sheesh seems that no one was interested in the postcard i offered for grabs.. mebbe the 5 pounds was more important (and valuable) than the puny postcard i could afford =(

anw, just to recap:

qn: why was amino acids in proteins predominantly in the L-form rather than the D-form?
ans: no one knows why - it's most probably due to chance, and nothing else..

everyone puked blood in the lt when the prof told us the answer..

yay so happy today =)

precaution: if you can't stand people trumpeting themselves online, please don't read on

i had a e & b (evolution and behaviour) supervision today.. our supervisor then gave us back our essays.. den when she was giving us back our essays, she was like telling us "oh, most of you got As and Bs, those who get B was because they didn't include enough examples, but it doesn't really matter cos it's your first essay".. so i flipped to the end of my essay..

and saw that i got an A+ =PpPPP

never ever in history i got an A+ in something remotely related to bio.. espec in hc: except for bun, no one could touch A without moderation.. so i was quite pleased with myself, especially when all along i thought i was struggling in this subject.. apparently she liked the way i was laming around the essay (btw, the essay was on the conditions necessary for natural selection to proceed).. she wrote "i really like your fun writing style and your use of examples is superb. i am very impressed!" =)

yay that really gives a huge confidence booster to me.. my second essay was pretty lame too, so hopefully she'll be tickled by it again and give me an A* this time round =P

ans: 有钱能使鬼推磨 =)

i've been wanting to blog abt this since this certain prof started to lecture us last week.. but i was either blogging sth abt food or spending time cooking so that i can blog abt it =)

anw anw this prof declared on his first lecture that he will reward any person who can correctly answer his questions, and boy did he get a marked increase in responses as compared to the prof who lectured us previously.. every time this prof asked a questions, hands would shoot up into the sky, straining to the extent of being able to scrape the cobwebs on the ceiling of the LT.. every time the prof strides to the projector, the sound of metal tinkling in his pockets is loud enough to wake any lethargic student.. i'm so envious of him - i should have employed the same methods during my teaching stint, but too bad i'm too giam siap to carry it out =P

the highest offer (of 5 pounds) was made for this question: why is the amino acids in proteins almost always in the L form rather in the D form? (note: for those who took A-lev bio, L = laevorotatory, D = dextrorotatory)

hands started to appear once he said the magical word - "5 pounds!".. everyone shared what they thought (this, i think, is fundamentally different from the classroom culture in sg/msia - people only speak up there to answer a question correctly or ask a question.. over here they don't give a hoot whether their crazy idea will get shot down or not) with hopes of getting the 5 pound reward..

i shall leave this as a cliffhanger =) those who can answer this: u're better than a bunch of camb undergrads squeezing their brains out to get that elusive 5 pounds =P any guesses? tag! =)

solo effort ok..

it's really much cheaper to cook my own dinners than to buy it outside.. for instance in this dinner of mine:
- rice: 10p
- onions + egg: 30p
- cabbage + carrot: 30p
- other condiments: 10p
total: 80p!!

usually a meal here would cost around 2 pounds.. if you want to have a nicer meal, prices can go up to about 8 pounds with tax included..

the only bad thing about cooking is the long time involved in preparing the dishes.. that took me 45 mins to cook and 4.5 mins to finish gobbling up everything..

bah.. i'm so sian-ded out of answering stupid spectroscopy questions.. suddenly finding blogging pretty therapeutic =)

i haven't been working enough for the past week! it's probably due to the fact that i had 4 black suit events in 5 days (which means eat + socializing till late night or wee hours in the morning), to the extent of returning back to my room at 1 am one night.. not surprisingly, all work was swept under the carpet..

i didn't do any work on sat cos i was feeling lethargic after playing frisbee for 2.5 hrs..

and sun morn i played basketball for 2 hrs.. and ate at bk uk (so paiseh.. i was wondering why they din give me any chilli sauce, and when i asked for it, i was told that each sauce packet cost 10p each.. -.-") so i only started doing homework at 2pm..

i originally planned to spend 2 hrs on maths (cos i thought it was easy) and blitz through the remaining homework.. but in the end i spent FOUR friggin hours painstakingly solving differential equations.. =( this explains the title of this post - i'm probably too obsessed with differential equations now..

i then rushed to a friend's place to eat dinner.. and when i came back it was already 10pm.. so i hurriedly opened up my chem tut and started answering questions.. but i just couldn't concentrate on what i was doing.. after 10 mins i'll surf some blog / eat something / blog (which is what i'm doing now).. argh i'm so bored by the spectroscopic questions.. can't someone write a powerful program that deduces the structure of any chemical present in the analysed sample, so frustrated and lousy chemists like me can be spared of the tedium of poring through the spectra and identifying peaks that look almost identical to each other..

but since no one has done it, i guess i have to return to my chem questions..

and i still have a evo and behaviour essay, and short questions for cells! diediediediedie... why did i choose to go to a uni that gives undergrads so much work?! =(

while i was chatting happily online while sipping on ribena, my com unexplicably went berserk - when i wanted to type something into msn, i realised that my ctrl key was sort of jammed (the ctrl key wasn't pressed down, nor was the key stuck), deduced from the fact that when i pressed "i" the "invite someone into this conversation" window popped up.. i panicked, and then following my instincts honed by the ever-crashing windows 98/me, i restarted my com..

and then, at the bios password screen (it's this small box asking you to type in your password before windows xp is booted), i realised that the computer couldn't recognise wad i was typing - the computer thought i was pressing ctrl + the alphabet i typed in - so i only heard bleeps everytime i pressed a key..

i got pretty scared at that time - i couldn't survive a day without a com =( .. so i spent 20 mins pondering wad went wrong.. den i realised that maybe the water on my hands (cos i was drinking ribena from a wet mug) dripped down under the ctrl key, and thus closing a circuit under my ctrl key, which made my com think i was pressing on it.. so i used my portable heater fan to blow at my keyboard, with the hopes of drying it.. i even went to the extent of plucking the ctrl key out from my keyboard so that the wind could reach the circuit board underneath the ctrl key..

thankfully it worked - i dunno whether my postulate was accurate or not - but i was super relieved when i saw my windows xp booting up..

hopefully this 2.5 year old com of mine can serve me well for the next two years at least.. don't ever die on me again! =P

ningky: who said i don't try out new stuff?

i had a 2hr class just now.. e pace of e classes was simply phenomenal.. we were taught how to greet people, ask for someone's nationality and age, family connections in TWO hours.. a bit overwhelmed now =S

e french way of pronunciation isn't helping things either - it's so complicated! plus all e nasal sounds.. think i'll induce myself to get a cold in order to pronounce e words better =) good thing was that we were taught by a native french speaker who speaks flawless english, and she was a very nice person too..

salut! je m'appelle mrliew =) (translation: hie, my name is mrliew)

but my fantastic afternoon was ruined by getting pulled over by a policeman - i was blitzing down st john street when a policeman in a police car told me to stop, and ticked me off for cycling the wrong way down a one-way street..

cop: it's bcos of you people that things happen!
me: *looking quite stunned* sorry sorry..

when e police car left i saw pple whizzing on bikes in e wrong direction down st johns street oso.. tamade why was i picked on?

i stopped last week saying that i couldn't get my bike fixed bcos all of the shops were filled to the brim w broken bikes.. so the bike of mine was left in the open for three days - it's not a bad thing since it rained, and now the bike is less dusty =)

so on tue i wheeled in my bike at 830 in e morn.. thank goodness they accepted bike repairs at that time, and so i was "briefed" about the appalling condition of my bike.. apparently i didn't notice that the back wheel was punctured.. and when he checked the bike chain, he told me that the chain was not just worn out, but "past being worn out", and in danger of snapping any moment.. and he asked whether he should fit a bike seat and post (e adjustable metal thingy to control the height of ur seat) cos my bike din have one.. i declined it cos it costed $$ and i noe of an alternative source for it =P

my wallet haemorrhaged: 8.50 for the tyre, and 36 for the chain *pukes blood* but i take comfort in learning that the cheapest new bike one can find here is abt 60 pounds, so at least i saved 10+ pounds.. so in fact the title of the post is pretty misleading - there is no such thing as a free bike!

after getting it repaired yest, my mission today was to kope a bike post.. so i had to sneak into -bleep- college and get one from a disused bike.. i dun kope seats from functional bikes ok.. i still have my oriental values intact in me =D and in conclusion: mission accomplished =)

i've registered my bike w my college marshal alr.. so at least i can track e bike down in case it's stolen.. but i'm wondering who'll be that stupid to kope a dirty blue bike w three bike markings along e frame.. dangerous thing is that i'm using a combination lock so anyone will have a 1/10000 chance of guessing it.. hopefully they dun strike lottery or sth =D

yayness now i can blitz through camb and reach far-flung places to play bball and badminton! or "participate" in more cookouts and be a freeloader in most cases =PpP

it's kind of interesting seeing how e pple here when react when i say the hottest it can get here is about the same temperature as the coldest it can get back home =) i got quite a number of incredulous looks from them - they'll probably melt at that kind of temperature =p

similarly, i'm freezing at this temperature - for e past few days, if one wakes up early (which i rarely do btw), one can see mist blanketing the entire city.. i woke up at 8am on a sunday morning (horrible experience bah) to play basketball at 9.. i had to walk to the indoor basketball court, which was like 30 mins walk away fr my place.. but on e way i finally got to experience the feeling of being enveloped in a blanket of mist.. especially when i was walking across a field roughly the size of six football fields - e mist got so thick to e extent that i couldn't see e sides of e field when i was at e centre of it.. i had to use my sense of direction (thankfully it was functional that day) to find the basketball court..

and for e past few days i could see mist forming under my breath, especially in e morn.. guess e weather's getting colder nowadays..

air-con has a different meaning to me now: it's a warmer place for me to thaw out =)

proof that it's super cold (for my standards) over here =)
http://weather.yahoo.com/forecast/UKXX0028_c.html?force_units=1

i'm still trying to decieve myself by substituting the "pound" sign in front of all prices over here with a "ringgit" sign.. the cheapest meal i can find over here wld cost abt 1.50 pounds (which is unfortunately not very filling) - in malaysia, i'll stuff myself to death w 1.50 x 7 = RM10.50 to spend.. sigh i guess if i were to convert everything back to RM, i'll starve to death within 3 days.. wait.. maybe 30 days, since that spare tyre of mine refuse to subside even after repeated episodes of having a growling stomach in lects / labs / my room.. =(

and it doesn't help matters when textbooks are pretty ex over here.. there is this book on cells that i covet costing abt 32 pounds =( to get arnd e problem, i peel my eyes for cheap textbooks.. so i spent 20 pounds buying a second-hand chem textbook (not cells.. no one seems to be willing to part w it) today.. i better do well for chem, else i can think of one book to burn / throw into river cam at e end of e year =)

being cheapskate, i found it pretty hard to force myself to dig 100 pounds for a bike over here (i have seen a bike advertised for 1799 pounds.. maybe the shaft is made out of diamond or sth.. i found it pretty amazing that the display window of the shop is intact too) so when i heard abt the existence of free bikes from -bleep- college (explained later), i wasted no time in enquiring abt e bikes..

me: hie.. i've heard there was a shed containing disused bikes.. can i get a bike from it?
porter: (in brit accent, 50% intelligible only) sure! go and have a look at the bikes, then tell me which one that you want, and i'll get it for you.. (e bikes are locked by a big chain, and the porter has the key to it)
me: ok.. but i have to confess, i'm not from this college, i'm from magdalene..
porter: well.. i'd much prefer to give the bikes to someone from -bleep- college..
me: oh but i'm an international student and i'm rather short on cash now.. could you please let me get a bike?
porter: hmm.. okay, but don't tell anyone else about it..
me: (congratulating myself inwardly) thanks.. but can i get it from you tomorrow? cos i have a class now..
porter: sure, no prob..

so today, after my cells lect, i went down to -bleep- college again..

me: hie, i'd like to get a bike blah blah..
porter 2: um, u have to wait for -bleep- (the porter i met yest) to come back around noon, he's in charge of it..

so after lagging arnd and waiting for time to pass..

me: hie, is -bleep- back?
porter 2: oh yes, he's on the phone..
(porter 2 then mutters to -bleep- after his phone call, then -bleep- emerges with a bunch of keys..)

after picking and choosing (i must add that the porter was very nice, he gave me his opinions on which bikes were ok and which ones weren't), i chose a bike with a sturdy frame and intact tyres.. BUT the drawback was that there wasn't a saddle there, and the chain was quite screwy - e pedals couldn't turn well, but at least i could wheel it to a bike repair shop, so that was precisely what i did..

i wheeled it first to shop A (which is near -bleep- college), den i saw a sign on it that says that they were out for lunch from 12:15 to 1:15.. when i reached there it was like around 12:20, so i decided i'll just wheel e bike to a bike shop near my college.. so that it'll be easier for me to collect it..

when i reached that shop, which took me about 20 mins of walking, to my horror, there was a sign saying that they don't take anymore bike repairs due to their busy schedule! i was like.. wth!? i pleaded with them, to no avail =( i was directed to go to shop C, so i had to walk again.. the bike made funny noises when it was wheeled around, so i got a number of stares from those walking beside me.. especially when there wasn't a saddle on it - i think i just narrowly escaped being reported to the police on the suspicion of stealing a bike.. i had to marshall all my powers to make my face thicker.. =S

after walking for like 20 mins, i was told that the bike shop weren't taking any more bike repairs for the day, and told me to come back next week.. by this time if not for a herculean effort on my part i would have spouted enough swear words to fill an entire dictionary.. so feeling like an idiot i wheeled my bike back to shop A, which was (thankfully) near shop C.. i arrived before the shop reopened, so i had to wait outside for 10 mins, praying for a miracle to happen..

end result: STILL cannot get it fixed, cos they were super busy this week! i was told to come back on monday, so i had to buy a lock to lock my bike up, and then i left it outside the shop bcos e shop was pretty far from my college.. argh it's so frustrating!! i've wasted 2 hrs doing nothing but wheeling a bike fr place A to B to C..

@#$!%^@*!@&!^!!! *swears* *curses*

after almost a week of lessons, i think i've realised roughly wad uni education is, in relation to o-levels and a-levels..

at a-levels, the syllabus is designed to disprove quite a number of o-level stuff.. for instance i was taught that the structure of the atom wasn't the planetary model (ie electrons circling the nucleus like planets around the sun) i was familiar with during my o-level days.. at a-level it became "electron cloud", "probabilistic model" etc (all explanations tend to end with "due to quantum mechanical calculations" and there wasn't a way to argue with that.. so irritating)..

just a few hours ago, i've learned that the peppered moth story wasn't as straightforward as what i've learned at a-levels.. it may seem a bit blasphemic to a-level students, but industrial melanism doesn't happen because the moths spend time lazing on trunks in order to test out their camouflage systems! in fact, they don't rest on tree trunks - they rest under branches in order to not look delicious..

so uni education = disproving wad i've learned at a-level, then cram myself again with bits of info.. and, in the process, try to get enough rest and leisure in between lessons..

i always thought that it was a sport played more often by orientals, but i found out i was horribly wrong today..

i went to the varsity badminton trials.. was in a place so ulu that i had to take a bus (2.70 pounds, including return).. reached there, warmed up, and saw that there were a lot of ppl attending the trials.. the majority wasn't asians, but ang mors..

the trials lasted abt 2 hrs, but i've been made painfully aware of 1. my inadequacy after the 1 yr hiatus in badminton and 2. there are tons of ppl who can thrash me flat even without using their rackets.. so simply said, i wasn't good enough for the varsity team T.T went back feeling kinda deflated =(

anw this means i have more time to indulge in different things (hopefully) and that i can save on the numerous 2.70s i need to fork out every week to reach that place.. a comforting thought indeed..

today was super tiring.. i left my room at 8:35am and finally reached back at 12:10am..

day started with 3 lectures.. the horrible thing is that the LTs are like spaced so widely from each other.. so i took 20 mins to walk to my first LT, another 20 to my second (i got lost =S) and 15 to my third.. and the lectures DO NOT have any free time in between, so we had to make a mad dash to the next LT.. but e lecturers knew abt this thing and kindly gave us 5 mins grace.. but since i lost my way finding the pretty ulu chem LT, i went in late, and had to sit at the side of the LT cos it was TOTALLY packed man.. i estimate there are around 600 pple in that LT - since when chem was this popular?!

den after the lectures i had my e and b (evolution and behavior) supervision (aka 1-to-2 or 1-to-3 tutorials).. i dunno why but in sg i've no trouble posing questions and answering questions.. but over here i have to make this conscious effort of filtering off my "lah"s and "then"s.. and then io felt even weird when my supervision partners were talking their heads off - e and b is a less-factual subject, so we discussed the central theories of natural selection and the counter-arguments against doubts raised by skeptics.. throughout it i remained pretty silent, relatively speaking.. and from the conversation, i can tell that they're really good.. they noe their stuff better than i do =S.. oh no i'm starting to get freaked out by the standard over here..

den after e and b supervision i had to rush for a meeting to arrange my supervision time for biology of cells..

only after it, i had the chance to gobble croissants down for lunch.. i saw bun, and den followed him to a fren's room.. after lagging there, i was off again for a computer practical (which is part of my quantitative biology course)..

after dinner at that fren's college, i was off to play bridge at another college, which is like 30 mins walk from my place.. the bridge thing started at 7:30pm and ended at 10:40pm..

den on e way back i was invited to chill out at a senior's room.. and so i trooped to his room and chilled till 12:00am..

and now i'm tired like #$%^& but still staving off sleep to write this.. cannot tahan already now.. *yawns*

went to this place called ballare yest (but alot pple here still call it cindies, which was e prev name of e place) to 开开眼界.. and i went there although i knew that i was not going to see many familiar faces around..

um i dun wan to discourage anyone from like going clubbing but for me it was not that exceptional - e loud music made my poor ears ring till like 12 hours after leaving the bar; e prices were not that cheap either.. there was a door charge, and you had to cough out some more for the delicious looking drinks behind the counter (nah i only drank a bottle of stella artois =p).. and lastly as i am a non-dancer, i felt kinda awkward wiggling and vibrating to the loud music.. to me, entertainment it is not, but to me i'm fine with like coming here once.. per year =)

and yes, bun's point abt oogling is especially correct in bars.. actually here you get to see more.. action =)

in a sentence: it was totally awesome man..

the matric dinner was held in the hall.. it was pretty harry potter-ish - tables stacked end-to-end and a row of chairs beside it.. as the dinner was held at night (duh), instead of switching on the lights, they lit up candles placed on wicks.. so cool.. the ambience was v v nice =) all of us were even wearing gowns, which blended with the traditional surroundings.. haha so cool..

den i had the luck of being surrounded by chiobus =) beside me was a 25 year old fellow (aka prof / soon-to-be-prof) who is so shen lor.. and she was v friendly to me.. she taught me a lot of stuff tonight, cos i kept asking the fine details abt e dinner.. for instance, i can differentiate champagne, wine and port; i learnt how to appreciate wine (cos she was from a fine dining club); learnt abt the motive of another course after dessert, called the savoury (it's to dampen the effects of drinking port, which is served simultaneously with coffee near e end of the dinner); and even had a translation of the grace said before and after dinner (before dinner: reply "amen", after dinner, reply "praise the lord (in latin)").. then by observational power, i've learnt how to use the multiple sets of utensils beside me; and learnt how to crush e potato cubes using a fork and a knife and eat it, instead of poking it individually.. haha fine dining, indeed..

i find it interesting that everyone here keeps on chatting non-stop during the course of the dinner - i admit i wasn't that noisy during the dinner, as i only chatted sparingly.. haha if it was in singapore or malaysia, i bet everyone wld be pretty quiet, espec when we dunno each other.. and e people here are really v friendly - they seem to be able to chat abt everything w me!

and to top all that, the matriculation dinner marks the start of my official student life here, as i've finally matriculated! =p

i've realised that my name is too big a mouthful for the people over here.. so i had to decide which part of my name i should lop off.. agonizing decision, but now i'm introducing myself by saying "call me 'jin'".. haiz..

and some of them think jin is "jim".. sigh i dunno should i intro myself as "eugene" but that sounds soo weird lah.. i'm a chinese for goodness sake.. not into giving oneself an english name for the sake of making my name easier to rmb.. haha call me stubborn but i refuse to be given an english name =)

so.. hie there! jin here =P

after the agonizing wait for my internet connection, i finally could register my computer on the network today.. yay broadband rocks.. i've been suffering too long under a dialup connection =)

anw a lot have happened since i have reached the uk.. i have seen mist forming under my breath, i have checked into my room (which is pretty ok for my 54-pound-per-week rent) , i have walked around in camb accosted by seniors, i have gone to pubs w angmors (i din talk much to them though.. dunno wad to say and wad they say), i have feigned understanding when conversing w angmors, i have walked around camb, i have cereals and milk for breakfast everyday, i have cooked a dinner with bun..

now i think i can understand how an angmor feels like studying in NUS.. they'll be complaining abt the hot weather and the national language of singapore (singlish).. over here i'm complaining abt e bitterly cold nights and the complete inability to comprehend english when long sentences of it are fully breathed out in one breath.. die man.. is it my ear or my brain that is not functioning?

it gets more and more busy these days.. will matriculate tomorrow - which includes the taking of the matriculation photo with students fully gowned.. then i'll be deciding which societies to join in the freshers' fair (and collect freebies from there =D).. and then lessons will start..

super tiring week.. better sleep early =)