[250406]

FRET workshop + correcting printing errors in workshop booklets for e boss + FCCS practicals (why do guys always forget to take off their big fat watches when working with lasers?) + data processing (why is e default for graphs on Flex black traces on BLACK backgrounds?? *KA-BISH* e DODO who wrote e program!!) + presentation on FCCS + settling 'handovers/takeovers' with honours kids + meeting up with friendsss (MUI: e cat's brain refused to shut down & it remained awake through e night till 08:00AM. koon till 18:00PM after reading e Sunday papers & woke up for dinner =P) + wushu + swimming + yoga-gah-mia-loh + journal club presentation + lab meetings + talk by DPL + seminar on olfactory receptors + collecting lab supplies + long bus rides + + + ....

drafts many many, but brain too busy to distil into words e whirlpool of thoughts swirling around e cat....

meanwhile, something to read & think about:
xiaodoudou.blogspot.com

this entry makes e cat think of Ah Fang, who was 22+ then, when she set e 12 year-old cat off on e path to e conclusion that death is an integral part of life, & that as we live, we are dying, & that death can be a positive thing:

"Belief in our mortality, the sense that we are eventually going to crack up & be extinguished like the flame of a candle, I say, is a gloriously fine thing. It makes us sober; it makes us a little sad; & many of us it makes poetic. But above all, it makes it possible for us to make up our mind & arrange to live sensibly, truthfully & always with a sense of our own limitations. It gives peace also, because true peace of mind comes from accepting the worst."
- Lin Yutang, The Importance Of Living

this path also led to e end of a parent's dream that e cat would aspire to be a doctor in a world where life is often unnecessarily prolonged, & medical science too much about delaying e inevitable. malignant transformation & metastasis are after all stochastic processes, & a matter of sooner or later, & whether one dies of something else before cancer hits (interesting point raised by a cancer patient: how can it be proved that every single cancerous cell has been successfully eliminated by treatment, when all we have are surrogate markers? is 'death from old age' e ultimate evidence of a 'cure'?)

on e topic of neoplasia, something e cat unearthed in second year of uni while doing a term paper on metastasis (after it read something about cancers documented in oysters), & e case against shark cartilage.

has it been 15 years liao? wonder if Ah Fang's parents still offer her McDonald's....& after so long e state of palliative care here still leaves a lot to be desired, & there is still a lot of unnecessary & inadequately managed pain....something e cat wanted to write about weeks ago, & also about dyslexia - after reading about e national grandfather's speech at some Singapore American School function, & correctly predicting its dyslexic sibling's reaction to e news article - & many other such stuff that have affected people around e cat....one thing common to all of them is strength - e formidable strength to face up to & live with whatever has been thrown at you by life/fate/karma/whatever you may attribute it to =)

[ filed under: 9_lives_2006 + thewonderingstraycat ]