#2 Woes of Postgraduate student: HEART ATTACK

Yours truly went out happily for lunch followed by tea break at Secret Receipe with the roomie. Well, my ex-roomie but I still address her as roomie. Lunch was at the chap fun shop as usual, where I had rice with dunno-call-what vege and steamed egg with mince pork. Then at Secret Receipe I had a slice of chocolate cheesecake and a glass of apricot and orange slushie. Super happy or my tummy was the one super happy packing away all the fats lah. 

Anywas, I came back to lab then the boyfriend called. So I answered the call at the lab where I usually do my labwork. 

Was hovering around there when suddenly I realized, "WHERE DID MY OTHER VACUUM PUMP WENTTTT!????" 

Started panicking because the pump cost about 1K. Went around the  labs to search for it and asked around. Until one of the fyp student told me, "The other student took it to the other lab to use. "

=.= 

Can don't give me heart attack or not har!?? My heart is very weak one. 

Kinda pissed off at them for making me hunt for nothing. But I didn't want to scold them. In the end, I wrote and email asking them to inform me if they want to move the assests elsewhere. 

Fuhh. End of heart attack. 

That Time of the Month

It was the time of the month. And pain was anticipated, as usual. The me when to the work as usual. Slight discomfort but still bearable. Few hours later, I had to swallow my words. The pain's intensity increased and the me started to sweat, cold sweats.

I knew where that discomfort would get me. Learning from previous 'blackout' epsisode, the me decided to head back to the hostel, to the comfort of the bed.

And yeah, I literally crawled back to the hostel.

After popping painkillers and consumed a glass of hot ginger tea,the me climbed into bed and burried myself among my pillows and blanket.

*dejavu feeling*

Was it just 2 years back when I was in a similar situation but with the musketeers with me?

It happened in the lab too. I remembered how they accompanied me to the clinic then back to my room and after that came over to check at me again.

At that moment, I really really miss them. Uni has never been the same without them, ever.

Yours truly was in pain, lack of company and really craving for some source of comfort. Which isn't exactly me. Since the me has always been quite independent.

The lion not being around didn't help much either. In fact it made matters worse.

The next day when the lion came back into range, the me broke down over the phone. I was missing my besties THAT much. ;(

#1 Woes of a Postgraduate Student

It's amazing how the final year project (fyp) students under my guidance could drive me up the wall. 

And today they did it again. I kinda lose my temper, slightly. 

I was trying very very hard to understand that they are only fyp students, so they are new, there are lots of things they weren't exposed to etc. 

Back to what they did today. 

First of all, they come to lab extremely unprepared. Most of the time, they come to me with empty hands, without their log books or any reference journals. Well, this is acceptable,IF, they have everything they need to do at the tip of their finger or they've fully absorb the details in their brain. But no, they come to me empty handed and just expect me to tell them what they are supposed to do. 

I told one of them to dissolve her material in a solvent and sonicate it for 1 hour. Guess what she did after dissolving the material? She stood by the sonicator and waited for God knows what until I said, " what are you waiting for? Put it into the sonicator." 

Two, they are not initiative. If I don't tell them when they are supposed to do what, they'll just keep quiet and wait. Okay, maybe this is still categorized under the-still-new-not-sure-what's-going-on problem. Maybe this can still be forgiven. 

Since the very beginning of time, I've told them that for research, it is a MUST to read lots of journals. Yes, they may still be new and will not fully understand what they read. But at least make the effort to read. Sad to say, after four months (they started in February), they sent me a copy of their proposal for proof reading and the literature in it was just up to whatever I told them to read. 

They learned how to do two of the characterizations today. When I asked them at which wavelength would they anticipate the peak to appear, NONE of them could tell me an answer. *facepalms* It is a very general characterization where there are A LOT of literature are available. Plus this is not a new characterization to them, they have had encounters with this instrument during their studies. Sigh. For this, I'm very very disappointed la. 

I do not want to spoonfeed them. I want them to have the experience of doing proper research work. So that they can have the freedom of learning and at the end of the day, I hope they'll reap the fruits of their hardwork and feel the accomplishment. 

But it seems like it's not working. 

Should I just spoon feed them? Send them journals to read? Set them a timetable? Tell them what to do step by step? 

I really dunno. 

I'm going on leave for nearly a week next week. I wonder, will they just wait until I come back to proceed with their work?