I am a Hunter Soul

You Are a Hunter Soul

You are driven and ambitious - totally self motiviated to succeed Actively working to acheive what you want, you are skillful in many areas. You are a natural predator with strong instincts ... and more than a little demanding. You are creative, energetic, and an extremely powerful force. An outdoors person, you like animals and relate to them better than people. You tend to have an explosive personality, but also a good sense of humor. People sometimes see you as arrogant or a know it all. You tend to be a bit of a loner, though you hate to be alone. Souls you are most compatible with: Seeker Soul and Peacemaker Soul

What Kind of Soul Are You?

太可爱了！

有的小孩真是太可爱了。小于十岁的小女生，居然问我：“你有没有老婆？”

我回答：“当然没有啦...干嘛这么问？”

小女生：“你没有老婆，也没有女朋友，怎么那么喜欢小孩子？”

我：“没太太，没女友，就不能喜欢小孩吗？”

她在说那番话之后，我心中简直是哭笑不得......

Tiredness

OMG, for the first time in a long time, I slept in the wee hours of the morning rather than early at night. And I mean, like, really, the wee hours of the morning - 5.30 am. Nobody's awake, nobody disturbing me... *sigh* I really hope I can survive Thursday well enough. STAT200 assignment, and I'm done with it... Gonna go to Zhang Yi's place to watch "Amazing Grace"... and then I'm sleeping early tonight.

BSOD, do NOT come upon me. 

Plant A Garden

It's time to plant our gardens. As you plant, may I suggest the
following rules for your garden planting:

PLANT three rows of squash:
Squash gossip.
Squash criticism.
Squash indifference.

PLANT three rows of peas:
Positive thinking
Patience
Perseverance

PLANT six rows of lettuce:
Let us be unselfish and loyal.
Let us be faithful to duty.
Let us search for truth.
Let us not be weary in well-doing.
Let us be obedient in all things.
Let us love one another.

NO GARDEN is complete without turnips:
Turn up with a smile, even when things are difficult.
Turn up with determination to do your best for the good of your fellow man.
-- Anonymous

Jamming

I know that if I don't start writing this entry, I'll probably start crying at a very inappropriate time.

I am jamming with Charles, Joey, Si Rim and Rachel right now... a bunch of us from Sci1. Gee, and just seeing how into it we all are... makes me think of the innocence that we all possess right now, while we are still students. I see Si Rim enjoying his bass, completely into the music. I see Rachel playing the piano, completely enjoying the moment, her need of destressing. I see Joey, enjoying all the musical songs that we are jamming right now. Lastly, but definitely not least, I see Charles, enjoying himself. He proclaims himself to be tone-deaf, and I can hear it so. But he's there bellowing it all out, the songs that he knows.

I wonder sometimes, what will we all end up as? Having experienced the unexpected death of a classmate before, I sometimes wonder about death. Not that I have a morbid fascination with it, though. What would happen if one of us were to leave this earth? What legacy would we leave in others' hearts, in others' minds, in others' lives?

And so the night goes on, we all enjoying each other's company, and I ponder in reflection. Maybe it's time for me to try experiencing the moment rather than focus on other things.

Day 2 at Lab

It really felt like day 1, because I was given a hands-on chance to pipette stuff, rather than just observe. But I digress.

It's a good feeling to be back in the lab, working away with chemicals and biological samples, pipetting numerous times, forcing myself to be uber-careful with whatever I'm working with. Thanks so much to Jill (lab tech) for giving me the chance to do hands-on work as opposed to just observe. I definitely felt a lot more confident this time round, especially when it came to my pipetting skills. Hopefully, I'll keep up this confidence in knowing that what I'm doing is right.

In any case, I missed out on this morning's class, which means I missed out on 50% of Dr. Berger's lecture for the week! Ouch! I am sooooooo going to make sure that I sleep on time next Wednesday, so that I don't sleep in on Thursday. Gee.

A random thought - as I stepped out of the LSC, I smelled the fresh, cold air. This is another reason why I'm back home, and, more importantly, this is another reason to protect the environment.

Scientist

Ahh, so I am on the right career track after all!

You Are An INTJ

The Scientist You have a head for ideas - and you are good at improving systems. Logical and strategic, you prefer for everything in your life to be organized. You tend to be a bit skeptical. You're both critical of yourself and of others. Independent and stubborn, you tend to only befriend those who are a lot like you. In love, you are always striving to improve your relationship. You have strong ideas of what love should be like. At work, you excel in figuring out difficult tasks. People think of you as "the brain." You would make an excellent scientist, engineer, or programmer. How you see yourself: Reasonable, knowledgeable, and competent When other people don't get you, they see you as: Aloof, controlling, and insensitive

What's Your Personality Type?

Digital Rebel

For you camera buffs out there... do not despair...

[CPSC111 Class, 9.00 am, Introduction to Computing]
Kurt Eiselt (instructor): "I'm going my own way this time. I'm a rebel."
Eric Ma (myself, student): "You're a Digital Rebel."
Kurt Eiselt: "No, no, let's not go there. Digital Rebel is a camera... 'You're a camera...'"
Eric Ma: [chuckles for like a whole 5 minutes]

Slime

OMG, I was cooking fried rice today, and I had this thin coating of carbs from rice on my fingers. I wet it with some water, and felt it slimy and sticky... and then I recalled Dr. Berger's lectures on carbohydrate networks as a part of the extracellular matrix forming a slime coating for cells.

BIOL200 RAWKS!

Game

This game was introduced to me by Mo, so I give Mo full credit for letting me know about this game.

Randomly draw 4, 5 or 6 cards from a shuffled deck of cards. Using any of the four basic mathematical operators, combine all four cards to form a pre-defined number.

I've played this game with Mo, Charles Zhu, Charles Au, Josephine and Irfan, and this really provoked some thoughts in me with regards to problem solving.

1. One has to simplify the problem into its essentials.
2. There can be many solutions to one problem.
3. With a defined criteria, the best solution can be found.

I've been quite inspired, having talked to Irfan, Charles and Joey about the outcomes of the game. I think that it's a very good game to teach to this year's kids. Like, maybe in a tutorial, we can devote one hour of time towards it.

Code

Man, CPSC111 MT was such an amusing MT.

"Instance fields gain values through:
A. Osmosis
B. [something that I forgot]
C. [something that I forgot]
D. [something that I forgot]"

Having seen the "osmosis", I chuckled and wrote down this code:

public class BoredStudentThatFinishedEarly
{
public static void main ( String[] args )
{
String a = "Osmosis";
System.out.println("Instance fields gain variables through " + a);
System.out.println("hahahahahahahahahaha.......);
}
}

You Java programming folks out there will surely know what this code means. ;-)

Jesus Is Black

This is a classic one, which I saw on a friend's MSN display name.

"Jesus must be black. He called everyone brother, got beaten up by the police, and couldn't get a fair trial."

Broken English

(Needs to be proficient with BROKEN ENGLISH though)

> An English Test........... > > @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ > > Guess what it mean before looking the answer. > Please upgrade your English standard!! >
> New word for the day -- 'Fanquevallemud'
>
> Its amazing, you will understand the above word
> by the end of the following conversation... Read
> aloud for the best results. This has been
> nominated for the best email of 1999.
>
> The following is a telephone exchange between a
> hotel guest and room-service at a hotel.
>
>
> (RS): 'Moling! Loom sirfesee'
>
> (G ): 'Yes......'
>
> (RS): 'Dju witch true odor somefing??'
>
> (G ): 'Uh..yes..I'd like some bacon and eggs'
>
> (RS): 'How July it done peace?'
>
> (G ): 'What??'
>
> (RS): 'How July it done?... If, boy?'
>
> (G ): 'Oh, the eggs! How do I like them? Sorry,
> scrambled please.'
>
> (RS): 'Howbow bkan?'
>
> (G ): 'Crisp will be fine.'
>
> (RS): 'O light. An some DOS?'
>
> (G ): 'What?'
>
> (RS ): 'Dosee. July some DOS?'
>
> (G ): 'I feel really bad about this, but I don't
> know what 'Door-C' means.'
>
> (RS): 'Mmm...............Toes! Toes!...'
>
> (G ): 'O, you mean Toasts!....No, do you have
> something else?'
>
> (RS): 'Howbow ink-Ga-nutsu mudfun?'
>
> (G ): 'English muffin!! I've got it! Yes, an
> English muffin will be fine.'
>
> (RS): 'Copy?'
>
> (G ): 'Sorry?'
>
> (RS): 'Copy...Mill...all T?'
>
> (G ): 'Yes. Coffee please, and that's all.'
>
> (RS): 'O light. Seeangle ache, quits bkan, DOS,
> mudfun and copy..wite??'
>
> (G ): 'Well....Whatever you say'
>
> (RS): 'Fanquevallemud!'
>
> (G ): 'You're welcome'
>
> @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
>
> Got the word? Bingo! THANK YOU VERY MUCH!


Hilarious!!!

I Am A Green Crayon

Exactly a week since I last posted something.

Inspiration for this little test came from Audrey's blog, which I haven't visited in ages, and was only just reminded of its presence on the web from talking to her (albeit for a very, very short period over MSN).

You Are a Green Crayon

Your world is colored in harmonious, peaceful, natural colors. While some may associate green with money, you are one of the least materialistic people around. Comfort is important to you. You like to feel as relaxed as possible - and you try to make others feel at ease. You're very happy with who you are, and it certainly shows! Your color wheel opposite is red. Every time you feel grounded, a red person does their best to shake you.

What Color Crayon Are You?

Save The Hostages

19 of them are left. Sign the petition. Pressurize the Taliban with the Pashtunwali code.

http://www.avaaz.org/en/honour_the_afghan_code/c.php/?cl=15676322

Awe

As I re-watched the video that I took of China's performance at the HSBC Celebration of Light, it struck me as curious that people only give their "ooohs" and "aaahhhs" at the end of a massive light-up of the sky.

It made me wonder about human nature. Do we only marvel at the big and the flashy? There were many parts of the fireworks display that China put up that made me marvel, and it wasn't the part when the sky was lit up brightly like the sky. I saw the perfect synchronization of music with visuals, the amount of hard work and practice it must take. I saw individual flares flying up in the sky, never exploding into millions of smaller ones, but rather just vanishing into the clouds behind it. I heard the transitions in the music, the instruments, the music itself.

I noticed the rain of individual flares, exploding into a spray of sparkles, on top of which rings of triumph and glory reveal and expand themselves. Yet it did not seem awe-inspiring to the crowd. The technical prowess of the Chinese team never seemed to be on the lips of the people as they left the beach; people were talking about how great the light show was, about how to get out, about partying for the next 6 hours in the night...

Nobody commented about this stuff. Am I alone in these thoughts? Am I the only one that takes notice of the trajectories of the flares, of how perfectly the flares explode? Or does my weird eye and mind take note of the nuances in their performance? Is it my non-conformist way of thought that makes me think about the meaning of the performance, rather than appreciate the performance just simply for what it is? Or am I just forgetting about my KISS acronym - "Keep It Simple, Stupid"?

A pity I haven't been able to upload the videos to my computer. I wonder what's happened. I guess I must fix it.

静心思考 || Reflection

So my birthday came and went quietly, peacefully, with a few well-wishers wishing me a happy birthday. Thank you guys: Rachel, Charles, Joey and Cindy for remembering, as well as Ming Han, my mom and Aunty Amy in Singapore, and Choops in Aussie. Thanks to Leon for bringing me to this awesome Memphis Blues restaurant to feast on meat, something I'd never do regularly.. 4 days later, I have some thoughts. (Yes, I'm very slow.)

I deliberately removed my birth date from Facebook, but I forgot about it on my Blogger profile, therefore, Charles managed to find it in the end, and, together with Joey, they both wrote me a card.

Charles wrote something that struck a chord with me deeply:
"I suppose somewhere along the way of you living independently, birthdays hardly matter as a milestone of development and maturity. You've found work that you love and are already more than capable of setting and achieving your own explicit goals." [Btw, Charles wrote the "E" in my name as a Σ. So typically him. ;-)]

I guess I'm not too sure what "explicit goals" means, but I realized that I've transformed quite a bit. I guess not wrt. birthdays - since I was 14 I've never really wanted any party. All I wanted was my chance to get to eat 2 eggs rather than 1 in the morning, which only occurred on 26 July of each year. Then my classmates would give me a card, and the day would be over quickly.

So, as people may be wondering, on July 26 2007, what did I do? Just another work day, to start. I went to work earlier, because Tim (our PhD student in the lab) and I had stuff to do earlier in the morning, I think. 4 days later on, my memory gets a little gray-ish. But I remember helping out Valeria (our post-doc in the lab) until late - I was doing lots of pipetting and preparing the cells for something else. Thankfully I didn't screw up. I didn't get off at my usual 4.30pm, but rather at 6.00pm. It was fun, though. Another day where I get to apply my knowledge. Then I had dinner and dessert with Leon, and then I looked at the digital SLRs. That's about it. Worked well for me.

Amidst the silence and peace that I get when I don't do any big major partying, I get reflective. Which, I guess, is a good thing. Let's me look back on my life a bit more.

Over the year, I survived Science One, and graduated as an official Science One survivor. I then moved on and screwed up 3 summer courses by deciding to take them all at one go, leaving me not enough time to study for them, and with a bigger gap to fill up for next year's MBIM admissions process.

I made awesome friends in SciOne: top of the list include Charles, Joey, Cindy, Rachel, Si Rim, Sally and Matt, the latter four also part of our in-house Totem Park Musical. May the bunch of us always keep in touch. And to Si Rim and Rachel - WE NEED TO JAM AGAIN.

I became environmentally conscious, and now I intend to make sustainable living a part of my new life at Thunderbird Residence.

By a stroke of luck's big brush, I got a summer research student position at the BC Cancer Research Center, in the TFL's Takei Lab, where I'm being trained and learning more about immunological research. I hope they let me stay on during the winter session - I so totally would, if only Dr. Takei would nod his head.

I learned a lot of life's lessons. Tolerance, effectiveness, fear (in a positive sense), and most importantly, humility. Learning is one thing though. I sometimes wonder if I'm applying them in my daily life, and living out those lessons properly.

I defined my university career goals and life goals properly. I want to be a scientist, to discover and develop a broad-spectrum cancer treatment that targets cancer cells without targeting body cells.

I have enjoyed the company of friends, of visiting their families and homes. I have discovered the hospitality and compassion that they and their families have shown towards me, and I am appreciative of that. Thank you Rachel, Charles and Cindy, I really enjoyed going over to your places. JOEY, YOU'RE NEXT!! =P

I have learned how to cook properly. Well, maybe not properly, I guess. But at least decently, such that I can survive on it. A summer worth of cooking, plus the lessons I learned from so many people - Aunty Mei, Uncle Poh Bin, Chen Bin, Leon, Junning, Zhang Yi...

Random thoughts galore. But I guess none of this has anything to do with Charles' statement, no?

Actually not. These milestones never occurred on 26 July of any year. These milestones always occur throughout the year. They served as more important reminders than my birthday did. I guess it's because nothing really striking or groundbreaking occurs on 26 July. Then again, I never did record the dates of when I felt I learned something from what life had to offer, so the process isn't discrete for me, it's continuous.

That's what I've been reflecting, both subconsciously and consciously, over the past few days.

I'm 20 now, 1 year older than most people in my graduating class. Nobody at Staples believed that I was only 19 when I worked there, and I guess nobody now (except for people that know me) thinks that I'm only 20 years old.

I guess I'm just old.

Numbers

Very interesting... I've memorized my credit card number... next number: debit card number.

Weekend

So today, I came out with Charles after a sleepover at his place. (Cindy, yours is next week =P) We went to the UBC Bookstore and hung out, found Celeste and talked briefly with her before her kids started to ask to continue on the scavenger hunt. He bought Harry Potter, and I said, "Charles, man, I'm about to order it online at Amazon.ca, where I can get it for 1/2 price, not just 30% off." So I did that, and got him an extra copy as well. It should come about July 30th latest.

Now, Charles is one heck of an amazing soccer player - on the Nintendo Gamecube! lolz. I was out-passed, out-classed and out-shot in a match between Man Utd and Juventus that ended 0-1. Haha, if only he was a better player in real life - it'd be an amazing one-on-one tackler if he played defense against my attack.

It seems that rich text availability for Safari hasn't come out yet on Blogger. I guess I'll just have to switch to Firefox whenever I want to blog.