Firmament High

Dedicated to every single family, friend, and you

2012-02-19T23:39:00.008-05:00

An email from a great great friend, triggered this entry. I thought I would share my heartfelt response for the world to see, to celebrate a gesture of a friendship that I hold so dear to my heart =) And to G, if you are reading this, this goes to you.

...I am hanging in here haha. There is really nothing much I can do otherwise, really, but to live life to the best that I can. It’s a struggle sometimes (to be 9496 miles away from all my loved ones), but I think that all the more hardens my resolute for the future.

And every day I feel my life is so blessed, to have so many people that care so much – my family and friends back home, amazing friends I have met and came to accept me for who I am, like you and a partner like her (X) that stands by me all the time – that’s enough motivation to keep me going =) Sometimes, I feel I am so undeserving of all the overwhelming love - it serves as a constant reminder.

J

To my X, like you, to me, you are neither friend nor family, because you are BOTH. And much much more =) Looking forward to the day I hold you in my arms again...

Febreze - Odor remover uncovered!

2012-02-18T10:15:00.001-05:00

I thought this is a simple but concise article on how Febreze works. Good to know!

http://chemistry.about.com/od/cleanerchemistry/f/how-febreze-works.htm

When you spray Febreze, the water in the product partially dissolves the odor, allowing it to form a complex inside the 'hole' of the cyclodextrin donut shape. The stink molecule is still there, but it can't bind to your odor receptors, so you can't smell it.

Memory leak

2012-02-13T00:03:00.000-05:00

I wonder if there are genes for a leaky memory... If my brain is a huge plastic bag and memory is water, then it's probably a bag full of holes with water oozing out at a constant rate.

Good thing it gets filled everyday.

TEDxYale

2012-02-04T18:03:00.003-05:00

Inspired from the Morse Code, co-invented by Samuel Morse, a Yale graduate.

TED = Technology Entertainment and Design

TEDx

TED grants licenses to third parties to hold free TEDx events in cities around the world.^[29] These one-time only licenses are free, but franchisees must be approved by TED and agree to adhere to a strict set of rules including format, duration, limiting the number of invited guests to 100 people and agreeing that half day events show "A minimum of two official, pre-recorded TEDTalks" and that all-day events "at least 25% of the total number of talks must be official, pre-recorded TEDTalks." Speakers are not paid and they must agree to give TED the right to edit and distribute their presentation. According to TED these franchised events were "created in the spirit of TED's mission, "ideas worth spreading." The program is designed to give communities, organizations and individuals the opportunity to stimulate dialogue through TED-like experiences at the local level...TEDx events are fully planned and coordinated independently, on a community-by-community basis." As of 2010, some 750 TEDx events are scheduled to happen in over 60 countries.

--wikipedia.com
If any of you happen to miss some of the speakers at the latter half of TEDxYale, and if they actually put them at good resolution online (http://www.justin.tv/tedxyale, I was told this is not a great stream), I recommend the following talks by:

1) Rebecca Ringle - music & neuroscience
2) Keith Chen - languages & behavioral economics
3) David Bolinsky - medical illustrator
4) Brad Rosen - privacy laws
5) Bob Casey - http://www.yourenew.com/
6) LaTisha Campbell - being a radical
7) Vikram Mansharamani - 'foxy' thinking, on being a generalist
8) Sarah Parcak - an exemplary of TED's belief in twists of fate
9) Yael Zinkow - a jewel among them all =)

Enjoyed myself thoroughly. Even though there were more logistical problems than I would have hoped for, I think it's a commendable effort on a first at Yale. Looking forward to listening to more exciting "ideas worth sharing".

No good deed goes unpunished...

2012-01-29T23:56:00.001-05:00

What an attention-grabbing subject to put on an email... LOLX

It also puts you in a position of indecision - to laugh or not to laugh... lol

Will start writing again.

2012-01-29T23:49:00.000-05:00

Caught in this limbo state of past holiday moods, present predicament and worries for the future.

My mind's a mess.

Christmas Gift Wrapping - How to tie a gift bow on a Christmas present

2011-12-20T18:10:00.000-05:00

For my Xmas this year, I learnt how to tie a bow on a Christmas present from Youtube!!

A new handicraft skill I think I will forget soon, so I definitely need to document it somewhere with the videos with some annotations:

1) Take a free end, form a loop, then twist!

2) Twisting is the key, hence this tests your finger dexterity, since you need to be making multiple loops.

3) Lastly, make a final twist, then estimate how long of a free end you gonna need to bundle up the loop in a knot.

I do like this one, because she makes present wrapping look so posh, with velvety/glittery ribbons and wrappings:

And this one uses streamer-like ribbons (as I would like to call them). So it's slightly different from the one above, but just as neat.

I am having fun trying out different gift wrapping techniques, color combinations and gift choices/making.

Enjoy the holiday season people!

Failures to success

2011-12-12T12:07:00.006-05:00

The idea of failures en route to success has been supported, discussed, widely disseminated to bits that I don't think I should put more to it... Well, just one more article maybe.

An extension to this idea is the introduction of this concept in education. I truly think children and adolescents should learn how to handle failures when they are growing up... Even to the extent of spiking those naive worlds with some 'white failures'. Of course, the counterargument might be the palpability of these 'failures' and how they might (adversely) impact the later lives of the young ones. And that extra-curricular activities contribute enormously to this aspect of education already.

I guess my point is that education is also about imparting life skills. And I am not talking about teaching it in the theoretical sense, but something dynamic, practical and leaves a deep impression, so that they can learn in an applied manner rather than the didactic, often intangible form.

While perhaps passively letting nature take its course might be an option, I think there is still room for such introductory life lessons.

http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/12/why_i_hire_people_who_fail.html

"A lively culture is nebulous, indefinable, ever-changing. Try to package it in a formal mission statement and you just may suffocate it."

"When you make a mistake, you're forced to look back and find out exactly where you went wrong, and formulate a new plan for your next attempt. By contrast, when you succeed, you don't always know exactly what you did right that made you successful (often, it's luck)."

Outlook 2007: Minimize Outlook to Systray instead of Taskbar

2011-12-12T08:54:00.000-05:00

First off, some terminologies so we are on the same page:

taskbar = the bar that has your windows and icons at the bottom of your screen
systray = the small menu of icons you can pull up when you click on the arrow icon beside the clock on the far right of the taskbar.

1 simple step to minimize Outlook 2007 to the systray to save space on your taskbar.
1) By default, Outlook minimizes to your taskbar. So to save space, right click on the Outlook icon in systray, choose "Hide when minimized".

Voila! It should work now!

Note that earlier versions might require some tinkering with the registry or additional options in the Outlook options, if this doesn't work.

Failures: when it becomes more than just yours

2011-12-11T12:37:00.003-05:00

I wrote an entry about failures a while back.

Incidentally, the most recent TEDxYYC by David Damberger talks about failures. But at a grander scale. I am exceptionally touched by the candidness of the speaker and his openness in talking about his own failures and sincerity in admitting it.

There IS a general aversion in talking about failures. But when that failure becomes more than just you, the 'self' becomes insignificant. There is much more at stake. Admission to failure and possibly documenting it is then not your first step in realizing and coming to terms with that mistake, but it's the community's first step to do that. Only then, can improvement be made as a collective.

Failures suck. Big time. Individually, you can try to make sure you don't repeat it. But how do you make sure other people don't?

States of my brain

2011-12-08T13:02:00.000-05:00

Clear, lucid state
-I have clear focus.
-Bent on finishing tasks.

Semi-lucid state (more-than-half lucidity)
-Partial focus.
-Found that music actually keeps the messed-up portion of the brain busy while the lucid portion can be focused on tasks.

Semi-lucid state (less-than-half lucidity)
-Partial focus.
-Music doesn't help. It actually adds on to confusion.

Totally chaotic state
-Almost-nil focus.
-Good for automatic tasks like keying in numbers.
-Everything is happening in my head all at once: grabbing ideas, task(s) at hand, mundane issues etc...

Comatose state
-No focus
-I am basically a walking zombie.

Sometimes I find music helps. Surprisingly, going through Facebook sometimes help too.

Ongoing discussions of relevant issues definitely help.

But if I need a reboot, I try
1) play computer games
2) play squash
3) go to the gym
4) take a nap

Failures

2011-12-06T16:00:00.002-05:00

Failures suck. But I guess that's how they are supposed to feel.

I think I am starting to deal with them though. Appropriately.

Re-learning life skills that I should have decades ago. Singapore should learn to let her citizens go take risks sometimes. It's really good for them.

Sheltering does produce crops of homogeneously fine quality though. Just that the world out there, is always never the same. And that's why even Nature promotes heterogeneity and variations. It's interesting when you look at bottlenecks and natural selection. Sorry, I digress. Somehow, I have this impression that the strategy Singapore was adopting is starting to change. It might lead to catastrophic consequences. But I guess, change is constant.

Oh well, the ambivalence of life.

C'est la vie. And a new phrase I picked up: La vita e bella. It's amazing just to be alive.

Ubuntu installation in VirtualBox and set up Shared folder with host

2011-12-03T19:08:00.006-05:00

Helping LA has made me realized that I need to document this procedure for archival purposes. I will try to make this as detailed as possible. Hopefully, I don't miss any steps. If I do, anybody can send an email to me.

Host OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit (HP laptop), CPU-i7 quad core @ 2GHz, 8GB RAM
VM: Oracle's Virtualbox (VB)
Guest OS: Ubuntu

Installation of Ubuntu:
1) Download ubuntu .iso file. I downloaded the 64-bit (amd64).
2) Download VirtualBox. After installation, got through the wizard to install Virtualbox. En route, you will see these prompts:
a) OS Type: OS=Linux, Version=Ubuntu
b) Memory: Depending on how extensive you are going to use VB, I put about a quarter of my RAM. You can adjust it later anyway, so don't dawdle here.
c) Create new hard disk -> with Dynamically expanding storage -> give it a name and half size for me (~4GB).

3) These should bring you to the end of the installation. Now, you need to additionally customize your VM environment. Open VB, right-click on your Ubuntu, click 'Settings'.
a) System > Processor: 1 CPU for now. We will increase it later. KIV.
b) System > Acceleration: ensure that Hardware virtualization options are checked in both 'Enable VT-x/AMD-V' and 'Nested Paging'.
c) Storage > Storage Controller > Empty > Right panel: click 'browse' and find the Ubuntu ISO you downloaded in (1).

4) Double click on ISO to initiate VM. Install Ubuntu (not 'try'). Follow wizard.

**Watch this video on Jane Talks Tech for a more visual and detailed demonstration of a 32-bit Ubuntu installation.

Everything else should be kept default. Until this point, this is the normal procedure for all installations (32- and 64-bit).

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

TO ENABLE MULTI-CORE PROCESSING
1) You need to restart the computer and enter the BIOS. To enter BIOS, reboot the computer, press 'Delete' button.

2) After you enter the BIOS, find Advanced BIOS settings > Virtualization > Enabled. Remember to 'Save and exit'. Most new processors should be capable of this function, make use of it.

3) After you log into host, restart VB. Go Settings > System > Processor. I set to 4 out of my 16 CPUs.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

TO SET UP SHARED FOLDERS
Set this up to allow access of host files from the guest system.
1) Create a folder, name of your choice. For illustration purpose, the path of my folder is "C:\Shared".
2) Open VB, go Settings > Shared Folders. Click on the 'Add folder' icon, key in the path, and the folder name. Checking 'read-only' means you will not be able to change anything from the guest machine - guest can only 'download'. A good picture, refer to this website: http://ipggi.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/11-03-2010-10-08-06.png

3) Open a terminal. Type in command:

sudo apt-get install build-essential linux-headers-'uname -r'

This installs some software not installed by default.

4) Start VM and login. Select Devices > CD/DVD Devices > VBoxGuestAdditions.iso
This ISO contains an image of a DVD that contains essential files. Mount this image (something like putting in a virtual CD/DVD into a virtual drive). Run the image using:

sudo /cdrom/VBoxLinnuxAddition-amd64.run

5) You might need to restart the VM.
6) Finally, mount the Shared folder. Open a terminal, type command:

sudo mount -t vboxsf Shared ~/my-shared-foldername-on-guest-OS

7) Check that you have that on your home directory. Put something in that folder on the host and see if you can transfer it to your guest.

8) IMPT: Do not close the terminal. FYI, the above has to be mounted every time you log into Ubuntu, much like an external harddrive. To do this automatically, open this file:

sudo vi /etc/init.d/rc.local

Edit this by adding the "sudo ..." line to the second last line, just before "exit 0;".
Then save and exit (:wq).

9) Close and reopen the terminal. You should see the folder still there.

Conception to Birth - Alexander Tsiaras

2011-11-26T12:16:00.002-05:00

I gotta post this TED talk... Now we are able to visualize the formative process of the fetus of conception to birth. Isn't this just amazing? Just how much complexity is infused into our growth to make us the way we are, and mostly without much glitches along way so that we can come into this world, bearing resemblance to everybody else but not totally the same.

The educational implication of this video to the general public is immense. When before, people thought the babies popping out of a mother's womb is something bizarre, arcane and inexplicable, now there is at least a glimpse of the macro-processes that are taking place.

Science is advancing. Sometimes, it's so fast and fascinating, it frightens me...

Create HTML with Google Spreadsheet: Python Google Docs API

2011-11-22T11:03:00.004-05:00

Recently, I helped set up the Gerstein lab's Alumni page. All the information of the current lab people and alumni are situated in a Google Spreadsheet: name, past affiliations, date joined etc. Google Docs API allows the creation of webpages directly based on these information. They recommend the use of the Python scripts. A predecessor did all the work. I merely modified his script to do what I wanted it to do.

M named it BLIS - Bioinformatics Lab Information System, which is quite true in the sense that the entire process is streamlined to minimize fuss and making consolidation of dynamic human resource data a "blissful" procedure for the general administrator. However, it can be a pain for the system administrator trying to put these together, as Mi can testify. So BLIS comprised of a couple of lab resources - people, papers, lectures and images - based heavily on Google spreadsheets. A sanitized code and somewhat abstract walkthrough (pardon me, because I could only better express this by SHOWING how it is done) can be found here. This resource is made free and public for all. Nothing very fancy but it works for the lab and it does make a lot of things easier once you get it to work.

Eventually, M wants to centralize all resources by the use of the Google Spreadsheet, grabbing information off each column. I can however, foresee that the spreadsheet will get outrageously big/messy/both at some point, making the new person looking at it a headache. Now, it is still rather manageable.

Now, Mi is trying to interface Googlegroups with the spreadsheet, to manage mailing lists in this "central repository". M wants me to help him, given my relative success with the People's page. Mi is pretty stuck now since he can't find a way around connecting Googlegroups with GoogleDocs. Any Google team or experts out there who can help?

Here on, I am going try documenting what I did for the People's page:
1) Found in the lab server, is a Python script, some sort of a wrapper, that
a) creates a HTML file for the People webpage (the people's page points to this file)
b) grabs information off GoogleSpreadsheet (refer to mini-walkthrough)
- This is essentially your workhorse.

2) Every time you update the Google Spreadsheet, you need to update the web page too. This can be done by running this file each time you update. A quick and dirty way that can be done is to circumvent the problem of accessing the file in the background is to create a link run the script manually.

I would say 95% of the credit that this works goes out to Mi and the predecessor working on this (I don't know the name). I am merely a modifier that builds on the established success.

Found a pretty neat page that talks more in detail: http://www.pearltrees.com/#/N-p=24598257&N-u=1_199189&N-fa=2133196&N-s=1_3262934&N-f=1_3262934

Google Spreadsheet gadgets targeted at data visualization mostly:
http://code.google.com/apis/spreadsheets/gadgets/

Quidditch in our world HA!

2011-11-19T23:10:00.004-05:00

Inspired by Yale Band's Harry Potter skit (in an attempt to slam Harvard) at Yale-Harvard Game today, I stumbled upon the game of quidditch played in real life without magic. And believe it or not, it seems to be here to stay!! I read about it last winter, and my jaw dropped... LOLX

http://www.worldcupquidditch.com/about.php

2011 marked the fifth edition of the IQA (International Quidditch Association) World Cup. According to IQA:

"Quidditch was adapted from the Harry Potter novels in 2005, at Middlebury College in Vermont, by Xander Manshel, a freshman looking to change up his dorm’s tradition of Sunday bocce. That first group wore towels for capes and came with an assortment of broom-like implements, including a Swiffer mop and even a lamp. One kid wore his graduation robes. The game was an immediate hit on campus and was played on an intramural level until 2007, when Alex Benepe founded the Intercollegiate Quidditch Association after the first intercollegiate match between Middlebury and Vassar College. Since then the sport has really taken off (figuratively if not literally): students from more than 1,000 colleges and high schools from a dozen countries have contacted the IQA looking to start their own teams, and over 300 are actively playing in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, France, Britain, and Brazil...The game has been described as a cross between rugby, dodge ball, and tag, which is a good approximation."

I am amazed haha. Probably should catch one of these games in action! You can get the rule book for free here, complete with chasers, beaters, keeper, seeker and the snitch!

Check out a write up on Wikipedia for Muggle Quidditch!

And a cool documentary:

I am waiting for Christmas!

2011-11-16T21:56:00.001-05:00

This year's Xmas and countdown we will be spending it together again. The last time we had it on foreign shores, it was a blast =)

重溫08/09臺北聖誕與跨年。。。

Can't wait... =)
想你！

In the meantime, I will transferring all my luck to you for Friday! 加油！！！！

Is Redstar Worldwear a scam?!

2011-11-16T00:53:00.002-05:00

I got the RedStar Worldwear event card from the Stratton Faxon New Haven Road Race this year. I got pretty excited about the prospects of having cheap but good sunglasses.

But first I wanted to see if this is a hoax. So I scoured the web and found some websites stating that people do receive their products, even though there were dissatisfaction at some point. I decided to give it a shot.

I bought 5 pairs of sunglasses and 1 free watch for 72 dollars - average ~14 USD per pair of shades. My conclusion is that it isn't a scam. But it's not an Amazon either. Let me try to break it down:

1) Service
- Took more than 3 weeks to reach my place. Registering my order itself took a week. It makes you wonder how efficient the people are.
- phone customer service was not professional. They were generally nice, but they do not know what happened to my order when I called them.

2) Website
- mediocre interface. Their business heavily relies on this but fails to give a convenient interface. Order is not updated. I initially ordered 7 sunglasses and 3 watches. 2 shades and 2 watches were out of stock, but I only knew this when I received the products. How late is that! Gives a sloppy and unprofessional impression.
- hard to navigate.
- hard to keep track of products on order list by product ID. Pain in the neck because you have to remember which ID corresponds to which sunglasses or watch.

3) Product
- I bought an aviator which I always wanted to try. I would say it feels durable, since it feels heavier. Looks not too bad. But I think the design does not seem to be what I expect from the photo online. It's not different, but the online image glorified the sunglasses many times I would say.
- I tried it outdoors, and I still prefer my own pair of shades in terms of shielding; I still have to squint my eyes when the sun is strong where I did not have to for my own pair.
- It doesn't have a good fit.
- can't try, can't return.

So all in all, I would say, for the price, it's good value for money. IF you have the patience and time, and some extra $15 bucks to spare, just get one of these to try out. Seems durable and aesthetic enough. I don't think it's a scam just because I got my products as promised and in very good condition.

REMEMBER THOUGH: there is a check box when you check out on the website that states that you want to receive shades every time they push out new models. UNCHECK THAT! Because they will charge you for every sunglasses/watch they send. JUST KEEP A LOOK OUT FOR THIS.

I unchecked it and haven't got any calls nor sunglasses nor undesirable deductions from them yet.

Big 3 in DTC products

2011-11-13T12:47:00.000-05:00

23andme, Navigenics and deCodeme.

With the bankruptcy of deCodeme, we are down to 2.

What are their fates?

Anyway, why is deCodeme website still on?!?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeCODE_genetics

http://venturebeat.com/2008/01/23/decodemes-maddening-and-underwhelming-personal-genomics-service/

http://venturebeat.com/2008/01/26/decodeme-and-its-questionable-disease-risk-predictions/

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/02/the-end-of-the-decodeme-personal-genomics-service/

Conscription or compulsory military service

2011-11-13T12:01:00.002-05:00

LOLX!!

I thought Germany has compulsory military service too! But apparently they stopped this year.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_Germany

"Germany had conscription (Wehrpflicht) for male citizens between 1956 and 2011. On 22 November 2010, the German Minister of Defence proposed to the government to put conscription into abeyance on 1 July 2011.^[1] The constitution, however, retains provisions that would legalize the potential reintroduction of conscription...men were obliged to serve six months either in the military, which they could refuse, and do alternative civilian service, or honorary service (like any volunteer) for at least six months in a civil protection organisation."

Open Science

2011-11-13T11:49:00.008-05:00

TED@Waterloo talk today is by Dr Michael Nielsen:
http://www.ted.com/talks/michael_nielsen_open_science_now.html?awesm=on.ted.com_Nielsen&utm_campaign=&utm_medium=on.ted.com-static&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_content=awesm-publisher

Funny, couldn't find the embed button.

Essentially, he talks about the power of crowdsourcing, but slightly different from the ones I have been talking about. Starting from positive examples from the Bermuda Principles of genomics (everything open-source for sharing) and the Polymath Project (free collaboration ending in publications), he provided insights into tapping the potential of massive collaborations in scientific discoveries and creating a third revolution in science sharing. I have blogged about the prowess of crowdsourcing with the masses. But crowdsourcing within the scientific community is a tad more complex because of conflicting interests, the lack of incentives, constraints imposed by history and mostly, IMO largely also due to inertia.

He didn't provide much concrete actions, but I am looking forward to this revolution. It might take years or decades. But with the Internet and the Semantic Web as the catalyst and the workhorse, this duality in role might expedite the entire process. It just needs the right spark, to create that wildfire...

I will read his blog here:
http://michaelnielsen.org/blog/the-future-of-science-2/

"There are already many well-known but still striking instances of this change in parts of culture outside of science [1]. For example, in 1991 an unknown Finnish student named Linus Torvalds posted a short note in an online forum, asking for help extending a toy operating system he’d programmed in his spare time; a volunteer army responded by assembling Linux, one of the most complex engineering artifacts ever constructed. In 2001 another young unknown named Larry Sanger posted a short note asking for help building an online Encyclopedia; a volunteer army responded by assembling the world’s most comprehensive Encyclopedia. In 1999, Garry Kasparov, the greatest chessplayer of all time, played and eventually won a game of chess against a “World Team” which decided its moves by the votes of thousands of chessplayers, many rank amateurs; instead of the easy victory he expected, he got the most challenging game of his career, a game he called “the greatest game in the history of chess”."

WCUB 2011 (What can you be with your PhD)

2011-11-11T18:38:00.003-05:00

This is a 2-day career convention at NYU Langone Medical Center. I must say this is the most informative career convention I have been to. The panel of speakers were engaging, cordial and candid and the participants asked really pertinent questions.

I went for the seminars in resume writing, mentoring, grant and fellowship application writing and careers in the pharmaceutical industry. I think there are some tips covered in this convention that people looking for jobs in general can use, like resume writing. I have some notes if anybody is interested. You can drop me a line.

This also serves as a short getaway from the work that is being piled up. Chelsea Market is just awesome! Thanks G and P and O for suggesting it!!

Where we cut our hair - 196 Centre Street NYC.

New Haircut - not too bad for 27 bucks?

Primate sequencing

2011-11-11T17:07:00.001-05:00

The first primate to be sequenced was the human³ in 2001, followed by the chimpanzee⁴ in 2005, the Indian rhesus macaque⁵ (Macaca mulatta mulatta) in 2007 and the orangutan⁶earlier this year.

Not surprisingly, genome sequencing projects for nonhuman primates have multiplied, with projects on gibbons, baboons, bonobos, gorillas, African green monkeys, squirrel monkeys, galagos (bushbabies), pigtailed macaques, aye-aye (lemur), sooty mangabeys and other species underway or planned

----http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/v29/n11/full/nbt.2032.html

Almost all the primates are endangered species, mostly because of humans encroaching and destroying their habitats. Now, we are sequencing them and using them in our science experiments, so we do want to save them. Someday, when this loop-sided tug-of-war finishes, I wonder who will be the last ape standing.

Entrepreneurship

2011-11-11T13:41:00.002-05:00

Point in time: the ability to create a sense of inertia in its product users...

http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/v29/n11/full/nbt.2033.html

Some ethnic propensities for genetic diseases

2011-11-11T11:49:00.003-05:00

Ethnic Group	Genetic Defect
African Americans	Sickle Cell Anemia
Central or Eastern Jews	Tay - Sachs disease
Italian, Greek, Middle Eastern	Thalassemia

-----http://www.americanpregnancy.org/gettingpregnant/geneticcounseling.html

EDIT:
Ashkenazi Jews have also a higher propensity for Cystic Fibrosis
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10464623

11/11/11

2011-11-11T11:30:00.000-05:00

It's the Happy Singles' Day in China but a more solemn Veterans' Day in the US.

Do they really have to go that far in disparity?

Anyway, a very interesting article on 111111 =)

http://paradigmsearch.hubpages.com/hub/How-to-Interpret-111111-Friday-November-11-2011-And-a-Metaphysics-Experiment-111111

Single-gene diseases

2011-11-09T01:00:00.000-05:00

Huntington's disease - HTT gene (chr4) - dominant and penetrant
Alzheimer's disease - APOE gene (chr19) - strictly not single-gene disease but 1 epsilon allele copy x3 chance, 2 copies x15 chance
Cystic fibrosis - CFTR gene (chr7) - autosomal recessive - mainly Caucasians
Tay-Sach's disease - HEXA gene (chr15) - autosomal recessive - almost exclusive to Ashkenazi Jews
Hemophilia - X-linked recessive (hence more males than females)

-----http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_disorder#Single_gene_disorder
-----http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/magazine/11Genome-t.html?pagewanted=all

Plantronics 903 and 903+ headphones do not charge/no power

2011-11-08T09:01:00.002-05:00

Previously my headphone from Plantronics SUDDENLY played dead and wouldn't turn on. It was irritating because it happened just right a few days BEFORE I was about to leave for Singapore.

So I scoured the Web for any resolution. It turned out there were a slew of complaints and yelling and profanities on this problem but the gem of a solution only turned up after my persistent search on page 2 of this forum and in the middle: http://soundingboard.plantronics.com/t5/Mobile-Bluetooth-Headsets/backbeat-903-no-power/td-p/4451/page/2

For archiving purpose and for those of you lucky enough to find my page or the forum above:

I found a solution you connect the device to the charger and keep the on/off button pressed like 5 seconds, at the same time you unplug the AC charger and reconected so the blue light truns on

iIT worked for me and I had the same problem they just died when I listened to music no sweat no nothing

---- Dna

TIP 1: This works for 903+ as well!!

TIP 2: this doesn't always work the first time. The first time this happened to me, it worked like a charm (happy). The second time I have to try a couple of times relentlessly (DON'T give up) before it came back to life.

I like the sleek design of the bluetooth device. Hopefully I get to use it a year or 2 more.

Let me thank "Dna" again. Whoever you are. You sure made a lot of people happy with that simple post.

Personality tests

2011-11-07T22:49:00.002-05:00

Eating dinner while doing a personality test helps concentrate the mind on some other things. Tried the Jung and Briggs Myers Test again.

The first time I tried some years ago I had INFJ - articles 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 - they call this type "the protector, or "the confidant".

This time round I have INTJ - articles 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 - "the mastermind", "the scientist" or "the strategist".

With heavy percentages on the Intuitiveness and Judgement categories.

So I guess it's a straddle between both personalities. Wow, both belong to a mere 1-2% of the human population. I am a rare species. =) People belonging to these categories even band together: INFJ Dolphin Cove and INTJ Central. I am very surprised people actually find the effort to put these things together.

I find personality tests very entertaining to do and sometimes very interesting. And most of the time, overrated. Oh, also they have really fancy names for the personality types.

The power of crowdsourcing

2011-11-07T11:12:00.007-05:00

I am sure alot of people do not realize that scientists are slowly tapping into the power of the masses. I have known the use of online computer games in helping to solve protein structures by David Baker's Lab at University of Washington, and protein folding problems at Stanford. Ed Yong of "Not exactly Rocket Science" has an extremely good post on one of the latest developments at Foldit. Recently, I have come to know personal genomics projects that extended from the minds of the public too.

You submit your genomic information to them and get it analysed FOC and/but also get it publicized online. People might be concerned about privacy issues but more often, the submitters know about the risks and are not unduly concerned. Notably, the Dodecad Ancestry Project and Eurogenes Genetic Ancestry Project have garnered a substantial number of volunteers in their analyses (order of 1000s). This is a good number for a peer-reviewed publication!

In a way, it sounds ironic that the general population pays taxes to fund these genomic projects, pay scientists/clinicians etc to do the jobs they do, and end up having a part of the useful results being generated from the public themselves.

Closer to heart, it brings up two concerns:
1) Informal bioinformatics is on the rise. With the advent of Web 2.0 and the Semantic Web, it is here to stay. Probes the question: What becomes the value of bioinformaticians?

Healthy competition breeds higher-quality academic/industry bioinformaticians; you basically have to prove you are better than the layman or just the technical-savvy people out there. Set ourselves apart by depth and breadth.

i.e. They are here to stay. Deal with it...

2) Church argues that better access to high-quality data could help this kind of informal bioinformatics to flourish, enabling computer-savvy people to make important contributions to genomics, just as they have with online businesses such as Facebook. "It didn't take that much training to become a social-networking entrepreneur. You just had to be a good coder," he says. With bioinformatics, "I think we're in a similar position." ----- http://www.nature.com/news/2010/101215/full/468880a.html

I am particularly concerned about George Church's comment. I am a fan of his work. This might be misconstrued but a great scientist of our times making comment on your profession on being "just a good coder" (AKA with little sense of biology) hit a raw nerve. The acceptance of the scientific community on bioinformaticians has been ambivalent. With this public encroachment into our ambit, this is simply unnerving: What am I doing in grad school doing all these?

EDIT 11/8/11: Kaggle pays you to crunch numbers! An article describes this.

9000 tumors for personalized cancer treatment

2011-11-06T23:39:00.005-05:00

"The £5.5 ($8.7) million Stratified Medicine Programme, led by the charity Cancer Research UK in partnership with the National Health Service and London-based AstraZeneca and New York-based Pfizer, aims to develop a standardized national genetic screening service to help tailor oncology treatments for patients. "

"Genetic stratification allows clinicians to determine which individuals will respond to which treatment, for instance, KRAS testing in bowel cancer to see if Amgen's Vectibix (panitumumab) and Imclone's Erbitux (cetuximab) is indicated."
------ Aldrige, Nature Biotechnology 29, 854 (2011)

Indeed, Pharma firms are moving away from the conventional "one drug fits all" doctrine. It is exciting to see how personalized medicine will pan out. Especially with each individual's data currently in seemingly fragmented states: Person X can do genetic testing on 23andMe on an array, exome sequencing and cancer profiling but she/he will never find them consolidated all under her electronic health record.

Cannot open Office 2007 docx document!!

2011-11-04T13:57:00.004-04:00

I haven't had sleep for more than 30 hours now.. We are trying to rush this manuscript out for M to vet before he goes off on vacation. Been a hell of a week.

Anyway, Ja sent me her Word docx and I couldn't open it in Windows Office 2007. Got this error:

Tried all the ways on this error warning but to no avail. But I really need it to work. So I sent emails out to Ja and A, they re-sent me the original files >_<. A said he got it to work by converting to PDF format (right-click) for Mac. That is a good solution for Mac (if you guys are Mac users), except that it's not editable now and that doesn't work for me because Windows needs to still open the file for conversion; they use Mac, so maybe that was a good workaround but truth be told, I have no idea about Mac .

Solution/workaround:

An epiphany suddenly occurred to me. Without even thinking twice, I changed the extension "docx" to "doc" and voila! Open sesame indeed! Then I just re-saved it as a "docx" Office 2007 format file.

Speculation what has gone wrong:

1) Maybe the saving process by Ja was somehow interrupted on her Mac.

2) Somehow encoding got scrambled.

3) Just bad luck.

Just wanted to share a quick and dirty way to get around this problem.

Friendster to convert and Mark Zuckerberg's profile

2011-11-01T00:31:00.004-04:00

I was astounded to see this page when I tried to access Friendster's website:
http://www.friendster.com/

Apparently, it has revamped to a social music and gaming site, relinquishing the share of social networking to Facebook totally. Old news but I just came to know of this:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/27/technology/27friendster.html

They had called for old users to "export" their data out by June 2011. I am 5 months behind. Oh well, it did provide me with fun and amusement back then. Like everything else, "nothing really lasts forever".

Mark Zuckerberg might need to think about this adage and reinvent himself if he desires his legacy to persist. Anyway, here is an article about his Friendster profile. Just an entertaining gossipy read on a celebrity.
http://gawker.com/5691841/when-facebook-ceos-was-publicly-obsessed-with-asian-girls

And on the other face of the coin, you have Jonathan Abrams, touted often as the pioneer in social networking, the original founder of Friendster and also the cause of a biotech company management failure. But. there isn't even a Wikipedia page on him. Perhaps not so down and out, he currently has his hands full with a pub (Slide) and a site that does what seems like social networks based on socializing events (Socializr). A very ambivalent interview with him can be found here:
http://www.inc.com/magazine/20070601/features-how-to-kill-a-great-idea.html

His story from this article sounds uncannily familiar, akin to a certain Steve Jobs in many ways.

How to add Official Sharing Buttons to Blogger

2011-10-31T19:21:00.000-04:00

Found Blogger actually has official sharing buttons!! LOLX

http://www.bloggerplugins.org/2010/06/official-sharing-buttons-on-blogger.html

Go Design > Page Elements. Click on 'Edit' under 'Blog Posts'.

How to add the official Twitter's Tweet button to Blogger

2011-10-31T12:02:00.012-04:00

Learnt to add the Tweet button to blog. Haha, gotta keep up with the generation man. Was contemplating whether to add a counter beside the Tweet button. Might be too embarrassing to see them lower than 10. But then again, might be interesting to see what entries actually get tweet-ed the most. Haha. So I will let the numbers stay there for a while.

Step 1:
Go to this page: http://twitter.com/goodies/tweetbutton
to create your code to embed the button.

Step 2:
Copy that code

Step 3:
Go back to Blogger > Design > Edit HTML. Check the box "Expand Widgets Template".
Search the code for this:
data:post.body

Paste the code AFTER this line. If you paste it before, the button appears in between the entries.

Find a suitable position on your HTML code by experimenting: cut and paste the code into certain segments of the HTML code, like after "Post Labels", "Author" etc. to obtain an optimal position for your tweet button.

Apparently you can also customize messages. Got the know-how from this page:
http://www.betatemplates.com/2010/08/blogspot-how-to-add-official-twitter.html

Nerd Love

2011-10-30T21:46:00.000-04:00

The Personal Genome Project

2011-10-30T19:16:00.003-04:00

http://thepersonalgenome.com/

Interesting videos on the PGP and 23andMe cofounders.

“The potential to discover what contributes to red hair, freckles, pudginess, or a love of chocolate—-let alone quantifying one’s genetic risk for cancer, asthma or diabetes—-is both exhilarating and terrifying. It comes not only with great promise for improving health through personalized medicine and understanding our individuality but also with risks for discrimination and loss of privacy.”, Science, Vol. 318, 21 December 2007, p1842.

Steven Pinker's article to the NY times on sequencing his genome:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/magazine/11Genome-t.html?pagewanted=all

Types of Bulbs

2011-10-30T13:40:00.004-04:00

blue IKEA desk lamp

I was looking for a bulb size that fits my IKEA cheap lamp. I had a previous purchase before, it was an incandescent light bulb, which is very energy-inefficient, and too bright for my liking. I am worried about my eyes, which I just did my LASIK on. It turns out, there are SO many kinds of bulbs. So I had wanted to get a fluorescent bulb. But a warning sign says that this lamp takes only Type R bulbs 25W 120V, which only are available as incandescent bulbs.

http://www.elightbulbs.com/catalog_search_help_incandescent_bulb_base_types.cfm
Incandescent bulb types. Life-size type R and PAR20 (circled) are shown below.

Why is that so? I did a search on the very informative website (above), and noticed that incandescent light bulbs are typically the conventional bulbs we see, and fluorescent ones are usually the longer kind. I reckon it's due to limitations imposed by the way fluorescence works. There are also fluorescent compact versions which I used for the bulbs in the living room (see last image below).

This website provides an extremely good overview of bulbs. I bought also a variety of bulbs just to try them out, so that I know which to get in the future (or try more bulbs LOLX they all fit into the living room lamp anyway). Easily available from Amazon.

BTW, the above figure for incandescent bulbs is not drawn to scale. For comparison, see image below:

Type R (left) and Type PAR20 (right)

Type R (right) and compact fluorescent spiral
(hidden within)

Type PAR20 (left) and compact fluorescent spiral

The World's Ugliest Music

2011-10-29T14:21:00.002-04:00

Turns out that this piece of TEDx video provided some extra trivia for me:
1) SONAR: if the sound reflects back to you at high frequency, the object is moving towards you, low frequency away.

2) Piano has 88 notes.

3) Beautiful music has repeated motifs.

The last point - I wonder if this is a recurring motif in itself in the universe, that the desirables are often conserved and reiterated. Then maybe not: rarities are considered gems.

Life Length: The Teleological design of Telomeres

2011-10-29T01:34:00.002-04:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/19/business/19life.html?pagewanted=all

Always a pleasure to learn about the exciting research and/or work Nobel Laureates are STILL doing. It does legitimize the prize that they receive, doesn't it?

Ada Yonath
Roger Tsien
Sidney Altman
Steven Chu

I have heard them speak about their current research - simply awesome...

It just makes me remember why I am here in the first place.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_laureates

Personal Genomics

2011-10-29T01:21:00.007-04:00

The raving about personal genomics has been ongoing for a while now that sequencing has become increasingly common. I have been thinking about different applications of personal genomics. It seems the most direct impact is clinical.

1) For the first time, science is being directly in touch with the masses, through companies such as 23andMe, Genetic Alliance are reaching out to the public at a large scale. People are getting in touch with microarrays, DNA, SNPs, genomic mutations - technical jargons - thought to be associated solely with just scientists. At this interface, the interplay between scientific ethics, communication, education and journalism is gaining importance. A great summary of the "Personal Genomes" conference at Cold Spring Harbor 2011 at Finchtalk gives a good summary of an outlook of this.

2) Pharmacogenetics is translational. Elucidating individual genomes means a more customized healthcare at the population and individual level. But medical informatics at the hospitals has not caught up to this. The deluge of data with just selected sequences is giving the clinicians and informaticians at the hospitals a hard time, let alone integration of full sequence data. While basic and translational research might have caught up, we would have to wait before medicine can fully utilize these information. A recent excursion to the Yale-New Haven Hospital jolted me to the fact that this is more than a technological affair, especially when healthcare becomes an enterprise.

3) Genome information is the first level of the central dogma. The primary sequence and the most fundamental, and the first to be done at high throughput. The next milestone, should be the full integration of this first level of information into healthcare. At least variability of drug dosing must be incorporated.

4) I have never thought I would be surprised by adamant resistance to knowing about your genetic material until I come here. I realize things are getting tricky with religion and insurance companies. At the other end of the spectrum, there are the apathetic people, who did their profiling and do not really care. It's scary because this nonchalance, if persists, kills the interest of the general public in the long run. When that happens, the use of such a fantastic clinical tool seems like a farce of the educated.

5) Is there anything about personal genomics that might be important beyond just being clinically relevant? The ability to distinguish maternal and paternal parts of a genome at high resolution allows a different scientific perspective of variability in the genome. But can we glean anything further? Interplay with the different other omes: transcriptome and proteome and metabolome?

M has an entry of the summary of the NIH Proteome Meeting that he spoke at: http://blog.gerstein.info/2011/10/summary-of-data-integration-session-at.html. That should be the next frontier that science is going to in clinical research - where CSI's instant mass spectrometry comes alive. Or perhaps science fiction might be gaining the most out of this.

EDIT: new science blog entry on CSHL conference on PG
http://scienceblogs.com/digitalbio/2011/10/genomes_with_benefits.php?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+scienceblogs%2Fdigitalbio+%28Discovering+Biology+in+a+Digital+World%29

Using Windows 7 as a Wi-Fi Hotspot

2011-10-26T09:08:00.000-04:00

Make it easier. Go to this page.

http://lifehacker.com/5369381/turn-your-windows-7-pc-into-a-wireless-hotspot

Miranda on BBC

2011-10-24T23:42:00.005-04:00

Type "Miranda" in Google and you will come up with lots of hits. Miranda Cosgrove just got involved in an accident (don't know who she is actually; but she is born in 1993, so young!), Miranda Lambert (singer) and Dr Miranda Bailey (from Grey's Anatomy, one of favorite characters). Wonder why Miranda is such a popular name.

But I am going to just zoom in on Miranda of the BBC sitcom - wait for it ---- Miranda... It's really about the life of a 6 feet tall, slightly overweight British lady who frequently gets mistaken for a man and her funny and clumsy behavior, especially in front of handsome men. She has feelings for her college crush, Gary Preston, played by Tom Ellis - undeniably charming and has feelings for Miranda too! He JUST happened to be the chef in the restaurant round the corner of her joke shop. Yes, joke shop that sells chocolate willies (seriously).

That's just a very rough synopsis. It is not giving justice to the amount of humor (even if a lot of them are British) that is packed in those episodes. They kept me laughing and rocking about the chair the whole time. "Such fun" indeed!! Really entertaining! Most importantly, it's only half an hour per episode - I can watch during mealtimes. They are onto season 2 but season 3 is expected to be out only in 2012. Highly recommended! One of the funniest shows I have watched.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miranda_(TV_series)http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00w7dv9

What is a SNP

2011-10-22T20:11:00.001-04:00

http://infoproc.blogspot.com/search/label/kids

iPhone iOS5: Contacts Wiped and Viber does not work...

2011-10-22T17:01:00.004-04:00

Recently upgraded my iPhone OS to iOS5. Took quite a bit of time.

A few changes on the design of the interface. The messaging is definitely much better, in the sense that now it doesn't slam the entire message right across the screen and pause what I am doing. The messages and texts are now placed somewhat less conspicuously at the top and stack up as more come in.

Another great feature is the camera and the music activation at LOCK screen when you DOUBLE-CLICK the home button. There is a pictorial explanation here if you do not know what I am talking about:
http://osxdaily.com/2011/10/14/camera-lock-screen-ios-5/

I find the Newsstand quite useless though and you can't really get it out of the way by grouping or deleting the icon.

iMessage works like a Whatsapp now. I would still use Whatsapp for international anyway.

I do realize though my contacts were supposedly wiped. And Viber doesnt work either.

Solution:
1) I edited one of the entries in the Contacts, save it - all the contacts came back. Then I changed back that edit I made in the first place. This website here gives you FIVE ways to recover your contacts:
http://www.seangw.com/wordpress/index.php/2011/10/ios-5-upgrade-lost-my-contacts/

2) I reinstalled Viber. It works again. But I realize if the person you are calling doesn't have an updated version of Viber, you can't call him either.

My alcohol flush

2011-10-21T21:13:00.000-04:00

Some people would know that I never had an alcohol reaction until I went for an exchange in Germany a couple of years ago (after that huge dose of alcohol from my birthday party LOLX). That rash breakout lasted two weeks...

Since then, I have been trying to find out why am I getting an alcohol reaction now?! It's really kind of weird. Because red wine's fine, most white wine is ok. Radler is the only beer-mix that I can withstand for beer, before breaking out the next day. And the rashes (thankfully) is only limited to my torso that is hidden usually behind clothes. So, it's probably not the alcohol per se, perhaps the LEVEL of alcohol, or some other substance.

Just something somewhat related. Recently did 23andme. I was told rs671 gives rise to a variation of ALDH2 - ALDH2*2 - which is a mutation of G>A that results in an alcohol flush reaction. Each copy of A is an ALDH2*2. I have a genotype of GG.. This is expected since I do not have past history of having a flush in any way.... Not even now, since the reaction I described above occurs only A DAY after I drink... An actual flush reaction (see image below) occurs typically almost immediately. I have friends who turn red like lobsters.

http://spittoon.23andme.com/2009/03/24/researchers-warn-that-physicians-need-to-ask-about-alcohol-%E2%80%9Cflushing%E2%80%9D-to-reduce-esophageal-cancer-risk/#more-3170
"In the body, alcohol is first converted into acetaldehyde, a potentially cancer-causing toxin, and then into a harmless substance called acetate. An enzyme called ALDH2 is responsible for the crucial detoxifying step. But a genetic variation known as ALDH2*2, most commonly found in people with Asian ancestry, can render the enzyme unable to convert acetaldehyde into acetate."

What's wrong with your hand (rhetoric)

2011-10-21T17:16:00.003-04:00

I need to put up my hand - ask MORE questions or make MORE comments on the spot.

It's this hardwired mechanism in the twenty years of my SG education that is costing me dearly: fear of failing, fear of asking questions that make you seem stupid, basically fear of being "wrong".

But what's wrong with being "wrong"? It just shows that you are thinking... even though it might be in the wrong direction.

Ok, I am going to start kicking the habit. It's part of my own resolution and definitely part of my own training.

I would rather look stupid now, than later. Hack. It doesn't actually matter, does it?

ripping this image off XL's page:
http://monpetitbateau.wordpress.com/2011/10/01/relighting-my-fire/

瀟灑，坦然，豁達

Favorite season

2011-10-21T13:29:00.002-04:00

I am falling in love with fall after 2 yrs of New England autumn :)

Cooling yet sun-filled and always the correct combination of hues. A pity that it's always so short. But perhaps that's how the heart grows fonder .

Ginger supremacist?!

2011-10-20T23:29:00.001-04:00

What the hell is a Ginger supremacist?!? lolx...

http://www.fox.com/glee/full-episodes/1332133/

But the new episode of Glee is really much better than the other episodes so far in the season.

Windows 7 VS Vista

2011-10-20T13:38:00.003-04:00

Stumped when M asked me what is the difference between Windows 7 and Vista, when you look at it?!

Speed is definitely the main difference I felt, between the two. W7 is MUCH faster to start up - less than a minute - Vista takes AGES. Same applies for Microsoft Apps as well, especially EXCEL. But then again, it could be that it's on 64-bit. Also, speed can be relative thing, even though for a gizmo-insensitive guy like myself, the change in speed from 7 to Vista was quite palpable.

It was 12 midnight in the office, so I rambled something about the gadget bar in Vista not being customizable, until I found a site that taught me how to modify the registry to get rid of it. Talking about trivial lolx

Anyway found this more thorough comparison:
http://www.techradar.com/news/software/operating-systems/windows-compared-windows-7-vs-vista-vs-xp-615167?artc_pg=6

Biologically Useful Numbers

2011-10-19T00:49:00.003-04:00

http://bionumbers.hms.harvard.edu/

This is an extremely useful site!

I am always forgetting numbers like the diffusion limit of enzyme reaction rate in a cell especially (10^-8 - 10^-9 per M per sec). I had to stick something on my desktop to remember. LOLX...

Cite this pretty recent paper: Milo et al. Nucl. Acids Res. (2010) 38 (suppl 1): D750-D753.

The Gerstein Lab @ Yale also has a good compilation of Genome Statistics:
http://info.gersteinlab.org/Genome_Statistics

Proteins compilation:
http://biosite.se/ViewPage.aspx?PageID=33

Genome-Transcriptome-Proteome Triad

2011-10-18T23:17:00.004-04:00

The buzz has mostly been about the three entities separately. I was trying to squeeze out a proposal for my research project for a fellowship application. Was doodling on a piece of paper.

Drawing first genetic interactions: epistasis, linkage. Then RNA interactions, among themselves, where for example you can have 22-nucleotide microRNAs (miRNA) interacting with messenger RNAs (mRNA) or you can also have RNAs regulating genes (pretty good symposium review: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1088955/). Finally, proteome can be regulated by RNAs, such as tRNA, and they can also regulate the genes via transcription factors. Basically, I drew some edges and nodes on a scrap piece of paper.

The same day, I stumbled upon this article in ScienceDaily:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111013121514.htm

Four Cell papers, published back to back. I haven't read the papers but four independent studies showing the influence of non-coding RNAs and its networks in cancer, on four different ncRNAs: long coding, miRNA, mRNA and a new ceRNA (pronounced SIR-na, competing endogenous RNA)... It shows that it seems quite a big deal. But I thought it's quite obvious for the levels in the central dogma to be interconnected. Perhaps the novelty lies in the context.

I am working on ncRNAs for now too. So might actually good to take a look at the papers.

Self-discovery

2011-04-20T18:43:00.002-04:00

It's still amazing how much more I can find out about myself.

Curiouser and curiouser

2011-03-17T18:01:00.006-04:00

To live is to choose. But to choose well, you must know who you are and what you stand for, where you want to go and why you want to get there.

Kofi Annan
(Ghanaian diplomat, seventh secretary-general of the United Nations, 2001 Nobel Peace Prize.)

This quote is stuck on my laptop desktop ever since I started grad school.

Who are you?

What do you stand for?

Where do you want to go?

Why do you want to get there?

"Who are YOU?" said the Caterpillar.
This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied, rather shyly, "I--I hardly know, sir, just at present-- at least I know who I WAS when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then."

Basic questions under any kind of scenarios - so much so that it feels like a joke to be actually asking them. But I guess it is exactly because they are so fundamental, people miss them...

"I quite agree with you," said the Duchess; "and the moral of that is--'Be what you would seem to be'--or if you'd like it put more simply--'Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise.'"
"I think I should understand that better," Alice said very politely, "`if I had it written down: but I can't quite follow it as you say it."

I know enough of my strengths. I recognize and acknowledge my weaknesses. I wanna head in a certain general direction, but nothing more precise than that. Sometimes, when I get introspective, I mull over it and starts to end up in a circular thought...

`Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?'
`That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,' said the Cat.
`I don't much care where--' said Alice.
`Then it doesn't matter which way you go,' said the Cat.
`--so long as I get SOMEWHERE,' Alice added as an explanation.
`Oh, you're sure to do that,' said the Cat, `if you only walk long enough.'

Many a times, I do not know where actually precisely I wanna go. Life can be like boxes of chocolates (instead of one) - spoilt for choices. But I know my preference, my idiosyncracies, my habits. Good choices or bad choices, they all add on to your experience. So that you know more of YOURSELF to choose again when you are faced another box of chocolates...

The White Rabbit put on his spectacles. "Where shall I begin, please your Majesty?" he asked.
"Begin at the beginning," the King said gravely, "and go on till you come to the end: then stop."

Lewis Carroll "Alice in Wonderland"

Then I guess I will just trudge on ahead fearlessly.

Learning how to trust myself along the way.

My first attempt and experience at Scientific Journalism

2011-02-14T23:11:00.000-05:00

Finally after 4 months of gestation, my very first tiny step in scientific journalism got accepted and is going to be published in the Yale Journal of Medicine and Biology. Another thing to add to my CV!! =)

But it was an interesting experience. The initial idea was actually to cover a symposium organized by the new Yale Institute of Systems Biology. But I ended up volunteering to interview the director of the new institute. It was really an enriching experience. The review process was gruelling though. It's not as bad as peer review research papers, but I did not agree with the reviewers at so many junctures that half-way through I wanted to just give up and not write anymore. Thankfully I pulled some late-nighters and pushed through. Hopefully it will be well-received by the general reader. Well, even if people don't read it, at least I got that out there.

Can't say I really like it. But it was an experience all the same. Thanks to all who gave me helpful comments and support!! Really appreciate them all!

Will update again when it gets officially published.

Documenting my 'seasons'

2011-02-13T11:29:00.004-05:00

Sometimes, I feel I am like an insect (seriously, I once dreamt I was a cockroach... of all things... zzzz). There are certain parts of a cycle dedicated to certain activities: feeding, moulting, actively social...

I have an epiphany suddenly that I should try to document that. It should have been done eons ago given my self-discovery of such a characteristic. But I wasn't interested in spending my time on such a seemingly frivolous (or inane) activity. Right now, I think it will be interesting to see how my cycle changes and make observations. Also, to my own benefit, the predictability of such a cycle.

After the Winter Ball yesterday, I have decided to tag Feb as my 'unsocial' season. Using the months as a time gauge can be fallacious but good as a more intuitive demarcation method.

Month: Feb
'Unsocial' season

Defined by: outwardly obvious social awkwardness, the inability to engage in sensible conversations even within familiar cliques or on familiar topics, frequent mind-blanks and incompetent articulation of oneself. And lack of desire to take photos and be taken.

Remarks:
This might not be demarcated by months, but instead by some other factors TBC. This can also be a triggered effect. For instance, dancing next to a boombox can trigger a flight response. Then, it no longer can be classified as a seasonal habit. Further prospective and retrospective examinations are required.

The road to self-discovery is long and arduous indeed.

Shuffling my routine

2011-02-09T22:28:00.003-05:00

My current PI was playing squash in the courts. It was the weirdest feeling. Good thing I didn't play with him. I will not know what to do!! Damn... I will think about it when it happens.

I think I am losing some steam in playing squash... I need someone to train with. Or I need to some time to train myself... In any case, too much squash is no good too. I need to start moderating, before it starts jeopardizing my schedule.

I felt great today though. Played 12 matches and had a great workout. But I need to up my court fitness to derive more enjoyment out of these.

And I seriously need to think about my meals. I am doing a lot of weird dinner timings, and getting hungry, which I don't think it's good at all. I will try cooking in the morning and then saving for the evening. Think that might prove to be better.

Alright, J, chin up and good to go!

False positives

2011-02-07T09:43:00.004-05:00

I tend to get afraid when people (especially undergrads) tend to have this idealized notion that whatever technology or methodology that has been invented is TRIED, TRUE and 100% ACCURATE.

This was one of the things I had to grapple with when I first realized that scientific papers can be deeply flawed and controversial during my undergrad days. Those were the days that you thought publications were the gospel truths, and held the answers to your assignments or projects. The public likes to believe scientists are at the top of the academic food chain, which basically generates the ideas that push the whole human society forward in science and technology. Those are true MOSTLY.

Now that I am deep within the realm of academic pursuits, it is probably more saddening personally to learn that people take things at face value (even more frightening is that I do that too). For example, Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) are NOT exactly genome-wide. They are SELECTED genome variations that spans the genome, biased towards certain regions of the genome. And the fact that GWAS relies heavily on probabilistic and statistical underpinnings imply a necessity for large sample sizes, often of the order of thousands. Anything smaller runs the risk of generating false positives. Even then, GWAS cannot detect everything. In fact, it doesn't. For starters, it only accounts for the common variations in the COMMON diseases. Those diseases that are of lower frequency, or have lower penetrance, are not detectable by GWAS, just because it is simply statistically not possible to do that at an optimally accurate level with insufficient sample size (funding) and coverage of the genome. In any case, GWAS have, IMO, failed on so many instances because of the large number of false positives and non-reproducible results generated.

If we want total "GWAS" studies, we would need sequencing. Even sequencing has its caveats. The sequencing technologies are moving fast to very accurate levels at a high throughput rate by parallel sequencing whole molecules. But currently most of the mature technologies work by finding a consensus signal from an amplification of the query genome and then aligning that to a reference genome, which is also really a consensus of several biased genomes. There has been many cases where amplification can cause ambiguous sequence generation (due to equal number of signals) and the reference genome contains sites which are actually rare (i.e. not typical of a "normal"/consensus genome) as compared to the general population (due to heterogeneity amongst humans).

What I want to emphasize here is not the fallacies of all science that has been done. But rather impress upon the idea that while science typically is based on STATISTICALLY sound observations, there are caveats everywhere. I still believe science working for us. But we definitely have to be cognizant of the pitfalls and underlying assumptions that we are making in order to make better decisions with regards to scientific issues. Because only then will we be able to weigh out the pros and cons to address the matter at hand most efficiently.

Recruiting weekend

2011-02-06T11:27:00.006-05:00

I have never done a recruiting weekend before. This was something that bugged me as well. Like international students were not always invited I guess. There were 14 prospective students for this year from all over US. I volunteered to go for the GYPSCY event and the dinner at Geronimo's (which according to Emm serves southwestern American cuisine - nachos and bean-based).

It turned out I was seated in between 2 of the prospectives at Geronimo's. Probably they were tired, because they didn't seem very interactive at first. I didn't know how to continue a conversation that involves minimal input from the opposite end. Thank goodness Emm and Bec were sitting nearby and we were all kind of drawn to their conversations. Emm and Bec are really good at chatting. I have long acknowledged that I probably will not master the art of schmoozing during this lifetime, but I thought I might have improved just a teeny little bit since I arrived in the US. Apparently that tad bit wasn't measuring up to the expectations of the occasion, what with exhausted minds and an inept schmoozer LOLX.

Maybe I was tired too, talking without thinking much. Some of my worst articulation yet. But well, I get affected by the vibes of the circumstances pretty easily... Excuses? Probably. Still, I will like to think the night was surprisingly a more retrospectively-fulfilling night of self-discovery, than it was when I was there, and seeing everybody engage in vivacious conversations, while I am struggling to keep myself rooted to that chair.

I also felt a little sensitive to the fact that every time I mention to some people (let me emphasize, NOT all, just some) I am from Singapore, there is this momentary hesitation on the other side of the conversation. Brief but palpable. Like perhaps they were hoping I am from some God-forsaken corner in the US with some undiscovered mixed accent and not some non-US Asian ("alien" as they call non-residents in legal lingo). I swear I can literally hear a "click" sound in the background when they made that connection between "accent" and "Asian". Haha. A little touchy there, self-deprecating even, but I ought to be at peace with and rise above such things now, after some (again, it's SOME, and I really like Germany alot) ordeals I had in Germany. *lame J*

Will love to know the people a little more, not only the new people but the old acquaintances at the table as well. But I guess sometimes, it takes more than just mere talking to get connected.

The food at Geronimo's was cool though. The desserts were pretty interesting - a spicy chocolate (from chipotle) and lime tequila tarts. Next time can probably bring XL to that side of town for some nice fancy restaurants.

GYPSCY

2011-02-05T01:29:00.001-05:00

Went down to meet up with G and D and the new prospectives for visiting weekend. It's my first visit to GYPSCY. It was so funny when I was going there, I saw this bunch of people and I figured they would be heading to GYPSCY too. It turned out I was following behind Ger all the while!! Totally shows how oblivious I am to people indeed. Note to self, be more conscious of your surroundings =)

I am not exactly a pub-goer person or a party animal but it was good today to just talk to friends and meet new ones. I am just glad I made great friends in NH.

Hope tomorrow's dinner will be good too. Wonder if informal wear will be enough.

Just an observation: some of those new prospectives didn't seem at all interested to talk to me haha. *shrugs* Not that I have anything exceptionally interesting to offer.

Anywayz, I should stop dawdling.

"Karaoke" sounded so different from the way I was so used to hearing that I didn't catch it at first!! hilarious...

Hotmail in iPhone 4

2010-12-29T11:54:00.003-05:00

I decided to google for info to add my Hotmail account to my iPhone... Here is a step-by-step guide to set up your iPhone 4 for Hotmail. Some of the websites didn't show a method that work entirely on my phone, but below is the procedure that worked:

1) Settings > Add Account > Microsoft Exchange
2) Fill in the following fields:
Email: youremail@hotmail.com
Domain:
Username: youremail@hotmail.com (NOT your username)
Password: yourpassword
Description:

3) Click 'Next' on top right hand corner
4) For the field
Server: m.hotmail.com
Use SSL: On

5) I left the rest as it is.

So now I am able to check all my emails!

PS: Apparently there were 2 other methods before when Microsoft didn't allow Hotmail on iPhone4: the Izymail method and the POP3 method. You can try them if this does not work out for you.

Christmas in New Haven

2010-12-25T17:00:00.002-05:00

No snow. No white christmas. Just the cold, the wind and... More wind...

Indeed, a good addition to the whole Xmas affair is a christmas tree. Somehow, though, this particular one in the middle of the Green just depicted how New Haven is now - empty. And cold. The colors of the lights are just wrong... Plus there was nobody around. The solitariness of a badly-lit tree in the dark (the American flag can be barely seen)... It's just not the way I expected... Never mind...

But my neighbors have a terrific taste for lights and deco! This, guys, is what I would call a cosy, warm Christmas-y lit-up house, which Santa Claus will grace his presence. It brings warmth, just by looking at it, doesn't it? =)

WTC

2010-12-23T16:16:00.001-05:00

Finally managed to visit the WTC site in NYC. Construction is underway for the new memorial and the WTC transportation hub. The site is no longer bare and actually bore none of the signs that allude it to the apocalyptic grounds that it was about 9 years ago.

It looks pretty much like any other construction site, isn't it?

Except that it isn't. I think that's the purpose of memorials. Any memorials for that matter. It reminds future generations of things that ought to be remembered when traces of everything else's been changed and long gone. It is also a reminder of human resilience, as the memorials stand vigil as monuments of the past among new buildings of the present and future. How people stand tall again, despite crises and adversities; how people move on...

I didn't know that there were actually 4 planes that were hijacked that day: 2 for the WTC (1 tower each), 1 crashed into the Pentagon, and the last one, the passengers revolted against the terrorists but still crashed into somewhere in Pennsylvannia. I guess the focus was so much on the WTC because that's where the most people were killed and the most dramatic. It was a saddening affair at the preview memorial musuem...

Spicing up my life in empty New Haven

2010-12-21T20:02:00.002-05:00

Think the last of the people going back to their states will be heading out this Friday (M's leaving this Friday)... So I have resorted a number of activities to keep myself sanely and enrichingly occupied throughout this holiday season.

Ever since I got here, I haven't visited much of New Haven's places of interest. So I made my first trip down to the renowned Peabody Museum. It reminded me (totally) of a mesh between a nature discovery center and Singapore Science Centre, housed in a single gothic building. I think Singapore Science Center housed more science exhibits LOLX. BUT what made it stood out were the real specimens of animals, dinosaurs (T-Rex, Stegosaurus and Bronotosaurus-Apatosaurus) and minerals and current research (astronomy in particular). It took me just about 2 hours to get through the entire museum... I did learnt some trivial stuff from this tour though haha. Like Brontosaurus is actually also Apatosaurus due to naming chronology etc. etc.

And I have gotten hooked to Grey's Anatomy again. Haha. BUT, IT'S SO DAMN GOOD! The superb acting, the quote-ridden script, the themes, the human nature, the dramatic stories... Applause to the director, actors and scriptwriters! Thanks G and M for letting me use their Netflix!

It hasn't snowed yet. Frankly, I am a little disappointed... I mean, my first US white christmas, apparently is not really coming...

I am revising MATLAB, reading up on Systems Theory... See how much I can go in reading all these engineering stuff... I am picking up squash and gym again. I am resuming Guild Wars and some Dota too....

Most importantly, I am doing able to concentrate on some research. Though not going as smoothly as I expected, I do hope it leads somewhere.

Maybe I should start making New Year resolutions too... It's not habitual for me to do that but well, worth considering.

So I am filling up my life with fragments of things to do, maybe you can even call it stuffing. But I would prefer 'spicing' - it's not essential but with them, you add more color, smell and taste.

Focus

2010-12-18T15:54:00.001-05:00

http://www.haltempriceleisurecentre.co.uk/index.aspx?strPage=clubs&pVenueID=2285&pLocationID=0&pActivityID=&pGRP=&pDate=0

The art of concentration is always one that is hard for me to master totally. Most of the time, you thought you have obtained an expert level on it, but ultimately it still eludes you after disuse. It's not like swimming, where the skill stays encoded in muscle memory.

Sometimes, I envy my childhood days when I didn't have so many things in my head and the world revolves only around study, play and sleep. Intense focus was a skill I had. I could work hours on something and oblivious about the world around me. I would play and come up with ideas on games to play or levels to cross and complete. Sleeping is the only thing left from those days that I could do without a worry, haha.

Then, I found squash. It was this sunset sport in Singapore that I didn't really know about. Haha. Playing it again here in New Haven, is just amazing...Like a clock being rewound and setting the adrenaline on a rush again.

There was nothing else. Just me and the ball. Just focus on the single sphere. On moving that ball to where you want it to, trying to make adjustments to the grip of the racket, the flow of the swing and the exertion of the strength to make that ball move to your desired location. Perfect focus training for the mind, when the opponent is just you, yourself and nobody else.

I wonder how long I can keep up with this regime. Even more pertinently, how long I can keep up when spring semester starts. For the time being, I want to try to regain a satisfactory level of concentration...

FOCUS.

An endless loop

2010-12-17T14:11:00.002-05:00

Sometimes I go to seminars and talks for the sake of just going. I think many people do that too. Two ladies in front of me just told my current PI that they have no idea why they are here ("'cos our PI told us to come here"). My PI happens to be one of the speakers today at the Sacklers discussion. So today, I have a good reason for myself to attend this talk.

But in general, I (would like to) think the phenomenon is not something entirely new. Especially to students like myself, who is not yet well-versed in anything. I go wherever there is a talk or whoever instructed me to. Somehow, I thought I should have some form of autonomy in deciding where I should go. But autonomy must come with knowledge of where you want to go. That is my problem. Because I am such a fledgling, knowledge of that is an issue in itself. This brings us back to my endless loop of being instructed to go to seminars and talks by whoever and wherever. So to break out of that vicious cycle, I need to find something to settle on.. Which is a perpetual question in my head that I haven't been able to answer....

I feel bugged everytime I attend these seminars and talks and people seemed able to grasp some aspects of the talk and ask questions, seemingly pertinently (or not, since I couldn't understand fully what is going on anyway). I start to question if I am actually less intelligent than these people, or can such skill be developed that you could ask anything intelligible, anywhere, at anytime.

To me, it just sounds absurd to know everything in this universe, to be able to ask questions in every unrelated seminar. So my final conclusion is, they just know an aspect of the topic and dwells only in that. I tried to emulate that, but I was made to arrive at another conclusion that I did not know that topic well enough, hence the lack of knowledge. I turned to another direction: there was probably a flaw in the logic. But sometimes, it's so hard to follow a line of logic because you aren't immersed in the field long enough to know whether the thread is flawed or just contains components that is assumingly omitted because it is so well-established. Or basically, you are just too asinine to follow that logic.

So then, I concluded finally that it boils down to experience. Experience, to identify logic nicks, to know what is going on, to ask questions. It is a convenient excuse to use to not ask questions during a seminar indeed, even though I would like to believe there is an element of truth in it. Most annoyingly though, it brings us back to the fact that I am still a fledging which equates unceremoniously that I am without much experience. So I am still in the cycle. And to get out of the cycle, I have to have experience - in asking questions, which means I have to start asking questions or I can keep mum and allow experience to sediment with time. (Which is not really such a bad idea)....

This sounds like a ranting of a confused teenager. Indeed, I should be focusing on my work now. But I am just not satisfied with the status quo. Not satisfied with the state that I am in, that I am stuck in a local minimum and am unable to climb out.

... yet.... But I will. And when I do that, I am going to start asking a lot of intelligent questions, doling out insightful comments and suggestions. Watch me. *hmhph*

In the meantime though, I will still remain a petulant teenager, pouting at every injustice and sulking at every self-deprecating act...

A picture speaks a thousand words

2010-11-08T21:43:00.000-05:00

I am tired of chasing my blog haha and keeping up with my own activities. So, to piece my life together will be a combination of Facebook photos and blog posts!

I have mass-uploaded photos onto Facebook. Very up-to-date and I will caption them to interweave my thoughts with the pictures.

The best thing is everybody's on Facebook!

Exciting life

2010-10-29T23:00:00.002-04:00

It actually might not be apparent from all my complaints, and talking about how busy life is now, but I really am feeling (unexpectedly) exhilarated about even the uncertainties of the future. Maybe, but despite the routine classes, I manage to find something that puts me into certain perspective and something that keeps me going. I wouldn't want to deny the fact that it gets difficult sometimes, but somehow, I begin to appreciate some small things around me, amidst rushing =)

The little bear that I wish good night every single night =)

Anyway, complaining actually lets off some steam, to keep balance LOLX. Self-justification ehz haha.

This is probably really way overdue. But we held on an impromptu birthday dinner for G, at this bar-restaurant down at East Rock, Archie Moore's. D, V, and a new friend De, were there to chill out after weeks of slogging, an evening of relaxation and mundane chatters. Hopefully we will have more chances for such chillouts in future, because I have come to understand the term "affinity" a little better now. So illogical, but so human...

人与人之间微妙的“关系”。。就像《翼》：“...（要改变命运）就要付出同等的代价。黑刚的宝剑，法尹的魔法。。接下来，我要的是你和她之间的关系。。。即使她醒过来，联系你们之间的关系已消失，难道这样也无所谓吗？” 关系虽已不存在，但情感还在吧。关系不是因为情感的羁绊而存在吗？无所谓，能够看到她的笑容，才是最重要的。

Some people probably wouldn't believe if I said I actually find the "Twilight" trilogy an enjoyable read =)

Way behind

2010-10-23T10:31:00.002-04:00

Wow, ok I am way behind my blog and I don't think I am doing a good job catching up. Oh well, I think the thing is to just keep writing. I reminded of classes where I am definitely way behind...

We did an interesting experiment for our Biological Physics class assignment, where we had to measure the relationship between the radius of a container and the time it takes to come to a complete stop when you stir the water in it. So Raph got 3 cylinders of high aspect ratio of the Physics building, some coffee powder and a screwdriver. We then proceeded to do that and found that the relationship is somewhat quadratic! Then the assignment proceeded to show us that this might be caused by the diffusion of the "zero" velocity from the outer rim of the cylinder in, using the diffusion equation... And we are looking at this only in 2D. And I think the idea of using a high aspect ratio seemed to be that the spinning can be perpetuated by the vortex generated, as compared to using a cup and the spinning will probably stop faster and we can't measure much. Then if we imagine a whirlpool or tornado, I guess that explains why things just keep spinning even after the forces or currents that are feeding the vortex stops, even after a considerable amount of time. Ok, that's just what I think... This sounds so undergrad suddenly haha...

Anyway, this entry is also about retreats (if you can catch the weak link between "way behind" and "retreating"; ok lame nvm) symposiums. So far I have gone to:
1) CBB retreat
2) MCDB retreat
3) MB&B retreat
4) Yale Systems Biology Institute Symposium

and there is a fifth one, Sackler's Institute Retreat coming up soon. There were always the great free food, great posters, good company, superb lineup of talks and some activities. After attending so many of them, I have come to a conclusion that I couldn't definitely be interested in so many of them and I possibly couldn't understand fully all of them, BUT, to be able to generate logic and form interesting questions by asking lots of basic "hows" and "whys" actually help in the thought process of doing research. And perhaps, that is what I should be learning out of these smorgasbord of presentations and posters: not entirely the context of the research, but the way these ideas were conceived and carried out. By talking to people, you generally are trying to tap into these mental wells. I think that is how and why communication is important in science.

Of course, another objective would be to know where I want to be heading. Haha. I am still wavering, though. But I do realize some things (seriously after so much exposure, you wonder if you are desensitized to all these already sometimes) and I am working on them, so hopefully I will come to a conclusion and I will be getting what I want; or the former can also work if the latter fails to fruit...

Anyway, enough of ramblings, here are some pics from CBB retreat. Since I am from CBB, L said she will be expecting us to come up with something good for the entertainment segment in next year's CBB retreat AND every year has been good. Well, thanks for the pressure haha. Maybe this coming one would be an exception haha. But anyway, this year D and C made (yes handmade!) a pop-up book of the "Chronicles of the Burgeoning Bullfrog" (C.B.B.) LOLX and E was made the protagonist (i.e. bullfrog) and tell the story to everyone. It's an obvious choice, really (he is so vivacious!) =) That was nice. Cosy and warm, reminded me of the time when I was in lower primary and the teachers would read these big books in front of the class. Those were the carefree days...

Oh, and there's the Dean's Fall reception for graduate students at HGS. I always liked the courtyard at HGS, it's so lovely in fall. Anyway, just to let you guys have sense of how hungry but well-fed the grad students are:

Singapore and Yale (and Singlish)

2010-10-14T20:28:00.006-04:00

Sorry people, kind of hectic down here. So, I am writing this in the middle of cooking dinner haha. But rest assured, though I am all over the place, I am still surviving (barely).

This is kind of way overdue but well, some related stuff are sitting on (and clogging up) my desktop, so I might as well, just write it here anyway. The Yale-NUS college saga is still kind of ongoing, though the climax has probably blown over. So there was this period of time, where Yale admin asked some of the Singaporeans here at Yale (apparently we made up the 8th largest of the country demographics here) to give our opinions on the Yale-NUS college issue. Well, most that turned up were mostly undergrads, a couple of graduates, a law assistant prof and some "friends" of Singapore who had studied in Singapore before. It was a pretty informal meeting, unlike what I expected. But nonetheless, there was quite a rigorous discussion perpetuated mostly by the undergrads who were here for quite some time already; it wasn't probably surprising to find they were all from either Raffles and Hwa Chong.

I am pretty impressed with the extent and depth of research the Yale administrators did on Singapore: from its history right to the future directions, schooling systems, current status of the education system etc. I am totally intrigued to listen to how Singapore is viewed from an outsider point of view and the fact that the undergrads (probably more attached here than the rest) have to grapple with taking a stand for both their college and home country.

Probably one of the main things Yale administrators wouldn't know (first-hand) is the culture and mentality of the local Singaporeans. Skeptical and pragmatic as we are, Singaporeans are still mostly conservative and most (especially the parents) have a somewhat ingrained mindset that college is meant for professional training, career preparation and subsequently income generation. A liberal arts college somehow might not fit into that description very much. Here are some of the issues discussed:

1) what is the proportion of international students and local students that the college would want; what kind of variety are we talking about? Knowing the system in Singapore, if cream of the crop were to be picked, then wouldn't most of the students be from Raffles or Hwa Chong or the top schools?

2) is the quota fixed? such that the quality would be compromised?

3) is Yale going for the long haul? since Singapore is the only side forking out the cash... IMO, it seems like an experiment that Yale is doing to try to create some utopian educational institution from scratch. Although Yale is not totally free of the woes of contributing resources (in terms of expertise), this is something I feel, Singapore is giving them a 'blank check'. Yale's side backed up with some insider which I thought sounded sincere enough, and made me realize this could very much be actually be a win-win situation: that Yale has an extremely strong tradition of shaping schools of higher education in the US especially liberal arts system. And they recognize the inevitable shift of the world's focus from the west to the east, so to them, this is the golden opportunity to have a stake in the East's cultivation of their future leaders - Yale becomes relevant moving forward.

4) brand dilution in borrowing the brand (this is for Yale naturally)

5) curriculum - how to make it such that it's truly a 'east meets west'? definitely, a carbon copy of Yale in Singapore is not feasible and in any case, not desirable. The school should be a stand-alone college of prestige and distinction.

6) is the 'Yale' name essential in the naming of the college? yes - because the name would provide a reputation for a new school for employers. everybody would be looking at the first batch of graduates; no - brand dilution, "2nd yale", shadow of yale, no graduates would want that.

7) Singapore stands to gain, because they do realize that Singapore has one of the best secondary school systems in the world such that there are a lot of students are extremely sufficiently equipped for college - but have nowhere to go! This new college would set up a new avenue for these students (or just more competition in my opinion)...

Well having said all these, the discussion was done in this cool-looking room, totally what I imagined in a Victorian typical New England style; you will never find this in Singapore LOLX.

And during the height of these, a couple of articles on Singlish (!!!) came up on Yale Daily News. I am also putting up some other interesting articles here. If you guys are interested, you guys are google Yale Daily News and these articles =) Enjoy.

________________________________________________________________________________

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Another perspective on Singlish
In his Sept. 10 column, “The Queen’s Singlish,” Sam Lasman ’12 comments on Singapore’s “Speak Good English Movement” that has been intensified this year.

As co-president of the Yale University Malaysian and Singaporean Association, and in light of the recent announcement about a Yale-affiliated university in Singapore, I wish to provide additional commentary on the social context behind the Movement and offer another perspective on this topic.
For much of its history, Singapore has relied on its strategic position as a major trading post to fuel economic expansion. The practical concerns of business made it important (even necessary) for the multi-racial populace to learn English not only in order to communicate with the international community, but also to become mutually intelligible among themselves. English is, for the most part, the language of instruction across the education system. Likewise, English has also been the predominant language in mainstream media and arts. The central issue has always been — and remains — how a country of less than five million, with few natural resources, could flourish in the global marketplace. Language skills rank among the most crucial for the accumulation and deployment of human capital.

With this in mind, it is not hard to understand why the government of Singapore actively promotes the use of correct, idiomatic English in its citizens. The concern, then, is what defines “correct”?
Lasman rightly points out that the concept of correctness in language is perhaps too vague in itself, since “there isn’t actually anyone with complete authority to say what is, or isn’t, grammatical.” I agree with this statement — English does, after all, evolve with time, and that which conforms to the commonly-defined standard in one period may not in another. But the purpose of Singapore’s “Speak Good English Movement” is less about having people speak like antiquated robots than it is about encouraging them to speak in a way such that someone of similar English proficiency from New York, Paris or Tokyo would easily understand the conversation. It’s about phrasing what one has to say in an elegant and cosmopolitan way, so that even any English-speaking listener can grasp the varied nuances of that particular exchange without having prior knowledge of Chinese, Malay, or Tamil (the other ethnic languages of Singapore).

I appreciate Lasman’s decision to explore the quirky intricacies of Singlish in his column — not many people are aware of this fairly obscure version of Southeast Asian creole, and fewer follow Singapore’s domestic policy towards it. I take pleasure in knowing that a fellow Yalie is well-traveled — and erudite — enough to be able discuss the dialect and allude to common instances of its usage verbatim.
Janice Chen
Sept. 13
The writer is the co-president of MASA and a junior in Branford College.

Studying at Yale

2010-09-30T18:40:00.003-04:00

It's been more than a month. Studying at Yale has gotten more or less in into a routine of some sort.

Everyday, I will pass by some streets. This is nearing end of summer, where the trees are green and lush. Now it's redder, and the ground littered with dead leaves. But if weather and time permits, you can get your spirits up really by just walking down these picturesque streets...

Physics undergraduate lounge is one of my favorite haunts now. Physics, the bane of my life, is what I mean partly studying now - what an irony huh. Well the lounge when I first saw it, makes me wonder how come I wasn't really attracted to those lounges in NUS... LOLX... They weren't that bad la, but this was different. You have a lounge that overlooks the city, coffeemaker (not free), blackboard and armchairs for relaxing and intellectual discussions on homework and assignments (many people use them really), FREE textbooks to browse through (they probably won't survive the onslaught of NUS students)

Then there's the physics graduate lounge. I kindda like the idea of having blackboards for discussions.

This is one of the chemistry buildings with interesting plaques, with the elements such as Ag, Hg, Au etc engraved on them.

My lunch carts. I couldn't survive without them! Great source of food.

One of my favorite haunts: the medical library. Though it's pretty far off, it's one of the most splendid places to study in. It's like studying in a museum, exhilarating feeling at first, but wears off after you found out you still can't solve that bloody assignment problem. They even have exhibits on display... On retrospect, it kindda looks like the library I saw in Prague.

This is my housemate, M. A nurse-in-training at Yale's nursing school. There's also C, an architect, who is so busy I can't get him to take a photo. But we often have fervent discussions, from pharmocology, clinical talks, genomics, biology to architecture and American politics or just about food LOLX. The picture on the right, is my neighbor's cat. She has these piercing eyes, that follow you wherever you go, clearing the rubbish, walking or stoning or also staring at her. It looked like she is going to scratch you to bits anytime...

The Battle of the E in biology and physics

2010-09-30T18:08:00.004-04:00

Today's biological physics class is extremely exhilarating, despite the fact that I was probably lost half the time, but I could stilll follow some of the equations and treatments that Prof D went. He was extremely fast, so was J, our TA, when he mentioned something and he rattled on like water.

http://www.chemwiki.ucdavis.edu/

Basically, class today was talking about the contention between entropy and (internal) energy of a system, in order to achieve minimal free energy of a system.

Entropy is loosely defined as the quantification of consistency of certain (micro)states with its meso/macrostates; so by the law of thermodynamics, it increases, OR simply, a measure of the system that you did not know about (ignorance). I shan't go into the treatment of entropy. But here, let me tease apart the energy components that we are defining here. So, free energy here, typically refers to Gibbs' free energy - remember the enzyme energy curve that we always draw in JC, where we are always trying to achieve as negative a delta G as possible, in order for the forward reaction to be driven forward. Loosely put, the resultant products are of lower (internal) energy = more stability than the reactants. In nature generally, things aim to minimize free energy to achieve equilibrium state. In order to do that, we have to apply energy to the system, for the system to do work, in this case, to minimise free energy. You can also see free energy as the amount of energy available to do work (by the system). But free energy is also dependent on entropy as well. To keep things short,

free energy = (internal) energy - temperature * entropy of the system,

where temperature is kept constant

So, contextualising the above physics in a familiar biological scenario: osmotic pressure. Typically, in biology, we name that phenomenon based on the fact that there is a pressure exerted (on a semipermeable membrane) by the solutes in a solution against the inward flow of water/solvent, due to osmosis. Imagine we have our standard osmotic pressure experiment, where we have a box, divided into 2 sections by a semi-permeable membrane. In one section of V volume, you place N molecules in it. To keep this concentration of solutes in place, work has to be done by the system to keep the solutes from moving out too and this corresponds to the amount of free energy available to do work. And using the free energy equation above, if we assume all the solutes to be ideal solutes (which is like ideal gas assumption, where each particle is pointlike, totally random and non-interacting), the "internal energy" of the system as a whole can be ignored. Work done is also defined by the pressure * volume, so to counteract the water moving in, work done by the solute = the osmotic pressure * volume occupied by each solute. If you can imagine, then the amount of work done which is dependent on your free energy (to do work) per unit volume would correspond to your osmotic potential, which after a semi-long mathematical treatment, would give you:

osmotic potential = n * K (Boltzmann constant) * T

I do not know about you, but when I saw that, the IMMEDIATE thing that came to mind, was the equation of the ideal gas, pV = nRT (and I am surprised myself how fast that came, considering the last time I used that was, like 10 years ago!!)! And it turns out, it IS the ideal gas equation, since n in the ideal gas refers to number in moles!

SO, long story short, the conclusion was that osmotic pressure AND ideal gas pressure are really forces that a system exerts in its attempt to increase its entropy (2nd law of thermodynamics). Contrast these mechanical systems (where no energy assumed due to idealized particles) with a simple mechanical system, of a spring, where no entropy is involved, only aim was to reduce the free energy, you end up with a entropy-energy spectrum representing all situations, where in real-life situations, systems are really in the intermediates, a competition between minimizing energy and maximising entropy to obtain an optimal minimum free energy state.

Prof D ended the class with an analogy from amoeba being placed in pure water. In high-school biology, we often viewed that as a proof of osmosis in hypotonic solution, where the amoeba eventually burgeons (and explodes if left too long) when the cell semipermeable membrane cannot withstand the rapid increase in volume. But if you look at it in the physical point of view, the law of thermodynamics in entropy is STILL a universal governing law! In fact, the solutes is trying to get out of the amoeba, IN ADDITION TO, the water getting into the amoeba!

I couldn't find a good "bursting" experiment video, this is the best I could find on YouTube for RBC: not that great IMO LOLX

Miya's

2010-09-23T08:33:00.008-04:00

It's mid-autumn festival. The moon is still round on the other side of the globe...

Last Saturday, I met up with a postdoc from AP's lab (a structural biology lab), DH. He is from China but he studied at NTU in Singapore, and before I came over Yale, he willingly helped me with some questions. Extremely helpful and friendly =). He even picked the tab for my lunch that day!! Thank you so much!! It was then I also realised he just arrived in May this year too!! Hmmm, I do not know what you guys think, doesn't DH look like a Japanese?

So, having not tried the famed Miya's restaurant, we decided to hop on down there for lunch. Miya's restaurant is a fusion sushi restaurant, that is supposedly the best in Connecticut and the third best in the whole of USA. But alas, I have come to doubt the subjectivity of the American taste in the face of Asian cuisine, so I have decided to try it myself, dragging DH along with me...

Miya's is located on Howe's Street in New Haven, sequestered away in a quiet neighborhood, just a stone's throw from Broadway. Fortunately, we came early for lunch, there was no queue. One side of the restaurant seemed to be booked for photoshoot though! Anyway, the waiters were all very nice and helpful and that particular one (in the pic) who served us had a good grasp of all the ingredients of the sushi. I was impressed indeed, because all the sushi, are fusion, and definitely not made up of minimal or the normal ingredients, like the ones in Singapore, or those authentic from Japan (which I haven't tried).

Pumpkin soup on the house

We couldn't make up our mind, so we ordered each a palette of sushis that showcase the different array of sushis they have: funkily called "a very hungry inch worm" and "bleu plate especial". BTW, they all have funky names which I couldn't remember LOLX. Taste-wise, not all tinkled my tastebuds the right way: there was the chocolate one which I thought should taste better without the soya-sauce-taste (I am not a big fan). I have tried the sweet potato one, which just isn't my cup of tea. But I am thrilled over the sushi with a tart crust surrounding the rice. It's not like the sushi is sitting in it, but the crust is part of the sushi. That tasted exquisite and exotic, for a sushi lover like me. One common thing I observed, was that they stuffed lots of things into each sushi; at least 3 or 4 ingredients in one single sushi, which is definitely something rare or even unheard of in Singapore. So the next time you guys come over to New Haven, and are looking for some taste-bud adventure, try Miya's sushi delight. You would be in for both surprises and disappointments, but that's how adventures work, isn't it?

Regan Lab & the New Haven Race

2010-09-21T21:48:00.006-04:00

http://expasy.org/prosite/PDOC50005 From PDB

As I try to do the balancing act of course-taking, lab rotation, my-own-time and XL-family-time, just thought it would be nice to update nice once in a while. Blogging kindda sets things in perspective I guess. So I have finally found myself a lab in my first rotation: Lynne Regan's lab. Prof Regan has some awesome projects, but most notably and what her lab is known for, is TPRs: tetratri-copeptide (short description); it's such a niche area of research that I can't even find it on Wikipedia!! LOLX.. landmark paper here...

Main et. al. (2003). (c) and (d) are TPR repeat proteins.

If you look at the diagram (number c), you can imagine each TPR as one module of the same color (red, yellow, blue). So you have there 3 and half (the green segment) stacked in a spiral manner. Each of these 3 TPRs are similar in length and sequence; so you can imagine LEGOs of similar size stacked up. The minimum binding unit is apparently a combination of 3 TPRs in tandem. So the Regan Lab has done much on TPRs: elucidating their structure, consensus sequence, their binding specificities and partners, functions and implications in certain diseases. One of the things they are moving into now is the applications of these TPRs.

As you can imagine, one of the most obvious applications, by virtue of the LEGO-like repeated motifs, is the synthesis of artificial peptides. Unlike most other proteins, which are globular, where you cannot easily just stack up parts of the proteins to form a larger one, TPRs can be synthetically engineered to have competitive functions to naturally occurring peptides, particularly antibodies, to aid in inhibiting pathways that lead to diseases, say HIV in AIDS or using the TPRs design as anticancer drugs. This could be my small step into the realm of synthetic biology that I am really trying to get a handle on...

So that's my life as of now, other than MATLAB, biological physics and biomedical informatics, taking up the bulk of my life...

But anyway, just to catch up on events. On Labor Day (US it's on Sept 6th), there was Stratton Faxon New Haven Race. Apparently, it's in its 31st year. Just 3 weeks here, and I embarked on my first ever running event at New Haven. Sweet =)

Prof Regan "invited" me to run (I had to pay on that day -_-|||, which is more expensive btw), but I got this great T-shirt that she made for her lab!! Thanks! And of course, I enjoyed the run very much. I ran 5km in 28 min. Think that's pretty decent =) And seriously, the weather was good, sunny yet cooling. It was pretty well-organized for its scale (not very big compared to those in Singapore). So I would say I would enter again next year. Just to keep myself in the keeping-fit mode. Photos as usual, on facebook =) A pity though, G and M didn't get to take pictures with us.

metaphysical parasite

2010-09-18T16:06:00.003-04:00

What is the most resilient parasite? Bacteria? A virus? An intestinal worm? An idea. Resilient... highly contagious. Once an idea has taken hold of the brain it's almost impossible to eradicate. An idea that is fully formed - fully understood - that sticks; right in there somewhere.

-- 'Inception'

The eventful first week of September

2010-09-18T14:01:00.010-04:00

As life propelled into the the school year full steam, I feel myself leaving lots of memories behind without really sorting them out and looking at them a second time. As D aptly put it, "discombobulation" =) I am heeding G's advice and putting DMV behind (at least until I got all the necessary stuff) and plunging head-first (bad position) into assignments, presentations and lab rotations (which I haven't really decided)... (For more pics, go facebook)

Fall semester officially started on the 1st Sept. Like NUS, they have a "shopping" period, but unlike NUS, you actually get to add the course information to your schedule (or an IVLE equivalent - classes*v2) first, then when you have finally decided, just drop those courses you do not want. The final decision has to be sent to your prof-in-charge via another enrolment webpage. So you have the status of a "shopper" for 2 weeks, till 15th Sept - hence my hectic shopping list. In the end, I ended up with 2.5 courses, and auditing for one more. The other difference is the idea of auditing, in which you are labeled an "auditor", appears in your transcript but not graded. So it depends on the lecturer how much she/he wants you to participate. I think this is a damn cool feature! But I don't like the fact you have to register on 2 sites instead of a combined one - it makes things very confusing sometimes, and somewhat lacks organization.

Our CBB seniors also gave us a treat at C's place. His place is gorgeous!! But probably pricey too... New Haven is said to be famous for its pizzas and hamburgers, Miya's Sushi. So we had pizzas during the senior-treat-junior session. And boy, our seniors can really talk... The whole discussion about profs, labs and courses were mainly dominated by them but it was REALLY informative =) and funny (especially those parts about some of the pet peeves and the behaviour of profs LOLX)... And I realised, all of them have a very strong rapport and camaraderie forged; no matter which year they are from. And... I do envy that... Hopefully, we will grow to become like that too.

Saturday afternoon was spent at touring New Haven and spending some time at balmy and green East Rock Park. It's called East Rock, literally because it is a park on a rock that is formed in the eastern side of New Haven... This is the first time I am there, and I took a liking for it immediately. From East Rock Park, you could see almost the whole of New Haven. People were picnicking and frolicking in the meadowlike greens. Nice weather too, despite Hurricane Earl.

Before my next appointment, I had some time in between. So I decided to sit down at some cafe and do people-watching (or being watched -_-|||). Blue State Coffee cafe's coffee machines ALL broke down... Win liaoz lo... So, I decided to try Ashley's ice cream, claimed to be the best in Connecticut. It wasn't too bad, just that I find the butterscotch too sweet for me. XL might like the ice cream though =)

Saturday evening was with the MASA (Malaysian And Singaporean Association) at Basil Restaurant, which is this Asian restaurant near Broadway. I didn't know there were so many Singaporeans and Malaysians at Yale!! Almost the entire restaurant was filled! Apparently this is the first time there is such a large turnout. Most of them, are undergrads and professional school students. I really like that fact that I get to speak Singlish again haha. Also what I like most about the interactions, is that there are really lots of interesting stories to listen to. So hopefully we will meet again =)

And that was the first time I took the night shuttle back to my apartment; they actually bring you straight back to your apartment from any point in campus. Refreshing experience.

XL is COMING OVER!!

2010-09-14T19:14:00.001-04:00

Ok, I gotta blog about this: XL IS COMING OVER!!!! Haha, it's like Santa is coming, only this time, it's MUCH^infinity better than Santa coming over.

It's just such a joyous news that I think, suddenly, I am not tired anymore =)

DMV = pain in the a**

2010-09-09T21:06:00.003-04:00

Second time I was turned away from DMV but the three and a half times I have been. Please do not ask me about the half time.

Just for record purposes, and for those of you intending to come to US for studies or work or are here but haven't tasted DMV yet, the following documents are required at DMV:

Primary ID documents (more like a package)
1) Passport with correct VISA
2) with I94
(one of THE most important things to identify you as a LEGAL resident in the US, an entry card from the Homeland Security, you must write this when you are on the plane flying here...)

3) I20
(official University acceptance, issued by the International Office)

4) University International Office letter, preferably with an embossed seal, or any form of identification that you are working/studying here and signed in a color other than black (haha, this is from G. She had this incident when she was sent back because the letter was signed in black and the DMV person thought it was photocopied *faint* and she had L signed in RED LOLX)

5) Social security denial letter, evidently from the Social Security Office, stating that even though you were denied number, it does not mean you are ineligible for it; the SSO people also lambasted DMV...

6) A letter postmarked, meaning it has to be from the US post office; the letter that was sent to your place by the bank with your debit/credit card doesn't count but surprisingly, the bank statements count. And the DMV peeps actually found that sending postcards/letters to yourself seemed more credible than a mail sent from the bank with your debit/credit card in it.

Secondary form of ID (to further verify you are REALLY you *pinch yourself*)
7) Transcript. Since you will probably just arrive in US, the school will not have a transcript for you or if you are working, you won't have one anyway. I didn't bring mine from NUS. But thankfully it will be in English anyway, otherwise, you would need a LOCAL VERIFIED US translator (UK, where English originated from or Australian not allowed apparently) to convert the transcript language to English.

So, well please be prepared to be sent back a few times.

And to complete this record, something not related to DMV, but the US immigration has imposed a new ruling when I flew from Singapore. Some online electronic system for travel authorization. Even for countries like Singapore, under the Visa Waiver Program. Now even when you travel to the US for a short period of time, you will still need this since it will give you a number that they will verify. A Very trivial, but sure scared the shit out of me when I was at T3. Nobody told me anything about that until this.

I thought German bureacracy was bad....

So much for McChrystal

2010-09-08T21:46:00.008-04:00

I think they did this on purpose. It wasn't even specified hat we need to APPLY for the class. Ok, not that I did ask for the venue when it wasn't posted online... *bleah* So hopefully he is still teaching in the coming semesters..

Other interesting reports on this issue:
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/mcchrystal-yale-081710
"Leadership 703
International Leadership Strategies in a Complex Geopolitical Context.

Conceptualizing obstacles and opportunities in international relations with an emphasis on the strategic utilization of military and diplomatic resources. Through a series of lectures and interactive forums, students will be encouraged to learn how to keep their freakin' mouths shut."

http://www.nydailynews.com/gossip/2010/08/20/2010-08-20_mother_of_pat_tillman_michael_moore_speak_out_about_gen_mcchrystals_appointment_.html
"Mother of Pat Tillman, Michael Moore, speak out about Gen. McChrystal's appointment to teach at Yale"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/16/stanley-mcchrystal-yale_n_682960.html
"At Yale, McChrystal will possibly join the ranks of other high-profile faculty at the institute, including former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo and former Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte. According to the Yale Daily News, Yale President Richard Levin said that "bringing more people with experience in international affairs" was a "priority" of the center."

BBS orientation

2010-09-05T18:20:00.005-04:00

This is long overdue!! Haha! Anyway, taking a break from MATLAB... Better late than never!

BBS orientation, which happened on 27th August, is catered specially for the Department of Biomedical and Biological Sciences (BBS). So if you noticed by now, the orientations go in an inverted V in terms of the people involved, starting with Graduate and Professional Schools, narrowing down to BBS, then next week to Computational Biology and Bioinformatics (CBB) and lastly to the Integrative Graduate Program of Physical Engineering and Biology (PEB).

BBS orientation was held at The Anlyan Center (TAC), in the medical school campus. As usual, Yale feeds us very well. Apparently, we have free food at almost every single event! Please don't get me wrong, I am NOT complaining =) But, I am guessing the main idea of such is for socializing purposes. Such is common in Singapore too, but people seldom use the opportunity to interact, that's all.

So, we started with breakfast (myriad of breads and cordials). In the midst of eating, I met up with my CBB group for the first time! Our registrar, LS, was oozing with motherly love, and I immediately took a liking for her. I got to know too that despite there were only 7 of us, it was already considered a large class (previous years were really small that is).

Prof J. Alv kickstarted the orientation with Prof L. Cool., our BBS director. I particularly like the "OSMOSIS" information booklet. Aptly named of the supposedly natural physical process that is required to absorb (but very so often eluded us :S). But "ACTIVE TRANSPORT" might prove to be more apropos of the ACTUAL process.

Subsequently, we met our direct CBB senior, Dan, who gave us a tour of some of the more relevant facilities of the medical campus. This ended with lunch at the Graduate Club, which is this posh-looking Victorian (??) "private membership club est 1982". Check out the spread! If just looking at those make you drool, really, imagine being there! XL will swoon over the pastries LOLX!

It was really cool to meet everyone for the very first time. Some of them seemed so young!! (o.o||| Also, found out then G just got engaged =) Congrats once again!! Hopefully, we will all build a great camaraderie and friendship.

Hel, Ja, Yao, Show, G, Dan, Darr (L to R)

Ok, now back to homework...

Alumni Outlook Setup

2010-09-03T23:21:00.003-04:00

Apparently NUS AlumniMail has undergone some revamp. And now, you have to log in to https://www.alumni.nus.edu.sg/alumNET/groups/contactlist.jsp to log in and set up an Windows Live App alumni email account. In order to consolidate onto your own Outlook though, the servers have changed:

Alumni mailboxes lend some credibility to the emails you are sending out. So mailboxes from recognised universities are some of the best resources you have; also nowadays you can gain access to a wealth of information and contacts from the networks from Facebook LOLX.

Where does biomedical informatics belong within an academic center?

2010-09-01T23:18:00.014-04:00

A question posed by Prof Miller during class today.

Options:
A) Within many different individual bioscience and clinical departments?
B) In its own department
C) In a computing support unit?

What do you guys think?

Although this question seemed more for hospitals and perhaps academic institutions, it occurred to me it can apply to a more general research setting - research institutes, even other drug/pharmaceutical companies too. And it happens that it seemed to be able to be applied to my ex-job at Genome Institute of Singapore (GIS). If you think about it, RCG is like a biomedical informatics group, with people doing a myriad of different biomedical informatics - sequencing, population genetics, maintaining and creating applicational tools and database management for biologists and webpage and software mediation for the institute as a whole. It IS a support unit, on the institute's point of view, but yet functions as an individual department. And, if you think about my friend Ri in Mark's lab (I will want to believe he has a team of bioinfo guys now haha, but then he might still be outsourcing hehe, which isn't exactly a bad thing) previously or the bioinformatics specialists recruited to the different labs, you can also imagine a one-person support unit within the bioscience department or group.

The answer to the question will have to depend on the needs of the center. A center that is organized into labs, and heavily relies on computational technologies would necessarily require bioinformatics personnel in their own departments, in which themselves will have their own needs. And if the center is large enough, a new department can be established, to act as a home-base for additional personnel and it can serve both as an autonomous entity, with its own managerial and administrative arrangements and/or a consultancy firm of sorts, and also a common resource pool that everybody in the center can tap into. Such could relieve budgets on the individual departments and consolidate manpower, and allow development of the individuals that join the biomedical informatics department. So, suddenly, I am in awe of GIS (or maybe just Ed's or Guilliame's) foresight in putting together such a department in the first place =)

I do not think it should be a computing support unit, but rather a biocomputing support unit. If it just involves simply building IT infrastructure with no biological or clinical relevance, then this ought to be a separate group altogether. But then again, if the center is not that big enough, they could be integrated too.

Outside the academic center, however, biomedical informatics organization would probably act as a consultancy and/or educational firm or quite a buzz thing in Singapore now - contract-based. Much like CROs (contract research organizations such as Quintiles or Kendle) or just intermediaries that other organizations/research institutes/academic centers can outsource their work to (like Beijing Genomics Institute for very large scale sequencing and bioinformatics analyses).

You can also look at these options in order of their importance. I would deem the role of biomedical informatics as (A) be most important, followed by (B) and (C). So a center can acquire these resources in this order as they grow.

So, if you are getting the drift, basically, relevance is the key to deciding which is more beneficial to the center's organization of resources. Choices are relative to the needs and demands of the institution.

I think I articulated really badly that day... Kind of convoluted... But I will improve on that! =)

my shopping list

2010-08-31T23:00:00.004-04:00

Kind of messy huh? But that's the point =)

Working on the lab rotations list... I gotta put in more effort for that one.

Matriculation Ceremony

2010-08-30T21:57:00.007-04:00

Matriculation at Yale was simply splendid. It started off with a breakfast at HGS courtyard, where the chance to mingle was presented (always the case). So, I got to meet up with Roy and Ra, know a couple of more people, notably CT, another fellow Singaporean, from Oxford, studying East Asian studies. Apparently, he is also XL's teacher/sis friend. Talk about coincidence =) Then we proceeded to Sprague Hall at the School of Music, named after Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, supposedly one of the best music halls in North America. In any case, we were welcomed by a live band playing in the background, followed by the professors, deans coming in and giving a speech. President Levin gave a speech. Our new Graduate School dean is instated today as well: Sterling Professor Thomas D. Pollard, also a Biological and Biomedical Sciences professor. A graduate a capella group - The Citations - performed for us, showing the all-rounded development of Yale graduate students; they come from an ecletic range of faculties and concentrations. They sing really well. M says Yale has some of the best a capella groups in North America, and especially the undergraduate ones; forgot which. But the graduate one seemed good already. Then we had a tea reception at President Levin's non-residential house, more for important social events. They have a huge courtyard as well, and his wife and him and Prof Pollard and his wife were also there to shake our hands. The tea reception was in conjunction with the signing of a book, supposedly a tradition from the ancient days (150 years ago), ever since Yale conferred the first ever phD in North America... That is the original book, with the names of those that had already "gone down in history". Just one week in New Haven, I have come to realize that Yale holds very strong traditional and cultural values. While she prides herself as one of the most prestigious universities in the modern world, she anchors herself with these traditions to keep her feet on the ground. However, while I do like the geniality of the people at Yale and New Haven and their willingness to help and the extensive measures Yale have put in place for their students, faculties and employees, I do have reservations for the crime rate, bureacracy and inefficiency that seemed to plague here, and, I have heard, also to a lot of places in the US. Hailing from Singapore, where organization, security, efficiency and convenience are of the essence, I have a lot to adapt indeed...

International student orientation

2010-08-26T23:17:00.010-04:00

Ok, I guess I haven't been up-to-date again. But I was so tired yesterday (probably due to jetlag), I wanted to take a nap at 7pm, but ended up sleeping till 6am in the morning. Right, the past few days have been a series of orientations. Let's start off with Wednesday - the international student orientation.

But I think the exhaustion is also contributed by the series of unfortunate events...

The day started off with the international student orientation at SSS Hall (Sterling Sheffield Strathcona), which was rather uplifting I guess. We actually did a Yale Fight Song (we did the "Bulldogs"), which was fun but kind of over our age, given that all of us are graduate students. Something, though, I felt was that they made me feel at ease and that they are really keen on helping us. This, IMO, is extremely appreciated and something definitely required by international students. The actual song with the band and cheers and craziness, that they let us watch was this; I think we were about 3/10 if this is 10/10 LOLX:

Ra, W and I decided to head down to the "Cityseed Farmers' Market" outside City Hall at Downtown to take a look at the groceries that they have. The tomatoes are huge!! Ra decided to buy some, although later he commented they are rather tasteless. Looks are deceiving indeed! That's when I realise HGS rooms do not have fridge and a common kitchen seems nonexistent too. Then we went for lunch at Au Bon Pain. There, we were joined with Elizabeth, an exchange doctoral student from UK (I think from one of Oxbridge), who will be with Yale until end of the year. I then left the company for an appointment at the Tax Office, who told me that I do not need to be there actually; the documents just arrived, showing that I do not need to be there... The lady was nice enough to explain to me that I need to pay 14% tax (federal and state taxes), of which part of it might be returned to me when I file for tax next year... Then I walked again, down to the Green to try to take a bus M3/M4 to DMV for my state ID... I waited ONE hour, and ended up not going because DMV would have closed by the time I reached there...

Take home message: inefficient transportation and bureacracy are both something I have to get used to...

Something perked me up though, just because it reminded me of XL:

the start of something new

2010-08-24T21:19:00.010-04:00

The HSM song is broadcasting in my new Creative Inspire T3030 speakers =) Well, actually, technically, it's a second-hand used product. But still in very good condition. I got a new wireless printer (it's new because the person who gave me has never used it before) and a rice cooker (second hand). Hoping to really cook something one of these days. Am malnourished I think, haha. But that happens when I get alot of things to do... It's something I cannot break out of haha.

Well, today went to another part of the campus - School of Medicine and the School of Public Health - which is a distance away from the downtown area, for safety training courses. This got me pretty excited because I haven't explored that part of town yet. So I took the Yale shuttle for the Red Line, which is just around the corner of my apartment, and brings me directly to the medical school. I missed the first bus, which usually is ok, but today, the temperature is 17 degree celsius and SUPER SUPER windy (I seriously felt an additional bounce when walking with my bag, which is filled with things), making it not a good weather to read newspapers or any materials or any form of waiting for that matter =( Anyway, I got through the training, which I thought was done pretty rushed, and weird, for my first EVER class at Yale. But lunch was amazing. They have these food carts that line the entire street to beyond! Hahah, got Thai food from this lady who thought I needed more food (i.e. skinny) so she gave me extras FOC =) The serving is humongous. That's when I realised, the sparrows are pretty huge here too HAHA. And eating out on a windy afternoon, with overcast sky (not raining) and great greenery, and amongst pre-med, med students, doctors, nurses and medicine-related personnel aren't such a bad thing haha. Sometimes, a change of scene is extremely refreshing and uplifting.I then headed down to HGS (I walked, for about 20 minutes, because I missed the bus again) for the New Haven Info Fair, which was a blast. Totally. There were so many discount deals and so many new things to discover: from zipcars just parked around my apartment (and the lady said nobody ever used those from that area), phone deals (cross my fingers), to theatre, books, travel, libraries, recycling, food and discount coupons. Expectedly, LOTS of people turned up. Who would miss such good deals? Only those that didn't know them in the first place I guess...

OISS organised a discussion group for "Winning strategies in studying" or something along that line LOLX. I met W there again (we met at the Info Fair too) and caught up a little. We actually started talking about pizzas and sushi. I got to know 2 more friends (hurray!), R, from Israel and doing phD in Applied Math and R, from France and doing phD in Applied Physics and is in the same PEB program as I am (double hurray!). We got into a really enjoyable discussion on our fields and academic lives thus far before we exchanged contacts and parted. Will catch up with you guys again!! =) And there are also 3 Taiwanese there. Probably because of XL, I got this fuzzy attachment to Taiwanese LOLX. Inexplicable indeed.

That marks the beginning of a series of orientation this week... Stay tune =)

Hamden

2010-08-23T07:14:00.005-04:00

Hamden is a small town north of New Haven, in the Greater New Haven area. You would really need a car to be there, or to travel around the town. For me, there is a bus that runs from New Haven to Hamden (and IKEA) for 22nd, 28th and 29th for free. So I decided to hop down to Hamden Plaza today. No it's not ONE shopping center (like in Singapore), it's in fact a huge compound comprising of carparks and eateries (Chili's, Wendy's, Mac, TGIF...) and the hypersupermarkets (like Walmart) and big shopping centers (like Staples, Stop and Shop).

For dual purpose of going to the Walmart and also to see what's Hamden is like, I decided against IKEA ("i"-"k"-ya).

The whole place is huge, but I still think Munich's Walmart (the one that closed down) is much larger since it had 2 storeys and lots of groceries. So, unfortunately, I couldn't find most of the groceries I want in this Walmart but still ended up with lots of goods - most importantly my bedding set (full double bed, of 8 pieces, $34), which I thought was a nice color to spice up the dull-colored room =). I am still amazed by the milk (1 huge gallon @ $2.48). Later on I would realise, most of the items I bought (food and tupperware) are actually already in the house. I also went Staples (stationery mart) to get parts of my desktop accessories - a rotating desktop organizer ($5) and a 3-drawer paper organizer ($8). And just for the lame thrill of having Mac at the country of origin, I had lunch at Mac; the Angus burger is VERY good!! =)

Reached back at the apartment, and trying to figure out to how to actually make the bed... There's a comforter (self-explanatory, basically the blanket), the pillow cases and the pillow shams which I am just going to take them as replacement pillow cases and the problem arrives at the fitted sheet and the flat sheet. I do not have a flat bottom, so the bed skirt's just going to be stowed away. The fitted sheet is easy enough, since Singapore uses that all the time; it's the one with the elastic bands at the sides. But the flat sheet, I have no idea what in the world it is. So I youtubed the thing and managed to adapt what was in the video:

One of those things I thought they only do it in the hotel, but I have to try to adapt it here now... LOLX... Now doesn't that design liven up the place =)

Yale in end-summer

2010-08-21T20:00:00.016-04:00

Ok, I think I will try to be a bit more up-to-date with my adventures at Yale.

Just came back from the Welcome Party for International Students. Didn't feel excited like I should have - there were lots of people, that's good but I went late, so kind of naturally got excluded. I mingled a bit, but didn't help much. Well, liked the trivia contest though. Allow me to know more about Yale and New Haven, like you can actually learn 50 languages at Yale!! (XL and SW would love it LOLX) and that George W. Bush was born in New Haven (not a fun fact).

A sad thing didn't manage to catch G there though, haha; we were actually MSN-ing about this in the morning. Was trying to search a face that matches the Facebook one LOLX. Because, have been talking to him since XH's introduction online but never really met in person. I always felt it was a pity. Hmm, wonder if he was there. Will ask him online later. And so I missed my dose of Singlish usage HAHA. But managed to talk to this Waldon (hope I got the name right) guy from Canada, Vancouver, studying Evolutionary Biology. He did Cell Biology in Vancouver and he said he took 15 hours to get to New Haven... Wow, even when Canada is so near.

Anyway, I have been wondering around the place for the past 2 days and trying to familiarize myself with the area. I definitely like Yale's buildings - the architecture is primarily gothic. I felt like I was walking through Hogwarts corridors when I was walking in Hall of Graduate Studies (HGS) to get my package and Yale ID! It was supposed to be where I would be staying, but the size of the room, compulsory in-house dining plan and nearby construction tilted the scales against it... I am really glad I got my current apartment =)

Then I snooped around at the Payne Wayne Gymnasium, supposedly the second largest indoor sports complex IN THE WORLD... A gym with a gothic style is just cool. It's under construction now, sorry the best pic would be from Wiki. It houses 11 squash courts, a fitness center, lots of studios, olympic-sized swimming pools, a rowers' pool and more!! Unbelievable... Gotta go try out the gym one day. It's free for students btw, and I can bring guests, though each will cost $10... There's the Peabody Museum, Yale's very own Paleontology and Archaelogy Museum, free for students as well =) Also, I am impressed by the Beinecke Library for Rare books and Manuscripts, the largest building in the world built exclusively for preservation of book and manuscripts. Supposedly the windows are translucent, so that less sunlight is allowed in, giving it a light yellow glow; I didn't notice that shimmer...Then there're many many more gothic and/or just archaic buildings, like the Law School and also especially in the old campus. I am just overwhelmed by the idea that I would be sitting down in a room (McDougal Center in HGS) with hanging chandeliers, latin-worded wallpaper and intricately carved gargoyles, sipping my coke and typing away on my laptop (which I did by the way), or even more foudroyant by the fact that Yale undergraduates would be divided into colleges behind fortress walls and castle towers (which I did see btw) and playing orientation games... And also, I like the roads of some of the places, like Hillhouse Avenue - serene and tranquil with nice shades and fantastic hues from the trees, and I am always amused by scurrying squirrels.
Surprisingly, the idea of putting a (Grove St) cemetery, smacked right in middle of town didn't spook the hell out of the local residents, or invoke any protests from the students. Perhaps it's because the Presidents of Yale were buried there. But the entrance "The Dead shall be raised" has an enthralling sense of foreboding - like some prophecy or some chosen one is going to resurrect the dead - reminds me of the morbid "Arbeit macht frei" and Nico in the Percy Jackson book series.

I haven't been inside most of the buildings... More photos will come when i do =) Looking forward...

Anyway, more photos on Facebook soon =) I am putting up some here. C made some Greek salad and said I looked I haven't eaten in days... LOLX... Thanks C! It's good that your roommate's a great cook! Hmm, now thinking about getting that rice cooker...

Maiden trip to the U.S.!

2010-08-20T07:23:00.020-04:00

Hallo ALL!! Greetings from New Haven once again (for those of you who didn't catch the first one on Facebook)!!

And if you haven't noticed already, whether it's on Facebook or my blog title, yup, I am currently at Yale in the US, pursuing my phD at Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS). And if you are interested, my major is Computational Biology and Bioinformatics (CBB) under the Biological and Biomedical Sciences Department (BBS) and am in a relatively new program Integrated Graduate Program in Physical and Engineering Biology (IGPPEB). Quite a mouthful, isn't it? Pardon me for the excessive use of acronyms and jargons (LOLX!). If you can't catch entirely, and they (do) appear in my entries hereafter, just know that they are just affiliations that I might be associated with for the next 5 years or so... Just a brief introduction, and since I have not started school yet, there isn't much of what I am doing that is pertaining to my graduate studies per se, so those would come later, in due time.

What I was excited about as well, was my maiden trip to the US. Yes, my first EVER setting-foot on American grounds! But well, there's always a first time for anything, isn't it? Took China Eastern Airlines (because that's the cheapest one-way ticket I could find on cheapoair) at Changi Airport T3, transited at Shanghai Pu Dong International Airport after 5 hours from Singapore (same time zone), then the last leg of 13 hours flight from Shanghai to John F. Kennedy International Airport at New York City! Yeah, the ever infamous Big Apple, which I unfortunately could only catch a glimpse of, be sure I will be back to soak it all in LOLX!

I wanna thank CS, J and Owl for insisting to send me off despite you guys needing to work the next day, R, my best buddy, and K, despite R having to go endure post-operation trauma (hope you are feeling much better) for sending me off!! I am really happy to see you guys there before I fly off. Thank god though, I manage to "shake off" those of you who had wanted to come, haha. No hard feelings, just thought that it was really an unearthly timing to make a trip to the eastern tip of Singapore on a midweek night. But I do appreciate the thought nonetheless =) And all those that called and messaged =) To all the weddings and housewarmings I would miss, just know that I would be giving you guys my wellwishes all the way from US!! hehe. To my family, XL and her family (who came in the end despite having dinnered only the day before), I have only gratitude and more gratitude. Gonna miss you all. I will take care of myself and call as often as I can =)

China Eastern Airlines flight experience was pretty much so-so, for me. Without any individual flight entertainment systems (except the sound system), it has got most of the other things above average - meals, services, minimal delays. I got bumped up to Business class from Singapore to Shanghai - no significant difference though from the economy class. So if you are into cheap tickets but do not mind the absence of in-flight entertainment systems, then this is fine. But the 13+5+waiting+5 (transit)+4(shuttle to new haven)=29-hour travelling was horrendous!! I mean, seriously, I should start thinking about teleportation as my new form of transport, or else just KILL me LOLX. On the hindsight, it wasn't that much of a thing after I touched down, but I think I wouldn't want to do that again in the very near future...

Pu Dong Airport was a little disappointing, despite all the Expo 2010 hype. I found it messy, despite knowing the language and all. They had put up counters solely for the purpose of the Expo and ended up confusing most of the travellers, because they were mostly closed already. Very sparse shopping district, with the shops having very minimal international outlook. The flight from Pu Dong saw a very different demographics of passengers - a lot of American-born Chinese kids (ABC) returning to US from vacation in China, with their very Chinese parents and some in-betweens (like myself), and some US citizens. So the whole plane was filled with a hodgepodge of English and Mandarin accents, kids with American accent but zilch Mandarin, parents with Chinese English accents but local Mandarin accents, visiting Chinese zero/minimal English but full of local dialects (Shanghainese, Cantonese etc.), total Americans - just pure acoustic disaster... The entire flight was filled with babies crying, little ABCs screaming to English pop songs, kids jumping around, mums scolding the kids, mums scolding each other, dads laughing and standing up and blocking everybody's view of the TV (I had to get some to sit down)... As if sleeping on a badly-positioned economy class seat wasn't bad enough... And you could see the somewhat belligerence (albeit stifled) of the Chinese at the Airport and on-flight. And note to self, bring a converter on the carry-on luggage... BTW, though, the plane has a power socket for charging!!

Arriving at JFK did not evoke the mirth that I was expecting (of myself), but more of a sigh of relief (haha). It made me miss the comfort, convenience and efficiency of Changi Airport (well it has been consistently the best airport in the world ya know) even more. Surprisingly, I encountered little extraordinary hiccups; the queue was just plain long and slow, with people crowding at a few counters (and blatantly jumping queue, though I think this experience has something to do with the demographics of the flight than anything else) and with many other counters not opened until much later.

I was happy I managed to make two new acquaintances even through this flight: J and A. J's from IMCB haha, if yy is reading this, he's from your lab!! He's going to Columbia University to pursue phD in neuroscience. All the best, I will try to find you on Facebook. And A's a Turkish and a second-year student from Bioengineering from Yale. He was so helpful and taking the extra miles with explanations and trying to give me recommendations for admin matters (since he is also an international student) and even gave me his email and phone number!! Grateful eternally, and will probably catch you for lunch soon =) And I am glad the taxi driver was nice too, knowing this is my first time to US and Yale for that matter; he stayed and made sure I was safe before driving off. And boy, am I overjoyed when I saw C haha!! And so, the story starts now...

Packing

2010-08-06T01:50:00.008-04:00

Taking a break from packing. Packing is seriously a pain in the ass LOLX... Plus I am allergic to tropical dust mites... cowz... I was sneezing, blowing my nose and dripping (from my nose, ewwww).

Generally, I have to vacate my bedroom, so that either my aunt or HL or a new tenant can take this place when I go US - meaning, I will not have a room when I come back for vacation. Not that I object vehemently, just that the thought of "diminishing presence" doesn't bode well. LOLX... I have things from work - 1 pile of literature, books and stationeries, and accoutrement. I have to decide between throwing, keeping and bringing. The first 2 shouldn't be hard I guess, it just takes a lot of time. The hardest to pack are the things to bring to US... I have never exactly experienced winters, so the "winter wear" section will be tough. Should I bring my books over? I am thinking maybe not... The library there should have most of the things I need, at least the library at TUM allowed me to hold on to a book for the entire semester LOLX... We will see if I need to ship my books over. For now, they're not coming with me. Any suggestions for packing?

I have found a substantial number of CDs, comics, books (fiction and non-fiction), biology books, German textbooks, computer programming textbooks etc. etc that I can give away... If anybody's interested, just drop me a line.

Ok, got to head back to packing; I need to pick up some things later and do some purchase. Then, maybe I can start doing some packing of my luggage and see if I really need to send over anything (hopefully not). Maybe I should get down to writing that list my X wanted me to write.

O well, get to work!

Last Day @ GIS

2010-08-05T01:06:00.014-04:00

2nd August 2010 was my last day at GIS. Took me a while to finally settle down to writing this. Well, my dearest got sick and I was caught up in a series of administrative stuff, so... Here's an entry nonetheless.

I didn't think my last day at the institute was going to be anything heartbreaking. Well, for one, the turnover rate there is so high (defiintely not because of the "gruelling" working environment LOLX, but that's another story for another day I guess) that it seems quite like a norm for people to be leaving anyway. As it turned out, while it wasn't downright emotional with sobbing goodbyes and heartwrenching farewells, it still felt kind of nostalgic.

CS was especially earnest in helping me keep memories of my last moments at GIS, helping me take photos. We went for my last gym session at the NTU Alumni Club, where I had spent weekly more socialising with colleagues and friends than actual fitness training LOLX. Thanks CS!! =) And, there was my last RCG weekly meeting. It was CS turn that day and after that, CS and I went to have a tea break at the Rockymaster. J would have joined, if he wasn't on course. Hope you are enjoying yourself there haha.

We met E on the way there!! Speaking of coincidence =) He joined us for a while. We really had a great time reminiscing and chilling and of course, somehow it always comes back to genomics research - the one thing that bound us in the first place. Incidentally as well, M and T wanted to return money to CS for my farewell lunch last week and I was glad I get to meet my Thai friends for the last time before I fly off. We go a long way back manz, back when we were just interns... Send my regards to K in Thailand ya =) I am sure with T and K's diligence, your phDs will be simply splendid. Take care!!
Just 10 minutes before I was due to leave for HR department to return my security pass, I decided to say my last parting farewells to people I know... That's when I realised, I had to start combing from Level 4, 7, 8 and then finally back to Level 3. I had wanted to meet alot more people... But alas, there wasn't really enough time. So I left a farewell email to everybody at GIS. At this juncture, I really want to make a full version of "thank you"s (that I wasn't able to on the blanket email) of all the people at GIS that have made my 2 years there extremely exciting, memorable, fruitful and rewarding:
1) Andr, Pad, Kelv, Ch Tin and Alv, for always expediting my IT requests, alot of times as personal favors and on top of their already heavy schedule. Extremely thankful though I am sure you guys would say those are tremendously trivial tasks, still, thank you. To Gare, don't run too much ya... addiction (of any kind) is seldom a good thing =) Keep up the camaraderie and trips to the gym though! Thumbs up for healthy lifestyle haha!

2) Ch Wei, H'en, for your occasional chats
3) Ken and JiaN, for your ready approachability when I asked for advice.
4) my RCG team mates! Like I mentioned in my farewell speech, I love how the group, despite having different portfolios, would patiently help each other with no reservations. Take care people! To Atif, thanks for granting me almost total freedom in my work, and all your care and concern, really appreciate that. To KS, sorry you have to handle the full brunt of all the sh** that is coming now. JIAYOU! To CS, Owl, 小Paul, J - my best lunch and gym buddies - hope you guys like the parting gifts I made. Keep in touch on FB or MSN ya and may the force with you =) I am going to miss all the jive and chaff and mirth. To J, in particular, thanks for being my friend right from the very beginnning and stuck by me despite my whinings and complaints and what-nots, dishing out your insights and advice to a naive me that just started out in the working world as a fresh grad =) We will all keep in touch!
5) Vik, Mark, JJ and YY for your advice, help, guidance and have always felt I owe much of my current achievements todate to you guys. And also, Ed, despite not having met you in person, thank you for your emails.

6) XueL, R, E and A, all the best for your phDs and work!! We might meet in US one day (definitely FB though) =) It's always entertaining, a great pleasure and learning experience to work or have lazy chats with you guys at the pantry, or online.

7) Rec Club, for making my first DnD a blast in the first year (haha!)
8) Cynt, for giving me ample opportunites and your advice and help!! Thank you!!
9) Chang H, it's always entertaining talking to you haha. Get married soon!!
10) Soni, Yang, KK, Eil for all the help in my projects. Congrats on your promotion too, Soni!

11) Mich, Shar for giving me a great impression of HR!! LOLX
12) HuiQ, Astr, for all our chats online and good luck!
13) Dev, for simply being such a great friend!!
14) 大Paul, better late than never =)

Ok, that was quite a feat, trying to remember people... lolx

GIS was a place of serendipity for me. It started off with a serendipitous interview, followed by (odd) fatalistic forces that propelled me into the realm of research (although my job scope does not entail "research" per se) and subsequently graduate school. Somehow, retrospectively now, it feels like I have just alighted from a roller coaster ride. You went in not knowing how the ride would be, then you get to experience an adrenaline rush and a high that leaves you wanting more. Touching down from the mad ride thereafter, gives you a discombobulated sense of simultaneous surreality and satisfaction - it's like you have just crawled out of the rabbit hole after slaying an evil fire-breathing dragon called Jabberwocky. You grew confident of what you want now, at the same time, you grew jitters of what the future holds for you. But you take that step forward all the same.

Thank you GIS, for creating such a genial environment, and all my friends and colleagues at GIS, for allowing me to laugh and whine, to err and grow. It is you guys that made the difference =) A final thank you. Take care all and keep smiling!! And because the world is round (*laughs stupidly*), we might meet again somehow, someday, somewhere, sometime in some future. So keep in touch!! (the power of technology indeed). =)

Comics!

2010-05-20T09:18:00.012-04:00

Below is the list of comics I have. I have also taken the liberty to take some photos. They are all of extremely good condition.

1 神兵玄奇 vol 1-115 黄玉郎 full
2 神雕侠侣 vol 1-18 黄展鸣 full
3 天界无限 vol 1-25+赤雪传黄展鸣 full (SOLD)
4 东京蚂蚁 vol 1 full
5 流行蝴蝶剑 vol 1-3 full
6 天使回忆 Angel Dust vol 1-2 full
7 .Hack, legend of the Twilight bracelet vol 1-3 full
8 Reverb vol 1 full
9 Kana vol 1-4 full
10 天界无限2 vol 1-2 黄展鸣 (SOLD)
11 Naruto 兵之书岸本齐史
12 Naruto 临之书岸本齐史
13 少年剑皇 vol 1-6 高桥功一郎
14 翼 Tsubasa vol 1-24,公式手册 CLAMP (SOLD)
15 钢铁新时代 vol 1-3
16 龙狼传 vol 7,24
17 幽游白书 vol 15
18 The Uncanny XMen (only 3 of the comics and a fan-fiction book)

LASIK (1 Month)

2010-04-27T10:23:00.006-04:00

^ image from http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/imagepages/1094.htm

2nd week
I went back to see doctor. I found this thick red blood vessel on the side of the sclera (white of eye) of my left eye. Like quite obvious if you look real closely. And all the dry eyes and staring at the computer screen at work in an air-con office forced out alot of the small capillaries. So I scared myself when I looked into the mirror... Initially I thought that vessel might go away if I sleep early or the next morning when I have rested my eyes. It did mellow down and kind of became thinner, but still there.

I then googled these decongestants, thought they might help:
http://lasikblog.typepad.com/the_lasik_blog/2009/01/understanding-overthecounter-eye-drops.html

But before I buy anything I decided to find my doc first. Just to be on the safe side. After 3 days, I really got a bit panicky and decided to visit the clinic. Dr Lee told me that was a legacy left from my contact lenses, probably because I wore them too often and sometimes I wore them for too long a period of time. Contact lenses are known to pull blood vessels to your iris/pupil because they reduce the oxygen your eyes are getting (blood vessels bring more oxygen). I know these facts, but I think you only start to feel the pain when you SEE the real effects. And you do not usually see them until they start to be really visible. By the time the bad effects manifest, you are already doomed... One good thing, however, I have a habit of leaving one or two days a week of "fallowing" - not wearing contacts. So the opthalmologist checked last few times, they said my eyes were ok... So kindda controversial.... Probably the LASIK just worsened an already bad situation.

So anyway, well, I guess I have to live with that from now on. Nothing too serious (even trivial) aesthetically or medically. The doctor prescribed Optodexine to constrict the blood vessel. I googled but couldn't find if it's a decongestant, but I think it constricts by increasing pressure on the eye, because the nurse measured my eye pressure then and told me to go back after 2 weeks to check the eye pressure. The Optodexine was to be applied 3 times a day and it worked miracles. Not only do I feel fresher with it, the constriction was almost immediate.

Dr Lee said it was good I came to him (of course, there's money earned on mere consultation). That aside, it could have meant infection or bacteria on the surface of the eyes (one of the symptoms is blood vessels). So it pays to be more paranoid than usual; I mean it's your eyes...

3rd week
Applied Optodexine. Deadline over, so work started to be less urgent, slept earlier --> meaning more rest for my eyes.

4th week
Went back to see doctor. He said the vessel appeared thinner and largely probably due to the dry eyes being reduced as well.

Moral of the story:

Contact lens hygiene and eye care important!! Do not err (like me) by "Out of sight, out of mind", because this WILL haunt you...

LASIK (Week 1)

2010-04-16T23:08:00.005-04:00

Week 1 was really about paranoia... LOLX. Very small thing I accidentally touch my eyes I would be extremely jittery about any repurcussions that it might have. As a result, it kindda impacted my life negatively - not good.

But anyway things to take note:
1) Eye regime continues, but reduced from 4 times to 3 times.
2) Wear eye goggles.
3) Tilt your head down and close your eyes when washing hair. Make sure no water/soap gets on your face.
4) Face is to be cleaned with another cloth, and be sure not to touch the eye region.

I read that the first 3 days were the most crucial period of the healing process.

End of the first week was another check up by Dr Lee. He told me that the cornea was healing very well, and the end of the first week also means that the risk of infection is brought down to almost zero already (whew).

I still experienced dry eyes, though I can feel the dryness reducing as the days go by, but still rather extensive as compared to normal. And also some halos in the night. I think it's relatively sensitive as well to dust (my workplace near construction site; I would always wear googles along that stretch of road) and light. Goggles and sunglasses are essential in this case.

LASIK (Day 1) - First (free) post-op review

2010-04-09T21:39:00.009-04:00

Image from http://eyemakeart.wordpress.com/2009/07/04/printable-snellen-eye-chart/

One day AFTER LASIK.

The moment I woke up, other than that layer of gossamer mist masking over things, I can see sharply! Like really sharply LOLX. I tested out with the books on my bookshelf, probably at a distance of a few metres. And I could see the "Biochemistry" words in one of the textbook spines and the "MONOPOLY" words on the board games on the shelf in the living room, without any aid. Cool! Last time, due to my astigmatism, I would have to squint my eyes so hard to catch a few letters and everything else was a blur. This is like wearing lenses, but only this time, the lenses are not peripheral aids =)

So I was really excited. Appointment was in the afternoon. I wore sunglasses out from then on.

Ophthalmologist said my eyesight was already 6/6 after one day!! That was satisfying and doctor said they were healing pretty well. And I should keep up with the eye drop regime, using the lubricant drops as regular as possible and eye shields for another 4 days.

Apart from getting the desired results, I had also extreme paranoia haha. Always worrying when I accidentally touched my eyes etc etc... That aside, the real tangible side-effects I experienced were dry eyes and night halo.

Dry eyes was expected, since almost everybody got that post-op. But mine was slightly alarming given that my right eye actually felt a slight pang of pain whenever I apply eye drops. But the doctor says it's due to dryness and will subside as the days go by (and it REALLY did). I found the goggles extremely good in easing this as well. Because it is covered, the goggles actually reduces the discomfort as compared to when you leave the eyes exposed to the air. My shades, being the stick-to-face kind, also served that purpose pretty nicely.

Night vision was also expectantly with night halos. Incandescent lights were fine. The problem came with fluorescence. Probably because of the wide spectrum of wavelengths (and lights) emitted, I would see halos around these lights.

Finally, tried not to stare at lights directly during this stage. Because, without a doubt, the lights appeared brighter (and hence more uncomfortable looking at them) than they are supposed to be.

LASIK (Day 0) 10th March 2010

2010-04-01T20:54:00.010-04:00

^Super kiasu... Wore both sunglasses and eye shield for sleeping. Notice how I fold my arms as a form of "tying my hands up"...

I did my operation the day after my preassessment on 10th March 2010 (one day before my bro's birthday), at 8.30am in the morning.

Some DON'Ts on this very important day for your 2 eyes for INTRALASE LASIK:
1) DO NOT wear cologne or perfume or aftershave lotion; they might screw the laser up.
2) DO NOT wear woollen clothings; the hairy thingies might get into your eyes and laser.
3) DO NOT wear eye makeup; quite obvious why...
4) DO NOT drive.

Some DOs
1) Bring along a pair of sunglasses; trust me, you will need them.
2) Get someone to fetch you back; I got my brother to bring me back in a cab.

So on this big day, I took special care to shampoo my hair a few times, because post-op, possibility of me not washing them for 2 days is high. And I actually forgotten about the warning against woollen clothings and wore something somewhat woollen. Luckily, I went off before my brother, because it's a weekday peak hour (7am in the morning); I wanted to fight the crowd for the bus. I asked my brother to bring a long-sleeved shirt for me before my operation.

I arrived on time, but there were already a few people there in the waiting lounge. Dr Lee's not there yet though. But it was just as well, since I have go through the pre-op routine eye tests again to check for any aberrances by the opthalmologist anyway. Then a nurse came and bring me to this room to prep. She first gave me a small bag with all the post-op materials, then explained to me certain things for post-op:
1) Wear eye shields for at least 5 days at night
2) Wear sunglasses
3) Do not rub your eyes at all times
4) 2 eye drops: 1x Zymar (eye antibiotic) and 1x Pred Forte (eye-anti-inflammatory); she told me the Pred Forte is a white opthalmic suspension, so shake well before use, and got bitter aftertaste (windpipe, ear ducts, and eye ducts connected to gullet...). Eyes drops to be used every 3 hours.
5) 1 box of Refresh Plus Lubricant Eye Drops by Allercan (no preservatives, important). Apparently this is the better drops for dry eyes. Can put every half an hour.
6) NO contact sports (squash included) and swimming for 1 month
7) Avoid water and soap in eyes for a week.
8) Sleeping pills and painkillers.

A good thing she did all those things before the op, because post-op, I don't think I can remember all of that was told if she starts rambling while my eyes burn away. LOLX. Then she applied some eye drops into the eyes and got me to put on the surgical gown. I found her a bit edgy, maybe because it was morning, and mine was the first operation. So she was fumbling with the eye drops - she had to aim a few times to my eyes before she got them in my eyes.... So I was literally 'tearing' even before the op.... Oh, and I was given painkillers and sleeping pills. I had to eat one before the op, because it takes about half to an hour for the effect to come on (total op takes less than 15 min).

Then I was brought to another rest room, with 2 armchair beds. Armchair beds, because they are not flat, but inclined like armchairs. Very comfy with blankets and pillows. Wonder what is it like in less ex places, hopefully it's some 'atas' treatment, then at least I would feel my money is more worth it. HAHA. I waited there for a while, before being brought to another prep room. There, the nurse applied some anaesthetic eyes drops. Dr Lee then came in and gave me some pep talk. Well, with the menacing scratchy humming of the laser machines in the adjacent room, I think I did not feel less nervous. LOLX... Nevertheless, immediately after, I was taken to the operation table, with the laser machine and gadgets, hovering around me. Ok, here goes nothing...

Dr Lee started with my right eye, asking me to focus on a red light, as a device clamped down my eye socket and felt as though it was going to pop my eye out. To me, the red light looked extremely blotchy, well because I got astigmatism. So, I found myself asking the stupid question of "where on the blotch of red should I focus?" .z.z.zz.. Finally I decided to focus in the center or the orb since I think he would want my pupil to be as forward-looking as possible for the cut. Then the laser came, followed by the smell of burnt skin (ewwww), then Dr Lee asked me to hold my focus, counting down out loud as well: 15 seconds, 10, 5... (which I find EXTREMELY comforting because I can then focus on the numbers, instead of an empty "how long more"). Then my eyes started tearing... Like crazy, and my eye muscles found it an effort to keep my right eye open. Then I felt Dr Lee "paint" my R eye with a brush (or something), probably to settle the corneal flap down in place.

Quite promptly, he moved on to my left eye. The second eye I feel was the worse. Because I could hardly open my right eye already! That kindda made the opening of the L eye more difficult. I actually really had to consciously strain my eyes to keep both open and focus on the light. I remembered Dr Lee had to ask me to refocus my L eye and opened it bigger. Something I like about Dr Lee at the op table is that he gives incessant constructive motivation (makes you feel not alone and how long you need to feel strained) and pretty clear instructions. Then same "painting" of the eye, tearing and eye muscles strain and it was done! That's when I realised, my hands were tightly locked together...

First thing I got up, I could see Dr Lee and the nurses SHARPLY! Albeit with a layer of haziness, the images were undoubtedly sharp (NO ASTIG!!!). But the lights were a tad too bright. He waved *roll eyes*, with the cheshire grin and said "Welcome to the world of the reborn eyes" (you might roll eyes now, but when I was there, I chuckled mirthfully at the resolution of the images I could see) LOLX... Think the whole procedure lasted less than half an hour, with no pain but with a lot of discomfort.

Then I was brought to the armchair bed to rest, lights switched off. Told to stay here for another half an hour or so. My eyes felt strained and also some very slight irritation. None of the drama-mamas that I have heard about scotching eyes, faint spells and tears that flooded the seven seas. But I do see some black patches when I was in the dark. Quite scary. Else, everything else was sharp, but overlayed with a tinge of haziness, which I was told was typical post-op.

After half an hour, I was given the bag of eye drops and shield, and went out to pay my bills (can see the bill lo!) and then took cab go home. Other than the lights I found too bright (I put on my sunglasses), and the eyes' slight discomfort, I was actually feeling pretty jovial and was talking and joking with my brother. So, I guess I am one of those lucky ones with no dizzy spells or extreme tearing experienced. But my brother did commented my eyes were really red...

Back at home, was sleep. I just slept the whole day away, but waking up every 3 hours to put my eye drops and painstakingly making sure my hands were washed with soap before applying. So yea, I even woke up every 3 hours in the middle of the night to apply the eye drops. I read the first 3 days is the most critical of the healing process. So the regime must be well-kept. No shortcuts. No hard squeezing of the eyes, no rubbing (eye shields for sleeping, I read online somebody actually tied the hands to the legs after she rubbed unconsciously in the night and developed microfolds that blurred a bit of her otherwise 6/6 corrected vision.... but was too late already....what a pity....). I did not bathe for the rest of the day.

Something else I recommend is getting a pair of googles. I had one pair from my brother's old pair of safety googles. Can get from any hardware shop. But I think swimming googles are fine too, but get those with cushion, and make sure they are not too tight... Though personal preference still the safety googles, since I wore them out (my workplace near construction site) even now, and you would look less alien than if you wore swimming googles, and I found they help with the dry eyes too.

V my googles