Well i guess i'd like to take you around my lab! (well at least my desk)

But first i'd like you to meet somebody,


This is 'becky' short for rebecca; or as i like to call her, "the murdering psychopath", lol, not discreet; dont be fooled by the pleasant smile and the innocent waving of 1.5ul microfuge tubes! This Croatian-Italian will take any opportunity she has to pour compounds such as -diphenylamine- and -concentrated sulphuric acid- down my shirt (it burns i tell you).

Aside from that she's a lovely girl who shares a lab desk with me! Thus making her my lab partner =D!

Lol, i'm joking (...no actually i'm quite serious) - she's good though. Quite a smarty, and she's from MLC; which means we share the same background of going to 'same sex' schools. Well we get along well when we need to, but at other times it's more of a battle for the flaming ethanol/bunsen burner. I digress!


We're using the G15 Lab at the QE2 complex just north of the UWA main campus. I guess all dent students know where i'm talking about because it's next to OHCWA or something like that, which is supposedly where dentists live (ask Collin, he'll tell you all about them).

It's an expensive complex in terms of materials and stuff, i recall one of the demonstrators telling the class that the object on my book (above pic) which is a P-20; (an automatic pipette that can pipette amounts as small as 1 microliter) can cost up to 400 bucks per instrument. Yes, and guess what? EVERY desk in the room has 3. A P1000 (can pipette up to 1ml), P200 (up to 0.2ml) and a P-20 (0.02ml). Since there are around 50 lab teams in both labs, you're looking at a fairly sizable amount already; and those are just pipettes.

This doesn't include those machines like the spectrophotometry machine, which costs something like 20k; and all the bunsen burners and fume cupboards etc. In short, it's a very expensive complex and if you screw up, you pay big time.


Becky tried to stab me through the neck with one of these once (she was joking - i hope).

Every week we do things like prepare agar plates with antibiotic agent; and then release a bacteria like E.Coli onto the plate to determine things like rate of spontaneous mutations; extract DNA from chicken liver homogenate...yes and all sorts of other wonderful and lovely things. This is my Molecular Biology of the Cell unit (SCIE1106) btw.

Sounds complicated doesn't it? Clearly you haven't been to the lectures yet. I think we spent something like a week studying the composition of a mitochondrion (an organelle in the cell). I was showing Collin (he's like a really smart MED student) my test questions and even HE was like woahh. which is saying something.

At the same time i guess it's nothing to be proud of since i couldn't answer any of them xDDD, but you know, the fact that the unit goes into so much detail is..quite annoying sometimes actually; especially when you have a weekly quiz to test how much you know.


Behind my hand you can see those agar plates on the desk containing ....well nothing yet, the E.Coli broth is in the P20 i'm holding.

One thing i've learnt from these lab classes is that you have to be amazingly accurate. If you're 1MICROLITER off in terms of your pipetting, or measurements, or calculations; you're screwed, and you generally would start all over again (yes, from the beginning); which means that many many students are usually in the lab for around 3 hours at a time. Praise be to God, i've only stuffed up once (when Becky stabbed me as i was pipetting) - and thus have only sat through a 3 hour molecular biol lab once.

Chem is a different story ._.

But yeah, i love my lab actually. It has a very homely feel, and (aside from Becky ._.) when you have collaboration experiments, you really feel the teamwork as everybody does their best to obtain the most accurate results (or to get out of there the fastest if you're a pessimist). The pain you all go through together....ALMOST makes you like family. almost =.='

Hm. I thought i was going to blog about something else, but no; i'll leave it there for today.

Have a great week all!

Fin~

why must you always?

Let me introduce you to somebody:


This relatively familiar figure goes by the alias of "captain awesome" lol, somehow fitting.

On my birthday (the 28th of July - hartley you slacker) he and another person that is very important to me, Sharon; and most if not all of my important friends gave me a somewhat large surprise party. It was planned, and although i know i didn't show it much; i was so surprised that i just didn't know what to say.

So i guess once i gathered myself, i figured it'd be a good start to say Thank you. It really made my week. I was more than surprised; and more than happy - and for everybody that turned up to make my day even better, thank you all; it was touching in so many ways.

On a few levels; i'm sorry for not blogging for so long, many reasons - and uni work is definitely one of them. But i'll talk about something that i've been thinking about over the past week.


So when somebody says, "I care about you" how often do they really mean it? Or when somebody tells you that they'll be there for you, how often will they keep that? Does it mean that they'll be there for you in the good times, and then when things get tough; they sorta just 'conveniently' have too much work for them to do? How many people that you know, actually, really mean what they say?

I for one, know fairly few; but i will say more than most. I say this time and time again, but i'm surrounded by people who are genuine and real in terms of the love and care that they offer. In the most troubling times, my best friends will tell me blatantly "we're not leaving you". Even those friends that i consider as good friends; seem to have the capacity to stick with me through some of the harder problems i face; and not just schoolwork that is.

i'm surrounded by people who are so, so amazing. I never doubt it; and if i ever did, i know that they'd just prove it to me time and time again.

Most of you reading this blog; i will be talking about you. This is sorta a big thank you letter; and at the same time, i want others who read this to see; whether you're a christian or not, what an impact you can make to the lives of people around you; what a difference you can be.


When you look around you and wonder just how many people there are who would stand up for you when things got tough - often many people get dissapointed. I guess there's always that saying; good friends are hard to find.

However, if you look hard enough - those people are out there; they exist.

There are many ways to put a smile on somebody's face. A good friend will put a real smile on your face;

some will make you smile because they're just so cheerful you can't not look at them and smile. Some shower so much care and concern on you that you have to smile because you know that somebody out there loves you so much. Some will see you sad; and not be able to do anything - but will try their best to make you smile, by tickling you or telling you jokes; and you cant help but smile because they put in so much effort to see you happy. Some give up their time for you; some put you above themselves. It's rare; but some even do all.


When you look around you hard enough; you'll find these people - just like i have. And it's funny how i keep finding more, every time i look. And to all those people who do make me smile; thank you so much.

I think one person asked me the other day, "why do you have so many posts on your blog thanking your friends?"

Honestly i dont ever think i could have enough; because my friends are just that amazing. My only response would be just that - i dont think i could ever post enough thank you's to actually do justice to the amount of times they have been there for me, not even close.


Leon and Sharon code-named the whole birthday thing: Operation awesome; and the whole thing was conducted via a series of e-mails completely behind my back. without me getting even a hint of it; which is.....fairly impressive if you ask me.

I enjoyed myself thoroughly; and it was so great to see people i hadn't seen in so long - just getting together and having fun. I know that that day holds so many memories that i will never forget, and for me memories are so so precious.

I guess i dont really know what i'm blogging about, as many of you would've guessed; this is just..i guess more of what i'm thinking - just some airy thoughts. Nothing more. I guessed i'm just surprised that everybody would do it for somebody like me. I really am blessed with the most amazing friends.


Most of whom i know cannot be repaid for what they've done for me.

Hahah it's so funny how i can recall exactly what happened on the day. From Sharon taking me out in the morning and buying me breakfast and lunch...until we met with my cuz, and the three of us walked laughing most of the way down to blue gum from garden city..

to everybody yelling surprise; and leon running at me (and almost knocking me out xD) to seeing faces that i hadn't seen in so long, and laughing and joking with people that i hadn't seen in too long.

to reading letters that people wrote to me; and feeling so special just from the things that people would write; Leon actually WROTE a letter (it's a first, trust me ._.) that really touched me. To people e-mailing me, still on the day; people MSNing me, just before 12 to say happy birthday one last time; and Sharon calling me at 11:59, though she was surviving a whole day on 4 hours sleep; to wish me goodnight, and to say the last happy 18th birthday i would hear.

Not forgetting the silent heroes like Ken, who single-handedly organised my birthday present (which mind you, was not cheap) and got around 20-25 people together to help pay for it. One thing he said that i wont forget was, "Since i can't afford it for myself, i figured i might as well get it for you."

People like Collin who drove to get all the food, and i'm sure he offered to do so, being collin. People like my cuz, who offered to come and meet us at Garden city, straight from work; just to spend that extra 15 minutes with us, just to make sure that i was happy.

I'm sure i haven't even mentioned everybody; but EVERYBODY that came. You made a difference.

People who MADE presents and wrote cards, that, i know firsthand, would've taken a shockingly long time to make. And i say this in terms of weeks; possibly months. You know who you are.

Thank you all;


You never fail to put a smile on my face, do you?

Thank you, and thank You.

Fin~