星星-of-the-Day

Movie-of-the-Day

I watched The Black Dahlia and ate Subway this evening. This is the life. Anyway, the movie is rather complicated and I can see why it's rated M18. It has:

• Gay themes (lesbian actually)
• Sex
• Violence
• Gore

There's a rather complex plot. You won't have time to blink and still comprehend what is happening. The starting was slow but towards the end, everything moved fast.

Peaches-of-the-Day

Just like in a fairytale.

Lower Seletar Reservoir.

pQ and I are damn peachy. Just realized this while doing our project for The Biophysical Environment of Singapore. We went to Seletar Reservoir to check out the mangroves there.

Soil Auger.

Autograph-of-the-Day

I asked for Andy Lau's autograph today. I think it's the first time I've ever asked for an autograph. Well, I was helping my colleague ask for it. It wasn't for myself. We (Rebessa, Candice and me) had work today. The show ended around midnight and we went for supper after that.

Work-of-the-Day

In the evening, I had work at the indoor stadium for the 6th Global Chinese Music Awards. We spent most of the time watching rehearsals and ended work at 4+am!

Field_Trip-of-the-Day

We had a field trip around NUS this afternoon for SSA2215 (Biophysical Environment of Singapore). It was hot at first and then came the rain.

Futilism.

Close your eyes to keep from crying.

Gels-of-the-Day

We did Native and SDS gel electrophoresis today! Our bands show happy results! We have happy enzymes and therefore we are happy. Our product is rather pure and on the happy side, we're successful. On the not-so-happy side, we may want to run HPLC since our product is rather pure. You're probably thinking why that's so bad. It's because, we could conclude now and wouldn't have to go to the lab next Wednesday (hence, we don't have to go to school that day) if our sample was not pure enough to run HPLC.

Anyway, after training, Huihui, Adrienne and I went to eat fried sotong at some coffeeshop. Huihui's recommendation. It's damn shiok!!!

Weather-of-the-Day

Today's weather is just fine. It started with a bright cheery morning which mellowed as the day passed, leading to drizzle in the late afternoon and concluding with a cool evening. What great weather!

Blame it on the Weatherman by B*Witched comes to mind...

It's just one more day.

No one said there would be rain again..

The rain goes on.. on and on again.

Test-of-the-Day

Today, we had a CM2161 quiz on Energy Balances.

In the evening, I ate at BB Hawker (or more commonly known as AMK Central Hawker Centre). The curry chicken e-meal is cheap and good! It's $1.90 and includes a curry chicken drumstick, fried egg and some long beans. For the record, the chicken chop there is great too.

I love that hawker centre. Simply nostalgic.

Bath-of-the-Day

I finally bathed Titus today! The first thing he does after a bath is to roll all over the grass. Brilliant.

Lunch was Oodles (Praprika and Spinach) fried with:

• Egg
• Oyster Sauce - contributes to a mildly sweet taste
• Chilli Sauce - adds a tinge of spiciness
• Garlic Salt - taste & aroma
• Paprika - taste & aroma
• Hot Dog Relish - contributes to a mildly sweet taste as well as texture
• Dark Soya Sauce - appearance and salty taste
• Dried Parsley

A tiny lizard I spotted that day! Cute.

I was just thinking about my project for TR2201 (Entrepreneurial Marketing). Here's some photos:

Slack-of-the-Day

I slacked my afternoon away. Just simple, happy moments (walking around AMK, choosing bakery, chatting, playing (with) the keyboard, being schoolgirls again). In the evening, Justin and Tiffany came over. For dinner, I ate at Jln Kayu (prata, satay and a slurpee).

I just reached home and I'm drinking Tia Maria (chocolate liqueur). It's really sweet with an alcohol content of 31.5%. My father was so nice to prepare the drink for me (washing the wine glass - we don't have a shot glass at home, pouring the drink, adding some ice) I finally removed the probation plate from the car. Tomorrow will mark a year from which I got my driving license!

Dinper-of-the-Day

If others can have brunch, I can have dinper. I couldn't decide if I ate dinner or supper this evening. Some of us (Jimmy, Yao Yao and ME) went to eat after air weapons. We ate Jln Kayu prata at around 10pm!

Logbook_Entry-of-the-Day

HPLC (High Performance Liquid Chromatography) - Ion Exchange

Sample Pretreatment

Perform sample concentration of fractions with the highest enzymatic activity via centrifugation with amicon tube.

HPLC

A pH gradient is used to elute the enzymes via cation exchange. Lactate Dehydrogenase (LDH) should elute in the later fractions since it should remain bound until a pH equivalent to its pI is attained.

Only a single peak was obtained and this peak coincided with fractions 1 and 2. Therefore, LDH eluted first.

Problems

1. A pH gradient should not be used.
2. Tris buffer is not suitable.

Rectification

The fractions were concentrated via amicon tubes to salvage LDH in sample. Protocol must be re-planned. Next run will proceed on Wednesday, 25th October.

Conclusion

The fractions with the highest enzyme activity were concentrated after gel filtration. HPLC did not proceed as planned since LDH eluted immediately. The fractions from HPLC had to be concentrated again after being diluted from the run.

Therefore, the sample was concentrated, diluted and re-concentrated.

Nett work done = 0.

Ultimate result:

Purification Experiment FAILED.

--End of Log--

After my lab session, I had to eat. Just eat. Ate steamboat with me, myself and I at SRC. After that, we had NUSIS (NUS Invitational Shoot) meeting.

Quote-of-the-Day

Reality leads to dreams and dreams give birth to reality.

Movie-of-the-Day

Went out with Bex to watch The Departed this evening. It was a stressful movie! That's two stressful movies (the other one is 'World Trade Centre') this month! It's about 2h 40min. What a long show but it was well worth the money.

Ate blue candy floss as well. It's been such a long time since I last ate candy floss! Chewy's presentation gave a sudden craving when I saw the candy floss. Food science is interesting.

Look at this new punk style. Punky.

Car-of-the-Day

I finally got to drive my brother's car! Mazda 3 (Zoom! Zoom! Zoom!)!

My new set of car keys... at least for about half a month.

Haze-of-the-Day

Today is Sunday.. so let's take a look at the sun...

This is how the sun looks like on a hazy day at about 8.30am. It glows like the moon and gives a tinge of moodiness in place of its radiant beams.

Field_Trip-of-the-Day

In the morning, I went down to Toa Payoh to print tshirts. When I got home, I finally learned how to use Chemsketch to draw my molecules for my FST project! After that, I had SSA2215 Field Trip to Pasir Ris Park (PRP). I got to observe nature as I've never before at PRP even though I've been there many times. We learnt about soil, shores and mangroves! Let's play spot the crab!!!

Try to spot the crabs in this photo!

There they are!

I took half a life-time looking for them.

Anyway, I realized there's a lot of people I know (like 9!) taking this module! Just realized this during the field trip. When I was going home, I walked to the 39 bus stop from Downtown East and I met Adrienne. She takes the same bus as me to get home so I had company on the way home.

Look at the long straw we made

(by joining 2 straws? I feel young.):

2 kids being forced to take a photo together:

Silver Lining:

The result of not falling asleep:

I'm waiting to go out for dinner with my family. Today is an exciting Saturday. I should buy a digicam one day. Since one day is an unspecified parameter, I shall now seek to define this parameter >>> I should buy a digicam by 2010. Photography is fun.

pQ: I already classified and renamed our photographs! Go check your email!

Acknowledgements:

Photography - courtesy of pQ, YT, JJ.

Camera - courtesy of Julius & Agnes.

Trials-of-the-Day

One of my chromatography results!

In the evening, I had AWC Varsity Trials. After that, we (QL, Jimmy, JY, LK, XL and I) went for dinner at Ang Mo Kio S11.

Suddenly I realize that trials in life aren't so tough anymore. It becomes easier when you realize you're not a one-man army.

Clarity rises with the sun.

Bengster-of-the-Day

We had lab since 9am this morning till 5.30pm! From 10am to 12noon, we attended our lecture, had a 5min lunch break and back to the lab we went! I was so tired towards the end of lab. After the lab, I sat down at the curb of Science Drive 4, eating a snack. I was so tired that I didn't realize I looked like a bengster until Sandra walked by and told me! Oh well, I wear the ugliest clothes and do the ugliest things on lab days. (".)

Course-of-the-Day

I'm so muddle-headed! This morning, upon reaching school, I realized I left my very important file containing my very important notes for the day's lab work! I drove all the way back home and back to NUS in 45min with slow moving traffic. That was fast!

During lab, we encountered some problems today but we rectified the situation. What a stressful lab session! My enzymes are alive and well! Too well!!! I had to dilute them by 10,000x before I could see linear enzyme activity!

Look at them!!! They're ALIVE.

Leilani and ME.

In the evening, I ate claypot tofu with rice in The Frontier (science canteen). It's been such long time since I ate there. After that, I went for a marketing course conducted by the NUS Students' Sports Club. It was a 45min course. Short and sweet. They even gave us packet drinks and wasabi peas. What hospitality!

Movie-of-the-Day

We (pQ, xH, Rebessa, Johnny and me)went to watch World Trade Centre today. The movie was fine. The movie screening was a fund raising event by Eusoff Hall for their Cambodia Expedition and we bought tickets from Shena. Saw Sharon there too!

These bananas are tiny!

Happy 27th Birthday to Julius!!!

Ailment-of-the-Day

Today, we shall talk about coughing.

Coughing: A reflex action of the throat to expel built-up phlegm or mucus.

Coughing occurs whenever something obstructs the breathing passages. It may cause irritation to the airways. Coughing is a protective response of the body. Cough medicine soothes the throat and reduces coughing in this way. However, it does not treat the cause of the cough and it reduces the clearing action.

There are various alternative treatments for cough but being a food scientist in the making, I shall only discuss the dietary considerations:

• Drink more liquids as it loosens up the mucus/phlegm and makes coughing it up easier. The best are warm liquids and filtered water.
• Avoid caffeine and alcoholic beverages.
• Drink fresh fruit and vegetable juices which may enable the speeding up of your recovery.
• Vitamin C, zinc, potassium, magnesium, chloride supplements along with a well-balanced diet will help as well.

When these and all else fails, call a doctor.

Which reminds me, I've got to call Dr. Jansen Koh NOW.

Photos-of-the-Day

An educational photo for all those who do not know how banana fruit looks like when it's in the midst of growing.

For pQ:

pQ's bruised legs. Super unglam.

pQ and Ms Kang. (Is that my bag pQ's carrying?!!)

Ok, to be fair, let me put up a nicer photo of pQ. I've been putting up ugly photos of her since... I don't know when. This is for the benefit of all those people who don't know how pQ looks like (actually, it's for lame da4 jie3 only).

My public letter to pQ:

Dear pQ,

Don't scold me (although I have no permission to put up these photos)! I've been so nice to put up a decent photo of you! Hurry thank me (not that you care about your reputation).

BYE.

JJJJaime

Anyway, I received a phone call on official business today. It was the first time the person spoke to me. My voice was so bad that she thought I was a guy at first! The thing is, I don't have a sore throat anymore. My voice is just gone!!!

Makeover-of-the-Day

I experienced the Tohs' makeover. My goodness. I didn't even have to decide on piercing my ears and they got pierced (many thanks to lame da4 jie3). I looked and felt different. WEIRD but fun!

At night, Kokwai, Liqin and I met up for supper at Jln Kayu. It's been such a long time (about 6 years ago) since I last talked to Liqin! He looks different now with a well-built body! We chatted till about 1am.

Today was a two-part fun day. (",)

Festival-of-the-Day

It's the Mooncake Festival today!

Death-of-the-Day

LSM2201

Most of our enzymes died. Their deaths were not for nothing. Now, we are able to carry out our experiment more efficiently upon knowing our faults, looking at areas to improve and becoming farmiliarized with the methods.

57 days more to the start of my holidays!

Training-of-the-Day

We started open lab today.

In the evening, I had AWC duty. I got to train as well!

Life throws shit at you. Now, let's grow a bed of roses with it.

Lecture-of-the-Day

pQ and I had The Biophysical Environment of Singapore lecture this afternoon. Look at the photos we took!

Test-of-the-Day

LSM2101 Midterm Test commenced today at 12.15pm and ended punctually at 1.00pm. It was a typical challenging life science paper. I am sick and tired (in the literal sense). Good night. Jaime's going to sleep NOW.

Work-of-the-Day

Happy Children's Day!!!

I worked for the final day of kidsfest!

Took the Tohs' car today. Wah.. So high-tech. The door is automatic. I tried too hard to shut the door. *embarrassed*