World - 2. Me - 0

Apparently the forces that be are carrying some sort of grudge against me.

Today I was planning my labwork so that it'll roughly end around noon, so I can wrap up my work, go lunch and call it an early day.

So around 12, I ran a gel electrophoresis. Short description - it's a screening process to see whether I'm successful in generating the products that I want. Takes bout 1 and 1/2 hours, a no-brainer procedure.

Except that for this time after running a countless times for more almost 2 years now, it went kaput on me. To cut the story short - I couldn't find out if I was successful in generating the products I want. Even a negative result would've been better, I would then figure out what I should do next.

Now I have to run the gel again coming Monday. And I wasted around 2 hours in lab, almost starving for lunch while I waited for the gel in vain.

Sigh. I should better start hunting for a rabbit's foot.

Me against the world (and losing)

Today just isn't my day.

I woke up extra early today to go for class at 9 am, as parking's a nightmare there. A few minutes later, someone received a text message from the lecturer that the class's cancelled, with a replacement on Monday at 11 am.

To make it for that class,  I'll probably need to burn some hell money and sacrifice some chickens to get a parking at that time.

I wanted to transfer some money from bank A to bank B. At the Chancellory (2 minutes walk from my college), there is an ATM of bank A and cash deposit machine of bank B. Simple and convenient, right?

Turns out the ATM was kaput. So fine,  I walked to the next ATM at Pusanika (10 minutes) away to withdraw. Walked back to the same spot I started earlier to now deposit the cash for Bank B.

Deposit machine making weird noises; rejected all the cash. Tried putting in a couple of RM10 bills to see - also rejected.

Either that deposit machine's spoiled or I'm carrying a huge load of counterfeit cash.

My options now are 1. carry the extra cash around, or 2. walk back to Pusanika to deposit the cash back at the bank A.

Either way, I had just took an extra long walk to withdraw cash I don't need.

Understanding the US credit crisis

A picture's worth a thousand words, and this short video helps explain where billions of dollars disappeared to.


The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

Wrap-up

Guess it's time for the obligatory wrap-up post for 2008 (ignoring the zero post for December). Christmas and New Year passed by without a bang, as usual. Just met up with some friends, did some work at the lab, and relaxed a bit.

One awesome thing this year was the reinvigorating and comeback of our UKM debaters. We got a pretty good batch this year, and it's not only skills alone. Most of them showed real commitment and interest - things that are usually lacking in the juniors before this. We great inroads at this year's Royals Debate tourney at IIUM (the grandest national-level tourney). This was also my first time adjudicating officially at a tourney, and I was quite suprised that I was pushed all the way to adjudicate till the finals. And well, it's great too that I made some quick bucks too from the adjudicating. Hehe.

This year I actually tried to make some personal developments - on the finance and social side. I started reading up on personal finance, made a budget, track my spending etc. Well, it's never too early to start figuring out your finances and preparing for the (gulp!) golden years of your life (as much as that prospect scares the hell out of me).

On the social part - I started off kinda enthusiastic enough. I buzzed up old acquaintances and friends, and even met up with a few of my secondary schoolmates, though it tapered off towards the end as I worked on another social front. I became a little bit more proactive in meeting new people, and well...we'll see how things goes.

Here's looking to a more productive and exciting 2009, in more ways than one.

Weary weekend

Tired to type more than a few lines. Am currently at a budget hotel in Sepang for a 1 and 1/2 day workshop. Struggling an presentation and written report due on Monday, where we had our first group meeting yesterday and will be having another group meeting at 4 tomorrow.

Which means I'll need to scrunge up some time between now and then in the midst of this workshop to finish up my part for the group meeting tomorrow, and then work on the written report by tomorrow night.

And right after that - another presentation on Wednesday and term paper due on Friday.

The next weekend couldn't come sooner.

Cost of carelesness

Sorry for not updating in a while. Been rather busy and distracted with work, assignments and other stuff. Deadlines were planted (and met, mostly), interviews were sprung last minute, and also meeting up with friends who're jetting off.

Anyway, in a bout of carelesness and bad luck, I happened to lose my ATM cards. Thankfully the account balance in the card were still the same. For the first card (Bank Islam), there was a notice that anyone who lost a card to contact the number given. Which I did, through SMS - and then somehow the other person was either being a paranoid or jerk by asking all sorts of stupid questions - "Kau ni melayu ke? Pelajar UKM ke? Betul ke kad ni kau yang hilang?...." For Pete's sake, all I asked was if we could meet up at a Bank Islam ATM machine for me to test if the card is mine. In the end, I just said thanks but no thanks. I'll just go make a missing card report.

So I reported the missing cards. CIMB was quite efficient, I got a new card without much hassle and a penalty of RM12 (inclusive RM8 for a new card). Bank Islam was quite the hassle, I had to get setem hasil for RM20(!) first from the post office. And then later I found out they further deduct another RM8 from my account for the cost of the new card (!!). What the hell - RM28 for a new ATM card! For a bank that claims to be compassionate and conservative, they sure are pretty cutthroat about these administration fees.

Updates, randomly as I deem fit:

1. Caught The Dark Knight last weekend. An excellent show, definitely lived up to its hype and my own anticipation as must-watch movie. Dark, twisted and not a boring moment in between - this is not just an action movie, it's an action movie with heart and mind. The sociopolitical undertones are very impactive; comparable to V for Vendetta. While the latter is more direct and surreal in its social and political undertones, the former is more subliminal and seamless.

2. Local politics seem to have gone into no-man's-land. Where I've totally lost interest many weeks ago and have stopped reading the papers for a while now.

3. It had been a busy week since last weekend. With a quiz just completed this morning, I can take a slight breather. In between preparing a progress report, studying for a quiz, working on a group assignment, and take some time off to train the juniors, life couldn't be more...

Fulfilling? Strange as it may sound, I've been in quite a positive mood a couple of weeks back since my I officially started my Masters. I don't feel as hollow or dreary just going about doing my work. I feel renewed, reaffirmed once again. Perhaps it's due to a sense that my life is now heading somewhere; in a direction which I could focus and pour my energy.

It tooke me a while to realise this, but we need aims in our life. Something that makes us willing to forsake sleep, turn down outings with friends and don't mind some self-isolation. I used to set really low goals, or none at all. Just doing my best as it's just the right thing to do. But after graduating and taking up a semi-job as an RA, it really is easy and tempting to fall into an easy and couldn't-care-less routine.

People generally thrive on deadlines, or specific time frames. If you give someone his/her ample time to do a job, chances are they'll take longer to produce a work which quality might not be necessarily better compared to if given a time frame. Which is why graduate studies is a different ballgame completely than undergraduate. During undergrad, you have specific classes per semester, specific deadlines for specific assignments, and specific dates for exams. In grad school, you mainly have to complete a research project within a typical period of around 2 years, possibly more. And the few classes mostly consist of lecturers giving general overviews of a topic, and then assignments of doing a term paper (short analysis) of related articles of your choice to be submitted within a month.

It is indeed extremely easy to get lost in the illusory freedom from the constant leash of exams, quizzes and activities back then during undergrad. Afterall, you have 3 or more semesters to do your project, what's the rush? *It's 4 pm in the lab, and running the next part of your experiment will take 1 and 1/2 hours. Should you do it? Well, typical working hours are till 5, never mind that you came in around 10.30 am for staying up late last night for a mamak session. Let's just call it a day, and do that next step tomorrow. Oh, it's noon, time for lunch break! Again, never mind that you came in only 2 hours before that. Yay, my lecturer's on leave. That means he/she won't call the lab today! Which means I can sneak out to Midvalley!

Anyway, back to serious self. Having a focus, once more, really helps to steel myself against the nagging voice of inferiority, especially when meeting up friends who (knowing or unknowingly) describes in long detail their new jobs and salaries, new gadgets they're eyeing, shopping plans, weekend plans, vacation plans etc. I just need to remind myself why I'm doing what I'm doing, and that I'm to going to prove that this is not a dead-end path. I need to prove that for myself as much as for everyon else.


*For surprisingly accurate and hilarious peek into the life of a grad student, try checking out PhD comics.

Edit: Link has been fixed.