I did it.
I'm done with Capstone. I can't believe I'm done. I am so relieved and happy that I don't have to worry about this class. I am proud of myself for how far I've come. I've grown so much over the past year. If the person from last year saw me now, she wouldn't recognize me. I've grown more confident and more responsible. I am able to manage my coursework in a healthy way and have gotten better at my time management. Capstone has not all been easy; there have been good moments and bad moments. There were moments I didn't sleep and was so exhausted, there were moments that I wanted to quit, I was fed up with this project. There were moments I felt so stressed and dejected, and I felt that there was no way this project would succeed. But for all of these low moments, there were moments where I was proud of what I accomplished, of my presentation, of my paper, and of myself. There were moments where I completed something and I felt like I could take on the world. These were moments that reassured me that in the end, I would be okay. I learned that I can accomplish what I set out to do and am capable of so much more than I give myself credit for. This semester, I think I did really well. I accomplished everything I needed to do in a timely manner and there was really no need for me to stress. My mental health improved. I accomplished everything I set out to do in the beginning of the semester. In the beginning of the semester, I wanted to stop procrastinating and I wanted to improve my mental health. I accomplished both of those things. This semester, I worked on my time management skills and my problem solving skills. I ran into some unexpected troubles with my experiment, and I needed to find a way to improvise, adapt, and overcome the issues. These skills will definitely help my mental health in the future, as I can manage my time so I don't have to do everything at the last minute and I can find a solution to my problems. If I had to give some advice to incoming capstone students, I would say to manage your time. Everything is msanageable if you do a little bit every day. The quality of your work will also improve this way. And that's it. I'm done. Thank you for reading this. I'm done. This is it, Bye guys! Thanks for everything. The End. Tags: Time Management, Reflection, Blogs, Communication, Problem Solving, Productivity
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Honestly, this week was pretty dull. Nothing much was accomplished all week, I didn't do anything on Monday. I didn't do anything on Tuesday. I didn't do anything Wednesday. Wednesday was a half-day and we had to do that stupid exhibition day that the school makes us do. I had English first period and we had nothing to present. A lot of students didn't want to come that day. I have been so tired lately, so my mother said we could stay home from school on Wednesday. I didn't want to go to school on Wednesday either way so I jumped at this opportunity to stay home. I slept in and relaxed all day. I did do some homework, but I tried to take it easy. I didn't do anything Thursday. I didn't do anything today besides this blog post. So this week has pretty much been a waste. It was so unremarkable, I don't even remember what I did earlier this week. I did help my friends with their abstract and introduction for their paper because I was so bored. That was the most notable thing I did all week.
The only other remarkable thing is that I got sent some data by my mentors at Johns Hopkins University. Although there is some valuable data that I can use, they didn't send me the results of the NMR-Spectroscopy. They did send me the western blot results, so at a worst case scenario I would just have to forget about the NMR-spectroscopy and move forward with the western blot as my primary source of data. They also have it as Trials 1,2, and 3, but they didn't specify what the levels of estrogen are and whether the levels of estrogen were even used in the first place. The saving grace is that my uncle is coming today, so I can ask him about the data and get his feedback. From my understanding, Trial 1 is 50 ML of estrogen, Trial 2 is 100 ML of estrogen and Trial 3 is 250 ML of estrogen. I am probably going to use that as the basis for my result write-up. My results are due in two weeks, so I have a lot of time to do it. I will probably start some time next week. This weekend, I have to study for the SAT Subject tests (again!) and I have to finish some of my college applications. Tags: Forward, Communication, Planning, Results This week was very mellow. Not much work was given in any of my classes. I took my AP Bio exam on Monday and I think I did very well on it. This week in capstone we started working on our methods. I have a meeting with one of my mentors next week to discuss my prior lab work and the methods I am planning to do. I want to make sure it is actually feasible for me to do; something I can do with my limited labwork experience and with as little training as possible. I know I won't be able to test on mice since I don't have any prior experience with testing animals. In order to test on animals, you need a lot of training on how to handle them and how to properly care for them. It also takes a lot of paper work, which I would have had to start months in advance. I would also need funding, since mice aren't cheap. So I am focusing on what can I do with breast cancer cells since they are easier to cultivate. As of right now, I was thinking of inducing breast cancer cells to hypoxia and then using a western blot to determine the metabolites that are increased in choline metabolism in this scenario. I would then compare metabolite levels to a control breast cancer cell, and maybe even a control breast cell. However, I don't know if I can do this because I have never induced cells into hypoxia before and I don't know how. I don't know if it is safe or even feasible for me to do. I know that some labs in Johns Hopkins have induced cells to hypoxic conditions, but I don't know if I can do it with what little exeperience I have, or even if Johns Hopkins would let me (they would not want to be legally responsible if I got hurt). I have to talk to my mentors to see if it is something I can do. If not, I have to change what I want to test so I can make it feasible. I am going to try to ask for an extension until the following Tuesday for the Exeprimental Design paper. That would give me a chance to talk to my mentors. If I can't get the extension, I would probably hand in what I have to that point and make a copy of the Experimental Design and change it if it is needed. I also won't start working on my methods write up until next weekend, as I want to talk to my mentors first. Since my uncle is visiting for Memorial Break, it gives me a chance to work with him on the write up. Besides the methods, I have began to edit my lit review, I added one supporting source and found other sources for my other main sources. I just need to read them and analyze them to make sure that they contribute to the main source and aren't irrelevant or unnecessary. The one supporting source I added was on how metabolic reprogramming is found in lymphatic T cell when they are active and Myc is the most crucial growth factor to the reprogramming and proliferation of proliferating cells and cancer cells. I am planning on doing another 2 supporting sources by the end of this weekend. Tags: Lit Review, Reflection, Planning, Communication, Problem Solving
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AuthorShubhangy Raghavan Archives
January 2019
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