Today is my third day in lab, and although I’m not doing much synthesis, it’s still already been a fun experience, and I enjoy working here.
My project itself is actually not really what I was expecting to be researching (more iron-core things), but it’s still interesting! Basically, I’ll be studying membranes, inserting ionophores, chromoionophores, and another ion exchanger, to then immerse the membrane within a solution. This is with the hopes that the membrane, with its ion exchanging, will go into equilibrium with whatever ionized solution it is in, then be able to visually display the concentration of whatever ion is inside the solution.
In our case, for example, we’re going to have some boronic acid derivative within the membrane that is already protonated, then immerse it within a sodium or potassium ion solution, with hopefully the sodium/potassium ions exchanging with the protons within the membrane. The chromoionophore is needed within the membrane, since, without it, the membrane would be colourless. With our membrane, for example, the chromoionophore will change from pink-violet-blue depending on its protonated state (fingers crossed!).
Besides lab work, though, life here is continuously exciting. Although the commute for me to work (from outer to central Bangkok) takes about 1 hour there, then 1.5 hours back, it’s been nice to be able to actually go into Bangkok everyday and just observe the people and city life, here.
Everyday I will come to this university, Chulalongkorn University (Chula, for short!), which looks a little something like this~
What’s cool is that all the undergraduate students have uniforms, which are actually really cute! For girls, it’s a white collared shirt with blue/black skirt and a brown belt, while for boys it’s a white collared shirt with blue/black pants and brown belt. I always love seeing uniforms, especially when people wearing the uniform still take liberties to show their unique characteristics via their shoes, hairstyles, jewelry, makeup… Perhaps it just makes me a little happy to see people somewhat bending the rules, ahah :)
What’s also nice is that my lab is located on the 12th floor of the Chemistry building, and actually has a pretty nice view of the skyscrapers in Bangkok!
This photo was taken on the balcony of the building, and it seems like my labmates (who, are all Thai, and thus, also love to eat!) love to have little snack parties out here!
Yesterday was no exception, and I was able to try a lot of fruit that we bought off of street carts (even though our Program Director told us not to eat any street fruits/water… oh well!). I was exposed to a lot of new things, and it was a lot of fun!For example… I mean, we had a lot of your normal fruits, such as pineapple, papaya, watermelon. But, have you ever had pineapple or papaya with shrimp-infused-sugar or chili-infused-sugar??? It was actually quite tastey!
We also had Star-Gooseberries (Ma Yom) that were mixed with both shrimp and chili-infused sugars!
These leaf-wrapped squishy coconut desserts, complete with even more sugar inside, were quite nice, as well!
As you can see, I am enjoying being in Bangkok, since it definitely is combining my top hobbies of eating (maybe a little too much!!), learning about new cultures, as well as Chemistry!
I know I’ve been mainly displaying sweets in Thailand (which, they definitely have a LOT of!), but do not worry! I will soon put up some other “arroy” (Thai, for delicious!) pictures of more savory foods, soon!
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Thai Vocab!:
Pet – Spicy
Wan – Sweet
Bree-au – Sour
Actually "Sour" is "Priew".
ReplyDeleteThank You, Top! :)
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