Taiwan: slow times

Well, there’s not much new to report on the lab front. The work was going slow for awhile because we thought there was a problem with one of the proteins we’d made, and we couldn’t exactly move forward without it. The problem turned out to be not a problem after all, the solution just hadn’t been concentrated enough. So, we can finally start moving on with our projects. Angela and I have been working on similar projects, testing the toxicity of the compounds we’ll be using on the cells, while Isaac is examining two different systems for producing one of our proteins. Angela’s projects and mine don’t require a whole lot of active work time, but a lot more waiting during incubation times, so we’ve had lots of time to basically do whatever we want. There’s not really anything we can do until we get through these preliminary steps, so we can’t just start on another project. And, now we’re also trying to figure out another problem as well which will prevent us from moving forward. I’ve made several mentions of the various proteins we’re using; now we have to fuse them with the quantum dot particles before we treat the cells with them. Wednesday one of the students created two batches of this mixture, making them at the exact same time with the exact same procedure, yet one of the batches work, but the other appears to not have work. We are pretty much lost as to the cause, so all we can really do is try again. But that is the larger part of any research: fixing problems with the original plans and fine tuning the procedures.

In other news, we are getting much better at reading menus. Angela and I have collected a menu from every restaurant we’ve been to (and that’s a LOT), with the English translations written next to each item so we remember when we visit again. Menus aren’t provided the same way as in the U.S. It is more of a ticket with a list of all the meals, and you mark what you want and turn the ticket in to the counter with your table number. There’s one restaurant that doesn’t list the meals on the ticket (they are just posted on the wall), so when we go to that one, we grab the server and point to the meals we want, rather than attempt to copy the characters. For lunch we often go with the other lab members, and get introduced to new restaurants. Angela and I usually do dinner on our own; Isaac tends to stay at the lab later and will go out with some of the guys after. This Wednesday we all made plans to go into the downtown area of the city to eat at a particular Japanese restaurant. Afterwards, Betty (the student who drove us in) had prayer and bible study at her church (she is the pastor’s wife as well), so Angela and I window-shopped down the street for an hour. We had just eaten dinner, but the only thing we purchased… was food. Not for a lack of trying though. We went into several clothing stores, and another that sold pretty sparkly things, but we decided 6000 NTD (divide by 30 to get the US equivalent) for a skirt was beyond our budget. The food we bought: we found a bakery and the cakes looked too delicious, so we bought a small one (and it is just as delicious as it looked), and then we found a candy store and filled ourselves bags of various Asian hard and chewy candies. As interesting as some of the candies were, the best part was after we paid for our candy and we were given a free pair of fingernail clippers? I still haven’t figured out why a candy shop would give out fingernail clippers, but now I have a Winnie the Pooh clipper on a keychain.

Sadly, I have no adventures to relate from last weekend. We were supposed to visit Taroko National Park, but someone (read: Angela) had to go and sprain her ankle. I think it sprained itself just to spite her, because she doesn’t recall doing anything to hurt it. One day it just started swelling and hurting. She had a couple of mosquito bites in the area, so we first thought it was just an allergic reaction to the mosquitoes. The doctor she went to a couple days later after a marked lack of improvement said the same thing and gave her FIVE different medications to take for the next three days (two ointments, an anti-inflammatory, an anti-allergy, and we aren’t sure what the last one was). Well, again, after little improvement, it was decided to take her to the hospital. Two X-rays and two doctors later, she is informed that it is a sprain, probably from walking against the current in the river the weekend before. Perplexing, since she didn’t stay in the river that long, she didn’t start to swell until a full day later, and in my experience, it is difficult NOT to immediately notice when you’ve sprained an ankle. But she’s improving now, although she is supposed to wear an ankle brace for three weeks. We’ve rescheduled the excursion to Taroko for this Sunday, so hopefully she’s doing well enough to take full advantage of the hiking opportunities.

And some other random things to share…

There is no Daylight Savings Time, so the sun starts waking me up at about 5 a.m. most mornings. The hottest, most humid part of the day is also the mornings. At 8 a.m., it was already 82 degrees and about 103 percent humidity. The humidity dies away over the day though, and the temperature in the evenings. It is usually quite beautiful weather when we leave the lab at night (anytime after 5).

The main road outside of campus where all the restaurants are is a narrow two-lane road, with no shoulder, and no sidewalk. Parked cars and pedestrians narrow this at some points to about one lane. The rules of the road are quite different here, to sum up in a sentence: if you go first, you win. This makes heading out from campus quite an adventure sometimes. As odd as it sounds, I think I feel safer on a bicycle than I would driving a car. Sometimes Betty (the student with the car who shuttles us around) drives us to lunch, and maneuvers through gaps in her van that I would be afraid to go through in my little Cougar. Cars are the slower form of transportation on this street. Scooters and bicycles are constantly weaving around, which would only add to my probable dislike of driving a car around here.

Glad to know I’m not talking to myself,
Jamie