The last couple of weeks have been crazy.  I have a lot to do and not very much time to do it.  I am almost done with my project.  On Monday I turned in my abstract and I am now working on my research poster.  It seems like a never ending process.  Everytime I get something written, my mentor or I finds something that needs to be added, changed, or reworded.  I will hopefully finish the final details tomorrow and I will print it on Thursday morning.

My mom is flying in on Thursday night and after my final poster session we’ll be driving back to Pella.  We’ll hopefully be leaving NC at 4pm and are going to attempt to make the 18 hour drive in one shot, through the night.  I had so much fun this summer and am thankful for the great experience, but I am definitely excited to be home again, to be with friends and sleep in my own bed.

Things are still going well.  I’m done with the bulk of my research and now have to do a lot of number crunching…which is taking forever.

Last weekend was the most fun I’ve had since I’ve been here.  Three of my friends from home (Central alum Ashley Veigelt, current Central student Alex Kleis, and a friend from Pella, Katelyn Weiler) came to visit me.  On Saturday we went to Asheville, NC to go whitewater rafting.  It was a about a four hour drive, but well worth it.  The river we went on was really calm with only a few small rapids, but our guide made it so much fun.  When he realized we were there to have a good time, things started getting interesting.

We attempted to ramp a rock, but we got halfway up the rock and realized that we were going to fail.  We got to jump off a few cliffs and float down the river for a while.  The area is so interesting.  We rafted about five miles and it took about two and a half hours, and the whole time the scenery was amazing.  There is a mansion along the path that has survived for five generations.  A two mile long coal train went along next to us for a little bit of the trip.  There was one mountain that had a few clearings, so we asked our guide what was up there.  There is a building with a pink roof above the clearing which is a Buddhist temply.  100 to 200 yards down the mountain is the clearing: a nuddist colony.  He said that occasionally the nuddists will be having a get together during a trip, but we were not so fortunate as to experience this .

I’m coming to the final two and a half weeks of my project.  I have come a long way and learned a lot about having a research-based career and what it’s like to be in the real world, living on my own.  At time I’ve gotten pretty homesick, but I would do it again in a heartbeat.  I haven’t been able to make any solid conclusions on what I have done, but hopefully by the end of this week things will start coming together.

This past weekend I went to Jacksonville, NC.  My mom’s best friend from Pella (Rhonda Van Soelen) has two daughters who are currently living there while the oldest’s husband is in Afghanistan with the US Marine Corps.  Just four weeks ago she gave birth to twins, and is also chasing a three-year-old around the hous.  Rochelle, the mother of the three kids, is a 2000 graduate from Pella Christian and her sister, Danece, is a 2003 graduate. It was nice to see familiar faces.

While driving around the city, we came to the intersection that is home to the Jacksonville Ninja.  (He is on youtube if you search Jacksonville Ninja).  We saw him.  He is a war veteran who stands on the street corner, generally at the same intersections, nearly everyday with no shirt and cut off jeans.  It is there where he practices karate/ninja moves, as he says it keeps him in shape.  Seeing him made my day and my life .

We also visited three memorials on the base.  Le Joune is the largest military base on the East coast (home to nearly 80,000 marines).  Once on base, I could not even tell.  It literally is these men and women’s home and aside from the secured gates, it looks much like a city.  It has highways, gas stations, restaurants, etc.

It was nice to see people from home when i’m so far away.  The dutch was coming out in Jacksonville as Rochelle taught me so many money saving tips, like making her own wipes.  I will now use coupons and someday make my own wipes.

This weekend I will be driving to Romney, WV (about 6 hours) to see my dad’s sister.  Her kids and another one of his sisters from Iowa will be visiting, so it will be nice to see family.

The weekend after (July 9-12) my best friends from Pella will be visiting and we are going white water rafting on the French Broad River in Eastern NC.  I am so very busy, but starting to love it.

Things are still going well in North Carolina.   Two weekends ago we went to Beaufort, NC where Duke has a marine biology program.  We stayed in a trailer home that was literally fifty feet from the ocean.  The weather wasn’t the best, rainy and sixties the whole weekend.  Nonetheless, we had a good time.  We walked (on the highway) into the small port town.  There was a strip of shops solely kept alive by the many visitors.

Last weekend we went to the North Carolina Museum of Life and Science.  Every Saturday for the rest of the summer the students in the Insitute of Genome Science and Policy Summer Fellowship will be taking turns working at the museum.  We were teaching the kids that came through, and sometimes their parents, the basics about genetics.   I don’t know that anyone understood much of what we were saying but playing with the kids was fun.

I’m finally getting used to my schedule here.  Some days are better than others.  I’ve had a few long days in lab (11 hours has been the longest so far), but the people I work with make it all the more bearable.

I’m starting to really like it here and am sure my summer will keep getting better by the day.

My summer at Duke started off Friday, May 22 at 4pm.  My best friend and I left Pella and drove to Bloomington, IL to stay with his sister for the night.  The next morning, we left at 7:30 am and drove for the next thirteen hours until we got to our hotel in Durham at 9:30 pm (we lost an hour because of the time change).  After checking in at the hotel it started to hit me that this city would be my home for the next ten weeks.  Sunday was a little bittersweet.  Saying bye to my best friend wasn’t easy, but I had high hopes for the summer.  I knew this was a good experience, but having lived in Pella for the first twenty years of my life, it was hard not having my family or friends with me to be right there with me.

I checked in at noon on Monday, May 25.  I got my apartment keys and signed the last of my contracts.  I had the rest of the day to unpack.  I met my roommates, Kristen and Ilka, and we made both WalMart and Target runs.  We started to realize how hard it was to plan for meals and know exactly what to stock our fridge and cupboards with.  I cried the first night, missing my family and friends and feeling alone not knowing anyone.

The next morning we had orientation at 9am.  Ilka goes to Duke, so she showed us to the building.  The morning walk (and those to follow) was a great way to start the day.  The air was very humid, but we walked through the Sarah P. Duke gardens, which helped make it bearable.  They gardens are huge, filled with trails, small ponds, and millions of flowers.  It was so ironic because on our twenty minute walk to campus I saw Jared Wells, a Central graduate who is now receiving his PHd in Medical Physics at Duke.  That day we got oriented with the campus, met our mentors, and got our Duke IDs.

My mentor is technically Dr. Philip Benfey, but I am working directly with Jaimie Van Norman, who also has her PHd.  In the lab, I am doing work with the weed Arabidopsis, specifically looking at different aspects of lateral root formation.  The days haven’t been unbearable but I generally am in the lab from 9am-5pm.  Every Tuesday we have lunch lectures where a Duke professor talks to us about the experience and future implications of the experience.

Only having been here for a week, there haven’t been a ton of opportunities to get out.  Also, the weather has been a little constricting.  It has been overcast or rainy everyday for the last week.  Nonetheless, the rain comes for ten minutes, and after that the days have been very sunny and beautiful.  This weekend some of the girls in the program and I decided to take a trip to Carolina Beach in Wilmington, NC.  It is about a two an a half hour drive from our apartments.  My skin isn’t used to the North Carolina sun yet, and no amount of sunscreen could protect me from burning.  It was a lot of fun to get a relaxing day to get to know some of the girls better and get away from our cramped apartments.

The apartments aren’t too bad.  They are pretty good sized, but are aranged in an odd way.  There is a small living room and dining room area and then two long hallways.  One hall is the kitchen and the other our bedrooms and bathrooms.