Hello! It’s Ashna, and welcome back to my newsletter where I post short updates on what I’ve been learning and building! ✩
I’m so grateful you’ve chosen to accompany me here as I continue to learn and grow. I can’t believe that half of 2024 has already passed—but time has a way of continuing to chug along whether we like it or not…
contents
work - cell lamp, UHN, PCR @McMaster, personal website
mind - waves, spontaneity, and authenticity
links - books, art, world wide web
gallery
up next! (summer ‘24)
work
The tangible things I completed this quarter.
💡 designed a 3D cell model as a lamp - biodesign project
The aspect that made me fall in love with the science of biology is how visually beautiful it is. Simulations of proteins, completing their functions like alien limbs. In depth diagrams of photosynthesizing leaves. Colourful, rich micrographs of crystal-like fragments of carbohydrates. It lured me in.
This project was a really fun way to explore biodesign while learn a completely new skill (CAD). It was incredibly satisfying to make something tactile that started only as a dream in my brain.
🥽 touring the toronto rehab institute labs
Thanks to an event by InspireHer, I got to tour the insanely cool labs at the Toronto Rehab Institute. Pictured above is the Driving Lab, used to simulate car environments with a 360 screen, fully functional Audi, and a variety of sensors for different environments. This experience really made me appreciate the amount of research and testing behind every policy and new innovation brought into healthcare.
Thank you so much to Christy and Lyn for enabling this opportunity!
🧬 completed my first PCR protocol at mcmaster university
This quarter I also had the privilege of completing a PCR protocol (the process of preparing a DNA sequence to be copied) in the McMaster Biology Lab alongside the incredible Dr. Weretilynk. Thoroughly enjoyed the experience — it’s beautiful when you’ve written and researched about something for so long but then can put it into practice tangibly.
💻 designed my personal website → ashnanirula.com!
mind
How I’m exploring the depths of my subconscious iceberg. (The intangible things)
🌊 The waves i want to output.
I believe that everyone has an intangible energy, an aura lurking under the surface of their actions, words, physicality, and emotion. We all can feel these waves of energy, but we can’t see them.
﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌
With some people, both of your waves coalesce perfectly without even having to utter a word, but with others, it is only until you peel back layers of autopilot and vulnerability, can you see how your waves can shift to accommodate one another.
These literal mathematical transformations (sine and cosine) require compromise, understanding, and compassion. Altering should only occur for those who do it too.
This quarter allowed me to reflect on the nature of the “waves” I’m emitting into the world. I want to continue to build an approachable, energizing and genuine aura.
💥 People only deeply react when it’s truly authentic.
This quarter, I also experienced my first run-in with internet virality, because of my cell lamp project. It was definitely overwhelming, but I realized why it struck a chord with so many people — the post was interesting and truly me. The final product was an imagined idea in reality, and every ounce of my excitement was pored into it.
Sometimes when I look around me and see people playing inauthentic games and getting results — I stop and think, “hey, is it really worth caring this much? working so hard to find myself?”
But at that moment, and many more micro examples in the last few months, I was reminded of the value in doing things that might matter only to you. The importance of doing things that feel like they have a bit of your essence baked into their core.
That is where I have always connect the most profoundly to others, and where I’ve done my best work.
links
Internet portals to content that have been pushing the vibrancy of my ideas and thoughts.
📚 books
The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett on the deep ways nurture shapes your nature
When We Were Young by Richard Roper on how friendships evolve with different stages of life
🧚🏽♀️ art
My friend Chandhana’s beautiful “2024 so far”.
Probably the most gorgeous poem I’ve ever read: eschatology by Eve L. Ewing
I love Holly Warburton’s use of colour in her illustrations and animations
🌐 world wide web
The aesthetic of living things article from Josie Zayner (Biohack the Planet)
Great video by Nathaniel Drew about how the masculine ego is probably just rooted in…utility?!
I’ve been LOOVING Not Boring by Packy + Dan for tech news delivered into my inbox with optimism and clarity!
gallery
Photographs of moments and people that enhanced my zest for life this quarter.
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F167f8c24-e3d1-405a-870f-f0098f3b2756_1920x1080.png)
🔭 up next!
This summer I’m going to be helping my friend Jacob (founder of Purple Hydrogen Corp) build a bioreactor to scale a new bacteria-based form of hydrogen production. For more details, here’s the whitepaper about the project!
I’ll also be participating in buildspace nights and weekends season 5, a 6-week online event where you build ideas alongside others. I’m going to be building a digital field guide app called BioBook that turns photos of living things into detailed entries.
Additionally, I’ll be creating a mixed media magazine called the MondayMag with my friend Emily celebrating the magic in the mundane. Here’s a little page about the project!
thanks for reading!
💗 Appreciate you spending your time (your most valuable resource) reading my update about the second quarter of 2024. Life is so beautiful.
I look forward to making the most of it and sharing my fraction with you in the next letter!
Until then,
Ashna
Such a lovely read! Thank you for sharing your life with us :)