Lab in Kampar…

The five of us are very fortunate to be in Kampar to do our Final Year Project (FYP).

Really pity those who have to steal and beg and queue for the equipments in Setapak.

We have our very own set of micropipettes and the autoclave machine is basically ours…

So… I must admit… we are very very fortunate… so be thankful… haha

Anyways, since our work are mostly Molecular work… this involves lots of PCR and gel… which also means, lots of waiting time…

A few days ago, our PCR run was not successful, leading to the presence of amplicons in negative control of the PCR… haiseh… pity Wai Yew, has to run and run and run, but still got problem…

Finally, we did total cleaning, sterilization, and retesting of our reagents… and the cause? contaminated gene primers… Thank god Wai Yew didn’t explode that time… almost…

Anyways, since today we have not much things to do other than waiting for the retesting of stock primers, we have lots of time to do other things… such as… SINGING…

Wai Yew, Xavier and I were singing out loud in the labs like no body’s business…

And here’s Wai Yew singing while cleaning the glasswares…

Haha… we really enjoyed ourselves there…

 

At night, we had dinner with our seniors cum Master students and the lovely Dr. Chew and Dr. Choo… Thanks for the treat. I really enjoyed our night…

At the same time, we celebrated Sue Bee’s birthday… She’s my ‘dai kar che’ (Big Sister)… haha… she’s in charge of my project…

Her birth date is on Oct 17, so… early Happy Birthday oh… !!! hehe

Tomorrow night, I’ll be heading to Singapore… till then… see everyone back on Tuesday!

Research…

Today, I discovered the meaning of ‘Research’…

‘Re-’ means that you have to do it again and again…

‘-Search’  means that you have to look and do and hunt for answers and solutions, no matter what…

So what happened?

I’m doing PCR and few days ago, my PCR went well, with the negative control showing no bands. Which is good!

But today… both my PCR run, gave some unsatisfying results, and all the negative controls show bands.

Contamination? perhaps…

I really feel the frustration of not getting the expected results… and I really don’t feel like wasting more resources… Really pity my lab mate… he has been getting bad results for over a week already…

Tomorrow, I will autoclave everything… clean everything… change some of the things I’ve been using all the while… and when I’m satisfied, I will run 2 negative controls… hopefully, none of my current reagents are contaminated…

Wish me luck~!

 

 

P/S: To all other friends who are doing your research as well… hopefully this can encourage you. :)

DON’T GIVE UP!!!

My journey back to Kampar…

06.00 am – yelling of my alarm clock…

07.30 am – woke up late

07.45 am – joined Jenny and Xue Jie to FRIM for a hike

09.45 am – arrived at the canopy walk

10.42 am – heading back to Genting Klang

11.05 am – had my lunch

11.32 am – took bath and tidy things up…

12.05 pm – took bus and LRT to KL Sentral

12.46 pm – arrived at KL Sentral KTM Station

01.05 pm – discovered that an accident happened, train derailment…

01.15 pm – was told to take my KL-to-Ipoh train at Kepong

01.35 pm – took the KTM Commuter to Kepong, with much delay…

02.20 pm – arrived at Kepong KTM station

02.45 pm – the KL-Ipoh Shuttle Train Arrived. Board the train, and depart

04.45 pm – arrived at Kampar KTM station

04.51 pm – seeing the sky so blue and cooling weather, decided to walk back to Westlake.

05.12 pm – passing by Kampar old town.

05.32 pm – Some motorcyclist stopped to ask whether I needed a hitch-hike home… I declined.

05.38 pm – arriving at Kampar New town.

05.55 pm – arrived at Westlake.

 

Along the journey, I discovered some things…

1) KTM trains ALWAYS have delays and problems. Someone on the train told us that last week, one of the carriages got on fire… another week, no air-conditioning at all.

2) Train is a great place to see different people. No wonder some people say that travelling on the train is just like life – people get on the train, while some others get off… it’s just like you meeting some people in your lifetime, and while some others are just passing by…

3) Travelling to Kampar by KTM is much faster compared to bus… IF and ONLY IF, there are no delays.

4) It takes only about 1 hour of slow walk from the KTM station to Westlake.

5) There are lots of things to see in Kampar town… I really need to record them in photographs before the old buildings are demolished…

6) Someone actually stopped to ask whether I needed a ride back home… That’s a very nice thing to do, and it’s been a while since I myself witness this kindness from a total stranger.

7) The frequency of public bus from Kampar new town to old town is once each hour. The bus normally arrives at new town around the 30th-minute of the hour.

7) One of Westlake guard’s name ends with Raja. haha

The truth is… I love my weekend… it was such a great fun!

Falling in love with my 50mm

Now I know why some people say…

How I wish I can glue my 50mm f/1.4 on my SLR camera!

and after using that lens for over 3 hours today… I really loved it!!!

 

Just that… it has no Auto Focus… T_T

I ended up shooting more repeated photos than I should… cause they’re out of focus…

Life in Kampar

Well, quite predictable…

Wake up at about 7am, get ready to UTAR.

Reach UTAR at 8.30am, start working on my project, till 5.30 pm… sometimes later.

Have dinner, clean up, and by then, it’s already 8 pm.

watch some Daai Drama, some medical news and updates, browse a bit of the internet.

Summarize my day’s work.

Sleep at about 11 pm.

Next day, same thing all over again… All of a sudden, I feel like I’m a PCR machine… haha

By the way, I’m heading back to KL tomorrow. Got some late Tanglung Festival celebration on Saturday… I can’t wait!!!

 

P/S: Still no photos la… don’t know when only I’ll be free to take photos… I haven’t even finished reading my journals yet…

Join the fight for climate Justice

The Heat is on! How can we sleep when our beds are burning? Good question…

Watch this…

It’s a project… for more info… visit http://www.timeforclimatejustice.org/ 

If you love the song… these artiste even made it available for everyone to download for free…

*click here*

Here comes the day…

In less than 24 hours, I’ll be staying in Kampar… doing my final year project…

I CAN’T WAIT :)

Morning rain…

With that morning rain… with that lazy butt… with that cool weather… who wants to get up from bed eh?!

Anyways, I got up not-quite-early today… and went out to shoot some macros…

I must admit, having a macro lens is very different from just using a normal inverted lens… it allows you to photograph from a distance away, without interfering or annoying the insects and creatures. With the 105mm, it makes an excellent distance shooting…

You’ll see quite a lot of greens, but never-the-less, I hope they’ll still take your breath like macros always do to me…

Among the wild bushes…

…you’ll find small details like this…

In the garden of my home… some small orchids are blooming…

and the wax on the leaves helps to makes some deceiving pearls…

I was all sweaty after the shoot… Very nice to go around… no bugs or butterflies this time… couldn’t find any of them. I’d much prefer to shoot some moving objects…

Anyways, I hope you enjoy as much as I do.

 

By the way, the new header is switched with this new shot…