Winter 2021This quarter, I took ESS 212. It was my first geology class, and I thoroughly enjoyed it! A large component of the lab portion of the course was geologic mapping, and this is an image of the map from the final project we did. I spent many hours interacting with the video game that one of the TAs made for the assignment, observing samples and taking strike and dip measurements. It was a lengthy assignment, but I am happy with how it turned out and eager to take more ESS courses in the future! I have also attached my Rock Description Assignment from the course. For this assignment, I went rock hunting at Owen Beach in Tacoma, WA with my mom one rainy afternoon and found a really interesting rock. I then combined the skills and knowledge I gained over the quarter in rock description, identification, and sketching to analyze the rock and determine its origins.
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I also took CHEM 346, which is the first quarter of the honors organic chemistry lab sequence. The attached document is my multi-step synthesis lab report, which was the last assignment of the quarter. I am very proud of this report, as it demonstrates how much I have grown. At the start, I recall having a hard time figuring out what to write about, since a particular challenge of the honors sequence is that we had to write up our own lab reports without many guidelines. However, I feel like my analysis skills have improved and that I successfully demonstrated my knowledge of the different techniques we learned about. Of course, I am very sad that I did not actually get to be in the lab doing the experiments myself (due to COVID), but I appreciate that I was able to take the class nonetheless.
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Another course I took was PHYS 123. I had taken PHYS 121 and 122 in previous quarters, and in both classes I recall struggling quite a bit. I often did not know how to solve the problems that were presented to me, and I felt that I did not understand the course material well at all. However, I am happy to say that I received a 4.0 in PHYS 123 this quarter! This is immensely exciting for me, as after feeling discouraged from the previous two courses, I decided that I just did not like physics and was not a "physics person". However, after learning great new study skills from my first quarter of honors organic chemistry (i.e. the importance of reading and taking notes on the textbook), I decided to go into PHYS 123 with an open mind and a determination to succeed. After a full quarter of working hard, I can definitely say that I feel confident in my understanding of the material and actually greatly enjoyed the class. I learned that it's important to go into courses with an open mind and to try my best, even if I don't think I like a subject.
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I am happy to say that I have received my first dose of the Pfizer vaccine for COVID-19, and will be receiving my second dose in April. I am very fortunate to have gotten one of the extra shots left over after cancelled appointments at my local pharmacy. I waited in the stand-by line for quite a long time with my brother, and was immensely excited to find out that we could get our vaccines! It has been over a year now since I've been social distancing at my home; we have been taking this pandemic immensely seriously and it feels like a dream that soon, I may be able to start seeing my friends and taking classes in person.
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