my home is in empty spaces.

sorry, sorry. all this wings thing is an allergic reaction to meeting an acquaintance of a friend on Thurs evening and promptly getting labelled aggressively by her as 'quiet', 'peaceful', and 'smart', with a 'what can you do for me' sneer to boot.

She couldn't be defused with my kind of humour (or directness; I actually said "Come hit me with all the rest" with a quiet peaceful friendly grin and she backed down, but not out....) either, or my friend's hints and deflections. And she turned on my friend next, to a worse degree, and it became my turn to deflect. Honestly it made me cringe from trying to not hit her for her I-define-you-absolutely-well-on-slight-acquaintance attitude and patronizing hookfish ways, even considering that her chosen defense mechanism was to collapse into herself apologize profusely and look helpless while seeing if I was still going to bite..... which is genuinely helpless and very pathetic, and headache from trying to protect myself and my friend from her during the half-hour. She even latched on to my other friend who came by later; first thing she said to her after introductions was, "How old are you? Where are you studying? What are your life's ambitions?" in a single phrase. We all left soon after, pleading work.

such a contrast to Bjorn. P/S Wonder how he is, shall try to meet him this weekend.

That's all. Shall unwind her toxicity from my life. It does no good to get poisoned by her. A hookfish is a hookfish, and her pathetic ways do not compensate in any way for that.

I think she made my friend cry in his sleep that night with her accusations.

The next time she comes by, if it's to torment my friend and me again I'm going to kill her so fast she won't know it.

so be it. end of rant.

*take deep breath* *exhale* back to happy life. coral reef notes and other things.
=)
SM

am going to withdraw my wings assignation from my blog page as well as my earlier comment on it, because it seems pointless to leave something here that I don't believe in and is not representative of me while actually trying to be representative of me in every way (as is its nature as a quiz result). do you have any objections? pls tell me if u disagree with this entry

hmmm or will declare it as simply nothing and hope it has not left too unsubtle an impression of me in your minds, ppl

on the wings quiz

surprise surprise, i did it again, and got back the same 'wings' character
the funny thing is that i did it in a very not-serious way, was actually trying to get the 'faery wings' assignation

subtleties are not rendered well in MCQ quizzes.

and as Jax says, because the results descriptions are so long, they create a broad general impression that can describe a significant number of people, and I think we end up picking out only the sentences we want to hear while thinking that those automatically fit into the broad general impression, absolutely.

conflicts inherent and choices made are not shown

it's only an online quiz, a label of this sort is a surreal landscape. unless I actually want to specialize in horoscope writing in the future, then it might be useful =p

for that little bit of comment by Jax over sms.... this is probably in the same spirit as your words. too sweet to be internalized without gagging - [SM].


You are one of the few out there whose wings are
truly ANGELIC. Selfless, powerful, and
divine, you are one blessed with a certain
cosmic grace. You are unequalled in
peacefulness, love, and beauty. As a Being of
Light your wings are massive and a soft white
or silver. Countless feathers grace them and
radiate the light within you for all the world
to see. You are a defender, protector, and
caretaker. Comforter of the weak and forgiver
of the wrong, chances are you are taken
advantage of once in awhile, maybe quite often.
But your innocence and wisdom sees the good in
everyone and so this mistreatment does not make
you colder. Merciful to the extreme, you will
try to help misguided souls find themselves and
peace. However not all Angelics allow
themselves to be gotten the better of - the
Seraphim for example will be driven to fighting
for the sake of Justice and protection of those
less powerful. Congratulations - and don't ever
change - the world needs more people like you.


*~*~*Claim Your Wings - Pics and Long Answers*~*~*
brought to you by Quizilla

Coral reef poetry, for those who prefer words to pictures, for those who can't dive, for those who can't afford coffeetable books, for those who have Net access, for all who cannot get the wonder of a reef from watching a video made by a video cam of very clear Blair Witch Project funky antecedents and in silty water too. Hope this may be of interest.

1. © Copyrighted 2nd May 1998 David E.Barnes

Great Barrier Reef

Ah! Barrier Reef,
Her ocean depth, Light
Frolics in her glow
As coral rim descends.
Sapphire soft – Serene sea
Hidden hues beneath.
Golden Sunlight
Spiraling, on crystal coral reefs.
Timelessness – Entices you!
Tranquility stuns
Awes your human mind.
Movement – Untamed – Surrounds you,
You dive, glide her currents, free,
Reef fish drift, like butterflies,
Softly past your being.

Great white – Streaks, flicks its fin,
To ride the oceans spin,
Oh! You cry within.
Endless ebb, endless surge,
Desire to ride – Moons grasp
On earth's – Greatest living coral reef,
You dived! You rode her tides,
Midst Untamed – Living things!



2. © Copyrighted Lee Harwood.

Salt Water
In memory of Joey Peirce/Harwood,
11-14 March 1997.

The complexity of a coral reef
the creatures sunlight
shafting down through crystal sea
water the flicker of shadows
light wavering and fading
into the depths
Near the silver mirrored surface
bright yellow fish
flutter through the reef
crowded with the swaying tendrils
of coral and anemones,
smudges of algae, drifts of seaweed,
starfish and shellfish flowing
through the canyons
The sun rises three times
The sun sets three times
over sea over land
on land
her blue grey eyes gaze at the world
in silence blink at the world
the world goes about
its usual business
"A fine view along the coast"
to be seen from a high building's
window one of many windows
"Polyps" the books say coral
a tube with a mouth at the end
surrounded by tendrils to catch
small creatures
A world of soft tissue
And the colours
white red orange
yellow green blue
purple "natural pigments"
and those too changeable
when algae "lives within the tissue"
Many species Many depths
and the light filtered down
reducing reducing
And bright yellow fish
banded with peacock blue
flutter through the reef
Red fish Black fish
with lemon ringed eyes
flutter through the reef
How delighted she'd be
Her blue grey eyes gazing at this world
while cradled in her mother's
her father's arms
the world going about its usual business
A ship's bows cut the salt water
a phosphorescent trail in the tropic night
The phosphorus glitter of the sea
From the Greek
phos (light) -phoros (bringing)
Like her
as she came and went
Morning star



3. Oceanographer, Jean-Michel Cousteau

"Losing a coral reef is like losing a Mozart, a Shakespeare or a Michelangelo..."



4. © Copyrighted Mark O'Connor.

Reef

High by the long island's side
the rubble banks swim in the evening light
death-grey and bleached white, speckled together.

The Wind sings over the coelenterate dead
the hollow-gutted stone-sheath-dwellers
the lace-masons, the spicule shapers

the island-makers.


-- Written on One-Tree Island, Great Barrier Reef



And one more poem for the joy of it, not reefy:

Lifesong

Slowly, gently, the music builds,
It stalks my mind and enters in;
Nothingness yields.
I live,
I breathe,
I laugh,
I cry,
I am the song!


© Aquarius Creations 2000
http://www.aquariuscreations.net/Poems/Aquariuspoems.html

true friends are a joy to be with

tell them all my dirty little secrets
and they laugh at me
first.
and only then do they share their thoughts and care.
pity and sorrow and regrets have their place, but they do not last for ever.

in this day of being happily charitable, i have discovered one thing at a briefing for "adult" uni mentors to secondary school students: I am irreversibly horrified at the senseless cheerleading session where mentors are held up to be guiding lights cum free tuition teachers.

Let's see: My fellow college mates who sign up for this, a blind scheme by the way, where we haven't even met the students yet and know naught of them except that they signed up for mentoring (free tuition?) voluntarily, -and- where the contract guidelines for mentors are not available yet for our perusal and maybe a draft review, but yet all the transport arrangements timetable schedules and phone numbers are happily being collected/made by the bureaucrats in charge, are probably real optimists by nature.

Given that, it defies all reason why the training session by a qualified counsellor held today, continues to maintain this rosy optimistic outlook by said counsellor, said bureaucrat, and the sec sch teacher. Where (and this from the syrupy no-hint-of-irony wizened elderly male counsellor I must quote) the students look up to us as big brothers and sisters for guidance in life, and perhaps some help in academics on the side where they need it. Where our spirits are boosted by the age-old touching story of Telemachus, by recalling with dewy eyes on exercise sheets and sharing out loud a (in no particular order) memorable quotable quote, an "aha!" experience which allowed us to pierce the core of meaning (yes this is from the text given) of some event or in someone or something, and our own experiences of being mentored - happy ones, I presume, given the peachy cheer.

Mass hypnosis has to be effective otherwise it just becomes laughable.

Shouldn't there be some disclaimer somewhere: "Our students are teenagers and may have raging hormones; we recommend that you not get too friendly with them or they might end up making sexual overtures to you. Or worse, when you get too friendly with them over a long period of time, and they make romantic overtures to you and you think you might actually love and be loved, where they the young ones are just in lust and can't handle any aftermath."

Or another disclaimer: "Guiding light? Trash the concept, you can't solve all their problems, and may not even help in anything at all despite your and their best efforts. Just try your best, be there, and we'll see what goes."

Person I genuinely liked the most was the sec sch teacher: "We hope that you can help, and the students have signed up voluntarily. Transport will be provided, and the contract and guidelines for mentors are coming soon. We have asked them to arrange the three subjects in which they need the most help in order of priority. We were thinking of some group icebreaker games during the first two mentoring sessions so that everybody can get to know each other and hopefully get along." At least this is honest, and acknowledges some of the difficulties in mentoring as perhaps insurmountable and inconvenient, eg personality differences. to be found out during the icebreaker games.

all else failing, of course provide free tuition.

really like the sch teacher v much for her realism and clear goals and her courage to say, it may not work, but we are going to help you and the students all the ways we can.

which is really the whole idea of the mentoring scheme. tuition or no tuition, that's not the real issue. tuition on the side, is good. tuition for its own sake without considering the students' other needs, and yet have the gall to call it a mentoring scheme, is just crappy enough without the guiding light mythology as well.

when a bridge has crumbled back into dust
and all that has been, has fallen away

mortar between the bricks and columns simply liquidly sighing down into the far-rushing river below, leaving the bricks for a moment

followed by structural collapse

time out of time
white dust into a neat pile
glitter
to just walk away and leave it to degrade into the earth
to walk on and fly
grow and change and be rooted deep again
where i was going so long ago before i got interrupted

not to kick dust into the air
and leave it to scatter all over the place
where each dust mote loses its integrity
and thus poisons the earth as only dust

white bricks that have turned grey
white-grey dust that has returned to its pristine state
with the harshness of mica glitter
flown away

no celebration of victories
no protection from sorrows like a friend
the bridge
has fallen away
and i walk on to fly
glittering mica dust behind me
degraded

project into the future

i am not myself, lost deep in pain and another's silence

one day more
another day another destiny

one day to a new beginning
raise the flag of freedom high!

*cynical laughter*

the whole song is very cynical bcos we know they all died in the end
(except the heroes, because this is a musical.)
so why does the song still live on?

what is it a reminder of?

young blood and lost innocence, perhaps?
ideals pursued in a way that tore lives and society apart?
what is the belief that men will fight for, men will die for?

what is yours?


disturbing blog entries in the dead of night


"blackbird singing in the dead of night
take these broken wings and learn to fly
all your life......"

broken song, broken wings.

okay, my quotation now.

"Courage, is not when one is not afraid, but when one does what one feels is right though one may be shivering in mortal fear of what is past and what may come."

A quotation, anonymous, from somewhere off the Net.

Now that I have thoroughly acknowledged its provenance, let's take a look at its substance, shall we? =)

"To laugh is to risk appearing the fool. To weep is to risk appearing sentimental. To reach out for another is to risk involvement. To expose feelings is to risk exposing your true self. To place your ideas, your dreams before the crowd is to risk loss. To love is to risk not being loved in return. To live is to risk dying. To hope is to risk despair. To try at all is to risk failure. But risk we must. Because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing ...
-- ??
... and occasionally get hurt attempting the impossible.
-- 'Cody' "

the quality of mercy is as the gentle rain from heaven
(something or other)

let me find the quote from Merchant of Venice

Portia:
The quality of mercy is not strain'd,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath; it is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes;
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God's
When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew,
Though justice be thy plea, consider this,
That, in the course of justice, none of us
Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy;
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy. I have spoke thus much
To mitigate the justice of thy plea;
Which if thou follow, this strict court of Venice
Must needs give sentence 'gainst the merchant there.

not going to cry on you man, think you might collapse and die on me
we'll see how things go.

Apologies....
Gal....I feel very very bad and sorry for that nite...for draining u and dragging you down along with my downward spiral. I wnt ever abuse you the way I do with my formal relationships. Truly...I am always thankful for your company. Try to be merciful before you release the guillotine ok?
I think we could arrange another time to go out soon? This time maybe we go to a nice quiet bar to talk with friends lar...I dnt think clubbing is very nice either. At least....we get to see more...all part of the rich tapestry of life...whether we like it or not.
Meantime....we have each other's shoulders to cry on.

SMile smiles
happy chinese new year

ok i must publish a correction to my physics - F is not less in magnitude than F'. So it's only the vertical component of F' that's causing you to fall.

now that that's done, today is CNY eve, also a Wed, and 2nd visit to my counsellor. She gave me something to think about which I am not ready to put down here (yet, if ever. but if you are curious we might talk about that in person just not here in the blog), near the end of the session I told her I had nightmares, and she asked to talk about that next week. So that's what we'll be talking about next week.

For some of the wary and puzzled friends here:

counselling
is not a magic spell, nor a magic wand

It is more like coaxing a large tree to grow and bend
rearrangement of xylem vessels,
bone, muscle and tendon.
in a fairly painless way, kind of.
and as efficiently and properly as possible.

All the work is done by you
because all the talking is done by you
all the conclusions and plans of action are definitely to be done by you
the counsellor - to say that she sits there and listens would be an understatement in some respects, yet it is completely accurate in other respects.

Like any other human being alive whom you talk to, you have to evaluate whether what she says relates to you or not, and how, in what way, and how it is going to help or not. She's not helping you, but neither is she a blank sounding board nor a sponge for your problems either. You realise that talking to her is kind of comforting because she doesn't suggest things you might do, and she's actually interested in the details no one else has asked before and upon answering you realise that those are the ones that have been bugging you, and after asking a question she sits peacefully and waits for your answer, giving you time to think. Forcing you to use your time wisely and think, actually.

To me, it's like she's just pointing out logical courses of perceptive frameworks that I have somehow overlooked due to some feelings, or at other times she just listens.

After I told her something today, or rather she asked a series of questions that led me to talk to her about something today, I realised I held a view that I had not even known that I still hold. And the implications of holding that view is what I have to consider, before deciding whether it is more productive to chuck that view or not.


I told a few old friends recently that I'm going for this of my own free will because I've noticed that several of my friends get unhappy when I'm not happy, because they care about me, and I don't seem to be getting well. Or else I get a peculiar mixture of pity and fear from them. So I thought I needed my listener to have a little more distance (preventing "friend abuse" *smile* rather than throwing up all over my friends), as well as a significantly long period of time and patience so as to get this problem solved. I can't demand that time and patience and attention from my friends (though they may want to give it willingly, real life and other demands intrude. I do understand.), and we may all lack the expertise to get my problem reframed or "solved". So in short, I went for counselling.

Since it's an available alternative, and probably the most reasonable one at this time.

Probably most important is that I trust my counsellor to take the shock of my pain without literally taking it upon herself, which is what I've noticed happens to my friends. Because they care a great deal about me =) which is a good thing, but not appropriate and in fact very dangerous in this instance. For one thing, she's trained, and she's older. Add to that the fact that this kind of thing is her avowed profession which means she actually does care too in her own way, and you realise it's actually not a bad alternative, in light of all the above.

Though to go without such counselling and heal properly instead of suppressing it all is actually the best of all lah.

Most of all, she doesn't rush me to feel better at the end of every session, but I personally feel that I must have accomplished something with each visit, so that my conversation does not meander. She keeps it from meandering too. This is very unlike talking to my friends where we both do not have the expertise to untangle what the heck is going on with me.

To ppl: I do genuinely, genuinely appreciate all your past and present efforts and your continuing concern, so going for counselling is not a form of rejection of you. I should say that clearly. Solving this problem just happens to be not our areas of mastery, is all.

happy chinese new year.

another nightmare, oh no not again.

now awake at this early hour and afraid to go back to sleep after trying for about half an hour.

going to read and wait for the sun to rise so that my 8.00-2.00 schedule today can begin.

it sucks being alone in hostel sometimes.

comments link is down again

anyway I have learnt that a continuous diet of potato chips and Coke and Jax's overdependence on me to sort out his emotional life is leaving me drained to below my average energy....

wish that tomorrow's classes would just be over with so that I can go home

Oh, J, YX got her book already n she says she likes it...

btw, Jax, no matter what you so proudly declared to me yesterday about the quality of your former relationships, that doesn't mean I'm going to be as wimpy as them and serve you and tend your hurts and all other inconveniences till I die. I will kill you first, gladly, before that happens. I hope that is very, very clearly understood *. You can reply on this blog, you have posting access and you know it.

Today, or yesterday morning rather, i learnt that corals when covered with sediment will get rid of it by either 1. ejecting water to "blow" the sediment away, or when there's a lot of sediment, 2. secreting a layer of mucus which the sediment sticks to, then sloughing off the entire mucus layer.

After clubbing for a few hours with Jax and his endearingly protective friends around Tanjong Pagar early this morning, for a few moments in my life I felt like a coral =) - the cigarette ash covers my eyelids and spectacle lenses and clothes and makes my eyes tear. How I wish for a coat of mucus....

Didn't realise that I stank until I got back to my room, where I became aware of this very acrid pervasive smell that was slowly diffusing through my room's airspace. Hurriedly went to take a shower.

A short description:
The clubs were dark, first and foremost. A bit loud and overemphasizing the bass beats, and of course the place got a bit difficult to breathe in after two hours inside. Dancing was all right, but more fun if the right guys had come along....

However Jax's friends plus Bjorn were the highlight of the evening.

And I finally got to drink vodka mixed with Ribena (at 1 place) / lime (at the other place). Not bad, but surprisingly strong.

What else? Oh yeah, I finally realised why there is always an inward force towards the centre of the circle in physics studies of circular motion. Something to do with standing on the shuttle bus and shifting my footing in preparation for it going round a curve. The object is your standing body, the forces acting on it are along the longitudinal axis of the bus (logically, since the bus is moving forward). Let's say F is your original counterbalancing force exerted by the object (yourself and your wonderful muscle groups), that is 180deg opposite to the direction of motion of the bus. In the moment when the bus turns, a new vector F' is created by the turning bus, that is at an angle to F (because the bus is turning). Now let the angle between the two be theta. F = F' cos theta. Now since I have never seen anyone stand at an obtuse angle in a moving bus, line of reference being the bus longitudinal axis, therefore when theta is between 0deg and 90deg, F < F' (this is maths). Thus in such a situation where you maintain your original position and counterbalancing force F, and the bus turns, you will tend to fall because of the greater force F' exerted by the bus.

Taking a closer look at force F', it can be resolved into a horizontal component, in the same direction as F, and a vertical component that points towards the centre of the curve. This vertical component is not compensated for by your exerted counterbalancing force F. Thus there will always be a force acting on the object towards the centre of the circle when the object is in circular motion. Ta-dahh.

This is also why we lean instinctively away from the curve when the bus is turning. It counterbalances the vertical component of force F'. You notice that the people who don't do this tend to stumble when the bus turns - take a good look next time.

Now the fun question: is such an intuitive balancing trait being selected for, and why?

my comments link is missing
why leh?
also missing on all my friends' blogspot blogs...
nmind, small thing.

anything, email me.

I only want
not to be afraid
- of seeing him
- of wanting to trust him (simply because we had met before and had some time together in ancient eras)

- of him hurting me again
insulting me again and again, spontaneously. out of the blue. (yes so now you know. it's no secret anymore, not at all.)
ignoring me again
seeming to care and yet not caring

at some point i will have to trust him
in work, in life, in normal social contact
we work in approximately the same field. live in the same country. have interests in common.
i fear that (trusting him) the most
because every time i did that
he hurt me badly ........
....................................

yet as pointed out, i will never know what impulse may prompt him to look for me again. ever.

to run is cowardly
to stay and wait is to look for trouble, because his hurtful ways towards me still persist!
to wait further is to die a bitter and lonely death

and he will not listen anymore
not that he ever did, the moment he hears something he doesn't want to acknowledge might be true, he starts running and runs far.
so much for his vaunted intelligence.

what can i do now

list:
adapt
forget
ignore
suppress
cry
not cry
talk about it in counselling, which seems to me the best option out of all the above
disrespect him as he does to me? that's not the way i do things either

probe for a response from him - it hasn't worked and it will never work either, this attempt nearly caused a mental breakdown during my exams last sem, and my grades fell with no result on the HR side to show for it

email me
for i am still afraid
and i have never been so deathly afraid in my life before
of a single person

whom i cannot seem to help trusting
or wanting to trust, which is close to the same thing

if one wanted to find a flying pig, how easy would it be?

pharmaco prac 1 - fascinating chitchat session. light work.

orange, blackberry, passionfruit.

mewing cats over the phone? *quizzical look*

more on these in the future

Biophysics lecture 2! which was actually a tutorial in disguise.

Given that our class has only 22 people and 1 very nice lecturer who let us play with beads (ie chemical modelling sets) today and answered all -i really mean all- our offbeat questions in class and conducted a very interactive tutorial, you can guess that today was a very great day.

Western blot - my protein looks smaller than normal. Must refresh the loading dye with more 2-ME in case that's the problem.

Dinnertime!

happiness to you

my Pharmaco textbook
has a cover that shows a PET scan
(normally PET scans are of the brain, but this picture doesn't look like any brain I've ever seen)
it is so real and absurdly colourful (looks like fractals, but is not. some unknown thing that I will find out) that it disperses my worst nightmares and awakens my curiosity, long dormant.

basically it helps make my room a happy place to be in,
former bad vibes from computer notwithstanding the PET scans' blobby presence. As well as the cheerfulness of my aromatherapy scents.

where was i? oh before running off abt my Ph textbook I wanted to say, I read some quotations from Anais Nin on a friend's website. They're good, but the language is so enchanting that it removes one's brain into passiveness, and that's not good. So I must read other things with similar topics to get the drift without picking up echoes of language tones and mannerisms. Then can grasp the idea more easily.

what else? made appointment for formal counselling today, the introductory form asked a few qns one of which was "Do you have a tendency towards violence?" Hah. Ha ha. I said no, I don't think so, at least I hope not =p and the lady attending to me had no sense of humour, said something mind-numbingly soothing like "oh it's ok we are not looking too deep here the question only looks for things on the surface" with this strangely superficial smile. Thank goodness she's not the counsellor but the receptionist, kind of.

I do like the water sculpture in the counselling service place though, it's semi-dry but very beautiful, in fact more beautiful because of the contrast of dry stones around the glass water features.

SDS-PAGE gel: stupid mistake. Because have been running DNA gels so often, forgot that when running PAGE you have to top up the central compartment with *fresh* buffer and not the buffer that has been sitting in the tank. (Note to the blur: because the buffer in the central compartment runs directly into the gel due to the position of the electrode wires.) So *that* was the problem. Eeesh. Sounds important enough for my postgrad student to have told me earlier, so the fault is all mine for having forgotten. Luckily I have a nice postgrad who after I announced to him that that was a very stupid thing to have forgotten didn't chastise me but just smiled.

Stocked up tips for overnight autoclaving.

And got bored stiff in 1st lecture this morning (no names or module codes, my lecturer could be reading this). Not enough details to satisfy, barely enough to entice. But it will improve, the lecturer is actually a competent one.

nitez

Some genuine and spiritual sharing occasions for the past 3 days, mostly from friends:

pass-my-way-along-the-way how was hols chat, first thing into school off the bus - from LuS (bus is transition from home to school), Monday morning.

changing your perception of a precipitating event, 8.05 to 8.30 pm - The Wise One, Monday night.

the Australian cup - from ZhS, Mon lunch.

the discovery of scent as room decoration - self, Monday night.

the nightly phone calls - from Jax

asked out to lunch by Dva during the peculiarly stoned Biophysics lecture - Tues afternoon.

room cleaned in a jiffy - Tues afternoon.

passed LW my Biotech notes, borrowed a LAN cable and a short talk in return, walked back from YIH to room - Tues night.

Coral Reef - Li Ling's company, Wed morning.

you look pale and terrible dear, how are you - Shm, Wed morning.

I'm sure your UROPS will succeed - LiF, Wed morning.

Pharmaco - H's notes, Xhui YYk and YH's company, Wed afternoon.

lab - free advice on SDS-PAGE gel - from SC and PH, Wed afternoon.

activated computer - self in room, late Wed afternoon. Discovered that this gives off bad vibes.

pale, i think it's the lips - XY, Wed evening at bus-stop.

dinner at Far East - with J Mel P JY YX, Wed night.

discovered that sms to J takes two hours to reach J - Wed night.

discovered the love between J and YS is really a living tangible gentle thing - Wed night.

sleepy and lost taxi drivers are really quite dangerous to be with on the road - Wed night on the way back.

tidy up room for a gentler living environment, pack away clutter - self

my Pharmaco textbook is waiting for me, don't stone in front of the computer

failures:

On SDS-PAGE, my stacking gel seems not to be doing its work, the protein bands that enter the resolving gel (after about 25 minutes) are about 0.5 cm wide where they should only be a thin line.

and it's not only the coimmunoprecipitation samples that are behaving this oddly, it is also my normal untouched sample, lysed straight from the cells

too much protein?
or stacking gel buffer problem?

what could it be?

or some new microscopic thingy that cannot be spun down with max speed 15 sec, interferes with gel run and contaminates my original cell strain?

"when you hear hoofbeats, think horses not zebras"

cell strain contamination.... horrors..... hmmmm.

we'll see how the marker looks when it comes out.

here goes, the idea of personal living spaces.

It is incredible how something as simple as physical space for you to create something
can make one extraordinarily happy
or normally happy
or just happy

simply happy!

space for storing notes doesn't count
space on my lab bench counts
space in and around my piano counts
space at east coast beach and other public places doesn't count

space in my hostel room both counts and doesn't count
because the bookshelf that holds my books doesn't count
but my table matters
my computer does too, sometimes - when I'm writing assignments and misc thoughts, and not when I'm blankly sitting in front of it listening to music or icq-ing.

most of all, space when in the company of another person who is also enjoying your company, counts as creating something to me. *smile*

and mealtimes don't count.

To summarize, the space and thoughts involved in aesthetic admiration of another's art (food?) don't make me truly happy over an extended period, while creation of my own art and works does. And the evaluation process is peripheral.

What does this make me? comments, adjectives? *grin*

a bit weird, i think.

I've always wondered how people can enjoy information communications more than info creation.? Curiosity drives me, and somehow I find that my pleasure in others' company is enhanced when I have space to call my own, something I can do on my own that produces good work.

On the other hand, I did manage to be happy over the course of three months when I was working as a salesperson (more or less) at a Science Centre exhibition. Creation of wonder in kids' eyes.... but after a while the failures get to you.

Which brings me to my next bit on failure.

(to be cont'd, doing SDS-PAGE in lab today)

random thoughts for further consideration later in this day (to be edited) (if I put this on a note I might lose it):

1. a short story on personal living spaces, and how they impact on one's spirit. Thought about it this morning, was quite interesting.

2. how not to hide and retreat upon failure

successful appeal and bid for a mod, yesterday's SDS-PAGE/Western blot failed, hungry. Lunchtime!