Singapore: Day 12

Today was a slow day, but it was filled with many rich moments:

1) My primers for the wnt genes came in today! I can finally move on from reading papers (maybe) and start my project. However Jian does not trust me to work on my own yet, which I find frustrating because the postdocs in my previous lab just gave us instructions and mostly left us to our own techniques. Perhaps it is because Jian is not used to working with undergraduate students and is wary of my youth, but I am thankful that he is taking the time to explain everything to me; he does not get annoyed when I peek at his work and follow him around, all the while blasting him with questions of why and how. On the other hand, the other postdoc (the friendlier one), Hong Ping, seems to be fine with me working on my own. But alas, he is not my direct mentor and I am under the rule of Jian. I am formally starting my project on Tuesday, after I complete my day-long safety training on Monday, and Jian will let me off on my own after he leads me through one RT-PCR (reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction, or more exactly semi-quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction.) RT-PCR and I are going to be best friends, because I will be doing this protocol as well as gel electrophoresis dozens of times in these coming weeks! Hurrah! Meanwhile, I am shadowing Jian and learning more complex techniques from him. Can't wait!

2) I attended a guest lecture at Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School with Hong Ping earlier this afternoon. A Duke University professor flew to Singapore and gave a talk about his research on the transcriptional network oscillator in yeast. Although I did not fully grasp all of it, it was still amazing to learn. I barely know anything about the cell cycle and the pathways associated with it, but it is amazing that I am encountering these concepts in hard, exciting research before I formally learn them in Bio 1A (Bio 1A/1AL is our general biology course at UC Berkeley. Sadly I have not taken any courses related to my major of molecular and cell biology yet.) The most fascinating aspect was the diversity in the room-- this moment truly demonstrated that research is without borders. I saw many different nationalities and I heard many different accents, but they were all speaking the same language of science. The audience asked questions about certain components of the presenter's research, and I loved how comfortable the presenter was with replying "I don't know." We were all scientists-- all biologists-- and this was a comfortable atmosphere for us to share ideas while remaining aware that we still do not and can not know much about our world (another one of Jian's wise sayings: we are human and we cannot know ourselves completely.) Lastly, I must comment on the refreshments provided for this event. Asian refreshments definitely triumph over Western ones; we were provided Hong Kong style milk tea, coffee, egg tarts, hot-dog buns, and banana bread. The postdoc and I tried one of everything, and they were immensely delicious! Asian food definitely tastes best in Asia.

"Cycling Without Cyclins: A Transcriptional Network Oscillator"-- Steve Haase

3) After work, I met up with some friends at the Buena Vista station for dinner at one of the local hawker centres called Ghim Moh Hawker Centre. We were originally planning to go out for zong zi because it is the Duanwu Festival today and it is custom to eat zong zi on this particular day. However, most of the restaurants were sold out of zong zi so we had to settle for a regular dinner. In the end, we chose to eat from the same food booth and ate congee for dinner. Congee and zong zi are both made of rice, so I think we're close enough!

The market next to the hawker centre

Century egg and minced beef congee with youtiao

4. Lastly, I was selected as a Reach the World travel correspondent!! I am beyond excited to be a part of this program and so lucky to have been chosen out of all the applicants. I will be paired up with a classroom and serve as a global mentor.  Can't wait to meet the students and share with them the experience and lessons that come with studying abroad! :)