HK Expedition II

History of Fort Canning

2009-01-20T10:57:00.005+08:00

Fort Siloso

Located at the western end of Sentosa is the only remaining of British coastal defense in Singapore. Fort Siloso was bult in the 1880's by the British to protect the western approaches of Singapore harbour.

Fort Siloso comes alive with exhibits tracing the development of the fort from the 19th century till the Battle for Singapore 1942.

Things that you can experience in Fort Siloso:

Explore explore the Barrack room, Laundry, Cookhouse and Tailoring shop to see, smell and hear about how British soldiers lived in Fort Siloso

Visit the Battery Command Post to get on the road to war and experience the start of the Battle for Singapore.

Test your marksmanship skills level at the interactive games area where you can experience the loading, aiming and firing of guns located at Fort Siloso.

Witness the final battle for Singapore and the British surrender at the Siloso Point Tunnel Complex.

Go to artillery park to touch actual guns and cannons dating back to the 17th century and those used in the Battle for Singapore in 1942.

Built to defend Keppel Harbour in the 1880’s, Fort Siloso became a military camp during WWII. Experience what life was like for the soldiers between 1885 and 1942. Don’t miss the breathtaking views from the original observation tower.
Fort Siloso

Fort Siloso guarded the narrow western entrance to Keppel Harbour. By 1939, there were two 6-inch MK2 guns and two rapid firing 12 pounder guns.

Fort Siloso is on the island of Sentosa (formerly called Blakang Mati — the ‘Island Behind the Dead’) which is just south of Singapore Island. The Fort, one of four gun batteries which were on constructed on Blakang Mati, covers an area of four hectares (ten acres) at the western tip of the island.

Fort Canning

Previously known as Central Park, this 19-ha "hill of history" was the residence of Sir Stamford Raffles who also established his government house on this hill in 1819.
Visitors to Fort Canning Park can find a number of relics reflecting the past glory of this place. Keramat Iskandar Shah, venerated by Muslims and believed to be the ancient tomb of the last Malay King, stood at the foot of the hill.

Monuments of interest found here such as the Fort Gate and the Gothic Archway have been preserved for the enjoyment of visitors.

Representing Fort Canning's military past are features such as the 19th century Fort Gate and the underground operations rooms (bunkers) of the Far East Command Centre. Here, in this "Battle Box" was where Lt-Gen Percival made the decision to surrender to the Japanese in 1942. All these attractions are linked together in the "19th Century Walk of History" trail. Interpretative plaques and signboards installed along this trail gives visitors a better understanding of the key historical features of the park.

Fort Canning Centre, the imposing 65-year old restored military barracks, now provides a major cultural venue and residence for Singapore's modern performing arts companies, Singapore Dance Theatre and Theatreworks. Audiences enjoy regular theatrical performaces at the intimate, 100-seat Black Box theatre.

Another historical building is the former Singapore Command and Staff College. This building has been refurbished into the city's only country club in the park, the Fort Canning Country Club.
A special landscaping attraction in the form of a Spice Garden offers a small replica of Raffles' original 19-ha experimental and botanical garden. Spices, such as clove and cinnamon, are planted here to recreate the setting.

Singapore River

A place founded by Sir Stamford Raffles, tracing back to 1819 when Raffles' ship arrived on the northeastern bank of the Singapore River. Its scene was first a true rural area with myrtle covered all around the place. Moreover, numerous skulls were founded littered the riverbanks together with unwanted cargoes of Bugis pirates dumped there as well.
Soon after that Raffles signed the treaties with the local Malay leaders and set that area as the British entrepot. Successfully, his project turned out to be prosperous and soon he had to order land reclamation that was divided into 5 quays; Raffles Quay, Collyer Quay, Boat Quay, Clarke Quay, and Robertson Quay. By 1850s, the Singapore River was extremely crowded with European and Chinese merchants.

Today, the Singapore is considered a highlight attraction for visitors. There are plenty of places to eat all along the river, especially Boat Quay that stretches along the southwestern side where restored shops, godowns, and office buildings lie altogether. The most outstanding type of shop in Boat Quay area is but alfresco restaurants that serve Western visitors and local business people. And if you walk up north of Boat Quay, you will find Quarke Quay which its name was taken from Sir Andrew Clarke, the governor of Straits Settlements from 1873-1875. Quarke Quay is full of godowns constructed during 1860 to 1920 by Chinese and European entrepreneurs. It is also a popular dining spot with its highlight that is floating restaurants on the river.

If you walk upriver past Clarke Quay, you will find Robertson Quay where only few visitors like to visit. Robertson Quay was constructed after 1880 by Chinese and European merchants. A few godowns were built there but later were converted to entertainment complex that was divided into the Wine Bar, Video Bar, Deli, and Velvet Underground.

The Singapore River also covers other interesting places such as Fullerton Building built in 1928, Bank of China, OCBC Center, Clifford Pier, Change Alley, Raffles Place, Asia Insurance Building, and Telok Ayer Market.

I speak perfect North American English? Lol.

2007-07-28T13:16:00.001+08:00

The 2nd joke on my spoken English cf. 30th Apr 2007 Entry.

Attended the Hall tutor meeting yesterday afternoon. Met up with Prof. CK Tang, the Hall Warden for the New Hall (the name of the hall is call New Hall) and various other hall tutors. Only me and a GZ gal were new, the rest were hall tutors in New Hall for at least a year. I was assigned to be the hall tutor in charge of the 2nd floor, now officially designated as the international floor. Prof. Tang chose me because I am an international student and he said something like let the international student handle the international students. =.=''' Then he said I spoke in perfect North American English (gosh, I never knew that) and thus it'll minimize the communication barrier. '''=.=''' Finally he told me that international students tend to make more trouble as they always organize smoke and drinking parties; I have to stop them if they go overboard. And, I have to ask the securities for help if it's too much to handle on my own. The funniest part was, he selected me coz he read that I received the best soldier award during my NS days. =.=''' (actually I received the best soldier award not for my fitness, but more for my admin; my greatest achievement back then was to clear up the mess for IPPT, SOC, UC and ATP and to write a Brigade SOP for everyone to follow. In addition, I gave a presentation to all the new Specialists and Officers and tell them about the requirements.)

So now I am confused. Do I speak in British or American English? Anyway it doesn't matter. Perhaps I subconsciously switch my accent a little here and there when I speak to different people. Well well.

The upcoming semester will be tough. I gotta manage both the hall people and my research. Should be a good experience for me as I am gonna be a teacher in the future. This allows me to understand and handle students from various backgrounds and culture. Hopefully things will be ok.

A Bright Journey Ahead

2007-07-24T10:46:00.000+08:00

Finally, I am out of this circle. I took a step back, climbed to a higher point & realized that things were not as bad as I've thought. Sometimes we chose to go around in circles, maybe because we were too stubborn. I am enlightened, in a way. The chat with Ms. Tam from Dean's Office proved to be great. Yesterday night, I shaved, after keeping it for close to 10 days. The last time in which I was so depressed was when I was in year 2 semester 2; together with Zhijie, we got out of it.

Thinking back, life is a journey of up and down. There are crisis that we must tide through from time to time. We may have the support from friends and familes but ultimately, we have to clear the obstacle in us; that's often the toughest. If we can't then we will be going around in circles.

Right now, I will continue to pursue my dreams and what I need to do. I sincerely hope Suling will do the same and let us support one another in the pursuit of our dreams. Indeed "只要相信，期待就会成真". Part 1 has a memorable beginning; may part 2 has a beautiful ending.

Emotional Roller Coaster Rides

2007-07-22T22:33:00.000+08:00

The past 2 months have been eventful; it's some sort of a TVB drama happening in real life. Traveled more than 7000 miles, a series of heart wrenching emotional roller coaster rides, shedding of numerous cups of tears, hours of stars folding, collecting of Jolly Shandy bottles... going around in circles and circles; at the end of the journey, I am back to square one. Everything is reduced to nothing.

Back to Routine Lifestyle

2007-07-11T20:14:00.000+08:00

I am back to routine lifestyle, except that I have not been productive for the past 3 days. Been bothered by a lot of issues. It seems that at the end of the day, everything is reduce to emptiness. We just have to suck it up and move on.

Anyway I am glad that my previous blog entry brought joy to you and a couple of my other friends. Again, it's not meant to promote HK but rather my reflections on the whole trip. Quoting from today's South China Morning Post, "Where else can you find landscapes that rival those of the Caribbean and shopping malls as fabulous as some in New York within easy distance of each other?"

For friends who are considering to come, my reply is don't hesitate. It's a really nice place to shop and hike. HK demostrates the epitome of cantonese cuisine. It also boast the most beautiful night skyline that the world can offer.

Time Flies...

2007-07-08T21:59:00.000+08:00

Indeed, time flies. Before I know it, I am back to HK this morning.

The past 2 weeks has been draining, both mentally and physically. Perhaps I should not pack myself with so many activities during my holiday back home and during the period of time when I am not in the mood to do anything. Miracaly, everything went on smoothly and I thank Suling for the support throughout.

The primary thing I was back for was for commencement 2007. However, it seems that I am back mainly for the invited talks to the 4 JCs (YJC, ACJC, NJC and HCI) on Chemistry Olympiad. Ha, and I am talking to the teachers! Suling commented that I was daring as I am so young and dare to talk to a crowd consisting of some veteran teachers. It takes some courage I guess.

The JC talks went on rather well. It also gave me a glimpse into their system and thus allow me to better decide which JC I will like to go in the future. It's nice to see my classmates in the various JCs - Andy in YJC, Huei Huei and Baojin in ACJC, Weili, Angeline and Si Ling in NJC and Ming Lee (a senior, gotta know her during ICHO 2006) in HCI. At the same time, it is also weird to give a talk in front of them. Anyway, it's more of sharing my experience in coaching the national team and as a committee member in SCHO 2006. I realized that teachers are just like students in the following aspect:

1. When they are looking for seats, they do not like to sit "in front" (i.e. near the speaker). I won't eat them up.

2. They like to ask for model answers. :( we are not "redspot"

3. They like to ask whether past year papers to the SCHO are given. If not given, why? Ask NUS.

4. They like to ask for free complimentary copies of my book to be given. I am not the publisher. Even if I am the publisher, if I give everyone, then what do I earn? Lol.

Anyway they are cute lor. I was kinda dumbfounded. On the whole, it's a good experience. Whatever the case is, I will only need to worry about which JC to go into 2.5 years later. It's still a long way.

Monica's wedding on the 10th Anniversary of Hong Kong Handover (1st July 2007) was nice (ambience only!). The food sucked big time, downplaying the essence of chinese cooking. This was the first wedding dinner that I attended and it was an eye-opener.

Commencement on 4th July 2007 was ok. However, the feeling of "graduating" is no longer there; perhaps due to the fact that I was already half a year into my graduate studies. Felt quite empty also as I do not know most of the people in my junior cohort. Luckily, Yuan-Ting, Chee Siong and my CSS juniors were there.

With mom and dad.

With Chee Siong and Yuan-Ting

With Suling

With CSS juniors

With Prof. Hor

Other than the above, my remaining time was spent catching up with friends, bumping around NUS, resting at home and some shopping in the malls.

I am back to Singapore!

2007-06-28T08:06:00.000+08:00

I touched down to home soil yesterday evening, around 11.40pm. The feeling was estatic. It's nice to be back home after being away for 6 months.

Prior to returning, I had one of the most memorable (if not the most memorable) holiday in my life. It was a nice getaway from lab work and school. Thanks Suling and her aunts for the wonderful memories. I have not been so happy for a long time.

The holiday begun immediately upon their touch-down on 22nd June. Upon checking in at Dosett Seaview, we went to 联邦 for yum cha. This is one of the best along Nathan Road, clearly showcased the quintessence of Canto food culture. Shopping at Harbour City followed and it was rounded up by the Symphony of Light along Victoria Harbour.

We went to Shenzhen and Guangzhou on Sat and Sun and for the final 3 days before our return to Singapore, we toured Ocean Park, Repulse Bay, Victoria Peak, Tai O etc. Of course, a trip to HK will not be completed without some shopping.

Near Luo Wu border in shenzhen.

With Wiskers in Ocean Park.

From Victoria Peak.

Hiking @ Sai Kung.

In Tai O.

Top amusing incidents:

1. Adidas shoe. Suling wanted to get a pair of adidas shoe very much but the 3 outlets which have the shoe don't have a new pair; they only have the display pair. In the end, after much "thinking", she decided to get the display pair with better conditions. The moral of the story is, sometimes a good horse has to back track to eat the grass coz it's greener. Lol.

2. Shoe lace. I wanted to get shoe lace in Haizhu Square in Guangzhou. It cost RMB$3 but I remembered getting it for only RMB$1 2 years ago. In the end, because of pride, I didn't go back and get it. Instead, 3 days later, I got it for HK$10. The moral of the story is, we have to pay a price for pride.

3. Incident @ Da Tong Restaurant. This lengendary dim sum restaurant is also well known for its rude service. Suling's aunt's friend complained to the manager regarding the bad service in 3 languages (Cantonese follow by English follow by Mandarin):

Suling's aunt's friend: "(Canto) 你的服务员，态度很不好。(English) Very rude you know. When I asked her for the price again, she gave me a look, show an angry face and walk away. (Mandarin) 那里可以这样。。。"

Manager: "..."

Lol. The manager was dumbfounded (coz she don't understand). The moral of the story is, most people in the world can't change channel like we do in Singapore.

4. Sucky food at Baiyun Mountain. Nothing much to write. Just that the food sucks big time. The moral of the story is, you don't get good canto food everywhere in Guangzhou.

5. Taxi ride around Guangzhou. We took a taxi from our hotel to Tee Mall. It costs RMB$53! Holy crab. It's expensive, given the fact that cab rides in Guangzhou is relatively cheap. The driver took us almost one round Guangzhou and discussed a lot of politics with us. He even asked whether we would like to see China fighting a war with US. Suling's aunt and I chatted with him most of the time, albeit sarcastic most of the time. Most memorable part of the conversation:

Driver: "Singaporean are street-smart; if not, why will the country develop so fast in the past 30+ years ..."

Suling's aunt: "No lah, still got a lot to learn from you all; we wouldn't dare to display any tricks in front of you people."

Me: "Yah lor. If really so smart, then won't be riding in your cab for an round-Guangzhou trip..."

Driver: "..."

The moral of the story is, when we get cheated, we must make sure that the other party knows that we know we are getting cheated. Singaporeans are not that dumb afterall; get back at them with our own flavour of sarcasm.

6. Walking around the business district. Suling and I walked around Central-Admiralty area after visiting victoria peak. She begun to utter things like "IFC won by height; other than that, its not architecturally pleasing. BOC is amazing, both in lightings and structure. Lippo is like a pair of enantiomers etc." Never seen her so relax like this before. The moral of the story is, walking around a concrete jungle can be a new experience.

7. Suling's aunt and friend got "lost". I waited for them at the harbour in TST; instead they were at the harbour in Sheung Wan. Lol. The moral of the story is, know your destination before taking any transport.

8. Hiking in Sai Kung. Upon reaching mid-way, we decide to back track via another path instead of completing section 2. This is mainly due to the flat terrain in the alternative path. In the end, we realized that the alternative path is not that nice to walk afterall (boring?). The moral of the story is, it may be more worthwhile to walk a little longer to look at breath-taking sceneries.

PS: We missed out Tai Long Sai Wan (2nd half of section 2), which was being voted as the most scenic spot in HK this year. On the whole, it was fruitful as we been to the 4 of the top 10 most scenic spot in HK - Tai O, Long Ke Wan, High Island Reservoir and Victoria Peak. Not too bad for a 4 days trip in HK. :)

9. Last minute shopping. Suling and I literally ran around for last minute shopping. Our itinerary: Causeway Bay --> Admiralty --> Kwun Tung --> Mongkok. Lol. It's like a mess. The moral of the story is, plan your shopping itinerary before you set off.

10. Umberalla @ Bosinni. Conversation:

Suling: "Wah, even the umberalla looks so nice. But quite stupid hor, come all the way to HK to buy umberalla. Wonder if they sell similar design in Singapore."

Me (jokingly): "Well, you can try to ask the sales assistant whether they stock it in Singapore."

Suling (enthusiastically): "Excuse me, I wonder whether Singapore has similar design."

Sales assistant: "... ...; err, I am sorry but I am not sure as I've not been to Singapore."

Lol.

11. Searching for entertainment. Suling have an urge to play pool and bowl. We went around but to no avail; it's either too smoky and sleazy (Golden Chicken) or not available (Olympic City). The moral of the story is, not many places are like Singapore.

12. Trip to Tai O. We went to Tai O before our flight. We reached the airport just on time, 40 mins before the flight. Luckily there is no jam in the mountainous Lantau terrain. The moral of the story is, do not gamble before your flight back home; not every day is a Sunday.

Top quotable quotes (won't mention names of the person saying :p):

1. In Guangzhou's cab. "How come the meter don't jump? (remains at RMB$7 for the first 2.4km) Wah like that what they earn? In Singapore, before the bud warms up, it's already S$4.50 during peak hour.

2. In Guangzhou. "You guess how much the wanton noodle is? It's only RMB$5. So cheap. Some more the wanton very big. So full. I can split it up into 2 portions and eat for 2 meals."

3. In Guangzhou, after the RMB$53 cab ride. "It's RMB$53! You can eat 10 bowls of wanton noodle, 20 meals. Lol."

4. In Guangzhou, after the dim sum in Da Tong. "If it's my brother-in-law, he'll walk out. Then the manager come; he'll say, "you go ask your gal lah; no service expects us to pay ah?""

5. In HK. "Hello, Chong/Dennis, I need a cab from ____ to ____ in 30mins. Can you get me one? Thanks."

6. In HK. "Next time, I will take one day to complete each colour (MRT line) and shop along all the malls along it; if not, very empty leh."

Of course. A holiday will not be perfect without a perfect companion. Suling has been a superb companion in this trip and I really enjoyed her company.

Returning home on 27th June

2007-06-20T09:34:00.000+08:00

Time flies and it's already Wednesday 20th June. I've been in HK for slightly more than 5 months; will be returning to Singapore next Wednesday for around 1.5 weeks for commencement, catching up with family/ friends and olympiad stuff. A string of events lining up for me when I return:

1. Commencement in the evening of 4th July.
2. Invited talk on SCHO - 29th June morning @ YJ, 4th July afternoon @ACJ & 5th July morning @ NJ.
3. ICHO organic training (3rd or 4th July).
4. Monica's wedding on 1st July.
5. Catch up and watch Fantastic Four with Chee Siong, Yuan-Ting &amp;amp;amp;amp; Teck Loon (Date??); bowling, pool etc as well.
6. Spend time with family. Go JB? (Date??)
7. Dental appointment in the morning of 28th June. Meeting up with Suling?
8. Catching up with friends.

Hope I don't fall sick in the end. Anyway, I went to Shenzhen last weekend with Asanka (my apartment mate) and his labmates for some shopping and meals. My main motivation is to buy the DVDs for my mom as I wouldn't want to carry so much thing back when I accompany Suling and her aunt to Guangzhou this weekend.

It was a so-so trip. Asanka can't really appreciate dim sum as he finds them tasteless :( When he was eating mian sian, he added half a bowl of chilli sauce in. *bang bang* He told me that it's not spicy and it's too bland. He said that canton food is good but it tastes better with chilli. I was pissed lor; he doesn't know how to appreciate the taste of canto food. If I am the chef, I'll be very upset - imagine that for a bowl of really good fish soup, you need to spend hours boiling it, to drain the essence out from the "input". Then when you pass it to your customer, you expect him to appreciate the taste but instead, he dumped half a bowl of chilli in!! That destroys the hours of effort you've put in.

Ah yes, I finally get to try Sichun dishes, all thanks to Asanka (for requesting his labmates to bring him to some place where he can eat spicy food for dinner). Hmm they are ok (read "ok" which means I prefer canto food) and not as spicy as I thought (maybe not authentic enough?). I was so surprised that Asanka's labmates have a lower tolerance of spicy food than me. Lol. Initially, they were like saying they can take it and I was like "no, not for me". Then in the end, I seem to be able to take it better than them. Lol. Actually, I really can't take (or don't like?) spicy food. If I feel that it's "ok", it means that it's not that spicy afterall. ;)

Busy Week

2007-06-12T10:48:00.000+08:00

It's going to be a busy week. Will be truly living a 24 hours day like a 48 hours day. Lol.

Anyway, saw the below poster in HK during the weekends. It is the poster for the upcoming Marvel film - Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer.

I am ok with the poster, but I have a question in mind:

Isn't Silver Surfer a good guy in Marvel? Why is his name being translated as "银魔", which literally means "silver demon"? Wierd. Also the trailer seems to portray him as a bad guy as well.

Ah yes. Heard from Suling that the book is on sale in Popular Bookstore at a price of S$15.10. Lol. Popular always give discount, as usual. Hope the sales will be good. My NUS chemistry classmate Weili, who is teaching in NJC now, emailed me to ask about resources of H3 as she heard that I've wrote a book on it. Ha.

Dreams & reality are poles apart

2007-06-08T14:38:00.000+08:00

Indeed, dreams & reality are poles apart.

Went to see Prof. Wu just now. He sort of lectured me.

"You must stay focus! You only have 2 years here and almost half a year is gone already."

Actually it's my fault. He asked me to work on a project. I didn't actually work on it but went on to do my "dream" project. Then when he asked me to report to him my progress, I don't have much to report. So in order to prove to him that I actually done something for the past one month and not just slacked in the lab, I told him about this interesting stuff that I am working on. He didn't appear happy.

Ok it's my fault. Yah, I will focus now and stop "dreaming". I came to HK with a dream; it seems to be shattered now. I think I should place focus on my primary project and do those dream projects when I have the time.

Stressful stressful

2007-06-06T22:43:00.000+08:00

Stressful again? Lol.

Die ah. Prof. Wu came back but I have got nothing to report to him. Last week was learning and installing system and network for the 24 new computers. Then I have the darn Bioanalytical Chemistry exam to worry about (in the end, I didn't study for it. Lol). The week before, I was focusing on my "dream" project. Haha. So in the end, I didn't do much. Stress to the limit.

Sigh, it's my fault also. Too stubborn. Keep doing my "dream" project. I was also disturbed by other things as well. Too many things in my mind.

Was quite pissed with the 2 CHEM398 (something like the UROPS in NUS) students yesterday. They gave me the impression that since it's holiday now, they don't want to finish up the stuff and just want to quickly settle the presentation. Despite wanting to quickly settle the presentation, they asked Xin Hao and I whether they can slow down the pace of research??? Hello, so what you you guys want? Pissed lor. Some more, now they are in "trouble" coz boss gave them the same project. They have to present separately but I am wondering how are they going to do that? Not possible lor.

Lousy Day

2007-05-28T22:40:00.000+08:00

Don't know why, woke up today with a heavy heart. Suddenly felt depressed and don't feel like doing anything. Forced myself to have breakfast and dragged myself to the lab. The feeling was similar to when I first arrived here. Spent the whole day installing software into my new computer. The consumable funds had large excess and my seniors decided to get a new desktop for me. It was a sefl-configure one and consists of really good parts. It ran on the legendary Windows Vista and yes, I have to admit that it's extremely visual pleasing. I especially like the translucent and the Windows "AERO" effect.

I finally saw our book and felt it last Friday evening, all thanks to my junior, Shuhui for agreeing to bring 4 copies over from Singapore while coming to HK for holiday with his parents. The printing was a little disappointing, especially the first page. Other than that, it was ok.

I brought Shuhui around on Sunday - yum cha in the morning at Federal Restaurant followed by TST, shopping at Harbour City, Victoria Peak (too bad it rained), Italian food at Fat Angelo's at SOHO, shopping at Ladies' Street and Mongkok and Symphony of Light at TST in the evening. Since Shuhui like to "act cute", she (we) took quite a no. of candid shots:

Bumped into Philip in UST!

2007-05-23T19:35:00.001+08:00

Lol. There's so much coincidence in this world. I actually bumped into Philip in campus, a fellow exchange friend of mine when I was here on exchange back in Fall 2005. I was on my way to dinner after 3 hours of marking the analytical chemistry exam scripts. And then, I saw a familiar face and he waved at me. Gosh it was Philip. Lol

Philip's from University of Pennsylvannia and we were first introduced to one another by Emily. I remembered the first time I met him, I was having some attitude problem as I wasn't in a bad mood back then. I was being sarcastic and high and mighty while talking to him. I remembered him saying something like "Oh I took freshmen organic chemistry during freshmen years and it was really difficult." I replied by saying that "if chemistry was easy, then I wouldn't be taking it." Lol. Hiah, realized my mistake now.

Though Philip didn't go travelling to China with me, we had our fair share of fun in the hike at Lantau, Ocean Park, dinner at Ngau Tau Kok, roasted delicacies back in Don's hall etc. He's now on an Asian backpacking tour after his Senior year and he will be starting work this coming August. I'll wish him all the best for his future endeavours.

Project X is out!

2007-05-23T00:23:00.000+08:00

Finally, Project X is published (thanks Eugene for informing me). But what is Project X? Project X = Thinking Straight About Pharmaceutical Chemistry for H3 Students, a book written by my talented friends and I last year.

Once again, I will like to thank my brilliant team of co-authors - Eugene, Alice, Tian Xin and Justin; without them, this book will not be possible.

5 years ago, I entered NUS with a dream, a dream to write a book on organic chemistry to help students. In May 2006, I came closer to this dream when I gathered my co-authors and started writing the book. May 2007 marked a milestone as the book is published. It's not the end of the dream though; it only marks the beginning of similar dreams, and perhaps greater dreams.

Invigilating CHEM244 Analytical Chemistry II

2007-05-22T19:51:00.001+08:00

Just came back from invigilating the Analytical Chemistry module. Lol. This is not the first time I am invigilating. Last year, I invigilated for SCHO as well (well, I set the organic Q, that's why).

Anyway, this was the first time I saw those act-cute students having such a serious look on their face. Must be stress out from exams. Ha. When I saw the exam papers, I was stunned! It was quite easy lor. I am no expert in Analytical Chemistry but when I looked through the questions, I can do at least half of them lor. Lol. I think if TX, Eugene or Wu Jiang do, 1 hour can finish already. The questions are straightforward lor - section 1: MCQ, section 2: short answers and section 3: calculations. *faint* NUS analytical chemistry exam is comparatively tougher lor.

Ha come to think of it, NUS's exams standard is not that bad afterall. Last time, Zhijie and I always complain but on the whole, it is better and more organized compared to those in HK. I like those questions by Prof. Hor, Dr. John Yip, Prof. Lai, etc. The most memorable one being Prof. Hor CM3212's section A (50 marks):

Examine the validity of the following statements. By using suitable illustrations wherever applicable, explain concisely (in fewer than 80 words) the problem(s), if any, in each of these statements.

a. Synthesis of cis-PtCl2(NH3)2 (cis-platin) is best carried out through oxidation of Pt(NH3)4 by Cl2, although it can also be prepared from reduction of PtCl4 in aq. NH3.

b. Since trans-influence is a thermodynamic perturbation, it may have very little bearing on the labilizing effect of a departing ligand, which is governed by a kinetic phenomenon, called trans-effect. This is particularly true in substitution reactions that are driven by an associative mechanism.

c. [Rh2(miu-S)2(CO)2(miu-dppm)2] (dppm = Ph2PCH2PPh2) is a good example of an "A-frame" complex. The Rh-Rh bond can be easily cleaved to accomodate an incoming small molecule, such as SO2, without disturbing the 16-electrons state.

d. Dimerization of [Re(O)Cl4] should be facile, since it can generate a dinuclear species [Cl4Re-O-O-ReCl4] with octahedral geometry at the metal. The {Re2O2} core should be a stable entity since similar {M2O2} configuration has been established elsewhere, e.g. in [Co2(O2)(CN)10]6-.

e. Ln3+ is a labile metal ion. Transfer of ligand from Ln3+ to other metals ions (such as Cu2+) is necessarily quick and hence the rate constant k is inevitably very high.

Lol. 50 marks for section A. Section B requires us to read a paper and then answer 10 MCQ. Sounds simple? Not really. The above is a killer. It wiped out all except 2 in the exam. I remembered Zhijie writing only 2 pages for the above 5 Q as he thought the above 5 Q adds up to only 10 marks. Lol. In the end, he got an A. Wow.

Maybe I should just focus on hydrosilylation

2007-05-22T11:13:00.000+08:00

Sick for the past few days. Flu followed by diarrhoea. Though not very serious but it is certainly irritating. :(

Went on a short trip to China last weekend for yum cha and to purchase my favourite Mongolian yohurt milk. Lol. Went there with Stella, a fellow schoolmate working on polymers. I was quite pissed with her friend though as she wasn't at all appreciative of Stella helping her to purchase a Nokia phone all the way from HK.

Gotta know my commencement date from the web last Friday. It was on 4th July 8pm. Not a very good time though as day photos will not be possible then. From another angle, it is also good that it is held at 8pm; that will mean that I will be able to return to ACJC to give a talk to the teachers on Chemistry Olympiad Preparation. Lol. 4th July happens to be on Wed and so they are free after 1.30pm. I will feel weird "teaching" the teachers though as some of them were my former teachers.

Sigh, maybe I should just focus on hydrosilylation. For the project that I found on my own, I kept getting TS of more than 40 kcal/mol. That's really bad. A bit low morale now. For a moment, I thought I found the perfect method to do it (B2PLYP) but it conflicts with frequency calculations. Last week, I tried HF (a not so good method) and it gives very good geometry. But alas, the TS energies are too high. Maybe I should just focus on hydrosilylation for now and think about other things in the future.

We always have a choice

2007-05-14T19:19:00.000+08:00

Feeling exhausted, both mentally and physically... ...

Recalling a quote from Parker:

"No matter what comes our way. No matter what battle we have raging inside of us, we always have a choice. My friend Harry taught me that. He chose to be that best of himself. Our choices are what makes us who we are. And we always have the choice to do what's right."

How veracious! Don't you think so?

Polymer exam & Spiderman III

2007-05-13T12:50:00.000+08:00

Ha, weird title; the only relation that both has is that I did both on the same day. Lol.

Polymer exam, crab lor. The course was taught by 3 profs in 3 campuses, namely HKU, HKUST abd CUHK. Therefore, there are 3 parts to the exams. CUHK's part, was a bit crab. 2 Q don't know what he wants. Lol. So I just wrote some stuff that I think is the answer. HKUST's part, so-so. 1 Q also don't know what he wants. HKU even worse. The Q he asked, I think I can answer them without taking this module lor. Sigh. Not much challenge on the whole. A bit disappointing. I missed those exams in NUS, especially those of Prof. Hor's, Lai's, John Yip's, Martin's, de' Cruz's etc.

Following that, I went to catch a movie at diamond hill. I should have watch Spiderman III with my 2 best friends but since I am in HK, then gotta watch alone. I was a spiderman fan since I was 8 years old and I am glad that they brought the story to the movie. However, the storyline seems to have change to an almost unrecognizable state. Hmm people who don't read the comics feel that it's nice, good graphics, action packed, etc. Yah I agree. It's very realistic and many a times, the sound and visual effects made me jump a little. Ha. But I guess for all comics fan, deep down in their heart, they prefer to see the original version up on the screen.

Anyway, disregard all the above, the story on the whole was pretty touching, especially the last part when Norman Osborn came to help Parker. Also, the citizens of NY clapping their hands away, cheering was also a touching moment. Also, the part when Parker forgave sandman; hmm I think it takes a lot of courage and strength to say, "I forgive you". The ending was not good for Osborn died while saving Parker. :( I think Osborn did a noble thing, though I don't really like him in the comics (and the earlier 2 movies). Venom (Eddie Brock) was not too bad. The effects were beyond my expectations.

Whatever the case is, I am sure there will be a part IV coming. And be sure that part IV will feature a villain known as CARNAGE.PS: The actually storyline, in brief, should be something like this:-

Sometime in 1980s, Spiderman went to a distant planet with a group of superheros to fight the "Secret Wars". That was when he met the symbiote and subsequently, merged to gave the "black" spiderman. Following that, he discovered that the symbiote was trying to take over his mind and soul and decided to abandon it. He had a hard time taking it out and it was only with the help of Fantastic Four that he managed to get rid of it. That was when he discovered its weakness - intense sonics and heat. The symbiote hated Parker and found another host - Eddie Brock. Eddie also hated Parker for making him lose his job and since both of them shared this intense hatred, they combined to form Venom, which subsequently became one of Spiderman's greatest arch enemy.

Venom was "created" by cartoonist Todd MacFarlane and it appeared in Amazing Spiderman #299. He initially wanted to end it somewhere in #400 but everyone seem to love Venom a lot. So he thought, since I can't end it, why not "create" another one? That was when Carnage appears. Cletus Kasady shared the same prison as Eddie Brock in one occasion. When the symbiote came to save Eddie, it left an offspring in the cell and it binded to Kasady and gave Carnage! Carnage was very powerful, more powerful than both Spiderman and Venom combined. Both of them eventually put aside all unhappiness and join forces against Carnage. Venom is good by nature and he only attacks Spiderman. Carnage on the other hand, is a serial killer who kills for the fun of it. His famous saying is "I am killing you because I can.".

Blair is leaving office

2007-05-11T13:00:00.000+08:00

Read at the front page of South China Morning Post after lunch today that British PM Tony Blair is stepping down on 27th June. I (plus Teck Loon, probably) remember this speech of his most strikingly:

"Can we be sure that terrorism and weapons of mass destruction will join together? Let us say one thing. If we are wrong we will have destroyed a threat that, at its least, is responsible for inhuman carnage and suffering. That is something I am confident history will forgive. If our critics are wrong, if we are right as I believe with every fibre of instinct and conviction I have that we are, and we do not act, then we will have hesitated in the face of this menace when we should have given leadership; that is something history will not forgive."

He spoke the above on 17 July 2003, at an address to the US congress in defence for his (and Bush's) "war against terrorism".

The report ended by saying that the world will miss him for his leadership and determination; we will miss him too, for his brilliant rhetorical speeches.

The above speech can be modified and be used in an argument in a "creative" manner. For example, if I want to argue with NUS Chemistry department to revamp the organic syllabus, then something along this line will be great:

"Can we be sure that current organic syllabus will benefit the students and give them a wholesome education? Let me say one thing. If I am wrong I will have remove an outdated and poorly-planned syllabus that, at its least, is responsible for the lost of interest of some students and the lack of academic rigour. That is something I am confident history will forgive. If my critics are wrong, if I am right as I believe with every fibre of instinct and conviction I have that I am, and I do not act, then I will have hesitated in the face of this debate when I am given the opportunity; that is something history will not forgive."

Lol. Sounds cheesy. Ha.

Too stubborn?

2007-05-10T13:54:00.000+08:00

Went to lab this morning at around 0930. That was kinda late for me as I usually reached there at 0900 or before. Was washing clothes this morning and that explains why.

My senior Xin Hao then casually told me that if I am to continue with my Si cyclobutene analogues, I should not be expecting too much even if I get good computational results as boss might not be very interested in this topic. That was when I recalled him saying something to be over dinner yesterday along this line: "...为你的梦想去奋斗..." and also a couple of weeks ago when he was wondering why I am kinda persist over this project.

Looking back (and forward), am I being too stubborn? Hmm not sure myself also. Maybe coz this is the first project idea that I came out with myself and it is a potential new field (and my favourite as well). Although I met up with quite a lot of problems along the way, I will like to persevere on to see if my idea (intuition) is right.

Following that, I recalled what my junior said: "只要相信，期待就会成真". Ha, hope I am looking forward to something interesting.

Prof. Hor once said, "What is nobel/world class research? It is to create a new field for people to come into." For example, ever since Sharpless developed Click Chemistry in 2002, many people has been using it for all sort of areas that you can think of: polymer, molecular machines, nanotechnology, drug discoveries, supramolecular chemistry etc. I guess given my situation (and ability), creating a new field will not be possible. However, I will at least wanna work in a mechanism that I really like.

Since I can't create a new field, I will at least want to bring Singapore's education to a new height when I return to the teaching service. This will be done through my beliefs and teaching philosophies. One of my dream is to see the Singapore Chemistry Olympiad team getting 4 gold medals (Singapore's best performance was in 1998, with 2 gold and 2 silver).

We are always talking about "dreams" here. But what sets individuals apart is when you START to work towards your dream in a systematic way.

Doubtful, doubtful...

2007-05-09T21:41:00.000+08:00

Gosh, just realized that I'll be having my first paper this Sat on Polymer Chemistry. Have yet to start revising. :( Gotta start soon though. Actually I am not so worried about this course; should be able to pass with a decent grade. My next exam will be on 31st May and that is on Bioanalytical Chemistry. Ha, kinda worried about that as I didn't do well in the mid-term. The module on Advanced Organic Chemistry II is non-examinable and I've gotta submit an essay. Whatever the case is, I guess I have live past the "grades chasing" stage. I guess I have lived past that ever since I returned from exchange in 2006. Lol.

Met up with problems in my research. It seems that computational chemistry some times gave us result that we doubted. The highly popular "B3LYP" method seems to be popular just because it is convenient and apparently, if things agree with the experiment, then it's publishable. If not, then gotta try another method or just dump it until a better method comes along. Sometimes, we will doubt whether the things we are doing are right.

I started working on this Si cyclobutene analogues and B3LYP gave not-so-accurate geometries and energies. I "dumped" it aside for a while when Prof. Wu gave me this hydrosilylation project. Yesterday, I read on a new method call "B2-PLYP" and it seems to give better results, as shown by several publications. I tried it on Gaussian 03 and it works!! It gave the correct geometries and most importantly, more reasonable energies. However, it can't calculate frequencies as it sort of clashes with the Gaussian system. I emailed the prof who developed this method and he told me to use another software call OSCA. I went to take a look and OSCA seems to be difficult to use. Also, Gaussian based software cannot open its file. :( Sigh. Then how? Lol. I emailed Gaussian too; waiting for their reply. Hope they will be able to solve the problem and allow B2-PLYP to be used in Gaussian. All these softwares... dont' know lah. I am not a computer geek. Gave me headache whenever I am reading the manual.

Learning computational chemistry has certainly made me more critical. Nowadays, I feel that a lot of research are blown up and they are not as glamarous as they seem.

Ha, sometimes I feel that when profs (and students as well) like to ask a question and then solve the question themselves. It's like "creating a problem that does not exist and solves it". A series of exchanges at a group meeting:

A: Have you considered solubility? From experience, I think solubility of the catalyst will affect the reaction.

B: Not really...

C: etc etc etc. Yah, just like what A said, the solubility will affect. Maybe you can rethink about the whole thing and come out with a better way of solving the problem ...

A: (realizing that actually it's not an issue) Come to think of it, solubility is not that important as the thingy is afterall a catalyst. As long as it has some solubility, maybe one molecule per 10000 substrate, it is good enough.

C: (realizing it but maybe coz of pride, wanna defend his last statement) Yah, but it does affect as well. It's still an issue as we never know how much is enough?

A: ... ...

Lol.

Revamp of Organic Syllabus in NUS Chemistry

2007-05-08T18:06:00.000+08:00

Ha, looks like NUS Chemistry is kinda serious this time round in revamping the organic syllabus in NUS. It seems that none of the current batch of honours students bother to reply Dr. Zeng (the prof in charge of the revamp). Upon my junior, Suling's help, I drafted an email to Dr. Zeng:

...CM1121 was taught by Prof. Lai, my former Honours supervisor. He was by far the best teacher in organic chemistry that I have encountered and I am sure few will disagree with me in this. He managed to covered all the essential basic grounding in organic chemistry for us, with an emphasis on (SN1, SN2, E1, E2), nucleophilic acyl substitution etc. I believed whatever he has taught us gave my batch a solid foundation to tackle CM2121 and above. I have a bold suggestion for CM1121 though: it will be good if we can have something like CM1121S, which is worth 5MC. This is meant for those who are extremely passionate about organic chemistry and will like to learn more. The Math department has similar modules with a "S" code in their freshmen and sophomore courses (http://ww1.math.nus.edu.sg/undergrad.aspx?file=stu-modules#MODULES_OFFERED)

For CM2121, like I mentioned below, it will be good to maintain the teaching of retrosynthesis. I recalled the days when Zhijie and I had loads of fun discussing and debating about making a molecule. We even came out with weird looking molecules on our own to make; now of course we know that our routes were not ideal but it is the learning process that matters. The spirit of learning and exploring should be emphasize here. However, one thing we found lacking was that in most cases, only the conventional 1,2 1,3 ... 1,6 disconnections were emphasized in great details. This might lead students to think that retro is all about carbonyl disconnection, which is incorrect. Therefore, it might be good to "go beyond carbonyl disconnection" to introduce more strategies to the students. Of course at least level, we should maintain a "non-asymmetric" approach. Also, simple examples of total synthesis from the literature can be introduced to allow students to appreciate this subject better. I do read of some total synthesis who are relatively straightforward. I also believed that CM2121 has undergone some revision when it was taught by Dr. Lear (he did include additional stuff beyond the usual carbony disconnections) and I applaud him for that.

For CM3221, I really think that it was totally trashy (sorry for being harsh). During my time (and I believed it is still like this now, in fact worse), it was basically a repeat of what we learnt in CM1121 and CM2121, except for some additional topics in reduction and oxidation, which can be easily covered in 4 lectures. My personal belief for a level III organic module is that it should, at the very minimum, include the following:

1. Simple asymmetric synthesis concepts - stereochemistry, substrate control, asym aldol, chiral auxillary etc.
2. [O], [R], possibly asymmetric version
3. Advanced spectroscopic techniques like 2D NMR, CD etc.
4. Pericyclic reactions (Frontier orbitals vs. correlation diagrams vs. transition state aromaticity model and their interconnections)

CM3222 is more of "touched and go" in my opinion. I feel that we should focus more on in-depth understanding and introduce the students to stereoelectronic effects, MOT, principles of stereoselectivities and some other fundamental concepts in physical organic chemistry.

For CM3225, we can consider adding some topics in bioorganic chemistry; this is more so since the current year 1 have already learnt biochemistry in their freshmen year.

For CM3291, the whole lab manual should change to include a greater variety of experiments. At least, in my current institution (HKUST), their synthetic lab experiments are really good and thorough. I'll be happy to share if required.

CM4222: I don't have the opportunity to take it when I was in NUS :( But as conpensation, I took CM5121, CM5221 and CM5222.

CM4223: Asymmetric Syntheses' content is generally okay. I am currently helping Dr. Tan to revise his notes and the new set of notes will include some of my ideals. It will have more topics in organocatalysis, strategies in total synthesis, contemporary topics such as Memory of Chirality and Non-linear Effect etc. Maybe can introduce Green Chemistry as well.

Oh yah, I realized that the curriculum time for level IV courses are reduced by half (cf. level I, II and III; in short 1 lecture per week compared to 2 lectures per week) I think this is not good as students get shortchanged. In NUS Physics department, Honours year students get 2 lectures per week as well, similar to their first 3 years. Therefore I don't see why students in Chemistry should get less.

Finally, I think it will be a good idea if the department can gather the strength of its staff (and students as well) to come out with a set of teaching materials for organic chemistry (and possibly publish a book on that). It will be good if it comes in small A4 handy booklets for each of the 8 modules and it gets constant revision throughout the years. I feel that when it is accomplished, then all further improvement can be easily made from there. Everything starts with a dream and I hope the department will consider this proposal....

Hope that this time round, they will seriouly do something about it. I must applaud NUS chemistry for taking this initiative. It was one of Zhijie and my dream back then to change the syllabus.

A New Yum Cha Place

2007-05-06T22:19:00.000+08:00

Received an important email this morning. After reading it, I decided to go for yum cha to take a break.

Finally, I went to HK island for yum cha. I have been having dim sum in Kowloon all the time and have yet to try those "legendary" places in HK island. Lol. I went to this Superstar Restaurant in Times Square in Causeway Bay. It looked really grand and the standard of the food speaks for itself. The dishes looked really nice, clearly showcased the epitome of cantonese cuisine; the price speaks for itself too :(. Here are some of the dishes:

鳳尾蝦春卷(HK$32.80)

蟹粉小龍包(HK$18.00)

蛋煎糯米雞(HK$24.80)

純鮮蝦餃皇(HK$32.80)

鳳凰燒賣(HK$24.80)

石頭魚餃(HK$32.80)

蓮蓉西米焗布甸(HK$12.80)

蛋黃千層糕(HK$18.80)

Walked around for a while and then went to buy a tortoise in Mongkok. It's called "snake-head" tortoise as it's neck is very long and moves like a snake. So cuttteee. Lol.

I speak in British English? Lol!

2007-04-30T20:29:00.000+08:00

A rather boring day with some amusement before dinner.

Went to look for Prof. Wu to discuss about my project and at the end, he said something that made me amused. He started by asking me about last Sat's Hong Kong Chemistry PG Symposium. Then he asked me about one of the lab senior's oral presentation etc. Following that, he said that if I have some interesting results, he'll consider asking me to represent HKUST in oral presentation next year!! Gosh. That's not the most amusing thing lor. The latter part is even more amusing:

Prof Wu: When you presented previously during the group meeting, you spoke too fast; it makes people hard to catch and understand the content.

Me: .... ok (actual feeling: yah I know; you are not the first person saying that...)

Prof. Wu: ...and I realize that you speak in British English; HK and mainland students may find it hard to catch British English ..."

Me: Oh.... (stunned beyond words; I never knew I spoke in British English....more of Singlish??? Lol)

Prof. Wu: ... so next time, maybe you can slow down and speak a little slower.

Me: ... ok.

Ha, I didn't know I speak British English. That's really a news to me.

Pissed!

2007-04-25T19:50:00.000+08:00

Super pissed today lor. Boss argued with me for no reason. It all started with the below equation:My junior Joawen asked me a Q on Friday on what can a chemist do in order to obtain most of the product in the enol form. From chemistry, H-bonding with a substituent at the ortho position should be able to stabilize it. -NH2 or -NO2 will be good but not sure which is better since both of them have very different nature. I told Joawen that I'll do some calculations to confirm and my calculations showed that NO2 will stabilize the enol by 4 kcal/mol and NH2 will destabilize it by 4.8 kcal/mol. I thought this is a rather interesting problem and I went on to do calculation for substituents such as Me, CF3 and Cl. All of them showed that keto is more stable and therefore, the NO2 should stabilize it by H-bonding (and maybe something else).

Then today, I told my boss and he asked me to check literature to see if anyone has done it as he is sure that someone has already done something similar. I have already checked and the result is negative. Later on, he came to the lab and dicussed with my other seniors on their project. When I told him about it, he told me that since a prof set this Q, surely he must have some supporting data (most likely literature). But no lor, I told him there is something call hypothetical Q or open-ended Q. Then he rebuked me and say if the prof himself also don't know the answer, how to set Q? Then I told him that as long as the students' answer are reasonable, why not? Then he don't believe lor. He "challenged" me and said if you didn't do calculation, will you know the answer? I told him that I did calculation to verify my chemistry. He went on further by drawing nitrobenzene and aniline and asked me, from my chemistry, which will have a lower hydrogenation energy? I told him use nitrobenzene as EWG made it more stable and etc etc. Then he said very hard to say lor and then said may involve aromaticity as well etc. Ahhh. Crab lor.

Pissed.

Ngong Ping Charity Walk 2007

2007-04-23T10:27:00.000+08:00

I completed Ngong Ping Charity Walk 2007 in 5 hours 49 minutes. Lol.

But it is not a "normal" walk lor. It is an arduous 26km hike in one of the toughest hiking terrain in HK. I was so glad that I survived it and completed it in less than 6 hours. My aim was around 6 hours since I completed sections 1 and 2 of Sai Kung (24.1km) in around 6 hours during my exchange. This hike however, is more challenging than Sai Kung and it's really an eye opener. The hiking route is as follow:

The journey to CP1 is ordinary, consisting of flat roads. So nothing very special about it.

The journey to CP2 consist of an upward climb till around 200m above sea level. It is pretty steep but still bearable.

The journey to CP3 continued the climb till around 380m above sea level. It is quite tough. Haha.

The journey to CP4 was one that I will not forget for life. Hardcore! However, it is not as difficult as the Sharp Peak in Sai Kung. For the Sharp Peak in Sai Kung, you literally have to use your hands and climb up. For this route to Lantau Peak (934m above sea level), you just have to walk carefully as there are steps along the way. But it's kinda dangerous as it is very misty and there are very strong wind blowing at you. Quite a lot of people slowed down here and I overtook them. Lol. The descend from Lantau Peak to CP4 was a killer as it's a little steep. Descending has always been pretty bad for me as my leg is not so accustom to going down.

So up till this point, since I've overcame Lantau Peak, the rest should be easy right? No lor. The guidebook stated that from CP4 onwards, it's mostly flatland. Not true!!! So misleading. CP4 to CP5 involves some climbing again at the later half, but it is still bearable. It is CP5 to CP6 that "killed" me in a way. It should be mostly going down but the journey turned out to be down, up, down, up, down ...etc. I walked until my legs were cramped. Lol. But then again, it is worth the walk as the scenary was very good. No strong wind and mist here and so I can see the cable cars and the airport pretty clearly.

The journey to the end point from CP6 is flatland and so it's fine. Had Mac for lunch and bought haf a roast duck for dinner! I slept from 7.45pm till 8.45am this morning. The hike was pretty exhausting. On the whole, it's a good experience, coupled with new challenges.

"If you believe, your dreams will come true." Lol.

Touching Comments & Slacking

2007-04-19T17:31:00.000+08:00

A touching email reply from Dr. Li, the Molecular Characterization lab instructor:

"Dear Chorng Shin,

I am so happy and touched to hear that and really hope all of the TAs and teachers in Hong Kong, at very school, have the spirits like yours.

Many thanks,
Hungwing"

Actually I didn't do much. I just suggested somethings and told her that I will be willing to offer my experience if required. As I am part of HKUST now, I certainly hope for the best for the undergraduates. This is more so as I will be a teacher in the future. As a teacher, I want to inculcate a passion in learning in the students so that they will move on with life, exceling in whatever areas they want to go into. With passion, they can pick up materials and absorb new knowledge themselves. With passion, they will still move on despite failures. With passion, dreams will come and since everything starts with a dream at certain point, they will have the desire to move on. And with passion, they can influence their peers and spread this passion.

I slacked the whole day today actually. Sigh. I just did some calculation, read a paper and marked 3 reports. I have more important tasks at hand and countless more. Most importantly, I need to define my research direction. I have only 2 years (1.7 years now) and I don't wanna waste it. I also have Dr. Tan's asymmetric synthesis notes to improve on, something which I promised him to be completed by summer. Most importantly, I have a paper to write. If I don't write now, it'll never be completed. :(

Lowest for Bioanalytical Chemistry

2007-04-18T15:48:00.000+08:00

Enrique, my UROPS student told me that I got the lowest for CHEM541 Bioanalytical Chemistry mid-term; the results are pasted outside the prof's office. *lol* I don't really care about this module though as it's trashy. Haha.

Refrying the Fried Rice

2007-04-17T23:47:00.000+08:00

Returned from advanced organic chemistry presentation. Had group meeting presentation yesterday and basically, I am using the same material. *lol* This is the so called refrying the fried rice.

Prof. Dai put my presentation at the last and I have to endure 7 presentations (a whooping 3.5 hours) before mine. Basically, I feel that most of them presented just for the sake of presenting. The materials were not thorough and the presentations were not clear. When they talked about asymmetric synthesis reactions, they just talked through it as-a-matter-of-fact without models and explanations to how asymmetry is achieved. Crab lor. It was only then that I realized the CM4223 presentations that I listened to were actually pretty decent. My juniors made an effort to use models, diagrams and look up references to explain the asymmetry.

Anyway my presentation also not so fantastic lah. Usual comments like too fast and info-packed were told to me by my lab colleagues. Well well. Prof. Dai commented at the end that I talked like Erik Sorensen. *lol*. Also, I prepared presentation slides like the way he does. Hmm nice compliment from him but I'll not be Erik Sorensen as I'm not going towards total synthesis. I like to read them and teach them to others though. That's why I am thinking about writing a book on Q pertaining to total synthesis. Such book exists though but not good enough in my opinion. Anyone interested in joining me?

Inner Mongolia cum Beijing Trip

2007-04-13T20:11:00.000+08:00

Finally back from my one week Spring break; travelled more than 5000km for the past one week or so. There is some delay though and I am only back in campus at around 1.15pm yesterday. There are many people to thank for the success of this trip and I am especially grateful to Felix, my travel partner for the fun sessions and being there when we met up with "mishap"; Shu Chen and his mom, for providing us with accomodation in Shenzhen the night before we departed; Lan Yu and wife, for providing us with accomodations and spent time keeping us company in Beijing; Wong Cang and Neng Jie, for bringing us around the Great Wall and Peking University; Xiong Hao's parents, for being so friendly and took care of me during my less-than-3-hours stay in Chang Sha; those who prayed for our safety during the time we were away.

So on the whole, is this a great trip? Well, mixed feelings. We had our fair share of unhappiness and fun moments. I guess that is the price one has to pay if you want to see the world. After this trip, both of us have grown and become wiser (hopefully).

Inner Mongolia gave us the "best" memories. We were like open targets for people to cheat us from day 1. Sick man! It started with the boss of the travel agency scooping us RMB$1380 on the first day. That was the cost for the whole trip including food, accomodation, driver, entrance fees to some attractions etc. However, it excludes all the fees we have to pay inside the attractions lor. In addition, the food and accomodation we got isn't that fantastic. Our driver told us that he doesn't have enough budget to bring us for BBQ lamb! Crab lor. Darn boss.

Following that, we have to bargain throughout the tour lor! we bargained in the grassland for the horse ride from RMB$560 to RMB$400; bargained for the desert from RMB$300 to RMB$240. We bargained till our throat dried up. In addition, I caught the flu bug from day 1 of the trip. Luckily, our driver brought me to see the doctor and I got better throughout the holiday. Those people were so mean man.

The worst has yet to come. The final day in Inner Mongolia was the worst! We visited the Genghis Khan Mausoleum and when we were there, something really nasty happened. The Mongolian guards in the museum suspected that we took photos in the museum and confiscated the SD card in the camera. We tried to reason out with them but they don't listen. They said that we are Han people and pretend not to know mandarin. Crab lor. Felix doesn't know mandarin as he is a CBC. For me, when I started speaking to them, they told me that I pretended not to know from the start. Ahhh. Argued for quite some time and nearly fought. Following that, I went to get our driver in to settle the dispute but nothing good came out of it. The darn guards made us walked in circles and made the driver drove us round in circles to locate the guy who took the SD card. In the end, when we found him, he told us that they have investigated and found photos taken in the museum. I was pissed lor. When we put the SD card in the camera and showed him the photos, no pictures were taken inside the museum lor. However, he insisted that we took it!!! Pissed........

I mean, if he wanna frame us, at least be smarter. He could at least use another camera and take some shots in the museum and use it to frame us. Instead, he just insisted verbally that we took it. Crazy man. In the end, he said he'll fine us RMB$100 each and let the matter rest. If not, we can go with him to the police and investigate. He suspected that we are not tourists and were spies instead. Crab man. Us spies?? Duhhhh! I would have gone with him to the police if not for the fact that we are catching the 9pm train to Beijing and we were like 400km from Hohhot! In the end, I reluctantly parted with my RMB$100 bill and gave him another S$10 plastic bill. Ahhh, my precious plastic S$10 bill. *sad*

Anyway, photos of Inner Mongolia below. Enjoy.

Outside a restaurant that is built like the Mongolian Bao.

In the barren grassland (the season isn't right; by right, it should be filled with green grass. *sad)

Barren grassland.

Frozen river!!! First time I saw such things in my life.

Felix on the horse.

At the desert, with our dear driver.

On the camel.

Extremely tasty Mongolian milk! I'll go over to SZ to buy more when I have the time.

Our next stop was Beijing and Lan Yu was kind enough to came over to the train station to fetch us. We stayed at his place for the next 3 days and he took us around Beijing most of the time. The trip to Beijing was good and I finally get to see the Great Wall, the Summer Palace and Imperial Palace. Nothing much to complain about Beijing, except for the fact that the road is as lawless as any other chinese cities. People still spit on the ground. Oh yah, Peking duck isn't as good as I thought. Cantonese dishes rule! *lol*

Photos of Beijing:

Felix and I at the Great Wall.

Group photos with Lan Yu and wife, Neng Jie and Wong Cang.

The Majestic Greal Wall of China.

Outside Tiananmen.

Imperial Palace.

Peking Duck.

At Peking University.

Summer Palace.

Overall, pretty decent trip. Now it's time to concentrate on research and prepare for exams.

Preparation for Inner Mongolia Trip

2007-04-01T22:07:00.000+08:00

Yesterday, I had my final polymer chemistry lecture in campus. The next 2 lectures (scheduled 14th and 21st April) will be in HKU. As usual, the lecture ended with a quiz and most students struggled. I am done in 5mins and my conclusion is, if you have a strong organic background, it doesn't take long to figure out the monomer units and how to join them up in 2 steps.

Went to yum cha with Kelvin (a lab student) at Kowloon Bay today. He brought me to this restaurant opposite Telford Plaza (where he lives) and this is the first time I am having tea in a resdential area. However, it's not as good as I thought. Maybe my standard for yum cha is too high? Hmm can't help it ah coz I have tasted some the best in the region. ;)

Time flies. I am going to Inner Mongolia 2 days later. I have yet to pack!!! Sent Felix (the Canadian guy that I am going with) a rough itinerary and now, I am thinking of what to bring. Though it's just a short 7 days, the weather there is extreme and thus need to be more careful. I read from the news that northern China is experiencing sandstorm now :( Hope that it'll be over by the time we are there. The latest forecast of the temperature in Hohhot (capital of Inner Mongolia) is -3 degrees celsius (-8 degrees celsius including wind chill)!!! Wah, first time I am going to a place that is below 0 degrees celsius - how exciting. And then, I realized today that this is not the best time to visit the grassland as the grass will not be green during Spring. Duh!

Anyway, my journey is as follow (green arrow indicates trip by flight and blue arrow by train):

4th Apr 0835 flight to Hohhort, stopover at Wuhan.
7th Apr midnight train to Beijing.
10th Apr 1710 flight to Changsha and overnight train back to Shenzhen.

Anyway, this is the super heavy Titanium series Columbia jacket that I bought with a really good price (I own't divulge it!):

It is really heavy lor. When I wore it now, I feel really hot. It's wind-proof, water-proof and covers right up to the neck, with a head cover as well. In addition, it is double layer. Heard that it can protect you from -10 degree celsius. I'll see if it's true. :p

A no. of "first" in this trip:

1. First time experiencing sub-zero degree celsius
2. First time exceeding a latitude of 23 degress North (Guangzhou is the furthest North I have been to).
3. First time visiting the grassland
4. First time viisting the desert
5. First time visiting Beijing (and hence the Forbidden Palace, Great Wall etc.)
6. First time I am going somewhere that I have not much idea about (most, if not all along, I am bringing people to places that I have been to once upon a time).
7. More first time to come ...

It's so exciting. The exciting part is the unknown awaiting ahead of me. Felix once asked me why go to Inner Mongolia. I told him it's because I don't know much about the place.

Cantonese Cuisine

2007-03-29T09:35:00.000+08:00

Yes, I know I should be studying for my Bioanalytical Chemistry mid-term now; however, it's getting kinda boring and so I decide to write something irrelevant. Let me write on cantonese cuisine to entice whoever read this blog to come to HK for holiday so that I won't feel so bore.

So what's the hype about cantonese cuisine? Basically, Cantonese cuisine is one of the top 8 series of cuisine in China. The top 8 series of cuisine are as follow (in no order of superiority): Shandong, Sichuan, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Guangdong (Cantonese), Hunan, Fujian and Anhui. Cantonese cuisine focues a lot on the freshness of the ingredients being used as it tends to add less flavour enhancer. Cultlery skills include steam, fry, boil, deep-fried, roast etc. Signature series of dishes include dim sum, steamed seafood, roasted meat (include duck, goose, pork etc), hotpot, soup etc.

In my opinion, Cantonese cuisine is the best and for me, the most enjoyable way to catch up with friends is to find a good restaurant for yum cha (aka savour dim sum with a cup of good tea). Yum cha is my number one favourite. Since most of the dishes are steamed, yum cha is also a good way to taste the freshness of the food and also to marvel the skill of the chef as those dim sum looks simply wonderful.

Vivid description is kinda useless without photos as a picture speaks a thousand words. The photos of dim sum are as follow (try naming them ;)):

TA Duty & Ivan's Trip to HK

2007-03-27T09:37:00.000+08:00

30mins to my TA duty and I am taking the time off to update my blog, which has not been updated for quite some time.

Talking about TA duty in the lab, I begin to enjoy it more as I understand HK students' mentality more and more. They are not as unfriendly to non-cantonese speaking TAs as I thought and as the guys here didn't go through the Army, they tend to be a little immature at times (not to say that all Singapore guys are mature of course). In fact, 2 groups of students thanked me for being such a wonderful TA; was kinda touched when I heard that.

Nothing very significant happened for the past 2 weeks except Ivan's bunking into my hostel. He came on Friday 16th Mar and departed on 25th Mar. It's a good 10 days but how time flies - he seems to be here for less than 3 days. We did some "crazy" things together and the first part of his time here was describe to him more as In-Camp Training than holiday. Lol.

For the first weekend, I wanted to bring him Shenzhen in my initial plan. However, after he heard of my description of the wondering dim sum (especially the durian puff) that Da Tong Restaurant in Guangzhou offers (he saw the video of Jia Hao and Liling eating it as well, courtesy of the Canadians), he asked if we could make a trip to Guangzhou as well. I said why not and off we went over to Guangzhou on Sunday morning and there he tasted the most wonderful dim sum in his life. Following that, we checked into a nearby hotel and brought him to Haizhu Square. He bought a lava lamp and I bought a Titanium series Columbia jacket for only RMB$300 after bargaining! That's really cheap and I have checked its quality - 99% authentic after my inspection.

I went for my haircut and he continued his shopping in Haizhu Square. Following that, we met up and went over to the Book Center and then to Sun Yat Sen Memorial Hall. That is when we realized that we don't have enough RMB$! Apparently, Guangzhou don't accept HK$ and we are in deep shit as we won't be able to go back. And, I have group meeting on Monday afternoon! We rushed to a bank on time and queued for 1 hour to exchange currency, only to realize that they don't exchange currency on Sunday! Out of desperation, I rang up my Guangzhou friend and changed RMB$500 with her. So the moral of the story is, keep enough local currency for your whole trip; it doesn't matter how much US$ or S$ or Eu$ you have since if the local don't accept them, you are reduce to nothing. We were even thinking of buying a bowl and carpet to beg on the street (just kidding). Lol.

Due to the lack of sleep, Ivan was sick for the next 3 days and he rested in my room half the time. I was busy for most of the week and he was on his own most of the time, with Wed and Thu spent at his aunt's place. I met him on Friday in TST to get the ferry ticket to Macau the next day. In addiiton, he went to buy cosmetics for his colleagues (heard that it's cheap as it's tax-free) and then to Temple street to buy the green laser pointer for Yuan-Ting. We had Hui Lai Shan's Mango dessert again, for the 3rd time! I guess he really like it for if not, he wouldn't keep asking me to go there and eat.

The following day, we went to Macau and a mainland friend of mine tagged along. It was a so-so trip, probably because I have been there before and so don't feel much. The new Lisboa is up and it doesn't give me a nice feeling upon witnessing its extravagant artchitecture.

Ok that's about it I guess. His trip ended with a dim sum with me in Commonwealth restaurant in Jordan. At the end of the day, his verdict was that the dim sum in Da Tong in Guangzhou is the best among the one he has tasted in the 3 cities. These 2 are unforgetable:

健康榄仁卷

泰国榴莲酥

And, I don't eat the durian puff, of course! But thus far, no one who likes durian fail to praise the durian puff in Da Tong.

Off to TA duty and I've a mid-term on Thu. In the meantime, still need to look for a research direction to venture into. Cyclic peptide is trashy and hydrosilylation is kinda saturated. What's next?

Research direction/s?

2007-03-11T21:38:00.000+08:00

Stayed in the lab today to finish up some work. Had 2 simultaneous yum cha session yesterday. Lol. The first one was a farewell yum cha in school for a Beijing lab mate who will be returning to Beijing after his 3 months stint here. The second one was with the Canadians in the Commonwealth restaurant near Jordan. This one was really good and it still taste this good after so many months. Its signature dish "this is not a spring roll" still fascinates me (and the Canadians even more).

Oscar, one of my senior who graduated last year and is currently doing her postdoc in Japan now, came back to campus last night. We had a short talk and he gave me some ideas on what is hot now. Sad to say, according to his and Xin Hao, traditional organic chemistry is no longer hot as most of what needs to be discovered has already been discovered. Somehow a small corner of my heart tells me that there must be something out there that has not been discovered. It's time for me to sit down and work thing s out and see what is the field that I should go into in this area. However, I am being heavily burdened by the cyclic peptide project. Whenever I think of it, I don't feel like doing anything. It's not healthy and if this goes on, I'll be wasting 2 years here.

School pace for the next one month or so will accelerate. Mid-term for Bioanalytical Chemistry is coming and I gotta do something about it. Ivan, a primary and high school friend of mine, will be coming to HK for holiday this Friday and he'll be bunking into my room. I'll be bringing him around as and when I have the time. There is a short Spring break coming and I'll be going to Inner Mongolia for a short holiday. I was considering between Tibet and Inner Mongolia; chose the latter in the end due to budget constraint. I think it'll be a wonderful trip as I'll be seeing some of China's most beautiful scenaries such as the vast grassland and desert.

Home

2007-03-09T13:57:00.000+08:00

Wrote this on 7 Oct 2005; felt the same way now as well.

"Anyway being away from home really made you fully understand this song (not only in terms of lyrics, which may be superficial, but in terms of the waves of feelings generated):

Whenever I am feeling low, I look around me and I know. There's a place that will stay within me; wherever I may choose to go. I will always recall the city, know every street and shore; sail down the river which brings us life, winding through my Singapore.

This is home truly, where I know I must be; where my dreams wait for me, where that river always flows. This is home surely, as my senses tell me; this is where I won't be alone, for this is where I know it's home"

Old tale - Organic is so tough?

2007-03-08T23:15:00.000+08:00

Went over to Shenzhen to meet up with mom and dad yesterday. They went over to Guangzhou for a short holiday and dropped by Shenzhen to see me. It's so nice meeting up with them, given the fact that I miss home.

I think it's time to do something about my life as I have not achieve much for the past 1.5 months. I wanted to write an education article on pericyclic reaction but it has not started. Sigh. Maybe, as usual, I live in the past too much and thus find it hard to return to reality at times. The feeling is similar to that when I just returned to Singapore from exchange in Jan 2006. However, 2006 was a really good year for me and though I felt blue and at the beginning, I managed to pull through and achieve greater heights. Well, it's not only my effort of course; I have to thank Emily for her encouragement and support. Not to forget, friends like Teck Loon, Chee Siong and Yuan-Ting who are always by my side. Though I had some misunderstandings with Yuan-Ting in the last semester, it has not affect our decade-long friendship. True enough, friends whom you met in Primary and Secondary school tend to last for life.

Tu di remarked that she's not going to do well in her organic test. Of course, the usual remarks (from many other juniors as well) was that memorization is required and there always seem to be an ever-growing no. of reactions to remember. Honestly, I don't have a solution to that as well (coz most people don't seem to understand/appreciate how Eugene and I learn organic). I have taught organic since 1999 on and off and till this day, I have to say I still don't know how to teach it well. I am still exploring and it is indeed not an easy subject for people to master and appreciate. I am still learning and we just gotta keep reading to keep it alive.

So how to do well and appreciate it at greater depth? I have written 2 article in it and basically, it can be summarized it as follow:

Experience: Read, discuss, debate among friends etc. The more one does it, the more one will get in tune with the subject. There is a reason why old organic chemist always like to say "I feel that this reaction will not work" before they perform an experiment. Gaining experience means improving on your data base of knowledge.

Intuition: Developing a chemical sense is very important. It can only be gained from experience and allows you to predict many things (if not, people will end up memorizing a series of seemingly similar facts). Why electrons move this way, that way all comes from intuition (and experience)

Creativity: It is always good to go beyond the status quo to explore new possibilities. Be daring and not be afraid to make mistakes. The more mistakes one make, the more one will learn and on his way to become a better chemist.

Feeling: It is always important to have a feel for molecule. How will the molecule arrange itself in space when they react? How does the transition state and intermediate look like? MO Theory is of uttermost important here.

Yah, time for me to work on some really nice things as well.

Disgusted

2007-03-05T23:06:00.000+08:00

On Sat, towards the end of the lesson in CUHK, I felt really disgusted lor. We were given a quiz and everyone around me were basically discussion, copying and reading from the notes. The guy to my right was like peeping into my answers. Not that I will do well (coz the first part of the course is mainly Math), but at least, if I don't know, I will just let it be. Sigh. HK students are really too much.

I remembered after one of my TA lab session, a group of students were telling me that they find uni life really tough. They said that during their "A" levels, they have at least 8 hours of sleep. Now, they don't even have 5 hours. Please lor, I was telling them, if they find their stuff here tough, then they will suffer even more in NUS lor.

I had a great meal in Shenzhen that night. Not cantonese dishes this time round; it's shaoxing dishes. Shaoxing is a town in China famous for their shaoxing wine. I ate this chicken that is soaked in the wine for a couple of days and then put into the fridge. The taste is really heavenly.

On Sunday, I dropped by Macau for a short visit and catch up with Suzana. Gotta know her bf and realized his striking similarities (in terms of behaviour and gesture) with Jack. Lol. I finally get to try the authentic Macau prok bun. It tastes really good and it's one of the few dishes that will make me remember Macau. Dinner was at Sands International buffet. It was a little disappointing as they downsize the buffet area and now, there aren't as many choices as before.

Things I miss about NUS

2007-02-28T16:06:00.000+08:00

Sudden thoughts while I am locating transition states for a particular reaction.

Things I'll miss about NUS (listed in no order of priorities):

1. Lectures, tutorials (different flavour as we go from year 1 to 2 to 3 to 4)
2. Chemical Sciences Society (comaradarie, Past Year Papers, Chemiscope, FOD etc.)
3. Friends, especially the discussions with Zhijie etc. (Effective Learning, organic, inorganic)
4. Canteen food (Arts, NUH, Business etc.)
5. Research (UROPS, Honours, friendship with Lao Cai, Fang Zhen, Doreen etc.)
6. Library (Science, Medicine, Arts, Business) --> I recalled those corners when I do tutorials/study for exams in the early years.
7. Route linking Science and Arts, Arts and business etc.
8. Badminton and Tennis Courts
9. The walk to Dover (dining with Lao Cai and friends late at night, during research)
10. NMR lab (the andrenalin rush while doing NMR as it determines whether your previous day of hard work pays off; not to forget, the crapping/scolding from Mdm Han and Peggy)
11. Teaching labs (especially Mdm Irene, Uncle Philip etc. Especially enjoyed myself during TA duty and Chemistry Olympiad training)
12. The crapping sessions with the profs and TAs.
13. etc

The Day I "Conquered" Sai Kung

2007-02-25T23:26:00.000+08:00

... & brushes with death.

It's quite an intimidating experience climbing Sharp Peak, the tallest peak in Sai Kung. At the base of the peak, the following signs were displayed:

I started the climb at 1040, reached the peak at 1140 and return to the starting point at 1250. Apparently, the decending part is tougher than expected.

The road up:

The final ascend: The top: The Uncle who started later but finished earlier than me:

Following that, the uncle went off to the other side and I descend. This is when I fell (for the first time in hiking):

It was a painful but worthy experience. I had 2 brushes with death; it's a trilling experience indeed. On my way down, I saw 3 groups of people coming up and they were surprised that I am on my own. Well, sometimes you have to brush with death before you appreciate life more?

That's about it on the hike. The interesting stuff, you have to experience it yourself! No breathtaking scenaries as the sky is filled with mist. What a disappointment!

Felt lonely this weekend again, all of a sudden, despite meeting up with Alice's mom and my aunt in HK for CNY meals.

Moved to a new Apartment!

2007-02-22T23:44:00.000+08:00

Went to Student's Housing Office today to request for a change in apartment. They replied me favourably and I started moving my stuff to my new unit in the late afternoon. Thanks Xin Hao for helping me with the shift. The new unit that I am living in looks more like a home and thus I guess I'll be happy there. At least, Asanka is a tidy person and he is willing to clean up the apartment with me.

For those who wanna write to me, my new mailing address is "412D, University Apartment Tower B, HKUST, Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong"

I called my mobile service provider to tell them about the change in address. She argued with me for 10 whole minutes, saying that Clear Water Bay is in New Territory, not Kowloon. I understood perfectly what she said but my point is, the address is given to me by the university and all along, they have been using Kowloon instead of New Territory (I don't understand why). Maybe Kowloon sounds more "city" than New Territory?

GZ-SZ Trip

2007-02-21T22:43:00.001+08:00

Returned from my Guangzhou-Shenzhen yesterday. It's suppose to be a Guangzhou-Guilin trip but we couldn't get the train ticket in the end. My apologies to Felix, David, Anthony, Li Ling, Jia Hao & Jin Sheng for the screw up.

The trip is almost perfect, except for the Guilin screw up. As usual, the people like the food (especially the dim sum!) and places that I introduced them and they were glad that they were on this trip for if not, they will have miss out some of the best delicacies on Earth. The group is a good mix of Canadian-born Chinese (Felix, David & Anthony) and Singaporeans (Li Ling, Jia Hao & Jin Sheng) and everyone mixes well with one another. The first night was kinda happening as we had overnight Karaoke (I didn't sing much though). Apparently, those Canadians love to sing (though they don't really understand the meaning of the chinese words). We had a walk along Zhujiang (Pearl River) on the second night; however, we avoided the night market as there were simply too many people. I returned early to the hotel with Felix as he was down with a fever. I guess he was too exhausted prior to the trip.

We took the train back to Shenzhen on Sunday afternoon. The Canadians decided to return to HK for the fireworks; the rest of us Singaporeans except Jin Sheng decides to stay in Shenzhen for shopping. I didn't want to stay initially but as I am the organizer of the trip, I would be worried if I just let the both of them stay behind. Li Ling's room-mate is from China and her aunt brought us to a really nice place to get cheap clothes and stuff. The quality is also better than that in Dong Mun.

It's a nice trip overall and a different flavour with this bunch of people.

I went out to buy roast duck and chicken this afternoon and dine with Asanka in his apartment. This was the first time I had such dining in my 4 weeks in HK. A sense of nostalgia emerged when I recalled having such dining with Emily, Don & Philip. Asanka then told me that one of his apartment mate returned to Sweden as he has completed his studies. Suddenly, I felt like moving into his apartment as he bothers to clean it up and the place looks really tidy. I just can't cleaning toilets and people don't make the effort in maintaining it. I will go to the Student Housing Office to enquire tomorrow. Can't wait to move out.

Anyway, I talked to Mrs. Tam from the Science Dean's office last Wednesday and I was surprised that she actually brought this matter up to Student's Affair's Office. I was told that if I am really unhappy, I can choose to move out now. She also told me that I could apply for the Hall tutor in the upcoming semester so that I can interact more with students and in return, gets to stay for free. This is an excellent option as it will mean saving up HK$2650 per month.

In Memory of Thiam Seong

2007-02-14T00:14:00.000+08:00

It came as a shocking news.... though I didn't know him personally, I often see him during my UROPS and Honours year. He's a hardworking PhD student but life's unfair to him as he departed this world before his PhD defence. May he rest in peace and his family members find peace with time.

His last words: Take life easy, but with no regrets. Not neglect those who care, who needs you. 'coz when you are leaving this world like me, you can smile and say "bye".

His good friends in NUS remembrance of him: when you feeling bad about your research, he will appear and say "Take it easy, relax, and you will see what you are missing"

2007-02-11T23:45:00.000+08:00

Just returned from Sai Kung Hiking (yes again!) with a couple of exchange students from North America and some postgrads from China. I was the guide and many thanks to Felix for suggesting to the group for giving me a dinner treat that evening.

I was pretty pissed off on Friday, after I returned from my lab at 1am. The bathing area was flooded and the person who bath before this didn't bother to clean up the hairs to clear the drainage. I went to sleep that night without bathing (yucks) and when I want to bath on Sat, it's not clean again! Felt yucky to have such apartment mates; I cleaned up the mess and the result is as follow:

Had a class at CUHK on Sat and it was pretty fun. I took this Polymer module that allows me to attend lectures in HKU, CUHK and UST. It's fun in the way that we get to attend class at different uni. The lecture on that day was pretty boring and dry though :(. The remaining 2 modules I took were pretty boring too - Bioanalytical Chemistry was kinda trashy (though the lecturer is amiable and jovial) and Advanced Organic Chemistry II is totally crab. What he is going to cover in 4 lectures was actually covered in 1 lecture by Martin. Adding to the fuel, there is no exam for this module and he is actually lowering down the standard.

Met up with Tommy on Sat night and had dinner with him. It's really nice catching up with old friends and it made me feel less blue.

Why can't they have the courtesy to clean up the bathing area???

2007-02-10T01:42:00.000+08:00

Imagine this: you return back to your hostel at around 1am feeling really tired and you have class on Sat at 10am. All you hope to have is a nice hot bath. When you enter the bathroom, you discover to your horror that the bathing area is flooded, clogged with hair particles AGAIN! How will you feel?

That's what I am feeling now -- PISSED! Why can't the people in my apartment have the courtesy to clean up the bathing area after use? It's so sick lor. Seeing the water flooding over made me feel like puking. I am here to study, not to be you guys' maid! The people living in my apartment suck big time man.

Cyclic Peptide Sucks

2007-02-08T17:26:00.000+08:00

Today has been a lousy day. Talked to prof Wu in the morning and apparently, nothing fruitful turns out in the end. Doing conformational analysis on cyclic peptide is driving me crazy; there're simply so much possibilities and how are we going to analyze it? Worst still, he wanna see if these cyclic peptide can form nanotubes. Gosh, how long will the calculation take? He made it sound as if this is much easier than doing mechanistic studies. My foot lor. It's so meaningless sitting at the computer, looking at hundreds of conformations where everything seem the same to me.

My seniors were consouling me yesterday. They also dislike this project as they felt it's too much work and even if we have many results, there is no story line to link these result. In short, no conclusion can be drawn. One of my senior spent 1 year doing similar stuff and ended up with nothing. In the end, he decided to come out with his own project and move on. Apparently, people in my lab likes to suggest their own project. This is good for me as well as there are a lot of reactions that I will like to look into. When they realized what boss wants from my project, they laughed and said this has always been his dream. I paused for a while, memories of Dr. Yao's talk in the ISCOC last year flooded back and I thought, yah, dreams - a strong driving force indeed.

Since this project is more like mission impossible - searching in the dark for a one cent coin, I will do my best to get some results. I guess Chengdu side needs some of these results before they can get a good publication. Hope that this episode of my life will be done with quickly before I get to do things that I really like.

It all started with a "dream", indeed.

First TA duty...

2007-02-07T00:16:00.000+08:00

Had my first TA duty today and duration was from 10am till 5pm. Had a bad headache after that. Overall experience was not so satisfying as I didn't quite like what I am doing. In addition, the system here is pretty werid - lab technicians seem to have a lot of power and they are basically guiding the students most of the time. This makes me wonder what the TAs are for. For my side, the lab technician is very nice but I feel that she speaks too much canto to the students and guided them too much. On the whole, I feel that HK students are lucky as all the apparatus were laid out nicely for them (clearly labelled which conical flask is for whick unknown; my gosh!). Students in NUS were generally more independent.

Went to talked to Prof Wu right after my TA duty. He didn't seem to be in good mood and wasn't very please by my suggestion of changing project. His take in the issue is basically: finish up this oligopeptide thingy before you do the reaction project.

Feeling sucky now.

School Stuff

2007-02-05T23:30:00.000+08:00

I washed the toilet and the bath area yesterday. I think this is the 4th time I am doing this; basically, if no one wants to do it, somebody has to do it and since I can't stand dirty places, I'll do it. There is such thing as free lunch on Earth, depends on your luck.

Thanks Xin Hao for patiently guiding me in the computational stuff again. I managed to learnt most of the basics today and successfully calculated the conformation barriers of cyclohexane and modelled a simple SN2 reaction:

What you see is the end product of the work. The calculation wise involves some complicated algorithms. The simple SN2 reaction didn't work last week, after nearly 1 day of finding the transition state. The reason being that the basis set is given wrongly. Instead of RHF/6-31+G*, I used RHF/6-31G*. The "+" makes a lot of difference as anion is involved in this reaction and we need to introduce a diffusion function to make the calculation works. For cyclohexane, it's not easy too. I had a hard time finding the boat structure as it always slip to the more stable twist form. What I need to do is to fix the dihedral angle to make sure the conformation is eclipsed.

Kinda stress up today, though I have learnt most of the basics. This is because the initial small project given to me was on optimization of oligopeptide structures, something which I don't like. Being a more hardcore organic synthetic guy, I will prefer reactions related projects. My major project was on reactions but that will have to wait till I finish the peptide stuff. Xin Hao told me that I could talk to Prof. Wu on this matter as he can sense my passion in synthetic stuff. He also worked on some Diels Alder reaction stuff. I could probably continue with his work and stuff related. Anything is fine, so long as it's synthesis related.

Tomorrow will be my first lab TA duty. Hope things will go on well. I don't know why but I am not enthusiastic at all. I recalled being so excited in my first TA duty in NUS that I literally jumped around. I guess the reason is probably because it's MC and not synthetic lab.

MO Diagram of Propene & Benzene

2007-01-30T23:44:00.000+08:00

The day began with me sitting in for a module on Pharmacology & Toxicology. I intend to audit this module but decide not to as the lecturer is basically reading from the slides. Yawn. I am turned off even more when he said to the class that there is no need to read the reference textbook; whatever they need to know in the exams are in the powerpoint slides! What the heck! This deviates so far from the Life Science standard in NUS. Duh.

Anyway, I learnt some basic computational calculations from my senior XH today. He is really patient in guiding me as I am basically a computer idiot. I realized that I need to adopt to a completely new platform known as Linux. It's pretty tough for a start but I got the hang of the starting part at the end of the day. It's quite interesting as it demostrates how experiments and theory agrees well. My greatest achievement today is to calculate the MO of propene and benzene. The main ones are shown below:

HOMO & LUMO of propene:

Main MOs of benzene:

First Day of School

2007-01-30T13:40:00.000+08:00

Woke up a little late today as I was kinda tired from yesterday's hike. Reached the lab at around 10am and realized most people were not there yet. the XH told me that the computer that I am going to use was infected with a virus and I gotta reformat the whole computer. It took quite some time and I went to lunch at around 12pm.

Went for Dr. Yu's CHEM244 Analytical Chemistry II lecture at 1pm as she required all TAs to attend the first class. The horror came when I couldn't locate the classroom!! It was located at a new extension block and I was running around looking for it frantically. When I found it, it was already 1.20pm. Her class was boring and the students were talking non-stop, typical of any HK classes. I was about to fall to sleep when the lesson ended. I met her after that and to my surprise, I was not required to give any tutorial. I realized that TA in Chemistry are only required to grade and invigilate mid-terms and finals in courses. Other than that, we are required to take a lab module each. In short, no classroom teaching for me, which is bad. Yawn.

I dropped Biochemistry for bioengineers as its course content was far from what I expected. It's not biochemistry altogether. Sigh. Left with only 3 modules- CHEM512 Advanced Organic Chemistry II, CHEM544 Bioanalytical Chemistry and CHEM588 Polymer Chemistry. At 4pm, I went with my seniors to a seminar given by Prof. Jasper Knoester from University of Groningen in Netherlands. It's on Optical Spectroscopy in Condensed Phase Systems; quite an eye opener for me as I learnt something new :)

At the end of the day, after some rearrangement of the tables, I had my own space, cleaned and almost ready to use. What's left will be to upload the necessary programs and I am ready to learn the computational techniques. I think it's gonna be a little hard for me since I am pretty bad at computers. However, it'll be a good learning experience for me. Once I master the basics, I'll be ready to do some good research and hope to publish some good papers eventually.

Finally, I will like to say that I miss NUS. Yah, as much as I think the education system there is not so good, at least there are a lot of modules to choose from. This is good for me as I like to attend classes. Also, I miss the people - friends and juniors, the office staff, the profs, the lab technicians etc. Getting a little homesick but I am feeling better already. I hope as I get busier, such feelings will gradually fade.

I used to tell people that tomorrow is always a better day. 1 year ago, when I started my honours project, I had a hard time too but I survived eventually, with many other committments bundled. Since I survived that, 2 years Masters here shoudln't be a problem. Friends are not with me physically to shower me with warmth and support; however, deep in my heart, I know that they are with me "spiritually". Come grow old with me as the best is yet to be.

The Most Beautiful Place in HK Revisited

2007-01-29T15:30:00.000+08:00

I always wanted to visit Sai Kung East Country Park again as I feel that it's the most beautiful place in HK. I manage to go there today, with Asanka tagging along. I must really apologize as the whole trip really drained him out totally. I should have check his fitness level beforehand (again I assume too much) and moderate the hiking trip.

The travel log is as follow:

0900: Took minibus #12 to Sai Kung
0912: Arrive at Sai Kung
0945: Done with breakfast and took KMB #94 to Pak Tam Chung
1002: Arrive
1020: Start MacLehose trail
1053: Reached M005
1130: Reached M010
1203: Reached M015
1230: Break at hut
1251: Complete Section 1
1300: Lunch break at M021 Long Ke Wan
1345: Arrived M023
1445: Break at M025 hut
1530: Reached M029 hut
1550: Reached Sai Wan Village
1930: M048 completed Section 2

Our hiking trail as follow:

Some nice photos as follow:

The coastline appears different during different part of the year. The first picture was taken during fall 2005 and the second picture was taken today. Note the difference.

Completion of Project X

2007-01-27T06:08:00.000+08:00

Project X is finally completed; Eugene and Tian Xin sent it in for publication yesterday. I will like to thank my brilliant team of co-authors who made this possible - Eugene, Alice, Tian Xin and Justin.

It all started with a dream, in May 2006. 9 months later, we are closer to this dream. I wish to see the product of this dream soon. Dreams are really powerful motivating factors; that's why it's called a dream, and not aim or objective.

Referencing Lab Report - Wrong Attitude to Learning

2007-01-26T16:49:00.000+08:00

Tu di told me that she received a lot of peer pressure coz many of her friends have senior's lab report to refer to. This has been a problem in NUS Chemistry (or NUS in general) for as long as I remember. That is up to individual actually, I guess there is no right or wrong from a human perspective. However, from the academic perspective, it's a grave mistake. There is no such reason as "since everyone is doing it, then I might as well do it". Remember, the blind leads the blind in most cases.

I always remembered the sweetness of receiving back my lab report when I do the report myself. It may be a B+ but it still represents my ultimate effort. The module that I remembered the most was CM3292 Advanced Experiments in Analytical and Physical Chemistry. I didn't take any year III modules in those areas and thus the lab reports were tough to write. Together with Yiming, we have to read up on the materials and then struggled with the report. It's a tough process but we enjoyed the learning experience. At least, our reports are original. The mistakes are original and genuine. We can jolly well borrow reports from seniors and then save 80% of the time reading up on unecessary stuff (that bores me :p). We didn't fare fantastic for the reports, mostly B+ and A- but at the end of the day, we can satisfactions. At least, we can lift our head high and be proud of our grades because we deserve them. It may be silly, but it's worth it as the satisfaction gotten is priceless and definitely sweeter than an A+.

Nothing interesting happens for the past 3 days. Took lab safety test at SEPO on Tue and then did the online TA training assessment on Wed (before attending the course on Thu and reading the online materials!!!) The crappy thing is, I passed the online assessment. Haha. Maybe I have the instinct of a teacher and that's why I can answer those Q without taking the TA course.

Yah, went for the TA course today. The instructor is humorous and able to teach well. The course itself is however, a little boring for me as it basically teaches us how to teach, something which I already knew :p. Gotta know an international friend from Sri Lanka and went out with him for dinner and to Tsim Sha Tsui to admire the skyline of Asia's World City.

Feeling Blue & Homesick II

2007-01-23T14:44:00.000+08:00

Before I rattle, I'll like to thank those friends (especially Emily, Yuan-Ting, Teck Loon, Yiming, Jin Ro, Chee Siong & Suling) who listened to me for the past few days over phone and MSN. Without you people listening to my woes, I guess I would have just collapse. Thank you so much.

Anyway, I finally bath in the bathroom in my apartment this evening! That's quite an achievement, given that the initial condition of the bathroom is far worse than the condition of the dirtiest coffeshop toilets that I have seen! The toilet bowl is literally brown in colour...my gosh. I should thank my dad for doing some initial washing of it to make it look better; it's much cleaner now and yah, people in my apartment are making some effort in maintaining it. But I doubt it'll be kept that way for long, given everyone's busy schedule.

Although I have my own room now and enjoy the privacy that I wanted, it's not as rosy as I thought. Back in exchange when I had a room mate while staying in the UG Hall, though I lost the privacy, I have at least someone to talk to deep in the night when we are rushing assignments and when it's freezing outside. In addition, the toilets and common area were well maintained by the staffs. What's more, we are paying only HK$4000 for 1 semester. That's far cheaper than the HK$2665 that I am paying a month! The rooms in the UG Hall also has a large fan in the middle of the room, which helps to ventilate the room and keep you cool during summer. Over here, such fan is absent and we have to resort to turning on the air-con during summer (I presume it'll be hell hot during summer in the room, without a fan!). The fan can also in a way, helps me to accelerate the drying of my washed clothes. And of course, the bathrooms and common areas are not maintained in the apartment.

So how am I now? Still lonely, home-sick, sucky, down etc. Though Daniel and Yuin Yee (fellow NUS friends who went on exchange with me), and I have some character difference and our friendship remains just cordial, they are afterall Singaporeans! It's like if I have a sucky day, I know at least that at the end of the day, they are there to dine with me and we will "complain" to one another on our "plight". I kinda missed those Mondays and Wednesdays in which they actually waited for me most of the time for dinner when my lesson ends at 7.30pm. Not to forget, those HK friends whom I gotta know in day 1, who were such great companions during class and leisure time. Alas, they have graduated and move on with life. Even if we meet up for meals, it'll me like me catching up with my old Singapore friends; it's a different feeling, you see. Now I am here, surrounded by mainland chinese who communicates in mandarin and canto students who refuse to speak in English. Sigh.

Went on holdiay with my parents for a while last week and I marvelled at the pace that Shenzhen and Guangzhou develop. I went to Shenzhen once in Dec 2004 and a couple of times during my exchange stint from Sep 2005 - Dec 2005. Its most obvious development is in its metro, from none in 2004 to currently 2 lines running. It's expanding rapidly now! Of course, building sprung up everywhere and it's amazing that so much has changed for the past 2 years! Same goes for Guangzhou. I went there once in Feb 1999, Dec 2004 and a couple of times during my exchange stint from Sep 2005 - Dec 2005. It grew from a city without metro to one with 4 lines running now! It intends to expand to 8 lines in 2010, just in time for the Asian Game 2010. In addition,buildings also sprung up everywhere and the most telling sign is in its GDP of >US$10000, the only city in China to have reached such figure. Even Shanghai and Shenzhen were pale in comparison.

Project X will be completed soon and I look forward to see it!

I intend to write an article sharing my experience in teaching pericyclic reactions. Given my current state, in which I "lost" my skill in chemistry, to present, to socialize, I wonder whether it's still possible. My past seem so distant. Sometimes, I don't know how to face people who knows me, for I know they'll be disappointed when they know the state that I am in. Jin Ro and Joawen wrote beautiful descriptions of me before I left; I showed it to Shihui (a senior in Prof Hor's group) and she said that to earn such descriptions means you have really command a lot of respect from them. Thinking back, I feel ashame of those remarks. Apparently, I have lost that feeling for Chemistry, I don't know why. It's the same scary feelings I got after I ORDed from NS. The only difference is, after I ORDed, I was full of enthusiam in entering NUS. Now I am like "living day by day". Hopefully, things will get better when term starts.

In retrospect, one of the reasons why I am having such feelings is perhaps I left Singapore with a heavy heart, with many unfinished business. Perhaps, I left too quickly; I should have just stayed till yesterday and things might be better? Well, no one knows. But one thing is for sure, I am feeling blue now.

Feeling Blue & Homesick I

2007-01-21T06:24:00.000+08:00

Initially wanted to continue with my old blog address but decided to start a new one as it's easier to keep track and this also represents a new milestone in my life. "HK expedition" brought me many wonderful memories; guess they were too wonderful that I am feeling so blue now as things turn out to be so different when I am a full-time student here (compared to being an exchange student).

Apparently, the admin people here don't really get what I am trying to tell them and I had trouble with some of them. Even Prof. Wu (my supervisor) told me to be polite in the emails I sent out as the admin people remarked to him that I am rude in the email. Please lor, if I am rude, then they are super rude lor. Sigh, don't know what to say. Things just seem so different from the exchange period.

Sometimes I wonder whether I made the right choice in coming over here. Maybe I should have just go to NIE. If not, I could have chose NUS to do my Masters. Coming over here means I have to start everything afresh. Maybe I am proud or whatsoever, but it just don't feel good to feel so small. In addition, people here usually talk in canto (Hong Kongers) and mandarin (mainlanders). No one to discuss Chemistry in English with me. Sigh sigh.

Things got worse when I was told that I am given Analytical Chemistry and Molecular Characterization lab for my TA duty. Prof. Wu made it kinda clear that he wouldn't help me to talk to the prof-in-charge to change duty for me as he don't wanna trouble people and also it's not nice to do so. Sigh sigh. Why am I given modules which I hate the most for my TA duties? Some form of toughening up for me?

The feeling is scary. Suddenly, I felt as if I've lost all my chemistry knowledge when I embark on this trip. The sending off on Sunday (14 Jan) was kinda sad event for me. I felt I have lost the ability to teach, push arrows, present etc. Why do I feel this way? Is it because things didn't turn out the way I expect it to me? It's a good toughening up process but the road ahead is bound to be tough.