darlings@randomtots.com

life.

2012-01-14T13:03:00.000+08:00

taking a step back, it's amazing what my life has been. full of love, happiness, fulfillment, and also filled with struggle, challenges, despair... but i've grown and emerge as a stronger person. and i learn to stand up strong, to help others, to love others and to give back happiness to all around me.

i cannot say that i've always been the nicest person, but i try. nobody is perfect, and nobody can be perfect all the time. many times i feel so drained, having to swallow my disappointments and despair to continue, to put on a smile, gulp down my anger and move on with kindness and patience. but everyday i hope i'm growing and living a better life.

few years ago, i probably say i wanna stay a kid forever, to lead a carefree life, with much less responsibilities. but time waits for no man. and actually, growing up and maturing brings their own set of joy and happiness that have been challenging, but actually, fun.

i have things to complain about in life now, but pales starkly in comparison to the troubles that many others face. i am thankful. deep breaths, and chug on with life. work hard, play hard. love myself and others, and may tomorrow always be a better day than before!

almost a year in dormancy. thoughts.

2011-03-11T03:23:00.003+08:00

with the ease of facebook posting, and our perpetual hectic lives with work (and balancing fun), it has been impossible to keep this alive.

feel like i'm drowning in mid-grad sch confusion and frustration. too many things to keep up with, too little time, too inadequate and incapable of coping with them. there is SO much potential i see in the project. there is so much i can envision. i know fully well numerous baby steps are required to get there. i just need to do it. but too many things are catching up to me, gnawing away at my limited energy pack.

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on a lighter, happier side, life has been exciting and fulfilling too (probably taking up a little too much time. lol. but what's life if we don't work hard and play hard right?) several frens around us have keen interest in skiing/boarding, and so we've improved dramatically this season after several trips up to Tahoe this season. proud of ourselves!!! =) spring is coming. and we're headed up for some wine tasting soon! many things coming up for the rest of the year. sis is due in May (EXCITING!!) and so we're going back to sg in june to see the little one! i really really want to go for my fren's wedding in UK this october... it's super ex though, flying the long distance... =( and with fm's sis and co coming to visit in nov-dec (yay! fun!), we really need to save up!! =(((

time flies by too fast, life is too short, money is too hard to come by, embracing work/life/love/passion with all my heart and soul is way too draining... but we shall persevere and light shall shine bright at the end of the tunnel!

Cool apartment transformation

2010-04-28T13:33:00.001+08:00

the joy of grad school...

2010-04-08T15:01:00.002+08:00

killed several mice today, some scheduled, while others... not so scheduled. unfortunately, the mouse that died was part of an ongoing expt, but i guess fortunately was a somewhat control mouse, so it wasn't quite that a loss. oh well. i've been spending way too many hours on 'dates' wtih my mice. hopefully once the colony is stable and cleaned up, the hours spent on them will decrease somewhat.

i can't believe that i'm reaching the end of my 2nd year of grad school soon...

do random tots still exist?

2010-02-12T19:08:00.004+08:00

only in the pristine silence of the night does my tots come clean...

im tired of reaching within myself to find strength. time to reach out.

it dawned on me that my extended absence from home is making me lose touch with my friends.

my world revolves around my cells. i have enough expts on my to-do list for two grad students.

time to regroup. make mouse, green colonies, write review.

push forth, and blossom.

Honeymoon part 4 - the enjoyments of life... =D

2009-09-23T03:33:00.000+08:00

Enough of the rough-it-out adventures... it was time for the darlings to pamper ourselves! At Pai, we decided to find a nice lodge to stay and have a good time chilling out. 7km from the city center, there was a place which had personal hot tubs for the guests as they channeled the thermal hot spring water directly into each of the huts. oooohhh... that sounds GREAT!

but 7km away... the solution: scooter rental! this time though, we each had our backpacks... so we decided to each rent one scooter. no more pillion rider for me this time... but time for some vrooommm-vroooommm!!!! (i did try a little the last time, but just the few hundred meter play-play kind... haha)

daring with his green bike (matches his bag eh?)

and my adorable pink bike!!! so coincidental that we were given a pink one! haha. it would be funny if a guy rents, and realizes that he got a pink bike. LOL.

Our night's stay was at Spa Exotic Home. this was really a nice rustic place... the paths leading to our little bungalows, and a stream running down alongside... ah, so peaceful, so relaxing...

our home for the night. =D

ta-da! the pretty room inside...

and the highlight of all.. the tub for the hot sulfur thermal water! soak-time!!

and time for some nice restaurant food too! (the food at cave lodge was pretty gd, decent too! but just nice to be back into the city, having dinner with more class? heh)

thai pineapple fried rice, tom yum and some stirfried pork

WOAH! guess what??!!!? our 4 good buddies had told us that they were heading to Pai too, and we were just saying back then at Cave Lodge that we may get the chance to meet up again in Pai! Pai is a small place... and we were walking down the street when we caught sight of them at a restaurant! after chilling out at the bar, we crashed over at their hotel and started playing bridge.

what i din mention previously was that we started teaching the 4 of them how to play bridge back in Cave Lodge, and they had gotten addicted to it! and so since then, when they had the chance to sit down and play (like during our meals at cave lodge) it would be 'bridge time'!!! haha

it ended up that we played till 3am... lol. and we finally parted goodbye and took our scooters back to our hotel. that was almost certainly our final goodbye - we were going back to chiangmai the next day, while they had made plans to go kayaking in Pai itself... a little sadness when we parted, but truly real great frens they were, and maybe we'll see one another sometime in the future!!

lonely planet mentioned a night market that is famous for its wide variety of fresh seafood... a tourist trap in a way, but definitely good food!!! nearing the end of our trip, a big meal certainly sounded like a plan!

a simple padthai to start... the good stuff is coming!!!

oooh... black pepper crab!! too bad this was kinda disappointing, cos the crab meat kept on getting stuck to the side of the shell...

now THIS was the amazing one for the dinner... costs a massive 3/4 of our total dinner bill. *gasp* we din realize that is woud be SO expensive initially. but oh well, a splurge here and there doesn't matter, esp for some gd lobster!!!

cant wait to dive into our curry baked lobster!

so good, my darling's lickin' his fingers clean... =)

our last 2 night's stay at Thapae Boutique Hotel- budget, but definitely classy and modern boutique hotel! great value =)

simple but well-chosen designs/furnishing, makes the entire room have a great feel to it. =) i fondly remember the little pillows (the little green on next to fm) stuffed with green tea leaves... hmm, so fragrant!

our last day in chiangmai, we arranged to go on a day trip to the elephant nature park. it's listed as a no 2 highlight in thailand to visit, so we were interested to see what this place had to offer. instead of the usual elephant trekking and riding that many places offer, this is a conservation park, where visitors only feed, bathe and watch the elephant and there was no riding activities.

fm offering the elephant food - pumpkin, bananas or melons, and the elephant reaches out with its trunk, wraps around the food and shoves it into its mouth. the elephants are pretty picky about their food though, definitely showing preferences for some rather than others. Bananas were always welcomed, but pumpkins and melons were sometimes dropped from the trunk deliberately, before picking the pieces again after the feeding basket is empty and they decide that they should probably rummage the stuff on the ground... haha.

me bathing the elephant...

the park also has their own babies - 2 of them in fact, a 2 month old boy (in picture) and a 4 month old girl... awww... babies are always sooo cute!

all in all, the elephant nature park was... well, so-so. there was nothing much to do throughout the whole day actually, with a lot of down time and chilling out. especially considering that we paid quite a hefty sum for the day tour. it's marketed as working for a great cause for these abused elephants... so hopefully the money is put into good use, and really benefitting these animals as promised. =)

came back from the nature park, and spent the night roaming around... chilling out...

view of Singapore as our plane descended down to Changi Airport...

as with any amazing enjoyable vacation with darling, there was definitely longing for the trip to never ever end... but it was time to go home. the 9 days simply passed sooo fast it was unbelievable. nevertheless, it was a super fun honeymoon trip in northern Thailand!

Thailand Honeymoon part 3 - cool, new experiences in the villages and towns

2009-09-19T03:28:00.000+08:00

from the city of chiangmai, we took an overnight bus to the village of mae hong son. This is a little place that is great to relax and explore, away from the city buzz.

we arrived in the wee hours of the day, and after walking around the deserted streets aimlessly checking out some of the accommodation, we settled on this new and pretty guest house called the residence. "a cheery bright yellow building" as lonely planet described, this place is run by a couple, pretty friendly and speaks english. the room was very well furnished, simple but classy, just like a boutique hotel.
dropped by the morning market to check it out, and darling caught sight of youtiao (fried chinese dough) and soymilk. of cos he wouldnt give them a miss! (that's him muching happily on his youtiao breakfast)

there was also a store selling nonya-like kuehs, these sticky rice cakes made with different flavors.

mae hong son itself is really really small and there's nothing much to do. the little attractions to go are several miles away and the only way to commute is via motorbikes! of cos, the darlings always welcome new exciting adventures, and so we rented our 2-wheeler and off we went! (it's actually not a motorbike, it's a scooter.) so fm loves this story: at the rental place, this teenage girl came to show us how to operate the scooter. "so kick up the foot stand, press the brakes, then press this button to start engine, ok? both sides handles, press to brake. turn here (the right handlebar) to go. ok? ok. that's it." she went thru as she demonstrated, and then 'class' was over. haha.

but yeah, riding a automatic scooter is super easy. hubby of cos got the hang of it fast, and we were chuggin along the empty roads to start our exploration! there was one car/van/motorbike which would pass us once in a while (cos we were travelling sloooowwwly. lol) or came in the opposite direction. but other than that, the roads were clear.

here's me enjoying the ride behind my dear driver for the day. and snapping away pics and videos =D

in mae hong son there are many many rice padi fields, agriculture being one of thailand's major industries. loved watching as we chugged passed the pretty green padi fields.. we chose one to stop by, so darling could actually appreciate them more than a glimpse, as he tried to concentrate on keeping the scooter on the roads. =P

up close and personal with the rice padi!

our little automatic scooter did us proud by conquering all the huge upslopes, crawling but certainly inching its way up north. we were aiming for the villages up at the thailand-myanmar border. back in the days during the ___________, chinese people fled to taiwan to refuge and some fled over to thailand as well. thus, one can find a small community of chinese-speaking villages.

lunchtime at the village! after a few days of foreign thai written and spoken all around us, we never thought that we would speak chinese in thailand! we walked into a random restaurant - order stirfried homegrown veggies (some leeks or shoots), black chicken herbal soup 炖黑鸡汤, braised pork shoulder (which was HUGE!), and it came with 2 steamed buns 馒头 too! =)=) haha... yummy lunch.

the ride back down south was WAY much easier on our poor little scooter. haha. it was downhill all the way and we hardly used up much of the gas!

a scenic spot along the way - magnificent waterfall. just too bad that we couldn't go down much closer to it cos the area was cordened off. =(

have been waiting for this for the whole day!! MUD SPA! =D mae hong son is apparently the only place that has offers mud spa, and so after a long day of scootering around, this was the last place we headed to for some pampering. first we were painted with the volcanic mud goo and went to a platform to get ourselves dried in the sun. while waiting, the darlings of cos never fail to entertain ourselves by taking all sorts of puppety silly shots. =P and then later on, we got some tamarind scrub and orange facial, ending with a hot thermal water swimming pool soak... woot~!

next morning: before leaving mae hong son and heading to our next stop, we took another short ride down south this time to some hot springs. when we were there, the hot springs turned out to be a set of rectangular swimming pools and there was a ton of construction going around, presumably to upgrade the facility for capturing future tourists.

instead, fm was drawn to the padi fields next door. there was a man at the edge of the padi fields, climbing into the flooded fields, taking some things out of the fields and smashing them with a shovel. We were curious and went over to find out what he was doing. With our 'expert' sign language =P, we managed to get a little conversation going, heh. and he showed us that he was picking out the snails amongst the rice plants and killing them with his shovel. he generously let us wander around on the little mud banks aroudn the fields as he continue diligently with his work.

then we got more daring, and asked if he minded us going into the mud too and helping him for a bit. i guess two little kids wouldnt do much harm rite.. and he grinned and urged us to go try. i would collect our snails till a double-hand full, and went to him with the entire bunch, where he would gladly smash them on the ground. he certainly found some free labor for some good half hour's work!

the (super) hot springs were finally given a short visit as we washed off our muddy hands and feet there. lol. and it was byebye to the springs, our gracious farmer friend and mae hong son...

so the next stop we had decided to go was Pai, this tiny place where one could go enjoy the hot springs, do some caving, chill out at the pubs. so we got onto the bus to head to Pai. Along the way, the bus stopped at this small village town for the regular passenger pick-up/off-load and toilet stop. We noticed the sides of the road littered with many signs for guest houses/hostels/lodges etc. Curious, we looked up our good old lonely planet and realized we were in Suppong. AND... there was a big gray box that screamed right to us: Best place for caving and exploration of the limestone caves.

!!!!!! if we were going somewhere farther for ok caving, why not stop here and do amazing caving?? but were we ready to step into the unknown and simply drop off the bus? deliberation time was actually not too long... did you already guess that we DID IT? yes, we told the confused bus driver that we wanted to stop right there. (he tried so hard to convince us we were not at Pai... =P) so the bus drove off, leaving us and our backpacks behind...

we asked around to find out how we could get to this "Cave Lodge" in Tham Lot village, which was the center where all the outdoorsy activities were organized from. A lady selling fruits at the roadside stand then emptied the back of her pickup truck of fruits, and drove us up (7-9km away) to Cave Lodge, through narrow mud tracks and the heavy drizzle for 300 baht. well, not too bad, we managed to get to our destination!

we were greeted by friendly faces who asked us to first put down our stuff around the common place (there were a small crowd of pple sitting around) and asked us to order our dinner first, before we settle the rest of the stuff. already, we got the first sense of Cave Lodge being quite like a mini self-sufficient activity center. there were hand written board plastered all over the place, including the food/drink menu. and there were photos/notes/everything tacked/pasted on the walls of the 'reception' place. a lot of them were about john, the guy who discovered the caves and set up the cave lodge itself, his adventures and experiences.

the kitchen/reception area:

dinner was ordered, and we wandered around to look at the posters around, some were describing the bird sightings in the area, the one-day trips available to the long-neck tribe villages, the caves, etc. There were several treks/cavings options available, and water rafting trips too.

The common area. note the sides filled with various posters... there was also a ping pong table (bottom left side of picture)

there was also a wooden swing for little girls like me to play! ^_^

Chatting up with some of the other guests, we learnt that one group just did the full day trek+caving and loved it. They definitely highly recommended that we take up one of those trips.

We then chose our room, decided on the smaller cheaper one since we weren picky abt it. just a few steps from the common place, this little hut was our home for the next 2 nights.

me and our bed, comes complete with a mosquito net, nice!

That night, we found out that another group of people had just arrived that evening too, and were planning to take the trek/caving trip too. so we discussed about it and agreed to form a group together. They were a bunch of 4 Lithuanians, 3 medical students and a lawyer, taking a one month summer vacation here in thailand (so long!!! jealous!!) easy-going , fun loving people, similar age as us, and we quickly got along well!

so the next morning, we met for breakfast, and were off on our expedition!

hubby all pumped, ready to go!

with our new-found friends and the guide (fm was taking the pic)

it was off to a cool start, we walked through plantations growing sesame and corn... and as we trekked along, the guide would (via sign language) point out interesting things to us, like ginger plants, pine and teak trees that are often used for furniture (the wood smells amazing!)

dwarfed amongst the tall corn plants...

REAL corn!

yes! we reached our first cave! burrowed down from a tiny little entrance which then opened up into a big cavern. there were broken parts of wooden coffins lying around in the caves. in the past, the tribal people would bring their dead to the caves, just like they did in China.

darling with our 4 Lithuanian frens... all geared up with the helmet and headlamps. (it was actually dark inside the caves, the flash doesn't do much justice to the actual atmosphere in the caves. the helmets were very important to save our heads from all the big crashes into the cave sides/roof, and of cos, the headlamps were crucial to shining the path ahead!)

out from first cave, and trekking along to the 2nd cave... and this was the sad state our shoes were already in... bleahz. =P

O-M-G... we were certainly NOT told that we were gonna immerse in water...... down went the shoes, first muddy, now wet!!!!

us definitely having fun, the shoes were, well, not so happy... too bad. ^_^

trudging through the cave, waddling in water...

the explorers in action!

definitely a true caving experience this was... no signs of touristification like boardwalk/planks, spotlights etc! it was uneven rocks/boulders, low ceilings at times, running water... we were grabbing on to the rocks and boulders for balance and support, and even at times went down to all fours!

this was the 4th and last cave, the christmas cave cos it's festive white!! pretty stalactites!

wandering through the caves, enjoying the view...

at the end of all this... oh boy were we muddy, muddy, muddy..... =P

EXTREMELY fun n exciting trip. so thankful that we made that quick and decisive move to drop off that bus at Suppong to make it to this!

(we also went on the kayaking trip the next day, and it was pretty fun too! too bad we were kayaking, so no pictures... =( darling and i shared a double, and we were with another 2 guys on the trip. kayaking down a number of rapids. some were actually quite fierce and tough... and we also kayaked thru a cave... =D)

so that's it for Tham Lot and Cave Lodge adventures! next up, finally... on towards our initial destination 2 days ago... Pai!

Honeymoon part 2 - the excitement begins!

2009-09-15T12:17:00.000+08:00

Rise and shine to our first full day in thailand! we woke up early to get ready for our van pick-up. packed our bags and checked out of our hotel. today we were going white water rafting!

We had booked the "Wet gibbon" 2D1N package, which had white water rafting + zipline dual adventure. The white water rafting was with this company called siam adventures. we definitely had a great time - it was well organized, the route was pretty good, and the people were nice and fun.

the route down the rapids...

together with us on the wet gibbon was an american mother with her 14-yr-old daughter. they were really fun pple too, and together, we were on the same raft and we definitely was the noisiest, craziest raft out there on the rapids! (there were 2 other rafts with us, just doing the rafting, not the zipilne thingy)

us paddling with much zest, all ready for the rapids!

*AHHHH~!!!!* ^_^

and a high-five for a good job done!

also, during the calmer part of the river, the mother and I lunged for our guide to push him over the raft into the river. haha. he happily went overboard, but not without dragging the 2 of us together into the water!! hahaha...
the little girl was next to get thrown overboard (by fm) and fm himself was later pulled over (and willingly jumped off) the raft. heh. oooh... fun times. =D

the 2D1N package included a village homestay. we were definitely looking forward to meeting the villages and living kampung-style! we were led to our hosts for the night. It was a cute little couple, probably in their 50s? When we got there, they were just starting to prepare dinner. it was a little awkward initially, cos we spoke no thai, and they spoke no english. with the help of the wordlist at the back of lonely planet, we managed to barely introduce ourselves, and got to know their names. also, with the ever universal sign language, we learnt of some of the ingredients of our dinner too! haha.

auntie chopping up the stuff for the soup.

the soup, almost ready! meatballs, fishballs, sausages, pork, cabbage, bamboo shoots altogether to make it pretty rich..

uncle bbq-ing the beef satay over the traditional charcoal stove.

dinnertime! we sat outside at their porch area. simple nice dinner, though it was a little disappointing that our host couple did not eat with us. auntie sorta indicated to us that he was not eating dinner (or maybe it was that he oredi ate dinner, something liddat), and auntie was serving us the food, and getting topups of everything when it was going low (we told her to stop after once, cos we were full!!) but auntie was nice, i like her. =)

also together with the package included a thai massage at night after dinner! yay! i ADORE massages! =D=D=D *hint HINT to hubby!*

hubby splattered on the floor enjoying his massage

anyone knows what i'm playing with? birds and frogs folded from dried bamboo leaves! after our massage, auntie brought our a bag of dried bamboo leaves, and signaled for us to crowd around. she had a sample of the folded frog and started teaching us how to make them! =) haha... darling and i were terrible at it. =P we had continuously ask her for help after she showed us several times. oh, we learnt a useful word for the origami process: "noi" was thai for 'pull', cos we needed to pull the leaves hard to make the frog snug and tight. and also, the bird-frog combi was nice, cos the bird eats the frog (that's what i'm doing in the picture!) haha... forgot the thai words for 'bird eats frog' liao. *oops*

a happy family! thank you auntie and uncle for being such great hosts!

bedtime! we had our own little room, simple but nice setup with the mattress, pillows and blanket.

next morning we woke up early to the aggressive and non-stop croo-ing of the roosters. haha. there was no way we could have overslept!! and auntie was up and about prepping breakfast by the time we showered and got to the kitchen.

the stirfry veggie+sausage with porridge cooking on the stove

breakfast time! we also had fried eggs and yummy persimmons. (my hair is unglam-ly uncombed and wet. =P)

we had sometime before we were supposed to go, and auntie brought out the bamboo leaves again! this time we taught us how to fold the bird (yesterday she only folded them and gave to us), and also fold fishies. =D haha. in the end, we were so caught up with it that we ran late and had to rush up to pack our stuff when the guy came to pick us up. oops...

some parting shots - our home for a day

darling bringing down our stuff from the bedroom, we thanked auntie for her hospitality, gave her a little thank you note (we simply copied 'thank you' in thai and signed off. =P) and gave her a singapore 10-dollar note as a souvenir. haha. it was pretty cute that she said yusof ishak was handsome!

the start of our ziplining adventures - called the 'Flight of the Gibbon'. Gibbons are a endangered ape species and there is a colony of them living around the forest in that area, that's why the name

put on our harnesses and helmets, and we're ready to rock!

whee~!!!!! there were 2 instructors with us, one guarding the front of the group, and one at the back. so the first instructor will zip across first, to be at the end to receive each of us as we came thru. while the other will be dispatching us at the start. =) everything was very well organized and professionally run.

the happy four - us with our american mother-daughter friends

the instructors will make silly poses while zipping, so we tried to imitate them! heehee. =) i love this pic! haha. such a GREAT gibbon i was!

there were over 10 ziplines, a couple of suspension bridges and a few rappelling stations, so it was not boring doing all ziplines, after ziplines. =)

hubby dangling in midair, posing before the plummeting-down starts. ^_^

some of the ziplines were pretty cool. they designed them so that two pple can do in tandem. this one was 2 of us on a single zipline. there was another that we were on 2 separate and parallel ziplines, but we zipped across together. fun~~

lovers unite. =D this was the last station of the entire course: rappelling down to ground level and disembarking. (courtesy of the instructors who took our cameras and helped us take pictures all throughout the course)

Honeymoon part 1 - Darlings in Chiangmai, Thailand!

2009-09-10T14:21:00.000+08:00

The much awaited pictures are here! There's gonna be a few parts to this... i'll aim to make one post once every few days, once every week or so. patience!! ^_^

so after the whole big bang on 080809, we chilled out for a few days and off we went to Northern Thailand for the little honeymoon trip! Chiangmai was the destination of choice, cos both of us had unused krisflyer mileage from all the various traveling which would otherwise expire and go to waste. Singapore Airlines was having this promotion and for 50% of the mileage, there were a few choices we could go, and Chiangmai was our pick.

Arrival in Chiangmai! Dropped by a guest house (referring to our dear Lonely Planet), got a room, dumped our bags, and we were off to start our exploration.

First stop: Doi Suthep, the number one temple that tourists go seesee, cos of its nice surroundings and lookouts from the temple which is perched up on top of a mountain. Took a sǎwngthǎew (red pickup truck= shared taxi) to the entrance of the temple for 50 baht/person.

Us at the bottom of the steps of Doi Suthep. Ready, get set, climb!

hubby at the top of the steps
there were many bells/gongs around to hit, presumably for good luck/blessings.

this one's a huge GONG!

the view from the temple on top of the mountain

done with Doi Suthep on we also went around to several temples within the Chiangmai Old City itself. the temples are generally super gold-ified, the temple building itself, the Buddha statues etc. and the Buddha statues stood tall and high, simmering in the lights. definitely awed the visitors who come by every day.

throughout the day, we went around the streets, through the grocery and food stores (just like the more olden singapore 'wet markets') this is a typical example:

love being in a tropical country - fruits, fruits everywhere. there were always fruits stands along the streets selling cool cut fruits (laid on top of ice beds). dragonfruit, papaya, watermelon, melon, grava, so so many kinds, each packet only 10 baht. of cos, we happily nibbled on fruits the entire day. =)

OOH! darling kissed a fish! bought a grilled mackeral or some fish from one of the stalls selling grilled food.

and of cos, tuk tuks are always fun to ride! one of the major means of transportation, the tuktuk is a small taxi that is a motorbike attached with a wagon behind for passengers. the drivers always weave around the traffic, and find little alleys and streets to drive thru to get you to the destination!

guess what? thailand has roti prata too! they call it rotee there. but the strangest thing is that they put all sorts of topping onto theirs, and at least the one that we had, "Rotee with egg and milo" had sugar, condensed milk, together with the milo generously spread on top of the egg roti prata. it was.. well, interesting. =P

since we're there as tourists, it's sorta ok to go to some of the tourist traps i suppose? ^_^ in the old chiangmai cultural center, they have the khantoke dinner which is a traditional thai dinner, accompanied with a show of the classical thai dances and tribal routines.

us with our dinner in front of us

from right (clockwise): fried chicken, pork curry (i thot it was more of a stew), stirfry veggies, ground pork with tomato chilli paste, fried pork skin, fried banana, rice krispies. center: raw cucumbers/cabbage
we also had chicken soup, and accompanying sticky and steamed rice, and ending with fruits.

one of the tribal dances

they also asked for audience participation in one of the dances. haha. see me on stage? =P

that ended the first day in chiangmai, just mainly going around and chilling out in the city. =) the exciting stuff is soon to come! stay tuned!

the deal is sealed - 1st month after

2009-09-08T07:45:00.004+08:00

it's been quite a long time, 2 months since we had any time to update our blog. it's been such a busy and eventful time. But these several weeks have definitely felt short. everything simply went by so incredibly fast. and i write today a different status - "a married woman", as my boss had been teasing me several times.

how has married life been? pretty good, nothing too much. i've expanded my vocabulary of words to call fm, since now he's the 'hubby'. and he's been enjoying the luxury of calling me mrs koh. haha. As our family and frens have seen from the photo montage and such at our banquet, it's been a journey for us so far. long, fun, exciting, ardous, heartbreaking, u name it. and we've come out of it stronger, and i'm so so happy to have him in my life, so proud of us having survived thru all the ups and downs. nothing best describes how i treasure this relationship, how blessed i feel. and of cos, the wedding day itself was a blast, a truly memorable day to mark the milestone in our lives.

otherwise, everything's still the same... life goes on. and in fact, after the whirlwind trip of prepping for the wedding, the big day, and the honeymoon after, it's back to the realities of life. back to cal, back to lab. it's especially hard after the craziness of it all. =P hard to get the engines started, but it's gotta be done. haha.

thanks to everyone for your well wishes, and for sharing our joy in our union. =)

with love,
jas

mirror, mirror on the wall, who's my lover after all?

2009-09-04T07:48:00.001+08:00

have been getting news about our frens getting married, engaged, and attending the wedding of a post-doc in my lab in 2 weeks actually. =) it's no doubt that i've reach the stage when the people around you are at their 'time of life', and definitely expect to hear of more wedding bells ringing in the years to come.

why marry? what criteria must be fulfilled for the time to be right for marriage? what is the love equation? and when/how do you know if the person is the right one? how to u determine whether to date or not? there is not a single right answer for all these questions. it's tough. how does one figure it out?

ask me, and i will say you know when it comes, when it hits you. but i was really lucky. i followed my heart, i went with the flow and i found love. met up with a fren and we were chatting about this. he was of cos very happy for the 2 of us, saying how lucky we were to have found our true love in each other. i agree and count my blessings. we talked about how someone should decide whether to date. was somewhat liking a girl enough to try to date, but only with the mindset of finding out what you wanted in a life partner and a lover, and totally no deeper commitment. what if one party had intentions to start a relationship, but you weren't quite ready? should you try it anyways? perhaps you will ease into it after a while? a mismatch in when 2 pple develop feelings for each other can be fatal, then would that be a 'too bad, maybe they weren't meant for each other', or could something be worked out?

how do u know u've found THE one? no couple is probably perfect for each other. there will be times of arguments, disapprovements. things could be better. and as my fren said, the best case scenario may not be achieved by every couple. a person can continue searching for the perfect match forever, but balancing practicality versus idealitisticity is impt. so is 70% (or any arbituary number) compatibility gd enough? some of our frens are in relationships that they're happy in, but not fully. so should you compromise and accept things as they are, work around them, or move on and find another?

when would be an appropriate duration of dating before deciding to settle down and make the commitment? it is definitely convenient to ease into the path of familiarity and stability. having been together for say more than 2 years, that other person has become a part of ur life, that it becomes daunting to step away from the relationship and start afresh. the theories of economics - the balance of devotion of time, the cost of breaking up and starting afresh. unfortunately hard to measure for something this intangible. so many pple continue to tolerate, and give up certain aspects of their life to compromise. is it a good thing? who knows. without the powers to foresee the future, one wonders if the one person meant to be will appear soon, after a long wait, or worse, never......?

being in a situation of having a lifelong partner is amazing, it feels terrific. but singlehood / open relationships etc have their own attractiveness. to each his own. and cliche it may be, but there is no right answer to love, and everyone just has to somehow find their own way.

5 years and counting... muack

2009-07-13T23:25:00.002+08:00

11 July 2004 - that fateful night that marked the beginnings of our commitment to each other... after the starlight movie at fort canning park where discussion sparked off, and we considered our attraction to each other as a possibility of a lifelong romance...
~~~
5 years from then... how have things changed? perhaps things have not been as smooth sailing at all times... perhaps we've come to realize many more flaws of the other... but the love for each other has endured through the tough times, and has grown deeper in me. I cannot imagine how life would be different without having this guy in my life, for he has made my life happier, more meaningful, and I have grown and matured with him as we continue experiencing life together...

Darling started the day with a pensive mood (which i unfortunately did not match up quite well), going into his deep provocative thoughts... what is love? how can we love and continue to love? can we continue to love? Questions which i agree are important and become increasingly important as we spend more years together and we, and the environment around us changes. How do we keep the spark of passionate love alive, to keep things exciting and enjoyable for the many years to come? What happens if a rift comes between us, will we know? what will we do, how do we decide what to do?

As much as everyone hopes for a fairy tale romance for eternity... we have to face reality, and deal with reality. I am aware for my flaws and admit that some are indeed quite annoying at times. but over the years, i have tried to learn and change for the better. and for you as well, my dear, i hope that you will try to. idealistic maybe, but as long as we try, we can work towards a blissful and happy life together, forever...
~~~
the evening falls, and darling had a 'surprise' installed. well, not entirely a surprise, for we had exchanged for the dining voucher together in the past and vaguely discussed using it for this day. but having played down the entire day to an ultimate low (i must say it got me bored... =P), i no longer was sure if something was gonna happen anymore... =S heh.

taking a short drive down to San Mateo and after some driving around in circles, we arrived at "The Melting Pot" and I then knew that a romantic (and yummy!) dinner was to come indeed!

and... the true surprise came when our table had a vase of roses with a teddy bear greeting us, with a simple card "Happy Anniversary". =) so sweet!!

a happy me with my teddy bear and my sorta salmon pink/orange (colored on the edges) roses!
**detour**
so there's actually 2 half-dozen bouquets of roses at home now! The previous evening, I had made a trip down to the store down the road from campus and bought darling the bouquet of red roses... "who says guys must always be the one buying girls roses?" FM often commented in the past. heh. so i proved him wrong!
~~~
BACK TO THE MELTING POT>>>

it's dinner time!! since we made the special trip here, gotta get the have-it-all dinner! so we ordered the "Big Night Out" four-course menu, which includes the cheese fondue appetizer, salad, the entree and the dessert chocolate fondue.

Appetizer! Quattro Formaggio Cheese Fondue - ummmm.... the roasted garlic/basil and tomato pesto combination with the cheeses was yummy!

Salad was up next. both darling and i are not super fans of mixed field greens, and so we switched it for the spinach mushroom salad (love baby spinach!) which looked good - with baby portabello mushrooms, red onions, chopped bacon and Roma tomatos with a warm Burgundy Shallot Vinaigrette dressing.

(oops, no picture here!)

The tummies have their engines running... and it's entree-time! The fondue fusion had the sampler of everything: lobster, beef, shrimp, chicken, pork and of cos the veggies. =) the plate of nicely marinated meat looks gd eh?

we chose the coq au vin soup base to cook our entrees in. just look at the steam in the foreground as FM enjoys his piece of lobster. =) there's the mojo style soup base too which has a caribbeany, citrusy flair to it, and if we do go back again, i'll want to try that!

OMG... we were full... but how can we forgo dessert!! The umm-oh-so-good milk chocolate tiramisu fondue! This was certainly a spread... and especially at this stage of the dinner. heh. nevertheless, there is always a somewhat separate stomach for the sweet things!

To end it all, i had a pretty "Yin & Yang" cocktail - made from godiva white chocolate liqueur, vodka, and ice cream with half of the drink topped with chocolate shavings and decorated with the chocolate buttons. so pretty!! a simple light milky drink... looks fancy, but i would say nothing super fantastica...
happy anniversary to you again, my love. thank you for loving me all these years, and may we have more happy and treasured times together in the many many years to come... less than a month to the wedding!

First-year part-iiieeee!!!!!!

2009-07-06T20:26:00.000+08:00

With the last final turned in... we were done with classes!!! woot~! and of cos, our classmate decided to host a party to celebrate this marvelous event. haha. great job everyone, we survived first year classes!

our contributions to the party - guacamole, bruschetta dip, hummus, apple walnut squares (though not exactly squares that way we made it)

cheers!

dela and sihui came over to visit!

the first year class survivors!!!

chilling out...

human pile-up! XP

yay to us for being done with first year!!

Singaporean BBQ

2009-07-03T18:29:00.000+08:00

YB and Carene had gotten a bbq pit, and so since it had been a while since we got together, and the weather was pretty good lately, it was BBQ-time!

It was definitely quite a spread... they made satay (authentic! from one of those premix packets... YUMMY!), chicken wings (nicely marinated by the lady...) and there were burgers, sausages, bacon-wrapped asparagus, pork chops, almond jelly (we made that!) and much much more! so so so full after that... haha.

the food is cooking..... waiting (im)patiently... =P

the cooks hard at work. great jobs boys!

group picture!

Memorial day wkend trip to NC

2009-06-30T15:00:00.000+08:00

'tis the season to be jolly... fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la!

it certainly isn't christmas... =P but definitely lots of people are getting married! first my dearest sister, then my 'sister' in Duke! Shudan certainly had lots to celebrate, successfully graduated from grad sch (Dr. Shen!) and having the wedding soon after! as it was over the memorial day weekend, i could squeeze in a short trip to make it to her wedding! and it was in a way a great excuse to fly back and see the lab once again. yay!

FM was a darling and flew with me to Durham... of cos, flying all the way there, we made full use of the trip and decided to head to outer banks for the weekend to have some chilling out time too!

nice little russian bistro that i found on yelp with great reviews. cosy place, run by this old couple. they have a bakery/deli next to the restaurant too. food was pretty good!

back in duke gardens!!!!! we had a little bit of time to kill before heading over to shudan's wedding, so we dropped by duke gardens to chill out... =)

The bride marches in... =) yay, shudan! the wedding was held in a very nice place called Carol's Garden inn. it's a bed and breakfast thing, so they booked the place for a night and could do all the preparations in the house. perfect arrangement!

exchanging their vows...

me with my duke da-jie!

picture with the Zhang lab! it was so great to see everyone again!

and so with the wedding over... it was off to the darling's little side trip to outer banks! thanks to darling who did the 4hr midnight drive while i slept soundly in the car... *muack* but after a nap, he was all ready for some fun~! we went to this racing park thingy where they had quite a few different race tracks with different types of cars.. and so we did the combo and tried 4 different kinds. the whole place was empty and we were the only customers initially (later on, there were maybe 1/2 more groups that came).

go-karts!

and of cos, we went to the beach and spend a gd amt of time lazing around, enjoying the heat... =) my shell art-piece!

and time for some seafood dinner! got the blue crabs, prawns and crab cakes... super duper full....
the food was not bad, though probably overdone for the most part... =P

the 3 yrs i spent in duke, never got the chance to come to outer banks, and to kitty hawk where the first flight was accomplished by the Wright Brothers! the guides were quite entertaining in telling the whol story... did u know that on the very same day, the Wright Brothers made 4 flights, but unfortunately, the plane got destroyed the very same day!

the rock marking the site where the plane lifted off...

FM stands on the grounds where the first historic flight landed... =)

beach/chill vacation = cocktails! haha...

darling got his yummy burger, and me got my fishy!

this is hilarious... marta, are u see-ing this? =)

stretching our arms and legs during our 4-hour layover at atlanta... it would have been nice if things were open (it was after 5pm already).. but still, at least we sorta saw atlanta a little bit! ^_^ this was actually 'accidental'. AirTran screwed up with some mechanical error and we had to take the next flight out of RDU. so we were given a night's stay at some ulu off-airport hotel, and took the next afternoon flight out. thus ending up with a long layover before our night flight ATL-> SFO

wasting time, playing with the camera.. haha.

home to the 1996 Olympics...

and my darling is an Olympian!!!!!

the water fountain in the centennial olympic park became quite some entertainment... heh.

an amazing dinner @ McCormick and Schmick's to pamper ourselves before the flight back home to sf to mark the end of the mini-vacation.

Appetizer: Seared Ahi Tuna... YUM...

Entree looked too good and we never remembered picture taking... =P the Surf n Turf combo (Jumbo prawns and fillet mignon) was amazing...

dessert: upside-down apple pie
and creme brulee!

rushed back in the nick of time for the flight (thankfully)... and it's back to sf, back to school... =P

outings jan-april

2009-06-26T13:15:00.000+08:00

At the start of the winter quarter, when everything was still not crazy and hectic, a bunch of us took a short drive to Point Reyes National Seashore to hang out and do a short trek. Haven't taken advantage of the many national parks around the area... so it was great!

all the happy faces... =) the weather that day was perfect too!

The beach was enticing... and we decided to sidetrack from our trek and go play at the beach!

Brilliant idea to have fun and fool around! Recognize the UCSF? =) (spot me making the 'U'! ^_^)

Wonderful day at the National Park!

After that, we hit this brewery/restaurant around there for dinner, before heading back to the city. Great times, guys!

~~~

Finally... April was a little bit of a breather... and the foursome went for some wine country-ing. yay! After all, we are in California after all! Cheers!

ummmmmm.... wine and cheese is the perfect picnic lunch combination! Thanks to Marta's great cheese recommendations and albert's winery knowledge, we had a great day out in Sonoma!

Good view of the golden gate from the Marin county side of the bridge. Happy and contented with the day's outing...

and next, back to Mr Lee's place for some wii action! FM and I look hilarious in our boxing action... LOL.
~~~

YUMMY!!!! aren't these strawberries amazingly BIG?? FM and I had gone down to the IRM retreat in Asilomar, and on the way back, stopped by the fruit stands and bought this humongous thing of strawberries which really looked too good to be true!

and it was easter!! Marta din make plans to go back home for easter (she was sad..), but we made up for it by having our own little festive celebrations!!! =D

Presenting the traditional polish easter dish... polish sausages, egg salad, etcetc... we all had a little polish-ness infused into us! haha... this was a huge appetizer.. thankfully we ate that early... and went out to play frisbee before coming back for round 2! (meanwhile, our beloved ham was baking in the oven...)

Dinner time! happy easter to all, cheers! the meal was super-fantastic! biscuits, garlic mashed potatoes, bak choy with braised mushrooms, stirfry string beans, and the HUGE baked ham!!! and

OMG... this thing was a beast! at the end of the dinner, it seemed that we barely touched it! good job albert, our master ham chef!!! xD

wait... there's dessert still! with our big supply of (real) strawberries, this was a strawberrified dessert menu! there was strawberry panna cotta, and frozen strawberry margarita pie! yummy!
~~~

PARTY TIME! =) med sch had this social, and so we crashed the event!

our first round of drinks... tequila for the boys and bailey's for the gals...

i love this shot! so adorable!

~~~

somehow or another... we're really having this group dinner going strong! marta decided on a fine day she had some great ideas for dinner and she really wanted to make it... and so it was dinner at her place!

appetizer - pita bread with hummus... from rob's recipe. =) turned out great!

dinner time! we were starving by then!

Grilled chicken breast with long beans and sweet potato fries. sweet potato fries are so much better than the regular fries!

my dearest sister is married!

2009-06-23T14:19:00.000+08:00

This year is a big year for my family... =P Weddings galore!

Few pple know about this. I actually was back in SG in early May for a super duper lightning trip for my dearie sister's wedding. and it's my first time being a bridesmaid too! -grinz-

Arrived back in sg on friday, had half a day to settle some of my own stuff (i took advantage of me being home to squeeze in a little of my own wedding planning too! ^_^) and the very next day was the big day!!

Early morning the makeup artist came, and ~9.30am or so, we set off for St. Andrew's cathedral where my sis was having the church wedding.

Sis and Darren... listening as priest Terry gives his words of advice and blessings...

The happy couple... now happily married!! so happy for them!

Me and my beloved sister -hugz- glad to be there for the wedding!

CNY celebrations

2009-06-21T10:14:00.000+08:00

Before the next chinese new year creeps any closer, here’s our celebrations with the SG community in sf. =)

The trio living together cooked up a big yummy meal for the actual 除夕(CNY eve), and a small group of us had a cosy dinner together.

KK posing with dish 1 of 3 that he cooked ^_^
YX diligently cutting up all the ingredients for the soup for the soul, made with blood, sweat and tears… =P (it became a long running teaser throughout the dinner). Of cos, needless to say, with all the goodies inside and the slow long hours of cooking, the soup was super-licious!

Chelsia’s chilli prawns

The healthy balance to the meal: veggies!

KK’s dish 1 – pork (i think it was 梅菜扣肉？）

KK’s dish 2 – chicken

KK’s dish 3 – steamed fish! (I love fish!)

Our little reunion dinner =)

Filled to the brim already.. but there’s more! Fruits, and later tea… woah!

~~~

CNY was long gone… but we had a belated mega-celebration in February, cos Raymond was home over the festive season and brought back CNY goodies and yusheng! Chinese new year is whenever we make it to be, rite?? >.<
Raymond professionally laying the salmon sashimi on the yusheng base – carrots and turnips which Phillips had put in much hard work shredding!!

After we each took turns to pour the sauces and nuts etc on top… presenting, our huge yusheng dish!

YYUUUMMM…. SENG! =) Cheers to a new year, everyone!

dinners keep me entertained... ^_^

2009-06-19T21:27:00.001+08:00

Don't worry, we haven't been starving since we came back from our winter break... =p the pictures were supposed to be uploaded long long time ago, but that never happened, with all the crazy winter+spring quarters that we had. but whisking out dishes for our lunches/dinners was definitely a must!

Here's the big collection of some of the yummy food we've had so far =D...

Claypot tofu - simple stirfry with the slightly pan-fried tofu, sweet peas, straw mushrooms and chinese mushroom, ground pork, celery, carrots etc.

Pineapple fried rice! haha... there was more ingredients than rice. typically me! (i'm never a fan of carbs... =P)

I think there was too much ingredients that we cut, so we simply made another dish by stir-frying them with sweet and sour sauce. perfecto!

Found a few simple (马来糕) cupcake recipes (1) (2) , so decided to try... dun remember exactly what i did, but sorta looked and combined both... =)

Stir-fry long beans with belachan chilli... omg, this was sooo hot i put ketchup with it before i ate it. haha. but at least FM got to stimulate his hot taste buds a little.

Oven-baked chicken. This turned out to be a little dry.

This period of time i was on a steaming exploration. haha. earlier, there was the 马来糕 cupcakes... then i decided to make the steamed banana cake, turned out pretty well! except there was a little bit of a strange flour-y taste to it. anyone has any suggestions to get rid of that? otherwise, this was super easy recipe.. just mix everything well, and steam for 20 min or so! easy!

Since not everyone was gonna be around for CNY itself, we had our S'porean steamboat dinner early. YB and Carene were the gracious hosts for this huge and successful event! the amount of food that they prepared was unbelievable. we definitely ate till our stomachs burst, and we still each ended up with a mini-steamboat pack (nicely packed by Carene) to bring home. simpy amazing dinner! (and definitely more to come in the future years!)

This was a feat: Eggplant parmesan. Did NOT expect this to be so tough to make... =P the eggplants need to be pressed and dried slightly first, then pan fried, before you can assemble the dish in the dish to bake... but of cos, after all the hard work put in... it was amazing!

Beef and yorkshire pudding casserole. This was kinda weird actually, the doughy thing at the sides kinda was just a separate entity from the beef meatloaf in the middle. =P but the meatloaf was not too bad...

Stirfry 豆苗

Braised tofu with shitake mushroom - i liked this!

Kung Bao chicken! Darling liked this the last time we made it... so while thinking of what to cook for that week, this was a no-brainer repeat that he wanted to have. =)

Isn't this cool? ^_^ Found this italian meatloaf recipe, which is much more interesting than the usual meatloaf that doesn't contain much besides the big blob of minced meat. This was rolled with spinach and cheese inside!

Mixed vegetable quiche - the veggie part to balance the meatloaf. =)

ooh! i really liked this! Tofu with minced pork and (i think) 3 different types of mushrooms! i am really a big fan of tofu and mushroom. =)

from the tiramisu making session, we had leftover ladyfingers for quite a while... so i had to finish using them up. an online search on "ladyfinger recipes" showed charlottes as another dessert that typically uses ladyfingers... and so a charlotte it was! =P

the pancake family: the original, the chocolate and the peanut butter flavors... ^_^

This was an interesting recipe: rice cooker-cooked chicken rice. Stirfry everything together for a bit, then dump them into the rice cooker with water, and cook. in the end, although we had used normal jasmine rice, it even turned out to be like glutinuous rice (sorta like the dumplings)
this cabbage and leek soup is a turkish thing apparently. =) it's called "lahana ve pirasa corbasi"

we had gone for the IRM (institute of regenerative medicine) earlier, and one of the dinners had stuffed bell peppers with mushroom sauce. it was yummy! and so when i got back, this was one of the things i had to try making! =)

alright... that's enough stuffing you with food for now. >.< till next time!

The next chapter: beyond the first year of grad sch...

2009-06-19T06:28:00.002+08:00

School's out! Two weeks ago, the final exam was turned in... and that marked the end of 1st yr of grad sch. =) boy, am i glad to be done with classes (for now). just another elective in 2nd yr and the ethics class... and that's it. yay!

also, i'm officially done with the lab hopping business. 3 rotations is more than enough, and it was finally time when i'm no longer labelled 'temporary' stepping into a lab. ^_^ Decided to join Bill Weiss's lab working on neuro-oncology. i did my first rotation with them way back in the fall quarter last year, and really enjoyed it. There is definitely a nice mix of people who work/play together well. The science is interesting and there's definitely a lot of opportunities in terms of projects. I just started going into lab this week, so have been spending time just chilling a bit, (trying to) read a bit... it's early days of cos, but hopefully some exciting projects will start brewing soon!

The past week or two have been quite happening... taking advantage of the summer season, plus our lack of classes (= free time + no stress)... we had lotsa events/activities lined up! Haven't been keeping up with the blogging... but it will happen soon, so stay tuned!

winter break mini-trip part 4 - escaping sin city to red rock canyon

2009-05-15T14:13:00.000+08:00

To get away from the craziness of vegas, we took a day trip out into the embrace of mother nature away from the concrete hotels and rainbow lights... =P

Red Rock Canyon is only about half hour drive away, a good place to visit when u get bored of the strip. >.<

It was quite fun simply walking and climbing around the gigantic rock formations. though I felt really really small!
made it! i'm on the top of the world looking...

more funny shots.. this one was my idea! heh.

At red rock canyon, it was quite darn cold... we din get snow in vegas when we were there... but over at red rock canyon, it started to snow a little in the evening... and there was unmelted snow along the road...

enjoying the peacefulness and quiet times... with my darling. =)

winter break mini-trip part 3 - more vegas indulgence

2009-05-15T14:05:00.000+08:00

vegas the sin city... basically the whole time we were there = sleep late, (a little bit of) gambling, wake up late, eat a lot and get stuffed, resulting in super irregular meals... *oops*

nonetheless, an interesting experience, and a short fun simple trip to take a break. =)

FM needs to paint his face blue to blend in... =P

the motorized gondolas in "venice", or rather "the venetian hotel". =P they even have fake bright and blue skies... =)

i always love the flower decorations at the wynn... so pretty!

watching the mirage volcano eruption show...

our biggest meal splurge of the trip... fancy dinner at a fancy restaurant...
scallop appetizer...

escargots appetizers #2

lobster+fillet mignon entree...

seafood pot pie entree #2

tiramisu for dessert!! yummy!

we bought tickets to le reve at the wynn, this cirque du soleil-like show that i've always wanted to watch... =D=D=D and while waiting for the doors to open, we had chocolate fondue in the cafe outside the theatre.. ooooh~!

le reve was simply amazing... definitely recommend watching if you come to vegas!

winter break mini-trip part 2 - first day in vegas baby!

2009-05-15T13:58:00.000+08:00

and so we reached vegas! BUT at the most unearthly hour of the day at 3am. =P kudos to darling who took over and drove the night leg from highway 1 to vegas... (i drove the highway 1 day leg. ^_^)

the fremont street, a distance off the main vegas strip.

our vegas home for the next 4 nights in the fairy tale world... the Excalibur. of cos, one of the highlights of vegas is that it's a miniworld... =P we have: newyork, newyork...

the streets of new york... fm mimicking the many phone calls he had to make back in the undergrad days... =P

the eiffel tower in paris...
the arc de triomphe in paris...

flying over to the trevi fountain of italy...

and the many many hotels that lined the vegas strip...

vegas is blazing bright at night... with all the hotels lit up like christmas trees...

of cos, food galore in the many hotels/restaurants that litter the streets of vegas... our champagne buffet at the Mandalay Bay... cheers!

FM was stocking his plate up with prawns and crab legs... =P

a nice soothing treat at night is to simply stand and watch the bellagio fountains... very much like the back-then musical fountains at Sentosa.

Darling the night driver was so shacked that he had taken the day off to nap in the hotel... and finally woke up in the evening to join me at the fountains! -muack!-

the interior decorations of the hotels never fail to impress the loads of visitors to vegas...

vegas also meant more margaritas! there is a jimmy buffett's margaritaville restaurant on the strip, where we had some drinks with dinner... =)

my fancy blue-colored margarita...

Winter break mini-vacation part 1 - down south on highway 1~!

2009-05-15T13:34:00.000+08:00

so finally... the pictures from our winter break trip! way long overdue, yes.. *oops*

school has simply been tooooo busy. there's always something due pretty soon. 3 more weeks to the end of spring quarter!! woot~!

20 dec: left our house in the morning ~10am, and drove our toyota corolla down highway 1. =) it was really great that gas fell to its lowest during that time, so driving down to vegas was a way much better deal! it turned out that our gas cost worked out to be less than 100 bucks, while a return air ticket for a single person would have already cost $120!

plus of cos, we wouldn't have done the highway 1 drive down south. =D

my darling, with pigeon point lighthouse in the background. one of the many little stops we made along the way.

the viewpoint at the lighthouse... met this old chap who helps patrol/take care of the lighthouse area and he was telling us that whales can be sighted from here during the whale-watching season. =)

another stop that we made. wandered along the trails a little... nice view!

another memorable trip together in the making... this will count as winter break trip #4, heh. the days of meeting up during our undergrad winter breaks. =P

one can spend a whole day simply chilling out and enjoying mother nature...

and soon, the sun started setting... we did see most of the nicest parts, but we still had about 1 hour's drive out of highway 1 in the dark... =P

my cool silhouette shot, courtesy of FM of cos...

i love sunsets... =)

a final look at the wide wide ocean... before we drove on and out of highway 1, towards

videos to watch

2009-04-17T08:36:00.006+08:00

Susan Boyle on Britain's Got Talent 2009 cannot be embedded, but its worth watching.

Read Wired's article on woman with perfect memory. Embedded is attached video.

Happy Birthday, my dearest darling...

2009-02-26T01:42:00.000+08:00

Winter quarter has been hectic... and darling's birthday happens to fall just right smack in the our most hectic period with proposal, lab, journal club presentation... *bleahz*

after debating for the longest time ever, i decided yesterday to heck it and ask everyone to pop over for a surprise birthday celebration for FM. Thanks to everyone again, for responding so fast to the last-minute notice and showing up to make tonight a big success! and special thanks to Phillips for taking care of the cake and all... =)

The Tart-to-tart Birthday cake (excellent choice which everyone liked), and my little (big) endeavour to make a raisin cookie! =P note: in case u can't make out, it's a arrow thru the heart. heh. my one hour super rushed "Project Cookie" turned out fantastic! =D=D=D
Happy birthday my dear... and many more birthdays to come! I love you!

The importance of stupidity in scientific research

2009-02-07T05:31:00.002+08:00

With graduate school interviews in full swing, we're seeing dozens after dozens of bright young kids, many fresh from college, drag their long impressive resumes and much recited research experience around the country, looking for a place to call home for the next 5 6 years (or more).

It is thus timely for me to chance upon this commentary in the Journal of Cell Science, reminding one and all why we're here doing what we're doing in the first place. Burning and crashing out of grad school is a more common phenomenon than what many of us (administrators included) are willing to admit, and it is important to remind the kids again and again of what they're in for.

Essay: The importance of stupidity in scientific research
by Martin A. Schwartz
Department of Microbiology, UVA Health System, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22908, USA
Article retrieved from: http://jcs.biologists.org/cgi/content/full/121/11/1771

I recently saw an old friend for the first time in many years. We had been Ph.D. students at the same time, both studying science, although in different areas. She later dropped out of graduate school, went to Harvard Law School and is now a senior lawyer for a major environmental organization. At some point, the conversation turned to why she had left graduate school. To my utter astonishment, she said it was because it made her feel stupid. After a couple of years of feeling stupid every day, she was ready to do something else.

I had thought of her as one of the brightest people I knew and her subsequent career supports that view. What she said bothered me. I kept thinking about it; sometime the next day, it hit me. Science makes me feel stupid too. It's just that I've gotten used to it. So used to it, in fact, that I actively seek out new opportunities to feel stupid. I wouldn't know what to do without that feeling. I even think it's supposed to be this way. Let me explain.

For almost all of us, one of the reasons that we liked science in high school and college is that we were good at it. That can't be the only reason – fascination with understanding the physical world and an emotional need to discover new things has to enter into it too. But high-school and college science means taking courses, and doing well in courses means getting the right answers on tests. If you know those answers, you do well and get to feel smart.

A Ph.D., in which you have to do a research project, is a whole different thing. For me, it was a daunting task. How could I possibly frame the questions that would lead to significant discoveries; design and interpret an experiment so that the conclusions were absolutely convincing; foresee difficulties and see ways around them, or, failing that, solve them when they occurred? My Ph.D. project was somewhat interdisciplinary and, for a while, whenever I ran into a problem, I pestered the faculty in my department who were experts in the various disciplines that I needed. I remember the day when Henry Taube (who won the Nobel Prize two years later) told me he didn't know how to solve the problem I was having in his area. I was a third-year graduate student and I figured that Taube knew about 1000 times more than I did (conservative estimate). If he didn't have the answer, nobody did.

That's when it hit me: nobody did. That's why it was a research problem. And being my research problem, it was up to me to solve. Once I faced that fact, I solved the problem in a couple of days. (It wasn't really very hard; I just had to try a few things.) The crucial lesson was that the scope of things I didn't know wasn't merely vast; it was, for all practical purposes, infinite. That realization, instead of being discouraging, was liberating. If our ignorance is infinite, the only possible course of action is to muddle through as best we can.

I'd like to suggest that our Ph.D. programs often do students a disservice in two ways. First, I don't think students are made to understand how hard it is to do research. And how very, very hard it is to do important research. It's a lot harder than taking even very demanding courses. What makes it difficult is that research is immersion in the unknown. We just don't know what we're doing. We can't be sure whether we're asking the right question or doing the right experiment until we get the answer or the result. Admittedly, science is made harder by competition for grants and space in top journals. But apart from all of that, doing significant research is intrinsically hard and changing departmental, institutional or national policies will not succeed in lessening its intrinsic difficulty.

Second, we don't do a good enough job of teaching our students how to be productively stupid – that is, if we don't feel stupid it means we're not really trying. I'm not talking about `relative stupidity', in which the other students in the class actually read the material, think about it and ace the exam, whereas you don't. I'm also not talking about bright people who might be working in areas that don't match their talents. Science involves confronting our `absolute stupidity'. That kind of stupidity is an existential fact, inherent in our efforts to push our way into the unknown. Preliminary and thesis exams have the right idea when the faculty committee pushes until the student starts getting the answers wrong or gives up and says, `I don't know'. The point of the exam isn't to see if the student gets all the answers right. If they do, it's the faculty who failed the exam. The point is to identify the student's weaknesses, partly to see where they need to invest some effort and partly to see whether the student's knowledge fails at a sufficiently high level that they are ready to take on a research project.

Productive stupidity means being ignorant by choice. Focusing on important questions puts us in the awkward position of being ignorant. One of the beautiful things about science is that it allows us to bumble along, getting it wrong time after time, and feel perfectly fine as long as we learn something each time. No doubt, this can be difficult for students who are accustomed to getting the answers right. No doubt, reasonable levels of confidence and emotional resilience help, but I think scientific education might do more to ease what is a very big transition: from learning what other people once discovered to making your own discoveries. The more comfortable we become with being stupid, the deeper we will wade into the unknown and the more likely we are to make big discoveries.

Exploring SF... thankfully we're not just stuck in classes and lab

2009-01-28T21:05:00.000+08:00

LOVE - darlings@randomtots.com
This was at SFMOMA - hmm.. maybe we should use this arty-farty pic to replace our webpage logo. =P

At the Bay bridge... see the signature SF fog coming in? *bleah*

FM made me pose for this pic... (well.... it's actually kinda cute.. ^_^)

and so this is my bite back at him! muahahaa...

Having the famous Ghiradelli ice-cream sundaes at Ghiradelli square... one of the rare splurges for ourselves
Quote from FM: "We should come up here more often... remind ourselves the reason why we came to SF." Looking down to the pretty city of San Francisco from Twin Peaks

A closer-up view

Looking at one of the rarer super-clear sunsets... it was CLOUDLESS that evening, amazing!

The darlings decided to take a stroll in town one day.. us in front of Macy's, with Union Square behind us.

The Palace of Fine Arts - it's no longer functional though, except good for some picture-taking. Part of it houses the Exploratorium now - a science center place with lots of little cool experiments of forces, light, electricity etc. A great place!

One of our little day trips during our winter break was to go wine-tasting! California, in particular San Francisco is home to numerous vineyards... and it known for its wine. Of cos we have to do some winery hopping!

Driving across the pretty golden gate bridge... Sonoma Valley, here we come!

First stop: Kendall-Jackson! We had planned to go to the famous Kendall-Jackson winery much much farther up North, but happened to chance across the road signs pointing to its wine center along the way... neat! Definitely had a great first tasting session here - the wines (especially a couple of those we tried) were amazing!! And the guy who served us was really helpful, educating us of the various ways to taste, how/why they age wines etcetc. and answered our questions. We ended tasting about 6 wines instead of 4 for the same price. =) and of cos, we loved the wines so much we bought a couple back home.

Our next stop was Korbel Champagne. Wonderful place, lovely tasting room, and best of all, free tasting! We bought one bottle of their limited produce champagne that was only available on-site. Yumyum..

New Year Countdown! Of cos trust Raymond to be the man who knows the best place to watch the fireworks. ^_^ We drove over to Treasure Island and sat at the rocks, looking back at San Francisco city. Thankfully the clouds/fog kinda held up and we could see most of the fireworks during the wee hours of 2009. =D (though the higher fireworks got swallowed up by the looming clouds. LOL)

The city skyline

One of my several attempts of fireworks-capturing which actually turned out pretty decent. =P

Before January ends real soon...... Happy 2009 and wishing everyone a wonderful year ahead!

Vocation

2009-01-24T15:47:00.004+08:00

How many of us is working in our Vocation of choice? How many recognizes his/her Vocation? How many even knows what the word "Vocation", with a big V, means?

Lasantha Wickrematunge, one of Sri Lanka's leading journalists, a freelance reporter for TIME and an outspoken critic of the Sri Lankan government, was shot this morning as he drove to work in Colombo, his country's capital. He later died of his injuries.
- Time, Jan 8, 2009

Lasantha is clearly a man who found his Vocation, stuck to it against advice and threats, and finally gave up his life for his calling. Stupid fool he is, some may say, but how many of us can meet our maker with no regrets? Lasantha knew that his life is under threat, and yet he continued in his ways. Reproduced below is an editorial he wrote before his death, showcasing a man who clearly knew what he wanted in life, and what he wish for even in death.

I remember standing by Martin Niemöller's poem, engraved in marble at the New England Holocaust Memorial in Boston. I remember feeling awed by the sense of regret, of an enlightenment came too late, of giving up hope. That quote, in the context of the Holocaust seems distant, a historical lesson to be learnt, and forgotten. Yet today, having Lasantha quote Martin, strikes another reminder of how relevant these historical events are to present day life. The blindingly obvious may not be really be, that we are writing history as we lead our everyday lives, by our actions, and our inactions.

Editorial: And Then They Came For Me

No other profession calls on its practitioners to lay down their lives for their art save the armed forces and, in Sri Lanka, journalism. In the course of the past few years, the independent media have increasingly come under attack. Electronic and print-media institutions have been burnt, bombed, sealed and coerced. Countless journalists have been harassed, threatened and killed. It has been my honour to belong to all those categories and now especially the last.

I have been in the business of journalism a good long time. Indeed, 2009 will be The Sunday Leader's 15th year. Many things have changed in Sri Lanka during that time, and it does not need me to tell you that the greater part of that change has been for the worse. We find ourselves in the midst of a civil war ruthlessly prosecuted by protagonists whose bloodlust knows no bounds. Terror, whether perpetrated by terrorists or the state, has become the order of the day. Indeed, murder has become the primary tool whereby the state seeks to control the organs of liberty. Today it is the journalists, tomorrow it will be the judges. For neither group have the risks ever been higher or the stakes lower.

Why then do we do it? I often wonder that. After all, I too am a husband, and the father of three wonderful children. I too have responsibilities and obligations that transcend my profession, be it the law or journalism. Is it worth the risk? Many people tell me it is not. Friends tell me to revert to the bar, and goodness knows it offers a better and safer livelihood. Others, including political leaders on both sides, have at various times sought to induce me to take to politics, going so far as to offer me ministries of my choice. Diplomats, recognising the risk journalists face in Sri Lanka, have offered me safe passage and the right of residence in their countries. Whatever else I may have been stuck for, I have not been stuck for choice.

But there is a calling that is yet above high office, fame, lucre and security. It is the call of conscience.

The Sunday Leader has been a controversial newspaper because we say it like we see it: whether it be a spade, a thief or a murderer, we call it by that name. We do not hide behind euphemism. The investigative articles we print are supported by documentary evidence thanks to the public-spiritedness of citizens who at great risk to themselves pass on this material to us. We have exposed scandal after scandal, and never once in these 15 years has anyone proved us wrong or successfully prosecuted us.

The free media serve as a mirror in which the public can see itself sans mascara and styling gel. From us you learn the state of your nation, and especially its management by the people you elected to give your children a better future. Sometimes the image you see in that mirror is not a pleasant one. But while you may grumble in the privacy of your armchair, the journalists who hold the mirror up to you do so publicly and at great risk to themselves. That is our calling, and we do not shirk it.

Every newspaper has its angle, and we do not hide the fact that we have ours. Our commitment is to see Sri Lanka as a transparent, secular, liberal democracy. Think about those words, for they each has profound meaning. Transparent because government must be openly accountable to the people and never abuse their trust. Secular because in a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural society such as ours, secularism offers the only common ground by which we might all be united. Liberal because we recognise that all human beings are created different, and we need to accept others for what they are and not what we would like them to be. And democratic... well, if you need me to explain why that is important, you'd best stop buying this paper.

The Sunday Leader has never sought safety by unquestioningly articulating the majority view. Let's face it, that is the way to sell newspapers. On the contrary, as our opinion pieces over the years amply demonstrate, we often voice ideas that many people find distasteful. For example, we have consistently espoused the view that while separatist terrorism must be eradicated, it is more important to address the root causes of terrorism, and urged government to view Sri Lanka's ethnic strife in the context of history and not through the telescope of terrorism. We have also agitated against state terrorism in the so-called war against terror, and made no secret of our horror that Sri Lanka is the only country in the world routinely to bomb its own citizens. For these views we have been labelled traitors, and if this be treachery, we wear that label proudly.

Many people suspect that The Sunday Leader has a political agenda: it does not. If we appear more critical of the government than of the opposition it is only because we believe that - pray excuse cricketing argot - there is no point in bowling to the fielding side. Remember that for the few years of our existence in which the UNP was in office, we proved to be the biggest thorn in its flesh, exposing excess and corruption wherever it occurred. Indeed, the steady stream of embarrassing expos‚s we published may well have served to precipitate the downfall of that government.

Neither should our distaste for the war be interpreted to mean that we support the Tigers. The LTTE are among the most ruthless and bloodthirsty organisations ever to have infested the planet. There is no gainsaying that it must be eradicated. But to do so by violating the rights of Tamil citizens, bombing and shooting them mercilessly, is not only wrong but shames the Sinhalese, whose claim to be custodians of the dhamma is forever called into question by this savagery, much of which is unknown to the public because of censorship.

What is more, a military occupation of the country's north and east will require the Tamil people of those regions to live eternally as second-class citizens, deprived of all self respect. Do not imagine that you can placate them by showering "development" and "reconstruction" on them in the post-war era. The wounds of war will scar them forever, and you will also have an even more bitter and hateful Diaspora to contend with. A problem amenable to a political solution will thus become a festering wound that will yield strife for all eternity. If I seem angry and frustrated, it is only because most of my countrymen - and all of the government - cannot see this writing so plainly on the wall.

It is well known that I was on two occasions brutally assaulted, while on another my house was sprayed with machine-gun fire. Despite the government's sanctimonious assurances, there was never a serious police inquiry into the perpetrators of these attacks, and the attackers were never apprehended. In all these cases, I have reason to believe the attacks were inspired by the government. When finally I am killed, it will be the government that kills me.

The irony in this is that, unknown to most of the public, Mahinda and I have been friends for more than a quarter century. Indeed, I suspect that I am one of the few people remaining who routinely addresses him by his first name and uses the familiar Sinhala address oya when talking to him. Although I do not attend the meetings he periodically holds for newspaper editors, hardly a month passes when we do not meet, privately or with a few close friends present, late at night at President's House. There we swap yarns, discuss politics and joke about the good old days. A few remarks to him would therefore be in order here.

Mahinda, when you finally fought your way to the SLFP presidential nomination in 2005, nowhere were you welcomed more warmly than in this column. Indeed, we broke with a decade of tradition by referring to you throughout by your first name. So well known were your commitments to human rights and liberal values that we ushered you in like a breath of fresh air. Then, through an act of folly, you got yourself involved in the Helping Hambantota scandal. It was after a lot of soul-searching that we broke the story, at the same time urging you to return the money. By the time you did so several weeks later, a great blow had been struck to your reputation. It is one you are still trying to live down.

You have told me yourself that you were not greedy for the presidency. You did not have to hanker after it: it fell into your lap. You have told me that your sons are your greatest joy, and that you love spending time with them, leaving your brothers to operate the machinery of state. Now, it is clear to all who will see that that machinery has operated so well that my sons and daughter do not themselves have a father.

In the wake of my death I know you will make all the usual sanctimonious noises and call upon the police to hold a swift and thorough inquiry. But like all the inquiries you have ordered in the past, nothing will come of this one, too. For truth be told, we both know who will be behind my death, but dare not call his name. Not just my life, but yours too, depends on it.

Sadly, for all the dreams you had for our country in your younger days, in just three years you have reduced it to rubble. In the name of patriotism you have trampled on human rights, nurtured unbridled corruption and squandered public money like no other President before you. Indeed, your conduct has been like a small child suddenly let loose in a toyshop. That analogy is perhaps inapt because no child could have caused so much blood to be spilled on this land as you have, or trampled on the rights of its citizens as you do. Although you are now so drunk with power that you cannot see it, you will come to regret your sons having so rich an inheritance of blood. It can only bring tragedy. As for me, it is with a clear conscience that I go to meet my Maker. I wish, when your time finally comes, you could do the same. I wish.

As for me, I have the satisfaction of knowing that I walked tall and bowed to no man. And I have not travelled this journey alone. Fellow journalists in other branches of the media walked with me: most of them are now dead, imprisoned without trial or exiled in far-off lands. Others walk in the shadow of death that your Presidency has cast on the freedoms for which you once fought so hard. You will never be allowed to forget that my death took place under your watch. As anguished as I know you will be, I also know that you will have no choice but to protect my killers: you will see to it that the guilty one is never convicted. You have no choice. I feel sorry for you, and Shiranthi will have a long time to spend on her knees when next she goes for Confession for it is not just her owns sins which she must confess, but those of her extended family that keeps you in office.

As for the readers of The Sunday Leader, what can I say but Thank You for supporting our mission. We have espoused unpopular causes, stood up for those too feeble to stand up for themselves, locked horns with the high and mighty so swollen with power that they have forgotten their roots, exposed corruption and the waste of your hard-earned tax rupees, and made sure that whatever the propaganda of the day, you were allowed to hear a contrary view. For this I - and my family - have now paid the price that I have long known I will one day have to pay. I am - and have always been - ready for that. I have done nothing to prevent this outcome: no security, no precautions. I want my murderer to know that I am not a coward like he is, hiding behind human shields while condemning thousands of innocents to death. What am I among so many? It has long been written that my life would be taken, and by whom. All that remains to be written is when.

That The Sunday Leader will continue fighting the good fight, too, is written. For I did not fight this fight alone. Many more of us have to be - and will be - killed before The Leader is laid to rest. I hope my assassination will be seen not as a defeat of freedom but an inspiration for those who survive to step up their efforts. Indeed, I hope that it will help galvanise forces that will usher in a new era of human liberty in our beloved motherland. I also hope it will open the eyes of your President to the fact that however many are slaughtered in the name of patriotism, the human spirit will endure and flourish. Not all the Rajapakses combined can kill that.

People often ask me why I take such risks and tell me it is a matter of time before I am bumped off. Of course I know that: it is inevitable. But if we do not speak out now, there will be no one left to speak for those who cannot, whether they be ethnic minorities, the disadvantaged or the persecuted. An example that has inspired me throughout my career in journalism has been that of the German theologian, Martin Niem”ller. In his youth he was an anti-Semite and an admirer of Hitler. As Nazism took hold in Germany, however, he saw Nazism for what it was: it was not just the Jews Hitler sought to extirpate, it was just about anyone with an alternate point of view. Niem”ller spoke out, and for his trouble was incarcerated in the Sachsenhausen and Dachau concentration camps from 1937 to 1945, and very nearly executed. While incarcerated, Niem”ller wrote a poem that, from the first time I read it in my teenage years, stuck hauntingly in my mind:

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

If you remember nothing else, remember this: The Leader is there for you, be you Sinhalese, Tamil, Muslim, low-caste, homosexual, dissident or disabled. Its staff will fight on, unbowed and unafraid, with the courage to which you have become accustomed. Do not take that commitment for granted. Let there be no doubt that whatever sacrifices we journalists make, they are not made for our own glory or enrichment: they are made for you. Whether you deserve their sacrifice is another matter. As for me, God knows I tried.

gatherings...

2009-01-13T10:15:00.000+08:00

The house parties and the dinner gatherings...

Marta's and Megan's Birthdays

A*STAR biannual dinner - fancy French restaurant Chez Papa. Great food!

Thanksgiving dinner @ our place - we have really great chefs here.. impressive!
- Kim chee fried rice, fried pork cutlets (with tomato-ey sauce), veggie soup, lamb chops, cheesecake! umm.....

Karen's house party

The SD reunion when xy came over for winter break

more food experimenting from last quarter..

2009-01-10T00:23:00.007+08:00

i'm still in the midst of sorting out our road trip pictures down highway 1 and at vegas, so hang in there with a little more patience eh? i'll upload them soon! =)

meanwhile, more pics of my endeavours in expanding my meal menu! ^_^

French Pork Pie: I never tried anything like that before.. but this turned out really well! and it was a great way to use the ground pork we had in our freezer. =)

Spinach, Ham and Cheese quiche: this was the veggie part of the dinner pies, contrasting with the carnivorous pork pie. =P i had always liked the quiches in Delifrance, and wanted to try making one!

Another adventurous idea: Kebabs! This couple of weeks, I just decided to get creative and get away from the usual chinese stir-fry stuff. heh. the pies first, then now the kebabs!

FM putting his permutation skills into good use, deciding which ingredients to stick onto the satay sticks in what order.

hmm...... YUMMY!

油菜 with Oyster sauce and mushrooms

while shopping for our groceries in the supermarket, we saw the sauces for the spicy eggplant （渔乡茄子）, and decided to give it a shot! turned out pretty authentic, though it was a little too salty... >.<
steamed egg with ground pork (at the bottom of the bowl). one of the simple but nice home-cooked dishes... =)

also during the supermarket grocery shopping, we got belachan chilli, and so sambal kangkong became a reality in the kitchen (much to darling's delight) =P so a little spicy for me.. but well, ketchup sorta neutralized the chilli. heh.

thanksgiving dinner: we had some singaporeans over at our house for pot luck dinner, and i made chicago cheesecake! found this recipe online, and so could finally try making a lighter non-new york or american-ish kinda cheesecake. and it turned out great!

another dish which i'm pretty sure went up on my darling's favs so far: Kung Bao Chicken (宫宝鸡丁)!

another typical 杂菜饭 kinda dish: stir-fry cabbage with pork. this was kinda funny. the entire cabbage ended up being so much that we had a full tupperware that lasted over several meals!!! =P

Missing Swensen's? here's some chicken baked rice! =D

A successful hor fun! thanks to mummy for the advice. worked out great!

Stirfry cabbage with mixed greens...

and for new year's eve, we had a group of SGeans over at our place again. FM had longed for bruschetta after we had it at a party once, so we found a recipe for it to make him a satisfied boy! =D so we made bruschetta dip for the appetizer... and chicken pot pie for entree. it was an amazing dinner - plus the jap curry, fried wanton and red bean soup that the rest made for the pot luck!!!

Happy 1st anniversary, my dear...

2009-01-06T23:03:00.000+08:00

As night falls on the 12th day of christmas, here's wishing my darling a happy engagement anniversary... *muack*

For our little fancy dinner that weekend, we had... (drumrolls...)

~Shrimp and crab salad - a repeat of our 2nd anniversary back in July 06...
~Roast Pork topped with Mustard Apple and Caramelized onions, over a bed of grilled asparagus and grilled carrots on the side...

~Lovely Tiramisu for dessert!

Here's to many more happy times and loving years together... *cheers* =*

a wonderful fall quarter!

2009-01-06T22:21:00.000+08:00

As our next quarter of school begins and I move on to another lab for my winter rotation, I just wanted to say a big thank you to the Weiss lab for a wonderful fall quarter!

The Weiss lab at Bistro9 for lunch, celebrating for the people with October birthdays!

Lovely xmas dinner at Bill's house! lotsa yummy food from everyone, funny white elephant gift session... good times!

my first pumpkin carvings!

2009-01-06T13:09:00.000+08:00

3 years in Duke, but I never got down to carving a pumpkin. =P and finally, this year (or actually last year) I did! and not only did i carve a pumpkin, i carved 2 great pumpkins!!! =D

#1: At Rob's place

My first ever pumpkin carving! nothing too fancy or ambitious, but cute, happy and adorable!

everyone hard at work...

lyndsay and candia with their smiley face pumpkin... halfway there!

FM and our completed pumpkin! (aww... aren't the identical twins simply adorable??)

me and my baby... success!

a smiley pumpkin trying to be scary... hmmm... for a while, this was (no thanks to a certain someone from the lab.. eh-em..) my profile picture for the Weiss lab website... i made sure my face was seen in the updated one. lol.

now this was a real good scary one by kasia... (AH!!)

our platoon of pumpkins!

and to top the night off, we even had homemade pumpkin ice-cream!!!! made from scratch, using dry ice, patience and constant stirring, of cos the love and care (from all the hungry eyes and stomachs!!!) YUM!

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the happy pumpkin becomes somewhat a creepy pumpkin after a week... the mold turned from white, to black... and the pumpkin turned soggy and eww-y.... yikes!
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Youbin graciously invited us to his house for a pumpkin carving session as part of his housewarming... project #2, here we come!
After a successful carving #1, FM and I decided to be ambitious this time. we learnt how to crawl.. and now we go straight for the supersonic flight!! =D

youbin had bought the pumpkin carving kit, and we decided on the picture of 3 wolves howling with the moon in the background. it was gonna be so tedious...... but we persevered...

and we did it! the house was certainly filled with pros.. and everyone carved out amazing pumpkin lanterns! a GREAT JOB, everyone! cheers!

our final product. all the blood, sweat and tears... =P

happy halloween!!

BMS retreat @ Granlibakken, Lake Tahoe

2008-12-18T21:18:00.000+08:00

Oct 4-6 was our biomedical sciences program retreat, and it was especially cool that the weekend fell on my bdae! =) Every year, we go up to this resort place Granlibakken, south of Lake Tahoe. heard it's a pretty nice place... and we were definitely looking forward to it!

Of cos the talks were interesting... but where's the retreat spirit without the booze?? =P Bunch of the first-yrs decided to get the stash ready on the very first evening, and after everyone chipped in 5-10 bucks, it was certainly quite a professional-looking bar when they came back from the nearby supermarket with their carload!

Presenting the 1st-yrs booze stash... complete with the pancakes (+ maple syrup) and hot chocolate for the hungovers with the intention of skipping breakfast. LOL.

apologies for the bad pic... but ya know, the cameraman's getting just a lil shaky~! ^_^

Me and my wonderful student host Angela, back in jan during the interview weekend!

At the ski hut: Flip cup time!

The 1st years vs... the faculty!!! (too bad, us dominating 1st yrs won!)

The winning streak continues...

We had time off on the afternoon on the 2nd day, and a big bunch of us went on a hike around the 5-mile hike trail to a lake. Our first day was a dreary rainy day... but the 2nd day (5 oct!) was a really pretty day! =D=D=D

Everyone chatting and walking along the trail, enjoying the beautiful sight all around us...

Love the views, the rocks and scattered trees on the mountains and vallys...

Pensive darling looking out to the clear lake...

A happy group of us chilling out at the lake

We certainly had a great time at the BMS retreat! Till next year, Granlibakken!

oktober-feast!

2008-12-17T15:49:00.003+08:00

Presenting... more daily specials from the darlings' kitchenette!
if any dishes look especially tempting, feel free to email me for receipe requests! ^_^

Honey baked chicken (one of darling fm's favs!) and grilled pork chops... (the unhealthier part of the meal...)

and veggie soup! (the healthier part of the meal. >.<)
more za jiang mian （杂酱面） yummy!

ABC soup

Beef and broccoli (though the kind of beef we had wasn exactly the soft tender kind. =( so we din eat most of the meat)

Sweet and sour pork 咕嚕肉 - was certainly a proud moment when it turned out pretty nicely! =D

bbrrrr.....

2008-12-17T13:25:00.004+08:00

for the English-units-impaired, that's 5°C. (Just a tot: calling Fahrenheit an English unit is simply brilliant; Americans take none of the blame for the non-decimal system, while taking all the credit by writing in "American letters".)

Is this really California?

3 months ago... Immunology Retreat @ Asilomar

2008-12-13T10:20:00.000+08:00

The 1st quarter of grad sch came to an end this week as we approach xmas, and perhaps it is never a better time than now to dig out the photos that have accumulated electronic dust on my laptop through this quarter. =D

At the start of the quarter, I went for the immunology retreat. one: to expose myself to the research going on in ucsf, and two: to enjoy myself and meet people! =)

The Asilomar conference grounds... we're here! It's located at the monterey bay area, about 3 hours drive south of sf and it's right by the beach.
the bunch of us first years who were at the retreat. great bonding and interacting time for us newbies! picture was taken at the monetery bay aquarium, where we spent the free afternoon that we had chilling out and enjoying ourselves! (away from the long train of talks for the rest of the time)

The Lodge that we stayed in, Alexandra and I were paired up as roommates, and our room was in the corner room on the upper floor in the top right. Great view of the sea from there. =)

The interior of our room.

The view from our balcony! It was quite a pretty weekend all throughout when we were there!

I took some time during the afternoon break we had to take a little stroll along the beach, wading a little in the (cold!) waters, enjoying the views of the ocean, plus the surfer dudes...

The 3 musketeers - Megan, Alex, and me - at the bonfire on the last night of the retreat

The retreat was definitely a nice way to start the quarter, and we certainly had great memories together!

first parking ticket

2008-10-27T08:35:00.004+08:00

sigh, the risks of car ownership.
a quick 15 mins in walgreens to use a $5 off $20 coupon on a warm and sunny saturday afternoon ended miserably with a $50 pain for lesson learnt. state of CA is running into budget deficits even before the financial crisis hit, and rumors are that parking attendants are working harder to bring in more monies into the state coffers by citing more idiots like me. sigh.

thank you darling =)

2008-10-10T12:23:00.003+08:00

In view that my birthday was gonna fall right smack during the BMS retreat, dearest darling ordered flowers early in time for us to see every flower bloom before we left for Granlibakken @ Lake Tahoe. Thank you dear, for the lovely flowers... (to decorate our lovely cosy new home too!)

We just returned from our BMS (BioMedical Sciences) program retreat last weekend at Tahoe, and so pictures will be up soon!

food... glorious food!

2008-10-10T11:43:00.007+08:00

The darlings are officially broke... T_T after the initial investment on the house furniture, the kitchen essentials (rice cooker, condiments, this, that.....), it's certainly time to save $$$! ^_^

But who dare says home-cooked meals are not comparably to restaurant meals that cost 5 times more?!? Certainly the darlings are having 1st-class meals still! =D A sample of our meals thus far...

Breakfast - banana pancakes! This was before school started, of course. =P making pancakes in the morning just takes too much time! maybe during the weekends someday...
炸酱面 (gravy-fied noodles??) full of goodies! chinese mushrooms, chicken, veggie, ground pork... the ingredients simply piled up so high that the noodles completely disappeared underneath! haha...
together with tofu/mushroom/prawn soup, again brimming full of ingredients! =D

darling with our fried rice (and stir-fried 豆苗 dou miao, and apple soup beside)

hearty spagetti and more stir-fried veggie... love the spagetti!!!

more spagetti (just look at the box of sauce we had!), fried eggs, oven-baked buttered corn, chicken/bell peppers/etcetc-filled crepes. yummy yummy!!!

Hot-plate tofu + mixed greens...

FM's specialty: roasted char siew!

Are you getting hungry yet? =D

home furnishings complete!

2008-09-28T16:02:00.004+08:00

As of 2 weeks ago, our house was complete! The final few additions to our house - dining table and chairs, coffee+end table, and our dresser! All thanks to craigslist, of course (oh thank goodness i'm done with the countless hours of craigslist stalking...... *bleahz*)

At least now we're done for the next few years with house-hunting, furnishing, etcetcetc... and it's time to enjoy our cosy little home! =D

Presenting:

Our Scandinavian Designs glass dining table and micro-suede dining chairs. woot~! amazingly huge table (2.4m by 1.2m) which has void the need for an additional study table. Very pretty indeed!

The funniest thing about it is how we somehow managed to drag it up to our apartment. Certainly did not expect the glass top to be ridiculously heavy... both of us could not lift it up and carry it. Thankfully for the blankets that were present in the truck we rented, we managed to drag the glass piece (on the blankets) down the hallway, into the lift, and somehow pivoted/dragged/pushed the glass into the house. *pant*

---------------------------------

Our coffee and end table - hunted for quite long before striking this deal! and it's matching to our dining table too!!

Singapore Grand Prix

2008-09-26T01:40:00.001+08:00

i cant help but be excited by this. :)

Blessed are the forgetful: for they shall have done with their stupidities too.

2008-09-21T15:32:00.002+08:00

its a lonely weekend here in SF, for Jas left for a retreat and FM is left home alone. laundry, meals, parents, groceries. there is only so much one can do to pass time when sch has not yet started, lab rotation has not yet begun, and a big chunk of your life is two and a half hours drive away.

we now have a TV at home, a 28" Phillips Magnanov TV with no cable subscription and no antenna set, so its effectively dead. but thankfully for the internet, theres plenty of streaming video online for the bored and lonely souls out there. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart is entertaining, as always, with Palin and the melting financial markets as the top targets for jokes. Hulu has quite a good collection of full-length films and TV shows (which unfortunately is for US viewers only).

I settled into Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which was listed as a comedy, but no laughter came forth throughout the movie. Instead, this bittersweet movie was about love, about how love is predestined (not in the way you would think, of gods and destiny), about how high love found can lift us, and how painful love lost can leave us, and how many of us will choose to keep both sweet and inevitable bitter memories, of the highs and lows of life and love, the brightest spots and darkest moments, without a moment's pause.

The movie made me realize how transient everything is. The intense love I feel for her, may dissipate like dry ice in the sunny day, disappearing without a smudge nor a trace. The furniture we share can easily be sold, any money returned, the future gray. Nothing material need follow us, our lives separate, our dreams shattered. All that will remain, and cannot be changed, is the many memories, of her coming, of her dreaming, of her laughing, of her loving, of her sobbing, of her leaving. and of us. at the very end, the only thing that cannot be changed, is our shared memories of a common past, our shared and shattered dreams of a common future.

all we have are only memories. and how i hate myself for having a terrible memory. i cant name the places we visited in italy nor mexico. i dont remember the scene of our first kiss. i cant identify the delicate gifts she handcrafted for me into the year received, nor the occasion, except occasionally. the only memory i have, is a common thread, a pleasant warming of the heart, the smile i knew i had at all times, all day, everyday.

So what advice does the movie provide, given that all interactions are transient, and even memories could one day be erased? Late in the movie, Joel's remembered self asks his dream lover in a recreated moment what to do when their illusory time is so limited.

The answer? "Enjoy it."

Greetings from California!

2008-09-09T04:14:00.009+08:00

The darlings are in San Francisco! After our one-year stint in Singapore, we packed our bags and left for the States once again, this time for our PhD studies. We’ve been here since late August, even though school doesn’t start till late next week, so we have plenty of time to settle in.

Things have been going very well so far. We found our new home after a week and a half of apartment-hunting. It’s a 1-bedroom apartment, on the top floor of a 4-storey complex. It is fully carpeted, big wall-to-wall window panes (almost ceiling-to-floor!), skylight in the bathroom, spacious living/dining room and bedroom. Exactly what we wanted! It’s at a great location too, merely 10 blocks away from school in a quiet area, just one block away from the MUNI train, plenty of restaurants and shops, and 10 blocks away from the Irving ‘Chinatown’ area. Sweet eh?

After we secured our house, it was then time for furniture-hunting, as well as getting our essentials to start building up the house! Boy is that tough work… *bleahz* We spent several days walking around (A LOT!) getting our kitchen essentials, looking up on craigslist (this second-hand online posting site), picking up stuff from the seller’s homes, going to garage sales and lugging back boxes of our catch! Plates, microwave, pots and plates etcetc… Also rented a pickup truck to get our beautiful fabric couches from this girl who sold them on craigslist, and had an enormous workout getting them up to our top-floor apartment!!! (thanks lots to our friend Raymond for helping out!) and of cos, what’s more important than having a plushy comfy bed to snuggle into at the end of the day! We bought a Simmons Beautyrest queen-size mattress after spending a couple of hours bouncing around on various mattresses in different shops to test them out. :p We’ve sure been sleeping super soundly every night! Not to mention our lovely royal red sheets and comforter that we got at Bed Bath & Beyond!

Aside from some furniture like tables, chairs, and lamps (we’re tapping away at our laptops and eating our meals on the carpet floor ^_^) and the less critical stuff like getting a dresser cabinet, coffee table etc., everything else in our house is looking great! Things are slowly falling in place, we’re starting to lead normal lives again. :p We’ve started cooking our meals already! Below are pictures of our very first home-cooked meal!

For those of you who have been waiting (im)patiently for the wedding photoshoot pictures, good news! We've released the pictures on our wedding.randomtots photo gallery, the unchosen ones which did not make it to the final cut that will be in our wedding album. (U'll have to wait till way later to see the highly selected ones! ^_^) All the pictures are REAL nice... do enjoy!

all my bags are packed, i'm ready to go

2008-08-20T02:43:00.003+08:00

finally. less than 3 hrs before i'm due to leave home, im (almost) ready to go. a blitzkrieg operation of "pack or junk" swept through my room like a hurricane for the past 12 hrs, leaving hidden gems and landmines scattered throughout my small bedroom floor: ticket stubs for sec sch productions, birthday cards, Physics TYS, random useless gifts from scholarship fairs, prom pictures, primary sch bus concession cards, chest x-ray, starry starry paper, army souvenirs, RI graduation watch, JC notes, assorted cables, kaplan gre book, hoshino kinka vcds... so many many small things, daily necessities for a time in my life, keepsakes for the next decade, trash subsequently (maybe more). each insignificant item in my life, together, forming my interactions with the world around me, creating my experiences, inventing me.

and yet, how many much more valuable, most treasured, yet easily forgotten moments were there in the past that was not captured by my weak memory? nor by these small memorabilia of life? i just had my wisdom tooth extracted 2 mondays ago, the blood lost, the pain suffered, will the memory still be present a decade from now? perhaps that's the difference between me and my parents. when i say "throw", they say "keep", even to useless insignificant items that should be obvious to everyone(?). perhaps age has dulled their acuity for perceiving importance, mellowed their intolerance of cluttered rooms, wised up to the importance of keeping memory tools for the future when amnesia strikes, or maybe they're just old, and infected with all the strange things age brings along.

maybe im getting there, or maybe society is just helping me along. man has always strived to record down the things which happened to him. cavemen wrote (scratched?) of grand epic fights with huge beasts, ancient historians write of great kings, present day journalists publish the most private moments of public figures, while we normal beings blog abt our lunch. the urge to gain immortality is perhaps a force too strong to overcome.

but yet, theres less than 3 hours more of this sleepless night before i have to leave home for my flight, and there's still this one last promise to fulfill jas before i can rest. to that, i sigh off with frost. have a good night.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

leaving on a jetplane...

2008-08-19T10:59:00.002+08:00

With my stuff strewn over the floor, the bed, etc., time ticks away as we count down to the last hours of our one-year stay back in Singapore. Time flies!

So much has happened within the last year, and it has indeed been a fulfilling time spent back home. =)

to my frens, really glad to have met up again, continuing my yearly ritual of organizing an outing whenever i'm back. ^_^ esp many thanks to facebook, for reconnecting me with many many long-lost friends from eons ago! and also makes contacting pple so much easier! Thoroughly enjoyed the many reunions and catch-ups with everyone! my deepest apologies to those whom i din get to meet up in my last few weeks in sg... but dun fret, cos it's not like i'm long gone and disappearing off the face of the earth! =P it'll be less than a year before i touch down in sg for my break!

to my family- parents, grandparents etc, it's been great to be back home and spending time with everyone. hope this year hasn't been too short! =P thanks for being supportive of my decisions, and being there for me. =)

it's about 22hrs before our flight now... leaving tmr morning on the 9.15am SQ flight.. San Francisco, here we come!

time to get back to the big headache of packing... argh! ^_^

Happy Birthday Singapore!

2008-08-09T20:20:00.002+08:00

9th August 2008 - Singapore turns 43! Happy Birthday!

the beach, sun, surf, sand... with my darling boy

2008-08-08T10:50:00.001+08:00

Having completed our one year of work, and before we fly off to start school again, the darlings took a little retreat to the resort-y sunny island of Bintan! Also a lil belated celebration for our 4th anniversary back in july =)

After an hour's boat ride, here we are in Bintan!

We stayed at the cabanas of Nirwana Beach Club. A nice little wooden house (well, half of it) for ourselves!
A simple room, but complete with air-con, a mini-fridge, and heated water!

The pond directly in front of our house. A lake-side house! Woot~!

Cool dude chilling out... while waiting on our food and drinks...

Looking out to the beach and longing to jump into the sea again once we're done with lunch!

Throughout the trip, it was many cocktails, cocktails and more cocktails... =P
Our first dinner @ Pasah Oleh Oleh. We had arranged for a massage here, and 2-way transportation was included to/from the hotel. Perfecto! after the massage, we went to one of the restaurants for some food and live music. =)

Nirwana Beach Resort (the posh one) is just a short walk away form our place, and we wandered over to explore the area.

Lunch @ this restaurant Coffee Shop near the swimming pool. More cocktails! ^_^ (I love the Irish Cream and Pina Colada here... and darling especially loved their soft hot buns that he finished all of them! =D)
The perfect image of a dream resort getaway...

Lunchtime!

At the resort, there was a firing range for archery and rifle shooting. Time to get ourselves some shooting action!
Ready, get set, fire!

Me rifle shooting was pretty good, but archery skills (eh em..) has much room for improvement. Took the smaller bow though, so din have as much power in the arrows. but well, i got one in the bull's eye red region! =D
woah... look at darling's arrows, all straight and clustered in the center. though he was disappointed he only had 2 reds, the rest were hovering in the yellow region... =P anyhows, a great job, my dear!!

Of course, much of our time was spent lazing on the beach and playing in the waters... =) we chose to come during the weekdays, and there were only a handful of people around. the entire stretch of beach to ourselves literally... what more can u ask for? simply heavenly!

Pensive darling staring out into the sea...

The waters are amazingly crystal clear and one can see right thru to the bottom! With the nice clear waters, soft fine sand beneath our feet, it's no doubt we spent hours frolicking in the water, playing away... (till the sun was setting and the waters turn chilly. =P)

we brought a hammock with us on this trip, and that came into great use! found a perfect place in the semi sunny/shadey area between 2 trees for our hammock!
FM nuah-ing in the hammock...

and the hammock fits us both! =D we were so comfortable that both of us fell asleep for a good while! ^_^

after the little snooze, it was time for some thrill and action! got a half hour of jet ski adrenaline rush as we zipped across the sea... vroom, vroooom!! =D darling took to the driver's seat first, before we switched halfway and my turn to drive! i LOVE jet skiing~!

The beautiful sunset...

as darling takes a slow easy stroll down the beach...

Our biggest splurge of the trip - day 2 dinner at the Kelong for some fresh live seafood! We ordered a lobster (sashimi style!) and went over to the tank to pick out our lobster. Of the several lobsters inside, there was one which was especially alive and alert. Standing perched on all its legs, the eyes were staring menacing at us, and its 'whiskers' were raised high up, looking all ready to attack. =P and 'that was its downfall' in darling's words. heh.

i like this pic! darling looking around in desperation for a waiter to serve our lobster sashimi. =P we just saw it being delivered to a counter nearby from the kitchen oredi, but it hadn't been picked up by a waiter to bring it over to our table... haha. patience, my dear, patience...

finally, our lobster sashimi! the meat was certainly very good. sweet and yummy. though it would have been nice if the meat wasn't chopped up into such small pieces. nevertheless, yum!

salvaging the last pieces from the shells too.

we also ordered braised prawns (in chinese herbs soup) and stir-fried scallops in XO sauce. =) and lastly desserts - honey dew sago and boiled white fungus with papaya. 'twas a satisfying dinner!

the Kelong restaurant

go to restaurant eat lobster, must take a pic with a lobster! before leaving, we got the waiter to bring out a live lobster to take a pic with it! =D

woah! a biggy (looks as big as me!)

last day - we squeezed in some time in the morning to have our last moments to enjoy the beach. =) we asked for a late checkout at 1pm, since we scheduled our ride back to sg only at 430pm. making full use of our day in bintan... ^_^

i love this shot. the cool beach gal...

the sand there is simply amazing. white and as soft and fine as can be...

who can resist just lazing around on the warm sand bed?

and FM took the chance to bury me deep under a thick layer of sand... *help!*

the last chilling-outs in the water...

and on the hammock...

then it was time to bid our house, and lovely Bintan good bye, as we headed back home to sg! We certainly had a great time and look forward to coming back again!

p/s. Counting down... one year to our wedding!

the beginnings of a new chapter...

2008-07-29T09:56:00.000+08:00

the recent spate of events whizzed by ever so quickly. everything's crystal clear in my mind, yet a cloud of blur.

My one year of stem cell research has flown and crawled by (depending on how you see it) and suddenly, i find myself even busier than ever. Many things awaited me before i leave yet again for the states. Calendar is amazingly full with dinners with various groups/appointments to settle our personal stuff like visa, our wedding stuff etcetc, and i'm a little guilty of not spending enough time at home with my family...... meanwhile, lotsa other things scream out for my attention on my big long to-do list. =P

in the midst of my busy schedule, decided to go back to visit my teachers in primary school (several of my teachers are still in the school!), and it's really heartwarming to see that they still recognize you! mostly by face, but some with amazing memories could even remember my name and class! visited VJ too, and found a number of teachers as well. =) really enjoyed the close friendly chat with the teachers, updating my own life and finding out how they and the school are doing. =)

reflecting back on this one year, it has been an eventful one spent back home, amidst our work schedule. the power of facebook indeed is tremendous, as i reconnected with many of my friends all the way back to primary school! many thanks to kenneth and shawn, for being the first points of contact leading me to contact many others and joining in the CNY steamboat and chalet gatherings. after all these years, almost everyone had not changed, and it was easy to simply strike up a conversation like old frens, catching up on the many years since 10 yrs back! ^_^ special kudos goes to zq, for putting in the effort to organize our lil small-group gatherings very so often! and also to pull me back into the 404 community by alerting me to the reunion when i first came back!

this one year stint back in sg is fast coming to an end. gradually over this year, i've learnt of many joyous occasions as more of my frens are getting engaged, and even married! most of the girls in my batch have graduated from college, and just in the recent weeks, adorned their gowns and thrown their caps in delight during their commencement. =) congrats! everyone is moving on to a new stage of their life, where brand new challenges and excitement await, settling down with a life partner, stepping into the working world...

and the same applies to me... where a new chapter of my life awaits me, in multiple aspects. excitement builds up as september approaches and grad school starts! looking forward to going back to school, and going back to the states, this time in the lovely city of san francisco! and of cos, trips to the states will no longer be lonely, now that the darlings are no longer torn apart on different coasts, separated 3000 miles apart. =)

simply, things are going great. a big thank you to all my frens for simply being there and remaining (or getting back) in contact all these years. fond memories flash back to the time when we played zero-point during recess (and skipping just that little bit of our duties), bargained with the teacher for early breaks, comparing results to save having to do the chemistry titration another time and wash up early... drawing spiders/smiley faces/'zzz. bored' on each other's lecture notes, chilling out at our class table in the cafeteria etcetc. although i'm gonna be off again to faraway land in the states, but do keep in touch, and we'll try to meet up every year when i'm back for a break yeah?

lastly, thank you, my dear, for a wonderful past 4 years, and to the many more years to come, together. you touched my heart with your super creative juices, but most importantly, with your sincerity and love for me. it's amazing how easily we work together to resolve tasks efficiently and smoothly, how we complement each other with our styles, skills and strengths. it's never too much time chatting, playing, working or even silently being with you, for every moment is a moment to treasure. thank you, for being the one for me. =)

reclaiming lost memories...

2008-07-24T23:51:00.002+08:00

its been a good week, meeting up with friends of all sorts, reminding each other how distant those memories were, and how different (or similar) we have become.

our paths, like many straight lines, crossed once, and continued to diverge. we'll continue to look back in amazement at how we managed to meet at that one point, every time we meet. but thats all we can do - to take an evening off to look back. but when the night is through, we yet again turn our backs to one another - best friends, once upon a time - and continue our relentless march away from one another.

they say time is a friend who eases away the pains. but time is also an enemy, one who erases all our memories. and it is to defend from our bitterest foe that we write: we write to remember our great deeds, we write to remember our mistakes, we write to acknowledge all the little things which happen in life, just because.

and therefore, i write here to honor my friends, with whom ive toiled joked worried with, for whom ive loved hurt cherished. without you, fm will not have grown into his current self, for what is fm, without his friends?

and so here i say,

thank you.

Announcing... Love.Passionately.

2008-07-12T17:00:00.005+08:00

Jas and I have been neglecting this blog for some time because we've been hard at work at another project. And now, having spent the better part of our 4th Anniversary working on it yesterday, it's now finally done, and we're both proud to present to you...

Love.Passionately. a site dedicated to the celebration of our wedding...

Do go check it out, and leave us ur tots and comments as always... Enjoy!

the ideal husband

2008-07-11T12:20:00.003+08:00

had a great dinner yesterday, catching up with good old friends from UCSD. relationships seem to be in fashion these days, with many close friends getting hitched to all sorts of characters.

thus it seems timely that i chanced upon this op-ed that perhaps all women shld read and think abt. (i say women, cuz guys prob dont have the same illusions abt rships as gals. :p)

Op-Ed Columnist
An Ideal Husband
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: July 6, 2008
How to dodge mates who would maul your happiness.

on another note, both fm and jas are currently gainfully unemployed. friends who want to meet up before we leave for San Francisco should get us soon. ;-)

on education

2008-06-26T15:45:00.002+08:00

this week seems to be themed around education.

Earlier in the week, NPR reported that some graduating seniors at Harvard weren't impressed when J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series, spoke at their commencement. The quotes in the article, admittedly selective reporting, was nonetheless illuminating:

"I think we could have done better," shrugged computer science major Kevin Bombino. He says Rowling lacks the gravitas a Harvard commencement speaker should have.

"You know, we're Harvard. We're like the most prominent national institution. And I think we should be entitled to … we should be able to get anyone. And in my opinion, we're settling here. "

"It's definitely the 'A' list, and I wouldn't ever associate J.K. Rowling with the people on that list," says senior Andy Vaz. "From the moment we walk through the gates of Harvard Yard, they constantly emphasize that we are the leaders of tomorrow. They should have picked a leader to speak at commencement. Not a children's writer. What does that say to the class of 2008? Are we the joke class?" - NPR

Soon after, NYT reflected on the purpose of elite education when they reported that an education professor began leading "reflection" seminars to encourage "more students to consider public service and other careers beyond the consulting and financial jobs that he says are almost the automatic next step for so many graduates of top colleges."

“Is this what a Harvard education is for?” asked Professor Gardner, who is teaching the seminars at Harvard, Amherst and Colby with colleagues. “Are Ivy League schools simply becoming selecting mechanisms for Wall Street?”

As Adam M. Guren, a new Harvard graduate who will be pursuing his doctorate in economics, put it, “A lot of students have been asking the question: ‘We came to Harvard as freshmen to change the world, and we’re leaving to become investment bankers — why is this?’ ” - NYT

then PY sent an article via A*GA from the ΦΒΚ magazine The American Scholar that discusses the elitism in the elite universities and how disconnected the elite class is from the proletarians.

The first paragraph:

It didn’t dawn on me that there might be a few holes in my education until I was about 35. I’d just bought a house, the pipes needed fixing, and the plumber was standing in my kitchen. There he was, a short, beefy guy with a goatee and a Red Sox cap and a thick Boston accent, and I suddenly learned that I didn’t have the slightest idea what to say to someone like him. So alien was his experience to me, so unguessable his values, so mysterious his very language, that I couldn’t succeed in engaging him in a few minutes of small talk before he got down to work. Fourteen years of higher education and a handful of Ivy League dees, and there I was, stiff and stupid, struck dumb by my own dumbness. “Ivy retardation,” a friend of mine calls this. I could carry on conversations with people from other countries, in other languages, but I couldn’t talk to the man who was standing in my own house. - The American Scholar

I noted that none of these are new concerns, just the same opinions repeated time and time again by the liberal left. Until I realized that its THAT time of the year again, of expensive frames encasing even more expensive certs, of sitting through long painful (and oft unnecessary) ceremonies, of saying goodbyes to the safe (and closed) campuses and of kicking young 23 year olds (?) out into the real world.

"Why bother?", I wonder. People naturally gravitate towards money. And its not a secret that a closed mind working along Wall Street and Main Street easily earns more than an independent mind working in academia (where else do they allow independent minds?). Writing these articles just allow the authors and fellow lefties to feel good about themselves, that they're doing their best to change the world for the better. Nothing else will change.

But having said that, Rowling (as with all previous commencement speakers) was selected by Harvard's alumni. Perhaps these people do mature with time? Time will tell.

back from MIA!

2008-06-25T11:36:00.003+08:00

To our loyal friends who visit us regularly, we've been busy with our stuff n working on project X, so pardon our dry spell here in the recent past weeks. =P

More pictures and stories of our japan trip will be posted soon... stay tuned!

Meanwhile, it's approaching July already... and it's 1.5 weeks to our last day of work on 4th July! Incidentally, it's Independence Day! haha. Been wrapping up my work, doing my inventory of all my constructs, primers, cells etc to ensure i pass on everything clearly to the lab and not let my work for the past 1 year go down the drain. Also, donating useful reagents to other pple always makes them happy. =)

Just had my last lab meeting on monday where i presented. Wasn't a very enjoyable weekend trying to organize all the images and make my ppt... *bleahz* but it was an pretty gd job done. and it's OVER! =D=D=D in fact, it was nice that i got the chance to give a wrap-up talk of my work before i disappear off. ^_^

Now, it's just maybe few more expts, organize my boxes, vector maps, sequencing data, reagents... then it's a good 6 weeks to chill out, recharge and hang out before heading over to beautiful San Francisco, California!

Day Trip (Retreat) to Nikko for some mountain worship... =P

2008-05-17T11:50:00.005+08:00

Next up on our list of cities was the Nikko, the home of Toshogu, a very intricately decorated shrine complex and mausoleum surrounded by the Nikko National Park...

Off to the bullet train to Nikko!

The red Shinkyo (sacred bridge) spanning across the Daiya River. Long time ago, this bridge could only be used by the emperor.

i think this picture of the dragon is really cool. =)

The huge area of the Nikko national heritage site...
The front gate of Rinnoji, Nikko's most important temple. Within sits Nikko's 3 mountain Shinto gods - Amida, Senju-Kannon ("Kannon with a thousand arms") and Bato-Kannon ("Kannon with a horse head").
The torii leading up to the shrines and temples...

Some of the many beautifully carved and decorated towers/halls etc.
The famous Toshogu shrine - mausoleum of Tokugawa leyasu, the founder of the Tokugawa shogunate. Almost all the buildings were lavishly coated with gold leaves... just look at the intricate complex carvings...

One of the Toshogu's famous carvings. The 3 wise monkeys: "See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil"

On the train back to Tokyo, after a great day at Nikko...

seafood/sashimi galore!!

2008-05-06T22:38:00.001+08:00

just simply had to dedicate one entire post to the seafood we saw and ate!

we woke up early in the morning to go over to visit the Tsukiji fish market, the central wholesale market in Tokyo. a must-see!!! as we stepped into the market, there were crowds of people weaving to and fro through the narrow alleys between the stalls... and no, unlike the wet markets we have here, the place doesnt stink!! =)

big fresh fishies!!! when I was showing my dad (a big fish fan!) the pictures, he was slurping away non-stop, commenting "OMG! Sooooo fresh!"

one of the huge fishes (tuna?) on sale... see how shiny it is...

not only fishes, but lotsa other seafood!

prawns...

all kinds of shellfish...
these were especially large!!!

crayfish anyone? (i would have bought them all if i had a bbq stove!)

my mum was enjoying every bit of the seafood overdose!

i think the little scooter-like vehicles (i just found out they're called Turret trucks) were really cute. =) they were these barrels in front with a steering wheel directly attached on top. just before leaving the market, i took a picture of one of the guys riding these. and the guy was simply adorable! haha... he sorta posed for the picture (though din managed to capture), and nearly got banged into for stopping in the middle of the road junction! hahaha.... (he thinks i'm cute!)
next to the fish market, of cos, are rows of restaurants selling the freshest fish right from across the street! in particular, there were 2 restaurants particularly popular (also highly recommended by Frommers). but gosh were the lines super long!!!

we ended up going to one of the restaurants which was reasonably empty, and we could sit immediately. we're starving by then too!!!

the menu. looks yummy! we ordered the bottom 2, and the top left corner one i think.

gosh... looks at that piece of salmon!!!!! and the rest of it too!

our friendly chef preparing our meal. in fact, it was a great choice coming into this much less crowded place. the chef wasn busy and could answer whatever queries we had. we learnt the difference between the scallop and this other scallop-lookalike shell creature, and the japanese names of several different sashimi! a big thank you for the wonderful meal and lesson!

our sushi set. made from the fresh seafood off the market!

hmm.... a piece of that delicious salmon.

the sashimi-bento set. hmm...

and the other!

we came out of our brunch absolutely satisfied... perhaps a little sashimi overdose! haha.

Tokyo, Japan part 2!

2008-04-28T22:30:00.002+08:00

We spent few hours in the morning roaming the streets of Ginza, the equivalent of Singapore's Orchard Road area I would say... tall buildings, shopping plazas and office buildings.. the streets filled with crowds of people weaving around.

The famous 4-chome crossing, where all traffic stops when the lights turn red, and it's the pedestrian's sole right of way to cross anywhere. Singapore's Orchard area actually has one too, around Taka/Paragon area, but only limited to specific timings.

Thanks to our dearest Frommers, we got a good recommendation to one of the restaurants in the basement food alley of a shopping complex.

Welcome to Sushi Fukusuke! Our first taste of real Japanese sushi in Japan, and the first time we had the honor of sitting right in front of the chef!

Just looking at the big slabs of shiny fresh fish meat was enough to get us salivating! hmmmm......

The chef preparing our sashimi...

The Japanese, always well-noted for their meticulous attention to fine details and presentation!

Doesn't this look simply De-li-cious!!!!!!

A close-up at the huge juicy pieces of sashimi...

Happy and satisfied with our meal, we next went to the Meiji Shrine at Shibuya. Thankfully we got there in time before they shut the gates, at least we could go in to see. =P but there wasn't much things going on already. but nevertheless, nice place, and we did have a good long satisfying meal!

The big torii (Japanese gate) of Meiji Shrine

More cleansing...

The shrine - wooden, simple yet majestic.

The golden-haired me taking a bow, praying...

the typical shrine praying etiquette: Bow twice, clap twice, pray and then bow once.

Night falls, and we head to Takeshita street just next to the shrine at Harajuku, where little shops - fashion shops, souvenir shops, cafes and restaurants - lined the street. And there, darling went into a crepe craze! =)

his first crepe, with strawberries, cream and chocolate sauce (i think). he had another fancier one later, with a stick of cheesecake, ice-cream, bananas, cream and maybe strawberries... he certainly was very satisfied!

Us in front of the Tokyo Metropolitan Tower, one of the highlights of Tokyo. The top floor has a observation deck to catch a good view of the Tokyo city skyline.

the tokyo city view from up above...

Taka and HMV! too bad we din have time during our trip to pop in and do a little shopping around. the shops close too early, 8pm!!

we saw sakura wine at one of the shops. and just for fun, we bought one bottle to bring back to try! =) was very mild, lightly sweet and fragrant... and it had little gold flower-shaped flakes inside the wine.

enjoying ourselves with silly poses... =P

wine is served!

oh yes, darling went to the 24-hr mart and got a cup (bowl) noodle to try, plus since we had snacks all the way and not really a proper dinner. =P it had a dried piece of meat which softened when "cooked" by the hot water... and it tasted not bad indeed!

me acting silly again. haha.. and i had the gold flower flake at the tip of my tongue! do u see it?

to the land of the rising sun...Nihon! ~14-23 Mar 08~

2008-04-20T14:26:00.003+08:00

Next destination on darlings' world exploration quest: Spring trip to Japan!

Having krisflyer mileage unredeemed which was gonna expire, my mum, fm and i decided to exchange for tickets to Japan. and to make the trip most worthwhile, we planned the trip to try to catch the beautiful spring sakura season!

unfortunately, we'd booked the tickets a little early, when the forecast for sakura blossoms was predicted to be much earlier. and so we din catch the cherry blossoms at their full bloom... but we did catch the early bloomers at the end of the trip, which was pretty!

touchdown in tokyo, japan! us at the train station of Narita airport...

i like this shot... the train moving swiftly by behind the both of them. =)

once we had our bags down in the hotel, time to go out to explore! first stop: this district called Asakusa, to visit the Sensoji Buddhist temple. the streets leading up to the temple was lined with shops selling all the yummy japanese goodies!

darling with the pretty sake bottles... we decided to buy one set in the end! (maybe not to put sake, but some juice? =P)

food galore!

Sensoji temple, Tokyo's oldest temple

our first glimpse of geishas (japanese female entertainers). see their white makeup?

darling placing his joss sticks in the urn... people were crowding all around the urn, waving their hands to fan some smoke towards them, or rubbing their arms/joints etc with the smoke. it is their belief that the "holy" smoke will cure their pains/aches/diseases.

mum and me praying...

taking a stroll around the park just surrounding the temple... nice calm and peaceful, surrounded by trees and rivers...

in front of many temples that we will visit, are running 'taps' for people to cleanse themselves. there is a specific procedure to this:
1. get some water in the ladle, wash both hands...
2. wash ur mouth...

3. then tilt the ladle vertically to wash the handle of the ladle. you've been cleansed!

this cute guy fascinated my darling for quite a while. =P he was carrying his little portable store around, and clanging along as he walked (he had a bell attached). heh.

japan trip was a lot of camera macro-session! haha... my darling got especially pro at it! well done dear!

pretty flowers along the side of the street... many more such pics to come!

evening time: we went over to Odaiba, this newly reclaimed artificial island in Tokyo Bay. pretty nice view from here of Tokyo mainland. and we had japanese takopachi! yummy!!! actually, it's takoyaki, takopachi just being the name of that chain store in sg. =P

dinnertime! we went over to Roppongi, this district that was recommended by Frommers for active nightlife that was filled with restaurants, bars etc... walked into this noodle restaurant which seemed pretty popular. the food was great! had 2 udons, Kaibashira (scallop) no creamy udon, and shabuniku (tokusen wagyu-japanese specialty beef) curry no udon...

hmm... yum yum... served in a super humongously large bowl!

and a sea eel sushi (anago bouzushi)!

the first day of our japan trip... and it was already so exciting! =D

no. nada. nope. forget your microarrays... gene expression means nothing...

2008-04-18T10:44:00.004+08:00

From Wired:

In the latest issue of Nature, scientists reported an experiment in which they wreaked havoc with E. coli's network. They randomly added new links between the transcription factors at the top of the microbe's hierarchy. Now a transcription factor could turn on another one that it never had before. The scientists randomly rewired the network in 598 different ways and then stepped back to see what happened to the bacteria.

You might expect that they all died. After all, if you were to pop open the back of an iPod and start linking its components together in random ways, you'd expect it to crash. But that's not what happened.

But life is not an iPod. About 95 percent of the rewired bacteria did just fine with their new networks. They went on with their lives, feeding, growing and dividing. Some even performed better than microbes with the original wiring, under some conditions.

pride of our family

2008-04-16T18:21:00.008+08:00

good job LCP Maggie. we're all proud of you. :)

obsession? nah.. just simply in bliss! =)

2008-04-16T14:08:00.004+08:00

fm has been saying that i'm too obsessed with the wedding stuff. but am i at fault for thinking about it constantly? nah... *hehe* it's once-in-a-lifetime that one gets to be a bride! =)

really proud of the darlings' efficiency!
- date & hotel: settled way early! and we beat the other couples looking at the hotel for the same date! muahaha...
- bridal studio: settled! and we got a really good deal, with good number of pictures in the album, and we get all the pictures back in soft copy too! the photography here is really amazing, i must say. looking forward to the photoshoot... exciting! for anyone considering bridal shops in the future... do check this one out! (we'll help refer u to them!)
Bridal Zone (http://www.bridalzone.com.sg/)
- Store: Marina Square #03-307
- Studio/Gown Gallery: 72 Bendemeer Road #07-03

~~~
just went down yesterday to take a first peek at the gowns... the selection is a little small but decent. good enough for me thou, and i found a couple of dresses i really like! perfect! will go down again next time to look at some more bridal gowns as well as the other outfits for the photoshoot! hmmm.... *daydream* it was fun! and definitely looking forward to more sessions! hahaa.....

PsyCare Appointment

2008-04-16T00:17:00.005+08:00

Define success.
Success is achieving whatever you want.

Is whatever you want always good for you?
Yes.

Is it always good for others?
Not always.

Give me an example of when it is not good for others.
There is a finite set of money in the world. If I gain a million dollars, some people somewhere will be deprived of that million dollars.

---------
(nearing the end)
How are you feeling now?
You mean right now? Or today in general?

Now?
Hmm... (pause) pensive? just wondering where all the questioning is leading to. but today is a good day; met up with friends and celebrated someone's birthday at lunch today. lab (experiments) was good too!

Graduation Portraits

2008-04-05T00:17:00.003+08:00

when i change the whole world changes

2008-04-02T13:40:00.002+08:00

“We the people, in order to form a more perfect union.”

2008-03-24T18:22:00.003+08:00

Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America’s improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787.

- Barack Obama's Speech on Race

impressive. simply impressive how Obama could, not only neutralize a potentially negative race-related incident, but to turn it into a emotionally uplifting moment brimming with utter honesty and vision. perhaps this is why so many people turned into Obama supporters after going for his rallies.

perhaps this is what america needs?

read his full speech as prepared here at NYT.

on graduate education

2008-03-01T23:55:00.004+08:00

i've had such a tremendous experience over the past month that it'll be a great disservice to myself not to write (most of) my transient tots down...

i have always admired the jet-setting lifestyle of successful businessmen, spending more time on planes and cabs than buses and trains, more nights in many-starred hotels than home, secretaries to take care of various aspects of travel and accommodation, meeting intelligent people working around the world in endless one-to-one meetings and intimate heart-to-heart discussions. amazingly, and unexpectedly, i've got to experience all of that and more over the past one month as i jet-set through the top american graduate schools in biomedical sciences/molecular and biochemical studies.

i've admittedly been relatively successful academically and most pple will see me in a favorable light. but its nonetheless nerve wrecking to be repeatedly placed alongside 40 equally if not more successful and competitive peers and be scrutinized by smart AND experienced faculty who obviously sees through my feeble attempts to construct a barely palatable excuse to attend graduate school. and imagine suffering through all these while struggling to focus on the science and not be seduced and distracted by endless buffets and beers and wines and classy restaurants and glorious sceneries and exciting (ok, i lie here) field trips to wineries and choc factories and kayaking destinations and i cant remember where else....

...phew...ineedtocatchmybreath.

not only was i showered by excessive care and attention by faculty and current students during the trip, many (canned?) emails of concern and positive exhilaration and admiration soon followed the trip beholding me to enroll in each of the "strongest program in the US/world". i never felt so WANTED by so many pple before that i almost converted to the nearest religion i could find (just kidding).

now that all that is over, im left as an insignificant self and have to deliberate between each sch's pros and cons, only to realize that without knowing what i want with my education/science/career/life/fill-in-ur-own-word-here i cant make an accurate decision.

and seriously. i have no freaking idea what i want for my education.

the typical american graduate student career track goes like this. undergraduate grounds you with a broad liberal arts education so u can set ur Montaigne and Margarita and Marx right while learning ur ABCs like ampicillin, beta sheets and C4 cycle. graduate sch will inculcate a broad range of practical skill sets from the mundane of notebook keeping to standard western/northern blot techniques to the thrill of sacrificing mice, as well as the independent scientific thinking that leads us to great experiments and discoveries. a short post-doctoral career will allow us to work on a project of interest, on which we will spend much of the rest of our lives investigating. from there, those of us who are keen on an academic career will obtain a junior faculty position, passing on our passion to undergrads and expanding our lab and research interests, and tenureship will come a few years later without much fanfare, giving us free rein to conduct exciting research and achieve major breakthroughs. (yeh right)

and along the way, the old axiom applies: publish or perish. everyone wishes for a couple of first author cell/nature/science to distinguish themselves from the crowd, making that post-doc/grant/faculty/tenureship application that much easier. now, in an ideal world we're, for the most part, smart pple, and can generate groundbreaking insights on our own without breaking a sweat. in reality, of course, we depend on that 1% inspiration as much as the exacting guidance of our thesis advisor.

which is where i confront my first dilemma. generally speaking, should i be banking my career with an established mentor who'll see to it that i have a structured progression to education and publications in a mature field or a young faculty who'll bring youthful passion to a new, hot and developing field. this first dilemma is broadly understood by all in this career, but unfortunately for me it ties into a fundamental problem of my choice for a field of interest.

ive worked variously on the pluripotency of embryonic stem cells, plant cell wall dynamics in cytokinesis, cell cycle regulation via septin dynamics, hormonal influences on lung tumor growth, microRNA regulation on worm gonad development and currently on molecular interactions in actin cytoskeleton network regulation. not a bad mix, regardless of who u ask. i wrote in my applications that im keen to tackle epigenetic regulation on gene expression, a hot field that i was introduced to via my microRNA work. i was also keen to dabble again in the maintenance of pluripotency in embryonic stem cells and lineage specification, since this white hot field shows no sign of slowing down and was in fact thrown back into focus with many recent high-profile papers. combining my two interests leaves me in a hot pot situation where funding is plenty and competition is intense.

the way my interests developed sounded perfectly logical when writing up for my graduate sch applications. but they truly seem feeble when scrutinized by experienced faculty who obviously thinks im just mindlessly jumping onto the bandwagon without any pre-existing insights in mind. i cant put forth any explanations to the question of why i'm interested in this field other than my personal research history plus the plain fact that this unexplored field deserves our attention. did i think i could solve the world's ills with this field? probably not. but i really couldnt think of any other "important" field that stands out when everything is simply equally (un)interesting.

how do u determine what topics interest you? i have as much interest in finding the cure for AIDS/cancer/diabetes/diseaseX as much as John Doe but not more. as a highly visual person, im intrigued by the molecular machinery functioning in that tightly regulated function to keep us all alive, but how long will these interests last if most of my work in these fields will be highly unvisual? (imagine blots/gels vs mouse model work, its a hands-down victory for higher-order work) to bring matters back to the starting point, many faculty in hot fields are new blood, unreliable a mentor to confidently declare a safe graduate journey. will i be asked to conduct "fishing expeditions"? will i get exposure to a wide range of techniques or receive stimulating challenges to my thinking style? or will i be lounging in agony 4 years down the road when i realize my project is next to impossible to complete?

it doesnt help that i dont see many potential faculty during the interviews whom i clearly click with. i really REALLY enjoyed talking science with one established faculty in yale, was intellectually stimulated by one HHMI faculty in berkeley, sat first in pitiful shame and gradual confidence with another berkeley HHMI faculty, but generally had tame interactions with the rest of the 30odd faculty i met over the two weeks. and of cuz, to add complexity to the decision making process, add a significant other and the widely varying campus environments to truly confuse and mess up my live for now.

sigh. i guess life is good to have choices, but life sucks when you realize that no choice is perfect and ull always have to give up something for another.

on another note, it was great fun meeting up with old friends in SD and SF. sincere thanks to all the birthday wishes on fb and via sms, and unbelievable gratitude to kk and wy for an unexpected birthday gift (BBC's Planet Earth DVD collection, which will be freaking fantastic to watch once i find the time to). but for now, its to planning for our upcoming japan trip (all we have are return plane tix), lab for the next 2 weeks, and endless tots on everything related to our wedding.

so, i guess, ciao for now.

对你说

2008-02-04T13:58:00.000+08:00

to the few who fought for what they loved:
we must not let this song be forgotten.

对你说
词/曲：黄欣恩，黄欣怡

是什么
带着我们走出风雨
离别后
又让我能够回心转意
我不曾
让你看见
泪水在眼眶中转来转去
你怎么懂我的心

我试着去了解
也试着认真用心去体会
虽心里话难说
不能当作你只是入过

不让两颗心流浪
曾经承诺要地久天长
但却在一瞬间
走得好远
要我如何
对你说

说我还爱你
说我好想念你
也许我也许你
也许我们应该相信

不让两颗心流浪
曾经承诺要地久天长
但却在一瞬间
走得好远
要我如何
对你说

today's a strange day

2008-02-03T02:42:00.000+08:00

today's a strange day. but actually, it started as a lonely day.

its been a really really long time since i was alone on a friday night: the night for drinking, partying, relaxing, anything non-working... its been a long time since i FELT lonely. a relationship stabilizes your social life: you no longer have to worry abt choosing among the various groups of friends to hang out with (if u are lucky/sociable), or about finding a group of pple willing to hang out with you (if you are not). there'll always be this person who'll hang out with you every friday, rain or shine, happening or not. a person who you'll slowly learn to take for granted to be there every friday, until she's no longer there. then u realize that no one else wants to hang out with you since you weren't around for them for the last x years/months. the friday night scene went on without you.

and it was a lonely night, but there's nothing a tall glass of bailey's on the rocks and a screaming singing DANCING crew of Hairspray cannot undo. i love the energy, the funky moves and the positive social message. i get the sense that people of today don't truly appreciate the difficulties of going against strong social norms. will we be able to stand up for what we think is right, if we have to?

today's a strange day. or rather, it's a rare day which provided a rare glimpse into human behavior.

its always rude to talk abt others, so ill stick to critiquing myself. i was late to a dinner appt with my friends, rushed out of lab, jumped into a waiting train towards raffles place. train was extremely crowded as usual (and i can easily rant abt the unfairness and utter stupidity of raising (doubling!) ERP rates). i barely made it into the train, squashed agst the door like in the cartoons. next stop, commonwealth, i saw a mini exodus from the next carriage door, and so i popped over to ease the jam. bad call as sitting right in front of the door was a pile of fresh vomit (explaining the exodus). Eww... you could see the person's lunch (prob hor fun, with sotong and prawns). a metre radius was automatically cleared for the royal pile, amazing considering the squeeze of pple all around. i stood at the door again, downstream of any waffling odors. next few stops saw pple coming in and out. pple generally get a shock when the doors open and walk in carefully. but i was surprised that some simply didnt even realize the problem until they were slipping on the mess. a chinese lady had her full attention on her phone and was luckily caught by fellow evadees.

i spent the whole time wondering abt my social responsibility. shld i be telling everyone coming in to watch out? should i just inform those who obviously didn't see it? or shld i just be a passive singaporean and complain in the train and not do anything abt it? i was surprised no SMRT staff came in to clear up the mess. they were obviously not informed by any of the passengers who alighted earlier. should i press the "EMERGENCY CALL BUTTON: FINE $5000 FOR MISUSE" button? this is obviously not an emergency, yet there's simply no way to communicate with station/train staff. thankfully buona vista -> raffles place is a short ride. and i fulfill my moral obligations by telling the station staff abt the vomit on the way out. could i have done differently? how so?

so today's a strange day. day of talk on relationships. of a guy's rejection because he insisted on getting an exact date for a romantic date from a girl who wasn't so keen. of a girl's reluctance to commit to a sweet boy because she doesn't think she's ready and clean from her prev breakup. today is also a day of talk of travels. taipei medical attachment, beijing law attachment, yale interview and more.

today's a day of reminiscence too. the usual of remembering the song Dui Ni Shuo written by mag and mel for huahui's concert and of future hh performances. but today's a strange day because i "visited" the places where i grew up. i took the SBST Night Owl service 1 to AMK/Yishun from Clarke Quay, and the bus went thru AMK Ave 3, passing by PSK's former residence, went thru AMK Ave 4, passing by my pri sch best friend's flat, the coffeeshop with great rojak (with apple slices and lime skin), the CC where i played basketball so often, my former flat, the macdonald's which replaced the coffeeshop with the $1.20 chicken rice store when i was living there, the ECON minimart which is no more, the hawker centre with the ornamental fish stores where Joshua, Junjie, Zhong Yi and I have lunch together in lower sec after sch before gg home etc etc. I havent been to that area, that street since a gazillion years ago. buildings stand for a long time, but the heart inside beats differently now.

today's truly a strange day. because i rarely had time to think and write rubbish tots when jas is around. i guess its all about off-loading ur tots to someone. the lonely can only turn to writing, making little daily nonsensical details turn into gems which'll clutter the information space of the world more and more.

today's a strange day because im missing darling. yep, i dont usually miss her. because she's always with me, always around. guess i shld wean myself off her so i wont be so lonely next time when she's not around.

or maybe not.

the rounds of interviews begin...

2008-01-17T22:00:00.000+08:00

and the show begins...

this morning marks my first graduate school interview. made a boo-boo yesterday morning, waking up early to get ready for the interview, only to realize 10 minutes into the supposed time I was to receive a call from them that it was actually today. well, I guess I never had to convert SG time to US time, only converting the other way round when I was in the states. (explaining why i got the one day early instead of one day later) =P

Anyway, to all our friends out there, fm and I will be flying off next week to the states for some of our interviews, flying off on 24^th jan morning. Fm’s gonna be back 29^th jan, and I’ll be back 5^th feb. Just in time for CNY, thankfully… dun wanna miss it now that we’re back for this one year after 3 years of being missing in action.

after CNY, we'll be off again mid-late feb for our second round of interviews. lots of flying around this couple of months, and earning a lot of mileage (hopefully)!