too bad I can not put video clips on this blog! I shot a video in this market for a retailer.

那个摊主叫卖的特别好玩儿！就象新疆人卖羊肉串一样。我站在他旁边听了好几遍他叫卖的什么，就是听不懂！

silk scarf.

the dress in picture doesn't look as good as in real.

Don't know what style this is, but it is beautiful!

flower is not that expensive. This is only a corner of the market. There is a flower market somewhere in London, exclusively for flower!! I am going to check it out next weekend, if I am not smashed by school work.

hand bags.

indian stuff. very beautiful too.......

pretty shirt! a little bit too busy though....

random shot.

我在market里端着相机“横冲直撞”，引得不时有人侧目。偶抱定了“我是老土儿，我怕谁！”的精神，对那些投来的目光置若罔闻。偶其实恨不得大叫一声“I came from America!”我估计那样大家就会很同情并理解我了。

ugly shoes!

我的妈呀！这么老大(且难看)的鞋给谁穿呀？？

fancy crafts!

pretty lamps!

beautiful clothes

前天给老叶打电话时刚刚批评过伦敦人穿衣服邋遢，好多地铁上的伦敦人穿得破破烂烂的，让人看了觉得一星期没洗澡的样子。美国人虽然土儿，没啥fashion，可好歹大家都还干净整洁的，不会让人看了不舒服。不过今天去逛了market之后对伦敦的印象分又回升了几点。在美国的时候觉得mall里的衣服都极其难看，白给都不要的，所以很少有逛街的兴致。今天跑去liverpool station旁边的一个market，里面的风格和国内的自由市场好象！衣服有很多很好看的，太有得可逛了。不过这下儿开始担心自己的钱包，本来就是穷光蛋一个，没有逛街的兴致的时候还好，这下儿发现了逛街的乐趣，以后可怎么的了！:(((((((((

I bought a fruit punch here. It is called "encore". A medium size one costs 2.5 pounds. Doesn't taste that well.

您想呀，2.5英镑就是40块钱人民币，都够买一桶豆浆的了。不过2.5英镑的DJ喝下去之后立马就得变水桶腰了。这么想想，我还是喝2.5英镑的encore吧。

It is weekend again. I decide to treat myself well. Although I should stay at home reading papers, since my supervisor will be back on Monday, but I went out to explore the markets in London. :)

China Town in London.

I want to be a house wife!

I started working a week ago. Since my supervisor is on travel, I had a really relaxing start off. During the whole week, the only important thing I did was to meet people, say hi, smile, shake hands, go out for coffee together, ask people's names and then forget them right away.

Things started to change since yesterday. I went to the first group meeting yesterday. There were quite some discussions that I couldn't follow, including macros people use, protocal discussions, ethical issues, etc etc. That was fine, cause I told myself those were issues specific to cinical trials. People should understand that I have no experience in this area and will surely pardon me and give me time to pick up. Then I went back home happily. However, things keep getting worse. I went to a workshop today where people discussed data analysis problems emerged from some of the ongoing projects in the school. Those were dichotomous outcome with correlations embedded in typical (I guess) clinical trial design. They were discussing about pros and cons of GEE, simple logistic regression, aggregation aproach, ..... I got really depressed. Since I could do nothing except asking questions during the whole workshop. I could resort to the excuse of not being familiar with clinical trial again. But I guess there should be a point to stop, so that this excuse is not abused. This is the time when I "regret" that I shouldn't have decided to leave Bioinformatics after graduation and start to learn a totally different topic.

Such kind of moments have come and gone for quite a few times. It happens everytime I start at a new place, moving from suburban to city, going to high school, going to college, coming abroad, transfering to another program, starting at a new job. For the last couple of times, it had come with no exception, and gone after I had some short or long period of struggle, with no exception either though. At those moments, I had always thought whether there was another way to get out, but without having to suffer the pain of reborn. Right now, I want to be a house wife. It might go away again after a while, but I want to write down this long lasted wish before I start to look down at it again.

A street artist.

This looks like Beijing, doesn't it? I mean how crowd the street could be.

See, English do drive on the left! ...... and they drive crazy!!

OK, it's weekend. I went out to do some shopping. This is the famous Oxford street. The only thing I want to say is things are EXPENSIVE here! I crushed my glasses on the first price tag I checked out. An ugly china cup costs 6 pounds!! With this money I could buy more than 2 dozen of the same cups in China!! No way, I will definitely save the shopping here and go back home to check off my shopping list!!

Aha, this is the third day la! Here is my office. See the phone was already there before I went to the office, but it didn't ring. The ID besides the laptop also works as a security pass in the building. No kidding, I have to wear it anywhere I go at the school, even if to the restroom on another floor. On the beginning, I thought people here were too serious. However, my colleague told me thieves in London are quite professional and they have excellent reputation for what they do. This reminded me there is a whole section which talks about pocket pickers in London in the travel guide to UK that pangzi gave me. In addition, my officemate's experince came just in time to teach me how bad it could be. He lost two of his credit cards within 3 days. The second one was lost exactly on the first day I came to the school. Now even as careless as I am, I have been always watching out my bag in the subway, on the street, during shopping, ......... :(((( I am so tired of it!!!

See, this is the whole Kepple Street! 10 meters might be exaggerating, but I guess 20 should be close enough. :)))))

Oh, Thank God! Finally I found it!!

I promise I will get out of Russell Square after this picture! :))

still Russell Square .....

More pictures at Russell Square....

The brownian motion brought me back to Russell Square again!

Looks like typical European style to me.

Some random picture I took when I was doing the brownian motion. :))

I didn't have time to explore the museum on the first day, since I was trying to find where the school is. The museum is only two blocks away from where I work. I am sure I will have more pictures for the museum later. There will be "museum N" where N>100. :))

inside the museum

poster 2

poster 1

meseum N, I've lost the number. :P

Ugly stuff!

weird stuff 2. I didn't read the explanation for this thing. too lazy.... hehe...

museum 5, what are these weird stuff?

museum 4

museum 3

museum again

Do I have to write a caption? ft! I can't leave it blank!! What a stupid setup!!

You see what this is. :)

OK, finally got out of the underground and this is Russell Square! The grassland is not as good as the ones in US.

hahaha..... The first stupid thing I did in London! After I got off the subway, I walked up the stairs to get to the street. I walked, walked, walked, walked, and walked, ...... It is endless!! Guess how many steps are there at Russell square station? 175 steps!! It is higher than a 10-floor building. Then the second day when I took the train again, I saw a sign on the entrance to the stair, "People are not expected to use the stair except in an emergency." How stupid I am!!

The subway in London. It is called underground or tube here. Imagine this, there is NO aircondition in the subway here!! I heard a rumor from a colleague at school that London Transportation Administration is asking people to take shower before going to the train station!! :)))

The ad in the subway. A round trip ticket to China is only 385 GBP. An annual pass for underground within zone 1 and 2 would cost me more than 800 GBP. That's more than 2 round trip tickets to China!! I comfort myself in the way that everyday when I take the train, I think it as if I am flying back home little by little. By the end of the year, I would have gone back home twice. It makes me feel much better! Very A-Q, isn't it? :P

The first dinner I had in London. Doesn't it look delicious? :P

The bed, the desk and the chair are the only furnitures in the bedroom. However, it is already more than what I had at Baltimore. :) I slept on the floor before, and there were no desk or chair in my room at Baltimore. Imagine what I had in the room? hehe...

The temporary apartment I live in right now.

In a cute leather shop at New Hope, Pennsylvania. Photographed by my mum. :)We went there one week before my mum left for home from Baltimore.

the first two days at London

到伦敦已经两天了，几乎从早睡到晚，昏天黑地的，所以乏善可陈。只上了两次街，深切的感受到英国司机同志们开车技术的高明。这里的交通状况和国内有得一拼，只除了自行车没有国内多以外，伦敦的司机在狭窄的街道上飙车的本事是大大地令人敬仰的。我头一次上街的时候还保持着在美国过马路时的淑女风度，慢条斯理，目不斜视的，不过立刻就有伦敦的大叔及时给美国来的冒牌淑女上了一课。过了第一条马路之后，偶就充分认识到从今往后又可以象小时候那样撒丫子在距离3米的两辆车之间争分夺秒了。怪不得英国的秃顶绅士们看起来都是一副老帅哥的样子，原来是生在了好地方，天天锻炼的结果呀！

明天就去上班了，为了推翻冬瓜关于上班第一天必定迟到的人生定律，偶今天无比坚强的从床上爬起来，去探了探路。伦敦的街道实在是短的创纪录，每隔一个block，同一条街道就会换一个不同的名字(至少在一区市中心是这样的)。我从家出门的时候看好了地图，觉得学校离地铁站撑死了也就20分钟的步行距离，结果偶围着大英博物馆顺时针、逆时针各转了一圈，又以大英博物馆为起点做Brownian motion一小时，最终可能是老天可怜见偶这个新近入城的老土吧，总算是误打误撞到了Keppel street上。找到学校之后，四顾一望，原来俺真是三过家门而不入呀！之前在学校附近已经逡巡了多次，最近的时候只离开一个街区的距离，就是10米长的街道把偶给害苦了！回家的路上，一在地铁上坐下来就觉得腿都要断了。

好了，新闻报导so far就这么多。等俺上了班，有了啥新典故再来这里八卦吧。

离愁

早晨起来，家里空空荡荡的。从纽约回来之后，整个人被极度的困乏所淹没了。家里从热热闹闹的七个人的house一下子变成了只剩我自己。想到列了两页纸长的to-do-list，人整个就被crush掉了。除了迫在眉睫的这些不得不在走之前处理完的事情，还有房间里弥漫充塞的离愁，使得我只想躺下来睡死过去。虽然已经开始分分秒秒的计划剩下的时间了，可是还是忍不住到这里来疏散疏散郁结在胸中的愁闷。