TRIP, the highlight of my week! by Nita Bhogal

Hello everyone! I’m not going to lie, these past few weeks of TRIP have been very hectic and adjusting to the new schedule for our independent projects wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be, but nonetheless, I’m simply blown away by how much I have learned in just the matter of weeks! Although it’s difficult, TRIP has probably been the most fun I’ve had since quarantine started. I love how easy it was to get along with my fellow peers and bond over the little things like not knowing where anything is in the lab and struggling to get past online school. I especially appreciate Dr. Leystra and Dr. Purdy’s assistance and patience with everything because I know for a fact we wouldn’t be able to do anything without them! 

Lately, I’ve been working on perfecting my larvae light response assay which requires me to flash a light on the heads of the larvae in order to see whether they either detect the light and turn away or do not detect the light and remain where they are. It’s been very interesting collecting both quantitative and qualitative data, and seeing the larvae actually turn their heads is a really exciting feeling! The most important part of the assay, however, is working in a dark environment in order to ensure that I can observe the larvae’s visual capacity accurately without the disturbance of external light sources such as the light from my laptop. So essentially, I conduct the assay by working in the dark, which is actually not as bad as it sounds but still a little tricky!

The white/clear squiggle in the middle is a larva!

Creating new food vials!

Lastly, I wanted to give a quick shoutout to my friend Sheline who has been awesome to work with and so fun to be around! She gets me through the rigor of the program, and I just wanted to briefly thank her for that! <3