As 2012 winds down to a close, i find myself with about 3 hours to write my end-of-year post. should be enough time. to be honest, my thoughts are a little less organized than usual, so watch out for missing links.

let's see now...i haven't really decided on this year's theme yet. the year was kind of...monotone, actually, with most of it being occupied by research in the lab. of course, there were highs and lows, but ultimately, i think they average out to a pretty good year. checking back on my new year's resolutions, it seems that i've fulfilled most of them, except for the ones relating to physical fitness. seems to be a recurring trend, that one.

other memorable events include various refereeing assignments, judo training (though i haven't been going as often as i should), taking my first group of year 1 students for TA (with more to come since i'm doing postgrad), school with the chem kids, which encompasses stuff like pre-exam study, rushing for deadlines, and interesting conversations. i really really appreciate having them around. in fact, i think it's because of them that i was able to jump back to second-upper. something about positive peer pressure.

there is one rather upsetting thing i've noticed recently...like within the last semester. i seem to be procrastinating much much more, to the point where it's messing with my schedule. thankfully i can be sufficiently motivated for important things, like deadlines for school work and similar stuff. but i don't know...it kind of sucks. guess that's something i can work towards improving next year.

incidentally, my tendency to procrastinate also kind of messed up my east coast plans. i should have gone yesterday, because the weather was nice and not-rainy. then again, i didn't expect it to rain for most of today. nevertheless, i still tried. went to eunos, got on 55, then decided it wasn't going to let up in time, and subsequently looped back to eunos and came home. even though i got some thinking done on the bus, it doesn't seem to be enough. could be why i'm lacking in substantial content this time round.

well, as the year ends, i'm grateful that i have no major regrets. for all the minor stuff, there's always time to improve. meanwhile, i think i'll jump back into batman for a bit. no better way to end 2012 than by being batman, is there?

-random thought of the day: Must stop gaming when school starts.-

Boxing day finds me having mixed feelings. for one, i got my results (more on that soon), and my reaction failed. well, maybe not failed. more like didn't (couldn't?) start.

getting results this semester was a little disappointing. for the past 3 or 4 semesters, i've been used to seeing better grades than expected most of the time. this semester, my grades are:

CM4212: A-
though it looks like a good grade, i'm actually a tiny bit disappointed. because if you ask me, i think i was hoping for an A really really deep down. nevertheless, it's something i can live with. unlike...

CM4271: B
this was really below expectations for me. guess i messed up the mid-term (amino acids!) and probably the final as well. still, i suppose i can take comfort in the fact that B is the highest grade among the chem kids who took the module.

LAJ2202: A
considering the mid-term, and my poorer-than-japanese-1-and-2 performance for the various small quizzes, i thought that an A might just be out of reach. nevertheless, this is a good sign. looks like it's definitely japanese 4 next semester. and based on this, i owe some of the chem kids a meal.

semester CAP: 4.33
overall CAP: 4.09

CAP went up! by 0.02 only, but i'll take what i can get. based on these results, i've done more CAP calculations so i know roughly where the bar is set for next semester. of course, the standard rule here is "the higher the better", but i think having a rough gauge is nice. also, now that more modules' grades are confirmed, there is less left to chance/uncertainty. assuming my honours project gets a B+, i can afford B-'es for all the other 3 modules. in the event of a B, i'll need the equivalent of 2 Bs and a B+. and if goodness forbid i get a B- for honours project, i'll need a score which gives me the same CAP as 2 A-'es and a B+. these are all for a CAP of 4.00, by the way. if possible, i'd like my final result to be a bit higher than the bare minimum.

having done all this calculation, it seems quite hard for me to fall back to second lower...provided that my honours project scores well/decently. though i'm a little doubtful of my own calculations. do i really have THAT much leeway? maybe that's why my friends with CAP 4.2-something are all taking it easy, or planning to do so next semester.

one other thing that didn't go according to plan today was my lab work. NMR confirmed that all i got after column was the starting material again. now, this raises 2 questions. first, why doesn't this new thing react? could be because i used the optimal conditions for a different type of compound, so now i've gone back to 100 degrees for at least 12 hours. hopefully that gives better (or at least some) positive results. the next question is more puzzling. to separate what i thought were my products, i used a pretty polar solvent blend. but during substrate synthesis (ie. reactions to make my starting material), i've had to use very very non-polar solvent blends to separate essentially the same things, and even then, with limited success! makes no sense at all.

with this not-good outcome from lab, it looks like i won't be taking the rest of the week off. maybe friday, if things go well, but i definitely have to go back tomorrow. kind of sucks, but hey, life can't always be smooth-sailing, right? at least i have a beer and king crab buffet with the usual gang of JC classmates to look forward to. which reminds me. i should go to school earlier tomorrow (again), so that i can leave on time to make it for the dinner.

-random thought of the day: Everlasting Gobstoppers are less everlasting than expected.-

Is it christmas eve already? and more importantly, have THREE WEEKS really passed since my last exam? the festive mood really hasn't hit me this year. just can't get into the spirit, for some reason...probably the upcoming progress report. that's part of the reason why i didn't send christmas cards this year. the other reason is that i couldn't find the time (and honestly didn't want) to search high and low for cards which agree with me.

nevertheless, i did buy myself a couple of christmas presents. the first being the batman series of games. and there are more games purchases in the works. right now, i'm eyeing the overlord series, as well as command and conquer 4. so far, i've played a bit of batman: arkham asylum, and it's been enjoyable. just wonder how those FAQ writers manage to get 100% completion. for that matter, i wonder how they made it through certain more ambiguous parts of the game. but well, it's a challenge.

my end-of-year plans have been set into motion kind of late this year. in the remaining week or so, i still have to go to east coast for my annual seaside walk (tomorrow), meet the usual JC classmates for dinner (thursday), and put away my notes. seems like i've been putting that off for longer than healthy. other than that, there isn't much else on the schedule. hopefully, my reaction goes well, and the NMR comes out nicely. if that really happens, i might take a really long weekend...like thursday to tuesday kind of long. but let's not get my hopes up now.

-random thought of the day: Hope everyone reading this is feeling the Christmas spirit more than I am!-

*quick update, christmas day, 10:00pm*

Merry christmas! i'm not starting a new post because i realized that i forgot to mention some things which should have been in yesterday's post. so i'm continuing here for a sense of continuity and to make it easier to read a little (at least to me).

yesterday, i did something which i've been meaning to do for that last...5 to 6 years(?) - which is to go to orchard to view the christmas lights. going on christmas eve was perhaps not one of my wisest decisions. anyway, i realized that i haven't really missed much. it wasn't as...magical as i was hoping for it to be, though i liked the silver/white/light blue lights which tangs used. maybe the mood was killed a little by the sheer amount of people, and their tendency to stop at a moment's notice to take photos. after viewing the lights at street-level for about 10 minutes or so, i thought it was safer to duck back into ion orchard for a walk-around.

though it was crowded indoors as well, the crowd was better than outside. i knew ion orchard was big, but i didn't realize just how big "big" was. granted, it was only my second time inside, so i may not have got a good sense of scale the first time round. anyway, i've come to a conclusion: out of all the stores in the mall, i'd probably only be willing (and rich enough) to shop at 20% of them at most. some of the more interesting stores i saw were the bookstore, various eateries, and this particular store that sold oils, vinegars, and alcohol. apparently you can mix and match to make your own blend of one of the three things above. sounds interesting.

another place i stopped at for quite a while was the bookstore. think it's called prologue...or something that starts with a P anyway. spent a bit of time browsing. saw the boogie board again. you know, the paper-replacement i blogged about approximately half a year ago? was tempted to buy it, but didn't because (1) it's expensive (about $40 if memory serves) and (2) it's a bit small. if i'm going to use a paper replacement, i'd like something that's actually A4-sized.

after that, i came back to bishan, and remembered that i had to stock up on sweets for lab. to my disappointment, NTUC (both branches) and shop n save both didn't have the fox mints any more. all they had was the assorted fruit version, which i'm not that inclined towards. seeing as that was the case, i bought blackcurrant hacks and gobstoppers. would have bought something minty, but all the minty stuff was chewy, and i was looking for hard sweets (they last longer). though i did get black mint mentos, just to try them out. they're quite powerful, actually. i like.

if you remember, i was supposed to go to east coast today. well...that didn't work out, because i took an afternoon/early evening nap, which threw the schedule off. so, that's now set for friday, saturday or sunday, depending on whether my professor wants to meet for presentation rehearsal. at any rate, it'll have to be done before monday. meanwhile, lab tomorrow. really MUST go a bit earlier. NMR's at 4:00pm, and i need to finish my reaction and prepare my samples by then.

-random thought of the day: Still not feeling it.-

So far, this week has been pretty routine...with today being an exception. we had a research group lunch at straits kitchen, located in the grand hyatt. don't know what the occasion is...probably an end-of-year thing. anyway, the lunch was buffet-style, featuring local dishes. it was good, but not very extraordinary. in fact, i dare say i've had better at hawker centres. but well, i guess part of the attraction is finding such diversity under one roof. other than that, i can't really see why people would go out of their way to eat there.

maybe it was because of the lunch, but there was a general atmosphere of lethargy in the lab after we got back. a few of the seniors left earlier than normal, too. lucky that i didn't schedule any complicated lab work or difficult experiment today...just a very simple column and product collection. if all goes well, the product that i'm hoping to get will mean that my reaction works for another class of compound.

my sleep cycle has been pretty messed up recently. like, i can't feel awake until around 11+am. and that results in me going to school at around 1:00pm on average. i'm attributing it to holiday mood for now, but i hope it clears up when school starts.

which reminds me. i think i'm suffering from something called "schedule karma". see, for years 1 to 3, i don't recall having issues with module clashes or the like. then again, it could also have been because i could switch my electives around pretty easily. now that i'm set on taking japanese in year 4, i faced timetable issues for last semester, and will be facing them again for the upcoming semester. admittedly, last semester's resolution worked out for the best, as i would probably have died if i'd taken coordination. this semester...i don't know.i'm looking at 2 possible outcomes. (1) take organic synthesis, with permission to skip japanese lecture. (2) take bioinorganic, and go for japanese lectures. the reason it's such a big issue now as compared to last semester, is because the clashing module is organic synthesis. since i plan to go into that area of chemistry, it shouldn't make sense not to take the module, right? but at lease i'm taking asymmetric synthesis, which is more related to my professor (in fact, he's teaching the module). well, whatever happens happens.

-random thought of the day: Buy sweets for lab!-

Have you heard this song? i heard it for the first time yesterday while driving home from school, and i think it's the nicest new english song i've heard this year. more for the beat/tune though. the lyrics are just ok to me. quite surprised that it was by green day, of all bands. expected them to be more punk-ish. but still, nice music is nice music.

the last post was tuesday, which means i have roughly 5 days to catch you up on. sounds like a lot, but in truth, not much happened. on wednesday, i went to watch rurouni kenshin (the movie) at kallang leisure park. incidentally, i think filmgarde is using some pretty good economics here. despite having only 2 cinemas, they can still pull crowds by having movies that are screened only by them. this movie was one such "filmgarde exclusive". going to kallang leisure park and seeing the christmas decorations up already reminded me that christmas is coming. and unlike previous years, i haven't even bought christmas cards yet.

...but i digress. the movie itself was good! *SPOILER WARNING if you haven't seen the anime* basically, the movie took the first...10 or so episodes of the anime and compressed it into 2 hours. i understand there had to be some cuts to make the time fit, so i expected to not see some characters there. what i was mildly annoyed about is that they changed one character's fighting style, and missed out one of his important features (arm stripes). also, kenshin's hair is supposed to be red, not black. that aside, the fight scenes were well choreographed, and it was interesting to see kenshin use more empty-hand techniques during fights. watching the movie after having taken japanese 3 in NUS was fun, too. though i still need subtitles, i'm relying on them less. and there are certain things (like feelings or small nuances) that get lost in translation, and i think it adds to the experience to pick those unconveyed things up. i'm fairly convinced that the movie was shot on-scene in japan, because the background was too beautiful and natural to be a man-made set. makes me want to go to japan so much more! so annoying.

in the lab, i've done one new substrate...or at least, what i think is one new substrate. still have to NMR it to confirm its identity. so that's one substrate this week. still looking pretty on-schedule! though i'm kind of angry with myself for messing up one other reaction, especially since it was large-scale. but it's ok. i can run it again. should probably start spending a bit more time in lab. somehow, i'm feeling a bit worried.

yesterday was a really productive day! managed to column out my product (wasted about half due to overlap, though). should use even less polar solvent next time. that aside, i also went to plaza singapura to get 3 major errands done. (1) pay my phone bill, (2) buy a new iphone cable, and (3) buy some elastic string. not much to say about the first 2, but the last one could use some explaining. see, a few years back (when i was in J1 or 2, i think) i...took over a bracelet of magnetic beads from my dad. it's the kind that you can slip on, since the beads are held together by elastic string. last year or so, i noticed that the string had started to fray, so i rarely wore it. finally decided that i was going to fix it myself, so i went to spotlight to get the elastic string. luckily enough, i bought the last reel of clear string they had! well, i mean they had pink in stock as well, but no. the string was a little thin, and the guy at the store suggested that i double up the string to make it stronger. think i went overboard by using 5 rounds instead. took me about 5 hours to re-string the beads, mainly because i kept getting slack string and had to undo some of the threading to tighten it up. not to mention the beads are magnetic, so they kept sticking together in all the wrong conformations. made my eyes really tired, too. nevertheless, the job's done, and the only worry i have is that i may have strung them a little too tight, and i'm a little worried that the string may snap. well, if that's the case, i still have a lot of leftover string for re-stringing if need be.

speaking of bracelets, i have this odd...not obsession, more like urge, to buy nice-looking bracelets and rings. similar to notebooks (the paper ones, not computers). another common point is that i rarely use them after buying them. thankfully, i've got enough self-control to ignore those urges, though special occasions (like christmas) weakens it a bit. i think now's a good time to clarify...not those thin girly bracelets, something more like this:

so, i guess if a car's out of your budget for my christmas or birthday present, you now have some alternative gift ideas.

before this, the last time i'd been to plaza singapura was sometime last year, or earlier this year. at that time, i didn't notice that a new section was built off the second floor. was it done recently? or did i have another blind moment last time? anyway, i went to explore the area a bit (that's where i got my iphone cable, too). seems interesting. saw mostly dining places, though. think it's worth another visit sometime soon, when there are less people.

now that it's the holidays, i've had a bit more time on my hands. that's resulted in me reading more romance-y stuff again. to directly translate a chinese idiom, i really don't know how how to write the word "die". sucks, but i'll get over it. there is a slight positive, though. i rediscovered x-men: evolution, and found out that marvel has posted all the episodes on youtube!

next week is pretty routine. more lab work, another kata practice session (i missed today's scheduled session), and possibly meeting some CJC juniors. hopefully, i can get another substrate (or two) done, since i'm thinking of taking a bit of the following week off. after all, it IS christmas week.

-random thought of the day: Thinking of getting a (cheap) fountain pen for fun.-

*note: this was supposed to be posted yesterday, but my internet decided to die on me. so please forgive any inconsistencies in time references, especially since i'm adding on to the post now.*

December is usually a month of rest and relaxation for me. at least, that's how its been since i entered university. this december's a little different, because i'll be working in lab a fair bit. i've done some planning already. there are 5 weeks between now and progress report (which is on the first day of school next semester!). incidentally, i'm the first to present in the cohort. well...along with someone else, i think. there are 2 different presentation venues, so 2 students present at any given time. still can't believe i'm that...lucky to get first draw.

but i've had a real stroke of luck, though, in the form of my examiners. i've got my med chem lecturer, and another pretty nice (or so i'm told) professor. i find it quite interesting, because right now, my med chem lecturer is the person who has the most influence on my grades in NUS. he examined me for UROPS, i took his module, and now, he's examining me again for honours. that's a total of 6 modules (honours counts as 4)! not even my professor has this much control over my grades...unless i take his module next semester.

and speaking of module selection, it seems that i'm facing yet another scheduling crisis. my original plan of taking advanced organic synthesis and asymmetric synthesis for my cores, and japanese 4 as elective doesn't seem to be materializing. as far as i know, japanese lecture clashes with organic synthesis, and i think that the finals will be really close too. actually...a quick IVLE check just complicated things even further. next semester, it seems that japanese 4 will be taught by a teacher who hasn't received very good reviews from a friend who has been taught by him. but well...we'll see.

so, jumping back to lab stuff. i have about 5 weeks. if i make one type of compound per week, that's 5 more types of compound to talk about. it actually sounds doable, doesn't it? 5 days to make 1 compound. if everything goes well, one compound can actually be made in a day, and the next reaction can be tested in another day or 2. including various delays and unforeseen circumstances (such as reaction failure), that's about 3-4 days max for a type of compound. doesn't seem like much time, now that it's put this way. of course, i could try for 2 compounds in a day (using the same reaction). i just don't know. it's quite weird to be having this much problem in lab. after all, i'm just following the journal procedure. either my skill is not good enough, or the journal procedure is off. both are possible, by the way.

what kind of sucks even more is that my mentor has different priorities...as in, i think we should go in a certain direction, and he thinks differently. the mildly annoying thing is that i'm trying to follow my professor's instructions, because i can see the sense in what he says. however, my mentor doesn't seem to agree. while i like my mentor and all, i think he has one disadvantage...he doesn't know the NUS system well. considering that he's only into his second-year as a phd student, and not local, not to mention that i'm his first student. even though my professor isn't local too, he understands the system better because my year is the third or fourth cohort of honours students he's taken. the thing that scares me a little is that my mentor has a pretty laid-back attitude towards the whole honours thing. i suppose it's justified, since he has his own research as well. just hoping things come together somewhat decently by the end of the month.

having this much lab work should mean that i'm more or less tied to the lab, right? umm...not exactly. i made arrangements to catch rurouni kenshin (the movie!) tomorrow with one of my friends from japanese class. the movie is screened exclusively at filmgarde, which is a bit more expensive and out of the way. i normally wouldn't take time off to go watch a movie, especially with a heavy lab workload, but it's the holidays! and that was the first anime series i watched, so in a way, it introduced me to all things japanese. besides, i figure that i shouldn't feel too guilty, since i'm going in early tomorrow to make up for leaving early. my guilt will be further lessened if tomorrow's reactions go well.

i'm sure that i've missed a few things...but i really can't remember what i'd wanted to write about. oh well. it'll come back eventually. meanwhile, i suppose i should have an early night so that i wake up on time tomorrow.

-random thought of the day: Singnet sucks!-

Took a break from lab today to go attend the last SJI/CJC training session of the year. yes, i know i said i have lab work to catch up on. that's why i'm probably going back tomorrow as well (more on that later). but first, i want to blog about the training session. it was pretty routine, and surprisingly, today's senior showing was pretty good. after not doing "rough" judo for 6 months or so (the kata training doesn't count), i got a scrape on the back side of my right fourth finger. the skin really softens when you don't train often. it's that kind of annoying wound where just the top layer of skin gets scraped off, so it's not bleeding, but leaking plasma. still stings when run under water, which sucks.

anyway, there weren't that many people there, so i can't really get a good gauge of the overall standard. however, for the first time in my life, i felt a super strong surge of coaching instinct for one of the kids. i don't know how to describe the feeling...it's like a mad urge to train him one-on-one and build him up (though for various reasons, that's impossible). the thing is, he has great technique, is really fit, and just shows great potential overall. just imagine - he's already blue belt at sec 1! problem is, his mental and emotional aspects are somewhat lacking. not that he's stupid, but he doesn't handle setbacks well, and places unnecessary stress on himself. and those are some things i can help with! don't know why, but CJC coaches (past and present) don't seem to focus too much on mental training. the most they do is train the mind to push past fatigue, which i guess can be considered as a form of mental training, but just barely. i just think that good as he is now, he can be pushed much further. we're talking possible SEA games medal when he's 18 kind of good.

coach-athlete interaction isn't a one-way street. the other half of the partnership is the athlete himself. i can offer anything and everything at my disposal, but there's nothing i can't do without his commitment and consent. at this point, he seems to be rather reserved. people may not know this, but a ridiculously high level of trust is required between an athlete and their coach. i don't think that we're at that stage yet. not to mention he's a teenager, and who knows how puberty will mess with his mind. i don't know...something is yelling at me to make sure his potential develops, and i really want to do it too! chances like these don't come around very often. problem is, with school (for both of us) and whatnot, it's going to be difficult to fork out the required time. well...i've extended my hand already. i just hope he takes up my offer to some degree.

originally, i had to go to school tomorrow for group meeting, so i figured that i would check on my reactions afterwards. but my professor just emailed us earlier today to cancel group meeting. this leaves me in somewhat of a dilemma. i could not go to school tomorrow, and leave checking my reactions until monday. or i could go tomorrow, and set up new reactions (if the existing ones failed), and save some time on monday. what to do? or maybe i'll just go in late. that seems to be an acceptable compromise.

-random thought of the day: No accounting for human behaviour.-

Just one day after exams, and it's back to business in the lab. kind of sad that i don't have december to rest and recharge like normal. worse is, i can't exactly take it easy for lab work either, because my december has to be used to catch up for research.

organometallics was...interesting. the paper wasn't undoable, but at least for me, required a fair bit of thinking. i'm grateful that i managed to not leave any blanks, and i (for once,) don't regret anything i wrote down, even though i know i had mistakes. the reason is that given my knowledge and state of mind at that point in time, i answered the questions as best as i could. i actually think that this is the best core module exam i've sat for in my NUS life so far.

so, after the exam, we went to the italian place at u-town (the same one where i got drunk last semester) to celebrate. this time round, i performed slightly better, and wasn't completely wasted. guess those holiday drinking sessions helped somewhat. the pricing was reasonable...slightly more than $200 for a tower of beer, 8 (12-inch) pizzas, a soup, and a couple of other drinks. splitting by 7 people, that's close to $30 per person. it's mainly the alcoholic drinks, actually. as usual, we had fun relaxing and just forgetting about stressful stuff.

now that semester's ended, i've got a lot of cleaning up to do. putting the notes away, sorting through the accumulated mass of paper near my table, and various other home improvement projects. not forgetting the usual december routine of an east coast walk. this year, i'm thinking of not doing christmas cards any more. but, i still have about 2 weeks to finalize that decision. also, i'm thinking of rewarding myself with something...maybe a (few) steam game(s) like batman, or...i don't know. something that i would not normally buy, at any rate. well, we'll see.

-random thought of the day: Borrowed (but haven't read) a lot of comics.-

Studying in school on weekends is something i've done before. today, however, i've been having some trouble concentrating on my organometallics notes for the past couple of hours. my guess is that i have to get rid of some excess mental baggage before i can absorb stuff a little better.

let's see...at the forefront of my thoughts now is group meeting (where i presented). it's over, but it's given me a fair bit to think about. seems that my research progress is slow, to the point where my professor reminded me that time was limited. it's quite worrying, actually. with that, the chance of me applying for TA next semester has dropped to like...5%, unless december research goes super-smoothly. even then, i might not do it, since the ending weeks (or months) of a project are usually the busiest. that decision is still some time away, though. but something tells me that i shouldn't try.

another thing is that my research may take a different direction than originally planned. nothing wrong with that, but right now, i've suddenly got so many ideas about how to go about doing things, so much so that it's kind of distracting. well, i foresee a lot of lab time after next tuesday.

the japanese exam was...ok-ish. not really difficult, but not that easy at the same time. the main challenge for me was getting through 2 horribly long passages for reading comprehension. luckily most of the comprehension questions were multiple choice and true/false, with only one requiring some writing. i know i made one stupid error in another part of the paper, because i had no idea what it meant. the sentence went something like "what should i do if i want to _____ it into the shelf?" now that my friend explained the meaning of that sentence to me in english, it makes sense to me that the answer should be "return". not knowing this during the exam, i wrote something like "what should i do if i want to not want to look at it into the shelf?" well, it's just a one-mark loss (in addition to other mistakes, of course). with any luck, i'm looking at an A- or an A.

still feeling a little not-all-there. like there's something which i've forgotten about, or didn't do. maybe it's just me feeling guilty about lagging behind for research. the next (and last!) exam's in 3 days (almost exactly 72 hours away, actually), and i know that i should focus on studying. on the other hand, the notes are quite self-explanatory. and yet, i know that the professor will twist something somehow, or test something really obscure, like common names for certain complexes.

well...i think that's enough of a break for now. hopefully, i'll be able to concentrate a little better after this. or maybe i'll give myself a couple of songs' more time before trying to dive in once again.

-random thought of the day: Library books are due next week, not this week.-