I also got in contact with a former BR (Borlaug-Ruan) intern who is here in Beijing about meeting up. I may get the chance to go have dinner with her on this Saturday. I uploaded some photos as well (a requirement of the internship but something I've really enjoyed doing...my 4-H photography project experience is certainly coming in handy).
At 1100 I was feeling better. Well, let me clarify, I was never feeling poorly really; it was just the fact that I was having issues every thirty minutes, so when I say that I was feeling better, it means that I was no longer having to be in close proximity to the facilities. Because I was feeling better (and more under control, so to speak), I walked to the lab and ran into the gang going to lunch. I went to lunch and had tofu, rice, and an interesting stir fry. Then I came back to my room and had another two hours to do things on my own (more guitar and reading). I ate a plum from the Carrefoure. It was a very hard plum. I did not think that they were that hard when I bought them.
At 200 I went back and watched Yulan culture some stuff, or at least start the culturing process. Once she did this, we had a two-hour break which I spent intermittently sleeping and reading papers about the topics we were working on. The last half hour, Yulan came over to talk to me. Dr. Cheng also came in to check on me. Yulan told me that she would be gone for three days next week and that she was worried that Dr. Cheng would be mad at her for taking three days off. She still had not told Dr. Cheng that she would be gone. I gave her the best advice that I could, at least what would be the best advice in America, to just go talk to her. This led to me trying to explain working in America which led only to confusion on both our parts, I think. I asked where she was going, and she confused me. So it worked both ways. What I did get out of her is that she was going with other CAAS students to the "political party" thing. When she first said it, I thought that she meant that she was going to party, like "PARTY! YEAH!" but it turned out to be "political party." I tried to tell her that her view of a political party was probably very skewed based on the fact that China's government only allows one party to be legal....The symbol for the party was the hammer and sickle on a red background which only reassured me of that last thought. But anyway she was very worried that Dr. Cheng would be angry if she asked for those three days off as most people come in every day. I tried to point out that her main goal is to finish her project for her masters which means that it does not matter what she does with her time provided she finishes it before she is supposed to graduate (not to mention that the people who come in every day spend at least half of the time doing things that are not related to work, like their version of Facebook and sleeping...etc.). It was a very interesting conversation overall. I just do not know enough about Chinese culture to know if that is normally what happens or not.
While she is gone I am supposed to get some seeds sterilized and planted in medium, and take care of the plants on the "six floor." I told her about the suffixes for the numbers as well as synecdoche and metonymy. They do not use synecdoche and metonymy when they speak (yes, my English teachers would be proud of me...and if you don't know what those words are, then look them up).
Once the pre-culture bacteria was ready (why we were waiting 2 hours), she put them into the flasks and put those into the shaker. While the shaker was going, she refilled the lamp, Oh and let me tell you about the lamp. This thing is an ethanol lamp; it is metal and has a wick poking out the top. Normally it is filled with waste ethanol and burned to help prevent contamination. But recently, Wendy has decided that burning it too much is not good. I asked Yulan why he was doing it and she said something about air pollution... from burning ethanol... If burning ethanol is what is causing all the air pollution I would be very surprised...
But... going back to filling the lamp, she accidentally spilled some and still lit the lamp while it was in a puddle of ethanol. Needless to say the entire thing was on fire. While I tried to tell her to just let it burn (this was all happening in the fume hood, so it was all metal and no worries about it spreading), she tried to put it out with the rag that they use to sterilize the interior of the hood with. This was also soaked in ethanol, being as they used it to sterilize. It caught on fire and greatly surprised Yulan. She pulled it OUT of the fume hood, the rag that is and threw it or dropped it on the ground and stamped on it. Thankfully the fire had not engulfed the the entire rag yet, and it went out. Otherwise there may have been a rather large problem. While this was happening, the lamp was still in its burning puddle. I repeated, "just let it burn, it is metal", and so on. She finally believed me and it went out in the next 30 seconds. I was laughing the entire time this happened. The people here do not seem to have much intelligence when it comes to fire. They just do not use it often enough I would assume or have not gone through safety training. She wondered why I told her to let it burn. I told her because the fume hood is metal, and the ethanol will not burn hot enough with that little amount to melt through the metal to start something on fire (otherwise the lamp would be a puddle of metal). It was an interesting conversation.
After that we looked at some spores to see which type of medium allowed for the greatest, easily available spore production. There was none as great as she was hoping for and she told me her hypothesis as to why the spores were not in as great a number as she hoped. The spores were caught in the fungus balls themselves (I will have to take a photo to show you what I am talking about), but I thought of a way to tell if she was right. It involves taking some of the fungus balls and then vortexing them or shaking them very roughly to get the spores out of the balls. I will tell you how it turns out tomorrow when I do it.
After that I headed out. I went down to the third floor to see if Ben and the others were going to dinner. They were. Ben had spent the entire day in bed and had been to the hospital to get aspirin. He was pretty sick today. I thought that something was wrong with him when I went in there to get ask for a roll of toilet paper. He answered the door pointed, to the bag of them, then laid back down to sleep. Normally he likes to talk. We went to a new place. The food that I got was okay, too many mushrooms though and not enough meat. It was very quiet. Young is not much of a talker, and Ben, of course was sick.
As I was walking back to the dorms with them, I ran into my African friends. It turns out that the guy that I thought was leaving today in fact leaves tonight. So he was headed out with Vincent and another person for a last meal as the Sesh Wan restaurant. I joined them to listen to what they were talking about. We started off talking about the way that the Chinese people here work and the weird things that they do. Most of the time they like to be seen doing something so they will stretch things out. They also talked about the after lunch nap, and how they work at unusual times. Vincent said he had a woman who started an 8 hour test at 5 in the afternoon (but I guess that isn't too unlike grad students at home). I also talk to them about the food and the "quesadilla" that I had had at the place down the road that was not that good. This led to a description of a tortilla. I do not know if I did a good job or not. One of the guys Googled it. I also talked to them about the heat, to them it is hot here. It was 35 Celsius here today which was 90 degrees. I told them that it was commonly above 40 degrees Celsius (100 F) in College Station. They thought that that was crazy. They also were surprised at the difference in day length here and in College Station (guess they don't study too much Earth Science). The food we had was good. I am beginning to think that the food that they eat here is not spicy despite what I have been told. The African guys ordered a dish that they thought was too spicy; it was not spicy at all. I got to take the leftovers from that one. We also had the good lamb skewers and chicken gizzards. They got a plate of broccoli as well which was great and an egg dish. I tried everything. There was more of that good orange juice as well. I keep forgetting to go get some of that from the store.
We walked back to the dorms and helped the guy who was leaving bring down his luggage. I took a photo with him and gave him my email and wished him the best of luck. Apart from the bacteria semi-failure, it has been a good day. I did not go swim as I thought it would be wise to give my body a rest so that it can recover a little from the disease. I will try to go tomorrow. The air was good all day today and there was some major wind blowing while we were eating at the Sesh Wan place. That should make for a good tomorrow as well. I like it much better here when the air is clear.
Apparently it is an organism
Pizza yesterday night
Pizza 
all gone
the African Guys fish last night
Today, blue skies for the first time in weeks.
lunch
dinner
Heading back after sitting with the African Guys. I saw the moon for the first time in ages. plus check out that proud Chinese flag. It is the only one that I have seen flying. They do not seem to fly as many flags as Americans do.
The middle guy is heading out tonight. The other is his roommate. I will get photos with everybody eventually
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