Plant Press Stress

Last week was the most stressing week of three days I have had this year.

I am not sure why either, but I am sure that it had nothing to do with the following test week, because I had greater things going through my mind.

The burden befalled me on wednesday, when we returned to school after the Chinese New Year holidays. Due to my very short legs and very big steps lining the stairs down the track, I walked down the steps too hastily, and one of my knees hardly hit the ground. Defination (Hardly): To hit something with a lot of force. Antonymn: Barely. At least in this context.

First the skin went paper white, then pain seeped in, while blood oozed out. Great, another cut on the usual lucky spot of my knee, which always had a tendency to get injured. This time, it was a rather deep injury, it wasn't just surface blood, it was crimson red and staining the surrounding skin.

One of the horrible things about my school, is that it only had one washing hose in the middle of the track, which was bound to attract a lot of attention if I went there in the midst of assembly. So I went to the showering room to shower my wound which got my pants rather wet.

Not being able to walk properly for the following days was a rather big blow to my confidence. I could not run during P.E, but still got forced to run, typical of the lousiest teacher in the school. And I lost that happy energy in my footsteps. Not moving is one thing. Knowing that you can't run around even if you wanted to is much worse.

Horrible start, isn't it?

Cell biology article review was due on Friday, and for the whole holidays, I have not touched a single piece of work. Searching through many interesting articles, I either had nothing to write about them, or was doubtful about its relevance to cell biology. I finally completed it at 12midnight, really late for me considering that I usually slept latest at 10pm. And then one gigantic burden looming over me for the day before was finally lifted. But I was still feeling stressed. What could the source be?

Unknowingly, I had a really bad feeling about plant press project, which I have kind of forgotton about the approaching deadline, yet a subconcious mind was sending me a warning. I had better start.

A few weeks ago, I went to Botanic gardens to get plants specimens with my friends, where the scientific names were readily available on a mind-soothing little rectangular plate at the base of the plant. However, I forgot to add a layer of paper while pressing them and put the leaves under my textbook. Thus they turned black over the days and started describing themselves with tiny white rings on the contrasting black background. Since then, I threw that project out of my mind along with the leaves.

And it has been unconciously haunting me since.

I finally figured out the complex mathematics on friday, and I got so freaked out that I started taking out my notebook and planning each detail of my weekend frantically.

Plan: Biology Plant Press starts on Saturday.

Where in the world would I cook up 10 plants with their scientific names without the assistance of botanists? Ben's book was not being too helpful as the variety of plants within were not too wide. I decided that I needed a more rigorous and determined approach.

I cried for help.

Actually, I went to meet Benjamin at Simei, where he gave me some plant specimens from his home. I am really grateful to that, because not only had that contributed to my plant collection, it had also given me a huge morale boost which was at level 0 when I walked about aimlessly around Pasir Ris Mrt Station fruitlessly trying to identify the plants with Ben's book.

I went to the library and borrowed a book titled "1001 Garden plants in singapore" which added to my confidence. That afternoon, I did a lot of cross referencing from difference sources which included yahoo images, wikipedia, scientific resarch of plants on the net, those books and my common sense. The next day, as I was browsing through the 1001 plant book, I came across two plants which I had, which felt like a real miracle. By the end of the weekend, I have identified (or at least relatively sure) 8 plants.

Woohoo!

Now that my wound is also gradually healing, I am starting to see light through the windows along the sides of a dark tunnel.

Foldit - I am going to try this

Gamers Saving Lives -- Biochemists And Computer Scientists Collaborate To Create Protein-folding Computer Game

http://www.sciencedaily.com/videos/2008/1003-gamers_saving_lives.htm#

ScienceDaily () -- Computer scientists designed a computer game based on the principles of biochemistry. It allows amateurs to compete against and collaborate with specialists to design protein structures. Introductory levels teach the general governing concepts that users must understand before moving on to design complicated, potentially useful molecules.

What if instead of waging war or dropping blocks, gamers set their sights on something like a new HIV vaccine? Sounds strange, but biochemistry might be the new must-play video game.

It looks and sounds like a computer game, but Foldit is much more than just a computer game -- it's crucial biochemistry research.

Biochemist David Baker wants to discover the unique folding of proteins to better understand how they make our bodies work. A friend suggested turning this scientific puzzle into a game. That's where computer scientist Zoran Popovic and his team come in.

"You no longer need to get a degree in biochemistry to actually start doing this stuff," says Zoran Popovic, Ph.D., an associate professor in the department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington in Seattle.

The game's introductory levels "trick" you into learning all the concepts you need to know. Then all you do is play -- alone or in teams.

"I know that some of our users have kind of described it as Tetris on steroids or something," Dr. Popovic says. The goal is to get the highest score by folding the proteins based on the same criteria they use in the lab. Each protein is a puzzle -- the more people play, the better chance a correct "fold" will be discovered for each protein. Eventually the puzzles could be used to help make vaccines and even cure genetic diseases.

"You can get into work and say I stayed up all night -- [but] I wasn't playing Halo," says David Baker, Ph.D., a biochemist at the University of Washington in Seattle. "I was designing an HIV vaccine."

Sometime ago I read about this online "game" which involves gamers playing police, having access to the many recordings of security cameras throughout London and scoring points each time a crime is reported...

The world is getting involved.

Overdid It

Hard to find quality time to post this year.

Chemistry Demonstration today. Previously, sodium acetate crystalisation had been quite a problem, as they did not crystalise fast enough. We hypothesized that it was because it was not supersaturated enough.

Being in charge of the sodium acetate crystalisation reaction today, I dumped a layer of sodium acetate into the beaker and added a few squirts of water to it. Now, that should supersaturate it...

As the magnetic stirrer whirled and the temperature rose, the salt started vanishing into the water, and before long, it was clear again.

So I added more sodium acetate, then it became clear, and I added more, and it dissolved and I added more...

When we poured it out for testing, it worked wonderful. A few drops of sodium acetate froze in the positions at which it hit the glass dish, and as more drops pounded onto it, a pillar was formed in no time.

Pouring the solid back into the mixture of heating sodium acetate, I added more sodium acetate, just in case.

Till now, a transparent tough-looking film was forming on the surface, indicating that it was supersaturated, but when we increased the angular velocity of the magnetic stirrer, the current disrupted the film.

No more film? Add more acetate.

We switched off the heat and went to look at the other group presentations.

Supersaturated sodium acetate was trouble, every now and then the surface turned into a blanket of white salt. And we had to heat it and stir it again. Timing was crucial.

And hard to manage.

We did not have time to practice our presentation once through, so when I moved the sodium acetate off the hot plate, it did not cool down fast enough before it was time to pour it. However, due to the overly supersaturatedness of this wonderful solution of destruction I have boldly concoted, it crystalised quite fast even at an uncomfortably warm temperature.

Do not forget. This is hot ice. Crystalisation of it is highly exothermic. Until now, we did not really consider the amount of heat released as a function of the concentration of our solution.

Unexpectedly, as the sodium acetate shot needle like spicules from nucleation centers, the crystalisation contagiously spread throughout the tiny existence of the puddle of sodium acetate. As we all know, this was an exothermic reaction, and especially when the solution is so saturated that crystals can form under a turbulent current and high temperature...

You can see how overly supersaturated that would be.

Like nothing has happened, the puddle disappeared the moment I turned around. Upon probing with the glass stirrer, the hot ice had burned away and melted the plastic sheet and fell into our 'dormant volcanic liquid'.

Shouting "Hey look everyone we melted the plastic" would not have been a very good cover up for my blunder.

I tried to see if there was any more sodium acetate left to 're-do' it. Oh my, the liquid in the conical flask has started to crystalise too. If there was any chance of find out any more was left...

I tipped the conical flask over and dripped a drop of sodium acetate onto my hand.

Since hot liquid + exothermicness = very hot, with the assumption that it could melt plastic, and the liquid crystalised upon touching my hand; the result was a rather embarassing turn around, mouthing of not very nice language and slamming my hand onto the lab bench repeatedly like I was a lunatic trying to kill an invisible cockcroach.

The high supersaturation had made the crystalisation a lot MORE exothermic than what we have tried...

Around 5 times more unexpected.

It crystalised so well that instead of shards of crystals that could be washed off, it turned out to become a plate of solid white which clings onto the glass, which only way of clearing would be to melt it.

Our elephant toothpaste lava did not go quite well either, due to some mix up in our requirements, we used 6% instead of 35% hydrogen peroxide, so no one saw our lava.

Probably the only thing anyone saw throughout our demonstration was the plastic melting effect of volcanoes. Not very exciting.

Friday

My fitness seems to be deteriorating. I had never felt my heart pump so painfully when I ran for a few years. Usually, its just the usual abdominal cramps, but not anymore. Like the pain spot has moved upwards or something...

4 rounds in 7:43. Improved by 15 seconds, but still not good enough. 7:20 would be nice. PE lesson today was kind of crappish. I have never disliked PE lesson so much in my life before. When the teacher makes us do push ups or leg raises, he counts the same number all over and all over again, because no one is doing it properly. However, upon delving into deeper thinking, that was why no one bothered to follow his counting anymore.

Today is orchestra day. First day for the newbies. Now that it has been a year since I transferred from basketball to orchestra, I feel quite jealous of them, when I see them getting to run about and exercise. Time for me to do that would be hard to come by now that Year 4 is so packed with academic work.

When I came home, I realised my mathematics file, bio practical and new notebook were missing. Perhaps I have left them in class, or they dropped out of my bag. Considering that I found my bag open on the MRT, that might have been possible, but then someone would have told me, wouldn't they?

I hope they are safe and sound.

Ironically, currently I feel more worried for my fitness level, and height, rather than those missing trivia. I should start doing something about it.

"Orientation" 2010 - Part 2

We were talking about deciding on the class motto the previous day, when I gave this "proverb" as a joke.

'Build a man a fire and warm him for a day, set a man on fire and warm him for a lifetime.'

But Eugene gave me a further insight deeper into it. It could also mean to ignite the flame of learning and independence within a person.

***

Day two started with the station games which were no good, possibly other than tagball. Games like fighting to blow a ping pong ball to the other end of the floor, leaving the ground in a salivary mess, or the write-with-a-marker-by-tying-strings-around-it game. Oh whatever is the world coming to?

For most of Day two and three of orientation, it was house meetings. House meetings in preparation for the campfire. We had to make a costume related to the theme of ignition, and although I am not any professional critic, I could positively say that their design was not very well...well-designed.

On the morning of day three, people were busy making the garbage bag costume, which to cut a long story short, turned out rather much like a chicken suit rather than a fiery display. Too many cooks spoil the broth, and as no one gave us any jobs, a group of us kept out of the way. We started drawing, playing chess, reversi and connect with pencil on paper, origami, and any other scrap-paper related activity you could think of. After all, scrap paper was sure to be lying within hand's reach every moment.

Then, this girl came over to our group and saw that we were not doing anything work related, the closest work related thing being a checkered costume very good for playing board games. But as I have mentioned, we were minding our own business based on the justification that 'help would be given when you ask', and since no one asked us for help, we inferred that they were doing perfectly fine without us.

However, just like any other enthusiastic house leader, she would hear none of it and told us to do a cheer, and we would be then left alone. All was silent, not a single cheer was heard. Personally, I was thinking at that time, why should we cheer?
Aren't cheers just exhibiting the competitive nature of mankind dominating over the peaceful side of them? If cheering would be of any purpose, it would be for encouragement, and of all the times I have seen the school cheering, it was to make noise most of the time because someone would think that the silence is too peaceful for him.

Back to the story, great minds think alike, and all of us refused to waste our breath and 'practice' cheering. It isn't as if we were a cheer-leading team who needed rehearsals which included complicated footwork and stunts like double backflips and arm levers. When we kept silent, she insisted on us cheering, otherwise, she would complain to the teacher to stop us from playing, or lazing or doing whatever she does not like to see us doing.

A really long argument ensued, between her and a guy who stalled by telling her that we needed time to rehearse. After much recurring argument, the girl took my cheer sheet which I have neatly boxed, and tore it open, passed it to him and made him recite the stupidest cheer(or should I say one of the stupidest).

Lunchtime. A simple lunch, followed by a session with friends at the fitness corner. We did pull ups, monkey bars, dips and the classic of sitting on the top of the monkey bars. Wc, Jorg, Jk, ben, tl and cmc were there.

Jk tried doing upside down sit ups, followed by me, beating his number of times by a few, then he did it again, beating me, and I did it again. It was quite tiring, especially if we set it such that each time we are only allowed the beat each other by 1. Fortunately, our minds were in the right state at that time, so we did not do that.

House meeting again. Having finished that hilarious chicken suit, we slacked in class. Then, we proceeded to the concourse for further instructions which were issued untimely as I was in the toilet.

Having left my bag and all other belongings in my bag with my friends, who mysteriously disappeared, I searched from the 1st to the 4th floor, where I finally found them in the auditorium gasping for breath. In the auditorium, Eugene read his book about calculus, with me occasionally peeking with interest, and I scribbled on a piece of rough paper, trying to make ambigrams.

Dayna kept on asking us about who some people like in a really pursuing manner, and when the subject turned to you-know-who, she said: "Help me pass the message back to him that I don't like him."

That was rather funny to us.

The house leaders made us do cheers and we did it unenthusiastically just like normal. Then came a series of people in weird, lame, atrocious (you name the descriptors) costumes, one of which they claimed to be 'fibo man' or some sh**, but appeared rather like mickey mouse.

Dinner came and left.

***

NUSHS' first campfire, big deal. I was hoping it would rain, but unfortunately, the sky was clear. Then this teacher was up on stage asking the school.

"Is everyone having fun?"

An equal number of yes and nos came out from the audience. However, this teacher would not take no for an answer, so she repeated the question until the yes were louder than the no.

We spent quite some time in the hall learning children songs and stupid games which mostly involved clapping and singing. I mean, a few would be okay, but that was like making up most part of the activities.

Finally, salvation came (compared to what we were experiencing in the hall), and we moved off the the track for this campfire thing.

Dusk fell and the campfire did not fail to pollute the fresh evening air at the field. Activities were the 'fashion parade', 'cheering' (more like shouting and fighting) and performances put up by year 1s and 3s.

The bomb game (supposedly part of the cheering), was nothing but wasting of breath.

The 'fashion parade' was so boring I was dreaming.

And all I know about the performances was that it was something that involved a lot of shouting and punching the air. Fortunately Keat Mun, I do not know how he did it, but he just walked up and took over the limelight and started singing this Beatles song, which was the first thing that caught my attention that night. I am impressed.

However, the more interesting activities included:

-Pretending the lightsticks were light sabres and waving them around and 'fighting'
-Going to the toilet in the middle of a performance
-Counting the number of stars in the sky
-Sleeping

From time to time, just when the joy and contentment of seeing the fire burning out was seeping towards us, the people added more fuel into it, sending a cloud of billowing smoke towards us. The smoke dispersed itself into the distance, roaming about freely into residential complexes...Oh man, what happened to saving the environment?

The noise, amidst...more noise turned everything into nothing. It felt like the surrounding noise was just normal, part of everyday life, and the perfect environment to sleep in once you get used to it within the crowd.

Although it was not 10pm yet, by the law, no one can sue the school for making so much noise at night, when the poor residents of clementi are trying to get some sleep. Morally, however, there is all the inconsideration in such an act. People have campfires in more rural areas, like the park, not in the middle of a housing estate.

But I could still see that some people thought that it was awesome. I don't know about them, but I thought that it was a waste of time and it is the worst thing the school has ever done (Perhaps other than the turnstile). Tell me, what good this campfire had brought.

Perhaps just pleasing some majority of the school.

"Orientation" 2010 - Part 1

This is a story of three meaningless days.

Things REALLY have changed since our current principal took over. Things was going on perfectly fine and well have become nothing but a utopic dream. 惹是生非 would be a good description.

Installation of the backgate turnstile caused massive traffic jams and without any improvement in school security. Changing the lesson periods to 45 minutes, realising it does not work (and never will) then changing it back again. Now orientation, what's with all these house meetings overwriting the pleasantness of orientation.

I was wondering: Does the school have nothing better to do than to fill up our "empty" lives with house meetings? I found out the purpose of all these in due course, not being surprised that it would be for a bad cause.

***

School started with the usual assembly, principal address and disciplinary briefing. We got this new disciplinary master, who seemed quite alright at first. However, appearances might not be deceiving, and I started to dislike him and his fat figure the more he talked and saw him.

After playing basketball, we went up to the auditorium for more briefings, and then proceeded to class. Now is the time to talk about notice boards.

School, over the years, seemed to be more and more like competition. Everything is about that. Inter-school Olympiads, best decorated class award and et cetera. The same goes for our notice board.

Others want it to be visually appealing, colourful, not plain. Thus they use a board's worth of black paper to cover up the beigh notice board. Then, they cut out each letter in different colours and pasted them individually onto the board forming a nonsensical word which serves no other purpose but to make our notice board look more colourful.

A notice board is for notices. It is not a painting. Why shouldn't it be good as long as it serves it's purpose.

I asked: "Why are you even bothering to paste all these black paper onto the board. It is such a waste of resources."

"You mean you just want a brown board like that?" she asked in a ridiculous sort of manner.

"Yea why not?"

My point is, a notice board is a notice board and as long as the important notices are up there, it is good enough. If you want a black board why don't you just go paint it black.

Of course, no one will listen to the insane thoughts of me.

***

Lunch was catered that day, unfortunately, only THAT day, unlike in the previous years when each meal, including snacks were catered. Later, we had our first house meeting. What they wanted us to do was scream horribly composed cheers and whoever the composer was should never admit it. I can't believe I am saying this, but the F-I-B-O Cheer made the most sense. Then we were forced to play a sentence making game with letters from people born in the same month. That murdered quite a lot of our time.

Then we went to the hall to learn the mass dance.

For one thing, the new song was horrible, as agreed by many other people. The dance for "We could be together" by Debbie Gibson in year one was at the least considered music. I have to admit that that person who choreographed the dance and chose the music had good taste.

Everything was deteriorating.

And if anyone has an objection against this post, be prepared for worse in day 2.

A Gloomy Forecast

But forecasts might be wrong.

It is the year 2010, and I was admittedly feeling rather unsure about the year ahead. It seemed like I was loading up on too much work than i could handle.

CCA on Both Mondays and Fridays, electives on Tuesday, German on either Wednesday or Thursday, and I am only left with one more day for SMP.

So how am I supposed to schedule my time, especially when I am still not sure when SMP meetings are usually on. I do not even know if I have got a project yet.

I do not know how to start scheduling my time, like when to change my german class to.

I wondered if I would be able to handle it all. For the first few days, it was just going along without any plans. What else could I do?

Fortunately, I regained my confidence after sometime.

I am sure that by putting first things first, beginning with the end in mind, sharpening my saw, and with my friends and family to help me along the way, nothing is impossible.



A beautiful song I got to know in Primary Six. Never fails to remind me of those times.

Want to know how 'orientation' was? Read about it in the next post