so here's my last weekend fairy tale. we went to prachinburi for white water rafting with the protein-ligand laboratory people. i cannot stress enough on how awesome it was. it was nice rafting with the protein-ligand people. p tui was extremely gentle and kind towards all.

so we traveled by van to prachinburi, more or less 4 hours. slept so many times on the way there.

we had lunch and a briefing in thai then off to the site. where we grabbed our helmets and life-vests.

we then hiked for about half an hour to the rafting site. once we loaded the raft with our butts, off we go. at least 45 minutes of adrenaline rush throughout.

the rest is history.

here are the few of hundreds of pictures from p tui's camera. i warn, there are no pictures of the 45 minutes of adrenaline.

the lunch and the briefing.

the wait.

the ride to the site.

the urban style.

the captive.

the glorious walk.

the marshalls.

the intrusion of mother nature.

the fortuna's spell.

the post-drama.

the journey south.

the entity.

the airstrip.

the sidewalk.

the mansion.
the soldiers of fortune.
the house of cards.
the water rock.

the envious dam.

the last march.

this weekend was just work in the lab besides the movie twilight, a movie that widen my horizon to life beyond the existence of others.

how wrong we were to think that immortality meant never dying.

came back from the exhilarating white water rafting this afternoon, exhausted.

an envious adventure set our hearts on fire. in short, it was breathtaking, every moment of it. with pictures, it will be more exciting. until the pictures are uploaded, i'll fill your hungry thoughts with more.

like star-crossed lovers when we fight.

sunset flares upon thy dark flight.

angels flew across the sea.

in search of a lonely light.

the blue dawn speaks for me.

unlike the demons that flee, peace has no room to breathe for survivors. six stood still, reaching their hands for sanity. in the menacing silence, he fights violence. a war sounded from a cage of sins they own. uncertainty blanket the fears he wears. sorrow seeks apart being alone. a fight they all share.

all we are, is bullets i mean this.

and if the sun comes up, will it tear the skin right of our bones?

now realise that i haven't been posting lately. extremely busy with the project. my sequencing results came, and i'm glad that there are isoforms, as demanded. but designing a primer on those sequences is a chore.

okay nuff said about my project.

over the weekend, i spent most of the time in the LAB. yes, work. but its not as bad as it sounds like. i enjoy coming to the lab on weekends. no pressure, no restrictions, no supervisor. we can all just rock our ass off in the lab. on sunday, went shopping at Future Park with the rest except for weiqiang, who frequently lets his lazyness get the better of him.

daniaal bought dozens of tees only to find out its too small for his structure. he's trying his best to expand the fabric to fit him. i bought two pairs of 'vans' slip in shoes. each costs 10 singapore bucks. black and brown.

as usual, my weekly dosage of dairy queen.

after shopping, dan, kok and i went to the lab. finish off what we left off.

on monday!

thats pretty much how i go around in the lab half the time.

there was a bazaar near-by. organised by the Thammasat University students, i think. the lab people and i, including dan and kok, went to find food there. and guess what i found, fried mealworms, crickets and shit. not literally shit, but shit.

out of curiousity, i bought. costs 20 baht.

how digusting can it be? but i didn't hesitate to try. it tasted funny actually. pretty hard to describe it. the first taste was like prawn crackers. the after taste was like FUCK! and i was thinking, my father's arowana back at home eats the same mealworms as i did. don't you believe me i did try it?




no matter how bad it tasted, its weird that i ate at least 10 of those. haha. apart from the digustingly 'nice' food in thai, life is pretty good. the project is getting tougher by the day. sleep is unlike sugar in thailand. seriously, everything here is so damn sweet.

we hold in our hearts the sword and the faith.

currently, i am in the lab. yes, working. and i will be in the lab tomorrow too. well, at the first sight, many might think that OSIP in bangkok is stressful. 12-16 hours spend every weekdays. even weekends are consumed. but actually, it's not as bad as it seems.

somehow, it is a responsibility. to come to finish up the work you left for the day. and knowing molecular work, it gets continuous and you can't afford to wait for the weekends to past. i absolutely have no problems with the working time. at least not now. maybe because i love what i do. honestly. with the people around, friends to joke, nothing to complain about despite the amount of work and stress.

for this is just me, myself, building pillars in my life. pillars to which that will hold the rest of me. ever thought how it would be for you to be away from your family? away from your comfort zone? away from anything you ever had?

this life i am living, is not just another chapter of one's life. deprive of many things i used to have, i am just moulding into shape. imagine having lost one of your loved ones. perspective changes. this is one of them, except that its not my love ones. its just, the decency of having not to compromise.

i have compromised alot in my life and most since in thailand. decisions made were no longer solely on desire. even then, some people cannot learn, cannot learn to make decisions. especially important ones. leaving home for 4 months means you have to move on and leave whats behind. and face whats ahead. no one should carry what they left behind and fight another day with the weight on their shoulders.

i am blessed with a family that understands. that this ordeal, is important for myself and whats ahead. no matter how tough the situation is, its never too late.

he will understand. if he doesn't, he is not god.

he who let this happen, have something in store for me. for that i am grateful, for a silver lining. my perspectives on many things have alter rapidly, and sometimes i am worried that i have to sit my life back at home in singapore adapting.

at the end of all this, i know i have benefited alot. at least the most i could. a few years down the road, i will look back with no regrets. for someone who's living a life far than perfect, i am very very grateful.

well i find it hard to stay, with the words you say.

i haven't got time to blog much lately. have been coming home from work very late this week. dedication is the key i suppose. when you love doing it, you won't mind staying til 12midnight in the lab.

that's what i did.

on tuesday, ate the infamous phad thai for lunch. and worked my ass off. and cooked black pepper chicken fried rice for dinner. the best of many!

phad thai!

a day at work, with crazy people including myself.

yesterday, worked til late. there was some kinda festival where they pay respect to the goddess of the river, or sea, or whatever. so, it was like a lantern festival, except that they let the papermade lotus with candles and stuffs float. and there was lotsa stalls selling food open, and some fair. went to the fair with the lab people.



dinner together at interdorm.

and a post-hari raya celebration. right~

so we, the lab, had a cassava(tapioca) field trip today, thursday. we went to somewhere that is 1hr30mins away from thailand science park. slept throughout the journey there. and left some kinda impression to dr. yindee. haha.

we all expected a hot weather with the blazing sun shining up high burning our back. but it was much of a relieve as there was a strong cool breeze with the presence of the hot sun. he didn't perspire at all. it was as if we're in a 16 degrees C airconditioned room. awesome.

thats, dr. yindee.

thats, an idiot. with his supervisors in the background. dr. tharatorn and dr. oranuch.

thats dan and kok, with wind breezing through their heads.

cassava.

the amount of pills i'm taking.

been very very very busy lately. some even thought i am dead. haha. i've been juggling sleep, work, project and proposal. sleep is always at the losing end. things are way different compared to the first 5 weeks here. there's plenty of wicked people in the lab, makes you wanna stay there forever, not.

my primers came on friday, started on RT-PCR. results ain't that good, so re-optimize. on saturday, we went to esplanade(yes there is one in bangkok too) to watch quantum of solace. a company gave away 8 tickets to our lab. so, most of our lab people went.


went to chatuchak park MRTA, subway.
waiting for p yam. (dan said, its rude to spell it as 'pee')
thats, p kau, p cocui, p bee and p ton, from the left.

over at the ticket counter.


the token used as tickets to travel.

down the elavator, kok tong with his steady-kok look.

not much diff from singapore's.



except for the cartoon character on the doors.

there we were, ESPLANADE.

the best mall i've been so far, in bangkok.

look why.

breakfast at 12pm, macdonalds. shrimp and fries.

the cozy macdonalds. the best part, NO MATS AND NO MINAHS.

pretty good for 100 baht meal.

the movie was okay, every single theatre was showing the movie, i suppose its some kind of a function. we walked around the mall after the movie, after which we went back to the dorm. our hungry stomachs lead us to interdorm, to have dinner. we took a 5baht pick-up as dan and i stood throughout the 5-10 minutes journey. it was the first, so i took a video. ignore the noise coming from my mouth. just enjoy.

i spent the whole of sunday in the lab, carrying out RT-PCR again, and RNA extraction. and finishing up my proposal. slept at 2am talking about stuffs with dan. stuffs like how we gonna miss thailand if we're back in singapore. stuffs about how our friend is surviving in perth. stuffs about what we have learn in life so far.

today, monday, woke up without any dread to go to work. continued with RT-PCR and colony PCR. after 10 hours in the lab, there was no results in my colony PCR. only to find out that i forgot to include the polymerase. this is the problem you have when you do things half-way, you forget this and forget that.

so i have to re-do the whole 40 tubes of colony PCR tomorrow.

surprisingly, today is p yam's birthday. i know, exactly last week was p bee's. conclusions were made that every monday, is a lab member's birthday. i wonder whose birthday is next monday.

the ice-cream cake.
the singing.
the blowing of candles.
the cutting.

these are moments to be treasured. its funny how when kok tong said, "pretty sia!" referring to the magazine and p yam actually replied, "thank you!" to him. haha, i included a video. so you guys can actually have a sneak preview of how our lives are in bangkok, in the lab to be precise. with the thais around.

noticed when p yam said to daniaal that he can't eat the cake, cause there's "oink oink." she's really2 funny as a person. pardon the poor quality of the video, only if someone can spare a better phone.

went home to cook for dinner, as planned. and the outcome, was brilliance. three heads, two cookers, one awesome dinner.




rice with chicken curry, omelette with sausages and crab soup with red snapper fish. awesome stuff. check out the video, again, pardon the quality.

the kinda dirty that the water never cleans off the clothes.