Life Update

Finally hospital attachment has ended.
But my life is still busy.
After finishing all the paperwork (PCPs, case studies, TDM etc...), new thing keep coming out...
Real life not relating to academy...
And now...
SPA form...And photos...And certified SPM certs and birth certs...
Its hard to breathe...
Wish to have a string of good luck now...(I am a keen believer of luck)...

Gambatte to me...

Year End Special: The Accursed 2009 (For me)

It's been a while. Since I started some serious mind-shout-out blog in here. Now, some really strong stuff is going to be here. Quit looking if you are any religious fanatics who do not accept the view of luck at all. Yes. You here me right. Its all about luck in here.

2009 have been a really f***ed up year for me. Especially near the end of the year. And I really do focus on the word "Especially". Like now. Why, you may asked? Well, its nothing. The luck seemed to turn down on me in this "holy year".

I still remember some time in the early 2009. I read a magazine (not intentionally by the way). It talked about my money luck. Says that this year will be the year where my wallet bleed. Being a happy-go-lucky type of person, I generally think of it as a warning to spend wisely. And in that very year, bleeding it is. Really bleeds till almost dry. 2009 is the worst year for my finance. Spend probably more than 2 years worth of living allowance in 1 year. And that would add up to about RM1200 per month. Where the hell did all the money goes, you may asked? Well, many small small (and a few big big) issues. Well, I will go into the major ones, because the minor one I can't remember...Swt...

Major 1: For the first time I bought a digital camera. Initially is for my gf. However, i did something unimaginable: I bought a brand that she did not want (well, my mistake anyway for turning my head for a Kodak instead of Nikon that she said many times that she wanted). She blew off. And I gotta think fast to cool her down. I bought another Nikon, lying to her that I can return the product when I could not (BAD BAD BAD), thinking that I will take over the ownership of the Kodak. The first unexpected major spending. But hey, look at the bright side (at least from my point of view): I got my first digital camera. And you might thought the bad news ends here. NOPE. IT DOES NOT. During the trip to Sabah, I lost it somewhere in the airport, forever. For a camera that I have used less than a month. And I was checking on it every 5 minutes. WTF. Really. WTF. See how f***-up my trip ended.

Speaking about the trip, Major 2: Spending for the trip to Sabah. Well, this is already within the calculated budget. So I will not complained about it. In fact it is well worth the money spend. Still...Wallet bleeds...And at the end of the trip...Sigh...

Major 3: This happened just yesterday. The silly me lost my handphone (RM1100 when I bought it 3 years ago. Served me well... T____T), together with my IC and my Golla bag... T__T
Now how do I tell her about that? Eruption is sure to ensue...Sigh...

Books and books...This year has been hard on books and printed material. Drug Information Hand book cost RM215. Printer cost another RM199. Not to mention with my dear dear now in JB, occational visit will cost RM 150 per trip minimum. Sigh...........

And there is still the "Bad Day" curse. Works every time. On me only of course. For those who don't know what is "Bad Day" curse (only perhaps 2 of my closest friend knows about it anyway), everytime if the song "Bad Day" by Daniel Powter played in front of me, the next day will really be a bad day. Don't belief me? Well you don't have to. It has happened to me for more than 10 occasions this years. And the number of time I heard this songs this years should be about 10 too. So to me it is statistically significant. Even though each and everytime I told myself: This song won't cause any harm to me this time for sure. Yes it did. It is harmfull. To me anyway.

Oh, there is also the case with Acer vs Asus... Also, my favourite pop artist Michael Jackson died this year...Everything is going going gone...Sigh...Not in the mood to further elaborate my sadness...So this will be it for now...

Hopefully 2010 will bring me better luck. And I mean MUCH BETTER!

Untitled Rant

This is not suitable for anybody except nobody.
So unless you are nobody, and not existing in this world, you are welcomed to read this post.
Just need a shoutout spot where nobody "is supposed to" "see". And even if you are a busybody (not a nobody) who have nothing better to do, do skip this too.

*SCREAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!*

(Thank you, Edvard Munch, for his exceptionally well done piece of art to express my current emotion)

Do = die. Didn't do = die. So what to do?Sigh...
This "equation" is absurd. But then again, sometimes it carries the truth. It happens. Heck, shit happens, all the time. And it have had to happen sometimes in everyone's life. Most of the time, it will result in negative mood day, or at best, moodless day.

How I wish I could be alone on D-day, quietly doing something (nothing is considered something though), my own thing that is. But shit have to happen. And it is unexpectedly coming to MY HOUSE. Not that I choose it to happen over here. And the one of the "hero" of the day is an "ENEMY OF THE STATE". Escape would seems to be rather rude as the other two hero of the day is a friendly unit. And invitation was sent out for the day.Thus, shits occur.

And shits happen. No need for explanation here. Threshold has been breached. Pressure went well over the limit. Blow off trigger point activated. Ground zero has been zoned in and targeted. All missiles and artillery aimed at dummy. Safety lock released. Expected chance of survival: 30%. Estimated recovery time  needed: Unknown. Either soon (as in days) or never (hopefully not).

Lesson learnt. Do not proceed to function containing enemy(ies) of state. For whatever reason. I just want a peaceful and relatively eventless period. At least let me finish my work before any shit happes.

Moon Cake Part II

[FPS (first person shooter) beta testing mode]

Went to market early today (woke up at 6.30am, go at 6.45am). Went with parents and younger sister. After the routine breakfast (Loh Mee Banzai!!!), saw an auntie selling moon cakes.

Mum ask the auntie how much was she selling the moon cakes. Since the moon cake is not professionally and prettily packed, just choose what you want and she will put the moon cake into a cheap cheap plastic bag, expect the price to be about RM7-8 with eggs.

Surprised! Its no where near it. The traditional red bean paste and lotus paste cost ONLY RM2.50 per cake! With yolk, the price goes up to RM4 per cakes. Got the shock of my life there. RM4! Then what the hell are the people at KLT or Queensbay Mall selling? Gold and diamond crusted packaging on the moon cakes? Or the paste itself is prepared from some kind of rare food on the earth? Really don't want to say this at the blog, but WTF is the world moving towards? Packaging and money is more important than people's happiness to eat moon cakes? But who will they care? Smart way to make money, which is selling less amount for more premium product, is the current trend, and will be the way of life for the future. Good for investor. Bad for normal 人民. Sounds more and more like communist, am I not?

Bought RM30 worth of moon cakes from that auntie...Sounds a little but it is a lot...Hope they don't taste bad...

Don't think too much...This is life. And my immature mind. But who cares. This is my space to rant. Now...Where is my moon cake...And feed the fish...

Moon cakes

It is almost "moon cake festival". The time of the year where young people (kids only though) play with cute cartoon lanterns and eat some moon cakes, and probably with pameloes if you can find them.

Now that brings me to my point. Moon cakes. Who does not love them? In addition, it is part of Chinese cultural delicacies. Well maybe some of you do not like moon cakes for whatsoever reason. But most of us do anyway. With or without egg yolks. With whatever stuff inside of the moon cakes. Red bean paste, lotus paste and other "abdominal filler" within the moon cakes, together with the thick yummy crust of the moon cakes...The combination (or probably the crust-only moon cakes) provide the addictive sweet taste that will make you want for more. It makes the taste bud goes all euphoric (at least for me). And what a emesis-inducing description that is...From me who is bad at describing things.

Anyway, the things about moon cakes is price. Once upon a time, 1 moon cake cost only about RM5 without yolk. RM7 with 1 yolk. RM5! And now? With all the beautiful packaging and aggressive marketing, the cost of moon cakes sky rocketed to RM10+ in recent years. Today, I went to Queensbay Mall, and the price of the moon cakes shocked me! RM 20 (tax not yet included) for a NORMAL moon cakes. With no yolk. But I must admit, the size and the packaging of the moon cakes seems (a little bit) bigger and pretty than the standard not so pretty moon cakes. And the funny thing is, people are still willing pay that exorbitant fees for that silly piece of moon cakes. With a nice packaging of course. And what a brilliant idea anyway. And these type of moon cakes typically flood all the market place, including Carefour, which I depends my grocery from. As a result, unless I got a know-how and know-where and a car, I won't be able to get a moon cake that can satisfy both my stomach and consciousness.

Extrapolate that to other things in real life: Every "premium" products are always much costlier than they supposed to be. With better looks and perhaps better quality. Maybe not all are costlier than they are supposed to be. PSP and PS3 are sold at a loss from Sony. Which is great, supposingly. This is a fact of life. But this will also inflate the price of other competitors, knowing that with an inferior product, they could sell the product at near premium price with a cuter or better packaging and aggressive promotion. But then again, what can we do, you might ask. Nothing. Really. Nothing. No one want to go back to the way of communism or socialism where the trade are all heavily controlled. And it is counter productive and counter development, which I do not think any people will want it. Also bear in mind that price that goes up will never go down again. Never.

For now, I am still looking for a "easily-accesible-yet cheap-enough-for-my-wallet" moon cake to fill my lust for moon cakes...

Life lesson from the lab, Part I (If I am not too lazy to update anyway)

Just want to tell the world I am alive, not that any people will care anyway. From this sentence, you can feel that I am in a "negative" mood. Perhaps it may be caused by the daily routine of lab work, which may progress till late in the night. Or perhaps it is triggered by my lack of precious personal time caused by the research. So I will describe several life lessons I learned from the lab, which can be useful in our daily lives.

Also, perhaps it is because I am a early person. Being with a late person does really reduce the time I have a date with Uncle Zhou (周公). But then again, as long as the date is longer than 6 hours, I am happy with it. Though my mind may be blank during the research, causing me to make hell load of critical mistakes. So what is the divine punishment that I will receive for the mistakes? Bazooka-ed and machine gunned, coupled with a dark aura surrounding me for a few hours. Thus: Lesson 1: What ever you do, make sure you have enough sleep before you do any serious stuff that have high probability of killing you, especially if you are working with perfectionist woman (go watch The Ugly Truth...). Mistakes are not tolerated. So sleep more and rest more.

When doing a research, you will definitely use some machine. Some machines are not so popular and less users will be using them. If you use that most of your time, great. However, if you are using the popular instrument, chances are your machine are being used by your colleagues when you want to use it. And if your experiment is time-sensitive experiment, congrats! You just screwed up your experiment! And you are welcomed to redo it. Luckily, there is a booking system where you can booked to use the machines at certain time that you want, provided you appear within 15 minutes of your booking time. Conclusion: Lesson 2: Always plan your things ahead, at least by a day, or better still, planned everything before you start doing anything. Many people knew these, but not many people implement it. It reminded me of a friend's PM in MSN: Fail to plan = Plan to fail.

Conflicts are common in research. Your fellow researcher may want to use a certain machine. However, you already booked the machine. So technically you have the right to use it. Not them. However, beware of a jump-queue jutsu (un)commonly used to counter this problem: Lecturer-Who-Don't-Care-About-Other-People-From-Other-Group-Demand-To-Jump-Queue jutsu! FYI, jutsu means technique. This jutsu is commonly deployed by people who do not want to negotiate to get things which they could not, and we have seen a few examples here. So what can I do in this case, you asked, since the lecturers "dai sai", ruthless and even 得寸进尺? The remedy, as shown by CCJ, is to: Lesson 3: Learn to negotiate with the other party. You give one I give one. Everyone happy. But do not push me over the limit. Or you will not get anything at all. In addition, Lesson 4: If the other party want to use it no matter what, DO NOT LET THEM BE if what they want will screw up your experiment. They did not do proper planning. So its their problem. Help if what they want will not hamper you.

When you enter the world of research, there will be peoples who were here before you. So technically, they are your senior. Most of them are pretty helpful and will help you if you ask them, provided they are free and not pissed off you, which is the case of me. One of the master student (at least one) is pretty pissed off me and SL because we worked on the area near centrifuge. The area also contains other machine like vortexing, microcentrifuge, incubator etc. Thus us working there means road block to their work. In addition, we shift to a working bench nearby, and kena halau lagi cause she suspect us contaminating her whatever stuff with bacteria. Meaning pissing off that very same senior again. Anyway, which comes to my point: Lesson 5: Be friendly with the seniors. Do not create enemy out of them. They can help you a lot in the research. I have got to thanks Ms. Chuah for helping us a lot with our research thus far. Oh...And my communication skills sucks. Probably due to my "do not like to talk to people" style. Which is why I am not able to talk to people like SL did, making friends with many people in the lab. Sometime I wonder why I choose to walk this "silent" pathway...Sigh...

Thats it for now. Until I am ready with more material and free time...
Now where is my ice cream...

Fail

Failed a mission today. Terribly important mission. Most importantly, the plan was planned for quite some time. But still, I failed.
T_T

Do not ask. No need to know anything. But it is just that I am too choosy. I insisted on choosing it myself. And a surprise as well. This all ended with my demise. Mampus. And tonight is such a special day too...Sigh...

And furthermore, initiative not appreciated. Got hit back because of my insistence. Not flexible kononnya. Anyway, nothing can be done anymore. With the "Bad Day" played, my day is pretty much black today anyway.

Lets hope tomorrow will be a better day.

Life in a Research Semester

"Welcome to research semester, the semester where there is no examination and the pace setter are you yourself."

So that was what I thought. Or at least it still is. There really will be no examination this semester, just presentation (twice) and a thesis to write. And the pace setter is still yourself. Unless you have got a lousy supervisor who would do nothing to help your research or order your material late, which you would have to wait for another 2 months before you can get the material. Furthermore, you can choose when you want to work on your research. If you want to avoid the crowd, try to do experiment from 8pm till midnight. It is quite fun actually since you may not need to race with other people when you want to use a machine. Or in my case, it is your partner who determine your pace. Too fast, too furious, and too stressful. Don't want to talk about it here. But the truth is: find your working partner who suites your way of doing experiment. If not, it will be headache for both of you.

The research is actually much more tiring than I initially expected. I thought at most it would be 9-5 kind of work, but no. It is not, and maybe it will, but most probably it will never be 9-5. It will stretch both ways. And if your partner is from a different time zone, all the more problem. Early bird and night owl working together = at least one of them will be night owl...

Anyway, this semester, my research project is "Rapid and efficient isolation of multimeric plasmid DNA". It deals with the new method of extracting plasmid developed by my supervisor, Dr. Chowdhury. And nothing to worry about, I will not blurt out the specific facts about the research cause I know it will drown you all. Biotechnology is not for everyone.

Thesis will be up next. Lets hope that my research will finish soon so that I can finally start the paperwork...Sigh...

Finally, everything ended!

Finally! All the official work and unofficial work has been done. Just want to rant about my life here. So if you are not into people's ranting, this is where you should just stop reading and do something more useful.

Just finished my proposal yesterday, and I thought I could relax a little. And boy, I was wrong. Really wrong. Life is still full of problems. Just when I thought I could relax after spending the last 2 weeks doing the proposal, I just remembered that I still got a side project for WH. I got to write an article for the convo mag. Luckily, I already have a rough idea on what to write for the article about a week ago. But still, having booked for most of my time, I have only got less than 12 hours of writing time to finish the article. 12 hours to cover seven deadly sins of my batch. Somehow, it seems almost impossible with the amount of material to write. But I just have to make it. Have to at least write out what I have in mind for the past week. I never really write big before, but it will be the first time I am going to do this. So better make it big. And make it good.

What is the title of my article, you may want to ask. Well, the title of the article is "The Seven Deadly Sins of B106". Basically it describe the seven bad attitude of our class. I don't know whether I am allowed to expose the detail, but the 7 sins are all related to the class. So maybe I shall reveal the info in a later day, one day at a time. That will story for another day. And since the topic is a bit broad, so I am amazed by my speed when I finished producing the piece of work. Over 2000 words are typed in less than 12 hours. Not too shabby. But I have never read through the article, no proofing and no editing whatsoever. Hope WH will not kill me for that.

So here I am. After finishing the article, taking the dinner, watching movie with my sweetie, and now sitting in front of my laptop writing you this blog before I finally jumped on my bed and have a date with Uncle Zhou...

Work, home and pup!

For the past few days (1 week already I think), everyday have been eat, proposal, eat, proposal, sleep, proposal, eat, proposal, sleep. In fact, other than the toilet break and occasional lazying around and class, everything has been about proposal. Damn, when this thing end, I really wish I will have 3 full days of rest, and not getting one will make my mind crazy...

Anyway, like the saying goes 烽火连三月，家书抵万金! Getting a news or call from home during this time really will lighten up your heart. My mum called from home the day before yesterday. A new member of the family has arrived! My house is getting a new puppy! Good for my parents who will be very bored as all their children are far away from home. This will keep them busy and at least won't be so lonely, especially my mum who stays at home alone most of the time.

Whats the name of the pup, and of what breed is that toy pup, you may want to ask, though don't think any of you are busy body enough? Name? I forgot to ask...For the breed, its a dalmatian...crossed with other breed...Making it a mongrel. But who cares? As long as it is a good dog, it is good! Heard that the pup (its a she, by the way) is hyper active, and is hungry for love and attention from the owner all the time. So no doubt it will keep my mum busy for a while, at least until the break for me to go back Penang. When that happen, I wonder how am I gonna torture play with that puppy!

Can't wait for that to happen!

My Jungle Home

As many of my friends know, I just move into the new home in Teluk Kumbar, from the Island Glades. The reason for moving is simple: The house in Island Glades is rented from a "kiam siap" taukeh boh (老板娘), while the new house is bought by my parents. Before I begin any story, the new house is a double storey terrace house located between a small hill and sea. Sounds like good feng shui, does it not? You might think it is, until you actually live in it.

Well, anyway, here is where my ranting starts: My house is really a wired jungle. Why wired jungle, you may asked. Really simple: The house got everything that is wired to the house, eg. Streamyx (a.k.a. Shitmyx), Telekom, electricity, water etc. However, anything that are not wired or have no physical connection are not available here. Ya thats right. Nothing that is not wired or have physical connection reach here. My new house does not have cellular connection (Maxis a.k.a. Maxshit, Celcom and local terrestrial TV. The exception being DiGi and Astro.

So is there really a problem with that? YES. TOTALLY. Having no cellular coverage (or rather, blind spot coverage) is a big problem for me, though terrestrial TV blind spot is not a big deal except during bad weather. For me, I discovered that near the window pane of my room on the second floor, there is weak connection to the Maxis tower. And perhaps a few other spot on the second floor which I am not really accessible to. So it this is a good news, is it not?

NO. It is not a good news. Imagine this: Everytime you recieve a call, you must maintain the handphone at the window pane while talking. You may say: "Aiyoh, use loud speaker lah, bodoh!" Yes. It is effective that way. But if the line is bad (Imagine this: When I say:'hello, how are you? I am XYZ' to the other person, the person heard it as 'hell....you...XYZ'), it will be very annoying, both to you and the person talking to you. Especially if you talk with your gf/bf that way. It is very annoying and can really test your patience. Solution: Get out of the house to make a call EVERYTIME.

Oh, I am not finish with call yet. There is still this SMS thing. Remember that my room is on the second floor. So what? Is that a big problem? YES. IT IS A BIG PROBLEM. Now the 1 million dollar question again: Why?

Ok. Lets imagine this: One day, I am at downstairs watching my favourite movie. You SMS me at that time. No problem. I can just run up stairs, type my message and reply you. Then I go downstairs again to continue my movie. Sometimes the SMS continues. So I run upstairs again, read the SMS, reply and go back downstairs. Maybe 1 minute later, another SMS come. Maybe this time is from the other person. So I have to run upstairs again...You can see where this is going. So: YES. It is very tiring and annoying to do that almost every day. I have to run an average of 5-10 return trip a day just to answer the SMS. Everyday. Solution: Either shut my handphone until I get back to KL or just run up and down the stairs everytime, or worst still, stay upstairs all the time.

Not every thing about it is bad. For example, I get to exercise everyday. Climbing the stairs is a great exercise for the legs, as well as for my mind as I learn to be more patience with myself. This is especially useful since I am pretty much a hikikomori (引き籠もり) during the holiday.

Anyway, now that I have ranted for the day, heard some SMS is coming. Gotta go do my work out now. Chao!

And feed the fish will ya~!