As time flies,this is the third week that we have come to Boston. After a short period of time,feeling novel and curious, we are now familiar with the life here. With theguidance of professors and graduate students, our researches are on the rightway.
The PhotonicsCenter, Boston University, has a strong atmosphere. People discuss academicissues everywhere in the building. There is a Journal Club every Friday, which invitesauthoritative professors or excellent graduate students to present theiracademic ideas and welcome all the people who are interested in the topic tolisten and give out their own opinions. We are all influenced by this kind ofatmosphere and enthusiastically participate in the research of our ownprojects. Almost all of us met the problems that there is, more or less,content of the projects that we haven’t learnt before. So we have to put moreeffort in the research. Thanks to the patient guidance of the professors andgraduate students and our own diligent study, research projects are carried outpretty well. In addition to literature reading and experiment, we participatein the group meeting every week, report the progress of the previous week anddiscuss the problems that we encountered. At first, we found it is difficult todiscuss academic issues in English. However, after continuous practice, weimproved our oral English and can express our opinions.
In addition to busyresearch life, we try to fulfill our life by holding some parties. On 24th July, we hold a birthday party for Yiming. After a day’s work, we bought abirthday cake and a special birthday hat, as well as some drinks. Then we eattogether in a spicy pot restaurant which is Yiming’s favorite to celebrate hisbirthday.
While eating, wetalked about interesting stories during our work and life. We made jokes aboutthe expensive food in the restaurant, saying we can make money by selling ricewhich is one dollar per bowl in the restaurant. During the three weeks inBoston, we not only made great progress in academic research, but also learnt alot about how to live abroad. This is of great help to studying domestic orforeign and work after graduation.