Obesity

"You should improve your pipetting skills", said kak Adel (or Dr Adelina to be exact), after the result of my BCA assay came out just now.

Something was not quite right with the reading. Even with untrained eyes, the amount of loaded protein was inconsistent. I must admit the pipette was fooling around with me then. It spilled out a small amount of liquid when I tried to insert in carefully into well plates. In molecular biology, 1 ml error is big enough to render the whole experiment useless.

BCA is actually done to measure protein expression from cell . For this past month, I've been treating 3T3-L1 (fibroblast cell from mouse) with selected plant's extract in search of cure for obesity. But the much wanted compound still eludes me. Plus all the reading that I should indulge...it's rapidly taking a toll on me.

For me, the shortest route to combat obesity is very simple. And easy. No need to extract compounds from this or that plant. You eat less, you exercise more. Simple as that. But people are generally lazy. They don't want to exercise. They want to lose fat but with no exercise. They want to eat more food that could reduce their weight. Such an irony...eating more to weight less.

As for the pipetting skills, I'll strive to improve on that.

Time to go home.

Have Hope

So, what is my resolution for this new 2015 year?
It's quite simple.

I want to have hope.

That's all I want.

Throughout my life, I've experienced lots of things.
Lots of terrible, useless, passionate, crazy things.
All these have turned me towards a better and a worse man.

There will always be a bad apple in a bunch of good apples.
There will always be a good apple in a bunch of bad apples.

After all, we decide which apple to see,
and which apple to choose.

All this intriguing while,
I realized that most of us don't need a new car,
a new watch,
a new house,
or even a new life.

We all just need a new hope.
Hope is what drives us.
Hope is what makes us tick.

It provides us with direction,
and reason to stay living.

If we asked God to grant us strength in times of adversity,
do God instill us with strength inside our soul,
or do God provide us the opportunity to be strong?

The adversity itself is the platform for us to display our strength.
Our prayer has long been answered.

So don't despair if God still haven't heeded our prayer.
In all likelihood, our prayer has been answered.
In a way that is totally unimaginable to us before.

Never give up on our hope.

Trust me,
I am what I am today because of hope.

2015

A New Year, With a New Hope.

I will strive to be a far better person this year.

This is the year which will either make or break me.

Just hoping everything will turn out just as planned.

"Courage is not having the strength to go on. It is going on when you don't have the strength" - Theodore Roosevelt

Andai Kering Selat Melaka...

...baru dikau kan kulupa.

Itulah lebih kurang ayat perpisahan dari Ketua Pengarah tempat aku menabur bakti ni yang bakal bersara.

Aku tak berapa kenal Prof Habibah, tak pernah bercakap pun. Jumpa pun cuma dalam mesyuarat tertinggi ataupun seminar. Tapi dari cakap-cakap orang, ramai yang tak berapa berkenan dengan beliau.

Sebabnya? Sebab memang perangai orang-orang kita macam tu. Suka sangat untuk tak suka dengan orang lain. Tambah kalau orang lain tu ada kedudukan sikit. Mula la tak senang duduk. Rasa nak cakap buruk pasal orang tu membuak-buak tak dapat ditahan. Rasa berdosa kalau tak buat dosa mengata orang. Aku sendiri tak faham ayat apa aku tengah guna ni.

Semalam, aku keluar berpesta. Pesta Penang. Ada Amzar, Syafiq, Rin, Nora, Fasih. Kitorang makan kat satu kedai siam sebelah rumah Acheh dalam tapak pesta tu. Makcik-makcik siam yang jual nasi tu boleh pulak cakap siam masa berjual-beli. Aku tau sikit-sikit ayat siam sebab rumah aku memang dekat dengan sempadan. Nasib baik sedap jugak. Kalau tak, sia-sia aku keluar ayat-ayat siam aku yang haru-biru tu.

Masa makan tu, si Fasih tiba-tiba panggil aku "abang". Sipi-sipi lagi rasa nak tercekik tulang ayam siam yang aku tengah makan. Tapi aku sempat control cool. Dia saja je nak kenakan aku sebab selama ni dia yang paling tua. Tapi skang aku dah ambil-alih gelaran tu. Jangan wat macam tu lagi Fasih. Aku yang berkeperibadian konservatif ni rasa tak selesa. Aku memang suka gelabah tanpa sebab yang khusus. Tapi aku masih setia pada yang satu. Walaupun aku sendiri tak pasti siapa dia yang satu tu.

Pastu diorang pakat-pakat main bumper car. Aku dengan Fasih tunggu luar jadi pemerhati bebas. Lepas langgar sana sini lebih kurang, abis. Ntah hapa2 punya game. Membazir wang ringgit je. Amzar jadi penembak tepat plak lepas tu dalam area fun-fair...menang angry bird kecik. Pastu kitorang naik Ferris Wheel. Fasih rupanya takut tinggi...bila kat atas je dia terus tutup muka. Seronok aku tengok dia masa tu...sebab aku memang suka tengok orang tengah takut. Lepas pusing-pusing lebih kurang, kitorang turun.

Apa tujuan aku tulis entry yang takda arah tujuan dan motif ni?

Sebabnya, aku cuba revive balik cara penulisan aku yang dulu-dulu untuk entry ni. Aku tengah bereksperimentasi dengan variasi cara penulisan untuk hilangkan stress. Entry ni ditulis berdasarkan cara penulisan aku sepuluh tahun lepas berunsurkan situasi semasa. Rasanya aku dah berjaya. Maknanya aku masih lagi boleh jadi diri aku sepuluh tahun lepas, walaupun jangka masa tu dah lama. Tapi kali ni je. Lepas ni aku akan tulis guna gaya semasa. Tu pun kalau aku ada masa nak menulis.

Kesimpulannya?

Aku yang dulu masih ada dalam diri aku yang sekarang. Ada sesetengah benda yang berubah. Tapi ada sesetengah benda, takkan pernah berubah.

Meminjam kata-kata terakhir Ketua Pengarah (tanpa izin, dan dengan editan)

Buah jering buah petola,

Buah terap buah getah,

Biar kering selat Melaka,

Aku tetap takkan berubah.

Sekian.

Keep the Faith

Eizan just posted a nice picture of our boss (Dr Zaf) through our department's secret WhatsApp group.

It makes me remember something.

The first time I saw her was on the telly. Astro Awani was covering a seminar in PWTC entitled "Bangsa Melayu Induknya di Sini". She was among the speakers for the event. I remember watching her confidently addressing a crowd of reporters with her scientific claim that Malays are the original inhabitants of this Nusantara region. It was a direct and specific claim, backed by DNA evidence.

For a large part of my life, I've been debating (mostly online) that Malays are the original occupiers of this blessed Tanah Melayu. But for reasons that were politically motivated rather than common sense, a sizable segments of non-Malays were harping (and believing) that Malays originated from Yunnan. And Hang Tuah was a Chinese. And worst of all, they had the audacity to claim that Malays actually do not exist at all. If Malays don't exist, so what am I?      

Dr Zaf, as she is fondly known of, almost single-handedly steamrolled all these wild and stupid claims with her scientific findings. Her research was verified and backed by a prominent researcher from Oxford, making her finding a lot more credible. She came out of nowhere to quash all the slanders and render all those stupid claims invalid. That made her an instant icon for me. She struck me as an extremely intelligent and confident woman.

I remember, deep within my heart then, I hoped to be her student. But I knew that wasn't to be. She was a full time lecturer in USM Kubang Kerian, while I was only an unsettled student with a severely ravaged confidence in Sarawak. No way I could learn under her tutelage unless some things of a miracle's proportion happens.

But, as they say, miracle does happen.

I am currently under her watch and if God's permit, is on the way of becoming her next full time post-graduate student.

How the hell did that happen?

Well...it was a long story.

Right now, for reasons that are not related to academics, I am thoroughly downed with chronic depression. Everything seems to break and fall into pieces. I just hope that everything will turn back right.

That is what we all should do.

Keep the hope.

And keep the faith.

Somehow, everything will turn out all right.  

Interference from Above

This is a quick post. Just to sharpen my writing and thinking. I didn't write anything for this past whole year...so a drill warm up is necessary. I will write as quick as possible to let my frozen mind thaw.

I am sitting on a chair facing the school of art, USM. I used to come here a long long time ago to watch movie. There used to be a free airing of selected movies at the main stair here. They called it "movie tangga". It was 10 years down the road now. But it all seemed as it was yesterday.

I woke up around 9.30 a.m today...9 hours after going to bed. A full 9 hours of sleep. A lot of things are bothering my mind...that was why I slept that long.

So what are those things that keep bothering me?

Many things. A lot of of them. They are attacking me all at once. Sometimes, I feel defenseless.

So what am I to do?

I don't know.

I honestly do not have any answer.

I just hope Allah will intervene to correct everything and put my life back on path.

I could only hope.

It's Maghrib. Need to go.

Up and Away Again

I think it's almost a full year since I last actively blogged.
I'm dead but alive at the same time.
I'm alive but dead at the same time.

Whichever side people wanted to view me,
sometimes I feel like a virus,
neither dead or alive.

Lingering around without any purpose in life.
Just for the sake of existence.

You can't be dead if you're alive.
You can't be alive if you're dead.

So what am I?

For all I know,
and for all I care,
I'm still here.

And I will always be here.

For there are things that I need to accomplish before I face my Creator.