Darn I broke some test tubes today, with RNA in them, so I had to throw that away Good part is that was just *practice* RNA and not microarrayable RNA. However, I still suck at this shit lmao. My project is so simple…it’s just basically RNA extraction and microarraying that stuff. It is so basic too…there’s no real complicated procedure involved. It would be really nice to go to ISEF internationals since sleeping over a few thousand miles from home for a few days is always the funnest. I don’t expect to win anything though. If I could chose a topic specific to my interests to do research in, it would be some obscure topics like paleontology…which sounds fun (albeit also tedious–most paleontologists just work with samples under a microscope, nothing like reading about that stuff in encyclopedias). I also want to search for UFOs and aliens, although that’s not very scientific. Yesterday I found a book called The Physics of the Impossible by Michio Kaku (who wrote Hyperspace; I read that!) and it talked about this stuff: telepathy, invisibility, time travel, etc. in terms of true physics. On another note, human behavioral studies sounds fun as well.

I should have worked in the cyclotron, the physics department…they have so much money (a funding of $20 million a year!! they never run out of money) that they built a super-nice tropical atrium where people can eat lunch! We were touring the cyclotron and Jonny, who works there, was like “and this is where I eat lunch” and I looked at where he was pointing and I was like “OMFG WHOA” because it was absolutely beautiful!! Plus the physics-related projects were very much theoretical, meaning that it was sedentary and only required moving fingers and googling Also Ana who works there goes to lab at like 10 every morning and stays at lunch for 2 hours each day. She also gets to meet cool people who like physics who work there and she also has to go to a lot of meetings (which can be a good or bad thing, depending on how boring the meetings are).

Well in lab, finally I’m working on my OWN project BY MYSELF with nobody following me around and telling me exactly how to do everything perfectly. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not ungrateful for the guidance, but it’s certainly much more fun to do it myself. And make the mistakes myself and think of how to fix them myself! So far I’ve made a few, and only a few!, mistakes, such as:

1) I accidentally put the Phenol under the hood instead of the in the refrigerator. I think that’s okay though because my mentor just stuck it into the fridge when he found it and said that we can still use it.

2) I might have contaminated the small bottle of ethanol but that’s okay since I threw the bottle out since it was empty anyways.

3) I did break a test tube in the centrifuge and we had to spend like 2 hours cleaning it up. But now it’s all good =)

This project is pretty much a failure (at least for me, everyone else is doing fine) because it took, what, 4 weeks to get through training and procedure? And I’m getting out at 2 o’clock every afternoon because there’s not much to do. I wonder if this would even be considered a “serious” project, the way that I’m conducting it.

Well, on another note, me and Jenny Xu went to Bubble Island again yesterday because we go there EVERY day and spend about $5 there in drinks and ice cream every day. I told my mom that there was a Bubble Tea shop outside my dorm and she laughed because she thought it was cute. We played Connect Four and Battleship and Egyptian Ratscrew but there wasn’t anything better to do with two other people because we can’t play Taboo. So we were bored and went to Barnes and Noble to read. I picked up the first A-list book because I liked it the first time I read it, and I quickly skimmed through it. I didn’t like many of its sequels, so I think I’m just going to wikipedia the endings.

Before we went to Bubble Island, however, we went to buy tickets for the play Wicked, but the cheapest tickets ($38 ) were sold out and only $70+ tickets were left. So we decided that maybe we’ll go on Saturday next week instead of today (Friday). They still have 8 tickets left. Our projects/presentations are due the week after that Saturday, though, so many people might not want to go. I personally really don’t care. If I don’t procrastinate I will be able to have fun with that weekend. Oh, and Jessica is coming that weekend!! Her parents were nice and bought her $400 (!!) tickets. I think she’ll be staying for 3 nights (?). The Marriott costs $200 a night but there are motels on Grand Central that are like $50. I’m sure they pretty much suck but it’s only a hotel room. (Sorry Jessica.)

Later at Barnes and Nobel we read some weird books and I came across that physics book I was talking about before. Then Charlie called and said he was bringing his laptop, but there wasn’t free WiFi so he couldn’t access internet. Then Angel came and we started reading Pride and Prejudice together and it was so cute! I’m on Chapter 7 and I think I might go back today (alone, because nobody will be out of lab today) to read more.

Oh and then after dinner, which we ate outside because it was a nice day, three guys and Kavya wanted to play tennis and I wanted to play tennis as well. We biked to I.M. West for the indoor tennis courts because it was dark outside. (What was funny was that Charlie and Kavya ran to I.M. West in the same time that it took us to speed-bike there.) However for some DUMB reason I.M. West gyms were closed. We contemplated jumping the fence to go swimming in the outdoor pool, but obviously we didn’t. Then we decided that we MUST do something so we went to Bubble Island again where I spent $5 again in smoothies and ice cream mochis. We then played intense Taboo games; it was soo fun.

Oh and I lost my movie The Other Boleyn Girl; where is it?!

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