The Pursuit of Happyness is No Busyness!!

HAPPYNESS vs. BUSYNESS!!

I know it has been a while since I posted an entry... Thanks to CY for reminder! Umm... blame it on heavy workloads all the sudden since Monday. Probably the meeting we had on Monday (in fact it was a one-day course) on PeKA Bio SPM is causing additional stress to an already weakened immune system. I'm currently having muscle aches especially on my shoulders, neck, down the spine and even parts of my abdoment and joints. It is either I'm developing early signs of arthritis or I'm totally stressed out. (I think the latter sounds more relevant though...) Hadn't been sleeping well at night, or shall I say I had been sleeping way passed 1 am since Sunday until now? Thus the "Cindy's like a dead log" syndrome is coming up fast. Sigh! Life eh?

I have sooooooo much to share but I'm currently writing up something which requires two of my brains to work in tune, but apparently after not writing scientific stuffs for almost three years by now, my brain is "crooked". Dang! Trying to understand where was the technical and scientific me while another part of my brain is trying to work out on the PEKA thingy.. This is generally known as multitasking and it doesn't help with focusing at all!! Hmm... According to the latest schedule, the SPM PeKA Head of District Assessor (Ketua Pentaksir Kawasan) will be checking our BIO PeKA in the 3rd week of July, which is 2.5 weeks from now. Well, sad to mention but it is true anyhow that this Bio teacher forgotten that it was June already when she flew off for her school holidays. So now, both teacher and my beloved students would have to work hard together to defend the integrity of school! Kids, sorry!!!

Hence, my toppest priority now is to ensure all my piling up as high as mountain sort of workload is diminished before I can commit to anything else. But my daily dosage of Jesus, the Healer, through Eucharist is still on, every Mon to Fri, 6.30 pm, St. Simon's prayer room. I guess that's practically the only thing I can commit until further notice.

*YAWN* I'm so sleepy. Better finish off with my writeup before it gets a bit too drowsy and blank for my two brains to think harmoniously. Oh craps! Just a little bit more...

I like what Joanne posted on her blog today, especially these two quotes (Joanne, pinjam ah!):

Tomorrow is the only day in the year that appeals to a lazy man.
~ Jimmy Lyons ~

Laziness is nothing more than the habit of resting before you get tired.
~ Jules Renard ~

Probably because they are so me!! Yeah, sometimes laziness gets a bit out of hand with myself. Hmm... thus I need more of self-control (check out Galatians 5:22-23 on the fruits of the Holy Spirit)!

P/S: I want to watch the Pursuit of Happyness again. Anyone has the downloaded movie? Please contact me.

Pax et bonum.

Ahh... Now I know...

That carbs work wonders for my depressive system...

That low calories food don't do me good...

That KFC mashed potato tastes nicer if add in a dash of mixed herbs...

That non-involvement in ministry can be good and bad at the same time...

That twittering doesn't make much sense yet...

That ministry doesn't need sister CG...

That the author (yours truly) is probably not at the same wavelength as many sisters...

That life isn't about working and marking exam papers only...

That the sea is the passion for yours truly...

That the air quality in KK is getting worse by day (thanks to the heat and burning)...

That none of the above has any hard feelings...

God bless and have a blessed night before Monday blue sets in.

Life as a Single Young Adult

I carry my heart at the tips of my fingers...



Traveling is a passion yet to be achieved...


These are things I hope to be able to afford one day...


Getting a BioJob and postgraduate degrees remain my dreams...



Enjoying the freedom of ogling at hunks... (oh, so worldly me!) But the fact is, Rain and Leehom are good looking and definitely heart-throbs!!! LOL! ^^


Eventually I have to return to the origin... God is where my heart belongs to... That's what singles are called to be, until further notice in God's time...


And this is definitely my favourite-st picture - Divine Mercy!!!


And again, if God wills it... I want sunflowers in my bridal bouquet~~~ Hahahaha!

Ok... I look forward to know what He has in mind for me... BUT...
Being single at this point is simple GREAT!


God always remembers His covenant! :)

P/S: I finally "murdered" that annoying mosquito flying around me since this evening!

Kiki, The Chipin

KIKI the Chipin

I just found out that high chances the cutie at home in Johor is a Chipin (chihuahua/miniature pinscher hybrid). Apparently this hybrid is a type of recognized mutt and rather popular, but many things remain unknown, until I find more info online...

This is Kiki and myself on 13 Dec before I left for Senai Airport. One of his "still" moments, since he was sleepy already when I played with him...

Kiki is one of the most adorable creature I've ever met... He's 3-month old, born somewhere in September 2008 and brought back to my house on my birthday... My parents told me he was the size of a palm when he first arrived. Now, he's about 30 cm long, with a cute waggy tail. Being so small, he has pride the size of an elephant (in his "territory"). But out of his territory, he shivers and trembles so much that he's like a massager on my hand. He knows where to pee and poo most of the time, but when he's too excited, he has problem controlling his bladder. He loves drinking water from the tub in the toilet, and apparently my dad had the belief that Kiki doesn't drink water, until the day I arrived and found that Kiki has this thing for the water from the tub. Toilet water drinker. LOL!

My lovely mom and Kiki... Now they are best friends~~

Kiki loves to cuddle and nibble our fingers... And knows when my mom is back. If he happens to be outside of his "box" or "basket" he would be waiting at the staircase from the living room to the kitchen. My mom who wasn't a dog lover herself is now mesmerized by Kiki. He loves climbing onto my lap if I sit on the floor. However, I'm suspecting he has "attention deficit disorder" because he would never be able to be still and until now he could not learn to "sit", "stay", "roll", etc... I guess it takes time~~~ Well, I've tried taking him out for a walk, but he trembled so much that he wouldn't move when I put him on the floor. All he did was to stay there with legs apart and shivered like crazy. I wonder where was his elephant-size pride at that moment.

Kiki and his chewing bone at dad's rocking chair on his favourite spot of the green floor mat...

O ya, not forgetting, he will hide under my dad's rocking chair (Kiki's refuge) whenever my mom slaps him with a rolled one-piece-of-newspaper. Besides that, anything to play or to eat, he has this thing to carry it under the chair, or minimum to the green carpet at the rocking chair. Haha! Indeed, that is Kiki's refuge!!

I've uploaded a video of Kiki drinking from the bath with my dad. LOL! He's so small and my dad seemed so huge with him. I wonder what is there with the water that Kiki loves it so much... Hehe! I've also uploaded a video on Youtube.

I shall upload more about Kiki when I'm free... Still have so much to talk about... I wonder how big Kiki will grow?? I guess only time will tell... They said Chipin can live about 12-15 years~ Wow!

Till then... God bless!

Amazement of these Ph.D people

"There was once upon a time when a girl wanted so much to study medicine. As she continued growing, she dreamed of becoming a doctor of philosophy (Ph.D). Alas! Until this day, none of the two was realized. Now, she's so amazed by these Ph.D people, not only their talents and skills in research, but also their creativity."

Yeah... It was really an amazement to actually find myself searching and continue being amazed by the choreographs and the movements they made... These skills, talents and creativities... All are from God to God for His People. And yeah... WE are His People... I, in particular, love "A Molecular Dance in the Blood" by Prof. Vince LiCata, made easy to understand the whole concept of the tetramer in RBC (the hemoglobins), and also the modern dance choreographed and danced by the scientist Dr. Miriam Sach herself about cerebral activation patterns. Besides that, the other two categories (graduate student and popular choice) also performed excellently. The Physics Tango by Landry was great... I can't imagine how a person could coordinate so well their movements. Do notice that the male dancer would put his foot and changed the whole dance pattern while the female dance seemed to float smoothly passed all these. I bet they had practised for ages in order to shoot this vidz. The lovely sunshine and plum fairy in Sue Lynn Lau's vidz depicts her hypothesis of Vitamin D affecting beta cells in liver in secretion of insulin. All these stuffs, so scientific, yet so beautiful... I guess that's the real beauty of science for the benefit of mankind.

Here's the full article as taken from Biotechniques, a scientific journal which I still subscribe till now. To view the original article, please click here.

New York, NY, Nov. 20—The winners of the 2009 American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) “Dance Your Ph.D.” contest have been announced.

A panel of nine judges has selected a winner in each of the four categories from the entries posted on YouTube. The dances were judged on creativity in expressing the scientific essence of their theses through dance.

Each winner will be paired with a professional choreographer who will create a four-part dance based on one of the Ph.D.'s published peer-reviewed research papers. The four dances will be performed at the 2009 AAAS Annual Meeting in Chicago.

The winners are, by category:

* Graduate Student: Sue Lynn Lau from Garvan Institute of Medical Research/University of Sydney, Australia, for the interpretation of her advisor's paper “The role of vitamin D in beta cell function”

* Post-Doc: Miriam Sach, post-doctoral researcher, University of California, San Diego, “Cerebral activation patterns induced by inflection of regular and irregular verbs with positron emission tomography. A comparison between single subject and group analysis”

* Professor: Vince LiCata, professor, Department of Biological Sciences, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, “Resolving pathways of functional coupling in human hemoglobin using quantitative low temperature isoelectric focusing of asymmetric mutant hybrids”

* Popular Choice: Markita Landry, graduate student, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, “Single molecule measurements of protelomerase TelK-DNA complexes”

The contest was open to anyone who had received or was pursuing a Ph.D. in any scientific field or science-related fields, and challenged Ph.D.s to communicate their research through body movements.

“In my view, song and dance should be an integral part of culture,” said Lau, 2009 Dance Your Ph.D. winner, in a press release from the Garvan Institute of Medical Research. “Its how people communicated in the past, how oral traditions were handed down. Somehow we seem to have lost that participative aspect to music in our society.”

According to the organizers, last years inaugural Dance Your Ph.D. contest was very successful, and researchers from around the world were eager to compete in this years contest.

2009 Dance Your Ph.D Winner (Post-Doc category - Miriam Sach)

Ph.D.: Cerebral activation patterns induced by inflection of regular and irregular verbs with positron emission tomography.

The findings of this thesis demonstrate that regular and irregular verbs are processed in the same neural network as opposed to separate cortical areas for regular and irregular verb inflection.

This piece is subdivided into 3 sections:
1.) Introduction of regular verbs,
2.) Introduction of irregular verbs,
3.) Common neural network of regular and irregular verb inflection.

1.) Regular verbs are represented by the walking at the very beginning of this piece.
The walking is simple, straight forward and without irregularities. It is accompanied by the sound of crackling fire a metaphor for the firing neurons.

2.) In contrast, irregular verbs are represented by a huge variety of different movements: jumps, slides, turns, rolls, level changes. Irregularities are also displayed musically by using syncopes and off-beat emphasis in percussion as well as further changes in instruments.

3.) The sound of the falling rain is a cleansing moment with no movements to introduce the final section of the dance: the common neural network of regular and irregular verb processing. It is the first time that symmetrical movements occur to emphasize the common network for both verb forms. In addition, both regular and irregular movements are shown to elucidate the presence of both entities in this network.

Overall, fiber connections in the brain representing the connections between regular and irregular verbs are shown by wavy arm movements.

2009 Dance Your Ph.D Winner (Professor category - Vince LiCata)

Human hemoglobin, in your blood cells, displays precise changes in internal cooperativity in response to exactly how the first two oxygens bind to it.

This video depicts, in dance, the study: "Resolving Pathways of Functional Coupling in Human Hemoglobin Using Quantitative Low Temperature Isoelectric Focusing of Asymmetric Mutant Hybrids"

Hemoglobin is a 4-subunit protein (a tetramer) that binds and transports oxygen. Individual alpha-subunits and beta-subunits come together to form almost inseparable dimers (boy-girl pairs with matching eye-goggle and gloves in the dance). How dimer-1 interacts with dimer-2 in the whole protein, however, depends on the exact combination of bound oxygens (white balls). If one dimer gets 2 oxygens to itself, cooperativity is reduced and it does not interact well with the other dimer. If both dimers get at least 1 oxygen, they cooperate with each other, and usually bind 2 more oxygen molecules (for a total of 4). In normal hemoglobin, the two dimers are identical. Hemoglobin tetramers with two differing types of dimers are called "asymmetric mutant hybrids" (hence the different colored goggles and gloves on each "dance-mer"). "Low temperature isoelectric focusing" is a method that freezes (literally) and takes a snapshot of the dimer-dimer interactions at different times.

2009 Dance Your Ph.D. Winner (Graduate Student - Sue Lynn Lau)

PhD title: The role of Vitamin D in beta-cell function.

Graduate student: Sue Lynn Lau

Performers: Members of the Diabetes & Transcription Factors Lab Group

Synopsis: Every PhD begins in the dark, but it takes only a few bright sparks to kindle the flame of discovery...

The crucial role of sunlight exposure as the most important source of vitamin D in humans is highlighted. Vitamin D is newly recognised to be involved in the function of many organ systems, including the beta cells of the endocrine pancreas. These cells make insulin in response to glucose stimulation.

Initially, the beta cells are in an unstimulated state, with minimal activity. At the arrival of the sugar plum fairy (symbolising glucose), the cells are able to sense the presence of glucose through the enzyme glucokinase. When glucose enters the cells through glut 2 transporters (marshmallow feeding), it is metabolised to produce the energy molecule, ATP. Through a number of steps, this leads to a rise in positive charge inside the cell, which ultimately triggers the export of insulin-storing granules by a process known as exocytosis (depicted here by the blowing of bubbles). Normal insulin secretion requires the coordinated function of beta cells via intercellular connections and communications as they work in concert.

We are investigating whether vitamin D has an effect in improving beta-cell function and increasing insulin secretion... are they "walking on sunshine"??

2009 Dance Your Ph.D Winner (Popular Choice Winner - Markita Landry)

I copied this from Youtube page. Personally, I think this is super duper cool~ Dance Your Ph.D~ ^^ I'll update more when I get back from Bundu Tuhan~~


Our official entry for the 2009 AAAS Science Dance Contest.

Title of PhD thesis: Single Molecule Measurements of Protelomerase TelK-DNA Complexes

Name:Markita Landry

University:University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign

Dancers: Florin Bora and Markita Landry

Expected year of completion: 2009 and 2011, respectively.
My Ph.D. work involves the use of a relatively new technology called optical trapping. Using focused laser beams, (1064 nm = infrared beam = red dress) can trap dielectric particles (we use grey/black microspheres = black shirt). The laser holds the beads in place, but it is ultimately the motion of the beads that allow us to take our measurements, and that must be followed extremely precisely (in our case, our resolution is 3.4 angstroms, which is a very small length scale). This precision with regards to following the motion of the beads was my motivation for expressing the theory of optical trapping through tango, which is a dance that is heavily dependent on the ability of the follower to follow the steps that are led. These steps are non-deterministic and are made up by the leader on a real-time basis, so the follower never knows what to expect, and must always be acutely aware of their partners motions to follow correctly.

For my Ph.D. work, I am using optical tweezers to study protein-DNA interactions on a very small scale. I am studying a prokaryotic version of Telomerase, Protelomerase TelK. Telomerases are an active field of study due to their major role in protecting cells against premature aging. However, hyperactive telomerases are also involved in various forms of cancer. Our goal is to characterize the mechanism by which TelK forms DNA hairpins in its DNA substrate, and how the kinetics and binding modes of this mechanism vary with applied tension.