Research
I have officially finished all of my markers. The end of the week involved running some markers with GC buffer that did not amplify or weakly amplified and were highly showed a high concentration of Dimers. It yielded improved results for about half of the markers I ran with it. Thankfully, the markers continued to amplify after I changed the water. I must say as grueling as it was to trouble shoot I learned more in those two weeks than probably the rest of the internship combined in lab. I became much more methodical in my procedure and I think it improved my results overall as well. Not only that, I also learned many concepts about the procedures while troubleshooting and trying to figure out what was going in. I also gained a serious appreciation for my lab notebook. I started adding every time I diluted new dNTPs, the stock I got them from, and methodically recorded every aspect of my procedure that changed at all. Next week, I will be working on my poster and will run a couple more markers to try and get some better results with some of the markers I have already run.
Social
This week Dr. Kim was gracious enough to take the whole lab out for lunch to a Korean BBQ restaurant. Being an all you can east restaurant, me and AJ made sure to get our moneys worth. Also, later on in the week I ended up playing Ping-Pong against Dr. Kim. This was completely unplanned and resulted from us seeing each other in the gym. I never thought I would sweat so much from a couple of games of Ping-Pong. It was a really fun time though. I have been working out with a PhD student, Rowell, from one of the labs our lab works closely with, and it has been awesome to have a workout partner. The weekend was full of activities too. Friday we went out to a karaoke bar where the poor souls in the room had to hear me attempt to sing but, it was a good time. After we went to a local bar with some fellow lab mates. The next morning we went to Tagaytay, the location of the smallest active volcano on the planet and has the unique feature of being a volcano in a lake, and the inside of the Volcano is another lake. Sadly, it rained all day so we ended up going to a mall and shopped. First though, we got some really good Filipino food by lake Taal, the location of the volcano.
