S P E C I A L  T O P I C S : B I O T E C H + D E S I G N

As the final project presentations were underway, I couldn't help but feel impressed and inspired by the creativity and hard work that each group had put into their projects. The first day of presentations focusedon food-related projects, and it was truly a feast for the senses. Each group had prepared their own dishes, ranging from kimchi to soba and even homemade kombucha.

For week 8, I caught a bad flu so I missed the class. However, I heard Yama told me about the fascinating trip to visit the meteorite gallery on the South campus and the rooftop at Bolter Hall. Although I missed the class trip this time, it is lucky that I had a chance to see the mercury and moon in my freshman year in 2019 on the rooftop. It was for my EARTH, PLANETARY AND SCIENCE 9 class as a GE class.

For week 8, I caught a bad flu so I missed the class. However, I heard Yama told me about the fascinating trip to visit the meteorite gallery on the South campus and the rooftop at Bolter Hall. Although I missed the class trip this time, it is lucky that I had a chance to see the mercury and moon in my freshman year in 2019 on the rooftop. It was for my EARTH, PLANETARY AND SCIENCE 9 class as a GE class.

Week 9 unfortunately I had left broad before class and went to the hospital because I was experiencing breathing problems. I ended up having a lung infection! Huge bummer. But my classmates who made projects about food presented their final research and pieces to the Food Studies class. I'm sure they all did amazing.

In class this week we had the pleasure of Speaking to the astrophysicist Santiago again, and learn more about the Universe! The class led by Santiago went to South Campus, where we first visited the meteorite gallery. It was amazing to be able to see and touch meteorites in person, and feel them and hear the metal clink noise some of them make. It was really amazing to think about honestly, that these things in front of me had lived so long, and traveled from somewhere far off in space. They are like fossils of different lives and centuries in our universe.

This week we began independently working on our projects. Aileen, Stella and I dived deeper into our "Mukjah!" project, honing into what we would like to present to the class and how. As we were researching kimchi, we were really intrigued that each variation had its own unique history. To highlight these histories, we plan on making a poster or diagram specifically for this section. We split two kimchi variations per person (six in total).

Week nine started with the food studies and fermentation presentations. My class peers brought their food study dishes ready to share with the rest of the class. My favorite was Louis’ mint and pineapple kombucha. It was surprisingly bittersweet, a taste that crept up slowly and lingered in the back of my throat. It was quite a refreshing and delightful treat.

There was a last minute request for us to present our project early, so we rushed to bake three loaves of bread, photograph all our breads and ingredients, prepare our slide deck, and design our poster over the weekend. I was responsible for photographing and editing all the bread pictures, and adding them and laying out the Venn diagram on our poster. I was also in charge of carrying three loaves of bread to class.

I spent the weekend before this week finalizing a lot of scenery ideas for the book. The beginning forest scenery spoke out to me and was relatively easier to illustrate. The foliage has always been so comforting for me, and has held me through the most uncertain of times. I also loved the reflection scenes, particularly because of the symbolism the scene carries.

This final week for presentations, Collette, Valentin, and I baked our bread based on the different grain we were researching. Since my grain was wheat, I made rosemary no knead bread from week 2 that Professor Vesna lectured on. Below are some pictures I documented of the process. In order to allow the bread to rise, I had to put it away in a warmer area for 6 hours.

This week, each group presented their final projects. I had planned to present with my group on our project about bread during our usual class time on Tuesday, but due to the last-minute change of plans to present all the projects related to food during the Fiat Lux class that afternoon, I was unfortunately not able to attend the presentations because I had already made plans and would not have been able to make it in time anyway.

This week we got to see people’s projects come to fruition and work on the completion of our own projects. On Tuesday we got to see the final projects of those who made projects relating to food. It was very exciting to get to taste people’s creations and learn about the cultural and scientific information behind it. Enjoying food together always seems like the fastest way to unite a group of people so it was nice to book-end our class with that.

During this week, each group presented their final projects, which are so inspiring and impressive to me. On Tuesday, groups who did topics with food brought us a “feast”, food they made themselves, including Kimchi, soba, Kombucha, bread, as well as cucumber. It is interesting to have a chance to eat food made by our classmates and to hear the stories behind each dish. I think it might be hard to think deeply while cooking a certain food during our daily times, so those projects could afford the group time and chance to think and experiment with food more profoundly.