but wait, there's more!

i've finally starting setting upon this road that points towards recovery... except now, everyone else in the lab is either getting sick or already coughing up icky germs to spread around to new victims. darn it.

ms stinky train commuter

i thought that one of the very very few perks of being sick is that you don't have to smell any bad stenches. WRONG. for the most part, i have not been able to smell or taste much in the past few days... anyway i dragged myself onto a train today to get to uni and had the misfortune of sitting next to a stinky person who i decided to call ms stinky train commuter according to my fb status. this person must either be very VERY smelly OR im getting better... and the answer is : SHE WAS VERY SMELLY cos I went through the rest of the day smelling absolutely SQUAT !

the day gets worse

As if i wasn't already feeling horrible enough, my mum would like to take my discomfort a notch further by force feeding me chinese herbal medicine. perhaps force feeding is the wrong term... while i stubbornly stand my ground refusing to take it, i cop a load of 'i will never do anything for you again!' 'i got up to make this for you and this is how you show your appreciation, by not drinking it?'
I'm sorry, you may have grown up in world where ailments were fixed with grass and tree branches and who knows what else but as i grew up in a western culture, i don't believe in taking herbal medication, which tastes like ASS. the human body has been designed so that we DONT drink stuff that TASTES LIKE ASS, because it's usually a sign that ITS POISONOUS. hmph >=/

for the third time this year.. scratch that... for the third time this winter, i find myself at home rather than stuck in lab on a weekday.. does it call for a jump in joy? well no... because any attempt to do so will probably render me dizzy and enhance the nausea... once again, john has passed his ickly germs on... and once again, he has managed to recover in the period of a few days while it takes me well over a week to get back on my feet.. figuratively...
spring is coming soon... i look forward to more days with blue skies... and im sure my immune system is looking forward to catching a break as well!
ps. if anyone reads this, im being held captive at home and have been force fed congeee for the past 2 days... pleaseee pleaseee bring me something else to eat that resembles food! congee is NOT food. it is a POOR excuse for rice and resembles SLOP. mmm cheeeseburger...

Dear future Maggie,

Your stomach would like to tell you, do not eat anymore spicy foods. While you do not water at the mouth and tear up like crazy upon first eating it, the aftermath is brutal...

uni, is filled with douchebags...

...apparently. it seems no matter what subject or course i find myself doing, there is always that one douchebag. At least. Always a guy... their flaws and idiosyncrasies amuse me to no end at times and drive me mad up the wall, frustrating the beejeebus out of me all other times.. And it isn't just me as others have plenty to vent about said persons.
This year i find myself with the privilege of meeting not one, not two, BUT three douches. two i rarely encounter (luckily!) but the other one... ooooh he's around all the time. in my face almost 8 hours, 5 days a week. teaching little kids for the past few years has pushed my patience at times but i've learnt to deal with it and remain calm... but this one guy really pushes the limits... not a week goes by that he hasn't done something to annoy me... it is probably not his intention, but at the same time i wonder how someone can be so thick-minded... there have been times where i can't bring myself to talk to him because i know he'll say or do something to make things worse than they already are... im counting down the weeks to that last day of honours... and then it's good bye, good riddance!

if i use my hands to block my ears real tight and shut my eyes real tight, i can pretend it's not happening... when im lucky, their raised voices fade into nothingness... an almost silence... if a shut my eyes, then no more tears can come out... there are times i need to hide under the blanket... and then there are the times when no amount of pressing or hiding can make it go away... i've come to realise that many among my parent's generation have not married for love... and more often than not, it has not worked out to be the best... i wish I had the courage to speak up... I wish I could make them see how trivial their spats are sometimes... something as trivial as buying too much of a particular grocery can escalate into a full fledge screaming match... i know not all marriages are the same blah blah blah but it really makes me wonder what's the point of marriage?

hair. in. food.

realised after eating 1/3.
did not know which one i was more disappointed by; that i hadn't realised sooner or later...

- Picture perfect memories,
Scattered all around the floor.
Reaching for the phone cause, I can't fight it any more.
And I wonder if I ever cross your mind.
For me it happens all the time.

It's a quarter after one, I'm all alone and I need you now.
Said I wouldn't call but I lost all control and I need you now.
And I don't know how I can do without, I just need you now.

Another shot of whiskey, can't stop looking at the door.
Wishing you'd come sweeping in the way you did before.
And I wonder if I ever cross your mind.
For me it happens all the time.

It's a quarter after one, I'm a little drunk,
And I need you now.
Said I wouldn't call but I lost all control and I need you now.
And I don't know how I can do without, I just need you now.

Yes I'd rather hurt than feel nothing at all.
It's a quarter after one, I'm all alone and I need you now.
And I said I wouldn't call but I'm a little drunk and I need you now.
And I don't know how I can do without, I just need you now.
I just need you now.
Oh baby I need you now. -

Wow. i think most of us have been here before... well i have anyway because it's sounding all too familiar... once upon a time...

stressed. im sitting in the library downstairs in the micro building and the other honour students are on the topic of... drum rolls... JOBS. LOOKING FOR JOBS. THE LACK OF JOBS. i'm not ready to go into the workforce yet... but at the same time i have no idea what i want to do next year... the year has crept by so so fast. the half way mark has long passed. to put an actual value on it, there is ONLY 10 weeks left in lab. i feel as though there is still much to do... ARGH. anfksdfsdnfsndf. venting on the key board. feels good. asdnsknfsndgkdfnhkdfngkngksnd. do i want to keep studying. and if so, what ? apparently the best way to approach this is to think about things in the long run. idfdfkdgsnsgnkdnggfgnkfgn blast.

watching supernatural right before bedtime is not a very smart thing to do.

so i have lived to tell the tale of my first solo adventure to asian town : footscray market...
i escaped without being trampled by the hordes of asian women and their trolleys and without losing my hearing, no thanks to the guys yelling out sale sale with a funny accent and random viet words.

as for the wonton noodle soup for which i was getting ingredients for, fail. apparently asian food doesn't taste normal without a good dose of salt or msg. lame...

in with the new and out with the old!

ooooh i do believe it was time for a change and frankly, it might have been just what i needed to get back into the blogging business!

a few weeks back, I brought myself to watch the movie twilight... it was very... interesting, for lack of a better word... and then that was that, i moved on and forgot about it... until I watched the movie daybreakers the other day, because the world really needs yet another movie about vampires... very interesting concept though (no sarcasm intended here) But back to my point, it just reminded me all about twilight again... 'Real' vampires incinerate or at the very least feel intense pain/burning when exposed to sunlight. this has always been the case. except for twilight... in this world, vampires sparkle when in sunlight... who would've thought?

random work related rant... white noise... boring read

just in case you missed that, this is a random rant (stress relief) about lab work so i would not recommend reading it... you have been warned... proceed at your own risk??

sooooo... i should be spending my time typing up a grant application but instead i find myself here... the words seem to come so freely... yet with the other task i sit in front of my laptop for minutes on end starring at a blank page with a title on the top... the crazy busy period has begun and i find myself stressing about how much there is to do... upon realising how heavy the work load was for the coming two weeks, i decided to stay back in lab past 5 pm for a few days to give myself a head start... they (being the superiors who reign over the lab) have decided i should take on the task of closing up the gaps of a genome that has never been published before... this entails going through over 100 contigs are designing PCR reactions to join them, followed by just as many sequencing reactions... i do not look forward to this... but i figured if I go through and finish designing the oligos, I will have at least a weeks break from this as the oligos have to be ordered and delivered. which gives me more time to do as much of my other lab work as possible in the next week so that i can present more results in the THIRTY MINUTE INDIVIDUAL ORAL PRESENTATION, right? wrong.. they decided to pile some more work for me to do instead... yay... =.= did i mention i also have a grant application due this week...

Dear mister idiot driver,

First of all I would like to say thank you for driving at 15km below the speed limit. And while you driving at 35km on a main road is your own prerogative, don't make the rest of us follow suit. Which leads me to my next thank you. Thank you for driving in the MIDDLE of a two lane road giving the rest of us no option but to trail behind at a glacial pace.

Idiot.

i opened my herald sun before to find a rather... UNpleasant surprise to say the least. there was a noodle in it. gross.

when you jump, you hope that certain someone will catch you.
and if they do catch you, you hope they will never drop you.

My many thanks

Dearest friends,

I have finally found a few moments to myself and I would like to use this time to thank everyone for coming on Friday (you all played a part in a special night that I will definitely remember in years to come), for their extra effort and thoughts put into the many gifts (I sincerely hope it was not too stressful!)and just for being there in my life for the how ever many past years.

In particular I would like to give special thank yous for the special ladies in my life who wrote speeches for me (or in one case, just improvised on the spot, which btw you did a pretty good job for an impromptu speech !!)
The ladies (Michelle Li, Winifred Yiu, Pamela Lam, Susie Tang, Emily Chuon and Barbara Chung): First of all: Thank you for the speeches. I have to admit I was dreading it a little bit as you girlies have a lot of dirt on me (I sat down beforehand brainstorming possibilities and surprisingly there were some stuff I'm glad you did not bring up) Of course I was a little bit not sober at the time of speeches so maybe that has a little bit of influence over my perception of your speech. But nonetheless, I still loved it anyway. It was a well thought out speech and it's such a shame not everyone would have been able to hear it.
I would also like to thank Pam and Mish for staying up to work on the photo frame (I'm sorry to hear some nails were sacrificed in the making of it) and to the rest of the ladies for organising the present! Loved every part! Also thank you to Pam for getting the cake (was stressed!) and Winie and Barbie for staying with me hours before the event and their multiple attempts to maintain my 'cool'.
Jennifer Ho: Co-organiser, Compadre and my partner in crime (if I were a criminal haha) Thank you for all your help with the organising (you totally deserve your admin position for the event!) Tis a shame no one would have been able to completely appreciate your balloons... the colours were gorgeous (though they probably would've appeared black or some other colour within the venue) Next event, we'll be more prepared.. we'll go that extra mile with proper invites and all! Much platonic love to you!
Just quickly before I move on, you ladies have been there for me in the past 7 (wow...) years and I can't imagine what my life would be without you. So really, thank you for not just friday but the past 7 years. There are many more to come!
Minh: Dearest Minh. I know I don't have to words to express how much gratitude i feel towards you, not just for the lovely speech you gave on Friday but also for your friendship in the past three years. There were so many moments when I needed a shoulder to lean on that you would offer yours without question or hesitation. I hope you know that I am only too happy to return the favour if ever, and WHENEVER you need it (yes, even 3 am in the morning!)

Alrighties, i think i have said enough thank yous to last me for the next week or so! I will end my post here. ok not yet cos i feel like i need to get one last mega, whopper thank you out to everyone who came! =)

one less thing to stress about...

after a few months of wondering which direction my near future was heading, I can finally breathe a sigh of relief. I told my dad this morning as he was preparing his coffee and as the words left my mouth, I saw a smile starting to form on his face and his eyes crinkle up as though he was about to cry... it was only at this point that it slowly dawned on me how much he was anticipating this moment... I am truly grateful that this opportunity arose, not just for myself but for my parents... they have done so much for me in my last 21 years of life to date and I hope this little bit makes it a little more worthwhile for them... oh and after coming home super late last night without calling, the news allowed my avoiding of a dose of verbal abuse from my mum...

animals are not my friends apparently

dear readers (ie. future me) i am both peeved and in a state of slight disbelief as I am writing this... what were the odds of incurring an animal related incident two days in a row?

I was on my way out of Coles with my brother when I realised I forgot the milk... its always the milk isnt it? So my brother decided to walk off to the car first and I stayed back to grab the milk... when a racooon jumped out of the freezer.. no I'm only kidding... nothing happened... yet...

walking out of Coles towards my car, I reached out for the door handle when all of a sudden I felt a large splat on my fingers AND a bit on my toes... hmmm I thought to myself... i believe it's starting to rain...

wrong... there on my fingers and toe was not a big rain droplet but a pile of bird doo doo... >=/ thinking back I recall saying to friends on two separate occasions when they got bird shatted on that 'it is good luck!' goood luck my hinney! i take it back.. but oddly enough none of the bird poo landed on my head or the maxi dress I am wearing...

ps. mum killed two mosquitoes in the car today, both fat with blood... good riddance.
sure they didn't incur the implosion I wished upon them but I am satisfied nonetheless!

what's worse than being bitten by a mosquito?

A. being bitten by a mosquito a multiple number of times (say 19 times)
B. whilst driving... on the freeway amidst other speeding cars
C. whilst driving on the freeway, with lightning and pouring rain

and the answer is D. all of the above.

let's not also forget to mention that this was at 9pm at night so I couldnt see the little son of a bitch that was causing my minor lapses in focus whilst driving... actually son of a bitch would be technically incorrect as only female mosquitoes suck blood... so whilst trying to absently fend off an invisible enemy whilst driving and at the same time scratch and maintain the speed of 100 km/h AND stay within the lane, I must say i failed miserably... the 19 massive lumps on my two legs... (oh and one on my wrist) are proof of that...

i hope you implode from all the blood you sucked. bitch.