GARGANTUAN steps

Monday, August 31, 2009

of malaysia and floorball

It's been two busy weekends for me and I'm actually left with one whole weekend for myself before I leave, which promises to be equally chalked up with events and activities. The summer holidays are coming to a dreaded end and this year is going to be a tough one going back to London. It promises to be three long years ahead, with perhaps a short time back in Singapore in between. No more long summer holidays.

The weekend a fortnight ago was spent driving up to Kluang, Malaysia, to visit my grandparents and my mother's side of the family. We missed my grandmother's birthday two weeks back because my cousin's wedding dinner clashed with her birthday. I realised that after all these years, I still do not know the proper names of my relatives in Malaysia and I wanted to make it a point to properly document each family and their children. My grandparents have eleven children (my uncles and aunties), and if each of them got married and had between two to three children, that's thirty over cousins that I have no clue about! As it is, I'm the third oldest of my generation, and it really feels odd being past the age of twenty and having cousins who are barely out of the cradle. Unfortunately, not all my relatives could make it that weekend, and so I'll probably have to do the documentation the next time I'm back in Kluang. Another thing I finally found out was the address of my grandparent's place, just in case I might have to drive there by myself in the future. A satellite navigator will always come in very handy.

I think there has always been an attraction to going to Malaysia back when I was younger. It always fascinated me to see chickens and chicks and ducks in the backyard. This trip was no different, just that now I have to do the chauffeuring, and there's the added verbal odometer and two GPS running in the background, with differing instructions. Always a recipe for disaster. That evening, my friend and I met up with Ben and Zhijing and we had our annual dinner at Angus at Takashimaya for some glorious steak.

My grandparents' place in Kluang

My grandfather

My grandmother

The last weekend can be termed floorball weekend. The Saturday was dedicated to floorball, beginning with the Warwick Summer Games held at Hwa Chong Institution, where we supposedly represented Imperial Alumni (of which only two of us were from Imperial, and one out of the two of us was an alumni). Unfortunately, half of my usual floorball team couldn't make it (the Bens - B1 due to a shoulder injury, and B2 due to undisclosed reasons) and it was quite a hassle trying to get in replacements, but I found two capable players in the end! So the team that began the day was comprised of Hocks (captain personified), Samuel (Mr Classy), Dennis (young player of the season) and myself. Zhong Jie came in time for the last two matches. We played quite well for the first match and it went downhill from there, becoming more and more complacent until we lost to Warwick in a big upset. I suppose I could go on complaining about how unfair it was to stick the entire player into the small goals provided, hence blocking all shots on target, but I suppose that if we had won that match, we wouldn't have taken the finals as seriously and probably would have lost. I even scored an own goal in our fourth match, which is something I always seem to do at every tournament.

I'm glad to have played with this team, and though it started off seemingly like a walk in the park, it definitely didn't turn out as boring as I thought it might have. Samuel is a really classy player that I will always hope to have on my team, and Dennis definitely has a lot of potential, as long as he manages to carry on playing, especially in tournaments. The tournament ended with us beating Warwick in the finals, and I finally got my goals of the tournament! Hocks and I then adjourned to Valhall for our usual Saturday session where Ben Loh finally decided to join us. Thanks to Dennis for the photos provided below.

Team Valhall
Front - Pei Ying
Back - Samuel, Hocks, Dennis and me

Team Awesome
Samuel, Zhong Jie, Hocks, me and Dennis

The evening ended with me watching District 9. Unfortunately, I couldn't enjoy the show as much as I could because I was really tired from 180min of non-stop floorball action spread throughout the day. I will watch it again, but it really is quite a thought-provoking film, for anyone who's interested in deeper films.

It's just slightly more than a week left before it's time to head back to soggy grey London. So many things to do, so little time. Just not ready to go.

Labels: Family, Film, Floorball, Friends, Malaysia, Singapore

posted by Gabriel Yan at 12:38 AM 0 comments

Tuesday, August 04, 2009

lab crap

It's slightly more than halfway through my last proper summer holidays and what would I be doing if I weren't working in the same research lab as I was working in last year? It would seem almost wrong going to another laboratory, but I'm glad to be back. Working harder than usual this year, there has been lots more data to gather, lots more papers to read, as well as lots more work to do. I think that this year is even more fruitful than last year, and hopefully, something positive will come out of it, if it hasn't already.

Meanwhile, the lab people have been up to their usual business, sabotaging each other and having lots of fun in the meantime, the worse things usually perpetuated by me. This year saw the addition of two new honour's years students, Pinyan and Farhanah, as well Long Yuan and Regina leaving the lab. Long Yuan is spending an additional semester completing her other Majors (I believe in Finance), and Regina is off to Duke University in the States to further her studies. A Syrian guy, Kenan, also came to work in the laboratory for about three weeks, having come on exchange from Bradford University in the UK. I believe my brother is also considered an honourary member of the lab, if he even bothers. However, I'm the only one in the lab with two bosses, the actual boss of the lab, as well as my brother. Makes life twice as hard.

Anyway, I'll probably update more about the lab towards the end of my attachment, but there's been lots of funny stuff going about in the lab. I even have a paintbrush dedicated to me after I left the lab last year. And everyone has a Korean name as well. This lab - probably the best one to work hard and have fun in.

Out for drinks at Holland Village
Kenan, Andy, Regina, Dr Lim, Me, Chee Wai (Chang Bok)

Chang Bok's Graduation, flanked by Regina and Chi Kuen
(not really Charlie and not really Angels)

Famous and impossible poses

The lab
Back row: The honours girl; The girl who is leaving for the US this month; The Myanmar graduate student; The other honours girl; The other graduate student; The summer programme student leaving in Sept; Exchange student for 3 weeks who just left
Front Row: My favourite lab tech; My beloved professor