Marco and Polo Say Goodbye... To Marco and Polo

Marco and Polo here,
This week we come to you right after our final finals (and bar night with Dr. Mom, The Cultured One and Kilo)... It is a seriously bitter-sweet feeling looking back at the last four and a half years and looking forward to whatever comes next. This week we are saying goodbye to us, tragic we know! There is no way for you to really understand what it means for us to be leaving and going our 'separate' ways. To even begin to understand, you have to understand how we came to be...
Who would have thought that two people not getting into their 'perfect' school, the economy crash making it hard for two college sophomores to find co-op jobs, and an unorganized cold room could bring two people together? Seems insane but we like to believe that it was fate. Marco wanted to go into biology at U of M and Polo was applying to the Naval Academy in Annapolis. Had either of us gotten into our preferred school we would have never met, would have never been given the opportunity to work in the biochem department at Kettering and would have never moved into the Hobo House.
Even though we have a few classes together our freshman year we never really talked and we could hardly be considered friends (Polo was afraid of saying Marco's name wrong so basically avoided even saying hello for fear of calling her by the wrong name). It wasn't until we were both accepted as co-op students in the department the summer of our sophomore year, along with Whirly, that we even began to talk. The first Friday of work found us cleaning/organizing the cold room in the department... Doesn't sound so bad but we were elbows deep in pseudo-formaldehyde liquid bagging cow eyes and throwing out molding cardboard boxes (this was not a job for the faint of heart). It was over those buckets of cow eyes that we bonded, after all, "there are some things you can't share without ending up liking each other" (J.K. Rowling: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone). After that horrifying bonding experience we really started talking and by the end of that work term we did just about everything together within the department, a dynamic that has just gotten stronger the longer we know each other.

Macro and Polo reminiscing in the cold room
with a bag of masterfully sorted cow-eyes.

Since that fateful day, elbow-deep in cow-eyes, we've been inseparable. So inseparable that we've had professors tell us that we are basically the same person (yet they won't let us take tests together...go figure...).
   While we are sad to see our time at Kettering come to an end and to be saying 'goodbye' to the places and people who have helped us become who we are and have encouraged us to stop riding the lab coat tails and find our own adventures, it is the harsh realization that our lives may lead in very different directions that makes today an almost apocalyptic crisis in our lives.  Over the last term we have had to come to terms with saying, not goodbye but...

Stay nerdy and hope to see you (and each other) soon,
Marco and Polo

Marco and Polo Say Goodbye... To The Biochem Dept

Marco and Polo here,
   We can officially see the light at the end of the tunnel, or maybe that's just the train?  In light of our feelings of impending doom... Er we mean ecstatic accomplishment, we take this time to say goodbye to the place and the people we have come to call home over the last four and a half years.  The Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and the arguably insane but undoubtedly brilliant faculty and staff residing there.

The window into the department conference room,
where the weekly meeting of the minds occurs
(if the world is destroyed or saved in the near
future the plotting will probably happen here)

It is impossible to accurately express how much of our lives has been spent learning, labing, laughing, crying, eating, sleeping, hyperventilating, studying, working, scheming, nerding, and generally surviving within these walls over the last four years.  You think we're kidding or over-exaggerating, we thought so too until a janitor recognized us in the parking lot as 'those girls who live in the Biochem department'.  That moment made us pause to re-examine our lives...  After brief consideration and little debate we agreed to change absolutely nothing, a decision we have yet to regret.  Our love and dedication to the department has less to do with the amazing instrumentation and demanding schedules and a lot more to do with the incredible faculty and staff who are there arguably as much as we are.

Our board to introduce the professors and provide their schedules
for those souls who do not haunt the halls

• Dr. Adamantium: The impossibly sweet and brilliant professor of inorganic and bioinorganic chemistry who had the misfortune of putting up with the shenanigans of Marco, Polo and the Kid during our ambitious and nearly manic research phase
• Alchemik: There is no one better to go to if you want to hear about how chemistry used to be done.  Trust us, if you are worried about BPA, GMOs, or carcinogens be glad you were never a chemist in Poland...  And if a story about the good-old-days doesn't cheer you up there is always his kitten slideshow as backup
• Beaker: The first professor to break ground in the Chem E program
• Mrs. Captain Von Trapp: A chem E professor who doubles as Dr. Mom's sidekick and partner in crime
• La Catedratica: The MVP of Marco and Polo's 'faculty therapy team'...  Let's face it she is a good part of the reason this blog is not brought to you from within an asylum or is it?
• Chief: The glue, rubber band, and duct tape that holds the department together and who has survived the creation of Marco and Polo and the madness that has ensued since
• The Count: A genius of a P-chem professor, who spends much of his time convincing students his math isn't really magic, that we really are getting smarter, and that P-chem is any self-respecting-chemists favorite class...  We aren't drinking that Kool-Aide (which is a generally safe practice in chemistry since it's usually not Kool-Aide)
• The Cultured One: One of the first Applied Biology professors.  Who caught on to the ridiculous-ness which is Marco and Polo much to fast for our liking and who gave us one (or several) final swift-kick-to-the-ass
• Inspector Gadget: Kilo's right-hand-man and general lab Guru, who earlier this term attempted to make himself bionic while playing at home improvement.  He also gets a little sassy after five
• Kilo: Our primary candy supplier and landlord of our future desk-fort/home (she also puts up with way more Marco and Polo than anyone should have to)
• Lord of the Benzene Ring (LotBR): An ingenious, or possibly just straight-up genius, Organic professor...  Let's just say we hope he never joins the dark side and always remember 'There's No Crying in Organic Chemistry'
• Dr. Mom: Marco and Polo's crazy aunt and psuedo-mom all wrapped up into one insane package...  She's the person to thank, or maybe blame, for bringing about the dynamic duo of Marco and Polo
• Speed Racer: Our very first chemistry professor who taught us the importance of things we didn't fully appreciate or understand until now, not to mention the really important things like how to sleep in class, chemistry is just mixing drinks, and the real difference between a PhD and an MD
• Waldo: The tallest ChemE professor to ever walk the halls, quite possibly the tallest professor period...  We have spent the last few years trying to figure out a way to get him to wear red stripes in order to play the ultimate game of Where's Waldo

We cannot express our thanks to all of our professors, those listed and not, who have helped us reach this point.  We can only hope that we can make you proud and use everything you've beaten into...  Er we mean taught us over the years.

   Though finals week is just around the corner and students and faculty are buckling down for the storm there is still time for a little holiday cheer with a nerdy flair (really did you expect it any other way around here?).

This is the department's chemistree (made by Chief)!
Yes those are round-bottom-flasks.

This is our NMR (just about the coolest instrument in the school)
it's all ready for Christmas.  One of the students has even re-written
'Oh Christmas Tree' as a tribute to this nerdy decoration

   It is with heavy hearts and souls that we will be saying our last goodbyes and leaving this place that's become home and these people we call family.

As Always Stay Nerdy,

Marco and Polo

Marco and Polo Say Goodbye... To Kettering

Marco and Polo here,
   We hope everyone had an exceptional Thanksgiving holiday Marco and Polo were not saying goodbye to anything last week but have returned to school for our last few weeks.  Which for you, our readers, means a few more weeks of saying goodbye.
   Very much like the city of Flint, and Michigan itself, Kettering has deep roots in the motor industry.  Yes for those of you who haven't figured it out we are Kettering students.
       A Brief History of Kettering:
         There once was a small car company called General Motors (GM), it decided it needed engineers and business majors so built a University to mold their employees minds both in the classroom and in the workplace...  This little school (GMI) would, many years and a downsize in GM later, become Kettering University.
   Since those early days of engineering and business Kettering has expanded its educational horizon to include majors such as: computer science, physics, mathematics, and of course our very own biochemistry/chemistry/applied biology majors.  It also became the place Marco and Polo would find their serendipitous meeting.
   Here for your viewing, and reading, pleasure are just a few of the things that make Kettering unique:

The front of the Academic Building (AB),  in case you can't see it
General Motors Institute of Technology is written across the top,
 is the home of many of the majors at Kettering.

This is the bell tower, it is hardly EVER chiming at a rational time...
The year it was built the student body was also wanting a pool,
in that honor the cement area it is built next to is called the Pool by the student body.

Meet General Determination (a.k.a the Bulldog)
Kettering's trusty mascot who moonlights as a billboard...
Behind him you can see the lovely beach.

   Though we have a serious love-hate relationship with Kettering, this is our school, in a sense it is the place we have called 'home' for the last four and a half years.  Without our experiences here we aren't sure where we would be, or who we would be today.  For all the friends we've made, for all the things we've learned, for all the moments we've shared we own Kettering a proper goodbye.

Stay nerdy and we'll see you next week,

Marco and Polo