i am remembering what it is like to be a student here.
insane.

yesterday was cool.
woke up, missed lecture, went for lab meeting at 10am, rushed back to work on the critical review for 5 hours with a DOS meeting in between, went for Christmas formal at fitz, went back to work on critical review again for 1.5 hours, went for the cumsa bop for 1.5 hours, went back to start work again at 2 am, sleeping at 530 am.

highlight was going through parts of my critical review draft with haihan by candle-light in the cumsa bop amidst the blaring music and dancing ppl.
cos there was no other opportunity to go through it!
thanks for ur help man.

can't wait for this critical review to be over.
argh.

... is almost perfect.

i'm dancing 4 times a week,
working in the lab 5 days a week.
doing what i love.
(yes i enjoy lab work.)

so i'm actually supposed to be having the time of my life.

but no.
there is always this little nagging thing that has to make things not so perfect.
and in this case its the critical review.
that counts towards my final grade :(

last year when i learnt that we would have to write it i was so happy.
i was like "wow that sounds really fun. sounds like sth i would enjoy doing."
but when i started writing it this year.. its insane.
so darn difficult to write.
poo.
:(

AT LAST.

what, on paper, was supposed to take 3 days has taken 3 weeks to accomplish.
and i haven't even completed it yet.
but at least i've got part of it.
really thank God for that.
was close to giving up (though technically thats not an option).
just couldn't clone the stupid vectors.

but finally, on tuesday, i did it.
and confirmed it today.
2 out of the 6 that i need to clone.

at last!!!
been working on it since end of october.
3 weeks with no product is rather annoying.
was a bit disappointed.

now i'm encouraged to forge on and clone the remaining 4!!!

spent 8 hours in the lab yesterday.
until i was late for cf.
spent 5 hours in the lab today.
enough to make ppl go mad.
until i get tempted to start talking to bacteria.

"dear bacteria. please take up plasmids. if u do, and your offspring will get to flourish in nutritious LB where the ampicillin will kill off all the misbehaved bacteria that refused the kind offer of amp resistance. if u don't, u die. ha.

but you must take up the right plasmids. take up the wrong plasmids, and u will indeed get to proliferate. but when i discover that the plasmid is wrong, i will personally take u, and your clones in ur little agar plate and kill you first by oxygen deprivation then intense heat and pressure in the autoclave. or you will be out competed by random bacteria when the amp breaks down. whichever is first. or i'll squirt absolute ethanol on you until u explode.

if you take up the right plasmids, i'll take your offspring/clones and supply them with ample nutrients and the perfect temperature of 37 deg in an incubator. which will be shaking so u can get ample oxygen too. what more could u ask for. good deal, no?"

amazing video.
my fav version of whole new world.. much better than all the newer versions by more popular singers.
lea salonga rox.
absolutely love disney :)

so much for medieval town.

zara just opend in camb a few days ago.
along with another H&M in the center of town.
both are less than 400m from the zoology dept

yay :)

came across this photo of camb rooftops while surfing the robinson website.
never seen camb from this perspective before.
it reminds me that camb is a medieval town.
and that its a privilege to be here.

but is my attitude reflecting that.
"argh not another lecture"
"why do i have to present papers for journal club"
"stupid critical review!"
"whoa damn sian"

was researching for my crit review.
then i came across some conflicting info i didn't understand from a paper.
then i realised that the author of the paper would be lecturing us on monday, so i can ask him then.
or request for a supervision to discuss the paper.

such great opportunities.
yet i'm not making full use of them.
instead i'm slacking and procrastinating.

term is ending in 3 weeks.
then soon, too soon, it will be time to leave this place for good.
hopefully without regrets.

past 2 days have been insane.

Tuesday:

1 lecture in the morning, 7 hours in the lab in the afternoon.
rushed back, made up, went for formal with the robinson nat scis.




went to the bar to be sociable after formal, then went back to my room.
started working on a presentation for wednesday journal club- had to co-present 2 papers with 2 other zoologists.
the papers were on frogs and fish- i had to present the bulk of the fish paper and i had practically no prior knowledge of fish.
worked on the ppt presentations from 10pm- 4am


wednesday:

drank 3 cups of coffee and 1 cup of tea the whole day.

woke at 8am (4 hours of sleep)
went for lecture, went back to the lab for 4 hours, went for journal club to present the papers.
didn't get shot (PHEW).
in fact the lecturers agreed with my critique of the frog paper (yeah baby).

then went back to the lab for another 3 hours.
went back to my room, and some rubbish for dinner, went for breakdancing in robinson.
sort of got tricked into going.
but it was an interesting experience.
i concluded that i have no strength in my arms and fingers.
then at 9 am i went to peterhouse for winetasting!
"wines from spain" organised by the camb wine tasting society.

sampled cava, 3 whites, 3 reds and a sherry.
as u can see from the photo they weren't that generous with the samples.
which was good or else i would have gotten really drunk.
but i didn't! could walk home perfectly normally after that.
there were sheets of paper with the names of the wines on them, so we could take notes.
and there was a lady from a spanish wine distributing firm who was there to tell us abt the wines.
learnt a lot from that session- was really interesting :)
then after we sampled and learnt abt all 8 wines there was a free-for-all where the remaining bottles of wine were put out and we could have whatever was left.
so i had some more of my favourite red.
most important thing i learnt from the session was the type of white grape i didn't like and what it smells like when made into a wine. so now i can avoid it.

so it was a really interesting day.
all about getting out of my comfort zone.

woke up today feeling off.
not cos i had a hangover.
but cos muscles i didn't know existed were aching.
from the breakdancing class thing that i attempted.
no more of that man.

24 hours in the lab this week and no positive results.
and i'm just repeating what i did last week cos it didn't work then.
but of course i modified it- would be dumb to exactly repeat sth that didn't work.
this week i thought it worked.
right until the very last step.
but then the final result was strange.
went through the results with my collegue and he didn't know what went wrong either.
and my supervisor is not around.
grr.
not happy :(
i'm convinced my samples are contaminated man.
BOO.

found this on facebook
so cute!!! :)

i hope all my bacteria behave and take up all the plasmids i dump on them man.

went to club salsa last night.
it was a very last minute decision on my part.. cos the salsa ppl couldn't decide whether or not to go down.
and finally at abt 7 pm zhenzhi confirmed that rich and raj were going.
so i decided to go too!
cos it was a good excuse to dress up.
though i didn't have a costume haha.




rich practically painted his whole body! except for his hands cos otherwise no one would want to dance with him :)

look what appeared in the post yesterday-
my newest baby :)
Developmental Biology by Gilbert.
8th Edition
mwhaha.
a lovely book about baby animals.



the word "baby" is just like the word "vegetable"- non-scientific.
its not possibly to define "vegetable" using scientific terms cos its a culinary term.
similarly, "baby" is not the same as embryo, zygote, blastula.
but oh well.
its cuter :)

i came across this phrase in my notes "when a new cell is born..."
can a cell be born?
how do u know which is the 'mother' cell and which is the daughter if division is symmetrical?
or even if its asymmetrical?
(unless its yeast and there is budding..)
but i just think that the idea of a cell being born is quite cute too :)