Wednesday, May 30, 2012

UIUC Week 1 Part 2

Today is now Wednesday of the first week I think... Yeah it is. Ok anyway not even sure when the last time I wrote was. Was it yesterday or two days ago? Two days ago. Ok.

So let's start with still trying to get an ID thing. Such a pain. But it should be figured out by tomorrow, if not Friday. So yesterday what went on? Luckily I kept a list of thoughts on the day and I hope to keep doing that throughout.

Apparently I was scared, that is the first thing on my list. I had just found out that I needed to do a lot of studying of the safety stuff. I have been looking at it every free moment since then I think. But as of tonight I can do almost all of it without looking at the answers. It's great. Anyway back to my worrying yesterday. I had to figure out what the presentations are about. I had to do the studying for the test. I have 10 weeks for all this stuff. How am I supposed to finish it all? I just was so frustrated and worried and on top of that I still have to figure out this ID situation. Then there is the insane schedule of the McNair program that I don't even know what I have to do with it all? It's really quite annoying. Doing two programs is much harder than it first seemed.

That's really all I have written but I do remember that I had the first meeting with the Lu group yesterday. We had meetings from noon til 4 then I went to lab and waited for the meeting to begin at 5. The conference room filled with about 20 some people I would say. Dr. Lu joined and I finally met him. First up was a presentation of a one of the students in the lab. When he said that his presentation was 30 slides I was like... whoa... that's a lot. But soon I realized that it really wasn't. After that interesting talk, there was a big long presentation that everyone did slides of to discuss a few papers they read since the last meeting. It was a very interesting concept I hope that we can take that up in Dr. N's lab. It would be a great way to progress the research. So like I was saying that was a 70+ slide powerpoint. So once that meeting ended at 7:30, I got to finally return to my room. By then I was tired but the talks were really interesting even though I didn't get majority of it. So then it was a night of lounging and studying and dinner of course. I had an early morning the today so bed was relatively early.

Today was an early morning ride to the 4-H Memorial Camp. It was a team building workshop/obstacle course thing. It started with us meeting in a room and learning names. We also learned how to read a primary/secondary source (not the coolest thing but informative and I really want to read the full article I had to read for it). After that was lunch. I sat with some people that were interesting and curious about me. I had hamburgers and beans and ice cream. After that the group I just met and I walked around. We all found some sports equipment. I played volleyball and then some football. It was nice. Then we needed to start the team building exercises. That involved a bunch of activities. We had to pass a ball and see how fast we could get it around a circle, we got it to 2 seconds. Then we had to line up in order of birthdays without speaking. We weren't so good at that. Then we did a blindfolded trust exercise through an obstacle course where one person led another through the course. Then we swapped places and finished the course. Then we had to work as a team to complete two challenges. We had to order ourselves by height on a log without falling off. That was difficult but we did pretty well. We then had to cross a gap using a rope. And we had to bring a cure (a bucket of water...) across the gap as well. That was a really difficult challenge and we had to be given a few extra chances but it was a fun one regardless. After that we returned to the main area and sat and talked about the experience and what we learned. It was a great day. Afterward we returned, I got back to my room and reviewed the safety stuff more and made dinner. Then shower and now I'm about to finish the Serial Experiments Lain anime that I have been watching for the last week or two. By the way, one of the most confusing and philosophical anime I have ever seen. Very strange.

Well anyway, I have a library tour tomorrow morning and lunch with the McNair people. Then I will be going to the lab to take my safety exam. I hope this ID thing gets fixed by tomorrow so I can start working Friday. I feel bad that I am wasting so much time that can be used for Saumen's research. I guess that is how things go though sometimes. Well I am going to finish this show and probably hit the sack. Good night world.








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