This last week was SO hectic- but we made it. I handed in my poster on Tuesday morning after many editing sessions to catch the smallest errors that I had gone blind to. After I handed in my poster I felt a huge feeling of relief. It came out really well and I'm truly so proud of all the work I accomplished to get as far as I did in the program. I spent the remainder of Tuesday re-slicing the best blocks at 60 nanometers for TEM. putting the small slices on tiny TEM grids was so precarious, but it definitely paid off once I got to Eugene. Main campus was so pretty! The TEM is stationed in CAMCOR, UO's super technologically advanced underground scientific bunker that's cleaned with blue light. Walking through CAMCOR felt like I was in a sci-fi movie. TEM was successful and I was able to snag a few images of Alviniconcha testis. After successful imaging, the grad students walked us around campus and we went out to get food in Eugene. It was overall a really fun and successful day. Pictures below! The poster session wasn't as scary as I was expecting- then again I think my brain was just burnt out so I'm not sure I was able to feel intimidated anymore. People asked good questions, I answered well, and I got to show off snail gonads. Oh!... and Lisa and Debby made cookies. All in all, quite the success. Here is my poster! Sitting here writing this, I'm having a hard time believing the program is over. It's hard to put into words what this program meant to me. I met so many amazing people. I gained such invaluable confidence in my research. I bonded with Lauren, Caitlin, and Avery over all the little things. I'm going to miss so many little things. Walking to Bayside Coffee, OG, and Millers for some snacks and sweet treats. Laying on the jetty with Cat and Ytxzae counting down the days until we go home. Picking wild blackberries behind the dining hall for way too long. Watching movies and making charcuterie boards. Jumping in the freezing pacific, screaming, and then laughing. Watching fog roll in from the bay and saying "it's so twilight (2007) out." Hearing everyone snore because the walls don't go to the ceilings. Spontaneously flying to San Francisco for the weekend. Hearing the bell ring for every meal. Saying goodnight to my friends anxious and excited for the next day. I think OIMB encompasses all the little things anyone could want.
So, if you are reading this and wondering if you should apply to this REU, don't think twice. You wont get an experience like this anywhere else. Coming from NJ, I wasn't too excited to travel so far from home and not see any of my friends all summer. Don't think like me. The distance is worth it. The stressful lab days are worth it. It wont be an easy goodbye and being a 2 minute walk to the water was something I took for granted. There truly isn't a place on earth like Charleston. Until next time :)
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It feels surreal that next week is the last week of the program. Time has flown but it has also felt like I've been here forever. To no ones surprise, I spent the past weekend working on my poster and making progress before Wednesday's poster critique. Monday through Wednesday I spent 8 hours a day looking at a computer screen, writing, and rewriting. After this experience, I've learned that posters are a lot harder to make than they look. Hours of moving pictures slightly to the right to align them, fiddling with the line spacing, and adding arrows to photos takes much longer than it appears. Either way, my poster critique on Wednesday went better than I could've imagined. I got some great feedback from Richard, Maya, Nicole, and the other REU students. Everyone's suggestions were super helpful and I was able to make changes to my poster later in the week. As I am writing this, I just submitted my edited poster for review. If there arent any issues, it's my final submission! This next week (and last) is going to be insanely packed and (in my opinion) the coolest of them all. To break it down: Monday: I will be cutting more blocks of Ifremeria gonad and brood pouch to see which blocks have the best gonad sections. Later in the day I will be heading to my mentor Craig Young's house to have a potluck. Tuesday: I will be re-cutting the best blocks of Ifremeria and Alviniconcha from Monday with a DIAMOND knife (I don't even know how this is real life) to prep for TEM Wednesday: The Young Lab is heading up to the main campus in Eugene (~2.5 hrs from campus) to do TEM (transmission electron microscopy) to image bacteria in the gonads of Ifremeria and Alviniconcha. Thursday: Wrap up lab work and prep for the poster session Friday: Have the poster session, say goodbye to the grad students, and pack my suitcase Little video below about my favorite clips from the summer so far! Also, an IMAX production crew is filming a movie about the Young Lab and their next cruise about deep-sea larva with a focus on women in science. In simpler terms, a camera man will be in the lab filming B roll for the movie, joining us in Eugene to film the TEM process, and interviewing me and Ytxzae for the film. If you need to speak to me, you'll have to contact my manager first or set up a meeting with my assistant - I might be too busy prepping for the Oscars. See you all in theaters 2024!
Wow, 2 weeks left! This past weekend was lots of fun. Me, Cat, and Ytxzae went out to dinner on Saturday and saw the new Elvis movie. We also went surfing, made a charucterie board (a legit one this time), and chilled by the beach. The rest of the weekend was spent resting and working on posters. It was nice having time to recuperate after such a long work week. With such little time left to gather data, take images of Alviniconcha gonads, and piece together my poster, I'm definitely feeling the pressure. I've had lots of successes and also failures this week. Monday I found out that my staining method wasn't sufficient and I would have to re-slice all 9 of my blocks, re-stain the cuttings, permount, and take images of all my specimens. Overwhelmed and not sure I would finish my poster in time, I did what any lost college student would do - I called my mom. Thankfully, she acted as my voice of reason and gave me the motivation I needed to finish. That night I came in after dinner, blasted music on my headphones, and got to work. Thanks to the buttery voice of Harry Styles (and some nostalgic One Direction) I was able to slice, stain, and permount 18 slides in one night. The rest of this week was spent imaging, color correcting, and adding scale bars to my pictures. I have yet to choose the best images for my poster, but I will chose them by Monday. Overall, I am finishing this week much happier and less stressed than it started. This weekend the REUs are presenting our projects at the CMLC (Charleston Marine Life Center) to practice communicating science to a broader audience. Ytxzae and I will be giving clay to students to model Warens Larvae, and some Alviniconcha shells to feel the cool bristles. Other than that, I will be spending this week working on my poster for the critique this coming Wednesday. I'm nervous, but hopefully it goes well. See you next week!
I'm not sure words can even describe this past weekend. Once I landed in San Francisco, Cat and her family showed me and Ytxzae around all the best spots and took me on a ferry to see Alcatraz, the Golden Gate Bride, and the city from the water. The next day we celebrated Cat's moms birthday and ate some amazing food, listened to great music, and I tried In-n-Out burger for the first time and even got a hat to prove it. To summarize our time spent in California, we spent most of our time eating wild grapes, sweating, drinking boba, and laughing. The road trip from San Jose to Coos Bay was long (10ish hours) but so scenic but a relatively easy drive. We saw wine country, the Redwoods, and even stopped at a sandwich place called "Hole in the Wall" and ate among the foggy county of Humboldt. Given how amazing the short vacation was, I'm so grateful I was able to visit California and knock it off my bucket list. This week in the lab I (thankfully) hit the ground running with my new, spectacular, stunning, gorgeous, breathtaking glass knives. Once I sliced my first specimen with the new knives my jaw quite literally dropped. I didn't realize how used and nicked the knives I had been using were until I saw how beautifully uniform and clear the sections came out. I usually start my morning off slicing, and then spend the afternoon doing a preliminary microscope scan to see if the slide is usable (aka if I did a good job or not slicing). So far, I have sliced specimen 1-10 and I am hoping to get through specimen 11-18 before Friday so I have more than enough time to identify structures, take and photo correct images, and pull the best ones for my poster. With a little less than 3.5 weeks remaining and 14 in lab working days until the poster is due, I am starting to feel the pressure to finish strong. Pictures below of my work! This weekend I will likely work on my poster for the draft due Tuesday. I also may try to venture out to the movie theater to see the new Elvis movie. Even though I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed about how much time I have to finish everything, I don't think there's anything movie popcorn and a sweet-treat can't fix. See ya next week!
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AuthorHello! My name is Flynn Gorman and I am working in the Young Lab and studying the embryology of the gastropods Ifremeria nautilei and Alviniconcha this summer. I am from New Jersey and I am pursuing a B.S. in Biology at Trinity College in Hartford, CT. I also work at a coffee shop on campus and act as the PR Director for my acapella group. Archives
August 2022
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