samu't saring halu-halo

whew! (for now)

wow, i never realized that i can be deathly calm in a potentially high-stress situation. my student seminar went okay, in my opinion. it's not as perfect as i wanted it to be but i can always work on that for future presentations, should i decide to pursue a research career. there were fewer attendees than usual, because i'm not popular and it's thanksgiving week so everyone is already in vacation mode. at least, i only see fewer blank, i-don't-understand-what-you're-talking-about faces in the audience. the whole presentation clocked in at 45 mins, which is quite impressive for me since i tend to babble, and i was able to answer most of the questions fired at me. the best part is, i looked good. really good. heh-heh.

to indulge my friend edski, here's my "student seminar" look: hair let down but pinned on the sides with tiny claw clips, definitely kept the glasses for that serious look, simple eye makeup (mascara and gray eyeliner) and lip gloss, salmon tailored top, ash-charcoal pants (straight leg cut that sits right at the waist) and a pair of kick-ass brown booties in distressed faux leather with 4-inch platform stilleto heels. taray noh? i was contemplating on wearing the matching jacket but i might end up looking like a newscaster so i'll just save that one for my IP defense. besides, it would get crinkled inside my wool coat...oh, the fabric looks wrinkle free. nice!

i think i can relax a little bit for now. time to treat myself to my aunt's good 'ol thanksgiving turkey. woohoo!

---

after 6 hours of walking around campus in those booties...

leche! i should've brought an extra pair of comfy shoes to change into after my seminar. now, my feet's covered with little bandages. *sniff*

calm before the storm, part 2.1

i'm finally done with my seminar slides for tomorrow's presentation. like done DONE. that i'm not going to add or take out any more slides. i'm sick of looking at it but i still have to do another timed presentation just to make sure i can keep it under 45 mins and that my english sounds understandable and not kinamatis (which it was when i did the last two practice talks). my IP adviser thinks that the presentation itself looks good to go. i guess it's just up to me to deliver it to perfection.

tick, tock...

hmm, let's talk about needless stuff..what shall i do with my hair for tomorrow? should i do a french twist or keep it down? i should've set an appointment at the salon and have it trimmed, even put some face-framing bangs. i guess it's too late for that. what else..is it going to be the salmon or periwinkle tailored top? should i wear the suit jacket or not? how about makeup? should i wear my glasses? should i pluck my eyebrows? sheesh...  

that reminds me, i had this weird dream the other night where i chopped my hair into an uneven layered cut and i shaved my eyebrows. i looked so ugly and hairless that puffy was torn whether to acknowledge me or not upon seeing me. man, it felt so real that i have to check my eyebrows as soon as i woke up.

in other news, my research adviser did actual lab work today with his undergrad students. i just happen to be there at the worst possible time because the lab is filthy and it's not even my shit that made it that way. how would it be when i haven't done any serious lab work for the past month since i was busting my brains out for this friggin' proposal? it's just so unfortunate that i have to face him while he was trying to look for clean stuff. i bet he was missing his last graduate student who is very meticulous when it comes to keeping the lab clean. it's just so embarrassing because i was the only grad student at that time -- one was at home sick, the other two had TA work to do and the last one went home to celebrate after she did her IP defense. what can i do? i was grading his exams at that time. looks like we'll be receiving another "love" email from him...

yes, i'm making a blog entry about this song

Here Comes Another Bubble v1.1 - The Richter Scales

thanks for the distraction, puffy. now, i'm torn between moving westward or crossing the atlantic after getting the degree. but then again, i have to get the degree first before worrying about this. which means, i have to get through this friggin' seminar and proposal defense first. sheeesh! 

seriously...tico berries?!

it's friday night and i turned down a possible night out of salsa dancing in favor of school work. i don't know what got onto me but i've never felt so unprepared for a seminar. instead of concentrating really hard to organize my slides, i stare at my laptop screen until i fall asleep or i browse online stores shopping for new clothes or electronic gadgets and other whatnots or watch episodes of private practice, grey's anatomy and ugly betty online since we currently don't have cable. my powerpoint presentation is halfway done but i can't seem to finish it. why do i have to feel lazy just when i'm almost done? whyyyyyy?

since i have nothing else to do except work on my slides, i decided to do one of my cooking experiments. the dish: stuffed tomatoes. i found the recipe online and modified it a little bit. my version of the stuffing consists of ground lean turkey, thai rice, peas, feta cheese, gouda cheese, parsley flakes, bread crumbs and brie cheese spread, sprinkled with black pepper and kosher salt. to prepare the stuffing, just stir fry the aforementioned ingredients in extra virgin olive oil except for the bread crumbs and brie cheese spread until the meat is cooked through -- i had leftover rice so i didn't have to spend 15 minutes cooking a new batch. afterwards, put the stuffing in the de-pulped tomatoes (choose the really big ones), top with bread crumbs and a slice of brie cheese spread, and bake for 25-30 minutes at 350 deg F. tada! dinner is served.

stuffed tomatoes (topped with burnt brie)

this is what happens when you get distracted from reading the wine spectator while waiting for your food to be done...burnt brie cheese on top! ah, that doesn't matter. i'm too hungry to mind -- ate all four large stuffed tomatoes and i still have a lot of stuffing left. i guess i have to get more tomatoes then. or eat the stuffing by itself.

now, i also have to think of some dish where i can use the tomato pulps..

p.s. tico berry is (i think) the couture fashion name for this tropical fruit, which is not a berry, that i love to eat since i was a little girl. i guess rambutan doesn't sound sexy and cute, especially if it is going to be associated with the gorgeous adriana lima. which reminds me..i still have a can of those "tico berries" in my pantry. i better eat them so i can stay beautiful. after all, "tico is life!" :)

starting off the week

as i was eating my quick breakfast of bananas and oatmeal, i was reading this article in yahoo! about supergroups -- collaborations among big time musicians. i eventually came upon this video clip and it reminds me of a childhood memory when my siblings and i would watch the television after our siesta and sing along as well. i think my sister was effecting tina turner and i, cindy lauper. as for my older brother, he was trying to be bruce springsteen. my younger brother was just raising his hands in the air. good times, good times...

USA For Africa - We Are The World

spiraling down?

as i am waiting for my baked salmon topped with feta cheese and parsley to cook in the oven, i just wanted to write how frustrated i am today. so frustrated that i wanted to hit anybody. or anything...

the day started out okay. i woke up early enough to prepare breakfast before coming to work, which is a good sign because it's always a good day when i come to work on a full stomach. although i arrived at work midmorning, which i didn't initially plan on doing, i was still able to finish the experiments i needed to do in the morning. it all went downhill late in the afternoon when i was purifying my already "purified" bitchy little looping protein. i put purified in quotation marks because i thought it was highly pure when i ran it on an affinity column. turns out the brat brought other stuff that i don't like. so this time, i ran the sample on a 120-mL size exclusion column, in the hopes that i can isolate each of the other stuff. for the non-science geeks out there, a size exclusion column is used to isolate the components of a protein mixture, as long as the difference in size is huge, i.e. 39 kDa vs. 29 kDa or even better, 39 kDa vs. 10 kDa. the column has little beads with even little holes on it that act as a molecular sieve. as the mixture passes through the column, the small-sized components pass through the holes and get stuck inside the beads while the large components just pass outside the bead. ideally, the big ones get out of the column first and the little ones elute out last. 

here's a quick background info on my bitchy little protein..it's tiny with a huge GST tag attached to it (for ease of purification and to keep it well-behaved). supposedly, it should come out clean after a GST affinity chromatography purification. however, the bugger started breaking up after a few days in the fridge, indicating there was something eating it up. in short, the "pure" fusion protein actually had three components: the fusion protein, the GST tag and the untagged bitch itself. i have proceeded to the next step which was proving whether it binds to my DNA (which it did), but i'm getting so many complexes because both the GST-tagged and the untagged protein bind the DNA and there are three ways these two proteins can combine to bind the DNA. bottom line: the more stuff you see, the more complicated life becomes.

to make the story short, the purification worked alright, except that (1) there were a lot more components than what i expected to see, (2) the separation of these components wasn't clean enough, even if the sample was dripping through the column at 1 mL/minute, and the most frustrating of all, (3) the last component that came out (which could be the stuff that i want) went to the waste container. the instrument that i was using is actually automated so there's no reason that i would not be able to collect that last fraction. unfortunately, the bitchy little protein defied all odds by eluting out of the column way after the void volume unlike the rest of the components. what makes me so upset is i was sitting through the whole experiment, staring at the computer screen and manually controlling the fractionation of the desired components. just when i saw the telltale sign that the sample mixture has passed through the column (hence, the void volume), i started cleaning up my working area in the other lab room on the opposite end of the hallway. i was just gone 10 minutes before i checked on the said instrument (since it was still running the program) before calling it a day and when i saw the signal from that last component, my happiness quotient just went poof. ten minutes!!! how would i know that friggin' bitch would hang on a wee bit longer on the column before deciding to come out?!?! all those three hours of purification down the drain. although i was able to collect the rest of the components, thinking about that one fraction that could most likely be the one that would get me into the next step, or get me to graduate...why didn't i wait for another ten minutes before cleaning up my stuff?!

aaaaaarrrrggggh!

in other news, it's halloween night and i don't know what to wear for a costume party. i have an idea but that would mean i better brace myself for a major embarrassment. darn, i should've bought a mask or something to cover my face so no one would recognize me!

worst murphy's law (for now)

independent research proposal/seminar + dissertation research that's not showing any breakthroughs + sneaky management of the apartment i'm staying in - source of inspiration and sanity = stress levels up the roof.

i am beginning to hate this semester. why does it have to happen during the fall season?!

okay...think happy thoughts. happy thoughts...HAPPY THOUGHTS!

excuses not to do work

excuse 1: buy neil gaiman's newest book "the graveyard book" and have him sign it.

neil happens to be one of the featured authors in this year's national book festival. daimira introduced me to his works in college and i have loved his stories ever since. i'm not a die-hard fan but it would be nice to at least see him up close and chat with him for a bit while he signs my copy of the book. last year, i was planning on getting terry prachett's signature on his latest work "making money" but i wasn't able to due to bad planning. i've learned my lesson, alright. sure, i woke up early and had a good-sized breakfast. despite the scheduled maintenance on the subway's tracks, i was still able to get to the venue in time to grab my hands on neil's book before it sold out. i tell you, that was the only book i recalled being sold out within three hours in this book festival. even more so, i was able to get in queue before his scheduled signing. i thought i would be done with this in two hours. i was wrong. turns out, he has a huge fan base. and i mean huge! kids, teens, even adults adore him. how else could his book sold out? apparently, i was at the far end of the queue by the time he started signing books. by far end, i mean more than a mile away. okay, i don't mind waiting; after all, i waited 20 minutes for the metro to take me to the venue, walked for a mile from the metro station to get through the numerous pavilions in order to get my hands on that book and waited for an hour before i finally paid for it. however, the weather was crappy today, alternating between hot humid weather and light rain showers. bring 'em on, i'm ready. i was hopeful that he'd get to me soon. unfortunately, my breakfast got all used up after two hours of standing in queue and i was feeling dizzy because of it and the crappy weather. since i went to the book fest alone, there was no one i can bribe to look after my spot in the queue (darn, puffy! why did you leave?) while i grab something to eat. what am i gonna do? hunger won over. so, i ended up having palak paneer (indian spinach curry) and japanese sweet green tea at teaism. hmm, makes me want to go vegetarian...

excuse 2: shop for tailored pants to wear for my student seminar.

i know, i know...i haven't even written my independent research proposal yet and i'm worrying about what to wear for the seminar. i have a couple of nice pants that i had custom made back home but the tailor who made them is not used to make clothes for women, so the cut wasn't exactly perfect, meaning it was a men's cut. i'm quite picky when it comes to choosing clothes. i still wear those pants when i feel like dressing up or when i'm out of clean jeans. anyway, i was planning on just checking out zara's pants after i finished my business at the book fest. i ended up buying a full suit instead. it's not even a bargain given my meager budget! but they fit perfectly...well, except for the length of the pants (man, why don't they have petite sizes?!) and it's hard to find clothes that really fit. good news: i don't have to worry about what to wear on my seminar. bad news: i'll be broke by wednesday when i pay for my next month's rent. oh well, i have a month to think over whether to return them or not.

excuse 3: buy groceries

i was so tired from clothes shopping i decided to head straight home. excuses, excuses!

aqua room

the boys got this (formerly) filthy fish tank from the lab upstairs; the owner had graduated a year ago and no one has bothered to clean it up. it's amazing the fishes still lived through the murky waters. after two hours of scraping off algal blooms and sucking out dirty water, this tank is now sitting right beside my office area..

office pets

good news: i have something else to keep my mind occupied other than puffy.

bad news: distraction alert!

i'm doomed.

nirvana mode

don't you love it when things make sense when you least expected them to after figuring them out for the longest time? here are two cases..

1 (warning: really geeky situation up ahead) when i took Nucleic Acids in my first semester of graduate school, the professor who taught the course that time, who happens to be my dissertation adviser as well, introduced us to the concept of persistence length in worm-like coil models such as DNA in mathematical terms. given that i tend to understand technical terms better if i understand the underlying math -- one of the effects of having an interrupted teenager-hood, you can just imagine how i struggled trying to make sense out of this seemingly alien concept for a long time. when i did my candidacy exam, my graduate committee asked me to explain the same concept; i think i didn't really do a good job explaining it. but i passed, so it's all good. since i am currently my adviser's TA in a similar course for senior undergrads, i have to convince myself that i really understand the concept so i can explain it to his students, just in case they ask me. he did a lecture on this concept today and while my attention was divided between listening to him and reading this article related to my independent proposal, i absentmindedly wrote down his lecture notes on this article that i was reading. i don't know what caused it -- could be the weird effect of a caffeine-charged brain on a sleep-deprived body, but a mental light bulb suddenly lit up when i rewrote those scribbled notes on another sheet of paper. i have finally made sense the math behind the worm-like coil model! don't ask me to derive it because i don't know how :D

2 i cannot understand why i couldn't bring myself to write a 5000-or-so-word, about five pages, independent proposal when i wrote my (very rough) first draft for my 15-page candidacy paper in about one hour, although coincidentally in both cases, i was/is in a very similar and stressful situation that is totally unrelated to grad school work. i finally realize why as i was writing this entry; when i write any scientific paper, thesis or proposal, i'm used to writing the methodology first. my undergrad adviser taught me that. i did the same technique in writing my candidacy paper and it was easy because i actually did the preliminary experiments. unfortunately, i have no idea what experiments to use to implement specific aims for my independent proposal. i chose a topic quite different from my current research that i'm quite interested and comfortable in working on. with that realization in mind, i am hoping to finally start writing a rough draft for this friggin' proposal and submit it to my IP adviser for his comments and suggestions for improvement. good luck to me!

*smiling like the cheshire cat in alice in wonderland*

haay, my mind's at peace...for now.