I figured that the group would primarily be composed of Americans, with it being American Independence Day and all. Much to my surprise, the only Americans there were Maria, Cathy, Bryan and I. We had people from all over the globe, including Indonesia, Holland, Russia, and of course, China, just to name a few. There were even a few Red Coats, but relations remained friendly and we saw no need to refresh their memory on how our forefathers dominated theirs, a mere 230 years ago. I was a little disappointed, however, that I was not able to parade around the boat with my King George effigy doll. Even though we were the only people actually celebrating our independence (one of the men from Holland actually wished us a happy Thanksgiving), we were still able to have a great time with everybody. While we were not united by our nationalities, in the case of the other foreigners, we were able to share the common bond of leaving our homes for this very different environment. With the Chinese people on the boat, it was just as exciting to talk to them about what brought us to China and the various things we have done here, as well as their suggestions of new places to go and things to try. All and all, it made for a pretty incredible day. While it wasn’t as steeped in tradition as all of the past celebrations, it was a truly special experience and one of my most memorable. Over the course of the day, it was said on numerous occasions that if somebody would have told us a year ago that on July 4th, 2010, we are going to be on a boat, hanging out with a group of people from all over the world, sailing to a deserted island off the coast of China, there was no way we would have believed them. I feel like that has been the theme of this summer. Whether we are playing basketball with the locals, buying various foods from street vendors, or even singing karaoke, I know I can speak for everybody when I say it is pretty amazing how many new and unique opportunities we have had in these past six weeks. With our departure for Beijing about ten days away and our return to the states just two weeks away, our time here is drawing to a close. How we will spend these last few days, I cannot be sure. What I can say for certain is that we will continue to add to our pretty incredible list of memories from an unbelievable summer.

For the sake of filling up a little more space, I will tell a couple of quick food-related stories. Ever since we arrived here, we have constantly been searching for a big plate of Pad Thai. Sadly, even our best efforts came up empty and often resulted in ordering something that looked like Pad Thai in the picture, but was something completely different that usually tasted pretty terrible. After crying myself to sleep every night for the first week because of the lack of Pad Thai, I gave up my search. Then, out of the jaws of defeat rose a new hope not seen since the Obama campaign. A restaurant was spotted advertizing Thai food. Was this, at last, the location of our much sought after noodle dish? Well it was worth a shot. So we bused our way over there and we entered a rather fancy restaurant. a little too fancy, if you ask me. Upon searching through the oversized menu, it was not until the final page that our illusive Pad Thai dish was listed. Just below it was a picture of some tasty looking shrimp fried rice. When it came time to order, I asked for the Pad Thai and the rice, but to my horror and shock, the waitress looked me in the eyes and told me that it was too much food. She literally would not let me order both, and claimed, foolishly, that the Pad Thai alone would feed three people. I did not come all the way there to eat rice, so sadly it had to go. Once the moderately sized portion of Pad Thai arrived, I ate it all, like I anticipated, and still had some room for more. I didn’t order more because I wasn’t allowed to the first time and I didn’t want any trouble. The food was good so I was happy to leave knowing I could have eaten more, but was still pleasantly full. As a side story, while we walked around the area surrounding the restaurant, we witnessed an elderly man find a half eaten ice cream on the ground, and proceed to pick off some dirt and eat the rest. It was horrifying…

Another short food related story occurred last week. There was a café located next to a restaurant we had tried earlier in the trip, so we thought it would be a good idea to go there for dinner. Poor decision. What looked like a delightful little establishment was far from it. I figured that the grilled chicken with orange sauce was a safe bet, but once again I was wrong. After waiting for fifty minutes for my chicken dish, it finally arrived but included a little something extra. When I turned the piece over, I noticed that a decently sized bee had been cooked into my chicken. Not wanting to seem like an ignorant American, I was hesitant to alert our waiter because I didn’t know if it was supposed to be there or not. As gross as that sounds, we had already encountered other types of foods that incorporated bees and other bugs, so for all I knew it might have just been part of the sauce. Finally, it was decided that this dead bee was not intentionally included, and when it was brought to their attention, we were given all of our food for free, even though we were too grossed out and opted instead to just leave, not risking another encounter with something else in our food.

One of the major differences I have noticed in the lab environment here in comparison to Eckerd, is the pace at which work is done. At Eckerd, labs are usually pretty well organized and self-contained, with a clear and definitive set of accomplishments or outcomes expected in each lab section. The professors or TAs are present and everybody tends to work at a pretty healthy pace. Here, not so much. At least with my lab, the students come and go as they see fit, each working on their own projects at their own paces. Many of these projects are taking place over very long periods of time, so the whole concept of not really being done at the end of the days has taken some getting used to. There is a sense of urgency in labs at Eckerd because everything has to be done in a set time period. When they are working on yearlong projects, it is not the end of the world if not much gets done by the end of the day. For example, earlier this week I came in and processed some sediment samples from a core taken in the South China Sea. I placed pieces of the sediments into beakers, which we then put in an oven for six hours to dry. I was all ready to start the next step, but my lab mate informed me that there was really nothing else that could be done until they were dried and I could either look up more articles pertaining to my project or head back to my room to nap and get lunch. This just goes to show that research takes time, a lot of it, and out in the real world, not every project can be neatly tied together at the end of each three hour period.

Where as things have been moving a little slow to start out, on Monday I will begin examining the core samples using a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) to determine the levels of pyrite in relation to the total organic carbon percentage with varying depths. To give you guys a brief idea of the purpose of this project, the level of pyrite is important because it is a byproduct of the oxidation of organic matter via sulfate reducing bacteria. Sulfate reduction is one step in a hierarchy of bacterially mediated processes that are used to oxidize organic matter. After all of the sulfate has been used up, the next step is the creation of methane, which forms what are known as methane gas hydrates. The idea is that if there is enough organic matter to get through sulfate reduction, indicated by pyrite formation, there is a high likelihood that there is enough organic matter to start the process of methanogenesis and the formation of these gas hydrates. This is all relevant because methane can be used as an alternative energy source to coal. I am excited to get these samples under the SEM and see where this project goes. I used some pretty big words at the end there so I will wrap this thing up. Hopefully I will have some good results the next time I check in.

Stay classy, San Diego……