I have joined the ranks of the people who grab a Starbucks for lunch. I suppose it might not count in some people's books that I drink only fake cold coffee (read: mocha frappucino), but I bet after sitting next to the coffee machine and breathing in the smell for another month -- or perhaps another 6 months after that -- I am probably going to upgrade to the real stuff. Horrors! This is London sucking me into its mob of working drones with bad food.

I am also sick to death of shopping. And fashion. I have waited four years and those waists keep getting higher and higher, when I google for "low waist dresses" practically anything that isn't a bandeau or empire cut is a low waist even if it's a few centimetres from the bust. HELLO!! I think I will faithfully stick to my jeans, shirts and workpants for quite a while longer until this ridiculous cut blows over.

It has been a tiring week of work and the next isn't a piece of cake either! Clinics tomorrow for the first time, am a bit nervous really; in fact I have just purchased two blouses and a proper pair of pumps in a panic attack just so that patients don't have to see me and be horrified at my muddy Asics and sloppy low-waist boot cut jeans sauntering up to their bedside. Best not to have to worry about just *how* clueless attachment student staring at you looks when you are already suffering a rather nasty illness. I do think I like going to hospitals and clinics and wards even though I never saw myself as a potential clinician though, and this should be quite an experience.

Results out at last sometime this week (excepting another typical delay), no more hair-wringing and worrying about stupid papers which were over 2 months ago! And home in less than a month!!! Exclamation marks galore!!!!!!!!!

I am back from Munich. Which was pretty cool, I didn't cover quite a few things but it was still a pleasantly fruitful trip for finding out more about Bayern lifestyle. Also I think I am too spoilt to be able to boast again that I scaled nearly 1540m of mountain at Tegernsee. LOL. (Those blisters are worth it.)

On the other hand, being back from Munich means I went through Stansted Airport, and am now in the shitty city which never fails to completely spoil every holiday just by making me pass through its stinking airports at the end of the trip. I'm cheesed off and tired and quite hungry, and I have work later, so maybe I will not whine about it for now. Would like to post it up at some time though just to warn anybody else coming >:(

edit@2359 Now that paracetamol extra has gotten rid of my splitting headache, here're the Cliff Notes of what transpired. Not cutting this because anyone who ever dares to travel to London on anything apart from the Eurostar probably should see it, Ken says the same rubbish happens at Heathrow:

1. I rush to Hauptbahnhof from Maillingerstrasse and reach at 7pm. When I had, indeed, planned to reach the airport by 7pm.
2. S8 at Hauptbahnhof (towards the airport) takes forever and a day to arrive -- practically every other S-bahn line passes through the platform first. Some twice. Panic ensues.
3. Fall asleep. Get shaken awake 45min later by poor German lady who looks like she doesn't know whether she should have disturbed my unglamourously deep slumber, saying, it's the airport! it's the airport! do you need to get off?! Panic some more and scramble off the train.
4. Run around and try to clear passport controls, forgetting that the Germans are dead efficient and do not make you wait 98237498324 years to ask you silly questions. End up stoning in transit area for two and a half hours...
5. ... because the flight was delayed an hour. (And I'm unable to sleep again because I'm travelling alone!)
6. Finally get onto plane and happen to sit in front the most frightened, hyperactive kid on the plane. Lights that remain on except at take-off and landing also keep me awake.
7. Finally arrive at Stansted at what the pilot claims to be 23:20, but turning on the phone reveals 23:36. Rather frustrated passengers frantic to clear the border controls and finally get to the city.
8. All halted by a customs that takes one hour to clear me, who actually got there when the queue was only up to half the prepared ribboned lines, because there were two customs officers and six empty counters for what looks like five flights. The non-UK/EU passport-holders' queue actually exceeds the drawn out line (which should well fit about 200-250 people?)... don't even ask about the UK/EU lines which were jolly well flooding into the corridor leading into the border control area, despite having more officers dedicated to their usual in-your-face oh! let's make you so damn privileged, compared to everyone outside our sacred continent whom we will question upside down and completely frustrate rubbish. There must have been 3-5 flights landing at the same time.
9. Irate American couple a twist of a row behind me try to point out that there are officers behind the counters clearly standing around enjoying the (?) scenery. They get bureaucratic "I'm afraid you'll just have to wait if you want to get into this country" crap. Some other poor frantic people have a flight to Kuala Lumpur (probably on AirAsia) to catch in the morning and aren't let through for check-in/told with whiffy demeanour they'll have to print it at Radisson hotel next door for £20 later... before coming back for a second round of passport control.
10. Eyes start to shut and legs start to threaten to crumble on floor as I stand in the same bloomin' spot sometimes for 10min at a go. Have nothing to lean against except the floor -- stands drawing the lines out tumble upon me reaching out.
11. Finally reach the friggin' counter at 00:43 to have my passport flipped open, be stared at for five seconds, asked if I'm still studying, get a stamp, and be shooed away. I don't know whether to be bloody pissed for the wait, bloody pissed because of the "tougher checks will take longer" tripe they make you stare at throughout your wait (how many excuses do they still have for incompetence?), or vaguely relieved they aren't keeping me there for another hour.
12. Discover, as I had suspected from my memory of how the rail systems operate, that the final Stansted Express has left and the next one comes at 04:00, meaning if I waited for it (as if I were awake enough to) I'd reach home at 05:15 earliest.
13. Run around various coach booths that are still open and enjoying tons of business if I can please, please convert my (*&@#$ £19 return ticket to a free coach ticket because my bloody plane was delayed and customs officers prefer being apathetic and snotty to you about their awful management. Am greeted with characteristic London oh no you'll have to buy a new ticket. no, no, we can't do anything, so buy a ticket. it's £9. *sharp stare* and lots of misunderstanding about how they don't go to Liverpool Street. Not all yellow-skinned people can't understand that coaches and trains don't go to the same drop-off points just because you're speaking in English, you know? Maybe their asking you about something completely different in fluent English wasn't enough of a hint...
14. Give the eye and roll away refusing to pay £9 for ticket. Call Gordon to ask for Liz's number (on my other phone) to tell her I might not be in a state to work in the morning. Discover that Gordon is asleep and I'd woken him up. (I also discover far later in the morning that he had to get up at 5.30am. Scheisse!) He sounds at first sleepy and annoyed, then later a bit anxious himself when I start swearing at the phone.
15. After quite a round about the pick-up area booths I finally find the Stansted Express/National Express counter, where the one unaccusing lady for the night tells me that they do accept the rail ticket on the coach. And they do. Oh thank GOODNESS.
16. The bus leaves at 01:15 and arrives at Marble Arch at about 02:30. Mercifully I catch another modicum of shut-eye, which less mercifully keeps me awake later on (see point 20).
17. I walk to the bus stop outside the tube station in 15 degrees with strong winds wearing only shorts and wait for what I think must be around half an hour for the night bus to arrive, feeling really awful for the two tourists who are frantically trying to figure their way to Leicester Square and obviously don't know how to read the very unintuitive bus maps. I show them how to read it and point out that they should be at the OTHER bus stop like 30m away on the same road, then realising I forgot to tell them they need to buy a ticket before getting on the bus. (I hope they did get onto the first bus that came, it is not a good first night to spend in London already.)
18. The damn N98 is preceded by a N207 which did not show up on the electronic countdown again (which seemed to keep showing buses going down to 0min that never came). Hm. Bus drops me off at Bloomsbury Square at 03:30... hm, wait, doesn't that sound like the time I would have been at home if I had actually *walked* from Marble Arch? What a waste of £1, considering I would have frozen most of the journey either way.
19. Stomach starts making unhappy, pre-gastric noises when home. Ho boy.
20. Go to sleep only at around 6am when the body works up enough energy and mental power to make instant noodles (and when half-awake effects of prior naps wear off). Wake up to splitting headache that lasts the whole day.

In spite of looking forward somewhat to work -- which incidentally was held off because of this utter rubbish -- I am so, so sorry to be back.

In Munich 4th Jul - 6th Jul. Will not be in very much contact with the rest of the world, especially because it's going to be a fantastically rushed trip and I am returning to some frightening piles of work.

In the meantime, here's a fantastic video of Richard Feynman; he puts in words far better than I can what I think is beautiful about the world.

I love how people don't buy newspapers anymore unless you hand over snacks or bottled water costing more than the paper with the purchase.

What on earth does that signboard mean, anyway? How is something "too hot for cattle"? Has London decided to switch overnight to large-scale farming? Do cows have a grossly different heat tolernace from human beings? Have people put bovine subjects in the carriages to check whether they were indeed too hot for cattle? How many cattle does it take to overheat the tube? Or have cattle started to commute by train as part of their plans to take over the world starting from London? Is the tube's gross lack of ventilation, air-conditioning and space proving to be a huge advantage in thwarting their nefarious plans?

The Brits love frying so much anyway, they refuse to say anything nasty about the doubled humidity and the approaching-30 temperatures and shush you when you do.


Anyway someone's been busy planting surprisingly-in-tune pianos around the City of London, which I discovered on my evening walk around Bank and St. Pauls':



They even left some songbooks with chords and simple accompaniments to popular tunes/classic pop. :) :) :) :) :) :) :) SO MUCH JOY!!!! I'M IN LOVE. Seeing a piano that is not completely out of tune and with completely sunken keys is so rare in London universities that having something that works out in the open is outrageous! Mind-blowing!

It is also amazing how many people you end up talking to and how much you can share with a melodious ramble on black and white keys. To play the piano in the open air, too, is quite an experience, especially when it's not as a formal performance. It's been so long since I've heard a variety of people of different skill levels and different preferred genres taking up the challenge, and even brief runs of music seem to cheer them up so much. :D

This is absolutely genius! I'm so glad I walked to Liverpool Street instead of taking a bus; wouldn't have gotten some splendid photos otherwise either, but the piano is really the bomb.


So concludes a day of very distressing flow cytometry! (I swear we have no luck. Machines keep breaking down again, and again, and again.)

Unnaturally huge throng of people in transition into adulthood (some with their families) were gathered around the stairway at Alexander Fleming, which was strange considering it's quite comfortably out of University term times now.



This is the first time I've seen any kind of open day for students apart from Freshers' Fayre (and quite strangely enough, not even at my own university), so it is all a bit of an overwhelming culture shock for me. I mean, no booze! No gross amounts of overdone dressing and makeup! So decent and organised that a parent is not out of place! This probably isn't London we're talking about anymore. The looks on some of these faces though, and the ones hanging around the canteen with the tell-tale tags on their tshirts, makes me realise how far the distance has been run since the madness that is schooling in London started. I'm quite certain I had the same clueless countenance when I wandered into NTU SBS so long ago, and that spotless naiive mind with respect to anything out of books when I'd just finished my A Levels (which most of these folks have just done). How do they feel at the looming prospect of starting to give six years to these glassy, sanitary buildings and a lifetime to wards and seasonal flus come October? Who knows.

Naturally I didn't bring my camera down for a quick lunch, and this is a surprisingly clear shot from my ageing phone camera. I've uploaded more photos from my phone for the first time since... six months ago, I think. Here are some other Rare Clear Moments.


Surprisingly serendipitous with this one! Am very pleased. :)

( +7 )

I'm getting a bit irked by all the people on Facebook complaining about being quarantined upon return when there is a higher density of infection in Singapore, so here are my two cents (notably though as somebody who is not going to be home soon enough to know if she will be quarantined).

The concern of the spread of the virus is about containing the spread. And unfortunately for Singapore, we live deathly close to one another, in high density per land area, use pretty packed public transport, shop in malls rather than silly shops lining the streets (which is less effective use of land area, again) and have larger classes, schools, more active clubs at the moment and worst of all actually even vaguely constructive freshmen orientation camps etc. all of which easily congregate lots of people of all ages and walks of life. Add this to the fact that we are a relatively rich bunch of SEAsians who sometimes can afford to send their offspring overseas for holidays, or -- hark! -- even for pre-tertiary and tertiary studies, and we have a pretty large scholarship system that boosts that movement of people, and you get a lot of people flying in and out. Not to mention the many people from other countries who would nevertheless pass through Singapore on business or holidays themselves. Sounds like a pretty fertile breeding ground for any pandemic virus to me.

So a citizen returns from another country which has been infected by H1N1, but to a far lower population density. He or she has sat on a plane with all sorts of other people who might have been travelling enroute from somewhere else or coming from the same country. And then the plane lands in Changi, and said person is sent into quarantine or self-quarantine for the next 7 days. Sure it is a terrible inconvenience, and I feel that especially at the thought that quite a lot of my friends are (obviously) second years like I am in university, and this means that gunning for internships normally grants us only barely a month of a holiday at best. But then perhaps in the situation where an individual cannot confirm whether they are infected or not (no matter how unlikely), quarantine is not entirely a measure of not spreading their infection to other uninfected people in Singapore. Quarantine is also a measure that, in a more understated manner, would prevent antigenic shift.

I'm not sure if the H1N1 virions around the world are, despite the homologous haemagluttinin and neuraminidase isoforms, entirely genetically equivalent, thus rendering my entire conjecture useless, but now that the virus has proven to spread so effectively I'd rather not make any assumptions about how long the genetic code of this strain will retain itself in spread (i.e., is there any antigenic drift that occurs as the virus propagates over time down several generations of virions?). But suppose an imported H1N1 strain, however unlikely in comparison to the likelihood of infection within Singapore itself, went undetected and were to come into contact freely with the virus spreading around Singapore, either in external fluid or through coinfection. Would this not give rise to a high chance of genetic information exchange, leading to everyone's greatest fear at the moment -- a larger shift in mutation that increases virulence? One that might not respond to Tamiflu oseltamivir as well? (Sure, it's a neuraminidase inhibitor, but who's to exclude any form of gene interactions between different loci that influence survival factors?) One that complicates the (admittedly temporary in any case) development of an effective vaccine, since it's obviously harder to target viruses that are going to mix up their genetic components as compared to one that stays whatever way it already is? The problem amplifies where too many people from too many countries pass through Singapore on a daily basis especially for the sake of work, especially from many parts of SEA, Europe, India, China and the United States -- bringing with them the potential for several "drifted" forms of the virus rather than one. This increase in possible permutations is not a splendid development to trying to bring down the morbidity rate of any virus, giving more chances for different forms of antigenic shift. Perhaps with another existing seasonal flu variant too? Who knows.

Of course, I am not assuming that this is the thinking behind MOH's containment guidelines -- and in fact I was sceptical of the panic which ensued within the government when they started being implemented during the time Singapore's cases numbered less than 20, seeing as London got hit a long time ago and yet this entire island is far more concerned about getting drunk and bringing themselves closer to a hepatotoxic death than fending off a virus -- but I suppose this is the best we can do. So many people tell me of the fear that the virus will mutate, and yet make a lot of noise about wasting a week's holiday, so I thought I'd throw this out as the coincidental link I'm starting to draw between the measures specifically for this point of time where we've just hit the 600 mark, far more than most countries outside the US and over such a small land mass. I am personally not sure where to draw the line as to stopping communal activities, school activities, cancelling lessons etc.; like it or not if the virus is not leaving life has to go on, and so far it does not cause a high mortality rate. I do feel that *some* form of quarantine is a good idea if one is going to be this concerned about an increase in virulence, especially since the flu virus is a classic textbook example of how antigenic drift makes it difficult to permanently find a vaccine for it; this just very unfortunately comes at the gross inconvenience of a lot of people, hitting especially close to home where it strikes during most local and overseas universities' summer holidays.

Anyway, it's not as if people who aren't forced into quarantine shouldn't watch out either. Keep yourselves clean everybody! I still want to meet you when I'm back!

I am glad for a relatively light day tomorrow compared to the rest of the past week (and the next week). I must say I'm learning a lot on attachment and I cannot stress how relieved I feel with the accommodating help given to me by the other people who share our lab. It has taken me two weeks though to piece together the little bits and pieces of the big project we're doing, and how my little culture optimisation fits into it. Seems like there's no end of stuff to see. I also feel as though the inspiration for having committed to studying my major has also, finally, after two years of deviating further and further from the initial spur, started to return full circle. My JC lecturers ought to be proud!

Anyway I watched my first theatrical movie in... what, 9 months today. Gordon has thought of watching Star Trek for a while and it's a 2 for 1 on Cineworld for students at the moment. Not to mention Nata|y? has said that it was a good film so why not?
It was a rather good film, am not a huge fan of action-centred films and being thoroughly exhausted is not the best state to take in all the flying lasers from the middle of the movie onwards, but in all fairness it was relatively well-made. (Also as someone completely new to the entire Star Trek enterprise, I don't have much content to compare with.)
Oh yeah Scotty cracks me up. Love his accent. I chuckled far more than I should have at the sandwiches. OH MAN. I think only an immigrant or non-permanent resident in the UK will ever know how funny that actually is.

What did bugger me were the advertisements:
1. They were like, nearly 20 minutes long. No kidding. I timed 20:55 - 21:13 or so. I certainly don't remember waiting this long when I watched Tropic Thunder at Odeon Goodge Street last year -- or maybe I just hadn't suffered the fate of having to rush blood separation for 15 samples with only two other people the day before. Who knows. Or in Singapore? Even for the huge blockbusters. It was phone advertisement after phone advertisement after car advertisement after phone advertisement... then the second screen which showed DMC advertising, which made me a wee bit hopeful, then it was movie trailer after movie trailer. Zzz.
2. I don't consider myself very conservative, but the trailer for Brueno is... eegh. (Am lazy to find u-umlaut.) A bit too crass for the effect it is trying to achieve? These things require a delicate balance.
3. The Harry Potter trailer! I swear it is a sure sign of being very far away from Singapore when I actually can't really remember what was in The Half-Blood Prince, having no text here to reference or flip through to wind down the brain. But I swear that ever since I came to London, the movies haven't been the same. When I watched The Order of the Phoenix on laptop screen I couldn't stop chanting OMG! IT'S THE TUBE GATES! IT'S THE TUBE GATES when Harry went through King's Cross, and tonight when I watched the HBP trailer it was like WAAAHH MILLENIUM BRIDGE OH MY WHAT IS HAPPENING running through my head. Oh and the brief CGI view of Trafalgar Square and Nelson's column. And the red buses and the oh so very typically British train platform. Gosh I am such a hopeless long-term tourist here.
(Now that I've found the trailer online -- the Gherkin! Oh my.)

Just when you thought that we'd hit an all-time low with Eppendorf's epmotion advertisement... And just which great commercial anthem is complete without a ringtone download to go with it?

I can build DNA, I can reach for the stars, I can do faster PCR!! Dear Bio-Rad and your loony marketing department, where were you last summer?? Let's see you try one about FACS and Ficoll-Paque now!

Today is not a good day at work!! :(
It's a little worse that people are so nice to me despite the terribly silly mistakes I make, and giving me the opportunity to do weird things despite my propensity to ruin precious samples.

People popping over after dinner was good though. Cheered me up a bit.