One year after the decision

As usual, time flies at the speed of light and one year has passed since I have made the decision to come here for PhD. Compared to what I had anticipated if I followed the previous path, I would say that I have made the correct decision.

Working at ETH with the current group, I have the chance to improve what I was experienced at, such as data analysis and DAQ electronics and also to develop some new skills such as working on plastic scintillating fibers, DRS4 waveform analysis, Inventor Mechanical Design and Comsol Physics simulator. And of course the most challenging one is perhaps German language that takes infinite time to master. It is fun to learn it though. Spending some time attending lectures of advanced scientific programming and quantum information theory also proves beneficial, as I could learn more arts in programming and use more advanced tool and also have more new ideas to aid my research works.

I have my trip to PSI increased recently due to the beam time for Muon related experiments.

It is great to work there with many interesting stuffs but it could be painful to work on those hardware and to do strength demanding works such as moving Lead blocks (~10kg per block!!).

You have to be careful as well as the surrounding is always full of notices of HIGH VOLTAGE, HIGH CURRENT, HIGH MAGNETIC FIELD, etc...... and sometimes you have a huge bottle of liquid helium travelling across your head... that's how it is to work in a particle physics research center...LOL

My freetime is of course as fantastic as my working life. (^-^)p

I have participated in two badminton tournaments, one was organized by Malaysian Swiss Association and another one Zurich Academic Sports Association. I was lucky enough to have won in both occasions, earning myself a MIGROS cash card and an invitation ticket to Swiss Badminton Open at Basel next year for the whole week. But still I feel that myself is still very inconsistent in terms of basics so I have decided to join a club in Zurich. I am still visiting at the moment and perhaps will join soon.