The weekend nightmare

Saturday, 11:30pm. The weekend nightmare began rather inconspicuously by a few loud noises of glass breaking outside. No one in the household suspected anything, because it was near the city council’s hard waste disposal day, and as per usual there are many fossickers moving about during day and night. Someone must have dropped something.

Sunday, 10:30am. The horror of the waking nightmare struck us like a spear making a hole in our heads – or, making holes in our car. As I was about to leave home for my usual daily mice injections, mum’s distressed voice brought me quickly to the driveway. And there it was – the rear window forming a mosaic of thousands of tiny pieces of glass, surrounding two big holes, the inside of which dangles the broken layer of tint... it was sunny and warm, with white fluffy clouds decorating a beautiful blue sky... with a long slit on the left side of the rear window, completely detached from the frame except at the bottom and top... and the street was cheerful and clean, with a row of red roofs and green lawns neatly lined up on each side... except a rear light cover completely smashed, no where to be seen... leaving only a comfortable, gentle breeze caressing our faces, and greeting the street where no one else seemed to be there.

Sunday, 11:50am. The next thing I knew, I was at the police station, sympathetically nodding at the constable, who was too busy for half an hour first, and then complained that this had been the 16th case around the local area this morning, and that there would be more to come.
“Collingwood supporters, they must be.” He said in disgust.
At my raised eyebrows he added, “They just lost yesterday.”
“Oh,sorry.” I sincerely apologised, “I don’t follow footy.”
“Well, I don’t follow Collingwood anyway.”

Sunday, 12:00 pm. On Springvale Rd looking for a Car Repair Service that is not closed on Sundays, but didn’t have any luck.
“I don’t want to go to Yarra Honda for the repairs, how expensive would that be!” says mum.
“But insurance will pay.”
“ – after we pay $500 excess first, and then have raised premium next year. If a glass window costs less than $500 elsewhere then I won’t go through insurance.”
“Plus the rear light. And the tint.”
“How much would this cost anyway?”
“Why did they target us? None of our neighbours’ cars got smashed.”
“If they catch the people would we get compensation?”
“Unlikely, according to the police officer. Most of these people have no money and no job to begin with.”
If driving with no rear view was a bit scary on big roads, parking and backing out would be like walking backwards with eyes closed.
“This is not very safe. We should get it fixed ASAP.”
“And another thing, mum, you can’t park and then leave the car like this. Especially not on the street like you normally do for work.”
“Then what the hell am I supposed to do?”

Sunday, 5:15pm. I’m sitting in the train towards Glen Waverley. The sun has began to set, turning the white clouds into grey and gold, and the warmth into coolness. My head feels slightly tight and heavy, as if someone has put an iron helmet that doesn’t quite fit on it. I am thinking of the many times at late night, when I felt my heart pounding fast at the sight of a shifty looking person at the tram stop, the only person waiting there other than me. I am thinking of the drunk people singing, swearing and screaming loudly on Friday night trains, beer bottles flinging in their hands. I am thinking of of the dim-lit residential streets nearby, deserted and haunted by only the howling trees in the winds. And then I am thinking of those paranoid news reports of violent crimes in Melbourne, bloodied murders and rapes, youth gangs attacking people... And then I begin to feel homesick, a feeling that has been there constantly, but never as much and as intense as now. I miss the days when I would walk in our residential block at midnight, when there was no street light and I could barely see anything, yet there was no sense of danger... I miss the summers when it would be past 10pm and the streets would still be full of people, families sitting on the kerbs of footpaths enjoying icy poles, men and women strolling along with their dogs, neighbours chatting away, primary school children playing badminton with their parents on the footpaths... I miss the days when the only insecurity I felt was towards the pickpocketers on buses and in subways, and I miss that place called Beijing where the notion of a youth gang consisted of some of my rebellious classmates who would gang up and skate on roads at 2am in the morning, or that when they get into a fight they would pull knives through each other but would never hurt anyone else who was not involved. In fact, I would consider many of them my friends by the day.

Of course, I’m sure, malicious assault and property damage do happen on a regular basis in Beijing, as it does in Melbourne. But for a city of 13 million permanent residents 8 million temporary dwellers, violent crimes are such a rare occurrence per capita. For Melbourne’s low population density, the amount of insecurity per capita is truly something I am uncomfortable with. There are times when I am totally sick and tired of this place, and today is one such day.

So many errors in previous post!

I can't explain why the last few sentences of my last post are in italics. Oh well, meh! :P

The lab and I

I'm back here again after a month of writer's stagnancy... Apologies for random switches of topics in this post because I'm quite tired now.

For the past few weeks life at the lab has been all about brains - cut up brains, glued brains, gDNA and RNA from brains, sectioned brains, stained brains, frozen brains, imaged brains... This strange, sometimes abstract, entity 'the brain' has become something that permeates all levels in my life. I now find it hard to socialize without subconsciously or consciously thinking of brains - whether it's because the person works in an area of research that involves the brain (which is EVERYONE who passes me by in the lab, except the cleaner), or because my lab friends react differently to social situations compared to medical friends (which makes me think of environment interactions and brain plasticity), or because I'm so worried when my lab techniques troubleshooting isn't progressing that I bore any person who stands beside me with all the details of my pain and frustration. With that last point, I feel sorry for Rahul :p. Dear me .. he must be scarred now.. ^^

So far I've been enjoying work here in the lab. I like the buzz, the laughs, the talking to rats part, the exhilaration when you find there is glimmer of hope that a technique problem can be solved, the challenge when you're perfecting a technique, and (as all poor med students like) the constant inflow of free food :p. Free food can be found everywhere. If you're free enough to search throughout the hospital, you'll find free meals almost everyday, morning and lunch ;D

Besides the free food, working in the lab also provides the opportunity to bask in the glory of some seriously respectable people. Terry O’Brien and Margaret Morris at lunchtime and meetings, Neil Strathmore and Geoff McColl at the lifts in the mornings :D. I’m such a nerdy fan of people involved in education/research :p. Apparently I’m not the only one being a nerdy fan – occasionally Mithun would drop by for lunch and give us a very ambitious talk on meeting the ‘Big Dogs’.

But perhaps what makes up the most enjoyable experience in the lab are the people working in it full time. For one, I’m glad that Rahul is always there with me and always keeps me company at lunchtime, in the office, etc. An interesting yet embarrassing confession to make is that I occasionally sing in the lab when there’s only the two of us doing work(mainly because it can get quite boring) :p. . Other than Rahul, I’m thankful that I have friendly supervisor Nigel who is actually quite child at heart – something that this immature person in me can relate to (besides to Rahul). Therefore, I feel comfortable around my supervisor, a little too comfortable perhaps. Sometimes I hurl some childish taunts at him and start some taunting war, jokingly, of course. Amusingly, he is also like a dad to me – telling me not to run in lab everytime I do so (which is almost 80% of my moving around time anyways). Guess I’m a bit of a handful as a student. The other people around in the lab are also incredibly helpful, with those precious few always being around to help you whenever you need help. Help is often invaluable when you’re new in the lab. They do it so willingly too, despite being so consumingly busy with their own work. However, conflicts do happen when a few people get annoyed with my supervisor for asking them to work on my project and show their frustration at me although I’m not in the position to make decisions. Sometimes I’ve shed tears over it in front of Rahul, but I pick myself back up eventually. :)

Ok, I’ve written a little too much now so it’s time to stop here. New update, in tomorrow’s journal club, Rahul’ll be presenting. Good luck Rahuligan! :D

Public Peril

An interesting conversation occurred in the Arts Centre lift today.

Girl 1: I wish this lift could go faster!
Girl 2: Remember in Physics, we talked about jumping in the lifts to actually make the deceleration faster?
Girl 1: Oh yeah... I REALLY want to try that one day.
Guy: You mean jump in a lift going down?
Girl 1: No. Jump in a lift without pressing the button. And see if it will start going down.
Guy: ... are you sure you want to do that?

Hong's note to self: in future do not get into lifts with these people.

-So ends my waiting-for-FACS-machine entry on the Wednesday evening-

Kentish photos

I thought I might as well link the photos here, since the blog has had a paucity of content added recently. Therefore, prepare for a long post. Whole set is here.

Pumpkins in my cousin's garden

A flower... can someone identify?

A sunflower lit from behind. It was about 4m tall! Actually, I saw a much larger sunflower two weeks ago, but blog entry and photos from that still to come.

Beach huts down at Tankerton

Another bee... I'm going to miss them when they go away for the winter. I do wish I had a macro lens, though.

The beach... note all the breakwaters.

Beach huts again. Weird to have them sitting on grass.

Proof that sand can be found... with difficulty.

But this is how most of the beach looks.

A gull looking out into the harbour, probably waiting for someone to clean the old fish out of their boat.

Reminds me of home, really...

I love the mottling on these pebbles, and the worn shell in amongst them.

So there are a few photos to bore/interest you. There are more in the full set, so you're welcome to view the rest if you're really bored at work. :)

fail

just got in trouble with a doctor.

dammit. is that just the way I am?

Need 48-hour days...

Sometimes the trick really is finding that silver/golden/chrome/pink/purple/blue/creamy/white/transparent lining of that cloud. Surely it must be somewhere in my head. *sniff around*

My Time in Kent

Note: sorry about this being a week or three late; I forgot to finish it earlier.

Well, I've had a wonderful weekend so far. Kent is very different to Cambridgeshire; to begin with, it is a much more rural area. My cousin's house is a converted farmhouse; one farmhouse has become 5 or 6 houses joined together, and the way of partitioning the rooms is quite interesting. It does not follow the typical method of joined houses, where there are essentially two houses sharing only one wall. This house has interleaved rooms... my bedroom is above the next-door neighbours' kitchen, and above me is one of their bedrooms. The house is like this throughout. Apparently some conversions are even on a scissor system, where two adjacent kitchens downstairs lead up via crossed staircases to two (or more) adjacent bedrooms upstairs. However, each person's bedroom is above the other's kitchen. The reason for this is that then the staircases don't take up much of each person's space, as they would were they to lead to a bedroom above the owner's kitchen.

My cousin rents out a series of allotments, for £5 per year. She has 3 runs full of chickens, and grows plenty of vegetables; the food here is, as one can imagine, delicious! The chickens themselves were very funny; in one of the runs, despite having an ark (large area for roosting), and two boxes designed for a hen to sleep with her chicks, there were about 9 hens sleeping in one of the small boxes (about 1 foot by 2 feet!). It was very cute to open the lid and see 9 sleepy-eyed hens peering up to see what had disturbed them. Not at all good for the hens' health, though, since there was redmite present, and having so many of them packed together must have helped transmission.

We spent the Sunday down at my cousin and her partner's beach hut at Whitstable. I am unused to English beaches, with their lack of sand, and much construction. The beach huts were on a grassy slope just above the beach, and it was very pleasant to have somewhere to sit and watch the sea. The weather was not excellent, but we did take the time to walk into the town and see the market there. We missed the fish market (Whitstable is a fishing village specialising in oysters), but saw some of the large oyster dredging barges docked. They have an amazing sail:deck ratio, though I suppose that would present a significant problem if sailing when not towing the dredges, especially when combined with the lack of stability due to a shallow draft and no keel.

I'm sorry about the brevity of this post, but I have a few more I need to write: last weekend in London, and the weekend before at the Battle of Mortimer's Cross (anyone following @enlightened0ne on twitter will have seen some photos already). I will post some photos of my weekend in Kent to Flickr tonight, I hope; I've had a very large number to sort out, and my computer has had precious little hard drive space, making that somewhat difficult.

Kent is a lovely region of the country; well worth visiting. It is both rural and suburban; filled with farms and twisting laneways (inevitably barely wide enough for one car, with tall 500y/o hedges encroaching on the road to either side), but dotted with villages every few miles. In this way rural England is a bit like rural Australia with all of the vast distances contracted; it's very easy to ride a bike from one village to the next, and farms tend to be quite small. I think that this must be a result of the previous feudal system, where small farms were given to people to work on the condition that they gave 1 part in 9 to the Lord, or whatever it was. These farms probably formed the basis for many of the farms that are still used. The walls and hedges that separate the fields are often medieval or pre-medieval. I feel that I was only barely able to begin to explore, and want to take a convertible and a month of holiday and just travel around, finding interesting villages, eating local food, and enjoying the winding roads. Only in summer, of course... but even then it rains fairly often...

Next post should be in the next couple of days...

The hours of living and the hours of aliveness

I enjoy my lab work in every way except the hours.

For the past month, I’ve been arriving at the lab on an average of 6:30am, which ranges from 5:00am to 7:30am the latest. This week I've come to lab at 5am everyday except today where I got there just past 7:00am. The better end of the deal is that by doing this I could go home at an average of 5:30pm, and could squeeze in about 75% of my spanish tutes. That explains why I've been just a bit too tired to write proper, more frequent blogs, despite there are actually some interesting things happening around.

I'm mainly working with mice and T cells straight out of a mouse, rather than cell lines, which is good since I don't know how many lines I'll contaminate with my clumsiness. Right now, and probably from now til China in mid-November, I'm coming in every weekend to inject mice with peptide, or doing post-injection monitoring, or finishing up unfininshed work. One "round" of injection is 14 days, and since I would need to repeat the experiment at least 3 times for replicability, September to November really isn't that long in this regard. (Too long, otherwise...) So what we've decided to do is start up a fresh group with fresh round of injections while the first group is in its last days of injection, so that leaves a week-long window where I could assay the T cells from the first group and do my results analysis, then my next group would be ready... and so the ball rolls on.

And so I'm rolling on as well. But in until the end of last week my body seemed unable to cope with the hours and slightly different circadian rhythm (i.e. getting up at 3:50am) and there are times when I was walking from Dept of Micro and Immuno to Redmond Berry I thought I would literally drop dead on the ground in a matter of minutes. But of course I didn't. Instead I ended up in Richard Barry then Raymond Priestly and looked around confusedly. Probably like some stoned druggie.

It’s amazing what tiredness can do sometimes. A couple of weeks ago I accidentally got on Lilydale train rather than my usual Glenny line, and it didn't register to me all the way until I got to Surrey Hills! (thanks to Alyssa, I actually remembered Surrey Hills as a suburb, or else I probably would've missed this cue as well) so I had to get off at Blackburn station and take a bus to Syndal to get mum to pick me up. But it wasn't all too bad... It’s been 7 years since I last visited Black Station, back when I was at the English Language School. So I had fun sniffing the lush green foresty smells, (yes, rain-sniffing and forest-sniffing are my addictions), reminiscing the old times, and laughing at my absent-brain-ness. Then 703 came and I hopped on, way too happily for even Hong’s post-stuffing-up standards, and alterenated between napping and amusing myself with interesting stop names such as “Wandinong Sanctuary”. Hmm, had it not been 7:30pm and pitch dark outside I think I would've hopped off the bus and had a look at what that place was like.

I really do hope everyone can find their silver linings in their black clouds. Or else just live as if it's the last day of your life. At least that's how I feel sometimes, even if it's literally...

Pay no mind to my black humour.

Another weeks flies by...

I realised that this weekend I will have been here for two months... one sixth of my time overseas. In many ways, I'm glad; it brings me closer to my trip to Turkey, to winter, and to China. It also brings closer the end of what is proving to be a rather boring time, as far as work and everyday life goes...

I don't feel intellectually stimulated by my work at the moment, and I feel quite disconnected from medicine. I would rather get my results as quickly as possible, write up my thesis and a paper, and then spend 6 months enjoying myself, than drag it all out over such a long period. Over the year, I'm sure that I will end up doing some interesting work, and I will hopefully have the chance to publish a paper or two, but it's not a good thing that I don't feel engaged with the work I am doing. I think that the problem is that there's no real context for what I am doing; investigating the role and function of a protein. Useful knowledge, maybe, but not directly relevant to anything, and I won't be the one to use the knowledge in the development of therapy...

Hopefully seeing my cousin this weekend and actually doing something different will allow me to refocus.