1) Today marks the first day of our work in the labs. We were told to wait for someone to pick us up at 8.00am at our apartment, and sure enough, Dr. Wang introduced himself to us and gave us a lift to the college campus. We were taken into the pharmaceutical building and given a tour of all five floors. I was informed that Prof. Long (who is my Principal Investigator for this research project) was not in and would not be back until around next week. Niamh's lab would be on the third floor, while mine would be on the fifth.
2) I was shown around the labs and introduced to all the lab members who were mostly PhD students and post-doc researchers. A PhD student, Chris, would be supervising my project and helping me settle in to the new environment. The first thing to get used to was all the chemical names were in Mandarin! Imagine re-learning the Periodic Table in Chinese. Thankfully, most of the bottles had an English translation as well, presumably for people like me haha.
3) Chris showed me around the labs and where all the equipment and apparatus were kept. He also showed me the chemical techniques that they used in the lab, and helped me understand these techniques better. Finally, he gave me some published articles regarding my project (which coincidentally, is also his thesis) to read and digest. Predictably, the papers were above my understanding, but it provided that bit of context needed to understand my research project better.
4) I found out that lunch is quite long here in the labs, and early too! (from 11.30am - 1.30pm). According to my lab mates, this is the time to have a nice meal and a quick nap, before resuming work till late at night! Yes, these poor researchers work till around 10.30pm each day. They most definitely deserved a long lunch to compensate. Anyway, for lunch, Dr. Hu and some research students went with me to the teacher's cafeteria, as I did not have a student card to eat at the school cafeteria.
5) For lunch (in the teacher's cafeteria at least), you get to choose a number of side dishes, which is served with steamed rice and a bowl of soup. You can also add beverages like soft drinks and yogurt. The rest of the day consisted of me observing Chris carry out his reactions (as I didn't have any of my own yet) and experiments. In the evening, Niamh and I went with another one of our Soochow friends, Ming Mei, who brought us to collect our student cards. Niamh then went home to have dinner while I had dinner with Mei. Then she helped me buy a SIM card for my phone, so I would have access to Wi-Fi in my room.
6) That is the gist of my day today, and hopefully you enjoyed reading about it. Thanks as always for visiting, and have a great day. Cheers! :)
Group photo with everyone :)
Introduction to Soochow University, in the meeting room
Having lunch with Dr. Hu and other lab mates
Finally got my student card! ^^
铁板饭 (hot plate rice with sausage and poached egg)
Dinner with Ming Mei
There's a StarBucks right here, just beside my accommodation
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