Work Ethic
So I guess I will start with an intro, since everyone else did.
Hello all, my name is Christine. I'm a rising junior at East Chapel Hill High School.
I'm participating in the Howard Hughes Precollege Program, and I assume that all those who read this have an inkling, at the very least, of what this program is. I'm so glad I got this opportunity. Instead of spending my summer lounging away on the couch, I'm spending my days working in a real lab with professionals on a topic that really interests me. I'll be surrounded by intellectuals, so that instead of rotting my brain away like I usually do, I can actually sharpen it!
Although, I am unhappy about the early hours. Not a morning person.
My project has probably been explained to me several times, but I'm really terrible at putting concepts into words. I promise I'll expound on it further when I can acutally do it justice. It involves looking at streams and their level of organic matter. The project is perfect because it combines chemistry (something I have really come to love this past year) with environmental issues (something I've always cared about) and I get to spend time outside. I love being outside, especially in the creeks in my neighborhood, so I was ecstatic to hear that I would be able to actually go out into the streams too.
Two things I'm worried about: getting up early and staying up, and screwing up data. I ran samples all week last week, which we'll be analyzing this week. What if I messed up? What if all those samples I ran are useless and we have to rerun them? I would feel terrible. I'm not a person for details, something I'll have to change because working in a lab is all about meticulosity (totally made that word up) and carefulness. AKA, work ethic, the topic of this post. I made it the title to remind me to be disciplined!
pipetting samples into a tube
Brian, the grad student I'm working with.
