A Day in the Life of a Summer Student from the Far East - Part 1 -

I was this year's summer exchange student at Imperial from Seoul National University, and I studied how the sensitivities of neutrino oscillation parameters change with different far-detector locations for the future T2K experiment. I'd be very happy to explain to all of you how awesome my days were while I was at the Imperial T2K group.

My typical day as a summer student started with turning off an alarm, just like any other individual with a job. Sadly, it didn't always lead to waking up in my case, since our group was so blessed that I could work anywhere, anytime. I could get some more sleep and start working at home or at Hyde Park or anywhere else depending on the weather, or to be more precise, depending on my state of mind. Sometimes I went to the office as early as 8 in the morning (which isn't that early actually for most people), sometimes after lunch, and once, after 4 PM. I could leave the office in the morning if I wanted to, and also could stay in the office even after midnight but by risking a chance of being locked inside the building. It is actually a huge privilege that is really unheard of in the Far East, and I enjoyed it like a boss, letting go of any subconscious sense of obligation to be at work earlier than those in superior positions. 

However, there were some good reasons for me not to show up at work during nonsensical hours. One of them was Santander cycles, which I loved the most among all possible sorts of transportation in the UK (no air-conditioning on a subway, seriously?), and the problem was that the cycles at the docking station I always used were usually all gone by 10-11 in the morning because of all the commuters and tourists. Riding a Santander cycle across Hyde Park, from Queensway to the Queen's Gate and through the downhill towards Blackett Laboratory was so much fun, and I really didn't want to miss it any day. It never got old. I thought Santander was a bicycle manufacturer and wondered why there's a bicycle shop inside the student union building, until I was told to find a Santander cash machine by a street vendor at Portobello market. (I didn't have much trouble living without cash in London, and any Japanese visitor to London would be surprised!)

I love Santander cycles!

Another important event that I didn't want to miss was lunch at Imperial. The food served at SCR was exceptionally good, regardless of my prior low expectations on British food in general, and it was more affordable compared to other off-campus cafes or restaurants. Especially on Tuesdays and Fridays, lunch was something that could never be missed. There was a farmer's market every Tuesday, and fish and chips was served at SCR every Fried-ay. Thai Green Curry and Seafood Paella sold at the farmers' market were really good, and the brownie fudge sundae with two vanilla scoops was just the BEST. (I'm eating a self-made brownie fudge sundae while I'm writing this post, but it's nowhere near the BEST one. Vanilla ice cream and brownies made here taste surprisingly flavourless now!) Fish and chips with Rubicon Lychee was also one of my favourites, and it was even better than some of the fish and chips places outside the campus. 

Rubicon, I miss you!

One of the few peculiar things about the group was that, while there was no fixed working hours, the lunch time was strangely so strict that I could possibly measure the standard deviation to be smaller than 5 minutes. The holy initiator of lunch was Patrick, one of the two wonderful post-docs of the group from whom I had received much help during my stay in the UK, and even hungry Phill, the elder of the two, had to wait when Patrick said "we still have 10 more minutes 'til 12". (In the Far East, no one can dismiss a hungry elder suggesting to go for lunch. Confucius taught us not to.) There was actually some heretic movement to have lunch at some random absurd time like 12:30 while Patrick was on holiday, and now I can confess that I felt both guilty and excited for joining it.

Our Lovely Coffee Table!

After lunch, everyone drank coffee except me. Yes, I'm still talking about a British research group, and I hadn't seen anyone in our group drinking tea, except for one time when Clarence (who is Swedish and the main importer of expensive coffee beans to the office) tried to convince me that he also enjoys tea. Anyway, in our crammed office there was a separate desk for coffee machines and coffee beans (and Japanese coins for some reason) as if these were important members of the group, and people would gather around that desk every afternoon making themselves a cup of coffee. They talked about random stuffs ranging from the boring North Korean missile threats to one's PhD thesis, while ruining their own fatigue detection system and puffing out invisible smoke of heavy caffeine. As the only non-coffee-drinker in the office, I just pretended that I was holding an invisible coffee mug during the conversations. It reminded me of the old days when I was in the military where I was the only one who didn't smoke cigarettes. Although I didn't enjoy coffee or cigarettes, I loved chatting over random stuffs after lunch, and besides, I could get some good advice on my research project mostly during these conversations.

(To be continued...)