Photo Diary: A day at the botanic gardens

Hey everyone!

I haven't done one of these in AGES, so I hope you are just as excited as I am. But first, I want to share this little story.

Song of the day: Super Star by Supernova (<3)

This afternoon in the department, we got an announcement system from the PA telling everyone in the basement to evacuate. Then a minute later, another announcement was made: everyone in the Unilever building evacuate. Puzzled, we returned back to what we were doing but then one final announcement was made: EVERYONE evacuate the building. Everyone in my office burst out laughing before filing outside. Later I found out that someone had dropped a bottle of a chemical which is put in the natural gas system so that if any gas leaks, then you'll be able to smell it. The person who dropped it didn't know what to do, so the chemical began to leak into the air and thus, the basement had to evacuate. People then disposed of the chemical by putting it outside. Unfortunately, they left it by the Unilever building, which had an air vent that sucked the fumes back into the department and circulated it everywhere, forcing all of us to leave.

That made me laugh.

Anyway, during this evacuation, S, Y and I got bored so decided to go to the Botanical Gardens for a little wander.

We went for lunch at a pub with some guys from our rival group.

It was a bit rainy so the sky isn't very blue.

There were too many male ducks and only one female.

Since it was a little chilly, we headed for the greenhouses.

It was like a jungle in here. And so warm!

There were lots of pretty flowers, but I saw no sign of the carnivorous plants that were promised.

When I was young, my parents would take me out to visit lots of gardens and botanical places like this.

Can you see the little fishies? ^_^

<3

We didn't really know what this was, or if it was real or not.

And then we saw lots more of them.

I find desert foliage pretty weird but fascinating.

Always wanted a cactus for my room!

Bees <3

As you can see, it was a very productive day indeed... T_T

Although I did get my dissertation finished, and had a quick chat with Unrequited Love.

Hope you guys had a good day too! :)

Yishi x

The Oxbridge Boat Race

Hey guys!

Hope you are having a lovely Easter. Thought I'd share with you one of the things I got up to this weekend: watching the Oxbridge Boat Race! Although I couldn't be there in person this year, I watched it on TV and let me just say that this year has to be the most dramatic one that has happened in recent history~

Song of the day: Mama by EXO-M (eeeeee!!)

But first, a little background information about this event. For those of you that don't know about it, the Boat Race is a rowing race between the varsity teams of Oxford and Cambridge University. It occurs once a year on the river Thames in London, on the last Saturday of March or the first Saturday of April and has been going on since 1829 (wowww!).

Source here!

Members of the teams are known as 'blues', with Oxford being the dark blues and Cambridge sporting light blues. You can also earn a 'blue' by being on the varsity team of other sports at either unis. Oh, what I'd give to earn a blue!

Have a look on the Wikipedia page or the official page for bits of trivia and lore about the race, such as how it first started, accounts of mutinies and incidences of when the boats sank. One of the recent mutinies got made into a movie, but I hear from a friend that it's not very good. However, if it's like the Lifetime movie adaptation of the Royal Wedding, then it'll be so bad that it's fantastic... :D

This is a map of the race:

Credit here for the image!

Now, this year, Cambridge's boat were heavier than Oxford's by about 8 stone, so they were relying on brute power whilst Oxford were going for co-ordination and speed. The bookies placed Oxford as the favourites to win, and it really looked like they were going to pull ahead seven minutes in when all of a sudden, the boats stopped:



Because there was a guy swimming in the river... :|

It gets worse. Turns out he was intentionally there to block the boats ~ here is his manifesto. As someone from Facebook says, "I like the part where he implies the boat race causes genocide and transatlantic slavery" ... :|

This made me quite upset and angry because in his manifesto, Trenton Oldfield makes a sweeping statement about elitism and denounces Cambridge, Oxford, St. Paul's and a whole other number of institutions for being 'elitist'. After reading up his background, I found that he was privately educated, a graduate of LSE, and a member of the RSA (which, whilst open to everyone, would not be accessible to members of society who cannot afford the membership fees) ...he seems to embody the very thing he is "fighting" against, making him a complete hypocrite. Someone pointed out to me that I myself was being hypocritical to make judgments about him, but there is enough evidence out there for my judgment to be justified whilst he makes the assumption that everyone who attends what he classes as elitist institutions comes from an elitist background and is therefore elitist. To me, this is just blind sighted and utterly prejudiced.

If he really wanted to, he could have googled the facts and figures and seen the stats himself. It's just plain offensive to everyone who actually worked hard to get to where they are ~ I for one don't come from a privileged background and worked hard to get my grades. And if he felt so strongly about a political issue, he really should have taken it to a political platform...rather than cause a national disturbance and put himself and twenty other people in danger...hardly a peaceful protest. I will be very surprised if he gets taken seriously in the future.

Finally, he just comes across as a bit of a <insert profanity of choice>  in that manifesto.

</end rant>

After this disturbance, the boats restarted the race, but Oxford got too close to Cambridge and there was a collision:



Oxford lost an oar, and that was effectively the race over since without an oar, they were one man down. Cambridge cruised to their victory, but you had to give Oxford credit for finishing the race. In fact, their bowman overworked himself in order to try to make up for their loss that he collapsed at the end of the race and was unnoticed for about four or five minutes before he was attended to and taken to hospital... :|

It was pretty upsetting to see, and even though I supported the light blues, I felt really hollow about the victory. All in all, a dramatic day, and something of a distraction from revision~

Hope you guys had a good weekend! :)

Yishi xxx

There ain't no party like a grad party

Hey guys! :)

This is a photo of my lab group in December 2011:

Two of the people have left though... :(

Last night, one of my lab mates held a party at her place, which was themed bright colours to warm up the winter ~ despite it no longer being that cold. But it was still a nice idea, and gave me something to look forward to during the day since I ended up staying in the department until 7pm to finish off some work for E...who then told me that his boss was making him work all weekend so he wouldn't have time to mark it! :'(

Nevermind!

Song of the day: Moves Like Jagger by Maroon 5 (this came on a few times at the party hehe)

On the plus side, I was really happy that I was finally moving ahead in my synthesis, all thanks to the lovely S who was so helpful. He is quite a character, a wonderful guy full of witty banter and always lights up the lab (in fact, the title of my post is a quote by him). Although he refers to me as the lovable klutz and says he only helps me out to stop me from being a danger and hurting myself... -_-:;

Anyway, this is what I wore to the party:

Click the image to go to my style blog to find out more about this outfit! :)

There, I met my other lab buddies, and was finally introduced to some other chemists. Since I arrived late, S was already tipsy which was odd to see but I liked that he was really nice to me and was with me all evening (OK, I admit it, S is pretty cute~!). In retrospect, I felt really good about myself all night. Maybe it was because I was hanging out with people who were more chilled about life, since they had all graduated. Or maybe it was because I was just getting out there meeting new people ~ for the last few years, I've been pretty social and it's only been this year where I've kinda...stopped... :/

I found it really amusing that in the department, I seem to have gotten a reputation for always wearing heels, leggings and shorts, when a semester ago, no one noticed me for the denim and trainers. Guess my New Year Resolution of style change has been working...maybe?

We took a rainbow photo! :D

There was a really nice cocktail that was butterscotch, ice cream and cream, which tasted so yummy, like Angel Delight! :)

Inevitably, conversation turned to relationships, and it was kinda weird to sit there and listen to the grads chat about being engaged and stuff. I pretty much told S that it was a shame he was engaged (hehe) and also told him the identity of the guy who I had a high school crush on...my supervisor E...much to S's eternal amusement... -_-:;

"It's the brains isn't it?"

But one thing I learned from the grads is that if you like someone, you should tell them because life is too short. And that girls need to be forward. There was a girl I met who was engaged to another guy at the party...after driving away all of his girlfriends for the last few years. She said that she pretty much told him he was going to be hers and proceeded to make it happen.

Totally wish I had that confidence!

Although the situation here is kinda weird since E is my course supervisor so our dynamic is mainly a student teacher one. Which I really don't think I should compromise until after I finish my exams! E also has plans to go to America to do his post doctorate after the summer, and I need to focus on my exams so...what are your opinions and perspectives on this matter?

Yishi xxx

Today I won an iPad 2

And I don't even like Apples.

This afternoon, I experienced the awkward silence when a piece of cotton wool falls into your lab experiment and soaks up the measly single gram of product that you have painstakingly spent the last few months making. Luckily, we managed to recover most of it. As if the day wasn't exciting enough, at 6pm, we had a fire alarm and what I presume to be a real fire at the chemistry department! So I didn't get home until hall was about to close. After cycling home, I bumped into my gym buddy F at the main entrance to my college just as a taxi pulled up.

Using the high pressure tactics that only a seasoned salesman could employ, he managed to convince me to get into a taxi with him and go to a company presentation at the Cambridge Business Park. What sold it to me?

The free pizza.

So we turned up, and I ate a whole pizza's worth of Dominoes. Since I hold no interest in software, I didn't really pay too much attention to the presentations.

Neither did the other guys from Selwyn.

However, from what I gather, the Redgate employees have so much fun that I don't know how they find the time to do any work.

Anyway, there was a raffle, and being the strategic sharks that we are, a group of eight of us decided to pool our tickets together in increase our chances of winning the iPad 2 that was on offer. I had a feeling that 197 was going to be a lucky number but I decided to pool anyway...but sadly, logic failed me for once!

I went for the risk averse route, since the expected return is the same ~ a £400 prize with 8 times less chance of winning, as opposed to £50 with 8 times more chance of winning.

My number was drawn, and I looked onwards in horror as I realised the £400 that could've been mine had now dwindled to a £50 share...

One of the guys, F in fact, actually bailed out of the pool at the last second, but he told me that he'd rather be him than me, since he came and left with nothing, whereas I could've had much more... >__<

We made F take the obligatory photo.

I'm still in shock.

Like, I just don't win things. It's not in my genes.

But since I came here purely on a fluke with no intentions or interest whatsoever, I guess it's just a case of you win some and you lose some, right? So it's funny how quickly things change when the stakes become high. Guess this is why I should never get into gambling.

Guess it's just ironic that the girl who despises all things Apple ends up with the iPad 2.

If you are interested in buying it, do let me know ~ it's white, wireless and has 16GB worth of love...! Plus it comes in a pretty Redgate company bag.

Have you ever won anything of high stakes value before?

Yishi xxx

Photo Diary: Another week in pictures

Hey guys!

As promised, here is a round up of my week. Please enjoy!

Song of the day: Not Fair by Lily Allen (so O and L put this on tonight when they were hanging out in my room and it stuck in my head! I never listened to the lyrics closely before but now I'm like... O_O)

On Monday I cooked the rest of my kimchi with some tuna and made a yummy stew!

The weather was so beautiful on Tuesday that I had to stop to take some photos of the scenery.

I haven't cycled this way in a while for lectures and it was a lovely breath of fresh air!

Pancakes in the evening...

O can flip them like a boss. I, on the other hand, am less than adept at the art of pancake tossing.

We decided to see who could sit against the wall for the longest. I lost... :(

This was Shaun's experiment on Wednesday morning. I've adopted him as my close supervisor and feel a little happier now in the lab.

A crystal heart. The best crystal I have ever made! :)
Credit also goes to Shaun for his help, but he didn't want me to acknowledge him on fb since he thinks he is too cool for science... xD

H came to visit Cambridge so he and I went out for lunch at a Chinese place on Saturday, after my one-on-one supervision with E ~ both of them have been keeping my spirits up! :)

In the afternoon we had a lacrosse match against another college.

We lost, but it was still good fun.

Us modelling our Gryffindor team colours... xD

On the way home, I saw this lovely field of crocus and could not resist this photo opportunity!

Our college cat, Gus, had found a small patch of something on the ground that he really likes since he was going crazy for it!

My pretty new earphones arrived!

Stocking up on tights and food to bring for my lab group!

Last but not least, a package from Singapore arrived on Friday...

I'm so excited about this because it is from Cellnique, an Asian skincare company that have so kindly sent me products to review! :D

I haven't opened the package yet ~ gonna leave it as a surprise treat for after a long day of revision, so watch my style blog for a review coming your way soon! Finally, ever since I saw Izzy's post about her new Black Milk leggings, I have been unable to stop looking at the product website and Facebook page! I am so torn on the purple galaxy ones...

Anyway, I do hope that you are well! Sorry for being MIA for a while from the blogosphere ~ as I said in my last post, I've not been sleeping well recently from emotional/lab/lecture/what-the-hell-do-I-do-with-my-life-next-year stress, so as a result, I've been spending less time online which has also been sad as I miss you guys! I have so many blogs I need to catch up on now, so see you soon in another post! :)

Yishi xxx

Photo Diary: More Retail Therapy!

Hey everyone!!

After my last post in which I had a bit of a mini meltdown (thanks Harley and Kimmi for cheering me up with your joke and video) I decided it was time to take a step back, sort my mind out and get some TLC, so...I went shopping. After studying...of course.

Song of the day: Black and Yellow by Wiz Khalifa (the Jane Norman store was playing this and it stuck in my head!)

On Saturday, T called me whilst I was having lunch in town with L, and told me she was coming to Cambridge to visit. So we made plans to cook.

A healthy stir fry with chicken, oyster and spring onion sauce, onions, cabbage, carrots, mushrooms, broccoli, cauliflower, spring onions and udon noodles. It was very yummy!

Cambridge was so beautiful this Sunday when I went into town to meet T for shopping.

The weather was wonderful, and it felt like Spring had arrived.

T and I saw these really cute T shirts in TK Max for £7.99 each!

I only ended up buying one of them.

Since jeans do not fit me very well, I went overboard and splurged out on tights! :D

I bought this cardigan from Jane Norman ~ it's half price right now in their sales.

Maybelline are also having a 3 for 2 right now at Boots. I had an eye infection last week (another doctor visit >_<) so decided to get some new eye liner and mascara. Saw a nice palette, and T showed me some Barry M eye glitter that I couldn't resist buying too!

I feel a bit better after the shopping, and after getting my head down and learning half of one of my lecture courses in two days. Hope you had a great weekend too! :)

Yishi xxx

One of those days...

Hey everyone! Hope you're well and that you're having a better day than I have had today. As my title says, it was just one of those days where I felt like giving up on everything.

Song of the day: The Show Must Go On by Queen (maybe this will motivate me...^^:;)

I've talked a bit about my research project before, but I didn't really mention what it was like to work on it on a day to day basis. At Cambridge, if you take a Masters during your fourth year as an undergrad, then one of the requirements is for you to complete a research project and to write it up as a dissertation. You get assigned a day-to-day supervisor who has detailed knowledge of your project and who is there to give you close supervision when you're working in the lab. They are your mentor for the duration of your project, and as such, the success and enjoyment of your lab experience will depend on your working relationship with them.

Now, I hadn't given my fourth year much thought ~ I'd originally planned on graduating with a BA after three years. But a lack of job offer and the security of one more year in the bubble changed my mind...three days before research project applications were due in. By then, all of the interviews had already happened, and since I hadn't met any of the supervisors, it was highly unlikely that I'd get a good project. Luckily, I bumped into a PhD student, A, who had taught me in labs before, and after a quick catch up, he suggested that I do a research project with him. Guaranteed project? Yes please.

Now let's fast forward to the present.

My research project supervisor is a nice guy, but after starting my project with him, I've come to learn that A just happens to be a really bad supervisor. He's never in the lab when I need help, doesn't give me close supervision when I get stuck and expects me to be this amazing chemist who can make things happen like magic. I've wasted days in the lab trying to figure things out, when a simple hint or guidance could have made all the difference.

As such, I've been turning to the other PhD students in the lab for support, and they've all been really helpful, but at the end of the day, it's not their job to look after me, and I always feel bad that I have to ask them for help. The neglect has been driving me crazy ~ I've talked to A and superiors about it, but if there are any changes, they are always short lived. My project is worth 25% of my MSci grade, and as I spend so much time in the lab, I have no time to learn/revise my lecture notes, which are worth 50% when I sit the exams in the summer. Stressful... :(

Today, I was walking down the stairs with a test tube, intending on runnning some tests on a sample reaction that had worked every time I tried it before but failed to work this time. I bumped into my lecture course supervisor, E, who asked me how I was getting on. I've always had a soft spot for him and admired him since he started to supervise me in my third year - he's also a PhD student and is one of the most intelligent people that I have ever met. When he asked me how I was doing, I said I was fine, but then a few steps later, I broke down in tears.

I tried so hard not to cry, but all it took was that one simple question, and there I was, having a mini breakdown from all of the things that have been making me sad since the start of this semester. E looked awkward, not really expecting anything like this at all, but he offered me emotional support and gave up half an hour of his time to give me guidance on how to overcome the obstacles in my project. Thinking about that simple act of kindness whilst walking home just set me off in tears again...! >_<:; I put it down to Week Five Blues ~ a slang term we use to describe a phenomena:

When the beginning-of-term partying dies down a little bit and work piles up to the level that sometimes makes you despair. Many Cambridge students find Week 5 (or Week 4 or 6, depending on the person and subject) a tough week with mounting work pressure.

It's not just work and feeling emotionally drained that's been getting me down. This week, I've had a series of medical appointments: blood test results came back fine (phew!), one at the hospital where they stuck loads of patches on my back to see what my body reacts to, and I'll have another one at the hospital tomorrow morning at 8:50am for them to check the patches...

This is what my back looks like at the moment...they're making me wear a bandagey vest so the patches don't fall off...it's pretty icky as I'm not allowed to wash my torso until the patches are removed. I feel like a walking experiment... T_T

Anyway, I have a series of photos that I took today showing my walking/cycling route to lectures which I planned to blog about for today's post, but since it ended up being a rant about how awful my day was, I'll save it for a happier post! ^^:;

Kudos to you if you made it to the end! Can you tell me a joke to cheer me up? :D

Yishi xxx