DAY 1607-1622

 Jan 26 - Feb 10

1) It has been a good while now since my last post. Usually, I would have quite a lot of interesting material to share on my blog after such a long period of time. However, due to the fact that we are all in lockdown, and clinical sessions have not yet resumed, there is nothing really exciting going on in my life right now.  Meanwhile, we have received news that clinical teaching will resume on the 22nd, which gives us some time to relax revise.

2) I have been spending the past week revising data from my previous dissertation. It has been a long week for me, having to sift through and conduct further analyses on what seemed to be lines of never-ending data. Thankfully, I have managed to complete the bulk of the analyses, and I shall now wait to discuss the next steps with my supervisor. 

3) At the start of the new year, a lot of us would been led to believe that we would witness a sense of normalcy from the current COVID-19 pandemic. That has very clearly not been the case. While numbers have been dropping in most countries, it is clear that mass vaccination will take a while to implement, and even longer to build up immunity in the general population i.e. herd immunity. This could take anywhere from months to a year. Therefore, it is important to maintain social distancing, practice good hygiene, wear a mask, and obey local public health guidelines. 

4) Having said that, the situation in local shopping complexes and other small businesses is really quite depressing. Just the other day, I walked to Gurney Plaza to get some groceries and stock up for Chinese New Year. Around 80% of non-food outlets were closed, and of the food outlets, no dine-in was permitted, with takeaway being the only option. For added measure, all the chairs and tables in these outlets had been tied up to prevent any dine-in customers. In general, the whole complex looked empty, safe for the  Grab/Food Panda delivery drivers who were queuing to pick up items for home deliveries. 

5) It is quite clear now that I would not be returning home for CNY. There is just too much uncertainty with when I might come back for clinics. At the very least, I will be fully occupied with things to do throughout this continued lockdown - mostly revision if I'm honest haha. That's about it for this edition of my blog. Hopefully there will be more exciting posts in the weeks to come. Have a great week ahead, and stay safe and healthy. Cheers!

Beautiful Chinese New Year decorations @ Gurney Plaza :)

Too bad there were so few visitors to admire the lovely decorations...

DAY 671

July 4

1) Believe it or not the same thing has happened again today - it has been raining since morning. By some miraculous stroke of luck, I've been able to escape it in the morning, reaching the gates just as it started to drizzle. So on a day that is rainy and damp, what better way to cheer everyone up than by ordering a nice feast - straight to our lab! That's exactly what my lab mates in the Biology Lab did, and this time, we each picked a dish each.

2) I chose the "三鲜火锅" (a hotpot consisting of three different types of meat - namely pork, shrimp, and crab). Someone else ordered the delivery today, as if you use it for the first time you are entitled to a discount. We made the mistake of not asking for five individual rice servings (for the five of us), so when the delivery came sans rice, we had to order another time XD. That aside, it has a certain warm, fuzzy feeling - everyone gathered round the table picking out their favourite dishes, while outside is pouring like nobody's business.

3) As for things that I actually accomplished today, well, I spent most of the day in the biology lab. Today I learnt about the MTT Assay, a colorimetric assay for accessing cell metabolic activity. We will use this to test our compounds that we synthesize in the chemistry labs. And just in time, I've completed two of the compounds to be tested. Hopefully, in the following days, I'll have the opportunity to learn more about the various steps involved. That's basically it for today, and I hope you enjoyed reading about it. Have a nice day, cheers! :)

Absolutely mouth-watering if you ask me ^^

If you think I wrote that in Chinese, well sorry you're wrong haha

Three meats, tofu, and rice! :)

Hotpot (the one that I ordered :)

Counting cells and preparing the required amount of nutrition to culture the tumour cells

This may not look like much but you never know :^)

DAY 446/447/448

Nov 20, 21 & 22

1) On Sunday, I attended the last day of the Malaysia Young Scholars Universal Leadership Programme 2017, at the Malaysia Hall Dublin. The previous night, all participants had been separated into their respective groups, each tackling a current issue that Malaysia faces. Since I was not present when the groups were formed, I decided to join the group tackling "Cultural Differences". We had until 11am to prepare a policy proposal, for which we were given 10 minutes speaking time. So the six of us started brainstorming ideas and the ways to implement them.

2) After a very unconventional way of determining the order we would present, our team went up first. We had come up with some suggestions, which centred around the implementation of a 1Malaysia Act. This would have overarching impact on various sectors, one of the major ones being education. We proposed the setting up of a 1Malaysia School, which would make a Mother Tongue language compulsory (in addition to the already present BM and Eng requirement). We also voiced our concern for the lack of transparency when it came to university applications.

3) To tackle this, we suggested the full disclosure by all universities through the set up of admission statistics for each university, without exceptions. Any discrepancy would have to be justified and accounted for. In this way, the public would have a better understanding of the process by which applications were accepted/rejected, and not jump to conclusions. Lastly, on the issue of the constant switch of Science and Maths in English/BM, we requested if the school be granted the autonomy to decide, or within each class if required. We opined that the schoolteachers ought not to have trouble teaching in either language, since the language of instruction has been changed so many times.

4) In short, our presentation was well received. Everyone got their chance to present, with a short Q and A session afterwards. That was the end of the programme, and after a slight delay, we were invited to have lunch. After "tapau-ing" (takeaway-ing) some food for later, I walked back to RCSI. It was a trip down memory lane, as I walked the same route that I used to take when I stayed at Leeson. That was my day.

5) Monday and Tuesday has seen me in the library. I've not been going out much, mostly because I am desperately trying to catch up with my studies. However, I still had some time to spare, to catch Prof. Frank Doyle's talk on "Insight into Peer Review". He shared a very interesting story of how his PhD Student's research, having originally been unjustly rejected for publication in a famous scientific journal, was then accepted into a smaller journal, and finally came runners up in a prestigious competition. That has been a summary of the past couple of days, and I hope you enjoyed reading about it. Thanks for visiting, and have a great day. Cheers!

Candid Group Pic at Malaysia Hall Dublin :)

Don't Miss the Forest for the Trees :)

Nasi tomato

("tomato rice" - basically rice cooked with tomato paste and spices, served with marinated chicken)

A fine sandwich meal at AK Henry's

Intro to Publishing & RCSIsmj Peer Review,

by David Maj

The lighted text reads 

"Nollaig Shoha Duit" (Happy Christmas)!