A flu has been spreading among my labmates like wild fire. I want to blame it on the congested workstation, or the scorching temperature outside (not to be lame, but the constant heating-and-cooling cycles one experiences in singapore summer remind me of doing pcr).
But too late... I have come down with a strep-related sore throat and mild fever...
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Alone
I feel lonely.
Strung between the wants to remain my single independent self and the needs to be part of a couple.
Despite my rationalization for the opposite -the voice saying that I shouldn't feel this way, I have people who love me deeply, unconditionally.
I'm struck by how autonomously I still operate despite an almost-two-year long relationship. There is a struggle between my uncompromising selfish core and my desire to trust and rely on others.
Fencing out my loved ones is both tiring and futile. Maybe I keep doing so because I wanted to be unique and weird, or to feel strong, but eventually I ended up mediocre like everyone else.
A mediocre weirdo.
Strung between the wants to remain my single independent self and the needs to be part of a couple.
Despite my rationalization for the opposite -the voice saying that I shouldn't feel this way, I have people who love me deeply, unconditionally.
I'm struck by how autonomously I still operate despite an almost-two-year long relationship. There is a struggle between my uncompromising selfish core and my desire to trust and rely on others.
Fencing out my loved ones is both tiring and futile. Maybe I keep doing so because I wanted to be unique and weird, or to feel strong, but eventually I ended up mediocre like everyone else.
A mediocre weirdo.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Killing time
I have oftentimes criticized other blogs for being too egocentric, too consumed by their owners’ mundane little happenings to deserve any interest. But then I inevitably looked at my own blog and realized I’ve suffered the same pitfall.
The truth is, I would love to talk about something other than myself. For example, I would love to contribute to the renewed showdown of intelligent design propagandists versus Darwinism crusaders. But I doubt anything I have to say would be any wittier, more caustic, than what have already been said on the cyberspace. Any attempt to write about some sort of broad-spectrum concerns (like climate change, the health care system in the States, etc…) would seem like ludicrous endeavors to sound worldlier than I really am.
So I gotta go back to write about my own mundane stories, try to my everyday experiences into something more. A lesson to learn, a new philosophical take on life – that except myself and maybe 1-2 more persons in the world, no one bothers.
Maybe one day I will become an expert about something and then people would have to tune in to what I have to say about it. Until then, that’s enough rambling for today.
The truth is, I would love to talk about something other than myself. For example, I would love to contribute to the renewed showdown of intelligent design propagandists versus Darwinism crusaders. But I doubt anything I have to say would be any wittier, more caustic, than what have already been said on the cyberspace. Any attempt to write about some sort of broad-spectrum concerns (like climate change, the health care system in the States, etc…) would seem like ludicrous endeavors to sound worldlier than I really am.
So I gotta go back to write about my own mundane stories, try to my everyday experiences into something more. A lesson to learn, a new philosophical take on life – that except myself and maybe 1-2 more persons in the world, no one bothers.
Maybe one day I will become an expert about something and then people would have to tune in to what I have to say about it. Until then, that’s enough rambling for today.
Monday, April 14, 2008
My decision
[this entry, though drafted on 14/4, had been kept unpublished]
For a while I've been deliberately hiding this information from everybody, for fear that they would pry, gossip, or judge my sanity.
The much coveted information is very simple - I'm going to enrol at the Duke-NUS graduate medical school in Singapore.
If you think trying to camouflage and conceal this info for two months was hard, arriving at the decision was ten times harder. I still remember how exhilarating it felt to get the prestigious wellcome trust fellowship at oxford. Unlike my interviews in the states where i could answer the questions impromptu, laugh along a few jokes, and still walk away feeling like a millionaire, I actually had to work really hard at the oxford one. More than that, the prospect of studying in the uk was no doubt alluring, because it painted a picture of domestic bliss that extrapolated into a stable future.
When i got the good news from the GMS admission tutor i felt sad. My bubble of happiness burst too soon. And for a long time i became preoccupied with the question - could an apparently unhappy decision still be right?
In answering this question i outlined all the pros and cons into a laundry list. Small details such as extra salary and possibility of owning a car aside, the biggest cons was my tentative 8-year long distance relationship, the biggest pros my ability to practise medicine. With that I came to ruminate about the relativity of happiness, about perfection and my work ethics (as deliberately written in a somewhat cryptic manner in my previous entries).
By answering yes to the question above i have eventually come to accept and love my decision. I look forward to knowing better the kind folks in GMS to whom I feel so deeply grateful. I look forward to all the weird stuff medical schools allegedly entail, to the day i pick up the scapel. And in my greatest naivety, I believe my bf and i will last the long haul, that being an old houseman, even an old bride, would be quite ok.
I have thrown the dart, abandoning my doubts, fears and self-ego. Hit or miss, only time will tell.
For a while I've been deliberately hiding this information from everybody, for fear that they would pry, gossip, or judge my sanity.
The much coveted information is very simple - I'm going to enrol at the Duke-NUS graduate medical school in Singapore.
If you think trying to camouflage and conceal this info for two months was hard, arriving at the decision was ten times harder. I still remember how exhilarating it felt to get the prestigious wellcome trust fellowship at oxford. Unlike my interviews in the states where i could answer the questions impromptu, laugh along a few jokes, and still walk away feeling like a millionaire, I actually had to work really hard at the oxford one. More than that, the prospect of studying in the uk was no doubt alluring, because it painted a picture of domestic bliss that extrapolated into a stable future.
When i got the good news from the GMS admission tutor i felt sad. My bubble of happiness burst too soon. And for a long time i became preoccupied with the question - could an apparently unhappy decision still be right?
In answering this question i outlined all the pros and cons into a laundry list. Small details such as extra salary and possibility of owning a car aside, the biggest cons was my tentative 8-year long distance relationship, the biggest pros my ability to practise medicine. With that I came to ruminate about the relativity of happiness, about perfection and my work ethics (as deliberately written in a somewhat cryptic manner in my previous entries).
By answering yes to the question above i have eventually come to accept and love my decision. I look forward to knowing better the kind folks in GMS to whom I feel so deeply grateful. I look forward to all the weird stuff medical schools allegedly entail, to the day i pick up the scapel. And in my greatest naivety, I believe my bf and i will last the long haul, that being an old houseman, even an old bride, would be quite ok.
I have thrown the dart, abandoning my doubts, fears and self-ego. Hit or miss, only time will tell.
Saturday, April 12, 2008
On desperation
All the talks about engagement and marriage of the people around me have sometimes made my colleagues curious. "When's your turn?" - they always asked me half-jokingly, and i would immediately dismiss any possibility of continuing the topic.
From the media i have seen how girls are believed, or portrayed, to be hard-wired into marriage-loving freaks. For example, how little girls would dress up with curtains and put a white pillows over their heads to play wedding. As a girl, i preferred to play doctors. And in my dreams, i always transformed into some sort of warriors fighting dragons, extraterrestrial demons, or crime. Girls who are obsessed with getting hitched, i thought, appeared to be weak damsels waiting to be rescued.
Of course my impression is no longer as naive today. Of course there are weak women, and then there are the independent lot, but the distinction is hardly discernable. From the outside, it's always too misleading. So i drop my negative judgment and admit the legitimacy of being desperate for that rescue.
Who am i to judge anyway? I have been desperate many times in the past, often to damaging extents that i later regret.
So in a desperate effort to rationalize my own desperation, I blame it on my increasing negativity towards life. It's a worrying, but undeniable, fact that i'm rather pessimistic by nature. I believe that my career isn't going to shine anytime soon, that other people are out to get me, and that humankind are doomed at the face of global warming. Maybe thinking about the big M is my only way to be a normal optimistic person.
It's not true that i can't live alone. I can. But i yearn to be more normal. Because that's how i'm gonna rescue myself.
From the media i have seen how girls are believed, or portrayed, to be hard-wired into marriage-loving freaks. For example, how little girls would dress up with curtains and put a white pillows over their heads to play wedding. As a girl, i preferred to play doctors. And in my dreams, i always transformed into some sort of warriors fighting dragons, extraterrestrial demons, or crime. Girls who are obsessed with getting hitched, i thought, appeared to be weak damsels waiting to be rescued.
Of course my impression is no longer as naive today. Of course there are weak women, and then there are the independent lot, but the distinction is hardly discernable. From the outside, it's always too misleading. So i drop my negative judgment and admit the legitimacy of being desperate for that rescue.
Who am i to judge anyway? I have been desperate many times in the past, often to damaging extents that i later regret.
So in a desperate effort to rationalize my own desperation, I blame it on my increasing negativity towards life. It's a worrying, but undeniable, fact that i'm rather pessimistic by nature. I believe that my career isn't going to shine anytime soon, that other people are out to get me, and that humankind are doomed at the face of global warming. Maybe thinking about the big M is my only way to be a normal optimistic person.
It's not true that i can't live alone. I can. But i yearn to be more normal. Because that's how i'm gonna rescue myself.
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
My cloning woes
... are over!!!
At last, after I've spent over a month trying to devise different ways to clone this darn recalcitrant gene, my boss has decided to just order the clone wholesale. Costs about $300 but saves everybody time and pain. Behold the magic of modern-day customized research tools!
Too bad my enthusiasm today was completely destroyed by an evil spirit. It's really troubling how some individuals possess such malignant, rotten souls.
At last, after I've spent over a month trying to devise different ways to clone this darn recalcitrant gene, my boss has decided to just order the clone wholesale. Costs about $300 but saves everybody time and pain. Behold the magic of modern-day customized research tools!
Too bad my enthusiasm today was completely destroyed by an evil spirit. It's really troubling how some individuals possess such malignant, rotten souls.
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