Senior Project: The Holiday

1. I read two of the papers that my mentor gave me and went to mentorship on January 3.  I also updated my independent log and began looking into some professors at Cal Poly Pomona and Pomona College who could perhaps be future interviewees of mine.  

2. I know, I know - that's only 10% of my "20 friends", but hey, I was busy tide pooling at Cambria.  In fact, it reminded me of the complex ecologies that exist in our world.  In one little pool, there were hermit crabs fighting over a shell, anemones chilling, a sea snail struggling to reach water with another sea snail attached to its back, a tide pool sculpin flitting about - just the general give and take of nature.
The same exchanges can be seen at the microscopic level.

tide pool sculpin

Also present on those rocks were smudges of oil, perhaps from leaks from the S.S. Jacob Luckenbach - a cargo ship loaded with 457, 000 gallons of bunker fuel.  Cambria marks the southern tip of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary - governed by tight regulations and home to a marked perfection I've had the privilege of being witness to many times.  THIS is what all coasts should be like.  They don't deserve oil spills.  THIS is why I chose an environmental focus for my senior project.

I couldn't find any photos of my own, so here is the next best thing.  Behold: moonstone beach.

Anywho...
At mentorship, I worked with a community college who was pipetting for her first time.  I showed her how to tap the 96-well plate to pull droplets off the sides of the wells, and operate the UV Vis.  My mentor helped out as well, showing us his wicked pipetting skills and giving tips on how to deal with bubbles (the bubbles were from aspirating the liquid - that means pumping it up and down to mix it (in this case, 'twas a mixture of BSA and sodium azide)).    

Such fashionable pipette tips.  Behold their glory!

Reading "Microbial Diversity in Natural Asphalts of the Rancho La Brea Tar Pits" and "Advantages and Limitations of Quantitative PCR (Q-PCR)-based Approaches in Microbial Ecology" exposed me more to terminology I will become familiar enough with over the course of my project.  It's all about gaining intuition and becoming comfortable with my topic.
There are a few Cal Poly professors who may be of some interest - sort of.  At Pomona College, there's this one professor who has a special interest in the microbial ecology of mud volcanoes.  He might be a future resource... 

3. I would talk to my mentor, and perhaps the aforementioned E.J. Crane of Pomona College.  There's also CalTech (only a few minutes from my house, actually), home to a geobiology department and Victoria J. Orphan (whom my mentor mentioned over the summer).  She's a molecular microbial ecologist, primarily, and another potential interviewee.