Divya's Portfolio

The Slap

2008-05-12T16:27:00.000-07:00

Here is one of my projects for Video Productions. It is an action scene with me as the bully, "slapping" one of my friends. Although the video itself is pretty small, you would not believe how long it took to shoot it. I probably "slapped" Anika (the victim) a hundred times! Don't worry, nobody got hurt during this production, it is all fake. Am I not a great actress though?

Biotechnology

2008-05-07T17:37:00.000-07:00

This is an overview of my Biotechnology Project. I presented this paper with my co-researcher at the Manitoba Schools Science Symposium 2008. We received a gold medal and were judged to be the best biological project in the intermediate category. This carried an award of $100 for each of us.

Summary:

Inhibiting Essential Genes in Search of new Antibiotics.

Bactericidal or Bacteriostatic effect?

The outcome of this experiment is to find the effects of the absence of an inducer on Burkholderia cenocepacia conditional mutants. The main goal is to find whether the effects are bactericidal or bacteriostatic.

We changed our bacteria so that one of the genes in the bacteria will be dysfunctional if an inducer is not added. We are using Rhamnose, a type of sugar, as an inducer.

Bactericidal effects mean that the bacteria die, and bacteriostatic effects means that the bacteria just stop growing for as long as the inducer is absent. If the deficiency of Rhamnose causes lethal effects, it means that the gene controlled by Rhamnose is an essential gene.

An essential gene is a gene that is very important to bacteria. Without it, the bacteria are not able to live. For instance, if a bacterium did not have a cell membrane, it would not be able to function because its organelles would no longer be protected. Therefore, the gene that is in charge of a cell membrane is an essential gene.

We expected the results to be lethal when we cultured the bacteria without Rhamnose. If that was the case, that means that the gene controlled by Rhamnose is an essential gene. This information would be very useful for scientists who want to find new antibiotics for Burkholderia cenocepacia infections on Cystic Fibrosis patients.

To find our results, we had to first grow the conditional mutants of Burkholderia cenocepacia bacteria. We filled four tubes with these bacteria. Two of these had Rhamnose in them. We labeled these two tubes live control and plus Rhamnose. We did not put any Rhamnose and labeled these two dead control and minus Rhamnose.

Once we had grown the bacteria for 24 hours, we had to centrifuge them to get the bacteria to gather at the bottom. After this, we had to get rid of the LB Medium. We went through all the procedures of washing the LB medium off of the bacteria, and then made sure to kill all of the bacteria in the dead control tube. To view the difference between the dead and alive bacteria, we used the Live/Dead Baclight Bacterial Viability Kit. This kit allowed us to add fluorescence to the bacteria in order to see whether the bacteria were alive or dead. The live bacteria would glow green, while the dead bacteria would glow red. We prepared slides and viewed the results of our experiment.

Our controls indicated whether the fluorescent dyes were performing accurately. They were accurate because our dead control was 100% red and our live control was 100% green. Then, we proceeded to see our results. The bacteria we grew with Rhamnose were 99.4% alive and the bacteria that we grew without Rhamnose were 60.3% alive.

The fact that 39.7% of the bacteria in the minus Rhamnose was dead proves that the effect of the absence of Rhamnose is lethal. The lack of Rhamnose is shutting down one gene in every bacterium. The destruction of this gene is slowly killing the bacteria. This proves that the gene that has been shut down is an essential gene.

In the future, scientists can use the data that we found to formulate new antibiotics that will cure Burkholderia cenocepacia infections on Cystic Fibrosis patients.

We had assistance from the University of Manitoba and we were sponsored by Manitoba Health Research Council. Our mentors were Dr. Cardona and Mokhtarodin Shakibani.

My Digital Story

2008-05-06T12:27:00.000-07:00

This is a story that I wrote for my ELA class. It is called "You Never Know" and is about a girl with a father in the army. I put it in an audio-visual form but you can only view part of it here due to restrictions of the lengths of videos on Blogger. Despite this, below is the written story.

You never know
Divya Parveen

Jules ran out the back door of her tiny house while her mother yelled after her. “Juliet, don’t forget your coat.” It was the beginning of September, the beginning of autumn, and the beginning of another hard year at a new school. Her almond-chocolate eyes were filled with worry and tiredness. Her glossy dark brown locks bounced on her shoulders and behind her back. As she ran she heard the crunching sound of fallen leaves beneath her worn denim flats. The sound reminded her of her father, autumn was his favorite season just like hers. It seemed that everything was reminding Jules of her father lately. She always worried about him, always thought about him because she felt like if she could be scared enough for him he wouldn’t have to be scared for himself. Jules’s father was in Afghanistan, a soldier so that he could earn some money for his family.

It wasn’t that Jules’s family was poor, oh no, her mother was a successful lawyer and they could afford a huge house with lots of land. However, Jules’s father Charlie felt, as the man of the house, he should have been contributing something to the household. At first Jules and her mother thought he wanted more money for himself, so they moved into a smaller house and minimized the amount of money they used. Charlie still left, and in an attempt to make it easier for Jules to see her father, the family moved from house to house depending on where Charlie was training. After their last move, Charlie was sent to Afghanistan, and Jules was left with her mother in a town in the United States of America.

Jogging towards Holcomb High School, she wondered what her new classmates would be like. Would her new school be sports oriented? Why was the school’s mascot a hornet? What exactly was a hornet anyway? She reached the front doors and she exhaled, watching her white breath float through clean, crisp, cool air. She swung open the door and walked inside. The hallways were filled with people laughing, walking, chatting, and gossiping. The hallways were filled with questioning voices- “Did you hear about…?” “How was your summer?” and answers “Oh, I went to Hawaii..” As she sat down in her chair for her first class, she was aware that a few people were looking at her. She smiled politely, in the hopes that she would be able to make friends quickly and be able to leave them painlessly. She knew enough about friendship to know that it didn’t last long, because there were too many new beginnings, too many ends. By the end of the day, Jules was hanging out with a Chinese girl named Jai-li whom everyone called Jilli. Jilli’s father was also in the army. In the next two months, Jules would make more friends, but always keep them at a distance because she knew she would yet again move when her father came back from his service. Jilli was the same way, this was the reason the two girls became fast friends.

She knew, she knew, she must have known that Charlie would come back. Sometimes what you thought you knew ends up being false information. Jules told everybody he would come back because she believed he would. She knew he would.

When Jules’s mother found out, she called Jules at school and told her to come home. It was the middle of winter, and fat lazy snowflakes were slowly falling from the sky. Jules didn’t yet know what had happened to her father, so she was enjoying the walk back. With the beautiful white blanket of snow covering the ground, everything was so serene, and somehow sad. For some reason Jules didn’t know, she started crying, the tears shimmering on her face as the snow shimmered in her hair. As she walked through the back door of her tiny house, she wondered why her mother had called her to come home in the middle of the day. When she got into the house, and looked at the back of her mother’s hair, she thought she knew. Jules hadn’t seen the tears swimming in her mother’s brown eyes. She hadn’t seen the letter stating that Charlie was dead, that his body couldn’t be recovered. So she thought that her father was coming back. She thought this was the news her mother was going to give her and so she smiled. She thought she knew, but she was so wrong because you never know.

A second later, her mother turned around and looked straight into Jules’s eyes. Jules felt detached from her body as her stomach dropped and she turned deathly pale. She heard what her mother said as if she were far, far away from her. Charlie would never come back. He was shot in the heart and died instantly. When Jules heard this she felt she too had been shot in the heart. Jules realized that Jilli’s father was in the same group as her own father. For this reason Jules called Jilli. She found out that Jilli’s father had been shot as well.

One year later, once again on a cold winter day, Jules was walking to school with her friends. The houses looked like gingerbread houses, with brightly candy colored doors and sugary snow glazed roofs. For Jules this day was a happy one because although it was her father’s death’s anniversary, it was also the anniversary of her realization, her epiphany. After her father’s death, Jules had come to the conclusion to live life as best she could, because you never know what could happen tomorrow. She drew in her friends and tried to have fun, tried not to worry so much about what could happen. Her father liked to say an old Indian proverb- “Kal ho na ho”- Tomorrow may or may not be. Jules knew that if tomorrow were to never come for her, she wanted her life to have been fun.

On the other hand was Jilli. A year after her father had also died; Jilli was still trying to deal with it. As the opposite of Jules, Jilli had pushed away all of her friends and become obese while trying to cope with her losses. She still always worried about everything, always tried to know what would happen next. But she couldn’t, because you never know.

20 years later Jules moved to a new neighborhood with her young daughter and handsome husband. As she left her old memories behind, she walked from door to door with her daughter delivering sweets to her old friends. At the corner, the old house where Jilli lived alone, with her many cats. The young children called her “Old Jelly Belly” and were afraid to approach her house. Jules had taught her daughter to respect Jilli. Jules had long ago realized that she would have become exactly like Jilli had she not made the decision to live her life in a positive way.

As Jules’s daughter grew up she learned about her late grandpa Charlie. As she ran out the door, eager to crunch the colorful newly fallen leaves under her feet, she heard Jules call out to her. “Don’t forget your coat!” The child wondered what her new school would be like. She wondered if it would be sports oriented. “You never know,” she thought.

Acadia Open House Video

2008-05-01T20:03:00.000-07:00

This is the Acadia video that we made for our Video Productions class. This was used during the Acadia Open House to invite kids from feeder schools to come to our Junior High. We used a theme--Are you smarter than an Acadian 7th grader?

Infomercial

2008-04-10T12:01:00.000-07:00

This is an Infomercial about a type of Mascara that can also be used as a camera, phone, mp3, player, and internet. You can even watch TV on it. Unfortunately, this product is not real. We just made it up ourselves!

Anti-Smoking Advertisment

2008-04-10T11:50:00.000-07:00

I created this video for my Media Explortation class. It is an advertisment that is designed to make people want to quit smoking.

"Glamorous Hair Gel" Advertisment

2008-04-10T11:37:00.000-07:00

I made this advertisment for my Media Exploration class. The picture of the woman was given to me and I photoshopped that picture to make this advertisment for "Glamorous Hair Gel."

Future Plans and Goals

2008-03-11T19:26:00.000-07:00

When I grow up, I would like to be a doctor or a professor. I want to do something creative that has meaning to me. My dream job is to be a movie director so I can read, write, watch movies, and be as creative as possible. Some of my future goals include attending Princeton University, obtaining a fun, yet meaningful career, and of course getting married and having a family. My plan to achieve all of my goals is to work hard for what I want. I hold on to my dreams in the hopes of making them real. I know that if I work hard enough, I can do anything. I would like to live in a big city with different cultures, languages, and religions. Some cities such as Los Angeles, New York, and even Vancouver are places that I would enjoy living in. In these places and with my job I hope to create a fun, hardworking, and artistic lifestyle.

My Beliefs Around Education

2008-03-11T18:56:00.000-07:00

I believe that education is essential because it helps me learn skills that will be important for my whole life. My education is one of the most important things in my life, along with health, friends, and family. I know that my education will help me in the future because any career that I obtain will definitely need intellect. I believe my skills include Mathematics, Science, and English Language Arts so these are the areas that my future job should include. I value education very highly because I know that going to school is a chance that many teenagers in 3rd world countries don’t receive. This education will help me succeed in life, so I wish to succeed in performing well in my education.

My Autobiography

2008-03-11T18:42:00.000-07:00

I was born in Fayetteville, Arkansas in the United States of America. For 5 years, I lived in the US, and then moved to Winnipeg, Canada. I have one sister, a mom, and a dad. They all live with me. We aren’t that big of a family so they usually don’t get on my nerves! I enjoy reading, writing, and dancing. I also love hanging out with my friends and shopping. My life is enjoyable but I still try to work as hard as I can. The most important aspects of my life include my education and my friends and family.