time waits for no man.

in a flash, summer flew by. just like that. the freshies have completed their invasion of east campus, and the hoards of upperclassmen will start their march into west tomorrow.

school is officially starting in 5 days.
but i'm so not ready for classes to start.

finally, a glimpse of progress in my research project. i'm out of cloning! sequence checked, construct made, and transfecting into my cell lines... with this, it's finally worth the effort for boss to give a more detailed outline of the future steps to come, and things are looking more exciting. but with school starting, my schedule will heavily slow my progress, especially since my classes are planted in the middle of the day, leaving only little pockets of time for lab. still trying to figure out what the best solution is.

what's more, my classes are still totally unconfirmed. thanks to myself for forgetting my registration window and waking up 2 hours later to realize that it had passed, i'm currently waitlisted for an important bio class which i really wanna get in, or face the possibility of having to take a less desired class to fulfill my bio major requirements. hoping that turnover rate is high enough for me to get in. meanwhile, i can only wait.
enrolled in 6 classes now, and i'm not crazy enough to continue with all. have to decide at some point in time which one to drop.

haven had enough of my share of fun. before summer, there were pretty ideas about going out with frens who were here for summer too, bowling, watching movies, etc. and cos there was no worries about homework and tests, it was a good time to start preparing a little for GREs. well, maybe not after all. barely touched any of the above. oops.

船到桥头自然直吧... school's gonna start whether i want it to or not. hmmmz..... and everything will work themselves out eventually. in fact, this summer has actually been super eventful. holidaying in california, home with frens & family (+ my party!), beautiful times spent with my darling, and slight progress in research. i guess i shouldn complain too much eh? time just waits for no man. thou summer was too short, it's time to welcome the new semester with open arms, to work hard and play hard (at least try to...=P), and of course, not forgetting to love my dear dear the hardest too! 44 days till the darlings meet again!

wrapping up winter trip 2005...

rome part 2:

rome had many piazzas, fountains and churches scattered around the city, among those the famous ones include:

Fontana di Trevi (Trevi Fountain) - the most famous and prettiest fountain in rome. The figure of Neptune, the God of the Sea, is erected in the center of the fountain.


we had multi-plicate photos taken by the other tourists, cos this is what happened...

it's kinda sad if u look back at ur photos to find that the head of the statues are cut off and u hardly see the fountain u visited right??? =P and so, thou it was kinda hard, we decided that it was still best to rely on the darlings' self-portrait photography skills after all...


not perfect, but at least decent... heh.

another famous building, the Pantheon - one of the largest and earliest churches of the Roman empire.


at the center of the church, there was a hole in the ceiling - the oculus. this was the source of light, as an opening (eye) to the sky / universe.


italy's version of our pasar malam! chanced upon this carnival going on in Piazza Navona... lively, crowded and colorful!


there were also game stores with very eye-catching prizes, especially the top prize of the PSPs. my darling was highly tempted and eventually gave in, spending 5 bucks or so to try shooting down that PSP dangling from a raffia string. but thou it was hanging by an incredibly thin piece of raffia that was left after probably a thousand other shots made before us, it was actually even harder to shoot that prize down. too thin = hard to aim + great tension / strength of that thin raffia left. of course, we left the store only with a little plush toy as souvenir. haha.

we hanged around until night, roaming around the stores. darling was a sweetie and bought me a little bouquet of flowers. these were made from wood/straw in a whole array of colors to choose from. the blue-purple-pink combi was so pretty! thank you darling... -muack-



at one side of the piazza, this french guy was performing his acrobatic stunts. this finale show featured him climbing up a ladder (pulled taut on 4 sides for support) and balancing on a cylinder on a platform, much to the delight of the gathered crowd.



we walked over to the vatican at night for the night scene. the view was simply amazing...



the inside of the colosseum, where the gladiatorial fights were once staged...




more ancient Roman ruins...


so we were walking around rome, and crossed this bridge which had a lot of graffiti painted on the walls... and since the darlings were in rome, immersing ourselves in the Roman culture... we "do as the Romans do" and left our mark too! (with the promise that we'll be back someday to check if our mark had survived the test of time... heh.)


lovely sunset over the city of Rome...


the train journey to the airport, with our colorful little family of backpacks!


at the airport, where the darlings' winter trip 2005 in Italy comes to an end... closing another meaningful chapter in our lives, with many more to come...



i love you dear, and with every second that i spend with you, i love you all the more... -muack-

"A part of you has grown in me.
And so you see, it's you and me
Together forever and never apart,
Maybe in distance, but never in heart. "
~ by Anonymous ~

"life is beautiful"

summer was supposed to be a season of eternal sunshine, endless beaches, warm winds and pretty babes. "life is beautiful". full of love and joy. the wind should tell of ceaseless laughters and exciting interests, making fun hay while the sun still shines...

with no burden of schwork, this was supposed to be the season of fun and total immersion in fulfilling research. how often do we hear ourselves complaining that schwork is distracting us from spending all our time in the lab to accomplish something significant? yet, ive been in this new lab for more than a month now, with nothing to show for it. summer ends in another month, and the full load of headless hectic rushes promises to come back with double the vengence of sophomore/junior year.

a quick look at my 'To-Do's for this summer: CAT Essay due end of Fall quarter, studying and TAing for Metabolic Biochemistry, preparing for darling's upcoming birthday, planning for Winter Trip 2006 - Mexico etc, i can only feel a much more immense pressure than usual to actually finish everything on time and decently. but yet, i feel so helpless now that i dont have the confidence to complete any of the above satisfactorily.

and total immersion in research only yields total frustration, as many other undergrads in research labs can tell you. although this experience is probably more common than i would believe myself, i cant help but cast doubt on my effectiveness as a researcher if i cant even conduct an experiment based on vendors' protocols and achieve some results.

one month. its that watershed between what some would consider a long time and others a short time. but its hundreds of hours on nights and weekends already spent, and its all i have left before my current 60+ hour weeks are reduced to 15 hour weeks. and there's tons of classes on my upcoming schedule for fall 2006 for which i have no idea how the dices will fall.

"life is beautiful" - as some highly successful individuals would like us all to believe. perhaps if i was reborn with a sharper mind and nimbler fingers. or perhaps learning to savour life's bitterness is part of the beauty. if you cant change the world, change yourself (and your expectations).

perhaps. i can learn to see the beauty in this world too.

p/s: i know that i have had little time to spend with my darling ever since we parted in SD. i can only say sorry and hope my baby will bear with me over this painful summer (and most likely beyond). thank you. :*

one last try.

how does one judge if enough is enough? i've tried too many times, been stuck with no progress since january. 7 months and yet, i'm still fumbling around, searching for the solution. it's looks all so easy on paper, but life is such that things are sometimes unpredictable. and this happens to be a very good example.

it comes a point when i really wanna forget about it and start afresh from something new. but u're told "not so fast, girl..." and new ideas of trying to make it work are thrown in. i'm willing to give it one more shot and then, enough is enough.

cloning... it's driving me up the wall.