Monday, 24 November 2008 Back update 2... Date: 10 November 2008

We had BBQ for lunch today, not exactly the regular BBQ since we made dumplings on the spot as well. Don't worry; we didn't do it in the lab, or anywhere near the lab for the matter of fact. It was done at the green house belonging to Helen's department! We'll have some photos later on… As usual, this is a photo filled update. First up let's have a look at the BBQ pit with our downstairs neighbor working hard!

10:33

Friday, 7 November 2008 Weekend 2 - Back post

Wondering what our weekend is like? Well normally we would leave the hostel and find some interesting place to play but not this week. We wanted to go climb the Great Wall this week but then my mentor said that it's not safe for two girls to go there on our own, plus that place is crowded because of the red leaves festival where everyone starts climbing to see red leaves. Personally I don't understand that part at all partially because we live in a place where there are lots of trees and the leaves are all turning red. We see them every day but we don't have to do all that climbing just to go see it. Don't you just agree that it's weird? I'm staring at red falling leaves from the balcony of our hostel and there are people climbing up to mountains just to have a look at the leaves fall. Maybe it's because they don't get to see them where they're staying… Anyway, we spend this weekend watching Korean drama titled 건빵선샌과별사탕, for those that don't understand, School Casanova. It's a very interesting show, we both squealed without control at some parts but it's not the very loud kind of squeal. Things I hate doing here, consist of doing the laundry, why? Because we use freezing cold water to do it, correction, I should say colder than ice water to be more detailed. Makes your hand numb and you have to hang it outside on the balcony where wind is blowing like crazy, I'm worried that the clothes will fly off downstairs or into someone else's balcony. Living on the third floor gives you this kind of scary thoughts, but then again, they don't distribute first level to girls. It's all occupied by males or maybe couples (married couples). But luckily for us, we know who's living directly below us and a few others on the 2nd floor. And one or two on the same level, so it's quite easy for us to find help when we need them. Problem is, are they in or not… Since they always running about the place and not stoning in the hostel like the two of us. Haha! Oh, for those who's interested, there's a SJM event today, but don't get too excited, I don't have photos to show you guys cause I'm not going! Yea, I know you guys are cursing me right now as you read this, but hey I'm not crazy enough to go out there and squeeze with people in the very very cold and windy environment just to look at 7 guys that I have never meet in person but have seen in posters almost every day. Fine, I give you people permission to scream at me when I get back but just not directly at my ears. But if you ever heard that DBSK is going to be in Beijing, you can all prepare your thumb drives, memory card or whatever cause I'm sure to have some pictures about it, that's if I'm still here and if I'm not stuck in a lab with my senior trying to give stinky sheep a bath. But trust me, you guys know what I'm like when it comes to the 5 of them. Haha! But it all depends on time and the amount of work that I have to do, if I'm free with nothing to do, I'll drag Helen out even on a snowing day just to go there and stare (take "a few" photos). Okay, back to the topic about this weekend, let's see… we finally get to sleep late and wake up late, which is rare around here since we sleep early and automatically wake up early as well. Did the usually clean up around the room, need to change our huge garbage bag, check if the stupid hot water supply downstairs is working, (spoiled since 2 days ago) if it's not, we have to remember to bring the container to the lab which is at least 20 minutes walk away to collect hot water for our morning coffee/milo. And we have to figure out what gifts we need to get for friends. Well… things here are nothing much different from Singapore that make both of us scratch our head. Haha… but if are asking for those china titbits here, I guess we can't even bring that home coz nowadays immigration is very strict on china product especially china food. *Sighed* Okay okay.. Back to what I'm (Helen) doing this weekend night, trying to figure out how to knit. I'll knit and serene will be helping me in rolling back the yarn when I feel like starting all over again. Shhh… Tell u guys, she is very good at rolling yarn. Kaka… (Don't tell her I said that, she doing laundry)

10:21

Friday, 31 October 2008 Annoucement

Okay, both Helen and I have decided that we shall try to update blog as often as we can, but seriously we don't know what we can write about. So we shall just try~ Plus it was a busy week for me. For example, I spend yesterday washing flowerpots and other things, Autoclaving them blah blah blah. Today, I spend it watching my RO and mentor battle a sheep. Yes, a sheep. They rear one in the crop field, and they're trying to battle it for some saliva. I know, weird. But they still do, in the process, i heard the sheep snore. Guess it got tired of struggling as well. Then use liquid nitrogen, trust me it's cold enough here without the nitrogen. We're spending our nights watching movies that we got from the public system here, and depending on whether our mentor need our help tomorrow, we shall plan a trip. We intend to go back to Xidan again (My Korean wholesale and DVDs) for of course shopping. It's either that or we'll get stuck in the lab again. Peking duck is on Sunday, which is long awaited. But all is not confirmed. While i'm typing this, my mentor is stoning in front of the laminar flow hood waiting for samples to be due, i'm updating this at 5pm, time to leave, but Helen's still not here. The samples are to wait until 5.30pm. Before we can start on anything else... how bored can that get. Well, we have a weekend update ready but we're not posting because it's on my laptop and the computer in the lab is not willing to read thumb drives, so basically there's nothing we can do about that, until one of us has got time to go to another place to update. Since we're in different lab, i don't know what's going on upstairs (Helen's lab) so that part you guys have to ask her, but i heard alot of HPLC, here in my lab, it's PCR all day long. But there's a bit of a difference, we're creating a library of things, i have no idea what, so don't try to ask me.... That's it, BYE! Off to green house for sample collection

16:55

Tuesday, 21 October 2008 21 October 2008

Went to visit my plants today, I planted on Culture Media (NA) last week. And well due to the environment and 'special' issues, it wasn't done in a BSC. Surprisingly, out of the 6 dishes that we planted, only 2 have got tiny moulds in it, and it's due to the seeds. It was quite a success, my mentor says that we should be moving it out in about 4 more days. I took a photo of it! Which is the wrong example cause I planted them too close together. But still, it's not that bad. I'm currently doing PCR and while it's runing I'm taking the time off to blog about it. Haven't done this for quite some time so my memory is seriously failing, only ELISA is in my brain right now. PCR, the only thing that comes to my mind which links is the pregnancy kit thing. Which I suppose is the right thing to think about. Went to attend a lecture by a professor from Netherlands just a few minutes ago, reason why I came back so early? Because 1, my mentor's sleepy (a whole night of train ride), 2, I don't know what he's talking about... Guess it fits, it's PHD level around here and we're like high schoolers, really hard to understand. Well, it's about time that I go for lunch, things are starting to get busy around here. Projects are all starting, so I don't think there's going to be alot of updates but we'll try.

10:58

Monday, 20 October 2008 20 Oct 2008

Today was quite a boring day, spend the time running PCR. No one was free to bring us out to lunch so we're off on our own. Currently deciding if we should eat in the school or outside, since we're out of breakfast. If we went out to buy, that'll mean it's too dark outside for us to go eat anywhere else. It's not exactly a tough question but we have lots to think about.

13:20

19 Oct 2008 - A Unique Place To Tour!

We woke up early again this morning, but instead of the normal tour that everyone expect us to go, we took a trip to the local hospital.Wondering why? Nah, we're not down with any weird disease or vomiting like crazy. I happen to be down with a cold, might be because I'm not used to the sudden change of weather during noon and nights, it gets quite drastic around here. And Helen, she's itching… We don't know the reason at first but the doctor says it's because of allergy so there. It's quite an interesting place, messy, noisy, and stinky even. Oh, did I mention that I did a blood test? It's for blood count, to see if my cold's infectious, but it turns out all right. As for Helen, well we still don't know what she's allergic to but I serious suspect that it's the blankets. That patch of yellowish unknown stain there is possibly infectious. Let's not change the topic about hospitals; anyway, they have different departments in various places quite far from each other too. We ended up in different places and the poor senior who brought us there have to run up and down to meet both of us. This trip to the hospital took us nearly 3 hours to completely finish what we're supposed to be doing there. It's quite a terror and a pain for both of us; I don't ever want to go there ever again. Let's just hope the medication that I have works pretty well, if not I'll have to start on the antibiotics that I brought from home. I guess today will be spend by us in bed or watching DVDs that we bought yesterday while shopping. Somehow, I'm tempted to go chew on that hard but nice buttered bread, tag if you want me to bring you a packet. It taste really good as compared to the ones we have at home. Did took photo of the hospital, it's too complicated to start with, all that people and old lady trying to cut your queue giving you stupid excuses like "I'm old" or "I'll faint after a blood test" (when they haven't had one at all). What can you say? You're in a foreign country so I just let one or two pass, then for the rest, I'll just pretend that I didn't understand what they're saying. Which again brings me to another topic which I would post on another day because right now, I'm too tempted to go chew on that bread and also at the same time go watch "Fly Daddy, Fly" Lee JunKi!!!!!! Okay, I'm over my top, would you believe me if I tell you I'm high on Chinese medication?

13:10

18 Oct 2008

Waking up at 8am, finally our first weekend! After a quick change, we're on our way out to town!But things is not as easy as you think, in order to reach the famous town area of Xidan, we have to take a bus down to the train station, then take train 13, then transfer to line 2 then again to line 1 before we finally arrive at the shopping paradise. Our first destination was a stuffy building where things are not as cheap as what we think, so we decided on window shopping instead. Brunch was taken at Mr. Pizza which is almost equal to Pizza Hut, BUT it took long enough to arrive, we're hungry! Window shopping continued after food. Our next stop was the National Centre for the Performing Arts but just the outside, it's a lot like our famous durian shell only, it's smooth. Next stop, which is really close by, Tian An Men. It was very crowded but still very nice, we saw the famous photograph and I have to say it's quite different from the history textbook that we once stress over. Dinner was at Wang Fu Jin, steamboat! A warm meal in a cold night, want to know what we had? Too bad, we're not sharing! Well, that's about all for the day… We walked the dark path back to our hostel, and the night here are seriously cold, and it might have something to do with the fact that we're on fragrance hill/mountain…

13:05