Pharmaceutical manufacturing facility? I’m a microbiologist and that’s where I work, and we also have a chemistry department (both product quality control). We have proprietary information, but nothing super classified.
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Beauty industry? Food chemists?
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Universities - professors love cheap / free help. Likely needs to be 16 yo (assuming similar to US rules) for any lab work.
Veterinary- assays, diagnostics, etc.
Agriculture - lots of lab assays, lab work, but also greenhouse and field work (more organisms). Any extension offices, natural resources offices, USDA.
Even med testing, forensics should have coded samples, so no privacy issues.
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I don’t know and neither does he. He’s taking his first ever bio class.
These are all great suggestions. The issue is that I don’t know which of them, if any, exist in my city. But it’s a place to start with research.
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If there’s any fisheries/hatcheries or whatever they call the places where they hatch fish from eggs and raise them to release for fishing, they use a lot of bio and chemistry. They’re usually govt funded here, though I don’t know about up there.
Zoos/aquariums often have a research component if they’re large enough
Construction companies often hire bio consultants to tell them if they’re going to wipe out any endangered species. It’s soul destroying work, but it’s work.
Wouldn’t hurt to learn how to program pretty well, being able to write your own code in bio/chem/etc makes you a hero there. In computer science, it’s just sort of expected that you write code every minute of the day, especially in your free time. I’m a bad computer sicentist…
Oh yeah! Breweries often have microbiologists and chemists if they’re decent sized.
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Industrial chemical plants might be another possibility.
Food chemistry was mentioned. Usually that’s R&D type work so more sensitive, but quality control or for food is a possibility. My wife takes on interns in her lab.
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Seconding universities! Not everyone is willing to work with high school students but some are. In the US, the norm would be to email professors directly to inquire about it rather than any sort of centralized university office. You can find informat about their lab/research as well as contact info on department websites. Describe in the email what you are envisioning in terms of hours, volunteer vs paid, etc.
If you have any extended network that might know postdocs or grad students that would be a good place to start as well. Many research university professors are going to email their postdocs and say “does anyone want an intern?” rather than dictating that it happens so the person doing the supervising is the one you want to connect with.
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This, plus if you have any fancy private high schools where the professors send their kids they sometimes have programs set up with the colleges (because nepotism) so you could piggyback on that. If he wants to do wetlab work there’s a lot of safety stuff so for liability the universities usually want students to be in an actual program so stuff like workers comp isn’t in question if there’s a lab accident.
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I did an internship in a public university chem lab in high school, and it was a great experience.
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Next door neighbour is an astrophysicist. I leaned over the fence to chat and now kiddo has a connection to the university science department. Does he want to help with research? Teaching? One colleague is working on the mars rover project. Or study bats? Or…
I hope he follows up. These are awesome opportunities.
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Has anyone ever tried to do a capsule wardrobe for their gym clothes? I feel like I have too much of some stuff and not enough of other stuff and it might be helpful to have more of a system. Oh and suggestions welcome for what to have in what quantity!
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How much variety do you need in your gym clothes? Like do you need different things for different activities? I wore pretty much the same things all the time so at one point I made it part of my laundry-put-away routine to have a sports bra and extra socks/underwear for post-workout, put those on a folded-in-half-vertically shirt which was on top of my pants, then roll the whole thing up. Not quite a capsule wardrobe, but each thing made a capsule if that makes sense?
All my pants were basically grey or grey-ish so all my shirts went with them, but all my shirts were things I’d gotten for free at various events over time so I wasn’t super concerned about matching or fashion. I actually bought my first new gym shirt right when the pandemic started, lol.
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Not that much variety but a little? I like yoga pants for everything, I like really tight tops for climbing and gym workouts for modesty reasons but I prefer looser tops for hiking and cycling for comfort. I also like layers for warming up and for cold weather, so sometimes that’s a sweatshirt or a tighter athletic layering piece. Plus sports bras and socks and stuff like that. For outdoor workouts in winter I like thicker yoga pants.
Haha, yeah I guess this is a lot of variety now that I’m writing it all out!
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I basically Kon mari’d my athletic gear. But I thought about all seasons and all activities so I didn’t throw out an ugly shirt that is a good camping shirt. So I use my everyday leggings for everything, two sports bras, one t shirt, two long sleeve, etc. If I went to a gym I’d get a few gym tops, but I don’t need them for now. I think the biggest thing is hauling it all out in front of you and sparking joy and checking categories
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As part of my transformation into suburban housewife, I am participating in a “meal train” for neighbors who just had a baby. They also have 2 toddlers. What are some decent recipes that will help me fulfill my neighborly duty? (Bonus points for cheap and easy to make)
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Off the top of my head:
Baked things like muffins. Easy to eat one handed, toddlers generally like muffins.
Mac n cheese casserole.
Depending on how much work you want to put into it (and big disclaimer here: I’ve never done a meal train myself, I’m just thinking of food prep for toddler having households), make a second, simpler version of something - e.g. when we make quesadillas that have chicken, beans, peppers, etc. sometimes for Kiddo his will just be a tortilla with cheese. For pasta dishes that will have something served over it, you could just package the pasta separately from what goes on top. Kiddo’s toddler meals were frequently just deconstructed versions of what we were eating plus a banana or something on the side that we knew he’d eat.
Extra credit: Might they also want easily available snacks? I’m thinking like cut up carrots/celery/peppers to go with hummus, then the kids will pillage whatever mom’s/dad’s snack is which is a ninja way to get them to eat vegetables. (Just thinking of this if you’re going to be cutting up stuff anyway, or buy precut stuff at the store like those little carrot chip things.)
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Make sure to find out if they have any allergies or things they really don’t like. Also, it was nice when we got a meal train if something had SOME leftovers, but not like 3-4 meals, solely because we had people bringing us food every 2 days and our fridge got overwhelmed with tupperwares.
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I was thinking tacos for this reason. Easy because you just cook the meat and send the fillings and they get to choose what they like.
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Does anyone have a waterpik? My dentist suggests I get one (small mouth, hard to floss in the way back). Wondering if I should go for the cordless version so I can do it in the shower?
For large batch items like chili, I like to put them into freezer containers, labeled, and gift one fresh portion and the rest frozen for this reason.
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