The first real day of EPGY was the following day. We took the B-line clockwise bus to the old union and went to a large classroom near the oval. In the classroom, three teachers- one, an expert on cancer, another a PhD student working on microbiology, and another, an expert on the heart. They presented what each would teach in their respective classes and I chose to take the Microbiology class. Our teacher was a great guy of the name Patrick (we called him Patty to get on his nerves). He knew his stuff: he taught us the basics that we already knew as well as some pretty hard stuff that we probably wouldn’t learn anywhere else. Most of these hard lessons came in the form of research papers. Because Stanford pays all the fees for access to research papers, Patty had full access to almost every research paper out there and he would give us about two papers a week. One of the most interesting ones was an experiment that discovered that tetanus and botulism toxins both attack the same protein in the pre-synaptic cells of the human nervous system.

Classes had the perfect balance of hard work and fun. We did schoolwork in various ways from 8 in the morning to 3 in the afternoon, but after that we were basically free to do what we wanted after we had finished our homework. A favorite past-time was to get in the bus and ride down to Tressider- the new student union- and go to Jamba Juice. We also would go to the bookstore and I personally waited in line at 2 o’clock in the morning to get Harry Potter. Some days I went with roughly 20 other kids to the soccer fields where we would play for hours- coming back to the dorms barely able to move our legs.

The meals provided were decent. The problem was not the lack of food, but rather that the food choices were rather repetitive. It seemed as if the cooks only knew how to make a few things, but we were assured by our counselors that during the school year a different company ran the dining hall and the food was much better. So inevitably, we soon grew quite sick of the cafeteria food and began to eat at Tressider. Our class was out at the Bio-X lab. We did lots of cool things like adding a plasmid that codes for fluorescence to an E. coli bacteria . At 12, we would get on the B-line counter-clockwise bus and instead of going all the way back to Wilbur Hall (our dining hall), we would get off at Tressider. Tressider had a subway, a great Mexican place, a coffee place, and a sushi joint. The food was great and every other day the Stanford Jazz group would come out onto the patio and play for our enjoyment. It was a nice relaxing atmosphere that made it easy to unwind after a hard class period.

In the end, I really enjoyed EPGY. It was really fun and I learned a lot. I grew to love Stanford’s beautiful campus and I miss the perfect weather. Having attended, I am now really interested in going to Stanford. It is no longer a story from my uncle Charles- I have experienced Stanford as well- if only for a month and without such a hard curriculum.

This is was written from Stone Labs on or about June 24, 2007.

Yeah it’s a tough week-long experience. I took my exams on Saturday morning, turned in my collection (I got a 102% on it!!), and then at noon everyone left. I wandered around Put-in-Bay for a while with the intent of renting a bike and riding out to Perry’s Cave, but the bikes were too expensive so I came back from Put-in-Bay around 2. I then spent all of Saturday reading my books and I got through all 3 of them. I read right through dinner, but they put food out in that fridge for people who miss meals and there was a sandwich, chocolate pudding, and a slice of carrot cake so I didn’t go hungry.

I can take hardship, but let me tell you about our hunt for Whirlygigs and Dragon Flies. In order to reach a field we had to cross a beach covered with zebra mussel shells. The broken shells got into our shoes and the powder was quite annoying. Boots would have been no help because we had to cross a marsh and our feet got completely soaked. 10 years ago the beach we walked on was a beautiful, isolated, pristine sandy beach, but now it’s covered in zebra mussels at least a foot deep. It was really sad.

The zebra mussels permanently blocked a stream that used to flow into the lake and now it has become a stagnant marsh. It is great for the bugs because an unmoving body of water is an ideal place for insects, but you have to wonder what other effects the river’s blockage has on the environment. We waded through the marsh to find insects and we found some great specimens but not without our fair share of leeches. I think I pulled nearly 30 leeches off my legs when I had gotten out of the marsh.

On Thursday we went to South Bass Island (aka Put-in-Bay), but instead of going to the downtown we went back into these meadows, caught lots of bugs and then we came upon a ginormous pile of chopped up logs. Just when we started to look throught the logs, it began to rain.. very hard. But we continued our search and we found bessbugs, darkling beetles, wood roaches, rove beetles, paper wasps, termites, ants, baby rabbits, snakes, cave crickets, and fungus beetles. It was insane. I have a lot of the specimens and I would like to show you them when you come to pick me up on Saturday. The bess bug (a beetle) is about 3 inches long!

So it’s Sunday at 1 o’clock. I just went for a swim and showered and I’m hoping that my roommates will get here soon because its not fun to be alone for two days straight (there’s a bunch of college kids around who are taking term classes, but I’m too shy to try to join them).

Each individual dirt sample was in a crucible and sitting in an oven at 110 degrees F. This oven seeped all the moisture out of the dirt sample before actual experimenting began, thus eliminating water as a major variable in the massing of the dirt samples. I took the crucibles out of the oven and ground each sample, individually, into powder. Once done, I placed the powdered dirt samples back into the same crucibles they came from, trying to lose as little dirt as possible. I placed the crucibles back in the oven and gave them 2 hours for moisture to seep away.

When two hours was up, I removed the crucibles from the oven 5 at a time. I placed 5 crucibles at a time in cold, glass vacuums, which allowed for the crucibles to cool down without gaining any moisture. After 20 minutes, I placed each individual crucible on the extremely precise measure and wrote down their individual masses. I then placed all the crucibles back in the oven. Later that day, when I had returned home, Li turned up the heat to 500 degrees Fahrenheit to burn out all the organic matter in the soil. This means that when she massed the crucibles once again the following day, the difference in mass was the amount of organic matter in the dirt sample.

The samples were then sent off to another lab facility where elemental composition was checked.

In this experiment, I did the dirty work. No pun intended. It was fun, educational, and really turned me on to the idea of interning at the wetlands once more. I was seriously considering searching for a new internship, but the recently received rights to the lab and the responsibilities that I have been entrusted with have made me rethink moving away. This wetland experience could end up being just as inspiring, educational, and fun as I thought it would be in signing up for the internship here. Thank you mom and dad for giving me the chance to do real science.

Peak biomass is the name for biomass at the end of summer (when plants are as big and healthy as they’re going to be all year). We determined the locations for the random samples by throwing squares 1 meter squared made out of pvc pipes out into the wetlands. After getting a location, boots would be donned and several people would go out and cut all the foliage down inside the square. Others would remain on the boardwalk and sort out the plants by species and put them in trash bags, which were then taken to the meteorology station to be weighed.

There were two main wetland areas where samples were taken (Wetland 1 and Wetland 2). Wetland 1 was cultivated and Wetland 2 was natural. My dad worked on Wetland 1 while I worked on Wetland 2 and both of them had broad leaf cattail (Typhalatifolia L.), barnyard grass (Echinochloa muricata), cut grass (Leersia oryzoides), and two forms of smartweed (Polygonum), while Wetland 2 had pondweed (Potamogeton nodosus) and Wetland 1 had broadfruit bur-reed (Sparganium eurycarpum).

It was a really fun day. My arms got really cut up by cut grass, but I got to make new friends and discover many of the species of plants that inhabit the wetland. I am looking forward to starting my internship program there when school starts. If all goes well, I will continue posting about my experiences at the wetlands