It’s been a particularly eventful Friday at the end of a long week. I just got back from Boston, volunteering with an El Sistema program as part the final project for my Ethnomusicology class. As I mentioned the other week, El Sistema is a Venezuelan-born music education movement that aims to use power of playing in an orchestra to shape the lives and values of kids from lower-socioeconomic backgrounds. (As for defining ethnomusicology, even the ethnomusicologists have trouble with that) Today was my first day volunteering with the school, and I got to help lead violin sectionals by playing Russian Sailor’s Dance, a piece I haven’t played in ten years from memory in front of a class of fourth graders. It was pretty nerve-wracking!
Even though the kids were great, and I have a newfound respect for teachers, because conveying information in an interesting, personalized way…it’s really hard. And what’s really crazy is that one of the teachers there turned out to be a Wellesley Alum…they’re everywhere! So that’s why this blog post is coming to you somewhat later than usual, because I have gone to school twice today, as a student slowly working out SN1 nucleophilic substitution and then again as a student-teacher, for lack of a better word.
In other news, I spent a lot of time in this place this week (spoiler alert, it’s the library)
My great trial of the week has come in the form of a 1021 amino acid tetramer: Beta-galactosidase, or as I lovingly nicknamed it throughout the course of over twenty four hours spent writing a paper on the kinetics of its inhibition by IPTG; “Beta-galactoSIGHdase”. I could tell you more about Beta-galactosidase than you would probably ever want to know. Did you know that although beta-galactosidase has an in vivo substrate of lactose, which it hydrolyzes into glucose and galactose, it also has an artificial substrate called ONPG which produces a yellow colorant molecule when hydrolyzed? How about the fact that Beta-galactosidase obeys Michaelis Menten kinetics and is competitively inhibited by IPTG, an allolactose analog structurally similar to ONPG? Don’t worry guys, I’m stopping. I’m just giving you a feel for how I spent my weekend, and the better part of this week. You can start reading again now.
The figure that says it all, out of context
Things are starting to wind down a bit before spring break, which starts next Friday. I haven’t seen my family since the semester began and I am SO excited to be home again for a desperately needed break…although I will be bringing Organic Chemistry and lots of new music to practice with me. When I next write to you it will hopefully be on a train back home! Just need to focus through one more week.
Ever lovely yours,
Eleanor
So excited to see this princess again <3