Went for a 3f class outing which had a fantastic turnout. More than half the class + 2 teachers.. wow. Yup RJ was the anomaly. It's a conglomeration of many many intelligent people in a school, in a class. It's where I was wow-ed by classmates and teachers' zai-ness. That was harder to find in uni, maybe cos there was less interaction with classmates than there was in JC, we definitely don't borrow each other's tutorials or essays in uni.. But maybe it's really because the inspiring people are not concentrated in a class any more, you have to look to find them. No one takes the exact same classes with you any more and there really isn't anyone who can say something amazing to link your chem class to that genetics class..

Anyway, had a farewell "party" just now for a RA. Gosh, it was more of a meeting than a party. In the meeting room, there's food, but everyone just keeps quiet and eats. The problems of having too many chinese people. Once the PI leaves, the noise level goes up immediately. It's ridiculous.

The style of this lab is so different. It's supported by RAs, not postdocs. It's like a company, when 1 product is doing well, everyone invests energy into that product to speed its improvement and production. It's supposed to promote group work and speed and reduce fighting within the lab for projects. Does it work? I don't know.

Taking GRE tomorrow. I read through my GP notebook. There are actually some substance in there. We actually talked about Engels and John Mill and stuff like existentialism. I have no recollections of those. Probably just took them to be names of old famous guys whom I don't know the significance of. And I looked at my Hum summaries. There are names of people that I have no clue what they did. Who was Schlegel? Or Novalis? Seriously, what was I doing when I read those people's works?

Went out with the UCSD people yesterday. A friend at work was surprised to hear that there are actually 10 people from UCSD here in singapore.. Saw a really sweet couple, I really didn't expect that. =)

Had great dinner conversations again. It's been a while since I've heard these people put up passionate statements against each other's statements. And it's surprising how A knows B's friend who knows that their mutual friend Z is getting married and other mutual friend omega is already married. There really isn't that many people that we come into contact with in Singapore. Everyone knows everyone.

I'm afraid of commitments, afraid to put down decisions that I might not like later. I'm all for no bondage trials. If things don't work out.. well, free return, exchange, refund. But life's not like that, is it? Most stores aren't willing to give returns or refunds. It's an American concept. The freedom and willingness to try. There is a problem with the word attached. It's a trial. It's not an attachment. There shouldn't be an obligation to be magnetically bound.

Heard loads of stories about my work place since I've started. Saw this secret manual on what kind of place to choose to work. Hahaha. I should stop going wherever people reply emails the fastest.

I think I'll live.

My weird music

Away from noise
-- a sound narrative
http://www.box.net/shared/oqk9ip4n44

Ballie
-- a cute sonic creature
http://www.box.net/shared/t836s9okks

Amoeba song
-- this is just weird.. It's made mainly from sounds recorded in my lab (as in bio lab), and water sounds
http://www.box.net/shared/79cifk4cg0

Back in sunny Singapore

I've been back and learning how to live in this country again. Learn to remember to bring umbrella and water and tissue around, learn to say 'queue' and 'petrol' again, learn to type messages with 2 fingers again, I even have to relearn crossing roads. Went kbox the other day and the guy asked us if we were local. I didn't know how to answer that. Do we look that foreign?
We've been taking different paths for 3 yrs.. to get the roads to converge again is not easy. There's this cute phd comic about being a foreign student. Here it is:



We didn't have to go through 2 and 3 and i'm no where near the over qualified part but the rest is pretty accurate.

Well life is never easy. Beneath every gracefully swimming swan/ duck/ goose, there are feet madly pedalling away to keep the bird moving. Start kicking.