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Published: October 22nd 2009
Front lab
Gorgeous right...Quickly, can I say a GIANT thank you for everyone's support. Your comments make my day!!! I refresh my window multiple time waiting for more comments. Reading about how much people love my blog and how they look for it everyday really makes me feel special. I also want to say a special thank you to Mrs. Blocker's 5th hour who have been following me...I loved your comments the other day and if you will have me, I would love to come visit when I return.
Tuesday was my first full day in the lab. I was met in the lobby of my hotel by Hua and we went to the cafeteria for breakfast then headed to the lab. I am sorry to say this, and I am even more sorry if this offends anyone, but I HATE Chinese breakfast food...I am not partial to Chinese food in general, but the breakfast is full frontal...no way to sugar coat it....the worst thing I have had since being here. Granted, I did not eat the turtle or the duck tongue, but I still feel confident in saying that I will be happy to never eat Chinese breakfast food for the rest
Back lab
About the size of the 400 corridor in Lilly with the brightness of the sun. of my life. Okay...moving on...we arrived at the lab about 8:30 and I got set up at my desk, Mrs. Wong (Mrs. Pan but they call her Mrs. Wong) got my Internet connection all set up and my desk area was set (and really nice may I add...the pictures can speak for themselves). I had just settled in when I was asked if I wanted to help with an inoculation and I jumped at the chance to see how they did it (since we do the same thing in our lab). There are differences (I will spare you the details) but generally the same. After harvesting the spores we started off to the "greenhouse" (I will explain why that word in is parenthesis a little later) which turns out it like 10 miles away...okay maybe more like 1.5...but it felt like we were walking to Hong Kong we were walking for so long. It was explained that since they moved into their new building a year ago the greenhouse is quite far away…this was a gross understatement! May it also be noted that there was an army involved in this process…at least 8 students helping with the spore harvesting and
My desk!
A post doc is on maternity leave so I get her desk and it is AWESOME. So cheery and bright 5 of us walking to the greenhouse. I am already wondering why so many of us are going to spray a couple sets of plants, but of course…I am just going with the flow. We arrive and duck under this little overhang to enter the greenhouse. For all of the modernization in the lab the opposite can be said about their greenhouse facilities. I felt like I had been transported back 100 years. The cart looked like it was used in the early 1900’s and the covered parts of the area were ripped and weathered. I guess you don’t need much when you are killing rice, but I would soon find out that the Pan lab is far more than a rice blast fungus lab. They are doing some pretty sophisticated plant breeding and growing the transgenic plants in this greenhouse. But, again…I guess you don’t need much when growing rice in China, but I digress. We gathered up the trays of rice plants to inoculate and I stand back to see what is next. They start putting the plants in these steel boxes (see pictures) and then just stand around. Not but a few minutes later, Dr. Pan walks
My view
Can you believe this view...the basement dwellers in Lilly might need to wipe the tear from their cheek...it is that awesome. in. I am thinking huh…what is he does here? He proceeds to check the work that had already be done and the suspensions that we had made but just 45 minutes earlier then he starts spraying the plants as we all watch. Then, we walk over to another area and stand around some more…then Dr. Pan walks over and a little shuffling by the students and I realize that Dr. Pan is starting to score the plants that were inoculated last week. Finally I asked…why is Dr. Pan doing everything and I get this look that says “why in the world are you asking me such a stupid question” and she replies…”this is very important” in which I interpreted as “grad students, under no circumstance, can be trusted to do anything of any real importance.“ Now, of course, I am sure that this is not always the case, but it appears to me that it is the case in this instance. I happen to think that I am quite skilled in the art of scoring…but I had a good teacher So, watching him score was cool for like 20 minutes, and then my but started to hurt from sitting
Mariah Judd
I already have my own bench space :) on the equivalent of an ancient Chinese torture device, and I started to fidget. This is when I notice that 2 of the students that came with us are filling these big pots with what smells like manure, filling then with water, then stirring them with giant pitch fork looking tools. This is another indication that I have entered the twilight zone where we are 100 years ago in ancient China. This looks like unbelievably hard work and these are skinny little sticks of men. Did I mention that it was raining? Oh yeah…it has been pouring rain off and on all morning including our 10 mile hike to the greenhouse. So, we stay there for another 2 hours which felt like 10 hours then off to lunch. Dr. Pan took us all to the “upscale” dining hall for lunch and I could tell that this was a real treat for the students and I was happy to see them so happy. I on the other hand had to sit through another meal where every dish that came out had all eyes on me…waiting to watch me eat it and to see if I think that it is as delicious
as they all seem to think it is. This is not only stressful for me but ridiculously exhausting…especially after 11 days of it. Anyway, we returned to the lab after lunch and I spent the rest of the afternoon working on my PPT (not PowerPoint presentation but PPT, said really really fast…PPT….PPT) for my Friday presentation of my research. I am not exactly sure the environment that will be surrounding my presentation, but I am preparing a 45 minute talk with time for questions. We will see. It could range from a casual lab meeting setting to a department seminar. I go in and out of being nervous about it but I figure that so much will be lost in translation I really don’t have much to be nervous about. My slides are animated…it will keep them adequately distracted and impressed with my animation abilities…it is an art you know.
For dinner, I was introduced to the campus cafeteria. This is where Chinese food goes to die. Refer back to the beginning of this blog entry when I wax on about how much I hate Chinese breakfast and insert all of those feelings in here for how I feel
about cafeteria Chinese food. The good part about it is that the grad students are far more relaxed and asking me a lot of personal questions which I am more than happy to answer and they eat very fast. This leaves less time for them to notice that I ate very little if any of the food on my plate. This is not to say that they did not notice at all…there were plenty of “eat Maria, you need your energy….you don’t eat much….you like Chinese food….eat this, it is delicious. They do not understand how someone could not like this food…I understand that they do not understand this and I appreciate it, I just have far less motivation to fake it these days. I walked back to my room after that, messed around for a while then hit the sheets.
The next day I was invited to participate in the extraction of DNA. Again, like with the inoculation, I jumped at the chance to see how they do it. Turns out that it was a grinding party of sorts except there is no talking or sitting down and there is a very organized and methodical methodology to it.
I watched for a minute then jumped right in. We ground probably 75 isolates in a matter of 30 minutes. I was incredible. I have never been a part of something so efficient. Of course, I am not sure that it deserves the title of party since no one except me seemed to be having any fun. After the grinding party was over, I was told my Hua (the grad student put in charge of me) told me to go be on my own and she would find me for lunch LOL. Go take a rest she said. I am told this many times a day. I don’t know if it is because they don’t want to bother with me or if they think that I look feeble and need to sit down or some other reason that I have not even thought of, but nevertheless…I am opt complaining because I have plenty to keep my busy at my awesome desk! Soon after I returned to my desk I was called into Dr. Pan’s office. We talked about my primers and other research related things then he asked me to read through and edit one of the graduate student’s manuscripts
Scrap scrap scrap
Just doing my part to kill the rice. for English errors. I said of course, anything to feel helpful. Little did I realize at the time how much time and effort I would later put into this request. I am still working on it!!!
The following say (Thursday) started and remained much the same as the other two days with lab work in the morning and desk work in the afternoon and I am starting to settle in to my place here. I am enjoying my walks to and from lab. I am listening to Nora Ephron’s “I Feel Bad About My Neck” which I am totally enjoying . The narration reminds me of Dr. Hill from TU so I catch myself imagining it is her voice I am hearing. But, tonight I crossed a milestone in my life…. But first, let me back up a bit… Usually I go to lunch and then to my room until 3 when everyone returns to the lab, but today I was cramping (I don’t think I need to elaborate as to why I was cramping) and really did not feel up to walking around more than I needed to but instead of telling them that I was not feeling
30 minutes
This much grinding would take me a day to complete! well (did not want them to worry nor did I want to explain why the cramping is nothing to worry about) I just said that I was working on my PPT for tomorrow and was going to pass on lunch. I had fruit that I had brought in and a Gatorade so I was set. Well, the same story is true for dinner. I really did not feel up to going to the cafeteria again and force feeding myself to make the students happy then walking back to the lab then to my room. This time I was in for a fight. The first round began about 6:15 of students asking me to go to dinner…then another round of students then another then another. Maybe word was getting out that I was not eating or something, but the dinner invitations started turning into requests which turned into concern for my welfare which turned into…you are not eating…we are worried about you…at one point during this parade of dinner invitations Dr. Pan comes over to my desk to tell me that he too is worried that I am not eating and wants to take me to lunch tomorrow at the cafeteria
so that he can help me find something that I like. This is going to be uncomfortable and utterly exhausting. I cannot wait! But, this sacrifice will not go unrewarded because he also said that tomorrow night he will take me out to a Western dinner with his family in tow. This is music to my ears. Now, as to his definition of Western food, I am unsure, but I am going to remain positive about it. Anyway, after I had turned down all of my dinner requests and reassured everyone that I did not have an eating disorder and that there was nothing to worry about I realized that I did not actually have anything for dinner. I am become more and more aware of the fact that snickers and Gatorade do not make for a healthy dinner so on my way home I make the executive decision to walk OUTSIDE the gates of the university to the streets of Guangzhou to do some shopping and get myself some McDonalds for dinner. In my head I am having conflicting thoughts, one is that everything will be fine and that I am over thinking this just like every other aspect
of my life and one that everything is fine until it is not and then everyone says “what did she expect would happen when she has TARGET TARGET TARGET written all over her with her unmistakable American look and oblivious domineer?” But, I charged ahead…conquering my fear of walking the streets of Guangzhou alone after dark and guess what……I did some shopping and got myself some McDonalds then returned to my room to enjoy my purchases without incident. And strangely enough…I feel empowered…I just did something that I was afraid to do and got a Western meal out of it too. It was a good day. And best of all, I am starting to feel a part of this place…like I know what I am doing and where I am going. Don’t get me wrong…I am still counting the days until I come home….but I have a suspicion that the days I have left here will be far more enjoyable and go by far more quickly than originally predicted.
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Josh
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My Wife Magellan
Even though you may not be the first person to sail around the world, I am proud you made your first trek outside the gates of the university. I am glad to hear things are improving and maybe you will find some Chinese food you enjoy in the near future!