Our paths crossed again

Yesterday was such a tiring day...so tiring that's why i'm blogging it today.

Strangely, however, though I slept at 2 amish...i woke up invigorated...that was not to last.

The day was packed with experiments....9 PCRs, 2 gels, 8 mini-preps later....i was drained.

However, I had something to look forward to: my friend from budapest, hungary, is coming to Cambridge. He's working as a facilitator in a summer camp here. we met as global leaders.

Anyways, we met up with Chanlek, and went to ASK, an italian place, the food wasn't fantastic, but it sure was busy with a sizeable amount of americans too.

We talked, and I learned many interesting things i hadn't realised such as how warm it is there over summer, that it is not as clean as prague and not as crammed with tourists, how that hungarians try to always have soup for lunch, drinking starts around 14, that the 5 yr uni education (+masters) is free but new regulation = 4yr UG free but masters need to be self-funded....and other little things....which really neither you nor I expect myself to list them all.

Anyways, then we strolled through the colleges such as St. John's College, Trinity College, Jesus College, t'was very serene and relaxing.

Finally, we wetn back....quiet reading session + an animated rob to end with.

Bombs go boom

Well, I wouldn't know how they actually sound like cos I wasn't there.

Apart of me feel sad not to be around danger....it's always cool to come out a survivor and have a scar to go with it.reminds me of war of the worlds.....a tripod comes out of the ground and people are standing around looking, taking pictures....yes very smart...wat they think someone's gonna pop out and say ''you're on candid camera'' or that the cold, menacing aliens wanted to make friends...sure...

it sucks to have bombs go off.....all the tube and buses in Zone 1 are suspended indefinetely..i hope the rail's not halted cos i need to go to Essex tmr....All the network is clogged up and so i can't really call anyone.

Speaking of calls...my mom called me all concern and all right in the middle I was loading a gel...i'm working in Cambridge..not london..although I did go to london the day before for my appointment....but i don't think she knows that.

I have to use the train tomorrow to get to GSK at Essex...for my induction day..hope the rail still work (inter-town) vs intra-city i.e. tube which is suspended.Alright then....back to my work!

i'm repeating myself cos i'm shuffling btw experiments and blogging...so i forget what i've said...haha

London 2012...akan datang

well..yah..so i guess you all heard....

anyways, i had to leave work today to go back to london.

I had an eye appointment...for my contact lens...

haha....it took ages! the problem is my contact lens kept sinking and resting on the white part of my eye...wat's it called again...sec 4 bio....hmm only remember sclera but that's the outer most layer...out of point!

so they tried very big lens and very small lens...cos the thing is my eyelids kept weighing them down....so very tedious...

I even suggested to operate on my eyelids...but she said it's too risky....ah..such a pain!

then i went to buy tiffy's present! do i have to wrap it? nah...just put in envelope can already.
hopefully send it off tmr!!

then since i was in london, i met up with my london friends....had a gd long chat with Lu...cos he failed his 2nd yr...and could resit and had to take a gap yr..sort of they kick you out and u resit for all the exams 1 yr later and if u pass u do ur 3rd yr in ur 4th yr....
maybe i shouldn't have said this but it helps withth accepting and moving on....

then i spent a considerable amount of time to look through lionel and charlotte pics of their trip to barcelona and andalucia (grenada and seville) and since lionel got his new D70? like 1200 pics...mostly repitive...but generally pretty and insightful.

By then Lu returned with sushi and so I had some and rushed back.

Why? well chanlek (roomate) needed to move stuff and I needed to help him (for more than 1 reason) and I really!!! needed to my laundry...the pile has been growing.

The british weather had to dampen our spirits and cardbox boxes by raining...so we had dinner and watched scrubs..but noooooooo.. the rain still presisted, taunting us....cheecky!

Finally we managed to waterproof our wagon and set off...me, edwin and chanlek.....
chanlek was the first to lose his breath, then me..then edwin...but we managed. =P

and now that my laundry is done, I can shower and change my clothes!

Note to self: send off tiffy's present!

Check out my booklist

After much thought,

books will be the way to go

I should start writing my own book.

Booked, tagged and bound

Done only because I've been tagged by Charlotte....if she ever reads my blog, she'll see SOME similarities...

Total number of books I own:

I buy almost every book I read (I don't believe in borrowing or loaning or stealing etc.), so erm... that's a pretty big collection. I intend to house a library one day.

Last Book I Bought:

Ooh, I went on a book spree a short while ago in Edinbrough where the Make Poverty History was. I came back with 6 books, such as the radical's guide to Lenin, the flaws fo the G8, The Corporation, Globalisation and its discontents by Joseph E. Stiglitz, a book which the movie supersize me was based on and another book on what's wrong with british supermarket

Last book I was gifted:

NONE DAMN IT!!!! FROM NOW ON JUST SEND ME BOOKS!

Last Book I Read:

Well, I've read three books last week: View from Mount Improbabale - Richard Dawkins, The Economics of Innocent Fraud - J.K. Galbraith, Some philosophy book

Currently reading:

Catcher in the Rye, only because to break away from the books I last read.

Five Books that mean a lot to me:

You are kidding! You can't make me choose! Alright, off the top of my head...

1) Amrita - Banana Yoshimoto

I just took one look at the cover and I knew I had to have it, read it, know it!

2) Sophie's World - Jostein Gaarder
If you had to take a pause in life and look down the fork in the road, this is a book you should have by your bedside. Don't ask me why. I just felt that way about it. This is where my interest in philosophy began. A nice chronology of philosophers and their schools of thought.

3) The Crucible - Athur Miller
It isn't so much the story that means a lot to me, it's the people I read it with, the long forgotten times spent analysing it, tearing it apart and then seeing it in a new light, And then, things fell apart.

4a) On the shortness of life - Seneca
Most human beings, Paulinus,* complain about the meanness of nature, because we are born for a brief span of life, and because this spell of time that has been given to us rushes by so swiftly and rapidly that with very few exceptions life ceases for the rest of us just when we are getting ready for it. Nor is it just the man in the street and the unthinking mass of people who groan over this - as they see it - universal evil: the same feeling lies behind complaints from even distinguished men. Hence the dictum of the greatest of doctors:† 'Life is short, art is long.' Hence too the grievance, most improper to a wise man, which Aristotle expressed when he was taking nature to task for indulging animals with such long existences that they can live through five or ten human lifetimes, while a far shorter limit is set for men who are born to a great and extensive destiny. It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it. Life is long enough, and a sufficiently generous amount has been given to us for the highest achievements if it were all well invested.

4b) on the suffering of the world - Arhtur Schopenhauer
If the immediate and direct purpose of our life is not suffering then our existence is the most ill-adapted to its purpose in the world: for it is absurd to suppose that the endless affliction of which the world is everywhere full, and which arises out of the need and distress pertaining essentially to life, should be purposeless and purely accidental. Each individual misfortune, to be sure, seems an exceptional occurrence; but misfortune in general is the rule.

Just as a stream flows smoothly on as long as it encounters no obstruction, so the nature of man and animal is such that we never really notice or become conscious of what is agreeable to our will; if we are to notice something, our will has to have been thwarted, has to have experienced a shock of some kind. On the other hand, all that opposes, frustrates and resists our will, that is to say all that is unpleasant and painful, impresses itself upon us instantly, directly and with great clarity.


5) Lastly a tribute to Shakespeare for works such as Merchant of Venice, The Tempest, Anthony and Cleopatra, Titus Andronicus and R&J. Though the language has changed, I'm still drawn to it, it's hopeless to struggle against the current, so let the ebb and flow take me with it.

This Book Tag is now passed to: (alright... who reads... hmm... who reads?)

Anyone who's chanced on this book tag and hasn't done it. I know the ones who read.
So you're tagged!

My after thoughts

The 9 hour bus ride was a torture. Trying to sleep is near impossible. We arrived in a camp site early morn and so we pitched our tents.

The campsite is more like a tent arrest ie 2 miles from the city and only escapre via a shuttle bus.

Strange things included a flag of Mao flying high, a hippie tent where we had lentil soup and coffee in which soya milk seemed to curdle.

Make shift BBQ with dodgy food in the dark

A guiness book of record for the largest no. of people dancing some scottish dance which is utterly confusing and tiring.

The highlight is of course the march...seeing people's creaticity in coming up with slogans or dressing up.

The city is near the sea and it's very hilly and windy.

To make things worse: i had to share a tent with someone whose tent has gone through lots together until some drunken woman tripped on a line and everything was in shreds so both of us had to squeeze with another person in her tent.

My reflection

The Make poverty history rally in Edinbourgh was interesting. Although I spent more time carrying a camera then a banner. it was a hot day and cute children carrying placards, and listening to Leftist, socialist people and etc...too much politics for me. A lot of emphasis was on all the wrong in the world and with the current 'system' and it's good to raise people's awareness and concern but this results in a lot of volatility too, I guess. Personally, I believe there's a lot of headless chicken running around i.e. a lot of organisation using this platform to promote themselves. This is to be expected since poverty has many different causes and so many different voices.

Are we one earth or many countries? one species or many nationalities? Would we like to think of ourselves being more alike than we are different or more different than we are alike? The Earth will die in billions and billions of years time as the sun is a ticking bomb. Will we survive till then? And how much of earth that humans know now will humans know then? I guess that's one reason why NASA exists.

When it comes to the problems of the Earth, lack of drinkable water, lack of arable land, pollution, global warming, lost of biodiversity, it's in the interest of everyone to be apart of the solution.

When it comes to the resources of the earth, shouldn't everyone have access to them? Sounds like a communit way fo dealing with it. How far do the Sovereignties of countries aid or impede our cohesiveness in the world? Are we ready for a global world when influential power still stem from governments i.e. middle man rather than global bodies?

''Wisely and slow; they stumble that run fast.'' Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act 2 Scene 3
I've heard a couple of celebrities hinting that eradication of poverty is possible within this generation, it gives the masses impetus and expectation, even so is a world without poverty sustainable?