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Microbiology

Courtney

Life.

by Courtney on April 7, 2013

in Academics,College Life

Today’s weather was gorgeous. As in, practically eighty degrees, a nice amount of sunshine, and very low humidity. And what did I do today? Homework, as usual. And as I was looking at my planner, I realized that I misunderstood my friend and fellow blogger Carly when she said that we have five weeks of school left after spring break. Yes, technically we do, if you don’t count exam weeks. I love school, don’t get me wrong- but as the weather gets nicer and nicer, it just gets harder and harder to stay inside and study.

I’ve actually already started my summer internship. I’m interning in a microbiology lab halfway between my house and campus, and, if you’ve read any of my blogs thus far, you should be inferring that I’m enjoying the experiences there. And that inference is correct. I’m learning a lot of new lab techniques, and everyone is so nice that I’ve already made some new friends.

So I guess what I’m saying is that I’m excited for summer. But, then again, I’ll be sad when this school year ends. As I said before, most of my friends are seniors, so they’ll be graduating and moving on to bigger and better things come this May, which will make for a strange school year for me next year. I have a feeling we will all be getting pretty sentimental in these coming weeks.

This weekend, my high school presented their annual spring musical. This year, the show was “White Christmas.” As I sat there in the audience watching eagerly as the cast members tap danced to songs like “I Love a Piano” and acted out some pretty powerful romantic scenes, I started thinking about how fast life goes. I graduated from high school just three years ago, yet I only knew the seniors in the show. It seems like a lifetime ago that I was on that stage playing twelve-year-old Agnes in my last high school musical, “Meet Me in St. Louis.”

So if my rambling here means anything to you, then great. If not, I’ll try to sum it up here: even though these last few weeks may seem daunting and difficult, and even though motivating yourself to do your homework amidst the glorious preview of summer weather may seem nearly impossible, college truly will be over before we know if, so we need to savor every sweet moment we have.

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A lot can happen in 48 hours.  Being overly interested in microbiology and bacteria, I can tell you that a visible colony of E. coli can grow on an agar plate in as little as 48 hours (although 72 hours would probably give you more to work with).  But anyways, as I said, 48 hours is a lot of time.

That being said, I had an extremely busy 48 hours, starting on Thursday and ending last night.  Those two days were the kind of days that make me so happy to be a biology major because I was able to partake in activities that relate to science without being all school- and homework-related.

So what did I do?  Well, Thursday started off with my Plant Biology “Botany of Desire” presentation.  (Basically, we are supposed to read a chapter of Michael Pollan’s “Botany of Desire” and present on it.)  I chose to present on how to best clean an apple by preparing agar plates using microbial swabs of three different apples – one that had not been washed at all, one that had been washed with warm tap water, and one that had been washed with vinegar.   It turns out that all three plates grew bacteria (gross!), but I enjoyed doing my table-top activity in Ryan to show Fontbonne students, faculty, and staff the results of my mini-experiment.

Thursday night was Fall Festival.  The Biological Sciences Organization (BSO) sponsored an elephant toothpaste booth.  Students watched in amazement as we combined hydrogen peroxide, dishwashing soap, and baker’s yeast in pumpkin candle holders and allowed the product of this exothermic chemical reaction to ooze up and over the sides of the pumpkin.

And then yesterday, we took a Biotechnology field trip to Gallus, a research corporation near Lambert Airport.  We attended their poster session, which was a great way to meet scientists and see what they are currently working on.  After the field trip, I went straight to the Science Center and performed two shows at Center Stage.

As I said, a lot can happen in 48 hours.  Last night, I was really tired, but it was a good feeling.  I love being able to partake in science outside of the classroom, and I enjoy sharing what I’ve learned with the general public.  But that was enough fun for a while.  Now, I need to get back to the school- and homework-related science I previously talked about.

~ Making a Mess at Fall Festival! ~

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