Jenny - Entry #5 at CHLA :(

I am sad to say that this will be my last week here in the lab and CA before I go back to school. I basically spent my whole summer here in the lab and in Mongolia with other CHLA staff, so I will definitely miss it! This past week has actually been pretty slow in terms of actual work. I technically finished my work for the 3D surface rendering, and all we had to do was see it on Imaris (3D imaging program) this week and see how it turned out. The final product turned out to look pretty awesome and I think we were all pretty happy with how it looked! There were some parts where the bronchi were all interconnected where they were not supposed to be (the program probably highlighted blood vessels accidentally) so we had to call an Imaris specialist to see where we can cut certain parts of the rendering.

Anyway, outside of my main project, I've been catching up on reading and work in the lab. Denise and Soula have been extremely busy lately because there is a lot of reading, writing, and experiments to do. I've just been helping out by making some solutions when they ask, and doing some washes for lung samples if they were busy. 

I also made a new friend which was pretty nice! In the last few days, I started talking to another girl who just graduated from USC, and although I've seen her around in the lab, we sat at computers that were in completely different areas, so I was never able to see her or talk to her. But we got along really easliy and went out for lunch a couple times after that - I wish I had talked to her sooner! I will really miss her when I'm gone because it can get pretty lonely and boring in the lab when you're alone doing the same thing over and over again.

On the last day, I was sad to leave, but I definitely had a fun summer with a super amazing team and project. I am planning on visiting whenever I am in California again and might even come back next summer depending on how everything goes. Words cannot describe how grateful I am to have experienced such a patient and kind lab. I hope everyone else has a great rest of their summer (which is almost over :(...) and I'm excited to see everyone back at school.