Hello World,

The date is 06/17/2024 which marks the beginning of week 4. I wasn’t expecting things to move by so fast because it feels like I just started last week, but there are 6 weeks left which sounds like a lot but at this rate will be gone in the blink of an eye. This week looks very promising as I can finally get more personal hands-on experience with the big boy machines. I have one more training session scheduled for tomorrow and then I’ll be off to the wild to do great things.

Monday 06/17: Today, I got the chance to shadow a graduate student who was also conducting research in Rheology. We went to the building where the Rheometer was located and she fired up the machine to conduct her research. I got the chance to help a bit which helped me become more accommodated to the machine. The whole process took a while so I decided to go to lunch after we were done. For lunch, I went to West Servery to try something new as I’d heard good things about this servery. Unfortunately, I went at a bad time as they were packing up the food, possibly preparing to start making dinner. I was able to get some pizzas and pasta. It tasted pretty good so I was satisfied regardless.  After lunch, I went back to my cubicle in preparation for my meeting with my PI. The meeting went well and provided me more insights and guidance on what my research is.

Tuesday 06/18: Today was quite a busy day for me. To start, I had my second session of the optical tweezer training which ran from 9:30 am to 12:00 pm. There was a lot of information on how to use the optical tweezer. I feel a bit overwhelmed and unqualified to use such a complex machine as this but I believe it’s just another case of imposter syndrome that should pass over soon but I’m not quite sure when soon is. For lunch, I went to the West Servery again to try my luck and luckily I was able to get there at a good time but the options of food disappointed me and I’ve heard so much good stuff about West Servery. Their pizzas were pretty good compared to Seibel’s. After lunch, I went to back to my lab where me and my mentor prepared a sample for testing with the Rheometer. The rheometer was another complicated beast of its own but a beast I could tame within a few days.

Wednesday 06/19:  Today was a holiday so I didn’t do anything today. I spent majority of the day rotting in bed and enjoying the break. It felt really nice to take a day off and just relax. Being in the lab continuously can be overwhelming and draining so having the day off was very much needed.

Thursday 06/20: Today was a pretty chill day,  I spent the first half of my day at my cubicle, reading and processing the data that I had received from Tuesday’s time spent with the rheometer. Still trying to wrap my head around it all but I’ll get there eventually. Around 2pm, my mentor showed me some other machines that I will be utilizing in my research. Lots of fancy and complex machines. I was supposed to work with the Rheometer today but I didn’t have my card at hand so I wasn’t able to access the room where the Rheometer was located. Sadly I wasn’t able to work with the Rheometer today so I will reschedule for another day.

Friday 06/21: Today was a very exciting day, the field trip. We were taken to the City of Sugarland Surface Water Plant Facility. The drive was honestly shorter than I was expecting. When we got there, we had to sit through a presentation which was very informative. What I found most interesting was the Membrane Filtering process which works in the microscale. I didnt get to take a picture but the demo that was shown to us looked pretty cool. After the presentation, we went outside and got a tour of the facility. I never thought the process of water filtration was so complex. It’s so cool how they can filter out even the dirtiest of waters to something that can be drinkable. After the trip, I went up to my cubicle to finish up reading about my project.