Maggi mee! Wahahaha....

Well that's according to my room-mate cum new NTU understudy.

My randomly concocted rice broth of oyster sauce, dark sauce and cajun seasoning  with a dash of sugar smells like maggi mee. That's a good sign. Maybe I'm on the way to revealing the secret ingredients of the world famous maggi curry flavoured noodles! And then they will pay me to keep the recipe secret. And then I'll be a rich man! :D

Yeah right...

This is uploaded by a Singaporean friend of mine. Do enjoy his pictures! They look good!

picasaweb.google.com/weinberglab/2009BostonFireworks

I took a whole 21 minute video of the fireworks but naturally I can only bring it back to Singapore to show it to you guys. The fireworks were very impressive and my new understudy from NTU, Simon, and I were extremely lucky to be able to secure a nice spot on the bridge to see the fireworks. It was a rather long 2 hour wait but well worth it considering the excellent vantage point we had. But then again, almost everyone had good views of the fireworks since it was a rather open area. I enjoyed the loud explosions and vivid colours that was presented right in my eyes. The only other explosion that could possibly make me this thrilled is that of shooting a gun at the range.

Work is finally winding down to a close after my presentation yesterday was completed. My time in the lab is mostly occupied with teaching Simon the ropes and also in planning for the coming vacation. I've only just booked the hotels. Transportation is still something I have to grapple with. I wish everywhere was as accessible as Singapore so I don't have to worry about transportation. Fortunately for students on a budget, the US has many bus companies with rather cheap tickets that allow us to travel from one major US city to another. That is a huge consolation nonetheless.

At the same time, I'm attempting to squeeze as many dinners with as many people as possible before I leave Boston for good. Sigh. Parting is such sweet sorrow.

I've finally managed to convince my mentor, wait, I mean our overall boss has finally managed to convince my mentor to dial the experimental workload down a notch or two. Good news for me! I used to believe that being efficient and performing all your work asap was the way to go. However, there's only so much time you can devote to being super hardworking before your mind starts to go crazy. My mind was on the verge of going crazy the past 3 weeks. Constant experiments. Constantly going back to the lab. Constantly being really frustrated, disgruntled and unhappy. 

Because of that, I realised that a mere notion of having a weekend free (like this past two days) really brought alot of benefits to me psychologically. I feel like I'm ready to take on the whole world again. Before this weekend, we spent another weekend vacationing at Cape Cod (I haven't uploaded the pictures yet as I'm still waiting to get the pictures from my mentor and another lab colleague). For me, I think a "vacation" isn't a vacation. My simple notion of a vacation is simply having some time to myself doing things I want to do. Going to Cape Cod felt like something I was forced to do. What I mean by that is, "since I'm in the US, I better utilise every waking moment to visit and experience different places". That's why I felt compelled to visit Cape Cod. Indeed, it was a relaxing getaway but it just didn't give me the vacation I required.

Anyway, I've recently been busy doing paperwork for my NTU logbook. That's why I'm gonna take a 2-3 week break from this blog to fully concentrate on that. I've probably typed around 25,000 words, or around 50 pages worth of experiments for that logbook already. And that only covers 9 weeks out of a total of 22 weeks of entries. Even though I'm here for 26 weeks, I just need to write for 22 weeks. Phew.

In the meantime, I really hope the H1N1 thing dies down real soon. I don't want to take a 7-day leave of absence when I get back to Singapore. Looking at the latest statistics, I just saw that the number of possible infected people in the US is 12,000. I hope I don't add to that statistic. It's so shocking that so many people got infected in the past 2 months alone. Like they say, that's globalisation rearing its ugly head!

After months of having my Internet Explorer crashing on me, I've fallen in love with other web browsers like Safari and Chrome. The only reason why I haven't made the complete switch is because MSN Live Messenger's automatic hotmail sign-in works only with Internet Explorer.

Sigh, if only Safari and Chrome could be sync-ed with Windows Live Mail. 

Too bad Microsoft is the dominant player in the web browser's playing field. That's the pro and con of having a dominant company.

Challenges. We face them everyday in our daily lives. Some wise man once said that the way to overcome challenges was to look at our setbacks and see the positive side of things. 

Right now, the project I'm working on seems to be going nowhere. The system doesn't work as well as it should and we're I'm just doing random things so that the supervisor doesn't question us about why didn't we try this method or that procedure even though we knew it wasn't gonna work. It's so aimless and pointless. When things do work (sometimes), and I know it's gonna work, other people try to look at the positive side of things and say we learnt this and we learnt that. But I knew that already. What have I learnt? And then the reply goes, "Oh we confirmed this observation as well." Yes, but I didn't learn anything new or exciting or something worthwhile enough to make me feel that I've done meaningful work.

To the person who didn't do any work, an observation like the above or a small tidbit of new information seems like a positive thing. To the person who did all the work, it seems like he wasted the day. And that's how I've been feeling these past few days. How does one remain positive in that kind of situation?

Who says holidays are good? In my case, I used to think holidays are great. Not since I came to Boston though. Hahaha... There was a long weekend this past week which made this week a 4-day week. Nonetheless, in the 3 days that have passed since the holiday was over, I've squeezed in so many experiments and re-lived my 12-hour workday 3 times over already.

When they say you're doing research, what they really mean is that you are just poking around in the dark hoping to hit something. This was really the case with most of the experiments I did this week. It was pretty random stuff hoping to get something. Suffice to say, the experiments did not go well since we were trying them for the first time. I felt it was a rather wasted experiment but my mentor thought otherwise. He's very positive while I'm pretty negative. I guess it stems from the fact that I want to do it once and do it good. And most of the time when you're doing something new, you tend to screw up. Blame the army for that "do it once do it good" mentality.

Today, I spent the entire morning and afternoon doing this one experiment. What happened was that I infused some leukemia cells into a chamber and made them stick to the surface of the chamber. Next, I infused in some stem cells and hoped to let the stem cells "interact" with the leukemia cells. For some odd reason, the stem cells did not appear. Being the positive person my mentor is, he decided that we should infuse in another batch of stem cells. For the next two hours, the stem cells still did not appear. It was apparent the stem cells were stuck somewhere but we couldn't do much to dislodge them. However, my mentor stuck till the very end, hoping the cells would somehow appear. I, on the other hand, had given up hours ago. And no, the cells did not appear for the 6 hours we ran the experiment.

In the next experiment we did in the evening, we decided to modify our approach to setting the experiment up. So I infused three batches of cells into a tube which would next be infused into the chamber with the leukemia cells. As I was setting the chamber up, I accidentally caused the three batches of cells to be sucked into the vacuum tube as I forgot to shut off one of the valves. It was pretty comical. OMG.

Been in the US for the past 4.5 months now and there has never been a forecast for thunder. Well at least generally when there is a forecast for rain, I check and there usually isn't a forecast for thunder.

Just earlier this week, I happened to see the entire week's forecast was sunny all the way till... wait for it... Sunday. What an irony.

The Sunday weather forecast called for light thunder-storms. I woke up this morning and thought I heard it rain. Then I went back to sleep wondering where the thunder was.

Just now, I finished my run thinking what a pleasant day it was. There wasn't much sun, which sucked, but at least it didn't rain. 30 minutes after getting back, I hear the first sound of thunder in 4.5 months. Simply amazing. I'm pretty lucky huh.

There's something intriguing about this thunderstorm thing and I haven't checked the facts yet, how does the weatherman know when there's gonna be thunder or when there isn't? It's a pretty good and accurate prediction 5 days in advance I have to admit. I'm thinking they have some sort of weather satellite that can sense the amount of electrical buildup which leads them to forecast for thunder and lightning. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Isn't it weird and sometimes very frustrating when we schedule our lives around tiny cells? White blood cells in this instance.

Life as a researcher can be so crappy and yet so interestingly fun at the same time. Sometimes, I really wish my lab was more normal like the other labs. i.e. Leaving work by 6-7pm, no need to work on weekends, etc. Right now, it's a common sight to see half of my lab personnel working in the lab during weekends while no one else from the other labs comes to work at all.

My final report is due next Friday but I haven't started a single page yet. I'm piled so deep in experiments that I don't have the mood or the energy to write the report. For those of my friends who have written more than 10 pages of your report, be glad, the end is near for you. 20 pages of report isn't too tough to write at all. :) Don't be too stressed like me. Hahaha...

I'm getting used to relaxed days. My agenda for today was to read up as much as I could on Humanized Mouse Models. That is to say, find out as much crap as I possibly could about something I can't comprehend. In other words, I basically wasted my time because I could not understand the information. The post-docs at my lab had no idea about these models as well and thus could not help me. In the end, I ended up looking at the Wikipedia entry about this classic called "The Divine Comedy". I can't understand why people say that's a classic though. It seemed so arcane and all.

Next, I spent the entire afternoon researching about a trip to this place called Cape Cod. Now, that's something I'm good at. Cape Cod is a picturesque place with loads of beaches and a nice seaview. They even have tours for whale-watching! I've already booked the hotel for May 30th, so do expect pictures on June 1st!

Right now, I'm basically sorting out my data and making sure my lab notebook is properly updated. I have yet to update my blardy NTU logbook though. So that's gonna be a pain. In the meantime, I think I will just enjoy life as much as I can. I'm glad my mentor gave me free rein over how I manage my time. Nowadays, during work time, I spend 30-60 mins doing "personal" things like talking crap with lab mates. I really enjoy these "personal" moments. :)

Back to sorting my notes before heading home!

These days, talk abounds of swine flu being very dangerous and everything. Even the ministers in Singapore are being very conservative and saying that the swine flu is in fact more dangerous than the SARS outbreak back in 2003. I would probably agree with some of the claims that they made. Yes swine flu is more contagious. BUT so is the typical influenza virus. In fact, there are many more influenza cases at any point in time than there are swine flu cases.As compared to SARS, getting infected with swine flu doesn't mean you are given a death sentence. It usually means you get a few days MC to rest, just like you would any typical influenza infection. And then you recover. The only difference is that with swine flu, you probably get quarantined as well.

So far, in Boston, there have been 34 individuals infected with swine flu. As the Boston Globe reports, "People across the state have been stricken, but only three fell so ill that they needed to be hospitalized, and all have recovered." The problem with swine flu killing so many people in Mexico is probably due to the poorer access to primary healthcare there. Here in Boston, you have one of the best, if not the top medical doctors and facilities in the world.

Once again, from the Boston Globe, "Swine flu, in a matter of days, had hopscotched the globe, racing in the era of jet travel from Mexico, through the United States, Europe, and all the way to China. But the virus has resulted in only a single death outside the outbreak's epicenter.". The latest report from the WHO confirms this as well: http://www.who.int/csr/don/2009_05_05a/en/index.html. Most of the countries outside Mexico which have confirmed swine flu cases have comparably better healthcare systems, that's why only one death has occurred outside the diseases epicenter so far. Yes that death occurred in the US. But that's because we have the highest number of infected people outside Mexico. Mexico has 822 confirmed cases with 29 deaths while the US is second in line with 403 confirmed cases and 1 death.

Anyway, this is just a little post to re-assure everyone back home that I'm fine and not to worry! :) I'll be extra careful!

To read the whole article on the Boston Globe about the swine flu situation in Boston, here's the link : http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2009/05/05/fears_of_a_deadly_outbreak_abate_as_swine_flu_virus_gains_foothold/?page=1

In the meantime, please take care everyone! Love you all! :)