CMOP cuisine

As this blog may be a resource for aspiring CMOP interns, in addition to discussing my lab work I would like to use this weeks blog as an opportunity to reflect on something that is very important to college students and has been plentiful this week-free food.

After finishing up the standard curve for my colorclean Tide with bleach alternative on Tuesday, I was rewarded with a free pizza with the other interns at the primates center. As we ate, we got the chance to meet the other interns on West Campus and hear about what they are doing. It was cool to hear about some of the projects, I remember one group was working on a chicken pox vaccine that are so different from our work at CMOP. On Wednesday, I mostly worked on a data analysis project for Joe and Tawnya. It helped me get familiar with Excel 2007. I was let down for the free food that day. We heard a rumor that there was free lunch at Anne's deli and a bunch of us met outside to get lunch. When we got to Anne's it was clear that we had been misled. The deli was close to empty and the specials menu included prices. Not willing to admit that there was no chance for free food, (and having been responsible for spreading the rumor of free food to the other interns), I volunteered to ask Annie if in fact there was free lunch. The response to my question was a very puzzled look. In turns out that there is going to be free lunch at Anne's the 25th of July not June.

After the disappointment of lunch that afternoon, we went to Target to get some detergents to test. It turns out that they all absorb light at the same wavelength. On Thursday, as the tone got a little more serious for the staff with the NSF site visit, we interns got a break from the lab and two free meals. In the morning we all arrived early for Antonio's speech and coffee… and yogurt… and pastries…and fruit. During the day we sat in the overflow room and learned about the process of applying for funding. Luckily the mood was a little more laidback in the overflow room and I was able to finish my data project. We had lunch with the NSF members, and I would like to note two things about free food at CMOP. First, as vegetarian, I usually get the short end of the free food stick, but not at CMOP. We had a delicious veg lasagna for lunch. Second, CMOP gives out amazing chocolate chip cookies when it has lunches.

Friday there was no free food, but I did get to start using the Fluoromax-4 which was really cool. We are going to use it to make 3d excitation/emission graphs of fluorescence in the estuary. Hopefully we will be able to distinguish a signal from the whitening agents from the other fluorescent compounds in the estuary using these graphs. There were a few glitches in the software and I still need to learn how to use it to analyze the data it produces, but it was exciting to finally try it out.

This weekend Jami and Nizwan took us on the Ramona Falls loop up by Mount Hood. The loop was really pretty and there was still some snow on the ground. It was a very hot day 90+ degrees, and it was fun to be somewhere it was so hot and still see snow. Us interns were under prepared and didn't bring along any food. For lunch we split a few granola bars, some carrots and a pickle Chantel (one of my housemates) brought along. However for dinner we got an unexpected free meal at the timberline lodge that was quite delicious.

Also, Vanessa asked to try to discuss what kind of meaning we found in our internship on Friday. This blog entry is getting a long and I don't want anyone to think that what I'm taking away from this internship is a few free meals so I'll try to be a bit more serious next week…. until then please comment if you learn about any free food opportunities.