Welcome to my blog! I am Jun, the owner of this blog. This blog serves as my little personal gallery, where I’d like to share anything new or fun in my life. It will be great if you can feel relaxed reading my blog and stuff, and you are more than welcome if you would like to leave any comment or forward anything.
Me Driving in Taiwan (Profile Picture)
(Image by the author)
I would like to introduce myself a little bit here, to give you a sense of what kind of person I am about. I am from Shenyang, a city in the northeast part of China where it is super hot in summers while snows fiercely in winters. I love the cold snowing weather the most (while it is kind of pitiful since Santa Barbara never snows).
The river near my home in Shenyang, where I usually walk along with my parents
(Image by the author)
I grew up and went to schools in Shenyang. After graduating from the senior high school in 2015, I came to the US and started the college life in University of California, Santa Barbara. When I was still in primary school, my dad bought me a lot of chemicals as toys, with which I made flames or explosions in my home. That was so fun for a kid, and it’s why I chose chemical engineering as my major in college (they turned to be quite different though).
What I was playing vs. What I am doing
（Left Image from https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/1431773611088435619.html
Right Image from http://cfd2012.com/navier-stokes-equations.html)
Right now I am turning to my 4th academic year in the coming September in 2018. I just took the GRE and will be preparing for the materials for graduate school applications. Studying in this major for 3 years, I have to say it is a really hard major. However it is really fascinating! I am doing research with Professor Shell and his group, on simulating the properties of a system of peptides conjugated with polymers based on molecular dynamics. That may sound really dry, but actually making trajectories of molecules through coding is really fun. And that’s part of the reason why I want to go to grad school later.
Two Tethered Peptides Simulated at a Moment Made by a Simulation Software
(Image by the author)
Besides studying, I play a lot of games during my leisure time (or maybe work time) to relax myself. And there are several I highly recommend. My very favorite game is Mahjong, a traditional Chinese board game usually for 4 persons. The goal is to improve the shape of your hand by drawing and playing tiles in each turn, while preventing others from taking advantage of your tiles. The rules are not as easy to be explained in a few sentences. If you feel like it is something you would like to try, I put the wiki link here, and also I am always glad to explain the rules in person (done it for various times)!
Me Winning a HUGE Hand on the Table
(Image by the author)
The major barrier to play mahjong is that 4 or at least 3 people are necessary, as well as a roommate who is okay with the noise made when shuffling the tiles when playing at home. I also enjoy playing PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) a lot; however my laptop cannot run it smoothly, so I turned to the mobile version. But it’s still very fun and exciting!
“Dude, you are a dead man already.”
(Image by the author)
Overall, living in Santa Barbara is relaxing. Though the study load is somewhat onerous, I have plenty of entertainments (games) to help me balance out the fatigue. So if you are a mahjong or PUBG player, feel free to contact me to chat a little bit if you want.
I hope you could get a clear figure of me after reading this blog, and maybe enjoy reading it. Replies, chats, and advice always welcomed! Thank you.
Jun Lu
8.8.2018
Jun's Blog 