The lab Ping is working in has gone through quite a lot of changes this past year. People leaving, new people joining, stuff being moved around, new equipments, and bunch of other stuff.
Ping's most recent desk arrangementThe writing area is kinda tight now but Ping have been going to the library or going home whenever Ping has to do writing. Ping gets to see the sun set and rises everyday and the lovely view when it is snowing.
The desk at the end of the bench is Ping's original desk. It is now moved to this side of the lab to be the gassing station (which is an area where we exchange the type of gas in the headspace of a flask/bottle that we are using to grow our bacterial cultures. The glove bag will be an anaerobic glove bag for culturing bacteria from hyena paste. Unlike mammals, some bacteria can only grow or grow better when there is no oxygen - known as obligate or facultative anaerobic bacteria. To provide them with the right condition to grow, we grow them in a glove bag that has the oxygen gas in the headspace exchanged for nitrogen. Sometimes people use a mix of other gases such as hydrogen or carbon dioxide. We have also used helium gas in the lab before too - this is a fun one!!! This area used to be our gel electrophoresis area. However, we have moved the gel station near the entrance of the lab (below) and this is now the bench of a postdoc who joined us just a few months ago. The gel area is where we run gel electrophoresis to separate out DNA, to determine size of our DNA of interest, to determine the length of our DNA amplification reaction (polymerase chain reaction, PCR), and anything else that requires the visualization of DNA. This are used to be Steph's bench and the lab computer for everyone's use. The computer is now moved to the end of the desk (can see the chair facing the wall? That's where the computer is. ) and the desk and bench is now used by a post-doc who joined us sometime middle of this year. She's been a really nice addition to the female population in the lab but Ping still misses having Steph around, especially during the nights and weekends. Here are two more glove bags. The one closer is a new one we recently bought for isolating bacteria from the human gut (using colonoscopy samples) and the further one is for isolating bacteria from soil. These are in a smaller room somewhere across from the main lab.
Pretty cool, eh. Ping is lucky to be in a pretty complete lab, having most of the stuff that Ping needs or would like to explore with.
It has been a while since Ping watched Singapore drama series. It is easier to get access to Taiwanese drama than S'pore drama since the piracy regulations there are a lot tighter. The last S'pore drama Ping watched is the Parental Guidance 2, which was two years ago now or some where there. Lately, Ping started checking back to see what's going on (since the Taiwan drama going on now is not as entertaining). Found a new drama that Ping will most likely continue to follow - The Little Nyonya (小娘惹).
The story revolves around the life of a little nyonya who went through all the hardship during 1930s through the World War II. They bring up the issues of interracial marriage, complicating family trees, the exchange of young girls for money and so forth. Unlike unrealistic Taiwanese dramas, S'porean dramas tend to relate more to the lifestyle people actually experience. Just watching the first episode broadcasted a few days ago, Ping remembers all the story that ahmah told Ping - how she escaped the chaotic WW2 from Penang to Malacca, the complication in her family with family members being sold to other relatives, the unique lifestyle of a nyonya and so forth. While at times, it was annoying have her talk non-stop, Ping acknowledge that those are the information that is pretty rare to come by.
Some of you must be wondering what is Ping talking about. What is nyonya? Let's start with Peranakan. It is a Malay word, literally meaning 'descendents'. Peranakans refer to the descendents of Chinese immigrant from Fujian province, China, (mostly) who married local Malays (mostly within the region of Straits Settlement - Malacca, Penang [at that time known as Prince of Wales Island], Singapore). Ping is not too sure how the British fit into the whole Peranakan origin but it all started when Emperor Yong Le (永樂) of China sent his daughter, Princess Hang Li Poh ( 汉丽宝) to marry Sultan Mansur Shah of Malacca (unreasonable, but I guess people at that time thinks that this is okay, especially since female is almost invaluable to the family...hmm...wonder why her last name is Han...or does all the Hans have Han as their last name?). Does that mean that we are somehow related to her since she is part of the source of Peranakans? Hmmm...
Peranakans typically still maintain their Chinese culture (they celebrate all the traditional festivals like Chinese New Year, Moon Cake Festival, etc.) but adopt the local Malay language and customs to try to fit into the local community. During 'adopting the language', a new dialect evolved - the Peranakan language (or is there an official term for it???), which is a combination of Malay and Hokkien (since most of the Chinese were from Fujian province who speaks Hokkien). So Nyonya refers to the females while Baba refers to the male. Ping loves listening to the language. Like the Chinese language of the olden days, they love to use poetic terms...can't think of any right now though. Ahmah has a book written in the peranakan language somewhere in her stash of stuff that Ping used to love flipping through just to know the language. Hopefully she/daddy (although more like daddy..hehe) still keeps that book since it is a treasure now. The easiest way to pick the difference between the current spoken Malay and the peranakan language is the way they address themselves - saya (or the more commonly use, although rude - aku) for Malay while Peranakan calls themselves 'gua'. 'Gua' actually has a Chinese origin - from 'wa' (我) in Hokkien. Besides Hokkien and Peranakan, most Peranakan can also speak fluent British English since the Straits Settlement are regions where the British have residential officials. So Ping's ahmah can actually speak pretty fluent English (although her pronounciation can be a little off sometimes) and she reads the English newspaper everyday too!
So how does Ping fits into this culture? Err...not too sure actually. If not mistaken, Ping's paternal grandma is a nyonya with 50% peranakan...and Ping's maternal great-grandma (ah chor) has a little bit of it??? But since both Ping's parents are not, Ping is more chinese than peranakan. Ping loves the food and the culture, but no idea how to speak the language, although Ping can understand it to a certain point. Ping does look like one though since Ping is often mistaken as a Malay. Chinese typically has a fairer skin tone while the Peranakans have darker skin tones, looking more like a Malay.
Due to the combination of background, Peranakans have a rich culture. Ping loves their 'baju kebaya', which usually consists of a 'sarung', an inner tank top (wonder what they used to call this?) and an outer blause that is typically slight transparent. Ping is still hoping to get one for herself someday. They are mostly on the higher end of clothing choice these days. Everytime Ping walks into the store, Ping can only manage to nudge mum and say, "mummy ar, that one nice hor". Another thing that is unique to the Peranakan is the 'chiki pai'. It is similar to mahjong, but in the form of cards. Ahmah used to teach us (ahboy and Ping) how to play them but Ping can barely remember how anymore. Definitely one thing to make sure we learn from ahmah. Wonder if the cards are still available in the market. Of course, not to forget the lovely manik shoes that mum makes. Just from the details on manik shoes, one can tell the amount of effort the nyonyas spent on their apparel. By the way, mum is really good at sewing maniks and making new designs. She's working on a hand bag currenty so if anyone wanna get a pair of manik shoe or want to learn how to make them, she's the person to go to!! They might be more expensive than some simple high heels but comparing to what people 'normally' pay for a pair of factory-made shoe, the manik shoe is definitely more worth it.
Thinking about it now, it seems like Peranakans might be have pretty upscale lifestyle...not too sure though. Anyway, that's Ping's spill of Peranakans. Will definitely be looking forward to the drama. By the way, why is it called 小娘惹? Is 娘惹 the translation for Nyonya?
Ping was at a photography workshop this Saturday. Ping learned her photography skills from dad, starting with the super huge manual Canon that we had a long long time ago. When Ping got her first digicam (Canon S410), Ping knew some of the stuff that you need to adjust like the ISO, exposure and of course, flash/no flash options. Ping never took the time to figure out the new features that come with digicam.
At the course, Ping learned about white balance and the effects function. Took a photo of the Red Cedar River on the walk back to Ping's car using the vivid effect. The one on the left is taken with no effect while the one on the right is taken with the vivid effect. On such a cloudy day, Ping always have trouble capturing the right contrast between the green leaves and the blue of the water. The vivid effect sure does a really good job with it.
The other thing that Ping learned from the workshop is the white balance. The indoor lighting in US are typically yellow light. Sometimes it makes the subject unnatural. Ping typically use flash to offset the yellow lighting but sometimes the flash is way too bright, especially if taking a subject at close distance. There is one function that can be selected to reduce the yellow lighting. This is the white balance function. The photo on the left was taken with auto function while the one on the right is taken with the fluorescent function. The fluorescent function is like adding a fluorescent light to the subject. Looks better right??
After the 'lecture' part, we went out to take some photos in the botany greenhouse. That was the first time Ping went into the greenhouse. They have quite a lot of stuff with various theme. Ping's favorite is the tropical theme - reminds Ping of home!! Caught quite a few interesting stuff...
A Monkey cup! Ahboy, remember the one we found at Tasik Kenyir?
Banana!! Not one of Ping's favorite fruit though...unless it is pisang goreng from the roadside vendor on the way up to Batu Feringghi!!!
Morning glory @ Bunga seri pagi (牽牛花). It reminds Ping of bunga telang. Wonder if they use the morning glory to make the blue seri kaya kuih or not.
Carnivorous pitcher plant. （食蟲植物）Haven't been seeing this as often in M'sia. Might have to go deep into the tropical forest to see it. Definitely not in areas like Penang National Park since we didn't see any while we were there.
Just felt like posting some of the stuff we did for Halloween. That was the last time Ping really hang out with the gang - we had a little gathering after dinner at Ping's place and watch ghost movies. The next gathering will be the road trip to go see 杰倫 at Mohegan Sun!!! Time sure past fast when Ping is crazy busy. This couple weeks will definitely be fast too as Ping is back in lab!!! Got lotsa stuff that Ping wanna do!!!
That day was a pretty happening day as it was the last home football game (finally!!! Ping is surely not a fan of home football games!) After spending most of the day in the lab, Ping went to pick ah Pei up and we head over to Meijer to get some stuff to make some snacks for the evening gathering.
We had....a bunch of sugar loaded snacks. Sure made Ping avoided sugar after that night. But hei, it's Halloween!!
RIP Cupcakes. ZT and Ping did the decor for this.
Spider Cupcakes. The girls decorated this. While Ping thought it looks like spider, the majority thought it resembles 螃蟹 (pang2xie4, crab).
Then there was the Ghost Pudding. It was just plain chocolate pudding (mum's recipe) with melted marshmallow...not as successful though. But MC and ah Pei had fun melting the marshmallows.
The creepiest looking one is the eyeball egg. But it was good!!
Another creepy one is the Bleeding Toe.
Lastly, we had a Pizza Face!
We also watched two ghost movies - JuOn (the original Japanese version of the Grudge) and another cantonese movie that Ping can't remember but apparently is a pretty well-known movie once upon a time. Ping watched clips of JuOn a long time ago so it was nice to finally be able to understand what is going on with the movie (with different opinions from different people...hehe). The best part was seeing PH being creep out and yet, still wants to sit right there hiding under the blankie.
Ping needs to keep her sentences short. Gotta reduce using words like while, then, hence, therefore, which will be,....
This should not be that different from the weekly report Ping writes up but why the thought that Ping is applying to NSF makes it all so much more tense. Seriously, should I even be submitting this? Gosh...can't imagine how it would be like when Ping finally starts writing up the BGE chapter for her dissertation. Scary.
Blogging from Windows Live Writer. Just got the new toy - XPS M1530 and wanna try out some of Windows Vista's new stuff. Kinda like the gadget stuff at the side...almost like the Mac...still like the Mac one better.
Can't install Asian language input yet as haven't install MS Office. Too distracted to install anything or personalized anything. All Ping can think of right now is BGE, BGE, BGE. Can't seem to get my hands on a really good 'model' relating C:N ratio with BGE yet. Dateline is only 9 days away. Scary. Feels like writing my own prelim proposal all over again. Limited preliminary data. Not knowing where is this going. But at the same time, it feels more exciting because this is something that Ping really wants to do (okay, so the ribosome stuff was exciting too but it feels 'less achievable').
Alright..back to writing. Curious to see how this comes up.
The writing area is kinda tight now but Ping have been going to the library or going home whenever Ping has to do writing. Ping gets to see the sun set and rises everyday and the lovely view when it is snowing. 
The desk at the end of the bench is Ping's original desk. It is now moved to this side of the lab to be the gassing station (which is an area where we exchange the type of gas in the headspace of a flask/bottle that we are using to grow our bacterial cultures. The glove bag will be an anaerobic glove bag for culturing bacteria from hyena paste. Unlike mammals, some bacteria can only grow or grow better when there is no oxygen - known as obligate or facultative anaerobic bacteria. To provide them with the right condition to grow, we grow them in a glove bag that has the oxygen gas in the headspace exchanged for nitrogen. Sometimes people use a mix of other gases such as hydrogen or carbon dioxide. We have also used helium gas in the lab before too - this is a fun one!!!
This area used to be our gel electrophoresis area. However, we have moved the gel station near the entrance of the lab (below) and this is now the bench of a postdoc who joined us just a few months ago.
The gel area is where we run gel electrophoresis to separate out DNA, to determine size of our DNA of interest, to determine the length of our DNA amplification reaction (polymerase chain reaction, PCR), and anything else that requires the visualization of DNA.
This are used to be Steph's bench and the lab computer for everyone's use. The computer is now moved to the end of the desk (can see the chair facing the wall? That's where the computer is. ) and the desk and bench is now used by a post-doc who joined us sometime middle of this year. She's been a really nice addition to the female population in the lab but Ping still misses having Steph around, especially during the nights and weekends.
Here are two more glove bags. The one closer is a new one we recently bought for isolating bacteria from the human gut (using colonoscopy samples) and the further one is for isolating bacteria from soil. These are in a smaller room somewhere across from the main lab.
