Senior year!!

It’s our last year! I am very excited for this year as I always am at the beginning of a year. It must be something about the planning out of the next three months and the endless opportunities that waits that gets my motivation and adrenaline pumping. It is normally here when I suggest a cohort outing of some sort, either a bowling night or lake trip, but judging from the past few semesters I rule outside of schedule class time bonding next to impossible. However, I do suggest giving it the old hardy attempt, we never know, maybe this time we can all find a unanimously free weekend.

As some of you may know, I finally fulfilled my dream of studying in Australia. My trip this summer has changed my perspective on the world and on myself. I do thank my wonderful liberal arts education for sparking the drive to go the extra length to learn everything about the history and culture of the Aussies. For a lot of the time abroad we were immersed in our studies or secluded on islands far from civilization. But every town we came to, I would strike up a conversation with a local (way outside my shy comfort zone) or force my friends to a museum of some sort. It was a great experience and I cannot wait to apply my new mentality toward my life at SU.

As for my goals this semester... I plan to design and complete an entire research project at some point before I graduate (so mother nature kind of has her feathers in a ruffle. It just wouldn’t be as much fun if we didn’t have to improvise every step of the way). Currently the lab (me included) are working on a project temporally titled "Learning across metamorphosis in the African Clawed Frog (*Xenopus laevis*)". In the experiment the tadpoles are trained by pairing a stimulus (in the trial runs we used a light but believe a vibration or another type of stimulus would provide as a stronger signal) with a predatory stimulus (in this case a plastic blue heron). Ideally a connection will be made between the two stimulus resulting in a conditioned response when the conditioned stimulus (the light or the vibration) is presented. When the tadpoles morph into frogs the learning will be tested again to determine if the stimulus bond remains intact through the metamorphosis stage. I am very hopeful for this project, however, I do not wish for this particular experiment to be my capstone. I am hoping to work with the tortoises we obtained last year. I have brainstormed many different possibilities for some indepth and possible groundbreaking (ok…maybe not groundbreaking, but I would like to believe it’s that important) work. We will see where it brings me in the next couple of months. I am ready to get the research party started.

I am not going to lie, when it comes to civic engagement projects I have hit a mental road block. I have been trying at least since I got back to the States to come up with a project that would help the community. I tried for myself and I tried to get the swim team involved in something. Everything I come up with just doesn’t strike my helping nerve, as if anything we will do will not be appreciated. Maybe it’s the personification that I gained while away that Americans are ungrateful. Maybe I am just not being creative enough in my brainstorming. Whatever it may be I have lost interest.

I am looking forward to learning about everyone’s research/ creative works. We all have been working hard over the past three years learning as much as we can in our respected fields, it is rewarding to see all of our hard work being applied into a cumulated project.