Disclaimer: I'm sorry about the font color chaos. I tried to fix it but the website wont let me.
Its raining. A lot. I've never seen so much rain fall from the sky in one day. This isn't like periodic heavy rain, I'm talking non-stop down pouring. And the bad news is...it isn't supposed to stop until Friday! One of the first things my professor asked me when he picked me up from the airport was if I had an umbrella. I did, of course, and he told me he asked because it is monsoon season right now. I didn't think much of it until I woke up this morning to a waterfall outside my window. I've never been in a country where they have a particular season named after heavy rain and I didn't fully understand the term until today. Let me put this into perspective...I walk out of my dorm this morning with my little red sharper image umbrella ㅑ ㅏㄷ데 ㅡ뭄햐ㅜㅎ 새 초뭏ㄷ ㅡㅛ 래ㅜㅅ 새 ㅏㅐㄱㄷ무 뭉 ㅑ 애ㅜ 사ㅜㅐㅈ ㅙㅈ 새 ㅎㄷㅅ ㅑㅅ ㅠㅁ차. That was me accidentally changing my language to Korean, it took me a few minutes to figure out how to get back to English. Anyway..my little red umbrella has served me pretty well at home and in Australia, keeping me as dry as could be. In South Korea's version of rain...not so much. It kept my head and shoulders dry, but my bag, pants, feet, etc...absolutely soaked. After the ten minute walk to our classroom I probably could have rung out my pants. I dried out for the most part over the two hour lecture only to walk back out into the rain and get just as wet all over again. To top things off, I decided to wear flip-flops seeing as that is the only footwear I have that can afford to get wet and will dry quickly. Flip-flops have zero traction and the paths around campus are made of some kind of exceptionally slippery stone. Needless to say, I nearly fell on my ass on numerous occasions and the day isn't even over yet. Luckily, Koreans are too polite to laugh.
Its raining. A lot. I've never seen so much rain fall from the sky in one day. This isn't like periodic heavy rain, I'm talking non-stop down pouring. And the bad news is...it isn't supposed to stop until Friday! One of the first things my professor asked me when he picked me up from the airport was if I had an umbrella. I did, of course, and he told me he asked because it is monsoon season right now. I didn't think much of it until I woke up this morning to a waterfall outside my window. I've never been in a country where they have a particular season named after heavy rain and I didn't fully understand the term until today. Let me put this into perspective...I walk out of my dorm this morning with my little red sharper image umbrella ㅑ ㅏㄷ데 ㅡ뭄햐ㅜㅎ 새 초뭏ㄷ ㅡㅛ 래ㅜㅅ 새 ㅏㅐㄱㄷ무 뭉 ㅑ 애ㅜ 사ㅜㅐㅈ ㅙㅈ 새 ㅎㄷㅅ ㅑㅅ ㅠㅁ차. That was me accidentally changing my language to Korean, it took me a few minutes to figure out how to get back to English. Anyway..my little red umbrella has served me pretty well at home and in Australia, keeping me as dry as could be. In South Korea's version of rain...not so much. It kept my head and shoulders dry, but my bag, pants, feet, etc...absolutely soaked. After the ten minute walk to our classroom I probably could have rung out my pants. I dried out for the most part over the two hour lecture only to walk back out into the rain and get just as wet all over again. To top things off, I decided to wear flip-flops seeing as that is the only footwear I have that can afford to get wet and will dry quickly. Flip-flops have zero traction and the paths around campus are made of some kind of exceptionally slippery stone. Needless to say, I nearly fell on my ass on numerous occasions and the day isn't even over yet. Luckily, Koreans are too polite to laugh.
Swine Flu
I have come to learn that Koreans are absolutely paranoid about swine flu. Upon entering the country, the first stop was quarantine where they take your temperature to make sure you don't have it. I mean what if someone just had a cold and as a result had a fever? Would they quarantine them in the airport for days or just ship them back to where they came from?
I thought my airport temperature check was the end of it, but I was wrong. Yesterday, Charlie and I had to meet with the international department to fill out paperwork and some other jazz. The representative told us to visit the health center this week to make sure we don't have the "New Flu". So today, we paid a little visit to the health center where we had our temperatures checked once again. Easy right? Not. The nurse informed us that we had to come back for three subsequent days to have our temperatures taken and if we have no fever after those three days, we are deemed clear of swine flu. Maybe its just me, but doesn't that seem like overkill? I feel fine, I look fine, and if I feel sick, I will come right on into the infirmary so they can take my temperature as many times as they want.
New take on Korean food
Yesterday Dr. Ryu and Dr. Jung took Charlie and I out to lunch after our lab briefing to a really nice Korean restaurant. This was my first experience with real Korean food, not the crap they serve in the cafeteria. We had our own private room with a door and everything and for an hour straight they continued to bring dish after dish of tasty Korean food. We had everything including soup, prawns, sushi, beef, chicken, rice cakes, and potatoes in one meal! Granted, their portions are very small and each course is smaller then the average American appetizer, but everything tasted great. Since this was a traditional Korean restaurant, there were no forks or knives in site, only metal chopsticks. Over the past couple of days I have been trying to use chopsticks as often as I can just in case something like this would ever happen. I have gotten pretty decent at it for almost anything type of food but I still have some trouble with rice. Also, I never really understood how you use chopsticks to cut things. It turns out that Asian meat is usually served in bite sized pieces and the only foods you will ever need to cut are potato pancakes, rice cakes, and other relatively soft things. Dr. Ryu taught us the correct method which involves using a spoon and one chopstick. After this meal, I had a completely different opinion of Korean food. It is actually great if it is cooked well and the ingredients are fresh. I guess I can't judge an entire countries cuisine from one lousy cafeteria.
I'm a biologist, not a chemical engineer
Yesterday morning begun my Polymer chemistry class and research. My class schedule is Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday lecture 9-11 AM (but it began two weeks ago so we are a little behind). The class is composed of Charlie and me, along with 14 Koreans. The lecture is given in English which is great for us but not so great for the Koreans who clearly don't speak it very well. How well do you think they understand what Dr. Ryu is saying when they can't even formulate questions in English, they have to ask in Korean? Dr. Ryu is making each of them give a 15 minute presentation on the material in ENGLISH! And for some reason, Charlie and I don't have to do it, nor do we have to write the paper, and he is giving us a different exam on Monday because we haven't had most of the material! Dr. Ryu is leaving for a conference in North Carolina at the end of next week so we only have three more lectures! He said he wants us to focus on our research so that we can get published. I'm getting three credits for this plus my four research credits...not a bad deal if you ask me.
After class we had our lab briefing. One of the graduate students (the one who I will be working with) gave a presentation on the projects that we will be working on. I don't want to go into a lot of detail but basically it involves finding the ideal polymer matrix for capillary electrophoresis of single stranded DNA conformational polymorphisms. The lab is part of the chemical engineering department so needless to say, I am not familiar with many of the techniques that are used. Luckily I'm a fast learner and have lab experience so it shouldn't be that bad.
Later in the afternoon, after lunch, Dr. Ryu had a private polymer chem sesh with Charlie and I to help catch us up with the class. It is great to have the one on one time because we have the opportunity to ask questions and he goes at our pace, not his own. I am actually understanding the material fairly well so far. We had another one of these sessions today and have another planned for Thursday and Friday. Hopefully we will be caught up by the end of the week.
Today I actually begun lab work with my graduate student who's name is Gi won. He is pretty much the head honcho of the lab and seems to take his work way too seriously. I guess that is a good thing when it comes to research but I think it might be a little too much when you spend literally 14 hours per day (I wish I was joking) in lab. The first step in our experiment (over two days) was UV spectroscopy which involves a lot of pipetting. UV spec and pippetting happen to be two techniques that I have extensive experience with. Despite this fact, Gi won insisted on checking every single thing that I did from making sure there were no bubbles in the cuvette to checking the pipette setting after I adjusted it. Does he really think that Dr. Ryu would recruit an absoulte idiot to stick into a lab like this one? I'm a pretty good sport so I joked with him about it, but hopefully he will learn to trust me soon, or this could be a very long four weeks.
New take on Korean food
Yesterday Dr. Ryu and Dr. Jung took Charlie and I out to lunch after our lab briefing to a really nice Korean restaurant. This was my first experience with real Korean food, not the crap they serve in the cafeteria. We had our own private room with a door and everything and for an hour straight they continued to bring dish after dish of tasty Korean food. We had everything including soup, prawns, sushi, beef, chicken, rice cakes, and potatoes in one meal! Granted, their portions are very small and each course is smaller then the average American appetizer, but everything tasted great. Since this was a traditional Korean restaurant, there were no forks or knives in site, only metal chopsticks. Over the past couple of days I have been trying to use chopsticks as often as I can just in case something like this would ever happen. I have gotten pretty decent at it for almost anything type of food but I still have some trouble with rice. Also, I never really understood how you use chopsticks to cut things. It turns out that Asian meat is usually served in bite sized pieces and the only foods you will ever need to cut are potato pancakes, rice cakes, and other relatively soft things. Dr. Ryu taught us the correct method which involves using a spoon and one chopstick. After this meal, I had a completely different opinion of Korean food. It is actually great if it is cooked well and the ingredients are fresh. I guess I can't judge an entire countries cuisine from one lousy cafeteria.
I'm a biologist, not a chemical engineer
Yesterday morning begun my Polymer chemistry class and research. My class schedule is Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday lecture 9-11 AM (but it began two weeks ago so we are a little behind). The class is composed of Charlie and me, along with 14 Koreans. The lecture is given in English which is great for us but not so great for the Koreans who clearly don't speak it very well. How well do you think they understand what Dr. Ryu is saying when they can't even formulate questions in English, they have to ask in Korean? Dr. Ryu is making each of them give a 15 minute presentation on the material in ENGLISH! And for some reason, Charlie and I don't have to do it, nor do we have to write the paper, and he is giving us a different exam on Monday because we haven't had most of the material! Dr. Ryu is leaving for a conference in North Carolina at the end of next week so we only have three more lectures! He said he wants us to focus on our research so that we can get published. I'm getting three credits for this plus my four research credits...not a bad deal if you ask me.
After class we had our lab briefing. One of the graduate students (the one who I will be working with) gave a presentation on the projects that we will be working on. I don't want to go into a lot of detail but basically it involves finding the ideal polymer matrix for capillary electrophoresis of single stranded DNA conformational polymorphisms. The lab is part of the chemical engineering department so needless to say, I am not familiar with many of the techniques that are used. Luckily I'm a fast learner and have lab experience so it shouldn't be that bad.
Later in the afternoon, after lunch, Dr. Ryu had a private polymer chem sesh with Charlie and I to help catch us up with the class. It is great to have the one on one time because we have the opportunity to ask questions and he goes at our pace, not his own. I am actually understanding the material fairly well so far. We had another one of these sessions today and have another planned for Thursday and Friday. Hopefully we will be caught up by the end of the week.
Today I actually begun lab work with my graduate student who's name is Gi won. He is pretty much the head honcho of the lab and seems to take his work way too seriously. I guess that is a good thing when it comes to research but I think it might be a little too much when you spend literally 14 hours per day (I wish I was joking) in lab. The first step in our experiment (over two days) was UV spectroscopy which involves a lot of pipetting. UV spec and pippetting happen to be two techniques that I have extensive experience with. Despite this fact, Gi won insisted on checking every single thing that I did from making sure there were no bubbles in the cuvette to checking the pipette setting after I adjusted it. Does he really think that Dr. Ryu would recruit an absoulte idiot to stick into a lab like this one? I'm a pretty good sport so I joked with him about it, but hopefully he will learn to trust me soon, or this could be a very long four weeks.
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