The Vortex by Maya Murry

Hey everybody! I'm Maya Murry and I'm a junior at Neshaminy High School. I took the opportunity to participate in TRIP because I've been seeking a research experience to find out what my interests are and learn more about the practical side of life that school doesn't necessarily educate you in. I’ve changed high schools three times, but I don’t think I’ve ever been so in for a learning experience as the one TRIP is about to engulf me. Boy, I’ve already begun making analogies with the equipment we use to my own life (hence the title, vortex! The one where we mixed the solution!!). For truly, this experience has been part of a vortex that I don’t think I’ve escaped yet. In 2017, I was throw into this entirely new entity you may call the US. I felt like Dorothy except now my Toto is a hundred violently-mating fruit flies in a vial.

---

But ever since that vortex, I have walked as if I was stepping upon a new planet (not unlike the insanely drastic contrast between the US and Saudi Arabia!). As for now, I know that I have come with a firm purpose, despite the head trauma and personal identity crisis one would feel within the eddies of a tornado made of something as abstract as space time itself. But I know, somewhere within these moments where I lay on my knees precisely measuring solutions (not the walter white ones I promise) or separating fruit flies based on gender - somewhere within these lessons I’m going to create myself, if not find.

The fact that I would get to explore more with my own freedom throughout this research experience really resonates with me, especially due to not having ever been offered any research programs during my time living in Saudi Arabia. This also seems like the perfect opportunity to make friends with similar interests.
​
Some random facts about me: I LOVE drawing and painting and want to minor in Art hopefully or sell (obviously fly portraits) some in a gallery. Ballet and track are a big part of my life and a way I reduce all the stress from school (and from potentially being the murderer of at least a few hundred flies). I've only been in the US for a year and a half but I can't wait to meet "y'all"!