Last day

It's the last day, and probably the last 2 hours I'll be a Malaysian. Will be becoming a Singaporean citizen soon.

Hmm, will need to get used to this switch in identity.

I'm finally done with classes! No more lectures, tutorials, written tests for the rest of my life...at least from this end. Today I got an email about an undergraduate course starting in the fall, asking for teaching fellows. How interesting to teach PCR and DNA replication to undergraduates, who've never heard about them. And as I've been warned, how potentially dreadful it could get, given that rabid Harvard undergraduates fight tooth and nail for every quarter point in every problem set and every test. After all, each and every one of them wants stellar grades to get into medical/graduate/law school. Some insist on several-hour-long tutorials late into the night.....imagine, "Night of the living undergrads"...

And it's commencement time now; they've put up a huge tent with hundreds of chairs in the middle of the yard, and dozens of banners representing the different houses and departments. Some of my friends doing Masters are graduating. Farewell, and good luck with the real world! I overheard some guy talking to his friend while in the kitchen; she was in the Hague and talking about how things work there. Wow, what a different world. I'll be staying here in my bubble for quite a while longer.

Joined a lab! i.e. where I'll cry, sleep, eat (when no one's looking) and enter catatonic states when my results don't make sense for the next 4/5 years. It's a weird feeling knowing I'll be working at that bench for half a decade. But the principal investigator has some interesting ideas, and finally! I might be able to create knowledge rather than just regurgitate it as I have most of my life.

Moved to a new room for the summer, to a dorm building across the road from my old one. It's twice as big, and more importantly has an air-conditioning unit attached! Take that, hot muggy New England summer.

I'm flying back to Singapore this Friday. My postdoc remarked that I didn't seem excited at all; I'm not. Not that I dread going back, but I just don't feel homesick at all. I've been away 10 months, but nope, nothing. Explained to her I've been away since I was 12. Can't beat one of my friends though, who did not go back to Singapore once during his entire undergraduate degree. If anyone in Singapore is free to meet and catch up, over lunch, dinner, coffee or booze, drop me a message!

I drink lots of booze.








Went to New York again a few weeks ago. The famous bull in New York, from a not so famous angle.

And in the Museum of Modern Art, a classic manga shot.


Feeling kinda random this evening. Maybe it was the 6.30-8pm nap.

What happens in Vegas...

We ate SO much.

In Vegas everything is subsidized by the casinos, so most things are cheaper than you'd expect from a tourist trap. And since our party didn't really gamble, we came to Vegas for the buffets (the buffets!!).

Day 1, MGM Grand buffet. We had just arrived and were tired, but hungry. Since we were staying at the MGM Grand Signature, we decided to just look for a cafe for quick bite in the shopping area in the hotel; we'd planned to go to a buffet the next day. Then we passed by the MGM Grand buffet area, where a $16 buffet beckoned. What the heck right? A lunch in any other restaurant would easily cost $10 or more.



Dude, we'd never seen more variety in any other buffet. Jen was slightly scared; there was just too much choice. A whole Asian section with chinese food and sushi, mexican section, chicken cooked several different ways, and ditto for beef (oh the steak tips), seafood (shrimp salad!).......and the freaking dessert spread!

We learned many valuable lessons that day. Divide and conquer (everyone get a different set of desserts), teamwork (everyone eat a bit of everything). We missed our target of 20 desserts by a wide margin, even though everything was mini-sized.

Then we went back and slept for 2 hours.

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Gambling - We weren't so hot with this. Us being the poor graduate students that we are, we stuck to the penny slots. Penny slots ie 1 cent per pull. But you can bet on up to 30 lines per slot pull (horizontally across, diagonally, and weird V/W shaped lines), so our money did run out pretty fast. I lost a whole $5 on the slot machines, through the 4 days there.

Give me back my money!!!!!!!

I'd say around 75% of the machines in the casinoes are slot machines, all with the exact same software but with different 'themes', like "Indian Princess", "Texas Gold", "Gone fishing", "Pagoda Treasure" etc. The others were blackjack and poker machines, also with 2 cent bets. Boy did we go crazy.

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But one of the things to do in Vegas is to check out the different casinoes, and this is where Vegas really reveals itself to be less of a city and more of a theme park. There's the Luxor, a black pyramid that shoots light into the sky at night, there's a "New York" complete with mini-Liberty, a Paris with mini-Eiffel Tower and Arc of Triumph, a Venice with indoor canals and gondolas! Not to mention several huge man-made lakes in the middle of the desert. In Vegas, if you can go over-the-top, you do.
















Watched a very Vegas-y show, and got drunk.

We were sitting in a bar which had a live band, and the only ones cheering (going "wooo wooo wooo") since most others were much older, and the 4 of us were also high. So of course the lead singer beckons for Srinjan to go up and dance with her, and of course we force him to go up, where he boogies with her in front of a group of strangers.

He runs back quickly, but lead singer isn't done with us yet. Horrors, she asks all 4 of us to go up. And doesn't stop asking till we do. T_T So we were dancing to Outkast, just the 4 of us in front of a whole bar of amused strangers, some even taking photos and one woman a video. We're dreading the day it appears on Youtube, titled "Four crazy young kids TRYING to dance".
Thus I see why the promotional tagline, "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas".

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Strangely enough though we were in the middle of the desert, it was chilly.

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The highlight of the trip was the Wynn buffet, which Frommer's rated as 3 stars out of 3. Dude it was one level above the MGM Grand buffet; the juice they served us was the best I ever tasted. JUMBO shrimp, teriyaki steak, buttersquash ravioli etc etc. And dessert again: tiramisu was heavenly, and the ice-cream... sorbets usually taste of ice, but the mango sorbet here was like cold mango puree, and whatever the hell banana foster ice cream is....wow...


We managed 24 desserts this time!

And walked at 1/4 normal speed for 2 hours after that.




















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Other random things:

Biggest Hawaiian T-shirt in the world! We thought of going in and asking the guy: "Do you have that in blue?"

















The Scream, Vegas rendition. The chocolate fountain is extends above the photo; it's twice as high as you can see here, with three streams of molten chocolate twisting and flowing aside each other: white, normal and coffee (we think).


















The glass walls kept her at bay.















A cashout voucher of 10 cents, from my daily gambling allowance of one dollar. I borrowed the dollar from Jen; I think she's not very happy at me losing 90% of her money.













Ghost Rider is an awesome movie and its release has automatically divided everyone into the world into the cool and those who have not seen it.













The other things Vegas is famous for.








Ever the British gentleman, even with a Playboy bunny.




















Bath soap + jacuzzi jets = Bubble MAYHEM.

We actually couldn't stop laughing at how freaking many freaking bubbles there were. The foam flooded the bathroom and threatened to invade the hotel room proper. This picture only shows the "After", when we managed to get rid of some of them.

Viva Las Vegas

It's spring break! Feel my pain; it's been a long long term but we only have a week's break (as compared to 5.5 weeks in Uni of Cam). Mid-term exams, lab rotations (just started a new one this week, hopefully I'll join this lab), as well as tax season (I've to submit tax forms to the USA federal govt, the state govt, AND to Singapore!). Got tickets back home to Singapore (June 8th-June 28th, anyone free?), and am looking for housing for the coming academic year (living in a house with 3 other coursemates - geekfest).

Tomorrow though, Vegas! 4 days with Srinjan, Derek and Jen - staying at the MGM Grand Signature, which should be quite an upgrade from my dorm room. Most of our planning time has gone to which buffet to visit; some time maybe we'll hit the casinos. We had a practice poker session with fake money - the others have now limited me to only bringing 10 bucks to the casino, so that I can't lose my life's savings.

I'm going to make a beeline for the 5-cent slot machines; since gambling has a negative expected return anyways, this way I'll be able to 'enjoy' gambling for longer. Mum's asked for 20 bucks on red 25 on the roulette wheel though.

Glitz and Glamour.... with graduate students. How incongruent.

The Boston skyline

The view from the Top of the Hub restaurant, on the 52nd floor of the Prudential Tower building in Boston. I especially like the sailing boats, trapped between ice floes on either side.

Good place for special events.

Snow

There's the half-hearted attempts at snow in Cambridge, UK. There are the arctic blizzards that snuff out all life outdoors and raise ground level by several feet here in New England.

And sometimes there's the snow that sprinkles down like icing sugar, coating the land with a layer of frosting. And when the wind blows, the snow flows along the roads like souls down a Stygian river.

The latter happens when it's very, very cold. But once in a while it's worth it.

The thawing of the Charles

We've only had two instances of huge snowfalls so far this year, one just last week. Covered everything in snow/ice, and even the Charles River was frozen (never seen a river frozen before; and the Charles being several times the size of the river Cam).

It was warm yesterday, and sunny. And though it's going to be -9 degrees Celcius again tomorrow, just for that one day we could go out and explore.

Winter's a clingy lover, but looks like spring's finally on its way.

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Tons of admin to do these days. Finishing up my current lab rotation, arranging flights back for summer, housing for next year, and filing taxes (TAXES!) for the US federal government, the state of Massachusetts, and Singapore. All on top of coursework.

But Srinjan (Queen's College guy) and I managed to import Pancake Day into the U.S.A., at least for our class. None of the Americans have ever heard about Pancake Day; weirdos, how can anyone not love a day devoted to eating pancakes?



We put together a good selection: blueberry pancakes, chocolate chip pancakes, raspberry pancakes, with maple syrup, whipped cream, chocolate sauce, rainbow sprinkles, strawberries and butter. With a tub of Ben and Jerry's that we didn't even manage to get to.

Saint Patrick's day is coming up. Apparently you've got to wear green, and drink green beer. Jen's a big fan of it. =)