Aug 29

I've been here for 2 weeks now. The days are getting shorter (i.e. the sun no longer sets at 8pm, it does so at a more normal time of 7.15 to 7.30pm), the nights aren't any cooler and classes officially go into full swing today. Monday is my second longest day. I start lessons at 9, have an hour's break at 10, resume lessons all the way until 3.30. There are 15 min breaks between each period to allow us to get to our classes if they're at different buildings. Most of today was spent at Morrison Hall, which is near the Cornell Dairy Bar.

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If I haven't mentioned it before, I shall declare now that it sells very delicious ice cream and very big servings too. We made the mistake of ordering the single scoop instead of the kid's scoop. That resulted in us avoiding any forms of chocolate for more than a day. Pure torture.

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Microbiology lab was pretty interesting in my opinion. Well Cherlyn and I were also rather lucky because there were 2 labs going on simultaneously and we managed to get into the smaller lab that had only 14 people if I'm not wrong. In addition, the course coordinator was also in-charge of our lab group so we got better personal attention. Everything was taught in a very organized fashion and instructions were given to us as though we were new to a biology lab, which is not such the case but I don't mind cos it helps to clarify some doubts I had regarding certain basic procedures. We did phase-contrast microscopy today using the normal Zeiss microscopes (they are also used for bright-field microscopy). I'm just a little curious to know if the normal microscopes used in NTU labs can also be used for phase-contrast cos I can't quite remember if we ever done it before. Someone drop me a comment pls? Thanks! We also set up a Winogradsky Column, which is just a more glorified name for a large tube-ful of mud. Really. I guess there's probably more to it but I haven't read ahead in my lab protocol so... *sheepish grin*

The last lesson for the day was Plagues and People, which is an Entomology course that I've been very interested in ever since the first time I applied for my subjects. Maybe cos it's been a long day, but I felt that the lecturer wasn't very engaging. I left the class feeling slightly disappointed actually, cos I've heard quite good reviews about the course from upperclassmen. Oh well, hope it gets better. We proceeded to Mann Library after the lesson. Mann Library caters mainly to CALS students. We managed to find older editions of the gen microbio textbook and the endocrine physio textbook. I was lucky again when I approached the loaning counter and asked about the med parisitology textbook. According to the library catalog, it had just been returned earlier today, however I couldn't find it on the shelf. Luckily for me again, they haven't shelved the book yet so it was still at the loaning counter. I might have purchased the book if I couldn't find it in the library cos the lesson's tmr and I haven't done any readings yet so I was just feeling a little anxious about it. Yup.

It's almost the end of August now. I've got another 120 days or so left in America. I'm starting to miss the food a little but I guess that's bcos the replacement chef was cooking again. I really hope the old couple come back tmr, otherwise I'm eating Western.