Moonlight

I really would have taken a picture but my wonderful camera phone has been locked...

At the bus stop outside my house, on the top of the hill, the night sky brought about an unusual feeling of serenity. Iridescent diamonds speckled the velvet expanse while a continual contest of light and shadow was played out on the clouds. I was embraced by the warm illumination from the full moon as the cool sea breeze caressed the contours of my body. The smell of the sea, under the moonlight made me feel... different.

Today has been quite good for me. Despite the serious sleep deficiency from cramming for the Biochemistry exam today, I managed to get up and prepare for Uni without too much difficulty. My motor skills were slightly... delayed at the start but it resumed functioning normally after a while. First lesson for the day was a maths lecture for 2 hours. It ended 10 minutes early so I seized the opportunity to go to the library to study. The 3rd floor of the library had just been renovated. It looks really good now. I would have camwhored a bit but I didn't have the time or the equipment. I studied for the next 2 hours, doing last minute cramming before heading for the exam venue at the Biomedical theatres. The exam went pretty well. I completed the exam within 20 minutes. There were a lot of details in the lecture notes but the exam questions were really easy. There were 12 MCQs, 6 short answers and 1 essay. The essay asked for a discussion of chemiosmosis theory and how it relates to the coupling of ATP synthesis and oxidative phosphorylation. After the exam, I had a physiology tutorial. Some of us decided to ditch our designated tutorial group and join our other friend's. When we got there, I saw this pretty hot guy. (He's a student, does physiology and biochemistry with me. Very good looking but rumoured to be as obtuse as he is good looking. Caucasian, tall, good body, good facial features.) Anyways, the tutor for this tutorial was this daggy old lady. 2 minutes into the lecture, my friend and I decided to leave and go to our old tutorial group. We made it back in time. We had a new tutor as well. She was a doctor that assisted us in some of our physio labs. Quite young, pretty, slim, with skin as clear as Miranda Otto. Today's tutorial was on the cardiovascular system. I didn't revise any of the lectures before the tutorial but I did manage to get some of the questions correct.

I popped off to the city after tutorial to meet up with my sister. She had gone to get her nails done and when I got there, we just walked around for a bit. We went to Myers to test out their perfume. I like the new Guerlain Homme but I decided not to buy it yet as it would have been on impulse if I did anyways. The top note was a gentle fusion of lime and mint, creating a slightly herbaceous opening. After a few moments, the middle notes surfaced, revealing bergamot, green tea & pelargonium. The middle notes were really refreshing and not stinging. The scent progressed to mellow down with cedar and vetiver while retaining the cool mint through the entire duration which blended well to create a soft, sweet, cool note. Guerlain Homme is a clean fragrance, well balanced and sophisticated. It's classy and modern. The more I think about it, the more tempted I am to get it.
On the note of perfumes, I was complimented on my signature scent, YSL L'Homme today. It's neither overpoweringly musky nor sickeningly cloying but a perfect balance, like yin and yang (possibly androgynous?).

It has been a pretty good day overall but I will endeavour to get some work done this weekend!

Lurbs yew long time,
Jo(n)
(Apologies for the weird paragraph up the top, I was inspired momentarily and started churning out literary nonsense. If my high school english teacher read that, she would probably be spewing blood from the overused clichés.)

Tipsy

Hiiiiiiiiii,

I just got home from going out to Westfield Bondi Junction. Was out for some retail therapy but I behaved and didn't buy anything... much... Had some champagne, but it wasn't really champagne, more like sparkling white wine. I think it was Sauvignon Blanc... Overall quite light to the palate, slightly sour, overall verdict, glorified soda water with table wine.

Today's biochemistry lab invovled diluting urine samples and checking the levels of Urea, Creatinine and Uric Acid and hence determining the possible diets and problems the patient might have. I was quite content with my results as it was very close to the actual results. We got to use cyanide today. After that lab I had a slight headache from the hydrogen cyanide fumes even though it was done in the fumehoods. Smelled like bitter almonds.

Ugh, I have to start studying for my biochemistry exam on friday and get that blasted Maple program online test crap done... What a shitty week... Luckily I have a small vial of cyanide to bail me out if the need arises! (Bet some of you would want me to drink it wouldn't you, evil bastards! Too bad, I didn't get to take any. It would probably be too diluted to do any major damage anyways. Although, the LDLo for humans is only 2.847mg/kg... Mmmmm...)

Lurbs yew 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)

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)