CurryFest

OMG, these few days I've been eating so much curry, it's not even funny.

Tuesday, Phyllis gives me Singapore Chicken Curry to eat. It is gone by Wednesday. Yummy.

Friday, Aunty Mei gives me Singapore Chicken Curry to eat. It's still in my fridge.

Sunday, I cook Thai Green Curry to eat with Junning. We don't finish it, because he also makes baked fish. It's in my fridge.

And Sunday evening, after tutoring Shaun, Carolyn gives me Singapore Chicken Curry again. And this time, the best part is that it's with roti prata too. YUMM!!

OMG, CurryFest, curry galore. 感谢主，赐下一周丰盛的、好吃的！

Jamming

I know that if I don't start writing this entry, I'll probably start crying at a very inappropriate time.

I am jamming with Charles, Joey, Si Rim and Rachel right now... a bunch of us from Sci1. Gee, and just seeing how into it we all are... makes me think of the innocence that we all possess right now, while we are still students. I see Si Rim enjoying his bass, completely into the music. I see Rachel playing the piano, completely enjoying the moment, her need of destressing. I see Joey, enjoying all the musical songs that we are jamming right now. Lastly, but definitely not least, I see Charles, enjoying himself. He proclaims himself to be tone-deaf, and I can hear it so. But he's there bellowing it all out, the songs that he knows.

I wonder sometimes, what will we all end up as? Having experienced the unexpected death of a classmate before, I sometimes wonder about death. Not that I have a morbid fascination with it, though. What would happen if one of us were to leave this earth? What legacy would we leave in others' hearts, in others' minds, in others' lives?

And so the night goes on, we all enjoying each other's company, and I ponder in reflection. Maybe it's time for me to try experiencing the moment rather than focus on other things.

Day 2 at Lab

It really felt like day 1, because I was given a hands-on chance to pipette stuff, rather than just observe. But I digress.

It's a good feeling to be back in the lab, working away with chemicals and biological samples, pipetting numerous times, forcing myself to be uber-careful with whatever I'm working with. Thanks so much to Jill (lab tech) for giving me the chance to do hands-on work as opposed to just observe. I definitely felt a lot more confident this time round, especially when it came to my pipetting skills. Hopefully, I'll keep up this confidence in knowing that what I'm doing is right.

In any case, I missed out on this morning's class, which means I missed out on 50% of Dr. Berger's lecture for the week! Ouch! I am sooooooo going to make sure that I sleep on time next Wednesday, so that I don't sleep in on Thursday. Gee.

A random thought - as I stepped out of the LSC, I smelled the fresh, cold air. This is another reason why I'm back home, and, more importantly, this is another reason to protect the environment.

100% Record

AHHHHH!!!! My 100% record to this term has finally been shattered. =(

I finally managed to skip one lecture - BIOL200 lecture. Oh the horrors of midnight sleeps! I shall go to bed at 10.30 from now onwards. No more staying up late. And MSN - you will be closed!.

Scientist

Ahh, so I am on the right career track after all!

You Are An INTJ

The Scientist You have a head for ideas - and you are good at improving systems. Logical and strategic, you prefer for everything in your life to be organized. You tend to be a bit skeptical. You're both critical of yourself and of others. Independent and stubborn, you tend to only befriend those who are a lot like you. In love, you are always striving to improve your relationship. You have strong ideas of what love should be like. At work, you excel in figuring out difficult tasks. People think of you as "the brain." You would make an excellent scientist, engineer, or programmer. How you see yourself: Reasonable, knowledgeable, and competent When other people don't get you, they see you as: Aloof, controlling, and insensitive

What's Your Personality Type?

Digital Rebel

For you camera buffs out there... do not despair...

[CPSC111 Class, 9.00 am, Introduction to Computing]
Kurt Eiselt (instructor): "I'm going my own way this time. I'm a rebel."
Eric Ma (myself, student): "You're a Digital Rebel."
Kurt Eiselt: "No, no, let's not go there. Digital Rebel is a camera... 'You're a camera...'"
Eric Ma: [chuckles for like a whole 5 minutes]

Slime

OMG, I was cooking fried rice today, and I had this thin coating of carbs from rice on my fingers. I wet it with some water, and felt it slimy and sticky... and then I recalled Dr. Berger's lectures on carbohydrate networks as a part of the extracellular matrix forming a slime coating for cells.

BIOL200 RAWKS!

Volunteer Position

And yet another piece of good news to boost my spirit this morning. =)

I've been accepted into Dr. Ninan Abraham's lab as a volunteer student! Just received the confirmation e-mail a few minutes ago.

Gonna meet him on Thursday to confirm my schedule.

YES!

I Will Get There

So today, I finished all of my first mid-terms. With CPSC111 going well, STAT200 going well, and BIOL200 going okay, I'm glad to have survived them all. Granted, I do have an easier time than my peers, some of whom have to go through mid-terms every week... But in the long-run, all exams do take a toll on us to some degree, don't they?

I'm only glad to have been blessed with the wisdom to manage my time, and the prudence to keep myself nourished and rested during this week. Having gone through with the worship team on Sunday as well (and completely throwing myself in the arms of God and enjoying it in the process), I guess I have also been blessed with a time of peace prior to the buildup of this mid-term. My homework isn't in some messy disarray either, and readings are the only thing that I really do need to catch up on.

In retrospect, I have pulled through, and I have gone through it all. Not by my strength alone, that is the reminder I have for myself, though. It is through the Higher Power alone that I can do this without wrecking myself.

Satisfaction, Elation

Today was my first day up with the worship team. And to readers of this blog who used to know that I was a staunch atheist and still don't know otherwise, you will be stunned to read that first sentence.

Anyways, first day up with them, and it felt amazing. This kind of service is the kind of service which I think I'm most suited for - teamwork, complementing each other, making things work. I remember working through the 2nd last song, I think it was And Can It Be - this time round, having a drummer behind me got my harmony going a lot better. After that song, I was happy. I was satisfied, and I smiled, feeling the peace within my heart.

I figure now, that with that peace inside me, I can settle down to look through the next four things on my list:

1. Hume - PHIL230A
2. Mid-Term - BIOL200
3. Lab - CPSC111
4. Assignments - BIOL240

Pray that I will get through them all.

Game

This game was introduced to me by Mo, so I give Mo full credit for letting me know about this game.

Randomly draw 4, 5 or 6 cards from a shuffled deck of cards. Using any of the four basic mathematical operators, combine all four cards to form a pre-defined number.

I've played this game with Mo, Charles Zhu, Charles Au, Josephine and Irfan, and this really provoked some thoughts in me with regards to problem solving.

1. One has to simplify the problem into its essentials.
2. There can be many solutions to one problem.
3. With a defined criteria, the best solution can be found.

I've been quite inspired, having talked to Irfan, Charles and Joey about the outcomes of the game. I think that it's a very good game to teach to this year's kids. Like, maybe in a tutorial, we can devote one hour of time towards it.

Pleasant Surprise

Now, just yesterday, I had a pleasant surprise come in the morning - my mid-term for CPSC111. I scored 43/45!!! Amazing!!! I can't wait to see STAT200, though; I'm sure I have conceptual errors that will bar me from getting the full 60/60, but we'll see. I do want to know where I'm going wrong, though.

And yesterday, I bumped into an alumni of TCHS who is in this year's Sci1 class. Awesome! So, if I count all the people that I've met who have studied along Bt Timah Road, there's him, there's Alina, and there's Michelle. 3 now. Interesting. This world is really small.

Code

Man, CPSC111 MT was such an amusing MT.

"Instance fields gain values through:
A. Osmosis
B. [something that I forgot]
C. [something that I forgot]
D. [something that I forgot]"

Having seen the "osmosis", I chuckled and wrote down this code:

public class BoredStudentThatFinishedEarly
{
public static void main ( String[] args )
{
String a = "Osmosis";
System.out.println("Instance fields gain variables through " + a);
System.out.println("hahahahahahahahahaha.......);
}
}

You Java programming folks out there will surely know what this code means. ;-)

Jesus Is Black

This is a classic one, which I saw on a friend's MSN display name.

"Jesus must be black. He called everyone brother, got beaten up by the police, and couldn't get a fair trial."

一把大雨伞，自己独自用

Thoughts came to me while looking simultaneously doing a few things - reading Gauthier for PHIL230A (Moral Theory), thinking about the sermon given by Geoff (UC's head pastor), and looking at photos on Facebook. And all of this was done after I came back through a blitzing shower of pouring rain, with a big yellow umbrella in hand.

Well, I guess it really was the photos on Facebook that got me thinking. I saw photos of 7B on Changfang's profile. My old class back in Hwa Chong. And then I realized how far I've come in my journey alone in Canada.

The day I left Singapore was the day I left Choops. A few years later, she would leave me too. My mom would leave me here to figure out how to become more independent. And then I'd start building up a group of friends here, of people I'd know.

I've been thinking about that moment when I was left alone. Here. Back home in Canada. Paradoxically foreign. I was atheist, back then. And I thought, I'd be able to fend for myself here. I know English, I still sound Canadian, and I'm probably going to be able to adapt here. I was wrong. Being alone isn't easy - thinking about Tim Christie's (PHIL230A lecturer) thought experiment of the lone survivor after a superbug can certainly get one thinking about sanity and reason. But that's an extreme digression.

Geoff mentioned how sometimes, in our walk through life, we grasp and feel but cannot sense the presence of God. It's almost as if we're out there wandering on our own. It's how I've felt for the past two years. And I still don't know where I'm going.

Suddenly, this year, I've been able to maintain a 100% record (that sounds soooo like ESPN Soccernet) going into my academics. Yet suddenly, this year, I have become more like a recluse. I have opened myself up less to my friends, and I think in part it's because I'm so afraid to expose myself. Yet, isn't that part of being friends, that we all get to know each other a bit better, slowly? I couldn't picture myself doing that.

They always say, it's always good to have a friend or a buddy to walk with you through life. And I'm glad for finding Jesus to walk with me through that journey. But Jesus isn't somebody who I can see, hear or sense physically. He's a person who exists out there, still present, but sensed with our hearts. Oh the pain, sometimes, not to know that there's another physical person out there who's in the same situation as I am with whom I can communicate - it's a lonely journey, is it not?

I don't fit completely well with Singaporeans, in part because I identify myself as being Canadian more than Singaporean, and in part because of painful memories associated with the booming little island. I don't fit completely well with people from Mainland China, in part because I don't think like them very much. Heck, I don't even fit very well with Canadians born here - because I'm not that completely Canadian to start with. I'm a hodgepodge of cultures blended into one. 中西并筹. East Meets West, in my very own unique degree.

That ain't fun, I guess, because people here can be pretty homogeneous. By homogeneous, I mean clumpy homogeneous. That is to say, people gather into cliques in which I don't completely fit in very well. I hang out with a lot of grad students, but I'm not one of them. I can hang out with undergrads well, but ultimately, I don't think like them. I hang out with my friends from China, but I don't speak as well as they do, and we have some ideological differences at times. I hang out with my Chinese Canadian friends, but they're very Westernized. And Canadians themselves -- I dunno.

I call this place home because I'm born here, and because I can identify some parts of my life with this place. But it can be tough being so uniquely myself here. Especially when I have such a strong personality that doesn't endear itself to any particular group of people. Not that I wanna be popular - I rather enjoy some degree of seclusion. But the amount I'm getting now, having to walk through this journey of my life alone for two years - it's getting really dreary.

When will I find that friend, that buddy, who knows how I'm feeling?

Broken English

(Needs to be proficient with BROKEN ENGLISH though)

> An English Test........... > > @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ > > Guess what it mean before looking the answer. > Please upgrade your English standard!! >
> New word for the day -- 'Fanquevallemud'
>
> Its amazing, you will understand the above word
> by the end of the following conversation... Read
> aloud for the best results. This has been
> nominated for the best email of 1999.
>
> The following is a telephone exchange between a
> hotel guest and room-service at a hotel.
>
>
> (RS): 'Moling! Loom sirfesee'
>
> (G ): 'Yes......'
>
> (RS): 'Dju witch true odor somefing??'
>
> (G ): 'Uh..yes..I'd like some bacon and eggs'
>
> (RS): 'How July it done peace?'
>
> (G ): 'What??'
>
> (RS): 'How July it done?... If, boy?'
>
> (G ): 'Oh, the eggs! How do I like them? Sorry,
> scrambled please.'
>
> (RS): 'Howbow bkan?'
>
> (G ): 'Crisp will be fine.'
>
> (RS): 'O light. An some DOS?'
>
> (G ): 'What?'
>
> (RS ): 'Dosee. July some DOS?'
>
> (G ): 'I feel really bad about this, but I don't
> know what 'Door-C' means.'
>
> (RS): 'Mmm...............Toes! Toes!...'
>
> (G ): 'O, you mean Toasts!....No, do you have
> something else?'
>
> (RS): 'Howbow ink-Ga-nutsu mudfun?'
>
> (G ): 'English muffin!! I've got it! Yes, an
> English muffin will be fine.'
>
> (RS): 'Copy?'
>
> (G ): 'Sorry?'
>
> (RS): 'Copy...Mill...all T?'
>
> (G ): 'Yes. Coffee please, and that's all.'
>
> (RS): 'O light. Seeangle ache, quits bkan, DOS,
> mudfun and copy..wite??'
>
> (G ): 'Well....Whatever you say'
>
> (RS): 'Fanquevallemud!'
>
> (G ): 'You're welcome'
>
> @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
>
> Got the word? Bingo! THANK YOU VERY MUCH!


Hilarious!!!

I know I'm guilty of not paying attention in class right now, but I am so excited for the coming few days.

First, BIOL240.

After talking with Celeste about some possible experiments that could be done, I found that a pulse-chase experiment sounds like a pretty exciting thing to do. I'm going to bring that out for discussion with my BIOL240 group mates.

Next, LSC Lab.

Tomorrow's the day that I go in for an interview with Dr. Ninan Abraham and his lab. Exciting!!! But I don't know how it'll go, or whether I'll be hired as a volunteer there. *crosses fingers*

Finally, going back to regular hours of sleep.

After being completely brutalized by the previous week's essay, I'm now praying for strength and discipline not to take afternoon naps and to sleep at 10.30 pm again. Hopefully, after today's full day of classes, that will come true.