Updated Pictures!

Hey Hey,

Been a while since I've posted anything. Thought I'd give a visual update.Pre-Clubbing (most recent one)


With a different eye colour

Other than that, Uni's been quite interesting this semester but it's really hard. Will have to start studying ... soon... =) Wish me luck!

Lurbs yew long time
Jo(n)

Here It Comes Again...

Hi hi,

The holidays are coming to an end. Uni will soon be starting again. What a total bitch... At least I managed to catch up on my sleep deficit but my sleep cycle has been totally fked up as a result of my holiday activities. I sleep when the sun is about to rise and get up when the sun is about to set.

I got my results back a while ago and it hasn't been too bad, except for physiology 1A. I got 2 high distinctions for biochemistry and safety, health & environmental hazards (for toxicology major) and a distinction for maths (yay! I'll never have to take another maths class for the rest of my uni life wooha!) and just a pass for physio - 62/100. What a shitty mark, kinda brought down my average for this semester but this sem has been good in general, it brought up my average so far to a distinction.

Next semester's classes involve... introductory pharmacology & toxicology, physiology 1B (nuuuuu T_T ), molecular biology, and Chinese for beginners! Hopefully studying renal functions, endocrine, gastrointestinal systems and reproductive systems (i think i'm pretty good at this section) will be a lot better than excitable cells in physio 1A.

Time to get a haircut before uni starts. I have these few hairstyles in mind.

I really like the first one but we'll see if the stylist can pull that one off on me. Yay for asian hairstyles!

Will try to update again after the haircut!

Lurbs yew all long time,
Jo(n)

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)

How did it get to this...

Happy Chinese New Year!

Today has been absolutely devastating... It feels as if the fires of hell itself erupted from a scorching cravace and engulfed us all in what seemed to be an eternal conflagration. I managed to seek refuge from this blazing inferno in the wonderfully sanctuary of the law library with it's central air conditioning! It was absolute bliss! While it was a searing 41 degrees outside, I was nice and cosy in the meticulously regulated 24 degrees study area. I was working on the past paper from 2005. It was meant to be 3 hrs long but I took a long time to actually get it done. I worked till Question 6 and went for lunch with Klement who came to study with me. He lived on campus anyways, so it was pretty convenient for him.

We left for lunch at about 12 30 hrs. It was so freaking hot. We dropped off our stuff at his dorm and walked down Kingsford in the blistering heat, deliberating on what to eat. We ended up having Vietnamese for lunch. Both of us ordered the Pho Tai Nam (I think that's what it's called. The raw beef rice noodle soup). The proprietor was kind enough to explain how to "eat" the noodles, at least, she would be kind if she didn't appear so patronizing... Well, she had a problem with the air conditioner because it wasn't cold at all. We finally figured out that she had the silly thing on "heater" mode. We rectified it for her and got on with lunch. We made a quick stop to get bubble tea from Easy Way and made our way back to Uni.

We stopped by his dorm to pick up our stuff before heading back to the library. As I was coming back, I thought I saw someone familiar. I wasn't sure if I knew him or not but I checked my phone to see if he had tried calling me but I didn't receive any calls or texts so I just continued walking up the stairs to the library. I tried to study but I had quite a number of toilet breaks. I felt like I was pregnant, having to shuttle to and fro. I kept working on the paper till about 1650 when the library was closing. I was so depressed from the crap-shack of an attempt at the chemistry paper and I dreaded having to leave the comfort of the air condioner. They wouldn't be open till Tuesday. Sigh... My bag was really heavy with my laptop and chemistry folder. I had to wait for about 40 minutes in the heat wave till the bus came. By the time I had alighted near my house, the sweltering heat had started to dissipate. I was starting to feel a bit better but still depressed from the past paper... I don't know if I'll be prepared by Thursday for both Biology and Chemistry... Sigh... I'm so screwed... Oh and Happy Chinese New Year to everyone in advance!

Once again, Happy CNY!

Lurbs yew long time,
Jo(n)

Tired Again

Hello again,

It has been a relatively tiring day. I spent a ridculously long time going through a peer-reviewed review article for my essay. "HMGB1 Mediates Endogenous TLR2 Activation and Brain Tumour Regression" from the Public Library of Science. 3 letters pretty much sums up the whole article. W.T.F.
Here's a happy little picture of green chimeric mice for you
My little mice are happy to see you. They've been injected with Brain Tumours, yay! Ever article I read bored me to tears. But I managed to somewhat complete the essay with just 1 referral to a cited article regarding "Combined Immunostimulation and Conditional Cytotoxic Gene Therapy Provide Long-term Survival in a Large Glioma Model" Yes, these were also injected into the happy little green mice. There was another chart on happy little red chimeric mice too!

The lectures today weren't that bad. It was really about genetic variations and stuff like that. The second lecture was pretty simple as it was more about hereditary traits and a revision of Meiosis I and II. I got my first essay back, I got 6/6! yay! Some of the other people didn't do as well though but it was a good thing no one failed. I confirmed my schedule regarding the Biology exam. I'll have to sit for it after the 3 hr biology lab next Thursday. There is also a revision test before the lab. I'm having a heart attack from the overwhelming joy... So in summary, 1 biology test, 1 biology exam on Thursday, and my Chemistry exam on Friday (most probably). Pardon me dearies if i start becoming incomprehensive and emo in the next week or so.

(Foreword: The following paragraph might be fairly incomprehensible as it'll just be mindless bitching about the trouble trying to get a form signed between two different faculties)

After lectures today, I had to run around lower campus to get the clash of timetable form signed by the respective course authorities. Thankfully, the lecturer in-charge of Biochemistry was one of my lecturers for the Biology course I'm taking now. She's such a nice lady. I'm glad that she'll be teaching me again next semester. The other course is Calculus for Life Science. That one was the one that caused me the most trouble. Had to get to the 3rd floor of the crappy maths building, find the old lady to look at my form, fill in another form (which I didn't have to do for Biochem), only to find out that I'm supposed to have enrolled in Biochem first, so I had to rush down to the Math Computer Labs to get myself enrolled since her lunch break is in 15 mins. I thought that'd be the end of my worries once I got down to the math labs, to my dismay, my user id and password wasn't accepted... I had to rush to the next nearest available computer, I quickly made my way to the law library when I realised that I could have used the computer at the Science Student office just opposite the maths building. I backtracked and got myself officially enrolled online into Biochem at the SSO and got back to the maths building with 5 mins to spare. When I got to the old lady's office, I found myself staring at a locked office. I was like "WTH, she said lunch was at 1 pm, why did she leave at 12:55?!?" Disappointed, I headed out to the reception and I found her hiding behind the computer monitor, trying to figure out a problem for her colleagues. I thought, "Phew! She's still here." After waiting for another 5 minutes, she gave up and we went back to her office to get my enrolment done. I was sadly mistaken, thinking that it was the end. She needed me to print out my timetable to find out the tutorial and lab timings... I was thinking to myself "omg... why didn't you tell me earlier!?!?!" There wasn't enough time for me to get it done as she was going for lunch so I just gave up and told her I'd be back tomorrow during the short breaks I've got in between Chemistry lectures. I felt so fatigued having to shuttle back and forth between buildings and offices in blistering 31 degree Australian heat... I went to Law Library to chill for a bit while I was waiting for papi to reach Kingsford. We were going to the club to have steak for lunch again. There were a few hot guys walking around today. I'm quite satisfied that I managed to turn their heads as I sauntered past with my usual genteel smile and demure facade. Under all that, I was actually swearing in my head from the insufferable heat.
Lunch was good as always, Papi and I discussed where I was going to stay in Singapore as Grandpa has become somewhat of an unhappy grouch. I was thinking of staying with my uncle at Bukit Timah which is as inaccessible as it is posh. His mansion is pretty nice! Papi started talking about "the best thing to do" vs "the right thing to do". Basically, he wants me to stay with grumpy grandpa even though there's a chance things could turn very ugly... I will really be needing all my skills in maintaining a porcelain smile while masking my emotions as I get verbally abused... It hurts alot more that he's my grandfather but it'll be a test of the extent of my ability.

Alright, enough of bitching about things which are still some ways off... It's hot, I'm tired, I'm getting naked, I'm taking a nap.

Lurbs yew long time,
Jo(n)

Which to pick?

With too many choices, things get complicated. It’s such a bitch to pick really… University time table for Semester 1 2009 is really screwed up, I will really need to get that sorted out soon… As for my haircut, I’ve found a few pictures of what I think I might like to try. Will get the hair stylist to give me his best opinion.

 

View Full Album

They’re all medium – long in hair length. So yea, will have to see if my current hair length will be suffice and all those other nitty-gritty factors.

Tonight’s date with A might be cancelled. He has some problems with a $500,000 deal caused by one of the staff members so he has to go do some damage control. I might see him, I might not. As long as I’m still in the city and he’s available. Today is sorta my “last night of freedom” before a massive cramming session for this Summer term’s exams. I will be sitting for my exams prior to the scheduled date so yea… it’s a real bitch.

Anyways, I’m feeling really tired now. Might go get some rest before I go for my haircut.

Lurbs yew long time,

Jo(n)

Despondency

Hi ya’ll,

Sorry for not blogging in a while. It’s been pretty hectic for the first week back at Uni’s Summer Term. The holidays are way too short! Absolutely outrageous! Biology has been as fun as always (labs are fun, lectures are fun for sleeping although sleeping during a lecture was never my intention). Chemistry on the other hand has been quite a  depressing wreck. Within 2 days, we covered thermodynamics. Usually this would take about 1 week I’m estimating during the normal semester. What a fool I was to think I could tackle this colossal undertaking which under normal circumstances would already prove to be a challenge, furthermore, with a Biology as another one of my core subjects on top of it! On a more positive note, Summer Term ends on the 30th January. Alluding to the melancholy that comes so lovingly attached to this brief flicker of happiness are the final exams. Chemistry and Biology to be scheduled on the 2nd and 4th of February respectively, I’ve had no choice but to request to sit for the exams on an earlier date due to my flight plans to Singapore on the 1st February. This is entirely THEIR FAULT! It was clearly stated on the University Calendar that Summer Term was to end on the 30th January 2009. With this, it means I’ll need to be packed for Singapore as well as fully prepared for my exams before the 30th.

I’ve spent the whole of this weekend attempting to complete Chemistry tutorial 7. I spent 4 hours mulling over 8e which dealt with equivalence points. That was the most depressing 4 hours in quite a while. Each failed attempt to obtain results that corresponded with the provided answer just brought me ever so much closer to the dark side… After getting distracted from a Skype conversation with David, I decided to concede to failure and move onto the 8f which was so much more easier. I decided to revisit my old friend, 8e. The next 10 minutes were … magical! I felt like screaming “Eureka”! I finally cracked the devious bastard! Victory is mine! I adjourned to the kitchen for some victory ice-cream as the weather was unfathomably sweltering! To think it was only 21 degrees yesterday! Bliss is indeed short-lived… My celebrated triumph over the Machiavellian 8e was reminiscent of the weather when up from the ashes of vanquished 8e arose question 9! Oh My Guan Yin Ma! Somebody save me! Along with my victory ice-cream, my happiness melted away… After attempting the confounded question about 10 times in 2 hours, I’ve decided to acquiesce to defeat. Failure seems to have taken a liking to me and we’re becoming more than just acquaintances. I feel a love-love-Daren-Kevin type relationship with Failure coming along…

Tomorrow/today/Monday, I’ll have to prepare for my Biology test on enzymes on Tuesday. God, I have no idea what to study for. This freaking sucks… And on top of that, I still have tutorial 8 to get done, and get a proper education in Thermodynamics. What the heck is E°red?!?!  This week will be organic chemistry. I am royally screwed…

Digressing from my epic tale of the love-hate relationship I have with Chemistry, I did managed to chat with A today. We webcammed for a bit while I was raptured into Chemistry heaven! He makes me smile with his entertaining attempts at flirtation. Well, I’m not going to say too much about what “stuff” went on in our conversation but I might most probably see him again this Friday after lectures or on Saturday. Confirmations have yet to be made but the prospects seems in favour of this decision. Oh, and I bought a new Logitech keyboard online. It’s sleek and has illuminated laser etched keys! Now I can type in the dark! Typing in the middle of the night has never been more fun!

I found some camwhoring pictures I took a while back when I was bored and it was hot. And a gay skanky pose I pulled while camming with David.

Depressed

I don’t usually dress this slutty, it was just really hot Come closer and I shall whisper sweet nothings in your ear, beware, for it may be the last thing you’d ever hear. The façade that hides the turmoil within

That’s all for today. I’ll try to take more interesting pictures.

Lurbs yew long time,

Jo(n)

Lack of Sleep

ZzZzZzZ...

That's what I really feel like doing at the moment. I only managed to get 5 hours of sleep. Sleep cycle was interrupted, feeling rather dead at the moment... Abs hurt from excessive exercising... Waiting for lectures to start at 10 00 hrs... Now 09 12 hrs... Table too dirty to sleep... Incoherent thoughts... Somebody Save Me playing on the IPod now... Need something to do till lectures start... Reading blogs... Willy's and Daren's blogs makes me smile...Chasing Cars now playing on IPod... Going to try to find somewhere to take a snooze... Might try Dalton Computer Lab... Sadly no Internet access there... This keyboard feels icky... Need to go wash my hands soon... Sleepy... Nothing else to bitch about... Chatting with Willy on eBuddy in the law library... Heh...

Lurbs yew long time,
Jo(n)

Hellish Heat

Hello all,

I’ve been relatively lazy in updating my blog. Nothing substantial to bitch about anyways. I figured, I might as well bitch about the thing that’s most annoying at the moment. The votes are in, a landslide victory goes to this confounded heat! Today’s temperature was about 31 degrees Celsius.  To some people, this may not seem like much, to me, I feel like I’m in a conflagration. This sweltering inferno has induced slothfulness and stupor in everyone here. Unlike in Singapore where everywhere one can find relief from the heat in just a few steps into a shopping mall, Sydney does not have the luxury to such amenities.

Today in biology lecture, I fell asleep, in both lectures. I didn’t sleep throughout the lectures, thankfully. I was sitting up the front as well. But I wasn’t the only one who had trouble staying awake. The air conditioner exuded a soothing flow of cool air which lulled everyone in the room to a light slumber. We awoke occasionally but always at the critical moment where notes from the screen were required to be taken down as they were omitted from the lecture handouts. To summarise the lectures in a nutshell, first lecture was about metabolism – catabolism & anabolism. The second lecture was about the protozoan Giardia. We saw video clips and pictures of the parasite. It was most fascinating! It had 4 pairs of flagella and 2 nuclei! Sadly, we still succumbed to the  pacifying effect of the air conditioner. Lectures ended at 12 00 hrs today. Uni was quite packed today as it was Info day for all the new students that would be starting this coming semester. Everyone looked so young, freshly popped out from high school. Oh well… Good luck to them!

Went off to the city and got to JB Hi-fi at the Strand. Bought my IPod Nano 4th Gen case. It was quite a deliberation to decide which colour to pick. Both were pretty matched but in the end, I picked Silver as it had the most contrast with the carbon black colour of my IPod. At the bus stop on the way home, I met Dad. I was caught red-handed gallivanting after Uni. Crap! But he wasn’t too mad. He was just slightly irked that I didn’t tell him beforehand as he had a $30 gift card for JB Hi-fi and I could have used it.

Anyways, we got to Kingsford and we went to pick up the car and drove to the club for lunch. We had medium-rare sirloin steak which vegetables and chips. It was really good. I love the steak there. It was succulent and the gravy was  most palatable. Kudos to the chefs! It has been a while since we went to the club for lunch. Dad seized the opportunity to renew his membership anyways.

We headed to East Gardens to go pick up Bee Bee from work. Did some window shopping before coming back home. Spent most of the time uploading stuff into my IPod. It seems like I’m the only anomalous person that is into traditional Japanese theatre. I was desperately trying to convert 早乙女太一 妖艶絵巻 Scene of Heaven into a compatible format for the IPod.

I don’t know how many of you will actually like this performance but I am in rapture every time I watch 早乙女太一 perform. Exquisite skills for a 16/17 year old. Oh, and this is a 女形 (female role specialist) type kabuki performance with a slightly modern twist, as can be felt in the music and the speed of the movements. Nonetheless, the movements are still fluid and graceful. This really doesn’t do justice to 早乙女太一 so I might do a proper blog entry about this marvellous performer.

Anyways, time to sleep now. Chemistry day tomorrow…. Feeling sick already.

Lurbs yew long time,

Jo(n)

Searing Heat of Summer

Hi ya’ll,

I’m feeling crap again today. Don’t know why I’m reacting this way. Maybe it’s the heat. My whole body feels like it’s burning up. I have no air conditioning… That’s even more fked up…

I haven’t blogged in a while and Panda reminded me today so I thought, meh, what the hell, I’ll just bitch about what’s been happening the past few days if I can remember it.

Tuesday - 16/12/2008

It was biology again today. I had 4 hours of sleep because there was an essay due today. It was about peer-reviewing article crap. It seemed easy but hitting the word quota was surprisingly challenging. The day started off with a lecture. I was really tired, dozed off for a minute or two every 10 minutes. My friend and I took turns to wake each other up to copy down the important notes. It was so bad that I had actually fallen asleep in the middle of taking down notes. My words went from neat to scribbles which trailed off into a line, marking where I had unintentionally dozed off, scarring the page.

Lab today dealt with osmotic pressure. This surprisingly tied in with chemistry. We made sheep erythrocytes lyse and Rhodeo leaf cells undergo plasmolysis. It was quite a fun lab. All of us were pretty involved in it. Might be because of the whole Christmas cheer crap. Anyways, I managed to take a picture of the  plasmolysed Rhodeo cells with my phone.

Cytoplasmic shrinkage

This was a candid shot. I thought the guy was looking at the picture of the cells, but he took a picture instead. Check out the ancient computer in the back!

Wednesday – 17/12/2008

I had more sleep so I felt better. Lecture was the same as usual, starting at 0900 hrs till 1000 hrs. We had a short break before going for tutorial. Carol is hilarious! She’s a Lebanese girl but we all think she’s an Asian in disguise. She speaks Mandarin and Cantonese. We were full laughing our heads off. We got out test marks back today at the tutorial. I scored 24.5 out of 30. I could get about 0.5 – 1 mark more because she didn’t award me marks for my formula. Anna said she didn’t mark that section so she’d take it to find out who marked it so I could get my extra marks. Yay! We had another lecture after tutorial and a break before chem lab.

Today’s chem lab was also relatively interesting but if you phase out halfway, you could get seriously confuddled. We were dealing with classes of cation today. It was quite a pretty experiment. Lots of colour change etc. I made friends with 2 hot guys today. 1 was a Caucasian guy called Nim (he smelled reaaaaallly good, could have kissed his neck right there) and the other was a Japanese guy called Yoshi (he probably has a longer name I think it’s Yoshitaka or something). They’re both nice guys in my lab. Diagonally infront and behind of me. I’m surrounded by hot guys! Double yay for today because I’m so gay! (Excuse the lame rhyme. I couldn’t resist) Anyways, I ended up getting confuddled by the experiment. Tried to copy results off someone but his didn’t seem reliable at all. Seized the opportunity to check results with Nim and Yoshi. Hahaha, I’m such a slut. but not as bad as Sukebe-chan! He’s just… sukebe :p Anyways, the last part of the practical involved using the data/results we’ve got from the prac to identify which cations were present in the solution. Mine was a bluish solution so I was quite happy because Cu2+ would be in it. The problem is, there were more than 1 cations in the solution and my results were messed up so I had to go through all the steps to figure out what was inside. I have a hunch it was Pb2+ and Cu2+. There wasn’t enough time for me to reconfirm because I messed up the steps. Ah bugger… Will need to check results again with hmmm Nim or Yoshi again maybe :p

Oh well, that’s all for now. Feeling hot and depressed… But remembering what happened the past few days has cheered me up slightly. Sadly, the buzz didn’t last as long as I’d have liked it to.

Lurbs yew long time,

Jo(n)

First Day of Summer Term

G'd day mates,

I'm using the computers at the Law Library at Uni to type this blog. So far, I've had my first biology lab for BABS 1201. It was absolutely gay, even by my standards, which says alot! I got to Uni at around 0900 hrs. Class didn't start until 1000 hrs so I escaped to the main library to use the computers. I couldn't access blogspot from the main library which was really crappy. The "1" key doesn't work on the stupid keyboard either. But I did manage to get onto ebuddy and went on MSN. I saw Kevin online and bitched about how miserable life is. It was good. Haven't had the chance to chat with him for a few days so it was pretty good. That cheered me up a bit. I was also chatting with Elsie while waiting for time to trickle by. There was a hot guy that came in and sat diagonally opposite me. I could perv on him without looking too awkward. Ahahaha, I'm such a slut it's unbelievable. He had nice legs. I think he plays soccer by the look of it.

I left the library for class at 0950 hrs just as hot guy was leaving as well. Today's lab was so pathetic! We just covered the safety procedures, seating plan and a short quiz (on the first lesson). After that, we adjourned to the car park to be enlightened by the "this is the evacuation assembly area" speech. We had ended class at 1050 hrs. I had nothing to do until 1400 hrs when I had the Biology lecture.

Langer was doing the same class as me. We went to the bookstore to pick up his lab manual for chemistry and then to the ARC store to get a file. Went to Maccas to get a Chocolate Frappe. It's so decadent! I think I'm going to get fat soon but then I've had to walk up and down the bastard steps I think I lost more weight than i had actually gained. Came back to Uni to use the computers at Law Library. So here I am, with 3 mins left till i get logged out from the computers. =) How exciting... I have a chemistry tutorial tomorrow and I didn't think to bring my chem tutorial questions. So I'm basically stoning in front of the computer, watching youtube and blog hopping until 1400 hrs when I have to trek all the way to upper campus biomedical theatre for this afternoon's lecture. Sigh... Oh, on a more positive note, there's a slightly-above average hot guy in the other lab. I'll probably get to see him again during lecture.

Well, that's all for now.

Lurbs yew long time,
Jo

Summer Cleaning Session

I have feelings too you know! *sob*

Hi dearies,

It has been a tiring day. I tried to revert back to my sleep routine of 6 hours since Uni starts again tomorrow but I ended up waking at 1215 hrs. I wasn't sure what to do today. My friend Elsie was back in Sydney but she wasn't available to go to the city today. I stoned for a bit and decided to go to Uni to pick up my course manual for Chem 1021. I had to rush a bit because Bee Bee was driving Mum's car to work and I could catch a lift from her.

We left home at 1310 hrs and I reached the university bookshop at about 1335 hrs. The queue was pretty long. I met Jeffrey in the queue. He was ahead of me. There was a somewhat hot guy standing a few places behind me but I wasn't in the mood to start fantasizing whilst in the queue. Had to climb up the bastard steps (i think it's actually called Baster steps but everyone calls them bastard steps because it's a serious work out getting up the 100 odd steps! That's like a good workout on the stairmaster in the gym) to get to the other bookshop. Bought a gray file to put in the course manual. Cheapskate chemistry faculty didn't bother putting it in a file for us. At least the Biology people did. Met Jeffrey at the second bookshop. He was supposed to have a tutorial on but it got cancelled. We went to Maccas (McDonalds) for lunch. I had a double quarter pounder meal. Got it upsized for free with my student card. This was my first time using my student card. I never knew it was that useful. The bus took ages to arrive but I got home eventually. I spotted 2 more hot guys on the bus today. 1 of them was Asian. Even though he wore glasses he wasn't geeky or anything. Maybe it was that fitting white G-Star Raw shirt he was wearing. The other was a Caucasian bloke in a suit.

Snowie was waiting for me when I got home. Poor pup was lonely by himself. He was jumping all over me. I went to the kitchen to check on my almond pudding. It was done! Yay~

my not so 1334 cutting skills! Just as white as Snowie.

Finishing touches!

After slicing them into cubes and adding the longans in, I popped it back into the fridge and got ready to clean my babies. I was feeling rather pooped out so I decided to just do the 5 major ones today. Took them out of my room and brought them into the living room since that was larger area. My room is tiny! And yes, I sleep with knives all around me.

The piano really comes in handy

The sword cleaning kit

The tools inside

It took me a long time to work on the katana set today. The condition has deteriorated by quite a bit was I wasn't around to clean them for the past 2 years. My heart bled for them. These are some of my most prized possessions. I don't really know how else to describe emotions I'm feeling besides the disappointment and ignominy. The katana (long one) and wakizashi (medium one) took me about an hour to clean in total but the tanto (small one) took the longest as it had rust spots all over. I felt so distraught over it's condition. It took me 2 hours of non-stop polishing with steel wool and alot of choji. I had gone into a semi-trance like state from the monotonous "wanking" movements and memories of my childhood started flooding back.

I remembered back to when I was in primary school in Singapore and the nanny/house-help that took care of me for 13 years since I was 3 years old. She was a really nice elderly Sri Lankan lady that took great care of my family. I remember this once when I was about 13 years old and I was really sick in the middle of the night. Everyone was still asleep and I woke up to throw up. I threw up in the sink, it didn't occur to me that I should have done it in the toilet bowl instead. I woke up my mum and she was slightly annoyed that I had thrown up in the sink. I don't blame her since it was probably like 4 am in the morning and she had to get up early to go to work the next day. I was feeling feverish so I couldn't sleep in the air-conditioned room with my parents. I went out to the living room and curled into a ball on the sofa. Kusuma, that was her name, woke up and felt my forehead. She made some lemon water and brought a bin just in case I needed to throw up again. She was a Christian lady, along with my family, so she knelt beside me and prayed for me. She kept me company for most of the night. I am truly grateful that I had someone there when I was feeling so sick. But then I remembered the times when I was nasty and rude to her. I felt so guilty. I never got to tell her that I was sorry.

That was about it. I gave up on rust removal. I did however, manage to remove most of it. All that remains was the gray blemishes which were alot more unnoticeable. I finished up cleaning the shirasaya (wooden one) and the Lord of the Rings High Elven Blade. I was really worn out after that. But I still managed to pull off some minor camwhoring.

quite tired, but enough energy to camwhore for you

Epic fail with the "duck" smile. I don't know how some Asian guys can pull it off really good.

Had dinner, and then desert. That cheered me up a bit. I got back to my room with a bowl of Almond pudding with Longan.

home made desert! yay~

I looked through the Chem course manual I had bought today. I almost choked on my pudding. It was horrible! The only word that came to mind was "WTF" and that isn't even a word! Ok, that's it for today. I really don't know what else I can share with you. Sorry for the onslaught of pictures today. I'll leave you guys with some pictures of the minor details with the katana set.

Lurbs yew long time,
Jo(n)

PS: Willy pointed out that Jon sounds more manly so I shall go with that ;p

flower motif

More flowers!

Katana, Wakizashi, Tanto set

twin lions

I've got twin lions everywhere!