The sun was beautiful that morning.
Simon Fraser university, SFU for short, is where my dad works. He is a professor in organic chemistry, and is really good at his job! So I decided to follow him around for our recent “bring your kid to work day.” The day started off way to early. It was Halloween the night before and I went to bed late, so the morning hit me pretty hard! My dad and I hit the road after I had crawled out of bed and sluggishly put on clothes. We had to move fast because my dad had a new postdoc starting that morning and he did not want to be late to meet her. (The new post docs name is Yang and she is from china. Yang is exceptionally smart and very kind.) We stoped for a bite to eat at a French bakery on or way out,
( we only stopped because it took so long for me to get ready that we had to leave with out eating!) We made it to SFU with a little time to spare, before the meeting. My dad sat down in his desk and immediately started to check his email.
Do you know how some people are hooked to instagram or Snapchat? Well its like that for my dad, but only with “email.” Actually I guess that’s stretching the truth a little, my dad needs email to communicate with people he is working with on projects all over the world and he needs email to apply for grants, as well as publishing papers, and keeping up with his lab. He gets hundreds of emails everyday. I guess you could say he’s pretty popular! Anyway my dad and I headed to meet his new postdoc and introduce her to the rest of the lab. Which by the way is at about 18 people! And only 2 are girls! Yang enjoyed meeting my dad and I, and even brought us chocolate.
Down 2 flights of stairs lies my dads lab. He shares it with 2 other people but is slowly eating it up the space due to the rising number of students joining. I got to meet some of the students and all of them seem really nice and kind. By students I mean, either graduate, postdoc or doctor. My dad guided me around the lab but reasoned that it was unsafe to be in the lab so we left headed to my dads lecture.
My dads normal lecture hall was in use so he had to use a theatre. It was pretty embarrassing walking around the stage with 400 sets of eyes on you as your dad try’s to figure out which button opens the curtains and which one turns on the lights, but I was alright. I sat down in a front row seat i had saved and watched as my dad started to welcome the class. i pulled out my iPad and started to work only to freeze when i heard my name. I was already pretty embarrassed as I was, from just standing up, but my dad was now telling the whole class that he was “happy to have his daughter in for this bring your kid to work day.” I just closed my eyes and hoped it would be gone. But no such luck. He then directed everybody’s attention to directly where I was sitting and and introduced me to the odd 400 university students surrounding me. And to my surprise they started to applaud me, so I waved. That sure wakes you up in the morning! I guess I owe him a thank you, it was really nice and looking back it wasn’t that embarrassing!
After the lecture was over my dad let me go and interview Roger Linington. Professor Roger Linington directs his studies to chemistry. And I had a blast interviewing him and learning more about his research.
After I interviewed Roger I went down to his lab to see what happens down there. Did you know that there are million dollar machines built soully to find the mass of the tiniest things on earth? It’s funny to think about! I had learned so much that my brain was going to explode and it was only morning still! My dad though it was a good time to go for a run so we headed out on one of the most beautiful runs I have ever taken! We ran along one of the west coast trails and ended up at a lookout, though the lookout was not of SFU, it was of deep cove and I could even make out my home! ( Just barley)
The view was stunning but we needed to get back, so we ran/walked (only me) back to SFU. After our run we were famished, and my dad had made reservations at the DAC (The Diamond Alumni Centre) for lunch. ( My dad does not usually attend the DAC for lunch but since it was bring your kid to work day he thought it would be nice.) The DAC was serving Italian for lunch, and it was delicious! There was pasta salads, gnocchi and so many more! We were seated right by the window so the view was of deep cove. It was really weird and in a way cool to look at my home from that angle.
Lunch was finished off with some tirimasu and cupcakes.
The day only got busier from this point on. Well actually maybe after coffee with roger, it started to get busy. (Everyday my dad will go for coffee with roger to talk about science and catch up.)
I now had a meeting with Gerhard and Regine. Gerhard and Regine are from Germany and specialize in biology. Some projects they have done include, wasps, bedbugs, spiders and many more. My personal favourite was the discovery Gerhard and Regine made with the spiders. They discovered that a male spider ready to mate must “twerk” to let the female know! And so they called it the twerking spider and that discovery got loads of publicity!
The twerking spider is actually a really cool discovery, and I totally suggest reading deeper into it!
Gerhard and Regine showed me their lab ( so cool!) and then I had to move on. It was getting later now so we were pressed for time. I interviewed my dad, and I interviewed Yang and then we set off for our last stop. We got in the car and drove to SFU’s inqubator labs, where people starting there own company can have there own space. We went to go meet and interview my dads running partner, Ernie, who started his own drug company! It was really interesting, and he had a lot of information about his company. He created a drug and it is still in testing, but they are into testing on humans now, so I hope all goes well and his drug makes it out to curing people!
The sky had clouded up during the day and now promised of rain. I traveled back and I discussed what I had learned today with my dad, and I thought, “I am so lucky to have this opportunity, to be able to explore SFU, and to be introduced to science this early.”
I really owe my dad a thank you for giving me this opportunity and even if I do not want to pursue the sciences, I have is freedom about knowing what goes on, and how science works that not many have.
Anyway I had so much fun and learned a ton!
Thanks for reading and until next time..
Here’s my day!
https://youtu.be/884dZEt8Dv8
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