Data Overload

Most students: "I'm just worried I don't have enough data..."Me as I was finishing experiments: "Shit, dude, it's gonna be hell analyzing all that data"

Me now: Holy crap..

*There were more excel sheets than that. I've been compiling them to more compact, presentable forms.

A Timely Affair

Post-Bug-Sorting

I have finished sorting and Identifying (to the best of my ability) my invertebrates. Invertebrates = Living things without a vertebrae (a spine/backbone). It was an arduous task, but I braved through it. These pictures were taken after first sorting them from debris, and then sorting them by morphospecies (morphospecies = things that lookalike) into separate vials for separate treatments. Ah, whatever,skip the trash. Basically I played with many dead bugs and here are some pictures.

"After dipping the bug in liquid nitrogen..." Nah, I didn't do that, but Cheryl used it a lot. And I helped her refill it everyday =p

See, the microscope we got to borrow was a particularly HIGH model, which means we can't sit down and look down the scope. So, William and I improvised (we're both short, but yeah, I'm the shortest) and here ya go, bricks.

Since the books for Identifying bugs was not around, I had to rely on sketches and descriptions first.

I've never been known to be good in art.

Scribbles

more..

My favourite shot. The very pair of tweezers I used throughout the entire ordeal, coupled with the holy sorting tray that we use to sort the bugs under the microscope.

70% Ethanol (alcohol), which I affectionately named "Bug-thanol" since it's used for bug-preservation.

An empty box.. which used to be filled with my sample vials. Empty because I finished my work.

Yes, labeling is immensely important.

The Holy Sorting Tray

My View

My Mess

My samples. Yes, there were that many. There are 2 full layers of vials + that incompletely filled third layer. Imagine, I went through each of these thrice.

Blood, sweat and tears?
Bugs, Sad and Tears.

Finally

Did a post I put off for a long time =p

Now... my many field trips that I put off.. ah man... T_T

Happy Belated Birthday Dodo bird Dorin =p

Friendly Fiendly Conversations

An sms conversation I had with a friend fiend, whose identity I shall protect for obvious reasons. I must concede though, if you are well-informed of my current agenda, you will have no trouble guessing the identity of this friend fiend.

Fiend: Dude, I think I caught your bug. Got headache and watery diarrhoea since last night.

Me: Can be food poisoning, checked with my family, apparently I'm not alone there. Bloated stomach and lost of appetite? Hehe, lasted 4 days for me.

Fiend: I'm guessing it's the same kua.. Shit! I got field work tomorrow and lecture on tues! Kns. Hope d watery shit will stop soon...

Me: Mine wasn't pain, just that shitting lost its appeal for a few days. Felt like pissin through the wrong hole, not ridiculously frequent too. Get well soon =D

Fiend: Right. Shittin frequency has gone down and got no pain except for d headache which I think is related to my sinus. For so I shall bugger u 2ml. Thx.

Me: It's food poisoning, come on, we're all victims of our mischoice of food, let's be merry and show love to each other instead.

Fiend: Yup. Show love 2 u by rippin ur arse wit a penis sword!!

Me: Right. Don't blame me if my arse decides to unleash watery brown diarrhoea on your sorry sword then.

Fiend: Tell it 2 d gorilla.

Me: I did.

You unclean fiend.

*Spelling and punctuations have been edited to allow easier reading.

Alright, back to work for me. Identifying invertebrates.

22 guns

I spent the hours entering my birthday identifying invertebrates in the lab, and I was getting quite into it. At right about 12am, a thought occurred in my mind that went,

"Ah man, why does it have to be my birthday tomorrow, can't I just stay in the lab and continue identifying my bugs?"

That's when I thought to myself again,

"Jo Kien, are you retarded?"

hahaha. I had a great day anyway, thanks guys, and girl (there was only one girl present, hence the singularity) =p Vino~

Okay I admit, I went back into the lab on my birthday morning at 8 to identify a few more bugs before I got out to have some bug-free fun. So what? hahaha. Big thank you to everyone who wished me in the flesh, sms-es from abroad, calls that didn't make it through (whom I got back to), sms-es that I received and Facebook wall wishes (which is apparently the preferred medium, haha). I had a great day (of rest). Best Birthday ever... till now that is =p

New Videyos

Hey low. I have put up new videos on Sparks' blog again,from 'a long time ago' performance, about 6 months ago for City Harvest Church. We did 3 songs:

Matchbox 20 - All I Need
Jason Mraz - I'm Yours
Christina Aguilera - Beautiful

The artist names links to the original performances and the song titles, to ours. All in Youtube, the world's biggest time-wasting website.

Just if you're interested =D