In the city hall, this is the place where the government officials meet
This is the roof of the hall, supposed to look like an upside down viking ship
This is the royal insignia
The gold room, which is made of mosaic, coated with gold. the whole room took up 10kg of gold
The silverware that the nobel prize winners use during the dinner.
I am strong!
The blue hall, where the nobel dinner is held
The sky, about to fall
The bells on top of the city hall tower, ring a tune every hour
Went to Stockholm, lived on a boat on a lake. this is the view from the window of the tiny cramped room
The city hall, where the government is and where the Nobel dinner is held.
Bacon wrapped sausages. Fat heaven!
seagulls?
fake looking clouds. exactly like in oil paintings.
Preserved herring. some are really soft slimy things. the toppings try to take away the taste.
Super long escalators to the city's train system. SUPER LONG
Lake night view
My chruch sent me a Bday card. First time i got one after being in there like 6 years....
dont know why suddenly got one.
But its quite cool, the metallic thingy
day 2: took the train to somewhere
On the way, saw a windmill
ate some poffertjes which are dough baked and sprinkled with generous amounts of sugar and butter.
got lost, looked for directions
ate huge chips with amazing mayo. super high fat content food.
Climbed a dome tower of some super huge ancient church and it was blowing really strong at the top (95m high). almost got swept away, even though i ate so much fatty food just now... come to think of it, the food was a waste of money, never grow any larger.
quaint houses from dont know when era. every house was different from its neighbor.
so it was an interesting sight to see the whole row of houses each with a different architecture and size and height, with cobblestone roads.
on holiday day one. somewhere where coffeeshops are places where people can legally get high on drugs
Somewhere were there are lots of old churches
somewhere where the streets are narrow and all lined up.
somewhere where there's lots of canals
somewhere there;s lots of cheese
Going on a holiday from tomorrow. Gone for 10 days. Guess where? Come back in a couple of days to find out. Should be able to blog from where I'm going. The plane will take 12 hours to get there, go do the math.
http://freefunnyjokes.blogspot.com/2007/09/perfect-job-joke.html
Especially like the 'historian' one.
my thoughts on this site: hahahahah
Beginners guide to winning the nobel prize, by Peter Doherty.
Finished this book at last after a long while holding on to it and restarting it think thrice. Frankly, it's actually a good enlightening book but I just dont know why I took so long to wrap it up.
It talks little of deep science, more of philosophy and how he looks at things science or scientifically related, like the environment, religion, the future of science.
The first chapter is about the what he went through after being told he won teh Nobel Prize. Then he goes on to talk about why he won that prize and the crux of his work. It goes on to talk of how a modern lab is run; what the principle investigator (boss) does, what each member does, where the money comes from adn where it goes to, and how things are done. quite interesting to read of a formal account of something I do without thinking of everyday. Felt like this was teh best chapter in the book.
Then he talks of scientist's role in preserving the environment, and America as the superpower of research and development. The next chapter touches on how science and religion can co-exist and alot of what he says is true. The last chapter is his personal advice to budding scientists. It basically says 'work hard, then work harder'.
IMHO, not worth the S$35 I paid for the book. If you are interested, drop me a line and i'll lend it to you .... for a small price....
Maybe if you're not from science you would find the book more entertaining and illuminating. But for me, it doesnt bring me one inch close to winning that Prize.
http://freefunnyjokes.blogspot.com/2007/09/perfect-job-joke.html
Especially like the 'historian' one.
my thoughts on this site: hahahahah
For all my Malay language understanding friends. Quite an interesting article.
IF RESTAURANTS FUNCTIONED LIKE MICROSOFT!
Patron: Waiter!
Waiter: Hi, my name is Bill and I'll be your Support. May I have your
telephone number, area code first? Your visit may be
monitored for purposes of quality control. Now, what seems to
be the problem?
Patron: There's a fly in my soup!
Waiter: Exit the restaurant and re-enter, maybe the fly won't be there
this time.
Patron: No, it's still there.
Waiter: Maybe it's the way you're using the soup; try
eating it with a fork instead.
Patron: Even when I use the fork, the fly is still there.
Waiter: Maybe the soup is incompatible with the bowl; what
kind of bowl are you using?
Patron: A SOUP bowl!
Waiter: Hmmm, that should work. Maybe it's a configuration
problem; how was the bowl set up?
Patron: You brought it to me on a saucer; what has that to
do with the fly in my soup?
Waiter: Can you remember everything you did before you
noticed the fly in your soup?
Patron: I sat down and ordered the Soup of the Day!
Waiter: Have you considered upgrading to the latest Soup of
the Day?
Patron: You have more than one Soup of the Day each day?
Waiter: Yes, the Soup of the Day is changed every hour.
Patron: Well, what is the Soup of the Day now?
Waiter: The current Soup of the Day is tomato.
Patron: Fine. Bring me the tomato soup and the check. I'm
running late now.
[Waiter leaves and returns with another bowl of soup and the check.]
Waiter: Here you are, Sir. The soup and your check.
Patron: This is potato soup.
Waiter: Yes, the tomato soup wasn't ready yet.
Patron: Well, I'm so hungry now, I'll eat anything.
[Waiter leaves.]
Patron: Waiter! There's a gnat in my soup!
----------
The check:
Soup of the Day . . . . . . . . . . . $ 5.00
Upgrade to newer Soup of the Day. . . $ 2.50
Access to support . . . . . . . . . . $10.00
Note: Bug in the soup included at no extra charge
(will be fixed with Tomorrow's soup of the day)
This week was not really good.
I planned a holiday and made my trip exactly end where the lab was supposed to go for a trip and after I booked the tickets and arranged everything, my boss has to come and say the event was canceled.
Then someone had to tell her that I was going away to 'somewhere I was not supposed to go'.
Then my mice didnt die, and on a few of them, I couldnt get the injections right. Pissed off with myself.
Then my sequencing experiments failed terribly. I had been trying for a few months without any success.
Then out of no where, the microscope computer had a minor crash and everybody blamed me for I was the last user before it knocked out. Well, the PC recovered the next day.
And almost all, save 3 of my emails to foreign universities for a place never get replied. Those that reply ask for more information and after that they take an eternity to get back.
My boss thinks I'm skiving when I'm actually hard at work.
My tenants keep on complaining. If you dont like the room, shift out; not complain.
I seem to have lost my passion for research.
I'm spending so much on food, and not exercising enough.
I'm always negative and taunting the juniors in the lab (thats besides the point that they deserve it).
I dont walk the talk.
I feel I am getting lazier by the day
Got a huge assignment due next week and I havent even started.
Spending too much money, saving too little
Feeling like life's a series of valleys and each one goes lower than the next with the mountains high up in a distant haze.
God, where are you?
Got to use Windows Vista Business and after a week of toying with it, let me say this : IT SUCKS.
Startup is nowhere faster than XP
Just at basal running level, 49% of my 2Gb memory had been used up.
Installing Adobe software creates problems
clicking too fast while copying or browsing the hard disks in explorer causes it to crash, no blue screen of death but windows takes a long while to close down explorer and restarts it.
Upgrading software is a pain, you cannot overwrite old .msi files and deleting the old .msi files before installing upgrades causes the programs to malfunction, stuff like serial numbers and registering disapears from record.
Plugins for Photoshop cant be loaded unless UAC is disabled. And when you disable UAC, Vista in fact is just a 'fancy XP'
Vista asks permission for everything; copying, deleting, renaming files. It gets really annoying after awhile.
Simcity 3000 gets an error message after an hour of play and automatically dies. Vista doesnt even report a problem.
So many programs are incompatible with Vista. Another quarter runs with problems, The other quarter originally came from Microsoft and still require patches.
Give me XP anyday.
I went for surgery about a month ago for sweaty palms (i.e palmar hydrosis). It called, erm...
ETS Surgery or Endoscopic Thoracoscopic Sympathectomy.
Was done at Singapore General Hospital and until today the bill has not yet been sent to me. Dont know why. Anyway, this is what I remember of the surgery:
You have to first visit the specialist where he asks some questions and makes sure you really want to do it, then he fixes a date.
I returned on a Monday morning to the hospital early in the morning and got admitted to the eye ward because the neuro ward is fully occupied. Was lazing around on the bed, and having fasted since midnight the day before, was in no shape to walk about.
About 2 pm, the nurse came in and asked me to change to my gown. So I did, then they kept all my stuff for me at a safe place and wheeled me to the operation theater. I was lying down on the bed and saw the lights passing and people moving on my sides, exactly like the scenes you see on TV.
Went to the neuro department and realized there is a neurology operation theater and a neuromedicine theater; coz they sent me to the wrong one. Anyway, I didnt have my glasses so everything was a blur. Waited outside the room for the place to be cleared and a nurse came and aked me to sign some papers, and asked me if i fasted, if i had any alergies, what procedure i was going for, what was my name, etc. It already happened before I was wheeled in, at the entrance of the room, in the room, and right before the procedure. Kind of annoyed with it after awhile.
so i got transfered from my ward bed to the rolling one to the outside of the op room, then i got transfered to an internal bed.
Was getting cold because all I had was a thin gown, and the nurse kindly put this pump with heated air under the blanket. very nice.
A chinese man came and gave me my drip. He complained my veins were small, I told him his air cond was turned too low. then another nurse put a hand band on my other wrist, to identify me. Then there was three electrodes stuck to me for pulse.
Into the operation room, You get transfered to a solid bed; the operation table.
Soon the doctor came in, sounding very cheerful, and talking about some malfunctioning equipment he had for a recent surgery...so reassuring.
He said hi to me, then asked me to stretch out my hand, a nurse put another pulse monitor on my finger and then the mask came on.
Not to worry, its only oxygen.
Are you ready?
I nodded.
Kind of remember being wheeled back to the ward. It was really all a blur as there were voices telling me to get up to transfer bed. I heard their voices but remember it to be very difficult to move. Your body just doesnt respond.
Later on two guys came in and asked me to sit up for an xray. I really tried.and remember that my head was drooping over my chest that they had to tell me to hold your head up.
the sun was still up, probably about 5pm and I remember being hungry. Wondering if they would feed me dinner. My stomach had been empty for so long.
Then 7pm came because the nurse sent food to a patient opposite me, and I didnt get anything. Dinner was always at 7.
Was too blur anyway. I could open my eyes and move my head a little. But it took too much effort.
I also realize it hurt when I breathed in deeply and my chest hurts overall and my arms hurt and my head throbs and my palms hurt because of the IV drip.
I asked myself why the heck i did this to myself
night came and the pulse sensor was still on my thumb. the machine kept on giving readings below 50, which is below normal. The machine keep on giving a beeping sound and most of the time the nurse didnt come in to look. Once, she came in and saw the low pulse and put on the oxygen mask for me. I didnt want it and asked her 'isnt low pulse rate good' remembering that the more you trained, the larger your heart capacity increases, the lower your pulse.
i woke up many many times during the night because of the guy on the other beds, the nurse coming for their rounds, hunger, pain, or the stupid machine beeping. it gave a beep for every hearbeat and everytime the pulse fell below 60, it would wail out loud. and that would wake me up. And when i woke up, i had to wiggle myself to try get the heartbeat higher so that the machine would shut up.
In the morning, the nurses came at 730 to wash one patient who was bedridden. I woke up and asked for my belongings. they gave me a cup of mouth rinse and later a plate of oat porridge. FOOD!
The nurse kept on asking me if i peed. at last i did and she was quite happy with clearing it because it showed that my systems were working ok inside.
the doctor came later to check, asked me to raise my hands which i did and later regretted because it hurt.
it was some more morning sleeping, peeing and i got my stuff back so i read and sms-ed some people.
Later a pharmacist came to give me some painkillers and a nurse came to change my dressings. then the doctor came along and decided i could be released. I walked out on Tuesday afternoon 1pm. They gave me 11 days of MC. Caught a cab back to lab and everybody was shocked how pale i looked. probably lost some blood in the surgery.
the sweating was almost instantly gone. but in addition to my palms, now my whole hand and arm and armpits and neck and upper torso is also dry. So there is a compensatory sweating on my lower torso and legs, which makes you look like you took a bath while walking from the canteen to lab. But the operation was successful, you just got to live with the side effects.
the stitches. about 5 per side, under the armpit
one week after the surgery, i went back to have my stitches remove. It hurt.
The scar a few days after the stitches were removed.
I LOVE MINTIES!
A long time ago a nice aunty in church used to bribe me with Minties. Since then, which was like 6 years ago, I have had withdrawal symptoms until a friend came along a few days ago in class and passed me a bunch of Minties.
Little did I know there are already shops here on Red Dot that actually sell these desirable delicacies. I like them because of the sweet, and I like them because of the cartoons on the wrappers.
