More complains (part II)

Oh boy! My stomach’s bloating from the BBQ chicken and sausages that I had during our picnic. I don’t reckon having that much food though. Just a whole chicken leg and a thigh, 3 sausages, some pasta and kimchi, 6 glasses of lemonade mixed with ginger ale and 2 popsicles. No wonder I feel gross right now. Feels like the food in my stomach is heading towards the other direction O____o Nonetheless, the food was really good, especially the BBQ chicken. Joe Jdsn certainly has a very easy way to prepare those BBQ chicken and they actually taste pretty good too. I think it’s all in the Baby Ray BBQ sauce. It’s not too strong and somewhat sweet, making you crave for more.

Aside from the food, we watched the movie outside the backyard. It was my second experience watching an outdoor movie with the thrills of sitting on fresh lawn, feeling the cool night breeze and being accompanied by little annoying bugs trying to dig out some of our blood for supper. While many people found the movie inspiring, I saw it as unreal. The movie, Facing the Giants portrays the faith of a football coach, Grant Taylor has in God in overcoming all the obstacles in his life. He was on the verge of losing everything – his car, his job, his fertility – but he trusted in God and continued to praise God for the trials and tribulations in his life. Not long after, the table was turned around. His football team began to show tremendous progress, from being a team who had never get into the playoffs to defeating the defending state champion (*yea right*); his students, out of gratitude, bought him a new truck; and his wife suddenly conceived a child even after the doctor told him that he was sterile. I guess what everyone else saw in this movie was to put all you’ve got in God and He will continue to bless you but I didn’t think so.
Perhaps I’m still bitter from what I’d been facing the last few weeks. I found myself hopeless in many situations similar to Coach Taylor yet we had different outcomes. While his team continues to improved, my experiment results were getting worse and worse. I couldn’t even perform Cysteine mutagenesis correctly. But maybe there’s a take home lesson from the movie – always have faith in God. During his weakest moment, with all human resources being stripped away from him, coach Taylor gave his all to God and trusted that God will show him his path. I guess that I haven’t had enough faith in God to lead me to wherever His plans are for me. I think it’s time that I stop complaining and do something about my life and my faith.

Am I giving up?

It has been about half a year since I’ve written anything here. To be frank, I wasn’t even sure that I was going to write anything here again, but too many things happened recently which affected me a big deal and I felt the need to write them down.

My dad used to tell me the story of the carrot, the egg and the coffee beans. Each of them possesses distinct properties from the one another, but after boiled, they are changed entities with features different from before. The hard and sturdy carrot becomes all soft and mushy after it is boiled; the egg, so fragile and weak, becomes solid and substantial; the coffee beans, although small and seemingly trivial, are transformed into something fragrant and pleasant. I’ve always wanted to be the coffee, not only changing myself, but changing my surrounding for the better in the midst of turbulence and hardship. Regretfully, today, I could only see myself resembling the squashy carrot and not the wonder coffee beans.

Too many things happened this week that I do not know where to start. Problems had been stemming out all together at once and I would have thought this is a premature midlife crisis. But it seems to me that everything that has happened is gearing me towards a definite decision: not going to graduate school. But is it too late to take a sudden detour from the path that I was so determined and had worked on so much for the last 3 years of my college life?

Yesterday, my professor wanted to talk to me about my lab results and I know that he wasn’t really happy about them. My results were very inconsistent and many of them were irreproducible. That could only mean that my technique sucks. I had been very meticulous and careful while repeating the experiments yet things still get screwed up and fingers were pointing at me. It’s really frustrating especially after I have worked on the same experiment for the last 3 months. The task is very simple: it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to pipette and run the gel and yet, I managed to screw every experiment that I run. Maybe I’m just not competent enough to be in the lab. I’m already running out of ideas what might have gone wrong. I think I have given up.

Many people reprimanded me for fretting over the second matter, which is my term GPA. Some even hated me for saying that it was shitty. But they did not understand that companies only look at work experience and not CGPA for job applications. Those who cast flaming stones at me were future actuaries or bank managers, and they have good work experience to bolster their resume, while I, who am going to graduate school, rely solely on my CGPA and lab performance to get into a good graduate school. Having that said, I need a good CGPA more than they do. But that’s not really the big deal. What’s really sad is realizing that my academic limit is very low. I tried really hard this semester, spending most of my time either working in the lab or study but I did not manage to get an A for any of my classes. I have even given up playing DotA for 3 months for the sake of my grades but I still managed to screw up my grades. My mom used to tell me that I’m good at nothing but my studies, which I think was really true. But now, I am not even good at the only thing that I am supposed to be good at. It can only mean that I am good at nothing now.

I feel discouraged, helpless and depleted of human resources. I had done everything I could, and made the necessary sacrifices, but my attempts were fruitless. I am like the carrot, being strong and determined before starting my college career, and now I end up being weak and helpless. Perhaps I need a motivational strength to carry on. Perhaps I need to pray harder. Or perhaps this is a sign telling me that I am not a graduate student material after all. I will most probably go back home after I graduate and get a job. Why home and not stay in the US for a couple of years? Well, I felt a familiar yet inexplicable “force” drawing me back home, and that would be another story =) The question is, will I regret my decision five years down the road? Will I look back and wished that I wasn’t this erratic today? I don’t know…

Quitting Dota?

Yesterday, I decided to do something that might perhaps save my academic career: I quit playing DotA for the semester. Before that, I was already having trouble finding time to do the readings for my classes and the fact that the game was inside my computer would be a total distraction from my books. Besides that, I had been so engrossed in that game that I outcasted myself from my circle of my college friends in my sophomore year. The only friends that I had, were my DotA buddies.

Thus, the feeling of liberation - freedom from the temptation to procrastinate - as soon as I hit the "uninstall" caption was a relief to me after spending 1 futile hour trying to read the textbook and at the same time, logging on to battlenet every 10 minutes to see if I have enough buddies to play with. I am happy about my decision. I feel "free" from trying to log onto battlenet whenever I don't feel like reading (which is most of the time) and spending the next 3 to 4 hours playing DotA alone. I also regard this as an opportunity to extend my social network and have fellowship with my friends around me once again, something which I definitely didn't have time to do so last year.

However, not everyone was happy about my decision. Most of the warcraft "buddies" (I'm not sure if I would call them friends anymore after last night) showed strong objection against my decision and some refused to have anything to do with me after that. It's kinda sad that I've spent almost my entire sophomore year with them and they can just decide to discard me out of their clique in just a night. If they tried to get to my guilty conscience, then I guess they failed. It sort of made me more glad that I decided to quit DotA, knowing that my friendship with them was very transcient and it would happen anytime in the near future, if not yesterday.

Of course it's not easy to get over with an obsession within a day, or a week. Several times today I was so tempted to reinstall Warcraft because I was so bored (note; I still refused to do my readings). I guess it's the matter of time: if I can resist it long enough, soon I will be able to fill the voidness with readings.

The Volleyball Tournament aka Galbi Buffet

BBC had its annual volleyball tournament yesterday. The games were competitive and even my team had some bad records throughout the summer practices, did surprisingly better. Fortunate for us, we had Austin and Jon Jdsn joining our team so that Jung Uk's burden (apparently, he's our only hitter and setter) could be divided to them. Everyone played their best yesterday despite our (excluding the staffs) athletic ineptness, although we did not win any prizes. The freshman team became the champion (with Daniel's unbelievable feat in returning spikes). Almost everyone was bitter with the freshman team because they stacked their team in the middle of the tournament (which is somewhat dirty, if not illegal, IMO). However, I'm contented with my prize: galbi (mmm... yummy). It's a Korean style bbq ribs which are sliced across the ribs and marinated with this wonderful (somehow remained secret to me) sauce that nothing can go wrong with galbi. However, I made a terrible mistake by drinking coke after eating the galbi and was inundated by uneasy and sick feeling in my stomach. That made me more cautious about drinking sodas after or during buffet in the future. And because of that, I could not enjoy the Chinese buffet at Tin Tin restaurant that we went to after the volleyball tournament, although I managed to stuff myself with some oysters, crab legs and shrimps. Mmmm....

Finally I got to watch Cars today. I'm not really into cars (especially race cars), but almost everyone that I talked to told me that it was really good, so I thought that I should give it a try. And I did not regret that decision. Perhaps this is the first time I mentioned in this blog that I really appreciate heartrending movies, and Cars is definitely one of those movies that reached into me and moved my sentiment. It's a very typical Disney movie with predictable storyline, but yet it leaves significant influences to its audience. It starts off with a rookie (and of course, immature) Mr. "One-man-show" race car (Lightning McQueen) who only cared about winning the Piston Cup and did not care if he had true friends. A misfortunate event happened to him and he detoured into a small sleepy and abandoned town Route 66 of Radiator Springs where he was forced to do community service in the town to fix the road that he damaged on his way there. And our hero-to-be was subjected to many humbling moments by befriending the rusty cars, the cars which he did not want to have anything to do with before. There, he learned many driving tricks which most ignorant race cars were ignorant of and he got to see the infamous champion of the Piston Cup for 3 times - the Hudson Hornett - showing off his "turn left if you want to turn right" stunt, which led Lightning McQueen to take the lead of the race. However, the most heartfelt scene of the movie was when McQueen finally realized that there are more important things than trophies which caused him to relinquish his championship to aid a crushed car to finish his race. He finally discovered that life is about the journey, and not the finishing line.

It is easier to know what McQueen realized than realizing it. This message is not alien to me; however, I am still looking only at the finishing line. Very often after I crossed the line, I could not feel completely accomplished and was left with insatiable feeling. And yet each time whenever I'm in a race or a trip, I failed to enjoy the journey. Perhaps this is attributed to my impatience that made me only look forward to the results. Maybe I am over-competitive. Or maybe I am just lazy that I want to get over with anything that I do as quickly as possible. Whatever it is, I must remember to take deep breaths, sit back and appreciate things around me once in a while, instead of only using them as stepping stones towards my goal. Although deep down in my heart I wanted to give up my trophy for a more meaningful cause, I don't think that I could. That's why I am ashamed of myself at times.

The Return of Elansargelmir

Gosh! It had been a month since I logged on here. It's not that I went far away from civilization and got deprived of the internet. It was sheer slothfulness that I did not bother logging on. Many exciting and horrible things happened for the past month, but none of those events got scribbled down here. Well, I guess that I will just have to briefly (yes, briefly) summarize the major highlights of my life in the month of July.

I guess the most significant thing that actually happened to me was realizing that I had not been actually praying sincerely throughout my life. There were times when I earnestly prayed for God's aid, but most of the nights, I just prayed out of obligation and not a sincere heart. After attending the summer BBI prayer class conducted by Hae Chin Jdsn, I realized my prayed life was not going anywhere at all, and in fact, I wasn't even praying. There was no intimacy or "connection" with God during my prayers. My mind got easily distracted with worldly thoughts during my prayer time. From the prayer class, I've learned that I should pray with my heart, and not my mind, for my mind is part of the soul barrier that hinders me from connecting to God. That left me puzzled for days, however, I finally began to understand what it meant by praying with my heart without the distraction from the mind. After a few weeks for trying hard to pray that way, I began to "feel" the connection with God during my prayers. Perhaps it could be a psychological effect, but at least now I do not pray because I have, but because I want to. Now I hope that my prayer life can slowly gain its momentum and not does not backslide over time (knowing how lazy I can get after a while).

Last Saturday (July 31st), Brandeis-Wellesley ABSK group went on a semi-hike trip at White Mountain, New Hampshire. And finally I had the opportunity to walk along the Franconia Flume and seeing the famous Kissing Bridge myself (although I've seen a nicer picture of the bridge in the fall). The flume water was really cold and potable (well, I've seen Joe Jdsn and Daniel drank the water and nothing bad happened to them). It would be funny if I could store some water of the flume in a unique bottle and frame it up on my room wall. Nah, just kidding. The hike wasn't extreme at all (somehow I wished it was), and we spent most of the time ooh and ahh-ing at the beauty of the nature and take pictures. In fact, it was less than 2 miles hike (err... walk?). But the place was really refreshing and enjoyable (and I was liberated from DOTA for a day. YAY!). We also took a tramp up to Cannon Mountain, although we spent less than 30 minutes there. The view from the mid mountain was simply amazing and breathtaking: to have the best view of the mountain, I had to hold my breath while standing on the edge of the steep cliff so that I would not fall (hey, the view was really superb). We could have gone to the top of White Mountain (which I heard is far nicer than Cannon Mountain); however, the train trip to get up there costs $57 per person :/ Oh well, I got to learn to be content with what I had. A refreshing and cool trip in the middle of the scorching summer. And the best part of the trip was dinner! Oh yeah, we had this Red Apple Buffet (the world's best buffet restaurant in the world, so says the website that advertises it) that serves Chinese, Japanese, Italian and American buffet for a price that is cheaper than $11: $10.99 :D The food was really good for a buffet, and perhaps the best buffet in the world that I had for that day. The most unfortunate event of that day was the death of my Nautica backpack (that had served me faithfully for the last 4 years) during the hike. One of the straps got ripped off (I've foreseen this, but I didn't expect it to snap that soon). Now I hope that the new North Face backpack that I ordered online will arrive soon before I have to start using plastic bags to carry my things around.

For the past week, the weather got so hot that I had to take 4 showers in a day and still feel all sweaty and sticky after that. And I spent so much money buying gatorades and cold sodas to keep myself refreshed, but I am thankful that JPA gave us our fall allowance ahead of time so that I can use it on refreshments. And I've just bought my plane ticket to Chicago recently, which added more to my expenditure. Argh. Got to find new sources of income soon :/

Heavy rain on July 4th :(

Wow! It's amazing how another week just slipped away so fast. And before I realized it, there's only like about 8 weeks left for the summer break. I have to make up my mind fast if I want to spend the last 2 weeks making money by working in the lab or go to Chicago to visit Ting Ann (sort of rewarding myself with a nice vacation, but in the expense of the traveling cost and 2 weeks' pay opportunity cost).

My body is still sore from the intensive outdoor activities these few days. On Saturday, the ABSK and I made a trip to Cannobie Lake Park (something like a mini-family version of Six Flags) and I actually had about 12 rides in total, which is pretty amazing, although some rides are disappointingly short. Nevertheless, that was the longest time I've ever spent in a theme park (like about 10 hours in total). Perhaps the funniest moment that I had during the trip was that on the Pirata (some kind of ride with a boat swingingin in a pendulum motion), this woman sitting across me was screaming her lungs out and her face was distorted so much so that I laughed througout the ride (kind of mean, but I couldn't help it). Other than that, things were pretty decent, although the fireworks were quite good.

Meanwhile, on Sunday, we had an intensive volleyball training to compensate for the last 2 weeks of practices that we missed. I actually managed to summon up my courage to go for the ball instead of standing there and expecting others to save the ball. I'm glad that I am not the "hole" that I was used to be anymore. Perhaps it was because that there were not that many competitive players in my team that put me more at ease, which kind of told me that it was alright if I screw up a little, which I did. Anyway, I had fun playing, although I wished that I didn't have to play that many matches in a day.

Monday was pretty boring and I won't go into it. So, while we were having our usual ABSK picnic on July 4th at Arsenal Park, there was terrible downpour and we had to stop our volleyball tournaments and packed up immediately. As soon as everyone reached their respective transports, most of us were drenched. The rain was so sudden, and worse of all, it stopped an hour later, when we had left for our homes. Actually, I think that we were kind of lucky that it just rained here because there was a hailstorm in Wrentham, which is near to Boston (yeap, that is the crazy weather of Massachusetts). I couldn't imagine how everyone would react if a huge chunk of ice fall onto us while we were still playing volleyball: would we start packing up, or would we just stand there in disbelief watching as the hail hit on us. And having a hailstorm would be pretty bad because it would be really hard to drive on the road back to our home with the ice falling down. So, basically we spent our whole day hanging out at Joe Jdsn's home watching the World Cup semifinal (those 2 darn last 3 minutes goals). And now, I'm back in my room trying to cram everything that happened last week into this blog while watching the beautiful fireworks from Cambridge through my windows. It was pretty good (even from afar), and this is because Boston's fireworks is ranked in the top 3 in the US. So, I guess that I can watch the fireworks from my favorite spot: in front of my laptop.

2 Days in 1: My unfortunate day with transformation and Superman: the Return

I couldn't believe my luck! My transformation failed for the 2nd time (no colonies grew on the plate), and I just ran my third trial today hoping that it would work, or else I would have to postpone my whole week's of protein purification project. Currently, I am trying to blame the fault on something else besides myself, such as the agar plate itself; however, I was remembered that I was the one who prepared the plate. Urgh, got to find out the source of error real quick before my LB media gets bad. Fortunately, I had a nice "newbie" squash game with Tania at the gym today, which helped to mitigate my sense of frustration. I called it newbie because we did not know any of the rules and we just try to bounce the small semi-inelastic ball off the wall to one another. It was a good workout for me, but I guess it was just a warm up for Tania. That should put me to shame that I have such a low level of fitness compared to her. And shame on me! While I was trying to be fit over the summer, here I am munching away on Chips Ahoy (my third dinner for the night) dipped in milk. I guess the day that I look like Brandon Routh will just never arrive.

Talking about Routh, I just watched Superman: the Return on iMax theatre last night, and it was the preview (yeah, the movie officially starts tonight). And the cool thing was that parts of the movie was in 3D. Seeing Superman zooming in and out of the flat 2-dimensional screen was a thrilling experience, especially when you thought that the spaceshuttle (or whatever that was going to fall on you) was actually going to land on you. Also, 3D graphics can be really psychological: when the images of snow flakes fell on me, I shivered unintentionally, subconciously thinking that the icy cold water droplets would trickle down my neck when the snowflakes melt. Yeah, that was kind of silly, but it got me there.

Another cool feature the movie was that Brandon Routh (Clark Kent aka Superman) really resembles the deceased Christopher Reeve: they have the same body build, character, and even the same voice. And the beginning and the ending of the movie are very faithful to the earlier 2 Superman movies, which I think was cool albeit the credit fonts could use some technological touch in them.

One character that I dislike most in the movie (nope, not Lex Luthor, although he is a good antagonist, I must say) is Lois Lane. Her character was just absurd and I do not think that she understands Superman well enough to actually love him. And I think that she was apathetic towards the people around her. The most obvious reason was because we know that although Lois shared many intimate moments with Superman, she could not see the resemblance of Superman in Clark Kent. Was it because she chose to focus on the superstar and could not care less of the people around her? Superman did not bother to undisclose his identity (or else we would be watching a masked Superman), yet she wasn't aware of that. Did she love Superman because he is a world celebrity and paid less attention to the mediocre Clark Kent? Even her son and fiance, who have just met Superman, could see the resemblance between Superman and Clark Kent. Also, during the 5 year-period when Superman left, she became bitter and resentful towards Superman, which made her win the Putlizer Prize for her article entitled "Why the world does not need Superman". That wouldn't really make sense because she was the closest to Superman and should understand his motives and actions. Perhaps she was being emotional because she had his baby. Maybe she thought that Superman had left for good and would never return again; however, if only she had pooled her thoughts together, she could perhaps reason out why Superman was missing, or maybe have a little faith in her that one day he will return. Even Margeret, Superman's foster mother, knew that Clark would one day return, so why couldn't she? Maybe the director would think of adding a few touches on Lois's character in the next movie so that her love for Superman would be more convincing.