Diet oh Diet....

I am participating in this study on how diet and exercise will be a powerful tool for loosing weight. Apparently walking 10,000 steps a day and reducing 500 calories a day will help you to loose at least 0.5 kg per week.

I think the best advise they gave me is how much is a serving. The white rice above is one serving. Basically like 3-4 table spoon of rice, or half a cup of rice. To measure it in a normal nasi senduk. One full senduk is about 2 servings.

This is about one serving of bihun. The researcher showed us that the one packet of Bi hun we buy at the stall is actually around 4 servings. :(. I mean if I really followed their advice I will be loosing weight soon. I am going to take it slowly and steady. Right now I have a good idea of how much rice, bubur, and bread is for one serving. According to the plan I am supposed to have 12 servings of grains each day. 12 servings sounds a lot, but its not really, well I don't think its that much anyway. Basically 12 servings of of grains is 2 pieces of bread, 2 senduk of rice, and 6 piece of plain crackers. I will keep postings what I eat each day, to show you how much exactly is a serving.

Death Till Do Us Apart

Sigh.. I knew this one would die soon but still I prefer to kill it myself, so that my cages won't be so dirty. This one took quite sometime to die because it had a very low inoculation of the P. berghei from IMR.
I don't get it, what's with this brain eating mice. I am getting worried a bit because this has never happened before.

:( -----------> :)

what? don't expect me to sulk for a long time. their are plenty of things in the world to be sad about other than my current problem. War, hunger, natural disasters. However other people sad news that hit me in the right nerve, was the incident that happened to my Lecturer's niece, who was only 25. She is getting ready to pursue her PhD, when she was admitted to the hospital. She never came out, she died 26 hours later. That news just woke me up from my current sadness, I mean I just can't imagine what her family is going through. It just makes my problem seemed so small. I pray her family will be strong through this tragedy.

:(

Journals

All images copyright of Jorge Cham

Oh dear, same problem I had during my first sem. Even worse during an open journal exam, my prof wanted at least 20 journals as referrences withing 8 hours....

*still reading the journal prof wanted from the internet.

The Vicious Cycle

EEEK!!! So true.. gulp.. the cycle of procrastination..

*frantically finishing up literature review and methodology for immunisation.

Workshop, again....

Yup of to the workshop again. I went to the workshop twice today with 2 different cars. Pick up the blue Mercedes to have the aircond fixed. Last time we only had the gas filled but there was a leak in the filter and the filter unit itself was busted, so another RM 230 flew away. I love this black rim with blue highlight. LOVE IT!!!. I want a black on black car. It means it has black metallic paint, dark black tint, with black rims. The rims must be like the ones above with blue highlight in it. I was my leather seat with blue highlights in the trim and also on my leather steering wheel and on my leather gear shift. I wan I wan.. in my future car. My OWN future car :D

Ah yes, the second car, the humongous silver elephant, the Silver Naza Ria. American style and size MPV for the Malaysian market. Very roomy, very smooth, very softly sprung ride. Anyways the bulb for the headlamp and fog lights was burnt so had to get them changed. The seat side moulding clip and bumper clip needs to be replaced since they were broken.

The workshop that I went to is an authorized Naza service center and also a tires rims shop. So the mechanic there had a chance to look at my tires and rims to see if he can cheat..urk ... do business with me. Well as it turns out, the rear tires is old and expired already. Even if you tires thread is still visible, over a period of time, the rubber will harden and the tire is prone to exploding. YIKES!!! need to change them then, besides the rear tires is already 5 years old. The front tires showed some alignment problems since the inside thread is worn out. To add salt to the wound of problems, the rims are cracked and prone to break sooner or later. My mother told me the rim had crack a 2 years ago. Sheesh now she tells me.. Hmm also the timing belt needs to be replaced... URGH!!! so much repairs, all at the same time, for all 3 cars in this house. I am the one who has to take it to shop. The Mercedes needs an oil change this Thursday and the engine is leaking.. WARGH!!!! Money seems to fly away... RM 3200 for the rims and tires, RM 1800 or the timing belt, RM 150 for the oil change for the Mercedes........Thank god I don't have to pay for this, I think for my budget, I can only afford a Viva 660cc since its cheap to buy and maintain.

Canibalism

See this? That is not a wound, it is one of my mice whose brain and eyes got eaten up by other mice. I mean it happens when there is not enough food or water, but this particular cage has both and even fresh bedding. I know the mice did not die because it was sick with the parasite since it was not in the fetal position. Even my co supervisor was intrigue by this situation. Poor thing, die in my hand while contributing to the medical and veterinary world or die by other mice.

Yes, No, Maybe

I think the worst trait a person could have is being indecisive. I mean not knowing when to say yes or no is a waste on the mind and body. Imagine while pondering between yes and no, life goes by you while you are on idle. You can never take those time back. Why make life complicated when making a choice. Both have their pro and cons but if you it takes up a huge chunk of your life, now that is a problem.

I have this problem when I was doing my diploma and it turned out pretty bad. I had this bad excuse of saying "I don't know" when in fact it I was not sure. My friend pointed out that I kept saying this word a lot whenever there problem arises. I had to extend a semester but CGPA was just barely enough to get a diploma. Of course when people looked at my previous results most would callously say "Were you fooling around back then?". Yeah getting a 3rd class for a diploma is everyone's dream. Well that is in the past, and right now for each degree I that I obtained, it just gets better and better.

However I think this trait has sneaked up upon me slowly and it beginning to affect my every day decision, and like cancer it comes up strong. The indecisive bug was so bad even choosing where to go during lunch becomes an anxiety inducer. That is something really bad happening at this time of life especially when one is doing research and all. I have to nip this problem in the bud and just go for it. No more thinking of what to do, now I am just going to pick an option and just go with it. Good or bad, its a lot better than being left behind while still choosing A or B.

What to do when bored?

We play tic tact to, of course. My little cousin was being very whiny and clingy to his dad so out of boredom i invited him to play tic tac to in the sand. Sure enough after 20 games he was no longer clingy and whiny while I was ready to vomit tic tact to. Its such a simple game but after a while you get hypnotized by it and start to forget the basic strategies.

This is my atuk or granduncle. He is my mother youngest uncle, the little brother to her dad. If I am not mistaken he is one 4 people who still calls me by childhood nickname, which is 'boboi". Basically in every family on my dad side there will be always one son that will get that nickname. Usually only one of all the sons will get it but some family just called all their sons boboi. Sometimes in family gathering, when one aunts or grand uncle starts to yell "Boboi!", about half a dozen of cousins will turn around to the caller. I mean most of us grew up that childhood name, but still some people close to me still uses that nickname to me.

I had to fixed my PS2 because the laser is not working as well as it should and the spinner is no longer stable which causes my DVD to be badly scratched. Instead of paying RM 200 to get it fixed, the video game store game me a deal, to get a new unit for RM 300. Which is a great deal I think considering this will last another 3-4 years. Even the price of PS3 is slowly declining. Although according to tradition, my family only buys PS when they got shrinked.
See how small the PS2 unit is, even the controller is bigger. I am waiting for PS3, shrunken version to appear. Then as usually all the siblings (actually just me, my younger bro and youngest sister) will gather our money together and then my parents will pay the rest. Its been 5 years we have done this, I still don't think I have enough cash to cough out RM 1400 for a PS3. Still not making enough actually to pay that much of cash and still have enough to eat for the rest of the month.

Dinner

My mother wanted to try out this new food stall near Giant Jenaris, because my uncle recommends it.
The specialty of this place is the Steamed Rice (taste no difference with rice cooked with a rice cooker), Spiced Fried Chicken and Asam Pedas.
Each dish served with a salted egg, cucumber and this sambal

Also present was this, curry called Kerutup or something. Never heard of it before but I am familiar with this type of curry before.

The Assam Pedas was cooked in this claypot. Mother chose stingray as our fish in the dish. This Assam Pedas taste really good and is actually very pedas (spicy). Noticed I forgot to take many pictures because I was hungry and the food was great. Drinks are bad and good. Do not order the juice, very watered down. However do order the Assam Boi and Bandung Soda. Those who comes who lived in Johor knows that Bandun in Johor has Ice Cream Soda added to it, to give that fizzy and unique taste. Great place if you enjoy Assam Pedas

Lunch

We had a little party held outside of our labs today. Labs as in the Microbiology and Parasitology lab. It was also a surprise party for one of the RA next door. Poor girl she does not know we did this for her :D

We had spaghetti, Laksa, Popiah, Curry puff, and other things. My lab technologist made the spicy but delicious laksa, and I think my lab mate, made the spaghetti, very nicely done although there was not enough of the sauce to go around.

Fruit, carbonated drink... two completely opposites of the nutrition table meet head on.

This? Oh this is not lunch, its a stubborn mice. Cranky little tramp (its a she) could not sit still, so I decided to............................... just drugged her with ether, so she will feel very groggy, but if I placed her in the ether jar for two long she will die. According to my calculation, she will die on Monday. Just a cruel viscous cycle I had to do weekly. Somebody has to do it okay..

Muhibah

This is a video of our own version of all stars singing together in a song. Simple and sweet video :)

Gel Electrophoresis

I spent the whole day today extracting DNA, although the box said it will take only 20 minutes to do it, it probably meant someone who is a pro at this. This is my first time extracting DNA. Some argue the traditional method using phenol chloroform method is the best but some said kits with produce a purer DNA. It does not help that I had an Iranian PhD student old enough to be my uncle (hence the urge of my co supervisor to said out loud "Bazli, your uncle is here"). He does not have any basics in molecular work (heloo, I don't either okay) so he is watching me doing the extraction and basically learning as I go. Sometimes I am a bit blurred on what I am doing really, but I had a few days to study (basically banging my head on the table) the extraction system and preparing all the reagents and materials.
Tada! the final stage of the DNA extraction is to confirmed that we actually extracted DNA.

However under the UV light... NADA. ZIP, ZERO!!! The glowing band on the left is just a ladder to determined the size of the DNA my sample was next to it, and no glowing band was present. OH CRAP!!! no bands so basically I extracted nothing. Well at least I know the methodology of this system. Perhaps I need to use fresh tachyzoites extracted from mice to get extraction.

Prof called me today, he said I should get Guinea pigs now and start the congenital model of toxoplasmosis. To make a long scientific story short, I will start sacrificing newborn guinea pigs for the sake of science and humanity. My job is pretty heartless and cruel, which raises a few eye brows at the Microbiology lab. I mean all they deal with is microorganisms. Can you tell me who gets grossed out or sad seeing bacteria dies. I am nervous with Guinea Pigs because these animals tend to get startled easily. I even read that they might died of a heart attack because they were so shocked when handled.

I had the nerve to ask Prof if I could keep one as a pet.

Sister Act 2 with Mother...

It was a busy day for me. I only managed to get to the lab at 3.30 pm today..

I had (or was forced to) to accompany my sister to the Perodua Servis in Bandar Teknologi Kajang to replace her rear shock absorber. We (me that is) was told by the guy who changed the tires last Sunday that the rear shocks were leaking and was not functioning as they should. You know what they were right, after we got it changed, the ride immediately improved.

Ooooh I never knew they have accessories catalogue for Myvi and Viva. Many cosmetic upgrades are available but I am interested in the Stereo system, as most Myvi drivers know that the standard stereo SUCKS!!!! but if we have it changed at Brother's or something our warranty might be voided. If you use the recommended ones (for now they used JVC and Pioneer system you can change the radio for the Myvi into a 2 din or a 1 did system. Definitely an eye opener for me.
The car was finished around 11 am. 3 hours of my life wasted on my Channel bag holding older sister. "Don't put my bag on the floor, it will get dirty" she said.. Bah...!!!

After that I HAD to accompany and show my sister where JPJ Bdr Sri Permaisuri is because she has to changed her license from P to a full license.

There were 30 people before us, so we had to wait and wait.

Just as I got home around 1.30 pm, my mother was ready for her field trip with her Surau friends to TV3 station. You know you are getting old when you mother is time for her to have BACK her social life instead of raising children all the time.

Ok right now I feel like the freaked out parent letting their children board a bus to a field trip. There has been so many cases where buses are involved in accidents, you can't just help feeling panicky. I had to take the plate number of this bus just in case something happens.

Ciss Kena Tag.

I got tagged by the Rubik obsessed, doggy owner wishing, Lancer(s) driver driving science teacher from Brunei, Rizal.

• Name 4 Things That Need To Be Invented
• Name 4 Things That Should Never Have Been Invented
• Name 3 Things I do not know about you
• Name 5 Snacks you enjoy

Name 4 Things That Need to Be Invented

1. A pause button in life, I don't want to go back in time, no use changing the past, I want to control the present, because it shapes the future.

2. A cooler laptop, cool as in won't fry my sperms when using it on my laps or give me heat rashes while I type.

3. A cleaner and quieter diesel engine, because the current diesels engines are still to noisy and relatively polluting (high soot and Nox), owh what the hell, all I want is Malaysia to have small turbo diesel (small as in 1.5cc and below diesel capacity engine). Diesel provides better torque (that shove to the seat when you accelerate) and better fuel economy (20-30% better than petrol equivalent). Beside you can make diesel fuel from almost anything.

4. A reflective mirror, no not the type you use to check if you stomach or butt is getting bigger but a mirror to show your own true colours, whether green with envy, mad with rage or black with hate. Although we have friends for that, some times we just need to really see ourselves for what we are. A great way to see if that person is being truthful to you or not.

Name 4 Things That Should Have Not Been Invented

1. Spam, hated it, I don't care if that pill supposed to make my penis bigger, waist slimmer or make me rich by some law in Nigeria. I am proud of what god gave me and it works.

2. Bad Commercial, the reason for bad commercial is that if you hated the commercial you will remember it more often.

3. Two stroke engines, sure its simple to build and easy to maintain but try being behind these blue smoke monstrosities and you would agree too.

4. 5 inch heels, what in the crazy world name someone would wear this type of shoe, this high. You practically have to learn to walk again wearing this thing that women adores, and keep it car boots with their other boots. I just don't get it, walking in pain is considered elegant...

Name 3 things I Do Not Know about You

1. I can detect a contact lens wearing individual whether clear, tinted or coloured. If you wear coloured half of the time I would know what brand you are wearing and 1/3 of the time I would know what shade you have on. I got this during my obsession with coloured contacts lenses and other contacts. I wore amethyst, green, grey and brown. You can know that person is wearing a lens because their eyes shine a bit different from those not wearing any and the you can see the fine line around the iris where the contact lenses comes in contact with the eyes.

2. I like doing laundry and watch the clothes agitated in the washer. Especially front loading machine, where you can see the clothes tumble and turn themselves clean. Bliss comes in many form and one of it is the freshness and softness of clothes that have been dried in the sun or in the drier. Everything problem seem to go away with the scent of freshly washed clothes. I hated it when people come in with clothes stink like hell.

3. I have very very curly hair, I could grow an afro in 3 months but I keep it short because it drives me crazy. I also have a brief moment in my diploma and degree year where I straighten my afro hair and part it in the middle and sometime have it spiked like a porcupine. I was so obsessed with it I oncedr elaxed my hair (putting chemicals to turn curly hair into straight hair) 6 times, colour it 3 times and bleach it once. My hair turned into this broom like texture with reddish, yellowish , orange tinge to it. That is what happened when you try to do what the professionals do.

Name 5 snacks you enjoy

1.Chips, not Twisties, Pringles or those other Malaysian style of flavoured chips but the American variety such as Salt and Vinegar, Ranch, and Mesquite. Even the sour cream onion tasted different.

2. Ice cream, I scream for ice cream... Gellato, and Baskin Robbin, and New Zealand Ice cream oh my....

3. Fruit, I like those that you just can bite into without any peeling required, apples, grapes, pears, berries, prunes and such.

4. Chocolate, the nutty ones are what I am crazy about.

5. Candy Corn, its been so longs since I had them.. sigh..

Baked To Perfection

I have decided to be a housewife today.. Oh wait.. I was trained by my mother to be a housewife.... Anyways I decided to bake, I been buying this cake mix for a while and never around to bake it. So on this lovely Wesak Day, I decided to give it a go. Okay got my eggs (upon my discovery I saw a cicak (lizard) in the egg section of the fridge, still alive but not moving, the poor cold blooded thing was so cold it could not move.), my butter, water and cake mix. Damn easy to do baking which makes no sense why you could not just bake your own cake instead of buying it.

Just throw everything in and pray that it will mix :p. I used the ancient, I think as old if not older than me, electric mixer to mixed everything well.

I added some thing a bit extra to the mix, these balls, chocolate balls to be precise. These chocolate bars were not my family favourite because they are a bunch of nuts. Like most nuts, they crave for nuts. These chocolates balls are nut less. (Hmm I guess that makes me a total nutcase too..)

Aha I took it out of the oven, to let it cool down first. WTF!!! a rat took a knife and cut into my freshly baked caked. Grrrrrr!!! Where is that culprit, just as I was about to threw a complete fit, a voice chirped from behind. "Hmm the cake is cool already so I decided to have taste. Quite nice"..go figure, it was mummy dearest taking a small chunk out of my cake with a satisfied face. I guess other than being able to trust their child driving the car with them as the passenger, another point in their lives that they enjoy as parents is to be able to eat what their children bake or cooked for them without lying :D.

The Chronicles of Narnia; Prince Caspian Part 2

Haha, I went to see this movie for the second time. This time I need to accompany my sister, I promise I take her to this movie. Plus she seen the first movie, so I could ask her some stuff that I don't get it in this movie. It would be helpful if you watched the first movie because some scenes can leave you a bit clueless. Such as why did Lucy complained her dress was long, or why is Peter tired acting like a child and why are the Minatour, Dwarves, Centaur, and forest animal were not so friendly with each other before. When I watched this movie again, I remember I did not like some parts of the movie, because it made me sick, not because it was bad or poorly directed. It just that I remember this one scene where all the Narnians were trapped and got slaughtered. They sacrifice themselves so others could get away. So sad :(. Another point I like to urmm point out, is the fight scene or the epic battle. I mean who care about half naked men jumping at each other, what about full armoured men fighting with dwarfs, griffin, centaurs, minotaurs, mice, badger, tigers, bears and lions oh my. I mean I was so immersed with the scene I have forgotten that this was such a cool scene. The CGI, actors in Suits and real actors fighting seamlessly. Something very worth a special effect awards. I think I am going the books. I know its a children book, but at least its something my younger sister can read to :)

Tires, Rims and Cars Oh My

On this fine Sunday, I decided to fill my time maintaining my sister's Myvi. Yes nothing like wasting my time tending after her car. After all after sending the Mercedes in and out of the shop, its only fair to send her Myvi as well.

The Myvi's front tires has gone bald and it needs to be align because it is unbalanced at high speed. The tires are relatively cheap since its not that big, around RM 145 per piece.

What's this? a blue car, in the nice shade of blue?

Why, its the Nissan Fairlady 350Z, a sports car from Nissan that gets back to old school basics of a sport car. Big engine in the front (3.5 liter displacement), rear wheel drive and a very capable body. Its been a favourite for most petrol heads around the world.

Nice interior for two and it has an automatic transmission with manual mode, first time I seen this car with this transmission. Perfect for that KL jam.

I love the Dubs. Dubs are slangs for 20 inch rims, you can always hear this term used in hip hop songs. It looks so nice and fits this car properly

Another sport car, the Subaru Impreza WRX. The owner had the front tire changed. This a sport car more usable in Malaysia. It only has a 2 liter engine, meaning the road tax is still reasonable, but with the aid of a turbocharger and intercooler, it bumps the power to at least 280 brake horsepower. This car has all wheel drive, with power going to all 4 wheel, kinda like a Pajero or a Land Rover. Instead of going to rough terrain, this car has excellent traction in wet, some say you can drive it in the rain as if you were driving it in the dry.

Interior is quite bland, because this was a family sedan but with the body strengthen to aid handling. However 5 people and their luggage can be quite comfortable with this car, if you can stand the hard sport suspension.

Prince Caspian

This is the second installment of The Chronicles of Narnia; Prince Caspian.

This is the main character Prince Caspian, a prince that was chases out of his own castle by his evil uncle. For me this is the first time I watched this Narnia movies. I haven't watched the first one but I played the PS2 game to the end. If you haven't seen or heard the first movie, there some questions that may pop out. I am not going to spoil the movie for you but here a just a few observations. In the first movie if I am not mistaken, there were only 4 humans in the first movie. The rest are talking animals or half man half beast or dwarves (these are Narnians). However in the second movie the Narnians was thought to be extinct, even most of the animals, well.. are just animals who cannot talk. The land of Narnia is now being ruled by these Spanish looking and talking Telmarines who like normal humans inted to take over the world. I was hoping to see some talking animals luckily a talking badger and mice was there. Other thing was, in the first movie, the good guys were centaurs, and the half man half goat. While the good guys were dwarves and these half bull half man. Animals are split between them with wolves as the bad guys while other cute lovable critters are the good guys. In the latest movie, they are all on the same side. This was supposed to be a family and children movie, but talk about violence. Lots of people dying, fighting, backstabbing and dark magic and that was the first movie, this ones is even more gruesome. I like it very much with a mix of playfullness, cheekiness, sarcasm, comedy and that warm fuzzy feeling when you watch a family movie. A definetly must see movie :).

The verdict: Has the Lord of the Ring Feel but with cuter furrier animals.