Past and future times

Past:

Can you believe it? There was a Christ's College alumni gathering in Singapore yesterday! Didn't think they'd bother holding one halfway across the globe, but yeah!

It was organised by Neo Ying Hung, former Port of Singapore Authority chairman, at the pool terrace of Orchard Parade Hotel (high class!) And Dr Navaratnam and Dr Alan Monroe flew down to Singapore to attend, as well as conduct interviews for Singaporean applicants to Cambridge. As well as hold that entrance exam. Man, that was soooooo long ago for me, and Dr Navaratnam was my interviewer no less.

Poolside reception, waiters approaching anyone without a drink to offer some, and a GREAT spread of food...and lo and behold who do we meet? Prabin, Gail Aw, Dominic Soon...ppl I haven't seen in ages! To tell the truth I've even forgotten that some of them were from Christ's...haha...many others were there, like Daniel, Gareth, Juliana....seemed like a normal Christ's gathering again....no matter what, Christ's will always RULE!!!

And a few other alumni who graduated much earlier, including quite a few who did so before we were born....some interesting characters, like a half-English half-Arab guy who's staying in Ampang and lecturing in the International Islamic University, one person working in Apex Healthcare and his subordinate (who was constantly complaining about his company's stock price)....but most of all it was the old friends that made the evening....and the nice swedish meatballs as well....

Just before we left, the sky saw fit to rain pure hell onto the earth...it was one of the stronger rains I've experienced yet these few months, and the only one so far which I was caught outside in...Found out that whenever it rains heavily the main road outside my flat turns into a river....I think the water was half a tire deep....had to jump across from Gareth's car to the kerb (and felt somewhat like Indiana Jones....dun laugh) and dash across the waterlogged field leading to my place....

While drying at home my housemate Ming Jenn came back, bringing with him one of our long lost ACS hallmates....Ching Siang....aka Michael Wong....man...haven't seen HIM in almost 5 years now....apparently also an investment banker, but even worse off than Ming Jenn...usual off hours are 1am....ok...ppl.....dun go into investment banking not knowing what it entails....was good to see him again, despite the fact that he was a zombie....still the same guy, think we dun really change much after the teenage years...

Future:

Tomorrow Juliana and I are off to the US of A!!! For those not yet updated it's ASTAR's idea to send scholars to the USA to visit universities and labs, talk to professors and thus choose a university/lab to work in. I'm deciding between stem cells, and RNA interference/micro RNA work, so will be visiting professors that work on these. Btw while browsing through the faculty lists, I noticed that most faculty in the USA are called professors, whereas the Biochem dept in Cambridge for example has 4 professors out of 30-40. USA students always call their profs 'profs', but I've always wondered what I should call the guy whose lab I'm working in.

Ok here's the game plan:

29th Oct till 1st Nov --> San Francisco. Visiting Stanford, maybe University of California San Francisco. P.S. UCSF has become one of the top choices for me, since it's got a Stem Cell centre with tons of people working on stem cells. Furthermore California's getting lots of state funds to support stem cell research.

2nd Nov till 4th Nov --> Los Angeles. Caltech, UCLA and Hollywood! Mostly Hollywood. Haven't drawn up any plans to go stargazing, would rather pop over to Yosemite, but hear that's some way away, and you need a day at least to appreciate it fully. Hmmm.

We're then flying to Boston, and...

5th Nov till 6th Nov --> New York! The Big Apple. The David Letterman Show calls it the greatest city on Earth. Bridget Jones had a scene where the sleazy guy comments "New York. Where Sex in the City isn't a TV show, it's a promise". Trump Tower (for this The Apprentice fan). Wall Street. The Statue of Liberty. Man! Purely pleasure, no business. My prof did ask me to pop by Rockefeller Institute though. Visiting Natalie here.

7th Nov till 9th Nov --> Boston, where the BIG TWO are. Harvard and MIT. Man. Getting into one of these would be....many dreams come true. =\ we'll see how things go. Visiting Leah here.

10th Nov flying back to San Francisco, 11th back to Singapore. And hope that some of the profs liked me.

Present:

Not yet packed. eeek. And tomorrow before I fly I've got to go back to the lab (in Singapore) to harvest RNA from my cell culture. 2 hours I think, better get it done FAST.