#lelist

Shallow (Ideal) Things:

Jenny: Brunette, Tall, Curly Hair, Facial Hair (if worn well)/ Five o Clock shadow, Makes First Move, In Shape, NOT WHINY, NO SNAPBACKS, Better Watch His Comments (no sexist remarks), can cook (bonus), Nice Smile

Rose: Brunette, Tall, Hair (No Preference), Clean Shaven, Makes First Move, In Shape, Long Legs, NOT WHINY, No sweatshirt/sweatpants combo, NO BASEBALL HATS, Can Cook (bonus), Nice eyebrows/jawbone, Nice Smile.

(We are well aware that these are shallow- they are preferences and are not an insult to anyone’s taste or style. No disrespect to any men here)

Traits: 

Jenny: Knows what he wants and goes after it

Both: Loyalty, Honesty, Patience, Motivated, Caring, Spontaneous, Silly, Respectful, Chivalrous, Romantic, Gentleman, Likes to Travel, Not Huge Party-goer, Worldly, and Genuine. 

BONUS POINTS:

Accent (+5), Plays along with my jokes (+10), Does not complain when going to things we like (soccer games, musicals, etc.) (+20), (Jenny: Willing to listen to me rant about books or well read), (Rose: plays soccer) (+20)

PDA: Can kiss hands, forehead, cheek, and head in public

Our very own shallow, impractical list.

1. Well Dressed (aka suit) 

Jenny: No hipster nonsense

Rose: goes out of the box with clothing

2. Well Spoken/ Polite

Jenny: Acts like a Gentlemen, and No Slang

Rose: Does not curse (unless angry)

3. Hobbies

Jenny: He can do what he wants

Rose: 2 hobbies- one for him and one for me

4. Job

Jenny: Well aware of job (knows job well). Respects my job

Rose: Respects my job.

5. Education

Jenny and Rose: Cares about school

6. Maturity

Jenny: Acts mature

Rose: Same place in life

7. Good with children

8. Willing to try new things

9. Willing to defend/ humor me

10. Accepts weirdness

I suck at catching buses. No, really. I suck with buses in general. Listen to the story of my weekend:

Friday morning: Jurong East MRT à Work On Friday morning, I barely made it to work on time - it was raining cats and dogs, and I was running like a cheetah wearing stilettos and carrying pumpkins (a.k.a. I was trying but not succeeding). The 8 AM bus was just pulling away from the curb as I scrambled up to it and tapped the window for the driver to stop. I was drenched and fairly sure all my superiors inside the bus were laughing at me, but hey, I made it.

Friday: Theoretically, Singapore (SG) à Johor Bahru (JB), JB à Penang I was responsible for booking a bus from Johor Bahru, the district in Malaysia closest to Singapore, to Penang in the north, and I failed twice with two different cards. I blame Visa's security restrictions (the thought of international ID theft prevention is nice, but it really worked against me here). My friend had to book it for me, and I'm very grateful that he did, otherwise none of us would have made it to our vacation destination.

Friday evening: Work à Jurong East MRT, Kranji à JB As if hanging in limbo for several hours, running between lab and computer room trying to make plans and purify proteins at the same time, wasn't stressful enough, I missed the normal 5 PM bus from work back to mainland (mainisland?) Singapore, so I had to wait for the 6:40 PM bus. I couldn't officially do any lab work (and unofficially, I had packed away all my stuff in the -80 and couldn't timely thaw out anything), but my favorite PhD student let me stick around lab and ask questions about his project.

Luckily, I had brought all my luggage (ONE BACKPACK FOR THE LONG WEEKEND. WHO'S A PACKING BOSS NOW?!) with me to work, so I grabbed 6:40 bus, some dinner, and the MRT to Kranji. I just made it to the 170, which then took us across the border. We couldn’t get JB to Penang, so the plan was JB to KL and then KL to Penang. JB-KL was a midnight bus, so the plan was to sleep there (thus saving on lodging costs) and take our next bus early the next morning. Our JB-KL bus was TWO. HOURS. LATE. I’m sure there are worse things, but waiting 2 hours for a bus when you want nothing more than to pass out on the ground was pretty irritating in that moment. A little good company makes everything better, so we killed time until our bus arrived.

Saturday morning: KLà Penang We arrived in KL around 6 AM, ate breakfast in front of a Hindu temple (and what a beautiful sound the temple bells are!), wandered around the city a little, then took our 9 AM KL-Penang bus. Unfortunately, the traffic was HORRIBLE, and instead of arriving in Penang mid-morning, we arrived at 4 PM.

That really killed our plans for the day, since every attraction was closed by the time we picked and settled into a hostel. We decided a walk around the city would be a good use of our time, so we walked around Little India towards the coast. We saw the outside of a blue mansion and a colonial fort (sadly, both were closed), then found a park to view the coastline. Georgetown is a port city, so there was no skyline except the one created by trading ships. Unique view. Then we made our way through Medan Lebuh Campell, or Cambell St. Mall. And let me just say - Malaysian street food is SO GOOD. We ate freshly cut guava and juicy watermelon off the back of a fruit truck; sweet corn and boiled peanuts from a street vendor; and Chinese herbal tea and almond/jelly wobbly from a tiny tea stall nestled into a side street. The last two weren't a huge hit for me, but overall, everything was delicious. We wandered towards a mall with Hritik Roshan's face on it, then back towards our hostel for the night. One of my friends was telling me, and I am inclined to agree, that Asian cities tend not to have a lot of grafitti or murals, but I did find this little interesting bit:

Sunday morning: Hostel à National Park The next day, we got up early and went via the 101 bus to a national park. We took an awesome (easy!) hiking trail to Monkey Beach. Of the hiking trail, I must say - I felt like I was in Disney's "A Jungle Book" the whole time. Lots of dense greenery and vines. My friends call me "Princess" because I'm delicate or high-maintenance or something to that effect, but I managed to hike and keep up, so score 1 for Princess!

When we reached Monkey Beach, we had lunch and frolicked in the warm Malaysian water. I can't say enough about the beaches in Southeast Asia. They are beautiful and by far the most pleasant I've ever been to; I would go so far as to say they're magical. This one didn't have the clearest water, but it was perfectly clean and the perfect temperature. There is nothing I love more than just floating in the water and soaking up the sun.

We also tried – drumroll please- jetskiing! Or "Skidoo", as my Canadian friend calls it. I wish I had a picture of us on our aquatic vehicles, but we didn't think to capture those epic 15 minutes photographically. I’d rank that as one of the best experiences of the weekend.

There was a lighthouse at the top of a hill that supposedly takes 45 minutes of hiking to reach. We only had 30 minutes until it closed, so we raced up the hill. My friend made it up in 10 minutes, and a few more of us joined him 8 minutes after that. The view was worth the workout (I couldn't photographically capture that either, but pictures are floating around somewhere...). We then hiked back to watch the sunset from a pier in the national park:

Sunday evening: National Park à Hostel We caught the bus back to our hostel (the bus actually overshot, and I caught this and led us back. Big moment for the Princess who once overshot a highway exit by 22 miles.), took the shortest showers of our lives, then caught a free bus to our ferry terminal. Then, for the first time in my life, I rode a ferry! We were awkwardly placed with cars though, which made me feel like cargo rather than a passenger…

Sunday night: Penang à KL Anyway, we caught our midnight Penang-KL bus. This was uneventful, as most bus rides should be. We arrived in KL at 4 AM, so we ordered various varieties of roti pratas at a 24-hour restaurant and played cards til sunrise. The Petronas Towers were calling our names, so we trekked across the city to it. Pretty easy, since you can see the towers from anywhere in the city. And finally, I can partially cross this off my list:

Unfortunately, since it was Hari Raya when we visited, the towers were closed, so no view from the top. Even if it hadn’t been a national holiday, tickets aren’t sold on Monday, so there was really no way we would’ve climbed to the top that day. Still, the towers are impressive and the shopping was good, so I walked away a happy camper.

Chinatown called out to us next, so we picked up some souvenirs there and made our way back to the KL-JB bus.

Monday afternoon: KL à JB, JB à Kranji This 3:30 KL-JB bus had a little more interesting ride in mind for us: it broke down shortly after our first snack break, so all the guys had to get out and push the bus. It spluttered to life again after that, so - good job, manly men! J We made it back to JB (and consequently, SG) later than intended but were still able to catch the MRT home.

Alright, so out of all the buses I took this weekend, I only missed one. Eight out of nine isn’t such a bad success rate.

Again, good company makes everything better, and I will definitely miss these people. I like to think we’ve become a tight crew over the last few weeks, so for those of you reading – hit me up when you’re in California, son!

I haven't written anything for quite a while - sorry Amma and Dadda!:)  In any case, here is how my week went:

Work - learned even more and more, which is exactly what I came here to do, so no regrets. 1. Ethanol is god Since my lab is situated basically in the land of oil refineries and chemical factories, no flames. No bunsen burners, no flame-sanitizing things. Everything is cleaned and sanitized with ETHANOL. EtOH, FOOL! I must admit though, this is a little weird to me; by California law, ethanol isn't valid as a sterilizing agent. You must sterilize with bleach, and EtOH can only be used for superficial cleaning.

2. Cells don't die -  if you put them in a glycerol suspension. Glycerol is a cryopreservative, which means it prevents water crystallization in cells when you freeze them. For all my cheimaphobiacs out there (people with a fear of cold), hypothermia is damaging because it causes the water in your cells to crystallize, expand, and pierce your cell membranes. If you keep thawing your hands as they freeze and refreeze, this is what kills your cells. I asked if glycerol can be used to preserve humans or other mammals in the same way (without killing them). No, it can't. There are techniques, but this is not one of them.

3. If you open any media outside of a biosafety cabinet (BSC), it is instantly desterilized. Don't do that. (This one is also weird to me because my last lab didn't even use these. Glad I was exposed to this device!)

4. Harvesting Cells! Man, cells are just like babies. You gotta feed them and keep them warm and coddle them and treat them gently. Then you centrifuge them at 4,000 rotations per minute, freeze them in liquid nitrogen, and stick them in the -80. (Not the babies. Monstrous.) When we put the cells in liquid nitrogen, we heard this epic fizzling/burning sound, and my supervisor was like, "The cells must be screaming inside." HAHAHAHAHAHA

And now for play:

Dammit, random rotation! I definitely had this oriented correctly before I uploaded it... 1. Marche The CUTEST Swiss restaurant ever! Located just outside the Somerset MRT. All the decoration has this Swiss Alps/Alpenlebe vibe, and basically all the food is fresh (straight from the marche), and you just point to things and people cook them for you. It's AMAZING and delicious! I had a Swiss rosti, which is shredded potatoes cooked in a shizzton of oil, sour cream, and onion. Fattening, but SO GOOD! My Singaporean friend Risha's birthday is next week, but she's flying out of Singapore this weekend, so this was my last chance to treat her. She picked this place and I must say, good choice!

2. Ladies' Night in Singapore Of all the benefits my gender has, this one is among the coolest. My friends and I went dancing, and we got into the SWANKIEST club in town, Avalon - an impressive building of glass with chandeliers, the coolest ambient lighting, and view of Marina Bay. INCREDIBLE. Oh, and I got in for FREE. THASS WASSUP! The DJ played some hip hop, which made me happy, but majority of it was pop. I can still dance to that, so okay cool fine. Then we lost one of our friends, looked for her for two hours, stressed A LOT. She turned up the next day at work, so it was all good. I WISH I HAD A PICTURE OF THIS PLACE BUT MY PHONE DIED JUST AS WE GOT THERE! ARGH! I'll snag some off a friend and put them in a later post. Wednesday iskind ofa random night for Ladies' Night, but everything is free for the ladies - it really adds up to a good business strategy for the clubs, and a good win for me. "Something nightlife-y" is off the list! 

Waiting on my ish to dry. Ah, midnight laundry - can't escape tradition. Definitely owe my friend for letting me borrow his laundry card. Anyway, few updates:

1. I learned how to restriction-digest things. It's a way of cutting DNA at very specific places called restriction sites; once you figure out certain parts of the DNA sequence, you can manipulate the it with restriction enzymes (so much restricting up in here!). You can use it to make a circular DNA plasmid vector into a linear one, etc.

2. Night Safari - went to it as a child, revisited as an adult (or a 20-year-old. Whatever category that falls into.) Got the park hopper pass, so I can visit the zoo and bird park at some point too. Definitely was interesting. Although some of the attractions were closed, like the lion feeding (not done on Sundays. Apparently, lions don't eat on Sundays.) and "Suspense Bridge" or something, we still managed to see tons of deer, mousedeer, hippos, elephants, civets, tarsiers, a centipede (single. One is creepy enough.), a BAT CAVE (THAT'S RIGHT!) where bats fly by your face and devour fruits right next to your head, a flying squirrel, pelicans, crocodiles, otters, a porcupine, baby river cats, and more noctural things. Got some of that "I'm in Jurassic Park!" feeling, and the fun is only amplified with a group of 12-14. And walked away with a [stuffed] giraffe! Still gotta name him/her/it, though.

3. Was supposed to go to Malaysia this weekend, but reservations fell through and had a weekend of fun in Singapore instead. Between the lunches, dinners, and shopping, I didn't feel the lack of Malaysia too much. Ice cream and froyo (four times in the last 3 days. I'm stepping up my sugar and dairy game.), Arab St, Holland Village (which was a slight disappointment only because we saw the restaurants after we had eaten at the food court - FAIL). On a sidenote, I love that my guy friends will tolerate me pausing our mall walk to go shoe shopping. And that they actually ask me about what I've bought and give me commentary about it. Like actually. It's refreshing (if you're reading this, keep up the good work!).

Tonight, my bffl, my Turkish friends, and I were going home from dinner, but we stopped in Clarke Quay to see this Turkish ice cream place (and enjoy the night view); the person serving us had all kinds of cool slight-of-hand tricks. These two gentlemen got us our ice cream too! Super sweet :)