Weekly Report #15: MATLAB (Week of December 11th, 2023)

Things have been looking a bit better this week. While I may be a bit behind schedule, I’m still doing good with my work, especially the interviews. I had an interview on December 4th with the Lead Pathophysiology teacher at the CTE center, Ms. Kimberly Burch and she was really nice. I learned about homeostasis imbalance and pathophysiology. She also told me about learning from ISM, not only about what I’m researching, but also from the internships, the mentorship experience, and all of these experiences, and gaining the most from the opportunity given to me. What she told me about the learning experience really stuck with me, as recently I had been feeling tired and feeling like I had nothing useful in ISM as I said in my last report, but I actually have learned a lot. Before, I used to have trouble with emailing teachers…but now I can email professors with PhDs in a breeze. I have taken multiple interviews of professionals, whether in person or online, and have the opportunity to have time to work with a mentor eventually. She also told me about the microbiology and pathophysiology classes at the CTE center, and she told me that they got 2000 mini PCRs recently which is MAD. I’m taking microbiology later and I’m so excited, they’re going to mainly learn about bacteria. I’m also going to try to take pathophysiology because the mini-PCRs are so cool. She also told me that they might add biotech next year, and I hope I can take that course, but I might unfortunately graduate by then.I also had an interview with Dr. Will Brackenbury and it was EXTREMELY informative. I learned about how they do research about breast cancer cells using electrophysiology and glass pipettes, and with what they do their research on. He also talked about Sodium Ion channels, and how calcium channels can affect some DNA strands to mutate. This was the best interview I’ve had yet, and I really wish he could have been in the US so that I could ask him if he would consider being my mentor. He told me to talk to a few professors in the US so that’s good. In my 3rd OW annotated bibliography I learned about a computational model made by Dr. Joao Carlos, and I was wondering if I could request him to access it. I did not expect it at all, but this morning HE ACTUALLY GAVE ME THE CODE TO IT. I was so happy when I saw the email, I downloaded it, and the code. I only know how to do basic coding though, so I was thinking of asking my friend, who’s an extremely good coder, if he could help me in understanding it, and if he would collaborate with me on the project for the coding part. I think even though I started again, and even though I’m a little bit behind, I still have learned a lot in my research, and am at a good place to continue learning. During the winter break, I hope to spend my time on researching, even though that's not ideally a “break”, I want to spend at least some time on my OW. Now, I’m focusing on my research speech, and the Academic Decathlon Greenwood Competition that is coming up soon, this Saturday, in which the teams will be decided. Also, today is my parents’ 25th Anniversary, and it was really fun celebrating. My uncle came and we played “dhol” which is basically Indian style drums, and it was so fun with everyone. Me and my sister also prepared a dance together for them, and we had a great time.