How to host a party?
What would you do if you are to host a party within 24 hours?
Perhaps a few important things will be
1) Loads of food
What type of a party would not be complete without food yeah? Be it snacks such as potato chips or tasty BBQ chicken… You’ll always need food at the party!!! Remember though to get sufficient food. Nothing is worst in a party than a bunch of hungry mob chasing you down for their fair share of food. And noone will enjoy having to get extra food from the outside after a party. PARTY=FOOD. You can never call it a party without food. PERIOD!!!
2) Loads of music/entertainment
Now the funny thing with a lot of people is that they rarely can have a meal/snacks without having something else to do. They will be talking to someone while eating, watching someone else about their things at a distance, fiddling about with their fork or spoon, watching the TV and eventually repeat the cycle all over again. Now as the host, you need to provide the proper thing to keep them occupied while their eating, be it someone else to talk with, some loud music, some belly dancers… anything which will keep them entertained throughout the party. You wouldn’t want your guest to be yawning at your party (aside from the yawns you get after partying for hours).
3) Loads of people
You have the food… You have the entertainment… And you noticed something is missing… Where is everyone? Take important note to invite all whom you could invite to the party (relevance is a point of consideration as well). Nothing stinks at a party more than the lack of people where 30 minutes into the party, you’ll be noticing that you had finished talking to everyone. And deciding whether you want to go through a 2nd round of talking or just call it a night. It wouldn’t hurt to have hot hunks and babes as these are crowd attractions.
Simple right?
*The writer of this post holds no responsibility if your party didn’t go how you would expect it to go*
I won something by AirAsiaGo…
What do you you think it was?
It was something in this envelope. Guess guess guess!!!
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Off-track entertainment: including displays, stunt shows and live music?
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Silverstone radio and giant screens?
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Yup, you might have guess it by now. I won 2 free passes to the Moto GP race…
The only problem is that it was held in… UK.
I am a Guest of Dorna… Whoever that is…
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VALID ticket!!!
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18th, 19th and…
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20th of June 2010… Three days of ‘lost-blissful-fun-in-UK’
Anyway… I won it by submitting a slogan in AirAsiaGo. My slogan was something like I like travelling with AirAsiaGo because it allows me to travel with what’s in my piggy bank.
Except… My piggy bank is quite insufficient for me to fly to UK for the race.
Perhaps AirAsia should provide air tickets as well next time.
Attending the IDERN 2010 seminar.
I’ve been attending this seminar called IDERN 2010 for the past few days. It’s the short form for International Doctoral Educational Research Network, bringing supervisors and postgraduate students from all over the globe to discuss about postgraduate studies.
In a lot of ways, I would have like it more if I had attended this before I started my PhD 2 years ago because it would have given me a clearer picture over how and what studying PhD would be like.
I like to quote one of the speakers who said
PhD- you are responsible for the independent research in the field while being properly supervised.
This means that you are responsible for everything you do from the first step onwards, not your supervisor. This particular responsibility I had experienced it first hand, be it being efficient to carry out my study or be it missing deadlines due to personal problems, everything was my responsibility, and I can’t say that it’s not my fault because everything that happen since that day 2 years ago is under my care.
Another particular thing which I just had to quote was this
In the beginning, you would know nothing, and your supervisor will know everything. After 3 years, you will know almost everything and your supervisor, almost nothing
Think about it.
Well anyway, I’ve learnt loads from the seminars held, from dealing with your supervisors to defending the viva. I won’t be sharing any here because it will take a lot of writing space.
Perhaps the only thing I would write about is this.
Postgraduate study is like your undergraduate study, multiplied ten-folds, add-in a few folds of stress and problems, subtracting all the help you may have gotten in your undergraduate years and you’ll find time as a fraction of what it used to be.
So be prepared, my dear juniors who are about to journey down this road. But do remember one thing though, please do have a life while studying because sometimes a pinch of fun allows for more efficient work.
Have fun studying 
Here’s some other things from the seminar that I would like to share: (Sources are in brackets)
The secret life of the PhD student
You’re sitting at your desk ready to start writing; it’s 9.30 a.m. You think, “I’ll just check my emails for 10 minutes and then I’ll get started on my literature review.” You open up your email and find there’s one from your supervisor asking if your draft is ready. You quickly send it to the trash and check the next one. It’s from an honours student in your department saying they can’t find a particular reference and since it’s your field do you know where to find it. You think, “It’ll only take a few minutes, I’ll just do a quick check.” So you log onto to the library electronic journals. Eventually, with a sense of great satisfaction, it’s found and emailed off to the grateful honours student. It’s 10.15 a.m. “Well,” you think, “I may as well just get the rest of these emails cleared”; glassware not cleaned in lab yesterday – send back saying it wasn’t me; astronomical society bash tonight – send back saying sorry, can’t come; interesting reference from co-supervisor –send back saying thanks, and go look up reference – feel very satisfied when found, printed, stapled and put in pile with 40 other articles. It is now 11.00 a.m. “Well, it’s been a busy morning, surely it’s time for a cup of coffee.” You meet a few friends in the coffee room and chat about the latest techniques for grafting boils to blue tongued sleepy lizards. It’s 11.30 a.m. As it’s only an hour until lunch you think there’s not much point in trying to start the lit review now, so you organise some references and put them into Endnote. It’s 12.30 p.m. and, with a sigh of relief, you head off for lunch. At 1.30 p.m. you come back and now feel a little tired, so think ‘I’ll just do something a bit easy until I feel more motivated.’ It’s 2.30 p.m. and another PhD student knocks on the door and asks for help with calibrating her super-sensitive bio-liquid. You are really good at this so you help and, after all, she’s helped you with Endnote in the past. After this you rush back into your office. It’s 4.30 p.m. You’re late, so you shut down your computer, grab your bag and rush out.
Your supervisor walks past and asks you how your day was. You say, “Great – very busy, did a lot”, but you have to rush now because you’re late for a meeting of the Faculty Higher Degrees Completion Committee and you are its representative!(Kearns et al., 2008)
Do inform me if it’s inappropriate to post this here and I’ll take it down.
What is written in the secret lives of a PhD student is really quite true
And the second one is a comic by Jorge Cham which is also quite true.
Lol. Have an idea what’s postgraduate studies is like yet?
I PWN’d my Health Statistics paper
In case you hadn’t noticed: I FAILED IN SKETCHING.
Anyway. I’m glad to say that I really PWN’d my Health Statistic paper. First indications of test 1 and test 2 showed that I would have been unable to ‘ace’ this subject this time around but I totally pwn’d it in the finals and scored there big time. Very happy with my results
When relationships becomes business-like
A moment ago, I was chatting with a friend who had just broken up with her boyfriend and is currently looking for a new one. So I had helped her to create an advertisement, looking for the perfect guy for her. Interviewed her a bit on the type she’s looking for and came up with the following advertisement.
She really is quite a looker, so much so that I actually sent her my resume
I wonder if she would hire me.
Alan is ‘in a relationship’
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Or should say Alan ‘was’ in a relationship.
At least for one hour or so.
I changed something in my Facebook account. From ‘single’ to
Well since people might notice that it’s a particular ‘day’ and I changed the relationship status, we need something to further strengthen that ‘changed relationship status’. So I left this comment to myself.
In the end, I gotten a lot of comments. Some congratulating me, some being super curious. [And some definitely super angry and pissed off after this]
For the congratulations, thanks a lot for being happy for me, although it was just a one day relationship, I’m happy to know that they are a lot of people who are happy for me as well.
For the super curious, sorry for playing around with your curiosity. Alan most probably won’t be able to find a girlfriend any time soon for quite obvious [and perhaps quite unobvious reasons].
For the super angry and super pissed, I’m very sorry. But since it’s April Fools, I hope you don’t mind. Hmmm I’ll let you all be the first to know if I really do managed to get into a relationship after this
So come 2nd of April 2010, I’ll be back to ‘single’
[Actually I feel so bad that, I’d changed my status back to ‘single’ after one hour]
[Dear Michelle, I’m so sorry to disappoint you. I heard that you were really happy after reading that status update.So sorry. I’ll definitely tell you first if I gotten into a relationship]
[Dear YeeWuen, sorry for cheating you. Thanks for being a good junior. I didn’t expected that message from you]
[Dear Miss Mermaid, are you still curious?]
Here’s a few of the kepo (translated- people who wants to know about other people’s stuff) messages:
And eventually, someone from my MSN decided to follow in suit
It’s contagious, this joke~~
Anyway. Happy April Fools.
And as JJ and Ian (from Hitz.fm morning crew) would say: GOTCHAAAAA!!!
The “Things’ I’ve done as a Post-Graduate Student”
Ever since starting my post-graduate studies here, I’ve been doing a lot of things. Things that a post-graduate student will have to do and things I have never thought one would have to do till I done it.
Here’s a list of things I’ve done before:
1. Do my project work.
2. After (1), find out why my project work is not being done
3. After (2), try to change project titles or incorporate new things into the project to make it more interesting.
4. After (3), still found out that the progress is not there.
5. After (4), realize that I may be not working hard enough.
6. After (5), wonder why I’m still around 
7. Supervise final year project students with their project work.
8. After (7), become ‘one-of-the-person-who-stay-late-supervising-other-junior-students’
9. After (7), become ‘one-of-the-person-to-ask-if-you-want-to-use-anything-in-the-lab’
10. After (7), being the ‘one-who-get-ffk-by-his-junior-everytime most-of-the-time-he-want-to-teach-him-DNA-extraction’
11. Become a lab demonstrator for undergraduates during lab sessions.
12. After (11), helped correct lab reports.
13. After (12), helped correct some test papers.
14. Become a lab demonstrator for undergraduates for their pre-industrial training.
15. Become ‘the-person-to-see’ by the sales person who comes to the lab
16. Become ‘the-person-to-order-from’ by my other lab mates.
17. Become ‘the-person-who settles-the-orders-and-the-paperwork’
18. Writes up proposal for my supervisor to apply for new grants so we can have $$ to carry on our research project.
19. Edit up proposals from other supervisors but ‘co-supervised’ by my supervisor to apply for new grants.
20. Become ‘one-of-the-person-who-tries-to-tally-up-accounts-to-find-out-how-much-is-left’
21. After (20), find out why accounts are not tally.
22. After (21), tally out accounts
23. Become ‘the-person-to-cancel-wrong-orders-placed-by-other-more-senior-but-less-‘experienced’-laboratory-mates’
24. Typed something into a soft copy form in 30 minutes due to supervisor forgetting to do it.
25. Helped completed a poster for presentation within one week.
26. After (25), struggled through some presentations of the poster to some public people.
27. Helped to maintain lab items and lab reagents.
28. Carry out cleanup of things which other lab mates sometimes don’t clean up.
29. Carry out reorganization of where things are placed in the lab.
30. After (29), try to remember where all the things are placed in the lab.
31. After (30), find out why some things are missing.
32. After (31), report missing items.
And the list goes on… And that’s just things in the lab. That’s not accounting for things outside the lab.
I’m 23 years old, with emphasis on the ‘OLD’
On this day, 23 years ago, a baby was born.
And that baby was me.
He’s normal by day… But at night he become…
Power Rangers Alan Tan.
Okay… Enough with the bulls#it. Happy birthday to me. How did I went through the day I turned 23 years old you ask?
Well… First off… Its the third day of CNY. So can hardly expect much celebrations since CNY is more important. Secondly, since I’m in Labuan, there’s less celebration as well, since I prefer to be relaxing at home. And third, this must be the first birthday I had with me suffering from a toothache T.T
Anyway, many thanks to SingYee and LeiHong for the yamcha session at McD. They even gave me a photo album as a present. Thanks a lot. I’ll print out all the nicer photos I have and keep it in that album. It will become a collection of my ‘work’
Later that night, there was the 3rd open house I attended throughout this CNY. Have to attend it since it’s my aunt’s open house. Brought my camera along and after the food, just snapped away, especially with my baby cousin as the model.
In the end he got so annoyed with me taking photos of him that he made that face
My sister was one of the more reluctant models.
There was another gathering the next day for some of my friends. We met to drink at one of the pubs and later went for a photo session in Grand Dorsett hotel.
It was during this photo session that I really feel that I need more practice taking photos at night (And possibly a shotgun flash)
Some of the photos:
L-R: Michelle, WeiEn, GeokFang, LeiHong, YawSing, SingYee
They were suppose to model but seems like both the models and the photographer fail to communicate well.
At least we got some nice shots even though their pose seemed really forced.
The main-and-only thorn among the roses.
And then they chose to pose with the dead plant. Lol
Final shot of the guy and girls before leaving.
Anyway, my very much anticipated photo session with Yvonne as the model got cancelled off after some unexpected things came up. I do hope to be working with her soon though.
Oh ya. I inserted the ‘Power Rangers’ photo above to generate more hits coming from Facebook. Did it work?
P/S: 23 years old. I’m OLD. Do I need to start planning about MARRIAGE and HAVING A FAMILY? Lol.
My statistics test results
I’m taking the course Health Statistics this semester and there was this paper which I had to take a few weeks back. Honestly I haven’t had a paper in quite a while so preparing for it didn’t go too well.
The results came out 2 days ago.
And, I did quite well statistically. That is to mean that my score is within the upper limits of a normal distribution.
Which means that I got quite a high mark compare to the average the class got.
But note that I said ‘I did quite well STATISTICALLY’
Reality wise, the mean average of what the class got was so low that the upper limits didn’t seem quite ‘Upper’ at all.
Its a bit like knowing that you did well in your class… But then finding out that the average in your class is a Score D. Which means that your score is somewhere within B- or B.
Glad to know that I’m learning something statistically even though my marks are damn low.
My life as a Biomedical Graduate…
Credits to those who made the video
The whole video is quite true… As in…
1.You will sleep in lab… I’ve slept on a chair before… And a lab mate of mine actually line up a few chairs and doze off in them…
2.Your experiments… No matter how simple it looks… Won’t be simple once you run it… You will see unsatisfactory results all the time and in the end repeating a whole lot more times that you are required to…
3.Your thesis writing will always be returned like that… Its like what happen to my FYP thesis… Whole pages getting an X with a note to redo it or to improve it…
4.I’m not really sure about the Drs dancing in their office though… From what I’ve seen they are even more tied up than us…
5.Teaching assistance… Another true thing… I helped out in lab explaining while some just sit and chat with others… Some even bring out their laptops to finish their other assignments…
6.Food… This is really really really true… Apparently the Biomedic graduates from other universities are also on a tight budget… Whenever there is food you’ll see some of us bringing down plates to take some of the food… (We only go when everyone else is finished with it…)
7.Returning to lab to find that your results are still terrible… And then all of the sudden, you’ll realized that you forgot to turn on something or add something or miss out a step or something else… And you finally get your preferred results… (Which is why I always tell my juniors that bad results are sometimes due to the simplest of explanation by which you don’t really need to have a degree to understand… Most of it are just… Common sense…)
And now… I’m back to troubleshooting my results… Enjoy
The birds and cats are fighting over the car…
That must be what is happening to my car at the moment… Imagine waking up one morning to find more than 5 bird droppings on the front hood of your car…
And imagine seeing the prints of a cat on the hood of the car as well… OMG… What are they having?? An Alien vs Predator Part 3 spinoff??? Birds vs Cats??
