Sick

Today is the day I had fever! I remember the last time was in PITC, which was more serious, because I vomitted in the middle of the night, and then more followed in the afternoon, some really gross black stuff that came out from my stomach! Oh I still remember the sight, even though I washed it away immediately. At least I could do some work today, I must have appeared weak in PITC!
Speaking about PITC, I'm reminded of the times in Pasoh. I feel very heartened that we're still in contact with each other, no matter how distant. I'm looking at the photo in front of me now, of the girls in the porch of our house, taken the day we left Pasoh, sometimes it brings tears to my eyes. It doesn't mean I've forgotten the guys, these memories are hard to erase, and I never would.

Life

I just read in the news this morning that 1 Singaporean was killed in the Mumbai terrorist killings. It really saddened me, although that girl wasn't related to me. She was a lawyer, just married for 1 year, and seemed to have a bright future ahead of her. She was in India for work, and then this happens... You never know when you'll be dead, by the work of terrorists or people who are too stressed.
To me, it's a lesson... Life is too short to have regrets, to complain... I will live life to the fullest, so that even if I die suddenly, I have no regrets. I saw a quote once - "Regret for the things that you did can be healed by time, but regret for things that you didn't do is unforgivable." The moment I saw this quote, I made it my life's mission. I think that's what life is about - to go forward and look back only to smile at the memories, not to regret.

Another surprise

I was at Jurong Point today to have dinner and buy some stationery. The surprise is, I bumped into a friend whom I haven't seen for 6 years. Well actually I first bumped into a friend whom I've seen in more recent years in the toilet, and she told me that the other friend was in the toilet as well. So we had a short chat and update, and it turns out that the friend whom I've met in recent years is going to be a teacher, but she hasn't gone for training yet. She is actually teaching now, but this is also part of training. So, I will see her around in NIE next year. NIE is really a good place for meeting friends, it's funny how many of them want to be teachers... Although I respect my teachers and I think it's a very important job, it's one of the last jobs on my list if I ever go jobless...

A surprise

I got a surprise from my father this evening.. He bought a 10 megapixel Fujifilm camera and let me use it! So he took my Casio one... It is an upgrade in terms of resolution, but this new one doesn't have a manual mode!! I don't know if it'll be better or worse than my Casio (this new one cost about half of Casio, but i bought that a few years ago). So the only way to find out is to use it!
I guess my SLR will have to wait... haha I have no cash now anyway.

Southern Thailand

I'm back from a very very refreshing trip in Thailand, the land of smiles!!

It was really great to see Dia again, and to meet new friends and learn a new language!! Dia is still the same, with her old habits... I won't mention them here. It was quite a learnin experience to meet Steve Elliot, her supervisor, who is one of the funniest person I've ever met. He is always very sarcarstic about the way things are going with his project in the South, so many obstacles he met with and how different government agencies are inhibiting his work there. Now I know I'm lucky to have my project going rather smoothly compared to Dia's. The organisation there is not very neat, like in Singapore there is only 1 government body issuing permits to do research, whereas over there there're a few, and they keep telling Steve to go in circles among these places.

It's frustrating, but I told Dia if they don't allow her to do her work just do it anyway, I don't believe they'll send people there to watch the plots 24 hours a day. I believe science cannot be impeded by stupid systems imposed by humans.

Ok anyway, I was shown around Krabi and the field site there, met a few good people who have been very supportive of Dia's work. I tried my best to be very polite with my limited Thai, perhaps I should visit them again. As for Dia's university Walailak, it's the biggest in South-east Asia, I think if I remember correctly it's more than 1000 ha. There's many cows grazing on grass all day long, and dogs and cats too, although they usually wait for people to feed them. It's a nice campus, I love the big open environment there. Transport is usually by motorbike, or by Dia's cute little 4-wheel drive.

Ok I shall end here for now, I'll write more about the trip when I feel like it. :)

Steve and I in the "e-tan", which Steve calls the 'limousine'. The roads to the plot were the worst I've ever experienced, even worse than PITC, but according to Steve they are more worse in Indonesia...

The weekend and today

Ok I have to update my life here... Last Saturday was a Volunteer Appreciation Day at Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve. It was a fun day, my group partner and I went walking around the mangrove reserve playing a treasure hunt with about 50 other people. We even made a tailor bird nest with a Dillenia suffruticosa leaf and some dry wood and cotton. One other partner stayed at the visitor centre to paint a trashbin. I must say it's a good idea to get volunteers to decorate the trashbins, now they look even more attractive than some exhibits!
Sunday was a stay-home day, rather uneventful, watching anime all day... hahaha..
Today I went to collect my new lens! And bought myself a FBT sleeveless shirt! I'm gonna wear it in Thailand... :D

A feast

We went to Taman Jurong today for a feast after squash. Attendence wasn't bad at all, 4 of us came for dinner! We had bbq stingray, squid, 2 vegetables and sugarcane juice... Nice dinner! The stingray was delicious!

Boredom

I'm so bored these days, even though I have work to do... Does that mean I need a break? Then looks like my trip to Thailand is timely, but I wonder if it would be a bad idea to come back just 2 days before the workshop... I wonder what Stuart will say.. hahaha.. Talking about the workshop, looks like it'll be exciting, I hope Lillian can come! And someone from Oxford is coming!

Botanic Gardens

It was a good walk at the Gardens today, no rain. Shawn brought his students around and talked about ferns, aroids, flowers, basic plant anatomy... I learnt something too. After that we went to the Red Dot for some beer. It's quite a posh place near the garden, but the beer selection wasn't as many as Brewerkz. The vegetarian pizza was good though, very juicy. The music gets louder as more people come in, I don't think I'll frequent the Red Dot so often...

Kbox

This is the most popular KTV lounge in Singapore, with lots and lots of branches everywhere! Gai Heng, Yee Wei and I went to the one in Clementi after our meeting and sang our hearts out. The service was good, but there was a blackout in the middle of out singing, which was a first time for us. This time I took down all the nice song I didn't have, so I'm very happy! After that we went to eat fishball mee pok, the fishballs were huge but soft and spongy - not bad.

A grave mistake

Today wasn't really my day... I made quite an expensive mistake, just by not checking the date of delivery of a buffet lunch! Hmmf... I'm lucky they gave me a discount for that lunch, or I'll be feeling guilty for the rest of the week... :(

Visit to school

It was such a fruitful day! I saw almost all the teachers I wanted to see, except Mdm Tan my form teacher... But it wasn't too bad, Irene and I had a good chat with Ms Yap, Ms Seah was too busy walking around to chat for long, had a short sit-down session with Mdm Wong, watched Mrs Ng eat her lunch, and had a really quick one with Mrs Razal!
Yeah Ms Yap looks the same, Ms Seah looked pale, I wonder if she's tired and stressed. Mdm Wong looks the same too, Mrs Ng slimed down quite a bit, and Mrs Razal!! Same dress sense, short skirt with heels! Man... I missed all of them... I hope to do a home visit soon! They started sprouting babies the moment we graduated... I wonder if we're the reason that they didn't want to give birth.. hahaha.

Squash

I played squash with Irene yesterday evening... She really needs to play with me more often. She was tired just half an hour into the game, and I wasn't even panting! Haha.. I'm not insulting her, but I think this exercise will do her some good too, especially to ease her aching shoulders and neck after looking in the microscope for long hours and swimming with some diseased cells.. Urgh..
For me, I think I need an expert squash player to guide me further. :)

Brewerkz

To all my friends, local or international, you've got to come to Brewerkz at least once when you're in Singapore. It's a great place to hang out, and they make their own beer. I personally like the fruit beer, it's definitely an all-time favourite.
Today we met 2 of Koichi's friends from Japan, Kenzo-san and Yoneida-san, who are in Singapore to look for potential projects. They're both interesting people, and we had a good time talking and drinking. Surprisingly, Yoneida-san has been to Thailand many times, but each time for only 2 months. And he can speak Thai. Hmm... Should I take lessons??

An exciting day

Today started with going back to the optician to try contact lenses for the 2nd time. I was well prepared this time, and I could even imagine myself putting in the lenses! Which I did! Yeap but I had to try a number of times. At least I did it all by myself this time! Oh the first time seeing clearly without feeling the weight on my nose bridge is so fantastic!
Afterwards Irene and Jieying bought a Deuter bag I've been dreaming of for months for me! And then Irene bought a squash racquet under my persuasion, finally. Now I have a new squash partner! Man what a great day today... Of course not forgeting that I'm reading through Dia's proposal, while writing this post.. haha.

Calligraphy

This was my favourite art subject when I was a teenager, and I still like it. I recently took it up again for a certain purpose which I shall not say here, and now it has become my pastime hobby. I love the beauty of each letter written with a traditional nib, and I love the enlarged initials that begin every verse even more. They're so beautiful, especially after illumination. Too bad I could find any place in Singapore that teaches English calligraphy, or sell the special calligraphy equipment... Luckily I have friends who can help me! I hope you know who you are... :)

Weird weather

Today was a fine day for field work if not for the intermittent rain, and I wouldn't even have minded the first wave of rain! It started to come down after lunch, we waited for about 5 minutes before it got lighter. Then 15 minutes later it came down again, really hard this time. So I thought this time it wasn't going to stop soon, so we got out of the forest, Li Juan getting really wet even before we got out! Then just before reaching the restaurants 300m away the rain stopped... Damn! Should have stayed in there...

Wood density 2

Ok I went back to doing wood density again, but this time it's a manual recording and calculation of means of wood densities for some genera. I used an excellent website that records wood density of most tropical tree species (http://www.worldagroforestry.org/Sea/Products/AFDbases/wd/).
It's a bit hard to believe that I spent one whole day just making this list for my trees, and it's still not complete yet, but I think it was time well spent.
And one minor event happened today - I got locked out of my own office! The security guards must have locked it during the weekend, and they even took off the tape we use to keep the door unlocked! Darn... Made me wait outside for 15 minutes before I could enter... This electronic lock is really useless. It somehow fails to work after 6pm everyday, so anyone can come in anytime after 6! Nobody except us and the guards have noticed this I think... Our valuable computers and specimens are still in there, but I don't want to wait for something to happen... Complain or not to complain?

Velocity

I went to the coolest place in Singapore today! At least it is the coolest place to me. My heaven. The things I need for the great outdoors, from trekking to skiing... They're all there! I think I might get my waterproof boots there. Speaking about waterproofing, my boots and clothes got wet from a freak rain on Friday! Things were still manageable from my home to the final bus stop, but once I got out of that bus stop then rain got heavier and the wind got stronger! I can't believe I became 80% wet just from that 500m walk to the building! It really made me mad...
My wishlist now - a raincoat that covers half my thighs, waterproof boots etc.

Contact lenses

The last time I felt so scared was when I was a teenager... I always close my eyes if I feel something is coming close, even if they're still very far away. So to hold my eyelids open and insert a foreign object into my eyes was one of the most difficult things I've ever done in my life! It took 1 whole day of trying and resting before I finally managed to put a lens into my right eye (a great achievement to me!!). I have to thank the optician at NOOCC who helped me with great patience, and Yue Ying for her advice and patience too...
I'll continue to try until I can do it myself!!

Fire drill

There was a fire drill in the afternoon, and it was the most real fire drill I ever had. I was slightly irritated by the continuous ringing, and then it continued to ring for far too long, and i heard people outside on the corridor, so it started - the drill! Everyone was ushered out of their rooms, and one of the security guards shouted to someone so loud we could hear him from 4 floors above!
I met an ex-classmate on the way down, and we chatted all the way to the gathering place. On the way there, one huge fire engine came wailing in, followed by smaller fire trucks. It really looked like something happened! About 10 minutes later they started spraying at the buildings, then 30 minutes later we were allowed to go back to work, and we saw someone lying on a stretcher carried by 2 firemen. Best fire drill ever!

Wood density

Ok I forgot to post yesterday, so I'm doing it now. Wood density is another one of the complicated parameters I'm going to deal with. I'm quite certain that I can't do any increment boring here, so I'll either get the data from our neighbours, or use models to estimate wood density. Well I read somewhere that genus level values for a species' wood density works pretty well. So I guess that's my next step! Also I need to know how other papers got their density values for each species, so I can take an average from the references.

Effect of increased carbon dioxide on plants

I read a review today on carbon sources and sinks, and learned one thing from it. Increased atmospheric carbon dioxide increases the C:N ratio of leaves and twigs, meaning a decrease in tissue quality. Also there is no increase in biomass, which means that even with more carbon dioxide, plants are not sequestering more carbon.
Bad news for plants, and this condition is going to worsen in the next 50 years for sure...

The Handlebar

Since it was rather uneventful today, I'll post something about a past event. My friends and I went to the Handlebar, a very nice drinking place in Alexandra. The address is on the 2nd picture. Can you believe this piece of black bottle holder costs $8? I thought it was free! But anyway this place is cool, it has a pool table, bar-top, a TV and some other accessories that bring out the biker bar feel. For guys, there're lots of pictures of women wearing g-strings with their butt facing you pasted around the whole bar.
They serve the standard German/Belgian beer, plus local beer. The thing I like about this place is the music, it's not crappy like other bars, just smooth old oldies.

A start

23rd September 2008 6.13pm

Luan Keng came to the office today, and gave me some very good advice. She said given that I didn't take honours in university, I should publish something. Even if it's not a scientific journal, just write, be it a paragraph on a nature website, or some non-scientific issues. It will help in my writing skills and improve my English.

So today, just when I'm about to knock off from work, I'm starting this blog as a move towards my short-term goal - get a Masters degree from NIE. Now this can cure my boredom!