On work and friendships

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Being here for four months now at the Siler Lab is not all fun: I am learning many exciting and new things at work. I managed to make very good progress on the things I needed to get done (writing papers and learning new skillsets). It is a great experience for me to be able to do all these things, and that my colleagues here are all very nice and we are helpful to each other. It was also so much fun to have spent great times with my colleagues’ families at special occasions.

Other than fun at work, it is a great experience for me to be with my very nice European flat mates. I have had great memories with my Hungarian flat mate Zsanett Kopeckso (Jah-net Koh-petch-koh) who was a good travel buddy and an instant best friend. Our travel memories always reminded me of the movie, “Planes, trains and automobiles”. We have traveled together to three different states (NY, Washington D.C. and Kansas!). We took the plane to NYC and explored the five boroughs of the city by taking the subway! We then took the bus to explore Washington D.C. Our most memorable experience in D.C. was, exploring D.C. armed with only a map. We just walked around, starting at the Union Station-Hotel-Union Station. Our trip to Kansas was also very memorable as I got the chance to visit old friends, and it was Zsanett’s first time to interact with a big crowd of happy Filipinos.

Aside from all the fun stuff that we do together, I also had the chance to make friends with Zsanett’s American side of the family. Her uncle Dr. Joe Ferretti of OU-HSC and his wife Martha have both been very kind to me. They would take us both to lunches or dinners every weekend and check on us to be sure we are safe and doing well together.

Nearing the end of my five-month fellowship here at the Siler Lab, I am still pumped-up with interesting things to work on, which all will be very useful for me at work back home at Urios. Zsanett is now in Hungary (we still e-mail!) working on her huge dataset for her dissertation project on karst water. Now, I live with a Greek who is a civil engineer and new German flatmate who is an atomic physicist. We have very interesting discussions at our apartment, but our times are best shared over great food from three different countries!

Missed my earlier blogs?  Check out the start of the series here.

See also blog #5.