This is it - the commencement of the highly anticipated Summer Studentship. The only reason I'm here and not back in Malaysia at this moment in time. After one whole week of procrastination (and GOOD times) I've finally decided to meet up with both my supervisors and actually try to start things off. Although I'm not even close to getting the very first part (literature review) done...there's just so much to go through! Oh well I have the entire summer to work on it... The project I'm involved in is related to the micronutrient status (ie serum levels of copper, selenium, manganese, zinc) in patients on home parenteral nutrition, as well as their genotypes. So I'm basically looking at two very different domains and I reckon the scope of it is a bit too broad for a small project like mine. Ideally it should be split into two, which will 1. lighten my workload, and 2. enable another student to take on a summer studentship. But I guess I'll just have to do what I can and just TAKE THE MONEY! Oh and there's an opportunity for me to submit a critical review article on the role of manganese specifically in long-term HPN patients. If it gets through I'll have my name on a peer-reviewed scientific journal! But that's more like a side project thing (although it sounds like a much, much more exciting prospect for me than the 'proper' project which is largely unrecognized and unrewarded save the $4000 tax-exempt salary - but it's never about the money, is it??  )
Last week was a lot of fun. For those who wonder how the heck I could be so 'busy' despite having finished exams quite a while ago, here's a brief recollection of what I got up to: Mon: Went to lovely Viv's place for her birthday party in the arvo. By nightfall I was at an Irish pub, Dogs Bollix with the boys for their weekly pub quiz, which we totally sucked at, sadly. The questions were ridiculously hard and random it really amazed me how ridiculously well the other teams were doing! BUT we had only 4 brains, the other teams had, like, 2000 or something. So yeah. Anyhow the real fun came after pub quiz - it was their open mic night! Yep, I did end up singing on stage, in front of the bar. Many times, in fact. Didn't know how hard it was until I actually went up there and tried (this being the operative word) to sing and perform at the same time. Watching the video replay that my mate had taken of me singing only made me realize a few things, the most important one being: I can't sing for crap. Which only means one thing: I need more practice!!  Dogs Bollix next Monday, anyone?? Tues: Sunbathed at Domain, resulting in a terrible sun burn at the back of my knees. Not good. Wed: Amazingly I can't remember what I did that day. Am quite sure I was up to something though. Thurs: This was a night of boogie at Boogie Wonderland with the boys + Kelly and her friends - Ohh what a night!! It was FUN FUN FUN!!!! Danced to old-school music such as the Bee Gees, ABBA, Blondie, Earth, Wind and Fire, and the rest. They even played the Four Seasons (Oh what a night) on our request haha. Then went to the Viaduct when it started to fizzle only to realize that other bars were all closed (well except good old Lenin but one of my friends was denied entry because he looked too hammered, which was rather gutting). So that was all. Fri: Went to the ZOO!! Yay finally my zoo craving is satisfied. Why is it so hard to get people to be excited about the amazing zoo?? Every person I asked will either refuse nicely with a lame excuse ("Thanks for the invite but I really have to plough the fields and milk the cows in the farm I inherited from my great grand cousin") or refuse rather impolitely ("The zoo?!?! What are you, 10??") but with the boys it's always easy, and it helped that they were having some kind of zoo craving too! After zoo we went to the children's playground at Western Springs and then watched the ducks at the lake - we might be 21 but it was really nice to feel like a kid again. At night we went for some drinks at this park with no alcohol ban and then karaoke at this random as Korean place. Wanted to go to Boogie Wonderland again but they were closing by the time we finished karaoke - was about 4am then so I guess it's understandable that they didn't want to let us in. Then took a drive around, ended up in Ponsonby somehow, and saw that it was still alive and kicking at 5am at the Grand Central and they were playing songs from the 80s including a song from one of my all-time favourite movies Zoolander: RELAX (by Frankie Goes to Hollywood). It wasn't until we were leaving that I realized it was a GAY bar - gay people started hitting on the guys I was with...and I was like, ahh, so THAT'S why no one looked at me funny when I was dancing (badly) on stage! Sweet. Wanted to go to other more, um, 'prominent' gay bars eg Supermarket but for some immensely strange reason the guys I was with were strongly against the idea. Hmm. Sat: Now that summer is beckoning, it is only appropriate that we furnished our apartment with some outdoor furniture, so we went furniture shopping - now our apartment has a BBQ set and a set of patio furniture consisting of a table + 2 chairs at the balcony, for the ultimate al fresco dining experience! Also played some tennis after that but decided to have a quiet night in, so ended up watching Jack Bauer in action on 24. Sun: Was at the driving range with brother - yeap I'm playing golf now. So what! You're getting old too! Now that I'm starting work I guess I won't be having such crazy nights out anymore  oh well....at least I'm making money rather than spending it! | 
