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Sunday, July 23rd, 2006
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1:16 am - Life is fantastic
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Well, for the moment at least.
So many things have happened, and almost all of it good.
Main thing is that I'm not going to do NatSci Bio anymore, but Medicine. At Cambridge. ASTAR finally confirmed it with me, and given that it's something that I'd been hoping for for so long, it's a dream come true. Almost surreal.
And it's something that I never really expected would happen. I mean I used to actually pray that somehow I'd end up studying the course I want to study at the university I want to study at (i.e. Medicine at Cambridge), but I never really expected that it would really happen.
And some more, a few months back, I wouldn't have been as comfortable taking this route as I am now, because I wouldn't have been so comfortable with spending my life doing research - I mean, back then I still really wanted to be a practicing doctor. But now that I'm doing my attachment at IBN, and decided that I like research, I'm really amazingly happy that I WILL be doing research when I get back, and being able to do both research AND medicine is just a bonus of sorts. I mean, given that I actually took ASTAR over NUS med back then, I guess my heart lies more with research than medicine, even though I would like to do medicine too.
And the way everything worked out was just so perfect from this angle. As in the whole chain of events that led to this can only have been God's work, since otherwise it would have just been too coincidental.
Which reminds me, I really need to remind myself that God does everything according to His plan, so I guess I need to trust Him more. Sigh I don't think my faith is really very strong, to tell the truth...
But for the moment, life is fantastic.
More to blog on when I feel like blogging - watch outing, astar awards ceremony and mind cafe, today's bbq... When I feel like blogging again. =)
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| Saturday, July 8th, 2006
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4:46 pm - This last week.
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I think I should update my blog, and make it look nicer. =) Right now it doesn't look THAT nice, so... Soon perhaps. When I actually have time haha, which will be in September?
Anyway this week was good I guess, except for the total lack of sleep, because I keep sleeping so late. Didn't help that I got home late on Mon Tues and Wed thanks to violin, tuition and practice, and all that just left me so tired. But it's been fun, and going for lunch with WangYang and Gerald and XiaoYang is pretty fun, so that's all good... except that XiaoYang is always so darned busy at IMCB! IMCB is madness if you're a student - or at least that's the impression I'm getting!
Meanwhile I guess I'm really quite happy with my life. Ciprian keeps saying that I should be happy because I'm "young", so... Haha but I'm quite happy with the choices I've made, even though the ASTAR vs NUS med one was really a strange one to deal with. But yet, I'm happy! And I can't imagine myself as a PSC scholar, having to face paperwork when I come back, and I'm amazed that I ever considered taking up PSC given that I like Science so much... must have been blinded by the prestige and the difficulty of getting one, which are just stupid reasons to do something. And I'm glad that my final decision is really one that I made myself, and not something that I felt obligated to take or forced to take.
Have also been looking at laptops... the Sony SZ23 looks quite attractive (Jerlene agrees... right?), but not sure if it's worth it. Waiting for COMEX! Looking at digicams too, and thinking of getting the Casio Z850 or Z1000, if it's worth it that is. =)
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| Thursday, July 6th, 2006
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10:29 pm - Both Sides Now
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(Joni Mitchell)
Rows and floes of angel hair
And ice cream castles in the air
And feather canyons ev'rywhere
I've looked at clouds that way
But now they only block the sun
They rain and they snow on ev'ryone
So many things I would have done
But clouds got in my way
I've looked at clouds from both sides now
From up and down, and still somehow
It's cloud illusions I recall
I really don't know clouds
At all...
Moons and Junes and Ferris wheels
The dizzy dancing way that you feel
As ev'ry fairy tale comes real
I've looked at love that way
But now it's just another show
And you leave 'em laughing when you go
And if you care, don't let them know
Don't give yourself away
I've looked at love from both sides now
From give and take, and still somehow
It's love's illusions that I recall
I really don't know love
I really don't know love
At all...
Tears and fears and feeling proud
To say "I love you" right out loud
Dreams and schemes and circus crowds
I've looked at life that way
Oh, but now old friends, they're acting strange
And they shake their heads, and they tell me that I've changed
Well something's lost, but something's gained
In living ev'ry day
Oh, I've looked at life from both sides now
From win and lose, and still somehow
It's life's illusions I recall
I really don't know life
At all...
It's life's illusions that I recall
I really don't know love
I really don't know love
At all...
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| Sunday, June 25th, 2006
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6:53 pm - OBS photos!
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Okay time to post some of the photos from OBS (which I finally scanned in), so... =) (These photos are actually larger, but I'm "resizing" them to fit into my blog...)
1st day, before we climbed the inverse tower - this is the "official" watch photo!
Front row (L to R): Bilin, me, SookYee, Cheryl, Nicole, ZhenWah, Broke
Back row (L to R): DeWen, XiaoYang, Gerald, Jin, Michael, BoonWee
And this is the "official" silly photo!
After we got to Camp 2 on day 2 of OBS
Cooking... and BoonWee spooning out maggi mee into mess tins
Sometime on the hike on day 4
Breathtaking scenery (and of course us) at the highest point on Ubin!
Staying up on the last night... Kinda
Gandhi rocks!
My bit of the painting! (Michael has the other half of the tent...)
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| Sunday, June 4th, 2006
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3:17 am - Randomised stuff.
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http://www.cam.ac.uk/cambuniv/natscitripos/prospectus/reading.html
Apparently there's a reading list for NatSci! (Or suggested reading list, which you can read or don't read...!) Sadly Molecular Biology of the Cell's not on it, but I guess it's still a useful book. Campbell is, though! Hmmm.
I guess I am going to extend my attachment. So it can go two ways:
1. I take PSC. I extend attachment all the way until early/mid-September, taking a month off from 26 Jun to 22 Jul for PSC Pre-Departure Course.
2. I take ASTAR. I extend attachment all the way until early/mid-September, asking for extra pay. =P
Either way, Guillaume is fine with it. Also asked PohLay on Friday when I went to hand up my timesheet, and she's fine with it as well (provided my mentor is fine with it) - she said that if I have to take that month off, she could count it as "leave" so I don't have to settle exit clearances and all. =) So all I have to do when I decide is to email PohLay, CC-ing Guillaume, and ask her for extension stating my proposed end date for my attachment.
So total number of weeks of attachment:
1: 19-20 weeks
2: 23-24 weeks
And can you imagine, if I take ASTAR, I have to come back for an 8-week attachment? When if I take ASTAR now, I would have already done a 23-24 week attachment here...! Hmmm.
Just that it's going to be quite lonely when Jiaqi and WangYang aren't going to be around anymore from August... Sigh...
But if I don't extend the attachment, I'll have nothing to do anyway! Hmmm...
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| Saturday, June 3rd, 2006
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11:53 pm
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Highlights from UCAS Track:
University of Cambridge A100 Oct 2006 Conditional Firm 03-Jun-2006 -
campus: Z entry point: 1
Imperial College London (University of London) BH9C Sept 2006 Conditional Declined 03-Jun-2006 -
campus: - entry point: 1
So for better or for worse:
Cornell College of Engineering: successful, declined
Duke Pratt School of Engineering: successful, declined
Johns Hopkins: successful, declined
Penn School of Engineering and Applied Science: successful, accepted, going to withdraw
Yale: unsuccessful
Cambridge Medicine: successful, accepted, matriculating - but for NatSci (Bio) most probably
Imperial Medicine: unsuccessful
Aberdeen Medicine: unsuccessful
Edinburgh Medicine: unsuccessful
Imperial Biomed Engine (4 year): succesful, declined
Southampton Biomed Science (4 years): successful, declined
NUS Medicine: unsuccessful
I find too, that I now have a whole stack of useless paper in my house. Basically, anything to do with Cornell, Duke, JHU, Penn, Yale, Imperial, Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Southampton, NUS, NTU and SMU is useless. As is anything to do with any scholarship besides PSC and ASTAR.
Anyway, time to REALLY look forward to Cambridge I guess. =) I can FINALLY start devouring any Freshers' Guides and anything related to Cambridge! And marvel at how absolutely amazing Corpus Christi looks!
But still back to that age-old question, or somewhat age-old question: PSC or ASTAR?
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| Sunday, May 28th, 2006
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2:39 am - Clay Aiken
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Wow. Anyone who didn't watch the American Idol finale last week, go watch this video:
Video: Don't Let the Sun Go Down (wmv)
From: http://www.measureofafan.com/web/
Or try searching for "clay aiken last night" on Youtube.
All I can say about his new look is. Wow. And Wow. He looks simply amazing.
PLUS, his voice is still so absolutely fantastic. Time to get his new album, when it's released, that is. =(
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| Wednesday, May 24th, 2006
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12:41 am - iPod!
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Okay, I FINALLY got an iPod. =) Many many thanks to YW and Sara who like stuck around with me in the Apple shop (or whatever shop that is in Wheelock Place) after lunch, and then Rena who was really really patient when I took SO LONG to decide on what colour and everything!
So. Black, 4GB, iPod Nano. Hopefully I won't regret buying it! Currently it's still charging and syncing, and hopefully I'll figure out how to use it in due time. =)
But it's like. WOW. That's basically all I can say about the packaging (and of course, other stuff). I mean when I bought my iRiver SlimX2 last time, the packaging was... okay, but nothing great lah. Creative MuVo TX FM? What packaging? But with the iPod...
(I wish I took photos but nvm. =))
The box is like really tiny. It's the size of about a double CD case (no joke), and they manage to squeeze the iPod, the cables, earphones, etc in there! Everything is packaged up REALLY nicely, they even sealed up the earphones and cable in a white pouch like thing that you have to tear or cut open, and it's all pretty fantastic opening the box.
And of course, the iPod itself. It looks SUPER amazing. Really.
More to come as I start actually using the iPod... =)
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| Monday, May 22nd, 2006
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1:17 am - iPod nano
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And I guess I am fairly set on getting an iPod nano 4GB. Just wanna research a bit more on it, I guess. My sis can get it for around 411 bucks with her "educators' discount", so maybe I'll get her to help me get. =) Leaning towards getting the white Nano... =)
Anyone know if Apple is going to release any new updates of the iPods that will make an iPod nano 4GB not worth having?
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12:52 am - More to blog on, I guess.
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Okay I guess it REALLY sucks to have everyone get accepted by NUS med except me. TeckTee got accepted too, but then again he's another one of those who really deserves to get in. I feel like putting it on my MSN nick just so people won't ask, but then that's too weird I guess. In a way, it's like being second-best, or having to settle for second-best? All I can do now is to put my trust in God, and pray that He really has a plan for me...
On the other hand, I will be going to one of two schools which are infinitely better than NUS. And at least don't have cheesy commercials like those that NUS business school are currently having...
(Commercial 1)
(Little kid and his brother who's around our age I guess)
Little kid: Kor, your A level results are good enough to get you anywhere right?
Brother: Uh-huh
Little kid: So where are you going?
Brother: (Spins a globe and points to Singapore)
Little kid: But that's not very far away!
Brother: It is when you don't have a car!
(And then NUS business school logo)
(Commercial 2)
(This foreign girl and her mother)
Girl: (receives a letter and opens it) (shrieks) I'm going to Singapore!!!
Mother: Singapore? (Thinks) Singapore!
(And then they look at the letter from NUS business school)
Mother: They ban chewing gum, you know. And I hear the boys are WAY too cute for MY liking.
(And then NUS business school logo)
Cheesy? Yes. =P
Interesting, though? Yes I guess.
But if I look at this objectively, neither Penn or Cambridge need advertisements to convince people to go there. Okay, fine, maybe not Medicine, but well you get the idea. =)
Okay, enough with the sour grapes. =P
So maybe going to either school isn't too bad? And well the good thing is that now I really don't have to worry about my education costs AT ALL because my parents won't have to pay for much. Besides airfares home, because I am DEFINITELY going to be homesick.
I really feel like going to Cam to do Bio, though...
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| Monday, May 15th, 2006
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11:46 pm - Tired.
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Okay, I guess that's what I get when I sleep at 5am on Saturday night (Sunday morning) and around 1am or so last night...
Yesterday... Well after sleeping after my computer FINALLY coloured the DNA blue (don't ask), woke up around 11.45am (because I set my phone's alarm!), and went off for harmoc pract at Grace's house. Which is at Hillview. Which makes it the third day in a row that I was at Hillview (was at my second sis' place on Friday night, Hillington Green, then at Jerlene's place on Saturday, Summerhill, and then Grace's house is Parc Palais)...! We actually met at Clementi, and as far as I can remember there was TeckTee, Weiting, YeaTian, HaoYee, Tabitha, and another junior whose name I can't remember (oops). Kitling came along sometime...
But sighh. I am SO out of practice on the harmoc. I guess it's really difficult to keep in practice more than a couple of instruments at one go. I mean well if I play a lot of piano now, I'm just neglecting violin, and ditto in reverse. Add in harmonica, and it becomes even worse...! But well it was interesting lah. Doing some harmoc. =)
I guess, though, if I had to choose I'd take violin over the harmoc. Okay, this sounds a bit traitorous, but probably it's because I've wanted to learn violin since like primary 5 or 6 and I guess it's probably a bit more versatile than the harmoc in terms of keys. But then again, the harmoc has the major advantage of being supremely portable, plus you don't have to tune the harmoc...! I guess I do like both, just that maybe I like the violin a little bit more at the moment? Or maybe that's just because I happen to be paying $180 a month for lessons. =P
Then today. Well I was SO tired when I woke up, but because I ended up dragging too much in the morning, I decided that I was a bit too late already and so just took the Pasir Ris headed train instead of taking the train to Boon Lay and back. So couldn't sleep. =|
And I've decided. No more SolidWorks (or at least large assembly SolidWorks) on the left-most computer. TOO SLOW. Incredibly slow. I can't imagine doing ANYTHING when the computer is running at that speed. I should go try it on the second computer sometime when ShinHan isn't using that computer and hope it runs faster!
Results today were disappointing... I guess that's all I'll say. =(
Then lunch! Which was a bit hard to coordinate because Weiting called me around 11.45am asking if I was free for lunch already, which was a bit surprising because I thought that she'd only be free for lunch at 1. But anyway I was free (sorta, was finishing up something), and then I called Jiaqi, who wasn't free for lunch yet. =| So Weiting and I waited for a while and then took the bus to Holland V and messaged her to meet us at Subway if she wanted, and apparently she was DONE so she just took the bus after the bus we were on.
Okay, all this doesn't quite make sense and I'm not being very coherent now...
But anyway... yup so we had lunch. A lot of talk about PSC I guess because all three of us got offered PSC? Anyway I've accepted PSC (my deadline was quite "early" compared to Weiting/Jiaqi because I got mine during their first round), Weiting is deliberating between PSC and EDB, and Jiaqi is deliberating between PSC and A*STAR. Although Weiting is going to Cornell and Jiaqi is going to Caltech in any case - but the scholarship is quite important because well, it IS the job that you're going to come back to.
(Oh, and Weiting was saying that the PSC tea session on Saturday for second round offers was quite funny. Because apparnetly Li HongYi RSVPed saying his parents were coming, so the PSC people were all like dressed up and everything, then he turned up and said his parents weren't coming, at which all the coats and formal wear started coming off...!)
Rambling a bit, but as for 3C... Well I guess the only semi-confirmed people are that Harold is going Duke on A*STAR, SaraHo is going Cambridge Med, QiSheng is going Duke on PSC (and hopefully SAFOS), EngShing and Nic are going Cornell on A*STAR. Not sure about the rest, but there are quite a lot of Medicine hopefuls (including me...!) like Sok, TeckTee, MinJia, ZhenChang, Cheryl, Laura, SaraLoh, ShiHui...?
And back to lunch. Yup happened to meet my second sis at Holland V, she and Andrew apparently took the day off and were eating laksa somewhere in Holland V. =)
After lunch... Well Weiting came to visit the pantry (apparently IMCB only has ONE pantry, on the 7th floor...! and later when I talked to Manu, she said that they don't eat at all usually during the day because they don't have space in the office, so they spend most of their time at the back of the lab where they can't eat, and there's no pantry on the floor where she works.)...!
And then after that since we were a bit bored, Jiaqi, Weiting and I decided to go walk over to IMCB (Proteos) by the Skybridges, which was just as well because Jiaqi's pass and my pass gets us as far along the skybridges as Genome (but doesn't get us past that into Proteos), but Weiting's pass works for the part linking to Proteos. Then we kinda visited Weiting's lab, which looks a lot scarier compared to the IBN labs for some reason. I think because they're really quiet or something and pretty cluttered with stuff. Plus all their labs along one line are all linked up with no doors between them, so it's actually like one BIG lab instead of many smaller labs. And there are A LOT of labs, PLUS the labs are really heavily utilised! Then the offices are behind the labs? But I guess a good thing about IMCB versus IBN is that you don't need a pass to get access to the labs, instead it's just a hand-over thing (like what they had in the NUH OT) and then the door automatically slides open - versus IBN with the pass access, and THEN you still have to open the door... But wow, Weiting really has a lot of stuff to do! Quite amazing, really...
So went back to IBN after that. Asked Jerome about splitting the cells. Wanted to split the cells, but didn't have a fume hood. So filled pipette tips (I think I filled 12 boxes) before getting really bored and so went into the student's room and talked to KerYin for a while, and she's REALLY nice. =) Oh and talked to Charlene and Farah (Jerome's students who came in last week) and they're pretty nice too! And apparently Jaana got one of her students today. FINALLY got a fume hood around 4, and took AGES to split/count the cells. But very happy, because for the plate I counted I think there were 8 million cells on that plate. And at first I thought I counted wrongly, but nope! 8 million. =) I did take all the way until 6 or so to split the cells, though, and I HOPE they're still alive. =)
Then violin lesson! Which was better than last week, at least, in that I actually could figure out now and then whether my notes were off key or not. =) Which I guess is a good thing, but I'm still horribly bad at telling whether my notes are off key. =(
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| Sunday, May 14th, 2006
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5:19 am - 5am...
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And the only reason why I'm blogging? Because I have nothing better to do while waiting for my files to attach (emailing to myself). So oh wells.
After 1.5 hours, I FINALLY managed to colour the helices blue. Isn't that fantastic? =P And at least it's starting to work, though my computer is slowing down like mad.
Strangely, it's addictive.
But yes. Time to SLEEP...
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3:58 am - 4am, and SolidWorks is HANGING
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What was that song again... 2am, and the rain is falling? Well, it's 4am, and SolidWorks is merrily hanging away.
If this is what happens when my computer is running at 2.66 GHz, I dread to think of what would have happened had I used it before my computer upgrade...
Maybe I should try it on my dad's computer. Which is apparently running at 3.0 GHz...
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| Friday, May 12th, 2006
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4:46 pm - Upgraded computer, and other stuff.
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Okay in case anyone was wondering why I wasn't online last night, that was because my dad was fixing up my computer. Upgrading my motherboard and my hard disk drive actually, and it apparently took all of last night. That, and I zonked out around 9pm because I was way way way too tired...
So anyway, now I have a computer that supposedly goes faster (well I can't really tell at the moment, since all I'm running on it so far is Internet Explorer, MSN messenger and Windows Media Player, and I doubt that these take up a lot of processing power). Okay, fine, it IS going a bit faster I guess, but I wouldn't really know until I start running processing power intensive programs like maybe SolidWorks? =)
The downside, though, is that my dad hasn't completely transferred all my files from my old hard disk into the new one, and the new one still contains some stuff that belongs to him, so it's all a little confusing and not-that-nice at the moment. So far, I've reinstalled MSN, upgraded Windows Media, replaced my playlists, and replaced my Favourites Links in Internet Explorer. But there's probably still quite a bit left to do - hopefully I get back the programs from my old computer!! I also can't install a certain program on my computer, though I suspect that this is due to the fact that I've already installed it on the laptop and so will need to make certain changes to its configuration on the laptop before I can use it on my computer...
Anyway yesterday. I did the sonication etc of the lipids before lunch. Good thing I brought a book up to Jiaqi's lab, because I talked to her for around 20 min or so before she had to do stuff, so I spent the rest of the 30 minutes or so reading the book. =) Jiaqi, by the way, is totally preparing/prepared for studying overseas (at Caltech) - she's bought her luggage and all already! And I guess it's really good for her, because Huiling's going to Caltech on ASTAR too. Plus, she's already familiar with Caltech, so...
Yup went back to my lab? And then Pavla saw the book (Terry Pratchett's Hogfather) and asked if she could look at it... Apparently she's read Terry Pratchett before, but in Czech! So yup she was reading it for a while. =) I think she said something like she was thinking of buying the books in English or something?
(This reminds me a bit of that time last year I think, when I borrowed Going Postal from Leonard and was reading it on a bus, when I bumped into someone accidentally, apologised, and then the lady was like "No, it's okay! And by the way, that's a great book!" and started talking about Terry Pratchett and A Hat Full of Sky and the Last Hero. =))
And this time round we tried to "filter" some of the lipids. Which well, takes an incredible amount of waiting when you're trying to equilibrate (?) the filter? =| Yup so was talking to Guillaume while waiting... Apparently he's going off for a holiday next week (I think Thurs/Fri and the weekend)! Seems like everyone's going for holidays these couple of weeks actually... WangYang back to Hebei, JunRen's going to the US next week I think, and then Guillaume's going to Bali? Yupyup and apparently he only got his driving licence at 27, which makes me feel better about not having driving lessons now when it seems like everyone around me is taking lessons...!
Yups then was intending to go for lunch on time and then transfect the cells after lunch, but the thing is that WangYang was still doing a maxiprep when I called her around 12pm and she said it'd probably take another hour, so I decided to go transfect the cells first. Jiaqi was going to come for lunch with us, but then she decided to go for lunch first because she wanted to get started on her experiments after lunch early. So I waited for WangYang, especially since yesterday was the last time I'd see her for two weeks (since she went back to Hebei today for 2 weeks!). And quite interestingly, the maxiprep that she and Jerome were doing involved a lot of "explosions" in the cell culture room, which she said was because they didn't have some vacuum pump or something and the substitute made a lot of those explosions...! I'm not complaining, though, since it means that we now have an incredible amount of DNA to use. =)
Although when I went up to the L7 lab, Jerome saw me, came over, and was like "your boss told me about you" and was like checking which solutions/etc I was using (well considering how weird the results we got last week were...). And he was like "you! made your boss cry and made me very disappointed...!" Then when I told him I was transfecting before lunch because WangYang was doing a maxiprep (this was before I talked to WangYang in the lab), he was saying "oh so you two communicate!" Hahahaha hmmm...
In the end, WangYang and I only left for lunch around like 1.30pm. Were going to go Ghim Moh, and so missed two Holland V buses, but gave up waiting for the Ghim Moh bus and so ended up going to Holland V (mainly because she needed to go to the post office, so even if we ate at Matrix we'd have to walk to the MRT so she could use the SAM machine).
Ate Meatball Marinara at Subway! Which was errr the offer of the day. =) Then we got more cookies to eat. =) (I've like since finished all the cookies I bought... oops) And then went post office, which was like REALLY crowded - thank goodness WangYang didn't need to queue up, so we just used the SAM machine. Though she was trying to fill up some stuff (for the DSTA deed etc), so we did take some time at the post office.
Ended up walking back to IBN because it was after 2pm. Oh well. Exercise! Though given that I walked like for an hour straight on Wednesday night...?
Yupyups so afternoon... Split 3 plates of cells into 6 (and the last we checked, the cells still looked alive and were attaching). =) The thing, though, is that I didn't dare to split all 3 plates at once in case I killed all 3 plates of them with too much trypsin, so I split two plates first, then changed the medium, and then WangYang split the last plate. But well, they looked alive. =) The whole thing did end up taking me something from like 4pm - 5.30pm though, and Jerome was like "I can't believe you're still here!" when he came in to split (pool) the other 4 plates of cells we had with his two new students. And JiaKai was just hanging around giving WangYang pressure. =P
Yay and Guillaume likes the drawing I have of the lipoplex so far! But the whole problem is that while I know more or less how exactly to draw the lipoplex, the computers may not be able to handle the drawing. =(
Oh and today... Well slept for AGES (cause I was just SO tired!), then went to my second sis' place for dinner! Anyway Andrew and her cooked dinner tonight, which was pretty good I guess. =) Though she was saying that she didn't like cooking because of all the preparation involved... Then anyway. Found out that she has Tia Maria! (And that Andrew and her have an incredible amount of wine/liquor that they store in a chilled wine cupboard), so koped some Tia Maria off her, and I can make tiramisu! =) Yay!!!
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| Thursday, May 11th, 2006
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12:22 am - Harmonix
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Okay tonight was supposed to be a relaxing night.
I was supposed to go back to RJ, soak in the wonderful atmosphere of being in RJ again, and listen to great music by the Harmoc juniors.
Instead, I spent the whole first half of the concert panicking.
Basically, for the FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE I lost my wallet. And the harder part of it is that I was pretty sure that I dropped it somewhere in RJ, but I wasn't sure enough. So I basically ended up retracing my steps all over RJ, and then retracing my steps all the way back to J8 and to the florist (where I'd last used my wallet), and then going back to the PAC and sitting through a couple more songs before the intermission. And then looking for my wallet again during the intermission, before MingJie found it (apparently someone had found it and left it backstage).
Well, on the bright side... I did spend something like an hour plus walking around. Plenty, plenty of exercise. And the wallet did get found! And I really enjoyed the second half of the concert. =)
But it was really a freaky experience. Especially since if I lost my wallet, I would lose my IC (this is the MOST important thing in my wallet). As well as my ATM/debit cards, library cards, and my nice EZ link card (these are secondary, cause you can cancel these). But really, losing my IC... And after retracing my steps and not being able to find my wallet, I was really thinking ahead to having to make a police report and having to go down to ICA, pay a hundred bucks, and make a new IC?
Yeah but the really nice thing is that YeaTian and Weiting and ShihHsien were incredibly nice when I was panicking, and were helping me to look for my wallet and asking around (I think Weiting asked MingJie, and MingJie found it?)!
Okay but besides that whole wallet-panicking thing and the walking of something like a few kilometres searching for my wallet...
The concert was actually pretty good. The MCs weren't too bad (and I think one of them was LeeYing), and it generally sounded pretty good except for certain slip-ups here and there. But quite interesting and nice generally. And of course, Grace was incredible. I think she's getting really really really amazing at doing solo performances, and everytime I hear her play she just gets better and better and better! Like. Wow! And of course, AikHong with his incredible playing of Flight of the Bumblebee...
And of course, it's nice to see juniors again!
Anyway I just found out today that JunRen's last day at IBN is tomorrow. Sigh it seems like lots of people are leaving... Deon left last Friday, and JunRen's leaving tomorrow... Though ShinHan is staying until September I think, TiongHan until end of June (I think!), and Ryan (who just came a couple of weeks back) until end of June too or thereabouts.
And WangYang is leaving Friday for Hebei for 2 weeks (hahaha should be pretty fun lah. =)), and then she's taking DSTA, so she has to go for pre-departure stuff including OBS in the middle 2 weeks of June, so she's going to disappear again! Acck.
Oh yes and saw WangYang doing part of maxiprep this morning. And wow... it's really quite a long/complicated procedure...!
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| Tuesday, May 9th, 2006
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11:57 pm - Long rambling stuff.
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Okay, Blogger is SLOW tonight. So typing in notepad, just in case this gets lost by Blogger...
Turned up at IBN in contacts today (well I opened one pair, I'm definitely going to use it unless I kinda feel too lazy to put them on in the morning. Though considering I think I take less than a minute to put them on... Okay perhaps it's more of the cleaning bit at night that I mind. =P)... Okay I guess the reaction was more or less along the lines of when I showed up at school in contacts last year? So...
JunRen (I think) or Deon: "What happened to your glasses??"
Guillaume: Talked to me for a while when I got him to sign my time sheet, then something like "what happened to your glasses?" And "I thought something was different but I didn't realise it was the glasses..."
JiaQi/WangYang: Okay, they knew I was switching to lenses for the time being. Though JiaQi was like "you look more studious with glasses..." Okay which I actually agree with. =)
Daniel: "Are you wearing contacts??" (And subsequent disbelief that I got contacts last year that are going to expire early next year. Well, it's true! =|)
Jerome: "What happened to your glasses? You broke them?" (And later tried to look for the little circle that you get around your eyes with contacts, and this got WangYang trying to find that little circle too...)
Jaana: (to Jerome I think?) "She can't see, she's not wearing her glasses..."
Oh well. But anyway, I guess contacts are good and not good at the same time. It's quite nice being able to look at things out of the corner of my eye, and FINALLY use both eyes to look at stuff through the microscope (which I somehow seem unable to do if I'm wearing glasses...). But then again, they're quite bothersome in terms of cleaning/etc/etc... (haha just cross refer to any entry that I wrote around July last year I guess, when I was going through all those trial pairs of lenses...!)
Yups then errr I think I was really really blur this morning. Filled out my timesheet, got Guillaume to sign it, went up L9, handed it in, realised that I forgot to put in my Med interview last Thurs, got back the timesheet, and filled out a new one. Too blur...
Oh and lunch... Well FINALLY went to MOE building for lunch, and actually this was because WangYang was going to Science Park, and had walked all the way to MOE before she found out that the DSTA scholarship officer had gone for lunch, so JiaQi and I walked down to MOE building to meet her for lunch!
Anyway, their canteen is quite okay lah I guess. Quite small, but the yong tau foo isn't too bad, and it's really quite cheap compared to the food at Matrix! =) I think I'd prefer to eat at Ghim Moh, though.
Actually right. I think I did go to MOE building to eat before... In J1, when TeckTee and Harold and I had our MOE Pre-U scholarship interviews at MOE building, and Harold had his obsession with a-balling and so bought takeaway from Ghim Moh and ate it at the MOE canteen. Weird that I actually remember this...
Afternoon... Well to put it simply, our results were just really, really, really weird. =| I think Guillaume was quite upset (well kinda), and the results are really quite weird lah. I think I must have done something wrong somewhere, but not sure what it could have been. Sighh... Hopefully it turns out better the next time we try it... Yeah and he was saying something along the lines of "Maybe you should do Medicine, forget research, at least in Medicine things work sometimes"... And Jerome: "you shouldn't drink before you do stuff", and errr I'm not sure if they believe that I don't drink and I've never drunk wine/etc before? (Except in tiramisu, which doesn't count...!)
But yes WangYang and I escaped death. Barely... We split some more cells today, so hopefully they'll be okay tomorrow. =| We took ages to split the cells, though, and actually I split the cells because she was preparing more medium to use...! And well spent ages waiting around in the cell culture room because she was waiting for the FBS to defrost (which took AGES), so we were talking with Jerome for a while who suddenly decided to juggle the circular weights that you use to keep solutions down in the water bath... 3 of them...! (And they're pretty heavy...!) So of course WangYang and I went far far away... Or as far away as we could. =P Went back to the L6 lab and met Guillaume who was quite amazed that we spent so long splitting cells... Oops...
And well apparently in France... They have two streams (?), Lit and Science (Like Arts/Science?), and in Science the good students do Engineering, and the not-so-good aka bad students do Medicine? Because apparently their system is such that everyone who wants to do Medicine can do Medicine, but then people flunk out of Medicine. Versus the Singapore/UK system where they take in very few people a year, but consequently flunking out of the course is very very rare. Not sure which system is better actually... Oh but then again (not sure who said this), "S01/S02 are pretty much self-selective", which is really quite true.
Oh and Noreena apparently showed Guillaume my O level results last time, which don't really mean much actually (especially if you look at it in the context of 3C...). He said he didn't really understand the grades anyway? =P
But hmm. It's strange right. You realise that as you go on, the exams that you took previously aren't really that accurate an indicator of how well you'll do at the next stage. I mean, there was PSLE, which ANYONE can tell you is by no means accurate in predicting how well people will do later on. Okay, maybe in broad generalities, but specifically? No. Then there's O levels, which is too broad-based to be a good predictor of how well you'd do at A levels. O levels tests broad knowledge, A levels tests in-depth knowledge. And somehow I doubt A levels are going to be THAT good a predictor of how well you'd do in university either, especially since you can (usually) get good A level grades by sheer mugging. Which come to think of it, I totally neglected to do, but nevermind. =) But I doubt you could do THAT well in university by the power of sheer mugging and the TYS? (Okay, maybe not the case for S papers, though, and non-Science subjects. =))
And I'm slowly re-reading my way through Discworld. Happened to start with Reaper Man, then moved on to Mort, now reading Soul Music. Somehow, I seem to be on a Death/Susan kick at the moment, since the next couple of books I'm going to read are Hogfather and Thief of Time. =)
Sighh and hmm my second sis can't really play piano anymore. Too out of practice, I think, I don't think she's played piano regularly for maybe 14 years or so? So I guess it's not too surprising. I'm hoping I'll find the time to keep practicing, because I REALLY don't want to lose my touch for piano, especially since it took me 14 years to get to my current stage. Okay, probably less, since I've definitely deteriorated since I took my ATCL at the end of J1. But yeah...
Oh yes, so after violin yesterday, I was talking to Ms Tay, and she got me to play piano. I don't think my Ballade No 1 passed muster, but then she got me to play Poulenc's Trois Novelettes, of which I could play Nos 1 and 3, but totally failed at No 2! But not so bad. Then Brahm's Raphsodies (I think Op. 78 or 79), I could play No 2. Though No 1 was totally out of the question... And then was sight-reading and all. Was actually pretty fun, and well I guess I'm glad that even though it's almost a year since I stopped having lessons, I've still been practicing piano now and then and having lots and lots of fun playing! Which is GOOD. =) Although as usual, my playing tends to be too heavy - I seem to have a lot of problem with playing softly/gently. Oops. =P The upside of think, of course, is that it makes life a lot easier playing those incredibly insane parts in Chopin's Ballades Nos 1 and 3. =)
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12:12 am - POSB's insanely long queues
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Okay, so I finally got a POSB ATM card. In part because I decided (finally) to be "independent", or at least for these couple of months, so I asked my mom to stop giving me my allowance for these couple of months. Which means that in order to survive, I need to actually get money from my POSB account, since that's where my "pay" got/gets credited to. So since I don't want to queue up at POSB everytime I need to get money, I decided to get an ATM card.
However, this involved queuing up for AN HOUR AND FIFTEEN MINUTES at the POSB branch at Jurong Point. Which was, frankly, madness. I didn't know that the queue would be inching forward so slowly when I started queuing, and after queuing for like 15 minutes I guess it was the whole thing about "since I've invested 15 minutes queuing, I might as well keep queuing". So I queued all the way until I actually got to the counter. Thank goodness for a good book to read (Mort, by Terry Pratchett) - I dread to think of queuing up for that long without something to do...! And of course I miss that really old system where you just take a queue number and wait for your number to be buzzed, which was good because you could sit down and wait, or go off and do something like eat dinner before coming back.
The horrifying thing, though, was that when I was leaving the bank I saw that the queue was EVEN LONGER than when I'd started queuing, and the bank people had routed it all around the bank and all! Madness, really...
And I guess I'm accepting PSC's offer of OMS(O) to do Bioengineering in the US, which is basically their offer of OMS(O) to do Bioengineering at Penn. I'll see what happens from here... (And hope insanely for NUS medicine! Which may not happen... Sighh...)
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| Monday, May 8th, 2006
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1:38 am - Back to contacts.
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So after a few months of not touching my contacts, I've realised that one set of my contacts is expiring early next year. Since I don't want to use them THAT close to their expiry date, I've happily opened a new pair of contacts today (I still have 3 pairs left to use up! Thankfully I didn't buy a full year's worth last year...). So oh wells.
Meanwhile, I still can't use ReNu (and anyway I don't dare to use the one bottle I have left) because of that fungal infection case, which apparently has appeared in Europe in addition to in the US/HK/Singapore. Well actually I think that was a main factor in why I stopped wearing contacts a few months back...? So it's back to SoloCare Aqua for the time being...
Anyway went to Jurong Point with my mom today. Borrowed a lot a lot of books! =) Oh and found out from some huge election banner that the blond MP that WangYang said Jaana was asking around about is apparently from West Coast GRC... which errr... happens to be the constituency that I live in? Oops.
Which brings me to another point... I obviously don't really know enough about where I live in. I mean, for starters, until last week I didn't even know I lived in West Coast GRC - I always thought somehow that I was in either Jurong or HongKah GRC. Apparently not.
Next, I have no idea who are the MPs for West Coast GRC. Okay admittedly this is probably because I live in a condo, and they NEVER put up any election banners anywhere near where I live. Not even near Lakeside MRT, which come to think of it might not even be part of West Coast GRC (I think I live on the very edge/corner of the GRC). Plus, West Coast has never been contested (according to my parents, they've never had to vote in a single election), so you never get all those reports in the news about the people contesting in West Coast? So oh well, no idea who the MPs are, and I don't even recognise their names! Oops.
The saddest part of it all is that I'd actually been more or less following election news, yet I didn't know either the constituency I was in or the MPs for that constituency.
I think that I just failed social studies? Oops.
Anyway, back to Jurong Point. Happened to meet Sok! And found out that his top choice is Medicine, which is quite surprising because I never knew about it (though apparently all the 3C guys know)! But anyway yups as far as 3C goes, I guess A LOT of us are really serious about taking up Medicine (even knowing all the difficulties inherent in it), and I really hope all of us can study Medicine. =)
And Monday's a holiday! Violin's still at 7.15pm, though... Sigh.
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| Sunday, May 7th, 2006
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1:38 am - Elections.
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So today is Polling Day...
And well as results came in, the PAP and the opposition ended up with the exact same seats (well more or less) as they started with, just that this time round both ChiamSeeTong and LowThiaKiang got higher percentages of the votes than they did before.
I guess well, perhaps that's also partly because of the filter-down effect from the fact that both of their parties really assembled better candidates than they did previously? Which I think is pretty impressive. I guess what Jer wrote on her blog is quite true, about how if your husband/wife/mother/etc came home and said they wanted to join the opposition, you'd try to persuade them against it, but if they came home and said they wanted to join the PAP, you'd say something along the lines of "good boy/girl"...
But I heard that lots and lots of people attended the WP rally at Aljunied yesterday! Was sitting around in the pantry WAITING for the 4 hours to be up, and ended up talking to this guy on my level (sigh I can't remember his name, just so BAD with names) who's voting and in Aljunied. And who was going to attend the WP rally - should ask him about it when I next see him. =) But anyway I think that rally is the same one that Serena attended?
Oh and yes there's this other guy on my level (sigh I REALLY need to keep track of names) who's the same year as JunRen and TiongHan, who apparently heard about my "dilemma" (inverted commas because it's not much of one if I don't get into NUS med... =|) and was talking to me yesterday. Apparently his girlfriend had almost exactly the same choices (or potential choices, in my case) as I have - she was deciding between Bioengineering in Penn on a scholarship (he forgot which one it was) and NUS medicine, and chose NUS medicine. Which is what I'll choose too, if I can get into NUS med! Sighh... Anyway he's going to do Engineering Science this year, and he's from HC 02S65...
And as for SolidWorks... All I can say is, if the programme is semi-hanging when I only have around 10% or less of the model drawn, I don't want to know what will happen when I draw more and more of the model... =(
But yes, today was a very very sian-nish day. I really had NOTHING TO DO THE WHOLE DAY! No tuition, because neither Jin/Sherlene need me to come down this week, and because Rohan doesn't need me this week either (because both his Maths and Science exams are over, and because I went down so much last week). So well... Interesting, though, after all that mad rush of the past few months with always some little thing hanging on my mind, to FINALLY have one whole day when I really have absolutely nothing to do, no pressing deadlines, no deadlines lurking around the corner, nothing hanging on my conscience...
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| Friday, May 5th, 2006
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10:12 pm - More cell killing.
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Morning... The usual stuff before transfection. Spent AGES in Jiaqi's lab slacking around with Jiaqi while WAITING, with her mentor coming in and out of the lab and Jiaqi talking to me when she wasn't looking at what her mentor was doing. As usual we started talking about universities etc sigh. She's really lucky in that she's so set on going to Caltech on an ASTAR, and that's like good cause she really got her top choice of both I guess. Plus she can probably now request for the 1300 pay that the ASTAR scholars apparently get when they're on attachment. =P Although her scholarship's SERC and not BMRC.
So did all the usual stuff, by the time I was done it was like 12pm. So decided to transfect after lunch, since by a nice happy coincidence Jiaqi, WangYang and I all needed to go to the bank (although they needed to go POSB and I needed to go UOB). So went Holland V for lunch.
Well I was done with UOB very quickly, so went over to POSB to find WangYang and Jiaqi. Who were still queuing up, cause Jiaqi wanted to get an ATM card while WangYang was trying to get a bank draft for Cornell. Went over to the post office. Spent a very long time there, but at least I found out how Speedpost works and HOW DARNED EXPENSIVE IT IS.
Oh and WangYang's going to Cornell on DSTA! To do ECE. And yeah things worked out pretty well cause Cornell agreed to accept her late reply, DSTA is allowing her to do ECE rather than EEE, which is why she was getting the bank draft for Cornell today... =) So it's really really good because she really wanted to go to Cornell!
Went back to IBN after lunch. Transfected my cells (which are alive! Yay!). Then WangYang was checking the cells that we split on Tuesday, and apparently hers all died, while for my case... I had 6 plates, apparently 2 got taken by JiaKai (so they should have been alive), 3 were alive as of yesterday (of which I used 2), and the last one is strangely dead! Very, very strange, considering that it's all the same cells with the same incubation period etc etc etc! Hmmms. Yeah WangYang and I should set up a "cell killing" club... =|
Yupyup then Jerome... Okay he told us to split the remaining cells we had. All I caught was that if they were dead he'd kill us (and something like he'd kill 5 of us for each cell that died...!), and according to WangYang he said something like if they were still alive we'd get chocolate or something?? (I didn't hear that actually...) Haha so WangYang and I split the cells together - I think we were quite fast, and we were really doing it together. Though we were saying that we'd be lucky if 1 plate in 4 survived because going by our success rates so far... =P
And anyway, since I had to stick around until 6.45pm today (because of transfection), WangYang was very nice and stayed around too. So then we checked the plated cells, and yay they were ALIVE! So WangYang took pictures of them as "evidence" that we didn't kill the cells. =P Hopefully they survive the weekend...
Monday is a holiday! =)
Hmmms and was reading back a bit, came across a post a few months back saying something to the extent of 3 months of attachment is quite a long time. Now? It seems to be passing by very very quickly..! Like yet another week has gone by (5 weeks total), only 8 weeks of attachment left...! I think I'm having too much fun killing cells. =)
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