Emory Research Abroad

The best part(s) about staying too long...

2008-08-18T05:38:00.000-07:00

Before I spend my last week in lab, I took a couple days off to visit the rest of Australia. In particular Cairns (Barrier Reef) and Sydney.
In Cairns I snorkeled around the reef and saw some pretty awesome stuff.

I met up with an American who was on a 2 week leave from Iraq and had a great time with him.

After he left I hung out with a bunch of German guys. Germans are everywhere!!! We went out every night and had a blast. There were a lot of adventures with the "Einkaufwagon."

We also got some much needed sun after spending 2 months in 0 degree weather.

I got to go fishing as well. I was intending to go out in the reef or past it and do some light tackle fishing for small marlin or some other creature of the deep, but the winds picked up. They were forced to keep everything in the river, but that was still a good time. Caught a couple Baramundi and even an eel.

I had about 9 hours on my last day in cairns, which limited options on things I could do. There aren't any beaches, just swampland and the reef. So I only had 1 option...

Down in Sydney, I got to tour around the city and take lots of pictures with the Japanese tourists, including the opera house. I went to see Orlando tonight as well which was really good, but not the best.

In response to all of Miguels VW pictures I felt I would represent the wealth of Italians in Australia with the great Ferrari. I was going to take a picture of the only Australian car manufacturer (Holden) but they don't really make anything worthwile.

Tonight I'm headed out around the town, as Sydney is suppose to be the best for that!

I'm back to work for a few more days soon to finalize all my research before I make the 20 hour flight back to Atlanta where I only have friends... no mates.

Thoughts of Rome...

2008-08-12T10:26:00.001-07:00

Today was a nice breezy day outside so I kept the windows open for the fresh air. American windows slide open and have screens, very different from Italian windows that open inwards with vertically reclining shutters. For one, our windows can't block out the sun and let in fresh air at the same time. However, the door of my room was slamming from the changing air pressure and I went to go hook the chain behind the door to keep it open, only to find that it didn't have one...

On another note, I managed to find some "Genoa salame" at the market, despite the very Americanized name. It didn't taste all that bad but it just wasn't the same as the boar salame I got in Rome.

I have been keeping in touch with my friends, co-workers, and professor since I've been home. I really do think I will get to see at least some of them again. It's so sad to think the world was shrinking so rapidly when the mess of expensive energy got caught up with travel.

My next goal is to get my hands on a Vespa so I can feel the wind in my hair again. I think I'm going to go watch Roman Holiday again. It's so amazing that Rome over fifty years ago looks exactly the same it does now, except with fewer tourists. Is anyone else feeling nostalgic for their times abroad?

That is not to say that I am having a terrible time in America. I went bowling last night and ended up in Hooters watching the Olympics with some delicious buffalo wings and cheeseburgers WITH PICKLES. I'm sure you can imagine how very confused I was the first time an Italian expressed distaste in putting "cucumbers" in hamburgers in America.

If anyone is aching to get some real Italian food in Atlanta, Baraonda's in Midtown makes some very authentic Neopolitan pizza. As for the fluffy Roman pizza with potatos and ham, I will have to search some more to get a taste here. If someday I happen to fail at life I think my plan B will be to open an Italian style pizzeria, complete with arancini (fried rice balls with peas, meat, cheese, and sauce), fried olives stuffed with meat, gelati, and of course, tall decanters for serving tap water.

Speaking of tap water, I'm sure there was something in the water in Rome. For at least 5-6 weeks straight I remember I would wake up every morning with my head filled with the vivid dreams that I had had the night before. Afterwards either I just became accustomed to it or perhaps they stopped, but they definitely started again when I went back to Rome and drank some more Roman water. It's really unavoidable, as there are spigots spewing refreshing cold water every block or so. Something is up. I jokingly told my friend that the government might be doping the water to give everyone in Italy the happy demeanor they always have. Whatever it is, that's about the only thing I don't miss about Rome.

Auf Wiedersehen, Deutschland. Bis Naechstes Mal.

2008-08-07T18:27:00.000-07:00

What can I say, it seemed like yesterday I got on the plane to London from Miami and then 8 hours later took the train from Munich to Regensburg. Now, I'm typing away on my computer in room in Florida, more than 4700 miles away ( that's about 7600 km). After my last post, I only had about seven work days left not including the weekend. On the last thursday of my internship, my supervisor, Robert, came back from his honey moon in Venezuela. My total work included some synthesis reactions with thiophosphenes and the following workups but the PhD students didn't really have much other than that for me to do since I had so little time left. I spent a lot of my time during that last week in Regensburg with friends I made both in and outside of lab. I played lots of soccer/Fussball, beach volleyball, and took in the Regensburg night life, which is pretty decent for the small town that it is.

My family flew in to Munich on the 21st of July, a Monday and rented a car and drove to Regensburg to see me. I gave them a tour of the lab as well as and introduced them to all of my colleagues and, of course, the PI, Dr. Koenig. As for German culture, it was interesting noting my family's reactions to things that I had come accustomed to, such as drinking, general cleanliness in the city, and German organisation (like all things associated with a culture, these mentioned items are more like generalities and are not absolutes).

On my last working day with AK Koenig (AK = Arbeitskreis (working group)) I invited the three colleagues who worked in lab to dinner with my family and I. The three included Robert, my main supervisor, Stefan, my "adopted" supervisor, and Ralph, another undergraduate working in the lab. I'm going to miss working with them and all of AK Koenig. They really embody the paradigm of a great research group. While they all concentrated and focused on their different research projects, they also shared other common interests outside of research such as cooking, sports, and, of course, drinking. Combined with being German, it was a unique camaraderie that I was glad to be a part of and sad that I had to leave it so soon.

Fellow labmates on my last night in Regensburg. From left to right: Stefan, Robert, and Ralph.

The following day, my family and I left Regensburg to embark on our roundtrip tour of Europe. From Regensburg, we would proceed on to Leipzig, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Salzburg, and finally, Munich. Leipzig and a part of Berlin used to belong to the old DDR or in English GDR, the German Democratic Republic aka East Germany, and so naturally I found the cold war history the most interesting part during my time there. Aside from the communist pipes sticking into the streets, my first encounter with the cold war was the Stasi Museum, which had a pretty thorough collection of historical items as well as the paper shredders the Stasi used to destroy their documents when the wall was coming down. Leipzig is also well known as one of the hometowns of Johann Sebastian Bach and so we visited his statue as well as the church where he conducted and composed music.

My sister and I at the Stasi Museum.

Berlin has a lot of things to see and do and, therefore, it is a must on anyone's trip to Germany. There's definitely too much to be done in the two and a half short days we were there but thankfully a lot of the interesting things are centrally located near the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag (German Parliament).

The Reichstag, the center of German politics in the country's capital, Berlin. It was set afire in 1933 by a Dutch communist and then survived the Siege in 1945. The remnants of the SS made their last stand here against the Soviets in the Battle of Berlin. Today, tourists can go up on the roof and walk up the glass dome.

The Holocaust Memorial. There is a museum located underneath. It is adjacent one block to the Brandenburg gate.

The Brandenburg Gate. After Napoleon conquered Prussia, current day Germany, he had it dismantled and sent back to the Louvre in Paris. When Napoleon was later defeated and ousted from power, the Prussians or Germans took it back.

If you wanted to visit a city that made you feel like you were back in the 18th century then Prague is the place to be. Sadly, we were only able to see the main tourist sites like the castle and old city, which, although very pretty and worth seeing, were way too packed with tourists from all parts of Europe and the world. It almost felt like the Disneyworld of Europe, except with no rides. I would definitely go back to Prague and the Czech Republic again but I don't have interest to be in the tourist soaked areas, which are full of overpriced restaurants and souvenir shops.

Old Town at Prague, or Praha. The Czech Republic drinks more beer per capita than Germany.

Vienna, or Wien (pronounced Veen), is probably might favorite big city in Europe. The city and architecture are both old and beautiful and complemented by the endless list of things to do. Perhaps Berlin would have been as equally as visually pleasing if it had not been leveled by the Allies in WWII. Among the many tourist favorites, we visited the National Library, Habsburg Palace, Art and Natural History Museums, and we even had Wiener Schnitzel. I also recommend the coffee. Ask for Wiener (Remember "Vee-ner") Melange if you ever stop in a cafe there. Beethoven also had an appartment in Vienna that you can visit.

Wiener Schnitzel. On the left of course.

Vienna Opera House. We just took a tour inside. It is out of season in the summer.

Salzburg is probably Austria's (Oesterreich in German) most popular little city as it was the birthplace of Mozart. We went to the Mozart dinner concert in a thousand year old restaurant. Aside from the River boat cruise and the Church, the only reason you go to Salzburg is to take in the history Mozart. You can visit both his family's residence and his house of birth there. Hotel service was below marginal.

View of Salzburg from the Castle.

Munich would have probably been more fun if I hadn't already done everything by myself before my family came but I still had fun, nonetheless. We visited the Deutsches Museum, the biggest science museum in the world, the BMW World, and Neuschwanstein (Noy-sh-von-stein) which is about an hour outside of Munich. Neuschwanstein is THE castle to see in Germany. Its not a real "castle" in the defensive aspect but more of a palace than anything. It's set in a really beautiful part of the Bavarian Alps. We also stopped by the mountain town of Mittenwald, known for its violins, ski resorts and most importantly, food. No where have I had such good luck in randomly picking restaurants and being so satisfied afterwords. Remember, Mittenwald = GOOD FOOD.

Messerschmitt 262 at the Deutsches Museum. It was the first turbojet fighter plane to be used in war. It made its debut in the European theater of WWII.

View of Bavarian Alps from Neuschwanstein.

And so the next day, I bid farewell to the country I had grown to love and become a part of in almost every cultural aspect. (I didn't get to wear Lederhosen, which is traditionally only Bavarian and Austrian, but I would have bought myself a pair if the average price wasn't around €2oo.) And now I'm sitting here back at home once more again, reflecting on the many adventures and friends I had made. Unforgettable is probably the best way I can describe it.

I hope to share more of my experiences in and out of lab when I get back to Emory. Until then, enjoy the rest of summer.

Thanks again everyone in IRES for helping make this possible. Vielen Dank.

Best wishes or Viele Grüße aus Melbourne, Florida,

Miguel

Last Week

2008-08-05T20:14:00.000-07:00

Well, it is officially the beginning of my last week in Japan. I am certainly excited to be coming home, but i would be lying if I said that i wouldn't miss Kyoto. I will definitely miss my bike rides to and from work everyday. I will also miss my favorite bar here, called simply Tom's. It's the perfect kind of bar for me, very small and cozy with ample opportunity for both low and high brow discussion over a pint of Heineken. The bar's owned by and Irishman and frequented by an international customer base, so it's been a great place for a foreigner to hang out.
Last weekend i went to Tokyo on a day trip. I took the bullet train again, so the 300 odd mile trip didn't take too long. Makes me really wish he had bullet trains in the US. I didn't see too much of the city because i was on foot and it was insanely hot, but i did manage to walk over to the Imperial Palace. It is closed to the public with a wide, raised perimeter, so there wasn't much to see. It was still quite impressive though, and helped convey the mystique and majesty of the imperial office.
Like I said, i'm looking forward to getting home. Thankfully, my brother is going to be able to pick me up from the airport so i don't have to face a ride on MARTA after a 20 hour trip. First order of business will be to get some greasy, disgusting American food eaten with a fork and knife(which i know is going to be strange transitioning back to). Then I have to see all the films that came out during the summer that i missed because i was in Japan.

Just a reminder...

2008-08-03T19:40:00.003-07:00

To check out my blog :). tasooey.blogspot.com

lots has been happening...

Unpacking

2008-08-02T21:44:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone, I've been home for about two days and I've just been resting and trying to get my life back. For those of you who live in the Atlanta area at the moment, you probably remember the enormous storm on Thursday. Well, I was trying to fly out of Hartsfield-Jackson that day (after arriving from London), along with a few other thousand people, and it did not work out so well for nearly all of us. I consider myself fortunate that I actually arrived home that day. I met a family who were trying to catch a cruise in Rome, and another German family who would have to wait in Atlanta for two additional days. The only bad thing that happened to me was that I was up for 26 hours non stop, and definitely crashed once I got home. Everything is fine, and I really miss Rome and Italian food. Today I even made my family this Italian dish I had learned. Since I am home, I guess this is the last post I will write, or perhaps group of posts, depending on how much I can cover in each post. I managed to travel to some other Italian cities after my 10 weeks in Rome, and wow they were really different. I really didn't have enough time, so I'm definitely scoping out places to see the next time I find myself back in Italy.

I went to Venice, which is a group of islands shaped like a fish on a lagune. The people's accent are very different from that in Rome. Imagine something like a Frank Sinatra singing "signorina" and it will give you a better idea. I was very excited to go to Venice, but when my friend and I got out of the airport, we were immediately eaten alive by mosquitoes. Good thing we brought some cortizone cream. My number one complaint about Venice (other than the mosquitoes) is that it is sooooooooooo touristy. If you think about it, Venice doesn't really get any money from anything other than from tourism. I basically was not allowed to take a picture inside any building, and that includes most shops, probably because they wanted to sell more postcards and souvenirs. Nearly everything in the city was geared for tourists, and I heard that native Venetians are moving out because they can no longer afford to live in the city anymore. Tourism aside, the city was very quaint and cute, but I can't imagine living there for long. The streets are very narrow and the abundance of bridges with steps make wheeled vehicles impossible. Trash collection involves a man lugging a two-wheeled cart around and throwing bags behind him. The best thing to use is your own two feet and boats. We were very lucky to get a room in the center of town.

It really is amazing to see an entire city on the water. The taxis, buses, and even ambulances were boats. The ambulances disobeyed the "no wake" regulations just as police cars ignore speed limits even in the absence of an emergency. While there, I got to visit an island called Murano, which is famous for its Venetian glass. There was a glass museum with little miniature cities made of glass inside. I also got to visit the Doge's palace, with all its extravagance and themed rooms.

Here I am going on the gondola ride. Unfortunately our gondolier wasn't enthusiastic enough to sing.

The patron saint of Venice is St. Mark the Evangelist. The Piazza San Marco has the enormous cathedral the Basilica of San Marco, which contains the relic remains of the saint stolen from Alexandria around 780. They wanted to have the body of a very famous saint to rival those of Peter and Paul, which are held in the papal state of Rome. Also to be different from Rome, a lot of their architecture and even interpretation of the Bible reflect Eastern Orthodox tradition rather than Roman Catholic. Back in the day Venice was a huge merchant city since it sat at the cross way of land and sea trade to western Europe. Now Venice pretty much does everything for tourists. I couldn't even take pictures anywhere.

I am on the balcony on top of San Marco basilica overlooking San Marco Square

We also went to Naples for a couple of days. Naples is a beautiful city right on the coast. In Naples we stayed in an apartment owned by an elderly man who was simply delightful. Like other cities built in the need of defense, our apartment was on top of a huge hill. The owner, named Giuseppe, gave us both a ride on the back of his Vespa to bring us and our luggage up to the apartment. We spent most of our time in Naples walking along the sea, checking out castles, and oh yeah, visiting POMPEI.

This is the coast along Naples. You can see the Castel d'Uovo on the left and Mt. Vesuvius in the background. It's actually much larger and more menacing in person.

On the beach in Naples, which was mostly rocks and not sand, there were chains of locks around lamp posts. Closer investigation revealed that they were locks of lovers' names professing their eternal love.

Pompei was a very fun experience, as I absolutely LOVE ancient Roman ruins, but it wasn't nearly as exciting as Ostia Antica. Many of the rooms were locked up and unaccessible. Perhaps they want to better preserve the rooms or to earn more money, but they offer tickets valid over several days and probably rotate the open rooms. Pompei is much larger than Ostia Antica and we spent about seven hours walking around. There were rooms of very well-preserved wall paintings and frescoes. Unfortunately, pretty much every statue, notable fresco, or mosaic had been removed and placed in the National Archeological Museum of Naples.

This is a wall fresco from the Villa of Mysteries depicting some sort of Egyptian ritual.

A fresco of the birth of Venus behind an elaborate fountain in the large gardens behind another villa.

We then returned to Rome for two days as I was flying out of Rome to London. I finally made a trip to the Vatican museums. We took a guided tour and saw some very famous statues, rooms, paintings, etc. The guided tour lasted only 2 hours, and there were years left to see!!! I really regretted not going to the museums more when I was in Rome. I will have to go again each time that I return to Rome.

This is the famous statue of Laocoön which scholars only had written documents about. It was rumored to have decorated the Domus Aurea, or the Golden Palace belonging to Nero. It was unearthed around Michelangelo's time and subsequently identified. Laocoön was a Trojan priest who had warned the Trojans of the gift of the horse, but no one listened to him and gods on the side of the Greeks sent sea serpents to eat him and his sons. At the time of its discovery, however, the right arm of Laocoön was missing, and they completed the piece according to inference. The display of this statue was the beginning of the "Museums" of the Vatican, some 500 years ago. Hundreds of years later, the arm was actually discovered, and they realized that the statue should have been reconstructed according to Michelangelo's suggestions. So, the arm was reattached and the other additions removed.

In London I did not get to see much as I was only staying for one day to catch my flight. However, I did get to go on the Eye of London, which is a huge ferris wheel overlooking the Thames river.

In this picture, you can see the next cart of the Eye, the houses of Parliament attached to Big Ben, as well as Westminster Abbey right behind them.

I also got to take a short tour of the Tower of London. It was so strange to think that Rome had its heyday around 2000 years ago and then around the Renaissance, while most of England's significant history and buildings come from the Middle Ages. It really goes to show that the times of great development for a country or region has marked its romanticization in novels today.

Now that I am home, I don't have anything to eat! I have gotten so spoiled by the cheap olive oil, cheese, and meats sold in Italy. I think all of these things are controlled products from Italy, which means they can not even be produced elsewhere and must be imported. What a tragedy. I bought Parmiggiano Reggiano from Kroger and it was just NOT the same. Oh well, I guess I can look forward to the next time I'm in Italy for good eats.

I really do miss Italy already, and I am so thankful for this opportunity to have lived there. I met a world of wonderful people who I will keep in touch with and my outlook on life and the world has changed substantially. Thank you IRES!!!!! I can't wait to share more about my experiences at our next meetings (are we having more?).

To make up for lost blogging

2008-07-28T05:04:00.001-07:00

So I didn't post much at all at the beginning of my time here in Melbourne, so I'll be making up for it a little. This weekend I went down the Great Ocean Road, which is a winding road that overlooks cliffs of the South Pacific Ocean and a rainforest on the other side.

The rain forest actually is home to the mountain ash which is reportedly larger even the the california redwoods, but the largest trees were harvested by early settlers. The remaining trees were pretty impressive though.

There were more koalas as well in the forest, but none of the pictures rival the hard copy I have of me feeding one. Since it's a hard copy though it will have to wait until August to be scanned in and showed around.

The 12 apostles are these really cool landforms that are caused by the rock eroding and collapsing. There were originally 16 according to natives, 12 when early settlers found them and now only 7 (the last one fell down in 2005).

London's Bridge was a really cool landform with a great story. It was called London's bridge years ago, but in 1950 part of it fell down and really gave the nursery rhyme a new meaning. However when it fell down there was a couple that was out on the far platform and they got stuck for hours. The best part though, is that the guy told his boss he was sick and was staying home. And also told his wife that he had to stay late at work... They were on national TV and he lost his wife and his job!

We had a party afterwords to say goodbye to one of our friends who's heading back to Germany. She actually lives in Regensburg, Miguel! Not many pictures survived...

Checking in

2008-07-27T02:55:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone, I know I haven't been posting much recently. It was such a hustle to move out/finish work, and I'm currently traveling. I promise to update with lots of pictures once I get home in a few days about other parts of Italy!!!

I guess winter has advantages...

2008-07-25T03:16:00.000-07:00

Because penguins in July are awesome!

this was taken below a boardwalk which was absolutely freezing. There is an island called Phillip Island that just gets bombarded from the antarctic winds and the penguins just love it there. I went down there with a couple friends and stopped at a nature reserve for a while and got to experience the other Australian animals (koalas, wombats, echidnas, emus, dingos, and of course kangaroos)

There is a series of rock formations, and the seals love them so I got to see a few from a distance. The rock formation below is called the blowhole and the seals are there all year around.

The wind here was about 30 mph and with wind chill the temperature was around 0 degrees Fahrenheit. Tomorrow I'm headed down the Great Ocean Road which overlooks the south pacific ocean with cliffs for miles and has some really cool landmarks. It's mostly sandstone formations that decay quickly over the decades so I'm really glad I'm going to get to see them.

Cheers,

James

Thoughts of home

2008-07-24T20:04:00.000-07:00

The week has been fairly quiet. I gave a short presentation on wednesday about the progress of my investigations which went fairly well. I honestly hate these presentations because(as i'm sure you've all discovered by now) in research there will often be long stretches of time where you get no new definitive results are data. Then i'm stuck presenting 10-12 slides of the same basic results from my last presentation. Sadness
Monday was nice. It was Umi No Hi, which roughly translates to Sea Day. From what i've been told, the previous emperor was a marine biologist in his sparetime, so he pushed for the creation of a national holiday honoring the sea. Hey, whatever gets me a day off. I went to a beach in Kobe with a fellow American in my group. Neither of us had been there before so we got lost a couple times along the way, so we had a bit of an adventure. The beach was nice, although insanely crowded. I grew up in Florida, and the beaches i went to were relatively sparsely populated, so it was a bit of a shock to get off the tram and see the entire shoreline crowded with people. The water was nice, though i had a bit of a run-in (literally) with a jellyfish. I was swimming back to the shore and my hand bumped right into it's smooth bell, so i didn't get stung but it was still startling.
I'm starting to get a little homesick. It's odd for me because i've been abroad for long periods of time before, but i never got homesick then. I'm a little PO-ed because i've been looking forward to seeing The Dark Knight for over a year now, but it doesn't come out in Japan until August 9th, and i return on August 13th. I'm just gonna wait till i get home to see it. My brother(who also highly anticapited the movie and has already seen it) is picking me up from my return and had considered taking me straight from the airport to the movie theater. Don't know i'll be up for that, but i can't wait to see it.

Temples Galore

2008-07-17T18:39:00.000-07:00

Well, I didn't get around to leaving Kyoto and exploring the nearby towns this weekend, but i still got plenty of tourist action in. I visited a couple Buddhist Temples instead. I had originally planned on only visiting Kiyomizu-dera, one of the more famous temples in Kyoto, but i got lost along the way and ended up visiting another temple called Chion-in. Both were very impressive, but seeing as how Kiyomizu-dera is more famous, it was also more touristy and crowded, which was a bit of a let down. Still interesting and fun though. Oh, in reference to our meeting discussions about suicide rates in Japan, Kiyomizu-dera is renowned for being a place were people jump off it's large veranda. Originally it was believed that if you survived the fall then you would have your wish granted. However, it has become a site where sometimes people come to intentionally commit suicide, much like the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. Thankfully, most people survive the fall due to the heavy vegetation below.
On monday, the AC was broken in my office and the office next to mine, as with the heat index at 95 degrees F, we decided to take the day of and go swimming at a nearby lake, known as Biwa-ko, which was considerably more fun than work. This week also so the Gion Matsuri, one of the most famous festivals in Japan. It originates form the repurifaction of the Yasaka Shrine, but as with many things in Japanese culture it has become a secular festival as well, with lots of kiosks, street vendors, parades, and performances.

Villas, Castles, and Prisons, Oh My!

2008-07-14T02:22:00.000-07:00

As my time in Rome is soon coming to an end, I'm beginning to feel a little anxiety about leaving, so I am frantically trying to see as much of Rome/Italy as I can. On Saturday I did a little shopping (surprisingly for the first time in Italy!!!!) with my roommate because the season is changing and clothes are pretty much half off in all the stores. Afterwards she went home and I decided to do a little twilight touristing. Along with some churches, I managed to see the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius on the Campidoglio. This was a little oblong square surrounded by civic government houses on top of the Capitoline Hill designed by Michelangelo. This statue is also on the 50 cent euro coin, and I had always wondered why there was a starry/flowery design on the bottom. Now I know why.

On Sunday I got up bright and early to go to Tivoli again to see the ruins of Villa Adriana, which was a retreat for Emperor Hadrian. I met this Korean girl on the bus named He Seoun and we ended up walking around together. The bus dropped us off at this "stop" and we ended up walking another 45 minutes along questionable road signs at brisk pace before arriving at the entrance. However the villa was truly beautiful and I'm so glad I saw it, with lots of ponds, baths, temples, etc. However, the most beautiful pieces are in museums all over the world now. The design of the villa are supposedly to remind the Emperor of his favorite places in the world.

Mosaic on the floor of one of the rooms that housed the Emperor's guard. There are 3 niches for beds and a pretty floor in the middle. Each room's design was unique.

The "Maritime Theater" but actually a round artificial island with the Hadrian's private study. In antiquity there were 2 drawbridges that were let down if he wanted to enter. He is said to have also swam in the canal surround the island. Now there are little fish.

The Canopus, named after an Egyptian city of the same name. There is a long reflecting pool with some remaining fountains

The four figures in the center are copies of the copies Hadrian made of the karyatids on the Erecthion in Athens.

View of Tivoli, which sits on top of a mountain. Beyond are the other mountains: the Monti Tiburtini.

When I returned that evening, a friend and I climbed Gianicolo Hill in Rome. This hill is actually very tall but not considered one of the "Seven Hills" because it is on the other side of the river and way outside of the ancient city. The monuments on the hill were constructed about 150 years ago, after the Reunification of Italy by Garibaldi and his "1000 Heroes," or his Redshirt army Each of these heroes has a bust on Gianicolo Hill, but Garibaldi gets an enormous statue (that I could not capture in the night light) and his wife Anita gets a smaller one a short distance away.

View of Rome from a monument of a lighthouse on Gianicolo, see Piazza Venezia in the center. The cross-shaped building in the foreground is actually a very famous prison. Supposedly from this location, the acoustics are very good so the wives of prisoners (before phones were invented...?) would come to this point and declare their undying love for their husbands.

We then went to the Castel Sant'Angelo, which is the enormous fortress on the Tiber River. It used to be the Mausoleum of Hadrian, but most of it was torn down to build the fortress that also has a fortified corridor to the Vatican to protect the Pope. Inside we got a special ticket to see the the prisons. They were actually nice prison chambers, rather large in size. I think they showed us the best prisons and omitted any torture devices. The Castel is now a national museum, but it has actually been turned into a tourist hotspot. With our ticket, we could eat at the restaurant or get food at the bar and sit on the tables overlooking the Tiber or with a view of St. Peter's. There were also shows of stand-up comics and four-string quartets and the platform to one of the four towers had been turned into a tango dance floor.

A relic catapult? There was a pile of projectiles to the right. See the comedian in the background.

View of the Tiber River from the top of the Castel.

St. Peter's at night.

One of the many fashion exhibitions present in the Castel.

At midnight, we were surprised by the sounds of blasting, so we swiftly climbed to the topmost terrace to see the fireworks display. It was a great way to end the night.

And in lab....I've gotten to perform even more surgeries so I'm actually getting pretty good at it. It still takes me a long time though, because of what others in the lab have dubbed my "gentle touch." People are basically spending these days analyzing the data and such, and Dr. Badiani has gone on a vacation in Brazil. We just got another batch of rats, which I think will be getting some intracranial lesions and then have their self-administration observed. Unfortunately, I will only be here for the handling of the mice, and I won't get to see the surgeries.

I am so sad to have only about a week left in Rome. There is still sooooooooo much to see. Maybe I will get some more in this week before I go.

Crazy

2008-07-13T22:49:00.001-07:00

I'm starting to blog about my crazy weekend last week around Tokyo. Hope you'll read it.

tasooey.blogspot.com

Tim Soo

One Blog to Rule them All

2008-07-13T15:31:00.000-07:00

Yes, yes, I know I haven’t been posting as nearly as much as I wanted to. There is hardly a dull moment here in Germany that I’m looking forward to having a “quiet week” where I’m not moving a lot but still enjoying the atmosphere. Soooo (imitating my supervisor), in lab I’ve been coming between 8:30 and 9 in the morning and on average leave lab between 5:30 to 6:30. There is almost always work to do but we frequently socialize in lab (auf Deutsch natuerlich!, in german of course). But really, it’s starting to become 50:50 between English and German during my conversations in lab. I’ve even made progress in my German chemistry. And my conversational german has really made great strides in the short time I’ve been here. Short because I can almost smell the end of my time here in Germany, which I don’t look forward to.

And when there is a dull moment in lab, my supervisors Robert or Stefan, “moechtest du ein Bier?” Would you like a beer? This occurs in the afternoons, so we’re not morning alcoholics. And so after work the group is either having a barbeque, soccer, or dodgeball. And when I don’t have these things occupying my time, I have to do grocery shopping, laundry, skyping home, planning my weekends, or again, socializing with German/European Exchange students in my dorm. Ahh, if only my time here was not so finite!

Anyhow/ways, back to the weekend/annual/bimonthly report. I finally irradiated my flavins so that they could oxidize paramethoxy-benzalcohol substrates

We irradiated with 440 nanometer light for five minutes under several pH ranges and had a corresponding relation for the conversion factors. I think we had 75% conversion at around pH 6ish.

After my weekend in Baden-Baden, I went to visit my friend and former German TA at Emory German Studies department, Benjamin Becker in Koeln, or as we know it in English, Cologne. Okay, Okay, Italian churches look nice and fancy and I’ve been to Notre Dame, but the church in Cologne is the titanic of churches. I can’t even come up with words to describe adequately how huge it is. It easily towers anything in the city.

I met up with Ben and we toured the city and also met his Uni-friends from Koeln/Cologne. We watched the Netherlands/Russia game at the D4 (German TV station) and afterwards we got to be in the live audience of the German post-game show “Nach getreten”, which is more of a comedy-spin show for the European championships. I’ll try to find a clip sometime.

We also saw the Gestapo museum. Apparently the Gestapo had an office in Koeln, as they did in many places, but this one also functioned as a small prison. I would like to describe the Gestapo with much more graphic language but I must control such impulses. I also had the opportunity to taste some of the local Cologne beer, which is surprisingly taken in smaller quantities when compared to the Bavarian cousin. The following photo is of me with Benjamin at his office in Koeln before we departed. When he’s not working in the German department in the US, he’s working in the English Department at Koeln/Cologne.

The week following Koeln/Cologne was different because my supervisor, Robert, left for Venezuela on his honeymoon. Therefore, I continued working with the other PhD student in the lab, Stefan, who happened to already have 2 other undergrads working with him. His work has similar applications but instead he works with Friedel craft reactions and Graetzel cells. So up until now I’ve been working with Stefan.

On the week of the 4th, I had the RISE/DAAD conference in Heidelberg, which started on a Wednesday. Therefore I decided to take off the week days leading up to the conference to make a long weekend starting on July 27th. And in that time, I visited Lisbon and Madrid.

I was coincidentally in Madrid the same time as the European Football Championship game. I stayed in La Plaza Colon, which was the main viewing area for the game. They had setup a small open air studio that hosted live artists as well as the pregame, halftime game and post game show. During the game, there was almost no breathing room in that mass of human beings. As we all know, Spain won, and the reaction in Madrid and I’m sure all over Spain was epic. Looking down any street, all you saw was people sporting the nation’s colors, red and yellow. Fireworks were launching and people were celebrating like it was the last night on Earth. I, myself, almost got hit by a rogue firework that someone had set off in the street. Incredible and unforgettable are the only words to describe the atmosphere and feeling that night.

The rest of the time was spent in Lisbon, Portugal. Its a really pretty city and definitely has a different feeling to it from the any German city. For one, it’s an Atlantic coastal city, which there aren’t very many of in Europe, at least, not of the size of Lisbon. The city has many monuments to the famous Portuguese explorers who set sail around the world. There is also a really big castle on one of the higher hills, which overlooks the city. Unlike the German castles that we think of, which are basically fancy palaces, this castle was an actual fortification. It was originally built by the Portuguese Moors but conquered by King Afonso Henriques ( I believe) and since named after Sao Jorge (St. George). Ironically, just like another Portuguese-speaking city, Rio de Janeiro, Lisbon has a huge Christ statue facing the city from across the water. Lisbon also has the largest stone arch in the world, if you’re a big arch fan.Parque Eduardo VII (looking onto Rio Tejo that flows into Atlantic)

(25th of April Bridge leading to Cristo Rei statue on other side. A little bit like the Golden Gate bridge? Well, the same construction company built this one too).

Castelo de Sao Jorge. (Its way too big to fit in one picture obviously)

I couldn't resist not taking a photo of this.

From Lisbon, I went to Munich, and from there I went to Heidelberg. The RISE DAAD program hosted us in the local Hostel, which wasn’t bad and used the University of Heidelberg to host the introduction and welcome. In the introduction, the head of the RISE program, Dr. Christian Schaefer, introduced himself and welcomed us on the behalf of the DAAD. Following his introduction, spokespersons from both the Canadian and US embassies came to give us further welcome. The introduction was followed by an information lecture on PhD and masters programs in Germany that were specifically targeted towards North American students. I recall one of them being very rigorous with only a two week Christmas vacation and a little bigger break somewhere during a masters course of study.

RISE students at the Universitaet Heidelberg.

Dr. Christian Schaefer giving his welcome speech.Heidelberg seen from the Castle on the hill.

The next day they divided us into groups based on our research interests and sent us off to different industries in the vicinity of Heidelberg. I went to BASF: THE Chemical Company. In size, the main factory and HQ took up a square area half the size of Manhattan or Rio de Janeiro. If I’m not mistaken, I think it is the biggest chemical industry and thus deserves the title, THE Chemical company. BASF started out by giving us an hour introduction on their research and what they do as well as introduce PhD’s who were doing work there. We then were divided into smaller groups to tour the different regions of the BASF factory. I went to the Polymer section and we saw the R&D labs for polymers that were used to make thin films as well as the surfaces that make cars better scratch resistant. The tour and information session was very informative and well organized but I don’t think it really inspired me to go into chemical industry. The highlight of the BASF tour was that we were catered extremely well in one of their private catering restaurants. For a catering job, I would say it was probably one of the best jobs I’ve seen. Other RISE students visited John Deere, Merck, and Mercedes Benz. I don’t think they were nearly as well catered as those of us who went on the BASF tour.

The night was followed by a RISE dinner at one of the local restaurants in Heidelberg. The food wasn’t bad but it took a while to get it because we had a party of 300. During my nights at Heidelberg, I had the opportunity to meet a lot of the other students around Germany. Overall, it was a very diverse group of people. You had your Ivy’s, State schools, Canadian schools, as well as a collection of schools that I’ve never heard of. Some had been there since May 12th like myself and the others had just been there only two weeks.

The next day, we had a tour of Heidelberg as well as the castle that overlooked the city on a hill. Supposedly, Heidelberg has 20,000 Americans who live there. The city has a long and distinguished history and luckily it escaped the bombings of World War 2. I also semi-celebrated the 4th in Heidelberg. Although I didn’t see any fireworks, I celebrated it with the other Americans in the RISE program.

After Heidelberg, I finished off the weekend at Stuttgart with a friend I made at the conference. We met up with his other friends in Stuttgart. All three of them are from MIT and the two not in the RISE program were doing internships as well and one is also living in Regensburg. We saw the Porsche and Mercedes Benz museums, the latter being the highlight of the trip in Stuttgart. The Porsche museum was tiny but they are currently and almost finished constructing their new museum to rival those of Mercedes and BMW. The Mercedes Benz museum is an actual history museum and it has tons of exhibits and not to mention cars. You start out on the top of the museum at the beginning of the history of automobiles and Mercedes Benz and then make your way down through history until it culminates into the dealership, which had cars worth easily several entering freshman 4 year college tuitions at Emory.

Pope-Mobile at the Mercedes Benz museum!

Mercedes Benz Mclaren. Only a few Euros..

The following Tuesday, the 8th of July, was the annual Chemcup for Fussball (soccer). There were over ten teams in total representing the different chem research groups. We were the Fussballkoenigs because our PI is Dr. Koenig. Koenig means King in German. Our first game was a lost, then we had a tie, then a win, and then the last two games were losses. We didn’t make it to the semifinals but it was a lot of fun and I even got a t-shirt out of it. The chemcup was followed by a barbeque with plenty of beer and sausages. Typical german.

Koenigfussball!

This weekend, I went to Munich with the two other RISE students in Regensburg and we met up with a few other RISE students in Munich. In Munich we saw the Deutsches Museum, a charity soccer game, and the BMW world. The Deutsches Museum or German museum is supposedly the biggest science museum in the world and I wouldn’t disagree because in the 4 hours we were there, we barely scratched the surface of the exhibits. The charity soccer game was hosted in the Allianz Arena of Munich and we saw renowned players like Michael Ballack (GER), Kaka(BRAZ), Gattuso (ITALY), and Seedorf (NED). It was a benefit to send more aid to Africa. Nelson Mandela was also a spectator at the game.

O yea, hanging ten in a river in Munich.

Allianz Arena inside. Ballack and Gattuso are somewhere on the field.

Allianz Arena outside.

The BMW world is also pretty cool and it’s also free. The BMW world is an exhibition of the recent technology coming from BMW as well as their newest cars. In addition, BMW has a museum but we didn’t have time to see it.

Me with the other RISE students, Rince, Oscar and Taehun, or RISErs as we call ourselves at the BMW World.

You could say, "we be RISIN' DIRTY!! "(A lame pun on a recent rap hit, "Ridin' Dirty")

Now, I’m back in Regensburg. Again, I apologize for another late post but I hope the sheer length makes up for it. Unfortunately, I can count my lab days with both of my hands. Yes, I leave Regensburg next Tuesday but I will be more prompt in my posts. I will also be in Europe for another two weeks for pure vacation.

And so concludes the post to rule them all.

Bis später,
Miguel

2008-07-10T21:34:00.001-07:00

End of my 5th week, and i'm halfway to getting back stateside. Things are continuing on unimpeded. Dr. Morokuma returned from Europe on Tuesday, but left for Atlanta on Thursday, so the institute remains quiet. Last weekend was pretty i just kinda bummed around Kyoto, but this weekend i'm thinking about taking a day trip to one of the nearby cities, get a little tourist action going.
There's a river that runs just south near my hotel. We're situated at a small delta where two tributaries come together to form the Kamo River. The spot is frequented by people in the same way a public park would be. There are stepping stones that traverse the river, and it is pretty cool to walk across the water. Very tranquil.
Not much else going on. I'll fill you in after this weekend on my adventures.

Under the Tuscan Sun

2008-07-07T02:08:00.000-07:00

It's only been about a week and a half since my last post, but so much has happened! Rome is extremely hot these days, with temperatures on par with Atlanta. I've come to realize how much the Italians are benefitting from no air condition. Not only do they save energy from not using the reverse engine known as AC, they also keep the lights off for most of the day to minimize the heat. They also end up eating less because of the heat, and keep their petite figures. And when they do eat, they have cold pasta salads or rice salads, which minimizes the burning of gas for the stove. Speaking of the stove, I'm always afraid I'm going to burn my fingers every time I light one. Other money/energy savers? No dryers or 24/7 wireless routers.

Last weekend was very boring, mainly because it was very HOTTT. I really did not want to go outside. At one point I convinced myself to see St. Paul (Outside of the Walls) because it is an enormous church. When I got there, I was disheartened by the discovery that I had forgotten to put the battery back into my camera after recharging. I decided to walk around a little bit, and noticed that there were hundreds of police (both Polizia and Carabineri) EVERYWHERE. I walked a little bit more, and notice a Swiss Guard. I knew something was up. I heard a tour guide say something about not being able to buy tickets that day, and then followed the tourists running toward the entrance gate. There was a helicopter hovering above as well. When I got to the gates, I just managed to catch a glimpse of Ratzinger exiting his black car, surrounded by several cardinals. I couldn't believe that I had just seen the Papa! Wow.

This past week I went to Siena to join the Emory chemistry people for the Palio horse race. The bus ride took three hours, but I slept through most of it. When I got there Katherine and Saranya met me at the bus station, and we walked to their dorms. I had been to Siena before, but I was really caught by just how small this city was. The streets were pretty small too, so they provided a lot of shade. The last time I was in Siena, it was colder and we were all complaining about the lack of sun. This time it was actually a plus. Before the race, Saranya and I went to walk around. I got to see the head of St. Catherine! No matter how much I see it, the practice of splitting up and displaying saints' body parts as relics is still a little eerie and macabre.

The race took about...2 minutes max, but there was a lot of parade and procession before the race. I bought a flag for the Unicorn contrada, but they didn't win despite their promising horse in the preliminary races. It took a really really long time to line up the horses in the "correct" way before the race, especially since two enemy neighborhoods are next to each other.

The parading had probably been going on for a few days before I arrived, but they were everywhere on the day of the Palio. Each contrada has many flag bearers, but two of them do a performance with the flag. As they parade, they stop every so often to do their skit. Some were more elaborate than others, but in the end they throw their flags very high and manage to catch it, sometimes more gracefully than others, and everyone claps. For the contrada that won the Palio, this continued onto the next day.

The above picture is of the Palio after the race. As you can see, the Porcupine contrada won.

On Friday I got to perform more surgeries as one of the girls in the lab is finished with her experiments. These went better than the one before, and thankfully my rats are still alive!

On Saturday the Siena kids came back, so I met up with Saranya at Tiburtina Station and brought her home with me. That afternoon we went to walk around, which was great fun. That night I went to a party again with my professor, and again he prepared delicious foods. One dish was of half figs wrapped up in prosciutto! I have never had fresh fig before in my life, but I hear they are in season, so I'm going to load up in these couple of weeks before I leave. They are really delicious, with crunchy seeds. Kind of like very soft and sweet kiwis.

On Sunday Saranya and I took a tour of Villa Medici in the morning. It was gorgeous and the house had a great view of Rome. However in the afternoon we took a bus to Tivoli and saw Villa d'Este. The bus ride was kind of long and took place along the road Via Tiburtina, which was an ancient road to get from Rome to Tivoli-abouts. Tivoli is a small city that is built on the side of a mountain, so the view from below makes it very stratified. The view from above is of the beautiful Lazio countryside.

Villa d'Este was built by Cardinal Ippolito d'Este, who was the son of the Duke of Ferrera and Lucrezia Borgia, which makes him the grandson of a Pope (yes the papacy was especially corrupt those days). The house was very beautiful inside, with every inch of every room painted according to a theme, but the gardens in the back were particularly magnificent. They diverted a stream which eventually flows into the Tiber to provide all the water for the fountains in the gardens. The fountains were really beautiful and everywhere, along with fish ponds and walkways.

Unfortunately, we ran out of time to see Villa Adriana and Villa Gregoriana with the really tall waterfall, so hopefully I can manage to go there before I leave.

On Monday I sent Saranya off to see Ostia Antica with the guidebook I had purchased, but unfortunately there was a public transportation strike, and she decided not to take the 2 hour walk to get to the necessary train station. In the lab I got to do another surgery! This time it was all by myself, from the administration of the anesthetic and preparing the instruments to sacrificing the animal in the end. It went pretty well even though I had minimal guidance.

Today a guest lecturer from Washington State was here to talk about emotions and where they come from mostly in relation to opiate receptors. I didn't really agree with some of his beliefs, but I really liked his ideas of emotions being primal and able to be attributed to animals. Well, Daniele has showed up so I will go do another surgery now. I don't absolutely need him but just in case something happens...

Until next time, ci vediamo!

Do NOT fly with Alitalia!!!!!!

2008-07-07T01:00:00.000-07:00

It is hard to believe that today marks the beginning of my 6th week in Europe. I arrived in Bucharesti last wednesday (one day after I had intended). For all you future travelers out there, I urge you to take my word of advice and do not fly with Alitalia unless it is from the US. I booked my flight from Rome about a month and a half ago through Expedia. However, I was not aware of a peculiar policy the airline company has at the time. From what I understood through a translator, Alitalia does not close their scheduled flights despite being full. Thus, I was placed on stand by 3 times! They adhere to overbooking as a perfectly legal policy. I managed to leave on the last possible flight the following day and spent almost 2 full days in the Fuimicino airport. Not only that, the hotel was about a 30-45 mins away from the airport and the airport is a 30 min train ride from Rome. Thus, I thanked them very much and told them I would stay with a friend. However, they refused to reimburse me for the 5 train rides to and from the airport (a total of 55 Euro). Imagine my embarressment when I had to explain to my professor that I would not be arriving on my intended flight twice! after he was already on the way (or at) the airport. It was not until I got to Bucharest that I found out that it was a two hour commute to where he lives. Luckily, he was very understanding and even apologized for not giving me prior warning about the airline.

After discussing in more detail the living arrangement, I decided that it would be best to stay in his apartment throughout my stay. In just a few days, I have become good friends with his fiance and my professor (Andrei). They are a young couple so it is not awkward and they are both students so it is a very informal relationship. Also, I quickly discovered that Romanian may be based in Latin but much of the conjugations of verbs and grammar structure are taken from slavic origins which explains the extra 5 letters and strange accents. (aka I understand nothing!) Every now and then I can catch a noun (no verbs) because it is almost identical to the italian word, not spanish and the pronouciation is taking from a mix of french and italian. Regardless, it sounds very pretty. For this reason, I thought it best to not find myself without either one of them and they thankfully agreed. Please note here...TV is in english with Romanian subtitles (yay!)

A little bit of history helps explain a lot about the initial impression of the city. It is about 500 years old. Before the communist rule, Romania was ruled by an imperial family with Germanic ancestory for about 80 years. Thus, the most elaborate buildings you see were built around this period, the palaces, parts of the university, the public library, large parks, and a couple of the theather and opera houses with most of this being located in the center of town. However, the majority of the residencial areas are grey, simple architecture (almost prisonlike), no balconies and few windows. This is the communist style. (Everyone was equal). Despite this, there is an abundance of construction including an expansion of the subway, condominiums, office buildings because of the big push to be part of the EU. Many systems are being computerized and access to many things is becoming much easier. However, they tell stories of how things were 25 years ago when you would stand in line 5 or 6 hours with vouchers to receive the monthly sugar and oil and when cheese was a precious comodity. It has been very interesting to listen to them. As it turns out, most everyday people cannot speak english. For example, vendors. However, if you have attended a university yes. I feel very fortunate to have Andrei and Iulia ("my roommates") because at least I have someone that can carry a conversation. (else this would be a very long 3 weeks).

Another observation I have made is that despite warnings about my personal safety and that of my things, Bucharest is a very safe city. At night, you can wander the streets and no one will mess with you. Even during the day, no one stares or makes you feel uncomfortable. There are far less homeless people here than in Rome and the gypsies are actually very calm, peaceful people. Perhaps if I was alone it would be different. But typically they try to make a living and do not result immediately to stealing or tricking people as I had understood. They are the vendors of little convinience stores, trash collectors, car washes, ect. It is actually very rare to here the gypsy language as it is only talked at home among family members. I noticed after a couple of days that some gypsy boys occasionally inhale from a paper bag like you would if you were hyperventalating and trying to not pass out. When I asked Iulia if they had respiratory problems, she responded that they are inhaling the fumes of a kind of silver paint as a drug. There are only three classifications that people identify with though it does not impede any sort of interaction and it is easy to tell by the way that you look. If you have blue eyes, blond hair, and fair skinned, then you ar Romanian. If you are the complete opposite, then you are gypsy. If you are dark haired, dark eyes, but fair-skinned, then you are turkish. It is very simple.

One refreshing fact about the people here is that they are not so stick thin. They typically have meat on there bodies unlike the italians. It could be because they smoke less. The majority of the smokers have been men. Plus, they have a large, non-sweet meal for breakfast. yay! And, actually on a couple of occasions such as the supermarket and the mall, I felt as if I was in the US and had to think twice. And perhaps, it is because I blended in with italians in terms of looks and I understood more but it is hard to shake the feeling of being a foreigner. I just look different. It may sound a little funny because I am also a foreigner in the US. But I tend to forget this fact. Regardless the first question everyone asks Andrei and Iulia is where am I from.

I am leaving lab, religion, and food as the topic of another post. (There is a lot to say about these).

Oh, very exciting. This weekend we are going to the countryside about 100 km away to an excavation site of Andrei and Iulia's godparents. (They play a role in the orthodox wedding so they must be decided early on even though they arent getting married for another year). The site is a late Roman milatary fort. Currently, they are uncovering the barracks. So, I will finally get the chance to do some digging. They all laughed about how excited I was to do this and commented that the main difference in anthropology in the US and in Europe is that in the US the students have a very good foundation in theory and here the students have great pratical experience because they are able to carry out each step of a project so theory is learned more through action

Winter Down Under.

2008-07-05T14:57:00.000-07:00

I've been in Melbourne for about 2 weeks now, but am just now really getting settled. Finding a place to live has been a nightmare because of all the students coming back for second semester. I was in a hostel for the last 10 days, but it was mainly backpackers and lunatics. The guy who slept above me was insane and paranoid. He thought that the U.S. and Australian governments were trying to assasinate him, so I told him I was from Canada threw in an "eh and aboot" here and there and moved rooms the next night. I finally got a place to stay that is right next to the "Uni."

The city itself is really easy to adjust to. Its just like england for food and everyone has been very friendly. My lab is easy going and really sociable just like back home. On friday's we go down to the pub for a few hours and sometimes will go to an AFL (Aussie Football League) game.

No kangaroos yet. People say they hang around the parks sometimes, which are amazing and I'm fully enjoying each of them. I got a bike after about a week and it makes the city a million times better since public transportation is a bit expensive and slow. I've been biking around the parks and found some interesting birds that would be as common as a raven or grackle back in the states but make prettier sounds.

The "Uni" is fantastic as well, its got a lot of old architecture with some beautiful buildings, but probably nothing compared to the buildings of Europe.
Reading Ben's post about xenophobia in Japan reminded me about this section of the newspaper that criticizes the replacement of "g'day mate" with american slang such as "sup homes." Every week the writer attacks about some part of Aussie culture that is dying as a result of Americanization. (They do listen to a lot of American rap down here.) Some of the slang here is a bit confusing but not too bad. The accents aren't a problem at all. A lot of eastern asians come down to australia during this time for vacation and some for work and it's their accent that proves the difficult one (luckily ordering from Wingnuts so much has helped.)
I'm going to a folk festival today before I have to hit the lab on monday!
'Ooray mates!
-James

Quiet Week

2008-07-03T19:12:00.000-07:00

As i finish up my fourth week in Japan, i don't have much to say about my current affairs. Prof. Morokuma has been out of town all week, so there were no meetings. My trajectories are running in such a way that i won't have to actively work on them for at least a week or so. Really, not much has happened to me in the last week. So i decided i would discuss one of the things which has been bugging me about the immersion in Japanese culture.
As i mentioned before, i've seen a lot of Coca-cola products since i've been here. That was only the start. So much of what i see is either an attempt to copy western culture or direct infiltration of american culture. Whether its the clothing, the food, the language, the technology, or social behavior, it doesn't feel too much like being someplace much different from Atlanta. There's a French bakery right next to my hotel and a McDonald's less than a kilometer away. Perhaps the must upsetting thing to me is how much English has seemingly infected the streets. More often than not, a place of commerce will have itselfed labeled in English before Japanese, and frequently only in English. I worry so much about the complete atrification of traditional Japanese culture.
I've discussed this with some other people here, most of them americans themselves, and they agree with my observations and my concerns. One of them said that he had discussed the subject with native Japanese youths, who say "[they] don't know what it means to be Japanese anymore." I know that a big part of Japanese culture is xenophilia, that they love to learn about and incorporate other cultures into their own. Much of "traditional" Japanese culture is derived from Chinese, Korean, and other Southeast Asian cultures. I don't have a problem with that, I actually admire it. But i know it's not a two way street. America, which is supposed to be the melting pot, has take so little from Japanese culture over the last half-century, and most of that is limited to food, martial arts, and anime. I know that companys like McDonald's and Coca-cola don't care about sharing their culture with others, they just see the Japanese population as another market to make a profit on. And all the while, the traditional Japanese culture is in danger of falling by the wayside. I don't know if i'm overreacting, having been raised as a Jew who was constantly taught the dangers of assimilation and the loss of cultural identity. But i like to think that my intentions are good-natured and honestly out of concern for the preservation of an ancient culture.

2008-07-01T22:03:00.001-07:00

Btw, I'm posting like crazy on my blogspot. tasooey.blogspot.com

Tim Soo

Rendevous in Florence/Siena

2008-06-27T07:19:00.000-07:00

Florence (top right) Siena (top left & bottom right)

Friday after work I grabbed the earliest plane possible and hightailed it to Siena. I will not be able to make it to the Palio or to the big party on July 4th so I wanted to visit a really good friend of mine (Saranya) before I left for Romania. The first day we went to Florence and the following we stayed in Siena. She told me that the weather has been rainy and cloudy since the program begin. Perhaps I brought it with me from Rome but it was hot! It seems that 5 minutes after getting out of the shower I start sweating. I can not imagine what it is going to be like in August. This is a picture from the bell tower on the main square of Siena, Piazza il campo. The going up the 400 steps are quite an adventure since it is this tiny staircase made for midgets so you must be bent over to not hit your head on the ceiling. It was amazing though and for the first time you get a glimpsed of the Tuscany countryside. Every day I pass here, the more I am convinced that I do not want to leave. We also went to the Duomo which you can see as the large white and black structure here. There is an interesting story behind its construction. It was started in 8th century and continued intermedently until the time of Pope Pius the third. However, it is awkward looking for three reasons. There was some technical issues with the structural plans, the war between Siena and Florence left them devastated financially, and during one of its phases of construction a third of the population was lost to the plague. As you see it was similar in style (on the outside at least) to the Duomo in Florence as they were trying to outdo each other. I think it is better off because Florence spent all its money on the size and its outside while the one in Siena is smaller but absolutely amazing on the inside. Everyone was gearing up for the Palio so the 17 contratas could be seen wearing there scarves with their own symbols and mascots plus some even had there flags out so that the streets were decorated. Plus some times if you were lucky you could here whole contratas marching and drumming and singing down the streets practicing. It was a huge spectacle. One surprise was the music festival in Siena on saturday night. It was then that I discovered that the italians do not dance and they prefer to sing in English to ("imitate american music") So besides on RA1, the italian TV channel 1. It is very hard to find music in italian.

In Florence we went to Il Duome, Baptistry, Palazzo Pitti (the second palace of the Medici family), Giardino di Boboli, Ponte Vecchio, Piazza della Signoria as well as part of Palazzo Vecchio. It was impossible to see it all all. Florence is a place that you need at least two days to see. I will say that I have spoiled with all the public fountains in Rome. Water was very expensive there.

I will have to write more about it later and post some pictures of the view from where I work. Right now I must get ready for the Vienna Opera House. I am going to see Don Carlo with Said Saab (one of my best friends) at 7!

Nagoya Visit

2008-06-25T20:51:00.000-07:00

Sorry i didn't finish my last post. Later that day we had a barbecue at the institute. Very nice, with a very wide variety of foods, especially since there are several vegetarians in the group. Prof. Morokuma did quiet a bit of cooking, and when he wasn't cooking he still hovered around to oversee the proceedings, just like a good research director should.
This week i'm in Nagoya. I got to take a bullet train from Kyoto which fun. It wasn't a Maglev like i hoped, but still a very enjoyable and smooth ride. I've always had a strange fascination with taking trains as a mode of transportation. I'm working with Dr. Stephan Irle, who used to work at Emory as one of Prof. Morokuma's postdocs, at Nagoya University. While we were in Nagoya, we visited with Prof. Shinohara, who performs many of the experimental analogs of our research. He and his researchers actually make the fullerenes and carbonanotubes that we simulate. So that was quite a treat, actually getting to see the reactions in person. Prof Shinohara keeps a jar in his office full of C60 powder (about 4 lbs of it) which is still quite expensive. I also got to see many of the purification apparatus that they used (ie. HPLC) and electron microscopes and mass spectrometers that the use to investigate the products of their reactions.
Things are so far much quieter than in Kyoto. Admittedly, I haven't strayed very far from the campus, but since i don't have a bicycle here, and i'm trying to conserve money, i really don't feel like going to far. The university is very interesting though. The pathway that i take on my way to our lab passes right by the bioagricultural research areas. There are gardens where they test and grow genetically altered plant life. There is also a more disturbing aviary where they are testing genetically modified birds. I'm not sure of the breed or the genders, but as near as i can tell from the bird calls, they are drunk roosters dying of bronchitis. They crow at all hours of the day and their calls just sound raspy. Weird.
Oh, just as another example of strange Japanese twists on a Western staple, I encountered the most technologically advanced toilet i've ever seen. It has a self heating seat, bidet, and flush sound producer (for some reason). Oh what a strange land.

Some lab news

2008-06-25T02:17:00.000-07:00

So I had to sacrifice two rats yesterday. One was my rat with the assymetrical head, who is not participating in the study for his deformities. The other is a rat we have come to call Mr. Crazy, so now you know why he is not participating in the study. They are in rat heaven now.

Daniele wants to do another experiment that combines the paradigms of self-administration and conditioned place preference. He still has to build the cages, but we might be doing surgery on another 20 rats later this week when we get the stereotaxy equipment back. I'm not sure if he is joking when he says I'm going to do at least a few on my own.

The current experiment with the self-administration is going very well. We all work as a team, as me and another person (usually Michele) go in the morning to the rat room and connect the catheter on the heads of the home group to the spring. This allows them to get used to the sensation of being connected to the spring. Four hours later the experiment begins after we connect the novel group to the springs and put them in the experiment chambers. Right now, the rats are in the "training" phase as they learn to associate bar press for drug. Today is the last day of training, and they will have two "wash-out" days to disassociate the alternation of heroin and amphetamine. Then the choice experiments will begin, where they get to choose between the two drugs.

In other news, I got to hang out with Adriana last night while she was between trips. We went to a Spanish/Latin-America place wayyyyyy south of the city. It was kind of a hassle to get back, and actually it was a lot of hassle to get there too since the metro closed on us. It was a ton of fun since our friends knew how to salsa (or merengue?) and were good teachers. Sadly Adriana leaves for Vienna this morning and I don't know if I will get to see her on Sunday before she leaves for Romania. It's hard to believe it's almost been a month since she's been here!!! That means I've been here for seven weeks!!!! I am very very opposed to going home right now. There is just so much to see...

I figured out why they stare!

2008-06-24T22:20:00.001-07:00

I figured out why they stare!
THEY'RE JEALOUS OF MY RACK!

Now I might not have much to brag about back in the States, but here in Asia, I'm totally stacked! Rivaled only by pregnant women and nursing mothers, I've moved up to double cup status. Like a double B. (do they even have BB?) I think I feel a little pain in my lower back. It's hard carrying all this around.

This just came to me one day as I was walking down the street after work to get dinner and this girl was staring at me. Now people stare all the time but for some reason that day as I gave her the look-down with my squinty "I'm tired of people staring at me like I'm a monster-" eye (sometimes I get feisty) it occurred to me that I've changed stations in life. I might be considered gigantic and relatively fat, but with that status, I can also for the first time look down on those with less chest with a slight eye of pity--you might call it an "awwwww...I used to be you in my life in the US but I'M on top now MWAHAHAHA" look. (Life has taught me to be so cruel) But I must revel in this moment! It might never pass me by again!

It brought my crazy-ness to a whole new level. There was some semi hysterical "wow I can't believe I just thought this you're so special" laughing, accompanied with some doubled over foot stomping and, I'll admit, even a little knee slapping. It was such a random (and if you've ever seen me in real life you know) absurd thought and I was in the middle of being frustrated, irritated and hungry and it all came out so quickly in a moment of disbelief and hysteria.Well, now that I've once again shared too much information, let me talk about less superficial topics.

Oh! And let me tell you, flip flops and socks are totally acceptable here. I have seen so many combinations of socks/panty hose/flip flops, I've almost stopped thinking it it looks bad. I should try to take some pictures.

I met a racist dog on the streets of Bangkok. There are tons of stray dogs and cats but oddly they never approach people and you never hear barking (occassional howling at night as they get in touch with their inner wolf, but absolutely NO barking). So not only was it strange that this dog started barking, but I noticed of all the passer-bys on the street right next to me, he choose to accost me and start jumping around and making a fuss. People looked at me with horror stricken faces like, "Oh my gosh! What did you do?!!?! That dog is barking!! Get away. GET AWAY!" Times haven't changed a bit. Of all those Asian people he singled me out. He didn't judge me on the content of my character at all..only on the color of my skin. Ok...kind of dramatic. But seriuosly dog's don't do that here. They don't even beg for food...perhaps this was not a sign of racism, but it was still highly unusual.Lastly, they don't eat cheese! I was devastated. But I guess it will give my body a good break from dairy so I can hit it hard when I get back to campus. I'm having pizza tonight and I am SO excited! They also don't eat bread so it'll be a nice reminder of what that tastes like too.

Some pictures

This little guy escorted me to dinner one night. Some lady tried to lure him away with kissing noises but I shot daggers at her with my eyes. He was so cute!

This is some of that delicious pineapple I've been talking about!

Here I am at the market wearing a Vietnamese style hat : ) Dang, I have a lot of teeth
My roommate's mentor took us out to eat. The meal was GREAT! So colorful

And my favorite...can you guess what theses are....

Tongues!!!!

And the dog days of summer arrive...

2008-06-23T03:44:00.000-07:00

It's seriously getting very very hot in Rome, and we don't have air conditioner in my apartment. I've been relying on a table-top fan. My roommate reassured me that it doesn't get hotter than this before August, and I'm hoping she's right. It's amazing how spoiled we are by air conditioner.

In other news, Italy lost the EuroCup match against Spain last night during penalty kicks after a half hour of overtime. Afterwards, the town had "the atmosphere of a funeral," as a friend said.

During the day yesterday, I went with a friend on an 8-hour trek through Rome. There were some specific sights I wanted to see, and I got to see all of them except a church that didn't open until 6 PM, how strange. I even got to see a chapel with all of its decorations made from the bones of some 4,000 monks and soil from Jerusalem. I was told that during the 1800s, when the chapel was built, Europe was in tumultous times and the art had some macabre tendencies. However, photography was not allowed for various reasons. In some decorations, scapulae were used to make wings, and two sacral bones framed by metatarsals made hourglasses. Even parietal bones were used as the "dishes" of a balance. It's amazing how short people used to be. My friend told me that one theory says "older" civilizations such as Italy or China have "less fear of predators" so they don't need much physical size and can conserve energy. When I mentioned that Italians who grow up in Norway are huge, I was told that it fit into the theory. How strange.

We went to the top of a hill and looked through a keyhole to see a garden walkway that perfectly framed St. Peter's of the Vatican.

I also got to see a church on the Forum that was built on top of three Roman temples from the 3rd-2nd century BC. We got to go underneath the church and see the Roman foundations and pilars. Another church had the tomb of Alexander Mancini, the famous painter. One church even had the original image of Our Lady of Guadalupe!

And yes, I found the church (which has banned the filming of Angels & Demons inside of it for good reason), which has the Bernini statue "The Ecstasy of St. Theresa." I have always wanted to see this statue in person, and it was every bit as beautiful as I imagined it. My picture does not do it justice! Kind of like the time I tried to take a good picture of the Pieta...

The church was pretty gorgeous too. You know what they say, "If it ain't Baroque, don't fix it."

I am just completely amazed at how beautiful and richly decorated everything is. Even the "shabbier" (read non-Baroque) church have breath-taking mosaics and paintings.

In lab news, I am still working with Daniele and Michele C on the self-administration choice project. My rat is still alive, great success! There is also talk of a lab trip to Ariccia this week, I'm excited.

Posting Posts

2008-06-23T01:07:00.001-07:00

like a million new posts on Japan trip...

Could someone who is an admin on the conference create a bloglist in the right taskbar and just add mine to it? (Constantly posting just to say I have a new post seems pointless)

-Hope all is well!

Tim Soo

Blogging

2008-06-21T14:03:00.001-07:00

tasooey.blogspot.com

night time adventures...

A couple more days

2008-06-20T19:21:00.000-07:00

tasooey.blogspot.com

a couple more posts.

some of the posts are less sciency.. but hey it's a blog.

-tim soo

Outside of America, there is only ONE sport

2008-06-20T10:01:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to share with everyone my experience with soccer. I was actually getting ready to go to bed when bull horns started going off outside, along with some rallying and screaming. It turned out that the EuroCup match between Italy and France was beginning. My friends on a nearby balcony invited me and Eleonora to watch the game with them, so I did.

I can only say WOW. Granted that this was an important game, since Italy would be going home if it lost, but I was completely taken aback at just how enthusiastic everyone was. They were all screaming at the TV, anything from "Mamma Mia!" to "You're paid to kick the ball into the goal so why can't you kick the ball into the goal!?!?!?!" Each goal was followed by fireworks and more horn noises and of course, screaming and yelling. Each crucial moment in the game was accompanied by loud outbursts and swearing. Someone told me that it is no longer allowed to sell beer at the soccer stadia because too much violence would ensue.

For your viewing pleasure, I took a video of the noise in the central courtyard of my block after Italy won the game. Keep in mind that there was very little alcohol involved, at least at the apartment of my friends. There was singing, yelling, whistling, fireworks, horns, pots and pans being beaten, toilet paper streamers thrown, etc. The video is only two and a half minutes but this went on for at least half an hour. Talk about team spirit.

This post should go before the last one.

2008-06-19T23:57:00.001-07:00

http://tasooey.blogspot.com/2008/06/japan-ahoy.html

Sorry, I've moved on.

2008-06-19T23:56:00.001-07:00

So I am posting in way too many blogs so to save time, I just created my own to document my trip to Japan. I'll just be sending the link to here everytime I post. :)

http://tasooey.blogspot.com/2008/06/first-full-day.html

2008-06-19T15:40:00.000-07:00

Life is slowly settling into a grind here. I've finally gotten my hands on a bicycle which improves my range of travel considerably. Unfortunately, since i haven't ridden a bike in about 10 years, i still feel pretty unstable on it. There have been crashes, which i'm not proud of.
Food is pretty similar here as to what it is in america. They have all the same brand names, of course most everything is in japanese. The one major exception i've seen to this so far is wine and spirits, which are often completely in english (thank God). Oh, and for the record, seeing a Budweiser beer can in Japanese has got to be the funniest thing i've ever seen.
Unfortunately, i have a group meeting in just a minute, so i have to run, but i'll post more later today.

the lab, tatoos and other misc. things

2008-06-17T23:58:00.000-07:00

Excuse any typos in advance!

So I know I just posted (that was last week's news anyway : 0) but I thought I'd say a bit about my research. I'm working on the heme synthesis project trying to knock out three genes in the pathway. We're doing that by constructing three plasmids that we hope will undergo homologous recomb. (inserting a selectable marker) so we can see the effects.
It's challenging but I really like it and I've learned a lot! Plasmids are fickle things, I'll have you know. We've got four of the six pieces we need to put onto the plasmids but the last two don't have sticky ends so we're having trouble getting them onto the plasmids in the correct orientation. (We've got to clone the six inserts into cloning plasmids first and then put them on the transfection plasmids in pairs =ing three plasmids!)

I found a church in downtown Bangkok that I'm also really excited about. The pastor and his wife and some band members took me to the Filipino Embassy for the Filipino Independence day celebration. I saw some native dancing and had a few snacks. I also met this old..ahem...elderly guy who--Lord knows why he thought this--for some reason thought that I might find him attractive and that I might go home with him. I didn't really know how to let him down kindly so I just told him about Jesus and left it at that...Let's just say it was a day of adventure LOL

Oh and I mentioned to the pastor that I really wanted to get my tatoo in Thailand but probably wouldn't because it might be less sanitary. He pulled up his pant leg and showed me his--what did he call it--leg cap or something like that. His entire leg is tatted up. From ankle to mid thigh. He said he goes to a guy that is very clean and reliable. This is was NOT good news because now I have no excuse not to get it!! But I'll try my best to refrain.

Oh and the mango is going out of season, which is terribly sad. I feel a tear in my eye now. But the pinapple and watermellon remain so I'm recovering quickly.
I've found a new phenomena: sliced, buttered/sugared bread! Thai people don't eat bread with their meals....ever. But they sell individually wrapped slices of buttered bread at 7-Eleven for only 5 baht. Plus they sell lots of donuts 12฿ and DQ blizzards for 2o฿ ( .64 cents). I might actually be a size XL when I come back! Oh, and they fry 80% of the meat. Doubly wammy.

The food is great though!!! Smaller portions than we're used to in the US. It's sad how you really think you need all that food just because you're used to eating it. I found you actually need much less to be full. Lunch can be any type of noodles with some vegetables, or some fried pork and carrots and spinach-like-greens on a bed of rice or fried rice with pork and egg and vegetables in it. I eat lots and lots of rice. I think I could plant a small rice field with all the rice that gets stuck in my teeth after lunch lol

oh! My friend and I got our first Thai massage last Friday. Five dollars and eighty cents...one hour. THAT'S what I'm talkin about! We're gonna hit a Thai spa next so we can get the whole package--foot massage, oil massage, face scrub...the works!

Well...my plasmid is almost finished digesting so I'm off! It's so nice to read everyone's posts--granted like 12 at a time since I keep forgetting about the blog but I'm glad everyone seems to be doing well : 0)

2008-06-17T23:49:00.000-07:00

This one is mainly observations about differences between Thai and American culture:People stare. I mean STARE….I have NEVER been stared at so hard in all my life and I’ve been black for quite some time now. I wish I could describe it…it’s just so intense to have 20 to 40 people just staring…expressionless…not moving…at first I was a little offended. But after I went home I realized that Asia isn’t like the US or Europe where there is some level of diversity. There are Asians and there are other types of Asians and occasional white people. I can live with the staring because I don’t know if many people in my province (or anywhere outside of Bangkok) have actually ever seen a black person in real life. This makes it more acceptable and I’ll pretend that explains it all! (which honestly it probably does anyway)

They drive SO crazy here! And no one wears seat belts. In fact, most cars don’t have them. We rode in taxi once that actually had seat belts and we got all excited but realized that the clip wasn’t in the seat so they were useless. They tailgate FURIOUSLY. Like a few inches between each car and OMG talk about dangerous passing…it’s such an adventure to fly down the express way with no seat belt going 85 miles an hour with a driver who is counting money and handing back tickets. I pray….and pray. It’s a lot of fun though after the first time. It brings whole new meaning to living life on the edge : )

Even though they drive on the left (steering wheel on the right), no one walks on the left. I realized how organized the US is even though most of us never realize it. It’s pretty much standard to walk on the right because we drive on the right (actually I don’t know why but they match up) but here, there is no “side of the road” when walking but there are an enormous amount of people so everyone just walks where they want to and you end up in abig jangled mass of people all passing and pushing…it’s very different.

Also, there is so much STUFF…everywhere. I think what most Americans would call “cluttered” this culture calls variety and options! There is an amazing capacity to pack in vendors and hundreds of boxes of shoes and dozens and dozens of bags, hundreds of statues, thousands of pairs of earring, scores of scarves, DVDs, wallets, furniture, live animals…all under a blanket of colorful umbrellas. Americans like their space….that’s what it is. I don’t think as a general rule the country likes to see too much stuff in one place. But here it’s like an explosion of colors and sounds—people playing drums, singing, playing guitars, radios playing all different kinds of music. There is so much going on. I love it!! You might be able to find something comparable to it in New York but that’s as close a comparison as I can think of….I tried to capture it in pictures but it’s hard to fit it all in one shot.

There is absolutely no PDA. I don’t think I’ve seen anyone kiss or sit on someone else’s lap (besides girls in crowded buses/skytrain cars). Very few couples hold hands and the majority that do don’t actually hold hands…they more link a few fingers or maybe one person holds just one finger of the other person in their palm. T

here is very little trash or graffiti and I have never seen any piece of money on the ground. I keep looking harder and harder to find even one baht (that’s how I notice all the people with missing toes : ) but no…nothing. With so many people it’s remarkably clean…there aren’t even that many gum stains on the ground!

I’m not sure but I think it’s socially acceptable to pick your nose in public. I think I’m going to pick it up while I’m here. (haha at my little pun) I mean why not! Socially acceptable just means you don’t do something just because other people don’t do it. When other people do it, it’s acceptable! Oh!

And (I was waiting for more evidence before I let this one out of the bag) people definitely not only have their cell phones on during meetings they ANSWER them. A couple people have answered their phones during presentations since I’ve been here! How different from the complete embarrassment American’s make you feel if your’s goes off in a meeting or classroom or quite place.

Getting Ready

2008-06-17T22:01:00.001-07:00

So I'm leaving for Japan soon... PLEASE stay tuned to make sure I'm alive. :-) If only I spoke Japanese...

Tim Soo

Lab News

2008-06-17T09:05:00.000-07:00

I finally have sometime to tell you about where I work.

Tivoli is a small town about a hour away from Rome on bus. It is situated on top a hill (very picturesque. Next time I will pull out my camera so yall can see it. The most visited thing is actually Villa Adriana which I think is very cool. The entire lab came to get me from the station the first time I made the trip out there. Little did I know that we were on the way to an excavation. We arrived at a 13th century building that has gone through several remoldeling over the years. What they were unearthing at the time was an elevator shaft. They date the remains back to the 2nd WW but the issue was that at the time the building functioned as a hospital for the elderly and what they were finding were the remains of children. On top of it all was that the few skulls that had already emerged showed signs of fatal traumas including bullet holes and knife gashes. Not a bad introduction to my new job. As it turns out what I am going to be looking at wont take me the whole time. From what I can see I should have a few more days after I finish. So they have invited me to help on the site. I am so excited! I cant wait! The only issue is that no one really speaks english in the lab.

It has been a huge asset to know spanish and it is the only way I have been getting by. The more I hear though, the easier it gets. Not to mention, the Argentinian person I work with has been helping translate whenever I go out to like the supermarket and stuff like that. In the lab, it is mostly my very broken italian and we sort of get by. There are 18 people total but normally only 4 are in the office as the rest are at the excavation.

The specimens that I am looking at are from 417 AD Roman and consist of about 54 individuals that were in a mass grave. They are believed to be commoners because of enviroment in which they were found and the high incidence of disease. They have a little of everything from leprosy, tuberculosis, trepanematosis, brucello, etc. It has been amazing to handle this bones. Another problem is that they were not buried with any kind of separation or method of identifying what belongs to whom. So each piece is treated separately which complicates things immensely. I have worked it out transportation for the rest of the time here. There is a girl that also works there who lives near la Sapienza so in the mornings I meet her outside the front entrance and she has a car that she uses to get there. There is a toll that we have been trading off everyday. They have a huge collection of which I am seeing a tiny portion. Apperantly they publish 4 or 5 articles a year which I can understand since they get new material almost everyday and they are the only ones in that specific area. On my first day, I was given a copy of their newest book to give as a present for George and here the stories of how they know each other etc.

Besides work, this week (please see Wenjie's post) I basically went with Wenjie's friends and her throughout Rome and Ostea. Sunday I had to take a break solely bc of my feet. They look and feel like they went through a tree chucker so I just did some things around the house, clean, and fixed my computer up a little to give my feet a break. But, now I am back and ready to start again. Until later....peace.

Rome was built in a day...clearly not!

2008-06-16T01:06:00.000-07:00

Wow it's amazing how much of Rome I can see in a week!

The Ara Pacis museum. As you can see I had some issues with shooting perfectly horizontally. I was holding an audioguide and a purse and a map for the audioguide.

Like I posted last week Adriana and I went to see the Ara Pacis. I forgot to mention that we also went to a gorgeous church with the heart of Saint Charles in the back altar! Since I am not Catholic, I found the custom of relics very fascinating.

On Wednesday, one of my best friends from middle school arrived with her boyfriend, and they stayed with me for a few days. We went to Campo di Fiori, the Pantheon, and Piazza Navonna at night.

On Friday Adriana and I went to an enormous church called Santa Maria Maggiore (Saint Mary the Greatest?). Since I was wearing a sundress, I had prepared a sweater. For Adriana, who was wearing a tank top, they had a basket of shawls made of a mesh material (kind of like dryer sheets without the oil). This church had a lot of Bernini sculptures and even had a chapel dedicated to Bernini's tomb! It also contained the Borghese chapel with the really famous icon of Mary and infant Jesus. The basilica was covered in golden mosaics and under the altar was a recreation of the Holy Crib containing pieces of the original manger.

Long colonade along the central knave of Santa Maria Maggiore

Bernini's tomb in his chapel. There were also popes buried there too.

Ceiling of the chapel of St. Matthew. The painting in the middle seems illuminated because it is in front of a window.

Friday night Eleonora made dinner for all of us. Europe is a really different world without air conditioning. She made this cold rice dish because traditionally, no one wants to eat pasta in the summer. I never thought of this. She also said that people generally lose weight during the warm season that is approaching.

On Saturday we went to Ostia Antica! This is officially my favorite place in all of Italy! Ostia was an ancient port city of Rome, because it was wedged between the River Tiber and the sea. However, the coastline and the riverbed positions have both moved since then, so an entire abandoned ancient city remains. We begain in a necropolis, because according to Roman tradition bodies could not be buried within city walls. At one point I found some hidden stairs that led to a huge crypt with slots in the ground for burying bodies.

Here is a mausoleum with cubbies in the walls to hold funeral urns full of ashes. There were also lots of tombs and sarcophogi laying around.

There was a very well-preserved amphitheatre, which marked the ~1/10 mark of the complex, but we had already spent about 2-3 hours exploring everything.

There was an extraordinary number of baths, each with a beautiful mosaic of tiles on the ground. This one is from the Baths of Neptune, so you can see the sea motif. Except the sea horses (hippocamps), sea cows, sea lions, sea goats (capricorns), etc actually have the head and body of that animal and a long squiggly fish tail instead of resembling the actual sea creatures.

There were many well-preserved frescoes, including this one of women above another set of baths. It also has a lobster and a sea serpent.

It was so fascinating because it was really the ruins of an entire city and we were all free to explore. Even though Adriana bough a guide book which made finding things a little bit easier (not really), we found a lot of stuff on our own which made it 100x more rewarding. There were the remains of houses and you could still see a well in the center and a statue in a niche in the wall. You could also see pools for collecting rainwater in other houses. The forum and capitolium were also well preserved. However the most well-preserved rooms and interesting-looking underground passages were gated and impossible to pass without a key, much to our disappointment. There was a synagogue on the very, very outskirts of the city. It was so far away that we couldn't get there because of the waist high grass.

There were several underground passageways and tunnels that could only be found if you saw the right stairways. Underground could only be navigated with some crawling and jumping in addition to walking. From the height of the lintels and the tunnels, we got a good idea of just how much shorter the ancient Romans were. This statue was at the end of a tunnel that we accidentally discovered. Just imagine how excited we were! There were also additional passageways beyond but gated (see picture).

It really made me realize just how much history is in Rome. Whatever is in Ostia Antica is also underneath Rome, and more! You just can't see it. Every time a new highway or metro station (gasp!) is being built. They have to stop just about every few hours to let the archeologists have a turn.

My friends left on Sunday morning, and Sunday turned out to be another beautiful day. I had made friends with one of my neighbors who has a balcony close to ours. On Sunday some of his friends and he and I went to Villa Borghese, which is a huge piece of green land belonging to the Borghese family and now is a public park. We rented a riscio max, or a pedal cart for four people, and went around the park. There was a gorgeous little lake in the middle with turtles and ducks. I have a feeling that next week we will be going to the lake.

On the way home we passed through some nearby sights, including the Spanish Steps, the Pantheon. I really never get tired of the Pantheon! We saw a calendar in a shop called "Calendario Romano," the spread of which included the top 12 most attractive priests in Rome. It really made me think who was the intended audience/consumer for this calendar. Was it serious? And in addition to that, who decided to make this calendar?

In lab news, the rats have officially had enough recovery time. I have been flushing my rat's catheter with the anticoagulant heparin every day, and he is doing well. Today we begin the experiments by teaching the rats to associate amphetamine with one lever. Tomorrow they will get heroin with the other lever.

...And that's the way the cookie crumbles. Wendy out.

Life in the OC

2008-06-15T14:44:00.000-07:00

Yes, even in Deutschland we have the OC. There's plenty of drama, except its mostly kept to frustration with synthesis and chem draw. I've been here for over a month and I've made a lot of progress. I've already synthesized my first flavins, just like what I presented in class, and we're seeing what new ones we can make. We haven't worked with thioureas yet or tested anything with hv.

Soccer or Fussball is in full swing. We even watched one of the German games together as a lab group, which is about 20+ people. The Germans or actually most Europeans really get into the game. My dorm posts daily viewings of the games and you get to see all of the exchange students fromthe Erasmus program (their study abroad in Europe).

Last week I went "castle seeing" with a couple of other DAAD students at Uni Regensburg. We also went to see the Dachau Concentration camp, which was really fascinating but very sad. This weekend I went to see the Black Forest on the border of France and Germany. I stayed at a town called Baden Baden, known for its famous springs. Schwarzwald (or Black Forest) is very pretty and I recommend it when you're in Germany next time. Here are a few pictures from the past few weeks. The fussball match above is of my fellow lab mate and PhD student, Stefan, scoring a goal against fellow group mate and PhD student, Hary (HAR-EE). The group gets along very well as indicated by our group outings (football matches, dodgeball, bbq's, and occasional pub crawls.)

In this photo, my group is watching the Croatia/Germany game. Unfortunately, the Croatians won 2-1 but the party went on. We're watching the game on projector from the group kitchen.

Here is my flavin I retrieved from the column. They glow a bright yellow because of fluorescence, one of the flavins unique properties. I will show more pictures of my lab in the next post.This is the Black Forest (Schwarzwald auf Deutsch) . This picture was taken on top of a mountain where these "paragliders" (or at least that is what they're called) took off. The town of Baden Baden is down below and France is off in the horizon to the right.

Bis naechstes Blog

Auf Wiedersehen,

Miguel

Adjusting to new lifestyle

2008-06-10T18:22:00.000-07:00

So far life in Japan is pretty interesting. I made it safely into through Shang Hai to Osaka Japan. I was supposed to have a reservation with a shuttle company that would take me to my apartment in Kyoto, but apparently the reservation got lost in translation. Thankfully i was able to contact Prof. Morokuma who explained the situation to the people at the desk and they put me on a shuttle to Kyoto, so everything worked out well.
There have certainly been some new things to adjust too, the first obviously being the time change (13 hours ahead of Atlanta time). I'm still adjusting, but i'm getting closer to normality. The first few days i was waking up at 4:30 in the morning. Amazing, i was actually the first one to work everyday this week. Anyone who knows me knows that that is an amazing feat for me to be up an about voluntarily.
The language barrier is definitely there, but i'm doing pretty well in getting by. Most people know a little broken english so i can at least get across my intentions in public. Thankfully, everyone at the office speaks english, so there's no difficulty there. One thing i am definitely having trouble adjusting to is bowing. Anyone who serves you, either cashier, secretary, or driver bows to you. Of course, i want to bow back but i'm often caught off guard and end up just nodding my head instead of a full bow. I can see why many companies have etiquette classes to teach their employees to bow effectively.
The food here isn't much different from back in america, with a few exceptions. They have many of the same brand names and everything is labeled with either english or illustrations in addition to the standard japanese. However, there are some jarring differences. No matter how hard i try, i can't get over seeing squid and octopus on display at the grocery store. Seafood is more prevalent, which doesn't bother me, but so is shellfish, which i don't eat. And the first thing i noticed about Kyoto's streets (besides driving in opposites directions) is that there seems to be vending machines on every corner. The sell sodas, canned coffee, tobacco, and alcohol. While i was on the plane ride, a line from a Bob Dylan song about travel abroad kept running through my head: "Oh, to be back in the land of Coca-Cola." He obviously had not been to Japan when he wrote that. I've just as many Coke products and vending machines here as i ever saw at Emory, maybe even more.
Well, this is getting a little long, so i'll finish up. I'll upload some pictures when i get a chance. Hope everyone else is having good time abroad

a couple of updates

2008-06-10T12:44:00.001-07:00

I dont have much time left at my cyber cafe but here goes...
You have already read what i did this weekend for the most part from Wenjie s post so it is easy to be at the - i love rome, i wish i could move here phase. I talked to my proffesor over the weekend to double check the plans for monday and as it turns out, he was in a motorcycle accident over the weekend so i will have to wait until wed to go to tivoli. I have talked to the other professor there and exchanged information in the case that i get lost. i cant wait to see the collection. i will get back to you about how it goes. the train does not get back until 8 pm so at least it will be a productive day. I dont know how many individuals there are plus I will need a photocopier of all the data sheets that I will be using. From what I understand though, it is a collection from about 1480 and italian. There are a couple of people working on it so i hope they will be able to clue me in on the history a little better. My taste buds are very happy as well. i have never seen so many cuts of meat (or different types of meat) and trying to find fruit and vegetables is also a new experience. i cant wait to have access to the internet so i can post pictures but until then...i think wenjies posts are more than detailed about what we are up to. I see her everyday for a couple of hours to get in our - exercise...aka walk around rome for a couple of hours. i hope everyone is doing well back in atlanta. CIAO!

AGR

Roman Holiday

2008-06-09T06:30:00.000-07:00

So this week has been a busy one, and I wanted to give everyone a few updates.

Eleonora's mother's cousin's family from Colorado were in town last week. Eleonora's mother is an Italian American from New York, but currently lives in Contursi in Salerno province. They are therefore also related to the Rosapepe family, a cousin of Eleonora's mother also lives in Rome. Since they don't know English and the Rosapep family from America doesn't know Italian, Eleonora was asked to translate and I got to tag along.

Enyo Augenti, husband to Maria Luisa (Rosapepe), is something of an aficionado for ancient Rome. He has written several books, two of which on the Colosseum and Roman women are very famous and used in classrooms all over the world. He was very kind to take us all over Rome and show us sites while telling us stories and exciting explanations.

This is the remains of the first wall of the Republic of Rome (before Octavian made it into an Empire). You can imagine it is very, very, very old. It was discovered by a man who had been contracted to build streets in this area. He found the wall but continued his blasting anyway, so he was jailed.

We walked around a lot of places, and at one point we passed a large shop that sold pope clothes. I got pretty excited even though I probably will never get to wear them. In fact I think it's more like definitely instead of probably. And each one costs about 400 euro.

Enyo (on the very right in the picture) told us that the morning gladiatorial fights were mostly for people who had received the death penalty. They got to fight against animals. Or, two were pitted against each other but only one had a sword. When one died, he was replaced with a newcomer, who now had the only sword. In the afternoons were the fights for the "real" gladiators. Slaves had to constantly provoke the gladiators to fight against each other because they were usually very good friends. Gladiators could ask for grace if they were about to be killed, and the crowd/emperor could decide with their thumbs. In the Colosseum there is an entrance just for the emperor, and also a service entrance, like when someone needed to bring in elephants or tigers.

There is another metro stop being built right next to the Colosseum, perhaps for another metro line. The progress is very slow because...ho hum each centimeter they dig up includes archeological finds!

Enyo and Maria Luisa have a really nice apartment near Via Veneto, which is the Roman equivalent of Rodeo Drive. They have a study full of books, and on the wall is a picture of Enyo's father shaking hands with Mussolini. There are also three different family crests on the wall. It must be so amazing to have so much family history.

Enyo and Maria Luisa also had Eleonora and I over for dinner one night with the Rosapep family as well as another family. It was delicious, as most meals are, and I really enjoyed the dinner. The other family was half British, so we had plenty of English-Italian dialogue as well as translators for the meal.

In my lab, we finally got to start on the surgeries on Thursday (even though they were slotted to start on Monday). They took three whole days but now 36 rats have either a single or a double catheter. Only one rat died of a reaction to the anesthetic. It was hard for me because I was always scared that the rats were not completely anesthetized and could feel pain. I was always asking Michele C to give more anesthetic (not to the one that died bc it was the first one of the day) if I felt like they were reacting to the movements. But he reassured me that they were mostly reflexes and the rats were very heavily anesthetized.

I watched a lot of surgeries over the three days, and I finally got to do my own this morning. It was fantastic enough, though I really applaude Daniele for having the patience to teach me. He refused to do anything for me and would only show me the motions so I could learn. I had a lot of issues mount the rat on the stereotaxy thing, because the head must be immobile during surgery to create minimal tearing of tissue. The eyes start blinking as a reflex if you hit the sweet spot in the ear, which I initially mistook for a sign of wakefulness.

The complete surgery, which I did by myself this morning, consists of first shaving the animal's hear and right chest. Then the rat's head is mounted and an incision made on the cranium. Four holes in a small rectangle are poked in the cranium just deep enough not to puncture the meninges and a screw is inserted in each one. Then the rat is laid on its back and another incision is made above his right breastbone or maybe collarbone, and a clamp is used to pick out a section of flesh. After making sure there are no other branches between that section of the vein and the heart, the vein is isolated from surrounding flesh, slightly nicked, and then inserted with the catheter. This is all very hard because the vein is very tiny, and since I was taking so long my vein was collapsed. After the catheter is fixed to the vein with some knots, a hole in the fasciae is made by by tunneling a blunt stick under the rats skin to the hole at the top of the cranium. The catheter is threaded through and reconnected, the chest incision stitched up, and the rat again mounted on the stereotaxy. After arranging the position of the catheter on top of the head, dental molding gum is prepared and used to glue the position of the catheter between the four screws. Finally two more stitches close up skin of the head around the catheter. The rat is then placed in cage with a little warming device underneath until it wakes up from the anesthetic.

This weekend Adriana and I went out to a great place in an area called Trastevere, known for its nightlife. At one point in the night, we had an "Aha!" moment. You see, the Tiber River is actually called the Tevere, and this place was "beyond the Tiber" since it was on the opposite bank of the rest of Rome and on the same side as the Vatican. We met a lot of really nice people, including this British girl named Jen who lived really close to me, so we got to walk home together.

Sunday afternoon we went to walk around and see some sights such as the Ara Pacis. Before we got caught in torrential rain, we actually ran into a lot of popular places by accident. We ran into Piazza Navonna, the Pantheon, the Trevi Fountain, Hadrian's Temple, the first wall of the Republic, and at one point saw St. Peter's in the near distance. However toward the end of the night we were soaking wet and worried about our mobile electronic devices, so everything was not so fun. Finally the rain stopped and we managed to get home safely, without the help of public transportation.

Until next time...arriverderci! And I am very glad to see that I now have some blogging competitors.

Apologies and Updates

2008-06-08T13:02:00.001-07:00

I have another 17 minutes before my internet cafe money runs out. So I'll make the most of it.

Basically, I'm really sorry that I have posted near to nothing on this board. But I have a valid excuse. Basically, my power adapter melted within 3 days before I could get internet in my room. I asked several electronic stores for a replacement and they all said "Nein" or " Nächste Woche vielleicht" (next week perhaps). And I asked in German. My parents sent one which was supposed to get in by a week but it never came. A week after it came I finally got word of it but its stuck somewhere in customs. I finally found a power adaptor. Following that came the internet crisis. Unlike Emory, which has a seemingly simple process for obtaining the Internet, Uni Regensburg drags you through a 5 step paper work process which comes to the excruciating finally of typing in my extremely long 9 -10 digit IP.

BUT ANYWAYS. That has been the small negatives and everything else is AUSGEZEICHNET (excellent).

First Weekend:
City tour (saturday)
Walhalla (pronounced Valhalla) the Parthenon of Germany

Second Weekend:
Befreiungshalle (Freedom hall commemorating victories against Napoleon)
Schulerloch: Cave system in Bavaria
Weltenburg (Oldest Monastic Brewery) Basically where the Monks got their party on and played a lot of bier pong.

Third Weekend: (Loads of Fun. I took two days off for this one. I met with fellow Emory Slovak Matej Varga in Vienna and we travelled around)
Vienna(really pretty city)
Bratislava, Slovakia (very historic)
Road trip to Hungary!!! Budapest ranks as a top city in my opinion. Better than Madrid and comparable to Paris.

Hungarians have a crazy language that belongs to some Finnish subgroup

Fourth Weekend:
-Chem Party. Ya, I think the Uni Regensburg chem club raises a lot of money. Particularly for partying and alcohol. Im sorry but their Chem Party, (and this is just chem), rocked Dooleys Ball. At least in my opinion.
-Linderhof and Neuschwanstein: Palaces of King Ludwig II of Bavaria. Very pretty but at least he didnt starve his people like Louis XVI did over there in Paris
-Konzentrationslager Dachau. The beginning of the Nazi nightmare. The Alpha of the concentration camp system. A very solemn place. Ironically it was a much prettier day than Linderhof.

The Lab:

My supervisor, Robert Lechner, is quite possibly the coolest guy I could have worked with in Germany. He's very lax and I'm learning a lot. I've been synthesizing flavins this entire time. I now have a main starting flavin from which I can create new flavins (ones that havent been created yet) . We tried to make new ones with Grignard agents and Lithium but it didnt work as in theory. Doing synthesis is a lot harder than doing it on paper.

Oh, and I DETEST running columns.

The labs P.I. , Burkhard König, is a cool guy but I don't see him that much. The other grad students (about 20, its a really big group, everything is bigger (sometimes better) in Germany) are really cool as well. They're very social and we've had barbeques, afternoon pickup Fußball games (soccer for those that dont know), and we even started our own IM Dodgeball tournament. Of course they play it the german way. And these events are usually accompanied by beer drinking. Prost! (cheers) I can resist the offer to smoke (europeans, at least young people, smoke a lot) but its hard not to join my fellow German comrads for a bier or two.

I've made friends with my Barcelonan neighbor down the hall, who speaks fluent german in addition to English, Castellano y Catalan. My fellow Czech lab mate lives next to me as well. He's doing a similar IRES program but a Czech version you could say. He's from Prague or Praha and is an undergrad as well.

Hopefully, with internet in the next few days, I can compete with Wendy and post some pictures. I hope this makes up for a long drought of posts

Servus von Regensburg,
Miguel

Settling In

2008-06-06T00:25:00.000-07:00

I have had a productive couple of days. yay!

First of all, I moved into an apartment yesterday! It is incredibly international. There are people from Argentina, Cuba, France, Ukraine,and one Italian. It is close to Piazza Bologna (about 10 minutes and not far from the second mayor train station, Tiburtina). Yesterday the only people in the apartment were an italian and a yugoslavian and let's just say their english is very broken. However, it was a lot of fun to play charades and practice by broken italian as well. Eventually they got it and actually the more I hear it the more I can reproduce. Maybe I will learn it to a decent degree before I leave. Romanian, however, I heard is a hard languange but they speak much better english than the italians. Anyway, it is close to the University (about a 20 minute walk)and Wenjie also lives nearby. I am surrounded by students so at least in that sense it is a little more familiar. My main concern is that it does not have internet access and like Wenjie said , we have been seriously spoiled at Emory for having internet at all hours of the night. Even you want to go to an internet point, they typically close around 9 so it is impossible the countless hours that I am used to.

Two days ago I have talked to a profesor (Alfredo Coppa) at La Sapienza who knows George. Even better, his english is the best I had heard in Rome besides the tourists since I have been here. He has been a huge help in helping me to contact the right people to find the collection I wanted to look at. We were at it for over two hours in his office while his students were taking exams. However, as we were talking he mentioned a collection that he has in the nearby town of Tivoli. (about 30 km away which by the way has a beautiful villa called Villa Adriana) On monday he will be accompaning me to Tivoli to start working. I will be having more direct communication with Dr Mauro Rubini. It would have been today but it will be raining so most likely the people that we need to see in Tivoli will not come in to work. Wouldn't it be nice if I could base my going to class or work on whether I considered it good weather or not. Today there is a bus strike so many students will not be able to reach the school. Typically professors cancel classes. However, from what I could understand the student knew of the strike a week in advance which to me sounds a little fishy.

Two days ago, Wenjie got tickets to go to the Forum/Palatine/Colosseum. It was amazing! I was speechless. I think I could easily go back a couple of more times and find something I had missed from the time before. I tried to imagine as we walked along how it must have look a couple of thousand years ago. Not to mention we were walking on the roof and since the whole complex is still being excavated there is still much more that found buried beneath it. It was an anthropologists dream! By the time we arrived we could not get any audio tours and they make it very inconvient to locate. It cannot be efficient for business. This was the only thing that annoyed me I think of the whole day. My goal is that next time I go I will have to get one so I have a more in depth explanation of the place.

For all of you that have not heard of MBTs - look them up! The shoes are fabulous. They are based on the stride of the Masai people. They have saved my knees and my lower back the last few days. However, I have one complaint. The streets in Rome are not flat. I know that it is the city of the seven hills. But, I am constantly tripping over myself! I put my regular tennis shoes on just to see the difference and within a half hour my back was hurting so from now on I am going to wear the MBTs. They are getting dirty though. Rome is not the cleanest place I have ever seen. I think that in a lot of ways it still reminds me of Maracaibo. The condition of everything I mean. There are beautiful buildings ancient, old, and new (but still old) but they are covered in soot. You should look into the condition of Napoli at the moment aperantly they have not had garbage removal services working for some time and there are just piles of garbage lining the street due to bad politics. I do hope it gets corrected since I was planning on going there with a friend of mine and Said Saab later on. Also, I have been told that it is a damaging there image when typically the people are very nice and its a lovely place to see.

The only other thing I will say is... Italian guys do not understand the concept of NO but as long as you keep at it with a stern look they eventually go away.

... a little about Roma

2008-06-06T00:13:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone,

As you know, I arrived! My first impression of the ride from the airport to Rome was of the slums near my hometown in Venezuela but of course that all changed once we finally got inside. It was a bit overwhelming. I feel like trekked through the entire city twice over with Wenjie and was exhausted by nine o'clock. My feet were killing me toward the end and on top of having got about 4 hours of sleep on a time difference, it might have been the jet lag that slowed me down. However, I slept like a baby and was sad to hear my alarm at 8 am this morning. I found my favorite view of the city so far. The Palatine hill which Wenjie posted. The picture does not do it justice. Anyway, I have two goals for today since I do not start work yet. I am to get a SIM card and get an apartment. Currently, I am having problems with both of these and luck is not on my side today. I hope to have pictures up soon but though we saw a lot of things yesterday, my camera died as soon as I turned it on. The hostel is very convinient and though I heard that it dangerous, I have not seen any suspicious behavior (at least not more than in any other part of Rome).
One thing about the Romans that I noticed immediately. They try incredibly hard to help despite the language barrier. One time I could not bring myself to correct this woman that was trying to give directions for someplace I knew was less than two blocks away. I finally figured out (after I was lost again) that her -right- was actually - go straight- and her -left- was actually a - right. However, if you want to meet cute guys this is perfect. You just go up to them and ask for directions and its not lying! because most of the time you really are lost! I hope that tomorrow the sights of the city become more familiar. Since there are no skyscrapers like in Atlanta to guide you, all the buildings and streets (the ones that didnt have a very recognizable monument or famous fountain) ALL LOOK THE SAME! As for food, I think my mind prepared itself for the change even before I came here. For a girl (or a guy for that matter), I eat a decent amount. But, knowing the portions are smaller and more expensive I started getting full on small amounts. Thank goodness because I do not know if it would be affordable to live here otherwise. The pizza of all kinds are fabulous!

Who's the giant, fat black girl on campus?

2008-06-04T19:20:00.000-07:00

This is often what I see on people’s faces as I walk through the campus of Tammasat University to get my dinner at one of the “food courts”. I only say fat because of my shopping experience last weekend. Hundreds, I mean hundreds of hundreds of really cute shoes around every corner at this enormous mall-like place. What do I hear half the time for my size (which is comparable to a size 8.5 mind you) “No. No biggah…no biggah” Basically, we don’t have your size Bigfoot! And my favorite thing of all….Just GUESS what size skirt I am by Thailand sizes? I just laughed and laughed in my little dressing corner as I tried it on. Do I LOOK like an XL to you? I find it very humorous.

Also, while standing on the sky train I realized I could see straight from one car to the next because I was head and shoulders over most people LOLOh, and, I can’t wear like 2/3 of the clothes I brought. This is the only thing I can really complain about lol. The skirts are tighter than they generally wear (they wear more flowy skirts) and the shirts are "professional sleeveless attire", which they don’t wear either. Other than clothing fiascos, though, everything is great!

The mango is just about to go out of season and it is SO ripe and delicious! They serve an entire, cut mango over sticky rice (VERY different from normal rice because it’s cooked with coconut milk for a lot longer so it’s really soft and sweet. But it's a natural sweet, not like candy sweet. Too good to describe but I have pictures! It’s less than a dollar for me so I’m going to get it everyday until it goes out of season : ) And the pineapple is AMAZING! I know I’m not supposed to be eating peeled fruit...I tried to abstain….like…a week almost. Besides, my immune system is extremely resilient. All those snacks I ate from between the couch cushions, or the food I ate off the floor or the food I salvaged by digging out the mold made me immune to whatever sickness you're supposed to get from eating peeled fruit! I'm in heaven : )

Eve of Departure

2008-06-03T17:16:00.000-07:00

Well, I leave tomorrow, and i'll admit that i'm pretty damn nervous. Among other things, i have 18 hours of flight tomorrow. I won't be getting into my hostel until sometime after midnight local time. Can't really think of much else to say right now except reiterate my anxiety. I've been out of the country for extended periods before, but now i'm basically going alone to a country completely unknown to me. I'll fill you in on progress during the next 48 hours.

Catalunya: "We are NOT SPANISH!!!"

2008-05-26T11:25:00.000-07:00

So this weekend I went to Barcelona, and I had a GREAT time. I had a lot of warm bocadillos and paella. We also went to this restaurant called Kirin. It was "Japanese" but owned by Chinese people. The restaurant was really long with a long two-lane conveyor belt going down the middle with little plates of Chinese/Japanes "tapas." There was sushi, watermelon slices, fried bananas, dumplings, sashimi, etc. It was more fun than delicious!

Barcelona is a beautiful city, but with a more modern feel than Rome. I suppose it only makes sense that when Rome was already a bustling metropolis, Barcelona probably consisted of some canoes and huts on the beach at the foothills of the mountains. When I was there Barcelona was in a drought, but at least the reservoir was at 40% instead of the previous 18%. A medieval city had been uncovered because of the low water levels. The fountains were all dry and the sewers smelled pretty bad. This is sad because one of Barcelona's biggest plazas, called Plaza Catalunya, had a really great ocean theme.

Barcelona also has a bit of a crazy topsy-turvy feel. It's the home of "gaudy" and also legally vends absinthe. I visited the Sagrada Familia, which is a huge cathedral designed by Gaudi early in the 20th century. Some parts of it are old, and after the pollution of about a century looks ancient. The other parts look like Disney World.

You can see the seam between the old and the new parts. The cathedral is built only on "donations," which can also mean tickets. No money from the state is accepted because it comes from taxes. The construction is therefore somewhat slow, and when I was there I could see an enormous hole in the ceiling. I got to take a lift to the top of one of the spires and look down across Barcelona. Notice the balls of fruit on top of the pointed white gables at the top.

The open container law in Barcelona is not in place after midnight, and before then it is loosely enforced. Therefore there are plenty of street venders in the night yelling "cerveza? 1 euro!" Everyone told me Spain had a "drinking culture," and look what could be purchased from Burger King...

I also met some Catalans who were really nice after they opened up. They really adamantly deny that they are Spanish because they speak a different language and only belong politically to Spain because of the defeat in 1714.

Last week I also took a walk around this park that surrounds several villas, including Villa Torlonia. There was lots of greenspace and JOGGERS! I hadn't seen any joggers before then and just assumed Italians walked. But it turns out they don't want to inhale the smog from cars and I even saw someone wearing a surgical mask! There were lots of children playing soccer, a birthday party, fountains, obelisks, statues, and GRASS. I hadn't seem stretches of grass for a while.

I climbed to the top of a hill and looked down on the villa. For a while Mussolini rented the villa from the Torlonia family for 1 lira a year. The Torlonia family is very famous in Rome, and they are named as the commissioners of many churches, chapels, and other architectural structures. Also under Villa Torlonia are some Etruscan tombs, which I will definitely visit in the future.

Yesterday Adriana arrived, yay! I walked to Termini to meet her, and we ran around Rome until we found the tiny street her hostel was on. Then we went to explore Rome. We went to the historical part of Rome with the ancient structures and visited some churches. One beautiful church called San Paolo della Croce (Saint Paul of the Cross, if you didn't figure it out) had a wedding inside and was connected to a convent. It also had ancient frescoes underneath, which we will go see at a different time. The lady at the museum told us that the church was free and we could go "around" to the "bell tower." Well I really wanted to go into the bell tower, and we knocked on the entrance beside the bell tower, but we were turned away because it was a convent. So we went inside the church, watched the wedding, and then walked in the direction of the bell tower. It turns out we were immediately in the convent, and the man threatened to sequester us (or "lock up" in his words) according to the convent's rules. We made it out alright, but we realized that "convent" and "convicted" might have a common origin.

In the middle: my belltower. To the right: the convent. To the left, what we thought was part of a church but actually part of the convent. At the bottom: people attending the wedding.

The getaway car for the happy couple seen through the gates to the ancient Roman foundation of the church. I wanted to go into the ruins but I was not skinny enough to fit through the bars of the fence.

Inside the church where a wedding was going out. Notice how beautiful the church it. The wait to have your wedding takes about....1 year, according to the sign on the door. But you'll get to be surrounded by 8 saints and 4 popes when you get married.

We also climbed up a HUGE hill on the other side of the Circo Massimo (Circus Maximus) to get a great view of Palatine Hill. The ruins are really sprawling and tall. You can see a part of the circo at the bottom of the pictures. On the same note, Adriana made me climb the steepest part of the hill in my white mini skirt. Yes, stairs were available, but instead I slipped and slid down the grass several times.

So everyone knows that in Europe, people drink wine with every meal. No one really thinks of meal-time wine as alcohol, but that it's simply part of a meal. You eat bread, cheese, and have wine. The one problem is: doctors don't tell women to stop drinking during pregnancy. The result? 4 out of every 1000 children have fetal alcohol syndrome, as compared to maybe 2-3 per 1000 of American births (in non-Native American areas). Alcohol prevents the migration of cells during fetal development, so some babies are born with very little or no corpus callosum. Pretty interesting stuff I learned from my friend Vera who helped do an epidemiology study on FAS in Italy.

Also in the lab: there is no such thing as a sharps disposal. You recap the needles and throw them away in the trash can. I think Health and Safety officers at Emory would be screaming if they saw that, haha. Also the surgeries did not begin today as planned, something is wrong with the levers in one of the experiment boxes. They have to be fixed before the surgery because the rats who are tested at "home" will be living in the cages immediately following surgery.

Festa!

2008-05-25T03:53:00.000-07:00

Alora, my dad called me and asked me if we had air conditioning. It turns out that my apartment does not...I am SO glad I booked my flight early to avoid all the dog days of August. I don't even remember what it was like not to have air conditioning, but I know it was bad. It's strange how we've been keeping all the windows in our apartment open but no bugs have come in. I hope this applies to mosquitoes in the future.

On Thursday 56 new rats arrived, and we handled them and put them in cages. On Saturday I went in again and petted all 56 of those buggers for about 3-4 minutes each. I must not be doing it right because they are still pretty nervous, but it may be just too early to tell.

On Friday night my PI Dr. Aldo Badiani invited the whole lab to his house for a dinner party to celebrate my arrival. He's a very strong-willed, obsessive, and opinionated person, but he is also one of the kindest people I've known. Dr. Badiani lives in a very nice penthouse apartment with a large terrace, which is where we had our courses that came out one by one. The first dish was a pasta dish with tuna, fresh tomatoes, and two different types of olives. The second was a sweet prosciutto ham with melons.

Back row: Maria Teresa, Michele Celetano, me, Vera Spagnolo, Dr. Badiani (looking fierce). Front row: Ricardo, Daniele Caprioli, Alessandro, and Dr. Michele Millino. Not present: Arianna (who is taking the picture), Valentina, Frederica, Davide, and Stefania.

This is bresaola, a very lean prosciutto (except it's not really prosciutto because it's made of beef), wrapped around goat cheese with horse radish.

Two different types of salami. The one on the right is made of boar meat, which is caught in the forests of central eastern Italy. The salami was served with unsalted bread (a slice is in the background).

This is unsalted bread with goat cheese and raisins drizzled in honey.

This is pecorino, or aged goat cheese. This specific one was aged in a pit. It was served with honey.

For dessert, Dr. Badiani bought two cakes from "the best pastry shop in all of Rome." The one in front has profiterolles, or pastry balls filled with cream and covered in chocolate. The other one is a raspberry torte cake topped with powdered sugar. As usual, Badiani is looking ferosh.

On Saturday, we went to Arricia, a town southeast of Rome, which is known for its pork, or "Porketta Arricia." My friends kept saying, "it's not too elegant" or "it's not very glamorous," but it was a great meal and very cute!

You might be able to make out all sorts of cheeses, ham, salami, jerky, etc. To the left and not in the picture was an entire roasted pig.

This was about half the food we were served. You can see (from top) roasted pork, peppers, fresh olives, mozarella balls, beans, zucchini, pecorino, jerky, salami and prosciutto, bread with filato cheese. We also had sausage links, grilled skewers of lamb, potatoes, spinach, and bread. The mozarella is not real mozarella because it was not made from the milk of a water buffalo.

For dessert some people ordered the tiramisu, but I had the Catalan cream, which is a cream whipped with egg and then cooked and topped with caramel. By the end of the meal we were all very, very stuffed. I slept very well that night, and for once we didn't go for a late-night gelato.

When in Rome...

2008-05-23T11:36:00.000-07:00

Wendy, Adriana was just here and we were talking about what to wear or not.

I decided you need to turn your camera to some local crowds and post some pictures. Help a girl out!

I hope your week is going well :)

2008-05-22T03:13:00.000-07:00

Hey guys!!I made it to Thailand last night at 11 15 pm!Can we say humid?!! My forearms started sweating beforeI left the airport lol the food is so flavorfull but I can tell I'm going to stop being a baby about spicy food and learn to love it. Lots of rice and not a lot of meat : ( I'll come back so healthy....the portions are small too so its mandatory portion control! this will be good for me : ) Everyone eats every meal "out". I guess I would too if it were less than a dollar a meal! But seriously...the grad/post doc students don't even have kitchens! I'm still not supposed to eat fruit till my stomach adjusts but the first thing I'm going to try is sticky rice, coconut milk and mango. It's looks SO sweet and delicious.

An interesting thing I've noticed: the definition of air conditioning here is SO different. Forget bringing a sweater inside to protect you from air conditioning frost bite like in the states...at biotec there is just enough air blowing so that you can tell you're not outside but not enough to notice that it's actually on and JUST enough to keep you from breaking out into a sweat while working LOL

My room is good....the sheets are SO ridiculously white. got one channel in English...CNN....I guess I've been talking about getting more into the news huh? Here's my chance!The poeple are nice but not a lot speak English...they smile a lot tho

My mentor is from the UK...he's nice and knows a lot about a lot lol. Straight laced fellow who says things like "whilst" lol he's very helpful tho and I think I'm really going to like my research. My reserch last summer prepared me really really well even though it was unrelated.

That's all for now...I might venture out into Bangkok this weekend...don't have internet so no map and no plan...we'll see if I come back alive or not. Let's hope so : )

Piove

2008-05-20T06:49:00.000-07:00

So I got Chinese take-out on Sunday night, just like I would at Emory, but it was the most horrible Chinese food I have ever eaten in my life. The portion sizes were TINY. I bought three dishes and two cartons of rice, but it only came to 2 meals. It was expensive too, which surprised me because everyone has been telling me how cheap Chinese food is. The restaurant owners were very nice, though. We talked about the earthquake, which occurred near my father's home.

In the meantime, I think I will stick to delicious Italian food.

Francesco has been coming over a lot. He has something of an Irish accent when he speaks English, which is TOTALLY random because he has never been there. Eleonora is studying for her upcoming exams. It seems like Italian students get a lot more reading than American students. She says she has to read about 700 pages for each course. I know I do a lot of reading for my classes too but think 700 pages probably covers my entire semester.

So, it seems like the easiest way to put out a lit cigarette is to mash it with your heel, but mashed cigarettes on the ground don't usually get picked up and binned. It's a shame that the streets are filled with cigarette butts.

Today I gave a presentation on my project for my honors thesis. I don't think several people understood, unfortunately, but there were some interesting questions. Two people in the lab are working on a clinical study with disulfiram and alcoholics and other drugs if the subjects are taking them.

Yesterday, we got 8 cabinets from IKEA and we began putting them together for the new rats to come. It's good to actually have something to do while we wait for those rats. It's amazing how many of these boxes I've put together and I still get confused. Michele Celetano and I were putting them together yesterday, and we kept joking that we had to chant the mantra, "Remember, every one is like a new one." Michele has an exam tomorrow, so he was not in today. I finished putting the doors on some cabinets this morning and then put together three whole cabinets by myself! I got better at using the electric drill but I think it will need a new set of drill bits now.

It's raining today and it makes me wish I could have carried 100 kg of stuff with me instead of 50 :( Thankfully I only have about 750 meters to walk back to my apartment, but I can't find my umbrella. On Friday night, if weather permits, there will be a party at my PI's house in northern Rome. I wonder if this is customary, and if it is anything like a BBQ party, haha. Oh yeah, and Michele got me a phone!!!!

For those of you who like pictures, here is a picture of a cat that lives in the temple ruins of Torre Argentina cat santuary. They are fed by the gattare, or "old cat-ladies." If you are asking if it tried to get food from us, the answer is yes.

Pictures

2008-05-19T08:27:00.000-07:00

Okay so I didn't know we could upload pictures so easily. I've posted some to facebook, but here are some good ones!

This is the street I live on.

The Spanish Steps on Piazza Spagna. Notice the ton of people on them. Gianguido's kindergarten was the church at the top.

In front of the Pantheon at night. Somehow I appear gigantic.

Piazza Venezia with the Monument of Victor Emmanuel II (unification of Italy) at night.

Domenica

2008-05-18T08:54:00.001-07:00

What a weekend! This morning I was woken up by our loud Filipino neighbors at 7 AM. I told Eleonara about it, and she said it was a regular Sunday thing. Oh boy, not good. I wanted to go see the Pope this morning, since he usually makes an appearance Sundays at noon, but he is in Genoa today (I think). I guess I will have to wait until next week.

On Friday night I went to MiccaClub where Eleonara works. Simona bailed, so I kind of shuffled around to get there myself. I was alone but I managed to meet a wonderful cohort of people. We will be hanging out next weekend together. They live in Montagna Rotunda, one guy kept calling "Round Mountain," which is about 20 km outside of Rome. Alesio is a lawyer specializing in injuries involving vehicular accidents. Yes, I should watch out for those cars. Only two people, Alesio and Alesia, spoke English, but they were all very friendly. We did the twist and boogied the night away to the 70s music.

On Saturday we went shopping. We walked to one of the historic districts, with the Trajan Column, and the Spanish Steps, and the Borgia Gardens, and the Victor Emmanuel II Monument in Piazza Venezia. Right now boots are really big in Italy, and she wanted to get some summer boots. I didn't bring any bc they were too heavy :( I ate a pizze with POTATOES and ham on it and no tomato sauce (called pizze bianca). It was delicious. I definitely want some more.

So it seems like the buses and trams in Rome are on the honor system. Eleonara has a monthly pass, which she lets me use. When we ride together, she says to bolt if we see someone in a navy uniform boarding. We went to the tanning salon today after shopping. It's a little different in that there is only one level of ray intensity and you have to stand up (or sit in a chair for just your face), so you can't wear the little goggles. Instead you have to wear the WinkEase stickers, which leave a bigger ring around the eyes. It was an interesting experience but I'm not going back there again.

That night we went with Valentina and her boyfriend Andrea to walk around the Pantheon area. We went to this gelateria that is supposed "the best in Rome." It has a huge variety of flavors. I got the red guava, kiwi, and pomegranate flavors. Also available was chili pepper chocolate mousse. We walked to Piazza Navona, which is a huge oval shape. A small flat around this Piazza would cost about 3 million euros. The Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi (Fountain of Four Rivers) by Bernini in the middle was in Angels and Demons as an "altar of science." Andrea said that in ancient Roman times there were games here in the "circus," and it was filled with water to stage naval battles --thus the name "navona" or large boat. Wikipedia says otherwise, but I'm going to believe Andrea. We also walked by some temple ruins that house fat stray cats. There are supposedly old women who come to feed the cats on a regular basis. Beside the temple were some ruins where the ancient Senate building was, according to the sign--and where Julius Caesar was murdered. Also nearby were Pompey's latrines.

When we got home my feet were pretty beat. I'm glad the Pope is out of town today.

When in Rome do as the Romans

2008-05-16T11:19:00.000-07:00

So the Emory students on the Italian Studies program have arrived in Rome. They are staying in a monastery for the next couple of days. I have some friends in that program and we're going to hang out when they come back to Rome.

The door of my apartment building opens inwards, and it's still very awkward for me to open it because American doors open outwards. This way I guess the doors don't open into someone's face on the sidewalk. I went to the supermarket, and guess what? You have to pay for the plastic bags! That's such a great idea to conserve plastic. I bought extra ones because I thought they would be flimsy and break (I had glass jars and yogurt and such), but I ended up just needing two. They were very sturdy, at least for the way home. I live in a very convenient location. The Piazza de Bologna, where the supermarket is, has a lot of shops like the supermarket and the fruit/vegetable market and station. For Italians it also has a large post office and bank. For cars it is a huge headache of a turnabout.

My roommate Eleonara sounds just like a lot of my Emory friends. "I really need to find a boyfriend. No, not a boyfriend, eh..." "You mean, someone to date?" "Yes, a boyfriend is too much work."

I have also figured out that when someone asks you "Do you want a coffee?" or "Do you want something to drink (like a juicebox)?" they are actually asking if you if you want to walk across the building and downstairs and chat with them along the way. I have also figured out that everyone is taking turns at buying afternoon snacks for everyone else. Afternoon snacks are very important. I think today we spent about 30-45 minutes total gathering everyone and then actually having the afternoon snack. In fact, the afternoon snack is called "una merenza" whereas a regular snack is just called "un sputino."

Last night after work, I was invited by a person in my lab to go have drinks. I went with Daniele and Michele, who are in my lab, and with Adele, Teresa, and Roberto to a bar in a bar-ful area nearby called Tiburtina. We sat in some tables outside really close to a huge cathedral. I thought it was going to be one drink, but that price also came with little platefuls of finger foods like peanuts, cashews, salami or prosciutto sandwiches, bize-sized pieces of quiche, falafel balls, cous-cous, and paella (which they were calling paella and I thought it was supposed to be called risotto). We spent about 2-3 hours just sitting there and talking. Adele and Teresa were really angry that their PI was not allowing them to go to Society for Neuroscience even though they were willing to "pay their own way." Michele is a resident in toxicology right now. He is studying antipsychotic drugs which sometimes produce a symptom of excess intake of water (sometimes leading to death). Coincidentally a huge news article came out yesterday on the Washington Post (yes I am still keeping up with American news) about how the US government is using antipsychotics to chemically restrain deportees during transport.

In my lab we're doing experiements with amphetamine and heroin and the topic came to learning. It turns out that Italian students don't pop Adderall for exams like Americans do. In fact it is rarely prescribed. On Tuesday is the lab meeting, and I have prepared a presentation of my current research project at Emory. I put in lots of pictures (like a syringe pointed at a mouse) and graphs, so I hope everyone will understand.

Three great things happened today:
1. While abc.com won't let me watch Grey's Anatomy anymore because I'm in Italy, I still caught last night's new episode because I have a RedLasso account!
2. I resisted the urge to nap last night, so I was able to sleep moderately well. This is a good thing because our neighbor's bathroom flooded and they are hammering in new flooring every morning.
3. I still haven't gotten a phone yet, but Michele (a different Michele from medical doctor Michele, yes there are two Michele's in the lab) says he has an extra phone with an extra SIM card he can lend me. All I need to do is to recharge the SIM card while I am here! I didn't think I needed a phone because I had no friends, but people have been asking me for a phone number so we can go out or to plan events. I love Rome!!!

Grüße von Regensburg

2008-05-16T07:51:00.000-07:00

Also, zuletzt bin ich in Regensburg. Am 12. Mai bin ich in München gekommen, wo ich die Bahn nach Regensburg genommen habe. Gestern habe ich mit meinem Advisor im Labor gearbeitet und es war toll.

Auf englisch.... I´m finally here in Regensburg. I´m currently using the internet cafe and its quite an adjustment with the ümlaut kezboard. ( the y is and z have been switched). Although i´m sure Tim and Ben will have a bigger adjustment. I started working yesterday in lab and Robert Lechner my advisor is awesome. I will fill you guys in on more once i can get internet working in my dorm.

Ya so, Bavarians love Bier for the most part and I went to the Dult last night with my chem group (about 20+) altogether. Its a mini oktoberfest just for regensburg and the festivities were quite smashing.

Also, ich muss nach Hause gehen aber ich werde etwas später schreiben. I must go now but I will right more.

Mit besten Grüßen,
Miguel

Intro

2008-05-15T20:29:00.000-07:00

So apparently we were supposed to post an intro. Hey all, this is Tim Soo... the rogue kid who never showed up to anything. I promise I did everything you guys did, I just met at a different time :-). I finally got mostly everything ready for Japan and now have to get everything ready for Panama in the fall... which stinks b/c I just found out (dang Panama program moved their dates 2 weeks earlier) that I only have 4 days after I get back from Japan... meaning gotta get ready for it now. Ah well. Life is full of surprises eh? I probably will be posting much from Japan... from what I hear the internet is a million times faster there (more like 3 times) even in the places with the worst connection. Hope all is well.

Tim Soo

Things about Rome I didn't know about

2008-05-15T03:49:00.000-07:00

Pros:
Pedestrians are allowed to walk however they want in front of cars
Strangers in the stairway or on the street will greet you
People indulge in ice cream and coffees all the time
No need for a mobile phone (yet)
Lots of people speak English
Product giveaways for students in the quad (like WW!)
SANDALS IN THE LAB

Cons:
A lot ambulances with their sirens on
Tiny hot water tanks
Hard to tell if an ATM takes Visa PLUS, but they are everywhere
Thin walls (like some Emory dorms)
Clean water but old pipes
Drying clothes consists of clothes lines and clothes pins

Updates since my last day in Rome:
My roommate Eleonara and I talked about the Mafia. My Italian phrasebook told me to avoid this subject among others, but she brought it up and showed me this book by Roberto Saviano called Gomorra that talked about the mafia in Naples. She is from a small town outside of Naples and lived in Naples for one year of college. She says that everyone knew what was going on but did not say anything, and Saviano and his family now have 12 police bodyguards.

Eleonara is soooooo awesome. Last night she bought a bottle of wine and invited four of her friends over to hang out. They are very nice and some of them speak English very well because they studied in London. On the weekends she also works as a bartender at a club so Simona, one of her friends who I met, and I are going to go dancing. She is also planning on taking me to Naples to see the city and her home town and to the beach at Ostia, Rome's port city. I could not have asked for a better roommate!

There are tons of smart cars here, but they aren't very safe, driving or parked. Eleonara used to have a car but it got stolen one night.

My insurance was approved today, so I got to handle the new rats that came in. They have to become especially accustomed to human handling because of my project on the effect of the environment. We are hoping to control for the stress of human handling. A lot of the protocols are very similar here as in the United States. I think we might recycle a lot less though. Anyway 60 animals coming next Thursday! In the mean time I will play with these guys.

Salve!

2008-05-14T06:57:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone,

I got into Rome last night. My mentor plus a post-doc at my lab picked me up from Fiumicino and drove me to my apartment. My roommate is super nice and has been really helpful. My room is a good size and the apartment is very cute. The only complaint I would have is that there is no 24 hr internet except for the ADSL my roommate subscribes to. However there is only one modem and it is in her room. I really took it for granted how ubiquitous internet access is at Emory. All I want to do at night is surf the net on my computer, which is pretty much impossible now.

My apartment is only about 5-7 minutes walk to the Farmacologia building, so it's not bad. There are little shops and markets located everywhere, which is going to be very convenient. There are a good number of people in my lab, and they are all very nice (so far). The older students speak better English, and oversee the other students. Two girls named Frederika and Valentina don't speak English very well, but they are very friendly and said they are taking me around Rome this weekend. I have picked up some Italian as well through the audio programs I downloaded before I came, so we can get by.

The weather is very similar to Atlanta's. It was raining last night, so it is a bit cooler, but still very hot this morning when I walked to campus. Yet people are still wearing pants and close-toed shoes and jackets.

I got to see the experiment chambers this morning for the project I will be working on, but I won't get to touch anything until I am cleared with the University's insurance tomorrow or Friday. The post-docs are like to play with the rats.

Warning to people who do not have direct flights: I booked my flight to London Heathrow, and then a separate flight to Rome. I have two suitcases, about 40 lb each, which I almost had to pay a 200 GBP fine to get to Rome from LHR. The lady who checked me in let me go, but almost didn't. Anyhow, if anyone else did the same, do not pack more than 20 kg (at most 23 kg) total in all the items you want to check.

Anyway, things are going pretty well. I may be going to take a nap or to walk around Rome some now. Ciao!

Checking if it works....

2008-05-07T10:01:00.000-07:00

Check Check One Two One Two....so cool. I have never had a blog before. Hope to hear from yall soon! Safe travels and good luck on finals!

~Adriana

Privet!!!!

2007-08-02T03:00:00.000-07:00

Hey!!
Since I haven't posted in a really long time, I finally thought it was time I wrote an update. First off things in lab are going really well. My experiments are showing much progress and I am getting results, which is always a plus! I have also talked alot with some of the other students in lab and have learned a lot about the school system in Russia. One thing that shocked me was the amount of corruption in alot of the school systems. The students told me that in a lot of the academic departments it is expected that students pay the department and pretty much buy their grades. Apparently paying off teachers is very common and an expectation in many of the institutions. Glad that this is not the case back in the states. Currently most of the people from lab are on vacation. The only people still working are the PHD students who will be defending their work in the fall. The PHD students work every day of the week and are currently rushing to get results and write thier papers at the same time. I feel bad for them because they seem pretty stressed. Everyone in lab is really nice to me and I enjoy working with them. They are eager to help me and I really appreciate it. Also I am more comfortable with my russian skills and have finally learned the names of the equipment and chemicals in russian.
Socially I have met alot of students at my dorm and I spend my time with them. Since the people in my lab are always working, I was lucky to find another social outlet. One of the things that surprised me was that Moscow had a huge July 4th celebration. When I thought about spending a summer abroad, I accepted the fact that I wouldn't be celebrating Independence Day. However, I could not have been more mistaken. The American Chamber of Commerce put on a huge celebration at one of the parks the saturday following July 4th to celebrate the American holiday. A group of friends and I attended the celebration thinking that we would meet alot of americans who are in Moscow. Instead there were tons of russians who had come together to celebrate the holiday. The celebration lasted from 3pm to midnight and included concerts, raffles, and of course a fireworks show. I have to admit it was one of my most eventful july 4th celebrations.
I have also had alot of fun adventures exploring the city by myself. I have gone to the theatre twice. The theatres here are not only amazing, but they are really affordable. When I went to see the famous Russian opera "Eugene Onegin" I paid eight dollars to sit in the fourth row. Unfortunately, the theatre is one of the only things that are cheaper. The prices in restaurants and stores are ridiculously high. The prices in the coffee shops here make Starbucks prices look much more appealing.
I also got on an overnight train and went to St. Petersburg to visit one of my friends from Emory. Visiting St. Petersburg was incredible. I was born there so I've always wanted to visit the city. Nevertheless, I would not even begin to imagine how beautiful the city was. The architecture was breathtaking. I spent three hours in the Hermitage Museum and barely made it through 1/2 of one of the floors before the museum closed. Even though I felt like I was rushing when I was moving through the museum, I never even made it to the other two floors. The city is built on water and I enjoyed being able to take a river excursion. One thing that I am always amazed by is the amount of history and culture that flourishes in Russia. Practically every part of the city has some historical meaning. One russian the other day told me that while living in america may be better, our country does not have the same historical richness and architectural beauty.
I have really enjoyed my time in Russia and am so grateful to have had this experience. I have met a world of interesting people in Russia and have had some of many meaningful conversations. I will truly never forget this summer. Too bad I have less than 2 weeks left!

Last post

2007-07-30T10:58:00.000-07:00

I can't believe my 11 weeks have already flown by...I feel like I just got to the UK! Everyone at lab is too nice to me - they threw me a surprise goodbye party last Thursday. It was the sweetest thing ever and they all spent a week planning it so it was completely unexpected. Natalia took me into a restuarant where we were 'dropping off something for a friend' on the way to a bar to meet up with two other post-docs. However, at the restaurant was a huge table with everyone from lab, including the PI! It was a really nice and expensive Thai place and from there we went for drinks and then clubbing!! (The PI dropped out after drinks). It was so funny to see my lab out dancing - they all said I should feel really special because they have never gone out dancing together before. They completely spoiled me - not only did they pay for my dinner and drinks, but they bought me presents. I got an Oxford jacket and a poster for my room - it's called the Oxford Pub Crawl and it has little pictures of 62 of the Oxford pubs and you colour them in as you drink in them =)

I have successfully trained Lucy, my successor, and she's completely taken over my job. She gradually started running all my babies and I will be handing over the word association list for her. I finished scoring all the babies that I could and Lucy will continue to help Natalia and Nivi with that. Natalia and Nivi are both writing up papers for some journals, so hopefully they will all publish in the near future!

Something I learned here is that psychiatry is very different than in the States. Back home, you need to be an MD to study psychiatry, while here that is not necessary. Tomorrow I am going to a hospital close to town to discuss one lecturer's/researcher's work. It's related to psychopharmachology and mood disorders, two topics that I am very interested in. I know she is accepting DPhil (PhD) students in Fall 2008, so we will see what she can tell me.

I fly out on Wednesday afternoon to Miami. This has been the single best experience of my life - thanks again for this amazing opportunity!

Cheers!

Close to the end...

2007-07-26T13:21:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, Clarissa and I went to Bordeaux and visited nearby St. Emilion (great wine...thought about smuggling some into the US illegally) and Arcachon. We definitely owe Kanwei for that wonderful suggestion. The Arcachon beaches are beautiful and the view from dune de Pilat (tallest sand dune in Europe) was amazing!

So I finished up my last set of experiments today, but because my lab presentation is tomorrow morning, we didn't have time to actually make any photos =( Basically I don't have any results, but as consolation for having to be in lab 11 hours today, Thomas spent almost an hour at the microscope and took a nice picture of the control to put in my powerpoint. It was really sweet of him to do that, considering it was 9pm already. I can't believe tomorrow is my last day in lab...those ten weeks flew by far too quick. At least I'll still be in Paris for a few more days, and then I'm off to London for a week!

I'm going to miss all my new friends, my wonderful lab...and all the amazing things about Parisian life. Thanks IRES for this wonderful opportunity!

Angelica

Perhaps it's about time for me to post?

2007-07-22T22:05:00.001-07:00

G'day from Melbourne, Australia!

I am halfway through my ten weeks of research here and everything is going well...except for the fact that it is winter and I am already fighting my second cold, heh.

During my second week here my dad came to visit. The airport doesn't seem to be connected to public transport very well so I rented the car for the day of his arrival and had an exciting time driving on the left side of the road in a small car like you might find in Europe. Along with sightseeing and restaurant sampling (the best food in Australia!) around Melbourne we travelled to Sydney for a long weekend and guess what we especially made a point to see there?

In terms of accommodation, after spending the first few days in a hostel near the Melbourne Uni. I spent the first month in a shared flat in North Melbourne. Unfortunately the other two students (did they go to class or anything at all? hah) weren't the most active folks and spent a great deal of time with their televisions, and the building unit didn't exactly have central heating...yikes. I was almost dealing with it alright until the landlord mentioned after my first two weeks that the rent would be increased in the next month. Naturally I began my search for something else and ended up in a wonderful terrace-style house on a well-known street in an area of town known as North Carlton, about the same distance away from the university. Along with a good heating system (really does make a huge difference!), the four other people sharing the house are very social and I have enjoyed doing stuff with them.

There are also two other HHMI students here in Melbourne as well and I was able to meet up with them right away (straight away? hah) especially when I didn't know anyone at all upon arriving in Melbourne. This past Sunday we rented a car and travelled to the "Mornington Peninsula" to see some of the Australian coast line and even made it over to a winery tasting right before it closed for the day. Just a couple of weeks ago we also went to a Australian Rules Football game which was a bit different!

My research seems to be progressing slowly... mostly standard techniques so far and there have been some issues with contamination involving a strain of the lab's model organism so we'll see how things go in the coming weeks!

Cheers,
Thomas

2007-07-21T08:29:00.000-07:00

My time in the lab is officially done. I was sad to leave because I realized how much I enjoyed being around the people in the lab. I will be in Paris for Fall 07 and they have asked me to come to Marseille and visit them if I have a long weekend. It is too bad the lab isnt in Paris. This has been the greatest experience I have had while at Emory, and I am really grateful that I had the opportunity to be part of IRES. Thanks a lot IRES. I am in Berlin right now. My brother is coming tonight and we will see some of Europe. I am having some trouble with this German keyboard, so I think I will keep this post short. Thanks again!

Cosby

Half a month to go

2007-07-20T02:07:00.000-07:00

Hello all,

I know it's been a really long time since I've posted. I've been meaning to write something for awhile but I've been pretty busy here.

Ok, first lab stuff. Things don't seem to be going by so fast for me as they have been for others. Most days I've really only worked about 8 or 9 hours in the day (a couple of times I've been in the lab for about 12 hours). It's never a problem because everyone else works about the same amount, and even if I wanted to work more, I wouldn't have anything to do. Also, most of what I've been doing hasn't been very theoretical or taught me anything advanced. I've had to make a couple of pieces of equipment that we will use for measurement on our samples but all that amounts to is basic construction work, not much advanced physics involved. Also it's taken me a very long time to build those pieces because I've had to wait for all the parts to be constructed by our machine-shop department. I've used some of my extra time to read up on Solid State physics, but you don't learn as much without doing actual problems. However, I am gaining a lot of valuable experience about how to work in a lab. It's the little things, you know, the daily routines and routes one has to take to get things done that are teaching me a lot. Also at least twice a week they have colloquiums where we hear presentations from visiting professors about new research going on in different fields of physics, so I get to see what's being done in the world of physics and what direction might be interesting for me to pursue. Also once a week most people in the department get together to discuss articles or presentations, so that the whole department can keep a current understanding of how the research our department is doing fits in with the research other people are doing. It's really helpful for me in terms of looking to the future.

Unfortunately I just got a phonecall and have to go back to work but I'll try to post again soon when I get the chance to talk about the social aspects of how things are here.

2007-07-18T14:02:00.001-07:00

I can't believe I only have two weeks left in the UK. My time here really flew by. On Monday my replacement arrived and I began training her (Lucy). She graduated from Oxford last spring and she has a job with the government in London, but that doesn't start until October. She had my PI as a professor and had asked him if she could work in his lab, which he agreed to. What's really exciting is that I am training her on everything - the post docs and the PI have handed her over to me. It seems so strange because I remember being trained, just over two months ago, on how to work in the lab and now I am the one with all this experience. It's a little sad too that I am leaving just as Lucy came, because she is the only one at lab who is my age (Oxford undergrad is 3 years, not 4) and we have already started hanging out.
Most of my lab is presenting at a psychology conference in Reading, which is about 30 minutes away from Oxford. They each have a talk, explaining their research, on powerpoint slides that they present in front of many individuals in the psycho-linguistic world. They all had mock presentations in front of each other this week and I found out that my two post docs had put my name on their last slide of their presentations, acknowledging all the work I have done - I thought that was really sweet of them!
Within the last two weeks, the town of Oxford has dramatically changed. All of a sudden, wherever I go, I hear Americans. A lot of the exchange programs are here now, including Emory at Oxford. I spent some time with friends this past week who are over here. They are staying in one of the central colleges, which is only a 15-20 minute walk from my accomodation. I must admit, I preferred Oxford when all the Brits where here. Now, all I see are tourists and I feel more like a local than most of the people here. I've learned to save my Oxford University sweatshirt for when I return to the States - no real Oxfordians advertise for their school. Only the tourists wear them.
My lab is going clubbing tomorrow night - I really cannot wait to see that! =)
I really am not ready to leave yet. Even though I still have 2 weeks, I know it will all be ending too soon. There is still so much of Oxford and London I have yet to see! I will certainly have to return here!

2007-07-11T23:51:00.000-07:00

So this will probably be my last post from Australia. I have a week and a half left in the lab and tons to do. My advisor is out of the country for my last two weeks so it is just me and the postdoc who does all the computer work. It is a bit scary to think that I am running serious equipment with no one to help me with troubleshooting but I'm actually doing really well and things are actually going smoother than they have all summer.

This has been an amazing experince for me and I'm realizing that I really do like research. At home it is a bit too theoretical for me but here everything is hands on and very experimental...I don't have to think too hard either. I'm working really long hours (12-15 hour) days so that I can get all the work that needs to be done for two papers, which I am really excited about. [I also work that long so I can take Friday afternoons off :)]

Last weekend I went surfing with some friends. They all knew how to surf, but they just told me to get on the board and try...with minimal instructions! It was really fun. I can get every wave I want but I have a hard time standing. I got to my knees, but I think I either need some practice or some coaching before I can stand.

I'm glad to see from the posts that everyone is having a great time! See you all soon.
Cheers!
RC

hi everyone!

2007-07-09T12:17:00.000-07:00

Happy belated July 4th everyone! We thought about making s'mores to celebrate, but decided the only accessible open flame - Bunsen burners in lab - would not be worth the repurcussions of getting caught. The weather's been crappy all week....we had a terrible hailstorm today, followed by an hour of sunshine...I'm so confused. I look outside at 11pm and it's still not quite dark, but sunrise is still ridiculously early - by the time 7am rolls around, it's so blindingly bright you can hardly sleep.

On another note, my mentor left for a conference last Wednesday and won't be back until next week. He warned me SOOO many times to be careful around Shigella before he left but I finally figured out why everyone was so concerned about it. Apparantly it only takes 100 tiny bacteria to cause the nasty infection. In any case, it's day 5 of working alone and of course a lot more stuff seem to go wrong. But at least I got to practice taking pretty pictures with the microscope...

Everyone's starting to take vacations now...and most people are gone for the entire month of August. No I'm not just talking about lab people. Restaurants close for weeks. I've heard even the local boulangeries close...where am I going to get my baguettes?! Looks like I'll have to settle for the Monoprix (their idea of a supermarket - absolutely tiny in my opinion).

That's all for now. A bientot!

2007-07-09T05:00:00.000-07:00

This is my second to last week in the lab, and I start to feel sad when I think about having to leave soon. I've really been learning a lot while I'm here. The work I've been doing in Marseille has been a great complement to my work at Emory, and my experience here is helping me to better understand the research I was doing at Emory and why I was using certain techniques there that we're not using here in Marseille. I haven't been able to establish much independence here in the lab, which is disappointing. My mentors here work much more closely with everyone (even PhD's and post-docs) than what I'm used to, and I think perhaps they are uncomfortable with the idea of leaving an undergrad on her own.

Last week, I asked a few people in the lab how to conjugate a certain verb in French. It was kind of funny. Nobody knew how except for one person, and a few minutes ago he came to my desk and gave me a very handy book with all the conjugations for French verbs. It was very nice of him and it meant a lot to me.

I need to get back to some lab work, but I'll post another update before I leave Marseille.

2007-07-04T15:36:00.000-07:00

Things over here have been quite interesting. I arrived by bus to Glasgow on Saturday evening - the day of the airport scare. Luckily I chose that cheaper and slower option or else I wouldn't have been able to make it to the airport. There was an ERP conference in Stirling, which is a 25 minute train ride from Glasgow. My PI, his wife, Natalia (post doc), Vanja (Ph D student) and her husband had been planning to attend for quite some time. Last week I decided I would like to accompany them and I was pleased when I managed to get a spot at the conference.

It was pretty cool since I had never been to a real psychology seminar of sorts before. It only lasted 2 days but it was from 9am to 6pm and some of the speakers were really dull. I would say about half were Ph. D. students presenting their projects (like Vanja) and the rest were more like PIs, presenting research from previous papers and new experiments. The keynote speaker was actually someone who my PI at Emory looks very fondly on - we even had to read his book in lab, so it was nice to actually get to meet him.

I am leaving for a short holiday to Paris tomorrow and I will be returning Monday evening. My mom is actually really concerned about me travelling with everything that has been going over here, but I've been trying to assure her that I will be completely fine.

Work is still going well, but with all these days off from lab, I haven't been able to finish several tasks I have been given. No one seems too concerned at all though. What was pretty amusing to me was that today the PI was not in lab and everyone knew he would not be in. I had to come in to run 3 babies and only 1 person was in the lab! Everyone else was either on holiday or took the day off. So I came in late, ran my 3 kids and left to go shopping. That doesn't really ever happen, so it was a nice little break!

I am still loving it here so so much! I really do not want to leave in 4 weeks. Thanks again!

Update

2007-07-04T05:39:00.000-07:00

Here are some pictures from our fiesta to celebrate all of the research groups moving into the new PRBB - Parc de Recerca Biomedica Barcelona, right on the sea! It began with some sort of um? surreliast act, live music, then a DJ pumping some pretty hard-core techno and of course tapas throughout

My project is coming around, we have been working on calibrating the GC/MS machines to the ions we want and bringing down the sensitivity. One difference with the vivarium here is that I have to change bedding, cages, food and water for my mice and with 80 little fellas that is a lot of work! I love how my project runs the gamut from detecting 162amu ions to handling 45g mice.

I even got to sit in on a human MDMA pharmacology experiment since one of the docs here insisted that I see one before returning to the states. I could write a whole paper about it and the ethics etc. but I will spare you for now -

Naoki

Stuttgart!!!!

2007-07-03T03:47:00.000-07:00

Hello! I've been in Stuttgart, Germany for about 5 weeks now, and I've finally gotten into the groove of things. The lab work has been going amazingly, I've been learning so much and I didn't realize I would get to work so independently. The only problem is now I've learned everything in German. Essigsäuerethylester? Triethylamin? I don't know my Lösungsmittel in English!

Everyone in the lab is friends with everyone else and goes out after work at least once a week, so it was nice to have this group set up for me before I came. The lab is also pretty relaxed, we take coffee breaks three times a day! Everyone in the lab is addicted to it. I don't drink coffee and I've been drinking tap water instead, but apparently tap water is taboo here. The first couple of weeks my coworkers would repeatedly (and disbelievingly) ask me if I was sure I didn't want something else to drink besides tap water. And they warned me of the dangers of drinking tap water in countries outside Germany.

I've been traveling on the weekends with other students on different DAAD programs. I went to Geneva a couple weekends ago, which was a total culture shock because everything was in French and I'd never been to a place where I didn't know the language before. I've also traveled around southern Germany a bit, and next weekend I've going to Paris. A lot of the people I travel with are Canadian, and I've started to pick up a Canadian accent. A few times I've caught myself saying, "Eh?"

I'm having an amazing time here. Thanks IRES!

More from Oxford...

2007-06-23T04:47:00.000-07:00

I really can't believe I've already been here about a month and a half. Time is going by way too quickly here. I love everything about the UK...especially the fact that everyone tells me that they love my accent!
Lab is still going amazingly well. My post-docs really are way too nice to me. On Thursday Natalia had discovered that I had coded all of her babies incorrectly, because I had been taught how to code for Nivi and no one had told me there was a difference. So I had to immediately recode about 40 babies, which I didn't really mind doing that much. It did take me about a day and a half to complete, but both of them felt so bad for me that one brought me a huge double chocolate cupcake and the other bought me some body wash and lotion. I don't think I could ever picture any of my superiors doing that for me in the States.
One thing I am learning to appreciate more is American boys. Now, I love the British accent as well as Italian, etc and I had always assumed that European boys would be very gentlemenly and proper. Not so much. The boys pretty much assume that if you talk to them, you will go home with them. They also assume that they can simply kiss you without really even knowing your name. At least boys in America tend to buy you a drink first. I know I can't really generalise as such, but I have experienced this lack of respect more here than in the States.
My coxing lessons are still going quite well. I love that I can yell at my PI and Nivi =) The only issue is that I really have to wake up quite early - around 6am to be at the river around 7am. Everyone has a cycle here, expect me, so I have to walk 45 minutes. Which brings me to another issue - cycles. They are so widespread here - everyone assumes that you have one. It's so funny to see rows and rows of cycles lined up against fences.
Another thing I find interesting here is everyone's relationship status at lab. Only two of of nine of them have a significant other who lives in the UK. One's husband lives in Montenegro and he is here now for 2.5 months and that is longest time they have spent together! One's boyfriend in in Germany, another's is in Glasgow, and one's girlfriend is in Switzerland. Even my PI's wife lives in Africa! I'm not too sure if this is because they are all from all over the world themselves and the name of Oxford pulls them in so they just continue to date long-distance, or if this is more common in grad school in general. But basically, most weekends they either travel to visit their partner or their partner comes here. This weekend, 3 of the partners traveled to Oxford, and one of the lab people went to Glasgow. They all spend a lot of quid (slang for pounds) per year traveling.
This weekend is fun for me since one of my friends from Emory is staying with me. She is on the Psych study aborad program which is in London now, so I have my first visitor this weekend and one more next weekend.
Thanks IRES!
Cheers!

so more news and observations.....

2007-06-22T08:26:00.000-07:00

So I've been in Paris for one month now, and my project is slowly moving along. I'm supposed to give an oral presentation to my lab on my very last day at Pasteur, so I really need things to start working faster. I'm almost done cloning my constructs (have to fix a small problem with one of them), but the next stage is test their expression, which I will do next week. If that goes well, I'll have the entire last month for microscopy and I'll be taking lots of pretty pictures to study the localization and interactions of these proteins.

Regarding my lab.... they love to make of Sarkozy. All the people around me talk to each other in German though, so my French still isn't wonderful, but I can understand a lot more than I used to. I don't think I will get to know my PI by the end of this summer, because he's in Japan now. There are too many lab meetings and the senior researchers in the lab take way too much enjoyment out of tearing apart the presenter (I'm really not looking forward to mine if you couldn't tell...) The Pasteur cafeteria is actually catered each day (no wonder it's so good...especially the desserts) and apparantly, there is a restaurant above the main cafeteria that is reserved for Nobel Prize winners who come visit Pasteur.

Yesterday was La Fete de la Musique and it was AMAZING. I went to the Musee d'Orsay first, where the National Orchestra of France was performing Beethoven's 5th. Hundreds of people sat cross-legged on the ground, covering the entire bottom floor of what used to be a train station, while others lined up all the balconies of the upper floors. It was so packed you couldn't even stand up and walk around, but it was a remarkable concert. After that, we walked around the Seine and heard tons of groups outside (streets, parcs, even on bridges) ranging from Latin American music and danse to drumlines, rock bands, choirs, and tons of wonderful jazz. The festival basically lasted until midnight or so, and all the concerts were free.

A few friends and I are going to Reims (Champagne region) this weekend for wine-tasting to celebrate the fact that we're done with MCATs forever... other than that, Paris really feels like "home" now, except with TONS more to see and do. Maybe I'll come back for my post-doc....

Hey!!

2007-06-21T23:33:00.000-07:00

Hey!! I have now been in Moscow a little over two weeks and I am loving it. The city is absolutely gorgeous. It has the perfect combination of historic and modern sites. The metro is really nicely organized and you can hop on it and get to any destination quickly. The center of the city is beautiful. The people in my lab took me downtown and showed me around. My lab has been extremely welcoming to me and have gone out of their way to show me around. Sunset here is around 10:15 pm and sunrise is at 5:15 am. Since it so light outside most of the time, people stay out later. In fact the streets are practically full at 1:00 am on weekdays. Another difference between Moscow and the states is that people walk around the streets all the time with open bottles. I was really excited to finally get hot water yesterday, I had forgotten just how much I had missed it.
Lab life is also quite different than in the states. Here I work in lab from 9am till 8 pm and sometimes later. The lab is like a family, everyone is really friendly to one another and they spend alot of time together outside of work. Also since everyone works so much in lab, there is alot of dating within the lab. Within my lab there is a husband and wife working together. Also some of the other people in my lab have significant others who work in biochemistry labs. Alot of the girls my age are married or engaged, which is shocking given the fact that in the states people tend to marry at a much later age. Its funny that in that states people tend to ask me if I have a boyfriend, while here they automatically ask if I have a husband. Last friday we had our first lab meeting. We sat around a round table where there was wine and cheese and listened to people present on the progress of their work. It sure beats the donuts and coffee that I usually had in lab meetings in the states. The other lab workers address the PI by her first name and the lab environment is pretty casual.
The dorm where I live houses a lot of internation students, so I have been fortunate in meeting other american students. I hang out with them after work and on weekends. I am lucky in the respect that socially I have two outlets- lab and then the americans. I should mention that in my lab everyone talks to me in russian and presentations are delivered in russian. While everyone speaks english, they chose to speak in russian. This of course has been a little bit of a challenge for me. You can imagine how happy I am to be able to speak english with the americans. I am happy to report that my russian skills are definitely improving.
Overall I am really enjoying this experience and am starting to adjust to life here. One thing that I am not used to is that everyone is always in a hurry and rushing to get places. I have even had a few instances where an old grandmother will practically push me out of the way because apparently I am not moving fast enough. i ahve to run now, but will be sure to write soon.

10 things to know about France

2007-06-19T23:00:00.000-07:00

1. Stuff is expensive.
The US dollar isn't doing so hot. I mentally multiply all prices in euros by 1.35 (by 2 in England) to get the dollar equivalent. Everything here (even wine!) is more expensive than in the US, save chocolate and specialty cheese.

2. People kiss a lot
You kiss everybody. On my first day at work, I broke my all-time kissing record in a single day. Ok, so it's only cheek kissing, and you do it twice, one on each cheek so the other doesn't get jealous. In Switzerland they do it three times so it sucks for the other cheek.

3. Smoking is still cool
A lot more people (scientific: higher proportion of people) smoke here than in the US. People don't look down on you and tell you it's bad for your health. There's actually a GIANT label that says "SMOKING KILLS YOU" instead of the discreet label on American packs. It just proves that smokers know the risks and do it anyways.

4. Lunch break is ridiculously long
The primary investigators at my lab usually have lunch by themselves, but the rest of us (4-5) go to the cafeteria together. It's only 2.75 euros. There is never any alcohol and the food is always better than the DUC at Emory (although it's also sponsored by Sodexho, hilarious). After lunch, we ALWAYS have coffee and everybody meets up to chat in the lobby.

5. Everyone is addicted to coffee
They got me hooked too. There's a coffee machine that dispenses 20 different varieties for 40 cents. Tastes better than Starbucks and is 5 times cheaper.

6. FOOTBALL (SOCCER)
There's always a bunch of people playing outside. The good players are amazing to watch and hard to catch up to. However, they're usually small and quick and I can usually get away with using my awkward made-for-rowing body to knock them around. When a big game is on TV, EVERYBODY watches, usually at bars and restaurants.

7. Kebabs are the French version of cheeseburgers
Döner kebab shops are more popular here than Waffle House in the American South. A kebab is basically a sandwich using meat carved from a giant block of meat rotating on an oven. Lettuce and tomatoes are standard, just like a cheeseburger, except that kebabs are much tastier and less bad for your body.

8. People love American music
It's funny how much every Western country's youth are influenced by American culture. Marilyn Manson, Maroon 5, Nelly Furtado, Justin Timberlake, and rappers I don't know are hugely popular here.

9. Foreign students are cool
Bordeaux has 60,000 students and a LOT of them are ethnically foreign. I hear from friends that racism is sometimes found in the classroom, but not rampant. France has been divided on the issue of immigration for a long time.

10. France is 10 times better when you're paid to be there
I would like to thank again the Emory IRES program and all who made it possible. The first month has been productive and fun.

My 15 minutes of Fame....

2007-06-14T11:14:00.000-07:00

I have been here for over one month now and each day I am falling more in love with the UK. Work is still going well and I've pretty much settled into a routine now. The post docs don't really have to tell me how to do anything, unless they are explaining a new concept. One thing I like is that I don't really have set times of when to come and when to leave. I am expected to work roughly 9-5, but I wouldn't have to be in that early, unless I had a baby to run. But like I mentioned previously, everyone works so much here. I do usually work 9-7, but what is very nice is that the lab often goes out to dinner/a pub together directly from work. My typical work day consists of running x number of babies (usually between 3-6), coding for where the baby's eyes are looking, a 45min- 1 hr lunch with lab people, and various other tasks delegated to me from my two post-docs.

Yesterday was a fairly exciting day for lab (at least I thought so). Some TV people from Spain came to tape our lab. The show is on the TV channel equivilent of BBC, in Spain, and it's called TVE. They are doing a special on babies and they were given permission from our PI to tape. Natalia, one of my post-docs is from Mexico, so naturally, she was chosen to be interviewed. They did, however, also tape two of our babies being run on our study, so I got to help out with that and as a result, I will probably end up on some TV program in Spain!

I have also taken up a new sport - coxing. Rowing is the biggest sport at Oxford and every boat has someone called the cox. The cox does not row, but sits at the front of the boat and yells out orders and steers the boat but holding two wires on either side of his or her body. My PI and Nivi, my other post-doc, row for our college, St. hughs, and they needed a cox. I offered to do it, even though I've practically never been in a boat! They were eager though and I have a coach to train me, so every Tues. and Thurs. I'm on the river from 7:45am-9:15am!

I have also been doing more social events. I went to a Garden Party last week and met some people and one of the Ph. D students in my lab is taking me to another Garden Party on Wednesday. Basically, it's just a lot of strawberries and cream, sun dresses, hats, and Pimms (the staple alcoholic beverage of Oxford). However, my lab is still like a family, as in we go to London together, eat dinners, and pretty much everything else. It's also nice because a lot of people from Emory are now arriving to London from the Psych Research program so I will be getting to see some of them in the upcoming couple weeks.

Pictures

2007-06-11T15:57:00.000-07:00

Everything is my lab is going great! I love Australia and I don't know if I want to come back. Here they work to live not live to work, except in my lab. My advisor and I are the last two people in the department to leave EVERY night, but its good because I'm getting a lot done. I've run tons of EPR on samples that are actually interesting looking and the best part is I don't have to make them. Last Thursday I actually changed the cavity on the EPR machine, which is a big deal. It was cool and I knew what I was doing because I've watched so many times since I've been here. I also caught several mistakes that were being made in the lab it just goes to show that Dr. Warncke and Dr. Canfield (the post-doc who trained me at Emory) did a good job of teaching me how to take care of the equipment.

Socially things are going much better here! Yesterday was a holiday they call "The Queen's Birthday" even though it isn't actually her birthday, because of the holiday I got the day off of work. I went sailing for the first time with UQSail and it was amazing! I have a new hobby. This weekend I also got to go to Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. It was wonderful and I found out that I love kangaroos. They are really cool animals.

Reporting to you from Marseille

2007-06-11T02:40:00.000-07:00

So this is my fifth week in the lab, and I can't believe my time here is almost half done. I've been having such a great time! This week I was finally assigned to one definite project. This is really just an issue of timing. I came into the lab when there were two projects going on, both involving in situ hybridization, and my mentor here wanted to know the preliminary results of both before deciding which one I should join. So I now officially have a project. I'm studying the effects of deep brain stimulation on neuronal activity in the basal ganglia. It might sound worrisome that I'm in my fifth week in the lab and just officially starting on my project, but the in situ technique is very fast and I will be able to get a lot done within the next few weeks. I have found that, since I've been mostly following people in the lab up until this point, it has been difficult to establish some level of independence in the lab. I am thinking that this will get better now that I have my own project.

It sounds like others are really putting in the hours. Things here have been slow. We ran out of some supplies a couple weeks ago, and that really slowed things down. I had quite a bit of downtime then. I think everyone here is just expected to get their work done, but the environment is very relaxed. And the whole day revolves around lunch. An experiment will have to wait until the afternoon if it is too long and would make it so that we would eat too late.

There are a few people in my dorm that I have met and spend time with during the weekends. They are very nice. One of them is hispanic, has been here since the fall, and has learned French just by listening--no classes! Needless to say, I was very impressed.

So I really like it here. I did some travelling a couple weeks ago. Took a train to Geneva, and thought it was great. It's very small but it has everything in it, or so it seems.

A bientot,

Cosby

Greetings From Russia!

2007-06-07T07:02:00.000-07:00

I just arrived in my lab in Moscow this past Tuesday. All I can say is that this is definitely a culture shock. Moscow State University is absolutely gorgeous. The building is huge and looks quite historic. There is one primary building and the dorms are all connected to it. The primary building has grocery stores and all kinds of different shops. It is the central hang out spot and students can always be spotted there. I am in love with the university. The weather in Moscow is also really nice. It is sunny with a light breeze. The food here is really delicious. The cafeteria is open from 8am to 8pm and you can easily eat a filling meal for four dollars. There are definitely plenty of differences. For example, there is no AC in the buildings. In my room, I leave the window open to get air in. Also until for the next 20 days, there will be no hot water in Moscow State University. Apparently, the city turns off the hot water every year for a certain period of time, so that the pipes can be fixed before winter. The lab is also not nearly as advanced. The equipment is much older and whereas, many of the tubes in the labs in Emory are considered disposable and are thrown away after one use, here these tubes are washed after every use and recycled. The people in my lab are nice and have gone out of their way to help me settle in. This weekend a few of the lab members have agreed to show me around Moscow. Additionally, i have met a few American study abroad students who I have been meeting up with. The fact that my dorm is considered an international dorm has made meeting other students all the easier. Overall, everyone has been welcoming. The lab is really extreme when it comes to working. The work day starts at 9 am and is still full at 8pm. Additionally, the concept of weekends does not seem to exist, as saturdays and sundays are considered working days. This is not what I expected, and I am slightly shocked by their extreme work ethic. I will make sure to write more about my events and tell you more about the city of Moscow after this weekend. Until next time

More Oxford Adventures....

2007-05-31T13:35:00.000-07:00

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 =)

2007-05-31T13:27:00.000-07:00

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...

2007-05-31T06:45:00.000-07:00

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

2007-05-30T06:51:00.001-07:00

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!

2007-05-29T04:47:00.001-07:00

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...

2007-05-29T02:45:00.000-07:00

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....

2007-05-25T14:40:00.000-07:00

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

2007-05-25T11:26:00.000-07:00

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 =)

2007-05-23T13:36:00.000-07:00

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

2007-05-22T16:27:00.000-07:00

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

2007-05-22T08:03:00.000-07:00

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

2007-05-20T12:38:00.000-07:00

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!

2007-05-19T22:53:00.000-07:00

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!

2007-05-14T17:14:00.000-07:00

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

2007-05-13T11:53:00.000-07:00

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!

2007-05-10T20:05:00.000-07:00

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...

2007-05-03T17:00:00.000-07:00

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

2007-05-03T13:55:00.000-07:00

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

2007-05-02T18:13:00.000-07:00

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!

Peace up, B-ville down.

2006-08-05T08:43:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone.

So this is my last weekend in Bordeaux. I'll grab a train to Paris on either Monday morning, Monday evening, or Tuesday morning (so that I can take a connecting flight to Budapest), depending on a variety of things: my mood, train times, work, and my nonexistant ability to wake up before 7 am for a Paris train. Thus, I'm not quite sure how exactly I'm leaving Bordeaux as of this moment, but I do know that I'm leaving. I never thought that saying goodbye to Bordeaux would be so ambiguous.

I've realized lately the importance of learning new computer programming languages in the work that I'm doing. Since I've had to deal more with file manipulation this summer than I anticipated, I've had to use C++ programming language quite a bit. The only problem is that, assuming you don't have an extremely simple project, it takes a little while to code (longer than other programming languages), it takes longer to debug, it takes even longer to realize that your error-free code is not giving the desired results, then it takes a century longer to implement C into the C++ code (which is a very hairy process) so that, hopefully, everything will finally work. I might sound a bit frustrated, but I'm not. It's all a part of the process, and it sounds a lot worse than it really is. All this has been in the effort of modifying a coordinate file so that I could create a ribbon. If it works, I'll be excited, since I've been spending a bit of time on this.
Lately I've also been working with an optimized potential for a lipid bilayer, which has been giving results that, while acceptable, aren't quite what we're looking for. Plus, the movies of the simulations seem to give organizations of the lipid tails that consistently raise my eyebrow. I don't think it's a big deal since most of the parameters I've examined look right, but I'm going to spend later today further comparing our coarse-grained simulations to atomistic simulations, as well as values from scientific journals. The potential that we're using isn't extremely-well converged to a specific potential, so I'm also going to try a new potential to see whether I get better results.
I also am going to work on fixing some problems I'm having with a coordinate file, which describes a random configuration of water and some lipids. The problem here is that the program that I need to use won't run, due to a parameter that needs to be changed. The only problem is that finding where to change this parameter has been difficult, it doesn't make sense to change this parameter in the first place, and I feel that there should be another way around this problem. I could babble on about this, about the quote "if it can't be found on Google, it doesn't exist," and even the way my problem seems to effectively blur the distinction between subjective and objective truth to the point where I can't quite make out what's what...but I won't.

All in all, work's cool and it's a good experience here, to work on different things in different manners than I would back home. I like the lab and the people and all else. I've gained a better understanding of the inner workings and the logic that goes behind the work that I'm doing. I wouldn't mind if I had to spend another week or two working here, but then again, I've been here for about 10 weeks, AND I have a huge week-long music festival in Budapest to get to. I'm actually very excited to get to it. In the following link, the arrow points to the island that is to contain central Europe's biggest annual music festival: http://www.technopancakes.boltblue.com/szigetisland.JPG.
Basically, this festival is a little bundle of excitement, growing and growing as it is continuously wound-up throughout the months of the summer, with its building excitement attracting 400,000+ people and over 1000 performances to this one little island off the Danube (there's tons of rumors as to who might show and who won't, although I don't trust them), making it central Europe's biggest annual music festival. Radiohead confirmed an arrival at the festival this year (the main reason I decided to go), along with Prodigy, Iggy and the Stooges, Placebo, Franz Ferdinand, Scissor Sisters, Jovanotti, Afro Celt Sound System, and tons of others. The island is self-contained, with movies, dancing, theater, tenting, banks, restaurants, internet, volleyball, tennis, football, tatooing, bungee-jumping, and life-sized foosball. Some stages there close at certain times, while others are 24-hours straight (like the reggae stage).
So thus shall end my trip in Europe.

That's all there is to say. I hope everyone else is having a productive and incredible summer.