the final stretch
3 more days to go. Feeling slightly better now that i've finished up a chunk of stuff from BE567. I was feeling thus suffocated and demoralized partly because of non-linear systems, which i took last fall. It was hard grappling with all the equations and definitions that i very quickly chucked out of my memory all those months ago. Oh well, welcome back into my life you confusing Hopf, transcritical, pitchfork, and saddle-node bifurcations. Welcome back all ye wonderful differential equations, vector fields and phase portraits. I would say that my brain is somewhat chaotic right now, except that chaos is defined as aperiodic behavior in a deterministic system that exhibits sensitive dependence on intitial conditions. I don't think that i'm exactly a deterministic system (behavior determined by only the state of system and initial conditions) since several external stresses are currently acting on me and threatening to drive me into a state of insanity (a stable fixed point, which is not possible in a chaotic system).
See, i have been studying. =)
Now that i'm pretty much done with this part of my revision, it's back to physiology and biochemistry, which is much more interesting and also easier to revise. I feel a strange attraction (oooh..i can define a strange attractor too!) towards thick biology textbooks (remember Campbell in JC?)...i actually look forward to having some time to sit down, put on my thinking cap and plough through them. Gonna take a short break to grab some food and water so i don't die a horrible death at home alone.
I can't wait to have a social life again. So many good things lined up for the next month or so. *shoves thoughts away* For now, i'm a hermit! 3 more days to go...
Showing posts with label geekiness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label geekiness. Show all posts
Sunday, July 31, 2005
Wednesday, August 27, 2003
and now for the news
Mm..someone commented that my blog kinda looks like a newspaper now. well, i would hope not, partly because i know that the news here would be hardly worthy of mention even in the tabloids, and partly because i put in some effort into finding pretty fonts (which other people cannot see..boohoo). Yah, i almost forgot to mention that i revamped the page....really needed a change. so now it's blue =) and gives me much more space in the main frame to write/put pictures/etc... I still need to add the links and other random things. I've been so busy with work though, that time just flies right by. I suppose it'll take a while before more changes are made to this page. But that's alwez been the case right?
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I'm leaving for Singapore tomorrow night...can hardly believe it. Have had a ton of work in the past few weeks, and I think my supervisor and I will welcome a short break. The project i'm working on is really fascinating, and strange as it may sound, i'm gonna miss working in the lab. I've never felt that way before about labs. Oh dear, i'm turning into a lab rat! We've been really lucky with our experiments so far...most things have worked out, and so much has been done in just 1 1/2 months. With a lot more luck, we could be on our way to developing a drug for auto-immune diseases. It'll be real nice if the work that i put in now could help thousands of people around the world. I think this is one reason why research in a pharmaceutical company gets me that much more excited. okay, the pay helps too. =)
Mm..someone commented that my blog kinda looks like a newspaper now. well, i would hope not, partly because i know that the news here would be hardly worthy of mention even in the tabloids, and partly because i put in some effort into finding pretty fonts (which other people cannot see..boohoo). Yah, i almost forgot to mention that i revamped the page....really needed a change. so now it's blue =) and gives me much more space in the main frame to write/put pictures/etc... I still need to add the links and other random things. I've been so busy with work though, that time just flies right by. I suppose it'll take a while before more changes are made to this page. But that's alwez been the case right?
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I'm leaving for Singapore tomorrow night...can hardly believe it. Have had a ton of work in the past few weeks, and I think my supervisor and I will welcome a short break. The project i'm working on is really fascinating, and strange as it may sound, i'm gonna miss working in the lab. I've never felt that way before about labs. Oh dear, i'm turning into a lab rat! We've been really lucky with our experiments so far...most things have worked out, and so much has been done in just 1 1/2 months. With a lot more luck, we could be on our way to developing a drug for auto-immune diseases. It'll be real nice if the work that i put in now could help thousands of people around the world. I think this is one reason why research in a pharmaceutical company gets me that much more excited. okay, the pay helps too. =)
Tuesday, April 08, 2003
ole ole...to good weather days
I'm spending yet another afternoon in lab. Indoors. Seriously, how many hours do scientist and researchers while away in the lab just waiting for for invisible molecules to interact with other different, but just as invisible, molecules? Stripping a membrane takes an hour, blocking it another hour. Incubating it with a primary antibody takes two hours, and secondary Ab yet another hour. And those are just waiting times. And so many times, after you invest what feels like half your life doing an experiment, one step goes horrendously wrong, and you say byebye to your results. It can be frustrating completing an experiment, much less duplicates of multiple experiments. We should all be thankful for those good natured, fluorescent-light-loving scientists who spend their days and nights running experiments and killing animals for the good of mankind. One example is the italian expert that sacrificed his life identifying the SARS virus currently going around the world. My parents have always dissuaded me from doing microbiology, in fear of such an outcome. well, no matter what field of biology i pursue, i really hope that it brings some good to the world. I didn't choose to do bioengineering because of the government, i chose it for myself. Although i didn't really know what i was getting into, at the end of 3 years, i'm real glad that i chose to take this path. Bioengineering allows me to do basic biological research, and yet apply it to solving everyday needs. Stuff i'm interested in now: tissue engineered cardiovascular or liver tissue. I'm excited about the coming year. Let's see where it takes me. =)
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On a different note, i spent lunchtime in a corner of La Val's at northside with 40 strangers, brought together by the live Real Madrid - Man Utd game. (i'm sure half of you will stop reading this entry from here on =P) Although not a fan of either team, I was just curious to see if the hype surrounding the game could live up to expectations. It was pretty awesome. Awesome Real Madrid scored awesome goals. But what was more interesting, was watching the other watchers. It's pretty rare to find so many people in a pizza joint, sitting in front of a huge TV, watching not baseball, not basketball, not american football, but real english football. There were some who came in, glanced at the TV, then sat facing away, focused only on lunch. Those were the americans. Then there were those who brought throngs of friends and added to the atmosphere. Those were Spanish. Also, there were British (my ex-math TA!) and Brazilian and Indians. Pretty cool huh? It was like the I-house had moved to northside. =) It's always fun watching soccer with people. The "ooohs" and "aaahs" really do make a difference. If only i had someone to watch soccer with...*sigh* too bad fellow liverpool fans are a tad far away!
I'm spending yet another afternoon in lab. Indoors. Seriously, how many hours do scientist and researchers while away in the lab just waiting for for invisible molecules to interact with other different, but just as invisible, molecules? Stripping a membrane takes an hour, blocking it another hour. Incubating it with a primary antibody takes two hours, and secondary Ab yet another hour. And those are just waiting times. And so many times, after you invest what feels like half your life doing an experiment, one step goes horrendously wrong, and you say byebye to your results. It can be frustrating completing an experiment, much less duplicates of multiple experiments. We should all be thankful for those good natured, fluorescent-light-loving scientists who spend their days and nights running experiments and killing animals for the good of mankind. One example is the italian expert that sacrificed his life identifying the SARS virus currently going around the world. My parents have always dissuaded me from doing microbiology, in fear of such an outcome. well, no matter what field of biology i pursue, i really hope that it brings some good to the world. I didn't choose to do bioengineering because of the government, i chose it for myself. Although i didn't really know what i was getting into, at the end of 3 years, i'm real glad that i chose to take this path. Bioengineering allows me to do basic biological research, and yet apply it to solving everyday needs. Stuff i'm interested in now: tissue engineered cardiovascular or liver tissue. I'm excited about the coming year. Let's see where it takes me. =)
-----------------------------------------------------------
On a different note, i spent lunchtime in a corner of La Val's at northside with 40 strangers, brought together by the live Real Madrid - Man Utd game. (i'm sure half of you will stop reading this entry from here on =P) Although not a fan of either team, I was just curious to see if the hype surrounding the game could live up to expectations. It was pretty awesome. Awesome Real Madrid scored awesome goals. But what was more interesting, was watching the other watchers. It's pretty rare to find so many people in a pizza joint, sitting in front of a huge TV, watching not baseball, not basketball, not american football, but real english football. There were some who came in, glanced at the TV, then sat facing away, focused only on lunch. Those were the americans. Then there were those who brought throngs of friends and added to the atmosphere. Those were Spanish. Also, there were British (my ex-math TA!) and Brazilian and Indians. Pretty cool huh? It was like the I-house had moved to northside. =) It's always fun watching soccer with people. The "ooohs" and "aaahs" really do make a difference. If only i had someone to watch soccer with...*sigh* too bad fellow liverpool fans are a tad far away!
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