Year-end Epiphany

Maybe I've phrased the question I've been asking myself lately wrong.....Maybe instead of asking myself what I want to do with my life, the better question would be to ask what I have the courage to do with my life.......the whole dilemma between an MDiv and a PhD may really just rest on what I have the courage to pursue.

The prospect for both these options are arguably equally bleak. On the one hand, with the PhD, I'd have to find a supervisor, I'd have to think of a project that I even remotely care about, and then even after getting the degree, there's the issue of post-doc and what to do after. On the other hand, with the MDiv, there's the issue of where I'm going to procure the money for that, where to do my vicarage, whether I care enough to stay Lutheran, which church to go to after.......

But it's the MDiv option that I don't know if i have the courage to pursue. Can I bear the disappointment of all those (which includes myself) who think I'll be wasting my potential in academia? Can I bear the ridicule of all those who think I won't be able to do a good job? (It's not like we have a great example to look towards) Can I bear the scorn of all those who think I'm ignoring my duty to provide for my future family and putting my future children at a disadvantage by choosing a path that is not financially stable? Will doing an MDiv be truly worth standing up to all of this?

And yet, doing a PhD seems to be the more logical option. I mean, even if i absolutely detest it, switching to an MDiv afterwards is so much easier than switching from an MDiv to a PhD, especially one in science......and i just have this gut feeling that if I don't do my PhD now, I'll never get around to doing it.....

I suppose I can do both, but I also don't want to die in the process........three terms of excessive work, with the four and final one starting in 3 days, has made me learn the hard way to stay away from insane workloads whenever possible...............

Damage Assessment

So, after a week of actively denying anything wrong with my life, it's finally time to sit down and see what sort of hell three cumulative terms of BCIT have wrecked........

Preliminary Assessment: Beyond Repair

The first thing that I've come to realize was just how tightly I've wound myself. Went back to DT the other day, and asides from the rather amusing comment from Mr. Wang about how I have to get a PhD from Harvard or I risk losing Jennifer to *insert Mr. Wang accent* "another boy", conversations with Ms. Denchfield and Miss Eisner was rather intriguing. I was telling them how I plan to find a co-op placement before term started again but wasn't having much luck, and their common response was not to worry about it and just take a break......if only it was that easy......

The other odd thing is that for some reason, the first part of 21 Guns just wouldn't get out of my head, and yet, oddly enough it's true......I feel like I'm in ruins, and even all the Sunday school answers I have in my head, that I can tell myself over and over again, just doesn't answer anything......it feels like I've lost so much this term.....if you only peel off that thin layer on the surface - the grades, the days in school, the weekends at church - there's nothing left underneath.....hopes and ambitions, love and happiness, meaning and purpose.......it's all been devoured, and the only thing left to do is either to rebuild it, or to layer on more disguises to hide the true emptiness.........the latter seems like the easier option.....

and you would think, at a time like this, church would be the place to turn to......but something seems to have happened, a turn for the worse i would say......maybe it's just me, but fellowship these days just feels like a group project gone horribly wrong......it's like some unending nightmare, where to every person you turn to there is always some church work to talk about.....since everyone is entitled to their opinions, I too will risk eternal damnation and voice mine......maybe, just maybe, in our haste to perform, in our haste to be effective and in our haste to make something of this church, we have forgotten what it means to be a family in Christ, or rather, more accurately, we never knew it or never bothered to show it in the first place, and so now we just find ourselves struggling to keep our balance on our shaky foundation as we try to reach out.........but anyways, i'll shut up now.........church is good, doo dee doo~~~~~~


Final Assessment: Utterly Hopeless

Recommended Course of Action: Resistance is futile. Just dig a hole, brace yourself for term 4, and prepare to be thoroughly screwed over. With any luck you just might crawl out the other end with a missing limb or two, no promises though......

And the old man wanted a story.....

As we were lounging around the hall, banging our heads on every possible locker praying that we would be released from Rob's egg-crushing grip, Keith walks out of the office, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

Not letting the opportunity slide, we quickly bombarded him with questions about our up-coming plants report. What exactly does he want?

"A story," says the old man. "A story from beginning to end."

So I saw a need to rethink how my spruce report should go. Obviously the traditional lab report, with introduction, methods, results, and discussion, just simply was not much of a narrative. I am now contemplating writing a novel, with the spruce embryo as the protagonist. The story will detail the different struggles the spruce seed matures, from the abandonment of childhood innocence, to the trauma of teenage angst, to the development of adult sophistication. What a drama it will be!

~

It was 8:30am on a Thursday morning. Connie rubbed her eyes as she tried to recall the past few days of her existance. It was all a blur. She faintly recalled coming to consciousness surrounded by other embryo seeds, only to be ruthlessly submerged into some foul liquid reeking of chlorine.

She looked around. Her fellow spruce seeds were still laying unconscious in the confines of a microfuge tube. What shall happen to me, she wonders. Afterall, Connie has never been a spruce seed before, and have no idea what to expect.

Suddenly, a bright light shone on her and she felt herself lifted gently into the light. All of sudden she was surrounded by figures too large to fully perceive, yet the outside world was such a blur!

~

OK......i should stop.......A proper lab report awaits to be written........If for some reason an extra six hours budded off each day of this week then I shall complete this narrative and attach it as an appendix for Keith.........In the meantime, back to spruce somatic embryogenesis.....embryo suspensor mass initiation and maturation.......joy........

Two weeks to go, Half a life left

Something just seems terribly wrong with this term.......for the longest time, it felt like term never really started, and then before you know it, it's slamming to an end........just Friday we were commenting how it feels like it should be the middle of October

But the fact that term is about to end has finally settled in, with a mild sense of panic hanging in the air.......not a panic about grades, but more a panic of whether 24 hours a day is actually going to be enough during the last week of classes

Nov 30 (Mon)
- Chem Lab Report

Dec 1 (Tues)
- Chem Assignment
- Ethics Final

Dec 2 (Wed)
- Biochem Lab Assignment x 2
- Pharma Final

Dec 3 (Thurs)
- maybe, just maybe.......crossing my fingers.....there won't be classes.....PLEEEEEEASE.....

Dec 4 (Fri)
- Process Formal Lab Report
- Plants Formal Group Lab Report x 4
- Plants Final

Dec 7 (Mon)
- Biochem Final

Dec 8 (Tues)
- Chem Final

Dec 9 (Wed)
- Process Final

Dec 10 (Thurs)
- Genetics Final

But on brighter news, Starfield concert this Saturday!!! (I'm excited coz I missed their last one =P)......AND!! I bought myself a 64GB iTouch!!!! =P.......yes, it's my Christmas and birthday present for myself..........although it was quite expensive......=__="...........very expensive actually......i'm still rather appalled by the amount of money i threw into that thing.........

Biotechnology is Great!

Our ethics prof is going to be away on the 27th, so she asked us to keep track of Halloween stories to tell her. My story idea was simple. The classroom would be deathly empty on the 3rd, because we all died on the night of the 29th due to a Rob overload.

On a brighter note, Keith spent the morning talking about how we were having trouble advertising and recruiting people into the program. Apparently our reputation as a program is that it's near impossible to get in and that there is a ridiculous crap-load of work.......well, i wonder why?..............Keith did mention that when we do happen to blog about the program we should refrain from complaining and shine a better light on it, so I shall do my part

*looks down at the list for the next two weeks*

This will be a breeze!~~~~insane amount of work? Unheard of and a totally foreign concept!

*downs a bottle of ethidium bromide*

~

Next two week at a glance:

Monday Oct 26
- Chem Lab
- Chem Lab Report x2

Tuesday Oct 27
- Biochem Midterm
- Ethics Quiz

Wednesday Oct 28
- Biochem Lab w/ Genetics Lab Part 1
- Biochem Formal Lab Report
- English Bible Study

Thursday Oct 29
- Plants Lab w/ Genetics Lab Part 2
- Genetics Lab Part 3

Friday Oct 30
- Pharma Midterm
- Process Lab
- Process Formal Lab Report w/ Process Assignment #3
- TCF Bible Study

Saturday Oct 31
- S-club pumpkin carving w/ Halloween Party and Trick-or-treat

Sunday Nov 1
- Teaching Sunday School
- Evening Service Meeting

Monday Nov 2
- Chem Lab
- Chem Lab Report
- Dentist Appointment

Tuesday Nov 3
- Plants Midterm
- Ethics Group Assignment #2

Wednesday Nov 4
- Biochem Lab
- Award Ceremoney?

Thursday Nov 5
- Plants Lab
- Genetics Lab

Friday Nov 6
- Process Midterm
- Process Lab

I have an eerie feeling I forgot something on that list. I did stop using my agenda, after all........

Asian Parents.....joy....

Well, what do Asian parents care about the most? Money, yes.....school, yes......now mix the two together and it's no surprise that the latest magazine from the Chinese papers is featuring some top four (Chinese, surprise surprise) students entering university this year......among the interviews and information, there lists not only their grades but also the scholarships they managed to get their hands on.

It's pure joy to have Asian parents......you might have thought that I, of all people, would have been immune to all of this.......but sadly that's not the case........

Like honestly, is it not enough that I'm not using a penny of your money for my university tuition? Does it really matter that those kids, with their faces plastered all over the magazine, got $15,000 in scholarship for their first year and I came a horrifically shameful $7,000 short?.....what's even worse is that first year was ages ago.......even if i wanted and even if i tried i can't go back.....

I just can't help but feel a little sorry for those kids.......not only are they now pointed to by all the Asian parents in town, they are now hated by every single Asian kid in town (with the exception of Jenn, as she would like pointed out).........but imagine, to have your worth as a person and as an individual evaluated based on your academic success and the sum of scholarship money you amassed.....and to have your value assessed based on how much advice you can give for parents who want their kids to walk down the same path of academic greatness (although their definition is rather short-sighted and narrow-minded.....whereas i'm thinking academic greatness is making some sort of immense breakthrough in research, the Asian equivalent is entering Harvard with a 102% average)......

I guess i just dread seeing those kind of articles here.......there is just something fundamentally wrong......I mean, the Hong Kong government actually run ads on television for parents (and kids to a lesser extent) with the slogan that learning is not about grades (which of course no one gives a crap about).......pathological? very much so......

FML, or PTL (Praise the Lord), according to Jenn

Amidst flailing arms and protesting pokes from Jenn, I'll brave the challenges and type this up.......

After plants class with the program head this morning, the brief after-class discussion led him to tell us of a new headache he has. Apparently, it came to his attention that our program has more credit hours than allowed by the government for an undergraduate program (even after taking honours into account). We were told that he has to now somehow cut some courses from the program to make it all work. We were very eager to give suggestions, such as scrapping ethics, or the critical writing course for next term. When someone mentioned lab safety (and amidst our laughter), Keith told us that's not even a course that is recognized by UBC, so cutting it won't do anything.............that's when the thought struck me......

So, I'm in a program that not only makes us take more credits than allowed by the government, some of the courses we do take don't even count towards that. FML.

On Death Row.......

Had the first overtime lab of the term today.........and we were promised man, many more to come.........definitely not very thrilled......

The term started (coming to think of it, only last week) with us concluding we'd be hating Fridays. Monday rolls around and we decided that we really won't be liking Mondays very much either. Once Tuesday came along, we decided, you know what, screw this, we're going to be hating the entire term. And the thinking was reinforced today during biochem lab. As we were taking time out of our biochem lab to do parts of our genetics lab, Rob comes in to tell us we have our process lab handouts ready..........it's just going to be one, unending nightmare of labs.....

There has definitely been a significant shift in thinking for the labs. Whereas last term was "hurry up and finish and burst out the door", this term definitely has a tone of resignation to it........."if we are going to be trapped in here until we rot, might as well take our sweet time". Where half an hour on top of a 2-hour lab is a lot, one hour more to a 7-hour lab doesn't sound very unpleasant anymore

Last term it took until April to get us collectively to the suicide mood, this term, mass suicide has already been brought up one week in..........twice actually, if you count a discussion about Lemmings........

50 years.....and counting?

Seeing as Vince blogged about the Killarney Park 50th Anniversary, I shall do so too (or well, at least that's what I think he wrote about XD......I will admit that I was slightly confused =P)

Just a little background info, Killarney Park is the congregation that shares our building, or more correctly speaking, we share theirs. Walking into church this morning I was surprised to see all the decorations up, with board after board of old photos from the ages past.......and i just remembered I was in a state of shock......how did it come to this?......how does a congregation of way over 200, which once had hundreds in their Sunday school, multiple services on Sunday morning just coz people couldn't fit......how did a congregation like that dwindle to a mere 20 people after 50 years?

But even more importantly, what will happen at our own 50th anniversary next year. True we might be doing better number-wise, but are we truly any better? I can't help but think it's time our congregation had a mid-life crisis.....not in the sense that we should buy ourselves a Porsche or some plot of land up in the interior.....but it's time someone pointed out how dangerously similar we are to the church of Laodicea we are - lukewarm (Revelations 3:14-22).....I just can't shake this feeling, that, as a congregation, everything is half-hearted at best......that's why I was always adamant about our 50th Anniversary....I just don't see a point......true, it would be a great cause for celebration for whoever had a hand in founding this congregation, but what about for the ones in this congregation now? That we have been great a sitting on our hands and warming the pews? Wake up, people!

It has been a while since I've heard a good sermon, but the one for the KPLC 50th year was definitely a refreshingly good one (not spectacular, but very decent)......and one line, one line just stuck......and despite this line was being directed to the church, it just repeated itself over and over again in my head......

......it's not about being famous, it's about being faithful.....

and i just can't help but think........do I truly want to run the risk that, at my own 50th anniversary, I'm going to look back at my life and regret how I've spent it?

Out of the frying-pan into the fire

So, last day of co-op today! =P........it was rather uneventful and not very dramatic........the lab was oddly empty today, with only 5 other people in the two rooms that we occupy, which normally houses around 12.......

but yes, these past four months have definitely been interesting.......not quite sure how to describe what has happened (both in and out of the lab)........i guess really the only adequate description of such an experience is that I found myself sailing across the ocean and all of a sudden I realized I no longer knew where I was going........the sky started to cloud over and waves started to thrash....rain started pouring and lightning filled the sky.......and so I found myself thinking that if i sailed just a little further I'll see land..........

So after roughing it past four month's of co-op, and realizing I'm more lost than ever, new concerns have made figuring out where I'm headed a trivial matter......I have been blind-sided by tropical storm BCIT. With its seven courses and five labs and 32 hours of classes a week, it's bound to wreck havoc and cause major system failures.....yet, even as we speak and the gale force winds start to pick up, storm-proofing will have to wait.........the co-op paper needs to be written and the questionnaire requires completion.........

hai.........shoot me.........

Drunk at the Lab

The story goes that someone at the lab got their paper accepted, and so we had a little celebration before lunch with some bee-shaped cookies and some honey whiskey (or more appropriately, honey diluted with whiskey)


Now I've never had anything this strong ever before.....so i was rather startled by how repugnant it smelled (yes, I'm definitely no fan of alcohol).....but of course, out of politeness I had to finish the cup I was given......by the time I was finished everything kinda tilted to the right and walking in a straight line presented a bit of a challenge XD.......and i also developed a headache for the rest of the afternoon.........good thing i didnt have anything intensive to do, just more bacterial plating

38th Annual Summer Reading Session for Church Choir

Now this was definitely a very different experience.......having had the chance to attend a couple of different conferences (both for church and for academia), I was very much caught off guard by this one......being a fish out of water doesn't quite encompass the inadequateness of my talents for an even such as this.......

I was thinking this would just be similar to any of the other conferences I've attended. There'd be lecturers and powerpoint presentations as they go over the finer details of leading a church choir and singing with the right voices.....and so i didnt think much of the fact that while most of the people at the event were choir directors, I was given the noble title of "selector of a fun Christmas tune"......until I was handed the package of 60+ choral pieces at the registration desk


I sat down and sifted through all the sheet music, finding only an order form attached.....interesting, i thought......no program? no topics of focus?......it was then that i realized we were sitting in front of curtained stage.....maybe, i thought, there would be a choir that would sing all of this for us, and so that's why i am here to pick one that i like

It was not until the "clinician", as they called him, stepped up that I realized how wrong I was.....the reason of why this was a "reading" session finally dawned on me.......as we flipped open the first piece of our stack and he signaled the piano to begin, I realized that WE were the ones to sing through all of this

This arrangement posed several problems. First of all, given that my professional piano career ended more than three years ago, my sight reading abilities were virtually nonexistent. Even then, I have never learnt to read voice. I would follow along the melody and completely miss all the words, or follow the words and have no clue what to sing it to. Secondly, singing aws definitely not my strength, especially not SATB. The accompanist would play the intro, and everyone would automatically know what to sing and what pitch to sing in, and i'm just left standing there wondering how in the world do they do that and frantically trying to pick up the right pitch. The of course, as if to make matters worse, my voice falls between the tenor and the bass. The tenor had notes that were too high for me to reach (I have trouble singing higher than a D4), and the bass was at times too low for me to accurately hear what I was singing.

In short, the only thing that I could sing were segments that were in slow quarter notes without huge leaps or odd accidentals. So the majority of the time was spent following along and listening to other, more accomplished vocalists do the work =P True, there were some trickier pieces that we slaughtered (especially the couple following lunch), but generally it was very well done. And I do admire them for being able to sing well on the spot like that, wish I could have done the same.......

But hey, I'm not complaining. At least it's a very different break from the regularities of work =P (and imagine if an scientific conference was like this XD "Ok everyone, this is my experiment, let's do it all together!")

PS: Saw Ms MacCulloch there, but then she never taught me and I doubt she knows me, so I didn't bother to say hi

PhD or MDiv?....or both.....at the same time?!

Well, that debate has definitely been one that has gone on in my head for quite a while. Seeing as my career as an undergraduate student is bound to come to an end in the foreseeable future, my mind has been constantly at work trying to decide what to do with my life after I get my BSc.....provided I haven't killed myself in the process

While entering the work force is definitely an option, a better option would be to pursue some sort of graduate degree........which one?

Looking at the scientific spectrum of things, I can do a PhD in medical genetics. It sounds interesting enough, but the most alluring reason is because my Honours BSc allows me to skip MSc should I be able to maintain an 80%+ average for my last two years as well as the first 12 credits of graduate courses........Dr. Stephen Choi does have a certain ring to it.....

On the less scientific side of things, I can do an MDiv and pursue a career in ministry......that is also a four-year program (arguably it can be three)......that of course, leads me to become Pastor, or Rev. Stephen Choi

Now, for the longest time I've been debating between the two.....coz I really couldn't see myself spending 12 consecutive years in school to get both.....and so I've been asking myself if I'd be willing to give up one for the other. On the one hand, a PhD would theoretically give me the financial security to be able to become a volunteer/part-time pastor/churhcworker, freeing me from having to depend on a congregation to feed me (and it would also put me on the same level as my wife/doctor-to-be......provided all goes as plans). Yet on the other hand, would I be willing to spend so much of my life doing something that, deep down inside, I really don't care very much about? I mean, if ministry is the ultimate goal, then what am I doing wasting my time with a PhD? Yet, would straying from the realm of academia and scientific research be putting God's gift of brains to waste?

But some reason I stumbled on a third options today........studying part-time at Regent while doing a PhD! Apparently Regent offers online courses, at around 10 of them matches up with the requirements for an MDiv, which I would assume is the same as the first year of studies.....so if i take enough courses online to cover that and maybe all my electives, then I might be able to get an MDiv after my PhD in two years rather than four.......Rev. Dr. Stephen Choi at the age of 28.....doesn't sound too shabby!

But so are the dreams, we'll see what reality has to say........

RAWR!!

yes, there really isn't any other way to express how I feel right now......I just feel sorely deceived, thinking summer would be a nice break from school, and I'd finally be able to enjoy some stress-free time with all the hours I have not thinking of writing a paper or studying for a midterm.......but now that we are stepping into August and summer is quickly coming to a close, I realize how the phrase "taking a break" has never been part of my dictionary

I don't even know how I got landed in this position. I seemed to be fluctuating between extremes....when two months ago i would be sitting at my desk in the lab staring at the screen wishing there was something more productive to do, and all the while wishing going on facebook and youtube would be an appropriate activity on the lab computer, I know spend all my hours in the lab on my feet doing something or another....

Normally a co-op student would be responsible for half a project....We'd work under some research person and help them in their endeavour for discovery.....but for some reason I got landed one whole project plus two half ones.......My original task was just to work on honeybee cell immortalization, but then now, on top of that, I also have to do a honeybee cell proteomics project as well as an american foul brood bacterial assay.......stress definitely is my bestest buddy....

and to escalate matters, I was told by my PI that I'm probably going to get published......under any normal circumstances I would have been thrilled.....first co-op job and I'll get published? it's definitely one step closer to my PhD option, where being a co-author of a paper is a preferred attribute......but honestly, at this point in time it just translates to more work for me.......and so with my weeknights and weekends practically filled with church stuff, I now feel more overworked than ever..........

I am now setting my eyes on winter break.......

PS: sooo excited, i realized our program added new options to our courses back at UBC!! =P.....we no longer have to take a ridiculous number of microbi courses =P......medical genetics, plant biochemistry, developmental neurology =P...........too bad I only need 3 courses out of the 14....they all sound so cool! =P

Altar Boyz!!!!

Watch the Altar Boyz with Jennifer last night.......they were SOOOOOOO goood!!!!

Ok, I will admit, the lyrics to the songs were not overly smart, the musical itself was not that insanely funny, and there was bearly a storyline involved in the whole hour and a half. However, what made it truly exceptional was the fact that it was live music (I suppose you really don't need that much space for a drum, a guitar, and two keyboards) plus awesome singing and harmonies, AND completely amazing choreography! Everyone in the theatre gave them a standing ovation at the end of the performance and I thought it was very, very well deserved.


The fact that the musical poked fun at Christian bands made it feel all the at home. Finally something that's blatantly Christian (despite the fact that they are poking fun at us). True, almost everything was exaggerated and I can assure you no Christian bands ever do things like them (at least I certainly hope not), but I thought it was very funny how they blended in popular culture into all of it. And although some inside jokes would have been very funny, most of the humour was very publicly understandable.

So yes, I'm very glad I got a chance to see them. It's actually a performance I would consider going to see again, becuase, like I said, what you are watching for is the singing and the choreography, and not really the plot.

It was definitely worth the $33 (despite the fact that I didn't pay, and better yet, parking was free because it was after 7), and I might actually try convincing our fellowship to go. I know a couple of people who I'm certain would thoroughly enjoyed it.

They've extended their showing till August 29th!!

PS: Matthew looks like the Starfield lead XD

Mid-term Progress Report

So, July has finally decided to round the corner, and in the midst of constant barbecues (5 in a week) and slightly unbearable heat, my co-op term has past its midway point. What would I have to say about it at this point?

Well, the first thing is that things have definitely gotten a little ridiculously busy. With renewed fervour in collecting eggs and starting fresh cultures, my incubator has now accumulated close to 40 plates of cultures, all of them screaming and demanding some fresh media either every Monday and Thursday or every Tuesday and Friday. To make things all the more complicated, they are suspension cells and are thus not attached to the wells, preventing me from simply sucking out all the media with a vacuum and an evil laugh.

And of course, I am now one co-op student working on two separate and completely different projects. Not only am I now responsible for growing some honeybee cells, I will also be responsible for some bacterial assays. So yes, I do both cell cultures AND bacterial cultures.

However, on a brighter note my bee cultures have turned the corner and are now doing fairly well. After numerous tries and countless failed attempts, we were blessed with cultures that appeared like the following (I really hope I don't get sued for releasing these photos.......I don't recall signing anything that tells me I can't.....there were more photos, but they were all blurry and out of focus):

Culture 6 No Antibiotics, 200x Phase Contrast Microscope, with suspension embryonic cells and adherent fibroblasts

We have finally realized what has been screwing us over, and that is the antibiotics we have been using. We had it at such a ridiculously high concentration that none of our cells grew properly. But now that we've reduced the antibiotic concentration by almost 1000 fold, things are starting to look pretty. There was even this one clump of cell that was contracting periodically as if it was a heart. It was totally wicked XD definitely not something we were shown at school =P

So, looking at my lab related schedule for the next little while...
July 11 - Flying to Grande Prairie
July 15 - Expected Return Date
July 27 - Project Presentation
Once School Starts - Co-op Paper Due

Of Guitar Chords and Hebrew Alphabets

Today was definitely a day I would rather not repeat......I basically worked non-stop from 8:30 to 5, with a very rushed 15-minute lunch break at around 2:30......tho it was by all means just a typical farm day, where we head over to the UBC farm to pluck another doomed frame from the bee colonies and ransack it of all available eggs. Those unfortunate eggs are now crushed and basking in cell culture media at 32C. We all know full well that the eggs are now enjoying their final moments before they all succumb to inevitable death under my hands. Sigh......the path to immortality is indeed treacherous........

But back at home, I've had the luxury of time to sit and fiddle with my guitar for the second time, and I must say, I was surprised I remembered all the chords I learnt on Sunday =P...A.... E.... G.... D.... Em...... F#m......and I've also added C#m and G#m under my belt today.....tho i must say, the sharp minors don't sound very nice, and now my fingertips are sore XD



and i think it is now time to admit that my musical talents are much greater than my language ones......I'm been wrestling with Hebrew and all I've got down is probably just a handful of letters..........it is rather shameful that I can't even remember the first 10, considering the fact that I now have an actual Hebrew bible on my shelf and I'm really no closer to understanding it than before I started trying to learn Hebrew.......it looks just as foreign, if not more now that I have had a closer look.......



Next on the list of things to learn? French, Greek, and I have to take up piano again if I'm still going to buy my $90,000 Steinway Grand......my technique has actually gotten disgustingly rusty....=__="

New Word - Workaholism

You know, I'm starting to realize that I may be a workaholic.....

I've always thought the term applied to people who spend all their time at work. To me they were always those people who spend a ridiculous number of hours sitting at their desks in their office. To me the purpose was always to earn more money, and in the process they neglect their wives and their kids and are generally frowned upon....

but now, I'm thinking there's something deeper to it.....that maybe they are not working for the money or just to climb the corporate ladder......but maybe it's a cowardice of sorts, because I see it in myself

Maybe it's just like how people are addicted to alcohol and drugs. True there is a physiological side to all of it, but part of the reason (and I suppose here, coz I've never been addicted to those things) is that they see it as an escape from their problems. It's something they can immerse themselves in and not have to deal with their circumstances.

And more and more I'm thinking that's how I approach my schedule. I fill it up to the brim with things to do not because it's truly essential or because it's truly important, but it's an excuse for me to ignore all my actual problems. I have an excuse to shove them aside and say I have more pressing things to deal with, and I have an excuse to neglect things because I have more urgent things that demand my time.......

Cowardly? Yes, very much so..........

Becoming a Guitar Hero

Well, after the piano and the drums, I have decided that the guitar would be a good next step in my musical endeavour.

Driven partly by the fact that every youth pastor knows how to play the guitar (not that I am one, but there just might be a chance somewhere down the road), partly by the fact that I do have some extra funds stemming from co-op, and overwhelmingly by the fact that most of the songs that i know of sounds sooo sooo much better on the guitar, I have decided that I will venture into that unknown realm with not a single guitar chord in my belt (and maybe rudimentary strings knowledge from grade 6)

So, dropping by Long and McQuade the other day, the sales suggested this:


The Crafter GAE6/N......original $999, now on clearance for $399.......now, having absolutely no knowledge of guitars, I only had his words that it was a great deal.....I knew i was looking for an acoustic guitar that can also be plugged into an amp (just in case there ever was a need), but asides from that and having done some preliminary research online and finding one for $315, I really had no clue and was hesitant to dive directly into the deal.

So I placed it on hold, and asked Dot, our trusty choirmaster, to pull some strings with her musician friends and ask if it was worth it. After all, $399 after tax means $450, and it was more than my initial budget of around $350. But she got back to me and said it was a "fantastic deal", so I shall go ahead with the purchase.

However, there is one catch.........I do not know when I can actually get it.......They close at 6 Mon-Wed, and there's no way i can make it there after work. They close at 9 Thurs and Fri, and I'm busy both nights. They close at 6 on Sat, but then I'm busy all Saturday since it's the last day of Chinese School......and since they will only hold it for a week there really is no other time......I'll give them a call tomorrow to see if I can pay for it over the phone and Jenn can get it for me......either that, or I'll see if i can get them to hold it for another week........

Upped

It was actually quite the miracle I had time to go watch Up tonight, and I'm even more happy to say that I definitely was not disappointed =P True, Monsters vs. Aliens was not exactly bad, but when you compare it with Up there is not a doubt that Pixar really is the better animation studio =P


*Spoiler warning*

I actually found the beginning mini clip very cute =P....with the little animals and the pink clouds. But i thought the idea of that sad grey cloud who always make those unconventional babies very neat =P....I suppose the world needs those grey clouds, doing the necessary but not very popular things with the best of intentions.....in a way that's how i feel sometimes.....just maybe not with the same sort of innocence the cloud had with the alligators and the electric eels......

Onto the movie proper, it was definitely a very cute movie. But what really caught my attention was not so much the animation or even the story line, it was the turning point. I thought it was such an "awwww....." moment....with Carl on the verge of tears thinking he had brought the house to Paradise Falls (ironic name, ain't it?) in vain when he had failed to help Ellie realize her dream when she was still alive, and yet all along, Ellie had treasured every moment she spent with Carl and thought that to be the best adventure of her life.....

*Spoiler ends*


And really that got me thinking......as I stood up when the credits rolled and the house lights came on, and I stared at Jenn's back as we walked towards the aisle, I just couldn't help but think: God willing, I'll be spending the rest of my life with her......and it was at that moment, despite the fact that I was never much of a fan for adventures, I felt an inkling of excitement in me when i realized that it probably will be the best adventure of my life as well.

The Scarcest Commodity

I was wrong.

I thought co-op would have been a nice break from school. I thought it would give me a chance to see what I've learnt put into practice developing something completely brilliant and totally wicked. But the wrongest thing of all, was that I thought I would get more time.

There were great plans for this summer. To read. To play during the weekends. To swim. To bike. To polish my piano skills once again. But as the days turn into weeks and the weeks stretch into months, I've come to realize that most of these would not come to past.

I'd be lucky to get home by 6 in the evening, and with Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Friday nights occupied, along with the many meetings and engagements scattered over the weekends, I feel like I'm being more starved of time than I had been when school was still in session. There is Up to watch, along with various Bards.......and I really really REALLY want to swim. Maybe I should just randomly go one evening rather than waiting for the weekend. I miss doing laps and I hate how my shoulders have gotten so tight and hunched from bending over some computer or some honeybee frame all day....

Though I suppose this summer has had its purpose. It's making me rethink a lot of things.....that of course, is another post altogether (maybe even a couple of posts).......maybe I'll describe a couple of those things the next time I have the luxury of indulging in a little spare time

The Happier Times of Days Gone By

you know.......I feel so old.........not in the sense that I've put on another year of my life and my joints are starting to protest, but just that I feel like I have all these weights on my back that I never realized was there before

Today was probably the first day during the entire week when I had some time to wind down (hence me reappearing after the last post)......but so much seemed to have changed since then...it doesnt seem like it's about being a rebel anymore, but it seemed to have stirred a deeper question - where do I really belong?

I always thought that Vancouver had been my home, and that church had been more a family to me than anything.......but something seems to have changed this week. Maybe it's a mood thing, maybe it's not, I don't know

Having been traumatized with a few half-way-across-the-world moves as a kid, I have been quick to attach myself to this church. True it's no secret that our church is plagued with problems, and it still is, but over the years something seems to have changed. In our effort to move forward and improve we seemed to have lost something along the way. The spontaneity, the genuine care and support. Everything seems to institutionalized and sterile now. This felt especially so after the Sunday school meeting today

Despite the current system being "better" than what it was, there is a great part of me wishing it would somehow just go back to the way things were. I don't even remember how I became involved with Sunday school. But it just happened one summer. For some reason it was just me and henny teaching. There were the Saturday nights pouring through websites frantically trying to think of what to do with the kids the next morning, because there was no cirriculum. There was the blue sky over our heads and the green grass under our feet, becuase it was summer and we spent much of the morning outside, seeing as no one really cared about how we did things, so long as the kids were taken care of. I suppose that was where I found the childhood that I had lost. But now it all fades into distant memory.......

I must say, the new Sunday school arrangement is our finest yet. It's a great program and I'm surprised myself that it was this elegant. But it is just a program, no matter how perfect or how elegant it is......We seemed to have travelled down a road that is now completely irreversible. In our ambition to become as successful as other churches we've traded spending time with the kids because we want to be with them for a teacher rotation. We've traded the fun and games and let God work His magic along the way for curriculum that seems to be geared to all the other kids in the world but ours. We've given up the random trips to all over the place for consent-formed activities, and we've let legalities and parental consents cloud over our hearts to care for and help the kids.

What have we done?! What have we done...........

Lutheranism - Old, Male, and Lifeless

OK, I'm prepared to be offending a lot of folks with this (I mean, just look at the title, it's not the most politically correct), but hey, i guess it takes some overarching generalizations to get the point across and maybe draw some attention.

I was graced with the pleasure of staying all day at UBC yesterday. After the busiest day at work yet (I filled out 7 whole pages of my lab notebook, the most yet in a day), I somewhat reluctantly stuck around for the opening service for the LCC ABC District Convention (Lutheran Church of Canada, Alberta-British Columbia). And I must say, it was quite the experience that got me thinking....


Moo was saying how there was a certain air that defined us Lutherans.....white-haired, slightly hunched, with general lack of momentum......and i must say, this is true......it's not only the general lack of youthfulness, which Flo later pointed out, that seem to define the denomination, but more of a stubborn unwillingness to change.

True, we are the oldest Protestant denomination, and no doubt we are the closest to Catholicism you will get without throwing the Pope and all the saints. But I'm beginning to wonder, has our adherence to tradition gone a bit overboard. It's not news that different congregations adapt and omit different bits and pieces of the liturgy (basically preset dialogs you speak or chant as the worship service progresses) because of complaints that service would drag on for too long without anything really meaningful. But the problems don't end there........

I'll admit here that me and pastor are not on the best terms. There just seem to be some uneasiness between us that we mask with superficial friendliness and goodwill. I suppose the reason being that I've always challenged our church traditions. I have no problem with the theological views we hold, but it's the unspoken traditions that make no sense to me.

There seems to be a general snobbery, especially amongst the older generation, that you are not truly Christian unless you are a Lutheran. Despite this thought being less verbally expressed, there is still a ridiculous amount of hostility toward other denominations. More than once have I experienced this first-hand as I tried to push for more collaborative events. Concerts, city-wide youth rallies, joint fellowship with other churches.....and time and time again the response I received was that we were allowed to go as individuals, because the church has no control of our actions, but we were not allowed to go as a fellowship or as a church, because the events were not Lutheran and we were not to have any dealings as a church with other denominations. There was some brief mention of differing theological views and conflict avoidance. But this was made most clear during a pastor's meeting last summer where all the pastors from metro vancouver met up. There was an overwhelming tone of resignation and defeat in the announcement that there was to be no Lutheran evangelical effort for the 2010 Olympics. We had to join up with the collaborative More than Gold effort put on by the rest of the churches in Vancouver. Is it truly such an appalling thought?

And then there just seems to be a general disregard for the youths in the denomination, as very evident by the lack of them last night (I can almost claim that I had the most singular hairstyle in that room of 500-ish people). It's not that they are not concerned about us, but we seem to have very little say in the direction of the church and even less so in the direction of the district. Even the government has a Youth Parliament, but as obvious in the delgates present in that opening service, the people chosen to attend the convention is doniminantly older, Caucasian male. Ask anyone if youths are important and I'm sure they will more than agree we are the future of the church, yet all they really seem to care about our growth and maturation is that we follow their example. Anything new, anything different, begone, devil! This was evident when a student at a Lutheran seminary became so frustrated with his professor because he basically demonized the whole contempory Christian music movemnt. It was evident when I attempted to convince the church to purchase a drum set. It was evident when pastor introduced me to a seminary professor yesterday, saying, in an apologetic and he's-weird-that-way-please-don't-mind-him tone, that "He like the modern praise songs."

Sigh.......increasingly i feel like I'm a problem that the larger church is trying to fix......that I'm a rebel that needs correction becuase I'm unwilling to conform to the way things have been done since the 1500s......and the sad thing is that whenever there is an idea brought up by our fellowhsip, there is always a general verbal agreement that it's something that should be done. But the support ends there, and any deeper conversation with any of the older members would only have them point to some higher person in-charge that would oppose the idea. And so despite them verbally giving support, they are in reality against the change in thought and in deed. They just very cleverly disguise it as an opposition from someone else.

We Lutherans, however, do have one redeeming quailty. We sure can sing. The overwhelming operatic male voice we sung the hymns in cannot be described in words. It simply has to be experienced. (If only our congregation can sing like that.....)

The Road to Immortality

Mankind has always been in search of immortality. Whether looking to some scarcely known cult, or to some mystical Chinese herbs, or more recently, to cryopreservation and the secret workings of the telomere, we have been relentlessly trying to uncover the means to beat even Death himself.

Honeybee cells, however, have chosen a different path.

After being painstakingly picked out of a frame of honeycomb, surviving the rigour of sterilization with bleach and ethanol, and enduring the seemingly endless hammering of a pipette tip, the honeybee eggs (or rather, the cells within those eggs) have earned a well-deserved two-day break from the pressures of a laboratory experiment. Yet little do they know, their eternal fate is in the hands of a largely ill-equipped co-op student --- me.

The task at hand appears deceivingly simple. To find an oncogene and introduce it to the cells. Yet one key factor has been overlooked. The person entrusted with this critical issue has absolutely no experience with genetic manipulation. True I have introduced foreign DNA into cells before, but the extent of that endeavour amounted to mixing two solutions together, drip them over the cells, and presto! the cells glow green the next morning! The task at hand, however, is a completely different story......

Not only are there many possible methods to introduce foreign DNA, there are a plethora more oncogenes identified. As if to multiply the difficulty of this problem, I am responsible for actually finding the plasmids required, and if a commercial copy is unavailable, I will have to somehow, someway figure out the exact sequence and all the leader the trailer sequences and all the primers needed......and to deal the final blow to the hope of these unfortunate cells, there is absolutely no previous literature on anyone attempting this feat with honeybee cells. Our best bet rests with the common fruitfly.......

I guess the quest for immortality is no easy task, even for honeybee cells. Thank God for Jesus, eh? XD

Full-blown Summer (or not) and the Shampoo Problem

Yesterday was definitely a day reminiscent of full-blown summer, although that thought was quickly drenched today.

The fact that we were all sweating in our choir robes, plus the lunchtime quest with the Sunny school kids to Shell for a slurpee, along with the dinner gathering at the Tsui's (despite it being a hotpot dinner and not barbecue), and the post-dinner adventure to the playground for grounders definitely signals the advent of another round of summer =P.....But I must say, eight months of isolation from the playground has definitely taken its toll on this rusty body of mine. I'm no longer tha agile self with it comes to outmanouvering the kids (or i suppose some of them has secretly crept up the age ladder and became teens over the years)......

Amongst the many trophies of the night I have stumbled across many a sore muscle, a banged up knee, and a completely scraped forearm. The muscle pains were inherited from months of disuse (honestly, how often would i find myself climbing up bars and hanging off of railings in the sterile lab environment). The banged up knee came while attempting to leap up while completely forgetting about the wooden ledges that were suppose to facillitate that increase in elevation, resulting in me completely smashing my knee against on of the corners. The scraped arm was definitely the most seredipitous discovery of all. One moment it was fine and then it was stinging the next, and so upon inspection I found enough blood for Tammy to use it to draw a smiley face on my other arm......but the funniest part was how the parents made a big deal out of it......it really was just a scrape (although admittedly it was somewhat unsightly), but they were all fussing about how i should be putting a bandaid over it (despite it being way too big for conventional bandaids).....so yes, i had to spend some time reassuring them that it was OK. There is definitely a cause for concern if it was knife wound that size, because i would have fainted already, but the fact that i was alive and well and very good-natured about it means that, despite its somewhat disturbing size, it was nothing serious (and i think the fact that I'm not dead now becuase of it means I was right =P)

But today was a lot duller than yesterday. I think I've come to the conclusion that one day of bumming around at home not doing anything is enough to drive me crazy.......I woke up at 10 (tho technically i woke up at 830. Without an alarm too, it's sad....), and by 5 i was bored out of my mind.......

However, there was one thing that completely stumped me today. It was the Shampoo Problem, one which i think is worthy to be included in the chronicles of Sherlock Holmes. But the story starts out that our household was out of shampoo, and so I was dispatched to search for an appropriate replacement. I started at the mysterious aisle of hair products at the local London Drugs, and as I scanned through the labels I realized I was faced with quite the challenge. There was shampoo with conditioner. There was shampoo for coloured hair, as was there for dandruff, and dry and damaged hair, and for increasing hair volume, and for hair fortification.......There seems to be shampoo for absolutely every possibly convuluted condition EXCEPT normal regular generic everyday shampoo!!!!!! Honestly!!! I might having more luck looking for shampoo for warm weather, shampoo for washing your car, and shampoo for cutting in the grocery line!!!

Following Other Blogs

There is one thing i really like about Bloggers, and it's the ability for me to follow on the Dashboard other blogs that are not explicitly from Bloggers. All I need to do is just to type in the blog URL and the posts just show up.....I think it's very magical =P......I can now keep an eye on the blogs that I would like to follow without having to actually go to the sites to check all of them on a regular basis (i suppose you can argue that the RSS function was there since ages ago, but i never bothered to put it into use XD......but this blogger thing is just conveniently there =P)

In other news, UBC has paid me, thos i must say i was disappointed.......I wouldnt mind having the two days at the conference not paid for, and I kinda expected them to deduct taxes from my pay (tho I explicitly put a tick in the box saying i was making less than my tax allowance, so they really shouldnt be deducting them).....but then thing that I was the most surprised about was that they are not paying me the full 8 hours a day.....DESPITE the fact that I'm there from 8:30 to 5 every day......feel kinda ripped off now, coz i thought i was going to be paid the full 8 hours so i figured i better be working for 8 hours.......I guess i should find out how many hours per day they are actually paying me for.....it better be 7.5, because if it is 7 then there's no way i'm showing up that early anymore!! >__<"

But there is one thing that is getting me very excited =P.....we are finally starting the Truth Project this Thursday night =P......there really isn't another less generic word.....I am genuinely excited =P

The 4th International Symposium on Enabling Technologies for Proteomics (ETP)

Now, this definitely isn't the first conference I've been to, but it's definitely the first one in the field of science =P So i was naturally a little uncertain of what to make of it all and had no clue what to expect of all the presenters =P.....I was hoping they'd have a prettier logo for me to put on here, but guess in the realm of science prettiness really isn't much of a virtue XD


The conference was held at the Four Seasons Hotel downtown, and basically the program was just speakers after speakers doing presentations and more presentations (with little coffee breaks and lunch breaks sprinkled here and there (although lunch was filled with more talks, this time from companies would produces the instruments and machinery for proteomics talking about their latest product)

I've definitely attended better and more worthwhile conferences XD, but for a fresh undergrad student testing the waters with my toe it wasn't too bad an experience =P.....true there was a ridiculous amount of jargons and abbreviations (things like GC-MS and SDS-PAGE i know about, but stuff like MALDI? QToF? triple Quad?MRM? Orbitrap? CAD? ETD?) I have no idea what they all mean other than they either stand for some fancy equipment or some fancy protein analysis procedures........but asides from the handicap in general proteomics knowledge and a very rudimentary knowledge of molecular biology (of which the specifics I could once recall for the animal cell final has diffused out of my mind) the whole conference wasnt too too bad =P The food and drinks were good, AND we all get a complementary cocktail drink at the end of the day (tho I chose not to take advantage of that =P)

The only complaint that I have to make is how insanely overtime we went.....we had to cut our break short by 20 minutes as well as truncate some of the presentations in order to end 40 minutes AFTER the scheduled time!.......and although there were quite a number of really good presenters (especially the first two, the last two, and the one right before lunch =P), there was this one lady that was absolutely, DISGUSTINGLY horrible........

You might have thought a presentation on protein-based diseases would have been rather interesting, but all she did, especially towards the end of that dreaded ordeal......she shoved mass spectrum after mass spectrum after graph after graph after more mass spectrum after more mass spectrum after more graphs after even more mass spectrum.......and all she did with them was talk on and on about who knows what.......she mentioned something about different residues and the random subtle difference between the stupid mass spectra.........everyone at the table just looked at each otherand rolled our eyes everytime she switch slides and it was more mass spectra on the most unisnpiring grey background............I wanted to go smack her and send her to jail and force her to take two terms of COMM before letting her back out...........

Five-day Break

So starts a five-day break.

I have been temporarily relieved from the daunting task of staring at hondybee cells under that glaring light of the microscope, hoping those hopelessly oblivious cells might catch a glimpse of my eye through the scope and be encouraged to increase in numbers. Yet being ejected from the lab for two days only equates to being ushered into the largely unexplored world of proteomic conferences. I'm certain the presenters will be able to inspire a sense of wonder provoke thought - wondering what on earth he is talking about and thinking of where to grab a bite to eat after she's done XD

on a more solemn note, I have managed to incur more charges on my credit card than I currently have available in my bank account. Definitely not the best predicament to be in the midst of, and one that I do not intend to repeat ever again, but I am fully expected to receive my first installment of payment from UBC on the 23rd......(tho i must admit, this situation is technically not true. I do have funds in my Tax-free Savings Account, but I just consider them immoveable)

Keith lied!

Keith sent us an email this morning telling us that our final marks are being held up by BCIT's student records and will not be released until 2 weeks after this Friday (he mentioned something about the other technologies ending classes this week and having their finals next week so the marks will be released the week after)......but HE LIED!!!! XD

Thanks to Chris and his trusty information it was actually already out today (despite me having checked this afternoon and it not being there =P)........but yah, nothing much to say about it......my average did drop, as expected.....but i do not know how they calculate it, because when i did it myself by hand I got a lower number than what they posted up.....but hey, i'm not going to complain about that XD.......but my marks actually fell pretty much into my expectations....microbi was my highest, plants was my lowest (tho i must say i was slightly disappointed by it.....i was hoping to have done better than what i apparently did on the final......).....the only real surprise was chem =P.....i did much better than i thought i would have =P

and in other news the BC Liberals did pretty well too =P......kinda relieved they got a third term (can't imagine what our economy would be like if the NDP came to power.....=__=").......and i'm also glad the whole STV thing didnt pass XD.........they were talking about it on the news and all i keep hearing was STD, STD, STD XD.........but yah, it's such a confusing system.....and it'll render the government so ineffective...........

so yes, a pretty good day overall =P

21 Pages into the Work Term

So, after 6 days of work, I have finished writing in the 21st pages of my lab notebook and will be starting on page 22 tmr........yes, quite the achievement, i must say, especially seeing the other co-op students are much further back in their page numbers (as of Friday there was one to be proud to be on his second page XD)

but this week will be quite interesting =P......we'll be missing Thursday and Friday because of the proteomics conference (tho i have to admit, what I'm working on really has nothing to do with proteomics XD)....so Marta said we'll go to the farm next week to get eggs (especially considering it has been raining and the bess dont like their nests being pried into when it rains)

but asides from that, a little update on my teeth =P......I'm assuming all wounds have closed by now, because i managed to get a hard piece of samosa lodged in one of the holes where a tooth used to be and had to rinse it out......and it didnt bleed (it didnt hurt either, it just felt really uncomfortable).....so i'm assuming it's healing (tho i was told to wait a month for the gum to grow back, and they grow from the inside to fill the hole, so looks like it can swallow food on its own accord for the next little while

and one final note was that i actually had the time to fiddle a bit on my piano......i must say, my piano playing has gotten very very disgusting.......my technique is sooo rusty.....I couldnt even play my broken chords evenly....that was how bad it is.......needless to say when it came to the actual pieces it was horrific.......I was very sad about how my mozarts went.......I actually used to be able to play mozart well, like actually well, with clean trills and the right articulation style and a sublte touch of pedal......not anymore.....T__T.......i completely massacred even the simplest mozart piece.........and then I moved on to some Brahms, and then Chopin's Fantasie Impromptu (which I can't really play anymore.....the right hand just kinda fused into one giant blob of notes).....and I also felt adventurous and attempted some of Lizst's la Campanella........I've actually quite completely lost that piece......I can't play it anymore.......I think I've only managed to go up to the half of the first page (and that's the simplest bit XD).......so yes, I need more practice, and get my technique back to where it was (and maybe some Czerny along with it too XD)

Third Day Concert

So, yesterday was the Third Day concert with Brandon Heath and Revive.......it was all the way down at Abbotsford tho, so driving there and back again was quite the experience XD (it's definitely the furthest I've ever driven without parental supervision =P......and i managed to clock 130km/h on the way back, which i believe is the fastest the car has gone.....yet XD)


but i must say, third day really isnt my style......they are too rock-and-roll for my liking (they actually had electric guitar solos and all that during the concert) and they don't have enough praise songs that we can sing along to.....(it was really different from Passion back in Octorber......but then they had David Crowder with them and their music is very.....alternative....).......but third day does have a couple of really good songs, so i didnt mind going =P..........(and plus, Jenn really likes Brandon Heath and she wanted to go =P)

now, the concert started at 7, and i must say the beginning 2 hours was rather painful to sit through.......I've never heard of Revive before, and then number of Brandon Heath songs I know can be counted using one hand......and to make it all worse, there was sooo much talking/introductions, and the transitioning between bands took forever......AND!.....the thing that got me really annoyed was how they were completely trying to shove World Vision in our faces (ok, fine, I'm slightly biased against them becuase of the stories I've heard about the way they spend the money).....but third day's road pastor was basically trying to guilt us all into sponsoring a child (a tactic I'm definitely not overly fond of).........so a bit of songs, a whole lot of talking and a whole lot more of waiting around took us to around 9.....when it was finaly third day's turn

THEY WERE AWESOME!!!......true, I'm not a huge fan of their style.......but they were just THAT GOOD that it didnt matter XD......they did two things that took me by surprise =P

The first was the fact that midway through the performance they relocated themselves to the back of the stadium!......they were playing a couple of songs and the lead singer disappeared for some reason. When the song was done, he was all of a sudden on this mini stage at the back of the stadium, and started the next song (at which point the rest of the band relocated too =P)


that I thought was really cool =P (and please excuse the poor quality.....it was taken from my phone).....they even did a song and made the drummer sing XD.......and to top it all off, they played the song that I went to the concert for on that ministage......(tho i think the dude forgot the lyrics or something, coz he only sang one verse of it and then sort of repeated the last line a couple of times and ended it there =P)



and the other thing that they did that I thought was really cool was the fact that they gave an encore! XD........Hillsongs never did it, and Chris Tomlin with Passion didnt do it either!......(and I dont know about Starfield coz it was Jenn's grad that night.....yes, we are both very disappointed we had to miss it XD).......so they bascially played three more songs for us after they officially ended the concert, and for one of them they got Brandon Heath and Revive to come back and sing bits and pieces of it as well =P


So I'm just generally very happy about this concert =P......true the beginning could have been better =P......but oh well, Third Day was good enough to more than make up for it =P.......but with all the encore and stuff the concert ended slightly after 10:30 XD........and by the time we were back on the highway it was already 11 =P

Micahel W. Smith and Steven Curtis Chapman.....same place (and now we know where to park XD......we were right outside the building =P....tho we did have to pay $10)......July 26th!!! VERY VERY excited about that!.....getting my pre-sale tickets on Wednesday =P

Day 4 (Man, i need more creative titles XD)

So, how goes the fourth day on the job? =P.....i must say i was pretty proud of myself =P

today was quite the contrary to what happened yesterday. Whereas i kept thinking I really didn't do anything at all yesterday, i found myself very oddly productive today =P.....I was done my list of things to do (like prep media, do more sterility tests) by 10:30....and was twiddling my thumb till 11:30 waiting for the pH meter to free up so i can finish the last thing on my list to do.

But really, my proudest thing has to be my aseptic techniques......I was actually rather unhappy about the fact that we were having trouble with the media and it kept getting contaminated....the first time, fine, i wasnt careful enough and was being sloppy.......the second time was like WHAT?! again?!........so when i looked at it today for the third time and saw that oh-so-familiar film of growth on the surface my heart sank, thinking i must have done something terribly stupid and contaminated the stock bottles (which would have wasted $200 worth of materials.....yes, that much for three 500mL bottles of media).....but then when i opened our other incubator to look at that plate (we use two incubators, the nice, new one with has 5%CO2....and the old one that's basically just a heated cupboard) there was no sign of contamination whatsoever......there was not even a speck of a cell to be found under the microscope!!......i was sooo relieved, and I think we can come to the conclusion that the old incubator is contaminated with some yeast kinda thing.........marta, my supervisor, told me let it sit for a while longer, coz there was no signs of growth in one of the medium (Grace's Insect Medium).......only if the last medium is also contaminated can we conclude it's the incubator (tho i cheated and looked at it under the microscope and i can see little cells floating around, just very few of them =P)

we had another scare with contamination today too XD......and again, i'm very proud that it's not my fault =P.......we were reviving the cells from cryopreservation that were cultured last summer to see how well they do in -78C liquid nitrogen.......and so i was using the hemocytometer and trypan blue as i was so used to back in the lab (i must say i'm going to come to hate counting those stupid cells......especially if they all look the way they did today)

me and hemocytometer have met.....we've decided that we really can't get along

and so the first batch was fine (the ones directly out of the cryovials).....but then the ones after dilution with media was absolutely horrific!!!!......instead of having a slide of blue liquid, it just became liquid completely overwhelmed with blue floaty thingies (i was actually going to write that description into my notebook, but then thought it wasnt quite professional)....but bascially think of dust on water, except there's a huge amount and it's all blue......and so marta just flipped and panicked (espeically when we tested the trypan blue alone and it was fine, and then with the media and it clumped)......so she freaked and thought it was very bad bacterial contamination....but she had to run for a meeting, and so she left me to do some research......but then, after some researching, i found that apparently serum (in our case the 20% fetal bovine serum we added) causes this to happen XD (apparently trypan blue has a higher affinity to serum proteins than cellular proteins =P).......and so once more, it was just another harmless scientific phenomenon........tho it does complicate things, i now have to actually test the media to make sure it's the serum's fault, and then this means from now on we'll have to first centrifuge down the cells, take the media out, and replace it with PBS (phosphate-buffered saline)

and i guess the final thing to note is that i think i've found my rhythm with the whole co-op business.....i can get to UBC by 8, do my devotions there before i start my day =P (using a computer in the SUB, coz i dont think it's quite proper to be using my lab computer to do personal stuff.....though i was using it to secretly check for my marks, which are still not out, seeing tammy sent us all an email saying joan's still hacking away at our protein papers XD)....i quite like this arrangement =P........and maybe if i can pull myself together and sleep earlier then i can actually read on the bus (and not sleep it away =P).........also hopefully once i can properly ingest again i'll bring in some granola bars for an afternoon snack in addition to the sandwich that i have grown to be fond of =P

but anyways, on other news......i now know what's causing this pulling feeling everytime i open my jaws a certain way......apparently my dentist has sewn my gum to the side of my cheeks......but hey, it's ok, it doesnt hurt, and only one more pill of antibiotics left tonight before i'm done with all these medication =P

had an orange flavoured yogurt tonight.....kinda odd =P.....but it actually tasted pretty good =P

BUMPITS and day 3

yes, you heard me, BUMPITS!......you might be wondering, where on earth would you find the bumpit....i mean, the only thing you've really ever heard of was an armpit and maybe a peach pit, where does a bumpit go?......apparently it goes in your hair......it's a little plasticy thingy that you can put inside your hair and wrap hair around to make it all big and full......thus bump-it...........honestly, i think it's some sort of practical joke.....but someone must have a lot of money to spend to put a commercial for such a thing on prime time TV (either that or someone was just seriously stupid when coming up with the name)

Just in case you are stupid, they tell you bumpits are not edible

(btw, i was so tempted to put Figure 1. and then start doing the whole sentence description and the citation thing, but i suppose this isnt COMM XD)

but well, things have definitely started to pick up for day 3. Quite honestly if you get me to list out everything I've done for the day it really wasnt much.....we found contamination in the plates and so we redid them, and found contamination again (we are thinking it may either be from the media or from the incubator.....we didnt get time today so we'll have to do that tmr.....i really hope the contamination is not from the bottle.....coz that would suck.....).....and that was bascially it, made some antibiotics (it was very very interesting trying to shove 1.5g of gentamicin into an eppendorf tube and then dissolving it in 1mL of water.......there was just sooo much solid it wouldnt even fit into the tube)......and we also went to the bee farm to try to collect some eggs........and yah, that was interesting.....coz i'm actually rather afraid of bees but it turned out ok......and i also got my keys =P


i can now access the lab without having to wait for the doors to be open, and i can also head into MSL with the electronic fob and the you're-allowed-to-be-here piece of fabric (or well, i suppose it is to put the set of keys around your neck, but i always like to pocket my keys so i dont really find them useful)

but well, i'm actually surprised at the pace of it all......i was actually very used to the whole finish-everything-quickly mentality, so performing acrobatic stunts to save the prodcuts from dripping into the water bath in a chem lab was all part of the plan.......but i suppose real science is a bit more delicate than that, and it's ok to take your time and test things out and just generally slow down to do things well.......but i dunno, i'm starting to have second thoughts on the whole Ph.D. idea......maybe i'll do something that hinges less on being completely anal about asceptic techniques.....(yes, it is rather disheartening to have to be stalled by contaminated media that starts growing things when you didnt even seed anything to begin with)

anyways, in other news, my teeth see to be doing fairly well......i was actually abel to sustain a small period of normal chewing today during dinner........but then the left side of my jaw is starting to ache.......so i dunno if that's just from overworking, from the nerves healing, or from an infection......i guess we'll have to wait and find out

Day 2

so.....how goes the second day, you ask?.....well, definitely more eventful than the first =P.....the morning was spent doing something relatively simple....aliquotting media, then plating them into 6-wells for a pH and sterility test tmr. After that came some checking out books from the library ("Insect Physiology and Biochemistry".....wonderful, i know....), and the afternoon was spent reading and researching and more article reading and more researching (it was ridiculous how difficult it was to find the pH of honeybee hemolymph.....basically honeybee blood....)

we were also going to thaw some fetal bovine serum (FBS, should sound disgustingly familiar to any biotechers reading this XD).....but then we took them out to late and so it didnt thaw in time for me to aliquot before heading home, so we put it back in the freezer until tmr........and after that checked the trypan blue (another awfully familiar term) to make sure there are no strange floaties (another concept we are very familiar with) with the hemocytometer (this word is almost obscene XD)

I did see Billy tho =P......i now know which lab he works in coz I saw him through the window as I passed by Michael Smith Labs (MSL)........speaking of which, the keys to the NCE building as well as the lab is ready for me to pick up, and i should also go get the little electronic key-tab thing to the MSL.......also for tmr we'll be reviving some previously cryopreserved cells and do a viability count (i can hear Joan say the exact same words.....)

but anyways, on a happier note, i was reunited with my trusty umbrella today =P......it was waiting to greet me at the elevator doors =P (it must have missed me very much =P)......and also in terms of my anti-starvation experiment, I was silly enough to buy a pink coloured powerade today instead of a juice. Although I think powerade serves a better function than juice, the choice of flavour was quite horrible.......I should have known better......I thought pink would be an innocent colour for strawberry lemonade, but as it turns out it's a very cleverly disguised antibiotic flavour (why, oh why did i not notice that the contents were of the same colour)......all that's missing are grainy medicine chunks.........but in terms of lunch I managed to scale up to a large soup (cream of mushroom today =P)......so i was not as light-headed coming home as i was yesterday.......

and the best part yet?!! I managed to pseudo-chew for dinner!!!! =P had little bits of of cut-up chicken and BBQ pork with my rice in steamed eggs!!!.....so proud......tho hopefully i was not too ambitious, coz afterwards my mom took a look into my mouth and apparently there's a "hole" where my teeth used to be........>__<"......that completely grossed me out......

Day 1 at Foster's Lab

The lab itself is actually a pretty big one. They have 4 new co-op students including me for the summer and they are actually in the middle of expanding into new rooms and getting things set up (or well, the full story is that all the previous people moved into the Michael Smith Labs next door and so they are now claiming all the space that they left behind).....but i must say, i dont think i'm quite used to this whole new lab environment, and i dont mean it in so much the layout, but the whole laid-back-ness of it all.....having gotten used to 12 hours a week of here's-the-lab-let's-blitz-through-it-in-1.5-hours, i find this whole we-have-four-months thing rather weird.....

but let's start at the very beginning, shall we?.....i must say, of all the other co-op students around i think i got landed the better job =P whereas everyone is kinda picking things up from the middle of an experiment that their supervisor is working on, I actually get to work with mine on something completely fresh and new =P.....yes, i know it's cell culture, but it's all from scratch......they dont have some commercially prepared cell lines we can use, so we'll actually be starting them from eggs.....and the coolest part? no one has ever succeeded in doing something like this before =P (there is apparently somethign that makes honeybee cells notoriously difficult to grow long-term, and no one has yet discovered the reason XD)......but anyways, i digress =P

the day started with a rather long lab meeting with two presentations (and Joan has managed to haunt me even more! as if cell cultures weren't enough, there was talk of the MAPKKK and mTor and phosphotyrosines...>__<").....and then an EXTREMELY long lab tour......(we spent a disgustingly long time with the autoclave, and all i could think of is that it looks eeriely similar to the old one we had in the lab.....but apparently this one actually steams the entire room if it's closed improperly XD)

yah, nothing much after that, i actually feel like i wasted an entire day doing nothing.......i was sitting at my desk on my computer reading through some papers and making some notes on what needs to be done tmr......and then reading through the same papers again and looking at the same notes........though tmr was promised to be more interesting........a trip to the UBC farm where the bees actually are (rather scared about that, not a big fan of bees, tho i was assured we won't get stung with the bee suit on).....and then a trip to the dollar store to look for something we can scoop bee eggs with......and then actually prepping the solutions and media......actual lab stuff finally!

But there is one problem that I am rather keen on solving........how not to starve............it sucks to not be able to eat properly.......i bascially lived off a bottle of juice and a small bowl of soup all day.........AND i was running low on water........as a result i was so light-headed and out of it that i managed to leave my umbrella in the washroom, missed a bus, waited for 5 minutes BEFORE realizing i don't have my umbrella, going back to the lab only to find the doors locked (and i dont yet have the building keys), and had to walk back all the way to the bus loop, hungry and miserable, only to miss a second bus.........

Finally.....term's over

Well, as well all know, April has been a completely horrific month. So as I sit here in front of the computer on the first Saturday after term, trying to enjoy the fact that I'm not writing another paper (yes, i have been writing a DIFFERENT paper every single weekend since April kicked in) and staring at the clock waiting to take my antibiotics (because there's absolutely no better way to celebrate the end of another school year by taking out all 4 wisdom teeth), I will attempt to finally, finally get this blog thing set up.

Xanga I will still keep, because it still has its use. But I will start posting here instead (hopefully more regularly)

The first thing to look forward to? Co-op on Monday! I believe I'll be working on developing an immortal cell line of honeybee embryonic stem cells, but my PI (principal investigator) has yet to contact me with the details, so I guess I'll find out what exactly I'm supposed to do come Monday (I actually have no clue when I'm supposed to show up on Monday XD.....I tried emailing my PI, but made the mistake of asking two questions. Apparently he only answered my second regarding if i need to bring anything like lab coats or lab notebooks, but he completely missed the first about when i should be there on Monday. So I'll be there at 8:30, or maybe even 8:00, and hope that I'm not late XD)

hopefully I will be able to talk properly then......HEAL, my dear wisdom teeth wounds!!! HEAL!!!! (and dont get infected...>__<")