Someone died today

Yes, someone had died today. He who was my neighbor for 8 years; he who was a really nice and gentle man; he who was still walking and talking four months ago died today. He lost his battle to vicious cancer... He probably didn't even get to meet his newborn grandchild. His daughter-in-law probably couldn't be joyous for being a new mother, his son probably couldn't be happy that he is a daddy now. And his wife could be left all alone in the house that they built their lives together. The saddest of all is that his grandchild will never meet his grandfather and knowing that his birthday was a few days before today.
Someone told me, I should not feel sadden or the sense of lost. But what a short journey of life???
At the same time that eulogy was being delivered. I received an email from my friend that has a picture album from her recent Christmas family trip. Her son, who's one year plus today is growing bigger day after day, months after months. She has a beautiful family, from what I'm able to see, my friend's parents-in-law adore her son.
What a distinct contrast???
I've experienced my own grandparents deaths. But it never once hit me that human beings are fragile like your beloved antique China. Well mainly because they died of old age. But this man lost his battle to cancer not old age... I thought of myself immediately, I studied nutrition as my major in school and what have I done for myself to preserve my body for as long as I could? Absolutely NOTHING. What a shame ain't it? However, I have been doing pretty good sticking to my new year's resolutions. So, this will be the beginning of my journey to preserve life, a good quality life.
I hope you'd do the same for you. =)

This is too cool!

I read this on Freakonomics, you should too! =)

SEEING WITH TONGUES
By Steven Levitt

We use our eyes to see, so it seems logical to conjecture that if you didn’t have eyes, you couldn’t see. What I love about science is that these sorts of limiting beliefs routinely get blasted out of the water.

A fascinating series of experiments points out that we see with our brains, not our eyes. Consequently, you can substitute a patch of skin, or, even better, the tongue, for eyes when it comes to “seeing.” With a day of training, the people in these trials can see as well with their tongues as I can without my glasses. Which isn’t very well, but it’s a start.

(Hat tip to the amazing folks at SPECTRE who routinely send me the most interesting things I read.)

Wanna read more on that? Here you go.
http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20010901/bob14.asp

Summary of first week in 2008

Hey all! I hope you've welcomed the new year with a positive attitude and new outlook for this year. Let's recap what had happened or what I did this past "new" week. ^^

December 29th night
Effa and I went to Savahn in KL. That was fun! We got free drinks because I kept tipping our server (not sure if that's how you call em). Don't get me wrong Effa doesn't drink, she just had coke. And I had two FREE vodka shot because they are on the house, two FREE Guinness Draught (forgot why they are free), and FREE Coca Cola to chase down the vodka shots. It is a lot more cheaper to just tip your server OR bartender than to pay for your non-alcoholic drinks. Trust me on that.

Ready to go out baby!


On our way to the club. Gorgeous view.

December 31st
We got half day off from work, thanks to our lovely boss. So I went home early, took some meds (was feeling a little out of it), took a short nap, woke up and got ready for our annually neighborhood new year's party. Socialized at the a party for a short while, had some food, went home finish reading 'Love in the time of Cholera', count down by myself then my sister came home to wish me Happy Birthday and opened up my burfday presents with me.

Lovely present box from mei. Guess what's in there?


Mei got me "lil mush mush".


Heay got me CLOTH GIRL by Marilyn Heward Mills. YEAY!!!

January 1st
Woke up quite early, planted my rice seedlings in my planter boxes thinking first day of the year should be a good start! Had lunch after that, read some more, took a lil nap. In the afternoon, my parents and sister went to get my cake. We had my burfday cake before we had dinner. =) Dinner was noodle soup.
*Noodles symbolizes longevity for us Chinese due to it being long and "continuous".

Burfday cake: Fruit chocolate mousse cake. Looks ordinary but taste exquisite! Yea you got that right 2 big candles and 5 small ones. =)


Want some?

January 2nd through 4th
I worked.

January 5th
My first day as a tutor for Science and Maths!!! YEAY!!! My first student is age 12 going on 13. He is quite a smart boy, so I'm happy. After work, went to town for lunch with dad and this nice lady from temple. They were (and still are) trying to convince me to go back to temple to help. Hehe. Dinner time, Jinn Lin, my old friend came over to our house for dinner. It was good catching up. I convinced her to stay the night because I wanted to follow her for a hike next day morning.

Jinn Lin and I.

January 6th
We arrived the "hiking" place (near Damansara Utama) around 830am, started our "journey" and it didn't end until 1015am. That was, I think, enough work out for the rest of my year... LOL. It was a great work out I tell ya, well at least for a sedentary person like me. We walk up and up and up and up the hill, and many times I thought to myself when is this ever going to end... People say what goes up must come down. Yea that didn't happen yesterday. We went up up up for like 75mins before we could come down. Right now my butt and thighs are hurting. After that, we went home and had lunch. In the afternoon, I managed to squeeze out my last drop of energy to wash my filthy car. I couldn't understand how it got that way when I only washed it last weekend and waxed it. Sheesh! Now that my car is clean , my sister suggested we make chocolate cupcakes so that she could bring it to school. And so we did. We as in my mother and sister. I just sat and watch. LOL.
Later on, at 530pm Effa came to pick up my sister and I for dinner. We went to The Curve where Marche is. Food in Marche is very pricey, it is not somewhere people like us could dine there often. Maybe once in a while definitely not all the time. We got there early so we totally beat the dinner crowd. The food that Effa had was roast beef (I think), salad, mashed potatoes, dinner roll, and a lemonade. My sister and I shared cheese rosti (that's the first thing we saw and smelled), wild mushroom soup, dinner roll, pasta, and I had cream caramel for dessert!
*Marche pronounced as mar-shay means market in French.

People going up and up.


Jinn Lin where your eyes go?


That's what you'll see when you look up.


One ugly looking flower.


Nice outfit Effa.


My cutie with her pasta.


Cream caramel. Have no idea how they came up with the name. Reminds me so much of Creme Brulee. Of course ya can't beat Creme Brulee.


I love taking pictures with food.

Last but not least, I wanna show you my new scarf! Weeeee.... Oh and I just bought another one last night after dinner at The Curve.

Scientific Research

Research according to Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary it means "studious inquiry or examination; especially : investigation or experimentation aimed at the discovery and interpretation of facts, revision of accepted theories or laws in the light of new facts, or practical application of such new or revised theories or laws"
I have a lot of respect for researchers and the people who carries out researches and experiments. Since I started this job at MUST, I learned that I have to learn and know how to extract RNAs, plant's RNA in particular and real time RT-Polymerase Chain Reaction amongst other fun things. Well I had some extraction practices using Heay's E. coli. But today was my first time extracting plant RNA from O. rufipogon, one of the rice strains. The result? Not as good as it could have been. First of all, my rice leaves weren't fresh from plant. It is very important to have fresh leaves to work with when dealing with RNA due to rapid degradation of RNA. Second, when I had to grind up my rice leaves, I found out that I was running low on liquid nitrogen. So my grinding didn't went well. Lastly (at least I hope that's my last mistake), maybe I wasn't gentle enough and cautious when pipetting my sample and reagents. The suction created by pipetting might actually tear apart those fragile RNA structures. *The electrophoresis gel shows that there were a lot of degradation of RNA. So one (in this case, ME) MUST pipette samples gently. Then after the process I have to run the RNA through an electrophoresis gel and quantify it using a spectrophotometer. On top of all that my boss won't be in for today and tomorrow so who can I go to for answers??
Back to my point, my respect for those people for do researches for a LIVING and INTEREST and PASSION and LOVE for science. So today I only did RNA extraction for ONE strain of rice. Can you imagine if I have to repeat this experiment for say ten more strains of rice? And that the result you get is not always what you want to see? And you have to troubleshoot if there's anything wrong with the results? Oh by the way, that person, who has to work with ten or more rice strains, will be me in about three to four months time. I will have plenty of rice strains to work with since Imma start germinating and planting them today!
Wish me luck ppl!

PS. Oh yea and a Happy New Year!!!!!
PPS. Just in case you just realized that you have to buy me my burfday present. Just a book will do! =P LOL.

A trip down memory lane

Now imagine you live in the city, you work in the city. Every single day you can smell the damn city. For just one weekend you are free to go somewhere, where there has nothing to do with the busy/stinky life of a city... and simply be close the the nature. No no we're not going to the beach, we are heading to the mountainous side of my country. Yes I was out of town with my family for the past weekend and a Monday =) to Kampar and Ipoh, Perak in Malaysia. I am happy to go and really glad that we changed our plan from the beach to old town Kampar.
Our family has special feelings for Kampar and Ipoh. My mother and her siblings was born and raised in Kampar until they had to move away to begin new life. Myself was born in Ipoh and spent two years of my life in Kampar being real close to my grandparents. It is the most wonderful feeling to live near them. I remember my mother telling me how sometimes my grandparents would wait for me outside the kindergarten to fetch me home. =)


This is the infamous house number 75. My grandparents had lived here I guess I can say "forever". Before my grandmother left us to go to heaven, we will always gather here to celebrate Chinese New Year. In this little house is where my mother and her six other siblings grew up!


Another view of the house. Yes the house is tiny but it's got everything you need inside =)


On our way to Kampar passing by Bernam Jaya exit. This is our major highway running from North Malaysia to South Malaysia, vice versa.


Doesn't it take your breath away? You won't get this in the city.


More mountains.

After we checked in to our hotel and refreshed ourselves. We took a tour around Kampar town. Totally brought back old memories...

Main street of Kampar.


See that temple back there. When I was about 6, my classmates would tell me stories that happened this temple. And we would sneak outta school during lunch time to come to this temple to pray. My school is next to this temple, it was just a staircase away...


I don't remember much about this bus station. But it was where my mother and her siblings went to to take buses home.


On the second day of our visit, we took local route up to Ipoh instead of taking the highway simply because we could see more. On both sides of the road we can see kampung (village), Malay style houses, lushes trees & mountains, durian stands (where people sell and eat durians), coconut trees and etc. These following photos are taken at fruit stand. We decided to swing by to get some fruits before reaching my grandparents cemetery.


These are rambutan, has clear flesh like longan, tastes sweet & a little sour, has it own fragrance. Yum.


Heay and I posing with bananas.


Erm... not too sure whats it called in English. Never tasted it either...
**I found out what this is from my boss. The name is Soursop, same family as Noni fruit. ^^


Yea this too. I got no names for it... Looks creepy I know. The green round fruit at the top hanging is called Pamelo. I can tell ya it definitely tastes better than grape fruit! ^^ TEAM PAMELO!!!! LOL.

After we visited our grandparents where they rested in peace. We found our way to this nice old lady's house in Ipoh. She is our grandpa's father's brother's wife. Tho she is at the age of 90, she speaks with wit and is very funny! Oh and she is still very alert, good memory and had the energy to entertain us for three hours straight, no afternoon nap no coffee break, nothing. =) Tho that was my first time meeting her, I am hoping it will not be the last either...

That's her sitting next to me. =)

During this trip, we obviously ate a lot and gained a few pounds but it is all worthy. If you want to see some photos of the foods, you could probably visit Heay's blog at yinkheay.blogspot.com. And now I would like to end this blog with this picture. This is what I'll always remember when I think of Kampar & Ipoh. La familia.

I wish you get what you want for Christmas too.

You know how I was patiently waiting for my Christmas gifts to arrive. So yesterday I got home as usual. Said hi to my mother and auntie and when I'm about to walk up stairs to take a shower I spotted two boxes sitting on one of our tables at home. I quickly ran over and take a look at the boxes and both of them are addressed to me!!! I jumped up and down, asking my mother how could she not tell me that my gifts have arrived? Mind you I spoke to her on the phone early yesterday when I was at work! And she said "oh I forgot to tell you".
I'm a very impatient person, I didn't waste one second to open my presents. And so I did. I'm stoked yo!!! I got exactly what I wanted for Christmas, Hawaiian style slippers, my undies from GAP, the Post Secret book, snacks from Hawaii, University of Hawaii's apparel AND my best friend Rina include a flip flop book marker in my book. She said that she couldn't get me real slippers therefore she got me this really cute book marker. Thoughtful and wonderful eh? And Carol, she is awesome! She sent me a Hawaiian Christmas card. I'll take picture of it and show it to you. Trust me, its not like you can just get them in your local Hallmark store. It is only available in Hawaii! =)
They totally made my day, my week and my month!!! I am blessed to have them in my life after years of friendship. It is not about the gifts at all (Well of course the gifts make it extra special). It is about things that we do for our best friends... Awww I miss and I love you guys so much....

*You might wonder, why is this chick asking for a pair of slippers for Christmas? The answer is I don't like what they are selling here in KL. AND they usually don't have my size because of my gigantic feet. Muahahahah.
**Erin in case you are reading this. Don't worry about the package gettin here before Christmas. I'll be just as happy no matter what or when. =) Love you!

To serve or not to serve?

For those of you out there deciding to put your foot forward to study overseas and those whom are already out there doing your thing. Have you ever thought of where your future would be? Or where do YOU want YOUR future to be?

If you have read my previous blog, you would know that I'd lived outside of my country for a number of years... I had also contemplated over and over again if I should move back to the place where I was born and raised, by having "I want serve my own people" in my mind*. Though I had made the decision to return home. I still question myself from time to time... Well more so after my boss and some of my friends lay this question over me. "Why did you came back?*" I think about who am I serving because I worked at WIC clinic for almost two years in Chicago. Serving Chicagoans everyday, helping women and children there to live a healthful life and helping babies to have a greater chance of surviving. While I should be carin' and servin' "my kind". I know I know, we are all the same, it doesn't matter where we are from and what do we look like. But I bear this conscience day in and out. So, I came back and the obvious reason, my family is here.

*With that my boss raised a very good Q. Do the people that you served appreciate what you have done for them?

I think it is very important for you to think ahead how would you answer these Qs. Did you go overseas to study and get the hell out? OR use it as an excuse to get their PR and eventually serving their people?? Yes people change and things change. You might think this at the beginning and change your mind to that after N number of years... However, it is good to put some thought into it now. So that it wouldn't be such a struggle later on. Some people managed to abandon everything (circle of friends, networks, credit history, way of life, financial benefits, etc) they put together throughout their college lives and go home. Some people cannot. Some people went home, hit a few walls (hard ones), and eventually left again... Who would you be?