2nd Week of Lab

Just finish my 2nd week of lab.
Starting to get a bit bored, especially when there is a lot of waiting time.
-waiting for the gel to harden
-waiting for gel electrophoresis to finish running
-waiting for PCR
-waiting for centrifuge machine to stop spinning
-waiting for seed to germinate and grow
-waiting for ........

still can't foresee myself doing this for the rest of my life..
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Doing FYP is starting to get a bit 棘手.
Things no longer run as smooth as the year 1,2,3 experiments.
Designed and ordered my primers last week.
It arrived last Friday, so have to postpone the whole set of experiment to the following week.

Just wanna express my sienness here. So skip the next big chunk of more technical stuff, which will bore you.
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Monday (28/7/08)
PCR, using my JmjC primers with Arabidopsis thaliana Columbia DNA as template.
Electrophoresis of the PCR products.
Gel extraction of the PCR products.

Tuesday (29/7/08)
Purify my PCR product.
Clone the PCR product into TOPO cloning vector.
Transformation of the competent cells.
Culture the cell, on Kanamycin selective plate.

Wednesday (30/7/08)
Pick the correct colony, and inoculate in LB broth.

Thursday (31/7/08)
Plasmid extraction from the bacteria cells.
Run restriction test.

Everything was surprisingly smooth so far...
THEN.... shit happened...
I used EcoRI to run restriction test, cos my gene was flank by EcoRI sites in the vector.
but the gel turn out to have a lot of small bands.
=( not the result I want.
Bo pian, went back to check the 5 genes, only to realize that some of the genes got a few internal EcoRI sites. sien.

So have to use other restriction enzymes to do the test...
some more the enzymes have different optimum temperature, so have to do sequential digestion and incubate twice..

Double-sienness

Friday (1/8/08)
Analyze the product after restriction test n gel electrophoresis.
Funny... the band size wasn't what I wanted...
Went back to check all the gel photos...
Then...
I think I cut the wrong band on Monday...

Shit.. whole week's effort wasted.

Running experiments where results aren't guaranteed sure is a different story.
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My lab notes and protocols

My Gel photos..

My FYP Days in Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory

I'm officially a part of Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory (TLL), doing my Final Year Project (FYP).
This will be a good time for me to experience the life as a research person. to see whether research life in a lab is my cup of tea..

My supervisor,aka 老板, Dr Toshiro Ito, is quite a 斯文 nice guy (picture on the right).
And in his lab there are 3 Postdoctoral fellows, 2 PhD students, and 5 intern/FYP/UROPS students including me.

My mentor is one of the PhD student, Sun Bo. Also a very nice guy from 山东, China.

After meeting up with my 老板 yesterday, my mentor brought me to the store to collect some personal stationery, pipettes, lab coats, gloves, etc.
The experience is like going shopping with a basket at hand.
Just that this time u can grab all the stationary you want, check out with the auntie at the counter, and the things are yours
FOR FREE!!!
Unbelievable...
I grab 5 high-lighters, a permanent marker, and some books for jotting down experiment data and lab meeting materials.

1st day, was rather 'relaxing'...
all i have to do is read...

<--Stack of readings from my mentor

Today, I search for my gene of interest, and began to design my primers. Manage to finish and put my primers for order today. so hopefully can receive them in 1-2 days time. Life here in TLL is so far so good. But my mentor say when all the gear come into place, and I will have to run the experiments like mad. Just pray for the best...

For those who are interested in what I am doing
I'm working on Arabidopsis.
The floral meristem activity is determined by the genes that code for different transcription factors, based on the ABC model.
The C gene (Agamous, Ag) is the gene that controls stamen and carpel development.
My gene of interest is down stream of Ag, a group of Jumanji gene (JmjC) that is hypothetise to controls the induction of Knuckles (KNU) gene product.

Blur? I also still blur...

Back in Kiasuland

After 1 semester of SEP. I'm finally back in NUS.
Gonna start my Final Year Project next week. sien...
of all courses in NUS, life sciences is the only course i know where students start their FYP so early...
What I guess is, this 'kiasu phenomenon' is due to our great great great seniors who start approaching the prof to ask for project way before the list of projects was release.
then when 1 is accepted and had a kick start in his/her project, the rest monyet tengok, monyet buat...
The outcome? year after year, batch after batch, life sciences ppl like me are pressurize to come back early... to look for prof even before year 3 sem 2 ends...
sigh... peer pressure...
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Some updates on my accommodation.
After the room draw incidence (黑人耍剑), I finally settled down on E713.
And my new roommate for the year to come is Wuhong.
I reach JB Senai Sultan Ismail Airport on the morning of 19 July.
After the hassle of taking a bus to Kota Raya, then pass the Malaysian n Singapore custom checkpoint, I took taxi from Kranji MRT station to KE7.

Then as always, it's room cleaning before unpacking my stuff.
Wipe book shelf... Wipe table... Wipe drawer... Wipe wardrobe... Wipe bed...
After everything is done, I unwrap the mattress from the nylon covering...
AND!!!
WTF!!!
Some idiot actually pee on the mattress!!!
and not sure if is it just my illusion, i can still smell the pee.... -_-|||

bo pian... have to bring it out and put it under the sun, IN HOPE THAT it will at least kill some germs n get rid of the smell...
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Night time = supper time
We heat up and eat the kolomee i brought from Kuching, and the swedish Havreflarn, Vodka Chocolate and some Belgium chocolate.

Swedish Havreflarn and Finnish Vodka Chocolate and hungry people

Pik Wei!!! Don't spill Sin-Yee's-mum-made-for-Wuhong-Chilli-Sauce on my floor!!

long time no supper liaw.

this is how hall life should be...

This year all the noisy bunch are in the upper level of E Block.
Kah Hsiung n OKS next to me at E712. Teopeng, Vuimin, Josh in E8. Pik Wei, Joanne, Ellen, in E6/7.
looking forward to more suppers n noodle talks in the coming year. =)

Argh... My head...

Generally, Europe is littered with hundreds or even thousands of green bronze statues.
I have the least of interest in those statues of kings, who have zero creativity in naming their sons.
ie. Charles I, II, III; or Frederiks IV, V, VI; or Napoleon VII, VIII, IX; or whatsoever.

However, some of the more artistic bronze statues/sculptures by the artists do catch my attention.

These are some statues taken when I was in Eastern Europe.

Taken in the Main Market Square in Krakow, Poland.

Taken in front of the Old Town Hall in Bratislava, Slovakia.

And my personal favourite…
The ‘HEAD’ by the Vltava River, near Charles Bridge, in Prague, Czech Republic. =)

ARGH!!! MY HEAD!!!

头发的蜕变: 城市人->尘世人->诚实人

六个月...
从阳光的城市人...
到邋遢的尘世野人...
到憨厚的诚实人...
Whole 6 months didn't cut my hair.
See how long has my hair grown...

Ultimate EUROAM Completed

From:
Copenhagen (Denmark)->
Amsterdam (Netherlands)->
Den Haag (Netherlands)->
Brussels (Belgium)->
Paris (France)->
Nice (France)->
Monte Carlo (Monaco)->
Avignon (France)->
Barcelona (Spain)->
Rome (Italy)->
Vatican City->
Pisa (Italy)->
Milan (Italy)->
Venice (Italy)->
Munich (Germany)->
Fussen (Germany)->
Berlin (Germany)->
Warsaw (Poland)->
Krakow (Poland)->
Budapest (Hungary)->
Vienna (Austria)->
Bratislava (Slovakia)->
Prague (Czech Republic)->
Athens (Greece)->
Copenhagen (Denmark)->
Bangkok (Thailand)->
Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia)->
Kuching (Malaysia)

After one month of 'hardcore' traveling, I'm finally back to the land where I belong.

It sure wasn't easy.
We ate bread almost everyday.
We squeezed in the train cabin with 5 other ppl, while trying very hard to get ourselves to sleep. Sometimes, we didn't bath for few days.
We walked under the scotching sun. Very luckily we are blessed with no rain at all during our visiting day time.
We hopped from country to country mainly using the train.
In addition, we took a bus to Barcelona, and a ship to Rome, and plane to Athens & back to Copenhagen. (Which means we had tried all 3 mode of transport, land, sea, and air)
We have met different people, some tried to con us to buy bird seed in front of the Duomo, some aid us to board the correct bus to the airport, some just dunno how to keep their voices low when others try to sleep, some make great travel chit-chat company on the train.

There are many many more that I had gone through that just cant be written here.
There are so many photos that I wanna show, but it's just too slow to upload here in Kuching. But I'll upload them when I go back to Singapore.

So... til then, be patient. =)

A summary to all who miss me while I was away for the month. =)

3 man and errr... a bear on the Ultimate EUROAM Tour

Countless of train ticket, not including those that don't need reservation

Europe CONQUERED!!

My boots covered in dust after the trip. (one in front is before polishing, one behind is after)

My collections of Keychains from all the places I've visited

My feet. The tanned mark was there because I wore sandals for most of the trip until it was spoiled.