| First week of work down. I've come to the realization that the labs here are more like families than the ones that I'm accustomed to in the United States. People here work longer hours and come in over the weekend without thinking twice, but they seem completely at home in the laboratory and with each other. There's a great deal of camaraderie that pervades lab work. I am facing some difficulty right now with my project---the math is killer! For the last week, I've been trying to use a maximum entropy algorithm to fit some FCS data, and it's not been going that well. However, I'm going to keep on chugging. No lab work yet, but I am a physics major, so oh well. Our trip to Xi'an went swimmingly. Got the entire trip in for just a few hundred US dollars. We climbed mount hua, saw the terracotta army, the big wild goose pagoda, and a great Chinese mosque. We also got the experience of staying in a really cool hostel. Our rooms are really nice and air-conditioned--kudos to the program on providing me and my roommate with the nicest place we've ever stayed long-term. Onward to week 2 of research.... |  |
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Coral & Yifang - no comment. |
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Zach & Justin - no comment. |
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Air-tight hamster ball being charged with air, whilst floating in a shallow pool. |
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Yes, indeed. |
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Justin & Zach - clumsy hamsters. |
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Delighted onlookers. |
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Sea legs. |
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Coordinated attack. |
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Christine, Sarah & Jerry went to Beihai park and Jingshan to catch the sunset. |
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Dancers at the Forbidden City. |
Program Directors:
Prof. Brian P. Coppola (UM) bcoppola@umich.edu
Prof. Zi-Chen LI (PKU) zcli@pku.edu.cn
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