Week 3! (in lab..)

Dear Blog,

This blogging once a week plan is failing slightly moreso than I had originally anticipated.. In any case, let me update you on the past two weeks:

So last, last Monday we began working in the labs. Things started out pretty slowly for me. Professor Liu and I decided that I would use the first two weeks to spend a day with each grad student so they could introduce me to their projects and I could get a general understanding of what was going on in the lab. Afterward, I would choose who I wanted to work with.

I spent Monday-Wednesday of the first week reading papers. On Thrusday and Friday and the following week, I worked with a different grad student each day. While it was neat to be able to see what each student did and spend time with everyone, I think it would have been better to have tried to fit everything into one week instead of taking two. Maybe working with one grad in the morning and another in the afternoon and reading papers in the evening would have been better. Getting out early everyday was nice, but I'm concerned about having enough time to finish a project now. Additionally, the chem building may get shut down in the middle of July for the Olympics. So that would only give me a month to work.. We will have to see how things turn out, though.

Life outside of the lab is going well. I've mostly been working out and resting a lot. And shopping. There's a ton of stuff to do/see/buy in Beijing and it's pretty easy to get around once you learn how to take a cab and use the bus and subway systems. We've been going to a couple different clubs on the weekends. Overall, they've all been really nice, but pretty expensive. It's been fun, though.

I think this weekend we may be taking a train out to the east coast to go the beach. We need to look into the details though (aka getting tickets and hotel rooms). And if not, maybe the zoo or some musuems. It could possibly depend on the weather. Even though Beijing is apparently just supposed to be hot and humid all summer long, I've found that the weather is sort of violently unpredictable. We've probably had rain and storms every week since we've been here. We've had days where it's been so dry and dusty and windy, you wanted to wear your lab goggles out into the streets. And of course we've had the very hot and humid (but apparently the hottest is yet to come)..

Today is the first day of our third week in lab. I've chosen a grad student to work with, Sun Jiying, who is incredibly nice and friendly and speaks English very well. I've just been helping her out with her experiments today, so we will have to see if I ever end up with a project of my own.

That is all for now..