First days in Santa Cruz

J'ai promis à certains d'écrire en anglais sur mon blog... so here it is...

I arrived Monday (June 16th) in California, after a 8h flight between Paris & Toronto, and a 5h30 flight from Toronto to San Francisco. My project supervisor, Samantha Forde, picked me up at the airport and drove me to Santa Cruz (about 1h 1/2 drive), to 180 Peach Terrace which is were I'll be leaving for the next 7 weeks. As I hadn't slept a lot before leaving France (2h on Sunday evening), I went to bed very early and slept a lot.

I was supposed to meet Samantha in the lab at noon the next day, but as my flatmate Delia had to be on campus at 11, I went with her and she showed me around. I have to take a UCSC shuttle to go from the base of campus to 'Science hill' which is were the building I will be working in is (Earth & Marine Sciences Building). I didn't do much for my first day, just learned how to prepare some DM (defined medium) to grow bacteria, how to work in sterile conditions (mostly training as I'd done that during a microbiology practical last year in France). I met several people from the lab, Catherine the lab manager, Darius the american student with whom I'll be working, Ana Lisa the finnish scholar, Kate & Chris 2 postdocs (?). I'll be seeing all of them next Thursday at Samantha's (she's having a BBQ so that I can meet people from the lab).

Today (Wednesday) I had a lab safety course in the morning. Interesting but I didn't learn a lot. The guy from the Health & Safety Office who organized the course said he was disappointed that Spain lost their game in the 'Soccer' World Cup. Then I had to see Babette Scott from the International Office to do some more paperwork (great, I love that!). She told me that the customs officer I saw at the US border (well, not exactly a border, but that was were they checked my visa) in Toronto didn't write the proper things on my passport. So if I want to get it corrected, I should go to San Francisco in some particular office, make an appointment and wait a couple of hours at least so that they can change a 'J-1 August 14th 2006' into a 'J-1 D/S'. As I'll be leaving the US before the 14th of July, I don't really mind that they got it wrong on my visa. I'm just starting to love administrations more and more...


Commentaires:

Le jeudi 29 juin 2006 à 09:00, par Kirib
un post doc, c aprés la thése, tu refais deux ans, genre t'en remets une couche. Bon j'espére que je vais penser à aller voir t news de temps a autres. Dans la série "nan mais, la ça ne va pas, BOULET!", il faut que tu précises l'adresse, c'est sans le www, juste le http. Ben sinon le foot c'est cool, elle a raison ta petite soeur, on est devenue fan inconstestée d'a peu prés toutes les équipes et on regarde tous les matchs!
Bon ceci est un commentaire et non un mail, alors je vais pas raconter ma vie!

Le jeudi 29 juin 2006 à 09:35, par me
je sais bien qu'un postdoc c'est après la thèse, c'est juste que je suis pas sûre que les 2 étudiants que j'ai vu soient des thésards ou des postdocs.
ça pourrait qd meme etre drôle que tu racontes ta vie dans mes commentaires de blog, moi je raconte bien ma vie dans mon blog, pourquoi les gens raconteraient pas la leur dans les commentaires après tout.
tes pronostics pour le foot c'est quoi alors? la suède ils jouent toujours?