March 5

  The chair, as it turned out, was indeed nota good thing to sleep on for a long time. I woke up at about 3 in the morning,and my neck felt indeed uncomfortable. I turneda little bit and prayed that I would continue to fall asleep. Luckily I made itand woke up again at about 6 in the morning, much earlier than I used to wakeup back in China. Then I turned on my computer and started to write the diariesfor the past experience.

...Now I have finallyfinished writing the diaries for the past several days. Then I plan to preparesomething for discussion with Professor Yonelinas, who prefers to be calledAndy) this morning.

About 11 am I calledAndy and asked if he would have 10 to 15 minutes for discussion."Sure", he replied. Then, carrying my notebook computer, I went tohis office in 268C in Young Hall. I took time some  time though to find his office, though I hadbeen there the other day, due to the convoluted design of this Hall. In fact,Andy himself remarked it was of a horrible design.

There in his officewe discussed for about 20 minutes until andy has something to do. I showed himsome figures related to the experimental findings we discussed the other dayand he gave me some advice. He suggested that I present my work on the lab meeting.

...It was about 2 pmand I followed Robin into a classroom, where andy would gave his lecture. I wasa little curious and excited because after all this is the first time for me tolisten to a lecture by an Amercican professor! His lecture today would focus onneurogenesis, a topic I found to be interesting. He demonstrated a lot ofscientific evidence for neurogenesis, something that had long been thought tobe impossible. In addition, he presented some approaches such as exercise andtaking anti-depressant drugs towards improvingneurogenesis. During the lecture he asked some questions, and unlike thescenario I had observed back in China, here there were always students willingto answer questions without being specifically asked to do so. They just spokeup their minds. After the lecture, several students came up to the podium toask andy questions, which is also something that is hard to see in theuniversity where I work.

... Then I decided togo to Valley Hall where Wayne was so that I could wait there to hitch a ride. Ihave to say that it was indeed not that easy for me to find that place, which,from map is at the southwestern area of the campus. On the way I asked a girlfor direction and she nicely told me about it. In fact, without her help Iwould have been in the opposite direction! From her looks I guessed she wasfrom India, but later she told me she was from California.

Anyway, after about 2 hours of waiting outsidein the chilly night air, I finally saw Wayne coming out his lab and we went tothe place where his car parked. In his car he said that I had got to have abike so that I could have the freedom to go back and fort to the campus. I saidyes, yet I did not have the courage to admit that I just cannot ride a bike...About 15 minutes later I was back home and prepared for sleep.

Some thoughts: 1) Ineed to make better use of my time; 2) I need to improve my listening abilityfor English conversations (conducted among Americans); 3) Chinese students needto be encouraged to be more active in class and to be curious for its own sakerather for the sake of getting some immediate rewards.