It's Getting Colder Out... And Exams Are Heating Up? or something like that >_>

It's early December and we're without a significant snowfall. It's cold and campus is winding down, while the library and the Academic Commons are getting more full every night with students studying and meeting up for group projects. I'll admit that with finals and without any snow and the trees without leaves, campus is a little dreary.

But campus is always prettier (if not much colder) when it snows. Even though we can't appreciate it much because we're busy wrapping up the end of the semester, it's always nice when the first major snow hits. It's been a little longer than usual for me since I last saw snow because I went to Australia, but I feel like it'll be normal for me to crunch through the snow once it falls again.

My work in lab is still ongoing. I'm working on collecting my "control" plasmid for the expression experiments, and I'll be prepping everything for the transformation process. Hopefully I'll be able to start those experiments at the beginning of the spring semester if I can transform the diatoms before winter break.

In the midst of trying to get everything wrapped up at the end of the semester, which has me a little more anxious than normal already, I'm all of the sudden in the middle of signing a lease on an off campus apartment for next year. Just a block and a half from where I used to live my first year on the edge of campus, I might be living on the first floor of an apartment filled with people I know and like. I'm really nervous though, because I've never signed a lease before and things are not finalized with 5th year.

Anyway, I'll be posting a few posts here and there, some related to lab and others not, so be sure to check back!