Fun!

    There’s been a lot of working this summer so far, but it’s been nice to sprinkle in some fun times as well, and explore a city and state that I’ve never been to before. Overall, the University of Michigan has a beautiful campus, and Ann Arbor is quite the charming town. There’s too much to talk about, but I’ll give a few highlights from my time here so far:

Cedar Point
    A fantastic amusement park in Sandusky, OH, all of us REU students got to spend a full day soaking in the awesome rollercoasters and thrill rides the second week we were here. One of the best parts was just getting to know each other a whole lot more. During the week, most of us work anywhere from 8:00AM-9:00PM, so there’s not a whole lot of time for socialization (plus we’re dead tired after a long day in the lab), so it was fun getting to talk and hangout all day together. Cedar Point’s famous for a lot of it’s unique roller coasters. My favorite was definitely the Top Thrill Dragster! The ride only lasts 17 sec. but the hour or so wait was definitely worth it! It begins by accelerating from 0-120 mph in less than four seconds! The second time around, my roommate Matt and I waited for the front seat (this is what it looked like through my eyes). We could literally feel our cheeks being pulled back, it was beautiful!



Farmer’s Market
    Ann Arbor’s got a great farmers market, which certainly did not disappoint. I bought possibly the best cinnamon role I’ve ever had, and will certainly be returning soon.

No caption necessary

Fourth of July at Comerica Park!
    To celebrate America’s birthday, five of us decide to attend the Detroit Tiger’s game. I’m a big baseball fan, and besides the activities planned for us through the REU program, this was the one thing I really wanted to do in my time here. The day was quite the adventure, we arrived at the park just before a monsoon swept in and delayed the game 2.5 hours. Luckily things cooled down quite a bit after the storm passed (went from 101 to 75 degrees!) and we were able to snag some great seats in the upper deck. The ballpark was beautiful and fun to see, and to top off the night, we got to see a great fireworks show from the outfield after the game. It was another sweet opportunity to get to know the other guys and gals in the program some more too.

With friends, right before the monsoon arived.

Our fantastic seats!

Fireworks. Unfortunately a day late (the game ended at 12:30), but nonetheless spectacular!

Henry Ford Museum and Greenwich Village
    This past weekend, our program got check out the historic Greenwhich village and the Henry Ford Museum. I grew up loving cars (and still do), so it was awesome to see and learn about the evolution of the automobile. The place is filled with tons of items of other historical significance including: the chair Lincoln was assassinated in, the car JFK was shot in, and the bus Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat. It’s cool to see all the physical historical evidence that I grew up learning about in textbooks first hand. Greenwich village accurately portrays what life and industry was like early in America’s history. We got to see what printing, pottery, tin-making, knitting, and even baseball was like long ago. It’s amazing how technology has transformed our society and how much easier things are today.

Thomas Edison's chemistry lab. This was a big hit with our group!

The president's official vehicle

The bus that helped spark the Civil Rights Movement

I assembled a Model-T!

1860s baseball, America's pastime

The Annual Pecoraro Group Christmas in July Party
    During the holidays, almost everyone in my lab travels home for the holidays (which is really nice compared to some other labs, where you have to stay and work), so there’s an annual x-mas party every year in July, when everyone’s around. The party is held at our principal investigator, Vince’s house, which is amazing. He’s an art lover, and has paintings on just about every single wall. He gave me the entire tour, and has a fantastic collection, which includes original works from masters such as Dalí, Miro, and more!
    After a few hours of socializing, it was time for the feast! Everyone made and brought a dish to share, there was so much good food. About half of our lab members are from overseas, so there was so much new, delicious food to try. I overate, everything was so good.
    The night climaxes in the annual secret santa gift exchange. There’s a $5 limit on each gift, and there were a lot of funny gag gifts. I ended up coming home with a pretty sweet hot cocoa set. Nothing better in the middle of July than some nice, hot chocolate! We ended the night playing an intense game of Apples to Apples. It was a great time!

Matteo, a visiting professor from Italy, and the naughty Italian-English translation book he gifted

I was a big winner! Cocoa time!

    The fun has not ceased yet, many more cool things await in the rest of my stay here, it’s been a blast so far!

Integrity

“Integrity is doing the right thing, even when no one is watching.” – C.S. Lewis

    Tuesday marks the halfway point for my REU experience in Ann Arbor, and one of the most important lessons I’ve been learning so far regards to living, working, and acting with integrity. Doing “the right thing” has something I’ve always firmly believed in, and is easy to implement in situations that are black and white. For example, it’s easy to wonder if you’re doing the right thing if you’re thinking about stealing a shirt from a department store. It’s wrong. Case closed.
    I’ve been learning a lot about integrity here at the University of Michigan in my job. As a researcher in the Pecoraro Lab, the guidelines and expectations for me aren’t clear-cut, there’s a lot of gray area. Unlike most jobs that have specific tasks or hours one must work in order to receive their paycheck, mine has no measures in place to ensure that I’m properly doing my job. I haven’t been specified a specific amount of time I’m supposed to be working each week, nor are the expectations of the work on my project high – we’re not expecting any long-term publications or breakthroughs to result directly from my work. This is mostly due to the nature of research (after all, 95% of the things you do will fail) and because of the very short time frame (I feel like I’m just starting to get well adjusted and familiarized to everything in the lab now, and my time here is now halfway gone).
    With these factors in place, it’d be really easy to blow off my job and just coast through the next five weeks. I could potentially try to rationalize based off the requirements and expectations that have been laid out for me. But I won’t.
    I’ve been so blessed to take part in this experience. I’ve been able to learn so much about myself and my career aspirations through this journey. On top of that, the University has provided us all with a generous stipend, housing, airfare, and cool activities (three weeks ago we went to Cedar Point, next week we’re going to the Henry Ford Museum). With all that’s been given to me, I owe it to the University, the National Science Foundation (who provides the funding), my Principal Investigator (Vince Pecoraro), and God to work and try my hardest while I’m here.
    A quote that has often provided motivation for me through my school work and running career is this: “Other people may not have high expectations for me, but I have high expectations for myself”. And so does God. God receives glory through us when we try our best and make the most out of our God-give talents and abilities, regardless of our circumstances.

And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. – Colossians 3:17

    Although the research I’m conducting now will not be the career path I pursue, I’ll continue to push on and try my best in spite of my like/dislike for this type of work. The finish line is in sight, and even though I won’t be held accountable for the amount of time and effort I put into my project, I’ll continue to give it my all. Through this experience I’ll keep growing into the man God wants me to be, a man of integrity.

Patience.

    It seems one of the hardest virtues for me to willingly accept is patience.  This was made clear to me once again last week when I was in the lab.
    I ran into a predicament. In order to make my Zinc metallacrowns, I need to have an abundance of ligand (S-B-phenylalanine hydroxamic acid), which is one of my reagents. I ran out, so for the past 12 days or so, I’ve been trying to synthesize more. The procedure we’re following has been carried out before in our lab, so it’s not really research. It’s kind of like following a multi-step recipe to bake a cake. I figured it would be straightforward and only take a few days to work up, but I still don’t have any.

S-B-phenylalanine hydroxamic acid

    At one point I was discussing with a visiting professor from Italy, Matteo (he’s here on sabbatical) on why my synthesis wasn’t working and just yelled out, “I want my ligand!” We talked a bit more about the problem, but the thing I took away most was the last thing he said. “Michael, the greatest virtue of a chemist is patience.” (in a wicked Italian accent!)
    It seems when adversity comes my way, I always try to test the waters with patience, and mostly it comes back to bite me in the butt. Many times I’ve been injured from running, and I’ll somehow convince my athletic trainer to let me try running a week or so ahead of schedule, only to set myself back three weeks more than if I would have just waited and stuck to the schedule. Patience is one of the harder things to accept sometimes, especially when we’re anxious and feel like we need something immediately in our lives right here and now.
    Since my talk with Matteo, I’ve enjoyed less stress in the lab and know that things take time. Healing from a running injury takes time. Recrystallizing an ester in methanol takes time. Drying a solid in a vacuum takes time. Life takes time, and those who succeed most are the ones who accept their circumstances as what they are and focus on changing the things in their power.
    Another area I’m having to exercise great patience in life right now is the upcoming fall semester. In my last post, I alluded to the notion that I was confident that pursuing a graduate degree in chemistry wasn’t the chosen path for me. Over the past two weeks, the Lord has shown me more through this experience and through some conversations with people whom I respect and trust that God may have another plan for me based on what I want out of life.
    The career that’s appealed to me most so far has been physical therapist. In high school, I went through a phase where I really thought I wanted to be an orthopaedic surgeon, but once I stepped foot in the operating room, I knew I couldn’t handle the blood. As a runner who’s been consistently injured over his career, I’ve really appreciated all the help and comfort I’ve received from PTs who have gotten me back to doing the thing I love, running. It would be rewarding to help and see other people resume their normal activities, knowing that I played a role in helping them. I’m not dead set on pursing PT yet, I still have a lot of thinking and praying to do. I just need to be patient in the process and wait for the Lord to point me in the direction He’s chosen for me.

I had to wear my first shirt and tie in 10th grade for my mentorship in orthopaedic medicine. I still wear that outfit for all formal occasions, we've been through a lot together. It's next appearance: August 3, Southbend, IN to present my research on Metallacrowns.

Getting ready to head into the O.R. with Dr. Aadalen. I didn't know what was coming!

One Hundred Eighty Degrees

One Hundred Eighty Degrees

    It’s funny how fast things can change. Last week at this time, I was in the University of Michigan’s library, taking a practice Graduate Record Examination (GRE), preparing myself for the real deal this upcoming fall. Over the last few days, I feel that the Lord has revealed to me through several different ways that pursing a Ph.D. in inorganic chemistry is not in His plans for me.
    Overall, it was a frustrating and difficult week in the lab for me. My graduate student who is assigned to mentor me had to leave for five weeks to get trained in for a Post-Doc he’s starting this fall. I felt stressed and had no reason to be. After spending a week in a graduate setting, I feel that I’ve already obtained much more insight into what life in grad school would be like – a life I don’t think is for me. Research entices me because you’re diving into the unknown, trying to make and do things nobody has ever done before.
    So far, I’ve synthesized a new Metallacrown in several different solvents, however my remaining time here will be spent trying to isolate it by growing quality crystals in order to further characterize my product using X-Ray Crystallography. Essentially, I’m this guy:

    The unfortunate part of research is that it’s 99% fail and 1% success. In the coming weeks I’ll be setting up thousands of different crystallizations, and even if only one succeeds, I will have accomplished a whole heck of a lot. Finding the conditions necessary to produce crystals is the Holy Grail of my project.
    The fear of failing doesn’t bother me; I already manage plenty of that everyday. The aspect I became most frightened about this week was the fear of my future. After some reflection, I realized that I don’t really have a plan B. If grad school didn’t work out, I wasn’t really sure what I would do. Maybe get an entry-level position in industry?
    After further evaluation, these thoughts left me discontent as well. The reason I wanted to pursue a Ph.D. was so some day I could be a professor at a small institution, and mentor young adults, offering them wisdom and advice to pursue and achieve their wildest dreams! I couldn’t really do that in an industrial setting, but this passion of mine, helping people in my profession, has lead me to strongly consider another profession which I think would be a great fit (but more on that next time).
    Right now, I feel a great sense of peace regarding my future. It’s somewhat uncertain right now, but I know that it will still incorporate science. My parents are wonderful and have been able to comfort me and offer wisdom throughout these few days. This story my dad sent me particularly resonated with my emotions. I feared that I was being sucked into the black hole of graduate school with no return. Headed down a path that wouldn’t lead to a satisfied life, a life where I’d have proper work-life balance.
    The most encouraging aspect of this journey for me has been God’s promises. The book of Proverbs is full of wisdom, and these two verses offer great comfort:

The fear of the Lord leads to life: Then one Rests content, untouched by trouble. – Proverbs 19:23

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and understanding, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your path straight. – Proverbs 3:5,6

    I feel that the Lord has revealed to me that grad school is not in his plans for me. I remain uncertain of His plan for me, but I know because I’ve placed me heart in His hands, He will lead me to the career and place exactly where He wants me. 

Mission to Michigan

    I’ve been in Ann Arbor for four days now and things are off to a very good start! The first few days have been a bit overwhelming in the lab. Besides getting caught up to speed on the project I’ll be working on this summer, I’ve had to go through basic and specific safety training, become acquainted with new (for me) software and instrumentation (Electrospray Mass-Spectrometry and 1H-Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy) along with being in a totally new town. A lot thrown at me at once, but I really like it here so far! My lab group is awesome, I’ve got some cool roommates, and Ann Arbor is a great town! I feel so blessed to be able to study ground breaking inorganic chemistry for ten weeks.
    Besides enjoying a new town, taking in some new research, meeting new people, running new trails and hanging out with a cool new church, my decision to pursue this opportunity revolved around one central question that I hopefully will have a solid answer to in the upcoming months: To go to graduate school or to not go to graduate school, that is the question!
    The beautiful thing about conducting research at the University of Michigan is that it is essentially a ten-week preview of what grad school will be like. In my time here, I’ll be collaborating with current graduate students, post docs (those who received their Ph.D. in the last 1-3 years), and even a visiting professor from Italy! It usually takes about five years to earn a Ph.D., and after the first two years, it’s 100% research until you’ve made significant progress in your field and your adviser feels your ready to graduate.
    As of right now, I’m a bit on the fence on whether to pursue further education, but I’m definitely leaning towards it. I’ve been immersed in research since my freshman year at Drake, but it’s clear that those who thrive in graduate school are those who are passionately driven to discover the unknown. You don’t spend five years of your life putting 50-60 hours/week or more into your research if you just like it… you have to love it! It’s definitely a trans formative process, I have been praying that the Lord would reveal His will for my immediate post-Drake future through this experience. It’s going to be a summer of fun and soul searching, I’m ready for the challenge!

A Season of Rest

¹There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:

²a time to be born and a time to die,
    a time to plant and a time to uproot,
³a time to kill and a time to heal,
    a time to tear down and a time to build,
⁴a time to weep and a time to laugh,
    a time to mourn and a time to dance,
⁵a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
    a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
⁶a time to search and a time to give up,
    a time to keep and a time to throw away,
⁷a time to tear and a time to mend,
    a time to be silent and a time to speak,
⁸a time to love and a time to hate,
    a time for war and a time for peace.

- Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

The past week and a half has been a time of rest and rejuvenation for me. I ended my “season” of studying and school work, and have temporarily entered into a season of much needed rest. Overall, the semester wasn’t overly grueling, but my mind, body, and spirit were ready for a good period of rest. Honestly, I’ve spent the last 10 days or so not doing too much. After our conference track meet in Wichita, I came down with a cold and spent much of the time recuperating, and thankfully had a lot of downtime to just do a whole lotta notta! I was able to read some good books and magazines, watch a few good movies, and not have to worry about studying and working on an assignment. I even got a week break from running, which was great too.

I remember some of my high school teachers warning me about how worn down you can get from a semester of college. I was never really sure if it was true, because I never experienced any kind of burnout from high school. I’ve certainly discovered that they were correct!

This past week I’ve begun to slowly ease back into a normal routine again (I even woke up at 9:00 yesterday!). I’ve been trying to make it a point to hang out with as many friends as possible; I leave for Ann Arbor on Tuesday! I’ve also gotten to spend a good amount of time with family so far too, which I’m thankful for! It’s going to be busy out at Michigan, it’s crazy that it’s almost here. Sometimes the best way to fill the lull from one busy period to the other is without much structure at all. My soul’s been craving a period of rest, and hopefully this downtime will give me the drive and energy to tackle the summer and my upcoming senior year head on!

Hay's In the Barn

    It’s a big week coming up! It’s final exam time, and also the Missouri Valley Outdoor Track and Field Championships are this weekend as well. After battling injuries and just missing the cut my first two years, this will be my first time running at the conference meet, I’ll be running the 10k!
    Preparation is critical to success in both running and school work. One thing my high school coach would always say leading up to a big race like the state meet is: “The Hay’s in the Barn”. In other words, all the preparation and hard work is done, now it’s time to freshen and sharpen up and let the cards fall where they may.
    In terms of running, I completed my last tough track workout this past Thursday. I’ve been amazed by the grace I’ve been given in the little time I’ve been back, these next few days I’ll do a few lights workout, and just work on stretching and rolling out my legs, hydrating well, and getting a lot of sleep so I can get the best performance out of my body Friday night.
    For school, it’s been a relatively light semester, and nothing has been overly demanding. This past weekend, I actually travelled back home for my twin sister’s graduation – she completed her degree in Animal Science from the University of Minnesota Crookston in only three years! It’s tough sitting here writing this right now, knowing that I should be studying while she can relax and watch T.V., not fair!
    Honestly though, I’m not too concerned with my academics regarding this week. I’m a big believer in getting an early jump on assignments and studying for tests. Cramming just doesn’t make sense! I came across this about a week ago and found it fitting regarding the upcoming championship track season and finals:

    “Did you ever consider how ridiculous it would be to try to cram on a farm – to forget to plant in the spring, play all summer and then cram in the fall to bring the harvest? The farm is a natural system. The price must be paid and the process followed. You always reap what you sow; there is no shortcut.”
    The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People – P.22

    It’ll be a fun week, I’m looking forward to taking a break from my studies for a while and relaxing. The finish line is in sight, it’s time to kick for home and finish strong!

    “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.” Hebrews 12:1-3