Gomen. I know I've been not blogging for a looong time.
Two excuses: (i) very lazy, and (ii) very busy.
The latter is hardly an excuse... it's a fact. Anyway, lots of things had happened, and I can't possibly detail them in one post, so I'll take the short cut and do it
in breve.
I'm hardly a cinema person. The number of times I've stepped into a cinema in my entire life has got to be less than 20. But when I was back home for vacation, I could not resist paying the few bucks to watch Transformers The Movie. And I did not regret it. One of the greatest action movie I've seen. And, oh, the nostalgia. Watching the movie transported me back to my childhood days of Transformers the cartoon, Thundercats, Smurfs etc. Now where is my Optimus Prime toy figure....
My two week holiday in my hometown was the last of my break before commencing my PhD studies. It had been a terribly short, but enjoyable time..... slacking and eating. Come to think about it, I always eat alot when going back home. This time though, we made a weekend trip to KL and stayed in a 5-star hotel at corporate rate and stuffed ourselves mad with good food at every meal. Can't tell you how much I enjoy eating, shopping, and lounging in such luxurious setting for the weekend. Thanks to Mum and her dunno-wat-it's-called membership card.
Since it's the last break before PhD (no term break okay!) commences, I made a point to satisfy my culinary desires to the maximum. Fluffy eggs tarts and exquisite dim sum from Golden Phoenix, Hokkien Mee and Laksa from Pulau Tikus, Spaghetti Aglia Olio from Dome, Korokke from Kirishima, Bak Hu Roti from Uncle at the padang, Yellow-Skin durians from Balik Pulau Ah Pek, Roti Canai from Bt Jambul... I probably ate 4 years' worth of Penang food in two weeks. Once research starts, there'll be hardly time for going home and dig in culinary heaven.
After one month of scouting around for supervisors and projects, I finally made a very difficult decision to return to the lab I was attached for my thesis project. There were alot of factors which I painfully mulled over in choosing a lab for my PhD, but in the end, I decided to work with people I felt would be most enjoyable working with. It was a relief to be released from the heavy-duty decision-making and thinking, and I made a promise to myself that once I had made my decision, I will never look back and will put all my effort to make this coming 4 years an enriching experience.
I was pleasantly welcomed to the lab, because my supervisor was very enthusiastic to have me on board, and all the staff in the lab were equally as warm. On the week I returned to the lab, we had a small party after a meeting to (in parallel) celebrate a colleague's birthday, welcome a new staff and myself to the lab, and to send off two attachment students who will be terminating their internship in the lab. It was really fun, chortling and laughing, and I totally felt at home in the lab.
I would be lying if I said I did not feel a teeny weeny bit unsure or insecure about my decision to do PhD, but an incident last week erased every remnant of this insecurity. It was on an evening approximately 1.5 weeks after I went back to doing lab work.
I was doing data analysis on my computer when my phone rang, and when I answered the call, to my great surprise, it was from the HR of a multinational company. The manager had received my CV from the university and was inclined to recruit me into their company. She first gave a brief promotion about the company and the benefits, i.e. competitive salary and positions, and then asked whether I'm already attached to a company. When I told her I am continuing my postgraduate studies, she sounded surprise, and then instinctively asked, "Masters?.." I said, "No, doctoral," and could literally hear her gasp in astonishment. I was like,
'okay... what's so weird about it'. But it seems she was impressed with my direct-PhD-from-Bachelor programme, and was even more impressed when she found out I was sponsored to do this PhD programme. I didn't think this was all that impressive: considering many Bachelors can do direct PhD and most, if not all, the graduate students in my school are sponsored to do PhD. It is nothing out of ordinary, but it seemed people from the industry like her find it otherwise.
Then it occured to me, hey, PhD is a great choice afterall! I'm doing what I like to do, and people from the industry are actually finding it impressive. So maybe that can be a good selling point upon graduation? Hmmm. After a little talk, she told me to give them a call after graduation, and I went like,
'whoa, can k.i.v. so long one ah?'. But it's kinda nice to know that there is a great value in doing PhD now, and it actually makes me feel glad and proud to be doing PhD now.
- Loan-sharker and loan-sharkee
I didn't know my neighbours owed loan shark money. A few days ago, I was in my room doing data analysis (again) when I heard a voice talking over the phone outside my room in the corridor. I peered out and to my shock, there's a fully armed policeman patrolling the corridor at my door front, all the while talking into his cellphone. I freaked out, afraid that this is one bogus cop with a real gun and ready to attack me outside my door. But he was just patrolling up and down, so I thought maybe some neighbours had complaints and stuff.
But he patrolled for some time, and I became pretty scared, so I ran to the living room to shut all doors and windows. After a while, I heard more voices, but they stopped after my neighbour returned. When my housemate came back, I informed him about the patrolling police and he said it likely our neighbour owed loan shark money. I didn't believe him until he showed me the graffiti on the wall of the stairwell next to our apartment. It has the name of our neighbour scribbled in purple chalk, along with his house unit number, phone number and a demand for money back. My face paled upon seeing such graffiti for the first time. I've only seen such things on newspaper reports and dramas.... never expected it to be outside my room wall.
Thanks to my university sponsoring a symphonic performance, I have a little orchestra madness lately. Last Friday, the Sg Symphonic Orchestra (SSO) was invited to perform in our auditorium, and I took the chance to experience my first live orchestra concert. Admission was free, and the best part is they had a line-up of songs I would love to listen:
Tchaikovsky's Romeo & Juliet: Fantasy Overture
Sarasate's Carmen's Fantasy (violin solo by a very talented violinist)
Alfven's Midsummer's Vigil
I was very excited about watching the orchestra, and very receptive of symphonic music too, thanks to the influence of Nodame Cantabile drama. And boy, did I enjoyed the performance. It was superb. In the auditorium, it's like watching Nodame Cantabile live. The orchestra was fantastic and watching the conductor, it was something like watching Tamaki Hiroshi doing the conducting scene, although this conductor is the real deal of course. I loved every song they played, especially Sarasate's Carmen Fantasy. The violin solo was captivating.
This led me to enthusiastically inviting friends to watch their next act on Sunday, in the Botanic Gardens. In the end, I towed WW, CS and my sister to the Botanic Gardens to listen to classical music in the park. It's my first outdoor classical concert experience, and although I could complain alot about the sound quality (it's bad acoustics without the auditorium walls!), it was nevertheless enjoyable. Of course, such enjoyment did not come without the pains of getting to the park itself. I have never been to the Botanic Gardens, let alone knowing how to get there. In the end, WW and I got lost after taking public transportation based on the streetdirectory.com recommendations, where the bus left us in the middle of a very busy highway, and without walking directions to the park. We finally took a taxi into the garden, which was actually just a turning away from the location we flagged the taxi. I didn't know whether the joke was on us or the irritated taxi driver.
I have been very busy since Day1 of my return to the lab. My supervisor is now in the writing for paper publishing and since my thesis project was in some (remote) way related, I was made to be included in the paper publishing team. Hence, I've been very busy doing experiments to collect more comprehensive and concrete data, which explains the endless data analysis I had to do over these few weeks. Furthermore, I've been orientating and working with the new post-doc on my official PhD project, which is on a pathogenic bacteria, hence all the starting up work has been taking up my time and energy too. It's like, a month ago, I was basically doing nothing, rotting at home, but now I'm so occupied with work that all I want to do when I reach my room is to fall on bed and sleep. However, I can't help but feel fulfilled having a purpose to look forward to each day and I hope to keep up this positivity for the following years.
Okay, this is the extend I will backlog for today. Hopefully, I will have time to drop in again soon... if I'm not doing data analysis, that is.
～みはる～
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