IgE gone wild

Just recovered from a rather nightmarish bout of allergy. Got jabbed twice with antihistamine, but i didn't mind at all. Because nothing diminished my fright of needles like a sleepless night and the feeling of a thousand pin pricks in the eyes.

Although the ordeal is over, I thought the rarity of such allergic reaction in my whole life thus far deserves a slight mention in this blog.

How to do a pirouette

A pirouette is not a spin; it’s a balanced turn.

So it requires not speed but calmness, said my ballet instructor, you can’t do a pirouette when you’re nervous. No wonder I could sometimes pirouette alone in my bedroom, but not when the teacher is watching. Well, or at least that’s gonna be my excuse.

Same thing goes with driving. I often do worse when the instructor happens to be the meticulous type, always pesters me for every small little mistake.

I guess I got to learn the secret to maintaining my cool. Maybe it’s meditation, or just a zen pill that I could take (prozac, anyone?). Or maybe it’s a state of mind that one is either born with or without. Anyway, I’m probably not cool enough yet to do a pirouette.

At work

It's been a long time since i last blogged. As said, i'm going along a mundane period - repeating cycles of work, followed by non-work and finally sleep to recuperate for more work the next day.

There's a new attachment student in my lab. A bright-eyed fresh grad from poly. Very hopeful, but also very immature. He reminds me too much of myself as an 18-year-old. The idiot who knew nothing about science outside textbooks, or about the unwritten rules in the workplace, yet thought she had whatever it took.

He doesn't fit in. His boundary issues and lack of professionalism make him somewhat an outcast. And i pity him. I understand his plight transitioning from school to the unfamiliar work environment.

So today i finally decided to give him some advice. I thought the sooner he figures out the true colours of doing science in a bureaucratic lab, the better he will adapt.

I just wish someone had given me such advice five years ago.

I was much too far out all my life / And not waving but drowning.

I haven't blogged in quite a while. Things are all going ok, no ups and downs, just a horizontal projection.

I just added mandarin to my to-learn list. Learning new things fills my head with excitement and happy thoughts. It keeps me bounce around in an otherwise very mundane lab life.

This one year of slavery is coming to an end, and I'll be trying my best to finish with dignity. Talk about "not drowning but waving".