Memories

Wednesday, March 29, 2006

So this occurred at the post office yesterday afternoon, as I was getting in line to go buy a stamp to mail some stuff to Connecticut. I shall refer to me as Me, and the post office woman as POW. Specifically she is the one behind the counter doing all those post office stuff.

POW: May I help the next customer?
Me: Yea, can I buy a stamp to mail this to CT?
POW: That'll be 39 cents
(Me rummages through my wallet and digs out 30 cents, thinking it was 40.)
Me: Here, keep the change
POW: My boy, u need to give me more
(Sheepishly, Me digs out another 10 cents.
POW takes a look at my envelope and informs me that I have written the mailing address and return address at the wrong places.)
POW: Our computer reads these letters from bottom right to top left, so here, you should write the mailing address at the bottom right, and your return address at the top left.
(Feeling absurd, Me shows her my return address at the back of the envelope.)
POW: Oh gosh, you stay at the 36th floor, and you're giving me a penny as tips. My boy, you've got to give me more than this.
(Me gives a moment of silence.)
POW: Well, the view from the 36th floor is brilliant, ain't it? I used to love on the 10th floor, but that was the highest I had. I had 3 views: the North, West and East, but no South.
(Me feeling the conversation had gotten more and more absurd, agrees.)
POW: But you live on the 36th floor! What views do you have?
Me: Oh, I have the lake view and the city view
POW: My gosh, you stay alone?
Me: Nope, I stay in a 3 room apartment
POW: So you have roommates? All guys?
Me: Not exactly, we have a guy and 2 girls
(POW looks around incredulously, macam she see ghost!!!!!)
POW: So you live with girls? Look wat we have here!
(Me thinking she is siao. What is wrong with living with girls?)
POW: So are any of them your girlfriends?
Me: No, we're just friends, thats all
(POW and Me had more of this housing talk, while the other customers were just smiling to themselves, while waiting in line.)
POW: Ok, so you live with a guy and 2 girls?
Me: Ehrm, I am that guy!
POW: Oh, come back here boy! So you live alone with 2 girls?
Me: Yea
POW: haha, next time, you should just say this is my private business
Me: Well, I'm fine with saying this
POW: Ok, u take care, and enjoy living with the girls
Me: You take care too, n have a nice day

It was obviously more drama mama than that today, with the other post office people, and customers waiting in line listening to our conversation. Of course, I have missed certain stuff, but it was really a refreshing conversation. Really cool to talk! I think I have got some of that spark back!!!!!!

lufCYC left this memory at 4:53 PM

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Monday, March 27, 2006

Hanging out with the Freshie Three in my living room on a lazy Sunday afternoon, gosh, spring break is really breaking up my sleeping pattern. So in usual spring break tradition, here's a list of what not to do when you are drunk, taken from talkingcock. Remember, when you drink, don't drive .... cos u dun wanna spill your drink.

THINGS OTHER THAN DRIVING THAT YOU SHOULDN’T DO WHILE DRUNK
1. Parallel park outside a police station.

2. Testify at your drink driving trial.

3. Meet your girlfriend’s father.

4. Write your blog and share how you really feel about the government, race relations, religion and your friends.

5. Hang out with a plastic surgeon.

6. Hang out with a friend who sells MLM or time-share properties.

7. Hang out with a member of the opposite sex who you think is very ugly when you’re sober.

8. Wonder too long about what might happen if you press that red button.

9. Wonder what it would look like if you filmed you and your boyfriend/girlfriend bonking.

10. Bet your friends you can swim across the Singapore River.

11. Get married.

12. Run for election.

13. Air traffic control.

14. Come up with stupid lists. (Damn! Too late!)

lufCYC left this memory at 3:02 AM

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Sunday, March 26, 2006

Ok finally succumbed to this myheritage.com thing, where they match ur face with celebrities to see whose face u resemble. Well, so I tried, and did a total of 3 face trials, where I submitted 3 photos, to see which celebrity match came up for all 3 different self-portraits. So here are the results:

Nicholas Tse (the guy in the middle) came up in all 3 matches

Hee Seop Choi (guy on the right, whoever he is) came up in 2 of the 3 matches

And surprisingly, each time, I have more matches with female celebrities than with male celebrities, with female matches being twice as often as male celebrity matches. Oh well, I guess a lot of female stars look like me.

lufCYC left this memory at 1:21 AM

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Sunday, March 19, 2006

Let's keep things short, succinct and sweet.

1) Sheffield United lost 2-1 to Norwich

2) Leeds were unfortunate to only claim a 1-1 draw with Coventry. David Healy came on to tuck home an 88th minute penalty, giving Leeds a share of the spoils. Another instance when they make me so panicky all the way till the end of the game.

Ironically, Leeds and Sheffield United played the same 2 oppostion teams last week, with Leeds needing a 90th Eddie Lewis freekick to draw 2-2 with Norwich and Sheffiled United succumbing to Coventry 2-0. How crucial will these 2 late Leeds goals turn out come the end of the season? Now, Leeds are only 4 points behind second placed Sheffield United with a game in hand, and yet to play next month against those rottern Sheffield United. Also, let's hope Watford loses on Monday. Then it'll really be a case of marching on together toward the premiership. Finally Winning 11 will have Leeds inside .... no need to use Jonathon Woodgate-led Real Madrid anymore.

lufCYC left this memory at 1:42 AM

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Thursday, March 16, 2006

Here is something which I'm sure no one will be interested in. But I am still tempted to talk about this since it concerns my beloved Leeds United. So for the 2nd year, Coca Cola is sponsering this competition where fans all over the world get to vote for their favourite Conference teams (yes, this excludes the Premiership teams). Every vote counts, and at the end of May, one lucky fan is drawn, and the team this fan voted for would be given a £250,000 prize money to be spent on new signings. In addition, this fan would be rewarded with £10,000 for his participatory efforts. So last yr, Leeds Utd finished runaway winners with more than 250,000 votes, and thus had an almost 25% chance of winning this huge bounty. But alas, Brighton, which finished 7th in voting, managed to bag the £250,000, when a lucky Brighton fan got drawn out of the hat.

Now here's the interesting part. It was said that many Man Utd fans, in order to prevent Leeds from winning this prize, entered into the voting, and deliberately voted for other teams, so as to lower Leeds' chances of landing the huge prize. Now, how jealous can Man Utd fans get? And how desperate they are? To what extents would they go to prevent Leeds from once again usurping Man Utd as the only United in England.

Well, so of course, I am a frequent visitor to the coca-cola site, where I cast my vote for Leeds. As of now, Leeds are runaway leaders with more than 147,000 votes, with Sheffield Wednesday in 2nd place with only a miserly 98,000 plus votes. Of course, it is not the thought of winning the £10,000 which is driving me to voting, but rather the prospect of Leeds increasing therir finances to healthy levels once more. So cmon, all you Leeds fans out there, help your team, and bring them back where they belong -- at the top of the Premiership, above the likes of Man Utd, Liverpool, Arsenal and Chelsea. And we could probably throw in Spurs and Newcastle for good measure too.

lufCYC left this memory at 3:59 PM

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1) Yay! It's the Finish Finals On Thursday dinner tmr nite!

2) Does our physics instructor wanna give everyone an A for the class? C'mon! No RC n RL today in the finals!!!

3) Cancer biology is one of the toughest classes, but most enjoyable n enriching one too! Went through the class without having the textbook, without reading the Natural Obsessions book, without going through the review papers. Just the notes were enough. Let's hope that's enough!

4) Been watching episode after episode of Young n Dangerous past few Days. Is there a Young n Dangerous 101 class somewhere out there?

5) Done with the UofC core. Grasped the art of writing without reading, with the help of the index pages.

6) Finally a finals in the afternoon .... no worries of oversleeping ...

7) 1 more quarter left of college life ... now that is not cool!

8) Puerto Vallarta .... coming Monday

9) Cheap trick I used to sell the Beauty World ticket to my Korean friend: "You actually get to keep the ticket stub, and see, this end of the ticket stub has my face on it. How cool is that? You get to keep me as a souvenir!"

10) This has been the most haphazard entry for some time.

lufCYC left this memory at 1:10 PM

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Sunday, March 12, 2006

It's raining outside, and I am sitting in front of my computer, thinking about things that merge well with the atmosphere of a quiet night of raindrops falling down on the window panes outside. Drinking wine sounded good, considering I just bought a bottle of Allendorf yesterday at Belmont, but reconsidering that I have to study for cancer bio, this sounded a crap idea. What about eating chocolates? Considering the fact that I am eating chocolates every morning, this sounded an unhealthy idea, tho eating is pleasurable and unhealthy food is heavenly, but this didn't sound good tonite. Reading bio certainly logical, and absolutely necessary. But what else? It suddenly dawned on me that watching sad romantic videos certainly fitted in with the mood. So here, exquisitely chosen by me, is a music video by the Korean girl group 'Kiss', and the song is called "Because I am a Girl". Most of you have probably already seen it, but I figure it's always worth a second watch.

To watch this touching video, click on the pic above. Let me summarize the story in brief. This guy and girl fall in love by chance (what else?). An unfortunate accident causes the girl to lose her eyesight, but she doesn't understand the true significance of this. An operation is carried out to enable the girl to regain sight in both her eyes. As she was out walking one day after recovering her eyesight, she saw her former lover walking around being led around by a dog. Only did it hit upon her that her ex-lover had sacrificed both his eyes in order to help her, and thus confine himself to a lifetime of blindness. It's an 8 minute long video, so it certainly isn't too long to bore you out, and not too short for it to end even before you can finish adjusting your sound volume. So enjoy. On a separate note, I don't know what the girl group is singing .... I know it's Korean, but I don't understand the lyrics at all.

lufCYC left this memory at 2:01 PM

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2 things I wanna talk about, before going off for yet another round of Beauty World rehearsals at Shoreland -- the land so far away it seems painful to go there. 2 things which give me ambivalent feelings ... neither to feel glad not sad. So here goes.

1st up. Leeds Utd has managed to close the gap on second-placed Sheffield Utd to 5 points, with a game in hand. A 2-0 defeat for Sheffield Utd, coupled with Leeds' 2-2 draw with Norwich City closed the gap between 2nd and 3rd place to 5 points. Watford could have leapfrogged Leeds into 3rd, but they could only draw 0-0 with top-placed Reading, leaving the promotion destiny of Leeds firmly in their own hands. Winning their game in hand, and beating Sheffield Utd would endure Leeds go into 2nd place .... but yes, that's a big if. So am I supposed to feel happy that Leeds managed to close the gap between them and 2nd place by a point? Well, I suppose so ... but I was seriously expecting Leeds to defeat Norwich at home. And to think, they were trailing 2-1 till the last minute, before a sensational freekick from Eddie Lewis ensured a share of the points. But this matter is trivial ... we'll still get promoted anyway.

2nd thing. Well, Amanda and I worked in Ng Huck Hui's lab in GIS over the summer, and we were helping him with gene annotations for this upcoming paper. I was seriously hoping that we would get co-authorship when the paper gets published, considering the 3 months of hard work we put into completing the annotations. For those normal people who dun know what annotations mean, it refers to the mapping of transcription factors to sites where they bind on the DNA genome. If you dun know what that means too, well, you're perfectly normal. So I was randomly surfing stuff online, and I came to chance upon this newly published paper by Hg Huck Hui's lab. The title of the paper was basically what Amanda and I had done for him over the summer, so I clicked on the link to check for authorship of the paper. Well, as you would expect, we were not listed as co-authors. We did get a mention at the end of the paper, where the authors express thanks and what not rubbish formalities. It reads something like this: "We are grateful to E. Ng, A. Ang and Y.-C. Chong for assistance in annotating the binding sites." One line only .... how pathetic can it get? Well, on the bright side, at least we did get a mention in the paper. I guess that's the positive thing, tho I shdn't worry too much about that. When I get famous eventually, hahaha, my name shall be everywhere. My name ........... eventually!!!!!

Ok, so I guess it's Beauty World now. Shucks!

To round up all this, lemme just give the name of the paper I mentioned above: 'The Oct4 and Nanog transcription network regulates pluripotency in mouse embryonic stem cells'. Nat Genet. 2006 Mar 5

lufCYC left this memory at 1:32 AM

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Friday, March 10, 2006

Ok, so my writing span has been rather short, since I'm back here again. My NJ classmates have been whining much recently about medical exams, and what not. Yes, medical students in NUS, England, Australia and HK. Can't really imagine all of them being doctors next time ... but wait, that's a sane topic, and this post is supposed to be crappy, so let me pass on that. Well, I only bother reading a line from each page-long email, since I dun understand most of the terminology used, and its amazing how boring medical students get to be so creative when it comes to whining. To sum up all whining, Maureen even attached this medical career guide in her email. I think it's full of crap, but hey, this post is crap too, isn't it?

lufCYC left this memory at 12:53 PM

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I'm only 30% thru with my Civ paper, so rather than chanelling my creative juices into somemore mysteries, akin to the mystery of the missing keys, I figure such energy would be better spent finishing up my paper. So before I end this miserable post, lemme put up another advertisement for Beauty World.

This pic is smaller than the other one .... but I like it. Click on it to go to our Beauty World site.

lufCYC left this memory at 11:42 AM

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Wednesday, March 08, 2006

I dun know whether to be happy, amazed, relieved or downright disgusted with myself. Honestly I cannot fathom this particular mystery which happened today. I shall aptly title it the Mystery of the Missing Keys.

So let's start from where I figure something might have gone wrong. So in short, this whole thing came about cos I couldn't find my house keys this morning. (note: house keys include house keys plus that beeper thing which lets u beep yourself through those revolving doors) I know this description sounds rather stupid, but I'm in no mood for fancy words now.

So at 630pm last nite (Monday nite), I went down to the printing room to print out my lecture notes. I took my keys with me. Then I came back to cook dinner and then to watch wrestling, before Yikley came over to do some work. Annie came over too at 10pm to ask me some physics stuff, this after she had declared she no longer needed my help with physics anymore. Aiya, girls!

So this morning, feeling pissed that I had to go to school for simply 1 class just to turn in homework, I reached for the keys which usually sit on my table. But shit, there was no keys there. Now, this has happened before, but usually, when the keys are not on the right side of the table, it's on the left. But this morning, it was neither on the left or on the right. PANIC! I spent 15 min searching my room, sweeping stuff off my desk, searching for those keys. For those people who can imagine the monstrous amount of stuff on my desk, u can understand why this took 15 min. Convincing myself that those keys would magically appear when I get home, I finally took the later bus to school!

Fast forward to 3 hours ago, when I rushed home to search for my keys, and to watch the Barcelona-Chelsea match. Let me digress slightly. Everyone knows Man Utd are one of Leeds' biggest rivals (you've all heard about the War of the Roses), so it seems highly unlikely I would ever support Man Utd. Well, let's just put it this way now .... I hate Man Utd, but I admit they were good. The same can't be said for Chelsea ... not only are they just average, they are so pompous and arrogant they put supposedly arrogant ACS boys to shame. Now wouldn't you all say [A]rrogant [C]helsea [S]ucks. Well, yeah big time! So it's not that I support Barcelona; in fact, I would take Real Madrid anyday simply because they have Jonathon Woodgate playing for them once in 2 months. So as I was frantically searching for my keys, I was hoping that Chelsea would not score, so that they can get their asses kicked out of the Champions League. I know it's rare for me to say this, but I'd rather Man Utd win the Champions League than Chelsea. I hate Chelsea!

So back to the issue of the keys. I recombed my desk, to the extent that I even bothered throwing away rubbish papers, using a cloth to wipe the dirt off my table, and packed everything neatly into piles. But I still couldn't find those damn keys. Next stop: the bed. I rummaged through those clothes which are on my bed. I even searched through the dirty clothes in the laundry bag. I rummaged through the pockets of whatever clothes were on the floor. Finally I decided to put those clean clothes back into the closet, so everything would look neater and any key lying around could more easily be found. Occasionally I would peek at my computer to check on the Chelsea-Barca score. 0-0 still!

Next I cleared the floor of any paper and plastic bags, but still no keys. Having convinced myself that the keys are not in my room, I proceeded to the kitchen. Imagine if I were to find the keys in the kitchen, what in the world was I doing yesterday? Was I even contemplating roasting those keys for dinner? So I went through the fridge and the freezer rather quickly, realizing that I could not be such a cock as to dump my keys together with food. Fortunately (or unluckily for me), the keys weren't inside. So I went through the stove and the rest of the kitchen, realizing that the kitchen was the last place the keys could be found.

Next stop: living room. I cleared the mess and newspapers off the dining table but no key! So I proceeded to the coffee table, which I usually use to kiao ka as I watch TV. No keys still. I remembered that I had cleared those can drinks and cup noodles off the table the nite b4, so I actually went through the trash searching for my keys. Imagine the desperation when I sighted no keys. I suddenly remembered I was watching wrestling last nite. So I looked through the couch which I was sitting on. (note: Yikley was on the other couch trying to do work) I even bothered to summon all my energy reserves to single-handedly lift the damn heavy couch off the floor, so I could check if my keys were underneath. Damn! No keys still.

So I went back to my room. Standing up, I traced the events of last nite. I came back with my Civ book in my left arm, so I must have opened the door with my right arm. I thus must have had the keys in my right hand when I went into my room to put down the book. Thus I figured the keys had to be on the right side of the desk. To make sure my eyes weren't playing tricks on me, I closed my eyes, and simply used my hands to feel for keys. But all I could sense was hopelessness and cockness!

Finally I decided to go down to the conceige to ask if any kind soul had returned any lost keys. The guy said 'no'. I said 'oh'. I concluded that I must have left the keys in the keyhole and forgot to take them in when I opened the door, and some cockster must have made off with the keys. Frustrated with myself, I kicked everything in sight: my bed, the wall, the doors. Fortunately I have an iron leg, so no damage was done.

I sunk onto my seat. The score read Barcelona 1 Chelshit 0. That was good! Making 1 desperate attempt to retrive my keys, I went into my toilet, hoping I might have left it there for watever reason. As expected, no keys!

The only sensible place I had not searched was the couch Yikley sat on. But for watever reason, I cannot fathom how my key could have made its way to a location I did not even go to last nite or this morning. But aniway, I went to take a look. I threw the cushions and pillows off the couch, and lo and behold, I found my keys meshed into the corner of the couch. What the hell? How could those keys have made its way there? Yikley didn't even borrow my keys. But for now, I am happy and thankful. I'll only start thinking about how it got its way there later. For now, it's Barcelona 1 Chelsea 1. Chelsea have been eliminated from the Champions League!

I actually contemplated taking a photo of my keys to post in this entry. But I gathered that would be stupid. Something which caused me endless trouble today has no right to make its way onto this blog. It can sure make its way to the couch, but it sure ain't finding its way online. Till next time.

By the way, dun u all think this mystery got more drama than a cantonese soap opera? Well, at least this searching for the keys forced me to tidy up my room. Till next time ..... I hope the next time shall be an entry from our mystery guest blogger.

lufCYC left this memory at 5:44 AM

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Sunday, March 05, 2006

Let's do some math:

1) Sheffield United draws 0-0 with Crewe

2) Watford draws 2-2 with Derby

3) Leeds United crushes Crystal Palace 2-1 (note: updated Leeds United scores on the right always)

With Sheffield United and Watford both dropping 2 points each, and Leeds getting maximum points, Leeds leapfrog Watford into 3rd place in the Championship standings. Now Leeds are only 6 points behind Sheffield United in 2nd place, with a game in hand, and a match yet to come between these 2 sides. Let the games begin! Here we go!!!!!!

lufCYC left this memory at 1:38 AM

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Friday, March 03, 2006

Event: Beauty World, as the highlight of Citylights Chicago 2006

What is it: A musical, duh! Lots of sound, action, dancing, singing, acting, and laughing

When is it: April 15 2006 (Saturday)

Where is it: Mandel Hall

Who to buy tickets from: me (Yes, that's yongchun)

Who'll be there: Cast and Crew (and Dick Lee)

What will you get for your $10: A musical, duh!

Check out more of Beauty World here.

lufCYC left this memory at 11:48 PM

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Wednesday, March 01, 2006

Our Hearts, Our Hope, Our Aims are One ....

It's March 1 2006. So here's to the Anglo Chinese family .... a happy 120th Founders Day.

lufCYC left this memory at 4:59 PM

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After this post, I shall probably take a few days' of break to allow the mystery guest blogger time to prepare some stuff to talk about, after which our guest blogger shall post some interesting thoughts. But for now, it's still your favourite me down here .... cheers! So what am i gonna talk about now? Something important i gather ... so for all those aspiring scientists who love coming up with new laws and wat not, so they can etch their names in the annals of science folklore, well listen up.

Those who have studied physics have probably encountered numerous conservation laws, one of which is the conservation of momentum, in which the momentum before and after a collision is the same, provided no external force acts on the colliding particles. Well, I have also come up with something similar, tho less subject to physical demonstration. It's what I call the law of conservation of motivation. This is how it works.

The total amount of motivation in the world is conserved, ie. whenever someone feels deflated, there is always someone else there who feels elated. For simplicity, I shall prove this law using me as an example. So on Monday, I had my physics midterm. Now I thought it was a tougher test than the first midterm, and naturally I stayed through the entire duration to ponder over this one question which I believe I might have screwed up on. Well, now that I think of it, I'm sure I screwed up that problem; I just hope I get sufficient partial credit. So naturally, I feel bad after leaving the exam hall, so my motivation level decreases. Now where does this motivation go to? Perhaps to those cocks who think they might have breezed through the test (tho I hope there is no such person out there, since it will only contribute to a further decrease in my motivation levels), or more likely to the professor who set the questions, who's probably sitting there thinking "these people think they so smart, esp that singaporeans who's always sleeping through my class. now let's see who's boss".

However, my law isn't that simple, as to only revolve around different individuals at 1 particular event at 1 particular moment in time. It can also involve the same individual at 2 unrelated events at different instances of time. Here's how it works.

On Monday afternoon, I went to help my friend with some survey for her thesis. Her thesis is basically that Asians are better in mathematics and problem solving than Americans. Well, I would like to narrow that down to Singaporeans being better than the rest, but I digress. So I was given 3 math questions to solve. The questions are as follows:
1) there is a 2-digit number. By adding another digit between these 2 digits, you get a 3-digit number. What is the largest integral value of k, such that the 3-digit number is k times larger than the 2-digit number?
2) some stupid 16 square box. Put a number into each box, such that the 4 boxes in each column, row and diagonal sums up to 1000. Then what is the sum of the 4 numbers which lie in the middle 4 squares?
3) prove that the probability that at least 2 ppl having the same birthday, within a random sample size of 50, is greater than 95%

Well, I ended up being the first person among the 27 ppl she has surveyed who got all 3 questions correct. Now of course my motivation level increases. The positive change in motivation in this case might not equal the negative change earlier in the day, but several such changes averaged out over several instances will produce a net change of 0.

Am I not brilliant? or is this just full of crap?

lufCYC left this memory at 12:58 PM

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