Day 11

I planted my cotton seeds this morning! Tony helped me plant them in sand because they do better in sandy soil. After we finished planting, I went with Alex to the greenhouses on the other side of campus. I rode Tina’s bike, and it was ridiculously tiny. Alex is working with a drought resistance gene in cotton, so I helped him cut leaves off of cotton leaves, so he could test the rate of water loss from the various types as they dried. It was very repetitive because we had to weigh about a dozen leaves from four varieties of genes and one control every hour for three hours. Alex also took pictures of all the leaves, so he could see if the leaves changed shape as they dried. In between weightings, I helped him to change the water his seedlings were in. At the university, after the cotton plants germinate, they are put in Styrofoam, and the roots are grown in aerated water with nutrients in it as the plant grows up from the foam.
We were about halfway done transplanting when it was time to go to lunch. After lunch, I finished the rest of my laundry and read a bit because I have decided that the naps are only making me more tired. When I got back to the lab, I started asking the graduate students if they had any experiments that they wanted me to conduct because they didn’t have time. Most of them couldn’t understand what I was asking, so I gave up for the day. I am finding that the English speakers here tell me they understand what I am saying, but in their response it’s obvious they don’t understand what was said. After that point, they won’t listen to any explanations because they believe they are right. Instead, I had a conversation with Ibraham, whose first language is English. He gave me some very good ideas involving weed control for an experiment, but he thinks I should run them by Professor Li and make sure he didn’t have anything planned for me to do. I agreed and talked with Lily about it and ended up getting another run around from a misunderstanding. In the end though, she suggested I see Professor Li tomorrow. This took me up to dinner time. After which, I uploaded and sent out some pictures of my time here in Beijing so far. If anyone else wants them, just email me!