Doing this for myself

3.22 pm and I'm sitting in highlander killing time, reading Harry potter (again) n writing this in between. I really don't feel like goon back to the lab cos I have absolutely nothing to do. Well there still is the Nmrc application. Buy I want to save that for next week as an excuse to not be involved in the calling for santen. So ok fine I am eating snake now. But hey I've spent the last 2 weeks or so working my ass off. I deserve a good snake-eating session.

And oh I got a $68 pay increment. Not a lot but it came sooner than I expected :) and apparently my pay for 4 years would amount to a total of $250,000 (as estimated by Joanne in the budget) that's $5000 a month! I see a good long career with seri.

This weekend is MBS week; just 1-week after my maiden trip there for the lion king musical. It's gonna be a wonderful Dslr session.

Sharon texted me last night. Nothing to get excited about but I do realize that I miss the school days when I could take nothing seriously. ("it's only 20% of the marks, it's not worth my time) now I'm not taking any chances with anything. Haha how people change. Who would have thought that the lazy happy-go-lucky me without a care in the world would be so stressed out.

It's Raining cats n dogs now. So I'm stuck at highlander for now I guess.

I still don't feel today is and should be any different from any other. But all I want to do now is enjoy my coffe and sandwich, with a good book to read (by this i mean Harry potter), skive for a couple of hours or so while my boss is out of town :)

One week ago I was thinking of resignig. Today I am working on my proposal. Funny how things work out.

3 down, some 6 more to go. By now I have fulfilled Europe Aussie and Asia. Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to drop by Andorra. I remember all I could think about was what a pity that I was so close to Andorra but yet so far as we crossed the Spanish borders into Barcelona. While it's still fairly fresh in my mind, I shall take this jet lag chance to jot down the memories of this once-in-a-lifetime trip, all backdated further down. but in a nutshell, these are the highlights.

in order of encounter
1. london. king's cross to be specific. the set of harry potter
2. the louvre. another blockbuster in mind. da vinci code. that glass triangle was surreal. and i had an extremely hard time getting to see mona lisa
3. switzerland switzerland switzerland switzerland switzerland switzerland switzerland. this is by far, the only country i would willingly go a second time =)
4. snow dude. the  snow man we built atop jungfrau in the alps!
5.camp nou of barca. after 5 years of wishful thinking.
6. the phone number in Nice beach. french lifeguard. probably tall dark and ok-looking. what's not to like? too bad baby,can't call you. i didn't have a working phone.
7. monte carlo. my first time in a casino was in the second smallest country in the world; the country with the densest population density.
8. venice. although not much. it was still kinda cool
9. the vatican. now i can tell people i have been to the smallest country in the world.

although they all wasn't too big a deal when i finally saw them, they are, after all, still wonders. big ben, eiffel tower, leaning tower of pisa and the colosseum

This weekend, I realized that being too meticulous can cause trouble too.

I just spent 2 hours turning the house inside out with my mum and my maid searching for my passport, while my sister tries her best to keep B&L out of the way. Then finally I was convinced that I have lost my passport for good. In a desperate attempt to salvage the situation, I even applied for a new passport on the ICA website. After uploading a too-low resolution passport photo 5 times on Chrome, Mozilla, and eventually IE, I managed to key in my credit card number when the latter turned out to be the only browser which allows java for that webpage. And when I finally received the receipt, with a $70 successful MasterCard transaction, I held on to that tiny glimpse of optimism that I knew would only turn into disappointment within the next few days. I dragged myself out of the room to assess the situation with the house rampaging, stared at my face-down backpack for a good 5 seconds, and ripped the hidden zip at its posterior. Dug my hands into the secret compartment and magically out comes my passport with an "F" abracadabra in front of my 2 nephews and mother.

So, it was good that I was so careful, too careful Placing the most important document in a place that no one could ever find, not even myself.

Well the good thing that cane out of this was that I found my missing hairband and photocopied GRE notes.

Guess I owe my mum and even my maid a gucci wallet or something.

Why do people spend thousands of dollars on LASIK surgery n risk infection when they can see better with glasses?
Why do ophthalmic lens company spend millions of dollars on promoting the latest lens n researching on optics that can improve human vision quality when 6/6 has been the proven best that human can see?
Why the hell do parents scream at their child when their refractive power increases?

Why is seeing 6/6 not good enough?

Yesterday I saw a 1-year old Vietnamese who had a squint. The reason: pulled retina in the right eye n a huge macular scar in the left. Makes me wonder what has the child done wrong. The parents travelled all the way from Vietnam despite the child being sick with chicken pox, hoping to find better healthcare for te child in order to save we sight. What I thought was a simple esotropia, turned out to be a previous retinal detachment. The child will be legally blind.

Andrea bocelli and ray Charles lost their sight to glaucoma. Few months ago I came across this teenage girl who had infantile glaucoma, she could read off the 6/6 line when I refracted her. She would have been blind if she was born 30 years ago. Retrospecting, she really is a lucky girl to have parents who cared enough to bring her to the hospital religiously to get her eyes cured n that medicine is so much more advanced now...

No matter, I am grateful that I have 2 working eyes, aligned, healthy, n able t see the wonderful things around me

highlights of work:

- folding letters and putting them into envelops while the doc pastes the stamps
- observing the sadistic enucleation of the mice eyes after they've been put to sleep (oh god)
- reading journals
- feeling pressurised by the doc to do my post grad
- getting scared off doing post-grad
- reading journals
- attended boring talks during the annual scientific meeting

 i just need a GPA of 0.19% more to get my $3k per month! PLEASE give it to me!!!!