This is what my dad wrote to my mum after she sent him an article on LKY and aging and the importance of keeping active:

"This is a GREAT article. Thank you my darling Lilee Christine. I got it!

Richard Contardo"

I was weirded out because I'm not used to my parents' middle baptist names.

loris and i are returning once again to menotti for their lovely tagliatelli tonight hmhmm~
followed by sth we wanted to try for a while already...the molten choco cake from beard papa. this is sth the loris and i share, a deep and lasting love for good food. hah!

i am touched by the gift of your worldly possessions, loris! =P

yum yum.

what i saw was not what i got; i like what i saw better. the beauty of a lie.

i'm not angry anymore but just a little resigned to the fact that my relationship with my dad will not improve overnight and there is much work to be done in this area, work which i am so disinclined to embark on.

other than that, tgiq made a big boo boo that i think ultimately cost his candidacy in the race to join the family
and i am in a good mood because the next three evenings have been planned for nice stuff
like
wed- shopping for present
thurs- dinner w loris and family and hopefully i get to meet the elusive polar bear wife
fri- astar dinner and dance (we get to get off work at 3.30 woo~)

and saturday, i'm looking forward to badminton/ karaoke and i hope it's both

=) just thought i need to neutralize the sha qi from my previous posts in case it gets to tiring to read my blog...
i haven't seen ta in a while and i'm glad she is gg for the astar dinner.

i don't feel like listening to any more criticisms because I already get too much of it
and all i wanted was unconditional support, which is so rare
so rare because everybody has something to teach, something so important it cannot wait until i am receptive
i am not always in a humble learning mode for all the wise men in the world to regurgitate their pearly wisdoms on
and i am not so enlightened to snap out of a bad day in 5 or 6 kind words
from one or two people
who (also) think they have something to teach me
so what the heck
go away!

The anger I feel now is a deep, searing heat beneath the lungs. When it gets this uncomfortable, I know I should lock myself somewhere and deliberate.
Anger, like sadness, is suffocating. Only I cannot beautify it in my mind with metaphors, and so it remains an ugly thing.
I AM SO FUCKING PISSED!
I DON'T EVEN FEEL BETTER SAYING THAT!

At the end of it, they want it to be that everything was justified and no one was to blame. So if everything else was justified, does it mean my anger is the only unreasonable factor? MERDE!!!!!!!!

I am thinking dirty thoughts now like taking a huge chunk of the cake early tmw morning and donating it to the pigeons, or demanding my 42.50 back just to make a point of my anger. But what's the use? It's just a freakin downward spiral. omg omg omg...







the night weighed
come light
nullify
rage

Sms conversation

Sms conversation

I could have done better.

dad-
Did u know before u go to USA that you'll be meeting up with Jen?

me-
Yup.

dad-
And u didn't think it is something u should let us know?

me-
Nope.

dad-
We are very disappointed u did not care to tell us about it.

me-
You are oversensitive.

dad-
We are, only because u matter; since u so prefer, much as it matters, we will just be silent and bear the cross of our disappointment n keep the distance fm u.

me-
I think it will take some years before you are enlightened. Till then, you are probably right to give me my own space.

dad-
Your message makes me more sad n deeply hurt; so be it. I'll let it go. Perhaps one day you be enlightened.

anwar's daughter 27 who recently got elected as a member of parliament graduated from hopkins SAIS (wat is that) in ' 07 (same as me)
and brody is retiring, he must've earned enough money already and decided to call it quits.

met makibi jon and isaac in ny last weekend and it was nice hanging out and chatting over tea. it's been let's see about 6 months? no 10 months! since i left and well, people are pretty much the same
i can't stop bickering with jon about ridiculous things just cos he is childish like that and meh so am i i guess
and makibi was his usual warm self that always made me feel at home
isaac was the same too, with his formidable air of efficiency
i missed my friends even more after ny somehow and the goodbye hugs were painful

after some drama at JFK with ANA not being able to issue my boarding pass for my IAD-NRT flight and United not being able to check my luggage all the way to SIN, and loris having to check my luggage for me so I only had to run from terminal to terminal in the 30 min connection time I had (which was too short and therefore ANA refused to issue me the ticket- they said by issuing the ticket they are committing themselves to having me board the plane (but their bets were on that I would miss it))
anyway yeah, despite all that, i got home as scheduled, ~midnight yday
and here i am today at work, am i hardworking or what

hai, i woulda slept in if i could, but there is lab meeting today, plus i have to start an expt
plus lab meetings are the best times to break out the yummies and i brought back a box of brownie cookies from trader joes' for the lab

so sleepy now. yawns.

All three md/phd programs put me on the waitlist, and wrote me nice emails about how there are too many qualified applicants and it's not my fault, etc etc, but bottomline is, they don't want me bad enough to give me the scholarship straight out, which kinda sucks.

The two grad schools I am seriously considering now are Scripps and Rockefeller. They're both more like research institutes than universities, and apparently the main thing they themselves think they're lacking is the student community in a university setting. But I somehow don't mind, which could be a result of my antisocial nature and the need to be alone most of the time.

I even feel like skipping the social interaction tonight and just settling dinner by myself in the hotel room, and getting an early rest. I wish socializing could always wait till I'm in the mood, but there's no such thing in the real world is there...
lol. As a result, I've grown quite adept at 'tricking' people into thinking I'm actually more interested in them than I am, but that, unfortunately, lasts for only about 30 minutes, then I just heck-care liao.

you know, I hate it when people raise their voice at each other. I hate it even more when people raise their voice at me. Above all, what is to me a Repulsively FATAL flaw is when they think it is okay to raise their voice at me in public. You can break it down in so many ways. There could be so many reasons why such a thing bothers me so much. But I think if you break it down to the simplest component, its rarest form, it is because I despise the lack of control of one's own actions. It's a signal that the mind is weak, and I don't tolerate that very well.

one scripps PI on harvard, her alma mater:

'why seek out misery when life hands it out anyway?'

by far the strongest firsthand account of the school i've heard...
a sleepless night it is. just me and my blog again. actually, it's me my blog and a roomate, suddenly got one bcos some stupid flight got screwed up, or sth, whatever the bottomline's the same
she's nice
asleep now, with bao za hair, quite scary
so i get to put my feet on the table as usual, lean back, be myself...

now's the time to pull in the reins, I think, because any further and I'll fall over the edge...
see, I can't be selfish, but turning around isnotevenbeing selflessbut just responsible... Iguess, you couldsay, just right. gotta do what's right...

I'm so sleepy...got up at 6.30 for breakfast cos I was super hungry...didn't know where to go for dinner, and was too lazy anyway...plus my budget is tight. No unnecessary expenditure...
koped some cheerios and milk from the breakfast buffet just in case i don't have food again tonight...
it is monday...
Tuesday afternoon at IAD i'll be meeting the loris
i'm so hug deprived
having someone to hug whenever is really a luxury...

so so tired...can't wait for nyc...
meeting isaac and jonjon again...
it's been a while...

wish me luck for scripps...
before i even visit the place i know it is one of my top choices
I predict that I will end up in either 1)Scripps 2)UCSD or 3)Rockefeller
UCSF put me on hold which means they don't really want me, which means no way I'm gg there...
Stanford hasn't got back to me plus the loris is not going there, so that's out of the way...
Harvard simply ignored me, fullstop.

gotta catch a shuttle to scripps now
goodnight mr loris, see you soon =*

a record number of 3 posts in a day!

just thought i ought to say- my PI intended to put my name in before I even talked to him. He just didn't tell me.

go PI! =P should have had more trust in his fairness.

heh!

I need some advice. I discovered a new Hep B epitope that is going to be on a paper soon to be submitted to an okay journal, probably JVI. But because this is not a huge discovery, and it is not the focus of the paper, I'm not going to be on the paper or credited for the discovery in any way.

I feel there's something wrong there, because I did carry out the experiments.

but the idea behind the experiments was taught to me by my PI. The design of the experiment is a pretty standard design that we all use in the lab.

and so, am I simply lusting after something that I don't truly deserve? Like, some recognition for the work I did. After all, it is for sure a new discovery, and who knows, it may come in useful in the future for new vaccine development.

I am troubled by this. Because I feel cheated. Should I go and talk to my PI? I'm kind of afraid that he will laugh and say, what, you expect to be given credit for that little bit of work? Also because the cells I mucked up (those precious ones) were the clones that recognized this new epitope...

=(

Today I entered CTE 1 minute after 8.30 and it cost 3 bucks. at 8.29am it would have cost 2
Yesterday I also entered CTE after 8.30
And I wasted another one buck for going five minutes over the hour, parking at Beauty World
even though the guo tie there was really good, just the right chewiness and crisp, and juicy tasty filling

In total I wasted 3 bucks in 2 days get over it already

well in a way i wasted another 2.50 x 2 = 5 bucks for not waking up early and having to use the CTE to rush to work
so that is 8 bucks in 2 days
plus it is another 1.50 for parking every time i eat at Biopolis and so the loris and i decide to eat at his house instead, mostly, these days

Season parking prices are being raised too, at first i thought it would be raised from 60 --> 90 (wth) but i found out that the carpark i park at is reserved for staff and so the raise is only 5 bucks (to 65) phew
Poor student drivers..

I have a burgeoning gripping terrifying fear
That the loris and I will have to do long distance
Five years.

i got a cold today from sitting directly under the aircon in the bus...gahhhhhh

i have been listening to jay chou's new songs over and over again as usual, because I like them and because the chorus of most of his songs are within my range and i get to sing along too

i am such a karaoke queen i feel like going again

i spent helluva lot of money these past few months i feel very poor...

back to work la...