I've been getting a lot of cryptic questions. So here's the official response from me. Ask me directly, if not I don't know how to answer. Danwei's questions were the best man, they were so cryptic that i really don't know what he's asking.

So I tried shutting up this weekend and doing more listening. And people think i'm sad and AS.

People tend to generate counterfactual thinking when something bad happens, if only i had done that, I would have accomplished this, this and that. The more easily imagined the event, the more emotional response (regret) is generated (Kahneman and Miller, 1986). The closer you are to getting to the counterfactual thought, the more upset you'll be. It's been shown that Olympic silver medalists are more likely than bronze medalists to voice the opinion that they could have done just a bit better. Also, the more control you have in the event, the more regret you'll have. When attempting to undo the outcome of a game, people are more likely to undo aspects of the game where they had control.

I calculated my projected gpa and ouch, it misses my target by 0.01. Ouch. If only....

Facebook is disgusting. It publishes ur life for the whole world around u to see..

So it's a long weekend. And I haven't studied much at all. Went to my bacteria prof's "farm" on Sat. That's the 3rd prof's house that I've been. Each has its own unique characteristic. This one is wow natural. He keeps chickens and walks around in the garden barefoot. And he gives each visitor a big warm hug, regardless of if he knows u. Er.

Then watched Cirque du Soleil in Del Mar. I think I should stop talking. I talk way too much with these people, I need to listen more. Anyway, I want to go Vegas to watch other Cirque shows. Their acrobatics are pretty amazing and they have nice music and costumes. I want to be strapped to helium balloons and fly too. Or be an angel who only needs to pose and look pretty and hand performers their hula hoops. Angels probably get to fly too.

Supposed to be studying today, but we went to brunch in Hillcrest which took 3h cos the line was an hour long. And we saw 好姨 from 真情 at the restaurant. How qiao is that? So we went to her after giggling forever and took picture with her. She really got a huge mole on the forehead. But she looked glam. and she's nice. =) Then had an utterly Singaporean afternoon where we went to a bubble tea shop, sat down and talked for the whole afternoon, then went some shop to shop shop forever, then went for dinner and sat down to talk again. Loved it all. Haven't had these Singapore talk/ future talk/ past talk/ funny talk for so long. Last time was probably when sy and fm and xy were still around.. I should talk less and listen more. Then came home and played scrabble where tanya won with a 68pt word. Gosh.
Laughed so much today.. hahahahaha..

I do need to study. I wish life is simple.

V-day

It feels like a Friday today. Half my pharm class didn't show up. The lab was pretty empty. Did my blot, got some results and left early. Went to Black's Beach for class, cos there's a concert there today, Alison Knowles was there performing "Shoreline", the main part of it is that she sews a whole bunch of old clothes into a long line along the shore. And there are other parts involving us. Some people were doing the "draw a straight line and follow it", some were doing "vocalists sing together at conductor's cue, but sing anything", people were singing italian, spanish, english.. everything. I should have joined and sang "when stamford raffles held the torch..." haha. Then this guy did the "walking intently" into the ocean in a suit. He got a lot of applause. THe things we do for art. And I was the score holder for my prof's cello playing where he destroys his bows by bowing every single part of the cello, from the tail (that stick thing) all the way up to the head (above tuning pegs), so it's the wood parts, plastic parts, strings... everything. Screechy. Might post my official response to the sounds of fluxes later.

Then went out, on a thursday. No wonder it felt like a friday. Too bad it was pouring, but in any case I bought a score. Yay. Overpriced definitely, but whatever, I'm happy today. And then went to this super nice place on Harbor Island. The view was fantastic. San Diego's pretty spectacular at night. Had a lobster. I should seriously consider eating food that's easy to manipulate next time.. wasn't easy digging through the lobster. Then went walk walk at Seaport Village. The kite shop uncle was so adorable. Love his flying gadgets. I want some to play with. Had a great day.. Feel like tmr's not a school day.

Happy V-Day.

Winter quarter happenings

Sending lao da off. Farewell dinner at Kemo Sabe. The presentation is wow.



That's a whole fish. And it really sticks up like that.

POW truck at Big bear. Skiiers and snowboarders cramp themselves onto the open-air truck. No seats. Hold on to the railings, we're going to camp.

Steamboat CNY dinner with still thoughts. That's my table. We're a super lucky table.. all got good stuff in lucky draw =). Mine was the lousiest, it's 1 slice of meat.

This is weird.. what am i doing?

Craig Venter's talks

Went to listen to Craig Venter today. I can't help but be impressed by what he's accomplished and what he's doing. He's a very ambitious person and a very confident one. He claims that his sequencing of Mycoplasma genitalium is completely accurate. That is a very bold claim. Anyway he wants to start synthesising thousands of genomes every day. Note that's synthesizing, making, creating chemically from scratch... and not just sequencing.

He's either a very smart man or he has some very smart people working for him.. It could be both. Cos every thing that he does is lucrative hot topics. Human genome in 9 months. Personal human diploid genome. Transformation of one bacteria species to other by whole genome transplant. Making a synthetic genome. Doubling the number of bacteria genomes sequenced to date in a single Sorcerer trip. Designing organisms to produce fuels. Makes me want to be a scientist again. Even though my expt techniques absolutely suck.

I should go back to studying my sympatholytics and mimetics... like clonidine and propranolol and prazosin and physostigmine and carbacol and.....

Went for a seminar today about circadian rhythms in bacteria. They wanted to mutate every single gene in the bacteria to see the effects on the rhythm. Every single gene. That's 2700. You know how much cloning that is? And I can't even do a single cloning right. And the speaker flashed a whole long list of undergrads who helped them clone, it was a pretty long list. Bacteria people are fun. They draw all kinds of things with bacteria on plates. So this group drew a sun in one plate and a moon in another and fixed a promoter that is under circadian control to a fluorescent protein. And the sun lit up for 12h and the moon lit up for 12h. How cool!