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Emma Morin, Swarm Lab weeks 3 and 4

Week 3 (7/9/18) and Week 4 (7/16/18)
              
These last two weeks have been karma for complaining about the tedium of filling humidifiers. During my third week, Purva informed me that she would be leaving on the 19th for the rest of the summer and that I need to learn how to do everything as soon as possible. First, she let me try replating, and I poked into the agar too much. Then, I tried to make the experimental agar plates, and upon setting, there were little particulates that made them unusable (however, that was an agar issue and not an Emma issue but I still did not feel good). When I tried to snip the slime molds, the small scissors had broken, and using the big ones was really, really difficult at first. However, there are silver linings. The replating issue fixed itself within a week, the unusable plates became perfect for me to practice cutting and aligning the holes, and working with the big scissors has made me extra careful with the tubules. At first, I only cut the plates, and Purva placed and aligned the tubules, but now I’m doing it all while she watches from the side. I’m still having issues focusing the cameras, but that too, I’m sure, will improve over the next week or so. I’m really excited to be able to run the experiments on my own, and I feel confident in my abilities to do so successfully. The first few experiments that I did with Purva watching over me have had great results, and I hope that continues.

SPECIAL FRIDAY 7/20 UPDATE

Purva left for vacation yesterday, and I am essentially alone now. Mr. Subash Ray, the graduate student who I initially contacted, has returned from India, and he is who I report to, but that’s about it in terms of contact. While waiting for him today, I spoke with a girl from the ant department, Anna, she taught me about her research, which I greatly enjoyed. Today, I did everything myself, and it was kind of lonely. Now I don’t have someone to go to with every little question, and I’ll have to make decisions for myself. I finished up the 10% VS 6% experiments on Friday, we did 25 experiments with 50 replicates. Now we are moving on to 10% VS 4% on Monday. I made the 4% agar plates for that, and Subash will be setting up the water cultures on Sunday. I’m really excited to start!

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