Rainbowe

Spring is awesome. You get rain in the midst of an extremely sunny day! But not everyone loves spring. Spring time is when Daniel gets the hay fever crap all over again. Apparently you get sensitive after years of living here. So I'm still quite fresh off the boat and therefore still immune to it. Dread the day when I turn stale and start sneezing until my eyes pop out, then I wouldn't be able to see that rainbow and spring would suck.

Anyway, beautiful rainbow outside my apartment.

Speaking of rainbows, these videos never fail to make me laugh:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQSNhk5ICTI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MX0D4oZwCsA

Autotunes is amazing. I have lost all my respect for singers like Ke$ha and those R&B crap. Not that there was much to begin with.

I have got to learn how to post videos on the blog. Even posting pictures is a chore. All my pictures appear on top of the post when I type my entry and I can't seem to cut and paste them. I need to highlight and then paste them to wherever I want. What a drag, maybe I'll lose interest in blogging again :S

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My lab equipment finally arrived after 2 weeks of waiting. Today I spent 5 hours carrying out solid phase extraction to extract the phenolic compounds from my cranberry juice. Thank God for the iPhone! I'd be bored to death just sitting there waiting. I couldn't use the computers in the comp lab coz the solid-phase exchange column must not be dry at any time so I had to always be in the lab and watch it slowly drip and top it up when it's about to get empty.

I'm not saying iPhone is the best phone ever, coz I know there're many anti-iPhoners out there. I just happen to use one and got used to all its functions and am perfectly comfortable with it and therefore see no point in changing it to some other smart phone.

I can't wait, can't wait, can't wait to finish the experimental part of my project.

Wake me up when September ends

So cliched, but totally sums up my September.

I was craving for cupcakes last night. It has been a long time since I craved for cupcakes, probably since one of Michy's birthday when we bought a big box of Wondermilk cuppacakes to surprise her.

Cupcakes are really expensive treats and are usually not worth it. The main thing that determines the acceptability of cupcakes is, to me the frosting. MOST cupcakes have frostings which are so hard you can peel them off the cupcake and they still stand nicely on their own. Now that's not something I want to be eating. God knows what went into that frosting to make it so.. erect...

In my opinion, the best cupcakes in Melbourne CBD that I've tasted so far is Little Cupcakes on Degraves Street. The soft frosting crumbles when you touch it and melts in your mouth. The cupcake base does not feel dry and hard. Now that's a good 8 blocks from my apartment, but for the love of desserts, I decided to go there for some good cupcakes and not those crappy shit I can get near my place.

The shop is extremely narrow and small. By the time I arrived, at 3pm most of the cupcakes have already been sold out. I bought 4 mini cupcakes which cost me a painful 8AUD. I'm not kidding when I say mini.

I held this box and walked all the 8 blocks home, not allowing myself to tram since I'm gonna have cupcakes. To my horror, I dropped the box on the street while walking home. Thankfully the lid did not pop open.

To add on to this, for the whole month, I have been experiencing a series of unfortunate events.

1. I dropped my apartment keys into the elevator shaft (probably measuring about 3cm wide). Cost me 57AUD to replace my keys. The building manager couldn't believe anyone could be that clumsy for that to happen.

2. I cracked a rotten egg that had cancer or something. The egg was BLACK inside and the smell, can't be described in words.

3. I wasted almost 2 weeks waiting for my materials which I ordered 3 weeks ago to arrive.

4. Got charged an overdraft fee by the bank because I forgot to put money in for rent.

I'm so glad September is about to end.

I hope October will be a better month, coz I'll be taking my IELTS and I need EXCELLENT results lest I have to spend another 300AUD to retake it until I get the required results to apply for PR.

By the way, did I mention that the frosting on the cupcakes was so soft and wonderful...?

I came home with smashed up cupcakes. I tried my best to arrange it to look almost presentable for a photo. But it still tasted pretty good. I guess that's the icing on top of the cake..

People say humans get numb and used to things when it happens all the time. But it still breaks my heart every time you walk out that door.

The course of letting go, how insignificant the thing may seem is something a person may never learn in a lifetime.

I'm still in the process of learning.

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Will fill in the title when I think of something randomly appropriate.

Home

Feels like I have nowhere to rant, so here I am after a whole year of negligence.

This indicates how lonely I'm here which is a big tipping point on the scale that would favour me to return home.

But where exactly is home?

I know I haven't left for long, compared to many others who have been away for probably 5 years or more. But these two years have taught me so much that I would never ever learn back home in Malaysia.

I cannot see myself there in the coming few years time, but I don't see myself raising children here either. I don't really see myself as a mom, but that's a topic for another day.

Isn't it pathetic that we, or at least I worry and stress myself immensely because it has become so difficult to stay back after graduation? Is it really better here? I question myself repetitively. Two years ago when I first packed my bags and left, I was so sure I wouldn't want to return to Malaysia after my studies. During my first year, the thought of returning would even make me depressed, making me even more determined to stay after graduation. As my second year dawned, things started to change. I feel lonely here and most importantly I feel pathetic for wanting to be here when they clearly do not want us here.

Now that I'm facing my last few weeks of my final semester, the whole situation has transformed into a nail-biting stressful whirlwind, leaving the ill-equipped person that I still am to decide my future.

The cherry on top of this big fat cake is that I need to face the cruel reality of job hunting as a foreigner, which will be a do or die thing if I really want to fight for my chance to stay back.

Isn't it daunting to grow up? Isn't it frustrating to miss the boat just because you're one step too late?

Broadband and TVB

haha.. I guess you can pretty much guess what this whole post is going to be about!

TVB is bad bad bad. BUT TVB coupled with intensely fast downloading speed is PURE EVIL!!!

Gosh.. I was just chatting with Jin the other day and he introduced me to some TVB comedy which sorta ignited the TVB search engine within me. From that comedy, I went on to google all the other dramas and now I've been watching "Last one standing" for a few days. I try to control my daily intake :P
The show is pretty good. Very intense type of drama. It's the serious type as you can judge by Kevin Cheng's face especially. hahaha.. Scary mau makan you kinda face. Btw, he's the one on the right side of the skinny chick. I wanted to circle his face with a red circle but I can't seem to find that Paint program in the uni computer. Hmm...

Anyways, back to my TVB indulgence. The internet speed is so fast, I can download one episode in 15 minutes! Happy me!! Been downloading like crazy yesterday until I reached my limit. Gonna continue today! This show is actually quite intense. I feel like I can't watch more than 2 episodes straight. I need to buffer the intensity with something goofy like Friends or HIMYM. Btw, I've been binging on Friends again!

So the usual routine now is 1 episiode of TVB followed by countless episodes of Friends plus a pinch of assignment. hehe.. A big recipe for disaster I know. Well, mid sem break's coming soon. I'll finish my TVB and lay off until summer break.. I hope.. *keeps fingers crossed*.


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*Misses the time spent with the friend who took a big break back to land of sunshine!*

Apple of my eye

Apples.

So red, so shinny, so smooth. Beautiful aren't they?

But what hides beneath that beautiful exterior, is a mystery which can only be uncovered with some risk.

And of course, some apples do show signs on the exterior which indicate what they may be like inside. Oh yes they do. Dents and dimples, little specks and darkened marks. You gotta be smart when you choose them apples.

Some apples may look beautiful on the outside but they're rotten to the core. Oh poor Snow White and the beautiful red poison apple. Such cases are inevitable because by nature we are attracted to beautiful things.

But there are some apples with dents and dimples, specks and marks on the surface. You think that you should give them a chance. You ask yourself, what if it's just as delicious on the inside? I mean, people do say don't judge a book by its cover. So I shouldn't judge the apple by its skin, right? Boy oh boy do those old sayings screw people's life up sometimes.

Oh but some apples are just as rotten on the inside as they seem to be on the outside and I have tasted the foulest of them all. Ok, maybe ONE of the foulest of them all. I won't deny that there are worse apples out there. Just that this rotten one (on the outside and inside, mind you) left such a ground shaking impression on me.

I wonder, how would such an apple survive. Since it's rotten inside out, who would take on such a noble task to sacrifice oneself to eat it and spread its seeds? At least if the apple is beautiful on the outside, it still stands a chance or perhaps I'm just being superficial OR I could be realistc.

Oh yes, you gotta be very careful when you choose apples. Some are just so damaged they shouldn't be around people. That's why at times you shouldn't ridicule your mother's advice because after all she has seen many more apples in her life, hasn't she?

Genetics Australia

I had the opportunity to visit Genetics Australia on Friday morning with the dairy science class. It's just a short 1.5 hours away from the city centre. I had to wake up at 630am because I had to reach uni by 730am.

The uni hired a small van/bus to bring us there coz there're so few masters students.

View of the city from the freeway. You can vaguely see the city behind the complicated mass of wiring and fencing.

The grand entrance of Genetics Australia. The purpose of this visit is actually to see the process of insemination of cows to create cows of superior breed which produce more milk with good quantities of proteins and fats. This place doesn't deal with any other kinds of genetics stuff like GMO and plant based things. Strictly cows for dairy purposes only. So basically it's quite a small facility but the land is big coz they rear the bulls to get their sperm for analysis.

Suburban Australia is a very nice place to be. Very green and the sky is always bright blue and clear. The air is very fresh as well. But the bad side is that it's always much colder in suburbs compared to the city and the weather is more erratic, can suddenly rain when the sky is so bright. Good example is that day on Friday, with such clear blue skies, it suddenly poured like mad.

Resulted in this mini rainbow. The rainbow was actually really vibrant but I think my camera phone couldn't capture the essence of it. Forgot my camera in the midst of morning rush. :P

We had a short presentation by the manager of the lab. He then told us that we could go see how they "collected" the bull sperm, and he said that if we're not comfortable seeing the process we can be excused. hahaha.. Basically we're just seeing cow masturbation. I'm not kidding! They have the tools ready for it. But of couse it doesn't involve any cow porn.

This is the cow shed. The bulls are kept here when they're not forraging for food on the grass fields. Those big bulls tied to the front are erm.. sort of castrated bulls. They are tied there so that the other bulls can climb on them when they get an erection. So they're sort of there just to be ridden. But of coz they don't get penetrated, I'll explain later. They're just like.. something to be climbed on.

The picture again is not very clear. This is what happens when the bull gets.. horny? He mounts the poor stationary castrated bull and the guy at the side collects his sperm with an artificial vagina. hahaha! Cow sex toys! It happens damn fast! Like 30 seconds then the bull ejaculated d. The manager realised our astonishment and he said that generally the mounting process is as good a foreplay for bulls already and there's no passion or whatsoever involved, very straight forward process. hahaha..

This is the artificial vagina. That knob is where you put in warm water for some reason which I can't recall now. Thank goodness I don't have to write a report on this trip.

This is the tube where the sperm will be collected. His thumb marks the spot of the average amount of sperm which can be collected with each bull. This amount of sperm can inseminate almost 100s of cows.

The sperm samples are then sent for analysis. They count the number of viable sperms and the dead ones and then judge if the bull contributes to good quality sperm or not. Bulls that don't or are too old to do it so many times a day are disposed off. To where do they get disposed off we asked? He replied, I'm sure you all enjoy McDonalds............... -_-

This is to observe the movement of the sperm. He says that some sperm dart forward quickly which is good. Some just dart around in circles which is practically useless.. Somehow puts the image of a dog chasing its own tail in my mind. hahaha..

The sperm is then "packaged" into these very fine looking straws labelled with the name of the bull. They actually sell the sperm in these straws to farmers and also to international markets. Malaysia is one of them.

The straws have to be frozen immediately using liquid nitrogen to ensure "freshness" :P

That's about the field trip. Definitely an eye opener! Btw, those people handling the bulls actually had to take a cow psychology course so that they know when and how to handle them when they're aroused. This is the first of my many field trips this sem.

Alright, back to my wine assignment......