Confessions of a Percussionist - Part 2

Okay. Time for the much un-awaited second part. In the last post, I talked about the social aspect of being in a percussion ensemble, a concept that was not-so-familiar to me. This time, I'll talk about the not-so-pretty stuff of culture shock, namely the second stage: Disintegration. Disintegration...

Confessions of an Amateur Percussionist - Part 1

"Music has always been a big part of my life". A very common phrase, and one that's starting to sound a bit corny if you think about it. There are so many flaws to this generalised statement, and yet some of us just can't stop ourselves from saying it. Because such a broad and overarching statement...

My Life as an Imposter

I work in a lab. Let me change that sentence a bit. I 'work' in a lab. But I guess a better way of putting it would be 'volunteer'. I volunteer in a lab. Yes, that sounds better. In the winter break, I was fortunate enough to earn a golden opportunity to help out in the Whiteley lab at UWA. The...

Day 7: At Week's End

Here it is! The final entry to my second OVA: Sieban Chronicles. I've already mentioned the name of this little OVA series. And if you've read the spoilers, it meant "seven" in German. Sieben doesn't look very cool, but I can assure you, it sounds cooler. For those of you who've never taken basic...

Day 6: To Go Your Way

*WARNING: I am not an expert in what I will be talking about. Do not take this as gospel (unintentional pun). Coming to Australia has made me realise that Christianity can be seen as a dying religion. Back in Malaysia, the spread of the gospel is becoming stronger, which is always a good thing...

Day 5: Bye Bye Wongan Hills

Going up to Wongan Hills wasn't just a complete break for me. We still had to work, y'know. More specifically, we were showing kids how great science is. We had them extract DNA from simple strawberries, which were visible and touchable. In the end, I even gave a couple of presentations to the school. It...

Day 4: Of Digging and Extracting

MicroBlitz is a citizen-science project. I'm not sure if I've said this before (but I'll say it again anyway), but citizen science is where ordinary people (even those without a degree, such as kids) help collect information for scientists. This can be a cost-effective method of acquiring data;...

Day 3: Road Trip

I've been living in WA for over two years now. Lucky for me, my parents got us a place smack dab in the middle of the CBD area. We were about 15-20 minutes walk to the city. Buses to the city were free. And we live in a highly professional area, where small environmental, legal and health-related...

Day 2: Devour

Video editing is a new thing for me. In my final years of high school, I tried delving into the surface of it. First, it was just a slideshow+music for a Powerpoint presentation contest. A year later, I did it again but it was just cutting and pasting video clips together. Back then, I used Windows...

Day 1: Compose

So why did I suddenly decide to up and make a Vlog? A few weeks ago, when I was in the middle of my finals, I (like everyone else) was desperately looking for a way to procrastinate. Thankfully, my prayers of ruin were answered when I found Emma's Vlogs. Emma is a PhD student in London, studying...

Day 0: Introductions

Hey everyone! This week (well, last week, technically) I decided to try something different. I'm making a Vlog series! Seven Vlog entries, each detailing what I did that day. And this post marks the first one: Day 0, which is like a brief introduction to myself. All seven (or eight, if you count...

This Is Me

According to Blogspot/Blogger, I've had this blogging here since 2009. Yet, I've never actually had a post dedicated to welcoming new readers (read: YOU!) and telling them more about myself; something like a profile page of sort. So, I thought I would spend today writing one in case I have any new readers. Figure...

Ready, Set, Burn!

I haven't been updating much lately. So that's no good. Getting back into my bad, inconsistent habits. But we all understand it's that time of the semester where uni workload just gets really out of hand. And I've got another month of exams coming up, so do expect an another month of inactivity. But...

Transitioning

Transitioning in life can be hard at times. I remember getting on my knees and begging my mum and playschool teacher when I overheard them discussing plans for me to attend kindergarten the following year. Change is scary. Always was for me. When I moved on to kindergarten. When I moved on to primary...

1.week

Apologies for not keeping up with this blog as often as I'd like! Unlike most high schools and universities in WA, my uni's midsem break only lasts a week. So while everyone is still out partying, we UWA students are already back to that all-so-familiar lecture theatre and dodgy tutorial rooms. It's...