One of the things I appreciated most during my time as @fulbrightBELUEU grantee was seeing how ppl do science in another country. I knew the techniques, instruments, and general protocols would be the same but the lifestyle & lab culture were very different than in the U.S.

The first thing I noticed was that they took proper lunch breaks (at least 30 minutes to 1 hour). They ate much more balanced meals and took snack breaks to eat healthy fruit, and they walk a LOT more.

They also do NOT play games w/ their vacation time. Almost everyone took *at least* a few weeks off throughout the year, every holiday, and when they were out of the lab, they were truly out of lab. E-mail response times could vary from a few days to no reply until they returned.

And my mentor in the @JFClab has several grad students who published in high impact journals like @nature. So this really showed me, you can have a healthy work life balance and still do great science. I will *never* forget that.

Don't let anyone try to convince you otherwise.