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Profile zhiguang 270490 nus med CO.liuqin.ruan i like hotcakes, waffle crisps, chocobabies. and i really like the music of chopin and rachmaninov (: Tagboard Exits alvin chao tong charmaine chong chen christopher chun hui dao teng davin douglas gim thia grace han lin harry pan jessly jia hao jian ting jian tong jonathan justin keng wei kevin lionel magdelene michael michelle minhui minzhe rachel samuel sean seryang shi ling shiwei shou hao shu peng siew boon song sim szu an ting feng xuan yi yee jiunn yijing yi xiang yuan yin yu guang yun heng zheng you 07S7E! 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Sunday, July 29, 2007 oh man it was one of the worse nights i've ever had in my life. did not sleep at all. had to work on my paper draft which is to be submitted the next morning at 11am. so i worked from 12am till 10am. sat there and never moved away from the computer a all. it was totally crazy. at one point of time i almost collapsed. phew! but this shall be elaborated later! i havent updated for days!! i stopped at 24 july.. okay so let me recap what happened! [25 july] rahh i cant remember if i woke up early or late. i think it was late. but anyway i reached the lab like 9.45 and it was a usual day at the lab. very sian nothing to do. i was so bored that i took a 1 hour lunch break. ooh i rmb smth interesting happened during lunch. i was eating at the student's center all by myself. yeah very sad. while i was eating the alarm suddenly rang! its the fire alarm i think. everybody started to walk towards the exit and all the shops like pull down their metal railings or smth. i found it so interesting that i took a video of it XD i had to go somewhere else outside to have my lunch then. i went to this nice little corner, like a small garden like that. i cant believe i fell asleep there while sitting on one of the benches. lol! when i woke up i realised i took a 1 hour plus lunch break already. but no one cares la. hmm then at night there was this lecture by the Dean of Harvard Engineering School. He's from India de. most of the time he was speaking of the importance of physics and engineering. and he's a very animated speaker. and after the talk everyone gave a standing ovation. lol and i realised that nowadays after every lecture we will always give a standing ovation. very random. XD after lecture we all had this group bed check. like make announcements and stuff. the counselors told us that we will be playing a game called "assassin"! its rather fun! its like a game played throughout the week. in this game everyone has a target (a person) to assassinate. that means one would have a person to "kill" and a person to avoid so as not to be "killed". but we would only know who to "kill" and not know who is going to "kill" us. To assassinate a person, one has to be with the victom alone. there shud be no other RSI student or staff within looking or hearing distance. when we assassinated a person we have to report to the counselors via email! and your next target will be your victim's target! its quite fun! like now a lot of us tend to walk in groups so as to not being killed. lol! and people like to sneak around or ambush each other to kill each other! i dunno if you all can understand the game from what i said. dun think i explained it well though. lol! but now i've assassinated 2 of my targets, and apparently i know who is supposed to "kill" me! so im avoiding that person whenever i can. its super funny! XD the game officially started at 12am, and a lot of people got "killed" in the first few hours. because everyone is working hard on their papers! and a lot of them work alone. now i tend to walk in open corridors and to the student's center with david, justin or some other ppl i know, just to be safe! haha! i worked on my paper till like 3am?! had to edit the materials and methods section of my paper. after that i was so tired, i decided i din have the energy to update my blog, so went to sleep. [26 july] next day as usual i woke up late! needless to say. i dun feel like talking about what happened in the lab and stuff. boo. lab was quite siann again. but today i had to split cells cos the flasks were packed with cells already. and also prepare the cells for transfection study. like centrifuge them and mixed the pellet with formaldehyde. had to go off early today cos there was photo taking! the photo taking was at 6.15 and i left the lab like 5.30pm so had to like rush back to dorm, get changed and rush back to the MIT main building. super tired X/ after photo taking there was a talk by the this person called Mrs. D who is like the main organiser for this programme. she is responsible for finding sponsors for us and speakers for lectures. her talk was on applying for college. she asked a few of the counselors to share experiences with us and also gave us some tips on what to do and what not to do. its like i understood only about 50% of the talk because it was on US education. =/ after that i went to the student's center and worked till like 3am plus! i dun have any results yet so had to re-edit my intro and materials and methods. also, there is going to be this International Night the next day, so for singaporeans, we decided to do a photo montage and sing the song "singapore town"! lol. i volunteered to do up the Powerpoint. had to spend quite some time on it too!. rahhh. super tired and went to sleep again without blogging. =/ [27-28 july] late late late! haha. today was supposed to be the last day for mentorship at the labs. but im going back the following monday to do some last-minute work, and also to bid farewell! lol. yeah. so friday morning did the transfection study and after that got nothing to do le. =/ had to get some raw data from my mentor so at least i have something to put into my draft. very sianned. i left the lab early again. went back to dorm and took a nap till like 7pm! rahh! by the time i got ready it was like 7.10 already. i was going to be late for lecture at 7.15. it was informal so no need to change into formal attire. and the talk was not very impt de, so i took my own sweet time to get there. haha! the talk lasted for like 30 mins only. after that it was International Night! so one by one, representatives from different countries went down to present on their country. china presented first, they basically introduced their culture. like chinese calligraphy, paintings and stuff liddat. following was australia! they very funny! they said a lot of things in australian slang then everyone kept laughing. next was singapore! before we sang the song and showed the photo montage, we like cleared a few misconceptions ppl have of singapore. like in singapore its not that if we chew gum we get put into jail de. XD ppl said they liked our presentation a lot. which is good! yay! haha. then was presentations by lebanon, sweden, poland, israel, turkey, south korea, germany, bulgaria, and even US students as well. the whole thing ended rather late. like 10pm plus already. some of the international students brought food! so after the presentations we all were so hungry, all of us chiong to the front to grab food! lol. after that it was the start of craziness. i went back to my room and took a shower. then i went down to the 2nd floor computer labs, where i worked there on my paper from 12am till like 10am in the morning! totally never sleep at all! X/ i only went up to my room and used the toilet twice. at some point of time i almost wanted to give up, its like i cant think of anything to put into my paper. X/ phew. this is the first time in my life that i worked continuously throughout the night. at 10am when i submitted my draft paper, i went to have breakfast with yutong, before having my sleep from 12pm to like near 7pm! XD when i woke up, it was time for dinner, so i went to the student's center, met yutong and justin there again! at 9pm everyone had to gather at the lobby dining place to do buddy reading. basically its like we have to read each other's paper and help correct errors. after that i came back to my room and first time in so many days i actually got time to sit down and type this entry! i wun want to work all night again! i shall go sleep later! and then start editing my paper again! X/ i oso have to do a presentation on wed! rahh have to do ppt slides. sooo much work to do! hai. but the good thing is that in around a week's time i will be going back singapore le! next saturday i will be taking the flight at 9.00am! and by sunday 5 august 2335hrs i shud be arriving at singapore le! yay! cant wait cant wait! XD shall go sleep now! tmr have to work work work again. =( photos below! I WILL BE GOING HOME SOON! =) =) Wednesday, July 25, 2007 [24 july] woke up yet again. back to the normal self. =/ reached the lab especially late too. almost 10am when i reached. in lab today i din do much for the morning. my mentor dosed the cancer cells with fluorescently-labelled nanoparticles. im supposed to like prepare microscope slides of the cells at 2, 4 and 6 hour timepoints respectively. its a super tedious process. =/ while waiting i was so bored. intended to do up my presentation in the first place, but decided not to cos my mind cannot think properly. was reading some online articles, then halfway i fell aslp! by the time i woke up it was time to do up another batch of microscope slides alrd. lunch! my mentor decided to treat me today, because she was free. brought me to this nice dining hall in the northeastern university. there wasnt much variety, but i ordered rice, veg, potatoes and chicken. and my mentor paid for everything. haha! so nice! during lunch she asked me a lot about singapore. and i got to know quite a lot about her too. apparently, she has completed medical school in india, had another PhD alrd in some other part of US, and now she's doing another PhD on Pharmaceutical sciences. siao she study so much. and after she graduate here, she said she wants to work in the industry for a few years, before going back to teach as a professor. its like she has her future planned so nicely alrd. she asked me i told her i havent decided on anything yet. after lunch went back to prepare more microscope slides. left the lab at around 5pm. there was no lecture that night so i went out for a dinner trip with some ppl. around 10 of them. we went to this Mu Lan Restaurant which serves taiwanese food! =) i took some pictures there. the food was quite nice, average average. but it brings memories back from home. ate till quite full! went back to dorm and nothing much happened le! have to do up my final presentation slides and full research paper! due this saturday! rahh. oh yah. and this friday international students have to present on their country. how how how?! dun wanna think le. photos! Tuesday, July 24, 2007 [23 July] yay i did not wake up late today! okay i think this is the second time this month that i actually woke up on time. great achievement. XD nothing much happened. there was as usual this group meetings on Mondays where Dr. Amiji will check up on every of his PhD trainee to ensure that everything is going fine. dunno why i din pay attention at all during the meeting. my mind seemed to be flying off somewhere. mebbe im too excited about going back to Singapore alrd. its like i will be going back in around 12 days le! less than 2 weeks! c'mon! to me, my project looks as though soo little is being done. most of the time padmaja shows me how to handle the cells and equipment, because she's afraid i will screw up or smth. =s have so little confidence in me. but today not bad la! she first time instruct me to do things then never stand beside and pressurize me. HAHA. and she wants to treat me to lunch this thursday! HAHAHA yay. in the morning i dosed the cancer cells with nanoparticles again. had to wait like 6 hours before changing the medium in the plates. its like 10 - 4. so bored while waiting. i took a long lunch. then after that i went out to walk walk around the campus, near the lab. its like really nothing to do that kind of feeling. i walked here and there. look at the leaves. look at the trees. look at the buildings. the weather was really nice too. like misty and cooling that kind. felt like drizzling but actually not. after a while this PhD trainee, who recently left the lab cos he found a job - Zeu, came back! he saw me like walking around XD lol then ask me go back to lab with him. yeah soon 6 hours reach le and i have to remove the media, wash the wells in the plates, and then change the media. now i have to let it sit for 24 hours! i have another plate which have to sit for 72 hours in the incubator. =/ when i left the lab, and on the way to the bus stop. i realised that the buildings in boston are actually very nice. i saw the New England Conservatory. actually see it everyday. but in the weather it looked really nice. and there was like music coming out from the rooms. oh man its quite fun to study music too! haha. i took a photo of it, and also the road, the busstop. very random. i oso took a picture of the dorm building. i think its pretty unique. there are approx. 5000 ++ windows around the whole building. XD and then i had to do up thank you letters to sponsors which sponsored me for this programme here. haha all of them are from MOE de. i guess it should be MOE which actually sponsors everything. need to do up 3 letters! but actually okay alrd. i'm normal. my roommate kit armstrong has 34 letters to do. X/ at night there was this lecture on Wireless Communication. basically talk about its past, present and future. got talk about a few physics concepts like Faraday's Law and Ampere's Law. i can remember! haha! but most of the time i was trying hard to keep myself awake. Hashim sitting beside me was dozing off like most of the time, and i had to keep nudging him to wake him up. XD lecture ended pretty early today. so i went back to my room to type this entry! i think im gonna start doing up my full research paper and PowerPoint presentation after bed check! presentations are on 1 August!! rahh! scary! photos! =) oh yah these few days i keep on listening to Chang Cheng Sui Xiang, Chun, Qiu and Dong on my mp3! dunno why listen to these pieces make me have that "back home" kind of feeling! XD Monday, July 23, 2007 [22 July] i shall update again today! on what happened during the day. continued from the day before. i got a shock when i woke up. lights were on, computer was on. and it was like 11.15am when i woke up! XD lucky it was a Sunday so there was no mentorship. i called up a few ppl, like david, yu tong and greg to go for brunch. apparently all of them just woke up too XD had lunch at the student's center. then we had this idea of going Harvard Square. but in the end decided against it cos there was soo much work for us to do. we went back to the dorm after that. back there, we had to submit 3 different scripts using the computers downstairs. one script about our personal details. one which had 150 questions, asking us to use superlatives to descibe participants of the RSI. like "Most likely to be president -- Boy A , Girl B" smth liddat. haha. the last one is about our so-called will. we can like "will" random stuff to ppl here. haha! took me soo long to write everything. i shall jump straight to what happened in the evening. at 7pm we had this RSI Talent Show. we all gathered in this big room. there were chairs, sound system and everything. so one by one, participants came out to present their talents! not everyone performed though. only around 20 ppl performed. ppl like me decided not to perform XD i must say the talents that the ppl have are very interesting! there was this group who sang "the lions sleep tonight" from Lion King. some others sang songs. and there were ppl who played instruments like piano, oboe, and cello! there were people (paul and nikola) who asked for the lights to be switched off and performed a show using lightsticks! super cool! haha! at the end there was also this "log-off" competition, where participants of the game stand in front. and a person from the audience would shout out a number from 1 to 1000. the participants would then have 100 secs to calculate the ans for log10(number) = ? quite interesting to watch! wael from saudi arabia won! his math calculation skills is just too pro alrd! XD its like he can find the ans in less than 10 secs! after that nothing much happened le! there's mentorship again later! X/ boo i surely wake up late again. its like 1.00am now! rahh okay photos for today! shall go slp le! dun wanna wake up late for mentorship =s its less than 2 weeks now! [21 July] boo! i was unable to update yesterday because my wireless internet registration expired = s It can only last 14 days. so have to use LAN cable to access internet now. haha. Saturday 21 July! It was racial harmony day in Singapore. Since it was weekend i can afford to wake up like super late, because dun have to go for mentorship. So i woke up at like 1030am! I went online to ask about the QGY. heard that it went well! and everybody enjoyed it! haha yay! =) after that went to have brunch with justin at the Pu Pu Hot Pot chinese restaurant, because we were sick of food at the student's center. haha! i ordered chicken with veg and rice, and this egg drop soup. not bad! very long nv eat singapore food already. my char kuay teow, hokkien mee! at 1pm there was this group of ppl going over to the museum of science which was in the Boston area, so me and justin hurry up went back to the dorm to meet up with them. took the train to the museum. it was a nice place! but the entrance ticket very expensive = s its like $21 dollars. we viewed this exhibit on mathematics, and then went to see this 3D show on the exploration of Mars! we have to put on 3D glasses. got to view images that were taken by the space rover itself! very cool! haha. after the show, there was another live show on electricity. there was this large Van der Graff's generator which produced sparks that looked like lightning. it was quite loud but interesting! after the show we had to leave le, because some of the ppl need to go buy clothes for Rocky Horror (not whore, i interpreted it wrongly X/). i shall elaborate on what is rocky horror later! but then a group of us decided to go explore the places around Boston. This group consists of me, david, justin, boyan, nikola, robert, and jenny! (a professor who is a tutor at this RSI programme). We walked to the Boston Public Park first. along the way we saw beautiful scenery. like the charles river, and their esplanade! i must say their esplanade there is much much much smaller than that in singapore. XD Boston Pulic Park was the park that i went to last year also! i can still remember the place fairly well. it was still as nice as i remembered it to be. the 7 of us keep on taking photos here and there. and there was this person playing the guitar and singing. we stood there to listen and gave her some money after her nice performance! haha. next, we walked to this candy shop - called sugar @ heaven! it was really hard to locate it though. they sell a super big variety of candy. there were some candy which cannot be found in singapore de. even in candy empire oso dun have i think. i bought a big bag of assorted of candy for 07S7E! haha! can share with the whole class! haha! andd i oso bought some other types of candy! then we walked somemore to this ice cream shop! jenny told us that she loved the ice cream that this shop sells. she treated us to ice cream somemore! very nice of her! i had this oreo ice cream on a waffle cone. yummy! haha. after all this, we walked back to have dinner at the student's center. when we got back to the dorm, soo many ppl were getting ready for the Rocky Horror show which was at night around 1030pm. they were supposed to go to this cinema at Harvard Square. Okay so Rocky Horror -- Guys have to dress up like girls, and Girls have to dress up like prostitutes. these ppl spent their whole saturday afternoon going out to buy the suitable clothes. i saw some of them already dressed and i almost puked out my dinner XD next time got chance i put up the photos. it was rather noisy outside my room cos everyone was changing into their costumes. i think more than half of the ppl went for the show. eww. i stayed in my room and wrote 2 summerbook articles. RSI is going to publish this summerbook, with interesting articles written by the participants, and also funny stuff about the participants. at around 11.15pm. a group of us went to the hockey field nearby to play soccer! there were only 6 of us, so we played 3 vs 3. it was very fun! it has been nearly 1 month since i last played soccer already. playing in cooling weather was very nice also. aiyah. it was just great! XD after playing soccer. i was sooo tired. david came into my room to transfer photos onto my com. when he left, i got on my bed and immediately fell aslp. so my computer was on for the whole night. = s okay! i shall upload the photos i took on Saturday!