It's been 3 months!
And I have gotten my permanent staff pass! :D
Now I have 20% discount on items in the SGH pharmacy. And am entitled to Annual Leave and MC. Lol. Sorry about the scary photo. It must be the flash of the camera that makes my face so white.
Work is getting alot busier, but i kind of like that I'm doing something meaningful. Lol. Colleagues have been really helpful and made my life much easier. :D I have to do abit of administrative work and it is kind of annoying. Lols. Kept filling up the wrong forms and send in purchases with missing details and they kept bouncing back to me.
Next experiment is coming up in mid Feb and will last all the way till mid Mar. And have to work OT that whole month.
Wanted to take leave but can't till Mar! Think I will take a few days off near my birthday. :)
I like it that time at work passes really fast. I don't have to look at my watch all the time and count down to 6pm, or to the weekend.
And yes, I finally have to (HAVE TO) use an organizer and a calendar. Lol. Can u imagine me using them? I don't have a a choice since I may forget stuff I have to do the next day or the following week. Now I finally realise the importance of keeping record of the list of tasks I have to do.
And after getting the mouse license, I was granted access to our Animal House and our senior showed us around in it. The smell was incredible. I was suffocating from it and needed to run out of the House a few times to resist the urge of vomiting. U really have to come and experience it. I really dunno how I am going to describe that. I was rather rude since I ran out while CS was explaining things to me. :D
It turned out I have to go with CS to the Animal House almost everyday after that, to learn all the mouse work from him and help him whenever he needs me to. My project is closely related to his, u see. I tolerated the smell by calming myself down and trying very hard to pretend nothing was wrong. And then after sometime, I got used to it. Thank God that we, humans, are adaptive people.
I have began injecting cancerous tumors into mice. And trust me, the feeling was terrible. They are so cute. They curled up like a ball when I shaved off their fur. I tried reducing damage to them but it was rather hard.
:(
I poked the needle through one mouse's skin a few times before I did the injection right. And on one, I accidentally injected the tumor lower than where it supposed to be and I know when the tumor gets bigger, this mouse will not be able to walk. For the other 2, my needle scratched its skin, it bleeds. Poor mice. I hope I will improve quicker and reduce any damage done to the mice.
I had to pierce their ears. It was scary I tell u! I had to do it fast so that they won't feel the pain. But I had to aim it right. I can't pierce where their veins are. So I installed alot of fear in them by stalling time before I finally pierced those ears. Poor mice! I vow never never to be a nurse.
And poor colleague! He was holding the mouse for me and all the while was worrying that I would give him an accidental injection. Lol! His reaction was so fast and funny when I pointed the syringe at him. Sorry CS! I will be careful next time.
The mouse course wasn't great too. Everyone in the end have to kill the mice and rats. My colleague, KP, and I didn't want to. I give it a dose of anesthetics and left it sleeping on my desk when I was about to leave. But one of the instructors didn't know I didn't kill it and was about to put it into the plastic bag filled with other mice corpses. I stopped him and said I didn't kill it and asked him to kill it for me.
For it to wake up among all his dead friends and then be freezed in the freezer, or die with its friends, i chose the latter. It may be just too much for it to endure.
And got bitten on the finger by a very aggressive mouse during the course. Also got scratched by a rat on the hip. Hurts so bad! So bad I felt that it was bleeding. It wasn't actually. I think I was psychologically affected. Lol.
There was this technique we had to use to restrain the rat while giving it an injection. We had to put it on our left hips and use our palms to hold it down. Apparently my palm isn't big enough and the rat kept struggling, scratching my hip. It turned out that I had to use my whole arm and use all my strength to press it down. By then, I was totally freaked out. Yes, a rat is much bigger than the mouse in our lab. A rat is about the size of a small rabbit. I was glad that the mice in our lab aren't rats and aren't so aggressive.
Now my sadness at work aside...
Blogging about the small things I did lately.
These are the different Facebook accounts in Jun Jie's iPad. Lol. They included me into it too. So cute!
And this packet of Hersey's Kisses was from colleagues! :D
They never failed to surprise me.
And I finally have my first credit card. Citibank Rewards Card. And the very day we wanted to go somewhere that has Citibank discount but couldn't find one near Ion. So we settled for NYDC.
Jun Wen with big hands.
And we explored Holland V one fine evening after work. Was introduced to Amici restaurant.
We bought a $30 voucher and got to enjoy our meals at one-for-one and also receive a free bottle of wine worth $40!
We both shared a bottle of wine and regretted it as soon as it reached our table. It was just too much for the 2 of us.
Jun Wen's Marinara!
My Crab pasta. The 2 pastas were great. Just a little too spicy. I will give them a 4.5/5.
Colleagues asked me to smile this way, showing the teeth so that I look more natural.
And Simba was so edgy that evening. He was pretty uptight about finishing that bottle of wine and the sparkling water. He was pouring the wine into our glasses and hoping so much to finish it. He was also eavesdropping and turning to look at the people at the next table. Lols.
We finished the drinks after sitting at the restaurant for 2 hours. We never stayed at a dining place for 2 hours before and maybe that's why Simba became so fidgety. We got quite tipsy after that. Lol.
