First week of A*STAR IMRE attachment is finally over!

Its been pretty much interesting so far, with wacky nerds as research partners, and super soft hearted researchers and mentors. not to mention the excellent drinks at the pantry and our 2 hr lunch break! haha

For the uninformed, A*STAR is the Agency for Science, Technology and Research, Singapore's official body for all science research. Of course theres still NUS and NTU, but A*STAR is the main one. Consisting of 12 research institutes, half of which are dedicated to biomedical research, it is also Singapores biggest conglomeration of research institutes.

IMRE stands for Institute of Materials and Research Engineering, which focuses more on the physics of materials and their properties. I'm attached to for the next 4 weeks there doing a project on Optical Solar Cells.

Its quite far for me to travel to anyway, coz its located in the NUS compound, near the clementi side, so I spend at least 1.5 hours travelling. Its located next to the NUS school of business and the Temasek Lifesciences Laboratories, another RI but not under the A*STAR umbrella.

My research team. The centre one is Yong Jin from RJ, who is really quite crappy. The right one is Shaun from AC. Wonder if nicole knows him.

Shaun operating the glove box. Quite a cool contraption, the glove box. Lets you do everything in a inert nitrogen environment free of contaminants and dust particulates. Too bad its not sterile.

The idea is to put your hands through the black gloves into the box. Somehow when the pressure is high the gloves pop out, which somehow impresses Yong Jin. I don't wanna know why he finds taut gloves fascinating.

Oh and Yong Jin also has a morbid obsession with air guns and nitrogen guns.

Our student pass. Gives us access to the library and the common corridors but not the labs. At least we can access the pantry, which is all that matters:)

more photos next time.

This holiday promises to be one rollercoaster ride. So much to do and places to go, 7 weeks hardly seems enough.

The list of what I have to do:

1) Physics Electricity E lecture and tutorial
2) Physics Data Based questions
3) Physics project
4) Maths Maclaurin's Series lecture and tutorial
5) Maths Application of Differentiation Tutorial
6) Maths Permutations and Combinations Tutorial
7) GP 2 promo essays
8) GP Promo Compre
9) GP 15 articles
10) Commonwealth Essay 2008
11) Plan for Service Learning
12) Logistics for ASO

List of things I want to do:
1) File all files
2) Clean my room
3) Stanford Essay Competition
4) Maths Application of Integration Tutorial
5) Revise Maths term 3 and 4 work
6) Revise Chem Ionic Equilibra and Chem Bonding
7) CIP
8) Practice Econs
9) GP intensive research

Combine this with the list of events I have this 2 months:
11 Nov--wedding ceremony and lunch buffet of Luke and Minyen
12 Nov to 14 Dec--A*STAR Science Research Attachment at IMRE (every single weekday from 8am to 6pm)
18 Nov--wedding ceremony and lunch buffet for Kevin and Christina
23 to 25 Nov--Rock Climbing competition
30 Nov--ASEAN Scholars Orientation
3 Dec--farewell cum welcome dinner for chariskidz teachers
9 Dec--Huishan and Thomas' wedding ceremony and lunch buffet
10 Dec-- Huishan and Thomas' wedding dinner banquet
14 Dec--HGC Christmas Party
21 Dec--Friday @ 8
22 Dec--Youth Christmas Party
23 Dec--Christmas chariskidz Party(in charge so need to plan)
25 Dec--Christmas Cantata (performing?)
31 Dec--overnight prayer meeting
1 Jan--ODAC camp

Now add to this the fact that all my Weekends are consumed serving in Chariskidz and Youth
Consider that I have to plan for the youth fellowship and take care of my P6 kids joining us.

All make for an exciting hectic and busy year end hols!

I pray God will keep me sane.

On the upside, I have 1 farewell dinner, 3 Christmas parties, 3 wedding buffets and one wedding dinner banquet to attend! That equals eight days of feasting! EIGHT!

What debauchery Im actually looking forward to stuffing myself! haha

Huishan's Getting Married! SO HAPPY for her.....but so sad she cannot serve in Chariskidz anymore......we will lose a very valuable teacher...

Im not sure I know her beau Thomas but from the photo they look extremely blissful so i wish them all my blessings

Hope their dinner banquet is a nice one! Must start finding clothes for that too.

Evonne and Linette and Kenny and Niu are also going so probably
we can go together...with the other chariskidz teachers we can form an entourage! Haha

Oh! And we say goodbye to 3 wonderful teachers this year: Huishan, Qingwei, Yanchoo

And say HOLA! to 3 more: Peiqi, TingAn and Ethel! haha

SOOOOO happy that finally LTA and turtle can join us.

Time to plan my Schedule; A*STAR Starts Tomorrow!

A*STAR HERE I COME!!!


rainbows over AJC,
sweet dreams, shattered reality
heartbreak, disappointment, despair
ALL a part of God's wonderful plan