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Aaron Uy - The End :(

Despite being my last week, it was a rather busy week of a lot of different things.

Kyu, my postdoc, had a lab meeting on Wednesday, and he wanted to include what I did over the summer. So, following the analysis of the brain slices, I gathered all the data and made some neat graphs to summarize all the histological work I did. I was in a bit of awe when I saw that so much work could be summarized in 2 small graphs. At the same time, it added a lot of closure and gave me a sense of accomplishment, but I digress.

Regarding the code I wrote up, I continued to tweak it, annotate it, and even made 2 other versions that slightly differed in its use. For all of these, I wrote up a protocol so that the lab could use it when I’m gone L.

Kyu, hoping to make my last week memorable, asked me what I wanted to do. I responded with “perfusions” (albeit how gorey, it’s really interesting). Little did I know, he had to perfuse all the mice he had been running behavior on for the past month – 19 in total. He had to perfuse them so he could verify the location of the cranial injections he performed prior to running behavior tests. Thus, I spent 2 full days perfusing 19 mice. At first, I was a bit overwhelmed and a little stressed that he tasked me with such an important portion of his experiment. But, he assured me that practice makes perfect, a little error is fine, and that he trusted me. Thankfully, it was all nerves and it worked out really well in the end. I mercilessly sacrificed 19 mice, but at the same time grew even more appreciation for their collective and purposeful contribution to science.

At the end of the week, Kyu gave me a “photo shoot” so I could have pictures for my presentation upcoming this fall. My PI also treated the whole lab to lunch as a going away party for me. It was a really bittersweet day, and I found myself trying to stay at the lab for as long I could that final Friday (some members of the lab stay realllly late). If I never left, I never had to say goodbye. However, my PI made sure to note that I was always welcome back anytime in the future and even had some projects in mind that I could make a meaningful contribution towards.

Looking back, I had a really fulfilling time. My experience gave a good insight into research, and more specifically, neuroscience. I experienced and learned many things that I otherwise wouldn’t have been exposed to and met a ton of great people. Although it was a bit challenging at times, it was the good type of challenging (I’m looking at you, coding). The type that made me a better person.


…And… I did lose my lab about a month before the tentative start time due to paperwork issues (?). As I was assured, it worked all out in the end and I wouldn’t have changed a thing. Overall, I’d say EXP was a pretty good choice for my summer. 
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