Coincidence.
My mum tried to warn me again today regarding my blog. She says that there is definitely someone from the government reading it.
If you remember, a few days ago I wrote something about my sister falling into the drain outside my house. Hmms, to our amazement, the exact part of the drain which my sister fell into was being covered yesterday and to prevent further accidents there is even a barricade constructed in front of the parts which are not covered.
My mum insisted that it has to be because of my post. Well, I would rather believe that some stalker who is a white horse is trying to stalk my sister because she even posted a photo of her wound on her blog. Anyway, I don't think I am
that important to anyone. It has to be because of my sister.
_____________________________________________________
Anyway, went back to Hwa Chong yesterday with A*Star. Managed to meet 2 teachers (only). Hmms will go back once more on the 16th with Hopkins...
Haha when I walked pass the band room, I had a very strong urge to try to open the door using the lock combination we had 4 years ago. I didn't try in the end, but I am pretty confident the door will still open with that combination because the lock looked exactly the same :D
I was arrowed by Hazel on the spot (and the rest, grr) to give a short speech on, hmms, why I decided to join A*Star. Hmms, I don't think fast, and hence it was bad as usual. Though the point is, it is really scary how time flies... I can still remember sitting there listening to seniors talking about their experiences during our scholarship day and asking them stupid questions, and now I am the one telling them my experiences and giving stupid answers. Where will I be 4 years later? :P
The other day we were trying to remember and sing all the Hwa Chong songs we had. We used to sing them whenever there are occasions; e.g. Orientation, CNY, MAF, etc... together with the mass dances (which I never knew how to do no matter how hard I try) they are collective memories of that we all have. Quite uniquely ours I think? Haha which other JC in Singapore will sing Chinese songs and celebrate MAF?
The one I like most is this one, written by 梁文福 in 1981. You know, the same guy that wrote songs like 细水长流... If you are a Singaporean, and you are a Chinese, you ought to know him. Haha so here goes:
《唱一首华初的歌》梁文福
我要唱一首华初的歌
一首动人的歌
唱出我们的希望
唱出我们的奔放
我要唱一首华初的歌
一首美丽的歌
这里有球场上的笑语
那里是虎豹楼的书声
黄城哟 我们的黄城
永远矗立 坚定不移
华初哟 我们的华初(华初、华初)
肩负重任 百年树人
我要唱一首华初的歌
一首永远的歌
唱出我们的光明前程
唱出华初的精神!
The song will mean much more if I am part of 黄城夜韵 but it doesn't matter as long as I am from Hwa Chong haha :P
Labels: Life
Shows!
I have never entered Esplanade Theatre at such a high frequency in my life.
It first started with Jump!, a Korean martial arts drama/comedy my sister wanted to watch. So we went, and it was good. That's not all.
I saw posters all over Esplanade telling me that RSC was in town and they were going to put up King Lear and The Seagull (with Ian McKellen). I missed everything when I was in Stratford; naturally I want to make up for it. Managed to get my parents interested and, most importantly, managed to get tickets. Matinee, The Seagull, no Ian McKellen (William Gaunt is very good too), but still it was awesome. That's not all either.
Again we saw posters all over the place telling us that The King and I is coming to town. This time I didn't ask, because it is really
expensive (by Singapore standard). It was my mum who said she wanted to see a musical (because she is the only one in the family who hasn't seen one; in fact, my sister has seen more shows than me). So I just went online to book tickets for the four of us.
Haha thank goodness I live in Baltimore and not New York or London. I think if these shows are easily accessible I'll become broke just by watching shows. To be frank, shows in Singapore are cheap comparatively... The best tickets (VIP Box) for The King and I costs only S$168 (i.e. US$112) in a world-class theatre like Esplanade; compare it with The Lion King's US$121.25 (NYC)/55 pounds (London) for stalls!
Singapore is really great... It is impossible to not be able to find a show to watch or a concert to go to as long as you are interested in something. Probably the only complaint is that the shows don't run continuously...
Labels: Life
Love Syndrome.
Who is currently down with this? ;)
(not me!)The lyrics are funny! and this build-up made the last part very nice after the mood of the song changed... I like the accompaniment too.
22/7, 11:56pm: Used MS Word to count how many characters there are in this song. 842! >> Challenge: memorise it and
write it out again :P
Hmmms the last part is really truly genuinely sweet...
戀愛症候群 - 黃舒駿曲︰
黃舒駿 詞︰
黃舒駿關於戀愛症候群的發生原因 至今仍然是最大一個謎
不管性別 年齡 職業 體重 學歷 長相和血型 沒有一個人可以免疫
有些專家學者研究後相信 戀愛是內分泌失調所引起
卻有別人認為戀愛屬於過濾性病毒
像感冒無藥可救但會自動痊癒
不管你同不同意
自古到今許多例子證明
戀愛不但是一種病態
它還可能是一種變態
一般發病後的初期反應 會開始改變一些生活習性
洗澡洗得特別乾淨 刷牙刷得特別用力 半夜突然爬起來彈鋼琴
有人每天站在陽台對路人傻笑 有人突然瘋瘋癲癲 突然很安靜
有人一臉疑呆 對着鏡子咬着指甲打噴嚏 有人對小狗罵三字經
女人突然改變髮型
男人開始每天練着啞鈴
食慾不振 歇斯底裡 四肢萎縮 神經過敏 發抖抽筋都出現在這時期
隨着病情越來越變本加厲 人會變得格外敏感勇敢和噁心
寫的說的唱的都像天才詩人一般才華洋溢 愈肉麻愈覺得有趣
有人戀愛之後每天躲在廁所哭泣 有人開記者會宣佈戀愛的消息
有人總是喜歡兩個人躲在黑漆漆的地方 像做了不可告人的事情
每天忙着找人算命
挖空心思改變自己配合對方的習性
把每天都當作紀念日
把自己當作紀念品
每天漫無目的膩在一起 言不及意也覺得好有趣
走着 坐着 躺着 趴着都形影不離 像是兩人三腳又像連體嬰
心裡想的只有愛你愛你愛你愛你
也不管家裡米缸有沒有米
也不管路上有人示威抗議 只管愛你
心裡想的只有愛你愛你愛你愛你
也不管海峽兩岸統一問題
也不管衣索匹亞多少難民 只管愛你
經過一段轟轟烈烈熱戀時期 不久就會開始漸漸痊癒
兩人開始互相厭倦 互相攻擊對方缺點 所有甜蜜都隨風而去
然後開始從錯覺和誤解中清醒 驚訝自己為何如此不聰明
為了愛情不管一切 不顧父母 朋友 姐妹 兄弟 開始感到後悔不已
然後開始感到疲憊 沉悶 氣喘 心悸 牙痛 頭痛 夢囈
然後是精神不濟 瞳孔放大 脾氣暴燥 四肢痲痺 終于受不了要分離
雖然結果頗令人傷心 了解之後也沒什麼了不起
愛情終究是握不住的雲 只是我想要告訴你
哦~~
在我落寞的歲月裡
你的溫柔解脫我的孤寂
帶給我深深的狂喜
如此顫動着我的心靈
輕輕訴說愛你愛你愛你愛你
不管是黑夜或是黎明
不管是夢中或是清醒 深深愛你
我要對你說愛你愛你愛你愛你
不管是黑夜或是黎明
不管是夢中或是清醒 深深愛你
多麼幸福 讓我遇見你 嗚~~
Labels: Sharing
!!
Read this.
Can a foreign citizen apply to the M.D.-Ph.D. Program and receive funding?
Foreign citizens (those who are not US citizens or permanent residents) with competitive applications are welcome to apply. Although international students are not eligible to receive funding provided by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP) grant, an outstanding foreign student could be offered admission to the program with funding if selected for one of Harvard University's Presidential Scholarships. This funding opportunity is limited to one international student per year.
http://www.hms.harvard.edu/md_phd/application/faqs.htm#b6Hmmms. Although I like challenges but this is seriously a bit too challenging isn't it......
Labels: Studies and Career
Haha that's me.
My sister wrote this in her blog:
Daddy was exhibiting his nagging skills by warning me not to walk too near the wall and the roadside and not smsing while walking throughout the trip [to suntec]. My brother must have gotten the genes from him.Hahaha yes I am extremely naggy. I am even more naggy than my mum. Though I still have to admit defeat in front of my dad; he's the champion. He doesn't only nag but will also make use of his nagging and temper to push for things to happen.
Bad genes :P Oh well.
So basically, my sister fell into the drain on her way to the MRT station on Saturday. Well, it happened because she was waving my mum goodbye (naturally she has to turn away from the direction she was moving in order to do so), so my mum was the first to see it happen. My mum was frantically asking me to go down to help my sister.
I looked downstairs and said, 'Well she is
running back. How serious can it be?' And I didn't forget to add: 'I will only go down if she has broken her leg or something.'
She had quite a bit of abrasion on her leg though. I decided to be kind and spared her the normal saline and/or chlorhexidine and/or alcohol swab and washed only with water. I wasn't so kind to my dad when he fell while jogging at ECP some time back :P
When I met my dad on my way to the MRT station a little later, I broadcasted the whole incident to him with a detailed indication of the location of the scene. Naturally my dad was very interested (he can even be more kaypoh than an average auntie); and that sparked the constant reminders.
After reading this post, if you still think that I am nice, I beg you to reconsider. Basically, to summarise, I am i)naggy ii)unsympathetic iii)kaypoh.
Hahaha well,
am I nice?
Labels: Life
MD.
Found the schedule for Hopkins's MD programme. Essentially quite insane...
http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/som/
students/academics/catalog06/MCAT8.pdfAnyway, heard that if we were to do our MD-PhD with Duke/NUS there will be another 5 years of bond with MOH. It is rather unthinkable that this bond can run concurrently with A*Star's, and 11 years of bond is ridiculous. So I have to rethink my MD-PhD plot again.
Oh well. So now my choices are:
1. Take a gamble. Declare myself a pre-med, do all the requirements (which means I will have even more work), take MCAT, and apply for MD-PhD programmes all over the US.
Problem: Funding (I need to be EXTREMELY GOOD for the next 2 years in order to make this a non-issue). And A*Star.
Incentive: I'll be totally American trained! Which will be an asset, definitely :D
2. Don't care. Go to the UK to do my PhD, and then spend 2 years in the US as a post-doc.
Problem: surely no problem. Although this is still a very good option but I will somehow feel that I am settling for something secondary...
Incentive: Likely that my career will progress faster, provided that I perform reasonably well.
3. Continue to take my time to think and then eventually decide to go to the GMS and get bonded for 11 years.
Problem: too ridiculous. Don't think I'll be able to convince myself that I have made a good decision.
Incentive: Will be able to restart eating my mum's food after school.
Argh so how? Should I gamble? If I were to do it, it will really be hell for me the next two years. Though if it works out it's going to be extremely rewarding.
Hahaha I think I have to talk to my parents. They always have good advice :D
14/7/07, 1630: I have decided what to do. Yayy clear target ahead, all I need to do now is work towards it and hope for the best! :)
Labels: Studies and Career
Random Thoughts.
This world is indeed very complicated. Weird things happen all the time.
We cannot escape from it; we have to survive it. No use trying to evade nor is any form of protection going to last forever.
Though, there is one thing we can do. We can try to keep it as simple as possible by trying our best not to contribute to the mess.
How? Simple. When a problem comes, solve it. When someone needs you, be there.
Don't do weird things to yourself and others. Don't gossip. Don't try to seek power. Stay out of other people's business unless absolutely necessary. Don't take other people's comments too personally.
Understand people. Compromise. Think before you act.
And, believe.
Made a substantial error once; first of its kind to this degree. Violated the third clause because I didn't follow the sixth, eighth and the tenth clauses close enough.
Can't say that the error has made me smarter... Still, I believe in just doing whatever that I think is right. Though now I am obliged to think harder and deeper into anything before deciding what is meant by '
right', in order to keep the world as simple as possible.
It is stupid to make the same mistake twice. And it is even
more stupid when you see someone making that mistake and you followed. At least I tried to redeem myself by not reacting in the same way as the first, by being naturally more chilled :P
It is so much easier when it comes to my professional pursuits. I guess the best way to handle this is still, hmms, try to keep the world in general as simple as possible. Argh it is really hard to calculate this kind of risks...
Now it's just
weird. Excellent. Price to pay for making errors to make the world more complicated. And I can't stop other people from having to pay this kind of price either. So even more weird.
That's why, as the last clause says, believe. God knows what is best for us. Everything happens for a reason; He is telling us something. I am trying hard to understand it and in order to adjust myself.
So that I won't make the same mistake again.
By the way, realised that if I were to maintain my lifestyle in America here it really is going to cost. 2 pints of Ben and Jerry's ice-cream costs $18.50 at NTUC when they are having offers. PF Milano costs $5.20 per pack, and PF cookies $5.66 (Cold Storage). Fresh milk (those from the fridge) costs $4.20 half-gallon from NTUC. Have not checked the exact prices for Subway, white eggs, cereal, Campbell Chunky/Select (which I normally buy by half-dozens at least).
Haha it might be fun to go shopping here with a shopping list meant for grocery shopping in America. I won't be surprised if I have to pay >$100... judging by the way I buy PF cookies from Walmart, if I were to do the same here, just PF cookies will costs me $34.
Goodness. That is 17 plates of chicken rice :P
Labels: Values
Exact Opposite.
My life now is the exact opposite of what my life is in the US.
I am busy... though not because of work. I have
nothing to do after 12:30pm today basically. I was telling Kenneth, yeah go back whenever you want to because it really doesn't matter to me.
I am busy because everyday I am meeting friends for dinner and, hmms, there will be some form of entertainment going on everyday.
I am coordinating Experiences for Hopkins (well that isn't anything great :P).
And random things like helping a relative from France who is coming to Singapore and Indonesia to check air-ticket prices.
So in order to give myself something to do, I have volunteered my service to A*Star when they visit HC next next Wednesday for a scholarship roadshow.
I hate the feeling of being useless. Haha so next year, I should really spend most of my summer doing internship. I guess around 10 to 11 weeks should suffice? And then, Germany and Poland, 14 days. Booked my sister already, depending on whether she needs to stay in HK for clinicals or not :P
Labels: Life
Two Weeks.
I have been back for 2 weeks!! Aaarrrggggggghhhh. And I am still slacking and playing around.
Lab is really slack... still. Youcef is ill and because he is not around today I am trying
hard to find things to do. So I analysed the PCR ran yesterday, did some calculations which I don't know whether they are right or wrong, and passaged some cells which I think need passaging (they are kind of 100% confluent).
Went for lunch at 12pm for 1.5 hours.
Then, I started to read Terry Prachett after I put another PCR together.
Sigh I gave up trying to make full use of my time (what exactly does this mean actually?). Well, reading storybooks is considered making good use of my time right. When was the last time I picked up a random storybook to read? Before ORD? :P
Time to start reading storybooks without a purpose again :)
And I will be going out every day/night except Friday next week from Monday onwards to Sunday. Now that is seriously playing around. (Ok, well, Sunday is because of work so...)
_____________________________________________________
As usual I must have something serious.
It has been pretty interesting as I analyse responses from different individuals when I tell them about my work with mice.
Alright. Basically I learn how to maintain strains, I genotype them (i.e. tagging them and cutting bits of their tails off, and then do PCR on the tail bits to determine what mice they are), I inject drugs into them, I put them to sleep and euthanise them, and I dissect them and harvest tissues for histology. I have not learnt surgery and grafting; and because I don't know mouse anatomy well I still have a lot to catch up on my dissection skills.
Given the amount of time I spend with mice in Hopkins naturally I know quite a bit about them and hence I get excited whenever I see mice and whenever I am prompted to talk about my work :P
Well, my intention of writing this post is to urge people not to dismiss work with laboratory animals as 'cruel' or less ethnical than other forms of work with living tissues (e.g. human tissues) because of whatever reason.
Firstly, there is no such thing as 'more ethnical' or 'less ethnical' when it comes to dealing with humans and other living things. I don't understand why is it more ethnical for me to use tissues provided by a patient who has given consent and less ethnical for me to kill mice to harvest tissues for research. It is not as if I seek pleasure in killing them, and we do have a protocol to follow which has to be reviewed annually by an Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) comprising of vets, medical doctors, researchers, and laymen.
There are federal laws governing the use of animals also... the laws go all the way down to the amount of floor space each animal is entitled to; i.e. strictly speaking it is a federal offence just to keep 10 adult mice in a cage at one go.
We are trying our best to reduce the suffering the animals need to go through because of our research. We have to constantly improve our methods and skills, and we have to constantly ensure that our use of animals are justifiable in order to pass the IACUC audits.
And it is a
basic rule that the minimum amount of animals should be used and animal models should be avoided as much as possible for any research project.
Throughout human history we have been sacrificing animals for various reasons. We eat them, wear their skin, use their whatever as medicine, sacrifice them for God... do the animals have any say in this? Nowadays, because of our increased knowledge and awareness we know that animals are making huge sacrifices for our benefits; as a result, we came out with all kinds of ethnical codes in an attempt to treat the animals we have to sacrifice as well as possible.
Of course, this doesn't make it completely ethnical. What is the meaning of being 'completely ethnical'? Hmms trying to define that is as meaningless as saying that something is more ethnical than another.
Though this makes ourselves feel better. I do feel bad for the mice when they start squealing at me...
Another point: it is not justifiable either to completely avoid the use of animal models because doing that, at our current level of technology, will greatly hinder the development of new drugs, new therapies, new diagnostic tools and new research methods. These are things which will give our patients hope and these are things which will save lives when they eventually materialise.
I am not here to judge anyone... but because I have received responses like 'why are you so cruel and sadistic' (because I get excited over dissecting mice?), 'how can you bear killing such cute little things?', 'using human tissues is more ethnical because they are given to us by someone who has given consent', etc., I have to say something to defend everyone who work with animals...
It doesn't make me more ethnical if I voluntarily stop working with animals, simply because I believe that by not contributing my skills to some work which will eventually do good to the human race is also unethnical. I made a similar argument when I was discussing organ donation; namely, it is unethnical to avoid considering linking monetary incentives to organ donation simply because the current altruistic donation system has been proven to be ineffective in maximising the benefits of the current transplant technologies.
Hmms, well, I don't know whether it is appropriate to link this with butchers... However, we should really thank the butchers because they are actually doing an extremely unpleasant job in order to ensure that we have our supply of proteins. If all the butchers suddenly decide to turn ethnical one day and stop slaughtering cows for us, will there be enough soybean in this world to sustain us?
The question: is it ethnical for the World Butcher Association (just pretend it exists) to mandate its members to all turn ethnical and jeopardise the world's supply of meat? Certainly this is an exaggeration, but think about it...
Argh, so don't judge us, please? :P
Labels: Life, Values
