More Oxford Adventures....

So, I have been in the UK for nearly 2.5 weeks now and I still love everything about it. My lab was nice enough to let me take off on Friday, Monday, and Tuesday because my mom was in the country. We went to London twice (which is nearly 2 hours away via the Tube) and it was fantastic. The weather was of the stereotypical rainy/ cold/ windy type though. I really can't believe that it is summer! We had a high of 50 degrees on Saturday. Oh, one thing I am alway confused on is the differences of measurements. They use celcius and meters and military time. I always have to spend about a minute trying to figure out what time something like 16:24 is.

Work, however, is still going very well. I am now officially running babies on my own. Natalia, the postdoc I work for, is on vacation, so I'm running babies for her as well as babies for Nivi, another postdoc, and for my own project. In addition, I am editting the sound files used in our stimuli, which took me forever today. I had to go and isolate each word and adjust the volume and label them. Also, I am calling and booking babies, which is not my favourite thing to do. It's sort of redundant since a lot of times the moms aren't home or it's a wrong number, but it has to be done. I am also scoring more babies and Natalia was teaching me how to edit the computer program for the stimuli. Also, I am doing more on this word association project. Moms were asked to think like their two year old and asked to say what word came to mind when another word was given. A study was conducted 10 years ago where they were not asked to think like their child but just themself and we will be comparing the results. It is my job currently to go through the lists and get them in order. I really feel like I am accomplishing something here, which is great. There are still some tasks that I would rather not do - my PI asked me to reorganise his book shelves so they are alphabetical and categorical. And he has like a million books! However, he did tell me my primary job is to do research, which is nice.
I am surprised though, at how much work there really is to do. My lab at Emory is considerably smaller, so there weren't as many studies going on. I worked from 9-6 today and I should have stayed longer, but I was just really tired...when I left pretty much all of the 8 researchers (post-docs/grad students/etc) were still there. I always have lists of things to do and I never can finish everything. I even work when I get home quite often and I know I will have to probably either go in or work at home this weekend.

Socially, my lab is still my major outlet. The psych department had drinks at this nice place called the University Club, which is next to our Experimental Psychology building. However, each lab pretty much stayed to themselves and we went to dinner afterwards. I really like everyone a lot - we are planning to go see Pirates, play pool, and have a movie night at lab, all next week. They are also trying to plan real trips, like to Switzerland, but I don't know if I'll still be around. Even though they are older, I really feel comfortable and I completely fit in. And, thanks to my mom, I now know my next door neighbor. He's really nice and from Italy and he came to visit this evening. Apparently he had been wondering what I was doing in this building, as they are all grad students/professors...he had said that I look so young. Tonight he told me he thought I was 17. I told him he gave me more credit then some people - I've gotten 16 more than once. But that sums up my social life - even if I did meet more people, all the undergrads leave in a couple weeks.

This is seriously one of the best experience of my life. I was talking to another person over drinks yesterday and was telling him that I want to apply here and he directed me to quite a few people in the speciality that I want (which is not the Babylab, even though I love it) But, this is pretty long so until next time!

I love Paris =)

So it's nearing the end of my 2nd week in my lab, and I'm almost done with cloning my 3 constructs...yay! (I wish everything works this easily back at home.) No, most people don't drink wine at lunch, but we do always eat with our own lab. It makes it difficult to get to know people from other labs. They also eat very early...around 11:30, and lunch is the biggest meal for them. I haven't quite adjusted to that yet; I still eat everything in sight around 11pm like any good American college student. Since everyone in my lab is at least 26, many have families and don't go out to drink after work, though today they took me out to a pub because they can't get over the fact that I can't drink in the US (legally at least). I discovered that European beers are much stronger than American beers, but they're much better.



As for addressing other people in my lab... I've finally managed to call my mentor (head of our subgroup) by first name, Thomas, though it's a bit awkward sometimes. As for my PI, everyone refers to him by Philippe when he's not around, but in person, it's always jokingly "the boss" so I've decided to err on the safe side and always call him Dr. Sansonetti. Hierarchy is very prominent at the Pasteur, and even the PhD students don't really talk directly to the PI, so as the only undergraduate in the lab, I usually go to my mentor...who luckily is in charge of our portion of the lab and gets pestered with questions from everybody, including me.



Everyone in the lab seems to be surprised that I'm 20 and an undergraduate, but there are pros and cons. They don't expect as much from me (I'm allowed to screw up on my first try) and they are always willing to help me when I don't understand something. It's annoying in that they tend to keep a very close eye on me when I'm working and stare over my shoulder make sure I'm doing it right (talk about pressure). On the first day, Thomas actually said "Oh good, you know how to pipet." He's always worried about leaving me on my own, but I think I'm starting to convince him that I know enough to be a little more independent.



Alrighty, that's enough about my lab for now... Here's a view from my room...I have plenty more pictures on Facebook. =)



az

P.S. and yes, thank you SOOOOO much IRES =)

Two weeks ago...

Two weeks ago I had just arrived in Germany, roughly. I got here in a Wed. afternoon and today is Thursday. So far things have been going really well. Everyone here is laidback and the research is moving along at a nice pace. The work fluctuates back and forth between waiting for certain pieces of equipment to arrive, and once they arrive working very quickly to get them adjusted for our experiments and installed. I basically work with someone working on his doctorate. His name is Stefan, we basically are taking different crystalized substances and seeing what kinds of properties they have under extreme conditions. That's why almost every week we order or build new devices to test the different properties of our samples. It's really cool because I get a lot of hands on experience. I don't just sit at a desk all day and do calculations. Stefan works in a group of about 5 or so. A couple of them are kind of like undergrads, like me and the other three are also working on their doctorates. Also apparently two other students in the DAAD program are coming to work with our group too. Here in Garching we're just one of 22 departments that work on various areas of physics. The technical university also has technology departments, mechanics departments, biochem departments, math departments and everything here. There's also a Max Planck institute located on this sight as well as a couple small particle accelerators and a Nuclear Reactor that they use to do Neutron scattering experiments. The amount of research that goes on here is unbelievable!

So as far as work goes, things are great. As far as life goes, it's ok. I rent a room in a small town near the Institute, and supposedly I have roommates, but I really haven't actually seen them yet. I haven't made any friends outside my research group because I live in a small town so far away from where anyone else my age lives. Apparently most college students live in a part of munich that, when translated from german, is called Student City. I have become pretty well acquainted with all the people working on my team, and they all usually go out to the beergarten about once a week. Also last weekend there was a music festival in Student City that I went to. It was actually pretty fun. I actually don't mind that much that I haven't made too many new friends because I was hoping to do quite a bit of travelling on the weekends because there's still a lot of Europe that I'd like to see. As for what to do during the week... I've brought a lot of books and I'm looking into what theater organizations there are at the University here to see if I can get involved with them. So until next time Tchüss

Naoki, checking in from Barcelona

Do you play basketball?

That's the first question I was asked as I met the folks in my lab. Seems they are organizing a game tomorrow evening. Then we went for lunch and had un cafe out by the beach. Sodexho sponsors the hospital cafeteria, go figure.

Today was my first day, I arrived yesterday after being in Wisconsin for NCAA T&F Nationals.

I will meet tomorrow with the lady in charge of their vivarium to see if I can bypass the requirement for vivisection training. Otherwise things are falling into place, we will do a test run on our procedure next Friday. I have some papers to read about their methods for determining plasma drug levels but it is mainly gc and mass spec. Big shout out to Dr.(s) Y and G for educating me on the biochem tip. I don't think many people know I'm just an undergrad yet.


Here is a picture of headquarters and a view from my balcony down onto Rbla de Catalunya. I have two English speaking roomates to keep me company though my Castellano has gotten me farther than I expected.














Until next time, Naoki O

PS - IRES is amazing I am already loving it. Thank you, thank you , thank you, THANK YOU!

I've moved into a new housing situation and I'm already enjoying myself much more. I now have three fun, energetic and nice roommates, so I am very happy. Two of them are from Germany and one is Brazilian. They are all "occupational trainees" (like me) at different departments here at UQ. One of them is actually in my department, so that has been convenient. I'm the youngest by five years, but they are all very happy to have me in the house because I am a walking dictionary for them.



Everything in the lab is going well. Sometimes when my PI talks I don't know what he is talking about, but it is okay because the postdoc that works for him doesn't understand him either :). I also had one of the postdocs in the chemistry group that we collaborate with tell me he doesn't understand him either. I'm learning how to use several different variations of my technique, but not very much about the samples. I run the machines all by myself, but if I have to use liquid nitrogen I have to have someone help me set it up, because the container is too heavy for my to carry after I fill it up. I've learned how to use a completely new cavity and now I can run it by myself and do a good job! I've been working a lot and I don't get home until fairly late, but my work is not very intense throughout the whole day just at some points. Socially I don't really fit in with my lab, considering there are only three of us (me, my PI, and the postdoc) but I've made friends with quite a few postdocs in the department and I've gotten the postdoc I work with to come out of his shell a bit. I'm really enjoying no homework! I think a 9-5 job would be great for me. Hope everyone is having a productive and fun summer.

From Marseille...

This is my third week in the lab, and I'm really enjoying my time here. Things have been sort of slow in the lab this week and last. Last week, most of the lab went to a French neuroscience conference. I stayed in the lab and shadowed a couple of people. I have not actually started on a project, although I have been introduced to two different ones. Both projects involve the same in situ hybridization technique. Depending on the results we get from the two different projects this week, I will join one of the projects next week.

I've met some people in my dorm (I live on the university campus). They have showed me around some of the surrounding area of Marseille, particularly these rocky inlets called the Calanques. I went swimming in the Mediterranean last weekend, but didn't last long since the water was so cold.

I'll update you about my project either next week or the week after, depending on how this week's experiments go.

Cosby

10 days later....

I finally have internet in my flat! Exciting! So, I have been at Oxford for almost 2 weeks now, and I must say I absolutely love everything about it. I guess I should start a little more from the beginning (sorry, this will be a fairly long post, as it is encompassing quite a long period of time)...

I flew in last Tuesday morning and made it safely from the airplane to a bus and to a taxi and then my flat on my own. And then I proceeded to sleep for about 15 hours. My Oxford PI (who everyone just calls by his first name, Kim) had suggested I come in on Wednesday whenever I was up and felt ready. I quickly learned that in Oxford, you walk everywhere. It takes me about 20 minutes to walk to work everyday, but I love it. I can either walk down the streets or through this beautiful park. Anyway, I got a little lost my first time getting to lab, but I finally made it in around 11am. I needed an ID card to be admitted in to the Experimental Psychology building, but the receptionist knew who I was...I simply said "Hi, I think I need a card..." and she was like "Ah, you must be Brittany. I'll call Natalia for you." Natalia is one of the people who works in lab (she has her Ph. D) and I did meet her when half the lab came to ATL in March. I found out that Wednesday morning was free tea and coffee for psychology people (to promote community and mingling), which was nice. I met most everyone in my lab that I hadn't previously been acquainted with and my PI came over and spoke with me for a while too. He warned me that my jetlag would be pretty bad until about my 5th day (and he was correct). I was shown my office, which I share with Natalia and Julian, and I do have my own computer, which is really nice.

Okay, so I'm rambling. Now to work stuff. In my lab they do have an ERP set-up (which I what I do at Emory), but it is quite small, and it's not what I'm really working on here. Instead, I'm working with the Preferential Looking Technique. Natalia and Nivi, the two people I'm pretty much working for, explained to me that I would shadow them a couple days, then help out for a couple weeks, and then I would take over their project with 12 month olds, which is what I'm starting now. Basically, I call moms and book the appointments, mail them all the necessary materials and then run the babies when they come in. What happens is baby sits on mom's lap and watchs 2 groups of pictures. Words are associated with the pictures and we record baby. Later on, I code for where baby's eyes are looking, such as right, left, middle, or other. That way we know which picture baby was looking at. We experiment on 12 month olds, 15, 16, 18, 24, and 30. I have run every age group excluding 30 months old. And British babies are so cute! I am still trying to get every study and every age group straight, but for 12 month olds were are just looking at whether baby will look at the picture that is audibly labeled as opposed to an unrelated picture. Additionally, I am working on a word association project that I will be able to report more on later.

Socially, we do go out to pubs and restaurants as a lab on Fridays. Also, Wednesday is movie night where we project a movie on a screen at lab and bring in dinner. More so, we do random stuff together too...two of the women and I went shopping last Saturday. But, the person closest to my age in lab is like 25/26, so there is a gap. It is difficult to meet people in college. My house has only 14 rooms and I never see anyone else around. My room is quite big, which is nice. There is only one shower in the building though, and it is 3 flights down, so I usually run down since I don't want the world to see me in my towel. I did actually meet some people tonight though, so there is hope. My mom actually arrived here yesterday, so we've been doing lots of tourist-y sight-seeing around and when we were coming back to my college area (Oxford has 39 colleges...mine is called St. Hughs), this kid practically attacked me asking if I had an hour to tango, as there was an odd number of partners. I'm a bit desperate for friends so I sent my mom back to my room for the hour that I danced. I was terrible, but the kid was really nice and we had a lot of fun. He invited me out to the pub with everyone, but I felt bad for neglecting my mom, so I told him I would come next time.

I think that's more than enough for now...that should make up for my lack of writing!

My turn

I finished up with Commencement and thought things would calm down a little. They did but I am caught in a swirl of end of semester student issues. I enjoye reading your emails. Now who is going to post a picture for us to look at?
I hope everyone has emailed their Emory advisors. Take the time now to send in a note about what you are doing, with some scientific details. I am sure they would love to hear about it.

For us, fill us in with things you observe around lab. I love the thought of 2 hour lunches. Does everyone drink wine in France during lunch? Does the lab eat together? What about after work? Remember what Dr. Krige said about everyone going to the pub? Brittany is not online yet so we will have to wait and see.
What do you call your supervisor? Bob or Dr. Sansonetti? What sort of questions are you being asked? How do they deal with the fact that you are probably the youngest in the lab?

And so on.
Its the Friday before Memorial day. Happy Memorial Day. If you are feeling terribly homesick, do call me!

from Paris now =)

So much has happened in the last three days I don't even know where to begin...

My flight arrived on Monday in the early morning and it took me far too long to find my way to the Pasteur Institute. I will never bring a suitcase larger than a carry-on ever again. I found my supervisor, Dr. Thomas Kufer, who introduced me to all 30 people in my lab and the PI (Dr. Sansonetti).....they take up almost the entire floor!!! Many of them speak at least a little bit of English, and Dr. Kufer is fluent in French, German, and English, so he helps me in our very multi-national lab. My French is utterly horrible, but I've managed to survive these 3 days.

Other than the excessive paperwork, the French keyboards, and doors that don't open unless you press buttons (even to get out!), I do love the Pasteur. Dr. Kufer gave me an overview of my project on Monday. Yesterday (Tues.) he explained all of his current research to me as well as my own project, and I started my first experiment. Today I saw the biggest microscopes I've ever seen...they were really really cool. oh...and they take 2 hour lunch breaks =)

Today while going back to the Residence, another trainee stares at my Emory shirt and asks "are you from Georgia?" in a perfect Southern accent. It turns out she is a UGA student in the Zuccaire program who also can't understand a word of French. I was so thrilled to find another undergrad =) We met up with another Zuccaire fellow, hopped onto the Metro, and spent a few hours exploring the Louvre.

That's plenty for now............ au revoir!

One week down

I've been working in the lab now for a week. I've already learned a surprising amount and the work that I've done previously is making even more sense. Yesterday and the day before I learned how to use three different variations of my technique, which has been really awesome. I'm the only one in the whole department that isn't a post-doc or a professor so it has been a bit intimidating, but they have been taking very good care of me. The best part of my work is that I don't actually have to make the samples. The chemists in the group bring the samples to me and I get to run them, which is the fun part. I've also gotten to play with the parameters for my experiments which has helped in my training. The lab I work in has created several computer simulation programs which have also been fun to play around with..

While the lab is going well it has been very hard to meet people. My roommate is really awkard, so I'm currently looking for new housing. In addition to a nonsocial roommate I work with all "adults"and I don't have any contact with students, so it has been a challenge to meet people. The first week was really hard to get over the jet lag and my homesickness, but I feel like myself for the first time today.

Brisbane is a really cool city and the public transportation is great, so I've had a great time exploring the city and I still have a great more to see. It gets dark here around 5:30 pm so I have to do most of my city exploring on the weekends, but that leaves weeknites (when I get home from the lab before 1:00 am:) )for me to catch up on reading.

Ich bin ein Praktikant

So now I'm writing from Germany. It takes a bit longer to write because the keyboards are slightly different. The y and the z keys are switched, so I do a lot of stopping and deleting. But there are also some wonderful new keys, like ä, ö, and ü and the @ symbol is hidden in a place that's easy to forget. I'm actually have way used to all of this cause I lived here before, but it's still fun to go through the whole adjustment process once again. Yesterday I went grocery shopping like a real german! Inside I was just bursting with excitement even though it's should be a boring everyday task. But I'm sure zou (see the freaking mistakes I alwazs have to correct) don't want to hear about that part of my internship.

Yesterday I also began my internship. It's actually really great, everyone here is so nice and the research goes at a nice easy pace. They said that they don't expect everything from me right away and that it's totally ok when I make a mistake (which luckily I haven't yet) because I'm here to learn.

I actually got here last wednesday but my internship didn't start until yesterday, and seeing as most of Europe was on holiday on thursday (and of course not many people went to work on friday either, the even have it built into the calendar that way. Many holidays are followed by "bridge days" so people can sleep off their hangovers, I'm totally not kidding) I travelled to another part of Germany to visit a family I had lived with for a year. That was a lot of fun and I returned on Sunday.

So far I've done a lot of watching and listening, the day goes by pretty quickly and you don't feel like you've done much. There are no classes to go to. You just figure things out in your office and call the right people when you have questions can chat with your co-workers about problems and what to do next and stuff. So far they have about three or four machines that use liquid helium. We do experiments with sample crystals at very low temperatures and very high magnetic fields and very high pressures. We use so much Helium that we actually have an internal helium ventilation system. All the helium that get's vaporized in the tanks get's fed through the system to a cooler room where it's cooled to a liquid again and then used to fill up empty tanks. They're repairing one machine that, when we're finished, should be able to achieve temperatures as low as a few millikelvin and B fields as high as 20 Tesla!!! Right now my projects are to build a susceptometer and attach it to the part of the machine that holds the sample. It feels pretty crazy that I'm going to build something myself that they'll actually use to measure things with. I also have a lot of technical reading to do. Lock in Amplifiers, Susceptometers, and lots with Physical Property measurement systems (the big tanks and machines we use). Everyone seems to have a lot of confidence in me and they say it's easier than it sounds, so I'm worried, but hopeful. Well I gotta go! Till next time...

Kanwei, reporting for duty in Bordeaux France

My name is Kanwei and I'm an alcoholic.

Well, not really. Quite the opposite actually, but I'll talk about that another day. I'm writing at 9pm from the bench outside the cafeteria (closed) which is next to the library (also closed). Has Emory spoiled me to the point that I expect every university to provide food and shelter 24/7? Why is there no Internet in my dorm? How do French students get any work done? Am I really complaining on a blog that will be read by my benefactors? (benefactors: no, I'm not really complaining, and thanks for the support)

You see, I arrived at the dorms on Friday at around noon. The previous day was a national holiday, and they forgot to tell me that in France, when Thursday is a holiday, Friday is naturally a holiday too. Duh. I was supposed to speak with the RHD of the dorms (on holiday) and ended up having to convince them that oui, je suis American, non, je ne suis pas un idiote qui n'a pas ses papiers, et oui, j'aime le football. I got to my room and instinctively looked for the ethernet plug. Nope. So I was stuck in my room, no Internet, no phone, and everyone was on holiday. What did I do? Go downtown, of course.

Since I didn't feel like spending more euros on transportation (1.30€) because the exchange is now 0.7 €/USD, I walked along the tram tracks into the city. There, I found everyone that I had previously mentioned were on vacation. The streets were narrow and were absolutely packed. I had a good time looking at people I'd never met before (everyone) as I passed them. French people are taller than Americans on average, it seems. The city center was pretty nice, with an esplanade. I was pretty tired though so I left early. I'll come back with the camera another day.

When I got back to the dorms, I met some of my neighbors. Yassine (Moroccan) was one of them, and I played Pro Evolution Soccer 6 (best football game ever) with him and his friends. It's weird because I'd actually played this exact game back home (weird huh) and so I actually won a couple matches. We're still friends to this day.

So anyways, I start work tomorrow and I'm still outside the cafeteria. It's now 10pm and getting cold. Talk to you again soon, mon ami.

yay!

I'm finally done packing......nine hours before my flight this morning.
I'll be arriving in Paris on Monday morning. It's been rainy and cold in Paris all week. hopefully that changes soon.

Au revoir!

Hello everyone! I seem to be a bit late in posting my first blog. Not to worry, I took care of all my packing and travel specifics before handling this. Well, today was Commencement at Emory and tomorrow I leave for Munich. It's a pretty small time frame, I must say (although I wasn't one of the graduates, so I actually wasn't that pressed for time). I will arrive in Munich Wed. morning and then travel to the research institute which, as it turns out, is only about 10 km from the Munich airport, so I shouldn't have any trouble getting there. I don't start my internship until the following monday, so I have a few days to settle in. I will be working from about mid May until the beginning of August and I will be doing physics research investigating quantum phase transitions in certain superconducting alloys.
As complicated as that all might sound I'm really mainly helping my international mentor, Stefan Legl, install a vibrating coil magnetometer into our freezing chamber (what he calls "the fridge") and then using the thing to measure the "incommensurate spin" of our samples to help us see how the magnetization of the alloy changes under different conditions. (or something like that).
For some reason, I'm not worried about the Al Qaeda. What I'm most worried about is making a friendly impression on my advisor. We've kept in contact through email over the spring, but we've never actually spoken to each other. I don't know that much about him and my communication with him has stayed on the formal side, even to the point where I've wondered if sometimes I've worded my emails in a way that makes me sound rude. I feel that if he begins thinking I'm rude, then it will be an uphill battle for us to work more closely together. Oh well, we'll find out tomorrow! (well, after a 10 hour flight that begins tomorrow)

Flight tomorrow night

I leave for Stuttgart tomorrow! I get in Tuesday afternoon and will start working in the lab on Wednesday. I'm half excited, half nervous. On the news they reported that Al Qaeda is planning an attack on Americans in Germany, specifically in Stuttgart. It's a little unsettling, but at least it encourages me to speak more German and less English.

Ready for my trip!

I'm almost done packing and am looking forward to leaving for Marseille tomorrow AM. I'll arrive on Saturday and will start in the lab on Monday.
Cosby

To follow Angelica's example...

Next Sunday I leave for my summer of research in the Magnetic Resonance Center at the University of Queensland. I've finally found housing and I have my visa! Over the next week I'll be taking finals, moving out of my appartment and finishing my honors thesis. I'm a little nervous, but at the same time very excited about my upcoming adventure. I will be in Brisbane from May 15th through the end of July. Then I will be traveling around Australia for a week.

I hope everyone has a great summer!
RP

Hi

Hi everyone!

Juries, biochem final, MCAT...preparing for my trip to Paris will be in there somewhere. If anyone wants to meet up over a weekend or something, I will be in Paris from May 21st through July 27th and somewhere in Europe until Aug. 6th.

Good luck on your final exams and have a great summer!
~Angelica

2007 Fellows

It is 9.12 pm and I have just re-remembered how to add users to the blog. In the intervening year, Google has bought out blogger.com and so I now have to login with my gmail account. I decided to change the layout while I was at it. So we have Spring like colors now. I looked through the postings of last year and enjoyed them again. I hope all you 2007 IRES folks will have a wonderful summer and will let us share a bit of that through this blog.
And don't forget adding a few photos now and then!