After subculturing and plating she could now begin to take a closer look at this blue-pen-large-lab-coat person’s experiment. This experiment was a three-day experiment that required digesting the contents of the fungal cells (which should be grown from a single colony for the first day) and purifying the DNA using a kit and measuring it for the second day. The second day required that DNA to be digested using a restriction enzyme and then run the sample through a DNA gel and take a picture. Technically that was easy enough, but as time was limited Carmen only had one chance to get this experiment right and she still wanted time to work on the simple chemistry experiments. So with one of her extra YEPD agar plates she streaked out the fungal strain she had grown overnight, aiming for colonies, that meant that tomorrow, Wednesday, she would have to waste a day to get the colony to grow, but she could save time by freezing down the cells and digesting them Thursday and if there was time even running the sample through the gel, if not she’d be finished Friday. 

Carmen could tell that this guy was testing not the techniques that the researchers had, but instead something more fundamental like planning and time management or even attention to detail. This particular experiment seemed to get a rise out of her that none of the other ones did, even the ones in her favorite subject of microbiology. But at the same time, Carmen was scared. What if this guy wasn’t anything that she was imagining? From school she knew that there was a common personality that the theorists had, some were full of themselves and others were plain mean. The only good thing was that most theorists were men. They tended to be nicer to female researchers, unlike female theorists. And for some reason, female theorists always had it in for Carmen. She was pretty with medium-length blonde hair and light brown eyes, but clumsy and clumsy researchers are usually avoided, because if they make a mistake that means less efficiency, which was very important. And it was true that Carmen had it hard, she had to repeat experiments because her samples were destroyed one way or another by her clumsiness but that meant she thoroughly learned techniques through repetition. To her surprise repeating experiments helped her understand the theory behind a lot of experiments (she had to figure out what went wrong), which helped her find loopholes that could tell her if she could make up lost time or work with a smaller amount of sample. Carmen learned how to appreciate and use her flaw and most of all forgive herself for making her life harder. 

Tuesday was just as tiring as Monday, but she had already finished two experiments, and Wednesday morning she would get the results from four more. Just before 5 pm, the teachers decided to make an announcement.

“Just on Wednesday, you will meet the theorists you all will be paired with. They won’t bother your work, but they will be in the class to observe you all. There will also be a break for lunch together so make sure to plan your experiments around 12 to 12:30 pm because we will be doing something special regarding how you can make a big impression on the theorist you may want to work with. Okay, it's 5 pm, clean up and leave,” the two teachers announced. 

Carmen decided to keep her microscope slides, just in case, and placed them in a container in her cabinet. She then refrigerated any agar plates she didn’t need, hung up her lab coat, closed her binder, and picked up all her things, and left. Her heart was pounding on her way home, she felt she wasn’t prepared to meet the blue-pen-large-lab-coat guy but entertained her curiosity and decided to imagine him anyways. He wore a large lab coat so he must be tall. It was funny because the lab coat did practically cover her knees. After all, Carmen was about 5’ 5’’. She wondered if he was super buff or athletic or slim. She hoped he was the latter two, although he didn’t have to be fit, she was afraid of buff guys. Despite not feeling prepared and now a bit scared she decided to do her best to impress the theorists tomorrow.