mental block.
i had a mental block :(
for one essay.
:(
but i still thank God for seeing me through it all.

5 essays in 3 hours with 4 hours of sleep.
nice.
really thank God that once again, i could find 5 questions to do.
meaning that i actually had some idea wat to write.
yay.
"some" being the key word.
didn't have -any- idea about the other options at all.

i'm really pleased with the gene cloning question
i couldn't remember if it was the phage T3, P1,T7 or M13 promoter.
but my gut said T7
and it is T7 indeed :)
goodie.


biochem is the new physiology.
if physio last year was bad, biochem is ten times worse.
no more of this next year
grrr.

Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise
The city of our God, the holy place
The joy of the whole earth

Great is the Lord in whom we have the victory
He aids us against the enemy
We bow down on our knees
And Lord, we want to lift Your name on high
And Lord, we want to thank You
For the works You've done in our lives
And Lord, we trust in Your unfailing love
For You alone are God eternal
Throughout earth and heaven above



sang this song during CF today.
and just felt reminded of God's love and goodness.
and that no matter how terrible the circumstances are that God is faithful.



I will lead the blind by ways they have not known,
along unfamiliar paths I will guide them;
I will turn the darkness into light before them
and make the rough places smooth.
These are the things I will do;
I will not forsake them.
Isaiah 42:16

2 words to describe this paper.
"no phage"
was wat everyone (or at least a lot of us) were saying when we walked out of the exam hall.
no phage, the topic that has been coming out every year for the past dunno how many years.
the topic that a lot of us spotted.
including me.
haha.
i do thank God that i could do 4 questions.
was quite worried that i would be able to do enough questions cos of my lack of knowledge.
but it all worked out in the end :)

and 8 to go.
9 papers spanning 25.5 hours spread over 2 weeks.
yes 25.5 hours in the exam hall.
which, for today, happened to be the senate house.
with the intricately craved roof and woodwork all round.
and the Great St. Mary's nearby.
which meant that we could here the church bells marking the hour.
and it was cold and cloudy.
felt very... cambridgey.
and of course i was doing the exam paper.
which was so tricky.
my goodness.
350 true-false questions with negative marking.
at least thats over.
can forget all the stupid percentages and random drug names.
argh.
tired.

the real day at last haha.
after celebrating it thrice in advance.
the most un-birthday birthday i've ever had.
then i remember the 3 celebrations beforehand and i feel comforted :)
lots of phone calls this year :)
the most birthday-like thing that happened to me was my aunt ringing and the whole family singing the birthday song. that was sweet :)

pathology paper in 10 hours.
arghhhh

had my last cdb supervision today :(
i'll miss my supervisor.
had a massive 2 hour long supervision.
basically me asking her one million questions and her helping me answer the questions.
not tripos questions, but specific questions like "is this a transcription factor?" "how does this work?" etc.
then to answer them she'll find specific papers from random drawers in her office then we speed read through the papers and come to a conclusion.
or she'll come up with different questions to help me answer the question.
but most of the time the answer is sort of a ".... BUT...."
so its all v subjective. which is rather confusing.

but in the course of discussing everything, and after thinking more about what i studied, i realised that development is really v interesting.
just wondering if i'm willing to give up cell signalling next year to study embryonic development. hmm.
we'll see.
as i study for tripos now all i can think of is "next year i don't have to study anymore of this stupid pathology and biochemistry crap and focus on development. yays"

then last year when i was studying for tripos i thought "next year there is no more of this chemistry/math/physiology crap yay"
so now i should be enjoying wat i'm studying.
i do enjoy it la.
just that its so difficult.
and mugging is not fun.
its so easy to lose sight of why i chose these subjects in the first place- cos i am genuinely interested.
cramming for the exams just drains all the pleasure from it.



i'll won't see my supervisor anymore cos she's going to harvard next month to set up her own lab :(
just learnt today that she is some world expert on fly embryology.
yet such a friendly and caring supervisor. albeit scary.
and very inspiring person.
who helped me see that development is so fascinating.
who thought me how to read scientific papers.

when i had my last supervision with my other supervisors i couldn't care less.
but after my supervision today, i actually felt sad.
:(

received a msg yest at 11 am "can i come over later? i need help with cdb"
i said "can we go through it tmr instead"
she said "i really need to do the paper by tmr"
so i siad "ok then 10 pm is fine"

and that was that.
at 930 pm i got a call, and steph asked if she could come over
and she did.
we were talking about salsa, when suddenly, i heard some noise outside.
so i opened my door...
and saw a bunch of salsa people with a birthday cake singing the birthday song.
!!!
i was truly shocked.
didn't suspect a thing at all

and then they decided to pick me up for a photo:


then we ate the lovely alcohol-filled cake..

and talked about salsa :)

i got coffee, a coffee maker thing, instant tom yum noodles (again haha!)
and a coaster:

its a lovely coaster :)

so i had a birthday surprise!
and a second birthday celebration.
whee! :)
and all before my real birthday.
yays

it was a really well-planned and well-executed surprise.
really appreciate the thoughtfulness and effort :)
thanks partner. :)

seven days to the start of tripos.
i'm scared.
but there is no point being afraid
so just trust.


reading development notes is frustrating.
they are trying to teach concepts, so the examples they use to illustrate each point are so... superficial.
or rather, they tell you half the story, and u're left wondering about the second half.
i would like to read up and find out more, but there is no time for that.
only enough time to read the notes. or attempt to.
hopefully next year we'll go in depth- that would be interesting.

i remember sitting in the plant development lectures thinking "whoa this sux."
then i realised, to my horror "i'll be studying development next year"
and then i also realised "i'll be in the zoology department"
no more plants~
forever and ever and ever.

talk about celebrating my bday early this year...
today after salsa team prac, just as we were all packing up to leave, haihan suddenly announced that since my birthday was approaching i should get a birthday song.
and so mark played this ultra-long song that haihan chose (no wonder u handed mark the cd!)
and i got my birthday dance!
with all the guys on team.
not the same atmosphere as in a club,
but a birthday dance nonetheless.
something that i've secretly wished for but didn't think was possible.
and so YAY :)
it was tiring (that song was like... 8 mins or sth)
but it was fun.
i appreciate it.
thanks :)

today marks the end of 2nd year lectures.

and i suitably received this invite in my pigeon hole:

with my 21st birthday falling on the day before my first exam paper this year, i've decided to celebrate it 2 weeks in advance.
haha.
Robinson formal (at last) with the Nat Scis and my cell group :)
felt a bit farni cos it wasn't really my birthday yet. so didn't really have the birthday mood.
but but i had fun and i was touched that so many ppl agreed to come despite the fact that the tripos is looming ever nearer.

my presents from darryl and kenny- 2 blocks of branded dark chocolate (from Hotel Chocolate!)... and instant Tom Yum noodles. and Tom Yum paste to boot. hahaha thanks guys :) very sweet of u :)

not looking forward to my real birthday ah.
cos that means that tripos is here :(
so thanks for celebrating it with me early :)

i want tom yum.
was cycling today when i had a craving for tom yum.
haven't had real chilli in a long time.
tabasco doesn't count.
i miss tom yum flavoured cup noodles.
and the thai restaurants in s'pore.
i wanna go home :(

last biochem prac ever.
whee :)
but then again thats sort of what i'll be doing in future. sort of.
hopefully i'll never have to use micropipettes without metal ejectors ever again.
*shudder*

visited some friends today.
finally got to see them again after quite some time.
was nice catching up :)
though the stress of the upcoming tripos has clearly taken its toll on all of us.
look forward to when we can chat without worrying abt work.
how time flies though.
seems like it wasn't long ago that i just got to know u guys.
it takes effort to maintain a friendship- i don't want our friendship to fade away untill we are only acquaintances .
thats why i visited.

in response to a blogpost...

a dedication to u, partner.
thanks for being so accomodating and tolerant :)
and for putting up with my fretting days before the competition.
couldn't have asked for a better partner on team.

we'll be back next year, i'm sure.
better than ever.




prize presentation.

just got back from Varsity in St. Ives.
for the Salsa Open there were about 12 couples for the heats.
they said they would recall 6 couples for the finals .
out of the 12 couples there were 5 from the camb team, 2 from the oxford team, and 5 random ballroom ppl from where ever.
the heats went ok.
oh and i didn't care and went ahead and wore my skirt and heels anw. the other 4 couples wore the team costume.
then there were the salsa beginners and rock n roll competition.
and they announced that they were gg to recall 4 couples instead of 6 "cos the competition is too close" (watever that meant)
and yes.
so in the end all the 4 couples who were recalled were from the camb team.
so in that sense, we really did crush oxford. :)
but its not much of a victory cos they only sent 2 couples. wattheheck.

yes so anw, we had the finals.
the song was v fast. thats all i can remember.
they asked the audience to cheer for their fav couple and some ppl shouted our number. so that was nice :)

and after the finals i chionged to one corner to change into the team costume.
and they played some ballroom song for the ballroom ppl to practice.
and when i finished changing the song hadn't even ended.
and after that they played yet another ballroom song.
bish.
so i had plenty of time to change la.
then we had the team demo.
was quite screwed up cos i forgot my steps at one point for a split second and it was rather obvious. haha. but who cares.


then we had the results.
the 4 couples in the finals were ranked.
and hai han and i got 2nd.
the team captains got 1st.


then we had a friendly salsa social dance w the oxford ppl and went home.
a big thank you to shirley, weishen and nic who came down to support us and kenneith.
:)


on the way back i smsed 3 friends to tell them the results.
2 said "congrats! well done :)"
1 said "are you happy with that? who won?"

good question, that. perception.
the answer is obviously no. with a bit of yes.
but there are so many levels to it.

on one hand i'm happy we beat oxford (thought that didn't mean much) and i'm grateful we got 2nd- so i should stop complaining.
on the other i'm annoyed with myself- why didn't i push myself further? or rather, why didn't we win?



last year when i heard we got 2nd i was overjoyed.
this year i was disappointed.



last year we competed in oxford, all the songs we danced to were chosen by the oxford ppl, the judges were ppl we had never seen before, and they were probably ballroom salsa ppl.
so when we got 2nd it meant something.
it meant they thought we were good. it felt like an achievement.


this year we competed somewhere near camb, cos we are hosting it this year.
all the songs we danced to were chosen by the team captains.
and the judges were invited by them as well.
the win felt... less significant.

and as it turned out, i sort of knew one of the judges.
in fact, i danced with him before! in 2005, when i first came here, i danced with him and he said "that was such a simple move! why couldn't u follow that?"
i didn't dance with him ever after that.
until about november 06. when i was at club salsa when he was there.
i really tried to be civil.
so i agreed to dance.
it wasn't great, but he said "we should dance more"
right.
but the bottom line is: we have bad blood.
he doesn't like me, i don't like him.
even haihan said (in mandarin of course) "i can tell he doesn't like you"
and that was the first time the judge, haihan and i were in the same place tgt, and i only said hi to the judge after the whole competition.
....



the thing is:
if i were really that good a dancer, i would be able to convince a judge who dislikes me (for watever reason) of that fact.
and if i were really that good a dancer i would be able to beat the team captains even though they were the ones who chose the songs, and hai han and i had to dance completely impromtu.

so obviously we are not good enough, even though we tried our best.
i don't see how we could have improved on our performance then, but there is much room for improvement in future.
so i need to be content with what i deserve.
throw in the politics rampant in the salsa team now, and it is obvious that this is the best outcome there could be.
and so i thank God for that.






medal + lovely 3.5" heels. no one else in camb wears 3.5" :)


haihan, me and our big brother raj :) we are wearing the team costume. it includes a ripped blue cotton t-shirt. hmm.

whoa damn pissed.
the camb team captains have decided that the "team demo", which is quite literally, a non-competitive demonstration of the team routine is so important that we will sacrifice the competition for it.
in the sense that all 5 camb couples will wear identical team costumes for the individual couple competition because " there really won't be enough time to change".
no time then don't do the demo la!!!
don't see wats so great abt it anw. wats the point?!
(*&^%
and they quite obviously expressed that they didn't want me to wear a skirt for the competition. hello. like what does my outfit have to do with u?!!!
i'm there to crush oxford.
get out of my way.

varsity tmr!
quite worried.
haha.
exciting.
looking forward to it!!
crushoxfordcrushoxfordcrushoxford.
:)
whee!

and so i have decided, and submitted the form.
*drumroll*
zoology.

because:

when i study development i get to work with live animals, with cells. and this is why i love biology so much- Life and Creation are just so amazing.
looking at cells/ embryos down the microscope makes me happy- because even the tiniest cell is so intricate, so beautiful. i'll never forget the sight of the beating heart of the chick embryo, with the red bld cells flowing through the capillaries. amazing.
i look forward to studying the modules i intend to choose, as well as the critical review and project i need to do.


the lack of a cellular/organismal perspective in biochem (compared to zoology) is really too much- i cannot bear to do another year of biochem.
if God meant for me to do biochem He would have put that desire in me.
the only thing i enjoy about biochem now is the lab work.
but i'm sure i'll get to do that for zoology too so thats that.



fly development!


fly embryos i stained for lacZ expression. ooo look at the 2 embryos at the bottom right hand corner. SO NICE. especially the the paler one (lateral view). can see the staining of all 14 segments. wowee :)