Frühling

The smell of freshly mowed grass, a lingering sweetness in the air, mixed with the smoky scent of grilling meats on white-hot coals. Lovely flowers coming up everywhere, adding colour to the greenery.

It's nice to have sweet friends who'd buy you a magnum ice-cream when they know you're feeling lousy. The weather was lovely last Sat but after travelling down to town to pick up my bike, we found that it had a flat back tyre so the bike trip to the lake that I've been so looking forward to was once again postponed. I was so disappointed (here was where my ice-cream treat came in). Instead went for a short walk in the forest, sat amongst the flowers and read. Then my friend introduced me to Bärlauch (wild garlic, so amazing to know that there are leaves that smell like garlic!) growing abundantly in the forest. We picked a small bagful and made pesto with it (olive oil, walnuts, parmesan, lemon juice) which turned out wonderful!


The wild garlic (the green leaves)


The finished pesto, so green and pretty!

On Wed, a friend who had a small portable grill organised a bbq at the island in the middle of the Neckar river. It was so lovely!



Helped me feel better. Thanks everyone, for your encouragements!

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They say when you're at the bottom, there's no way but up. Waiting for that... But doesn't seem to be happening...

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Because sleep seems to be eluding me...

Lately I found myself wondering how life was before the advent of emails, blogs, online social networks, video streaming, forums, chat portals, wiki... you know, the worldwideweb. How did I keep in touch with friends and family? What did I do with my free time? How did I entertain myself?
Then I faintly recall writing snail mails, keeping a diary (hard-copy), hogging the house phone, watching tv, looking things up in dictionaries, enclycopedias... Ha, those were the days eh?

Today's Pentecost and a public holiday in Germany, a few friends and I had planned to cycle to a nearby lake today but because of the rainy weather in the morning, that had to be dropped. Then when the sun looked like it decided to show its face in the afternoon, we made another plan to go to the campfire site we were at in winter to do a bbq later in the evening but as April's weather goes (The saying in German goes: 'April, April – der macht was er will'), dark stormy clouds started gathering and it started pouring so that was cancelled too. :(

The feta cheese we prepared for the grill (1 with olives, some light green paprika, garlic, herbs, pepper, olive oil, the other with onions, small cubes of smoked bacon, herbs. Were yummy!) was baked in the oven along with some bread for dinner and we watched some slamdunk and 'Big bang theory' online.

I managed to study a little, napped, and lazed around for the most part (learnt how to make a pizza base; that's for tomorrow's dinner). It was nice doing nothing for a day. Even though I had really looked forward to going outside. Maybe Sat, the weather forcast looks promising. *crosses fingers*

But just now as I was browsing through Facebook and saw the lovely pictures some ex-colleagues posted, I felt so far away from my old friends and home. It seemed as if people moved on and I'd been running on a treadmill, on the same spot. And that when I go back everything will be different and people would have forgotten me. :( I question whether I would have been better off if I'd never left the old life back there?

Although I know I should not be whinging because I have been blessed with meeting really nice people here and other than being totally shitty at studying, other things have been quite enjoyable.

But I cant help missing the place which I call home and the people who make it home. :(

I should try to find zhou gong, have a longish day in school tomorrow. Gute nacht.

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Swinging

between days when I feel 'Hey, maybe I can do this!' to days when I sit in class and wonder 'What am I doing here?'

Sometime last week, I met a chinese lady, a post-doc working in one of the labs where one of our lectures is held. The labs there are just in the early stages of being set up so everything's not yet in place. After lecture last week, we happened to say hi and started chatting.

She enquired about the structure of our course (when do we do our Master thesis etc.) and mentioned that she's actually looking for a student to do some cloning. I asked with some trepidation whether her group does electrophysiology and to my dismay, she answered yes. But she quickly added that for the project she has in mind, the electrophysiology part is rather easy. I told her my background and honestly admitted to her that I do not particularly fancy electrophysiology, too much physics... See, the thing is, I am quite sure that electrophysiology is a path where I do not want to go down, especially after our Neurophysiology module last semester. I struggled through it and prayed hard for a pass and I'd scraped through, thank God! (So, even though for the most part, I don't know what I want to do but at least I know what I don't want to do.)

She proceeded to show me around the lab, they're working on 'Pain' and explained briefly the project she had in mind. Cloning a channel in a cell line, characterising it (i.e. electrophysiology measurements) and that would make for a lab rotation report or a Master thesis. She also said that if I was interested we could discuss things and could even continue the project into a PhD if I wish. She was really friendly and nice. The short talk with her brought my spirits up and I was rather excited by the prospect of tackling the project. And at that point, and over the day, I couldn't help thinking that maybe I could do this afterall.

I had a 5-min presentation just this Tuesday and I guess I did ok in it. Got a 1.7 (think it's on a scale of 5) for it. The teacher gives each of us an evaluation of how he scored us on the criteria he has at the end of each lecture. My scores for answering questions and making the topic relevant for our course were rather pathetic, 3 and 2/2.5 (I don't remember exactly). This was, once again a confirmation of how I suck at giving presentations (especially scientific ones). And in class, when I realise how easily my mind drifts away from the lectures while my classmates listen intently and ask deep, burning questions, gives me another indication of how badly suited to this I am.

Lately, one of the main things which brighten up my days is food. (Well, I guess it has been like this for a long time. hee. :p) More so when I try to make something for the first time and it turns out as I imagined it to be. And when it doesn't then I feel rather disappointed.

A little example. Last Sat at the supermarket, I picked up a packet of minced meat at half price and then thought of what to do with it. The 3 things which I know to make using minced meat are dumplings as my mum made them (the Singaporean kind, using the yellowish store-bought wrappers, not the Chinese jiaozi), chili con carne, and bolognese sauce. So this time I wanted to try making the jiaozi skin myself (before I had only helped to wrap them with my chinese friends and they made the dough). But I wanted to try something a bit different from the normal jiaozi, and over a chance meeting with my little boss that night, she mentioned that at the party they were at that evening, the host had made shui jian bao. So when I went home, I looked online for a recipe and decided to try it. I found a xiao long bao recipe and decided to tackle it. :) It looked a bit laborious but I wanted to see if I could do it.

I was not satisfied with the results on Sunday. I'd made the filling too wet and couldn't close the dumplings properly. I cooked them in the 'shui jian bao' (panfried then add water to steam) way. I didn't taste them cos' I wasn't feeling too well but my friend said they were good. Because I still had half of the meat left and some dough, I decided to try again the next day. And I was so happy because I improved on my mistakes and they turned out rather decent! :D I'll leave you with the pictures.


In the steamer


Ready to eat :)

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A Hat full of Sky

Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colours. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.

Joy is to fun what the deep sea is to a puddle. It's a feeling inside that can hardly be contained. It came out as laughter.

'I've come back!' she announced, to the hills. 'Better than I went!'

The only hat worth wearing was the one you made for yourself, not one you bought, not one you were given. Your own hat, for your own head. Your own future, not someone else's.

- Excerpt from 'A Hat full of Sky' by Terry Pratchett

Read this last Friday night after a tiny glass of red wine (at a casino party which I didn't stay very long at), warm under my quilt in bed just before drifting off into dreamland.

Those were some comforting words, especially after Thursday's incident. I hope when I return home, I could say, proudly, as the protagonist above; 'I've come back better than I went.' I would try as hard as I can to find out what I could possibly be good for in the time I have here. And it helped to have encouraging friends, thanks! I feel better. And last Saturday was a therapeutic one. A good breakfast with some girls from a student christian group, haircare tips from a hairdresser at the breakfast, receiving a 2nd-hand bicycle (from a classmate who found it abandoned), baking (black forest cake! :D) and learning German with a church friend... Little blessings that I am thankful for, that make the pressure of school and boring routines of work bearable.

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I had a presentation today. And it was like living out a nightmare. :(

All of last semester, I've just used the laptop from school for my presentations, with my prepared powerpoint presentation on my thumbdrive. Today it didn't work, because I didn't realise this time round, I'd used a 2007 version (from what a classmate sent me) instead of the usual 2003 on my laptop.

And there was no way of opening it on the all of the school computers or laptop. The online file converter site only sent the converted file to my email half an hour later. So I had to present this complicated paper (full of results and diagrams I don't really understand) from the pdf file of the paper. I don't remember all that I've written in my powerpoint and was a stuttering mess. I could barely hold in my tears when I realised I couldn't open the thing I've been working on for the past 4 days!

If I'd understood the paper fully, it wouldn't have been a problem, but I didn't.

At the end of it, something that I've always known but didn't really want to admit became that bit clearer. I don't have the passion for this line. I seriously don't care why the rubrospinal and raphespinal tracts regenerate after spinal cord injury but the corticospinal tracts don't. I don't have profound questions for the professors and finally I don't have the brains for it.
I like working with my hands but I don't want to be a lab assistant all my life. I love food and cooking, but am not good enough to step into the kitchen of a restaurant. I enjoy learning languages and might have a tiny knack for listening and then trying to imitate the sounds, but am not talented. I adore travelling but this can't earn me a living. Some friends might say I am good with people but what can I do with this 'skill'?

I don't know what else I can do... I feel lost, in this huge, shadowed forest that is the world. I want to make something out of my life. I am not contented with just going along and doing stuff robotically.
All I want to do now is lie on my bed and weep. :'( But because I am a big girl (and not a crybaby), I will instead go take a shower and go for my Deutsch Kurs.

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Erstes Mai Wochenende

Labour day was spent outside grilling and drinking (not me of cos', I had maybe 2 radlers, and most of it lemonade. hee). Food was yummy! (We literally were eating all the time...) Weather was perfect, sunny and warm. And my friend's place was simply lovely; in the countryside, with a spacious backyard, fruit trees, woody furniture (like a cottage). A dream house! Ahhh...

Today's a bit colder, rainy. After a late lunch of thai red curry (cooked by the host, with some of us being assistants, i.e. chopping up stuff with a fantastic Japanese knife!), we managed to take a short walk around the fields nearby. Then cooked beer chili together for dinner. Then during the remaining free time, some of us played card games, computer games, chess and I read. It's nice chilling out together in a beautiful house. :)

Tomorrow I plan to make pancakes for brunch for all of us cos' host has maple syrup in the house! Hope it'll be good. :D

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