The most complex BBQ event ever!!!!

Yesterday, a group of friends from my lab & I held the most complex bbq event ever so far. It was a birthday cum farewell celebration...kinda killin 2 birds w one stone.

Well, it all began when my 'sista' BB wanted to hold a farewell party for another good friend CM, who will be leaving for a US attachment in June once all the formalities are settled. Also, BB's birthday was coming (i.e. it was yesterday). So we decided to have 2 celebrations with one event. At the time of the intial inception of the plan, CM was away on a conference trip. So when CM came back this week, he was asking around if we were going to celebrate BB's birthday. However, we all acted uninterested and this pissed off CM BIG TIME!! But in actual fact, we were going to celebrate it, according to the 'secret' plan.

So yesterday, CM bought a bday cake (mango) for BB and tried very hard since morning to get everyone to meet up in the afternoon to celebrate BB's bday. However, come the time of celebration, BB bubbled CM saying that she had a meeting. So CM went around apologizing for the delay but all of us gave a 'Ok loh' non-interested and don't care kinda attitude answer which pissed CM even more. He began thinking that we were all heartless and god knows what other things he had thought abt us. Who can blame him rite based on our great 'acting'....sori for that CM.

As the day came to an end, we all quietly crept away and went over to the BBQ place at one of our friend YW place (thanks YW for booking the bbq pit and using yr kitchen...u r too kind ;p) The plan was to get CM to the BBQ place...but how??? Well BB enlisted the help of her friend to get CM to meet her at the bbq place as the 'fake' plan was to celebrate BB's bday with her friend and CM.

However, CM had been busy preparing for his presentation tomorrow and LUCKILY he finished it in time...so he was able to meet up with BB's friend for the 'fake' bday dinner. Meanwhile, we set up the bbq while awaiting for CM. Upon arrival of CM, we all hid and when he arrived at the bbq place, was he suprised to see all of us when we came out of nowhere and greeted him. It then became all clear to him of what was happening and what kind of friends we really are. Sadly, I regreted not doing one thing...throwing CM into the pool due to some people backing out from the initial plan to throw him into the pool.

We had a wonderful bbq and I would also like to say a BIG THANKS for catering to my 'Halal' food requirments. It was much much appreciated although next time, PLEASE DO NOT BUY NASI GORENG AND BEE HOON GORENG. I am sianzzz of it.

Just got my module results....

Its been a very busy day today... been with my senior since morning and learning how to use LATEX to write my paper. Its been a long time procrastinating on learning and using LATEX and tdy was the day to start learning it!!!

Well, today is also the day when my last 2 module results would be out and the results have just been released. I got the Alpha grades that I deserved. No more modules to take anymore although exams in life will never end till death...finally!!!...a relief tat I have completed this requirement....1 more requirement to go...GRE...sigh.

My paper got accepted!!!!

Just got a mail from the conference organizers that my first paper that I had written with my name as the first author, has been accepted. Finally.....something is moving on in my resarch...been feeling very down lately cos been feeling that not much progress has been made in my research although I have been doing alot of work. Well, time to modify the paper for submission and prepare for my conference cum mini-vacation.

Reaction to mistreatment (the DIVINE way)

What do you do when someone you know insults you?

If you were a normal human being, you would give him/her tit-for-tat...retaliate by insulting back ofcourse.

If you were a better human being, you would simply ignore what he said for if these accusations were false, these words donot matter to you at all.

If you were a divine human being, you would simply tell him this:
'If what you said is the truth, then I seek forgiveness from GOD; and if you have accused me of that which I am innocent, I ask GOD to forgive you!!'

Moral of the story: You decide what kind of human being you want to be.

Dan Brown's 'Deception Point'

Just finished reading Dan Brown's 'Deception Point'.

What an amazing read...once u start reading, u just can't put it down... luckily I read it during my train rides to and fro my school so I HAVE to stop reading when I reach my jouney ;p

What I am particularly amazed is the way the author uses actual facts in our world and put them together in the story. In a way, u learn more general knowledge as well as enjoy a great and exciting story!!!

Definitely much much much more exciting than 'Digital Fortress' but not as thrilling as 'The Da Vinci Code'.

I have 1 more of Dan Brown's novel to read...'Angels & Demons'... soon but not now... time to focus on my work.

OUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Since the past few months, I had been having a problem of swollen gums near my lower right wisdom tooth. Everytime I ate something hard and if the gums covering my wisdom tooth got crushed in the process, it would become swollen and would take a few days to become alright. In addition, because the gum was partially covering it, food would easily get stuck and had a hard time removing it everytime. Hence, it was time to see the dentist to resolve this issue before it lead to bigger problems and today was the day!!!

Went to the dentist below my block and waited patiently for my turn. When my turn came, I was slightly nervous...hey...I never extracted a good tooth in my life before so ofcourse I was apprehensive lah. Teeth that came out before were all baby tooth...

I was injected with anesthetics near my gums and after a few minutes, the procedure began. The dentist pulled out my tooth even before I knew it (in a matter of seconds!!!) although I felt like someone was trying to pull out my whole jaw, and placed my 'wisdom' tooth on the tray. Imagine the shock I got when I saw it....it was sooooo HUGE and even the dentist said so...I then took my huge wisdom tooth and got strict orders from my dentist to rest till end of this week.

Then something strange happened...my dentist told me 'two tooth left'...In my mind, I was thinking 'Huh??? But u only pulled out 1 tooth so there should be 3 left mah?' Then after a while, my mind encoded the message 'CHEW FOOD LEFT!'...hahaha...must be the efects of the anesthetics and the shock of the whole tooth extraction process.

Well, even as I'm writing this blog, the effects of the anesthetics is wearing off and the pain is increasing....ouch...ouch...ouch...time to take the antibiotics and painkillers.

I was too late

After doing some research yesterday, I learnt that female angel fishes lay eggs and the male would fertile them...all this had to be done within 2 hrs of the egg being laid or else the eggs will go bad (they will turn opaque white)... which happened in my case...felt so saaaddddd when I cleared away the dead eggs but hey, atleast now I found out which one was the female.

I also found out that it is very hard to distinguish between the male and female. One of my 'fish expert' friend told me that males have a small and sharp protruison near their 'anus' while the female would have a blunt protrusion at the 'anus' when it is about to lay the eggs. I still can't figure it out. However, info. on the net suggests that the onie way to tell is when they pair up and when they go thru the hatchin and fertilizing process. Sometimes, you can even wrongly pair up 2 females as the breeding pair!

Time to find out the 'alpha' male or males! Hmmm...wat was the sex of the fish hat I placed at my lab aquarium? Time to find out!!!

My 'Angel' layed eggs .

For the past few days, my angel fishes had been acting strangely. It seems that two of them were constantly head butting the other two angel fishes. I thought that since all of them had grown soooo big, they were fightin for 'water' space. So as a result, I took away one angelfish (the second largest) and placed it at the aquarium at my lab. Even then, the fightin never stopped. Now, the smallest one was being attacked so I had no choice but to isolate the smallest one and put it in another large contained for it to heal its wounds.

I then asked my friends (those fish enthusiasts) and one of them said that they were probably fightin for space while another told me that they may be mating. MATING!!! I thought 'Omigod...I chin chai set up an aquarium w just one air pump and regularly maintained it....and still they wanted to mate although I didn't really bother abt the water ph. Yeah rite...no way that this can be true...boy did I get a super shock a few days later which is today!!!

Yesterday, as I felt that the isolated fish was in better condition now, I thought of introducing it back into the main tank. However, once I put it in, the other two kept attacking it. Damn it...they are still in this attacking mode....so I removed one of the attacking fish. So when I went to fed the fishes this moring, I got a SHCKO when I saw transparent yellowish eggs on the side of the temporary tank with the isolated fish. At first I thought that they may be mosquito eggs... but how can they eggs be arranged so neatly and in the lower half of the contained... and even if they were, the fish would have eaten it... It then dawned on me that the fish had layed eggs!!!!

Time to do more research on this......