The Bioorganic Chemistry presentation is analogous to a battle ground between the 2 most populous countries in the world. Be it political, academic or just for the sake of making fun and shaming the side that is less Anglo-inclined, a by-stander like me can sense the heat and in the process, developed a wave of feelings and emotions for it. Oh well, I may be exaggerating and the reader might think that I am racist. The fact is I am not; I am just speaking up for our poor cousins up north who are being bullied, not because they are weak in chemistry concepts/ theories but just because they are not as linguistically inclined as the other camp. Now, who is being racist here?

I guess I did an okay job as usual; not fantastic and not too lousy. The preparation for the presentation was very last minute and it all boils down to procrastination. In fact, I am still preparing for the slides on the day of the presentation and I am done with it minutes before the presentation. Thanks to Alice for allowing me to use and modify some of her slides and Emily dear for her support and love. Not to forget, I am also thankful to Yuan-Ting for coming down to support me for all my presentations.

The Q & A after my presentation was pretty heat up, with people trying to ask me questions for the sake of asking. It was a question on one of the intermediate of the catalytic cycle I drew and how I wished Zhijie was around to defend my point. That guy kept insisting on what he thought was right and I don't see the point in arguing with him. The following questions I got was fine, asked my a fellow Singaporean whom I thought was trying to lighten up the mood. The final Q was from our cousin up north on characterization and it was okay as well.

The class was filled mostly with foreigners, with very little locals (can be countedwith one hand). As mentioned above, it appears as a battling group between 2 large camps, with one side attacking our less lingustically-inclined cousins. It was very bad of them to do that and certainly, I will help them as much as I could within my abilities. I am not being nationalistic here but I feel that there is a need to speak up for my fellow race when the need arises.

I think I spoke too fast and too long today. I am refering to today's presentation for Advanced Coordination Chemistry; Dr. Vinh and Zhijie commented that I spoke for too long. Yuan-Ting recorded the presentation and told me that my portion took up a stunning 15mins. Zhijie talked to the second part and I think he talked for another 10-15mins or so. o_O No wonder Dr. Vinh commented that we exceeded the stipulated time by 3 times. Overall, I think I did an okay job, at least I felt that I am myself today.

Went down to MOE HQ to hand up my Master's application form. I'm relieved that everything is completed and right now, I just need to wait for their confimation. HK side has yet to notify me whether they will accept me but I believe the chance is high. For MOE's side, the chance of them releasing me for a Master's by research is 50-50. I tend to be optimistic but at times, things don't turn out the way we want it. Had lunch with Angeline after that and catch up with her; it's been a long time since I last had a good chat with her. I am glad to know that she has been accepted by GSK and she'll be flying off to UK for a year before working in Singapore.

My final presentation for this semester will be this Wed and I have yet to prepare for it! I'll be presenting on Click Chemistry and it's application in drug discovery. I need to double up and complete the slides fast. Hope everything will go on well.

My JC schoolmate Xuelian's tuition kid's friend needed tuition and she introduced it to me. The tuition will begin this Thursday and it has been a long time since I last taught Chemistry. In this case, it's "A" level Chemistry (The last time I taught was before I left for HK). Hope that she'll do well under my charge for her upcoming "A" level this Nov. In addition, may my passion inspire her to attain greater heights.

I'll be meeting up with Dr. Karen and Dr. Basheer this Friday evening to discuss about the Chemistry Olympiad training. I hope that this year's training will be more structured (if I have some say in this matter, I'll definitely bring it up) and hope that we'll perform better than last year.

Poor Emily dear is still in school doing her project at this moment. Hope that she'll return home soon to have a good night rest. I have not been a good bf as I am not able to accompany her. :(

I am suppose to stay at home and prepare for my upcoming presentations; instead I took some time off to visit the NATAS travel fair in the afternoon. The day began with I going over to dear Emily's place to pass her a cheese cake and an apple pie so that she can snack when she's tired with her work.

NATAS travel fair is the biggest one this year (read from the papers) and it's the 2nd time I visited it (the first time being 1998). Immediately when I entered the exhibition hall, I was greeted by a huge booth that showcases Asia's World City. It was a very nice booth, showcasing the many wonders of HK; I wasn't drawn there because I've live there for a couple of months and basically I have visited most of those places already. It was an eye-opener and I looked around to see some nice places that I can visit in the future. I am there more for collecting travel information than to compare prices. As usual, I learnt about many places and the most memorable one being Kenya. If not for the splendid introduction, I wouldn't know that a Kenyan trip is equivalent to a Safari trip, where we can stay very near animals and observe them at arms length. The animals run about in Safari and it will be interesting to see them at close distance.

I took a look at the China tourism booth and once again, I was bombarded with many interesting places, the most interesting one being the silk road. In addition, I saw this map of Guangzhou and I am wondering why is it that when I visited Guangzhou, I couldn't find such map!

Dr. Karen asked me to help train this year's Singapore Chemistry Olympiad team. They are going up to Korea this summer for competition and I am hoping that they'll ask me to tag along as well. :p They will be heading to Yeungnam University, located in the City of Gyeongsan about 400km southeast of Seoul. It's a picturesque place with scenic mountains and beautiful temples. Hmm I hope that they'll ask me to go ...

This week hasn't been going on well with me. The experiments didn't turn out the way that I want to and things just screw itself up automatically - reflux hose came out mysteriously and caused my 3 days effort to gone down the drain and I gotta clean up the mess after that. In addition, my NMR of another experiment doesn't seem right and I gotta do it all over again. Sucks.

Emily dear brought me to Disney on Ice on Tuesday to relive some Disney experience. It's really nice and reminded us of our carefree days in HK and Disneyland in particular.

It's a world of laughter
A world of tears
It's a world of hopes
And a world of fears
There's so much that we share
That it's time we're aware
It's a small world after all

There is just one moon
And one golden sun
And a smile means
Friendship to everyone
Though the mountains divide
And the oceans are wide
It's a small world after all

It's a small world after all
It's a small world after all
It's a small world after all
It's a small, small world

NUS Open House is finally over. I gave a talk on "My NUS-Chemistry Experience" on both Sat and Sun. I think my presentation on Sat sucks and that on Sun is better. At least, I am more compose. Sat was not really right for me as I have a tiring week. My friends said I spoke well but I know myself that I have not really conveyed what I want to convey; I'm not my usual self. I didn't speak with much passion, enthusiasm and didn't said what I intend to say. Sigh. Sunday was better as I rested well on Sat night. I wish to thank Emily dear for supporting me all the way and creating the SEP video for me. :) Of course, not to forget Justin, Marlin and Zhijie specially attending my not-so-inspiring talk on Sat.

2 more presentations coming up - Advanced Coordination Chemistry and Bioorganic. Next Tue will be Bioinorganic test. Hmm ...

The least that I expect from today's Natural Product tutorial is a surprise test; I have been busy for the past few days with labs and preparing for the Open House presentation that I just want a smooth and usual tutorial. Murphy's law strike and it was made worse when I arrived late for it. We were required to devise the biosynthesis of a particular compound and I had mental block. Didn't produce much things in the end and I suppose I'll get zero for it. It's difficult to imagine that such things will happen to me but well, everyone have their bad hair days.

The most important thing now is to get the Open House slides ready, to give a good presentation for the next 2 days, to obtain some nice stuff from the lab to get publication and to prepare for my bioorganic and advanced coordination chemistry presentation.

I took a look at the Chemistry modules that will be offered next semester. I was both happy and sad. Sad in the sense that I'm not able to complete my "grandslam" of completing all organic based modules in NUS as CM4222 Advanced Organic Synthesis and Spectroscopy is only offered in semester II. It is usually offered in semester I but this time round, due to the Coursework MSc program, they have to offer it in the second semester in order to have enough manpower to teach the module. In addition, I'll not be able to take CM5211 Comptemporary Organometallics that is taught by Prof. Leong WK as it's not offered in semester I.

I was happy because the remaining of the modules that I wanna take is offered - CM3222 Organic Reaction Mechanism, CM4223 Asymmetric Synthesis and CM5221 Advanced Organic Synthesis are offered. In addition, due to the Coursework MSc program, there many new graduate modules being offered. I saw this really interesting one that I'll definitely wanna take - CM5121 Graduate Organic Chemistry. The title may be lame but the course content is as follow:

• Asymmetric oxidation e.g. asymmetric oxidation, epoxidation of olefins (Sharpless, Jacobsen, Yang-shi, etc), asymmetric osmylation.
• Asymmetric reductions e.g. asymmetric reduction of carbonyl compounds, asymmetric hydrogenation, etc
• Asymmetric C-C bond formation reactions
• Metal-mediated organic transformations
• Protecting groups in organic synthesis
• Selected mechanisms in organic synthesis

Interesting topics and hopefully all of them will be delivered as promised. The more the merrier. I am fetish for hardcore modules. :p It's a psychological problem I guess; I enjoy learning difficult organic concepts.

Yeah, it appears that next semester is all organic modules! My junior was complaining that it's "unbecoming" of me to take CM3222 Organic Reaction Mechanism since I have already taken a more hardcore module in HK. Well, that's the flaw of the system - if you take a higher level module while skipping the prerequisite module, there is no rule saying that you can't take the lower level one (provided you have not taken it). It's interesting to take that module too since I'll be taking with my juniors for the first time (one of them is really gifted in organic).

I am 2 months into my FYP and the progress is fine. It's getting a little "no life" as it's lab, lab and lab everyday, besides attending lectures. Sometimes, when I pass by those bazaars and LTs with many year ones and twos standing outside waiting to enter, I'll be filled with nostalgic feelings of the past. Lab is fine for me since I enjoy doing organic synthesis but sometimes, I asked myself whether I can do this continuously for 4 years to get a PhD. There are many facotrs to consider as well.

I got some new ideas for my FYP. I am thinking of doing some additional stuff in addition to my FYP and hopefully, will increase the chance of getting something publishable. One of it will be microwave assisted organic synthesis. I hope to use it to try for my trimerization reaction.

Yesterday Dr. Lu talked about combinatorial chemistry during bioorganic chemistry lecture. It's fine and pretty interesting as I finally know what is a traceless linker! Tuesday's Bioinorganic was a little crab again. Halfway through, Dr. John asked an organic Q that only requires freshmen organic knowledge to answer. Surprisingly, those that he asked either don't know or gave the wrong answer. In the most unexpected move, he turned to me and said, "let's ask the organic chemist"! My first reaction was, "Holy shit, how did he even know who I am; he should be the last to know in whatever the case." o_O