Danielle Blog

Getting closer….

I’m getting closer to the end of the semester. I have finished about half of the grading for lab. I think it has taken me about 5-6? hours so far. So, with one big final push, I should manage to get it done. I really want to get it back to them at least a few days before the last day of class so that they can look it over and see if they have any issues with the grading…

In other news, I wrote the last lab manual section last week. I was up until 12:30 finishing it – sucky. But, I think it turned out well. I won’t really know until we have lab. I hope that when the prof who regularly teaches this comes back, he will use some of it. Alternatively, that some of my ideas are incorporated into the Intro Bio labs. Note that these labs are the sequencing of a portion of mitochondrial DNA that can be used to follow heredity through the female line of your family. There are 83 sequences from around the world that you can align your DNA with and see how your ancestors might have migrated. It was designed by the Dolan Learning Center, which has some cool lab ideas for high school and college students. The funny thing about the protocol is that they’ve designed the PCR so that the students can use waterbaths to cycle their reactions!! For those of you that know PCR, you’ll realize how hilarious this is. For those of you that don’t, suffice to say that this is how PCR was done in the early years (early 80’s I think).

We had a day last week that was solely dedicated to student presentations of their research and projects. It was really interesting. The best part about it, I think, was that I discovered a chemistry prof who is interested in some of the same kinds of proteins that I’m going to be studying. Maybe we can find some overlap and collaborate!

I sang at church yesterday. Practice fell on the night of the student presentation day, and I thought I’d be able to leave early and come home. However, it turned out that I wanted to work on lecture prep (and that lab manual). Instead, I basically sat down to unwind with about 30 min of American Idol and then slumped down on the couch and went to sleep at about 8:30. I ended up waking up around 10:3 and just going to bed. I felt minimally guilty about not going to practice. I knew all but one of the songs. And for that one, I learned it Sunday morning in about 10 min by showing up early. It was the really cool new song that I’ve been wanting to sing up front. Here is a youtube of it. This youtube is a bit slower than we sing, but pretty close. If you want to skip to the chorus, go 1:00 min into it.

And I think I’ll end there.