Exam craziness

"Hey, how are you?"
"Too good for Easter. I'm practically laughing like a mad woman everyday," I said.
"This is normal. What happened for the past 2 years, isn't normal."

Perhaps. What have exams done to us? When we are stressed, we complain; when we are not stressed, we complain. Oh dear... But I guess it's better to be in the latter group. :)

23 more days to finals! 33 days to freedom! :D

A spark in the lab

It was not even that late. The sun sets much earlier than usual because it was mid-November. Everyone scurried home way earlier than before to avoid the rain forecasted to start in a few hours time. But she couldn't go home because she needs to finish this procedure to get these batch of cells into the PCR machine so they can run overnight. He, obviously couldn't as well as he was seen busy pipetting solutions for the a few hours now. Who knows why he couldn't wait until tomorrow, everyone is so busy these days, it's hard to constantly keep track of what other's live is about. 

In the midst of the test tubes and the neon-coloured solutions, their eyes met. They were allocated seats on opposite sides of a bench but nothing this strong has stirred in their hearts before. Well, at least not in hers. But there is something about this moment...her breath paused and she could hear her own heart beating hard against her chest wall. His eyes, oh, his eyes were so beautifully created. It's as if he could stare straight into her soul, looking in her now stirring, no, melting heart. The blue flame from the Bunsen burner was the only witness to this magical moment.

To be continued...

Ok, how's my fiction writing skills? Can be the next best-selling author or not?

Hahaha....Let me entertain myself for a while because I was feeling a bit frustrated in the lab lately. I have been repeating the same procedure for 4 times, and without my supervisor around, it was pretty daunting to do everything on my own. But I did it! After consulting other senior researchers around, I finally managed to troubleshoot all the problems and got the right gene fragments for the plasmids (a.k.a. ring of genes that isn't part to your own genome).

Then the spark happened...

To transform the bacteria (transformation: bacteria are able to take up genes from surrounding and adopt it as their own), I have to use electric pulses to make these electrocompetent little things to take up the plasmids. I was so happy when the plasmids are assembled and I can't wait to put them into the E.coli. So after mixing the plasmid and the bacteria together, I put them into the pulsing chamber and pressed 'PULSE'. After a few seconds

SPARK!

I was utterly shocked. What just happened? My supervisor who just got back this morning was laughing at the side,
'Finally you've seen a spark in the lab!'
'WHAT JUST HAPPENED? Are they dead?'
'Yea, probably fried. You'll have to assemble new plasmids.'
He said while still chuckling. Not funny, not funny at all.

Ah, the beauty of science in reality! Experiments in school, college and the past 2 years in uni have just been too nicely choreographed to be fool-proof. Being in this research project really allowed me to have a real taste of science experiments. It's not a walk in the garden anymore, rather, problems always appear and even when you follow the procedure to the microlitres, things still won't be guaranteed to turn out the way you wanted it to be. One of my supervisors said even the machine operated PCR (Google: polymerase chain reaction) is a dark art.

On a brighter note, I can almost see the end of my project and it's week 6!

The sunset of Michaelmas Week 5 in Cambridge 

Giving an 'introduction'

How would you like to be introduced? Funny, witty, smart, composed, reserved?

Or do you like to introduce yourself because no one else could do you the justice? 

Since university started, I have been meeting new people almost every day. Ok, maybe not that many, but at least 1 per week except during exam term when everyone disappears in this city of nerds intense people. The most common form of introduction in this university is, "Hi, my name is _____. I am a (your year) from (college), doing (course)." 

So, having done this no less than 45678745 times, I am obviously very sick and bored with this kind of introduction, whether when I am being introduced to another person by a mutual friend, or when I had to introduce myself. I mean, ok, it makes sense, it packs the most vital information people need to know about you in 2 sentence, but it's sooooooo common and similar, at the end of a series of introductions (especially when in a group) I can't even remember anything anymore. Not that I am not paying attention or I am not interested in you, I really am interested! But human memory isn't like a computer, dude! Memory works best by association of a new piece of information with our experience or  something outstanding/witty/funny. With that dead boring, fill-in-the-form-style introduction, there's simply nothing unique that I could associate it. (unless you have something physically or behaviourly distinct that I could observe in a few seconds) 

I decided to try something new in the art of creating first impression. 

During the latest CUMaS freshers squash, I decided to go:
"Hi, I'm Christine. I'm a first year, Biological natural scientist, from Caius." Then tried to look a bit nervous (which I thought should portray first-year's awkwardness quite well.) 

"But why haven't I seen you at the freshers camp?"
"Oh I got the offer very late so I missed the camp."

Of course the freshers believed me, no doubt, with the help of by my fellow third year wingmen. :P They don't have a reason to not believe me. 

So after we finished out 10 minutes chit-chat and the awkward silence starts to sink in before people start moving away to another group of people to talk to, 

"Actually...I'm a third year."

"WHAT?! THEN WHICH PART OF WHAT YOU JUST TOLD ME IS TRUE?"
"All were true but I am not exactly a bio natsci, I'm a medic, who's on her third year, but is doing a bionatsci course. All else are true."

Not a very good first impression when trying to instill sense of trust and reliability a senior should have, but heck, when they know me they will know how am I really like, so that shouldn't be a big deal. :P (and now they will remember me forever for being 'the senior who cheated me during the freshers squash')

But my point is - the freshers' response when I told them the fake introduction and the true introduction were so different. When I told them immediately I am a third year, they were much more reserved in their answers.  They were more passive and I had to ask formal/boring questions like 'so how are you finding the first few lectures?' and they gave me a omg-so-generic answers. Then the awkwardness sinks in, then we move away and never talk to each other again. 

Ok probably not that bad. 

BUT the response was immensely different when I told them I am their fellow first year. Yes, the personality of the freshers I decided to prank on may be different but the responses I got when I told them I am a first year are generally much more...genuine. They would give some generic answers, but they also complained, they teased for a bit. And it's just generally warmer, and we instantly connect. There is an expected sense of empathy. How nice would it be if we could all just put down our guards for a bit when meeting people? 

(and my dear freshers, please forgive this dino for pulling this social experiment/prank on you poor innocent souls on the first moments we meet. Don't worry, I won't do it again. Do ask for help whenever you need anything... :) ) 

Then there's another instance I introduced this junior to another friend from third year. 

"Hey, meet  XXX. She is XXX2's sister." I said.

"HEY don't introduce me like that! I am me...."
You won't believe how scared and shocked I was. Oh dear she's gonna hate me forever now, this stupid senior. She was so quiet, so gentle before and I really didn't expect that to come after that introduction which I thought was perfectly fine. I thought it was the easiest way to relate and link 2 people. The sisters shared the same background, so telling my friend about this mutual point should be a good launching pad to help them strike up a conversation. Turns out, it's not always the case. 

Perhaps I should put in more thoughts when introducing someone. I get annoyed and obviously not very impressed too when people introduced me wrongly. ('Hey, meet Christin----a.' -_-"" )

Your introduction is your first impression, the first moment with this new person, who could possible unveil a completely different phase of your life. One wrong step and that's probably the end of the story. (Unless you are obliged to meet each other every day.)

How would you like to be introduced? How do you usually introduce a person to another friend?