Regret is when you don't do anything about your regrets

We have our regrets, but as long as we are alive. Regrets are transient. There is never a too-late for anything, even when time is running out. 

Just don't give up...

Biology is akin to History, but worst...

Thought you hated History? What's with events and sequence of events and the numbering in years etc.? Drives you crazy, no? 

Biology is worst. If you are into genes and its function in signaling pathways, you will need to pull your hair. Let me explain.. 

In history, a historical person such as Napoleon is none other than Napoleon. In Biology, a gene can have shitty lot of aliases and these names were amended several times in history. Try searching in the archive for a gene and it will kill you prematurely because you will "vomit blood" (due to extreme trauma to the heart). Also, you have Napoleon 1, 2, 3, 4 and a hell lot more that is involved in different aspect of event. They are cousins that are expressed in different spatiotemporal fashion and they might co-mingle at a niche. Confused?

It doesn't end. A gene in an event interacts with other genes, and each of the latter genes has its own aliases, cousins, twins etc.. Worst, each of the above genes has a function (or functional classification) and these too are historically amended. Imagine calling Napoleon as a Commander (analogy to function) in a period and then calling him again as Napoleon the "killer". In Biology, you also cluster genes together and then de-cluster them or overhaul the entire classification. The list is so long....

The ultimate worst scenario of all is that, there are gazillion historians (biologists) writing accounts of their studies. Your head will explode going through all these accounts, or venturing into unfamiliar territory...

Bioinformatics helped, but not enough. Google helped but not good enough. That's because gene acronyms sometimes clashes and bring hell to the reader. 

So, Biology is fun if you are into history and have the knack and liking in decoding...

Feeling nauseated while writing thesis

Symptoms include hair pulling, cursing, jumping up and down for no apparent reason, palpitation, increased myopia, rocketing astigmatism, migraine and the associated paracetamol addiction, sleeplessness, cold sweat, head banging rage, severe denial syndrome, panic attack, extremely claustrophobic (after being cooped up and fixated in front of computer), giddiness, obese (such irony, the more you are stressed, the faster you gain fat especial when food is not a problem), uncontrolled deterioration of body odor (shower can't help, it's the hormone), bad breath (that can kill vermin), susceptible to procrastination, bored, hungry, and etc.

Prognosis is not good... 

The only treatment is to get over with it before permanent head damage progresses to being a veggie..

Oh heaven, please have some mercy...

Don't pent up negative energy from lab..

And blow it up on loved ones at home (who are clueless and innocent).

Show of hand, how many are guilty?

I am.

Just because they love you don't give you the right to misuse their love to vent out your frustrations and all other negative energy onto them...

You should (or I should) be giving it directly to the person who are making you feel down in the office (or lab)... except to your boss of course (unless you have found a new job)...

Give it straight to the person making you feeling down by telling him/her off. Give a piece of your mind rather than swallow it hard and blow up later. Don't be the implosive type.

You can be nice but firm in your stand and protect yourself from being led downward. Say "no" more often and mean it when you say "yes".

Good luck..

There is a reason for not labeling properly in the lab

The first time I encountered such example would be in the common cold room. A stretch of LB antibiotic plates were placed nicely on a rack. At the bottom pasted a note reading, "use at your own risk, plates not labeled as it was meant to".

I scratched my head seeking for a reason. It never took long to figure out that the note was meant for other "unauthorized" users. It is also very likely that this person had been victim of pilfer for a long time and it reached the threshold of being calm to irritation for him/her.

Rule: "Use and let use" means to replace what you took from others and don't be a parasite.

I have adopted this approach (mislabel or unlabel) not long after. That started when I realized that the solutions I prepared not long ago were pilfered and I was left with insufficient amount at the most crucial time of the experiment. It is upsetting, no?

When someone says give me 5 mins, it means

they will need a minimum of 5 mins of your time.

It would be impolite to start a timer to count down a five; and it would be impractical for the person asking (seeking) for the time to start timing you (because it would be disadvantageous to the seeker).

If you are busy, politely say no. No time for now.

If you are the seeker, be polite as not to place a number on the time you are asking the person. Five min? Who are you kidding, because most of the time, it is more than 5 min of that person's time?

I would take you seriously if you start your timer and say, "now, may i ask 5 min of your time?" That is practical but still inappropriate because the person you are asking will feel bad about it.

Ever get irked by telemarketers asking for 5 min of your time? They always waste 2 mins before getting to the point, e.g. insurance, stock, investment, marketing, etc...

Last, a polite way to ask for someone's time would be, "are you free to talk?", if yes, then go right to the point especially if you notice that the "yes" was given out of courtesy.

Courtesy of switching off others timer

Often time, in the lab, you will hear timer going off while the person setting the time is no where to be seen. Most colleagues will leave the timer sounding for exactly a min before the timer stops and resume count up (showing elapsed time).

If you are the unique group of people who can't stand the sound of beeps in the lab or anywhere, chances are you will go over to the bench and switch the timer off for that someone. The latter group of people, can be responsible or just not. The responsible ones will remind that someone about the time-up, while the irresponsible ones will pretend ignorance and wait for the someone to figure out.

Now, a common courtesy if you need to switch off someone's timed-up timer:

1. Switch off and start count up. The latter action is to remind the someone the elapsed time since time-up.
2. Remind the person if you see them about the time-up. 

See, that isn't to difficult to do, right? If you can't stand the beeping sound, do the right thing when you switch off someone's timer next time.

Wringing the (Scotch Brite pads, aka sponge, white-coloured thingy) will result...

in damaged Scotch Brite pads. An example would be as shown in the figure (pad on left is flimsy compared to the right one)...
In order to dry them, please don't wring them dry. Just "fan" them dry (like fanning, but more rigorous). The centripetal force will remove most of the water.

Improper microscope usage increases myopia

I have almost 20-20 vision. Not anymore.

The regular usage of microscope increased my chance to acquire myopia/astigmatism/etc.

Few things to keep in mind when using microscope, if you need to slow down getting myopia.

1. Make sure light intensity is not too bright. The last user could have tweaked the intensity to max.
2. Adjust the ocular lens (in binocular microscope) so that both your eyes are comfortable. Previous user could have adjusted the focus of one of the ocular lens to fit his/her left or right eye. If that happens, you will strain one of your eyes (from the differing focal point of these ocular lenses) due to long usage.
3. Try to avoid looking at laser or excitation light too often. Open lasers are risky as it can severely damage your retina. Don't wear jewellery that can diffract the laser (e.g. diamond ring).
4. Try to rest in between work by looking out the window and focus on distant objects.

New Year Resolution in 2013

Finish my PhD dissertation and submission by July.

Plagiarism solution

Plagiarism is nasty. It cheats, but it's also becoming unavoidable too if we don't invent new words (vocabulary) to fill in the "deficit". Judging from the rate of depleting alternative words and used-up paraphrasing, we are now at very dangerous threshold of being picked up by ever efficient anti-plagiarizing software as suspected plagiarist.

Access denied can go home

My institute has all the places locked and in order to gain access to the building, I am required to constantly tap my RFID card (or identification card). It is cool to be working in this place because it gives a sense of exclusivity. It is also safe, I guess.

At times, I wished that the whole place wouldn't be locked.

For example, it is so inconvenient to move from one floor level to the next because I would need to tap on the card reader for at least three different occasions in order to reach my destination. It is still okay if I am traveling light, but imagine me carrying a tray of stuff with both hands not free.

Today, I forgot to bring my access card to work. Got trapped outside while waiting for help. At times like this, I just wish I can go home.

Fortunately, there are several places that are free from being locked, e.g. toilet, library and canteen. In addition, the vending machines with food and drink are not locked.

P.s. I have been to EMBL Heidelberg and I almost went crazy over sight of installed card reader on the vending machines there. There was no coin slot for purchase and I can only scream at the oversight of having to exclude visitors like me who are on the verge of hunger and unable to purchase the food and drink displayed there. I felt so left out. Fortunately, kind souls there helped me pay for the food and drink by using their cards.

Not all hog mentality are bad

It would be unfair to categorize all hogs (or hog mentality) as bad or obnoxious. Some hogging is required for survival in some lab. I guess all of us are susceptible to adopting this useful skill sometimes.

I can think of several reasons we transform to hogs. They are as follow:

1. After having prepared all solutions, stocks, plates, slides etc. and when the time comes to use them, you find out someone had used them and didn't have the common sense to replace these for you.
2. Sharing is not a problem to you until someone carelessly contaminated your buffers, stock reagents, enzymes, antibodies etc. by not aliquoting (with filtered tip). Worst, they might forget to place these reagents back to proper temperature.
3. You assumed that it is safe to place your instruments, pipettes, slides, etc. out in the open until you find out one morning that they are untraceable.
4. The concept of borrowing to some people is akin to taking without return and you find yourself reluctant to lend.
5. It is disheartening to find your work place have been messed up by someone who used your bench without permission. The junk and spillage disgusted you. You started pasting all these notes reminding people to keep clear of your area.

I believe there are plenty of reasons for a decent person to resort to adopting a hog mentality. It's not at all difficult to distinguish real hogs to "semi-hogs". Semi-hogs tend to form an equilibrium between hog vs non-hog, whereas real hogs go all the way to being a hog :)

In some occasions, real hogs do transform into a decent person, but infrequently.

Squirrel mentality in the lab

I'm guilty of this as well, i.e. having squirrel mentality (or could be worst, a hog). A squirrel, during impending winter, will store nuts and whatever food it can find in many places (crevices and underground) in the hope that all these will be of use during winter. In reality, having able to find half of the stored food when-need-be would be amazing...

As for me (and probably some of you), I would keep all samples, DNAs, RNAs, plasmids, proteins, lysates, slides, cell pellets, bacterial plates, solutions, media, etc for a long time with the hope that I will have better use of them in the future. But in reality, most of the stored stuff in the fridge and freezer ends up as "junks". For having kept them for so long now that it would be impossible to keep tab of what they are or were-meant-for; and losing them wouldn't affect a thing...

In order to prevent this from happening, I think the best way would be to keep what is needed and throw them once they are useless.Never ever procrastinate and never keep works for future because chances are, they will end up as junk.

Well, a squirrel is still better than hogs. Being a hog is obnoxious, and they impede the flow of productivity in the lab. A hog will waste, buy things in abundant (or redundant) and waste them afterwards when these things are expired. Hogs like to hide stuff, move them unannounced, work at wee hours to avoid detection. Hogs are dirty, they don't tidy their work benches (and others'), and they leave junks for others to clean. Hogs don't help prepare common buffers or solutions once they finished using etc... In other words, hogs are nasty. Never end up as one if you need friends and help....

Anyway, my problem is not of a hog, but a squirrel. With this entry, I hope I will be able to organize, clean and manage my stuff efficiently.