so i was looking at old snaps and i came across this picture. there’s probbly a lot more cracked gels that i just threw away bc i was too sad lol. here’s to all the times when even if you do everything right, something is still bound to go wrong 😅
15 Aug 2016
I officially have the worst luck in cell culture. FML.
Mariel’s journey to graduate school
Since I’ve been burdened with lots of work this past few months, I wanted to take the time to talk about what has happened to me since 2016 started. I have been very grateful with the experiences I’ve had and I am very excited to share them with you :)
It started off with the beginning of winter quarter last January. So far, I had received 6 interview offers for graduate school: UCLA, UPenn, UW-Madison, Illinois, UMass Med School, and UC Irvine. I had to turn down my interview offers for UC Irvine because I had already set interviews during the dates they have mentioned, and they wouldn’t offer me alternate interview dates. Oh well.
My first interview was at UCLA from Jan 21-23. I applied in the Graduate Programs in Biosciences, which is this huge umbrella program. In particular, I applied to the Gene Regulation home area due to my research interests in Chromatin biology and Epigenetics. Since I did a visiting graduate research in UCLA, I was very familiar with the campus and I was familiar with the people I was interviewing with. I was very impressed during my interview weekend! All the faculty I met were nice and great to talk to. The graduate students I met were all very welcoming also. The interview weekend usually goes through a typical schedule: interviews in the morning, followed by lunch and poster sessions in the afternoon, and dinner with the faculty in the evening. The next day, there is usually activities planned. For UCLA, we went to the Santa Monica beach. We went to the beach house where there were student presentations, and we spent the rest of the afternoon in the beach. Since it was my first interview, I was very nervous talking to the faculty, but I was able to shake it off throughout the morning. I felt really good after my interview weekend. But I was also very exhausted because I had to drive back home from UCLA and I remember myself knocking out right when I got home. I thought the interview went well, and it did! I received my acceptance letter a month later (after the second round of interviews were done).
09 July 2015
I went on a vacation to Florida after my finals for a well deserved break! I actually went to Palm Beach for an epigenetics conference which was nice, and then I spent the 4th of July weekend in the happiest place on Earth :)
Now that I’m back at home, it’s time to hustle and go back to the lab!
16 June 2015
Since finals are over, I’ve been catching up on research since I’m going to a conference in two weeks! I’m super excited 😁
Today I tried doing a Tricine SDS gel. Hopefully it turned out good 🙈
Today was a long day! Went to class in the morning, and I spent the rest of the day in the lab. I ran my gel tonight because I’m curious as to how it turned out. I wanted to see the bands right when I destained it, but I couldn’t see them well. HOPEFULLY TOMORROW I CAN SEE A CLEAAAAN GEL! *crosses fingers
22 April 2015
I was super busy today with my midterm, group meeting, and research article, but I made it through! Enjoy this selfie I took when I was in Starbucks drive-thru 😁
Mariel’s typical school ootd!
I like to keep one set of shoes strictly for lab because people spill crap all the time and I don’t wanna bring home chemicals that might be stuck in my shoes.
And obviously I like coffee 😙 I’ve made it a habit to drive-thru Starbucks!