Kuay Teow T'ng

Aiyoh...want to lose weight also susah, want to gain weight also susah. But sometimes, they can be pretty easy.

When Ping went back to Penang, Ping gained 3kg from that three weeks. Crazy or not??? 1kg one week wei...but the amount of food we were eating, seriously can make a family in Africa happy for a month. Especially those last few nights of seafood. Even on the first few nights Ping was back, Ping ate until Ping could not take a single bite anymore....eventually everything came out. But when mummy and Ping weight ourselves after that last big dinner at ahmah's place, it totally scared us. But Ping only had a few days left...don't care ler..go back Michigan only start losing it off.

When Ping came back, Ping went back to her usual diet to get back her normal weight of 45kg that she had maintained for the past 1.5 years. But after that one week of stressed out over not being able to get Big Gorilla to cooperate for an ASM poster, everything went chaotic. Ping stopped cooking real food. Lots of junk food - comfort food mah. Not enough sleep. Basically, stressed out ler. Ping not only lose that 3kg, but Ping lost 8kg!!! Even crazier right???

Ping is at 40kg right now. Have been since the new year. Apparently, daddy is right again. Junk food makes you lost your appetite and of course when you're not really eating, you lose weight. It is pretty irritating too. Every night Ping goes home, look into the pantry - lots of stuff to eat or cook but Ping don't feel like doing any. It is also annoying because when Ping lose weight, Ping lose her butt too!!! Ish!!

But anyway, Ping decided to make some really good stuff today and get her appetite back. Bought some 'bak kut' and 'huan chu ti' to make kuay teow t'ng. It is not really kuay teow t'ng since Ping didn't get any fishball or 'hu piow'. But close enough lah. 'Bak kut t'ng' is always good anyway. Ping also added some 'ang cho' for the sweetness.

Salsa!!

Despite not being able to check off all the stuff on Ping's to-do-list, Ping did went Salsa dancing last night. Didn't go to Malecon. Went to the one on campus instead. It was pretty fun initially. But there were more undergrads who don't know how to dance real salsa that it became pretty boring. It definitely bring back the good memories at Malecon...especially a memory of someone (haha..no details available!!) It's been a long time since Ping had gone there...maybe two months?? But if Ping wanna go back there on Saturdays, Ping gotta start getting more focus on the stuff she should be doing rather than getting distracted. Otherwise, weekends become the time Ping do her catch up.

It is pretty easy to tell herself that she's not affected by the Big Gorilla not working. But it is hard to pretend that it really is not affecting her. When Ping first came back from Penang, it was an exciting ride every day. It is always a new beginning. It doesn't work today, sure, maybe it is the vacuum. Opps, maybe not. Maybe it is the timing. Opps, wrong guess again. Maybe it is quenching. There was always something else to try. Now Ping feels like she's done all she had thought of and all that she was told to. So it became the Big Gorilla. Ping starts procastinating doing the next one. Ping was doing it back to back during Christmas break. It doesn't work today, prepare culture for tomorrow. Not again, prepare another for the next day. Now, Ping feels like letting go. But deep down, Ping wants it to work. So does everyone else. But what is Ping doing wrong? The thoughts about it almost rule Ping's life the past week. How can Ping stay optimistic about it? It takes over Ping's sleep. Making Ping tired the next day, procastinating reading and writing up her lab reports (that's done though!!!). Ping rather be reading over the lab she's TAing for. Rather be reading for Bioremediation seminar (which turned out to be a good thing!). Rather be reading for the Adaptation seminar. Rather be working on the rrndb stuff. Even getting more interested in Steph work than her own!! To make the long story short, everything seems to be more attractive than Big Gorilla.

So after Ping had a good weekend finishing up her to-do-list, which makes Ping feel better, Ping decided to get her focus back by thinking about REL strain. It is ready to be measured for drop-off. That is definitely something to be excited about. As for Big Gorilla, Ping will be doing one tomorrow. It is time Ping puts more effort and some tender loving care (as Steph likes to use) in it and make it a good one. Everyday is a new beginning!!!

Then Ping can start making plans to go salsa dancing again.

飞轮海

A day away from lab - Ping finished most of the stuff that has been on her 'to-do-list' for quite a while. One of the stuff that has been distracting Ping from 应该做的 research is the Bioremediation seminar. Ping actually did well enough to get a praise from one of the post-docs. Yippee!! It reminds Ping of the discussions we have during lab meetings back at WMU. Stuff were straight forward, they either work or they don't. There are answers for each experiment. An answer that can lead to another. It motivates one to go further. To move ahead. If only things are this way for the "Big Gorilla Experiment". The RE part of the REsearch for that experiment never seems to end. Sometimes it makes you feel like 笨鸟先飞可是一级飞都飞不上. Oh well...

Guess what! After listening to 飞轮海 songs on imeen.com, Ping decided to get the cd. Yippee!! Got it sometime last week. Their debut album. Got the DVD for their MVs too!! After listening to it all day, Ping realized that 吴尊 is actually not very good at singing. No wonder he barely have a solo part. But 汪東城 have really good voice. As usual, there's always one or two songs in the cd that Ping don't like. But overall, for a band that was brought together by HIM, Ping would give them the thumbs up. Definitely better than F4 or Tension. Haha...feel so ah lian now. But they have really cute songs mer. Don't care ler.

Pomelo

Ping have been here for 5 years and the past weekend is the first time Ping saw pomelo at Meijer! Pomelo!!!!!! It was 3 for USD 5. Super expensive but Ping couldn't help it. When Ping was back home, we had pomelo at ahmah's place but on that day, Ping just had her wisdom tooth pulled out. So it took Ping forever to finish one sac. By the time Ping finished her sac, daddy already finished 3/4. So now Ping gets three all to herself!!! It is must smaller than the ones we can get back home but as long as Ping gets to eat it, Ping is not complaining! Wooohhoooo!!!

Calculus...differentiation...integration...

Ping just finished going through the Balaban paper on modeling the advantages of bacterial persistence in various environments. Basically, it is about how a clonal bacterial population that is genetically sensitive to penicillin can escape the effect of penicillin by generating a subpopulation that stays in stationary phase or have a slower growth rate. It is definitely fun to read the biology part...how they discover persister cells...and at the same time, sort of worrying because that means that antibiotics are not as effective as we thought they are and the duration between each course of antiobiotic is very important. So...don't ever skip taking the antibiotic when you have already started on it!!! Long long time ago when Ping was a little girl and had caught an ear infection, ahmah used to have a set time when Ping has to take her antibiotics. Ping used to whine about it because she only wants to take her meds once a day. Now she knows why. *grins*

While the biology is lots of fun, the mathematics part is a little challenging. Vector functions...differentiation...integration..eigenvectors..woah...that was a little too mind boggling initially. Ping had returned all her calculus knowledge to Mr. Cheah. So Ping dig out these two books from one of the boxes of old stuff. Don't ask why she still keeps it but Ping is glad she did. It was helpful and brought back lots of memories at Sunway College. One can get really engrossed in all the exercises and examples to try to work out the formulas. Reminds Ping of how much she loves maths. However, it was also Calculus 3 that brought Ping's CGPA down....boo! So kay poh want to take Cal3 when she only need up to Cal2. But those were one of the best times in college.
Late nights at Ping's place...which is usually followed by sifu and Stephan playing the guitar. After class at Voon's place followed by movies at Pyramid. Break time joking around at the foyer. Lunch time at Medan Selera...the place for cheap and good food!! The cheat sheets.. Wonderful memories. Of course, while Ping is thinking of all these, some memories that can never be rid off popped into Ping's head. It was during Ping's third semester at Sunway...when Panda had already came to WMU. We had one of our biggest fight...but if we had called the quits then, it is possible that Ping wouldn't have taken this long to get over it. Life was rich then. There are friends to distract Ping, the 19 credit hours, going back home to parents and grandma (although ahdik was giving problems to Ping at that time too), high school friends, BISDS friends...Ping would have made it much better. But instead, we lasted longer than Ping had expected. Four years longer. It ended just when Ping was at her weakest point. It was at the point that you've been with a person long enough that you have trusted the person with all your heart. That you have become so dependent on that person. That almost everything in life was a cooperation between you and that person. It was also Ping's weakest because it was Ping's first semester at a totally new place. Yet to settle down. Worried about being in a new place. Yet to know what project she will be working on. Not a single friends. Still not too sure about how grad school would turn out to be.

Oh well...that was Ping being all mushy and having a 'poor Ping' time. While it was the worst moment to get such news, it was also the one incident in Ping's life that made her as strong as she is today...that made her much more independent than she was before. It had taken Ping a lot longer to get over Panda but she did it and she's proud of herself!! Best of all, it had made Ping closer to mum 'coz now mum is not only mum but also Ping's best friend. She never did once said the 'I told you so' that everyone had told Ping when they found out. Love you mum!!

snow...snow....snow!!!

Woohooo!!!! It's snowing!!!! The first snow fall of Winter!!! (it is actually the second since Ping missed the first one while Ping was back in Penang)...so it's the first snow fall of Winter 2007!!! Such a lovely sight as Ping gets out of her bed. Went straight out to her balcony. Ping can finally feel the snow!!!!
That's Ping's car covered with snow.
That's the lawn covered with snow!!!! It is usually the snow that motivates Ping to take pictures during the winter. Otherwise, it is a very boring and depressing place.

Full House

Remember this K-drama series that was on Malaysian tv sometimes last year? Ping got to watch it during her break back to Penang 'coz Aun Aun bought the VCD set. Definitely an addictive one. Dad nagged mum and Ping for watching few episodes continuously. It was one of those drama where you would always make the comment 'aiyoh, an neh dong eh lang pun u' or 'geramnya!' but yet it has attracted viewers who don't understand Korean. The VCS series that Aun bought was dubbed in Mandarin so Ping understood it.

Two days ago, Nokkie came home with a stack of cds. This afternoon, Ping came home from lab and she was watching them...it was in Thai but the moment Ping saw the casts - it was definitely Full House. Then if you go on youtube.com, you'll find those with English subtitles and from the comments section, you'll know that some of them are Americans! What is so special about this series that attracts people from all over the world who don't understand the original language? Isn't this amazing? Furthermore, there are only four people in this entire series! Even the scenes are all in that one crazy expensive but lovely house.

This was also the series that got everyone in M'sia so gila over Rain (Bi). Seriously, people would even describe him as 'hen shuai' but he is nothing compared to Jay..and of course that is Ping's bias opinion (Ping actually managed to get three of his albums from Fan!). Anyway, mum told Ping that he'll be performing a concert at Bukit Jalil end of this month and the tickets range between RM82 to RM752!!!! Would anyone pay that much just to watch someone sing songs that they don't understand? He only has one English song. Every other is in Korean. If it ends up to be a full concert, all Ping can say is 'u lui bo lor kai'.

Wouldn't it be such a disappointment for his fans if Jay really did take up a larger part of Full House 2? But then this is not really a trusted source...another kay poh chi story. Oh!, by the way, Ping can't wait until Jay's Slam Dunk is out on vcd...that's already on the Ping's list of stuff to get from M'sia during Ping's next trip back..kekeke.

Dippin Dots

Malaysia is franchising more and more of the stuff that are originally 'Western'. Ping first knew Auntie Anne's pretzels when Sunway Pyramid opened. Recently, Beard Papa's cream puff opened in MidValley and Queensbay Mall. Wonder what's next?

Ping recently...well, not so recent anymore since Ping has been lagging in blogging... it was probably sometime before Christmas - okaylah, it's quite recent as it hasn't been a month yet - tried DippinDots. We got the Peppermint Chocolate (probably). Unlike ice-cream, it is dry and it feels like snow on your palm...almost like dry-ice bits. But since it is ice, it melts pretty fast in your mouth. Ping likes it because it is not as filling as a cup of ice-cream...the kind of food that 'chiak beh pah' (yeah, which also means can chiak ka che..hehe). They also have cakes and ice-cream sandwich made out of these dots.
Wonder if M'sia will start franchising this too. But since they don't have it there yet...if wanna try, you all have to come here orrr. Bleh.