210805

[060805] wushu performance for some Radin Mas National Day dinner cum upgraded market & hawker centre official opening. dry runs in e afternoon were smooth, except for e stage that sounded highly unstable (but in e end it could take Moses Lim's weight =P), & that we forgot all about e lighting....!

somehow managed to perform when evening came even though we couldn't see a thing - kena blinded by e big fat spotlights lining e perimeter of e stage. & nobody chopped anyone else (happened during training), hit e roof with their weapons (happened during dry runs), crash into any tables (organisers removed it after watching us go through our dry runs =P) or microphones, or flew off e stage.

with makeshift altars on foldable tables, burning red candles, joss sticks & incense paper, ash & smoke in e air, wooden stage, loud blaring music & old men in e ah peh uniform of white singlet & slippers standing around armed with copies of e night's wan3 bao4, atmosphere was more like that of e getai ;) maybe e zhong1 yuan2 hui4 (7th month festival organising committee) in that area & national day dinner organising committee decided to celebrate national day for both e living & our ho1 hia1 tee4 *grin*

************

[080805] view from e upper deck of e SBS 14: state flags & National Day banners, buntings & other decorations, flapping in e darkness of e night amid a snowstorm of hell notes & smoke rising from piles of ashes. wonder why e oranges, red candles & joss sticks were placed directly beneath e big fat board plastered with National Day greetings & e faces of all e MPs of that constituency.... ;)

************

[120805] 10th anniversary of maternal grandma's passing according to e Lunar calendar. which made me realise that you (not referring to ah ma) would have been 24 this year. when I see our primary school mates' profiles on Friendster, with photos of JC outings, NS days, uni life, holidays abroad etc, am amazed by how far we've all come & how we've all grown =) 10 years on, you are still remembered.

************

[can't recall dates]
one of e most super 'teh' primary 2 girls at Ai Tong training:
" 如果我做（腾空飞腿）对的话，老师要给我 french fry"

& by 老师 she is referring not just to Xue laoshi, but all e senior students - that would be enough to form a pack of small fries from McDonald's =P

************

remember e outdoor playground that used to be on e rooftop of e parkway parade carpark? all e cat can recall is this hollow white (but yellowed by UV from e sun) plastic (fibreglass?) structure that kids could climb through, an inclined plane with 'rollers' where kids could sit on a rubber mat & slide down, e green flooring that reminded me of artificial turf, & accessing e place via a staircase leading from e carpark. seems that this place has been deeply imprinted in e hearts of many Marine Parade/Katong (& some Bedok) kids who grew up with Parkway Parade?

once upon a time, there was great excitement among a bunch of VJC buddies hanging out in Parkway after class when someone mentioned this playground, & they went around e building & carpark pieceing together dusty childhood memories & hunting for e access to e rooftop, & finally ended up staring in silence through e grilles of a locked metal gate that sealed off e now-empty concrete space.

***********

after so much waiting for buses & trains, long journeys, traffic jams, ERP gantries & tapping of EZlink cards, all e cat wants is:

doko demo do-a どこでもドア

aka. Doraemon's 'everywhere door', which allows you to go anywhere you wish by just stepping through that magic door. can't believe that Doraemon was my introduction to quantum teleportation ;)

************

Medishield reform: kena stunned when asked to explain e gamma knife item in one of e tables in e Medishield booklet. how to explain a knife that is not a knife (literally) to older relatives (with less than primary education) in Teochew? but then again, they were satisfied enough to know that it is something that involves a piece of equipment that cost more than $6 million, which could be e reason why it is listed separately from e surgical tables. money seems to be e language that everyone finds easier to comprehend.

makes me wonder how many more of e elderly are having trouble making sense of all e schemes, policies, plans, changes, reforms, revamps etc that are confusing even those of my parents' age?

[ filed under: 9_lives_2005 + thewonderingstraycat ]

post from e lab: stuff used

out of boh liao-ness again - list of reagents used so far this week:

DMEM+FBS(non-HI)+AMA, SF DMEM, 1XPBS(Ca++ & Mg++ free), 1XPBS+10%Tween20, 1%BSA/PBS, 4%PFA, mouse anti-HA 1'Ab, goat anti-(cannot be revealed) 1'Ab, TRITC-phalloidin, Alexa488 goat anti-mouse IgG, Alexa647 donkey anti-mouse IgG, Cy5 donkey anti-goat IgG, FLUOPREP, nail varnish, immersion oil, BDv3.1, 10uM T7 promoter fwd, Taq pol, 10XTaq buffer, 2mM dNTP, 10uM (cannot be revealed)NcoI-aa107, 10uM (cannot be revealed)NcoI-aa149, 10uM (cannot be revealed)NcoI-aa189, 10uM (cannot be revealed)XhoI3'rev, 10XNEB buffer 2, HindIII, XhoI, NcoI, 10XBSA, MQ, NEB 100bp DNA ladder, NEB 1kb DNA ladder, 1XTAE, 1% agarose, QG, PB, PE, EB, T4 DNA ligase, 10X ligase buffer, mouse laminin, lipofectamine, & various GFP/EYFP/CA/DN/WT DNA constructs

any girls (or even guys!) who want to throw away clear nail varnish, please donate to e cat instead (nope, not for use on cat claws).

[ filed under: labrat ]

post from e lab: gloves

to bio & med/dent friends:

how many of you are 'in betweens' - none of e standard sizes of surgical gloves fit you nicely? cat paws are asymmetrical (because of wushu?) & somewhere in between XS & S....XS too short for fingers, S long enough but too loose, especially for e non-dominant paw. uncomfy when doing microdissection for hours =|

& any faster way than Katrin paper or C-fold to dry wet paws (after washing) before gloving?

[ filed under: labrat ]

「何度でも」 nando demo

by Dreams Come True =)

sample at:
http://www.dctjoy.com/dreamscometrue/samples/Dreams_Come_True-Nando_demo.mp3

[ 260105 update ] big fat 10-Q to LKB for e mp3 ;)

[ filed under: music1 + japanese1 ]

cat sit on what?

[150805]



cat sit on what?



cat sit on trees....until they bend under its weight =P

moment of boh liao-ness while cleaning my Olympus on e way home after wushu.

hope to find e time to translate more drafts into actual posts....

....& also find out from e Straits Times where on earth is e 'fast-food restaurant' that it claims exists in Biopolis, but has never been seen by any of e staff who have been working there for ~1.5-2 years since e research institutes moved in (RE: ST 13 Aug 2005 Special Report: Demystifying Biopolis) ;)

[ filed under: 9_lives_2005 ]

what bears are for

[040805] why e cat keeps a non-cat stuffed toy at its workstation:



didn't know what to do with this gift from a former colleague, until I realised that it is perfect for keeping rubberbands, namecards, conference nametags, stamps, safety pins, paper clips & file clips organised =)

************

[010805] cat food from Thailand:



Phii Jim's mother discovered that cats love this stuff & ensures that I return to Singapore with at least 10 bottles of it each time I go to Bangkok =)

************

[310705] where mozzies breed in e neighbourhood:



************

[230705] extending e life of a secondary school exercise book:



how many of you have done this before? got me into trouble with teachers who insisted that students use only fresh new exercise books that had never been used before for any other subject....even though I tried to cut out e used pages as neatly as I could, leaving behind e margins as e only trace (so that e pages at e back would not fall off). exercise books may seem cheap to most of us, but there will always be e few to whom they are not, & why waste?

[ filed under: 9_lives_2005 + catfood ]