End of July

Another month gone, and still, not much progress for my project, except that i going to run ELISA on august and want to extract RNA from all my stored blood samples and optimize the protocol. It is still a mess for me, especially i just sent over a few samples for bioanalyzer testing, and what returned is that very likely my RNAs were degraded. Even the highest concentration one the RIN only 4, and the rest either can't be detected any trace, or very low RIN. So, i would say it is start of my nightmare. I thought my sample preparation part is ok already, however, the low purity, low concentration and now the 'degradation' is distraught me right now. Ok, what should i do next, i have no idea.

About my personal life, still the same, except that i got one new pet at home. The puppy becomes so disobedient recently, every time i reached home, it will come to my feet and bite me! And when i open the door, it was so naughty and wanted to follow me into the house. I even closed the door almost flattened its nose, it still attempt to go in. Better think twice whether to keep it or not, i am very sure it will get more active when it grows up. Come back to my life after working hour, actually i am in "on call" status right now. All because i want to speed up my recruitment rate, so i told the nurses to call me when there is any putative patient coming in after working hours. In fact, this worked initially, as i got call when i was in my sweet dream and 11.45pm. This was a cool experience, pity to my parents because they got to accompany me as to protect me when this happened. However, my recruitment rate return to "zero" these two weeks, so my emotion is like roller coaster, high and low, excited and distressed. Not to say that actually i saw a patient went to coma and emergency condition, but a minute before he still consciously well; and my first time to see the hospital staff removed the dead body from the ward, with the wife stood restless watching her beloved.

Despite all these, i wonder how far i can go further. I am not doctor, not even a pharmacist or nurse. But if you said i am a researcher, because i am a postgrad in uni. I afraid i am not in that stage yet, i can't even decide when i should go uni, all the lab techniques and knowledge i have are blank in my head (because lack of practise). Being half of clinical, half of basic, i actually not belong to anywhere. Sad.

Ok, i know it is an irrational post. I will definitely look at a brighter side, maybe shall go marry first.

Puppies (4 weeks old)

The puppies grew up very big now, especially the "xiao bai". They can run, jump, play with each other, lick and bite. They loves to play wrestling to one another, mostly are "xiao bai" played with one black puppy. The other puppy (with white color on its feets) tend to be more "quiet" and doesn't play with other most of the time, maybe because it is a girl.

An update picture of my beloved puppy (sorry! I know i am bias!!, but it is just so cute~):

Endnote and SPSS

Last weekend i went to a 3 days workshop in UNIMAS for Basic Biostatistic course. Basically, attending this workshop just to give me a brief idea of how to conduct basic statistic analysis using SPSS and also learn to use the citation program called EndNote.

I heard from one of the UNIMAS lecturers that this speaker, Dr. Lin Naing is one of the best statisticians in public health science. Just feel fortunate to have this guy as the workshop speaker because i learned alot from him, though only portion of basic things but is enough for me at this moment. At least i know different tests in SPSS and what are they used for certain reasons.

The most exciting part will be the EndNote. I never know about this program until i joined GH last year. And i've totally no idea what is this until today. It is actually a citation program, maybe not perfect as i heard from others that it didn't actually search all the web databases. Nevertheless, as long as it is useful to cite the reference for us, then we won't be so headache when writing thesis or article. Another thing is this program can actually provide different publication format if you wish to publish in certain journals. For example citation format for article to be published in Brit Med J is different for other journals, and EndNote can help you to cite according to certain format "automatically", you no need to re-type the whole reference.

I haven't got time to revise all that i have learnt, hopefully i won't forget all these useful lectures. This is the only workshop i attended so far (after i joined GH), which i think is worthy. ^^

New Pet (3.5 weeks old)

Puppies

This is my pet: the puppies' biological mother

She gave birth to 5 puppies: 2 died and 3 remained. This is one of the puppies

About 3 weeks old

The other two puppies, which are black colors.

They always lying together to get some warms from each other

Can see how big is the white puppy compared to the its sibling.
Both were 3 weeks old.

Sematan. Bako Trips

We do celebrate Hari Gawai/Dayak in Sarawak and Sabah. Thus, we fortunate to have a 4 days break during that festival (weekend + 2 days public holidays).

We went to Sematan beach (Again!) and Bako National Park for day trips.


This is Sematan town, a very small fish village located 100km from Kuching. Just in recent years, it starts turn into a new tourist spot because of its blue sea and white sand. So far it is the best beach i've ever seen in Sarawak.

Can see how blue is the sea

Handcraft made from shells


Cows resting and having fun under the palm trees


Palm Beach Resort


The beach view from the Palm Beach Resort

Then our second day trip was the Bako National Park. This is one of the several national parks in Kuching, and my second time visit this place. Last time was with my SBC colleagues, Connie and Adrienne. We followed the same trail as the first time i went, which was Pantai Kecial trail that took us 1 1/2 hr of jungle trekking from the beach. This was the first thing came into our sight when we reached Pantai Kecial by speedboat:

The famous rock: A look-alike Crocodile Head

This is the Pantai Kecil (Kecil Beach) view from the hill

We got to climb up from the beach as this is the only way route back to the HQ from the beach


Sightseeing from the top

A closer look on the competely dehydrated rock
(due to overexposal to the sun)

When this view came into sight, means we've reached the HQ finally!
(After an hour of trekking that totally exposed ourselves under the hot sun)

The map at the HQ park

We've seen the same map whenever we reached the junctions during jungle trekking. But never as detailed as this in HQ park which showed us the actual distance from each spot to the HQ.
Our trail is about 3.0 Km from HQ but >50% of it was open area (no trees can hide us from the hot Sun). If you can withstand the super hot weather, this maybe a good place to explore. Luckily i didn't get sunburnt this time because of the sun protection cream. If i don't apply any sun cream, i am sure my skin will be peeled off the next few days after that trip. Can see how damageable of your skin if you expose yourself longer under this condition.

Both places were worth to be visited again. So i think i will come back again, especially for the seafood and blue sea at Sematan beach, and the sun spa but easy trails at Bako national park. Hope you guys enjoy the photos... all were mainly taken by Iphone which were not so clear actually. =)

To Buy or Not To Buy

I think i will be very sorry to my dad and my current car as i am thinking to get a new car for myself. Not to say i am rich enought to get my own car, is just that i feel the car i am using now is getting old, getting noisy everytime i start the engine and while driving and i also getting worry one day it will stop moving all at a sudden. I will say this car has a full of adventurous life. It was stolen once, when my dad went to play mahjong and found the car was gone when he finished his game. We thought we never can find this car anymore, so my dad went to police station and found that the car was just sent back from somewhere else by the police. Amazing huh.. actually the true story was the thieves had drove the car away, and when on their way back to their home, they found the police car was behind them. They were so scare that they tend to run away from being suspicious by the police, so they ran and eventually crashed into the tree along the road. So the police came and catch them immediately. Then my car was survived but got bad injury.

After few months of that incident, and few months of repairing and resting at the mechanic house. My car has back but one day, the thieves so interested on it and tend to stole it again. Because of the new car alarm system, the alarm rang so loud till nearly whole neighbour alerted, my car was safe this time. Maybe this is the fate that this car belong to us, until it was stolen and nearly stolen, the car still with us today.

I've test drive the Viva this afternoon and found i should get a new car, instead driving this Proton Saga. Actually i personally think that this car is too old and i found we just spend too much money on its petrol and monthly car servicing.

But i think the car got the soul spirit wants to follow our family in its whole life, as above true stories, i just scare if i scrap and trade it with a new car, it will come back for revenge. LOL. Ok, i know i think too much.