yes, i dont like to change plan once it's decided especially one that i'm looking fwd to and have made other arrangement in order to be available for it.

wont be too annoyed if it's decided monthssss ago i guess, coz it's too long to be sure abt things so far ahead. well unless it's a plan which if cancelled will hv very messy consequences.

so 'surprisingly' last nite, i wasn't disappointed or annoyed at all that our monthly gathering might be postponed. eventhough the postpone can be avoided, if everyone updates the organizer abt their plans which they knew abt from weeks or months ago. [ct, i know you tried but it's her that i'm disappointed abt when i think abt it today. i felt that she doesn't really care?]

today, we had to postpone a dinner plan with my past and present colleagues, which is supposed happen tmr. we had planned this for weeks and started among the 4 of us, then gradually, due to some reason, more and more ppl are involved so ended up 9 ppl are 'invited' in total. we wanted to keep it small, but... well. (and looks like we might need to invite another 2 ppl now coz some 白目的人!! talk abt this infront of someone who wasn't invited)
then all the while, noone said they can't do this week or they can't do this day until monday. ok fine. one is becoz of assignment due on thurs, well she said she doesn't mind a dinner break from her studies so that's fine.
then the other one dunno why, just said on monday that she's busy this whole week so can't make it this week and asked us to go ahead with the plan. thing is, this 2nd person is one of the main person we want to catch up with ar. the rest of us (except 2) are seeing each other almost every single day! >.<
then fine.... postpone lor... next wk.
ask anyday prefer/want to avoid... this 白目的人 said ok no prob.
when decided on tuesday, and i already ask around making sure ppl can do tuesday and most ppl can do tues but hvn't got reply from the 2 main ppl,
then she said tuesday cannot and the reason she had was something she knew far before i first asked her >.< wah lau!! really want to smack her lor.
plus she told me that in front of another person whom we din invite (not becoz we forgot) lor!

okok....
patient... patient....

just found out that another primary schl classmate is working as an air hostess. she's working for Cathay, the first one i heard of is in AirAsia. and then 2nd one is a high schl classmate (guy) working for SIA.
hmm.... interesting....

*lightbulb* mayb i should be a dentist



but it's too late :(

i'm looking for an easier career.
but after u read wat i call an easier career, it should be a job, instead of career.

is there such job where
i dont need much memory, as in like dont hv to rmb every single things i've come across in the field?

that's my main concern of my current 'job'.
i hv to remember and be updated abt everything related to my specific field/topic.
dont mind the doing experiment or thinking a solution to solve some questions or problem part but i just dont hv enough memory space to store everything i need to know.

mayb a job like...

taxi driver will suit me. just drive ur customer wherever he/she wants to go following GPS.
or even a tram inspector sounds pretty easy. get on a tram with ur colleagues (they dont usually work alone right?), check tix check tix, if someone din hv valid tix, give fine ticket following the protocol (see... hv protocol, just hv to rmb the procedure), get off tram and mayb at the end of the day need to write a report for the day?
or a chef/baker? just cook/bake lor, once u find the right recipe, just cook lor. once in a while, invent new recipe, see how customers react to it, then, just cook lor, follow the same recipe. see... hv recipe, only need to rmb and practice.
or a piano teacher? teach student teach student, if they dont get it, basically practice + some talent will do for basic piano playing. then mayb once in a while need to attend those course to update with new exam syllabus etc. well to teach them, u need to hv the knowledge/skills right? to me, for now lar, i think practical side of it is really not that hard to teach ba, since the basics are pretty basic, after so many years of learning, what i still rmb should be it right? but of course with my qualification now, i can't teach properly lar, still need to take up piano teaching stuff. but hey i'm just saying IF lar. it still sound easier than my 'default' career path lor.
or a hairdresser? learn how to cut lor, takes few months only for the course right? then 'practice' while u're working as a hairdresser. then just cut lor, should be able to rmb how to cut u're doin it everyday right?

basically those are things that come and go from day-to-day and eventhough u get slightly diffr job everytime, but they're pretty much the same thing.

career that i would say need more memory:
lawyer and medical doctor: no need to explain right? need to remember every single case from years and years ago before u're even born.
Engineer: er... correct me if i'm wrong... need to rmb details from previous projects, previous problems encountered etc. even basic theory you learned from high school/uni also need to be able to apply right?
Highschool teacher/uni lecturers/tutors: have to be on top of the stuff u're teaching. have to know more than what u're teaching since there're some students out there who will make ur life harder by asking diffc questions outside the syllabus. actually, mayb highschool standard still can manage ba. and once u're in it, every year should be abt the same right? hmm... sounds slightly better than those previous ones.

not sure abt accountants etc from the non-science sector.

i guess, the easy jobs are those at the lower end of the hierarchy.
eg in my field, if u're a research assistant (not saying RAs are at the bottom of the hierarchy ok!! there're still honours or undergrad student etc etc out there :P), things that you need to worry is much less. most of them only do what they're told (i do know some RAs who are very keen and active in their projects). and if hv any problems encountered, all you need to do is go to your boss/supervisor and ask for help (tho it's what i'm doin now). of course must try a few solutions before asking for help lar. and if still doesn't work, it's not YOUR project, so you won't have as much pressure as your boss/supervisor who is the one in charge of the project. diffr is... if there's anything you're not sure when being questioned, there's always the boss there to help u. well my supervisor is also helpful lar but he expects me to know my project better than he does lor, and he really mean it! >.<

am i complaining too much?

okok... back to my reading...

I should and need to read more

my confirmation on coming thursday,
first practice talk on monday. >.<
handed in my progress report on thursday after my supervisor gave me back my 'draft' on that same morning.

I'm starting to worry abt my short-term memory.
i've been reading papers since 2 years ago, but now if you ask me to tell you abt the paper, i can't! i can't tell you more than 1 sentence abt the paper. i'm pretty sure i understood that paper when i read it.
well, some papers i read i dont really understand at the end of it, but some i do understand lar.
woke up at 7am to continue another paper (from last nite) which i've read few years ago
and then went back to read this other paper, which i first heard abt it when my supervisor presented it in our lab meeting, which i'm suppose to read it before the meeting but honestly i didn't. so i read it after the meeting coz only found out it's actually very related to my project :S
then now i hv to read it again carefully in detail coz i dont rememebr anything from it!! eventhough there're highlights and notes scribbled on that printed paper!! i even forgot to mention abt that topic in my Introduction of my progress report (that's how i realised i really hv to read that ppr again)

after reading it very carefully, more careful than last time (coz i think i figured out something that i didn't understand last time), i have this conclusion:
reading papers is actually quite fun. :$ i can learn/know what other ppl are doing in my field which is important to keep urself updated, and learn new knowledge/facts that ppl discover from their research.
i know it sounds nerdy but surprisingly that was my first thought after finishing that paper!!!

Eventful 2009

mid march
confirmation
hazard test :$

april
parents visiting

early may
perth conference + short holiday

june
......

july
....... (go ski?? or mayb can fit driving test here? >.<)

early august
giving my first 'public' talk, outside my lab and it's not accessed. it's during what we called the 'cross group meeting', once every month for our theme (the whole MCRI is divided into 8 themes, where each themes has a number of individual labs.
(or put ski here? can't decide myself anyhow)

end sep/early oct
cousin visiting

nov
bro's wedding + my short holiday :)

dec
............


Looks like a pretty busy year.
can sort of 'see' myself until the end of the year, which is kind of bad i think...
coz it'll feel like this year is going to pass very quickly.
just like this coming long weekend, thou hv some plans already, hv been looking fwd to it since monday and it's (only) thursday today, but i can see myself feeling it's tuesday and back to work again. so dont really want the weekend to arrive yet.
it's just weird. dunno how to explain

suppose to clean toilet and do the vacuuming, it's my turn this week

suppose to read the paper i've just printed out, for lab meeting tmr

suppose to read over my progress report before sending it to my supervisor tmr

but i am

drinking the new black label apple rockmelon honeydew juice... tastes bit strange and has the thick saliva feeling at the end which i dont like.

feel like going to the city... to buy a clock for the living room and i spotted dress on friday which i might like :P am paying attention to dresses nowadays, for november :)

singing with liangjingru (since housemate not in, can sing out louder :P) and manage to convince myself that my computer speaker is still good :)

I think i'm back to the days where my curiosity is what 'dragging' me to my next day.
was still on holiday mood yday, but now i hv that little feeling of "can't wait to find out tmr the results of my experiment i did today!"

A senior postdoc said to me before... wat makes her enjoy staying in science is the happiness and satisfaction of discovering and learning new things through doing experiments or reading journal papers, and helping her students. But she doesn't like writing grants and all the paperwork.
so yea... that's basically the major part of the work as a researcher in science.

not thinking too long yet... just want to finish my phd asap for now and not suffer too much :P

It's Melbourne again...

I'm back in Melbourne.... aih....

on thurs morning...
we actually touched down on time but were stuck on the plane for an hour becoz a Qantas was still in our bay for some reason. and there were no other suitable bay available at that time.

thurs nite...
new flatmate moved in.
was quite looking fwd to it but hope we get along well.
at least she's not a total stranger to me. our mums knew each other since high school.

fri morning...
went back to work for the first day.
already have cells to harvest at 10am! thought i won't need to see them when i come back, but too bad that they are super-slow-growers, they still need me to take care of them.

sat morning...
it's valentine's day! but nothing exciting for me.
woke up, went market, catch up with all the kangxi i've missed since i went back, well not every single one i watched lar... skipped one or 2 which doesn't seem interesting to me... learned that a person can actually watch kangxi until feel sick de :P had instant noodles for dinner... the 2nd packet of inst noodles since i came back :S

sunday...
did nothing.
woke up, had lunch, chatted with my flatmate for quite a while... luckily she's a 'talk-able' person coz i dont really talk much. :$
long time didn't have ppl to talk to at home d (except when my family was here lar).
dinner time... we cooked tgt and ate in front of the tv.
long time didn't hv ppl to eat with at home d (except when my family was here lar).

and now... it's midnite already, and then it's monday again :S
still on holiday mood. but somehow look fwd to doin my experiments tomorrow.
but not look fwd to writing up my progress report etc for my confirmation which is on 19th march :(

should be sleeping now...
nite...

How much can you trust a stranger?
i'm always paranoid, don't easily trust ppl, strangers especially.

How long does it take to know you can trust that person?
whether it is to trust him/her for once or for the rest of your life?

all depends on the feeling and the interpretation?

My bday weekend

Oh nooooo!!! it's almost over!!!! :(
it = my birthday weekend.
while JayChow is celebrating his bday somewhere in the northern hemisphere, i'm celebrating mine here in Melbourne

started on Friday...

On Fri lunch time, our lab had a joint bday party in a kid's party style.
coz our lab usually hv cake for everyone's bday, as in the next bday person buys cake for today's bday person and so on. and there are 4 of us whose bday is just back to back: 17 18 19 20 jan. So instead of hving 4 cakes in a row, we had a joint bday lunch
we prepared all sorts of sugar-overloaded food which usually appears in a party for Aussie kids:






































well except that soy bean lar :P A colleague from Japan brought that.
and there's soft drinks like Creaming soda, rasberry and solo. and the creaming soda (a pink/brown fizzy drink which tastes like the A&W root beer) is their childhood favourite.

then friday dinner...
Peking duck at Old Kingdom











The dinner is also for Marius' bday.

then sat lunch...
Crepes at Fraus with Canny (who used to do PhD in my lab, now my fren :) ) and Joy












then to a colleague's new house for her bday/housewarming/bump party
[no photo for this one]

then dinner at YingThai on Lygon
























then went to their place for mahjong... until the 'surprise' at midnite from 2 diffr groups of friends (CTG and biomed), where one from each group so happen to be high school friends.

























Sam baked the cake on the left. and my biomed frens bought the one on the right :)
stayed till 2 something am? before i went home. then dunno to sleep or not. haha... coz going for yumcha the morning 11am session. and i hv few 'new toys' to play with if i really dont want to 'waste' my bday on sleeping :P
but after shower, played with the digital photo frame from my CTG frens for awhile, uploaded some photos on fb, then went to sleep at i also dunno wat time is that. haha!

on Sunday, the real day...
woke up before my alarm which is suppose to go off at 9am.
online for a bit, installed iTunes for the nano from my biomed frens, had some of my bday cake (i woke up with a hungry tummy :P), then shower, then cut up some of the cake for Jess, then wrap Marius' other present (we already gave him one yday nite), then went yumcha at Templestowe.












then went Doncaster Westfield.
a newly renovated/extended shopping mall. the best in Melbourne so far.
then watched 7 pounds.... a really sad movie. didn't expect it to be this sad. but it's really touching.
then shopping at Coles
then Sam let me drive back to city :D hope my driving wasn't too bad. well, minus the tram 'ding-ing' at me outside europa, and the very close right turn into queensberry st, and the hump i missed, still ok ba hor... Sam and Kelv? :P

then after leaving the groceries at home, went out for dinner with YeeFei at OldTown @ Chinatown...















then home....
shower....
replying fb walls...
now blogging...
and it's 11.58pm now!!!! :S
i think this is the longest time i spent on typing up a blog entry, and with the most photos posted :)

conclusion:
had a great great bday weekend.
even better than my 18th and 21st bday!!!
thanks guys!! :)

This is my first 'proper' bday with my CTG friends,
my 2nd bday with my biomed frens,
my first one with Canny, and
my first one with YF in Melb.

and i just had my first proper xmas in melb and the first new year countdown in melb.

liang jing ru's new EP brought me to this tw drama series

and just found out that it's also the soundtrack for another chinese movie!



eh and this song is also from that same movie



then sam told me he sang that first song too

was browsing through a stranger's class photos on facebook coz a few of my friends were tagged in there. and then think think....
hmm.... i didn't seem to have a proper class photo since after primary 3 (dont remember seeing my own class photo from P4-6. i was in a diffr school). the only 'class photo' i can think of was one we took at the end of the sports day in form 5, but everyone was in our 'class t-shirt'.
then i went to look through my photo album, i have one single photo album with me here, printed hard copies of photos from trinity and some before trinity with my high school mates and a few were taken during my holiday in msia after trinity before first year uni.
and i found out there're a few 'class photos' there from high school but none were the 'formal' sitting/standing properly ones which were taken by a photographer. the class photos i hv were like from the effort initiated by our own classmates, taking in school with everyone 'gathered' around our 2 teachers, some squatting, some sitting on the fence. one other was taken at a teacher's farewell. nothing formal or proper and tend to miss out parts of somebody's face.
so erm... i dont think i remember all of my teacher's face, not to say their names lar.

只有家人可以理所当然

Happy New Year!!!!

spent my first 'new year day' in melbourne today.
for the past, i would be in msia at this time of the year. usually sleeping when then rest of the world is doing the countdown. i never been to any countdown celebration, whether it's for the new year or xmas or national day. well, the only 'countdown' i've done was for chinese new year lor. haha. will be at penang, waiting for the clock to strike, then all the fireworks that i can watch from grandma's place.
eventhough i spent my new year eve with my fren, we didn't hv the countdown bit. i think i was singing (we went karaoke) when i put up my hp to my frens which says 00:00 and that's it... "welcome 2009"!! no fireworks, no countdown. but all the wishes to each other.
hmm.... will it be too early to say it now that i want to countdown to 2010 in sydney? :D they have one of the best fireworks at the syd harbour bridge every year. and fireworks hv been my all-time fav.

still remember wat i wrote as my new year's resolution 2008.
dont think i've met all of them last year (yea.. 08' is 'last year' already) but ppl usually dont finish up wat they aim for right? :P
hvn't been thinking abt my new resolution for 2009.
dont think i want to have any of those since everyting is unpredictable.
i guess the only thing i want for 2009 is to learn to put up with things.. unpredictable ones especially.
nothing is perfect. anything is possible. so should learn to live with any changes in our lives. sometimes it's good if we can 'correct' those imperfections but if it already happened, mayb i should try to 'get used' to it? nothing is for ever.

Happy 2009 everyone!!
and i do appreciate the time u spent here. :)
*hugs*

1/4 life crisis

not sure whether this is wat i call 'quarter life crisis', or it's just another time of 'lost' in life

wasn't thinking abt anything when mum is here in melb, only think of where to bring them to eat and stuff.
then suddenly, 3 'bad things' happen in a row (well 1 is expected and 1 sort of unexpected) in 4 days.
now i'm thinking wat do i actually want.

went to a friend's phd graduation today then dinner. then catch up with some old friends after dinner.
and now i'm thinking wat am i doing in my life. wat do i really want to achieve.
during undergrad, nothing much to worry coz i keep pushing it back until i graduate.
so wat actually do i want??!! after phd, then???
and before getting my phd, in that 2, 3 years to come, does that mean my life will be the same like now until then?! i dont want!!!!!
life is short! seriously!! and unpredictable!!!
after seeing what happened recently to some ppl around me.
:( i'm so lost ):

Hate December 08'

Mum and grandma left for home late last nite.
Hate sending ppl off at the airport, coz usually I’ll cry. Including sending my bro to syd last time for the first time. And if I’m the one who’s leaving, I’ll also cry, except if I’m going elsewhere for holiday coz I’ll come back again quite soon.
Last nite, saw mum’s eyes were wet. That was the 2nd time I saw her like that at airport. The other time was beginning this year, when bro leaving to come back to aus from his holiday in msia. Does that means she’s been like that everytime I left kl to come back to aus?? or it's just for my bro

Hving my family here… is good but frustrating.
Good coz they’re my family wat.
And I hv company, bring them around, bring them eat nice food, buy them stuff that they want from here.
Frustrating coz I’m not used to how they deal with certain things like household chores.
And when I finally get myself adjusted, they’re leaving. Which means it takes weeks for me to adjust ?!?!?!?! :S
feels really stupid abt that myself coz those are things that I shouldn’t really care of and should just let them do watever since I can just revert everything back once they leave. But it took me awhile to ‘learn’ to tahan and shut my eyes and don’t care.

There’s another thing that I’m ‘遗憾' abt is not playing Rolie for my mum eventhough she asked me a few times already. Even at home, I tend to play/practice my piano when noone else is at home. Dunno why … I just feel uncomfortable to play when my family is around whereas I’m totally fine if my frens are around. :S and also I don’t hv the good mood to play Rolie with all these frustration around me.
____________________

My 2nd supervisor was just diagnosed for pancreatic cancer
Heard that it’s usually terminal. A fren’s grandfather had it and passed away 5 months after that.
______________________

Grace is still leaving. But might come back in few months? years? time.

tell me tell me.... Am I a control freak????!!!!

1) I dont like ppl sitting on my bed unless they're wearing clothes which have 'no contacts' with the 'outside world' eg clean/fresh ones from the washing. i dont wear my pyjamas to sit on my own dining chair and i only recently 'allow' myself to wear my pyjamas on my own couch sometimes.
2) I have a cloth (pillow case) on my computer chair for 'clean bums' and i'll remove the cloth if anyone else wants to sit on that chair. i myself dont sit on the chair at all if i still hv my pants from outside
3) I dont step on my toilet mats if i'm wearing my bedroom slippers.
4) I'm very anal abt ppl drying their hands with the cloth for drying cleaned dishes.

5) I dont like to share filtered pipette tips with other ppl unless i see them close the lid once they take the tip from the box.
6) I don't 100% trust most other ppl's experiment results especially when those results matter to my experiment/project.

7) I'm annoyed when ppl don't leave things back like how they find it. whether it's a glue/scissors in the office, or like turning off my printer after using. i'm perfectly fine with ppl using those things but just put them back pleeeease!!
8) I'm annoyed when mum put anything other than teaspoons (or any cutlery of that size) in the middle partition of my cutlery drainer which is meant for smaller sized cutlery.

9) I dont like last minute change of plans unless i'm expecting it to happen.
10) I also dont like having last minute plans unless i'm bored or have no other things to do. even plans that doesn't involve me but only ppl around me.
eg1 last minute saying dropping my grandma at my place and then when she is here only i was told that they coming to pick her up at 11pm. Not that i dont like hving grandma over, it's just... hullo... my place is not a 24hr on-call baby sitter place... at least let me know earlier can?!
eg2 already plan with mum and aunt to bring them to the vic mart nite market then when i happily reached home from lab at 5.15 (very rare nowadays for me to reach home before 6pm ok!!), found that aunt and xxyy are still out in the city dunno wat time they coming back, they dont hv hp for me to contact with and dunno wat time is zz coming to pick up xxyy and grandma. then ended up my grandma doesn't want to go (well, also it's not very convenient for her to go coz will get too crowded and we hv to walk there from my place, i can't drive) so someone has to stay at home with her. and coz i'm already annoyed with all those 'unexpected circumstances', i chose to stay home and have instant noodles for dinner.

11)... can't think of one at the moment

actually, I sound like a clean-freak too
but hey, if u come to my place, u'll know i'm not as clean/tidy as a clean-freak. so... mayb i'm more of a control freak?! :S

We can choose who to be our friends
but too bad we can't choose our relatives