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!!