Burning midnight oil sessions

Were we ready, who’s to say the answer?
Who is ever ready for these things?
No one could prepare us for the laughter
No one could prepare us for the pain

You feel like burning embers
You feel like coming home
You feel like my forever
And that’s all I need/want/have to know

Every night I ask for your forgiveness
In grown up skin I still act like a child
I can make believe that I am flawless
You’re close enough to see the cracks I hide

You have caused me tears of joy relentless
I cannot now imagine life without
I owe you more than humble words could confess
I love you more than I even know how

You feel like burning embers
You feel like coming home
You feel like my forever
And that’s all I need to know

You feel like Christmas morning
You feel like summer rain
You feel like holy waters
That rinse away my stains

You feel like children singing
You feel like midnight calm
You feel like breathing deeply
Until the storm is gone

~Burning embers
by Kendall Payne

The view outside my bedroom window. Leaves have fallen from the trees, winter is officially here. See the heart shaped candles? They were used for my 19th bday!

Took out my camera, might as well take a few more pictures of my room. Study area, with little fan heater blowing right in my face. Very messy ;P

My comfy bed. I find having big beds a waste as I just sleep on 1 side anyway
(the side closest to alarm clock of course)

No I'm not depressed or anything like that. Just feeling a wee bit sentimental discussing over "heavy" stuff lately: graduating next year, having to leave some friends end of this year, weddings, responsibilities, duties to fulfil etc.

And also, looked through my photo album from National Service back in 2005, reminded me of all the friendships formed; the tears cried & laughter shared, those are the memories that will stay in my mind forever, the ones that I will cherish. It scares me a little knowing that the experiences I go through now, the words I say and actions I do at this very moment will define my future and the people that are going to stay in my life forever for a long time. =)

expectations vs desires

Today Ps. Graeme preached a really good sermon. Not your typical everyday, boring one. It was about marriage, quite funny he chose that topic as there were probably only 3 married couples at Cityside. But many potential ones coming up, so that's useful. It was about expectations vs. desires.

He talked about why most marriages fail: when you turn your desires into expectations. For example, you DESIRE a husband who earns big bucks, you DESIRE a big-as mansion, you DESIRE a husband who cooks, bla bla bla. And when desires are not made, you turn those into expectations that SHOULD HAVE been made. As a result, a covenant of love turned into a contract of obligation. Such a simple statement but I wonder just how much a difference it would make if people stop expecting people around them to serve them...

***

My parents are mean.

They're "complaining" about the warm weather back home in Kuching.

Plus, they're going away for an ahem shall we say, exotic holiday next week.

How encouraging that is for me. -___-



Would you rather live here:

...or here?

P.S. I'm running out of pictures to post. My camera haven't been used in almost a month now. How sad. Exams are driving every one crazy.

MU forever <3

I didn't feel like blogging, but this special day calls for a post for itself.

Scholes (18, not the eagle dude) - an oldie but still my fav =)

Congratulations to Manchester United on winning the Champions League yet again!!!

I can't believe I was so engrossed in the reports I didn't even bothered to find a way to watch it- sneak into Unicol to watch the live match...

Bummer.

Anyway glad that they won. =) Though it has been a bad day in general. I wore boots today (bad idea since it was rainy and the grips on my boots are practically non-existent. Worst case scenario: slipping and falling on my knees on the side of the road where everyone can see me. Yeap, that happened. I know, pity me. I grazed my knee pretty bad, had to brush it off (despite holes in my leggings), and try walking without limping to lecture.

Bioc report class presentation tomorrow. Eeeeeeeeks. I freak out during public speaking.

Then here comes the weekend... well one of the last weekends before finals. Scary.

Laughing all the way

I almost went crazy today because of micro lab.

But thank God it was just a scare.

For the past 3 weeks of micro lab, our aim was to do a transposon mutagenesis. Boring stuff, won't explain all that but anyway should see 3 bands and 5 bands alternatively besides the marker DNA on the first lane of each gel photo.

The results of 13 hours of HARD work.

Anyway, took the 1st photo and got the scare of my life when I saw that there wasn't any bands at all for the first few lanes. The lab demonstrators said it could be contamination- meaning I would have to repeat 1 week's worth of experiments all over again. Which means extra time at lab, less time to write report, extra brain cells dying due to stress.

But I still ran the 2nd gel anyway hoping for a miracle. And guess what? It worked! (see 2nd gel). The bands were perfect!!! Then I realised I had made a serious, crazy mistake: throwing out the 1st gel into the rubbish bin, as I could have just stained it longer to get clearer results. So one little mistake costed me more than 3 hours of extra lab work. But yeah, final results were good, which meant I don't have to go into micro lab tomorrow! =D

*crosses fingers and hopes all goes well for bioc lab too!*

We had a 3rd year pHD student from micro department come in to talk about her research and life (or lack of) as a post grad student today. Very insightful. She has the brains, and got a full scholarship including a 25K funding for her research (a potential lead on TB disease? hmm), 10K for travel to a conference of her choice, and full tuition fees paid. Very very nice package, eh? Downside is, she stays at the lab from 8am to 7pm every day (sometimes weekends too). And though it's been 3 years doing same research, but still not sure where it'll lead her etc. It got me thinking quite a bit: on whether I would consider doing postgrad or not and where it'll lead me- industry or academics. The latter is just not for me: facing students and lecturing whole day. Oh well, time will tell.

A certain miss from IMB still isn't replying me!!! So frustrated since Ron got a reply from her ages ago, yet I sent an email to her first, TWICE!!! Discrimination! Very annoying since I'd even gotten a letter of endorsement for IMB, and really hoping to get accepted there for work placement end of this year.

If only accommodation in Singapore isn't that expensive...

Anyway, had a very good bday dinner (Ben's) at blue blue de sky tonight. It was almost like everyone sniffed some laughing gas: we couldn't stop laughing at the slightest things and talking about very random things, some quite gross. Like when some rice fell into a glass, the convo turned into drinking barley. Felt like we were kids once again. Ahhh, what a warm and fuzzy feeling that is. :P

3 weeks to finals. Eeks.

Hustle bustle

Guess who? Hehe
Actually, guess WHERE.
See, Chyi Mei, this is being random.
Need to take more photos.

Amongst all the labs, surprise birthdays (Happy burpday Ben MOK!!! sorry if we spillled chocolate stuff on your bed ;P) and writing up assignments, MORE time is needed for the mission of looking for the bridesmaid dresses.

Option 1. Buy raw material, then get it made by dressmaker. Pros: might be cheaper, custom-made to own liking and body shape etc. No need to worry if no sizes available. Con: might not be in time- 5 dresses to be made in less than a month. eeks.

Option 2. Buy ready made dresses from Stax, Principles etc retail stores. Pros: all designs would be the same, don't need to worry too much about details, could be cheaper too. Cons: all sizes available? need to find exact colour (turquoise & silver) to match maid-in-honor's dress, and roughly same material (raw silk: something silk or satin would do the trick I guess).

Time, of course, is the constraint. Raymond & Michelle's wedding ceremony is on the 15th of June, exams end on 11th for me, but much later for others. Still need to worry about make-up and hair, trouble is no salon is open at 9am on a Sunday morning. Oopsy.

And most of us have VERY limited make-up skills. I don't even own a proper mascara except for one my Russian friend bought me 3 years ago.

This is going to be interesting.