Sunday, July 12, 2015
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Saturday, I was with family and friends all day back in Salisbury. We had a nice cookout at my brother's house. Of course,the food was delicious! We had carne asada (grilled beef), frijoles charros (charros beans), arroz (rice), elote (corn), homemade tortillas, ceviche,sandia, mango, and piña with chili powder. Then, they surprised me with a birthday cake! A red velvet ice cream cake accompanied by delicious german cupcakes from a family friend. We ended the day with a little dance off section and took it back to 90’s music.
Monday was back to work. We prepared another target substrate to analyze, by now we could breeze through this procedure anyday! We got a review of how the AFM(Atomic Force Microscope) works. After a small training section with JJ, we practiced the process, becoming more familiar with the controls and softwares. Since it takes about 20 min for each flake to be scanned, I spent all day Tuesday analyzing the flakes on Target Substrate 2. Wednesday, Thursday went pretty much the same way-- scanning and analyzing the flakes from Target Substrate 3. Friday was pretty relaxing and short day, weeding out the flakes we scanned that did not fit the profile, naming the files, and organizing them in folders.
This Wednesday after work I went to Las Cafeteras concert at the Strathmore Music Center. I loved, loved their music. I loved how each song started out with a poem, narrating the story of a family member or a movement. I loved their remix of La Bamba with their lyrics talking about crossing borders and the struggles of an immigrant. Their songs are real and speak so much truth, they sang about being Chicano and being part of East L.A. They made a call to action, asking us all to think deeply about what we want to change and how we are going to go through with it. They asked the kids in the audience what they would do if they were presidents, and the kids were excited to share their thoughts with us. Cafeteras' message about this action-- an uncorrupted mind knows best on what we need to do to make our world better.
Veronica Martinez-Vargas