I ought to be more sociable, I'm being totally AS everywhere I go.. at work, at lesson..

My middle finger on the left hand hurts from playing the double bass, weird, cos it nv used to hurt, usually it's the fingers that plucks that hurt not the fingers that press the strings. Maybe it's a sign, telling me I should retire from playing a string instru..

Hey, I found out that I'm not the only one who wants to do the something desperately.. good.. but guess I wouldn't have the chance to, cos my life's ticking away. Tick tock tick tock..

Went for band prac yesterday, first thing that came to my mind when we played the first piece was "we really suck". And I'm serious, the sound is terrible, everyone was blasting away.. The sound better improve before the concert..

Someone finally read my Christmas card, a month after Christmas. Merry Christmas. Nevertheless I like the reply to my message :) "You will." Got me kinda teary. I really hope I can, will work towards it, but i need directions.. Haha, and i didn't know my status is so high, maybe because of my sucky attitude towards paying money.

Had a 933 songs transposition session, quite crazy, at first I was cheating, making the electone transpose for me, then decided to be more honest, and broke down a zillion times. Gu dan bei ban qiu is a very nice song.

Looking forward to the next weekend, or rather, don't want to go to work.. Tomorrow morning will be spent weighing powder and adding water. Everything is in powder form, medium, agar, buffer, just add water and dissolve to use.

Want to know what i'm doing, what bacteria I'm fooling around with, check out my other blog. Entrance question shouldn't be too difficult for you. =)

Achievement of the day: managed to force the flasks into the spring holder in the swirler thing

Blunder of the day: dropped pipette tip into bacteria culture, luckily i don't need that culture any more.. anyway, i think someone fished it out while i was doing something else, cos the next time i looked, I couldn't find the flask with the pipette tip.. maybe the bacteria ate it up.. scary

Met Ms Debbie Tan yesterday going to work, talked for a min, don't think we've spoke enough to let her remember who I am before my bus came and I rushed to the bus.. I am studying jap now with Christelle's books, haha, cos I just refuse to read the paper on E.coli genes..

Racism, skin colour.. I don't think humans will ever get over the difference in colour in different people. Not unless people of different colours are really forced to mix with each other. Like in singapore, people stick to their own racial groups most of the time, right? Yes the culture between different races is different but i think the main dividing factor is actually looks..

When Singaporeans look at PRCs or maybe Filipinos, immediate response is, they're a grade below us.. correct me if i'm wrong. When caucasians look at Asians, first thing they think is, they're a grade below us.. When an American looks at a Singaporean, and then at a PRC, well, I don't know who is above who but the American is definitely above singaporean and PRC.

I was a jerk yesterday. Sorry about that. I'll be less jerky and more sensitive to others..

Sad Sunday

Usually my mood improves after lessons, but today.. haiz..

Sad because mummy's stuck in China, can't come back cos some idiot stole her passport.. Real idiot, cos there's no money inside that bag, only passport and IC and stuff like that. Only create inconvenience for us.. At least daddy's with her..

Sad because, haiz, my fault lah, shouldn't have stayed for so long, shouldn't have watched that giant chess tournament, should have just gone to buy my Strepsils.. Actually I don't even know why I'm sad.. I've already said the other time that he doesn't have to offer me what I didn't even plan to want. But.. sigh, not anyone's fault, I don't even plan to be free on that day and I'm certainly not a fan of Mr MacDonald. Now why am I blogging so vaguely? Hi Mr sleeveless guy, do you read my blog? Tell me if you do.

Actually I'm glad that I wasn't from Mr Tan's group class. He multitasks too much. He's good at it, but I wouldn't like all that multitasking if I was learning performance. Not that my class is better, but at least I get a good instru to play on, at least half the time. But now I'm learning theory, group is definitely better.. Brain doesn't have to work so fast.

I want to play for A Tempo. I don't care if no one I know is playing for R Winds, I think most people know that I'm in band not for the people but for the music.. I mean the people are very nice, but it's the music that I miss most now that I'm out of it.

I bet I can write a great minor progression in my current mood.. Oh yeah, EL90 will be retired as exam model next year, replaced by STAGEA custom

Cold...

Q: What do you call "maize porridge"?
A: Corny "joke" (supposed to be porridge in Cantonese, spell it yourself)

Q: What do you call a prawn without legs?
A: Lame sia..

Q: What do you call a deer without an eye?
A: No-eye deer

Jokes aside, want an ASTAR attachment? Ask me for details of where to send your requests to and what to send them..

I have to remember 2 things about the world.
1. I can't divide people into 2 categories: the good and the bad. The world doesn't work this way. Sharon is not always a bad guy, but he's not always a good guy either
2. Everybody is human. Everyone has his own work life and personal life. Everyone, including teachers. (read: I shouldn't complain abt ms lee)

Met Stephen, the American Chinese. He's so different from the typical Singaporean around. Had lunch with him and others and he is so interesting. We talked about college applications. He applied to 18 schs when he was my age, and only got rejected by 5, Harvard, Yale, Duke, Colombia and NYU. haha NYU.. Anyway he went to Brown. American uni life according to him is not uni life without drugs, alcohol, sex. Drugs are illegal but the schs usually condones them.
Then he talked abt Singaporeans with no dreams. Quite true actually. His dream is to become the president of the United States. I said haha, he said he's serious. If an a**hole like Bush can become president, so can he.
He asks all girls 2 questions. 1. Are you single? 2. Do you like chicken feet? If the ans to any of those questions is no, then the girl can't be his girlfriend cos he needs his girlfriend to eat chicken feet wiht him.
Anyway it was a short but interesting lunch, though I became a passive smoker.

I have learnt to open the door without using my hands. I am going to be an expert pipette user. I need to develop some finger muscles.. haha. and I'll try not to screw things up. Actually my job is q good, cos don't really need to think, just follow instructions and do. People say that an undergrad can only be a test-tube washer. But i think that if postgrads are all like steve, go talk to experts, sit down, think, arrange meetings, think some more, I would rather be a test tube washer. At least I get to play with bacteria.

Went Marche with class. Saw Huimin the xiao ai ren on the way. She is so full of crap. She grew 1 cm to 151cm and she's so proud of it. Then she wants to be a sch principal.. haha, at least she has dreams.

I'm sick. 38.5 degrees fever.. will go and sleep soon.

I just realised something today. My comp doesn't have a CD-rom drive. Yup and I realise that I can use MSN messenger at work. Good.

Saw Zhen zhen today, on bus to Holland, she's attached there too, and she's getting a lot more than me. Hmm, think allowance is proportional to how early you apply.. Anyway she looks like she's on very good terms with her supervisor, cos she's like playing with her supervisor's hair.
Then on the way home, I saw Sabrina on the MRT, how come I'm seeing all the NP people?

I'm very clumsy, knocking over a lot of stuff while I move.. Luckily never knock down anything impt. and I keep leaving my stuff all over the place, one day the Microarray people will kill me.. I must learn to open the door without using my hands, I must master it by tmr. I think the stems cells people are so cool, every day, they go into the lab, switch on the radio, talk, joke, gossip while doing their expts, and tease every guy around, haha, cos most of them are girls. And Dr Ondre is so nice.. so much more friendly and less scary than Dr Steve.. haha, but Dave has been really nice to me lah, so I have no complaints. Think I've been disturbing his work cos i'm taking too long to streak bacteria and pour agar.. I will be a more intelligent and less kiddy girl tomorrow.

They are really happening people. There was a volleyball game on Mon, table tennis on Tue, canal jog today, basically every day after work some people are going together somewhere to exercise. So healthy..

Attachment: I'm not attached to... not ...'s student I'm just under ... right?

Although I'm not doing anything, it's not very nice to sleep or blog cos my seat is super exposed and everybody can see what I'm doing..

Haha, I was the first one here today, as in the first one in the whole office. Will come later tomorrow. Anyway the layout of the building is quite cool, cos the office goes one round around the building and the labs and whatever other store rooms in the middle. Well, I think I'm the only JC student in the whole building, and what I do here will definitely not be A level Bio. There's no more things like 'this is not impt cos u won't need it for A levels'. Everything is relevant. And lab work is so independent. Quite scary, if I screw up some expt then a lot of money will be wasted.. stressed. Talking about stressed, I think the guy in charge of me is even more stressed, his friends were telling him whether Singapore has 1 more or 1 less scientist depends on him. haha. The person 1 step higher up the food chain is, well actually I don't know how nice is he.. Dave says he's nice, but he said it with a lot of reservation, so I'm very careful when I'm around Dr oh. About the food chain, it goes something like this, me --> Dave and Cai Lian (who's currently enjoying a holiday in Australia) and their poor fish --> Dr Steve whose English is so good, actually he sounds rather like Paul Khoo, haha... And that's about all the people there are in the fermentation group.

This Korean prof came today and the group had a discussion with him and i sat in. Didn't understand half the things they said inside and fell asleep many times. I sure hope he didn't notice.. He's such a heavy smoker, 2 cigs in 15min. Wow, hard to find such smokers in Singapore.

So far, the toughest job I have is trying to stay awake while reading notes and during discussions. A lot of experiment details and names of genes and restriction endonuclease that are just so foreign, think i have to go back to reading.

Biopolis is not so nice from the inside of buildings, there's no view at all. Met Christelle today, she was learning to be a Biopolis tour guide =) and she told me about the sky spider and the cool toilet thing.. basically there's this plastic cover on the toilet seat and when you wave you hand in front of a sensor, the exposed plastic cover will be sucked back into the toilet and another cover will come out.. Ok, actually it doesn't work how I made it sound like it works, nvm, you'll hve to see it to understand, or maybe can ask the trained guide to tell you more about it..

Went Holland V for dinner. So convenient because of the shuttle, hey sounds like space shuttle. I decided that I can never be a doctor. I won't be able to stand all the hospital attachments, internships..

It's 18th Jan. No news from UCAS, or WUSL.. Hope it's only because they're busy processing my applications..

OK I quitted, rather uncoolly, totally unlike me, but I quitted. Feel quite guilty for leaving them like this, as I said, what I did was totally unlike me. Next time I go back there I'll be a customer, but then don't think I'll eat there again cos the food isn't so nice. Don't understand why Christine likes it so much..

Thought today would be terrible, cos Sunday, should be busy right? Started quite badly, managers were like, Joanna, go do ...(basically all the simple things like clearing, and don't do serving). Then the day got better cos it's really not busy today. So empty, I could actually find the right customer on my first round. Think everyone is watching the Singapore- Indo soccer match. No guys were working tonight, but then there was only 3 yellow shirt people today. Quite fun today cos it's so slack, and I can actually talk about band with ZiJun, talk about GR and Alvamar and of course, Singapura Suite, Medley, Tales of the Sea.. and talk about conductors, seniors, juniors.. And cashier today is really nice, very on and very friendly. =) Nice last day.

Thanks to all those who helped me these few days, not like any of them will ever see this, but since there are so many people finding my blog through search engines, they might find this too. Thanks to Aaron, Azlin and oh no, I don't know her name, Lina or sth.. Azlin didn't even try to hide her disappointment in me.. She was telling everyone how she thought she chose the right person for the job, that I'll stay with them, and then I stop after 3 days, said that I malu-ed her. Thanks to ZiJun, the superwoman who's such good company, Miho, Martin, Zepeng, OG, whatever her real name is, and all the other cashiers and chefs.. OK, i shall stop listing names, it makes finding this blog so easy.

And shucks, I'm going to join that sunday class.. going to be darn weird.. think my teacher cannot differentiate between quality and quantity, every time increase the hours, he'll say it's quality..

Decisions, decisions.. no pay or work next weekend, sounds quite obvious which one I should choose right? NO, I'm so tempted to choose no pay...

Actually, my job is quite a loner job, I only talk to other runners, customers and occasionally utter a few words to the pasta chefs, which is good, I'm a loner.. It's a great job when there's enough runners around and enough customers around. It sucks really badly otherwise.. I think I can recognise the food well enough but I still can't figure out where they keep everything and the people working at the counter are not exactly helpful..

Sometimes I think that they 针对我, especially after all the managers know that I want to stop.. When I reached yesterday, I was the only runner around, and there was quite a lot of people, so I got quite confused and lagged badly. Not that there was no other runners around, they were either eating or preparing to leave. The manager had to come help me.. And for some reason or other which I don't know, I'm always doing the latest shift, finish at 11 every day. But I'm a nice sweet girl, I'll let you people do what you like to me as long as you let me quit peacefully..

It's a nice environ, chefs are Malaysians I think, they shout Cantonese songs. One chef is v friendly, the other super dao. Runners are all nice, haha, one of them is actually my pri sch junior and she's fr band, cashiers are all dao. Managers were nice, but they're not so nice now that I told them I'm leaving.. Even though it's a Italian food joint, everyone speaks Chinese, even the Malays know some Chinese, and actually that is why the environ is so nice.

A group of J1s came yesterday, I think they were from DHS, cos 1 of them is my junior who's probably in V or T and another 1 is talking about 'Hope for a better future', so most prob they're sec sch friends.

I sure hope they get my resignation settled today before i start work, then maybe I don't have to close shop today

I'm a Pastamaniac.. for a few days at least.. very few days. Today is my first decent work day, and I'm typing a resignation letter right now. *sigh* If only everything don't clash like this.. I think the Pastamania job is a really fun job. Quite funny, cos they actually issued us weight gain warnings, they said that if we work there, we'll definitely put on weight.. Maybe I should go work at a salad bar instead.

There are people who don't know what RJ is, someone asked me what sch I was from and I said RJ, and she said "What's RJ?", and I said Raffles, and she asked what's J.. hmm.. And there are people who think that RJ people are not human (in a good way, as in RJ people are too smart or sth like that), and I feel quite qian4 bian3 telling them that I'm from RJ. Maybe the next time someone ask me which sch I was from, I'll say,"I'm from a JC". More politically correct and less "Wah.." from everyone. blah, it won't work..

Shucks, either nothing comes or everything comes.. Astar agreed to give me an attachment starting next week but Pasta wants me to start tmr. How? help

I really don't like individual lessons, I've actually forgotten that I don't like them but after a group lesson today, I realise how much more fun group lessons are, and I didn't feel that overaged today.. Even though I'll probably be occupied till May, I still wish that Sorianto gave me a job.. It'll be so much fun. I was really tempted to ask her today but of course I didn't.. *sigh*

First time I heard a pianist marvel at an electone, usually it's the other way round, all the electone players I know like piano and want to be or are already good pianists.. but I don't know many pianists who hear and see the electone for the first few times.. guess my instrument still has its wonders and attract musicians

Saw a group of guys selling tickets for charity, the one who approached me was one of those guys at Somerset MRT last last yr when Ee sang and I were kettling for Salvation Army, and I told him I found him irritating. Think I hurt his feelings.. oops, sorry.

Schools now run 5-day weeks? Apparently VJ does.. wow, no more CCAs on Saturdays? but then I like going to sch to do things other than studying..

DSTA interview

why is it that after every scholarship interview, I know that I have no more hope? This one is quite obvious, the interviewer's attitude and words say it all.. "You have very little chance, there is very strong competition."

Fun thing about the interview is that xiaohui was there, haha, so while waiting for the interviewers to tell long stories to the engineering people, we stayed around and crapped, tried to keep that security guard company, and tried thinking of names for ourselves.. ended up with names like Xena, Grass, Sky, Sotong.. and Christine wasn't exactly helpful with her suggestions either.. what was it? let me think, oh yes, jipigu, whatevr that is..

And yes, I really hope that ms lee has sent everything she needed to send for us, and everything reaches everywhere on time..

The Phantom of the Opera

Lovely movie, good looking actors and actresses, (yes even the Phantom looks good), and everyone can sing well. Only drawback is that Christine's expressions are so difficult to understand, from the way she looks at the phantom, I can't tell if she admires him, loves him, can't help being attracted to him or pretending to like him. Anyway I finally knew the story, I've always thought that Phantom is the good guy and Raoul is the bad guy, well, it's not so. I still can't figure out who the old man and woman at the auction buying that monkey music box are. Please enlighten me if you know.

Emmy Rossum, the girl who plays Christine, is 18. So young, and so accomplished.. wow.

Snails

Snails, like many worms, are hermaphrodites, producing both sperm and eggs. Prolific breeders, snails exchange sperm with one another to fertilize their eggs. Each brood may consist of up to 100 eggs.

Garden snails bury their eggs in shallow topsoil primarily while the weather is warm and damp. After 2 to 4 weeks of favorable weather, these eggs hatch and the young emerge. Snails may lay eggs as often as once a month.
~Wikipedia

Why the sudden interest in snail reproduction? Because my grandfather has 5 adult snails in one of our flower pots right now and they are laying eggs. And there are tiny transparent baby snails crawling out of those eggs. Wow, snails are both male and female and they lay eggs so often, I'm going to have a snail farm soon. Escargot anyone?

Portable string bass

I've always hoped that one day, there'll be a machine that shrinks all the bulky instruments for us to carry around, then enlarge them again when we need to play it. Or, maybe a simpler way is to make foldable instruments.. but this one works too.. Especially since the plastic thing that shows the shape of the instru can be removed, it's an instru that can be dismantled. Solves all the problems of a huge, bulky and soft instrument, but you'll have to lug speakers around. Wonder how it sounds..

wonderful, i'm complaining about not having a job and i turned down a job yesterday and i'm going to turn down another one today.

sorry, i still have some morals and i will not be an immoral salesperson selling some biomagnetic mattress and pillows for a few thousand bucks or be one of those irritating bengs and lians that get paid for hanging around mrt stations bugging people to donate money

Finally something good after all the not-goods. I got a belated Christmas present. Haha, it's always nice to receive presents. and the present is really a surprise, it's a framed model of 3 strings instruments, violin, bass, cello. Guess mr tan has still not figured out which one i play, so get something with all of them inside.. haha. Very cool, can see the difference in shape between each instrument very clearly, i never knew the difference until xiaoxuan told me in Sec 3 i think. Only weird thing about it is that all 3 instruments are the same size and they have bows of the same length. So it's a bit weird to see a bow as tall as a double bass standing beside it. If I'm not paying him so much, i'll feel guilty for taking all his presents..

Saw Royston's poster in the studio and realised that Mrs Eileen Lee was my Grade 4 examiner. She's the one that looks like Catherine Chee, very friendly, smiles, nods, and failed me. ok.

Looks like I'm destined not to get a job.. Have fun at Tekong, guys..