Learning 2

As I mentioned in an earlier blog I am doing research with C. Elegans. C. Elegans are  small nematodes. My day-to-day activities include feeding them and crossing them with other strains. They are hermaphrodites, which in layman’s terms mean they can make babies with themselves. There are a few males in the population in order to keep the diversity constant but other than that they are all hermaphrodites. The particular strain I am working with does not have many males but in order to cross them with other strains males are necessary. So a large portion of my early research was finding one of these males. I did and had successfully made a male stock. These stocks need to be transferred to new petri dishes regularly to assure they have enough food and to combat over population.

However, over spring break I decided that I only needed to check on them once. This turned out to be almost catastrophic because when I came back the male stock had died. This would have set me back weeks if had I not gotten lucky and found a single living male. I was able to resurrect the male stock from this one male and now I have plentiful stock again.

I learned from this experience that when it comes to important things you should always error on the side of safety and not leave things up to chance because if you do, it could set you back a long ways. I assumed that they would be fine, but I wasn’t counting on the fact that these males I am working with are less fertile than normal C. Elegans. This means they need more attention and quicker transfers in order to proliferate.

Other than that incident my research has been going very well. I really enjoy watching the worms because it reminds me of how many different living things there are and how in the grand scheme of thing I am just one small part of a much larger world.

Uncontrollable Laughter

Laughing uncontrollably is something that happens quite often if you are as easily entertained as I am. However, I wanted to talk about a situation where a group of friends and I were laughing uncontrollably in a situation where you wouldn’t expect laughter and how it helped our one grieving friend and us as a group.

A couple of months ago I experienced something for the first time. One of my friends, who was my age, lost his younger brother who was 16. His brother was the batboy for our World Series baseball team one summer and so I also had a personal relationship with him.  I received the terrible news at 4 am and just laid in bed because I couldn’t go back to sleep. I immediately knew I had to go and visit my friend and try to support him through this trying time.

When I arrived it was a somber scene. Several of our former teammates rode with me and others arrived at about the same time. At first, it felt like the very house was going to explode with tension and grief. However, after the initial sadness our friend said he didn’t want to talk about what had just happened and that he wanted us talk about our summer we spent on the baseball team together. So we started telling all of the stories about the dumb things we had done and memories from that summer when we were 17. In thirty minutes we had at least three bouts of laughter that brought tears to our eyes about mistakes that had been made and punishments we had endured because of those mistakes.  This continued for a couple of hours until it was time for us to leave. The mood returned to the somberness of the arrival as we hugged our friend goodbye.

However, right before we left, my friend grabbed me and looked me in the eye and told me how much he had needed this. At the time I was just happy that we had been able to give him a small vacation from the pain he was feeling but now as I have reflected on it I believe it speaks to the power of laughter and of friends.

Laughter and especially uncontrolled laughter is something that can provide for us an escape from reality. Furthermore, looking back makes me all the more appreciative of my friends, the memories that we have and the power of laughter.

Conversation Partner #2

Conversation partner #2

Vera and I met in the BLUU for lunch. She had just been in class where she spends most of her time writing in English. I started thinking that after learning in a classroom about English she might be more proficient writing English then I am.

Talk turned again turned to China as I learned more about her homeland. I somewhat stupidly asked if she had any siblings. The fact that China had a one-child policy slipped my mind. I grew up with one sister and I couldn’t imagine not having her. The fact that the government is so involved in your life in China is something that I wouldn’t appreciate.

I also asked what her Mom and Dad were like. She said that her dad was a policeman and her mother owns a company. She said that her mothers company was involved in clothing, textiles and export. Our language barrier was obvious at this point because she couldn’t explain her Mom’s business any more in depth.

We also talked about her schooling and the concept of private school vs. public school was something that was not very easily explained. She said that every school is run by the government in China.

The more I talked to her about China the more interested I became. However, I also appreciate America more. Even though we do have our problems we are at least free to choose most things about our lives.