The orange, the tree, the sea and me

Took that photo on top of a tree, facing the sea.  

Have to start writing my confirmation report! Must start soon! Must!

Congratulations to Singapore for being chosen to host the 2010 Youth Olympic Games!

I really wanna go to the AMPK (AMP-activated protein kinase) conference this year at Copenhagen. But firstly I’d have to generate enough (interesting) data, then submit an abstract, then (hopefully) get accepted then apply for a travel grant. That’s the plan. Whether it’d work out or not, I’m not sure. Hope so! Fingers crossed.

Weekend again! Yay!

This week Dr KD taught me how to use the mouse blood pressure monitoring machine and now she’s happy for me to use it whenever I want (this machine is in animal facility “A”). Coolios. Wanted to measure blood pressure of some of my mice before I go back to Singapore in mid-March. But I don’t have the time to cos I’ve got some experiments in another animal facility “B” and there’s a quarantine period of 48 hours before I can step into “A” again. So I can only do it when I get back from Singapore. Then again, I really wanna do it sooner than that.

You know what you are a scientist/geek/nerd when you:

• Say the word “aliquot” even at home (for example when describing to your sister that maybe you should dilute out the air freshener because its quite strong)
• Write a detailed report of how many holes you drill into a container to make your own plant pot, the shape and material of the container, how much soil you pour into the container, how many seeds you sow and the distance between them, the amount of water you water your plants, the genus, family and common name of the plant and the date you expect to see seedlings (this is way overboard)
• Dream about doing experiments
• Blog about the lab, your lab, your experiments and your lab all the time

I admit to having done all of the above and I declare myself a total geek. It’s friday night, its 12.48am and I have a stack of papers and notes beside me. Am I a nerd or what? Or maybe I’m just plain-committed to my studies. I’d like to think I’m the latter. Yuhooo!

Still enjoying the “Butterfly Catcher” album I mentioned 2 entries ago. Love it love it so!

Oh! Tightened my braces again. Actually that was supposed to be around end of March till I changed to this thicker wire with the plastic band. But my previous wire snapped from the last tooth on the left (probably from my chewing almost exclusively on my left side most of the time). I went in to see Dr Tracey yesterday and she said I might as well change to the next wire cos the teeth looks like they’re ready. This time she used this tiny strip of plastic consisting of a line of 6 holes and looped it around the bracket on each of the 1st 6 top teeth and did it for the bottom ones. (see photo below) So anyway, it was soft foods again for me today. I couldn’t even bit into a banana, that’s how much it aches when my braces get tightened. But it’s good cos it means I have to chew slowly (and hopefully eat less).

Apparently the strip of rubber is called a powerchain as I learnt from another wordpress-orthodontics-wearer-blogger http://whatsinasmile.wordpress.com/2007/11/07/power-chain-squeeze/

And a website she linked to that describes the power chain http://www.archwired.com/power_chains.htm

 Can you see the white rubber band being stretched around the wires and between the brackets? :) That’s my teeth. The bottom front two teeth started having this small gap. But I think it’d close up now that the rubber band is fitted on. I only got the rubber band yesterday but I can already feel that my front 6 teeth are being held close together when I use my water jet to clean between the teeth.

Here’s the two of the four big gaps I have from having four teeth extracted (two on each side) to make more room for other teeth. The gaps are already starting to close up even though the 1st two wires I’ve been wearing were not to close those gaps but were to rotate my teeth. There’s also the small gap opening up meaning my teeth are moving to the back of my jaw which is good :):):):).

So erm……tentatively around 1 more year to go for my braces for the whole jaw to remodel and the big gaps to close but I’m happy!

Alright, time to hit the sack! Good night world ._.