Andrea- I've had one of the busiest weeks in my college career!
I knew this week was going to be long before I even started it but it really took me by surprise! There were floods around the state of New Jersey but we continued to have school. Many of the professors on campus didn't even make it to their classes. I had 8am Philosophy with Fr. McKenna and the first words out of his mouth were: "How did you guys get here, did you swim?" It was so funny but luckily I live on campus and didn't have to bother with a commute, unless you count walking across the street a commute. I didn't have my 9am Organic Chem class because of the weather but I used my time wisely and ate some breakfast and caught up with my friends. The rest of my classes continued as usual, even my Organic Chem lab. I worked with my partner quickly and got all our stuff together and finished the lab pretty quickly. We were out of there by like 3:30pm, which isn't too bad. I went to the mail room and I got a few letters. I was pretty happy by this point. I went to my room and worked on some homework and made dinner, it was yummy. After dinner I went over to Tricia's apartment and we baked some cupcakes and cookies for a bake sale. They came out perfect and I was proud.
As uneventful as Monday was, Tuesday was even better. We had Academic Symposium, which is an event where we get to present any work we have done in research. Tricia and I hadn't started working with anything because we were trying to get our ideas and procedures together before we dealt with anything. We had a bake sale for SmileTrain, which is an organization where doctor's donate their time to fix a cleft palate and all they need is $250 for the surgery. The symposium went great and we got to present our stuff and the bake sale went great too. We made over $68 to put towards the $250 to pay for the supplies of one surgery. We were so ecstatic and grateful to everyone that donated. After the symposium, I went to Gannon Hall and worked in the research room for a little while before I went home. When I got to my apartment I changed and got ready to go see The Pirate Queen with my friend Nick. Clinton had gotten me some tickets and I invited Nick to come along. We had a blast. It was such a good show and all I wanted to do afterwards was riverdance. On our way back to school we ran into a few friends and waited for the school shuttle together. I never get to hang out as much as I would like to with Nick and I was glad that he came with me. We had such a great time and it was a great stress reliever.
On Wednesday, Dr. Epstein, my Organic Chem teacher decided that our test should be pushed to Monday because of not having class on the past Monday. I was so grateful. This gave me a chance to work on a poster for the Healthy Baby Awareness fair that was happening on Thursday. I had classes all day and there was a speaker here for Public Health issues and War. It was such an interesting talk. She spoke about Bosnia and how it relates to things that are going on in Iraq, public health wise. I was so interested because my cousin Eddie is over in Iraq so to see kind of what is going on was an eye opener. I have to write a paper on the speaker for my Seminar In Biology class, so I can't wait to do more research on the topic.
After the speaker I had to do some work in the lab because our Ciona came in. Ciona are a type of sea tunicate and really interesting creatures. I just love the way they look.
So we got their habitat ready and it looks really cool. Once we were done setting everything up in the lab I had to go to work and help Dr. Giuliani with the lab. The lab took a pretty long time and by the time it was over it was around 4:30pm. I went back up to the lab and did some more work and printed some pictures for another poster that I had to finish for the Healthy Baby Awareness fair. I had choir practice that night and I liked it. We were learning Io Pavo, our school's fight song I guess you would call it. It sounded really good. I was happy to finally get to learn it. Practice was fun but draining, and by the time I got out it was kind of late. I went to the computer lab in Loyola to put the finishing touches on my poster and went back to my room to bake. I did more baking for the Healthy Baby Awareness fair and it paid off. We made over $100 to put towards a surgery and I think we reached our goal of $250. I am so glad.
The fair went well. My poster was on Congenital Cardiac Septal defects. It's basically where there is a hole in the walls of the heart. I had a type of it as a baby so it felt great to share all of the information that I had learned about it to others. Overall it was a great event.
Friday, I had no class because my professor was really sick. I hope he gets better. So instead of going to class I went to the research lab and did my routine cleaning of the tadpoles. I have fallen in love with the tadpoles. They are so cute and fun. I like to watch them as they swim around the bowl and try to jump out. They can jump pretty far! Once I was done there I went back to my room for a little bit. There was a student election going on for the senate and stuff so I went and voted. Oh and we had a surprise baby shower for Christine Sorrentino. She's pretty much the person in charge of the yearbook. It was so fun. I had a good time. Unfortunately I had to leave early because I had to work with my group for General Ethics. We have to put up a powerpoint presentation on Animal Rights, good thing that my group consists of all bio majors. I am so excited to do this work. So once I was done with getting together with my group I hung around the Bio office and we received our planaria. That was another task to do! I took the planaria out of their shipping container and put them in petri dishes until Monday, when we get to do more research with them. While I was in the lab, the new Bio secretary's daughter came by and I showed her around. I pointed out all the animals that we have in the lab and explained a little on what we do with them. She seemed pretty interested. I talked a lot with her while I was taking out the planaria from their container. I even told her the little stories I had about the tadpoles and their abilities to jump really high. She's a freshman in high school so might as well get them while their young, eh? She seemed really interested in the sciences so maybe one day she'll be at St. Peter's too, doing the same thing and spending ridiculous amounts of time in Gannon Hall, my third home.
Well, my week isn't over yet. I still have Open House tomorrow morning and Godspell tonight!