Ms Chua and Shannen waiting for us at the traffic light
Burke Museum from the side
Santa hanging from a ledge - pretty weird decoration if you ask me
Entrance to UW, Burke Museum in background
Red Square of UW
At the bus terminal of bus 73
Entrance to Chinatown - 2 dragons on each side (but only 1 captured)
We had the orientation this morning at the Theodore Jacobsen observatory, which wasn't quite what I expected as I had the impression that we would be brought around campus so that we would be more familiar with the buildings. On afterthought that would have been impossible since UW is many times larger than NTU. (It even has its own medical center - read: hospital - and restaurants and shops.) My experience in Seattle so far has been pleasant; I haven't detected a single trace of racism and the people here are quite nice. What surprises me most is that the drivers will stop for you even when you're jaywalking without so much as an angry snarl or horn. And they have this 4-way stop at the cross-junctions, where there are no traffic lights but the cars will stop if they see pedestrians crossing.
Oops I digressed. After the orientation today, I'm looking forward to school in a new environment, experiencing a new culture and education system. I'm also a little apprehensive as I'm not sure if I can cope with the demands of my academic studies concurrently with research work. However, I know that with God everything is possible.
After getting my husky card and the U-Pass, we went with Ms Chua and Shannen to chinatown and I had my first communion cooking session with Rashidah, Raymond, Gabriel, Jiaxiang and Christian. I must say that our cooking skills are not bad! Haha. We managed to whip up 4 dishes in 1 hour. I'm a little out of my element though because I'm very used to cooking with a toaster instead of an oven or stove. In the end I think we didn't really manage to save that much on our meals. The only difference is that our food is msg-less and low in oil. (You wouldn't believe how much msg there is in chinese food here.) Well anyway what I want to eat is western food! The only western food I've had so far was the dinner at subway yesterday. I want my pizza and hot dogs! Haha..
Photos will be up soon! As soon as I can get my lazy self to upload the pictures..=P
Group photo!
1. Bad service - I asked for more water and the stewardess just poured the bottle's contents over me, without so much as an apology.
2. Lousy pilots - Plane swerves to and fro just before landing. Can give even the most seasoned traveller a heart attack.
3. Terrible food - enough said.
4. Cramped seats with little legroom. Seats leave you hunching when you try to sit upright.
I'm suffering from terrible jetlag now as I've only managed to sleep a few hours on the plane. Even the capillaries in my eyes have burst. Argh. Finally I'm in Seattle, but everything feels so surreal, even the view outside my window. (And can I just say, the window is way too big and an easy target for robbers. Tsk.) I have so many things to settle later. Thankfully the temperature is not too bad, just 8 degrees celsius.
Actually this post isn't about Christmas Eve, but more of a collage of the past few days. Our supervisor treated us to Hoshi Restaurant at IMM on Thursday night, which was a rather awkward event due to his reticence and the fact that our jokes mostly evolve around him so we couldn't really joke. Haha. Well both sides made a few contrived attempts at starting a conversation to no avail. At least the sake teriyaki was great. =)
The last day of work was pretty much a disaster as we were in a festive mood and couldn't concentrate on the experiments at hand. All four of us went to the animal house in the morning (as some sort of farewell ceremony?). I suppose all of us left the lab with mixed feelings: happy to finally get a break from work, but sad that we most probably won't have the chance to work together and joke around like crazy again. The 4 of us shared a special camaraderie and it was really fun working with them these 3 weeks despite us not being able to get results.
Went for the musical at church with Eleanor and sis yesterday. The turnout was quite good, and the effects were fantastic.
Had lots of things to settle today - went to buy more stuff to bring over, managed to do a bit of my BS901 report (my supervisor is so mean to make me write a report! -_-), and packed some more stuff into the POLO luggage bag. I'm looking forward to the chilli crabs with my family at Jumbo later! Yum yum. *slurp*
You know the Chinese proverb, "Disastrous events never happen alone"? Today was a perfect exemplification of it.
We wanted to treat our supervisor and also the staff in PC's lab to pizza today as three of us would be leaving the lab by this Friday. There seemed to be some misunderstanding and in the end, our supervisor just happily trotted off to lunch and forgot all about our pizza treat, leaving Zi hui pretty annoyed. And to think we ordered so much food. When we told him we had left some pizza for him, he just innocently went, "Oh, how much is it?" and dipped into his pocket for his wallet, which made Zi hui even more mad. Haha.
In the end I overate and ended up feeling bloated for the rest of the day.
We wasted a perfectly good rabbit today because we were kind of distracted by the pizza treat. (And probably because we're already in a festive mood.) I did a calculation today and we've wasted a total of $540 on just the rabbits alone, with no results to show for it. All that money flushed down the drain like that.
At the end of the day, the tubing exploded in my face when I tried to turn on the gas cylinder. (Some idiot didn't close the second tap and the air simply rushed out too quickly when I turned on the main switch!) As a result my left ear just blanked out and it couldn't hear anything for quite a while. It was still a little painful when I went home. The supervisor, drawn to the lab by the loud explosion, gave me an irritated look, dumped the new tubing on me without giving me a wrench and just strode off. How was I supposed to change the tubing without the wrench?!
There is seriously something wrong with this lab man. Why do things keep on exploding???
My dear Mummy is 49 today! (Haha a woman's age is supposed to be secret but here I am announcing her age to the entire world on the Internet..) Bought a vanilla log cake for her from the cafe at my school, which had a surprisingly light sponge and tasted pretty good. We didn't really celebrate much, probably because we were missing Daddy's presence.
We had a chocolate feast in the lab today because some instrument companies sent chocolates to our supervisor for Christmas and he passed them on to us as he apparently doesn't eat chocolates. (Who on earth doesn't eat chocolates?!) I particularly liked the advent calendar chocolates from eppendorf, where there are 24 pieces each contained behind a window that you have to peel open to get the chocolate out. And the front of the calendar shows a scientist 'creating' snow around a christmas tree, complete with safety goggles and eppendorf tube. Quite cute right?
Christmas is around the corner again! No Christmas presents for me this year though.
=(
Today's experiment was a flop again, because the valves died prematurely and refused to contract even when the concentration of potassium was increased to 120 mM. We finally isolated the problem to the pH of the HEPES buffer we used - it was at 5.5 instead of 7.4. Well NOBODY told me I had to adjust the pH after preparing the buffer. The supervisor just left us to our own devices and everything I know was taught by Agnes and Zi hui, so it's not surprising that some (important) details were left out.
It seems like our supervisor has given up on us - he even told us that we need not go to the lab tomorrow since we have no results and the valves to be used tomorrow would probably be dead too since we're using the same batch of valves as today's. He's a nice person but a tad too discouraging.
Well tomorrow we're going to redo the experiment using 2.5 mM Ca2+-PSS. Hopefully the valves will resuscitate by then. =)
Went for the GIP send-off ceremony today, and as usual the main attraction was the food. Haha. I even skipped lunch! (But of course I wasn't the only one; Raymond skipped his lunch too.) In retrospect the send-off ceremony was quite low-key but we had a great time catching up and interacting with some other people going to UW as well. And I managed to get a Creative webcam at a discounted price of $39.95 (usual price is like $70 plus) because someone had a special deal!
Finished watching Takeuchi Yuko's newest drama, "The Grumpy Gene". Not too bad, although the ending sucks. Hopefully daddy comes back from Beijing with my frog prince vcd. Hehe.
This is a musical specially organised by my church this Christmas, feel free to come down and join us for some festive cheer and joy! I'll be going on 23 dec..btw Yixian: you wanna join me? =)
Went into the lab this morning to find that ALL 4 VALVES in the stupid myograph machine were jammed and couldn't empty. Seriously, if DMT (the myograph manufacturer) were to ask me for a product evaluation, I would rate it a -10 from a scale of 0 to 100. =P I tell you, that machine is utterly frustrating and drives us all crazy. I only managed to unclog it at the end of the day, when all our experiments had been done.
The carbogen gas cylinder is another tricky one. The supervisor taught us how to operate it three times already but each time we need to turn it off/on, we go, "So which knob do we turn first huh?" Today we tried to turn it off by ourselves unsuccessfully, so we asked Yiwen to help us out. While she was turning one of the knobs, we heard a sudden explosion and everyone thought the tubing exploded again. That was until we saw plumes of smoke rising from the (new!) centrifuge, black debris all over the lab bench and Yiwen's horrified expression (because she was the one operating it). Zi hui, Agnes and I had to run out of the lab to laugh because the whole scenario was just so hilarious! Haha! (And of course looking at our supervisor's perplexed expression - I think he sorely regrets taking us in for our research projects since his equipment has been breaking down or malfunctioning ever since we got in.)
But that's not the only thing that's exploded in his lab so far. I heard from Zi hui that the gas tank for gassing the rabbits exploded the first time he used it because apparently he forgot to open the outlet for the gas to escape. Then the tubing connected to the gas cylinder exploded when they turned the knob too quickly. Thankfully these explosions happened last week when I hadn't yet joined the lab, and the explosion today was quite minor and I was far away from the site. Lucky the smoke didn't set off the fire alarm and sprinklers. =)
Now I'm a little worried about my evaluation for BS901.
Today I went to my supervisor's office at the early hour of 9 am to find that I was the first one there and the supervisor had yet to come in. This gave me quite a shock because Dr Thiru's lab in comparison would be buzzing with activity at 9 already.
The supervisor came in at 9.15 but had to rush off for a meeting till 10.30, so I was stuck with reading a 10-page research review on calcium signalling. I read for one hour and I couldn't finish it! Guess my brain has decided to go on holiday already (the fact that I misread things quite often now is a niggling sign). It was quite embarrassing when I couldn't answer the question, "what is the role of calcium in heart contraction?" and when I couldn't identify the position of the heart valve. Looks like I've got some reading up to do. =(
What came after that was pretty traumatising. We followed the supervisor to the animal house and watched him dissect out the heart from the rabbit. Ordinarily, the rabbit would have been gassed to death with carbon dioxide and the procedure would have been clean and quick. The rabbit he used today was still alive when its throat was slit to let out the blood and thus it struggled and its blood splattered all over the floor. I was just simply grasping my neck, rooted to the ground while Agnes bravely cleaned up the blood. After the blood was drained we thought it would surely be dead, but it jerked each time its skin was cut. (With the supervisor exclaiming, "S***! Oh f***!")When the ribcage was cut, it suddenly jumped and the large intestine fell out, onto the supervisor's pants! There was literally feces all over the floor and also on his pants (haha). Yucks. At least now I know I should not involve myself in animal work; I don't think I can bring myself to kill an animal.
The subsequent myograph experiments on the heart valve failed. Apparently the heart valve died before we could get any reading. What a waste of a rabbit's life. I hope we don't have to sacrifice too many to get our results, because each day of experiments requires a fresh heart valve and already, they'd sacrificed 4 rabbits last week.
Gee I can't believe I'm 21 already. Where did all that time go to?!
Anyway kudos to my family for helping out with the party, especially my sister for being my co-party planner cum camera-woman cum games MC. Poor Georgina - she's totally zonked out. Haha.
Today's party was the best birthday party I've ever had, even better than my last one which was held in Mac's way back in 1993. I suppose that this will be the last ever party I'll hold because planning and executing a party is no joke man! It's so tiring! But I would say the effort was well worth it. I had a great time and so did my guests (I hope).
The highlight of the day was the games. Although we played conventional and done-to-death games like "Pass the Parcel" (I got sabo-ed thrice where they purposely stopped the music when the parcel reached me - twice! - and I had to do the chicken little dance with Jo) and "Musical Chairs", there were lots of laughter and mirth as everyone gamely participated in the forfeits. Especially the forfeits. =) My camera's battery died halfway during the games and thankfully Yanling lent me her camera. Lousy lah, Olympus. Tsk tsk. I am also grateful to Aunts Sarah and Yvonne for helping out with the execution of the games and adding to the fun element, because poor Georgina was totally swamped. And also my dad, for generously ordering so much more food because he was worried that there wouldn't be enough. In the end all of us had to packet some to takeaway.
I was sabo-ed again during the cutting of the cake: Peck Yean pushed my head into the cake and I had cream all over my glasses, mouth and even in my nostrils! Argh now I'm worrying if I'll get any pimples. I can feel one sprouting already on my forehead.
All in all it was a wonderful party - chatting and gossipping with my SCGS and NTU friends, catching up with aunties and uncles I rarely see, playing childish games and gorging on all the delicious food. =)
Met up with Celeste, Eleanor and Peifang yesterday for lunch and some long overdue window-shopping! (And also because Celeste and Eleanor won't be able to make it to my 21st birthday party tomorrow. =( ) Haven't had much opportunity to meet up with them ever since university started but I always look forward to our little gatherings and Peifang asking, "Did you miss me?". Haha.
Lunch at the V8 movie cafe in Bugis Junction. Hmm seems like the photo with Eleanor is missing..
The Christmas tree that Celeste insisted on taking. =)
The 99 cents breakfast at Hard Rock Cafe's anniversary
Sis' MADDcap3 concert
I went for the Young Executive Programme preview by Fin-exis yesterday [the person who invited me told me lunch was provided and I immediately accepted =)], and almost got sold into the idea of becoming a financial advisor. The whole event was strangely competitive and felt very much like "Survivor" where everyone tried their darndest best to act enthusiastic and intelligent to prevent their elimination. They even got two up-and-coming financial advisors to speak to us, and I was pretty much amazed at how convinced they were that they are helping others, that this career unleashed their potential and changed them for the better.
I guess I never realised how much I loved Biology till I went for this preview. I've been mulling over whether I should try to take it up part-time, but I realised that I'll never be able to succeed since I don't fully believe in the financial products that I'll be peddling. Lots of their financial advisors were studying subjects unrelated to finance, but I also noticed that most of them had lost interest in what they were studying in the first place. I thought too that Biology had become dreary and monotonous, since studying for the exams this time round was extremely taxing and I seemed to have lost some drive in me. It is also a known fact that scientists don't earn much and yet they have to put in a lot of time in the lab. I mean, why become a scientist when you can earn a few times more being a financial advisor with the same amount of time put in?
It is a not so well-known fact that my family is not doing very well financially. I think I should help them out in this respect, and I've been told that earning 3k a month by doing part-time financial advising is not a problem. But it's a trade-off with my studies, and I don't want to jeopardise my honours classification as I hope to get at least a second upper and the fourth year will be quite rigorous. And actually come to think of it, I'm not very interested in finance anyway. If I take this up, it will purely be for the money, and I will feel like I've become a slave to money. It just doesn't feel right. Plus, I realised that I really have a deep-seated passion for science, as if an innate sense of inquisitiveness that was previously dormant has suddenly awakened and jolted me up.
However, there is this niggling thought in the back of my mind: What if God had brought me to this event so that I could get an opportunity to earn some good money, which will come in handy for both my studies (PhD) and my family's expenses when my dad is retrenched? Or maybe I've interpreted it wrongly, and that God's purpose could be to help me rediscover my zest and love for science instead?
I think I shall ask Him tonight.
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[ Books to Read ]
The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
The Gift by Cecelia Ahern
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