What a week!

This week was a rough week for me. Everything started first with a cold that I caught and which did not give me any chance to breathe just for a second. And on top of that I lost my cell phone in the library downstairs and i have not found it until now. It was horrible! Anyways life goes on and I have to be strong and fulfill my engagement. Since I finished the practical part of my research project, I was in lab this week trying to finish up writing my lab report and the poster for the presentation at ASU conference. It is on march 4th and it is around the corner so I better work hard to get it done on time. I spent this week in lab trying to write the introduction. But unfortunately, I could not figure out something good. For some reason, I am still having trouble writing the introduction of my project. I spent countless of hours trying to research if anybody has done a similar research but unfortunately I did not see anything similar. Last week, I started with the material and methods part which I finished it this week. After that, I began the results and discussion part. I have all the results of my tests recorded in my lab notebook so I used it to create a spreadsheet on Microsoft Excel in which I documented my results. Now I just need to insert this spreadsheet in the results and discussion part along with my two phylogenetic trees that I already made. After that I will focus on drawing a conclusion of my experiment and then go back to the introduction. I hoping by that time I will have the inspiration to figure out something good. As usual, I was in the STEM Program this week helping student with their and any questions they might. It is a great pleasure for me to be able to impact students' life and give them the taste of success. I really enjoy doing that! For next week in the lab, I will try to finish the component of my poster presentation and start to build the actual for the conference. I am looking forward to finishing this poster in the next two weeks so that I can have some time to revise before March 4th.

Below is the picture of a tree similar to the one i constructed.

       

Putting everything together

I spent this week in the lab trying to write the component of my poster presentation at ASU conference on March 4th. Last week, I had my two phylogenetic trees done so this week I am focusing on writing an introduction to my research project as well as the material and methods, the results and finally a conclusion. The abstract, which is the first component of my poster presentation was done during the week of January 7th and submitted to ASU so I do not have to worry about that one anymore. Now, I am working on the introduction. I looked for some peer reviewed journals in our school library databases to see if anybody has done this type of research project before, so that I can use some of their findings as reference to write my introduction but I have not seen the exact project but some project similar to it. I was having trouble writing the introduction so I when talked to Matt who helped me by giving some informations that I should consider putting in the introduction. When I was stuck on the introduction, I realized the material and methods which are something that I already did will be easier to write so I decided to write this part before going back to the introduction. So, I end up writing the materials and methods part. In this part, I just listed the names of the different species of bacteria that I am working with and then briefly describe the steps followed to do the experiments. I also listed the biochemical tests that were performed on the bacteria without giving the results of the test because there is a section reserved for that. I guess this part of report is the easiest to write because the only thing you do is just put in word what you do practically versus writing an introduction which required you to look for references to support your project. I am looking forward to finishing the material and methods this week and focus on the introduction as well as the rest of my poster presentation.
I was very busy this week during my office hours at the STEM Program helping students with their math homework. I enjoy doing that because I think this is a great experience and you learn more when you are trying to explain something to somebody.

Below is the picture of the bacteria that I worked with: Escherichia Coli  (microscope view)

                                                   Gram negative-bacilli