rained in
I've spent everyday this week in lab...need to relax. the semester is drawing to a close, and i can hardly believe it. On one hand it means i'm alot closer to the thanksgiving trip to london, and to going back home....but it means also that i have to rush all the work that's expected of me in the next 2 weeks. I'm taking my research for units this semester, and so i feel so much more obligation to perform good experiments and obtain sufficient results. Yet up till now i've only managed to run 4 experiments...and am still stuck with gene expression. I still have to do protein assays to get good all rounded results to write up on in my final report (which will be graded). I feel like there is so much work to do in so little time. But it's my fault. I get distracted so easily..and some days i just don't wanna come down to lab at all. Hopefully things change with this horrible weather, because on sunny days i'd very much rather be out in the sun than in lab. i don't know how i'm going to do grad school like this. it requires a whole lot of dedication and focussing wholly in research. It is a full time job. And as of now i cannot see myself being indoors from 9-5 everyday...hopefully the year off will help me decide what the next step in my future will be. bah. i hate RT-PCR. it should be called Really Time-consuming Painfully Complicated Reaction instead. *tear hair out*
and the rain. the rain scares the hell out of me. At the lab where i work, the richmond field station, the winds are horribly strong. For the entire night, i sat alone in lab, listening to the howling wind, waiting for a reaction to complete. When i finally got out, i was so worried that my car had been blown away. okay i'm stupid. anywez, it was fine...but i found a boat...yes, a canoe...lying about 10m from the car...in the middle of the road. how exciting... wonder what i'll find tonight. *sigh* Sometimes i wish that he was nearby, and around to comfort me and make things better. The past 3 days have been hard...with conflicts arising here and there....the storm, blackout, a botched experiment....and what makes it even harder is having to constantly check the clock to make sure it's an okay time in Germany before i can call him and pour my heart out.

What Breed of Hamster Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla
took this test to destress...courtesy of die fee.

trick or treat
or ?
Happy Halloween!! was thinking of joining the throngs of people having a hella great party tonight down at Castro. but as usual, inertia set in. Besides, i wouldn't know what to dress up as. I remember going there in my freshman year. that was fun. 7 of us, 3 girls and 4 guys, packing ourselves into Rob's car (accord..woohoo!!) and paying a bomb for parking. but definitely, the atmostphere was great. People were dancing, posing, and flashing in costumes ranging from wild to beautiful to just plain weird. but everyone was having a wonderful time. Mm. i'm not a part of this big party tonight, so i shan't say anymore...but i hope that hk, f and the rest of u there right now are having lots of fun! =)

well, staying home is not that big a drag too...came across the sanrio homepage..and fell in love with some of the adorabllingest characters with the cutest life stories. i never knew there were so many. i personally like chu-chu ta-co (somehow i like octopusses), Kokko chan, and many many more. some are just so silly sounding, like Landry the Laundry Raccoon or the Seven Silly Dwarfs....*sigh* really know how to pull at heartstrings la...haha..or maybe i just need to grow up. *grinz*

cha cha cha

well, it was not really chacha, but salsa dancing that i tried last night. It was interesting...tons of people packed into the Allegro Ballroom in Emeryville, all there to enjoy some rest and relax on a sunday night. But no, it wasn't that relaxing after all. The music was great, but after minutes upon minutes of continuous feet tapping and overhead twirls, i felt like i had just gotten a good workout. Also, it was rather strange dancing with so many random guys. we paired up in a huge circle and girls moved around to switch partners once in a while...yeah, kinda like the girl guides 'New Friend Found' campfire song. so i started off dancing with a fellow UC student...but as the lesson progressed i must have danced with men of all ages, heights and races. T'was a little uncomfortable...which took something away from the dancing itself. Oh well, perhaps next time i'll have to drag someone down with me. Nevertheless i still had a wonderful time, and hmm...i'm kinda inspired to take dance classes now.

haven't written much in the past few weeks. I guess i have to be in the right mood to write (this is why i've never been able to keep a journal). But i've been feeling very happy recently. There are just so many things to smile about. =) School has been good to me. Did surprisingly well for all my midterms (and i only have one round *phew*) and quizzes...which really encouraged me to do my homework more consistently and diligently...for about 2 days. Anyway, i will not complain about work, coz in fact, i'm rather thankful. Then i've been trying out stuff with TBP...like i went rock climbing not too long ago at Berkeley Ironworks. Arms were aching, fingers were sore, and now i know for sure, i have a looooooooong way to go to become a decent rockclimber. but, still fun lah. Although I would have enjoyed it more had i gone with people i knew better....so anyone interested in any of these activities? Also, the weather has begun to clear (*cross fingers*) these couple of days. No more hours upon hours of freezing cold and gloominess. Today's weather is simply excellent. I love tank top weather. think i'll go lie in the sun for a bit now. yay! And finally, less than a month to London...yippee!! we've both been really happy with us for really long now. summer was just wonderful..and the magic has kinda lasted till now. *big grin*

NEW FRIEND FOUND
As...we walk to the left and
We walk to the right
And we walk (3x) all night
With a heel and a toe and a half turn a round,
With a heel and a toe and a new friend found.

*sigh* those americans...
a london review on some website, by an american (surprise surprise):

To your left. To your left. To your left.

I'm fairly certain that the British proclivity for doing everything to the left is not just a product of Tony Blair's government. I recall hearing about this driving on the left thing even when Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister.

So, to all the other cultures, most without nuclear weapons and a Hostage Rescue Team that could abduct our political leaders and steal off into the night without detection, who continue to say that the U.S. is a big problem to the world for sticking with the English system of measurement -- despite even the English having hurriedly tossed it aside like a prophylactic wrapper before an elevator interlude -- I say look at those same English. Most of the rest of the world (civilized and otherwise) drives to the right. We board escalators to the right. By gosh, we even tend to walk to the right on crowded sidewalks. Being different for the sake of being different isn't cool... it's annoying. And it's un-American. Fix it.

monday morning blues
have u peeked out of your window yet? the street is completely covered in fog...can barely see the houses 2 streets away. boo. makes me not wanna leave the comfort of my room to trudge through the cold muggy air just for a statistics lecture. It's pretty fun though, driving through fog...where you can't really see much anywhere around you. if i were feeling really mean, i could sneak up behind the car in front...and horn real loud. hehe. so horrible. must be the fog messing up with my usually pristine thoughts. apparently it's supposed to clear up into a sunny afternoon...we'll see about that! =)

of veggies and men
me: do you like eggplant?
him: NO! (adamantly)
him: but i eat eggs. if u plant it and a chicken grows out then i'll eat that too lor.
me: ....

a hope in hell

LUCIFER: Helmet or no, you have no power here... what power have dreams in hell?

MORPHEUS: You say I have no power? Perhaps you speak truly... But, you say that Dreams have no power here? Tell me, Lucifer Morningstar.. Ask yourselves, all of you... What power would Hell have if those here imprisoned were not able to dream of Heaven?

weekend's end
mood: stuffed
feeling real full right now. *burp* juz came back from an 8 course dinner with kok's grandfather in SF. Ah, the joys of having a big car. =) sure kena invited one. hehe. but now it's time to hit my books again, coz i've got a midterm at 8am, followed by 2 quizzes. i hate mondays.
anywez, i've managed to get my archive for september up and running. there's something wrong with the script so i had to add it using brute force. looks like whatever little HTML i know came in handy.
on a more sombre note, the world is just not safe anywhere anymore. pretty sickening stuff.

duck soup for the soul

yay!! i made kiam chye ak (duck w/ salted vegetables) soup for dinner today. many thanks to mum and grandma for their help. yippeeeee! although it is not as nice as my granny's soup, it was still a nice reminder of yummilicious home cooked food. mmmm. i'll go to bed happy tonight. =)

yepyep, had a happy day. slept in till 1130...then checked our some garage sales with hk. garage sales are fun...you get to discover hidden treasures , while enjoying the fresh air and sunshine at the same time. There's something magical about soaking in the sunshine, and feeling the wind in your hair, while being driven around in a cool blue convertible with the top down. Then, the Blue Angels (kinda like our Black Knights) airshow was going on in SF at 3pm, so we took a drive up Moeser Lane, hoping to catch a glimpse of the jets. the view of the bay was as usual, breathtaking. But unfortunately the planes were the size of ants lor...so quite hard to see them do any 'seh' formations. Nevertheless, just standing on the road divider high up on the hill, on a sunny, cloudless day was a thrill in itself. After that, watched Cal-USC football game. we lost. damn, i think i'm a jinx to the football team. the last time i watched, we lost too. poor hk, i think it affected him enough to mess up his mood. uh oh. hope he feels better soon.
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three people in the past three days have asked me if i cut my hair. no, i have not, although it'll be nice if my hair could spontaneously groom itself. then i could change hairstyles everyday. then i could go rob a bank and no one would know. right.

she was
it suddenly struck me that my grandmother was dead. i hadn't thought of it for a long while. i felt guilty, because maybe it meant that i didn't care enough, didn't think of her enough. There i was sitting in my garage, talking to my other grandma on the hp. i was trying to grovel some yummy recipes out of her, and she very gladly told me exactly what to do(not that i understood what she said). It was really fun speaking to her in broken hokkien and getting a reply in broken engrish. yar, so anyway. My grandfather seemed practically overjoyed that i was calling for recipes. He was like smiling so hard that i could hear a bigbig grin in his voice. you know what i mean? And so the conversation ended on a very good note, and happy was i.

Then it occured to me that i don't do this same thing with my other grandmother. and i remembered, with a pang of regret, that she had passed on. Despite the daily visits to the hospital, the funeral, the prayers and the like over summer, it just hasn't really sunk in yet. She's dead. dead. but life for us goes on, just like it did before. I didn't cry then, i haven't cried till now. i don't think i will, ever, about her death. but i miss her. To me, she was always the 'other' grandmother. She was not the one who raised me. i never lived with her. She was not the loving, maternal one. She never hugged or showed her affection. She was not the generous and giving one. she never gave presents. She was not the interesting one. she kept on talking about her past, things that happened months, years and even decades ago. the same things over and over and over again.

BUT. She was the fiercely independant one, she brought up 2 adopted children, unmarried, all by herself. She was the one that never complained. she just kept on going. She was the strong one. she never fell ill, and never complained when she was (up till the day she died). She had lost most of her property during the Japanese occupation, but she scrimped and saved to put my dad through university. She was frugal (in every sense of the word). Her nice clothes were just a newer brighter version of her everyday clothes. She never ate more than enough. didn't crave the good things in life. thought that everything was more expensive than it should be. she even asked for a not-too-elaborate funeral. She looked almost the same everyday for 21 years of my life. the same unfussy hair and clothes. everyday. the same spunky old lady who refused to give in to old age. Her sprit never left her, till the day she died. It was her body that gave up.

She was 93 when she died. a ripe old age. She was admirable in every way. i wish that it didn't take her illness for me to spend more time with her. I learnt quite a bit more about her in those few months. why she chose to adopt children, her family background, and so on. but more importantly, i learnt that she loved us so much despite not showing it, that she too craved affection, that she liked having her hand held. I learnt that like us, she has her own special stories to share about things that mean a lot to her. She was once 21 too, and must have felt as we do now. hopeful about the future...experiencing first love...making new friends...exploring new found freedom? yet somehow, to the younger generations, the memories of an old person just doesn't seem to be as real. but one day, we will be in their shoes, and what happened to us today, will then be seen as nothing more than insignificant recollections of our past.

I still remember looking at her body that night, and upon seeing it so devoid of life, i felt weird. Didn't cry but was a little shocked. Because it just didn't really seem like her to die. Yup. it was then that i realised what a incredibly strong person she had been, and how she never showed any signs of weariness for life. And how she just kept on living each day without thinking about the end.

I cry, not because of her death, but because i miss her, and the strength that she showed.
and because the world needs more people like her.