July 13, 2006

So what's been happening lately? I'm not quite sure. So let's first start with my work. At work, I think I've made a lot of progress. For awhile, I've been trying to figure out how to fold a protein from the amino acid sequence. For those of you that do not know biology, here's a simple explanation. Every protein that we have has a code made of amino acids. This code by itself is called a primary structure. After some folding, you get the full protein structure. Now folding the protein, there are an innumerous amount of ways for the protein to fold. So through this program called Modeller, which has many algorithms, you can minimize the energy in the protein fold to create the most stable protein structure. After doing this, you have to check some numbers to make sure there is the lowest energy basically possible and is representative as an already template structure that is known. So after let's say 3 weeks, I finally finished this after repeating doing this for at least 5 times. After doing this, I learned quite a bit about myself I feel. First, I don't really mind doing monotonous and repetitive work much as long as I know why I'm doing what I'm doing. Second, I am extremely obsessive compulsive when I have a problem that I can't figure it out. And third, I really enjoy working the computers. Now that I have completed this step, I have to figure out how to do the next step in my project and learn how to use the program basically from scratch I feel. I used to be really frustrated about this, but after finishing this second milestone in my project, I look back and enjoy what I have done for I have learned a lot of computer language in the unix environment. I think it's in a way invigorating since I have always been in one way or another lean towards programming since I was young. And being a biology major, I never really used computers until now. So I feel this is a new application I can use later on. But now, continuing with the status of my project, I feel that I am definitely behind schedule. So now I'm trying to push myself harder to catch up to where I should be.

So what else has been happening? Culturally, I feel that I'm getting more in touch with my heritage. When I first came to China I always felt that I knew even though about my past, but now I have realized that I have so much more to learn. Right now, my Chinese is finally starting to pick-up. I can now start understanding people again. haha. I know this is quite strange you might think, but I grew up in a dialect of mandarin that is quite different, Shanghainese. So I think this is pretty good. I am also beginning to talk with more people in my work. I am learning a lot through them about their view about U.S. policies from China. Like Paul, was telling me how he thought that U.S. came to Iraq just for war. Which I do agree with. It's quite interesting how different and similar some issues differ and coincide between Chinese views and American views.

About my personal life, I've begun running again. After eating all of this good food, I am afraid that I'm getting a lot fatter. So now I'm trying to run everyday now. I've ran both days before today in the night, since it's too hot to run any other time in the day, but today I sadly had to refrain from running since I got sick. It's really annoying how I got sick with another sinus infection, because I wanted to work today. But instead, I slept in and got some amoxicillin. Dude, the amoxicillin was so cheap. It was only 15.2 RMB. In U.S. money, that's about $2. So cheap! And I didn't even need prescription. I just asked for it, paid for it, and walaa! Interesting how the system works here. But yeah, not much has happened really other than running and getting sick. I expected to get sick in China, since both times before I came to China, I also got sick. I'm just glad that this time I took a preemptive strike on my sinus infection and was able to avoid the hospitals here. When they draw your blood here or give you a shot, they don't even use needles. So that's just how bad I think the hospitals are here. But that's only because they have to deal with so many people since there are about 15.2 million people in Beijing. Anyways, now I'm just rambling and I think I should end it here. So there it is? Peace out homies!

By the way, here is an interesting video I found. Don't take this video at face value, since I hear there are factual errors, but I think this is an interesting different point of view.