Living out The Amazing Race

I have been looking forward to go back to Singapore where I began packing on Oct 21 and 22. As I was about to reserve for a shuttle that would take me from my apartment to Baltimore-Washington International (BWI) Airport on Monday Oct 23, Greg kindly volunteered that he would drive me there. I was surprised and appreciated his offer.

I began transporting my check-in and hand luggages on Tuesday and Wednesday to the lab where I would spent a night at Greg's place since it is out of the way for him to come and pick me up on Thursday. In fact, I was adjusting my biological clock forward a little at a time to prepare for the 12-hour difference.

On Wednesday night, I stayed up till early Thursday morning (1 am) watching my favorite serial, Law & Order: Special Victim Unit.

Woke up at 6.30 am and reached BWI at 7.30 am. This was where I began living out something like The Amazing Race, CBS.

Starting point: Baltimore, Maryland USA
Time: Thursday, Oct 26, 10.13 am (Planned departure but took off only at 11.30am)
Problem: Bad weather at Chicago caused delay in my flight.
Connecting point: O'Hare, Chicago, USA
Time: Thursday, Oct 26, 12.35 pm
Problem: Connecting flight to Hong Kong had left without me (Departed at 12.18pm). Ground crew told me to rush to catch another flight to Narita, Tokyo instead. I had to run about 500 meters to the departing gate. There, I had to change my boarding pass where initially, they wanted to book my flight from Narita to Hong Kong then Singapore but I requested for a direct flight back. Thank God, there was no full flight and I was not stuck at Narita.
Time to play: None as the Narita, Tokyo flight was waiting for me.

Connecting point: Narita, Tokyo, Japan
Time: Friday, Oct 27, 5.30 pm
Comment: I did not know that I had to be screened again for transiting passenger but the process went smoothly. I just had 15 minutes to relax before boarding my last connecting flight. This time round, I could not sleep as much as I wanted on all my flights. Maybe I was too excited to come back. Besides, with the new law banning all bottles containing liquids over 3 ounces, I did not bring a mineral water bottle and I was dehydrated. I had to request water from the flight attendants constantly.

End point: Singapore
Time: Friday, Oct 27, 11.40pm
Shopped at the duty free shop for liquor, wine and beer before proceeding to claim my check-in luggage. While waiting at the carousel, I realised my luggage might not be on board the plane because there was just sufficient time for me to run to catch the Narita flight. True enough, after waiting for sometime, I filed for a lost baggage. After checking on the computer, my luggage was left behind at Chicago, waiting for the next day flight to Singapore.

So, I am waiting at home for my luggage to come today. A good thing I packed most of my gifts and laptop in my carry-on luggage. Sleeping and waking at odd hours now. Torturous but at least I am at home!

Home Sweet Home!

Finally, after eight months in Baltimore, USA (my longest time away from home), I am looking forward to meeting family members and friends! The long flight hours with three transfers and 12-hour difference are the minor hardships that I have to endure before the reunion. (I wrote as if I had suffered a lot here hor?! Haha....)

Distance and time really make a heart grows fonder of what you usually take for granted! Relationships and my favorite past time, swimming. I miss my bed too but definitely not the humidity and haze shrouding Singapore sky.

Well, I have a list of what I have to do already planned in my mind. As mentioned in the previous post, I would order beef kway tiao, nasi lemak, chicken chop noodle, fresh coconut and whatever is still opened after midnight! Then, I would cut my long hair in the day before preparing my slides for my big day (will write about this in time to come).

Counting down from 48 hours before I am on board United Airline heading to where my heart is.

Pardon me as I will not be writing any post till Nov 4 where I will be adjusting to jet lag and busy with my big day.

Whipping up a feast before I go back home for holiday and settle an unfinished business

The moment that I have been waiting for is approaching in 11 days. I am going back home after eight months in Baltimore. Looking forward to meeting my family and friends again. And of course, Singapore food and fruits! In fact, I had arranged with my friends to pick me up straight from the airport and thereafter proceed to Changi Village Market for 'pigging out' after midnight. Hopefully, 48 flight hours and the jet lag will not take a toll on me.

Yesterday, I went shopping for gifts at Townson mall with Ao Yang. I bought clothing for my two young nephews and bookmarks for my niece. It is easier to buy gifts for little ones than for adults and I am running out of time. So, I had to forego getting gifts for the adults and a teenager nephew. I rather buy a present that is suitable for the intended person than to simply buy gifts or souvenirs meant for all!

Today, I intended to clear all perishable from my fridge else I could harvest different colors of mushrooms when I return from Singapore. Thus, the reason for cooking seven dishes (black pepper beef, fried chicken wings, braised mushroom with tofu, bean sprout with tofu, oven-baked Char siew pork ribs, Bak Kut tea/pork rib soup and spicy Chinese eggplant with dried lilies). If you are interested in cooking any of the dishes mentioned, message me for the recipes.

It had passed midnight and I am tired since I had 'toiled' from 2pm onwards. Good night from Baltimore.

PS: Dreaming of warm Singapore as temperature here is heading south.

Got myself a TV set

Finally, I got myself the box where I can switch it on and let my mind rests. I have six channels only because I am using a TV antenna. The screen reminded me of my childhood days when we had a TV connected to an antenna too. The pictures were blurry and 'snowy'. Staring at it for long will deteriorate my eyesight. So, do not blame me when I cannot recognize you if you are just standing two meters away from me. Just kidding.

I have been trying to find the best positions for each channel. The problem was that the pictures appeared clearer when I was at the TV tuning. When I reached back to my bed, the screen became fuzzy again.

Any bright ideas to have clearer picture?

Upset over human weakness

Recently, one of my colleague went back to her homeland after her stint here. Prior to leaving, she spent a lot of time and effort to buy gifts for her loved ones back home. With the current situation with terrorism, all check-in luggages must be unlocked. Passengers are allowed one carry-on and a personal bag.

Upon arrival back home, when she opened her luggages, her gifts were all gone except the packaging. She lost over more than USD$3000.

Anyone will be upset with this incident except those who committed the theft!

A place to hang loose

Wild horses. White beaches. Towering waves. Great location for relaxation during summer. The place that I visited was Assateague Island National Park, a barrier island located off the coast of Maryland and Virginia. People were camping in trailers and hiking along salt marshes, coastal bays and maritime forests.

The 'wild' horses are actually descendants of domesticated horses that roamed freely on the island. I went on a horse 'hunt', armed with my camera, to the salt marshes. The only thing I saw related to a horse was its poo.

Ironically, a stallion showed up at the beach, grazing the sparse grasses. It was not impressive as I imagined it to be. The beast was short and strutted awkwardly since it was walking on sand. I had taken pictures of what I had come to see and I was satisfied.

Next, was Rehoboth beach in Delaware. While driving pass Ocean City, Maryland, the buildings reminded me of my days at Gold Coast, Australia. Beachside hotels, shops selling beach wares and souvenirs.

Upon arrival, there was a sea of people walking along the boardwalk. The beach was crowded with sun bathers and I managed to tan for one hour before going into the icy water. The waves were huge. You have to be constantly on your toes. I was caught off guard by one which dragged me along the seabed. I escaped with scratches on my body.

Assateague Island and Rehoboth Beach pictures.

Historic Annapolis, capital of Maryland

I have long heard of Annapolis as a beautify capital but did not witness it until I visited on Oct 23. I went with Vladimir, Greg and Stacy where Greg was our driver.

Our first stop was the visitor center where we got our map and directions. Having a 1 Gig compact flash card was a big advantage where I simply took pictures of signboards instead of reading on the spot for historical information. We walked along Main Street which was lined with restaurants and shops on both sides. Red bricks paved the roads instead of tar and bitumen, adding to the rustic charm. Lamp posts had baskets of hanging petunia and other flowering plants. There were lots of big houses lining the waterfront and yachts sailing on the Chesapeake Bay.

A visit to Annapolis is not complete unless you visit the prestigious US Naval Academy which was established in 1845 where young men and women are trained to be future leaders. The buildings in the academy gave me a feeling that I was in Europe. We went for a guided tour of the academy where we saw their sports complex, dormitories, chapel and naval museum. The length of the swimming pool was 100 metres, a rare sight in Baltimore. There was a chapel which was shared by Catholics, Protestants and other faiths, a true representation of inter-faith harmony.

Coincidentally, there was a football game where the academy was taking part. We witnessed a spirited marching parade by the whole contingent of midshipmen towards the stadium for the show down. There were marching bands, a tiger mascot, a pirate and a ship float.

I had a whale of a time at Annapolis. I strongly recommend a visit to there.

Pictures taken at Annapolis.

Recounting back in time

It has been almost one month since I posted. During this period, I was extremely busy with experiments and preparing slides for update of National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant project, and culturing cells.

As my project involves screening different viral peptides for the entire lab, I had screened more than 600 peptides for binding to Major Histocompatibility Complex molecules (with help from fellow colleagues) in this short six months. The large data generated had to be processed and presented with results from prediction models.

Before the presentation on Oct 20, 2006, the atmosphere in the lab was tense. We (Yang Kun, Milton, Eduardo and I) were busy preparing slides. Dry runs were performed to improve our slides.

A farewell party at the Johns Hopkins Faculty Club was organized for Yang Kun, who would be going back to China on Oct 30. I will miss a good colleague and friend whom I had come to cherish in this short time. We also celebrated Tom's birthday on Oct 19 where he turned 79. I admire him for being so alert and active at his age!

On 'D-Day', I was the first to present where my voice quivered at the beginning. Eventually, I got over it as Linda (from NIH) was pleasant. Lunch that day was exorbitant and delicious, consisting of sandwiches, cheese and salad. We even had a lot left over for the next day.

Life on Oct 21 was back to normalcy of conducting experiments.

How to tie a Windsor knot as you see it (not mirror images)

Most instructions for tying a full Windsor knot have you facing the mirror. It can be difficult to follow when you have to visualise your left from right. Thus, I have created a set of instructions whereby you are tying a Windsor knot as you see it, from head down.

Don't worry about the length of the wide end of the tie as our body shapes and sizes are different. Some have big chest or belly, short or long torso, narrow or broad neck etc. There are some who have ties reaching way below their belts or hanging high above. The ideal length of a tie is when the tip of the wide end touches above the belt or covering it, but not exceeding beyond the belt when you are standing straight. Practise allows you to judge how much slack to give for the wide end.

The Windsor knot projects confidence. Tie this knot during important occasions such as job interviews, presentations etc.

For easy visualization of tying the Windsor knot, the top is striped green and the underside is blue.

1. Place the narrow end of a tie on your left and the wide end on your right. (Tying the knot involves the wide end going around the narrow end i.e. the narrow end is fixed.)

2. Pinch the narrow end of the tie where you want the wide end to cross over and flip the wide end under the loop and bring it up to your left.

3. Pull the wide end to the right, behind the loop and go over the loop again. You should see a triangular knot upon tightening.

4. Bring the wide end to the left over the triangular knot, go under the loop and bring it up. Pass the wide end through the knot in front.

5. Adjust the size of the knot with both hands by tightening the knot.

6. Draw up the tie with one hand holding the knot while the other pulls the narrow end down.

7. For quick release of the Windsor knot, pull at the left loop above the knot.

Taking care of myself

Being sick is bad but to be sick in a foreign place is worse. You have to perform daily chores such aspreparing your meals even though you are tired and feeling unwell.

It started with throat irritation on Wednesday. Sucking lozenges did not help, so I prepared sour plum with honey. My sored throat recovered but I started to cough.

After self medicating by buying cough syrup from the pharmacy, I was able to control my coughing. But with the bad weather due to Hurricane Ernesto, my nose started to run and now I have blocked nose.

A good thing this Monday is Labor Day in USA. An extra day of rest for me to recuperate and recover.

Jiao Zi Recipe (Chinese dumplings)

Ingredients:

• All purpose flour
• Chive
• Minced pork
• Salt
• Sugar
• Sesame oil
• Cooking oil (or olive oil)
• Chinese cooking wine
• Five spices powder
• Szechuan pepper
• Cut ginger
• Cut spring onion
• Light soya sauce
• Black vinegar
  

Procedure:
Knead flour into dough and place the dough into a covered pot. Let it set for at least 30 minutes to 'strengthen' the dough.

Meanwhile, cut chive into 0.5cm pieces and add cooking oil to prevent water from oozing out.Add water to minced pork, stirring in one direction only.

Add salt, sugar, Chinese cooking wine, light soya sauce, oil, sesame oil, cut ginger and spring onion, five spices powder and Szechuan pepper to taste. Stir in one direction.

Add cut chive to meat (1:1 volume). Meat texture should be gluey.

Knead the dough into a two-finger width rod and snap into phalanx-long dough. Roll the dough into balls. Squash the balls and flatten them with a rolling pin such that the center is thicker than the edges.

Wrap the meat filling with the flatten 'skin'. Sprinkle some flour on the dumplings so that they do not stick to one another.

Add the dumplings to boiling water. Cover the pot. Add two ladles of tap water once it has started boiling. Repeat the process of adding tap water for at least four times.

Drain the cooked Jiao Zi and let them cool down.

Serve with equal volumes of black vinegar and light soya sauce diluted with water (so that the sauce does not mask the taste of Jiao Zi). Chilli oil can be added for those who like spicy food.

For those who like Guo Tie (Pan Fried Dumplings):
Fry the cooked Jiao Zi in a wok till golden brown. Add a teaspoon of water to prevent the skin from becoming too dry and cover the wok. Serve on plate.

Caution: Do not add a lot of water to hot oil. It will splash!

Mission Code Name "Capture Mousey"

Finally, after the fourth time, I saw a small black mouse this evening when I just got back to my apartment. It was squeaking and making noise at the air vent near the air-con which caught my attention. To my surprise, it jumped out of the small hole and was in full sight for a split second before I reacted. I cannot imagine that a mouse could squeeze through such small holes (it must have taken some kind of contortionist lessons).

Previously, I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me when I saw a black shadow moving from the central air vent and creeping through my kitchen door. After the third time, I was confident that it was a mouse. I asked YangKun, who had lived in Broadview for more than a year, if she had seen a mouse before.

I thought that by informing the Broadview front desk, they would send a pest terminator to get rid of the mouse. Instead, the front desk personnel passed me a box of mouse traps. I tried one trap but the mouse did not fall into it. I need to use some kind of bait. Any good suggestions?

Generating experimental data is hard, processing them is harder!

Three weeks of large-scale screening of peptide binding assay had generated lots of data to be processed. I was exhausted at the end of last week. This week, I was recuperating from the exhaustion by asking quotations for liquid handling robots, prices for culturing cell lines and processing the data using an unfamiliar software.

When you are new to the field, there is a steep learning curve. I had to process the same data five times just to represent them scientifically but with improvement at each time. Tomorrow, all I have to do is to process five other data sets in the same approach. The challenge is to let the data 'speak' for themselves by representing them in a logical and theoretically correct manner. The reward is the satisfaction of gaining knowledge from interpreting information from the processed raw data!

Happy 41st birthday, Singapore!

This is my first time spent away from celebrating Singapore's independence day. I would usually catch the 'live' telecast of the National Parade on TV. I miss the fireworks and mass displays.

Singaporeans residing in USA were invited for a dinner on Aug 10 by the Singapore Embassy in Washington DC. However, since I have no transportation of my own, I missed the chance to meet up with fellow Singaporeans and celebrate our nation's 41st year of independence.

A toast to you, Singapore, my homeland!

Trying my hands to be a barber

At the blink of an eye, I have been here for six months. During this period, I had my hair cut once by a Korean barber. The hairstyle turned out alright but not as good as back home. My hair grow long pretty fast and it has started curling.

My colleague, Greg, has curly hair too. He trimmed the curls whenever they appear. Last week, I thought why not try his approach and cut my hair for the first time. Instead of trimming the curls, I was cutting off about 2 - 3 cm from my fringe, top and sides with a small pair of scissors. It turned out alright without any bad comment from my colleagues. Yesterday, I bought a bigger pair of scissors and this time round, I will cut even shorter. It is difficult to cut the sides whereby I often would miss my hair and 'snip air'. I have to coordinate my movements to my reflection on a mirror. I am slowly getting the hang of it. For the back, I may just have to leave it long or I will visit a barber for a crew cut.

I always feel relief and relaxed after a hair cut. This time round is no difference. The downside is I have to clean up the hair.


Epilogue to "To cut or not to cut"
If you read my previous post in April about me trying to keep my hair long just for the fun of it, I had this thought 'cut' away. My colleagues and friend were explicitly and implicitly hinting that I should have my hair cut. Comments were 'it is ugly' or 'you look tired'. Too bad I could not grow it to shoulder length and take a picture for memento. Debbie, your 'Paulilock' did not come true. Haha...

Turning into a fiddler crab

The distinguish characteristic of a male fiddler crab is its lopsided pair of front claws. Females and young have two equal-sized small claws.

The dry spell from my blog was because I was busy with large-scale screening of virus peptides that bind to molecules involved in the immune system. This screening included a lot of liquid handling where I had to transfer from one container to another using a tool called a multi-channel pipettor. The number of times I spent pipetting into 96-well containers during this short period was more than what I did in my entire undergraduate days. You can say that my right hand now is overused and aches from dispensing. To prevent myself from turning into a fiddler crab, I am using my left hand to dispense too (although I am using an automatic pipettor in this case). I still have to use my right hand for accurate dispensing. It would be good if I were ambidextrous.

The only hope for me now is to get three quotations for a robot that can dispense liquid accurately.

The fiddler crab picture was taken from www.ryanphotographic.com

Animals aplenty

Johns Hopkins Homewood Campus has plenty of animals especially squirrels and rabbits. There was even a mother duck incubating her eggs during winter. The area was cordoned off and a sign was put up. It was termed the maternity ward and a make-shift shelter was placed over the duck. I wondered what happened to the duck and its eggs. Did they hatched into ducklings?

I thought of feeding the squirrels but they are constantly on their guard that I have not fed them yet. Anyway, they have been surviving without human intervention. Therefore, I should admire them from afar. I noticed that some squirrels had less bushy tails than others. I was told that these were the juveniles. Is it right, anyone?

Caught this inexperienced cute little bunny chewing grass while I was about two meters away from it. It did not have the instinct to run away as the older rabbits did. Alternatively, it might think it was too fast for me to catch it.


This bug was facing up when I took a picture of it. From dust you came, to dust you return.

Therapeutics

My university friend, Chuntian a.k.a Sister, once said that washing dirty dishes can be therapeutic. I got that therapeutic feeling today.

I had procrastinated long enough for reddish-brown mildews to grow on my toilet sink and bathtub. The kitchen floor had not been scrub for almost two months from my weekend cooking. I had to wear slippers to prevent my soles from sticking to the floor. OK, I exaggerated. But I seriously hate the sticky feeling.

So, with a lot of mental determination, I got to clean my whole apartment while cooking simultaneously. After cleaning up, I felt good to see the shining tiles again and the carpet was rid of dust. On top of that, I went for a hike in the afternoon, exercised at the gym and cooked five dishes for the week. Fried chicken wings, pork chop, celery with prawns, minced beef for Mexican tacos and fried rice. Mission accomplished for this week.

What do you call a dish of fried rice prepared by a Singaporean?

Singapore Fried Rice (Haha… lame, right?) I must do some activities else my jokes are getting cheesy.

Running trails to trim down my pot belly

I live in Baltimore city with lots of buildings and roads. Recently, I discovered two running trails that ran along streams, lined by trees on both sides. The sound of running water helped to soothe my weary spirit and the fresh air refreshed my whole being. One headed north towards Roland Avenue while the other led westward to Druid Hill Park. I dislike running along roads where I have to breathe in car exhaust.

When I weighed myself two weeks ago, I had lost 4 kg due to lack of sleep, irregular meals and work stress. Ever since, I have been trying to put on weight and eating more meat. I am eating a stick of sinful Godiva chocolate ice cream and every other night while writing this post. Going to the gym helps as I tend to shrink to my gangly form whenever I stop exercising. There are lots of people here who want to lose weight but I am trying very hard to do the opposite. As I have not run or swim for a long time, my abdominal is developing into a small pot belly.

The trails and a pair of new running shoes are waiting for me to tread on them as I struggle mentally to get myself running again.

Sleepless tonite

Upset my sleep pattern by sleeping from 5pm to 7.30pm after coming back from work. Now, suffering the after effect.

At 11pm, I went to a pub nearby for my dinner and a beer. Service was bad. I had to wait for 45 minutes before I got my food and the french fries were half-cooked. Bad service equals to no tip. This would be the last time I step into that pub again.