Symposium Experience - Stephen Lau

     I had a great time at the symposium.  It felt like a time where everyone go finally enjoy their day and be proud on what they did so far for their project and that is exactly how I felt that day.  After everything everybody did this whole summer,  we just went to each other's posters act ask questions about our project.  I went to all the other SEED students poster who were't in my shift and ask them a few things about their poster.  It was fun to see whether if they knew everything about their project because they would either knew what they were saying and blew my mind away, or they would stutter and think what they were doing.
     However when it was my shift to stand by my poster, didn't really get many people to come by and ask me questions about my poster.  They were mostly looking at the poster next to mine, the one with a picture of a pretty girl.  It was mostly about ways to decrease the size of pictures and different methods on how to achieve that goal.  How do I know all this you may ask?  Well I also ask the people around questions about what they have done and they also asked about my work as well.  Besides the two undergraduates students around my poster, only two other people came to my poster, Robert and Kelly's cousin, who was force to come (my mentor promised to bring someone and have them asked a lot of questions to see if I knew what I was doing).  I was nervous every time someone came by though, because I wan't sure if I could answer' everyone's questions.  Luckily, every person that came by to checked on my poster usually got confuse after I explained what I did for my project, but I did try my best in describing my work in simpler terms.
     Even though it was a great day for us to share our hard work with people, it was also saddening to know that it was the last day for the undergraduates.  I personally don't like saying goodbyes because you know that there's a slim chance in seeing them again.  I was going to miss everyone especially the undergraduates in my lab group.  I became good friends with everyone in the Madura Lab and didn't feel like an outsider to them at all.  They always helped me out in anyway I can even if it was simple problem like using an iMac. I know I can be annoying with all my silly and absurd questions, but they didn't hesitate one bit when I had any trouble.  Knowing that it would be my last time seeing them was difficult for me, but when I think about it, if I have never applied for Project SEED, then I would have never met any of these wonderful people and the same goes for everyone else I've met so far.  I had a great time and the symposium was like a farewell party with a celebration for our hard work.  It felt like a time where you could be ecstatic yet you would also feel some sort of emptiness because you know that everyone is was going leave after that day.  It's a shame but I guess all good things must come to an end.