Open Office finally working for my OS X Tiger

it's been bout 2 weeks since i downloaded open office on the G4. took me lots of internet surfing to figure out how to get it working... i'm still not used to using the mac... and somehow everything is delayed on this comp... like now while i'm typing, it takes a couple of seconds to see what i typed on the monitor... maybe there's not enough ram... anyway, after installing countless updates and some software called x11, i finally am able to use open office and also itunes. the open office interface needs a little getting used to... to me, it's like a basic microsoft office. the fonts look different though... haven't really started using it, so i don't know how user friendly it is.

im using adium as my instant messaging client. it's abit weird but the green bird is cute. no msn file sharing feature though...that's the sad part... i couldn't receive the family photos from my cousin!

so the past weeks have been pretty hectic. finals and all the usual panic attacks, depression and sleepless nights... then lab and all the failed PCR attempts. in fact, we're planning to stay at the antarctic lab tomorrow... and work all night. and oh yea, i volunteered to help out at nlds 07 in um. actually i didn't really help much because they wanted us to come at 6am every day and of course that's impossible for me... i don't drive! so i ended up coming for 2 out of 5 days... but anyway, when i was there i didn't have much to do because the oc's basically did everything and we were too under-informed to do anything major but become a runner...

christmas is coming! and CL is back for another few days... so we'll be going to ah yee's house more these few days.

Are university students actually environmentally concious?

i'm studying biochemistry. i have 70 plus course mates of which the majority of them are taking a course called environmental biochemistry. it's a third year course but in my opinion, it is a relatively easy (no... manageable) course. why do i say this? it's because the biochemistry part (which involves certain biogeochemical cycles and molecular structures of pollutants) of the course is just half of it. the other half is about how pollutants actually pollute the environment, ways we can remedy and prevent further damage (which for me is eye-opening and easy - because most of it is common sense) and also learning what 'biodegradable' really mean - how this term has been rampantly misused in commercial world. many of my course mates do not like this course because the lecturer is temperamental at times and will not bend to accommodate you. but aside from that, i would think it would be a very practical course to take as it relates directly to our lives, unlike many other biochemistry courses where the main focus is biochemical processes of a minute part of our body. yes it does relate to us but sometimes you can get a little lost in all the glucose transporters, second messenger systems and major histocompetibility complexes that you tend to forget that these stuffs are actually in every one of us humans and other living organisms.

anyway, all the ramblings above leads to the following scenario which i witnessed with my very own eyes. my friends and i were walking up the 'hill' to lecture halls complex and ahead of us were another bunch of our course mates. we were going to attend our last lecture on environmental biochemistry. we were drinking milo form those green paper boxes and i saw one of my course mates (from the group ahead of us) throw the milo box into the drain!
i know that our faculty doesn't have dustbins at every corner, but they do have 2 to 3 dustbins on every floor of all the buildings... would it mortally hurt you to hold your rubbish for a couple of paces more to a dustbin? i guess there's always a thrill of breaking the rules... but it's just so ironic that a university student that has just finished a course in which she learns exactly what can be biodegraded throws a cardboard box which has plastic lamination and bits of other plastic materials into the drain without casting a thought on how it would clog the drainage system and contribute to the already too-foul-to-breathe stench of the faculty of science! and this behaviour from one whom i've known since form 6 and she, a city slicker!

Evil Nut

isn't this the most ugliest, evil-est nut you've ever seen? it really is a NUT... picture it hanging from a plant!

limited free time should be used for sleep not blogging

gosh... i just cried myself silly watching the second last half of My Girl... although i've seen that movie so many times and it's probably more than 10 years old, it's still so sad to watch thomas j (macauley culkin) die... i must promise myself to never watch this movie with anyone around... i'd totally embarrass myself... since i'm not the crying-in-public kind of girl... in fact, if i were to be objective about myself, i think i'm really insensitive... not in-touch with my feelings and all that girly stuff... somehow, unwittingly i seem to have become some sort of "aunt agony" where people keep telling me their problems and their secrets and sometimes i don't feel like i have a right to know these secrets... i mean, i've always had an impression that when someone tells you a secret, you're supposed to tell them one of yours... but as i've said before, i'm not comfortable with telling people my secrets... and sometimes, i just can't think about any secrets that i have... which is totally bullshit because everyone has secrets... but yeah, back to the issue... i just wonder why some friends would trust me for a good advice when i myself am not living the perfect dream life... but nonetheless, it's touching to know that they value our friendship as much as i do... so ok, enough with all this talk of feelings...

just a random thought... some people think chewing gum looks cool... undoubtedly, some people look cool doing anything... but for the rest of us, trying to look cool may sometimes come off as appearing to imitate a cow in a grazing field... get the picture? constant chewing, got a certain rhythm going with the jaw movement... down, to the left, to the right and up etc... i don't have anything against gum chewing, in fact sometimes it's just refreshing after long hours of inactivity or after eating some onion-ey/garlic-ey foods... but i suddenly had this idea of comparing gum chewing with a cow pop into my head a few days ago... and i can't help suppressing a chuckle everytime i think about it... maybe i'm just going mental with all the immunology i'm supposed to be studying.


ooh... something funny happened today... actually, i think it's kind of sadistic for me to classify this as funny... anyway, on our way back home we nearly knocked down TWO mcdonald's delivery bikes. i'm sure they were from the ss2 branch... at first, delivery guy 1 swerved and abruptly cut in front of the car and as an automatic reflex dad swerved the car slightly in the opposite direction. split seconds later delivery guy 2 swerved from the other side... if dad had been travelling faster and turned his steering wheel a little bit further, that delivery guy would have stopped delivering! (get what i mean?)

Realisation or just killing time?

what am i to do? i was reading back my past posts (when i'm supposed to be studying for 3 tests next week) and i've realized that i really like writing (not 'tulisan' but 'penulisan')! although i must admit that more often than not, my posts have a tinge (or rather smothered) of sarcasm... it's shocking how sarcastic i've become... i used to think i didn't have that streak in me... but i guess its just genetics... just like that little depression/dimple some of my family members have on the base of the arch of our ears...

another thing i really enjoy doing is image editing and designing stuff... i could work on these things for more than 24 hours and still feel satisfaction... but give me 3 hours of mugging for a biochem exam exhausts me... with the exception of situations when i really delve myself into the subject and see the brighter side of what i've learned through the semester... i can say that i enjoyed studying pharmacology, DNA recombinant technology and plant biochemistry since i majored in biochem. although i must admit that i can't really remember what i studied if you were to ask me about it now...

are my interests a sign for my true calling? or are they just really strong affinities that i have for what would be an absorbing and fulfilling hobby?

Grrrhhh... go ahead make my day!

what can you do when you are just so bl***y sick and tired of a person but can't get away? the situation's boiling and i can just feel a fatal spark is about to ignite an inextinguishable fire. just itching for a big blow up... something must be very wrong with one who just has to have a self-pitying period which ends with a massive quarrel every 6 months or so. if you are such a sensitive person (and no one is allowed to hurt your feelings), then could you please take care of how you treat others? this world isn't about taking, taking and more taking... how can you expect to receive anything if you don't give? nowadays, i feel it's best not to dwell on things too deeply because it'll all just boil down to "life isn't rosy, in fact it's full of rattling skeletons". maybe it's just me, letting things get to me... other people seem to not give a rat's ass about these things. there's just so much sh** i can put up with... and it's just so sad to say that part of the problem has arised because of the internet and all the poison that it has to offer. new users are just so gullible and 'over their dead body' would they admit to that... and so they proceed in trying to spread their poisoned mindset to anyone who will listen. not to forget that they pity (not compassion) and condemn those who refuse to be poisoned. how can one condemn every person they encounter just because they are not of the same thinking/intelect? isn't that a clear sign that one is self-righteous and doesn't practice what he preaches? one has no right to pass a judgement on another and declare that his is the ultimate and absolute correct judgement. if one has that mindset, then that person is implying that he is greater than God. and to proclaim that one still believes in God (but still maintain that mindset), is just contradicting oneself. it is so sad to see how warped a person's mind can become... negativity, delusional and inferiority complex... i've seen this in many elderly people. i think it's something that you grow into as life takes its toll on a person. you don't realise you're turning into that person until its too late and you are totally immune to yourself and think that the world is out to get you... that every person you set your eyes on are scheming to ruin your little comfort bubble. i mean, if you actually think about it, you are just like a speck of dust in the population of the world... do you think that you are worth the effort and time of millions of people around the world to plan your downfall? my theory is if you don't bitch with people, more often than not they won't bitch with you! if you don't give a person reason to hate you, they will not hate you. again, it's about giving and receiving. you give others a hard time, they'll give you back a hard time.

i started this post feeling really pent up with anger over an incident. but thankfully now i feel better and the hatred has subsided. i guess i'm not one who can talk my problems out with a person. whenever i do that, i just get more aggravated... e.g. the YV'07 concert incidents... still get that "omg, i can't believe that could ever happen!" kind of feeling. i prefer just writing in riddles so i can prove my point without actually revealing my problem... and only i will be able to understand what's all this ramblings about.

Photos of Bali

Hotel restaurant view, Candidasa

Our Bali driver's son & his dog (we visited his home)

Our hotel in Nusa Dua

Hotel Majapahit, Surabaya

Our first view of Surabaya - housing area abandoned because of flood (a few years ago)

Mini lanes of the Furama villas, Ubud

'Santai-santai' hut and the pool in Furama, Ubud

Our messed up room in Furama, Ubud

Nice view in Candidasa

The cheapest hotel we lived in for this trip (in comparison with the others), Candidasa

Paddy field

'Sapi' not 'lembu'

Dolphin viewing at Lovina

Pura ... something

Vegetable market

Ijen Resort, Surabaya

View from Kawah Ijen

Sulfur lake at Kawah Ijen

At the foot of Kawah Ijen

3 of us holding a bunch of edelweiss

Peek >o<

the other day i heard a radio dj saying that he always starts his blog posts with an apology for his blog's inactivity... and i really identified with that! i dare not count how many times i've neglected this blog and feebly revived it with an opening line such as "my blog has died for the last 3 months..." etc. but honestly, nowadays i find myself having very little free time to blog let alone sleep... and when i do have the time, i won't have the mood to compose a post... so i have no choice but to let history repeat itself again and again... i'm sure this blog is already immune to the inconsistent activity of its author.

then what caused this streak of luck that i should blog today? it is because i'm stuck in uni with my laptop and 2 out of 3 classes canceled for the day... with nothing desirable to do, i resorted to this blog...

i can't recall what i wrote in my last post, but i'm guessing it's something about my industrial training in permulab. well, that has ended about 2 months ago with not too bad memories... i did learn alot albeit not biochemistry related (at all!)... learnt more about common lab practice there than i've ever learned in school... however i've also learned that professionalism only extends up to a certain extent, that sometimes it's best to ignore the tiny details and just get the job done. the work atmosphere at that company reminds me of LK' first job (of course his was very much worse) and makes me wonder whether the work ethics and workers' mentality differ in a larger organisation. lately, any sort of talk or thought about working sends "worry" impulses throughout my neural system. i hope that this is the common worry of final year students. however, most of my close coursemates are planning to further their studies... as for myself, i'm not sure whether i have the determination and drive to carry on studying.

pushing that aside, i went to bali right after my industrial training (right before uni started) with BY and her friend. it was quite good but we spent most of the time traveling in the car and most of our money went to transportation fees. however we managed to travel practically all around the island and stayed at 5-6 star hotels. we flew to surabaya and climbed mount ijen to see the volcanic sulfur lake. it really gave me a culture shock. i thought that surabaya was one of indonesia's largest cities and the route we took gave us an impression that it was a backward and wayward place. but on the last day when we traveled back to surabaya from bali, we managed to see the developed part of the city (perhaps it was the city centre since there were quite a few good hotels near our hotel majapahit). we even managed to visit their mall... it was not so different from what we have in malaysia. but one thing i noticed is that the indonesian chinese are usually found in the malls and there's quite a drastic class segregation between the 'have's and the 'have not's. and it took us almost forever to cross the road to our hotel... there were so many cars!!! and ever so many toyota vios cabs! i can't believe they use vios as cabs and here, it costs so darn expensive... thanks to our import taxes! so i guess, what we saw on our first day was the outskirts of surabaya... the villages and slum area.

then we took a ferry to bali and started our tour at lovina, the to ubud, candidasa, and finally to nusa dua, where we visited the nearby kuta. kuta is like what we imagined bali would be like. it definitely is a tourist hotspot and everything there is catered for tourists and not the locals. all the branded outlets were having sales... were they genuine labels? i don't know. we bought most of our souvenirs there because we could choose in peace without someone nagging us to buy their overpriced goods.

candidasa was pretty uneventful... the view was good but there was no beach for us to stroll on and the waves were quite savage especially at night. in ubud we stayed at the best hotel, furama villas and spa. we had our own private villa with a swimming pool and an outside hut to "santai-santai". the service was very good too! come to think of it, when we were at lovina we stayed in our private villa too. but the service there wasn't as good. the front desk lady was very beautiful but pretentious... both villas had outdoor shower areas (meaning that there are walls but no ceiling)! we managed to see jumping dolphins at lovina... however when we reached the shore, we were swamped by the local pedlars (most were small children) begging us to buy their nick-knacks... i felt very hassled in bali!

ubud was like petaling street just that they sell more souvenir stuff and the sellers either practically beg you to buy their stuff or start mocking you out loud and right at your face. i spotted many malaysians there. i think malaysians enjoy bargain hunts but i personally don't like it... perhaps it's due to my lack in the bargaining skills department. in fact, we got cheated on everything we bought at ubud! so the enjoyable part of ubud was the hotel... we also managed to catch an evening performance of a traditional dance/play. the storyline was one of the legend stories that we studied in 'komsas' (bm literature) in form 4 or 5... we also tried the famous 'bebek bengil' restaurant which was only mediocre, slightly expensive and where the cashier wanted to cheat us of our change. but i'll give them credit for their layout and deco/landscaping... pretty interesting with a mini paddy field, fish ponds and an open-air concept with dim lights and colourful cushions at the 'bersila' booths.

finding our way back from bali to surabaya was scary. we did not have enough money to hire a charter van to ferry us from the ferry jetty to our surabaya hotel (10 hrs ride) and our bali charter driver warned us that there are more bad people in surabaya than in bali. so we had to be careful... our only option left was to take the public bus at night. thank God we met a nice indonesian lady on the ferry who actually accompanied us in the old junk taxi van (with a very rough looking driver) to the bus station before going home. luckily we took the bus that did not stop anywhere along the way. we reached surabaya city early in the morning and were bullied into taking a taxi to our hotel. but praise the Lord that we actually arrived in one piece and safe at our hotel majapahit. so that was pretty much what i remembered from the trip (in brief).

so now it's back to classes and assignments in uni. i've started my final year project which is gene walking of pseudomonas pha synthase gene. my friend and i are on the same project and our lecturer supervisor handed us to her phd student. so this phd student is our mentor and she has been so patient with us. again, my project has nothing to do with biochemistry... it's more bout microbiology and genetics. our chemical shopping list is so expensive that both our rm500 allowances has been exhausted and we still have reagents to purchase... so far, we've done two rounds of polymerase chain reactions (pcr) and our gel electrophoresis results are terrible... we don't have enough bands! and it's so tiring for us to walk to the postgraduate studies centre to do our lab work! i hope the exercise will do good for my overall health! although i'll be stinking up the antartic lab everytime i go there...

New wheels!

we bought a new car. picked it up yesterday. its a white perodua myvvi! feel so weird... this is the first brand new car we've bought since i can remember... at first the colours we favoured were black, red or white.... then for practicality, we added in silver and gold (dirt not so easily seen)... we were so undecided! and we only decided on the colour on the day LK signed the contract agreement... it was a pretty fast decision from initially seriously deciding to get a car till the car delivery date... less than a month in total, i think.

It's all in the head

it's really ironic how all day i can think of so many things to blog about but when i'm actually sitting in front of the computer, all my thoughts are gone... so now, i'll just start with what i did today... hopefully it'll lead me to remember what i wanted to blog about initially.

i started the boron calibration last friday and it was so demotivating!!! the procedure involved evaporating the standard solutions on a steam bath (which took about 4 hours for 100ml standard solution), refluxing the dried standard in a muffle furnace at 550 degrees celcius for 1 hour, adding acid to dissolve the residue, centrifuging the resultant solution, adding 2 drops of concentrated HCl and 10ml concentrated sulfuric acid, waiting for the solution to cool down, adding the carmine reagent (which was practically concentrated sulfuric acid with red carmine powder) and waiting for 45 minutes for full colour development before taking its absorbance reading on the spectrophotometer. (see how long the method is!!!) on thursday after i'd finished the phosphorus calibration, i tried reading the SOP (standard operation procedure) for the boron calibration and half way through the procedures, i came across this phrase "... and triturate with a rubber policeman to dissolve." at first i couldn't believe my eyes, i thought i was seeing something wrong... what do policemen have to do with calibration methods? so i asked the lab technicians and they too didn't know what it was about... in fact, everyone had a good laugh over it! jokes were flying about non-stop till work ended! even the chemist didn't know what the phrase meant and wrote it off as a typo error. before i went back, i asked my supervisor what it meant (while trying very hard to stiffle a giggle) and turns out, it wasn't a typo error and simply means agitating the solution by blowing bubbles using a dropper (rubber policeman is the term used for the black rubber bulb)... i felt so stupid after that...

anyway back to my story, it took me the whole day to prepare the standards until the centrifuging part and i had to continue on friday morning. the results were totally and utterly out of the expected range! it was a total failure. i had to do the whole thing again (my supervisor suggested not diluting the stock solution this time). so i did everything again and had to stay till 6.15p.m. (overtime) to finish the calibration. again the results were as bad as the previous time... i think my supervisor kinda guessed i was getting abit fed up, so he asked me to redo it on monday minus the drying and centrifuging steps. it worked! and i'm so happy it's finally done and over with... whew!

ok, i'm starting to nod off... i've lost my train of thoughts. so i'll end here. i guess i didn't get to recall what i wanted to blog about.