ByeBye Spring/Summer 08

Just when I thought the Winter blues are all coming to an end, Glasgow greeted me with a snowy and chilly morning! Bye bye sun bathing. There goes all my fantasy of sun bathing beside a gorgeous tan-skinned macho man....

I'll see you much much later ok?

Hello Winter... my old friend.. yish yish yish!

What are you doing here larh!! yish yish yish!

ZERO appreciation for modern art...

Ok... ok ... I admit! I'm just not a modern art girl! But see whether you agree with me larh! Before I start, better say sorry to Glasgow's Gallery of Modern Art.. I remember most of us were doing the "ooohhhh.. Arhhhhh!!" at the sight of this gallery since arrival in Glasgow. Guess what... it's FREE!!!

Glasgow's famous Gallery of Modern Art at the Royal Exchange Square (night)

Perhaps I should just appreciate the outside and stop visiting the entrance of this gallery.

I still can accept this: Yeah... Modern art.....(cracked face)

Monkey, alone : you'll find it in any Malaysian Zoo for RM10
Handcrafted Photo frame, alone: you'll find it in Lovely Lace for RM49.90

Monkey plus handcrafted photo frame: Modern art. Priceless...

Cactus, alone : You'll find it in Sungai Buloh nurseries for RM5 for 3.
Socks, alone : You'll find it in soxworld for RM10 per pair or pasar malam for RM10 for 3

Cactus plus socks: Modern art. Priceless...

Sock monkey: you'll find this in the Gallery's souvenir shop. 3 pounds.

See how ironic modern art can be? I still prefer knowing these objects in their own un-fused forms. Does that make me such a spoiler? Who cares?! Well, perhaps it's better that I resort to my binge eating of cornflakes and chocolates infront of Desperate Housewives.

Can biopharm please speak in English?

I don't like don't like don't like!!

Is there anything wrong with simplifying a process using "normal-chemical-names" instead of the lengthy and bombastic-lookalike (when it's actually NOT) terms?

Anyways, "sluggish" is already my first name. Been zoning out everyday.

official kick-start of zone-outS:
Actually spent 20minutes searching for the animations that best describes back-to-work. But I found this instead: looks like I'm the dinosaur with the cake on the left!
FIY: this pic is already permanently on my desktop!

Let's see, these are what I've done as I was zoning out:

1) Finally answered to my erupting urge to blog (been surpressing myself since beginning of CNY by justifying with myself that the seemed-to-be most appropriate thing to do is to STUDY)

2) Finally, too, joined FaceBook. What a good diversion: if you can't blog, FaceBook then! Ohhhh... I didn't realise how much i've been missing for not joining FaceBook earlier! When Leah asked if Alicia had a FaceBook, she answered in the almost-offended tone: "of coz larh!! you think i'm Phuay Fhern mehhhh.....". Should I start putting more FATs into the dinners starting now? Maybe I should also bake more cheesecake, chocolate drizzled shortbread, puddings? People who know Alicia well will understand my intention.....

3) browsed various foodie-blogs are made Woh-Tip (Pot-stickers) using dumpling-dough made by MYSELF! (what's wrong with me?)

4) compared (time consuming) between recipes and came up with a "perfect breakfast muffin" recipe.

5) went to ebay (again, time consuming) to bid for Dear dear's valentine's gift.

6) In the mean time, searched through Ralph Lauren website to see the authenticity of the item that I was bidding for. (needless to say, SUPER time consuming)

7) started browsing through website to "PAT" potential-mother's-day pressie for mommy. (oh my gosh... it's only February now!)

8) went to BBC. uk's weather page to fulfill my initial intention of checking on Glasgow's weather in this coming 5 days. What seemed to be easily-accomplished within 2 minutes was made complicated, as I went on to check on weathers of Dundee (what has it got to do with me?); Kuala Lumpur (as if it's going to differ much?! as if it's going to affect me?!); Johor (Don't ask!); Muara, Brunei Darussalam (typed "muar" initially becoz that's dad's kampung, but Muara came out instead); heck, I even searched on Maldives!

9) Imeem.com: superb free-streaming of musics!

10) checked BodyShop online because of the e-newsletter that they sent me.

11) checked on online-flowers booking.... was I thinking of sending a bouquet to myself when I bunuh diri for failing Pharmacy?

12) Youtube Iron-Chef, really crappy as the show is biased to the max! Regardless of how good the challenger is, the Iron Chefs (konon larh) still win! Nevertheless, I've covered these in half-day: Battle Pears and Chocolate; Battle Eggs; Battle Noodles; Battle aubergine (check this out as is the one of the RARE ones where the challenger won); Battle Foie Gras (yewwwww, before this I was pronouncing it as it is, but from the show I learned to pronounce it as Fuah Grah.... *blink blink*... erm... my distractions are .. educational??!! *Nod* *justified!*); Battle Jumbo Mushrooms; Battle Sushi...... etc etc

13) --------------------------------------i think 100)-ish?

ARGGHHHHH!!!!

Oh, did I mention that I'm currently at the irreversible, irreparable daily rates of at least 3 series of desperate housewives; 2 series of crunchyrolls (dun care whether it's cantonese; korean; japanese; or tagalog!); and lots of iron chefs!

perhaps I shouldn't list the tv-craze out, because ... isn't it normal?? ;P

HAPPY CNY!!

As I was telling Voon earlier, "looks like we've redefined the impression of studying-overseas". Perhaps not dad and mom since they know the degree of syok-syok-sendiri-ness that we are having here, but aunties and uncles actually thought we're going to eat maggie mee for the rest of CNY!! KAKA! puuhhhh leeeaasseee!! Maggie mee is supper larhhh!!

I'm just going to put a summary (OOO... am so organized) here so that I'll know which pictures I should be hunting to upload them later after our BK-Fusion V-Date later.....

On CNY reunion night, we had a 9-course dinner, and 1 of them had 4 dishes in it (4 seasons)!! Oh yes, we've also got super-small-eaters on board: LeeYin, Ally, Christine, Fionna & SuAnn. Can i conveniently include Ming as well? (she's so going to kill me) We were so full that we actually walked to George Square in shorts, flip-flops, and a Genting-ish jacket (Note: we're in Scottish winter night). When we got back, there was another session to stuff (all food has lost its taste) ourselves with XinHui's bday cake. *burp!*

On first day of CNY, we had a CNY dinner party for the whole batch with our ang-moh lecturers and batchmates.

On 2nd day of CNY, we went out to celebrate XinHui's belated birthday at Ichiban japanese noodle cafe at Queens Street.

On 3rd day of CNY, we had our bahagia steamboat followed by Bailey's. Ohhh... will definitely post pictures of this as SuAnn was sooo flushed! Eng mama is definitely going to ask her to stay away from this bunch of friends! bye bye klang seafood....

Seems like there's no difference between CNY in glasgow and malaysia! haha.

Fhern to Ming's rescue!!

This was supposed to be a "short" comment in Ming's blog in my attempt to clarify her "straight" preference for jantanSSS. Haha.

But it turned out to be so freaking long for a comment that I'd rather transfer it here to be a post! Ming, you can start thinking where to belanja me dy!! Heh Heh!

-cut and paste-

HAPPY V DAY DARLLINGGGGGGG!!!!!!! muackssssssssssssss!!!

Ah Fhern to the rescue to clear ming's reputation... people, she's straight gilerrrrrr... trust me.

As I was still blur and lost after our kayu-lecturer's workshop (ghee, i forgot what workshop we went thru... kaka sorry daddie mommy for wasting your money!), ming's "radar" got alerted, mata-buka-besar-besar-ed, & SUDDENLY dragged me to FOLLOW so closely behind a mat-saleh with cute ass (coz I've only managed to see the behind) I think it was in the Royal College?

Oh well, it was only for a glance that the guy was classified by Ming as "love of my life" & "Leng Chai! Leng Chai!" & "oooooooooo......". Immediately, people around us stared (perhaps with symphathy: Asian gals never see guys before) as we almost traced the guy RIGHT into his lab.

1 hour away to our V-Date! Happy valentine's day DARLING!!!

Gals night out- Mussel Inn

Finally, this is the first time that the 4 of us of the ever-close-and-intimate Tzes-Lambs-kembar relationships managed to do a girl's hang out since arrival in Glasgow, which was June 2007. Although it was rainy and windy here, as usual, but our night out can't be any better: we've got the freshest mussels; MOST (see i'm describing in terms of "quantities"?) fresh-baguettes; and the best company by both my tzes (Kah Yee and Pei Ling) and my kembar (Voon)!!

We went to Mussel Inn on Hope Street. (thanks to Hansel and Amir's discovery, which now semi-directly brought us here: "semi-direct" is because Hansel brought Voon here for normal-friend (I'm so lying here... pls forgive me) lunch. Then, Voon decided almost instantly to bring her gal pals here coz it's soooooooo good!)

Mussel Inn, Glasgow: We sat upstairs. It was really lucky of us that we still managed to get a table despite our walk-in on a friday night! *lucky!*

This is US before our official revealing of how-much-asian-gals-can-eat in front of the mat saleh. Our appetite actually attracted the attention of the whole celtic orchestral band who were dining just behind us. They're currently on a tour and happened to be performing in the Royal Concert Hall, which is the one near Buchanan Gallery. What a small world huh? And we thought the Roman-fat fat uncle was trying to con us into believing that the figure playing the clarinet in the brochure was him. Well, guess what, It IS really him!

1/2 Kilo pot of mussels: we had 3!! Each cooked in different flavours: Moroccan; blue cheese; Shallots. *bliss*

Here comes the shocking part which set the whole floor (good thing it's a small area) staring at us!

See this basket of baguettes? We had FOUR of them! Yupp!!

Me and Tze (kah yee) went to their washroom, only to realize that even the toilet is blue!! -tze's favourite colour- We picked up the restaurant's pics postcard and brochure on our way back. The restaurant were praising the goodness of shellfish (mussels, scallops, prawns bla bla bla), and dedicated one whole paragraph to mussels being able to stimulate the male's fertility! What da.... No wonder Tze pei ling said the Roman fat fat uncle (clarinet guy) was checking out the waitress' butt larh!!! And he was looking at Ah voon summore... erm.....

Love ya gals lots!! *hugz* Glad we did this! Muacks muakcss!!

p/s: chua ah ming protesting for forgetting her. We better do something about that!

NO MORE LABS!!

Finally... after the gruelling 14+1 (last day for me to prepare NMR tubes out of my "novel" anti-TB drug) days, I'm now FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE from lab coats which now stinks like longkang, blue gloves, scuba-diving-lookalike goggles, steel spatula, weighing boats, weighing that counts up to 0.0001 decimal place (tell me about it), water bath at 75C, cooking my silky hands above steam for holding my reaction flask for the entire day above the water bath, waiting for crystallization to happen, collecting the crystals, drying them, desperately scrapping products out with the intention to obtain maximum yield (oh yield yield yield yield!!) to the extent of damaging all the filter papers ETC ETC ETC ETC!!! Ghee i might as well submit my blog post as the draft of my experimental methods?! kaka.

Anyhow, I'm just super glad! Not only the lab sessions were intensely grueling, but my anhydride compound which we were suppose to perform esterification with....STINKSSS!! Oh my gosh... you cannot imagine the stench! Both suannS (khoo and eng) in my group have got their's smelling like intense strong acid; Hansel has got his smelling like cat-shit/ cat-corpse; while Geok Ying has got hers smelling like INTENSE puke! It was so bad that she began to stink like intense puke by just shoving her arms into the fume cupboard to label her materials! yewwwww!! While me and Voon yuen's are just a compilation of all the smells... wanna smell?

So bla bla bla and all the yew yew yew.... finally.... we've got our "supposedly" novel anti-TB compound! Original, yet to be found in literature, super potent, ZERO toxicity compound anti-TB drug molecule!! Mine happens to be a pivalic ester, and it actually crystallized!! great, now i'm going to sound like i'm speaking Greek to those who ain't my group members.... sorry sorry.. OK tuning back to english!

*a picture speaks a thousand words.. what more.. I have lots of it!*


Shall keep this in my "treasure box" and will present to WHO when the world has gone to absolute-resistance towards current TB drugs.
Phuay Fhern: the Nobel prize winner~~~~~~~~~ *proud*

My creation: Pivalic ester that mimics the claimed-characteristics of thiolactomycin, TLM, a potent anti-TB drug.

In lay man terms: that means i'm trying to produce adidas sneakers at pasar malam price! Erm.. suddenly my work doesn't sound that great anymore...........*depressed*