Cristian's Farewall Party

Today is Cristian's last day in the lab. He's going to start his graduate study in Michigan State this Fall. So, all his friends held a farewell party for him today since he will be flying to Ecuador tomorrow morning. We had the good-bye dinner in Buffalo Wings, a renowned sport bar in Ohio that specializes in buffalo wings, which happens to my favorite American food. Buffalo wings is not the wings of buffalo as buffaloes on the Earth never have wings except buffaloes in the heaven. It's actually chicken wings dipped in 'hot' sauces that was made famous in Buffalo, New York. Although the sauce was supposed to be hot, it's never spicy enough for me :)

So, Cristian is/was the technician in the Finer's Lab. A young man from Ecuador. Likes to party, always persuades people to drink and dance in party. Though my work requires little interaction with him, we always chat in the morning or during free time coz his bench was next to mine. While everyone in the lab is working with soybeans, he did research on sunflowers, which is my favorite flower (I even asked him to give me some when I saw him collecting the flowers from the greenhouse :p). I never expected that he would leave the lab before we, the interns, did. So, it's kind of shocking when he told me last week that he's leaving. It's indeed quite rush for him, Dr. Finer and the lab. But, it couldn't be helped; he has to get all the documents done before going to grad school. So, tomorrow will be his leaving date.

We had dinner in the Buffalo Wings at 7pm. The Tuesday special menu is buy six wings get six for free.. I ordered my wings with 'Caribbean Jerk' hot sauce, which was supposed to give a sizzling feeling but it definitely did not happen... What a disappointment~~ I should have called the 'Mango Habanero" that is named third from the last on the spiciness line. Six wings was what I ordered, and I ended up with twelve. Usually, I can only eat 6 wings at one meal when we used to have wings for dining hall take out. Luckily, I managed to finish up all 12 wings (but the deliciousness has somehow transformed into disgust at the end :S)

Also, Tuesday is the Karaoke night at the restaurant. People, good or bad in singing, started to inundate us with their voice at 9pm. Food was finished, and some friends were leaving at the time. Only few of us stayed to listen to the singing, watch sport channels that were broadcasting several baseball leagues (Red Sox, Indians....), and drink beer as another Tuesday special is a pitch of beer for $6. So, without much words and chatting, we quietly enjoyed the night until we're done with 3rd pitches of beer and left at 11pm.

So, it was my another special and eventful day in Wooster, the day when Cristian left, the day I went to all-American sport bar, the day I drink beer legally in the public space, and the day not to be forgotten. Thanks Carlos for inviting me, and Good Luck to Cristian.

(p/s: It's also the first time I got a lil, just a lil, drunk.... Believe me, I still can blog :)

(Left) Cheri and Cristian (both from Finer's Lab

(Right) Limbania, Carlos (my supervisor/mentor), Nancy and me





<---- People on the left, who are you from LA?

:)

It's weekend again. Another weekend with lotzz of shoppings, outings and sleeps ZZZZ..

Before talking 'bout the weekend, I must write about my Friday that was full of surprise.
I walked at 8.45am that day, thinking I won't make it to work at 9am. I was too tired to wake up eventhough the alarm clock has been going off for umpteen times. Hastily, I showered and had a quick breakfast. When I was about the twist the door knob of the front door, I heard a door opening sound coming from 2nd floor. It was weird... Usually, my housemate went to work before 9am. So, it's kind of abnormal for her to wake up at 9am. So, I greeted a with a Good Morning, and asked why she woke up that late today. Then, she said, "No, it's only 8am.". Me said, "No, it's already 9am!" She ran to her alrm clock to double check. I was wrong. It's only 8am. DUH!! I woke up an hour earlier and only to realize it I was all prepared to leave the house. If she didn't wake up at the moment I'm about to leave, I think I'll going to an empty and locked lab.... Hahaha! So, one hour to go. What to do? Of course, for sure, I went back to my bed and dozed off a moment later. When I woke from my weird dream, it's already 9.20am. This time I'm late for sure. My labmate was asking where I was when I reached lab...Luckily, my supervisor didn't get in until 12pm these few days :P But, my professor, Dr. Finer, was already in his office. He was early that day, but I didn't think he knew I was late to work as I walked in the lab surreptitiously. Lucky!! But, I didn't it mattered the fact that I was late to work. Nobody cared since we just gave our exit presentation the day before. We're done with our internship project basically :)

Friday was a short day. We finished with our experiment on 2pm, and spent the rest of the day in front of the computer. Clay, my project partner, left at 4pm so that her could play video game with Dr. Finer's son. Then, Dr. Finer left a few minutes later so that her could prepare diner for that night. He's invited us to his house for a dinner earlier this morning. He's going to make homemade pizzas. Since there were only my supervisor, Carlos, and me in the lab, Carlos said I can leave. So, for the first time, I came at 4pm from work.... But, it's kind of bored at home. So I slept again...

On that night, I went over to Dr. Finer's house for dinner. He has a really nice house. The backyard is so properly tended and planted with colorful flowers. The neeatness and beauty of the garden can simply outshine the university's garden. Also, he has a wood behind his house, with a small creek running through it. He made a wooden stairs and planted it into the soil to make a small trail to the small river. In the river, there were small black fishes swimming in it, which Dr. Finer claimed as "his fishes" though there are actually native to the river. It's kind of hard to believe taht all the things that I saw were actually located at the back of one's house. Breathtaking, calming, natural, they were.

That night, we had John's homemade pizzas, wine, and beers. We also played a game --> cornholes. In the game, you throw the bags full of corn kernels into holes made in a wooden board. Something you might have played in elementary schools. Also, we chatted a lotz during the whole evening, making fun of people in the lab who weren't present. At 9.30pm, Clay, Ben, and their girlfriends left for a movie. So, there were only me, John, and Kim (John's wife) left sitting near the fireplaces. We chatted for another hour. At first, I thought it'll be a grueling and awful experience since I never used to chat with people older than me, and in this case, my professor and his wife.... Cut, luckily, John and Kim were very affable and talkative. We chatted on my things like family, travelling, and also what I want to do after graduation.... Finally, conversation ended as the fire died off. And, I was driven back to my apartment in Dr. Finer's BMW 3-series :D So, this is all about my Friday full of surprise.

On Saturday, my housemate and I went shopping in uptown again since the last time we went there was 3 weeks ago. I bought few, like 4, clothes since there were so cheap. One Mickey shirt costed only $4, and a Snoopy shirt only $10. So darn cheap! I found a cheap luggage in one of the store. I needed one since my old one was broken down during my flight to Ohio :'( After 3 hours of shopping, we felt very tired. Maybe because we spent too much at JC Penny, we felt bad and restrained to buy anything in other shops. So, after we had lunch in McDonalds' and bought some grocery in Walmart, we headed home directly. It's raining profusely on the way back, and the summer shower made day cold and cozy. What a nice day for a nap :) So, my housemate and I slept again that evening, only to woke up at 8pm for dinner :P

Alright, need to cook for dinner now... Will update on my Sunday later.
Registered for GRE on Friday, like Sue Yen said, it's happening now. But, where is my motivation???

Shitty

Seriously, it really smells like shit here. It's been two days because the atmosphere is still saturated with the shitty smell. Did someone just use manure for enrichment in the farms? It smells like SHIT in the lab. It smells like SHIT in my apartment. It smells like shit in the laundry room. I felt like I'm living in toilets and surrounded by poop! It's disgusting!!! Get me out of here! Shit is everywhere!

Life has been shitty for these past weeks. No progress has been done for GRE because of the shitty exit presentation that we have to give for the internship. I'm all worked-up for the presentation and GRE. You know how much I'm afraid of them. They're basically consuming me alive ;'(

Wish me luck.. I'm so nervous....

Coffee Prince :D

Just finished watching a Korean Drama ---> "Coffee Prince"
not a new drama, but really like the story lines
thought of watching the series after stumbled on a similar - kind of - production by Malaysia --> "A Cup of Love"...

"Coffee Prince" is very different from conventional Korean Drama..
There is not so much of triangle (or 4-angle) love story.
The 1st main w/ 1st main
The 2nd w/ 2nd. Everything is just nice
Besides that, the whole story flows so well.
Everything, every scene is just nice and prefect, just like drinking a cup of nice coffee -- not too sweet, not too bitter :)
Especially like the atmosphere portrayed in the coffee house. Everyone is so playful and funny.
Like the silliness of the big guy (Ming Ye?), like the humorous of the small guy (Ming ?), and totally attracted by the coolness of the Japanese guy :P
But, what I love the most is the supporting actor, the cousin of the main character. He definitely has one of the 'sunny' smile.... Also, fall in love with the way they show the relationship between him and You Zhu :)
And, no villains exist in the show, which is the most atypical part of Korean drama. Everyone is so nice, which is why I like the drama so much! The story is just light, it's pretty fun to watch!

If you haven't watched, I 100% recommend you watching it. My roomie and I laughed a lot because of the drama. It's certainly a great relief from life and pressure!

"Coffee Prince" A ZA! A ZA!

Now, we're done with our 2nd Korean Drama Project, what else do you recommend?

It's monday again

6th week. The second half of internship is finally here. The project we're working on almost reached the end. Today, we set up the camera-robot that will be used to take pictures of Green Fluorescent Soybean. The pictures taken will give us final results for the project. For the week, we will be preparing powerpoint slides for our exit presentation.. Nervous -.-".....

I just realized that the camera-robot thingy is one and the only one that could be found in the States. It was made to order for our lab, and the software program used to manipulate the robot was designed by a computer science grad student hired by Dr. Finer few years back.... Seriously, I never thought that high-tech equipment was specially made for our lab... Suddenly, I felt proud for working there :p

When I was walking home this evening, I was greeted by a grad student from China because she thought I was my roommate, the new grad student in her department. We chatted as we're heading towards our apartments. She didn't realize that I'm not from China until I told her I'm Malaysian. She said I can speak a very good Chinese, even better than Taiwanese. I felt really proud at the moment :P Finally, I can speak slightly proper Chinese. Honestly, I didn't really like the way we speak Chinese back at home because it sounds so lazy and "pasar". It's kind of embarrassing not to be able to pronounce some words properly even though we have been speaking the language for more than 10 years. Because, I hold my pride highly as a Chinese native speaker, and to be able to speak properly is always my wish. Hope you feel the same as well :)

``` Why $2000 now and $2000 3 years back are never the same? -.-?

little update =.=

Last week was the Fourth of July weekend. Besides watching the beautiful, breathtaking, unforgettable fireworks, I had done several other fun activities. It was a fun-filled weekend :-)

The weekend started with a birthday party for Carlos, my supervisor in OARDC. He just celebrated his 30th birthday on Wednesday. It was the first Latino party I had ever attended. I must say that the Latin people are really innate dancers. They can really shake their butts off :P And, they are also very good in "warming up" the atmosphere and making everyone dance, including the shy students from China! Good jobs! One thing I learnt about Latino party is that the party won't end until the last person stops dancing. The whole celebration, which started on 9pm, ended at 6am the next morning. You know what did that mean? Someone has been dancing from 9-6, NINE hours straight! Holy COW! It's not a lie that Latinos are great dancers! :P

The day after the party was Friday. I went to the lab do some PCR screening, and then, my housemate and I walked around downtown. We had some yummy ice cream, and took some pictures. Then, we tried to find the most delicious pizza in Wooster (or US!), but to no avail.... We didn't look up its address. FAIL! So, we had to resort to Arby's ;'( After the lunch+dinner, we walked around Downtown again, visiting the craft and gift shops, but we didn't buy anythings coz the works by artisans are never cheap :S

So, on Saturday, we went to Mohican State Park for picnicking. After having some light lunch, we walked in the wood in search of the waterfall. After 30-minute walk, we reached the destination only to find out that the waterfall has dried out in the hot summer :S Only few drops of water was visible....What a "Waterdropfall"! On the way back, we decided to take another route just for fun. Carlos, the tour guide, did not follow us because the road was too steep for his pregnant wife.
The journey back to the picnic site was supposed to take only 30 mins. However, after 2-3 hours, we still haven't found our road back. And, all 6 of us knew that we're lost in the woods!! However, we still kept our faith and strength and followed the man-made path closely. Finally, we reached a main road and found 2 park rangers. From the rangers, we figured out that we're more 1 mile away from the picnic site. It will take another 1 hr if we're going to walk back! O-O But, we're so tired that we asked the ranger to drive us back.... So, the ride in the patrol car ended our "missing in woods" chapter of the day.....

You must think that my activities of the day ended there. But, it's not coz Carlos and his friends have planned to do canoeing in the Park.. So, there we went, another hardcore outdoor activities ---2 and a half hours of canoieng. But, I really like canoe. The weather was just nice, and the scenery along the river was really nice. And, since it's 4th of July, many people took the opportunity of the long weekend to unwind. There were many RV parked along the bank of the rivers. People were BBQing, swimming, tubing, singing, listening to music or just simply sitting on the bank and relaxing. Americans definitely know how to enjoy life. This is something I must learn from them! :) Too bad, I didn't bring my camera along.... so no pictures of my canoeing...
On that night, we went for fireworks viewing. You can look at the fireworks on mylast post ;)

And, Sunday was shopping day. We walked around Uptown and shopped in few euporium. I bought avery cheap Jansport bag for only $8 and a nice sundress, which I like it very much :)
Then, we went to Walomart to do grocery for the next week... Huh, I really burned a whole in my pockets after all the shopping. But... I'm happy :D

Here is the end of my weekend. And, another wekkend just started today ....

O - O

http://twitter.com/NajibRazak

Najib has twitter!?
WTH! -.-

Why I like fireworks...

烟花.
是漂亮的, 耀眼的, 却是短暂的
可是, 烟花般的爱情却是我响往的 :)

Happy Fourth of July!

Weekend :)

Saturday is July 4th, US Independence Day. So, we get a day off for Friday, and the weekend has basically started today. But, I'm still thinking of what should I do for the long weekend...

This week, we have been doing DNA+vectors ligation and cell transformation, making genetically modified organisms basically. Sounds scary? Haha :D
Today, we just received the DNA data that we sent for sequencing 2 days ago. We get a few, sadly not all, accurately transformed plasmid vectors. But, that also means efforts we put on for the past few weeks were paid off :) Now, with the ready-to-use plasmids, we are ready to make genetic modified soy beans. Soy beans with a lot, yeah A LOT, of hairs! Huhu :P ~~

I found that my professor is really funny/weird in some ways that I have to share it here. What come to your mind when you think of the word "professor"? Old, lotz of grey hairs, serious, strict.... But, none of the words fits Dr. Finer, the PI of my lab.

In the lab, sometimes we have to do image alignments as part of our projects. The images were pictures of soy bean parts taken under UV lights to capture green fluorescence. Since the camera-robots could never take the pictures precisely, we have to use photoshop to edit them so that we can make a continuous video/movie based on the images. Back to Dr. Finer.... Today, he spent 8 hours doing image aligments on the computer. That was from the time we stepped into the lab until after we left. Actually, he already started the alignments yesterday. Seriously, can you imagine your boss doing photoshop in the lab the whole day, instead of writing grant proposal, reports or attending meetings? I felt like laughing whenever I saw him doing the photoshop, so serious yet very funny. And, by the way, there are only 2 computers in the lab. Since he was working with one of them, we had to take turn using the other one XD... and the other two interns didn't dare to play video game during the free time :P Dr Finer said that he just likes to do the mindless stuffs that require no thinking whatsoever -.-'' I just thinks that he is just funny. He totally earned "The Coolest Professor" Award!!

That's for now :) See ya!