Singapore: Day 25

Today, I finally achieved independence! Jian Xiang now leaves me alone to my own work, and I can mill about the lab without his suspicion. I am currently running RT-PCR with GAPDH (a housekeeping gene) and altering the amounts of the HCC DNA so that expression levels for GAPDH would be constant against all HCC cell lines. This is to normalize gene expression data so that it is reliable and accurate. I can't wait to finish this initial step and move onto the bulk of the project! Today was also a day of compliments. The PI visited our lab and commented to the others, "Christine's fairly independent huh?" while the postdoctoral fellows complimented me in Mandarin. I could not catch much of it because I can not understand Mandarin, but I believe they were discussing my intelligence and work ethic. Of course, my ego felt warm and fuzzy after having such a good day in the lab, but it was destroyed when I made the mistake of leaving my materials out on the bench.  It was my first mistake yet, and by the time I realized it, I was already on the MRT at Harbour Front station. I quickly rushed back to NCCS to place the DNA, Master Mix, and primers back into the -20 degree Fahrenheit fridge. At this point, I had wasted a sufficient amount of time and by the time I arrived back to PGP, it was 7:30 PM. I missed dinner with the others once again and we planned to meet downstairs in the lounge at 9 PM, so I only had a short time window to eat. Thankfully, I brought food home from the NCCS Meeting and I was able to microwave it for dinner. The food was not the best, but at least I satisfied my need for food!

Once we were downstairs, we booked our hostel for Thailand. I can't believe the trip is already coming up!

Singapore: Day 13

On Thursday, I spent the day shadowing Jian. He had finished his immunohistochemistry (IHC) staining and was using the confocal microscope to visualize the DNA, proteins, tubulin, etc. (he's studying the role of certain proteins in cell division.) I had a chance to learn how to use the confocal microscope as well as a good amount about cell division, biology in general, life, etc. He told me that he is trying to teach me everything step by step, and that I'd learn very much if I spent a year with him because he is so adamant about guiding me. Definitely a most interesting and kind postdoc! I must include another accidentally inspirational quote from him: "What you think is not the truth." This was his reply to my question about data interpretation and shows how wise he is through his vague answers.

I left work a bit earlier to attend a dinner with the coordinators and other recipients of the Gilman Scholarship. I applied for and won an international scholarship funded by the government, which has definitely eliminated the costliness of studying abroad. Two coordinators for this program were in Singapore for the Global Internships Conference and contacted us for interviews and a dinner at Jacks Place, an Italian restaurant located in Great World City. The journey to the restaurant was treacherous, but I'm glad I had a chance to meet everyone.

Appetizer #1: Escargot

Appetizer #2: Calamari

New Zealand Silver Fern Farms Centre Cut Striploin Steak

 I ordered the steak because I was curious about the New Zealand tag and I also have been craving Western food lately. However, Western food in Singapore has proven to be disappointing thus far.

Group picture with the Gilman Scholars (middle) and coordinators (right and left)

After dinner, we took the taxi to Marina Bay Sands, which is a resort located in Marina Bay. It has a mall, casino, hotel, garden, and probably most famously beautiful light shows! A group of my friends had headed there earlier that night to grab dinner and relax after work, and I met up with them after my dinner event. By the time I arrived, most of them were in the casino. Interestingly, the gambling age here is 21 while the drinking age is 18; such a strange discrepancy! Most of the group was 21/21+ , so that left James and I to wander around the mall because we were not 21 yet. Here are some pictures from our wanderings:

Inside the mall

Water outside collects into this bowl...

... and falls into this pool inside the mall!

Stunning view of the city!

The level of security to get into the casino

Apparently, Singapore is very strict with gambling. Only foreigners can gamble freely while Singaporean citizens must pay a large sum, and those who want to engage in this activity must bring their passports as identification and have them scanned for legitimacy. Definitely very peculiar. Although we could not go into the casino, we had a good time exploring. We met up with the others later and journeyed back home, all the while joking loudly on the MRT and warranting strange glances by the locals. It was a productive first week of work, and next week will be when I will truly get down to business. I have safety training all-day on Monday and a safety quiz on Tuesday morning, and afterward I will get down to the heart of my research project!

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! :)

Singapore: Day 11

Work today ended on a sad note. Around 6 PM the PI came in to talk to Jian and pressured him about his paper and my project. Apparently Jian had not been focusing too much on the paper, and the PI wanted him to publish as soon as possible. When he left, he confided in me a bit, saying that he didn't understand why the PI was so anxious to publish this paper and that he was disappointed in him because he had already been in the lab for a year and had not published anything. Soon after, I left the lab to head home-- Jian said goodbye to me less warmly this time. Upon my exit out of the building, I encountered another sad event. The research facilities are located on the uppermost floor of the cancer centre, while the floors below are medical facilities, administration, etc. As I was taking the elevator down, the lift stopped at the fourth floor and an old man was wheeled in with two medics and his worried son. The look on the son's face was what shook me the most (besides the situation of the old man)-- he was so distressed and in so much pain, and I didn't know where to look or what to do. We were strangers, but I felt obligated to do something, to help. We alighted on the ground floor and I noticed that there was an ambulance outside the centre as well as other patients in wheelchairs. It was such a melancholy sight; I didn't know where they were going, but I knew they were cancer patients and in a different world. I realized that working in a cancer centre may be a difficult experience, because yes I am able to do research on cancer and help fight it, but just a few floors below the research lab, patients are suffering and I must bear witness to my own inability to do anything. I am in a lab running experiments and reading papers, which is worlds away from the life of a cancer patient... and I couldn't help but wonder if the others in my lab were also once like me--passionate about fighting cancer-- and had fell to neutrality due to years of lab work. I left the cancer centre in great despair, and wandered around Chinatown listlessly. After soothing my stomach (because I couldn't do anything about my heart and mind), I took the MRT home. While I was transferring, I bumped into a friend who was also with UC Berkeley. We talked about our internships and our day, and then he mentioned that he was home sick. I started to wonder about whether or not I was home-sick, and all of a sudden a rush of emotions overcame me. What is home? Lately, I have been asked over and over if I was born in China and whether or not I could speak Chinese (my entire lab is made up of Chinese natives and speakers.) They are quite curious about how I am a Chinese-American, and ask me many questions about whether or not I have been to China, know certain dishes, etc. It is strange in Singapore, because here I am more American than Chinese, as I cannot communicate or relate with the Chinese population. Too many thoughts and emotions! While we walked back, Emily texted me to go for dinner at NUH with the others and I went with them for dessert. Here are my attempts to destress:

Blueberry cheese

Warm soya milk with a tuna pastry

The good company definitely made me feel a lot better, and here I am now writing. I will most likely encounter more difficult situations at the cancer centre, but this will be a learning and growing process I will have to go through. Perhaps this may even push me to a MD/PhD, as the postdoc had suggested for me.

I will end with a few inspirational quotes from the great postdoc Jian today:

• "Don't think too much!"

• "You need to have fun, too."

• "Don't worry!" 

Quite ironically, the above sentences that Jian said so casually are lessons I need to learn to take to heart! I am quite the curious worry wart, and ask Jian too many questions about everything (which is why he told me to not think too much and to stop worrying.) He isn't annoyed.......yet :)