Friday, June 27, 2008

White wine and karaoke

So I didn't do too much today at the lab. We lost our football game to Professor Wang's group in a PK shootout after scoring 2 goals at the end of regulation to tie the game. I went to the weekly seminar this afternoon. One student's talk didn't contain much chemistry and the other had good chemistry but not the best English. Prof. Shi took the group to dinner tonight to celebrate the pending marriage of one of the grad students. We had some Chinese white wine, which is really spicy and very strong (52% by vol. or 104 proof). Let's just say I'm still feeling the effects of it several hrs afterward. So each one of us made individual toasts to the groom-to-be and downed a shot of wine. Then we had another round of toasts (and another shot of wine) toward the end of dinner. Then we went to a karaoke place afterward and most of the group can sing pretty well. I tried to sing the Beatles "Can't Buy Me Love" (their 5th of 27 #1's). The karaoke machine threw off my timing and I didn't do a great job of singing it, but I still got a round of applause afterwards.

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Halfway...

It's been 39 days since I left home and 39 more days until I get back there. I feel insulated from all the stuff that's going on back in the U.S. right now and I'm glad not to be there right now. I have spent most of my week in the lab running columns and monitoring reactions. I don't know how much I will actually get to do between now and the time the lab shuts down around July 15 due to the Olympics (The chemical embargo starts next week also?). So I might have some time to travel around. But I fear I may not have enough stuff to put on a poster (but that's not anyone's fault). I'm doing everything that Charlie is asking of me and I enjoy what I do.
In other news, most of the other folks are planning on heading to Qingdao this weekend to go to the beach. I can't go since I can't get back in time Sunday for my group meeting. I played soccer on Sunday and scored a few goals. I earned the nickname "Hat Trick" (thanks to Xu). I'll play again on Friday against another organic group. I'm pretty excited about that.