probably the last post

ah well, life doesnt always go the way we want it to. and this blog is one proof of that.

the second last entry, posted somewhere around the new year, promised a new start to this blog... as well as a new start to my life. dunno bout the latter, but the former sure fell far short of expectations. the last post was supposed to be a 'temporary placeholder' while promising great blogging things to come. that certainly didnt come to pass.


anyway, the reason im here is, as usual, because of insomnia. i always do stuff like blogging, facebooking (as in non-mafia wars facebooking), photo uploading etc when im either too free n dont really have anything interesting to report on, or when once in a long while i get struck with sleeplessness n decide to turn on my computer after an hour or two of tossing n turning. guess when things r really happening i get too busy, tired or confused to write about them coherently n thus end up postponing indefinitely. anyway, tonight the japanese sake i drank seems to have robbed me of the ability to sleep, the complete opposite of what alcohol usually does to me. so here i am.


a brief update on whats been happening since beginning of this semester. sorry, not gonna go further back even tho last year was arguably THE year that changed me the most. first off, i got 'assigned' (for lack of a better word; even tho we got to list out our choices n i did get my first choice) to a lab, supposed to be Bioresource Lab of the bioengineering faculty but actually focuses on Metabolomics n Analytical Chemistry. got off on the wrong foot with the professor and as a result had to cancel my plans to visit sis's graduation ceremony n trip around the US in apr/may. things seem to have been mended somewhat, can only hope he's gonna keep his end of the bargain n write me a good recommendation for my graduate school application.

throughout the last few months if u ask what ive been doing, i cant really answer very well. on one hand nothing 'spectacular' or 'special' happened; i basically follow a routine of going to lab, doing research n the like, heading off to the gym after 'core time' is over, then spending the rest of the evening in the library. sometimes i go back to the lab for more reading. yup, my research involves lots of article reading n minimal experiments. i like having to think a lot; i just miss doing stuff that involves cell cultures, genes, live organisms n the like (my lab is mostly about chromatography, mass spectrometry etc... chemistry stuff).

anyway, so lab takes up a large part of my life nowadays. another thing that occupies a lot of my 'functional time' is iGEM. short for International Genetically Engineered Machines, its a competition held annually at MIT around november; last year i participated, got a TON of experience not just in research but also in interacting with my japanese teammates as well as getting a glimpse of life over there in the US; the jamboree, the main event held at MIT itself, was a hugely enlightening experience tho also immensely humbling as it brought me to full realization of how far ive been lagging behind other people of my age. so... yeah... meetings, reading articles, attending a workshop in Taiwan, wiki editing.... iGEM's been taking up a large part of my life too.

4th year bioengineering majors basically dont have classes. i have one this semester - Quantum Science. sounds grand doesnt it? its actually extremely basic stuff, totally walk-in-the-park compared to E&E majors' Quantum Mechanics; n the reason im taking it in 4th year is becuz i failed it in the 2nd year. apart from that, lab n lib all the time.

next week shall be the last week we r 'required' to go to the lab. after that its a month-long study break for the entrance exams which come end of august. somewhere around that time im also planning to take the GRE, so i'll b studying double-hard (dont really have to study THAT hard for entrance exam, but then the content is probably similar to what will come out in GRE Biochemistry which im planning to take to supplement my less-than-stellar undergrad results). already tho, it seems like quite a few events have been lined up for summer... i'll hopefully revisit this blog to write about them in the near future (2, 3 months later? :P)

anyway, whats the point of this blog, one might ask? i doubt people read this anymore. my fault, maybe, for not keeping this updated. i guess ive sort of grown detached from my 'online social life' which served to connect me with the people back home n my ex-japanese coursemates who r now mostly in universities around tokyo. i'd like to blame it on my hectic life, but in reality it isnt really that hectic at all. its just dull, dragging, wearisome and tiring in its repetitive, predictable way.

so i guess nobody's gonna stumble across this for a while. i suppose the reason im writing this (besides giving me a way to talk myself to sleep) is because. i need a record, a log, a snapshot of my life. something tells me this year's gonna pass by far too quickly, with many of these little dull things that engage me just enough to tire me out without being special enough to be memorable. so maybe around this time next year i'll be looking back upon this year and wondering what happened with it, where it went. blog posts like this, while seemingly random, disorganized and pointless, can actually serve as anchors for my memory. so hello there, future self.

ok, feeling the beginnings of drowsiness creeping up on me now, its time to turn off the PC, close my eyes n wait for the Sandman. adios.


ps. sorry im not good with photos, blogs with photos take a bit of planning n i tend not to do that with my posts.... i just fire up blogger n spill everything that passes thru my mind on nights like these.