Why is it week 8 already!?!?!

Yaho!

Time never flew this fast last semester! Ultimate gheyness ftw!
I think I failed Physiology... The mid-semester exams were just depressing. But the labs have been pretty fun in the recent weeks. In week 7 it was cutting up a sheeps heart and using palpation and auscultation method to determine diastolic and systolic pressures of the heart. In week 6 I got to cut open an anaesthetised toad. I named her Sally (it probably was a male toad since there weren't any eggs but I was in a Sally-dissecting mood). First thing I took out of Sally's tiny incision were his lungs. They look really nice under the microscope. One could see blood flowing through maze of capillaries shimmering from the light of the Nikon microscope. We were supposed to be "ethical" when handling Sally so we weren't allowed to take pictures. I had to stick Sally's lungs back through the small hole and then locate and pull out his bladder. It was pretty full, good thing I didn't pop it otherwise I'd have toad pee all over. It was surprising resilient to my enthusiastic handling. I'm usually a lot more delicate but I was having a ball of a time with Sally since no one else on my bench dared to cut open a living toad. (I was probably having way too much fun than a "normal" person would!) The transparent sac of the bladder had sprial vessels but Sally's was so full they were stretched out so they didn't look as pretty under the microscope. After viewing it and making sure he was still moist with the anaesthetic, i had to tuck Sally's bladder back in but much to my dismay, Sally's bladder seemed to have developed a liking for the outside world and would ever so often pop back out when I was fiddling around looking for the mesentry in the small intestine. The blood vessels were pretty big and we managed to see some leucocytes rolling around in the blood vessels. Sally was a wonderful toad that didn't smell at all, unlike Bob that had an odour pungent enough to penetrate my Bvlgari Aqua Marine barrier! The prac was coming close to the end. We had to notice was the effects of adrenaline application and haemorrhage via severing the femoral artery. I must say, Sally wasn't very good at bleeding at all! But we did get to notice the haemodilution. The last thing we had to do before the end of the practical was to sever Sally's heart. No one else at my bench really wanted to do it but I didn't want to miss out on the opportunity to remove Sally's still beating heart from his body. I didn't do a very good job though, I cut too low, severing the aorta instead so blood just squirted on the bench. Good thing it didn't get into anyone's eye though! It was still beating even after it was removed. I held Sally's tiny heart in my hand. It was such an interesting feeling. That practical was probably the best practical so far!

Well, week 8 is about to start, the weather is getting colder so I get to dress up a bit more :D I'll put up some recent pictures in a while if I can remember to get it done! (Added below!)

semi-taitai gaze

Close upThe infamous duck-pout. As you can probably tell, I don't do this in public.

Lurbs yew long time,
Jo(n)
(Sorry my train of thoughts are quite broken up at the moment so my post might not be as logical as I'd have liked it to be.)

It's been a while, hasn't it?

Hello Possums,

Sorry for the long intervals between my posts. I have indeed grown lazy in blogging even though it's been set as one of my homepages. Well, I shall endeavour to fill in the gaps for you even though everything seems so hazy now.

Let's start with the most recent week...
Week 5
This week has been pretty hectic since it's just before the Easter/Mid-Semester Break. I've had 3 assessments this week. First up for Tuesday was an online quiz for Physiology. That quiz was really hard. I met up with my other friends at the student lounge (I will try to take pictures of it for you guys one day) to tackle the 10 questions. There is a time limit of 20 minutes. When I got there from my previous class, one of my friends had boldly initiated her quiz. She had given up and requested for my assistance. I did my best to help her with the ones she didn't know as time was running out and we managed to get her a 65%. She was pretty satisfied that she passed in the end and appreciative of my help. I was more grateful to her as it had given me the chance to assess the difficulty of the questions before I attempted it. There were 3 other "martyrs" that didn't care either ways and asked me for my help to get their quiz done for them. I seized the opportunity to ascertain the correct answers through a series of deliberations and eliminations. By the time it came to mine and my other friend's turn, we managed to get 90%. From that I managed to get all the answers. Me being the lovely, charitable person that I am, gave the answers to my other friends. Indeed, they got full marks for it. I was happy to help. (Would have been happier if they were hot guys :p)

I had my first maths assessment after that. It went on for 45 minutes. 8 minutes before the assessment ended, the evacuation alarm rang! The same thing happened last evening (Monday) during the final segments of my BioChemistry lecture, which Mr. H didn't attend anyways... So we filed out in the most disorderly array imaginable. It was rather exciting. During the assessment, Mr. H was calling me to find out where I was as we were to have a study session for BioChem after my exam. Anyways, the assessment didn't go too badly. I didn't know how to do 2 questions. I scored 25/30. Good thing is that because of the interruption during the exam, everyone will be awarded an extra 3 marks so that makes it 28/30. I was slightly disappointed that I was 2 marks shy from full marks. Oh well, I will strive for better marks next time.
Mr.H ditched me on Tuesday to study at home. That was because I didn't reply to his message which he sent at like 7:00 am. God, as if I'd be awake at such an hour! Anyways, it had been postponed to Wednesday. I had written up some notes already and he stole them from me... Mr. H is quite a bully. But everyone agrees he has the most charming smile ever! Oh well, I'm not at any disadvantage. In fact, by having him depend on me, it has become some form of motivation to make sure I'm on top of things. We studied for about one and a half hours before going home. I met Bee Bee on the way down the campus walk and caught a lift back home from my eldest sister. That was way better than catching the bus any day. I spent most of the day studying for the BioChemistry mid-semester exam tomorrow.

On Thursday, I met up with Mr. H in the hour break I had before the exam to study. I reminded him of certain things like the cofactors of the tricarboxylic acid cycle and protein structure. Indeed, that appeared in the exam. I was somewhat disappointed that he forgot one of the cofactors. It was a really easy question in the exam. Oh well, he seemed pretty confident that he'd pass anyways.

That night, my sisters and I went to the theatres to watch "The Boat That Rocked". It was a really good movie. We bought Southern Comfort and Midori from the Liqueur Store. I made a cocktail with the Midori and we had bourbon coke as well.

On Friday, we went to church for the Good Friday service and again on Sunday for the Easter Sunday service. All in all, it's been pretty good. I just hope I can stay focused and get my work done this week instead of slacking off too much.

Week 4
This week went along as per normal, nothing too spectacular happened except for a major disaster on my part during the BioChemistry lab. I wasn't feeling "normal" that day. I just felt so out of sync with everything. My breathing was heavier than usual, I had palpitations, my hands were quivering more than usual. My screwed up my lab so much today. I screwed up the first time by adding the wrong amounts from the micro pipettes. Instead of adding 50 micro litres, I added 500. I felt like an idiot but it was a good thing that was reasonably early in the procedures. Starting over, I made sure I had calibrated the instrument properly but I seemed to have "spaced out" and started to add the wrong reagents. I was feeling really frustrated. I have never made such a huge blunder in my entire academia. To make so many mistakes in a row was just infuriating and it wasn't as if I hadn't read the instructions before the lab. I had done all my pre-lab readings and I knew what was going on, I just ... can't explain myself. But I felt so low that I had to leave the lab to regain my composure. I was really thankful to have wonderful friends in the lab who sat behind me as they saw me struggling and helped me to set up my experiment for the third time as I went out to drink water. The experiment shouldn't have taken very long but due to my negligence, the entire lab had to wait for me to get my results before they could continue to the next part. I felt so embarrassed. Mr. H was totally unfazed he didn't do much this lab, like every other lab. He was pretty much clueless as to what to do but he did try to cheer me up though. He was kind enough to make sure I didn't faint. I ended a bit late as I had to clean up. Mr. H bailed out on me and disappeared.
I don't mean to offend anyone out there but from my deductions, generally, the good-looking guys are usually the not-so-intelligent ones. Well, that was the "big" thing that happened in Week 4.

I don't really remember what happened in Week 3 anymore but it should have been as per normal. Back to today, I've recently got my hands on Left 4 dead. It's a pretty fun game. Going on a rampage, making the undead eat lead, getting raped by overempowered uber zombies. Ah, good times. I've also found some very nice artwork by this lady that goes by the alias Heise (黑色). She has pretty provocative themes. Hope you like these.

I love the winged helmet. Very Valkyrie.

OMGWTFBBQPORK! Kinkinessssss!

"You're mine now, it's pointless to resist" *shocking!* I'd like to be the guy with white hair, thanks! :D

Bishounen artwork for the win!!

I'm currently listening to Bach's Chaconne for Solo Violin while the falling rain outside creates a muffling curtain with a soft resonating percussion complimenting this melancholy piece.

I hope everyone is well, my hair has grown longer so the hairstyle has changed a little bit :) Anywhos, that's all for now.

Lurbs yew long time,
Jo(n)

Second Week is over, here comes the Third!

Hi y'all,

How is everyone doing? Hopefully a lot better than I am! So the 2nd week of Uni is over... I can safely conclude that Maths and Physiology makes me suicidal. After the lecture on Friday, I felt like paper-cutting my wrist a few times and soaking it in a cocktail of salt, lemon juice and alcohol... Those lecturers were really [insert word here] ... I can't think of a proper word that encapsulates their innate ability to drown students in boredom and bewilderment.

Moving on, I've set out to make friends with the cute guy from my biochemistry class and I'm proud to announce that contact has been made, and rapport establishment is well underway. I introduce to you, Mr. H. He's 20 this year, tall, Caucasian with one of the most seductive smiles and a playful glint in his eyes. His preference of alcohol is mainly Vodka. Downside is he's rather impatient or lazy, or both. I've deduced this from our first biochemistry lab together. He's my lab partner. The silly yet good looking boy was too impatient to plot points for his graph so he ended up just drawing a straight line and handing it in. Obviously this didn't work, he came back to the table with that mischievous grin of his and just "x"-ed a few points on the graph with 1 or 2 near the graph. I think the lab demonstrator gave in and just let him go. Ahaha, can't believe he pulled it off. Well, on Friday, we met up in the library and I helped him with that lab report. He reminds me a lot of someone I used to like as well. Same character, same physique, just that H. is slightly bit more better looking. I will try to analyse him more but that is all I have to report for now.

I need to get ready to catch the bus to Uni... I have a 2 hour maths lecture first then a 2 hour break and a 1 hr biochemistry lecture to end the day. Oh well, the only consolation is that H. will be there, at least I think he will.

Take care till next time!

Lurbs yew long time,
Jo(n)

The First Week Back

Hi ya'll

Apologies for such a long intermission, but then again, it's not as if you guys are dying to find out what's going on in my life anyways.

So university has started all over again. I'm now in my 1st year, 2nd Semester but I'm mostly doing my 2nd year subjects. The subjects for this term are: Biochemistry 2181, Physiology 1A, Safety, Health and Environmental Hazards (toxicology module), and Math 1031 (for life science because I'm too stupid to do the harder one :p)

The university is once again filled with tons of people. From up the walkway, all you can see is a sea of heads (mostly black - asian hair). I shall attempt to take a picture of it one of these days.

Classes have been about the same, I have 6 hours of labs on Wednesday.Everything seems like such a bore. I've lost almost all motivation. With that said, there is a hot guy in my class now. He was in my math tutorial last semester. This semester he's in my Physiology and Biochem lectures. He seems rather lonely. He sits by himself. I think I will try to make friends with him. Just for the record, he's just good eye-candy.

I've been trying to go to bed early nowadays otherwise I'll look like crap in the morning so it's to bed by 0100 hours. Sigh, uni life seems quite tiring. 22 hours of lesson per week, 24 units of credit. That's an estimate of 6 - 10 hours per UoC. Oh well, it's not like I do 6 hours per UoC anyways.

Ok, that should be enough for now, I need my beauty sleep! Till next time, take care darlings!

Lurbs yew long time,
Jo(n)

Exploration? This sounds like fun!

Why didn't I have a book like this when I was a kid?

Hi ya'll. Sorry for not blogging for so long. I don't really have much to blog about but I've got ltos of pictures, well, kinda. Anyways, objective of this blog is to let you know I'm still alive and kicking, maybe not as furiously as I should but it'd be pretty inelegant for me to be caught kicking at all. Anywho...

This was a picture I took down the microscope from my last lab in Biology. I think it's the red blood cells undergoing mitosis. Around the 50 mark you can see the cell getting stretched. That's cytokinesis occuring.


Basket of pandas from the Zoo's gift shop. I thought of Tony when I saw this one. Toneeeeeeh!!

I bought one of the rabbits! They're so adorable! And they fit in my palm!

Polar Bear. Didn't buy him. Yes, it's a him. Because I said so.
Dugong. I didn't buy her. Yes, it's a her. Also because I said so.
Seal. I didn't buy him as well. I didn't want to spend that much money that day.
Another polar bear (i think) with a happier face.

The zoo was pretty fun. There was a fund-raising marathon at the Zoo that particular day. Quite a number of hot guys running the marathon. When they started running, we were at the Orang-Utan area. Some runners stopped to take pictures of the Orang-Utans. I was busy checking out the hot guys to bother too much about the monkeys. Only thing that worried me as if they were going to bombard me with crap from the trees.

Specialised Singapore Edition cups from Starbucks. (This pictures is dedicated to David.)

This is Miga. David sent it to me from Canada. Thanks David for the wonderful gift. I made Miga a male chimera. (Supposed to be a female according to David.)

Miga and Le Lapin. They're on my bed. I've never owned plushies before so these 2 are my first. And at the age of 21 (I know I'll be 22 this year but it's not for another 10 months so bugger off thanks!). Hurray for 2nd childhood!

Hmmm, that's about all. Oh, I almost forgot. This sunday I'll be going to the Victoria Bushfire Benefit Concert at the Sir John Clansey Auditorium at the University of New South Wales featuring performances by the Australia Ensemble @UNSW, The Song Company with William Barton, Sydney Brass, TaikOz, Taryn Fiebig, Diana Doherty, Kathryn Selby and more. I'll be going with Marvin. Should be fun if he mellows out a bit. Marvin is a wonderful guy but he's a bit too boisterous. I feel intimidated by him some times. But generally, he's nice. Marvin, behave yourself! =p

That's all.

Lurbs yew long time,
Jo(n)

Le Escapades de Singapura

Outside Queensway Shopping centre, opposite Alexandra Fire Station

Hello,



Sorry for the long absence. I've been out alot. I'll try to summarise things since there'd be alot of bitch about if i didn't. Continuing with the second day of the Kuching trip, it was raining alot. We went to visit the last one remaining from my grandparent's generation, my grand aunt. She's quite hilarious and in rather excellent condition given her age. We spent quite a while there. Spent a long time searching all over Kuching for this traditional delicacy called Kueh Jalah (I think that's how it spelt. That's how it sounds like anyways). Went to a relatively new shopping complex called Spring for dinner. The size wasn't too bad. Went back to my cousin's house and played with their 7 dogs while my niece had to get ready to go to bed for school tomorrow. My aunt brought us back home to rest.
The following day we were scheduled to leave back to Singapore at 16 25 hours. We had lunch with my grandaunt at this restaurant called Heritage. It was pretty good. Alot of food. I bought myself diamonds at DFS. Got back to Singapore around 17 30 hrs. The flight was pretty fast. Took a taxi to my uncle's place at Bukit Timah. Their house is reaaalllly big! Had dinner at their place and caught up with my younger cousins. Went to bed early, had to go to church the next day.
The church hall was renovated and was larger since the last time I was there. My dad had informed the pastor that we'd be in Singapore and going to church so there was no way my sister and I could have skipped church. We left after the service and went to Orchard. Met up with my cousin who's the same age as me. Had tea at Royal Copenhagen. It's my favourite tea place in Singapore. Had Earl Grey Tea with blueberry cheesecake and scones. It was really good. Caught "Bride Wars" before meeting up with my older sister for dinner at Great World City. We went to Crystal Jade for dinner. Picked up some stuff from her place and went back home.
On Monday, we went to town, withdrew our daily allowance of S$200 and went shopping around. In the afternoon, went back to my NS camp with 2 of my camp mates to visit some of our officers. The new guys cold slack off so much, we were rather envious! In the evening, my sister went to meet her friend, and I had dinner with Sukebe, Yang, and Sukebe's friend Gerald. (Sukebe said he was hot. I trusted him. I was disappointed.) We had dinner at Din Tai Fung. Sukebe paid for me because he made me wait for him. :p After dinner, Gerald left and we had dessert at Swensens with James. I left early because my little sister was waiting for me outside to catch a taxi back home.
The next few days have been pretty much the same, out to the city, withdraw our allowance from our bank accounts, shop till our feet hurt, have dinner, come back home, sleep. Today (11th Feb) was slightly different. I went to Vivo City, this massive shopping mall. I spent about... $140 on clothes today. It was fun. Had dinner with one of my friends, Alvin who works as a marketing executive for Vivo City. On the way to Orchard road in the evening, I saw the hottest guy EVER! I kid you not, I have not seen anyone else who could "dethrone" him, no one in our blogosphere could be a potential rival. It's as if he's in a totally different league. He was... WOW!! Tall (tallest guy in the train), flawless skin, VERY HOT BODY, well dressed, well groomed, everything just made him so much hotter. My eyes were fixated on him. I was a distance away so it wasn't that obvious. Which my heart was racing and body starting to quiver, there was an obnoxious lady that blocked my view with her head. I had a sudden urge to cut off her head for blocking my view of the Adonis. I was depressed to leave but it was my stop. Went to Zara and put some stuff on reservation. Reserved a long sleeved V neck t-shirt, a scarf and a hoodie with fur lining. Nothing like wearing a fake dead animal for winter. Had dinner with some friends and went walking around till it was around 2200 before going back home.
So nothing much too interesting has happened except for Adonis. He was ... WOW!! That's all I can say. A true Adonis.

Take care everyone!

Lurbs yew long time,
Jo(n)

(Oh and have a happy valentine's day. If you're alone and miserable, you can join my club and we can boycott V-Day together)

Sleepy :(

 

It has been a pretty long day. I got to Singapore on Sunday evening. Warm and humid, not my favourite combination! We had to transit in Darwin. That place is a serious crap hole! The only thing separating the international from domestic is a pathetic glass wall. The didn't have anything good in there at all. Well, their DFS did have Moet & Chandon and Dom Perrignon so I'll give them some credit for carrying it. But other than that, it was pretty sad. Once we landed in Singapore, we headed to the hotel. It was a really small room. But it was acceptable for the price we were paying for it. I would say it's relatively cheap.

The first "official" day we went there began with going to the Australian High Commission to get Bee Bee's expired visa sorted out. Had to pay $246 just for a stupid sticker in the passport. After that it was off to the bank! UOB bank was some ways off so we took the bus. We had our "fun savers" account still in tact there but that was eons ago! We couldn't close the account without our mum's signature but we managed to get a new pass book for the account. Our verification method was still recorded as our thumb print. We attempted to change that into our signature and withdrew $200 while we were at it. It was quite a long wait. I went to deposit some money into my other bank account and then we went shopping! I bought my Yves Saint Laurent L'Homme perfume. It is my signature scent.

Well, I've already got the limited edition barometer-dildo looking one so I got the other one with the metal cap instead. Bought Mushroom Swiss burgers from Burger King and went back to our room for lunch. It was heavenly! Haven't had mushroom swiss for ages! We rest for a bit and went to the Heeren for dinner with Kenji and Terren my army mates. The restaurant we wanted to go to, Lemongrass had closed that branch. We were so disappointed. I really missed that place! We went to Paragon to eat Din Tai Fung instead. After dinner we hung around Orchard. Terren sent us back to the hotel.

The next day we went to Bugis to meet up with James and Rachel. He blogged about it with pictures so I wouldn't go into too much details. He's a really nice guy :D I'm glad we got to meet without Sukebe. After that I had to go back to the hotel to freshen up and drop off our stuff. I went back to town to get the cake for Grandpa with some stuff we'd leave with my sister who was also staying there as we'd be leaving for Kuching in Malaysia on the 4th. I went to see a few salespeople I've made friends with while I was staying near Great World City while waiting to meet up with Lydia as she was coming back from work. I went to Kokoro and bought a box of Yubari Melon Chocolates for one of my relatives. Those chocolates are absolutely exquisite. They're not too sweet and have to soft aftertaste of melon. I've loved those chocolates since the first day I've tasted them. I also went to "That CD Shop". They were having a limited edition release of house music from their own house label called "High Society". It's music that's exclusively to the franchise. Their music director/compiler is Herri Something. I forgot his last name but I really like all the High Society cds he's released. I reserved one of the limited edition sets. It came in the most elegant box which a gold lock and key. That cost about $100 but I had a membership discount card which got me 5% off. I didn't buy it there and then because my sister would have a fit from me spending $100 on cds. We visited the grandparents. It didn't turn out as nasty as I thought it'd would. We had dinner together and Bee Bee and I headed back for the hotel after that.

We got up early to go to the bank again as we'd heading off to Kuching today. I've been withdrawing $200 per day from the UOB bank. So sad, I'm getting poor. We went to lucky plaza to look at cameras. Bee Bee bought a pretty good camera. I didn't buy anything today. We went to Daisou and I bought 2 japanese folding fans. I can do a proper geisha dance now :p We went back to our hotel to repack our stuff before heading to the airport. Oh, during breakfast at McDonalds, there was this pretty hot chinese guy in a long sleeve shirt and a bow tie with a LV bag (I could tell). We caught the plane to Kuching. It was a pretty short flight 1 Hr 20 mins. Wasn't too bad. We were stuck at the airport for a bit because we had calling difficulties contacting our relatives to pick us up. I called Alex but he still didn't come rescue me. What a mole! Anyways, I made it in piece and we went out for dinner and I just got back.

Feeling really sleepy now, nite all,

Lurbs yews long time!!

Jo(n)