The Honours project literature review presentation was over and in my opinion, I did an average job. It wasn't too bad but but too good either. Dr. Lam and Dr. Vinh were my examiners and they didn't ask much question at the end of my presentation, probably because I made everything sounds simple? I always take it a point that whenever I do a presention, I aim to make things as simple as possible. It was a big relief after that as the next time I need to present will be in late June and that will be the progress report presentation. It will be a major one. Hopefully by that time, the molecules that I proposed to make will be synthesize out.

The next 2 presentations I have will be during NUS Open House. I am suppose to talk about my exchange, undergraduate research and honours experience. I am still trying to think what I should say; it's not an easy one to handle.

Super stress out. Rushing for my literature review presentation and there are more to come. A snowballing effect is now being experienced, blame it on my procrastination for the past 3 days. I am now facing with the largest no. of deadlines in my lifetime (I thought the worst was in HK) and of course, the most no. of presentations as well. Next Mon 270206 will be literature review and following that, 110306 and 120306 will be NUS Open House presentation. This is one that is political (in a way) and I need to watch what I say and what I put up. Right after that, 130306 will be coordination chemistry presentation; luckily Zhijie will be presenting with me side by side. so it's still not so bad. Coming end March will be Bioorganic Chemistry project presentation. This is the one that I look forward to as it'll be the first gradaute module that I take in NUS.

Let's pray that I'll survive.

And of course, the above mentioned is presentation only. There are still tests and ongoing honours projects; not to forget, the lectures hours and upcoming examinations. Also I will be helping Prof. Wu to come out with part of the Advanced Organic Chemistry notes; there is also a Project X that I have in mind. o_O

I hope that this semester will pass by quickly (and gracefully).

I will end this boring entry by congratulating Alice for obtaining the championship for Hong Kong Chemistry Olympiad 2006. Thanks for sharing the joy with me by passing the photo to Weilan.

Had a pretty fruitful day today as I sat through most of the Singapore-India Collaborative and Cooperative Chemistry Symposium. The morning session was pretty boring as it was mainly on some surface chemistry and physical chemistry stuff. I think I only understand 20% of it. Lunch time was spent discussing coordination chemistry project with Zhijie and Kamal. The afternoon sessions was more fruitful as it was mainly on organic stuff :) At least no matter how alien the stuff was, I'll be able to understand at least 60% of it. Learnt some new reactions today and they include Meerwein-Ponndorf-Verley (MPV) reduction and Cadiot Chodkiewicz coupling.

Dr. Tan presented on his work on his initial 2.5 years in NUS - chiral guanidine catalyzed enantioselective reactions. He published 2 papers on that work; the presentation was fair as he appeared nervous and the Indian professors were raining questions at him at the end of the session.

During the afternoon coffee break, Prof. Hor (the head of chemistry) came and had a short chat with me. He asked me why didn't I ask any Q since the afternoon talk were all organic-related stuff. He said that students should ask more Q. o_O I told him that I felt that it's kinda rude to ask at times and many a times, the presenter flashed the slides so fast that before I could take note, it's gone. He said that's a common problem in symposium but there's no solution since the slides are copyrighted. Honestly, if one is really good in organic, he'll need some time to assimilate the information and no one knows every reactions. It came as a surprise that he remembers that my field is organic chemistry (guess so since he just wrote a recommendation letter for me) and bothers to talk to student (anyway it's always his style).

Thanks Keming for having so much faith in me till this day; it's very touching to hear that. I'm flattened when you mentioned to me that I am the only friend you envisioned to be a PhD holder. I may disappoint you eventually as this dream may not be realized due to factors of life. Throughout the years, I realized that I prefer to "wow" at others' discoveries rather than doing it myself.

Dr. Lu told us a lame joke over Bioorganic Chemistry class yesterday evening. He said duing SNIC conference last december, a french prof. said that chemists are the most hardworking people. He gave the scenario of a chemist, a lawyer and an accountant going for hike and got lost in the forest. They met this genie and they were asked whether they'll like to have a mistress or a wife? The accountant said he wants a mistress and the lawyer said he wanted a wife. The chemist wanted both. The reason being, if he has both, he can tell his wife that he is meeting his mistress and his mistress that he is meeting his wife; this allows him to sneak back to the lab to work o_O

Kinda pissed off today. First it was Prof. Hor's secretary who made it sound like he is really doing me a super favour by helping me to write the reference letter and asked me not to bug her too often as she claimed that she and Prof. Hor are already in the loop of this issue. She said that he was very busy and I am not the only one asking him to write. Yah right; when they need help, who is the one helping them?

This was followed by Bioinorganic lecture. Dr. John is kinda bias against Organic and kept joking and insulting the field. He even when on by saying that 90% of organic chemistry nothing but by electrophile interacting with nucleophile. He challenged to find him an example of an electrophile attacking each other. I felt like telling him that Inorganic Chemistry is nothing but a series of unrelated reactions that contain exceptions more than the norm.

Happy Valentine's Day 2005 Emily Dear!

Love is in the air and couples are seen holding hands and whispering sweet nothings into one another everywhere. We chose not to celebrate V Day in this commercialized day as it's simply too crowded and there won't be quiet moments for a good talk. The celebration we had yesterday was great and thanks for the bag! It's sweet of you to get me a bag and even sweeter to have gotten me a "Disney on Ice" ticket. The dinner at Pasta Fresca is great; it's made even greater by the ambience and surrounding - besides the Singapore river.

Following dinner, we met up with Suzana and Teck Loon for a while; the main purpose is to bid her farewell and we really hope she enjoyed her Singapore trip this time round.


Today has not been a good day for me, both in the lab and in class. I didn't do much today and fell asleep during class :(

It's the end of a week and the start of another. Time really flies and I have been back to Singapore for almost a month and a half already. Lab for the past one week has been rather successfully and I have managed to synthesize what I wanna make, except probably for the final product, whose presence remains elusive. For the next one week, I can start to really synthesize what I wanna make in my project proposal; I hope that it'll be successful.

For the next week onwards all the way till the beginning of exams, I have a series of deadlines to meet. My project literature review presentation is on 27/28 Feb and I gotta prepare the slides befroe that. Immediately after that, I'll have to prepare slides for NUS Open House on 11 and 12 Mar. In the same month, I'll have to prepare for presentation for Bioorganic Chemistry, the module that I look forward to most. Advanced Coordination Chemistry presentation is somewhere during that period of time too; the good thing is that we are doing this in a group of 3. For my ongoing project, I hope to finish most of my proposed stuff by the end of June; this is to allow me to have a solid presentation for the Progress Report at the end of June. Of course, this is possible provided all my planned reactions go the way it should (most of the time, this is not the case). If it does, I'll be able to work on more series of compounds. That will be plan after I am done with my current work.

In addition to all the above, I have an interesting ongoing project with Prof. Wu and Alice. We will be coming out with the powerpoint slides and lecture notes for the Advanced Organic Chemistry course. This is great as it is my dream to plan and come out with a series of notes and slides for organic chemistry. I was asked to begin with "Pericyclic Reaction" as I was told by Alice that Prof Wu mentioned that I am an expert on that. o_O Actually I was shocked and at the same time, flattened by that comment. I am seriously no expert in that topic as I have not done any real lab research on that topic. In addition, there is so much to know about this topic that I feel my knowledge is only a small fraction of the whole body. Having said all that, I am happy as it is my most favourite topic in organic chemistry (think Prof. Wu knows and probably that's why I was asked to do it first). I'll definitely do my best and come out with a set of really solid notes for "pericyclic reaction". This will be helpful not only for this course and for other courses as well. For example, I may be asked to teach organic chemistry again for this year's International Chemistry Olympiad and I can thus use it for my presentation.

Academic stuff aside, our Macau friend Suzana came to Singapore for a visit. Together with Teck Loon and Emily, we brought her around to palces like Singapore river, Orchard, Esplanade, Geylang etc.



We had a wonderful time and all of us enjoyed ourselves very much through travelling and chatting. This is one of the advantage of going for exchange as it allows you to make friends from around the region; when you are there, they play host to you and when they come, you'll be their tour guide. This makes life much more interesting, memorable and fulfilling.

An unusual thing happened when I returned home late last night after working in the lab till 10pm. I was taking the feeder bus back home and I was examining the NMR spectrum of a classmate, who asked me to help her check whether her compound matches the spectrum. While I was comparing the integration ratios, the guy (I believed he's from Middle East or South America) sitting next to me started asking me why I was comparing the ratios curiously and whether what I am doing were chemistry related stuff. Sensing his curiosity, I started telling him about NMR and why synthetic chemists perform NMR after their synthetic work. Off I continue with all the structures, chemical shifts etc. He was bewildered and appeared to understand what I have said. When I realized that I have gone too far, I stopped and he asked me some Q related to his biomedical research. He was wondering whether NMR can help determine the extent of cross-linking in the curing process etc. After another 5mins of talk, it's time for me to alight and we bidded farewell.

When I think back, I thought it was pretty funny; explaining NMR to someone who doesn't know it and I started sketching spectrums. He must have gone o_O. Hmm but I realized I love to explain things and that's the reason why I am gonna be a teacher in the future.

I hope the reaction I did was successful and the column chromatography I ran earlier on got the product I want. The success of this new reactions that I tried is important as it cuts down the synthetic step by 2 steps. It'll help me get my target molecules at a faster rate.

Quite a fulfilling day today. The day ended with some discussions with Dr. Lu on his Bioorganic lecture. The only drawback is that the NMR spectrum of my starting material didn't turn out the way I expect it to be. I am suspecting that it is contaminated with some monoalkylated product. If there's really the case, then it's really bad.

The day began with lab; rushed for Advanced Coordination Chemistry tutorial at 12pm and then lunch with Yuan-Ting and Zhijie after that. Rushed back to complete lab before Bioorganic lecture at 5pm. I used to find joy in such hectic day because many things can be accomplished. I am neutral to it now; I have learnt to take things a little slowly after my exchange stint in HK. I am not sure why; is it because I have grown older? Lame. Or is it because there is something more important in life now, something which I have discovered during my exchange? Whatever the case, it doesn't really matter; Chemistry is my passion and it has not change. It's just the way I work; probably taking things slowly will increase productivity. It lets me think through what I have done. It prevents me from "overworking" myself from the start. There is always this danger of "overworking" as if that happens, one will get "burn" towards the middle and feel lethargic. Doing lab is like running a marathon; we need to start slowly and pick up in the middle.

Anyway thanks Emily dear for the words of encouragement. I am fine and I am sorry to make you worried.

My Chinese New Year holidays were spent mostly at home, except on Monday when I visited Emily after a movie with Chun Ser and Teck Loon. Had a short chat with her humourous dad and the lunch was good. She came over to my place after that and we had home-made "wu xiang" rolls, courtesy of my mom. :)

The movie "Huo Yan Jia" was not too bad. It made me think through some issue in life. How the mindless pursue of "the no. 1 title" can lead to one's destruction and how when you are the best, those who came knocking at your doors are mostly untrustworthy; they only wanted to share your fame. Let's see whether these people will still be around when you become ordinary.