My Little Creations......

So here I am again, showing sometime from my work. This time I am presenting the compounds I made.

There are more than 70 of them here, all of them the end results of my tireless effort, sweat and, occassionally, blood (if you dun wanna see blood, then remember: always take good care of the glasswares, never use to much force for ANYTHING, and NEVER break a DMSO-d6 ampule with bare hands). Some of them come by easily (2 hours work! No purification!), while some of them are rather difficult ("this is the 3rd time I am putting you through the column, and this time I am doing the column by hand. If you are still not pure after this, I will just drop everything, go home, hide in my room, and stone....before I come back and deal with you again"). Some of them are intermediates made in large quantity, while some of them are final compounds made in mg scale for bio-assay. Some are useful and potent, some are not (better luck next time, maybe you'll be useful for other things....).

Nevertheless, they are the reason why I like doing what I do, because I like to create things. So, I derived my job satisfaction by synthesizing all these compounds. Few things are better than coming up with a compound after a busy day of work (except for maybe coming up with 2 compounds. or 3, or 4.....).

So once again, my compounds, my masterpieces, the source of my job satisfaction.

Something From My Work......

Most likely, only dear friend Andrew will be interested in this entry, but this is something I wanna write about for sometime, so here goes...

So presenting here, my fumehood. This is my little territory in the lab, where day in day out I cook out compounds after compounds. Good days are those that I spend a lot of time in front of the fumehood (although better days are those that all the reactions work....).

When I am at the fumehood, I am all by myself. There is my stage where I show my skills and my efficiency (it is nice to know I am at least good at something...) and where I concern myself with how I can do things better. It is also where I concern myself with the reactions: how they react and why they react. Maybe cos I am a hands-on person, or maybe cos Chemistry is, afterall, about labwork, I learned much more working at my fumehood than reading textbooks. There are a lot of information in the textbooks, but I can't retain what I read; when I am running a reaction in the fumehood, I know and I understand what is going on. Sometimes, the most interesting things happens inside the fumehood, in that stirring reaction.

During the day, my fumehood can be the most messy place in the whole lab. However, at the end of the day, before I leave (however late that might be), I always make it a point to clean my fumehood (a little bit of water follow by a little bit of acetone will do the trick...). It's kinda like a lab-discipline thingy and also like a warm down for me at the end of the day, telling myself the day has ended and let's tie it up with a clean fumehood. Also, who wants to come to work in the morning to a dirty, messy fumehood? So, the following morning when I come to work, I will have a clean fumehood waiting for me and that somehow makes me feel good about starting the day; a new day, a fresh start and a clean fumehood (which I can mess it up all over again during the day so that I can clean it up before I leave. Then do it all over again the next day...).

So once again, my fumehood, my territory, my learning space.

Finally......

Remember that I wrote in my post "200!" that I will buy something for myself? Well, here it is:


I had been wanting to watch this movie since I was in secondary school. Thanks science for computer, internet, DVD and Amazon.com, I finally got my hands on it after 13 years!

Basically, the movie is about an over-protective brother and his mentally unsound sister who falls in love with an eccentric. It's my type of movie. I failed to catch it when it was shown on theaters because it had a short run, and also because I was a sec 2 student at that time with limited freedom and -most importantly- cash. It was still the age of video tape at that time (VCD was still a new word then) and video rental shops only carried blockbusters, so I kinda gave up after I missed it, though throughout the years I did on and off keep a lookout for it. I went to hunt for the DVD before I came to Basel, but was told it had been discontinued. Then I tried downloading it but end up with one that was dubbed in Italian.

So I thot I will get it when I am in Basel. Then a friend of mine suggested to me earlier this year that I buy it online. Yes, I am slow (ok, incredibly, snail-moving, slow). I wasn't able to join the dots between online shopping and this DVD much, much earlier. I never done online shopping before, so I never thot of it. If I did it would have saved me a lot of time and effort. So anyway, I went to amazon.com, place an order, and it arrived this afternoon in my mailbox.

Of cos, without saying, I played the DVD as soon as I could, and without saying, I like the movie. It feels so nice to finally get to watch it after so many years. Now I am thinking whether I should get the movie poster:


This is the poster I saw when I first knew about the movie. I like this poster better than the DVD cover. It's available on amazon.com too. Maybe I should buy it. (Or maybe I should get my frens to buy it for me...... that sounds like a nice idea.)

I shall end this post with the music video of the "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)", which is featured in the movie. The song is sweet and down-to-earth, pay attention to the lyrics. Enjoy.

Some Tips About Powerpoint...

Originally I wanted to write about something else. However, I came across this video and decided this is more interesting. Enjoy.

條條美德續集

我昨天才發現白兄最近所留下的兩個留言（很奇怪，我沒有收到電郵通知）。白兄不記得有十二守則這囘事，想必不止是他一個人不記得而已，所以就在這裡提醒各位中華兒女一下。

你們記不記得當年每天都要唱：

我們是中華的兒女，我們是社會的中堅；
這是我們的天賦，這是我們的學田；
好好的耕種禮義廉恥，十二守則要共建；
立行五育，奮發南天；
愛護我們的山河，建設我們的樂園。

看到了嗎？全都在裏面，十二守則和白兄在留言所提到的四大綱領。五育指的是德，智，体，群，美。很慚愧，這些綱領，守則和五育我並沒有全部都辦到。白兄，你呢？各位，你們呢？

200!

Yes! Another milestone had been reached! Today I did my 200th reaction!

It took me 6 months to reach my first hundred mark, but from there it only took me half the time to reach this milestone. This should be the case. After spending so much time day-in day-out in the lab, doing reaction after reaction, I should be able to work at a more efficient rate with better lab skills. If not, then something is wrong. Therefore I am so happy that I am able to clear my second hundred mark in such a short time. (Ok, simple chemistry did play a part too, but still improved skills and efficiency is the major factor. I believe so. I know so. I am confident enough to say so.)

If I am back in Singapore, back in my world, I would had some kinda little celebration. Maybe go to 85 with best buddy TH for supper, or drag the whole gang of good old frens out during the weekend to do whatever we do whenever we meet up. Or, simply, I will just buy something for myself.

Now here I am in Basel, so obviously I can't meet up with best buddy TH or the gang of good old frens to celebrate. That left me with buying something for myself. I do have something in mind and in fact it just came to mind. It will be something very nice. Maybe I will write about it when i get my hands on it. But for now....

Onwards to the next 100 reactions!!!

Month In Review - May

I'm tired and my dinner is waiting, but I decided to write this monthly review and let my dinner cool for a while.

The month of May is can be called the month of holiday. There was labour day at the start of the month (which resulted in a long weekend), and then a ultra long-weekend in the middle of the month (from Wed to the following monday) for Acension day (which I guess is very impt here....). The Monday that jus gone by was "Whit Monday", so it was another long weekend.

I spent most of the holiday staying at home resting. Took one day to do hiking (see May 24 entry: Wasserfallen). Also took the opportunity to go for my first movie trip here in Basel (see prev entry), and watched the third installment of Pirates of The Carribean, a movie I had been waiting to watch since it's previous installment.

The frequent holiday caused work to be very stop-start. Plus I started working on a new and slightly more challenging chemistry, work progress had been slower than I like. However, over the last few days, some kinda momentum was steadily building up, so maybe everything will be back on track soon.

There had also been some movement both at home and at work. Sikai's gf arrived from Singapore in the middle of the month and this was followed by Sharon's bf jus a few days ago. In the lab, a lab associate and his student had moved in to share the lab with us. They will be occupying the same side of the lab as me and is still in the midst of moving things down from their previous lab. By the looks of things, they are trying to recreate the arrangement they had in their prev lab, and the whole side of the lab will be filled with only their stuff when they are done. They are bringing down lotsa glassware and lab supplies, and I am sharing with them, so I am not complaining.....

Ok, so one more episode down and four more to go. Next month will be a month w/o holiday, so hopefully work can progress at full spead. One thing to look forward at work is that I will be reaching another milestone. As for situation at home, there will be more movement expected. So stay tuned.