I am currently writing this in the morning so I’ll probably add some stuff by the time I turn this in. This week has been mentally taxing but I enjoyed it. On Monday Joe notified me of a Teacher assistant coming to the lab and how he wanted me to give him a tour of the lab and its procedures. The teacher finally came on Wednesday, his name is Frank Padron and he’s a University professor. I gave him a tour of the lab and showed him where the fire extinguishers, bathing stations, and eye washers, but also how to encapsulate samples in capillaries and how to deal with potential chemical spills. I’m happy I covered so much ground because Joe seemed exhausted when he came into the lab and seemed genuinely thankful I made his day easier, after talking to him about the rest of my plans he approved of them and allowed me to do as I planned until 3  pm. So with the remaining time that I had, I helped him understand the Polarizing Optical Microscope and showed him some of my samples as well as having a rough layout for the upcoming weeks. We get along really well and he’s a hard worker.

Another highlight has been lunches, I enjoy seeing my friends and talking since the professional atmosphere of the lab doesn’t allow for actual conversations (obviously due to the potential dangers of carelessness). It feels good to unwind and just have a chat, as quiet as I can be I still enjoy social interaction and wish more events like trivia night etc could happen.

Today Joe is going to be going through (name procedure) and I am sure excited, I like how it’s a combination of basic Calc and Chemistry and I am happy to do either of them. It’s a very lengthy procedure and each sample can take a minimum of around 30 minutes at least maybe around 1 hour due to my unfamiliarity with it. I am happy to learn it and get a grasp of it by the 3rd try, it only really has 1 difficult step or at least in my eyes.

Below is a video of a chemical and the setup of one of my workmates (Lily) setup since I thought it looked cool.