
Hi! My name is Bryan and I am a rising IB2 student from Ottawa, Ontario… the nation’s capital! I love being active, learning a whole lot about biology, and best of all, spending time with my friends and loved ones. I’m an aspiring oncologist and I’m really excited to be a part of SSP this summer.
