The Fifty-Second Day

Tuesday. I got up at 720 again this morning to the sound of construction. They are building something downstairs on the first floor; I am on the fifth. It has got to be resonating up to here as it is very loud (I am so not a city boy...because I reckon I would have to deal with this on a daily basis in the larger cities. Get me back to my peace in the country!) I had peaches and yogurt for breakfast and talked to the family. Only one week away from seeing them again. I went into work at 8, and today I took samples from the transgenic tobacco and the DNA extraction. It is what I pretty much did all morning. I brought my lab coat and got some photos of me working in the lab (necessary for my documentation for my internship plus it will make my scrapbooking mom happy).

For lunch I had a hankering for Sesh Wan fried rice so I went there for lunch.

It was a pretty uneventful morning. There were some kids playing with a ball in an alley and a car came past and the ball got stuck under the car - it was rather sad.   The Sesh Wan place may have a new worker. There was another person serving who I have not seen on my previous 20 or so visits. Also today, I think that the lab may have been inspected, The inspectors commented that there should be no food I was told as there WAS food in the lab, If that is the only thing that is wrong with that lab... I would be very surprised. But I think the inspectors are not exactly worried about much.

After lunch I went back to work, did PCR for the afternoon, and moved the plants that I transplanted into a green house. Yulan left early so I was in charge of pulling the PCR results out of the machine and putting them in the fridge. I also made a gel.  I actually did stuff this afternoon as opposed to my normal "wait around".  I can do PCR all by myself now. Yippee!

My fridge started leaking. I guess it was because I turned the power down, and so it heated up and everything started to sweat. There was a small river leading out of it and under my computer table. Very humid here...

Frisbee was pretty good today though I think my endurance is waning. I am not feeling great in terms of athleticism. I will have some serious work to do when I get back in terms of running, biking, and swimming. I need to do lots of pull-ups as well. I hope that I can recover my fitness level in a relatively short time -- Mom says I have youth on my side and that it won't take long to get back into peak physical condition again. I am so looking forward to having the freedom to work out without having to be concerned about whether I can breathe or not.  I have to say the whole air quality issue would be a deal-breaker for me (if I get asked to come back to Beijing). The air quality makes a huge difference here. I can tell when the air is good - it smells fresh and tastes good in my mouth. When it is bad, it is the total opposite. Next week I will be able to breathe in that fresh, hot, Texas air and run in the heat and humidity.  I can't wait!

At about 720 we headed back to the dorms. Albert came with me. Then he went home to cook while I went to the Sesh Wan place and got some skewers and fried rice. I ran into Vincent, and we talked about instruments; I finished his leftovers (hate to see food go to waste).

That's about it for the day. I didn't include photos today...the ones I took were in the lab and sort of boring (at least to me). I have one last weekend to try to get David's Mao t-shirt and possibly some pearls for my Madre.

Good night and God bless.

Flashback: My last meeting as president of Southwood 4-H. Pictured with my friends; Ryan, Josh, and Andrew. I had a lot less hair then (both on my head and my face)!