what a great trip !!!

This is an amazing summer for me. Time was flying extremely fast. I never dream before that I had a great chance to do research and explore European cultures like this. This trip brought me a lot of valuable research  experience and a good networking  with researchers in Europe. Most of students working in lab in Unecso IHE are from all over the Europe and other parts of the world such as Italy, Georgia, Spain, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia.... Although I've been in Unesco- IHE for only more than 2 months and Unesco- IHE may or may not represent for all other European research Institute/University in Europe but I can see few common things for the researchers in the US and in Europe which are working attitude (very professional), passion in work. However, What I was really interested in and learnt a lot from are the differences between UnescoIHE and USF about the lab and study. These are my thought for what I have seen and observed.
1. Lab staffs: This is my first and most impression about the lab in Unesco IHE. They have really friendly and nice lab staffs here who are always willing to help student to set up instrument and experience.
Advantages: reduce a lot of headache and time for students in the lab, be able to manage efficiently all the materials and stuffs in the lab.
Disadvantages: somehow limit the "freedom" of students in the lab which means students somehow have to depends too much on the lab staffs to do experiment so it will reduce quite a bit the creative abilities from student and also the confidence, espcially because the lab staffs manage beautifully all the lab instruments and stuffs so students somehow will be lost if they have to operate and manage the instruments by themselves (when or where lab stall are not there). So somehow I can see the US students are more independent in lab work than the European's.
2. Permission to work at night or in weekend: it's really complicated to get the permission to work at night or in the weekend in Unesco IHE.
Advantages: not known yet (maybe to make sure student safe when working in the lab ??)
Disadvantages: give tough time for students who have to run experiment continuously or some people who have to take samples or do experiment at night or in weekend.
3. More oral exams: There are a lot of oral exams here. Maybe because Unesco IHE is small so they can have oral exams more often.
Advantages: be able to test if students really understand the lessons, save more paper ^____^, give student more confidence about what they have learnt
Disadvantage:  bring more headache to students (V__V), time consuming for professors (esp. in big school like USF)
4.  Courses offered in many different places in Europe.
Advantages: Student can visit and learn from other places with other famous professors in Europe. Also students can have more networking.
Disadvantages: ^___^ don't know yet.
5. Free coffee and hot chocolate
Advantages: a lot ^____^, I really love the free coffee here, good for students, staffs for stress relief so they can be more productive in work.
Disadvantages: haha drink too much coffee :D (but I love it)

Anyway, these are my personal views about the differences between Unesco IHE and USF.  I really had very good time at Unesco IHE. Especially, I'm happy because my experiment about Gypsum leachate treatment by gaslift AnMBR was going very well. I would like to thank all Unesco IHE staffs to help me during last 2 months. I really appreciate NSF for funding this project. This is an extremely good program for students to learn more experience in research outside of the US. So the students can exchange and approach with the advanced knowledge in Europe so they can bring what they have learnt back to the US to improve research in the US.

Say goodbye to the lab staffs

if you ask me what I remember and miss the most from IHE. The answer is lab staffs. We all love the lab staffs in Unesco IHE. They were always friendly and helpful. They were always willing to help us everything in the lab such as instruments, experiment set up, making standard, ect. They are really awesome. We were joking that we really want to bring them back to USF. Before we left IHE we came by and say thanks and goodbye to them.

The lab staffs in the pictures (from left to right): Fred, Lizette, and Ferdi. Two other lab staffs who missed from the pictures are Don and Peter. We really appreciate them all

Herring taste

We decided to try herring on Thursday because this was the last chance for us to try it. All of us (except Anton, boooo Anton haha )  had tried it but only Caryssa can pretty much enjoy it. Honestly, I almost threw up after the third bites (V.V). But anyway, we were so happy because finally we can experience the taste of a real Dutch food.

The people you met the people you work with (ep. 3): Lucian interviewed Anton

The people you met the people you work with (ep. 2): Lucian

So yesterday, we had a short interview with one of our friends in Unesco IHE, Lucian. Lucian is also the first student we've met in IHE. He introduced us with some other IHE student on the first day we were at IHE. We would to thank him so much for his kindness and friendship.

Interviewer: Anton
Camera man: Anh

the people you met the people you work with (ep.1)

This is Pimluck, a PhD student in Dr. Lens group at Unesco IHE. She was working with me on gypsum leachate treatment in the past 2 months. I'd like to thank her so much for her help and friendship during last two months. Hopefully we will have chance to work together sometime in future.
Anh

So we've doneeee with final presentations !!!

I'm so exited, no I think we all excited to say that we finally have done the final presentation today. Time's flying incredibly fast. Last week, I almost did realize that we just had few days left in the Netherlands. So we have been in the Netherlands and doing research in Unesco IHE for 2 months. Today is the day we had a chance to present to everybody about what we have done in the past two months. Before the presentation, everybody seems a little bit nervous. Thanks a lot to all IHE students and staffs who showed up to day at the presentation to support us even though it's the fact that more people would make us more nervous tho ^__^. But we all were doing great for delivering the presentation to the audience. It was a huge relief for all of us after the presentation. Then we decided to go to a BBQ  to celebrate. Thanks to Suzie and Mari to find us a great restaurant which can give us all you can eat spare ribs for just 10,95 E. The best deal ever in Europe !!!

what an exciting day !!!
Anh

Flying high in Paris

So We went to Paris last weekend. I'd like to thank so much to the NSF IRES program for giving us a great chance to do research here and also  to experience the European cultures.

1. ..2...prepare to take off

and flying

 

flying

high and wow so high ^_^

Eiffel tower

We flew from Arc de triomphe to Eiffel tower (on the second level of Eiffel Tower)

 

Randomly ranting....

I haven't got back to the blog for a week or so. Last week was a pretty short because last monday was a holiday in EU. And  I also was so busy with lab work and revising my dissertation. My experiment was not really good last week. The rain gauge chip was corroded. The rain gauge box could not be resealed. The bottom tube (next to the pump) was loose and I lost all the sludge from the reactor. Anyway, it was not a really good week for me tho. I was so frustrated because of all that. It's like after you had done a lot of work then you lost everything in just a second. But at the end of the week, I could fix all of those problem and then life was getting better.
Last week, I also attended the first seminar ( this seminar is like EWER in USF) in IHE. The talk was given by Dr. Murhier about water supply and management in Uganda. It's a pretty interesting talk. His experience sharing would be very good for the third world countries in water supply.
We spent together  last Sunday in Brugge. It was a really good time for us after a hard working week. Brugge is a small city but it's very historical. The Brugge's centre is a prominent world heritage site of Unesco. Some pictures of the city will be posted very shortly after this...
I think that should be it for this blog.
ohh one more thing I want to say never use or buy a sim card from Ortel NL because it's really bad and you won't be able or have a tough time to use it outside of the NL

Our regular workday at IHE (celebrate the 50th blog)

Mari: here I'm setting up my "homemade" hollow fiber membranes for a coagulation/filtration experiment. The hardest part is trying to get all of the air bubbles out before filtration or else my pressure readings will be off!! First I flush my membranes with milli-q water, then artificial seawater, and finally seawater with iron for coagulation experiments.

Caryssa: This morning I coorindated with Leah about case study visits over the next couple weeks, and spent the rest of the day working on creating a framework for shelter design and implementation  (Sorry, no fancy experiements to see... but interesting site visit pictures in the coming weeks).  The site visits should help bring a tangible aspect to the framework and provide examples of existing best practices.  I'm especially looking forward to visiting the floating homes at Maasbommel!

Suzie: With this project I actually feel like an engineer.  I'm still trying to get the system set up and after a day of playing with a pump and trying to split the flow equally with little success I decided to seek help.  Frank had a great idea to buy a rectangular flower planter and use that as a constant flow source for a drip feed.  I'll add more pictures as I get further building the system.

Kristen: Here I am helping Raffaella and Denys with some batch experiments. We are looking at the role pH plays on metal-sulfide precipitation. The pH values being tested are 3, 5, and 7.

Anh: I was taking samples, playing around with the AnMBR and praying the sludge won't get over my body again :D. Actually the AnMBR system is running very smoothly right now. The system is being operated under start up conditions and will be fully operated after a week from now (as expected).

Anton: I am concerned that the pH meter is actually trying to give me hard time, so I am putting it through its paces. My experiments are running very well, and I am anxious to process my recently attained data for my first batch experiment. It seems as though I have made a small discovery, and I am excited to document it!

-the 2011 team-

Research update

I'm so happy today (^-^). After few days struggling with pumping sludge to the system, I can handle the system well this morning. Last few days and even today early morning, I was having "fun" (T.T)  with cleaning the mess when the sludge split over the floor. I was so used to deal with that kind of mess when I was at USF but still, I felt so embarrassed here whenever the sludge was all over the floor. Anyway, everything is under control now :) hopefully, after temperature control added (this afternoon), the system will be good to run the gypsum leachate. Finger crossed :)
Anh

Rijkswaterstaat and Den Haag

The second week at IHE started with the lectures given by Mr. Stan Bronson (the executive director of Florida Earth Foundation) and Dr. .Garth Redfield about Florida water management, natural preservation,  flood history in south florida, and effect of climate change (sorry >) I  can't remember all of them) . It's really interesting for me to learn about the way they preserve the natural environment while dealing with the pollution issues coming from industrial sector such as sugar cane factories. 

Lunch at IHE. Anton always has a big meal for lunch (super huge meal for dinner), that's why he's so tall

After the morning lectures, we had lunch at IHE. At IHE, they have a cafeteria which is open from 12.05 pm till 1.30 pm every week day. So people at IHE can buy their lunch withreasonable prices,around 5 euro/1 meal which includes sandwich, salad and soup (normally chicken or beef) or a dish of fish (meat), fries and vegetables. The menu changes a little bit each day. According to my colleges, the food here is pretty good. However, because of global economic downturn ( >) ), I still pack my own lunch every day (except today, because I thought we would have a lunch reception, poor me T.T). Lunch at IHE is pretty fun for us, we can sit down together, chat and ask each other about how they do in the lab in the morning or plan for doing something fun in the evening or weekend, etc.

Then in the afternoon, we had  the first field trip to Rijkswaterstaat at Den Haag where we had very interesting presentation and talks about water management and water management policy in Netherlands and EU countries. (the photos and interview with people at Rijkswaterstaat will come later).

Security check at Province of Holland Zuid where Rijkswaterstaat is located

After the talks at Rijkswaterstaat, we had some fun time walking around Den Haag city. Here are some pictures . More will come nex time because I have to go to check on my laundry :D. See you next time...Dag and Tot ziens :)

Anh

 

"Publix" and " Target " at Delft ( hardware store for bonus)

Anton,Suzie and Mari were so happy to shop at Alberthejn (a publix alike store)

Hema- a Target alike store

                                                           

Lenta- a hardware store where you can find any accessories for your bike with reasonable prices

          Anh                        

Research at Unesco-IHE

So we’ve been at Unesco-IHE for one week.  We had a lab training, group meeting with professors and lab mentors. The lab system in Unesco IHE is quite different from that in USF. Here at IHE, they have very friendly, nice group of lab staffs and analysts who always try to help and assist you to run the analytical instruments, prepare the chemical or lab stuffs  and even make the standards for you which is awesome. So you can focus 100% of your mind on your experiment, you don’t have to worry or spend time to fix a broken instruments or look for lab stuffs to order.  You never can expect that in USF where you have to do everything by yourself, except we also have a nice group of staffs who always assist us on ordering lab stuffs.

Pimluck, a PhD student in Dr. Lens's group and me in front of Pimluck's system for gypsum leachate treatment

Anyway, I had a first meeting with Pimluck, a PhD student in Dr. Lens's research group, to talk about the project we will work on this summer which is about gypsum leachate treatment. Pimluck was very nice to discuss with me about the project, show me the system she’s working on. I also had chances to test the AnMBR system which Ana built up last year. The system ran just fine but we might have to do some modification work that we think it might help to improve the efficiency of the system for gypsum leachate treatment. I believe we will have some good results by the end of this summer and I'm really longing for that.

Anh

fietsen stories at Delft, Netherlands

It's been 4 days after we arrived at the Netherlands. Everything is so far so good. We got adapted with the life in Deflt very quickly. The Netherlands is quite different from the US. Everybody uses bike here to commute everyday. We've seen thousands of bikes on the street. Dutch people look so happy when they bike. We saw a lot of beautiful Dutch ladies singing (it seems like church songs to me :D )  while they are biking. This is  we never have a chance to see in the US or at least I've never seen that in Tampa.
We stay in Mina which is about 20-25min walk to Unesco-IHE. It seems fun to walk here. You don't have to worry much about the traffic or accident because there are always pavements which are designed for walkers. However, walking takes quite a bit of time, especially if we want to go shopping or explore the city. So we decided to buy bicycles. We asked around IHE students to see if anywhere we can get bikes which are cheap and good :D. I hasn't mentioned that right after we arrived at Unesco- IHE, we have met a lot of IHE staffs, students. They are all very nice, friendly and always willing to help  us on doing research (i.e. lab, IHE) ( I will mention about the research in next blog) and on getting used to with life in Delft. So a day after we arrived at Delft, we went to a bike shop which was recommended buy an IHE student (Saul). All the bikes were in quite good condition and quite expensive price :D ( around 85-120 Euro). So Caryssa and I decided to do research a little bit before buying it. But the other fours decided to get one from the shop. Anton, my roomate, got the most expensive bike which is 115 Euro and also a lock from the seller which brought him the anxious feeling for few days ("->). The reason is because we heard from people here in IHE that " never buy a lock from the one who sells you the bike". So yeah, Anton couldn't sleep for few day because he's worried about that his bike can be stolen anytime :)).

Anton  looks so happy with his fiets

Anyway, he was still so much happy with his fiets (bicycle in Dutch). The next day, I got my fiets from a student at IHE with a quite cheap price compared to the regular price for bike here. Even my fiets costs only 30 Euro which is much lower than Anton's bike but for most of us ( maybe except Anton, sorry Anton) we agreed that my fiet is the fanciest among of ours. And there is a rumor around the Mina that if I leave my bike outside the building , nobody wants to take it (T.T, poor my fiets) (>.<). Caryssa was the last one in our group to own a fiets. She was introduced to a Canadian student who wanted to sell her fiets before coming back to Canada. However , the student said she could only give Caryssa her bike on the next day which was right before she got to the train to the airport and she took 25 Euro from Caryssa for deposit (the bike costs 50 Euro). So we made a joke that, she would go to the airport with Caryssa's 25 euro and without leaving the bike to Caryssa (-____-). The joke made Caryssa worry quite a bit though ;)) ( sorry Caryssa). Caryssa was getting more nervous because she didn't see the Canadian girl at the appointment time. However, finally, luckily, 10 minutes later, the girl showed up. What a relief for Caryssa. ( :)) ). Anyway, we all owned fietsen just 4 day after arriving at the Netherlands which is great. We are ready to conquer the Netherlands and other European Countries by our fietsen.

Anh