You never Know!

   You never know what has been written in your destiny and you never know where your destiny will take you. But if you are as lucky as me, nothing to worry!

   My destiny took me somewhere on this planet which was sooooo far from my country, with people who are very different from my people and speak in a language which I never knew even a word of it! “cooool”, that’s what I said to myself at the time, “let’s have some adventure!”. But you know what scared me a bit? That destiny was taking me somewhere which I had never thought about it, which I had never checked it on the map, which I had never read about it or even heard of its universities! And my cool destiny was taking me there to spend my sabbatical!!! :)))

   “OK! Let’s go there, do experiments 16 hours a day, finish your job successfully and come back with a hand full of data” that’s what I told myself at the airport :D

But you never know! You never know that someday, when you are having your lunch, a girl will smile and wave at you and the other day this girl will become a very good friend of you :D yessss, that’s the way I met Mathi and our friendship formed :) Mathi is kind, cute, fun, caring and chatty ;) LOL

   First time we went out with Mathi, we went to Starbucks! It was Mathi’s suggestion since I didn’t know any fun place in Hsinchu :D After some time, it became a habit of us to go to Starbucks for very private discussions mainly about… ;)))

   For the next “Let’s have fun” plan, Mathi suggested to go to Nanliao according to her friend’s suggestion who I assume was Murali. We went there by bus and Murali, Lavanya, Hemanth, Reddy and Mavis came by scooter and joined us there. It was the first time I met them but of course not the last time :DDD Moreover, it was the first time I met some Indian people and I'm so happy about it :)

   We all rented bicycles and started riding along the 17 km Nanliao coastline. It was a long time I hadn’t done any exercises and I was a bit worried I might not be able to ride for 34 km! But yay! I did it well :))

   The coastline area was really beautiful but it was a bit hot. I felt like I want ice cream but there was no ice cream shop there :( we stopped on the way for several times, had some friendly chat and took photos ;) They were/are all fun people and had/have good sense of humor. So I was really comfortable being with them :)

   After coming back to the bicycle shop, the whole family of the owner was there ;) we were a bit late but they were enough kind not to complain or being angry on us ;) they had a very cute son, I guess less than 2 years old, with whom we spent some time there :)

After that we went to a very good vegetarian restaurant, suggested by Mavis, and had dinner. OOhhhh I enjoyed the cream soup very much. But never had a chance to go there again :(

Time to see some photos :))

two happy girls :) (Mathi and I)

beginning of the journey!!!! :D

another two happy girls :) (Lavanya & Mavis)

Mathi giving a lecture I think :D

Blocking the road and making people pissed off!!! :P

Hoooraaaaaaaaay! end of the road :) but we need to go back :(

four happy girls :D

I like the way Murali is standing here :D

Lavanya with the Cutie Pie :)

Hemanth teaching me how to hold chopsticks!

the delicious cream soup...

   It was a really good day and the beginning of many other fun times....

   As you see Sudhakar was absent in this event ;) I assume he was too lazy to ride bicycle for 34 km and that’s the reason he didn’t come ;) Don’t worry Sudha! You can defend yourself in comments :D :P

How do you do?

Hello everyone :) I’m SaLiL, the guest author of this blog. First of all, I would like to thank Sudhakar for giving me this opportunity and my special thanks to Mathi for joining me on a protest which led to this achievement :D

Here, in the following posts, I’m going to tell you stories of a very friendly gang who met in Taiwan and became so close in a very short time. Please note that the characters in the stories are real but sometimes for respecting people’s privacy I may use SB instead of some names :D

So, please come back in several days to read the first story and hope you enjoy :)

USIL Summer Camp 2013

Prof. Hamaguchi has the habit of organizing student summer camps every year. The aim of these summer camps is to provide younger generation an opportunity to interact with the most distinguished personalities of Raman spectroscopy and present their work. The difference between regular conferences and this student summer camp is, here present students and aspiring students interact in a friendly manner by having a beer together and discussing their work in the form of a casual chat during friendly poster session. Ofcourse we always have big guys in this camp who visits our posters, discuss our work gives some friendly suggestions and also they share very beautiful stories to younger students which can motivate them to perceive science and love what they are doing. Most of the times these camps will be organized in some scenic place so that we always be fresh and energized. Apart from hearing to those lectures they make sure the venue can facilitate one or other group activity so that we can make friends during this camp easily. 

Prof.  Hamaguchi's vision is simple. Being a Raman spectroscopist he always asks students to open their chemical eyes to see the wonders of the world through the eyes of molecular spectroscopy. In order to open your chemical eyes or realize what is being taught to you during classroom sessions, he suggest one has to go to nature. According to him understanding the nature can broaden our thinking and we can love what we are doing. That is why he chooses scenic places as venues for summer camps. 

He also thinks Science go by mutual trust and good friendship. We can do better science by building good relations all around the globe. He asks students to interact more during these kind of camps so that they can make new connections which in turn can enable their opportunities to do better science. In order to encourage students to interact and make new friends he make sure in his summer camp he has at least couple of international students, professors all the time. 

This is my fifth time to attend his summer camp after joining USIL in 2008. It is always exciting for me to participate in his summer camp. 

This Summer camp is bit different from my earlier summer camps. This summer camp is aimed at attracting undergraduate students to research. It has become like lecture series. We started with history of raman spectroscopy, theory of raman scattering (KHD formula), instrumentation, vibrational assignments, bio applications. Personally I enjoyed first three talks  very much. The first talk was given by Kiefer Wolfgang. He told us the history of Raman spectroscopy. He acted as an editor in chief for the Journal of Raman Spectroscopy for about 9 years. He told very inspiring stories about Sir C. V. Raman and his personality and about the discovery of Raman scattering. He also told us how confident raman was about getting his Nobel Prize in the year 1930. He booked tickets in July for going to Sweden to receive Nobel Prize before the announcement of the prize itself. He also showed us some video interviews of Sir C. V Raman. Kiefer also spoke about his work. He told us how he  enjoys doing Raman spectroscopy, how he used to construct and control the spectrometers, lasers, oscilloscopes etc.. when he was a young researcher. He got retired now but still his passion for science has not died. He turned part of his home mini lab and he is still doing experiments. He has lasers, mini nitrogen plant, workshop etc..  He is definitely quite an inspiration to youngsters. 

After him Hamaguchi sensei gave a talk on KHD formula. I enjoyed his talk as usual. Hamaguchi sensei is nothing less to Prof. Keifer. After retirement from the University of Tokyo as a full time professor his thirst for research hasn't ended there. He accepted many national and international assignments. He is very active in research at the age of 65. He always comes up with one or the other new experiments to tea time discussions or under grad. class room etc... 

After seeing these kind of people I understood how a selfless human being, real scientist who has love and passion for what they do look like. 

Their message is quite simple; get infected by the virus called Raman spectroscopy and enjoy forever seeing the unseen through your work. :)

Here are some of the picture taken at the camp

We started for the camp

Organizers calling names to handover room keys

View from my room

Session is about to start

Prof. Kiefer Wolfgang

Dedication to WK by C V  Raman

WK during his post doc years

Prof. Hamaguchi giving lecture on KHD formula

poster session

Aspiring students interacting with old students

Casual chat over a beer with W. K

Hemanth explaining his work to new students

Prof. Saha  with ...

Prof. Shigeto and chunfu Chang (M2 student)

Prof. Saha, Prof. Shigeto and Jen-fang Hsu

fun time

Late night party in my room

card game (count number)

Morning break fast time

while Shimada san is relaxing

Prof. Saha

Prof. Saha and Hemanth

My room

Hotspring outside my room

Participants of USIL Summer Camp 2013