finally
at long last the 4 of us managed to meet up for a meal again on sunday afternoon.
yay :)
thanks to xiaoen for co-ordinating it!


lunch at thai noodle house- Tom Yam!!! and then ice cream at island creamery.


4 of us. YAY! :)
finally got to catch up with all 3 of them at once.
got a well-deserved scolding from all of them la.
zhong yan ni er.
wat to do.
hehe
maybe i should ask them to repeat it again then i can record it and listen to it when i need to.

met up with some M.A.D ppl that night. jap food!

last night at xen on wednesday. was also grace's and terrence's bday.

ji wei, me, sam.

as i walked to the bus stop to take 190 home from chinatown i felt sad.
it seemed as if it wasn't long ago that i just returned to xen.
and that reminded me of my last day at xen last year.
i was much sadder then cos i was leaving for 9 months *shudder*

but now, i'll be back in dec!
yay :)
so its a 2.5 months absence only.
quite fast la.
like a holiday.

i'm on holiday now.
going to england for 2.5 months- like a holiday.
then come back again for Christmas hols.
then go back again.
life is one big holiday.
yeah right.

went to watch The Banquet last night.
grander than House of Flying Daggers, but not as beautiful.
in fact i think House of Flying Daggers was much better. the plot was more interesting, the ending was more conclusive, and the whole movie was just so pleasing to the eye.

The Banquet is an NC16 film.
and no wonder.

there were so many gory scenes- of ppl killing each other.
and the director took great pleasure in showing blood spurt out of a gaping wound as a sword is withdrawn from a victim's chest, forming a graceful arc of droplets in the air before landing neatly on the (once) spotless white snow.
i know he must have enjoyed that a lot cos this happened way too often.
there was so much bloodshed in the movie, people around me muttered "NC16" at one point as we all realised why it was given such a rating.

there was a particular scene were the eunuch confronted a returning troop of 6 soldiers.
eunuch: so u have failed on your mission to kill the prince. how will you be punished?
soldier: we will pay for it with our lives.
eunuch: good. your families will be spared.
soldier: thank you for your kindness.

and then the camera had a close up of a soldier withdrawing a dagger from its sheath.
and i shut my eyes.
after a long while, cries of pain and the sound of metal entering flesh ended.
and i opened my eyes again.
according to my friend who bravely watched the whole thing, the 6 soldiers committed suicide one by one.
why would i pay so much to watch a scene (and many others) like that.
goodness.

on the whole the movie was alright only.
i didn't really like the plot.
my fav character is the empress played by zhang ziyi.
there was this scene where she sparred with the prince and they looked like they were dancing- she is really graceful. *respect*
i thought she looked beautiful despite the ridiculous eyebrows.
and i learnt from the movie that the way to wear scarlet lipstick is to match it with bright red and gold eye shadow.
i think only zhang ziyi can carry off a look like that.

the rest of the main characters were just plain annoying.
especially the servant girl Qing.
i think she was supposed to be sweet and innocent.
but she came across as sweet, innocent and dumb.
the last major thing she did was so unintelligent that it was met with gasps from the whole cinema.
haiz.

and then there is the Prince, who annoys me cos he can't decide whether he loves Qing or the empress.
when Qing dies in his arms he declares "i'm not lonely anymore cos you're here"
when he dies in the empress's arms he mutters her name in his half delirious state.
i think he is just fooling around.

and then there is the emperor who annoys me cos he is so perverted.
plus he carries this piece of jade around which he uses to massage zhang and also to point in random directions. and servants are supposed to know what to do in response.
the piece of jade is shaped like an embryo, intricately carved to reveal all the details right down to the little fingers.
eek.


and finally, the most annoying thing of all- the ending.
this show has the worst ending.
ever.
brings the phrase "keep the audience in suspense" to a whole new level.
we were all waiting with bated breath to find out who threw the knife.
and then this song started playing, complete with the chinese subtitles and the english translation.
and the camera moved closer and closer to the small pond in a stone jar.
so the audience was forced to stare at duckweed for a full minute or so.
and then the credits came out.
.....

went to arab street yesterday.
bought lots of swarovski crystals.
yay :)

i was informed that the number 1 song on 98.7 FM last year was You're Beautiful by James Blunt.

hardly surprising- its a very popular song.
but why?
it isn't that impressive vocally and he isn't that cute.

i suppose its the lyrics:

But its time to face the truth
I will never be with you

being the most significant, heart-wrenching lines in a song all about infatuation and lust.
one that many can identify with.

and i wonder
is it better to have loved and lost or to have not loved at all?

to have loved and lost would result in insurmountable pain
to have never loved at all would mean not knowing the joy of being loved in return

i don't know.

but i do know that the best place for this heart to reside in now is a tomb of ice in a -80 deg C liquid nitrogen freezer.
easier said than done.

the CCCF bbq was successfully held on saturday.
we had a lot of leftover food, and everyone agreed that the chicken wings and homemade yaki tori were good.
so yay :)

we met at 2 pm to get everything from ntuc, then we went to ryan's house to prepare the food.
at 5 pm it started to rain.
panic.
hx and i were in the kitchen chopping, skewering and marinating meat when the rain drops started to fall and the smell of rain permeated the kitchen.
there was one solution.
we yelled to the guys who were slacking in a room:
"PRAY"
and so they did.
and so did we.
we were so worried.

and somehow, at 630 pm, when the guys went to start the fire, the rain had dwindled to a drizzle which eventually ceased when everyone started to arrive at 7pm.
so we managed to get the fire going and it all went well.
we are very pleased and very grateful.

thank you Lord.



lots of the seniors came back to help with the bbq- thanks guys :)

mediacorp contacted justin cos they needed some background dancers for a channel 8 serial.
so 4 of us went down to Danceworld, the studio where those few scenes were filmed, on wednesday.
it was an interesting experience.
we had to learn the waltz in 10 mins and act as if we could do it really well.
which obviously wasn't the case. so it was rather embarrassing.
but it was all good fun haha.

4 of us with joanne peh, who starred in the show. the horrendous skirt i'm wearing is not mine- they made me wear it and i think its terrible. eeks. its a Mango skirt, no less. but still :s

4 of us with Gladys, the owner of Danceworld and a fantastic ballroom dancer;
bianca and i;
ji wei and i back at xen- salsa!;
jw and i with the lantern display in chinatown. very pretty!

met hian, ivan and teng soon for dinner today.

went to pepper lunch for dinner, then coffee club for dessert.
then we decided that we wanted more dessert, so we went to swensens.
eeks. sugar over dose!

we visted the 2 Dali sculptures at taka after that.
almost made us miss the last bus home :s
i love the sculpture Profile of Time- saw a painting by Dali with a similar theme and it just stuck in my head. finally got to see the sculpture. its huge!

last wed- i did the unthinkable and went to zouk again. mambo. in promtu. which explains the t-shirt and lack of make up. boo.
went with amanda, who met me at xen first :)
then met some of the camb ppl there.


supper at newton! me, kai ting and zhuang's arm.

went to NUS in the morning to crash med lect.
sat with my hc bio S group.
YAY us!

teng soon, liwei, me, quan yao.

pharmacology lect followed by some immunology in transplantation lect.
understood a bit here and there only.
was glad i didn't have to study that stuff :)


saturday- went to sentosa for some cumsa thing

michelle and i :) me and yvonne!

sunday- went for lunch with enlin and xinyi to celebrate enlin's belated bday and catch up :)
one person is missing in the photo.
boo. :(

3 of us! :)

at last.
the book i co-authored with yifan and a lecturer is finally published.
i bought it at Popular just now for $19.95
yay :)

i wrote 6 of 16 chapters- abt 140 pages.
yay.
unfortunately, none of our names is on the book.
our direct supervisor is mentioned under "researcher".
we are not.
the names at the front of the book are those of the big bosses.
ah well.

i don't get royalties for each copy sold, so i don't really care if it sells well- i was just paid a lump sum.

the book will be sold in the UK for GBP9.99
cool :)

I'm free at last.
free to truly enjoy my summer hols- the way i want to.
meaning sleep late and wake up late.
thats one thing i couldn't do when i was working- i had to wake up at like 730 am for work. and that was bad. cos it meant that i didn't get much sleep.
but now all is good.
i'm happy :)

had a farewell lunch cum bday celebration (fellow lab collegue's bday) last friday.
went to al dente at holland v.
my supervisor (lady in red beside me) gave me a treat and a funky photo frame :)
so nice :)
she is a really nice supervisor- i'm glad i was assigned to her.
she is incredibly patient and she knows a lot lot- post docs ask her for advice and she can answer almost all of my questions.
so i learnt a lot from her.




the lab!
minus a few missing ppl.


my last day at the lab was a slack one.
but my last expt was a suicidal one.
each expt takes 5 days to complete.
i did 20 transfections on tuesday- i've only done 12 in all the previous ones.
and since there were 20 transfections i had 60 tubes which amounted to 40 samples.
that meant that i had to run 6 gels on thurs.
and had to bring 2 cassettes into the dark room on fri to develop 12 films- twice the number i usually do.

so the last expt i did was the most challenging.
i didn't screw up.
i think.
the results came out a bit strange.
i think something went wrong after the gel running stage.
probably the transfer.
cos some lanes were particularly faint.
otherwise the rest of the results were alright.
what irked me was the fact that the most important lanes were the faint ones- all the controls were alright.
boo!
fortunately i have some samples left over so my supervisor is going to re-run them.
a bit sad that i couldn't produce perfect results.
it doesn't matter whether or not i did, cos it wouldn't affect me in anyway- i don't have to do a presentation.
just that i'm curious as to whether or not the binding region is where we thought it would be.
and had my results been clear- just those 2 lanes- we would have a better idea.
so boohoo.
i'll have to email my supervisor to ask her.

ladidah
but meanwhile, its time to relax.

just realised....
less than a month left!
ahhh!