El Cuarto de Julio

It's been a good week. Full of enjoyment, that is. It started off under the crunch to finish my restructured introduction. It took a lot of time to do, and what I ended up with is two and a half pages of background. I'm almost nearly sure that it's waaaaaaaaay too long, I'm just waiting on Sofia's comments. The good thing is, that most of the space is spent talking about what is known about biofilm function altered by organic chemicals; caffeine, diuron, sucrose (more later) and sucralose. Soooo, if it turns out that I have gone into far too much detail, then half my discussion section will be done since in the discussion, I will speak on my results and call upon other studies who have found results on a similar study.  Glad that's over, for now..

Thursday was an eventful day in many ways, Sofia and I are in phase II of the experiment, we had an amazing dinner at a barbeque we attended for El Cuarto de Julio, and it was my doggies first birthday. Happy Birthday, Boudreaux.

We had been at the grocery store the night before and instructed to find something to bring to the barbeque. As a group, we decided on pinchos, the Puerto Rican shishkabob, because who doesn't love a shishkabob?  We made fruit, veggie, chicken and shrimp pinchos for a vege-pesce-tarian/carnivore combo. We fixed up homemade hummus and salsa, too. We made the hummus without tahini, although we found a jar of it, it was too much tahini and too expensive and we only needed a very little bit. The hummus great, so don't let lack of tahini keep you from making your own! 

Sofia and I were late to the barbecue due to a morning full of mishaps. We have started switching out the plain agar growth environments for chemically amended ones, but first, we had to make the chemical agars. oh joy. We had 6 types of agar to make and when making agar, allow extra time unless you're a seasoned pro. First, a control agar, then each single chemical agar and also, a mixed treatment (since normally, these chemicals aren't found in isolation in the environments they pollute, plus we will be able to account for possible synergies amongst the treatments). First we poured the agar too soon and it didn't solidify.

Then we made one batch 30 mL shy of the perfect amount. Later, we let the water get too hot before we added the agar powder so when we added it, the water started to boil, and the agar floated up like it was bubble surfing on the water and when we took it off the heat, boiling stopped and it was a large clump of agar. All this was scattered about some successful attempts, and in the end we finished them. After they cooled, we went down to Quebrada Taína (Taína stream). It was about 2:00 and everyone had already left. We came back, got cleaned up and left the station in search of the Ackerman's residence up the mountain where everyone was enjoying the nice weather at the annual Fourth of July BBQ. When we left the gate, I got out to close it and there was a sweet little puppy walking by, he was starving, you could tell by his protruding ribcage and bony thighs. He was all black, probably a boxer, terrier mix or something. Really cute, and he had a big cecropia leaf in his mouth, like he was going to eat it. The thing about strays here, is that they are everywhere. I mean everywhere. Many people are irresponsible with their animals and shelters are overflowing, so they just run wild and reproduce when people drop them off because they don't want to take care of them. I got back into the car and we headed to the BBQ..

Pine trees? Strangely, yes. They have been introduced over the years and here, near the Ackermans place, there are plenty. 

It was a great time, the Ackermans have a nice residence up in the hills of El Yunque. There were lots of people, many of James and Elvias' graduate students, all of the mentors, us REU's, ALonso's family and all the techs at the station. There was soooo much food. The pinchos turned out great, everyone had a nice time, outside on a sunny day in the mountains. It's rare that the weather works along with your plans here, so this was delightful. Here we are..

When we got back to the station, the pup was not at the bottom of the road near the gate anymore, he had made the hike up, and found his way about a quarter mile away to the station!

Roxy and Natalia found him when they got home and felt so terrible for the poor thing that they gave him a name, pincho, and fed him, which is sort of forbidden here. Hilda says that if we feed them, she will known because they will stay. And once we start feeding them, they're our responsibility. He hung around until the next day, when Keysa learned about a friend who was looking for a new pup. He brought his doggie over so check for compatibility and turns out, they got along great! Her friend re-named our little pincho to Meeko, (spelling?) which Sofia tells me is a a type of monkey.

Here's Pincho..

So, here I am now, it's Sunday. Friday, I made more agars to set out Saturday in the nasty Venezuela stream. Normally, we wear gloves in that stream (the stench alone is enough to make you vomit), but I was working with little zip ties and a sharp knife and I said screw the gloves, lets get this done! Big mistake. We finished quickly which was nice, but now I am up to my shoulders in some new rash. I don't know if it was the super nasty stream we were in or the soap I used to clean the yuck off afterwards, but my arms are covered in bumpety, itchy, hot redness. I was hard to sleep last night because of it but I read for awhile and it took my mind off of it. 

Speaking of, I have finished a few books since I've been here, which normally takes me two months for one. I read Into the Wild by John Krakauer, What Einstein Told His Cook: Kitchen Science Explained by Robert Wolke and Most recently, A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson. All great books. Now, I am starting book I of Game of Thrones series by George R.R. Martin. (Grandma, I bought The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay, and I plan to read it, but I loaned it to Amanda, one of the REU gals. Can't wait!)