fun

June 30, 2019, Filed Under: 2019, austin, fun

Kayaking

Its hard to believe that four weeks have passed, and our summer is nearly halfway over. While our responsibility and understanding in the lab have grown, we have also grown much closer as a group. In the first blog post Mia remarked on how amazing it was how quickly our group grew together, and the sentiment certainly still applies. I always find it surprising that I’ve known these people for just four weeks.

My siblings always spoke highly of their REU experiences, how they never had time to miss being home for the summer because they were always busy having fun with their peers, and I could not agree more. Those of us who work in the same part of campus meet up for lunch every day, and the entire group meets up to eat dinner every night. When we aren’t in lab, we can often be found playing cards in the lounge, watching “The Bachelorette,” in somebody’s room, or trying to decide how we want to spend our evening.

Not all of our adventures are contained within our residence hall. Recently a small group of us (myself included) ventured out to Bass Concert hall to catch one of the last showings of Hamilton before the company left Austin, and then took a trip to the famous Amy’s Ice Cream.

A yearly tradition of the BME program is to spend a morning kayaking and paddle boarding.

Deciding to embrace the cohesiveness of our group that Dr. Suggs had commented on, we took a trip to a local thrift store after dinner and all purchased Hawaiian shirts to wear while we were on the water.

We arrived at the boat rental at 9:00 and were greeted by Margo, who presented us with breakfast tacos to eat before we departed. As a North Easterner, I had never heard of a breakfast taco before coming to Austin, and while I was skeptical at first, I have fully embraced them as a breakfast staple. When we first left the docks, some of us were slightly unstable and fell off our paddle boards, but before long, we were cruising around the river. After some time paddling and swimming, we encountered a rope swing, and all took turns swinging into the river before paddling back to the docks. After stopping for lunch on the way back, we parted ways to nap and recuperate before taking a late-night trip to Kerby Lane for pancakes.

students eating tacos — Eating Rudy’s breakfast tacos before kayaking

students on the dock — Getting ready to head out on the water from The Rowing Dock!

student in her kayak — Jaime in her kayak!

students on kayaks — Jubin, Michael, and Angelica (left to right)

After all this time, I’m still amazed that we never run out of stuff to talk about and can’t wait for everything we have planned for the next several weeks, from a Mamma Mia movie night to a square-dancing trip.

-Simon Blanchard, Villanova University.

June 10, 2019, Filed Under: 2019, austin, fun, learning, texas4000, ut austin

First week at UT!

This first week has been a busy one, with move-in on Monday, orientation activities through Thursday, and our first real day of lab on Friday. I was surprised by how quickly we all got to know each other. On Monday night, after settling into our rooms in San Jac, we all navigated the massive labyrinth that is Jester to unofficially meet up for the first time in J2, the closest dining hall. After dinner, we wandered around campus together and investigated the BME building, the UT tower, and the turtle pond. We finished off the evening with a card game in the San Jac lounge and went to bed after frantically skimming some of the papers we were supposed to read for our labs.

students walking on ut campus with capitol building in background — Exploring campus on Monday. Note the capitol building in the background.

Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday were dedicated to orientation; we met our grad student mentors, got our UT ID cards, and were given crash courses in wet lab techniques, scientific literature, data analysis, and microscopy. One cool thing about this program is that, for these 10 weeks, we have access to (almost) all of the resources that UT students have, so we can use the UT library databases or consult with UT statisticians.

Friday was our first lab day! My lab studies glioblastomas and is located in Dell Medical School, which is fortunately only a ten-minute walk from San Jac. I got there at 9 a.m., did site-specific lab safety training with my mentor, and took a bus (free with my UT ID!) to the BME building to make it to our first 11 a.m. Friday seminar. At the seminar, we enjoyed a free lunch from Jason’s Deli, talked about the global and historical context of our research, and heard from a Texas 4000 rider, which was very cool.

T4K riders bike from Austin to Alaska in order to engage underserved communities in the fight against cancer over the same 10-week period that we spend doing cancer research here at UT.

After the seminar, I went back to my lab for a lab meeting and a brief demonstration of cell culture technique by my mentor.

Friday also happened to be National Donut Day, so we went to Voodoo Donuts on 6th Street to celebrate. On Saturday, we tried to escape the Austin heat by going to Barton Springs, a natural spring-fed pool that’s about 68° year-round. Barton Springs is conveniently within walking distance of several food trucks, so we stopped by those when we were done swimming.