12 Jul Kaila Rebolledo Unda – George Lab – UCSD

Hello everybody, my name is Kaila, and welcome back to my blog. This is my second-to-last week, and I already miss it so much. 

MONDAY 07•06•26

Today I started the day off with Selene at Skaggs. Skylar, one of her students, was using the computer I usually work with, so I got to use a different computer and continue the next steps of registering the brain. I ran a few transformations and then mapped the brain out to the model and then got to see a full 3D version to see how far off I was from the real thing. 

the white dots are the activated cells in the brain and as seen it is not lined uo with the model

This process was honestly a bit tedious because of how long the brains took, but I got to continue doing my mouse counting, and I even had some time to just fool around and make some little doodles. One of the doodles hangs over Selene’s desk now. 

After lunch, Stella and I came back to Skaggs, and Selene forgot her daily boba, so she took us out to this one store on campus. There was a vending machine, and for my own sanity I didn’t play, but Stella did for the first time ever and won a cute little boba plushie! 

When we came back, everyone went straight back to work, and we headed home. 

AP scores came out that day, and Pinhead took us out to In-N-Out, and it was amazing. I cried tears of joy biting into that burger. So thank you, Pinhead. 

TUESDAY 07•07•26

The morning started, and I got to working on my brain analysis. Sonja and Stella were across the desk from me making something, so it was a bit entertaining watching them just scurry across the rooms. They were preparing for the dissections that would happen tomorrow. I was really excited as the dissection was something that I had been looking forward to from the moment I got placed in the lab. 

After a nice lunch break, I came back to Selene and worked. Talking about the World Cup led to talking about the Swiss flag, which led to taking flag quizzes, which led to taking a bunch of geography quizzes, and our afternoon was spent like that. 

When I got home, I accompanied Jennie to drop off Liliana at adoration while I looked for piercing shops. At the beginning of the summer, Jennie said she’d take us to go get piercings or something like that, and I took it too heart. After a few stressful phone calls to my mother, I got my septum pierced. 

Wednesday 07•08•26

The morning was a bit chaotic. Molly had just come back from a well-deserved vacation, and the first thing she had to do was dissections. I helped out in setting up and making sure everything was ready.

I was watching, and I was very interested in what was happening and actually wanting to be there. But not shortly after the first perfusions, I started getting lightheaded. I tried to go get water and come back, but I felt a bit nauseous. This was a stressful time and a bit time-sensitive, so even though I wished I could power through it, I chose to go to the wet lab and help Selene with blood. 

Her two other students were there, and we just chatted while they showed me how to do the blood thing. When we first get the sample, we put it in the centrifuge to separate the red blood cells and the plasma, and then we use a pipette to transfer the plasma to where we will keep it cooled. This went on for the rest of the morning until surgeries were done. While I was a bit upset over not watching them, I knew it was probably best for me and the quickness of the people working. 

The rest of the day, I continued to line up brains, but we came up with a system. Some might even call it the greatest system. Selene and I would be locked in, but every once in a while we would play a geography quiz and then go to work again. This was great. 

When we left we went to visit the Mormon church with all the girls, and it was really fun. We passed by the building every day on our way to work, and the inside was honestly just as pretty as the outside. 

THURSDAY 07•09•26

The morning started off with me going to Selene while Stella went straight to MTF to work on surgeries. While I could’ve tried to be in there again, I didn’t want to get in the way, as they already seemed to have a system, so I did blood again. Same shenanigans, but we brought our computers and took geography quizzes during the downtime. And how I love my mentor, on her target run, she came back and got me some cookies and a few monsters to get me through next week. 

When it was over, I went to MTF for the day until Selene had to leave early for a baseball game, and I helped finish making catheters while Leyna and Stella took care of other stuff. 

FRIDAY 07•10•26

For the George lab, we have to do a presentation just like our pinhead one, so we came in with a rough draft to show Sonja. She corrected and helped us better phrase some stuff, and on Monday we will come back to do a test trial. 

I went to Selene after, and she corrected some stuff as well, and I came up with a genius idea. To line up the brain, I must go through different layers of the brain to make sure everything is fully lined up all around. So as my slideshow progresses, the background will be the brain progressing. I thought it was genius. 

concepts of how my slideshow will look

So most of the day was spent editing, and when I got sick of that, I would line up brains. 

SATURDAY 07•11•26

Today I left home early to catch the trolley to UTC, a huge mall in San Diego. I met up with Izzy, and we went to watch Obsession. No spoilers, but it was such a good movie, and I highly recommend it. 

I met up with the rest of the crew, and we went shopping for a bit. I got a few necessities and a Lego set. Sweet Lego set. I was really happy. We went home, and we made the dumpling soup that Tang taught us to make. Zoe and I accidentally added too much vinegar, so we became chemists to fix it.