Musings of a barefoot traveller

"The bicycle is just as good company as most husbands and, when it gets old and shabby, a woman can dispose of it and get a new one without shocking the entire community." -Ann Strong, Minneapolis Tribune, 1895 Bicycles are on my mind a lot these days. Can you tell?

It wasn't a very productive day today, work-wise. My favourite season of the year is upon us here, and the slight nip in the air makes me yearn for open spaces, tree canopies and singletracks. So I took A's Trek Fuel (thanks A!) out to Blue Clay today. Felt tremendous to spin hard on the trails, slog up the hills, scoot downhill without skidding for once and barrel my way around the corners and berms. Threw caution to the wind today and tried to maintain an average speed of 8-10mph. Surprisingly enough, I didn't even fall off the bike today, and cleared all the log piles that have been causing me much pain and contusions the last couple of weeks. Maybe it's because I wasn't wearing clipless shoes today, being too lazy to swap out pedals. Maybe I should just relax more, enjoy myself more and give myself more credit on the trails! Sunday seems far away...

According to the molluskan zodiac anyway. My advice for the week is not to let the bastards grind me down. Or avoid moon snails possibly...

Was caught out in the dark tonight, staying later than I thought I would. Speeding home with a borrowed rearlight for the bicycle and straining to see potholes and rough spots on the ground while clutching my bars tightly everytime a car whizzed by (almost went headlong into another cyclist who was going against traffic on the shoulder with no lights as well), was relieved to finally roll into my driveway. No sooner have I taken off my socks and set my foot down in the garage, did I impale my heel on a piece of wire. Cursing and hopping with pain in the half light, managed to pull something out of my foot, thankfully nothing barbed. Lesson? Never assume the day will go according to plan, and my lights go into the backpack tomorrow. A head full of roiling thoughts lead to nothing but injuries and trouble. Not much I can do about that though.

Just returned from a rather..ahem...eventful field trip from Bocas del Toro, Panama. So was rather relieved to be home in familiar and comfortable surroundings. A was starting to tell me a funny story about the evening he spent with friends, who asked about my tshirt size, only to get a response from him that I'm one size up from him... "Wait, wait, wait...you told them I'm a MEDIUM??? I'm a SMALL! I wear the same size as you!!!" I don't even need to squeeze into a small! Arrrr.....(chews head off)...

My Powerbook screen is on the blink, causing me no small amount of anguish. In the meantime, I've hooked up the laptop to Tim's monitor and am in the process of transferring all my files to the external drive. Currently in a quandary- should I get a new MacBook, given that I have an educational discount and will get a free iPod touch (by Sept 15th) and printer that I can sell off to get a further discount, or 2), buy a $5 monitor and use this laptop as a desktop at home, plus switch to using a WinDoze machine in the lab for the next few years?? There's a laptop in the lab I can use for field trips too, but it's also a dozy machine, sigh.

Okay, I can't take credit for that corny phrase. Came across an ad in the Sierra magazine (yeah yeah, I'm a Sierra Club member, make of that what you will) for another auto membership club offering roadside assistance. And I always thought that AAA ran the whole show. Anyway, checked out the Better World Club , and it's pretty neat, actually offering bicycle roadside assistance (will even change your flat tire! Though I could probably do it faster on my own than wait for the help), and assisting any car their member is in instead of the member's personal vehicle only. It doesn't hurt that 1% of their revenue goes to environmental cleanup and advocacy efforts. Plus the recognition of same-sex domestic partners and an offer of a free membership to all couples (no discrimination against heterosexual marriages) getting married this summer. Cute! Well, it's starting to sound like I'm running a free advert for them. But came across a nifty link on their website fo...

I've been on the move a lot the last month or so, and was anticipating a return to the daily grind of graduate life, but an offer came up yesterday that was hard to turn down! And so I decided not to run my PCRs yesterday and go for a field trip to the New River instead, to help a student with coring sediment samples from the seagrass beds and sieving them for molluscs. Turned out to be just what I needed, plus Troy decided that it was a good time to start my boat driving instruction! No, I did not hit anyone or any pilings, and I even backed the van with the boat trailer back into the parking lot. With lots of step by step advice of course, hehe. Got myself immersed in muddy water, was terrorized by a frisky scallop, and it almost felt like a vacation. Next week I try docking a boat in strong currents next to a bridge with pillars. Sounds like fun :P. Okay, back to writing...

Biked a truncated version of Blue Clay on Sunday (was trying out a Trek Fuel, hehehehehe), and as we started packing up, raindrops descended on our heads. In the hurry to leave before we got too wet, I must have left my less than a year-old helmet and biking gloves on top of Wendy's car. Sighs. Went back to next day but no sign of either, not even crushed silver powder on the roads. Am severely bummed out!! Seem to be deep in a flurry of bike-related purchases. Starting with....my new baby!! That's right, I decided I wasn't going to bother with cheapo steel tanks or mess around with other people's bikes and just get the shiniest new bike that sets my heart a-flutter. And so...it was with some trembling that I handed my credit card over at the bike shop on Friday and got myself a Cannondale Synapse (alloy, not carbon, I still want to afford to eat...)! Yay!!! Pretty new bike!! Some might think that I've betrayed my first roadie by getting this one, but sweetie, you l...

So I have unofficial confirmation that I'm accepted into UNCW's PhD program in Marine Biology, and just received an email from the Director of International Student and Scholar Services congratulating me on my acceptance and asking about the change in my I-20. So I suppose...em...Woohoo? Sorry if I seem a little understated right now, I think I'll get more excited once the official letters come in and the news sinks in. :)

After the exhilaration of obtaining positive results on the cruise, I'm back to Wilmington and back to reality. 6 months in, and I'm still struggling to optimise a reaction to amplify and sequence a gene of interest from the Mycale genus of sponges. It doesn't help that learning all these protocols and their steps require constant repetition and I'm always away this summer. Was happy to have amplified the ITS gene before Key Largo, but the cloning got stymied by a bum cloning kit. The next two attempts didn't succeed, and today, I couldn't even get the PCR reaction working, although I tried twice. What frustrates me is that unlike in ecological research, I don't really know how to proceed to troubleshoot all these problems. The protocol is like a giant black box, and when there's a negative result, I don't know if it's due to my error, insufficient DNA, annealing temperatures and what have you. Just got reminded not too gently that I should star...

So, first day of diving in the Bahamas. We didn't even reach Freeport yet when I realised I had left something pretty important behind. To Mumsy's credit I didn't flip out and have a total meltdown in the galley, not even a slight foaming at the mouth. Huh. Who knew I could be this calm about my f***-ups. Anyway, things to solve the problem are in progress, and I await the resolution to the whole matter in the meantime. Woke up to good weather, and splashed in around 2pm, back to the old place we got to know so well at 4am last year. Supposed to catch a whole bunch of fish to run tank feeding assays with, but I must say the overall haul of the day was pretty abysmal. As for me, I caught 1 fish in 2 dives. Ah, how I have fallen from the goby catching days of yore. Nothing to do but console ourselves that the fish were satiated by late afternoon and not interested in the food bait. Will try again tomorrow first thing in the morning. This is why I kinda like working on sessile...

I dearly miss my colourful reef nudists here in the Caribbean. But what a wonderful gallery from National Geographic!

Back to texting with one hand, dammit! Re-injured my left thumb two weeks ago by jamming it against Sensei Keith's fist twice in aikido class, and my first thought was "Oh %#@%, I gotta dive next week..." Somehow managed to scrape through mountain biking shifting with the fleshy part of my palm and playing volleyball mostly with my right arm, and was just wondering to myself when it would stop hurting when I landed a hammer on my left thumbnail today. Hard. Resulted in 5min of tearing underwater, gripping my left hand between my knees and swearing silently but profusely. And did it again 10min later. Hurts like hell. Going to bed now so I don't hit anymore sensitive body parts with hard and heavy objects...

A good friend set off for his new life yesterday, by driving towards Minneapolis. After the hustle of packing, loading, farewell gatherings, last-minute item finding and him finally leaving, there was an unsettling solitude that blanketed my state of mind. It's different, sending someone off, who's going overseas to study, or on work placement. There's a sense that they'll be back after their course is done, or least visit home ever so often. But when someone uproots completely and is actually moving away, there's really no future planning. No 'I'll see you when you come back over Christmas then!', and promises to visit are tenuous at best. So I found myself sitting on the porch late yesterday afternoon, watching long fingers of sunrays stretch over the plants. Those who know me know this is my favourite time and light of the day. Everything's aglow, backlit with this soft-focus light. Cool breezes dull the harshness of the afternoon sun, yet there...

Passport gods, please allow for the safe and speedy return of my passport...

...life throws another curve ball at you, and then sticks a rusty knife in your ribs while you lie winded on the ground. I love being Malaysian and all, but this passport and visa business is making me sooooooo.....frustrated. Some might remember the big hoo-ha last year, and the hoops I had to jump through to get a visa to enter Panama to take the Smithsonian sponge course. Next year, I vowed to myself then, next year would be different. Fast forward to this year, with me feeling pretty confident, having submitted my visa application in February, giving the consulate 3 months to approve my visa this time. Was overjoyed to see my return envelope sitting in my mailbox yesterday, and gleefully ripped it open, extracted my passport and flipped to the visa page. Was thoroughly deflated to find that my approval dates run from April 9th to July 9th! WTF! It's already April 18th, and besides the point, my fieldtrip is in August. To add insult to injury, my gender is listed as 'M'...