Journals from Abroad
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Journal: Hong Wei: New friends and a scary mishap
May 14-20, 2007
 Inside Jean of Arc church |
I am working in a lab at University of Rouen, L'Equipe Caracterisation des Amorphes et des Polymeres (LCAP). Mr. Jean-Marc is the head. There are a few professors, doctoral students, master's students and undergraduate students working in the lab. Mr. Laurent, my adviser, is a busy person but he is very helpful and tried to answer all my questions. Khadija, a girl working with polycarbonate aging, explained to me about what she had done before and some basic concepts of aging. Everyone in lab shares knowledge and helps each other. This makes it very easy for me to get closer to them.
This week I almost got the whole idea about what I will be doing in these two months. I started learning how to prepare samples. I cut the samples with Eric, a technician in this lab, and I found out that it was not easy to prepare samples. This made me appreciate the hard work of the technician. I did some charpy test with non-aging samples and put the rest into the oven for aging.
I always believe in a slogan which is "when in Rome, do as the Romans do"; try to be part of their culture. I tried to pay attention to their actions and body language. I try to speak French, eat French cheese and adapt to life in France.
Learning French is part of my daily life. I carry the phrase book with me everywhere and try to learn as much as possible through communication with people in the lab. They are really willing to help me even though I am not a good learner. I really appreciate their patience. In fact, I learned some greeting words that I keep repeating when I see different people.
Monet's stained window |
This Thursday is holiday; we went to Rouen again. We took pictures, especially inside the Rouen cathedral with the Monet-stained window. On Saturday we went downtown again to get more pictures. Walking into Jean of Arc church, listening to the holy music, and gazing at the old stained windows-all the typical church images just show up in that church.
 Juin Juin and her two friends, Chase and me |
I also met a Chinese girl, Juin Juin, who lives next door. She was so excited when she found out that I speak Mandarin. We had a steamboat in her apartment. It was a very famous steamboat, Szechuan spicy. It is an extremely spicy soup with different types of food in it. Yummy!
 Hot soup |
The scariest event in my life happened in Rouen. Thursday night after having dinner at the Chinese girl's house, Chase went to the game room downstairs and I went back to the apartment. We had our own private toilet in our apartment. I went to the bathroom and locked the toilet door without further thinking. In fact, there was no one in our apartment.
 Lock (from outside of toilet) |
 Lock (inside of toilet) The lock is almost broke by me |
 Tiny and scary toilet |
Unluckily, the door lock broke after I locked myself in the small toilet. There is no window in there, I did not have my cell phone with me, and worst of all, the door was built in a way that I could not break it and get out by myself. I was so worried. I screamed with my full energy trying to get attention from people around our apartment. I found a stool brush in the toilet and tried to hit the wall with the stool brush with tremendous effort. I was stuck inside the toilet for around 20 minutes. Finally someone heard the sound. I asked the person to get the Chinese girl next door since she can understand me very well. Goodness gracious, she finally got Chase to come up and rescue me from toilet. The reason I could not unlock from the inside was because the rode in the lock came out. What a funny and scary story. From that day on, I've never locked the door again when I go to the toilet.
