10/1: 3 weeks, it's official!

today marks 3 wks in Taiwan! did laundry this morning and tried to look up research topics. Then met up for lunch with lab people then went to class. Before class, the professor asked me if I liked the teaching style. I said I liked it, but I can't participate because I don't understand the questions (all in Chinese) so if he just repeated the question in English, then it would be fine. So he said ok he can do that...except he DIDN'T! There's a break every hour and the guys had class next door. Every break Stephen would ask me if I wanted to switch my class to theirs. The first hour I said no it was ok, I think it will be a good challenge and I wanted to learn about many technologies (not just solar cell, which is their class). Then the 2nd hour I started getting annoyed because I couldn't answer anything. Then the 3rd hour, I had to buy MMs before so I could stay awake, and he showed us what he would go over in the class. There was no talk about specific things until the last few weeks! btw, we spent the first 2 hrs talking about the word "Energy". So at the end of 3 hrs I told Stephen I wanted to switch. I looked at their information and it was much more...not awful. I went to talk to my professor (who was also teaching the solar cell class) and he said it'd be ok to switch. then gave me the paper to review again by tomorrow. I also talked to him about research topics, and basically he just told me to improve on the electrode Wen Wei was making. SIGH, he could have just said to do that from day 1. Plus, that is so vague since there's a million things that could be different. Everyone makes cells different. Then he said I could make them my way (like I did at Rutgers) which I don't even know if that's ethical and plus I don't remember the exact combinations. Then went to the library to start editting the paper and then went to dinner with Josh. I checked out my turtle and he looked even worse :( We went to Napoli Pizza and got the most normal pizza, Hawaiian. There was some crazy ones like Mediterranean Fisherman (squid, octopus, seaweed, mayo, etc). But this pizza was good. Then went back and I decided to let my turtle be free. Maybe that would make it happier. I also didn't want to see it die...:( So I brought it to the pond on campus and put it down on the ground by the pond with its rock and a pile of food. I stayed for a few minutes and it didn't move at all...I hope it will be ok.
On a side note, I found out that the guys in my lab went to Danshui together right before I came to Taiwan, and they had gone to the beach at midnight to set off fireworks. But then Wen Wei and Guo Lung decided to do this.