Thursday, June 26, 2014

A Humid Day

When I was half asleep this early morning, I heard some dripping sound, and I realized that it was raining in the night when I woke up. The floor was wet, and the atmosphere was really wet.
My Gel Electrophoresis Result

Today, we did another lab called "DNA Restriction Analysis." In this lab, we used a technique called gel electrophoresis to see different enzymes' different DNA cutting sites. Because each cut DNA segments had different sizes, they would travel different lengths according to their sizes. Thanks to Mr.Hudson, my AP Biology teacher, I felt comfortable doing the lab. From the measuring, the mixing, and the final loading, every step seemed familiar, and I was able to perform these tasks with the minimum problems.

We decided to go to Antonio's Pizza, which I heard was the best pizza shop around the campus, with two other classmates, Joe and Benji. I ordered a slice of chicken quesadilla pizza. It was different from other flavors of pizza I tried before. The toppings included chicken, tortilla chips, cheese, and to
mato, and it was a little bit spicy. It was a new experience, and now I can tell people that I tried the best pizza around Brown University.

The Pizza Shop
I finally met Ms.Scott today. I felt really happy to see her after three days. We talked about our dorm lives, the cold shower, unfriendly dorm people (some), and plans on the following weekend. I am excited to travel around with Ms.Scott and the cohort again!

At around 4 o'clock, I went to Arnold Lounge to participate in the session called "The New F-Word: Demystifying Feminism." The speaker was my RA, Marie. In the modern U.S., there are still many inequalities between men and female, such as in professional positions, pays, and leadership positions. At the same time, women are often objectified in commercials and many other media to present the sexy image and grab people's attentions. In the session, there were many heated debate regarding women's social status in the U.S., and I realized that there were so many perspectives that I had not thought about before.

After a brief dinner, I attended another workshop called "Reading for Success." I knew that every person had to read for their whole life, and the quality of reading would decide whether or not you succeed since mostly all information and knowledge came from texts. With good reading habits and strategies, it would be much easier for students to understand academic contents easily, and also workplace people to comprehend job files more efficiently. In other words, good reading strategies benefit us throughout our lives. In the workshop, the instructor told us to identify our own learning style, be both a active and passive reader, and lastly practice executive functioning, which means find out and read the main points, and omit the unnecessary parts. Still, the most important is to read more.

Arnold and I walked around the campus and entered Rockefeller Library, which was amazing. There were many studying places and abundant books. I saw this book called Perfectionism, and I read the first page, and I could only say that it was so interesting. It talked about how philosophers like Aristotle said that human had always wanted to hold power, and this was the reason for people's pursuits for perfectionism-to have power. I never realized that Brown University have such a beautiful campus until today I walked around it and looked into the constructions in detail.

The outside is cool, but the dorm is really hot and stuffy, and that's why my fan is finally turning. Today is another day with new knowledge. Tomorrow will be the same or even better right?

1 comment:

  1. I enjoy the photo of your lab results, Jing. You are right, college gives you a chance to really hear perspectives from others that you may not have known existed. Enjoy this time.

    ReplyDelete