Feeling slightly irate today. All the late nights and early mornings are getting to me, I think - gotta find some time for proper bed rest! Also pretty worried about mom right now, have to wait till next week for further evaluation.
Pictures will have to wait - been a tad too busy this week!
Here we are again. Early mornings (not that I wake any later during the hols, but it's nice to know that you CAN wake later if you want to), possibly late evening lectures, impossible numbers of tutorials. I guess it beats the last few months though, we shall see.
Had a nice X'mas day! Shall post pics of my lovely present soon, heehee!
2 domestic activities today - baking a lemon cheesecake (Yx and XW were doing that, I can't bake for nuts), and decorating a gingerbread house that Wenky and DL each bought from IKEA some weeks ago. Had to stick the pieces of gingerbread together to form the house using melted sugar, and burnt my right index finger! Yx and I did the decorating of the house later on, using home-made icing in various colours. Yay!! First attempt at making icing and it was nice! So there you go, some pics of the house:
Adding the roof patterns ... this is one of the worst parts, it involves very fine motor coordination!
Roof done at last, but still drab!
Starting to look good - Yx added the beautiful blue icing patterns, the pink ones, the candy cane above the window and the chocolate bits, while I did the orange window frames, the marshmallow border and the "snow"-covered ground.
The front door with a lane lined by M&Ms and candy cane signposts! (You can see the melting roof here ... read below for an explanation)
The nasty thing is, our humidity in Singapore is crazy - the lovely gingerbread house started absorbing moisture, and started to soften! You can actually see the roof starting to wilt downwards on the right. OMG ... we hurriedly finished it up, took some shots and sent the poor thing into the ICU (the fridge).
We also experimented with DIY yoghurt this weekend! Muahaha ... Yx was given a starter culture by an Indian friend, and seriously this stuff is good - it tastes better than the commercial stuff. =)
At the back: I loved the yoghurt so much, I bought a 4L bottle of milk to make EVEN MORE. In front: (Left) The completed yoghurt (Right) Orange-flavoured yoghurt (added orange cordial)
And lastly, more pics. We made this silly basket which turned out to be nice. No one really celebrates X'mas, but it's all really an excuse to be naughty with things. The cones are great, they've had a long history. 1/3 of them were from Madison, Wisconsin in 2005 (where Yx claimed she never did see any cones around her place there, but when I got there they somehow materialised everywhere *ah-hem*), the rest were from various places in Scotland. Worth honorary mention is that giant cone in the middle, which I believe the 2 women (Yx and mom) POACHED, SWIPED, NICKED, STOLE from the royal botanical gardens at Kew. =D
And amidst all the fun today, only 1 person was glum - "Why can't I play with the cakes too??"
Wenky's Triops Diary - Day 13!
OK, so much has happened since I last updated 3 days ago! Of course, the little things have once again grown even bigger (Mr. Meanass is about 5cm long now I think)
They've also laid their second batch of eggs, and this time I isolated them properly. Here's a pic!
Going to dry them out, so hopefully I'll have plenty more to hatch and rear next year. Would be cool to throw them at nasty ward sisters or add them to the con's coffee.
I'd love to spend the times when I get a break from the books to start planning for a graduation holiday, but life is just plain bad sometimes. Yx most probably can't make it at that time due to exams, and ... oh well. No point grousing about it, I've gotten over most of the disappointment. Was quite intent on spending 2 weeks in the wilderness in New Zealand. = Perhaps I should go somewhere with my parents? AFAIK most of my overseas friends spent their grad trips with family, so I dunno ... but I feel really uneasy about leaving Brownie alone at home. Oh! But at least XW's really good to him, so that's fine. But he can't afford to lose any more weight. (Brownie REFUSES food when I'm not at home, he waits for me to come home in the evening before wolfing down his breakfast.) That, and he waits up at night for me. =(
Or, I could just disappear to somewhere alone for 2 weeks. One of those pacific islands, or Nepal (still not safe though, IMO), or Greece.
I expect everyone's sick of hearing me say this, but they've grown bigger!! Mr. Meanass is growing exponentially compared to Survivor (we're starting to think that he's a runt), and guess what?? Mr. Meanass is pregnant!! Yep, I just saw a bunch of eggs it was carrying. Oh dear, I don't think we should call it Mr. Meanass anymore, eh? "Femme fatale", perhaps. Took some pics of the egg sac, just underneath its armour.
Mr. Meanass and Survivor having a swim together
An objective gauge of size - Survivor
And Mr. Meanass
Can you see the egg sac?
Still can't see? Zooming in on the eggs ...
Mr. Meanass chomping on a fish pellet, while Survivor tries to wrestle it from him
OK, this is bad. I'm feeling REALLY ill today, and it's all because I ate too many chips at Laguna. Too many chips, too little water, sleeping on the freezing floor. So now I'm down with a cold - great, just great.
The Triops' water is quite murky now, I'll do a water change today before taking photos and updating. They're huge!
Oh, after reading someone's blog, I realised that I missed out on the chocolates they dished out during the lecture!! Didn't manage to go to any of the lecs - first day was spent doing a stupid report that was completed 3 years ago and printing almost $10 worth of notes in the library. Oh, and something REALLY odd happened. I was really hogging the printer (it churned out the notes non-stop) so I continued typing at the computer - and suddenly this guy came up to me with MY NOTES in his hands, passed them to me and asked if I'm an M5. I was thrown into slight shock and confusion for a while, and we spent 10 minutes having a loud and cheerful chat in the library. Turned out he's a 4th year who - apparently - is really friendly. Haha .. that was really odd. Perhaps Dopey would care to start a series on "How To Recognise a Final Year Med Student"?
Anyway, the next 2 days were spent at one of the suites in the Laguna golf course, together with Yx, XX, XT, Carol and XX's bf. Probably one of my last fun days out. But hell, the rooms are HUGE! At $150 per night, it's a definite steal. We didn't spend out $40 food voucher though, cos we got really pissed off - they have a stupid dress code in their eateries (I won't even use the word "restaurant" here) about men in pants and women with no toes - or nails or soles - showing. Oh come on!! Why so pretentious? I walk around in boardshorts and flip-flops at the yacht club, they don't even care! So too bad, they missed out on 6 peoples' worth of food revenue, HAH!
Some pics!
The girls discovered a giant spider against the skylight. EEEKS.
Still staring at the spider and wondering when it'll land on us while we're playing mahjong - doorway leads to the bedroom!
Our hoard of munchies on the table!
Playing Monopoly after having dinner (and buying MORE MUNCHIES!) at east point
Yx with her winning set of doubles and the lovely Hoegaarden Forbidden Fruit
Home away from home - my complete accessories. Still have to study what, right?? Managed to go through the new GOLD guidelines for COPD. Alas, they didn't have wireless internet there! My usual morning coffee, while the girls ate cup noodles and played mahjong this morning.
My sis XX praying to the God of Instant Noodles while her bf .. I dunno what he's doing. BTW, that's my penguin towel. Nice huh??
Hmm .. was doing some thinking just now. Oddly enough, it was sparked off by reading about the Singapore Garden Festival. Kind of slightly irritated ... ok, remind me to elaborate more.
You know what I'm going to say - they've grown bigger! =D
Anyway, Dopey asked me today what these things are. Well, they're freshwater crustaceans like shrimps, but are really ancient things - according to Wikipedia, the external morphology of Trops cancriformis has not changed since 220 million years ago. The species I'm keeping is T.longicaudatus, but I'm guessing it must also be quite ancient? Anyway, they're adapted to survival in transient desert puddles in nature - extremely fast growth rates, and the eggs survive dehydration for several years (I think 25 years has been recorded) and hatch again when there's water.
A couple of updates though:
1) Survivor is starting to catch up with Mr. Meanass in size! Still a tad smaller than him though, but they're growing =)
2) We bought a bunch of live Tubifex worms yesterday - XT took the bulk of it to feed her fish (at least, I think it's fish she's keeping ... puffers and crayfish etc) but the Triops are loving the worms too!
3) Since Survivor's kinda large enough, Yx and I put him into Mr. Meanass' tank tonight. So far they're playing nicely with each other ... they go bumpity-bump and scuttle off into their individual corners. No aggression yet, although the real danger comes when they are moulting and more susceptible to attacks. Hope they'll be fine together!
Finally, some pics - I'll post the pics of the 2 of them in the same tank tomorrow... gotta start tonight's studying soon.
Mr Meanass, with a Tubifex worm that escaped into the sand.
Yx and I watched Mr. Meanass at 1pm today, and he has shot up since last night. At 6pm, we were both absolutely sure he grew even bigger. And now, 11pm, he has DEFINITELY grown - with a piece of shed skin as evidence!
Mr. Meanass at 1pm today:
10 hours later ...
Good thing we prepared a new house for him!! He'll be moving in later tonight after I'm done with revision, and there's a layer of sand since Triops like to dig. The roundish thing is an algae ball, for him to nibble on. Survivor (yes, that's the name of the smaller one now) is fast catching up though, so perhaps when it's safer later I'll let both of them live in the same tank.
Today's video clip is interesting - it shows Mr. Meanass attacking and munching on a food pellet! Yep .. he's large enough to eat one whole pellet on his own now.
I apologise for the late update, I fell asleep last night before I could do anything. =(
Anyway, Mr. Meanass has really grown! He's definitely more than 1 cm long now, and the other guy (still can't think of a name for it .. maybe The Survivor?) is still trying in vain to catch up.
Yx peering at Mr. Meanass and exclaiming that he's become bigger! She wasn't too keen on creepy-crawlies on my desk though ... (wait till they grow big, muahahaha!!) Was trying to persuade her to keep some in her lab.
Mr. Meanass eating a morsel of food (the roundish thing he's holding on his belly), and a sprig of weed that I swiped from my sister's fish tank. Starting to look like a very small adult already!
And finally, a nice video of Mr. Meanass fooling around while munching on his fish pellets.
1) SSIP is a total waste of time. Give us 2 more weeks of paeds and 2 weeks of revision!! 2) CGH has very nice blood culture sets, and PLENTY of blue butterfly needles. 3) CGH is F*CKING far away from my house
That, and there was wonderful chemistry in the SSIP group (consisting of half my own group and half of DL's group). Perhaps it was all the waiting for exit rounds, or perhaps it was the daily group discussion. Kudos, everyone! I had a good time amidst the gloom of an otherwise-horrid posting.
In pictures!
1. What we did everyday - everyone reads up on 1 topic the night before, someone presents the topic and the rest of us fill in the gaps of knowledge. Sure, it's nerdy - but fun!
2. One of the ward Sisters is a closet CP person =p Nah, haha .. she only has that single Nepenthes x ventrata hanging in her office, the rest are TONNES of the nicest African Violets I've ever seen.
3. At 10am, M will be brainstorming on our newest lunch venue (we swore never to go to the same place twice) while DL will be complaining that he's hungry. Fooling around at Toys 'R Us after lunch one day.
4. And the next day, the new IKEA at Tampines - which has the loveliest food carts.
5. We took a wrong turn on our way back from IKEA. On the way, we saw giant UFOs (or giant Madonna's conical bras - I still don't know what the hell they are), and suddenly everyone was, "WAAAAAIT A MINUTE. ARE WE STILL IN SINGAPORE??" Ended up in some ulu forested single-lane road, and resorted to stopping the car and reading maps.
6. DL grew loads of muscles suddenly after the IKEA trip. (psst .. he stuffed a newly-bought pillow in)
7. Next lunch destination was Terminal 2 of the airport. What do you do when you can't go into the business class lounge to watch TV? Watch from outside, of course!!
8. AH. EWW. I seem to have the strangest accidents happening to me all the time - first the Carrie Episode during MSIP, and now this. This aparatus is an ass-washer that's attached to the toilet bowl. You sit on it, switch it on, and a jet of water flushes your ass. Mr. Itchy-Hands-Wenky was wondering if it works, unknowingly switched it on to the full setting and pressed the button - while STANDING RIGHT IN FRONT OF IT. The bloody jet of water doesn't stop - you need to press it to stop the water. I trudged back to the lounge drenched in toiletbowl water. =( ARGHHHHHHHH!!
9. We even had time to cut hair at East Point .. refer to Point 1 of "Learning Points" above.
10. Wenky decided to treat his friends to delicacies. All 4 of us (SJ was not around that day) ended up eating ...
11. MEALWORMS WITH CHEDDAR CHEESE!!!
12. The pinnacle of boredome - we all start playing tricks on each other. We came back from Tampines Mall this day, some of us with stickers proclaiming "Soft Bones Inside Unagi" stuck onto our backs. But this is a different label on someone's behind ..
13. A closer look. Cauda equina syndrome with saddle anaesthesia, anyone?
And finally, the finale - on our final day, half my CG and the whole of DL's CG were invited over to M's place for home-made pizza (which tasted rather like seafood paella)
14. After-lunch games
15. Which involved multi-coloured piglets jumping over each other .. DL has the strangest games.
16. The 2 women having a serious talk .. I think it's about their graduation holiday or something.
We trooped down to EC park after lunch - M and SJ went for the cable ski thing, while the rest of us started blading. It drizzled, so we sought refuge under a nice dry patch under huge trees.
Just getting complacent, when it POURED. I really mean POURED. Tropical storm-esque pouring. Like typhoons hitting the coast. We fled to the nearest shelter ... and later all agreed that we MIGHT have been dryer, had we remained under the tree. =
This is what we got for trying to run away from the storm .. for some reason, it was fun, hahahaha
Mating season for Wenky - that's actually E. pushing me from behind .. trust MH to take raunchy photos like these.
