Even the best fall down sometimes
Even the wrong words seem to rhyme
Out of the doubt that fills my mind.

winter break

Monday, December 20, 2010

havent blogged in ages as usual but i think that's normal now. again, i blame school but since school is over for now, i'm back here again and i still dont want to go to bed, so i shall do a little update here.

fall semester is officially over! that means one more semester to go before graduation! hooray! ok not really. im excited and scared at the same time. i feel like i just got to berkeley and just got used to how to study there and then its time to move on again. i've officially decided to take a year off to really explore all the options i have and then decide on what to study and do a master/phd in. i know its definitely grad school in biology but as for what department, i have no idea. microbio? integrative bio? molecular and cell bio? physiology? there's too many options! and then there's the which school should i go to option. with the grades i have now,i dont think i have that many choices which also leads to the taking a year off issue so i could get more experience to make up for the grades. usually that sorta works. plus i still have the GRE's to take so gotta make sure i study hard for that too though i heard its not taken too seriously or that most departments dont care too much about that. most probably still berkeley though. why not continue to go to the best public uni in the world right? thats if they would still take me... i know my parents are thinking stanford or harvard one of those private school but i think i'll really just die. and i heard that stanford's grad program is just hostile. like the people dont help you with writing grants and stuff unlike at berkeley. i mean i've seen how the grad students are at cal since i work with them and i know how close all of them are which is nice. totally different from the undergraduate community too.

but i think i'll sweat more on that issue later. graduation is on may 16 (university graduation)/17 (MCB department). dont know if i want to go for both. definitely the MCB one though. and my relatives from hong kong are coming too. sighh so much pressure. i guess its also because im sorta the first to graduate from college, leading to all that high expectations stuff. i bet im gonna get all the so what are u going to do next question which im going to dread. lets just say more school for now.

next semester is going to be hard. but im glad i finally get my 3 day weekend. no school on fridays! hooray but i have long days otherwise. lab on mon and wed but the other good thing is that i dont have school at 8am anymore. that was torture. it wasnt that bad when i was at skyline but that was because i lived 5 mins away not an hour commute. big big difference. plus i'll be living on my own too with my bro so thats gonna be a change. good or bad, we'll have to see. i think i'll actually be more stressed out. i've avoided trying to think about it but i know i'll have to deal with it sooner or later not to mention my bro has been raking up trouble these few weeks.

so lets get on with a recap of this semester. overall a pretty good smooth riding one though i do have my usual complaints and rants as seen on facebook but i suppose thats normal too. beginning of the semester started out well. was on top of my classes, went to office hours and actually aced the first midterms but everything just got chaotic towards the end. professors started to get horrible and i stopped going to their office hours due to laziness. i even stopped doing museum work which i told anna i'll continue this winter break since i could work from home anyways. good thing or maybe a lil bad was that i had midterms almost every week which meant i hardly had any catching up time for other classes since i would only be focused on one class per week. pulled a record number of all nighters for sure. hopefully results would come out ok. i'm really hoping they did since my gpa seriously needs some boosting. plus i think i really studied hard and tried to understand stuff. like i said it was the semester where i finally learnt how to study. not that i didnt know how before but with the increased workload and difficulty i just needed something different to help me ace my classes. that meant going to office hours and studying more. lol. drank a record amount of coffee too. dont even want to know how much. bought whitening mouthwash to use just in case my teeth were gonna get stained from all the coffee i was drinking. mom wouldnt be too pleased. snail research was still the same if not more work. hopefully its gonna end this coming week once we get all our data in. then again, it would mean finding another lab job to do even though i dont know how much time i have next semester. met new people too which was nice. had our weekly friday lunch with christine so we tried out quite a few restaurants at berkeley. most were pretty good. would go back to most of them. yup, that pretty much summed up most the semester. nothing too interesting i think. just the regular hectic school life.
hoping next semester would be even better so i could leave berkeley with a bang!

so what will i be up to this winter break? disappointed i wont be going back to singapore this time. but parents are coming in about 4 days. since we're gonna be dealing with the new house and moving and all. cant wait to decorate my room!! dont know if i mentioned this but i really want to make it harry potter themed/ disney. they dont really match so i'm not completely dead set on making it all one theme. dont know how it will work out. and no i do not want it harry potter face themed. i wanted it more like having the castle picture (i have a puzzle thats gonna keep me occupied once i have room for it) and gryffindor/crest themed. oh geez i dont know. think it'll just end up purple/brown themed with pictures of harry potter and disney stuff lying around. all depends on how expensive everything is i guess. but im soo happy i'll finally be able to have friends come over again and just hang out without having to worry about stuff. parents are coming for about 2 weeks so we might travel somewhere close by too. dont really have a long holiday so wont be doing anything too exciting i suppose.

but i'll definitely be spending quite a while in singapore next year once i graduate. mom already got tickets for back to singapore on may 30/31 and back to sfo on august 10. so i'll be spending about 2 months if not more. might have to come back in july instead depending on the job i get. but definitely at least 2 months so im really excited about that. though at the same time, i wonder if i'll get bored. hopefully not. i'll be eating 5 meals a day exploring all the new places. hah. cant wait to play with my doggy too. havent seen him in a year and i miss him sooo much you cant imagine. he still has ticks too which mom cant seem to get rid off so im really worried. hopefully they dont irritate him too much and please go away soon. leave my doggy alone. find someone your own size.

alright, fingers getting tired and its midnight so i think i'll go to bed. update another time ie when i feel like it lol :)


HARRY POTTER

Saturday, November 20, 2010

of course what else would i be blogging about after so long?

but surprisingly or unsurprisingly, i have not watched it. was gonna watch it tonight but something unfortunate happened so will watch it tomorrow instead. my cuz wasnt coming home from school on a day that she technically doesnt even have school and on the way back, her car died on the freeway of all places. she was stressed out and felt bad enough and it wouldnt kill me to watch it the next morning lol. soo excited though. actually ive been excited the whole week i havent been doing proper school work. wait, i take that back. havent been doing any school work. been surfing the net everything harry potter related. i already told my mom i want a harry potter themed room so ive been online window shopping lol. though i cant find any good bedding yet. so if you see any, let me know. not that theres anyone here. lol. oh i actually read the book till chpt 24 too. dont see myself being so hardworking with textbooks. not a surprise anyways.

other than that, nothing exciting. just buried with school. this semesters brutal. midterms every week. but speakign of that, theres only a month left minus thanksgiving and dead week, really only 2 weeks left. scary but exciting at the same time. gonna graduate soon! though i have absolutely no idea what im gonna do with my year off. most probably work but i dont know where and who wants to hire me.

december's gonna be fun. parents coming, we're moving, maybe travelling a lil.

ok mental block. be back soon.

lastly, harry potter tomorroww!!!


who gets in charge of buying a house at 20 years old?

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

i will try to be happy. i will like the house.

i really dont know why im not on cloud nine right now. we have finally gotten a house. super long story though even though we only know the house for 2 days. our offer was accepted this morning and the agent was definitely more excited than i was. i've been on an emotional roller coaster ride this past weekend. but more on this issue next time. for now, all i can say is i will learn to like the house more.

and urgh, its midterm season already.


never take things for granted

Saturday, September 11, 2010










i dont think we truely understand that statement unless we've had a close encounter. it really is easy to tell someone not to take things for granted but how often do we really appreciate what we have? i know i dont.

im still shaken by what happened yesterday. its all over the news. i see it when i step out of the house. i hear helicopters in the air and all the first thing that comes to my mind is that mythbuster style explosion. the san bruno explosion. i believe its even international news now. not surprised though. it has swallowed more than 50 homes, destroyed hundreds and took lives (4 confirmed so far) the scariest bit, i live a few streets away, like 2 streets to be exact. though it is kinda separated by a "main" road-sneath lane.

the explosion is so huge, its classified as a 1.3 magnitude earthquake. i was home. i felt it. i heard it. earthquakes happen occasionally. you feel the house shake a little and its all over and never heard of again. but as i was doing my laundry, i heard fire engine sirens and ambulances and cops and i knew something wasnt right. a minute later, my uncle calls and we turn on the news. live coverage of what happened. at first, everyone thought it was a plane crash. but no, a plane crash doesnt cause flames that a 100 feet high. it was a high pressure gas pipe explosion, cause unknown. i look out the window and we see black thick smoke on the hill behind us. calls start ringing in. i continue watching the news, watching the fire go. san bruno, the windiest area, the foggiest area was just blowing the flames everywhere. we were lucky the winds werent blowing our way but we would never know. so we evacuated to another aunts house. we just didnt know how the wind would blow. it was strong. it would spread but to where? took our laptops (surprisingly the most impt thing, then passports) and set off in the van. we referring to only me and my aunt. janet just got off school and the roads were all blocked so she went to another aunt s place. the highway and freeway were closed and everyone was just leaving. packed traffic. got to aunts house and watched the news. this explosion started at 6.15pm. watching the news, we saw the first house that was fire burn down to completely nothing in 20 mins. then, there were about maybe 12 houses affected. at 7.30 or so, the whole area was on fired. 15 acres. 50 houses reduced to rubble. people injured from burns. it was just plain depressing.

you just never think that sth like this would happen so close to home. you never quite see it first hand. and to think that people lose everything they have, its just depressing. a home is a place of sanctuary. its a comfort zone. sure losing a couple of expensive jewelry or being scammed hurts but losing your whole life's worth, that just cannot be compared. to come home to see your house burning in flames, thats just heartbreaking. the heat was so intense that people said they could feel the heat on their faces 3 to 4 blocks away. i could smell the smoke. cars melted, windows melted. these people have to start from scratch with absolutely nothing, not even a bed to sleep in or a place to retreat to that they can call their home.

shelters have been set up and donations poured in immediately which i thought was extremely heartwarming. but how long would these last. these people still have to get back on their feet one day and start all over. i dont know how i would do it. seriously i was scared of going home. i didnt know what i would see. looking at the news, i couldnt see clearly where the fire was. the houses looked familiar and i couldnt pin point where exactly they were. all i could see were flames eating up the houses. and i was just thinking. the death toll might rise but would we ever know? people would have been reduced to ashes. if the houses were gone, and windows melting, i believe that temp is high enough to reduce one to ashes. of course hopefully nothing like that ever happens but just from a realistic point of view. this was just bad timing,people driving home from work, eating dinner at home... glad its not weekends though. it coudl have been worse.

my uncle got home after work, we told him to check it out. we were lucky the winds werent directing towards us. power was out since 6.30 ish and still wasnt back on. wasnt expecting it too. they had bigger problems at hand. so we went home at around 10.30pm. coudldnt sleep though. the fire was only 50% contained. never know when the winds would change direction. i was physically and mentally tired though having to wake up at 6 for the past few days for school. so i did manage to fall asleep in the end. woke up at 4am though. didnt close my door or window either. i was seriously scared.

also, thanks to all those who called and sent messages to ask if i was ok. really appreciated the thought. i should have charged my phone. i was relying on 3 bars. since we were out of power, i couldnt charge it either and needed it to stay alive.

i got out to go to school this morning and the smoke was so bad i couldnt breath without taking in smoke. the atmosphere is still dark and gloomy. ironically its a sunny day today. this wont be changing any time soon. the area is still treated like a crime scene. i'll still be hearing helicopters from news station circling around. and its just going to remind me again. i think maybe this time, i'll really stop taking things for granted.


i could have typed this better but so much is going on right now i cant articulate this well. i can now say ive seen a mythbusters explosion. maybe even bigger.


http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/a/2010/09/10/BAVQ1FBPMD.DTL&object=%2Fc%2Fpictures%2F2010%2F09%2F10%2Fba-concourse10_0502213912.jpg


1 more week to school!!! screams!

Tuesday, August 17, 2010
im super bored now so here's another post.

spent the whole day at school today dealing with my babies. more eggs today! i'm pretty sure we have about a thousand snails now. we were talking about selling them to french restaurants or setting up a snail farm on campus. lol. probably just end up releasing them back into the dog park near costco where we got them though since there's way more than we really need. that is unless i can think of project which I wanna do. anyone with ideas? i really want to do another research project.

so got to school and started cleaning the buckets again. 4 more clutches of eggs. weighed and measured the hatchlings (the surprise ones) and my was it tedious. they're so tiny. they each weight about 0.0200-0.0300g. and about 5mm in shell size! i dont know whats gonna happen when all the others hatch too. we're gonna end up with 1000 measurements to take. thats gonna take forever! started the respiration reading and we made some mistakes but thats ok. as long as i know how to do them. went for lunch with jenna after. her treat :) had falafel. some sort of greek food. was good though. went back and realised we forgot to get sand and more tupperwares and lettuce. since there wasnt any grocery store nearby , we went into a sandwich shop and asked for lettuce. lol. the guy was i supposed pissed with us in the end. he kept saying i dont know how to charge you but ended giving up a couple for free. he was speaking in cantonese too. good thing he didnt say any vulgarities haha. he thought we were gonna feed rabbits with it. lol.

got back and placed the eggs into new tupperwares and counted them at the same time. our biggest clutch of the day was 125. smallest 41. hahaha. oh im so excited to go in next week.

gonna see a house tomorrow with tiffany, our agent. its on helen drive meaning a couple of houses down where my bro is living now. and i dont know the exact price but im thinking its in the high 700s which i think is ridiculous especially for the size. it d better be in good condition or i'd be mad. then again i think im gonna convince my parents not to get it. for some reason, mom is really interested in that house. i believe she s been bugging the agent about when its gonna be done. its not even on the market yet but tiffany messaged me today and said she would let me see it first. she asked if i was home today but i was in school and wouldnt be back till 5.30 so she said tomorrow instead. well, at least shes willing to give me a ride and back.

wednesday will be hanging out with christine. gonna have brunch at berkeley and then head to downtown sf to shop and she can get her free godiva chocolate. i already got mine when we went to stonestown the other day with cuz. hoping to get some shoes (boots/flats).

thursday or friday will be hanging out with kaye and catherine before school starts. most probably eating at BJ's then watch eat pray love. and maybe hang out at kaye's house? i dont know will decide after movie. this is going to be an eventful week before school starts. have to see the babies on friday again and depending on what time ill be done, work at the museum. havent been there in a while and i kinda feel bad.

caltopia on monday. woohoo! free stuff!! it is gonna be crowded! wonder who's going.. but i doubt i could spend much time there thanks to snailies.

i got my starbucks gold card in the mail today. has my name on it. lol. that;s how much coffee i drink. lol. 30 purchases to get a gold card. technically speaking, i could have gotten it much sooner but i didnt sign up for a card so all my previous purchases didnt count. what a waste. lol. i havent drunk that much this summer though so im happy. haha. though i have been drinking lots of thai milk tea thanks to my uncle who bought tons home. it almost looks like 30 cans to me.

i cant stop listening to colbie caillat's it stops today and you got me for some reason. which reminds me my cuz's are now at lady gaga's concert in san jose. thanks for not asking me. but im not that interested anyway. lol.

i want my snacks and stuff that mom got me but i havent gotten to see my bro. great. i hear i have a purple nike jacket muahahah. and chicken curry cup noodles. lol. and twisties. aahh twisties! why do they not have twisties here?

this turned into a long entry. now back to being bored. oh i recently got very amnused with watercolor pencils. its like magic. and my window deco set all dried up :( i need refills so i can play with them and decorate my white board with more minions. ok off to find sth else to do. lol


black friday? or surprise friday


typed this post on friday but could only post it up today....

it's friday the 13th! did it happen twice this year? or was it last? anyways, nothing really unfortunate happened today. but but but that doesnt mean nothing interesting happened!!

so i went to school as usual today to clean the snails. i blogged that there were eggs on monday but i did not expect that many! apparently, there were literally hundreds! ~200-300! jenna had to stay till 8pm sorting them all out and putting them into tupperwares and then into the chambers. so since they took a week to hatch and another week to crawl out of the soil, i figured there wasnt much to do today other than to clean the buckets. but i was wrong!

i open the buckets and it was once again infested with mites! GROSS! so i decided to go ahead and clean them/change the soil. so i was scooping out the soil of the first blue bucket and i found more eggs! jenna said when she was taking out the remaining eggs on monday, she accidentally picked up a snail that was in the midst of laying eggs so i guess those eggs belonged to it. (snails are hermaphrodites hence no he/she) there were still about 37 eggs in that clutch though. hopefully i didnt dump any away by accident.

so next was the white bucket. now i totally wasnt expecting this. when i cleaned this bucket on monday, i saw that it was mite infested already but was too lazy to clean it and there was only one clutch which jenna took out. didnt touch this bucket at all other than cleaning the sides so i didnt know what was going on in this bucket. so as i was scooping out the soil to be dumped, more eggs!! 2 clutches! 80 eggs total!! i was right about to dump that beaker of soil into the trash when i saw white stuff and i was so glad i took a closer second look or i would have ended the life of 80 snails! wait, it was 80 +33=113 snails! so i called jenna and she told me what to do with them. at that point i said two clutches but one clutch was brown. i just thought it was old or weird or sth. but turns out they're baby snails!! so i guessed we didnt check that bucket regularly (it was always too gross to prodd around the soil anyways) so didnt realize there were eggs in there. i was so surprised! they were just probably about a few days old (from after monday). they just hatched and didnt crawl out of the soil yet. good thing i didnt dump them i was so afraid that i would have threw away some snails but the soil was just too gross for me to look in it so sorry snails. i didnt mean to throw you away at all. had to slowly look through the remaining soil to dig out the tiny ones. there were 92 of them that i managed to rescue! so we had to wash all of them, count them and place them into tupperwares. good thing jenna came by to help or i would have died. it was so tiring having to look through the soil and taking the babies out. then i had to clean/wash the buckets to get rid of mites, make food, and wash each adult snail individually. those mites better not be back. plus last night i slept pretty late so that didnt help.



friday the 13th

Saturday, August 14, 2010
i cant copy and paste?! lol. words up tomorrow pictures first. wait would that spoil it. ah screw it.
baby snails! see how tiny they are

remaining babies in the soil

9 chambers x 2 tupperwares = 18 tupperwares
18 tupperwares x average of 30 eggs each = 540 eggs?!

from monday. one cluster

how does this become so many eggs?! right do not judge a book by its cover

im going to bed. snails exhaust me






oh no summer is ending soon

Wednesday, August 11, 2010
its a rocky start but at least its going somewhere.

dad doesnt like the house on cherry since its 714 (i dont get it. so there is a 4. at least its not 444, that i would understand) and because its facing a junction. he's afraid that a car might just slide down the hill right into the house. i just cant stand the idea of losing that house since its so perfect and i think its the right size. its bigger than the other houses we've seen only because they expanded it. but oh wells. we're not in a rush so i guess we're just going to take our time looking. i mean i will be taking my time to look. i just hope this wont continue once school starts.

speaking of which, i really must study so much harder this coming semester. my gpa is so deep in the mud i dont know how its going to be able to climb back up. and the pressure- mom just told me that my relatives want to come over here in may to see me graduate. like all of them. great. lets just hope my mortar doesnt drop again.

oh snails that i took care of the whole summer finally did their job and laid some eggs! i was soo happy. i really didnt expect it and usually i wouldnt look under the bucket since i dont want to be disappointed and/or disgusted but yesterday, i decided to and i saw white round stuff in clusters. eggs!!! immediately called jenna and she was really excited too. now we can finally do some science! i believe we have hundreds of eggs or so according to her email so we're going to have tons of fragile babies to take care of in a week or two. one week to hatch and one week to crawl to the surface.

nothing much to update now. still trying to look for part time jobs. but failing miserably. at least give me more students or hours so i can earn more. i actually have this sudden desire to work at ben and jerry's. its so close to bart and school. actually midway between bart and school. lol. but i think they have enough people. i shall look into that. i'd gladly take it for 5 bucks/hr. lol.

i think i'd go to bed now except someone is making me laugh so hard on facebook now.


goodbye house

Wednesday, August 04, 2010
dont think we're getting a house no more as much as i really like that one house on cherry ave. the more i thought about it, the more it didnt make sense. Me and my bro are going to graduate in one year and we have no idea where we'll go after. If we bought a house, we'll be "forced" to stay in the area, which leaves only community colleges, sf state, uc berkeley, stanford, usf (could only think of these few now). i doubt i could get into any of these schools for masters/phd program with what i have now. and my bro is going to most probably be stuck with skyline college or any of the other 2 community colleges. plus thats only 2 years too. what about after that? we wont be able to go out of state since it wouldnt make sense to get a house then. i will definitely feel tied to the house. asked mom just now why we're getting a house on such a whim and she just said because the market and interest rate seems reasonable now. i dont quite think thats the end of the story. i know my bro is definitely part of the whole picture. the fact that he doesnt want to live with aunt e anymore. which i think then would be totally unjustifiable. even my cousins think so. and i think it really isnt fair to me and my parents. the house is not costing a few thousand, its a few hundred thousands and we're not filthy rich enough to afford that easily. plus we still have a house in singapore and rent to pay.

this whole house thing has slowly been killing me these past few weeks. i cant wait to be over with it. as much as i want to have my own place, like ive said before, i really think i can wait a while more or at least for the right time. when i know i will definitely be in the area for the next few years. my cuz just teased me yesterday that if we got the house, i would be a full grown up faster than any of them which scares me to hell. imagine all the bills i have to pay, and what should i do if sth goes wrong in the house like the washing machine breaks down. plus i doubt i can handle my brother. especially when he learns to drive which we are trying to prolong as long as possible.

im consoling myself now too that there will be another better house next time than the one on cherry like how i felt attached to the "baby house" but there was still another house that satisfied me. i shoudl just go to bed.. tutoring tomorrow.


house hunting

Monday, August 02, 2010
this house hunting thing is really driving me insane


banana island


is not an island full of bananas but... a singaporean malaysian thai restaurant that i finally tried. we had roti prata, satay, kang kong, some rice cake thingy and mango chicken. not what i was gonna really order but i was with other people too so yeah. my favorite was definitely the kang kong. lol. would go back there again just to try the other stuff though. it was on the expensive side however considering the portion of the food. it was really singapore size haha.

went bowling after. my first time going to a bowling alley here. didnt play just watched them since i wasnt quite in the mood. so i just sat and talked with 2 others who didnt play. oh i was out with a bunch of skyline mesa people since james came back from ucla. they did an hour game and by the time i got home it was 11.

also went to look at some houses yesterday with our agent. she's really nice. so mom arranged for her to drive me to see the houses since obviously i dont drive. i've already practiced twice and it is actually pretty fun. more on that later. so she and her (i cant figure out) colleague or husband came by and weirdly her parents live on the same street as i do. but the funny thing was when he drove over and stopped outside the driveway, our crazy neighbour came out of nowhere and started taking pictures of the car. it was a nice car though. not a car genius so i dont even know what brand it was. definitely a sports car so yeah. went to see about 7 houses and i really like one of them. its 1720 square feet which is considered big for that price range and its all nicely done up so we dont have to remodel anything. the previous owners kept it in good condition. going to see it with aunt today again. hopefully if we're getting a house, we give an offer on that house soon. it is still a little pricy but i think for what we're getting, its worth it. we'll see. cant wait to finally get my own place though that means dealing with my brother. lol. and also leaving this family. as much as i want more freedom and such, im happy here and theyre fun to be with too. i know my brother will be ecstatic though.

there were others that we saw in millbrae but for that price range, lots of work needs to be done. most of them had original kitchen and bath which means old and i dont like. though the neighborhood is a little better, i think i would rather have a nicer house. the agent said that if we wanted a done up house in millbrae, we would be looking at houses that are about 200k more which i think is ridiculous especially since the sizes of the house are about the same as those in san bruno and doesnt need any work done.

oh and i finally got my first ever pay check of 40 dollars! lol. considering that i only worked for 2 hours, i guess its not bad at all. technically, i already spent that pay check even though the cheque is still sitting on my desk.

think im gonna do more math problems now. wonder if i can study for the gre before school starts. think not.

and i didnt know how much i missed mom and dad. they called and just and i was sad. they just got back to singapore from taiwan and mom got me a purple nike jacket and lots of food for my bro to bring back muahaha. dad's going to pakistan in the next few days and i think my puppy is at the other house being taken care of since mom and bro and going to hong kong before he comes back. i want to go!!!


its sooo fluffly!

Saturday, July 24, 2010
finally managed to hang out with catherine and kaye today after so long. think the last time i saw them was last year. been more than half a year now! we've just been so busy with school (they're nursing students) and even though we live just 10 mins away from each other, we could never find time to meet up. so we finally decided to make sure we were free today.

had school in the morning but i couldnt focus on cleaning the dirty gross snails. just wanted to go meet them back at the mall near my house. had lunch and bought some japanese snack at ichiban kan. watched despicable me after lunch. its sooo cute! i like the minions and agnes! its soo fluffy!!! my new favorite phrase. i think im going to be annoying people with that. even though the commercials showed most of the cute funny parts, they managed to hide the real story. walked around the mall for a bit. cathy bought boots. they were on sale at charlotte russe for 20 bucks. really pretty but i thought i spent enough already at florida so i stopped myself. ate at bj's after before cathy had to go do stuff. had calamari, grillled chicken club and a pizooki! yums was soo full after especially since we just had lunch 3 hours ago. hung out at kaye's house after. really like her house. talked about research and school and life haha while waiting for cathy to finish her stuff. time passed soo fast! urgh. went to onyx after with cathy and got more food. jasmine milk tea and more calamari. ooohh i wonder how high my cholesterol level is. lol. didnt want to leave but it was already 10ish and i had to get home before my uncle did plus they had stuff to do the next day too. didnt realise how much we missed each other. so we're making sure we meet again before school starts. we had so much stuff that we want to do together- sleepover, 6 flags themepark, gilroy outlet shopping...etc.

now im back home wide awake since i had a whole bottle of deep french roast coffee and that milk tea. good luck to me sleeping tonight. lol. especially since i hadnt had this much caffeine since school ended.

other than that, everything else has been pretty mundane. found a tutoring job in redwood city which is pretty lame. it pays 20/hour but i m only there for an hour and travelling take about 2 hours and 9 dollars. so technically,i only make 11 dollars. doesnt even cover my one week travelling expenses to school. well at least im doing sth.

been turning down people too for i dont know what reason. its the thing about living with relatives. always having to think about them/cant get home too late/cant go out too often. not that theyd say anything but i dont want them to feel like im treating this as a hotel or sth. sigh i dont know.. mom's been bugging me to go see houses but im just too lazy and so used to here that i dont exactly want to move. i resist change!

ok im done typing. still have florida trip to update on but that will wait. heh heh.


summer as it is so far

Monday, June 28, 2010
finally back to update after the longest time. but no one comes here anymore so thats ok :D

so what have i been up to these few weeks since school ended? nothing much really. just been going back to school every now and then to run errands like cleaning snails and organizing stuff in the museum. more on those later. then parents came to visit for a month so that kept me busy. travelled a bit which was nice. got to get away from the family i stay with for a while so that was a nice refresher. started to get a bit annoyed and blah but its ok now. went to boston and vegas which was really fun. more on that too. dad left for about a week back to singapore to clear up work so mom stayed with me in my tiny room. it was nice though. dad came over with his colleague the week after for a conference/convention. and sadly they had to leave after. in the meantime, my puppy was sent to live with someone else. apparently they love him and brought him for 4 walks a day even though he bit the owner and i think broke her finger the second day he was there so i was told. not exactly surprised. they say he's a good guard dog. hah i second that. a golden retriever for a guard dog. that must raise eyebrows. so thats my little summary for the whole month of june. seriously, june is ending?! only one and a half months left of summer. unbelievable!

off to florida in less than a week now. super excited. butterbeer, hogwarts, disneyland! what more can i ask for. should be pretty fun. i forsee a lot of laughing especially with the bunch of people im going with. the only thing im not looking forward to is the weather. hot, humid and possibly rain. urgh.

still unsuccessful in finding a job. got into a tutoring company so im just waiting for the right person to tutor now. 20/hour minimum so thats awesome.

so where should i start? school. grades officially suck. im doomed. the end.
snail cleaning has been okay. had a really gross day once. mites infested snails. most disgusting thing ever. so i took out the food dish and was actually surprised it wasnt touched (now i definitely know why) but i just left it near the sink. then i was rummaging through the soil to see if there were eggs and there wasnt any. so i just went on to do the usual. take the snails off the sides of the bucket and use the towel to clean off the sides. but when i turned back to the sink to get the towel, that was when i noticed the mites. it happened once before but i think it was just eggs that time. took a look closer and saw that the tiny little white specks were moving. at that moment, i was totally grossed out. texted jenna and told her and i didnt want to touch anything after. she went to get fresh soil and we emptied everything out later. had to give each snail a bath individually to make sure all mites were gone. some of them were covered. thinking about it now is giving me the chills. hopefully this never ever happens again. i dont mind cleaning poop but mites, no way. good thing jenna cleaned out that bucket and i took the other one. so glad i had gloves on.

went on a field trip to a park near costco to gather more snails to hopefully have them mate and give us eggs soon. was a good day. managed to get more than 40/50 snails i think. was really windy though and i was only wearing a short sleeved shirt. thinking about it i should have worn a jacket too. i started getting paranoid when we were leaving cos my skin was starting to itch, thanks to my sensitive skin, but i was thinking there might have been poison ivy and i might have touched it while getting snails. maybe its just me being paranoid and my eyes playing tricks on me but i thought i saw little red dots/rashes appearing. good thing it wasnt anything. been cleaning up the lab too. organizing journals which took a really long time and killed my back a couple of times. good thing its all done now. gpnna to clean up the microscopes next. hopefully it wouldnt take as long. really took for granted what was at skyline. everything was just clean and organized and we had all the materials we needed prepared and given to us. we were spoilt there. also helped jenna with her other project. had to search the database for all the families that were mollusca. had to do it one by one from the drop down box and arrange everything in the excel sheet. stupid me sorted wrongly in excel. i only highlighted the last column and sorted it alphabetically expecting the other columns it was associated with to follow along. so i had to redo it. and i realised this when i was doing the volunteer timesheets for the museum.

as for museum work, im sort of volunteering to do random work. organized and did inventory for the t-shirts a while back. then tallied up the volunteer hours onto excel. this was where i realized the stupid mistake. good thing i figured it out before submitting it. filed loan correspondence letters in the archives too. some of those letters are old. like 50 years old and possibly older.

so thats for school. nothing too exciting.

alright getting bored of typing as usual. be back here next time SOON. you know the definition of soon by now. muahahaha



mom and dad visits

Sunday, May 30, 2010
it sucks being sick and grumpy.

going in boston and vegas in 4 days. cant wait! need to get better soon. flu's gone but my throat itches and its annoying. cough drops/ strepsils not working.

summer work is looking better now. more updates later on when everything is confirmed. meeting up with a postdoc who's working on ground squirrels in sierra nevada wherever that is. might get to travel a bit, get part publication and even paid. sounds awesome or what. though i wonder how my snails would manage....


it's been a while but helloooo summmer!!!!

Saturday, May 22, 2010
it's been quite a while since i last blogged all thanks to school but i'm back thanks to summer! i've been on break for a week already although it hardly feels like it since i've still been going back to school every now and then. in fact 4 days since i ended my last final. i dont expect my break to be anymore relaxing but at the same time, i'm glad. the weekend that i ended, i was already getting bored. i finished all the shows i had wanted to watch. of course that meant staying up till 2am when everyone was sound asleep but at least i was happy. theres's still a couple of shows and movies i do wanna watch like glee and dear john and letters to juliet but i cant find good quality ones yet. hopefully i do soon so i wont get bored.

so far what i've got going on is working with the snail and cleaning up the lab plus organizing it. on thursday i started to organize the journals in alphabetical order, volume and set and it nearly killed me. i'm no where near finish. barely finished with 'a' but thats only cos i spent an hour plus on it. had to leave to do other back breaking stuff. but i had to move the journals from one end to the other. it's not one or two journals mind you, its a whole library. seriously. some since 1968! im glad i dont quite have allergies either or i would have sneezed my breath away with all that dust. my back from killing me from bending down and climbing up and down the steps. i'm pretty sure i'll have back problems in the future. i dont even stand straight to begin with. so yes, i'll be spending the next few weeks doing that. probably the whole summer even if im doing it alone. snails' been dying out lately. lol. one tank only has 2 left. tried taking their respiration rate too but with no technology in this lab, it means sitting down and recording oxygen level readings every 5 minutes for 3 hours for one snail! talk about boring. at skyline i remembering doing this lab and we had a computer plot out a graph for us. got to dig the lab report up or email case to ask. there's no way we're sitting down torturing ourselves like that. no way.

went to organize t-shirts at the mvz on thurs too. sorted them into sizes, counted them and folded them and packed them. there were hundreds. i could work in the retail sector now seriously. supposed to do them on wed but the anna was out sick and i didnt see her email in time before i left the house so yeah went there for nothing. but it was all good. went to hang out at christine's crib. she made lunch. yums. i bought starbucks for her. lol. turned in my job app at berkeley dog and cat hospital too so hopefully i hear back. i already got turned away by one. well not exactly. they said the position was no longer available. if that makes a difference. still waiting for a couple now. i need the money! not to spend but to prove that im a resident. how lame. but extra cash wouldnt hurt. i need to head to victoria secret soon. they're having their semi annual sale! cheapest pricest they'd ever get. more lingerie will do no harm right.

parents coming in a week! might go to boston the next week they're here. lobster. seafood. oh so good. funny thing is when they're here, everyone going's away to reno or aussie. all good more time with them. its memorial day weekend too so i see busy malls and all. mom's staying for close to a month! dad's leaving in 2 weeks then coming back for a week for conference. that means mom gets to stay with me for a week and im sleeping in the living room. lol. theres a bed though. doggy probably staying at pet hotel. sad for him. i miss him so so much. his soft fur and stubbornness and his greedy face.

cuz' graduation this sunday. mine's in a year. grades suck. seriously. so much for getting into the top public school. lowers my self confidence right when i got it raised at skyline. but that's life. still undecided bout my future just when i thought i had it figured out. need to work in a lab. my own research not be a free slave. i miss last summer. and i kinda miss you too. but its complicated and definitely not gonna start again. blah. abrupt way to end the post. i need a getaway. by myself or with a couple of peeps. where's the restart button?


cal day and downtown shopping

Monday, April 19, 2010
been a while since i last updated thanks to my super busy stressful school schedule but with 2 weeks left of instruction, things aren't getting any easier. even then, i'm procrastinating and am typing this after reading just one chapter out of the 100 required readings i have to do.

so the past 2 weeks were just filled with midterms again. staying up till 3 am trying to cram as much information as possible into my tiny cell-less brain and going to as many review sessions and office hours didnt exactly help me much though i still havent gotten back my grades so its still early to say. hopefully a B+ will show up on my paper.

working in the museum has helped me de-stress though. in preparation for cal day, we were made to fold "passports" for the little kids to go around the different museums on campus and collect stamps and stickers. we had about 3000++ to fold but managed to get them done within a week or so. of course, working with paper meant paper cuts and i didnt get an exception sadly. numbering bones has also been tons of fun. managed to number most of the kangaroo rats. their tiny tiny bones gives me neck aches since we're looking down all the time usually up to an hour. i need a massage.

helping out with the snails has been fun too. we changed their diet from lettuce to dog kibbles so they might get more calcium though that might not really be working since their shells are still as fragile. i just read an article that milk powder and powdered chalk might be a good source so im gonna suggest that to jenna. the tiny ones has grown a little and they're just sooo cute. i want a pet snail. we're still in the trial period so everything still needs to be figured out and solidified before we start with the babies and get ready to carry out the real experiment.

classes so far has been great. cant believe theres only 2 weeks left. then one week of study break and finals week. bad thing is i have jury duty right in the middle of finals week. cant postphone it since i already postphoned it once. hopefully they call it off when i call in the day before. please please please i do not want to spend a day in the court room listening to people defend and judge while i should be studying for finals. not that i dont like it since i did want to be a lawyer once but this is just not the right time.

looking forward to parents coming though. theyre coming end of may so that means shopping and love and being pampered. dad's coming in june again since he has a conference to go to thats in sf. then florida in july! so much already planned. still i have to figure out summer research stuff and possibly work at an animal place, either clinic or shelter. plus learning to drive. been really annoyed at my uncle lately about that.

so now on to cal day.it's the only day the museum is open to the public and students. since its a research museum, only researchers who've gained permission to look at certain collections get to go in and also students who work there. we've got lots of pretty cool specimens all bottled up and laid out. got to school around 8.30 and walked around the gallery area to check out the displays while making sure no one touches the display. that was boring. at 10, went to help out at the t-shirt/sticker table. some kids are so cute and most of the parents made sure their kids said thank you when they got a sticker. now where did the rude kids learn their manners from? had lunch. diy sandwich and chips haha. still better than nothing. tabled again but this time it was outside in the lawn area. good thing the sun was out and it wasnt freezing cold. the live animal show was there too so i got to see snakes including an albino one, bearded lizards, giant tortoise and other stuff. ended at 4 and went back up to get my free shirt since i volunteered for 8 hours. got an owl shirt. double cuteness. they ran out of the color i wanted initially but thats okay.

met up with christine and we went downtown. first stop: paulette macaroons. so sooo good. got 12 for 19 bucks. i guess it was worth it. rose, lemon, milk chocolate hazelnut, caribbean coffee, peach, caramel pecan, sweet almond weddding were the flavors i got. i really like the sweet almond wedding. think im going to be going back there more often now.
then it was downtown shopping. went to forever 21, h&m, victoria secret, godiva. we only had 3 hours to spare. got 2 tops at forever 21, redeemed stuff at victoria secret and bought chocolate covered pretzels at godiva. signed up for their rewards program and got a free chocolate. now i get to get a free piece every month and every month you spend more than 10 bucks, you get a free gift. pretty good deal if u ask. had dinner at westfield mall. got a california bowl. wanted thai but their kitchen already closed. it was almost 9 when we got there so thats why. barted home after. overall, a good fun day.

so today im just hanging out at home trying to catch up as much as possible. but first to eat lunch muahaha. pictures either here and/or facebook soon when im not that lazy...


i know i already need an extension for spring break

Wednesday, March 24, 2010
i dont know why but i suddenly feel homesick.

anyways, might be going shopping with mary tomorrow or thursday still waiting for her response. i think its gonna be weird since we havent met sincce we graduated and thats 3 years? but hopefully it'll be fun or that we'll even go. i am craving retail therapy badly. but at the same time, i want to save up for our summer trip to florida. though mom and dad will be here before i go (in fact, they dont even know about it yet) so my bank will be topped up then.

its only 9pm and i already feel like going to bed. this is not a good sign. i n.e.e.d t.o g.e.t s.t.u.d.y.i.n.g!


expanding your horizons

Sunday, March 21, 2010
just got back from eyh not too long ago so i'm gonna blog about it before i get too lazy and drag this till years later. you should know me by now (remember the winter break trip that happened? now where is that post?)

anyhow, we've been preparing this workshop ever since we got back from sacnas so i would say november? and now it's all over, just like that. i really will miss the whole process or rather the whole company that we have. i had tons of fun just hanging out with them, bitching about "pork chop"-no not food, a person who i will talk more about later, and just stuff that corrupts my mind. this is my last committment i have at skyline. well, i should have had one more on tuesday but it got cancelled apparently so now i hope he reschedules or something. i really cant bear to leave skyline. but otherwise, this is officially my last event and i have no other reason to go to skyline anymore. sad. i could go visit next year and stuff but we'll see. quite a few people from my batch came today so it was nice meeting up with them again though i didnt talk to them much since i was busy with my workshop. fail. felt somewhat bad but hey i was busy so i forgive myself.

so we all met up on friday at 12 to make sure everything was set up and ready to go on saturday. made more fake stuff like bacteria and nutrient broth which the girls would use. we didnt want them to use real stuff since it was expensive and what do 6th graders know about bacteria rubbing their eyes with their e.coli infected hands. even i forget sometimes to wash my hands before touching my eyes. also decorated our room and my did it look like a rainforest. we hijacked plants from the bio plant room and that was one bad but funny experience. the ferns were pretty much dried out and dead and we had to carry them from the second floor to the third floor. as we were walking, all the leaves starting falling off and we left a trail to our room. people started following the trail so we had people peeking in and out of our room. of course, we got yelled at by the lab technician so we took a broom and swept it up. i havent touched a broom in ages. even for my room, i just use that cloth thingy that dust sticks too. but i must say im pretty impressed with myself. who knew this spoilt child could sweep. oh and before that, since 3 of us reached early, we decided to head up to the classroom to arrange the tables to make it look like a lab but right when we were done, a teacher walked in. apparently, there was still classes going on in that classroom. and being mean to us, she made us arrange all the desks back again. thanks for making us exercise.

our room was amazing when we had everything going. the lights and music and all. some other students came in and they felt pretty bad about their own room. case and stephen came in too and they were impressed i must say. really, we just wanted to show them that we put in effort and hoped that the kids have fun so we'll get positive feedback. too bad i dont have a decent picture of the room. everything was too hectic once we got started.

got to skyline at 7.45am. i was actually pretty excited that i couldnt exactly go to sleep. and i actually woke up early without having to press my snooze button a million times. that was how excited i was. i dont see myself doing that for school... waited for anchi so we could check in and bumped into case. i saw her everywhere in school. especially towards the end. she's definitely someone im gonna miss. she's the most awesome mentor/professor you could ever find though sometimes i just cant get her sarcasm. on friday when i was walking to the bus stop to wait for my cuz, i bumped into her and she mumbled something about lost fortune cookies. i was like huh? and she didnt answer me. but we were walking in opposite directions. as i was waiting though, i saw her at a corner near the gym sitting with her husband how sweet. anyway i digress. so we checked in for everyone and of course pam whom i referred to as pork chop didnt get her name tag and lunch ticket. we knew why but she didnt. because of her ditching the earlier meetings we had and she basically didnt do anything, plus the grudge that we had against her, although the last factor didnt matter, case took her name off the program. isnt she awesome or what. we didnt tell her straight in her face that we wanted her name off but being an awesome prof that she is, she knew what and how to do. plus she was in charge of the whole event anyways. oh yeah. went back to our room to try to get everything set up and ready to go when the girls get in. the ambience was just amazing (geez i m running out of adjectives to use) it really felt like we were in the rainforest. plus we had dry ice to make it look all foggy.

so the first workshop started and it was mainly a practice run for us to get warmed up. it did run pretty smoothly but we were done so quickly that we didnt know what to do with the leftover time since we couldnt let them out early. so we gave out word searches and crosswords to do leftover from last year. they were enthusiatic for a bit and were definitely impressed with the room but we couldnt hold their attention for long. then again, they're 6th to 12th graders. plus, our workshop was pretty science-y. second workshop was better though we only had 10 mins in between to prep. seriously not enough time. i would say that that was the best batch. had lunch after. we didnt want to bring everything with us to the other building where lunch was at so one of us stayed behind and we brought food back to the room where we had our own little party. pam ran after me when we were leaving to get a lunch ticket. how desperate. i know i sound really mean here but if you seriously hear and see what she does, you'll feel the same way. our last workshop was a little disastrous. it was in the late afternoon after lunch, so all the kiddos were already restless. we didnt want to torture them more so we just sped up everything and they had a bunch of free time. i had a weird girl in my group which totally drained me. how do girls at 14 get such an attitude? i dont get it. played with dry ice bombs for a bit and that was fun.

the best part of the whole event was after everything ended and majority of the people left. so we headed down to the reception for dessert and bitched some more while we left the other group behind to clean up. okay no, we didnt ask them to clean up, they did it themselves in their own will. got back up and they left while we packed up the remainder of the stuff. so we had to bring the carts back down to the bio lab and we had jon-one of the go'fer guys help us and we wanted to prank him with a dry ice bomb. so we placed it on the cart and started following him quietly. it was hilarious and we couldnt stop laughing. people around were looking at us as if we're crazy. the sad part: it didnt go off. so disappointing. we had to go into the room and throw it in the trash lest it goes off while the lab tech was there. we would be killed. so anchi had the bright idea to prank case in her office. we passed her some stuff the leftovers from the workshop and anchi placed the bomb in the hallway. we did tell her however. it would just be mean. haha. but still, it was fun. went back up to clean up everything and made one last trip down to the bio lab. took pictures and saw case again but she was leaving this time. we ran into the bio lab since theres a view of the carpark where she usually parks and started waving. hilarious. nav was kind enough to drive me home. i'm sure going to miss these guys a bunch. they always make my day. the stories that they share and the bitching that we go on and on about. seriously every sentence we seriously want to say is followed by complaints and stories and bitching. so our meetings usually go on forever. but its all worth it. hopefully we'll stay in touch and meet up every once in a while to catch up on more stories.

okay, another long post and im tired so im going to crash. on a last note, i am never going to be a middle of high school teacher.


hoot hoot

Saturday, March 13, 2010
had my first experience at hooters today. okay not a big deal but more on that later.

so this week has just been exhausting with a capital E. not that i was bombed with midterms or anything like the past 2 weeks but i've just been in school till late everyday. from getting on bart at 7.30 to getting home at 6. i know 6 is not late at all but i usually dont get home that late everyday. maybe just 3 times a week or so. but there was just so much to be done and my cousin was staying in school later too so i dont want to spend more time waiting for the bus and paying 2 dollars for the bus. i'd just be wasting more time especially if i just miss the bus. that would put an extra hour into me doing nothing. i just cant stand it when i get out of class at let's say 2, but i dont start studying or doing actual work at 5, which is what happens most of the time. by the time i get home its usually 3.30 and that is if my cousin picks me up. and by the time i settle down, shower, eat and stuff, its already 5. ridiculous really. i could have done so much during that 3 hours if i were in school. but oh wells. i commute so im living with it. hopefully next week is better and then its spring break!! woohoo!

the past 2 nights, i've just been struggling so much with the planets homework and its making me lose interest in it. im getting more bored in class and my doodling rate has increased. bad stuff. need to change! im never going to use google mars again. i can do math, no problem with that but making me zoom in and out describing stuff and measuring elevation and latitude in arcminutes confuses the hell out of me. main reason why i dont take geography.

been going to a few office hours this week as well thats why im getting home later too. hate it when the profs just think that everyone lives on or near campus. hello, what about those that live an hour away?! so stop holding ur office hours and extra classes in the evening. though the good thing is, i actually understand and am following what goes on in genetics and nutrition. guess office hours works. i need to start sucking up to profs too in order to get letters of recommendation later on. oh the difficulties of college life which is making me laugh right now. you'll know why later when i blog about what happened this afternoon.

started officially helping out with the snails research last week as well. (just realized how long i havent blogged). so last friday, jenna(grad student), marika another helper and I met up and we started measuring the snails they caught during the week. there was 150 snails and boy were they tiny. didnt expect them to be that small. in fact, i havent seen them that small. those that i worked with over the summer were huge compared to those. and those that i worked with, i thought they were small and hard to work with since it was so hard to get anything out of them other than poop. anyways, we hard to tag them with bee tags (tiny round colored tags to be stuck on their shells so we could identify them), clean them, measure their shell size and weight. i did the cleaning and squashed a couple of their shells. but they were soo cute when they all had their lil tags on. too bad i dont have a picture of them. theyre with jenna. maybe i'll take a pic when i clean them next week. but anyways, i have to say this: snails are NOT slow. thats a myth. we did like an assembly line thing so i passed the clean snails to marika who did the tags and passed them to jenna who measured them. so of course cleaning was fast compared to the other jobs. for tagging, you had to use a toothpick to apply glue and stick it on so it took longer but they were fragile. so we just had the snails in a petri dish but of course they could crawl out but we knew that they wouldnt go far if they did so it was manageable. but we were wrong. we werent exactly keeping an eye on them since we were concentrating on our jobs so some of them were "missing". we searched high and low for them and since they were tiny, they could practically hide anywhere. some turned out to be under the wash cloths, others on the taps, and almost halfway across the table. but thanks to the snail whisperer aka me, we managed to find them muahahaha. snails dont escape my snail vision. went back in on wed to clean their tanks. they poop a lot!! marika just cleaned them on monday and on wed, their tanks were filthy with poop.

bone numbering has been fun too. it really depends on the day to see if i could write small. some days, its just impossible, other days, i can write fine. so far i did kit foxes, some rat thing and paramycus something. heard there's a tiger carcass that came in today. exciting. dont think i'll see it though. tag tying is not that bad too. just really brainless and boring work especially if you're working alone. worked with christine a few times which made it better. we had crepes after class on wed too. yums. i had been craving for them for about a week and finally got them satisfied. we went to this place on telegraph and we both got nutella banana and vanilla ice cream. so good. but the crepe was a lil thick for my liking so i was so full after. i really like this semester too since im getting to know more people so its not that miserable anymore.

speaking of miserable, seeing others get scholarships that i could have had a chance at while i was at skyline just gives me a sense of regret. those were prestigious scholarships-all state/all usa/1 out of 800 applicants. i did think of applying back then but looking at the questions that you had to write about yourself just scared me away. i didnt have that much credentials then. like the research publication and stuff so i really wasnt confident. but then again, i could have at least tried. you just never know. might have said this before but i never knew i would get into berkeley. all i remember was wikipedia-ing the top schools and just reading about it but never in my mind did i think i would one day be on the campus itself studying. its almost surreal really. if i were to apply with my o levels or finish jc to apply, i would never have had a chance. and i am pretty sure of that. so i guess in some way, i am content with not having those scholarships and at that time, i was ecstatic enough that i got into berkeley and everything else just seemed minor and i really didnt care. so there, my regrets.

on to today, (okay this is one heck of a long post to compensate for my lack of entries). even though i had to skip nutrition and risk not understanding stuff, hopefully i can get christine's notes, i have no regrets. so i left school at 10 to get down to skyline to prepare for eyh. it was totally a session of bitching and gossiping. skyline didnt exactly have school today due to flex days so campus was empty. quite weird really. but case was nice enough to be there so we could work on our workshop. she didnt have to be in school at all but she was so humble and claimed that it wasnt a day off-they were still getting paid for not teaching. even if she was home though, she'd be slogging her guts out like a workaholic as she is preparing for eyh. but anyways, during the session, we planned out all the steps of the experiment and made sure everyone knew how it was done so we wouldnt be blurred out when we were teaching the girls. that would be bad. along the way though, we digressed a lot which was hilarious. people were telling stories about faculty, how they were hitting up on students and stuff. it was both gross and interesting. something good to know. and you can never get sick of gossiping. talked about how to seduce profs so they would be lenient with you. the stories they told were just out of the world. so towards the end, we decided to hang out for a bit. went to case's office and asked if she wanted to go with us. we knew she would totally pick the tab if she went. she's cool like that. (how many profs who are in their 60s would be as cool as that?) but she declined. she was busy working as usual and being professional since it was still school period. but the funny part was she said not now, but she will at the conventions. (ptk is going to be at orlando for the international convention, texas last year. oh so jealous). talked to her for a bit and i told us about how i was helping out working with snails again. she thought it was funny and asked if the snails were scared of me =.= after a while, when we were just hanging around persuading her to join us, she said we were wasting out drinking time. lol.

decided to go to hooters. from wikipedia: hooters is a restaurant with a waitstaff primarily made up of attractive waitresses. the waitresses basically wear a tank top and shorts. so u get the idea. our waitress was nice though, she was totally chilling with us. so they all (ash, nav, pearl, anchi) got a drink and she was asking if i wanted one too since she could sneak me one but of course i declined. 1 more year! ok, even if i was 21, i wouldnt exactly drink other than maybe on my birthday. they said they would bring me there when i turned 21. lol. so pearl's birthday was a month ago but they still celebrated it. they maade her a sash which they all signed and a crown made out of styrofoam cup. so nice of them. who still helps u celebrate a birthday when its been a month. really had tons of fun throughout the whole 2 hours though. talked a lot. relieved the time we spent during sacnas. all the stories and insider's story. what happened during that whole week was just beyond imagination. the amount of hooking up and flirting. but oh we had so much fun. i would totally do it again. this bunch of people are just great. it does make me miss skyline. because it was such a small school, we all knew each other some how and there'a a common topic-faculty. lol. no, but the time we spend together just makes it different. the week in texas really helped. im sure we all bonded well except for some people who we think are just plain ridiculous like we want to kill them when we see them. nav was nice enough to drop me home after. cant wait to see them again next fri and sat. picture up on facebook. one picture.

got home and played disney scene it. fun stuff. i was so behind but i caught up. playing with my cousins who are disney fans, huge fans is not easy. alright, my fingers have got enough excerise for today. hopefully i'll blog more regularly so you dont have to be tortured with long posts.


oh midterms again

Saturday, February 20, 2010
i just love the show make it or break it no matter how embarrassing it is. it's the typical high school drama injected with gymnastics. but the latest episode was by far the best. i guess i still cant get over the fact that i stopped gymnastics before realizing how much i actually like it. and it's just the kind of thing that you can never get back into till your next life. well, i cant wait to see how the next episode goes come monday.

i should really be staying up for the right reasons that is studying for midterms on monday and tuesday and the following monday and tuesday. im gonna have the most awesome two weeks ever. hopefully, its more memorizing than understanding which i know isnt but like to think it is. so hopefully my brain wont betray me by being a dory these few days.

so i've sorta started out on my bone numbering tag tying job. got the training done on wed which lasted 2 hours!! i just wanted to stay a lil later than usual so there'd be someone home to pick my up from bart so i went to check my email and lo and behold, training session! so thinking it would last an hour or so, i happily went up to the third floor. there was 4 of us i think. it was alright i suppose. it's really brainless jobs just tedious and neck breaking. monica our supervivor really's nice and so are the curators around so thats good. they're really friendly. plus there's a lunch room with microwaves and fridge and our own bathroom. i was super happy about that. now i could bring microwavable food without worrying about dirty gross microwaves used by inconsiderate people or stinky unsanitary bathrooms on the second floor. so yesterday for an hour or so, i just tied 50 skin tags. took me a while to get a hold of it but i managed to get slightly faster towards the end. getting the strings to be of equal length at both ends was the hardest. the one inch rule wasnt exactly that bad but i still couldnt get it perfect though she said a millimeter or two off shouldnt be a problem. and today i did bone numbering. the first few were pretty hard. my pen kept having ink flow out too fast so the numbers clumped together. imagine writing 6 digits on a bone that 3mm long and 1mm wide. the trick is to rotate the bone which i got the hang of after and didnt want to stop to go to class. my neck was aching though. i wanted to finish up that weasel but thanks to a review session and lecture, i got to give it up to the girl who actually started with it. lol. so i worked on a kangaroo rat, weasel and mole today. cant remember the scientific names of course. at least not yet. the only ones i know now are canine, xenopus, homo sapiens. lol.

got the snail research too but thats kinda easy for now. there isnt much to do since she just started and its going to take a while to get the snails to breed too. i just told her to email me whenever she needed help. but since i'm starting out with her, it should be pretty fun to see how it progresses.

janet's off for a school retreat in santa rosa, joyce is off to switzerland so yay me is going to be alone at home in a quiet house diligently studying away. hopefully. if u see me on facebook, tell me to get off. same with surfing the net. i need to ace these exams to use as a morale booster and to keep me going otherwise i'll be having a career in the museum tying tags and numbering bones. lol.


happy chinese new year and happy valentine's!

Monday, February 15, 2010
HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR AND HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!! :D

now, how often do these 2 days fall on the same day? however, it really doesnt matter since only one day is really applicable.

woke up at 8.30am (sigh, waking up so early on a non school day is really considered torture for me). went visiting people on uncle jackson's side and got red packets of course. i did feel kinda out of place at some points since i dont quite know them that well yet im getting red packets from them. oh well, no harm getting more money right. lol. went to this one house. it was humongous. it's one of those house that i dreamed of having when i was little (actually still do now). 7 floors! 3 full levels and 4 half levels. but it was just so cool. i love houses with many many levels though i know my parents would never get one like that so its all up to me. haha. went for lunch after at some chinese place. noodles, rice and those sort of food. we never really had a "real" chinese new year dinner with the authentic kind of food you're suppose to have on new years. not that i really care. went home and did some work before playing games. the projector zonked out on us again so we couldnt watch tv or play games (so much for getting the playstation 3 and wii fit) played luck of the draw and scattergories. uncle kenneth came by for a bit (back from 3 months in hk) and told us his horror stories which i shall not remind myself of since its already nighttime. got pizza hut delivery for dinner. overall, a great evening.

got to get up early again tomorrow to go visiting again. hopefully i'll get most of my work done too. midterms coming up and so are internship opportunities. i now have 2 offers and i dont know if i should choose one or do both. alright, shoudl finish up this nutrition chapte and go to bed soon. good night!


snails are my new best friend

Friday, February 12, 2010
my heart was literally jumping up and down yesterday when i read an email. not just any email but an email that totally woke me up from the dark. i was waiting for my planet discussion to start so i went to the earth and planets library to use the computer, check my email and stuff (even though i just checked it 20 minutes ago). and this unfamiliar name came up with the subject line saying URAP (the research apprentice program). i was thinking it's either going to be a rejection email or one that asked for an interview (since i am still waiting for the museum of vertebrate zoology to reply me). turns out, it wasnt exactly either. she told me she was a graduate student in caldwell' lab and saw that in my application, i had worked with helix aspersa ie. snails before and that her labmate was going to be working on snails too and asked if i would be interested. i was sooo happy. finally my snails would do me some good. especially after the past few horrible emotional weeks, i think this was the turning point. i couldnt stop smiling to myself and other people in the library might have thought that i was psychotic or something. so even though i was almost late for class since i re read the email so many times, i replied her immediately. from her super brief description, she said that her labmate was going to breed them and wanted to test how their growth, metabolic/respiration rate would be affected in different oxygen levels. Plus, there might be a chance that i could continue on in the summer and fall. how awesome would that be. so i am super duper excited and interested. not interested just so that i could finally get back into research but genuinely interested in what's she planning to do. so i really do hope that she'll take me in. i'm meeting her next thursday after class so she could give me more details and see what i could help her in. im willing to do anything to work with her. so we'll see how it goes. i never expected this email to come in and be so specific in a way in that i someone actually read my application and remembered that i had some sort of experience with snails. now, if i really so get to work with her, i really have to thank case for making me deal with snails. speaking of which, we're asked to present our research at skyline for the science lecture series to mentor the next group of students who might be interested in research. so im looking forward to that too though stephen has yet to reply me with dates. so im excited.

looking forward to this three day weekend. i'm so burnt out this week. chinese new years gonna be chaotic i guess and i dont exactly want to go around. if only the red packets can be delivered. seriously, i dont really quite understand the meaning of chinese new year. some chinese person i am eh. dont blame me, blame parents. we never really celebrated anyways. valentine's day falls on the same day and this shall be blogged out in another post. why is it always a one way street? anyways, midterms coming up soon in about 2 weeks so its time to catch up and get studying. alright, got to run off to class now for planets lecture. pretty interesting yet over simplified sometimes. oh wells, its a lower division course so what can i expect. they treat us like kids.


happy new year??

Saturday, February 06, 2010
one whole month has passed since the new year and this just goes to show how long i have not blogged. so since i'm on my 5 hour break (well, 3 hours left now. i wonder how that last 2 hours flew by so fast), i decided i should try to save my blog and clean away that thick layer of dust.

i had a couple of posts that i wanted to put up (they're all halfway done in mmicrosoft word), and i never seem to be able to finish typing them up. thanks to my laziness and procrastination. but some of which i intend to post up would be:
  • summing up year 2009 since it was a pretty good year i must say
  • winter break which was tons of fun ( i miss it so much already, everything from people to food, to my dog )
  • more school complaints..etc

okay maybe that wasnt a lot. but im pretty sure they're gonna be super long posts especially the winter break post, since i was doing quite a bit in 3 weeks. but then again, it depends on how much i still remember. lol.

(WARNING! RANT HEAVY POST. if you dont want to get annoyed then stay away:D )

let's start with school complaints for this post. i've already been back for 3 weeks of school and its been torture so far. from the weather, to classes, to applications. then again, no one said coming to berkeley was going to be easy. i dont even know where to start actually. let's go with classes. originally, i was taking genetics, neurobiology, bacterial pathogenesis, nutrition, and a class on planets, a total of 18 units. just two days ago, i dropped my neurobiology class, the class i was so excited about in the beginning so now im left with 14 units. why did i drop it? simply because i couldnt understand a thing. it was way too much physics and the readings were way too dry and heavy that i couldnt sit and complete reading one page before running away. in lecture, the professor just went on and on and on and it doesnt help that he doesnt have a powerpoint slide or any sort of notes for us to follow. so the entire time, he was just talking about fluxes and currents and potential and nothing that i thought was related to the brain. well, it is related but just not what i expected. i wanted something more concept based, like how the brain worked, the different parts of it, neurons, dendrites and the like but the class just wasnt what i signed up for. so instead of torturing myself, i gave up and dropped it. now im definitely much happier. it wasnt that i didnt try hard enough (well, alright i didnt even read to try and understand) but i was lost from the very first introductory class. there was just no way i could catch up and understand what he was talking about while other students just sat there asking questions that made me feel dumb and so i sat there being lost. somehow they must have taken a class that introduced them to the basics of it or something. even discussion sections didnt help. i overheard some people saying that this part was review to them so i knew i would just die on the exams if i continued.

i was reluctant to let go of the class due to units. i need a total of 60 units from the college of letters and science to graduate and so far, i have 13 from my first semester, meaning i have47 more units to go. if i took 18, i would only need 15 for my next 2 semesters which is a pretty average workload to handle. but now im down to 14 which means im going to need about 17 units the next 2 semesters and i dont know how thats going to work out. i could take summer classes but as of now, there isnt any class i want to take and how worth it is it to travel 2 hours two or three times a week for just one class. so i dont know. hopefully, i get to do research this semester which is the next point i want to bring up and rant about.

ever since, i did research over last summer and got to do a poster presentation on it for a conference, i knew that was soemthing i wanted to do. i like being in the lab doing experiments, playing with bacteria. so when it was time to apply for internships/apprenticeship opportunites, i hoped that i would get into something i was interested in. i applied for one URAP position, where it was studying animal behavior in mantis shrimp or octopus and that was one i was interested in out of the many many other positions or labs that they offered. but i got turned down. more on that later. so when the projects with extended deadlines came on, i applied to another lab position, working with something i dont even remember now but it was mainly counting stuff under the microscope that kind of stuff. like boring manual labor that the professors or grad students dont want to do. still i was interested in that. i like doing brainless work surprisingly. and im sure i got rejected for that as well since i wasnt emailed back. i was doubly sad. it was almost a ddesperate situation.

i'm going to have to apply to grad or vet school soon if i do not intend to take a year off and to do that, you need letters of reccommendation and right now, the only person i can think of is case. still, thats only one person and how much will grad schools think of it. why would i ask my community college teacher for a letter of rec instead of a prof at berkeley? get what i mean? and in any case, i would need at least 2 letters for most schools. so yes, im desperate to get a relationship with a professor.

so i passed by the mcbcdna table the other day and i thought well, if i couldnt get a lab position, i might as well be active in something else. at least get involved in something for leadership or whatever crap schools look for. and for that club, you have to apply to be an executive officer. there's no regular membership whatsoever so basically, you apply to organize events for other students. so i applied and they called me back thenight before to tell me i have been selected for an interview the next day which was a sat. i was like what the hell. plus, they called me at 10pm. so at first, i told the guy who called that i couldnt make it and if they could schedule for another day. plus, since i commute for an hour, its super inconvenient. travellign 2 hours for a 15 minute interview??!! he said it was the only day they were interviewing so i either had to go or be rejected. i asked if i could apply next semester and he said that since i was a junior, i couldnt as they need you to stay for at least 2 years so this was the last semester that i could apply. i was soooo mad at that time. i called catherine and we talked for a bit and then i decided to call him back and said that i would go for the interview. it was almost hard for me to let go of an opportunity and plus i was desperate to get involved in something. so i went on sat for the interview and they really asked dumb questions (how do u make a pb&j sandwich??!). above all, it was my first interview. first. i have never applied for a job or anuy other sort of program that required you to be interviewed so i didnt quite know what to expect. but anyhows, to cut the story short, i didnt get called back. ie. there goes another thing that i could get involved in. i was triply sad now. for the research stuff, i sort of understood why i wouldnt get picked. mainly because of my measly gpa and that i was still at 18 units at that time.

to top that all off, i was worried about summer. at sacnas they provided us with lots of internship program information for different schools like stanford, harvard, yale, ucla, davis..etc. so when i finally looked at them after donkey months, i realized all the deadlines were in early feb. i looked at them around jan 20 or so. by then it was too late. again they need letters of rec, mostly 2. and refer to above. i could only find one person and even then, i would probably get killed for asking her last minute. never give someone only a week or two to write you a letter. even though she had written me quite a few before and it wouldnt kill her to modify a previous letter, i'd rather die than to ask her. as nice as she is and as much time as i have spent or worked with her, she is still intimidating. so i was frantically looking for stuff to do during the summer. and that got me upset too that i couldnt apply to any that i was interested in. thanks to my procrastination again. it wouldnt be as bad if i had another professor that i could ask to write a letter.

i decided to look up the URAP website again to see if there were still other projects that i was interested in and there was one for working in the museum of vertebrate zoology since the deadline is tomorrow. i thought why not just give it another go. i wouldnt be satisfied until i found soemthing to do other than classes. i emailed the person in charge just to take the initiative and stuff so hopefully that would help. but mainly i just asked what the hours were liek and if i had to work weekends. she replied a couple of days later and it was time flexible and no weekends other than april 17 which is cal day. so i was happy with that response not that i really cared if i had to work weekends. so yesterday i finally submitted my application and now im hoping for the best. i hope third time's really the charm. if i get turned down again, i think i'll probably die of sadness. it shouldnt be the units that would cost me now, since im only taking 14 and if i do get it, i could get units for it and that would solve my unit problems too. somehow, i am really interested in it now so i really do hope i get it. we'll wait and see. while looking for the person in charge to ask her questions, the receptionist told me that she wasnt in but she was going to hold interviews next wednesday so i shoudl know by then. im waiting for the good news now. hoping.

but, there is some light to this. so, long ago in this post (i'm surprised if youre still reading) i mentioned the urap position working with shrimp and octopus. the prof emailed me to say sorry that he couldnt accept me and all, but added that if i was still around in the summer and was still interested to work with him, i could check in with him when the time is nearer since they're always shorthanded for summer. i got happier when i read that since i still dont know what im going to do for summer. so i hope now that he wasnt just saying that to please me or whatever but he would actually take me in during the summer. i replied him btu he hasnt replied me yet. then of course, its still pretty far away from summer. i hope he meant what he said. at times to console myself, i just like to think that im overqualified.

yes, so all this happened in the span of three weeks of school. and this is just outside of normal classes. classes are going so crazy fast im already behind by quite a bit for two classes. im planning to catch up at least slightly by this weekend or im pretty much dead again. then, there's people pissing me off too and guys that i really just dont get. and there's eyh (part of the people pissing me off).

we met up once last week and that was pretty productive. it was the email that pissed me telling us about the meeting. apparently the person in charge accused us of not being responsible. she said that she and anothe rperson met up twice in january to prepare the workshop and experiment and met the whole week to do a trial and none of the rest went to help out. the pamphlets are already printed and our names were on it so we should honor our commitments blah blah blah. erm hello? i didnt even get your email in january! i was soo mad when i got it since im totally not the irresponsible sort of person and that email got to case as well since she was cc-ed. so i went to the meeting last week and asked her when they met and she was like telling me it wasnt my fault blah blah since she knew i wasnt around. by then i was just whatever, youre boss. this week, we were suppose to meet on wed to prepare supplies. they were going to meet at 12 but i technically dont get out till 4. so i just thought i wouldnt go to my 2-4 classes, then i could leave at 12 and still make it there by 1.30pm. so i took bart and when i got to embacadero, i got a message from one of them asking if i left already. i knew then something bad was gonna happen. they had to cancel the meeting since they couldnt do anything. i dont know why but i was just wth again. please double check next time you call for a meeting urgh. apparently, i saw case's website and she cancelled lecture for wed and today as well. wonder why. but still she shoudlnt have anything to do with what we were gonna do. so i got off at powell bart station, went to grab lunch at the mall adn took bart back to school. the only good part was at least i didnt have to go all the way to skyline to find out that it was cancelled. i would have been hopping mad. but i still had to waste 5 bucks takign bartto powell and then back to school.

i wonder how im still mentally stable at this point. but i suppose all this explains the tiredness i've been feeling.

to add to that, the weather was crazy the first two weeks of school. it was raining cats and dogs and monkeys and giraffes. my jeans got soaked a couple of times and my umbrella was useless most of the time the first week. so i went to get myself a bigger umbrella at the bookstore and things got better. i hate walking in the rain. bart gets disgusting and so does the classes. everything and everyone is just wet and chaotic and dirty. it got sunny/cloudy for a couple of days and now the weather is starting to go a little mad again. it rained yesterday night pretty heavily but good thing i was already home in my comfy pjs. i escaped singapore to escape the rain? the world is going topsy turvy.

alright, i thinnk i have ranted enough for now. see how crazy my life is. this is only the third week. 14 more weeks to go. all im hoping now is to get my internship approved and catch back up with classes.

hopefully the next post will be happier. if you managed to read word for word, i salute you and i'll give you a penny.

nemo: if you are still here, im really really happy i got your letter the other day. didnt expect it at all. so thank you :D