This last month has held so many exciting things: ending of my awesome internship in San Diego, spending a week in London with my family, and (of course) packing for USC! I’ll start with the internship, even though I have talked a lot about it in my past few summer blogs.
As I’ve previously said, I’ve been working at SKS Ocular, which is a small ocular drug delivery company in San Diego. I was really sad to leave, since everyone there had been so nice and welcoming, and I had a great summer with them. I picked up so many important laboratory and critical skills, and got tons of advice for my resume and career as well. Overall, it was an experience to remember, and I felt so grateful for the opportunity. On my second to last week, I had to give a presentation about five of the studies that I ran through the summer… to the whole scientific staff of the company. Jeez, I was nervous! Usually I have no problems with public speaking, but this was certainly intimidating since my audience was more knowledgeable then me. However, there really was no need to be nervous: it turned out to be more of a collaborative presentation, with the scientists discussing what my experiments meant for future production. I didn’t realize how important my studies were, so I definitely felt appreciated for my work. On my last day of work, I brought in cupcakes, and my boss treated the lab out to a farewell lunch for me. Check out the picture of the cupcake below, to match the company logo!
The cupcakes I baked on my last day. I ended up dyeing the icing the wrong blue, but I tried!
As soon as my internship was over, I was on a plane to London! My family booked a spur-of-the-moment trip (literally, my Dad booked the tickets on Friday morning and we left on Saturday morning). We got to stay in Central London and see all of the remnants of the Olympics, as well as the preparations for the Paralympics! Of course I have loads of pictures, but I basically just uploaded the ones of me wearing USC gear. Which, of course, prompted some fun conversations with two alumni in front of Buckingham Palace. In turn, I had an awkward run-in with a UCLA Bruin at the British Museum, while I stared intently at an old Incan carving knife until the offending UCLA shirt was out of my vision. Oh well, it happens. College rivalry is one of the great things in life, and I’m happy that we pretty much beat UCLA in the important aspects (football, academic ranking, attractiveness). Counting down until Game Day!
At Stonehenge, repping USC of course. I know it looks like I photoshopped myself onto a beautiful stock image, but its real, I swear!
Me with the Rosetta Stone! Super cool, and really useful according to the description.
I don’t have much to say about packing, except that I minimized my work by not fully unpacking my stuff from May when I left. I’m probably going to spend my last few days of summer trying to fit all my clothes into boxes, and shopping to stock my new apartment! It’s exciting to think that I will be back at USC in just a few short days, and I’ve already planned out all my lunches and dinners with friends for the week so I can try to see everyone. USC Fall 2012, here we go!
