Sunday, November 29, 2009

12:34 PM

Moments where I just wish I were more independent/back in the comfort of daddy's embrace: right now for e.g. when I just saw a black tail (or more accurately, something with a black tail) disappearing inside my drawer. I screamed really loudly I think but no one heard but myself. My closest neighbour/friend/classmate is back in Connecticut for Thanksgiving. So is everyone else. Think I'm not going to venture anywhere near the kitchen tonight.. if I'm hungry I'll just order in.

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Music 11:40 AM

Just saw this violinist featured on kennysia's website. Too awesome! I mean, those who know me well know I've always loved classical music, especially classical pop. But its not just any classical music, its violin! I always got a soft spot for violin. I mean, this is the kinda music you dream about one day being able to play through high end Bose speakers surrounding you, while you just lie down and relax on the cushy sofa, sipping red wine, or rose for my case, and kick off your heels and just close your eyes, enjoy the wine and music, and unwind after a day of work. Phew, that was descriptive wasn't it. Enjoy this music:



I wonder if they sell his cd in Singapore.. that said, I'm still waiting to see if anyone is selling High Society's A Love So Beautiful series (marketed by That CD Shop) at a lower price :S too expensive for a struggling grad student!

Okay now you know when I'm really bored and don't wanna study, I keep doing nonsense stuff and reading crap online and updating the crap I read here. When I'm really doing work I have no time to read crap or update so its really quiet heehee. Obviously I'm not really doing real work now :S back to studying!

Monday, November 23, 2009

Random musing/procrastinating 9:30 PM

It took me a little bit of courage to write this, but I guess boredom and the stack of notes facing me was more intimidating. Why do I say courage? Because I bet this is going to create a topic for gossip among some of my closer friends wahaha.

I just randomly saw this person that I dated appear on my facebook list! He's on my friends list, I just added him really long ago and forgot about it, but now facebook has that annoying reminder thing, reminding you about how long you haven't been chatting with a certain person, and he was on there. I almost even forgot that I went out with him because it was so long ago. But then just out of curiosity I clicked on the link to see what he was up to lately. That's when I remembered.

You know a person my age must have dated a fair share of guys, and I must say, some of those are really rather good looking. Not just by my definition of course! (I can almost hear Jing protesting). I really don't know why most of them didn't work out. This one was among the better looking ones. Ja can attest to that, if she remembers who this person is. And I think for this one at least, I can sort of identify the reason why it didn't work out.

Back when I was in JC when I still believed true love is between 2 people with equal standing in life, this person I met outside school asked me out. We went out a few times. It was really sweet sometimes, the things he did. He would show me magic tricks and when I begged him to teach me he actually would make me swear by the magician's code and then taught them to me. And we used to roam around just doing nothing but him showing me his magic tricks and me marveling. But then the attraction ends there. When I was in JC he was still in secondary school. He was the same age as me, but because of his disability he was slightly slower than our peers. When we went out in our school uniforms we got stared at so much. When we went out without our uniforms people still stare at us, me, a normal teenager, him, a teenager with disability. Sometimes they try not to stare, but the more they do that the more conscious I got. Finally I stopped going out with him. I think he understood, or maybe he just felt more inferior, and he stopped asking me out.

Sometimes I wonder, what would it be like if I could get past all the self consciousness, if I could stop thinking about what others think, would things have turned out better? Hah Ja you're not supposed to reveal who he is even if you remember, because you should also remember someone else in the same group as him! Last I heard, he graduated from a polytechnic and is working somewhere now. And he still looks the same as he did 6 years ago! Isn't that amazing? :)

Ethics 2:04 PM

I remember when I was in JC, we were asked by our GP teachers, regarding the issue of ethics. Would you consider the usage of ES cells? Do you find it unethical? I remember saying, as long as its still a zygote, embryo, blastocyst, I think it is fine. As long as the fetus has not developed a nervous system, I believe it does not feel pain, or have feelings.

What an irony now, then, that I am increasingly regularly using fetal brain stem cells for my project. I am reluctant, but I am already refusing to do animal work, if I don't even work on cell lines I might as well go wash test tubes. My boss has no use for me any more. I try to reason to myself this way: even when I'm using cell lines, I obtained the cell lines from once-alive real-life human beings. So this is the same. I was not involved in the abortion of the fetuses, I was not involved in the dissection of the brain, I was not even involved in the growing of the cells. I am just doing experiments on them. But even then, I can't stop this nagging guilt growing in the back of my head, creeping up behind me. Sorry babies, I know you too, deserve a chance at life.. but now that the choice had been taken out of your hands, at least let me help other kids like you....

Okay I said I will stop writing about work, but when I said that I really mean work like in work place politics and confidential stuff regarding my project. This is not considered work right? Heehee. K back to studying and writing up my abstract :(

Thursday, November 19, 2009

AACR 2:04 PM

Wondering if I have time to prepare an abstract for the AACR meeting in DC next spring. The deadline is exactly one day BEFORE my much dreaded orals.

Upsides:
-seems fun
-can get exposure to a lot of ongoing research
-its spring in DC (CHERRY BLOSSOMS)
-can showcase my own research and get some input
-close to Baltimore
-boss offered to pay for our registration fees

Downsides:
-not enough time to prepare abstract
-no hotel room, might have to sleep with a dog (my post doc kindly offered his basement with attached bathroom and doggy companion)
-can't think of any more

Seems like there are more upsides than downsides. But downsides include sacrificing time I should spend studying. Okay, time to get more efficient. Bye bye!

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Let me correct myself 8:34 PM

Okay, its not all Americans, its not ALL Republicans, its just MOST. At least there are some relatively smarter ones like McCain who "specifically asked his former aides not to do television interviews rebutting Palin's charges and to avoid escalating the feud. In an interview with the Hill newspaper, McCain reportedly said he enjoyed reading Palin's book. "I hope she sells lots of them," McCain said."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34002562/ns/politics-more_politics/

But Palin is still the dumbest politician... wait.. I mean EX politician I've ever seen. When AP delegated 11 reporters to fact-check her new book, she retaliated on facebook: "Imagine that," the post read. "11 AP reporters dedicating time and resources to tearing up the book, instead of using the time and resources to 'fact check' what's going on with Sheik Mohammed's trial, Pelosi's health care takeover costs, Hasan's associations, etc. Amazing."

Maybe, just maybe, Sarah, the very thought of you ever going into politics again is so much scarier than all of the above combined?

Going Rogue 4:02 PM

Sarah Palin should just shut up. The more she talks the more she disgusts the shit out of me. And the more she makes me glad she NEVER had a chance to be vice president and will NEVER have a chance to be. Please, don't ever let me see her going into politics again. Go take part in Mrs Universe shoo. Or whatever other beauty pageants. You belong there. Stay there soccer mom.

http://features.csmonitor.com/politics/2009/11/17/is-sarah-palin-newsweek-cover-sexist-palin-says-yes/

Monday, November 16, 2009

WTF? 9:06 PM

Another example what douchebags some Americans are. Obama bowed to the Japanese emperor in accordance to Japanese tradition and Americans are unhappy enough that it made it to national news? This, in addition to the 'uproar' the BSE shown on tv in conjunction with Breast cancer awareness month because some Americans (not some country folks, these are folks living in DC, the capital!) thought it was a publicity stunt, just proves that maybe Americans are not really ready for change after all. Maybe they should have picked a conservative to run the country instead of someone who so desperately wants to bring change for the better of all Americans. Sometimes the stupidity and naivete of some of these people just make me so angry!!! Totally ridiculous!

Sunday, November 15, 2009

APEC and the our govt. 2:55 PM

I was reading the news. APEC leaders are unable to come up with a legally binding climate deal. Australian PM had to play host by the margin and come up with a mini-round table talk with Obama, Hu Jintao and Felipe Calderon. On the other hand, our PM 'angrily denied that the targets, of 50 per cent cuts from 1990 levels by 2050, had been dropped.

"We didn't drop the emissions, we negotiated a draft, we settled on a text," he said.

"I do not know the ins and the outs but this is not an occasion for negotiating climate change."'

Adapted from ABC news.

You know, that is the problem with not just our govt, but all Asian govts in general. There's this inherent obsession with 'face'. You cannot admit that you are wrong. Or that concede that something went wrong with the planning process and explain amicably. Asians in general, tend to get defensive whenever they think that they or their capabilities are being questioned. I am guilty of that myself a lot. Whenever someone suggests that could it be possible that my experiments have gone wrong because I did something wrongly, like added something wrongly or forgot something, the immediate reaction would be defence.. its not possible. I won't do anything wrong. I am a capable researcher. But then when I thought about it, sometimes I honestly cannot remember if I did everything correctly.

This is not about me but my point is, we're all not gods. We can't just do everything right or cater to everybody's wishes. If someone suggests that we did something wrong or poorly, the most graceful response would be to concede that we could have done it some other way, or explain why we did it this way even though it might draw fire. Rather than 'angrily denied' something. For that to come up on international news, frankly, is just an even greater embarassment than a gentle graceful explanation.

That said, I realize a lot of people never dare to openly write about the our govt or if they do, they do it anonymously for fear of being targeted. And when they do that, they often recklessly accuse the govt of doing a hell of a lot of wrong things that might or might not be true. Come on people, chances are, even if you're anonymous, if the govt wants to track you they probably already know who you are. But they won't bother. Even if they do, they probably wont do anything to you or care about you unless you start talking too much untruths. They don't want to risk an investigation into their human rights record especially now when they're chasing the expat dollar. So write freely, as long as you have evidence to back up your story. Criticism brings about improvement! Which also goes back to the 'face' issue. When they start thinking about how they want their public image to be like, then they will understand that constructive criticism is the key to improving our govt. I frankly think that the situation was much better than before.

On the other hand, a lot of people tell me how they envy me, being in the land of the free, where you can do all you want and everything is about human rights blahblah. If you call being scared to death every time you have to go out alone past midnight 'freedom', then go for it. Join me! Or jumping whenever you see a shadow appear from behind you from nowhere, or wondering where the next gunshot is going to be fired in the city. The land of the free? Really? I'm not one to judge, but if this is really the land of the free, how do you think the CIA manages to bust so many 'terror plots' every year? How do they know who to look for? Which phones to tap? What do they mean by 'intelligence'? They are perhaps 10 times more pervasive than our govt. Maybe 100X, with all their latest secretive technologies.

My point is, there's no real freedom anywhere in the world. Stop criticizing and whining so much behind an anonymous screen name. If you really want something to be done, come on out and shout it out loud. Thats the way things get done. For a start anyway.

Monday, November 9, 2009

MAD ABOUT MADDEN 8:57 PM

OKAY ITS CONFIRMED! I JUST BOUGHT MY FIRST PAIR OF STEVE MADDEN HEELS!! AND ITS SO PRETTY ISN'T IT! WOOHOOOOO!!!

Back to studying... its officially 3 and a half weeks before the BIG O!!!! MY ORALS! WISH ME LUCK!!! Till then, peace out.

Thursday, November 5, 2009

My inspiration? 7:17 PM

I have friends who sometimes ask me, how do you know what you are doing is what you like? How do you know that this is the right path for you? How do you know you want to do this your whole life?

My answer is, I don't know. Maybe I never will. I sometimes feel lost, when things don't work out or I fall on bad times I feel like giving up. More than once I have felt like I'm too dumb for this. But today I read this article.. http://abcnews.go.com/Health/CancerPreventionAndTreatment/child-brain-tumor-leaves-notes-family-death/Story?id=8998612&page=1

Don't you sometimes feel like there is a guardian angel for everybody, whenever they feel lost in life, they get a little shove back on track. When I saw that article, I got reminded once again of why I am doing what I am doing, who I am doing it for. Not my boss, not really, not myself, not the post docs in lab, I'm doing it so no other kid has to suffer like this. No other family has to go through this kind of grieve. If I feel like the world collapsed around me when my grandfather died, I can hardly imagine the kind of pain these people are going through when they see their kids suffer and wither away, yet having to take care of them. The sheer mental strength is inspirational. Compared to that, what is the little suffering I have to go through?

That said, I don't really mind having more money to aid my research! Go to http://www.thecurestartsnow.org/ for more information.

P.S., read the sweet little notes here.. http://www.notesleftbehind.com/ I can't stop crying after reading them.

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Rise and Shine! 8:32 PM

Living in a land of 12h sunlight every day, you never really treasure the Sun that much. That is why I used to sleep really late and wake up late whenever I can, sometimes at 12pm. Because I know I still have another 7 hours of sunlight that day to squander.

These days however, especially after daylight saving started, the Sun started setting as early as 4pm. It rises at 7am. I used to sleep until 7.30am or 8am or whenever, because in the Summer we had 16 hours of sunlight, sleeping away a little sunlight won't hurt. But the cold season is coming... and I am really easily affected by S.A.D. So these days I'm making myself sleep early and wake up early.. following the pattern of the Sun! That way, I still get my 10 or 8 hours of sunlight every day... it makes me happy! Even though I must admit the initial waking up part is still a painful process... but when I see the sunlight peeking through the window I tell myself there is no time to lose! Heehee.. I'm starting to become a fan of waking up early. Not because I don't like sleeping late, but because I love the Sun too much..

At least Baltimore is not like Vancouver.. you still get a decent amount of Sun, it doesn't just rain everyday! Good for vitamin D production! :) A sunny Baltimore makes a happy Kah Suan.

Sunday, November 1, 2009

Project runway, week 1 + random halloween pics 10:07 AM

I was trying to think of a catchy sounding name for this whole costume dress-up endeavour.. and for lack of a better idea, project runway it is! Week 1.


Day 1: Wearing a tshirt that had NO CHARACTERS that the old man can use to make fun of me with, and a camisole inside. And I look fat here kns.. like I got a tummy.. but I assure u its the mirror.. hahaha. PS I did not make my bed cos I was rushing to work.. :)


Day 2: Wearing a white-and-purple-striped sweater. This was a kids sweater I think.. haha but I like it... cos its one of the few items I bought from here that actually fit me well. PS I did not make my bed because I was rushing to work again :)

Day 3: Wearing a black turtleneck inside a colorful striped sweater.. one needs to brighten up the cold season! PS I did not make my bed because I was rushing to work AGAIN :)

Day 4: I was wearing a long black shirt underneath a turqoise sweater. It was the first time I had brought this sweater out this year.. and guess what when I went to lab THREE other people were wearing sweaters of the same color.. including the old man.. FML hahaha. PS I did not make my bed. Not bothering with excuses this time.

Day 5: Did not remember to take pictures until the very last minute when I was literally rushing out the door.. hence the picture where you can only see the outerwear and scarf. This was the new coat I bought from Macy's online.. its supposed to be a Junior SMALL and it was too big for me FML. But if I don't button up its not that obvious isn't it.. if I do, the extra space makes it seem like I can fit another me inside.. PS you can't see my bed HAHA! But guess what? Its actually the only day I got up early enough to have time to make my bed FML

Day 5 coincides with the eve of Halloween! The classmates decided to have a dinner potluck and some halloween fun at Kihyuck's place! I was planning to finish work about 3 hours earlier than usual, i.e. 4pm instead of 7pm, then head home to cook and shower and change and go to Kihyuck's place. I only managed to leave at 4.30pm. My classmate finished even later. In the end it was just a mad rush.. cooking, dressing up, driving over.

My neighbour/classmate/friend Lucky.. she was the one who suggested that I dress up as Cindy Lou. I jumped at the suggestion because I was too lazy to make props and they insisted everyone dress up to the party. And Cindy Lou was easy cos I can just pick clothes that make me look like a girl and tie up the hair.
The hair proved to be too much of a hassle though, so I ended up just tying a bow in my hair and putting a hairband with a bow on the other side and pretending its supposed to be like that... heehee.

Group pic! From left to right: Bumblebee and beetle, vampires (they were supposed to be Edward and Bella), and the geeks Adenine and Uracil with the 2 hydrogen bonds LOL and then there's me Cindy and there's Kihyuck the Superman!! :S wait did I say superman? :S

'Bella' was trying to suck Cindy Lou's blood!!!!


Kihyuck decided to ditch his costume to be bumblebee.... :S a bumblebee mutant!!!

Me watching tv on Kihyuck's BRAND NEW couch while the others have fun.. hahaha I'm such a tv addict.. but luckily I saw Kihyuck taking the pic and managed to smile in time... turned out quite well didn't it! :)

AND I was supposed to cook fried rice for the potluck.. but was rather afraid because no one else has tried my cooking but myself.. and I was afraid they won't like it.. BUT it turned out amazingly well! The non-vegetarians like it at least.. but because I overlooked the sheer number of vegetarians there that night.. 4 out of 8 of us... I added pork sausage to the fried rice and they did not get to eat.. FML. :(

Welcome to the blog of 武林盟主. In this space of hers, she is entitled to and responsible for her own thoughts and comments. You are welcome to give your few cents worth in the tag, but do not force her to accept your thoughts should they differ from hers. If everyone thinks the same way we would all be robots no?

武林盟主 is this pugilistic genius everyone calls a deranged lunatic. But that's cos they haven't witnessed her great powers yet! She can be regarded as the best product coming from the Pugislistic World in the past 100 years, and 武當, 少林 and 峨嵋 are scrambling to get her to be their 掌门人. She likes think of herself as the next 杨过, 郭靖 or 张无忌.

武林盟主 also has this slightly straight slightly crooked sexuality. At times when the Estrogen triumphs, she preys on hot guys. Other times when the Testosterone levels peak, she preys on hot girls. Some say that is a side effect of the 葵花宝典. Her doctors are still working to establish that.

Many say she's invincible. But that's not true. Bring a DURIAN in front of her, and she will ditch her sword and raise the white flag. She's still desperately trying to master the 闭气功 so she can overcome this weakness.

She now resides in a tiny little room in a tiny little building in a tiny little university/hospital in the tiny little city of Baltimore, studying her tiny little life away in the hopes of getting some Permanent Head Damage. If you feel you can communicate at her level and wish for her to be your soulmate, feel free send her a note of pugilistic admiration and alliance!