Day Two

Day's Itinerary: 

Thursday:       7:00 am – 6:00pm                     Tours                                                Attire-casual

                       6:30 pm – 7:30 pm                      AAAS Opening Session                  Attire-casual

                                                                           President’s Reception

                       10:00 pm - 11:30pm                   Delegate Lounge/Study Room         Attire-casual

I woke up at 5:30 this morning in order to get ready for an exciting round of whale watching. We were supposed to meet by 6:45, so I headed out about 6:30 down to the lounge. My room mates and I were in different bus groups, so we separated up when we went on the bus. I ended up sitting with a friend from Massachusetts; Abhi. We ate breakfast on the bus... which consisted of a bagel, an oat bar [That I coincidentally have and eat at home!], jam, cream cheese, an apple, and grape juice. I didn't finish my breakfast, so I took it with me onto the whale watching boat.

I hung out with Kelly from Massachusetts, as well as David and Peter from Illinois, Thien, Jon, and several other people. Over the trip that lasted several hours, we ended up in Mexican waters, and eventually everyone's cellphones hit "roaming" as we went into uncharted territory [Well, at least for me, it was unknown.] A woman from Scripps told us about different birds as we went by, and pointed out the various sea lions we saw. My friends and I took many, many pictures of birds.

More than halfway through the trip, we hadn't seen any whales, so we ended up feeding the various birds that followed the whale watching boat to get food. Then the crew members saw a whale blow, and we finally saw our first and only whale on the whole trip. It was pretty cool; we got to see a large proportion of the back of the whale. The woman from Scripps told us that the whale was probably a younger whale, due to the lack of barnacles on the back. She also told us that the whale was probably younger due to the unusual pattern of when it popped up on the surf surface.

After the whale trip, we went to General Atomics. Once there, we were given a presentation about fusion and its importance to the general public. We were walked through different demonstrations; the presenter showed us several different things that produced a fusion, which looked similar to lightening. After the presentation, we were walked through the facilities, learning about the delicacy of working with ionized gas. The presenter showed us the strength of magnetism through an experiment with soda pop cans. He crushed them in various different ways through the force of magnetism. The trip to the General Atomics was overall interesting, as it had a lot to do with Physics, which I am luckily taking.

Following General Atomics, my friends and I played basketball and volleyball. I apparently was very good at defending the ball in basketball. :]

The reception was held at 6:30, so we listened to a speaker talk about aquaporins [spelling?] and how he became interested in the field of Science. It was incredibly interesting, but half way through, it became hard to follow, as the whole experiment was very advanced. The speaker talked about the different types of genetic diseases that could come from genetic defects with the aquaporins. I did learn, however, that the aquaporins are the proteins in our body that regulate the flow of water. The dinner followed afterward, however my friends decided to go out and get dinner at a Mexican restaurant. Following that, I reread my paper several different times, and went to bed.