kud0s

One of the greatest nightmares of every graduate student is to have your project scooped by a competitor lab. I’m not sure if I was scooped, but I was greatly distressed when shown an accepted manuscript of a publication on almost exactly what I am intending to publish a few months from now. Now that another lab has published first, the impact of my work has been greatly reduced and I would have to think of new spins to the story in order for things to be novel and publishable.

For a while I was worried that my thesis / graduation might be jeapordized. But it seems that if I do three projects concurrently, I have enough contingencies built in. Well, life is going to be a bit busier from now on.

Lots of things went through my mind in the past week - evaluation of my working relationship with supervisors, my own reaction to work crisis, learning points, discouragement, resentment, frustration, and feeling misunderstood for having to spend so much time in the lab. I guess this is the real heat of grad school - when the pressure to compete to the press is on, when the clock towards graduation is ticking, and when you realize that you have to produce results for the thousands of dollars being sunk in week in and week out on experimentation. Gone are the days when complacency could be tolerated. I only pray that God will use this crucible to refine and to mold his vessel.

Am glad for a weekend of recovery. Spent the friday evening eating KL-style Hokkien Mee, drinking Heineken, and reading 射雕英雄傳 at the neighborhood coffee shop - the almost perfect way for the introverted me to relax. I’m not sure if I look forward to going back to work tomorrow, but I’m not surprised about times like this - and not surprised that there will be moments of great test of perserverance, and for this case, dependency on God.

This is one of those frustrating moments in life - when Windows crashes on you… yet again. I installed a HP printer software, and removed it to try to reinstall it cos it didn’t work the first time around, and there it went….. phooom….. Windows wouldn’t load.

Trying to read some articles to understand how to fix it. Worse comes to worse, reinstall windows. Mac never gives this kind of problem loh…. My wonderful Monday evening has been wasted troubleshooting….

The trip to Phuket and the Phi Phi Islands was one of the best dive trips I’ve been on so far. Being able to enjoy both diving and a tourist attraction was great. It was a trip I did not regret going on.

Rushing to the airport on Thursday evening was a challenge. I had a 6.45pm flight and I was still passaging cells at around 5pm. So I passaged cells in record time, busted out of the lab, hopped onto a cab, and there I was on MI758 to Phuket. In less than 2 hours, I was in Phuket already. The cab ride to the hotel at Kata Beach was looooong. (I didn’t know Phuket was such a big island, thought I was going to Sentosa or something). The cab was speeding on the road like nobody’s business, and best of all, the speedometer was always pointed at 0 km/hr. No big deal, I thought to myself. The driver seemed competent enough. So instead of worrying about him driving against oncoming traffic, we had a really nice and long talk about the tsunami, tourism in Phuket, experiences of living in Malaysia, Thai women, religion, friendship, and family values. What a cultural exchange!

By the time I got in it was about 10pm. KC, JS, and AT were just returning from their evening stroll to Kata Center. AT bought dinner for me (bless his heart). Didn’t do much that evening. Ate, and slept to get ready for the 4 dives next morning.

The next morning, we were picked up by a truck from Calypso Divers and got trasfered to Chalong Bay to board MV Greta. There were 30 divers on the boat - crowded for a boat this size but we were very pleased with the DM to diver ratios - no more than 1 to 4. Some 75-80% of the divers/DMs on the boat were westerners. No surprise lah, 75-80% of visitors to Phuket ARE westerners. The moment you get into HKT airport you think you’re in Europe or something.

After breakfast and a short round of introduction, we were on our way to the first dive site: King Cruiser Wreck. The ride out there was especially bumpy and we all could smell seasickness in the air. Ouch. As usual, my way to combat seasickness was to go to the bow and sit on the deck. It was easily 1.5 hours’ journey from Chalong Bay to the wreck. The choppiness did not seem to go away when we reached the dive site. Still remembering the terrible experience during the first dive at Igara Wreck, I dreaded getting into the choppy waters. But alamak, what the heck. Here already, be a man. Fought the nausea, geared up, and jumped straight into the choppy waters.

[To be continued]

It’s uncommon for me to describe the CNY break like this, but I find this CNY break very fulfilling. Spent some quality time with family, cousins, and friends with whom I’ve been out of touch. It’s really a season of reunion. In fact, it’s been reunion time ever since December, when I met up with hostel friends whom I have not seen for something like 13 years. Met with friends from UW last night and it was great seeing friends I haven’t seen for anywhere from 2-5 years. Having relocated a few times in my short life, it gets tiring to have to meet new friends and say good-byes every few years. But my heart is warmed this season to know that good friendships survive time and distance. You can totally meet them after not meeting for decades, and just pick up from where you left off.

Pace of life has been so fast that I hardly had time to slow down, so am super thankful for these few days of break, for having time to talk to people without worrying about getting to the next activity.

Thankful thankful thankful. Period.

Koh Phi Phi, 2-5 Feb 2006. Watch this space for trip details and photos!

I have finally decided to come back into action in blog-o-sphere, after having disappeared for a while. Got into trouble from blogging a few months back, the details of which I shall not disclose here. But that one episode gave me a little bit of phobia towards being “overexposed”. Well, I think it was silly of me to let my actions be dictated by fears. I should manage my fears, and not let my fears manage me. Yup, good stuff. Done. I’m back.

While driving to work this morning, I was feeling like I am starting to really like my Vios. The first two weeks of owning the black beauty was a bit of an adjustment. First, it was a change of lifestyle (in order to drive the OPC, hee hee); then, it was an increase in financial burden, I have to be more conscientious now in budgetting my expenditure (which is not bad at all); and then I have to get used to driving on the left side of the road. The most major adjustment is actually, seeing the rage that is often hidden in me (wink). Frustrations on the road uncover the worst aspects of a person’s temperament. And I had a good look at myself these past two weeks. Dude, do I have some anger issues…

Anyhow, found a really wonderful QT spot in Biopolis this morning. There’s this little park thing built on a hill next to Biopolis. I walked up a winding path to the top this morning and sat reading the Bible on a park bench under a huge tree, overlooking MOE and Biopolis. Boy, was the view breathtaking. It was nothing short of refreshing! The only drawback is that there were too many birds, and they were dropping their breakfast, half-eaten fruit-like stuff, on me. But I was quite thankful that I got droppings from their mouths and not from any other body orifices. Nuff said.

Time really flies man… I am barely getting used to writing 2006 in dates, and the 1st month of the year is almost gone.