Day 4: An Excellent Day

It's been a great day! For starters, I was right. He (the prof) was wrong. Woohoo! Instead of using hydrophilic channels for the device like he suggested, we found out from the second prof (from another university, working on the same project) that hydrophobic channels are better for our purposes. Ha! Score another one for me. That means I don't have to major-ly re-design the entire thing. Phew!

The second piece of good news (to me at least) is that I may have a life here after all! Went for the daily Mass as St. Lars and met an Australian called Cameron. He introduced the place to me, one of the sisters and one of the priests. Plus he told me that there's a students' group that meets every Thursday after Mass for coffee and cakes. Yay! I can meet new people! Not only am I able to attend daily Mass here (because of their extremely strict working hours; unlike in Singapore where one doesn't seem to stop working), I'm also able to meet new people there and they have activities. Yay! I'm simply giddy with joy.

The third piece of good news is that I met the other bunch of people with whom I will be working. And they are a really nice group of people and invited me to go skating with them when they have settled on the date. Ooo... time to pad my butt. I now have two, I repeat, TWO tables. One at each university. Come on man. I don't ever see that happening back in the lab at home. Plus the offices or tables are so separate from all the labs (unlike back home; I get to breathe in all the contaminated lab air). And I have my own personal workspace in their lab as well. And get this. With my own personal pipettes! Can it get any better? Yes, it can! I get to use the stationary (pens, paper, notebooks, etc) and print articles for FREE!

Do you ever see it happening in Singapore? For the professors maybe. But for the students? Hell, no! Here, the students and professors enjoy the same facilities, and behave like friends, like equals. Not only that, they do not have super big offices and leave students with cramped cubicles. The cubicles here are huge and students can also have a choice to sit in an office room if they want. Moreover, the students' area and the professors' area are together in the same office or corridor. That makes it seem as though they are all equals, and they do behave in a similar manner. I must remember to take my camera to work and take a picture of my huge working space in the office. Man, oh man. It's more than twice the space I have in Singapore.

I'm now feeling a little more optimistic about this place than when I first came. Thing may not be so bad after all. Sure, I still miss home and family. But, it's time to spread my wings.

Here's to better days ahead. Cheers!