Just another blog?

Note: Am experimenting on a blog entry variety that assumes everyone who reads knows everything I know - will be fun to see how much people understand.

1) NUS Blood Donation

Had joined my colleagues to participate in a blood donation drive in NUS, partly because it was time since I last did it anyway and partly because it was a nice opportunity to cut a few hours from work (the rigours of which is part II of this blog entry).

NUS - have been there many times. First when my bro was a student. That was when I made up my mind that I was coming to Singapore to study come what may. Many more times since I came to Singapore, albeit a NTU student already.

Today it struck me how I felt so bad that I dint study there. Especially since the reasons why I chose the other university were completely applicable in NUS. Especially since the reason I rejected NUS was because they had not offered me the scholarship before NTU's 'we need you badly' offer. Especially since it looked a place far more representative of those aspects of Singapore that I prefer - far more liberal people, better aesthetics, access to city, and a good bioengineering school!

I started taking comfort from the fact that PGP needed a paint and the toilets were not as clean as NTU's - in fact as Jagdish said, 'NTU's toilets are clean to a fault, the cleanest in the world'. Will rigorously try for the Singapore exchange program in my final year. That way I would have seen both unis and that would remove all the uneasiness in my mind.

BTW the blood donation went well!

2) Chemistry

My IA work is now hitting hard - here I am in charge of experiments to be designed and done as I please. The lab is a nice place but it is kinda overwhelming when I have to deal with both glass jars and bench solutions on one hand and 'High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (SEC) coupled with Static Light Scattering, UV Spectrometer and RI detector (with computer softwares)' on the other hand.

At one point I needed to make a simple buffer solution of Citric Acid and Sodium Citrate (pH 5.5). Only to find out that I dint remember the equations not that they helped when I got them. Citric Acid is a multi-protic acid with all three pKa values close by. No clear points of inflexion and no way to blindly use Henderson-Hasselbach equation.

Now thats the kind of challenge that Vikram Balasubramanian, International Chem Olympiad Silver Medalist would have loved and cracked. Instead, I meekly inserted a pH meter once in a while and kept adding NaOH till I got to 5.5 (5.52 actually). At one point I actually choked when I heard the word 'equivalence point' - I got nostalgic about those days when words like this were my staple diet, and scared about now where I cant figure out how to deal with them.

Academia is a hard world - especially there is no coming back if you left its shores once.

3) Other such things

Had a horrible debating session yesterday. I almost wanted to cry and give up - surprising self-realisation that I gave a shit about how good I was at this thing.

After three years of this shit, I still dont know how to structure a speech, pick a clear coherent winning stance. Especially when it was supposed to be a 'Juniors' vs 'Seniors' debate. The Juniors got rave reviews for an 'awesome case' and 'great speeches'. Sushil even managed to see strategy in what they said - good for them!

But, he squarely put the blame on me. He said I screwed up! Amber's average speech was seen now in the light of having to repair the self-destruct effects of my speech. My reply - was flatly rejected as 'new-matter reply'. Amber was even credited for making fun of my bad speech as damage control (he says he did no such thing and I know that).

The sad thing is most of what was said about my speeches was true - and I felt quite good when I actually gave them. Scary! Talk about hoping to win an international tournament in the next few months!!