no, im not trying to adjust jetlag in advance!

the thought that i'll be on my way home in less than 24 hours' time is all that keeps me going now! :)

and i can't believe i actually contemplated the possibility of rushing my work on the plane!!!

yatta!

hahahaha, it's been a while since i felt so accomplished! play it, it's super fun!

and maybe, just maybe, nothing is impossible :)

雨天

i am trying to recall everything that has transpired within the short span of this week, and i can only summarize everything with this face -> :O from surviving the exams to embracing the post-exams, from living in a drama series to coming back to reality, from the insane and desperate packing to the furious process of storing and moving, and finally from waving so many goodbyes to echoing so many hellos, i know this has been an incredible week. i am glad that things happened the way they happened, and i am blessed to be sitting here now on my new bed, listening to the ticking of the clock and the whirring of my laptop; i am just resting, thinking and pondering about life and perhaps a little beyond it.

these days i have been thrown between the past and the present - back and forth - so many times. it almost seems like i've been flung to and fro between these two dimensions in every single aspect of my life. perceptions, memories, beliefs - these things which i held firm and close to my heart resurfaced over and over again in my mind, like the rising and falling of the tides.

yesterday i went down to edgware road to collect the deposit for my house rent. this is the place where i have stayed the whole of last year. for a person like me, knowing the exact ways around a place takes time and requires alot of conscious effort on my part. perhaps by the dictation of circumstances, i have familiarised myself with this area - the distinct edgwarian smell, the busy streets, the dangers lurking around, and all the memories i have shared with it. it was no wonder that i felt this sense of comfort the moment i left the tube station and stood right there, at a place which contained so many of my footprints.

it started raining when sun yan zi's yu tian started playing on my ipod. coincidence or not, it's an interesting thought. but it was raining on a hot summer day. i didn't have my umbrella with me, so i just roamed around on the street, and ended up watching people in the rain. there were people who instinctively ran to seek shelter, and i was also pleasantly surprised to find people who were smiling, laughing and welcoming the rain with their arms wide open. like peasants dancing in the rain after a long-drawn drought, it was delight at its rawest form.

sometimes, you go back to a page in a book which you've left untouched for ages, and you discover something new. certain things may have been lost during that hiatus. you may have forgotten where that story had led your wildest imagination to, and you may have forgotten which page you had stopped at. but more often than not, reading it again feels different - not because the story has changed, but because you have changed. i think it's time to finish reading what i have left off in a moment's complacence, obstinacy and ignorance, and i hope this story's ending will be able to give me some real answers, some rain in this sweltering summer.

i have so many disjointed, fragmented and incoherent thoughts. my synapses don't seem to be working that well. while watching takuya kimura's mr. brain (which is a SUPER NICE AND COOL DRAMA! TAKUYA IS SUPER SHUAI), i feel so inspired by all his talk about how amazing the human brain is, and i wish my brain understood itself better too.

life is improbable, but obviously, possible

“The surface of our planet is populated by living things – curious, intricately organized chemical factories that take in matter from their surroundings and use these raw materials to generate copies of themselves. The living organisms appear extraordinarily diverse in almost every way. What could be more different than a tiger and a piece of seaweed, or a bacterium and a tree? Yet our ancestors, knowing nothing of cells or DNA, saw that all these things had something in common. They called that something “life”, marveled at it, struggled to define it, and despaired of explaining what it was or how it worked in terms that relate to nonliving matter.

The discoveries of the twentieth century have not diminished the marvel – quite the contrary. But they have lifted away the mystery surrounding the nature of life. We can now see that all living things are made of cells, and that these units of living matter all share the same machinery for their most basic functions. Living things, though infinitely varied when viewed from the outside, are fundamentally similar inside. The whole of biology is a counterpoint between the two themes: astonishing variety in individual particulars; astonishing constancy in fundamental mechanisms.” (Alberts et al., 2002)

in the midst of trying and failing miserably to mug molecular cell biology, i almost forgot why i chose biochemistry of all courses. it’s definitely not something i have a flair for, but the occasional thought that i’m delving into the chemistry of life never fails to fascinate me, and the knowledge that all organisms on earth are actually fundamentally the same is both amazing and bizarrely comforting.

last year, one of my lecturers flashed an OHP acetate that read “Life is improbable, but obviously, possible.” she left that same slide there on the projector for the entire lecture. that may be why this sentence is still floating around in the recesses of my mind. but more so, it must have been because this pseudo oxymoron is a striking fact. it’s nothing short of miraculous how life breaks all the barriers of improbability and manifests itself in infinite forms that show constancy in diversity.

i suddenly feel quite inspired! i really wish i have such motivation whenever i try to read my notes, because reading page after page of voluminous texts on small little molecules is like popping one sleeping pill after another. it’s the ultimate lullaby! zzz.

pocketful of sunshine

Seasons are changing
And waves are crashing
And stars are falling all for us
Days grow longer and nights grow shorter..

"And the days are not full enough
And the nights are not full enough
And life slips by like a field mouse
Not shaking the grass"
- Ezra Pound

天上的星星笑地上的人

猜猜我从日记中看到了什么？

我看到一个女孩在不平坦的路上走着，跌倒了，哭了，又爬起来，笑了。

我看到一个男孩一帆风顺地向前走着，因为太得意了，以至于差点错过了身边最动人的风景。

- <<一光年的距离有多远>>

let it snow let it snow let it snow!

this morning i woke up to find myself in a ski resort! i'm serious. the view from my room was so incredibly beautiful; through the misted window panes i could see trees crowned with snow, snow-capped rooftops, our balcony ground laden with a thick layer of snow, and bits and pieces of snowflakes descending from the skies. it felt too much like a dream, but when i vaguely recalled that my driving instructor (yes im taking driving lessons in london!) had called to cancel my lesson today due to weather conditions, i knew this wasn't part of my imagination.

there was actually light snow yesterday afternoon. at that time it was relatively sunny and the snowflakes were barely visible, yet we still stood by our windows and watched them fall in fascination. it was the lame kind of snow that wouldn't accumulate on the grounds. it was lame because the weather was already so cold and we should be enduring such cold temperatures for a worthy reason; such light snow just wasn't enough! then after the first lame snowfall ended, there were one or two more bursts of light snow. in the evening, though, before we had dinner, we saw something akin to a snowstorm in manifestation! after that point in time, it just kept snowing more and more heavily! the photos above were taken yesterday night. it was so scarily cold. i wore slippers out and my toes were utterly numbed in a matter of minutes. it was quite unsettling walking around without any feeling of wearing slippers at all. it's almost as if i wouldn't notice even if one of my toes or fingers fell off! but getting the chance to behold so many snowflakes dancing down and whitening every single thing out in the open had rendered the searingly biting cold tolerable, and it really felt like a gift from the heavens to us on ren ri.

the photo in the middle shows the view from my room this morning! it was a whole new world out there. overnight, london was transformed into winter wonderland. the streets that were familiar to us looked entirely different, and much more magical. there's something special about snow that makes everyone happy. not to forget, it's been 18 years since the last heavy snowfall in london! it was nothing short of a wonder (though it may be global warming at work?) to see a white london, and this break from the usual milder winters was definitely more than welcomed!

we went to school to find out that most people's lessons were cancelled! due to the snow there were disruptions in tube and bus services so people couldn't get to school. later on i found out that my lectures were all cancelled too! the last time i had such self-declared holidays was during the sars period. right now i don't know whether my lessons tomorrow will get cancelled too, but it seems like there's a high chance of that happening, since the weather is forecast to worsen! needless to say, there was laughter all over the queens lawn, with snowballs flying everywhere and snowmen smiling their lopsided grins. we headed to hyde park next to continue indulging in the fun of this snowy affair! we were rolling giant snowballs, making snow angels, lying on the snow, having snow fights.. and all these took place in such a b&w setting that it felt so surreal, like time had stopped for a day because the clocks were frozen.

in the end we continued walking from hyde park to marble arch for lunch, then to oxford street, and finally tubed back (after changing many tube lines to get past all that disruption in service) home. we had a good dinner complete with tiramisu as dessert to end this wonderful day. it really feels like a holiday in a ski resort. this is the first time in my life i've seen so much snow falling -and fallen- from the skies. one of my friends said it's like the sky is a giant ice-kachang machine. i think i've tasted more than my fair share of this ice-kachang from the snowball fights today! at the back of my mind there's no doubt this nagging thought that this only exemplifies how powerful the natural elements are, and that this may be a warning that things are going awry up in the atmospheres. but for now, let's just enjoy this ice-kachang!

(and i am still secretly hoping that my lectures tomorrow will get cancelled!)