The party is over, get back to work!

Friends, family, and colleagues,

Dr. Paret has gone back to the US and I've moved from the hotel to the dorm room. It’s a step down from all the showcasing that I saw last week with the flashy meals and excessive amounts of food. I expected this much, this isn't exactly a vacation!

Dr. Paret showing one of the scientists classical symptoms of root knot nematode (RKN) on a watermelon rootstock

The dorm room is nice, especially when compared to some of the older apartments in the area. It’s mostly furnished. It does have a bed frame (no mattress), and a cabinet dresser. From the sound of it, mattresses really aren't a thing here. There is also a stool and a desk along with a bathroom (with a sit-down toilet thankfully!). It was a bit dusty when I moved in, which is a symptom of being brand new and no one living in it for a while. I tried mopping, which helped a little bit. The room itself is very quiet and has that strange echo sound you get whenever you move into or out of a completely empty apartment.

The dorm was built in 2012, and is one of the nicest housing options available to students at JAAS.

There's a lot of little sitting areas outside on the campus

Some students live in the old apartments across the pond. Due to housing shortages, to buy even an old apartment is very expensive

The academy itself is a very large campus, it houses about 2300 employees. Most of the graduate students and faculty live on site. The main road is lined with what I think are sycamore trees. Lunch which used to be never-ending has now been replaced by three meals from the academy’s cafeteria. It’s nothing close to the food I had a week ago, but it will have to make due. You cannot beat the price though. I ate breakfast for 2 Yuan, about 33 cents American. They had these Chinese onion pancakes that are pretty good for institutionalized food. Lunch and dinner run about 8 to 10 Yuan ($1.30-$1.60).

The labs are well stocked by Chinese standards. We definitely produce a lot of waste compared to the Chinese labs.  The sizes of the Chinese and the size of this American are comically incompatible. I had on a pair of small gloves and a medium lab-coat and Dr. Li couldn't stop laughing. I’m pretty sure this is what a T-Rex would feel like if they worked in a lab. Labeling items is a challenge, as they don’t have any of those tape dispensers in all of our labs. Fortunately, the sharpie marks come off with ethanol. They have a very small autoclave in the lab. It works well enough for bottles and small items. It's also nice to have my own little autoclave in the lab.

In addition to the dorm and the labs, they also have a graduate student lounge and pingpong table. I’m sure I’ll eventually get roped into a game. The students here are very welcoming. Just as in the US, there’s a lot of young women in the field of STEM. They spend most of their waking hours either in the laboratory or in the fifth floor reading center. 

All in all, I'm settling in and meeting people. I’ll try to explore the area. So far, the only place I've been is the forest mall across the street. It’s a modern mall with a lot of free WiFi which lets me use the VPN and talk to you!

Mason