ISLTC - Poll Results

As part of the publicity campaign for the upcoming competition, we went onto the "streets' (actually corridors between lab benches) and asked people who they think will come out tops in the competition. Below are some of the responses:

Ms H (23, Lab Biologist) : I place my bets on WeiJie. (We asked her why) Because Kah-suan bully me this morning!!

Ms S (24 PhD student to be) : Based on what i heard, I go for Anne. (Any reasons?) Nope. Solely based on what i heard from the rest.

Mrs J (28, Senior lab biologist) : Kah-suan. Just for the fun of it. (Reasons?) Just for the fun of it la. (We asked again..) Ok Ok. (She caved in to pressure). Actually personally i think Weijie will win. Aiya, i dunno la. I dunno!

Mr C (28, PhD student): Anne. Cos she looked like she knows what she is doing. (We agreed...she's not like some other contestants Who-shall-Not-be-Named) It helps that she looks pretty..er, good in her work.

We went to some of the contestants mentor for their views on the winning odds of their students.

"I think we need a lot of handicap to steal a win" said one of them, shaking his head in dismay.

"Good. Good. He is good" confidently said the other.

"I cannot say her chances are low. My workload for the rest of the year depends on her. I just discovered to my horror, she has a special relationship with my boss!!" exclaimed another one, with a sense of helplessness in her voice.

We tabulated the poll results and present it in the graph below. We see the Anne is leading at the moment, with Weijie and Kah-suan, the 2 arch rivals close behind. I think viewers should not be too bothered with the results of the poll (Eh??) because there are still 2 weeks to the competition, plenty of time for contestants (and we know who are more likely to) to make mistakes or improvements. More importantly, from the street interviews, we realised that the interviewees DO NOT HAVE ANY CONCRETE REASONS to back their choice!!

Well, in any case, look out for more reports on the upcoming competition!

New Poster Boy for LDX

After a series of mysterious offences of lab safety had been committed, the LDXers have decided to do something about it.

A poster boy was 'chosen' (he wanted to pose for it) to be 'THE ONE' to help raise awareness of some of our fellow lab mates to these common and yet potentially dangerous behaviour which can cost us not only our health (or life, hopefully not), but also may affect all of our pockets.

The following is chosen from our very first 'shooting' with our newly appointed poster boy. Entitled "Oh My Gawddddd"

ISLTC (cont.) - The Committee

Introducing the Committee of Inter-student Lab Technique Competition 2007

Chairman: Miss Wong

Members: Mrs. Jong, Miss Kim, Miss Selina

Judges: As Above, plus...whoever is interested except those 'mentors'

The guidelines and timetables are yet to come. Roughly, the winner will be awarded as "the best student in LDX lab 2007" plus a custom-made labcoat limited edition.

敬请期待!

Inaugural Inter-Student Lab Techniques Competition

Prelude:

Pressure and excitement is mounting in LDX Lab as the date for the inaugural Inter-student Lab Techniques Competition draws near. In bid to catch up with the recent obession with pre- and post match analyses etc, we decided that it is of utmost importance to also give our two cents worth in this write up. (Dun worry, we will not be charging our readers $10 extra as there are no pretty lasses nor has-been footballers behind this piece of work)


Pre-match Analysis (Part I)
Some information on 5 of our contestants.


Contestant No. 1 : Wei-Jie
Representing: NUS
Sensei: Dr Yamada
Fondly known as: The Spinning Vice-President; KTV-rocker; The Officer
Special Skills: Casting all types of 2cm long resolving gel
Most memorable performance (s):
We cannot decide between his proudly self-aclaimed 50% rate of gel casting, or his ability to transfer proteins to the filter paper despite getting pointers from our PhD student
Winning factors:
Kiasu-ism. We heard he has already started his intensive training. Don't be surprise to see him in the lab during Saturdays and Sundays from now on. We suspect he is forgoing his lunch breaks as well.
Famous Quotes: Hello? Come on. Where is my labcoat?
Odds of winning: 1: 50


Contestant No. 2 : Raymond
Representing: NUS
Sensei: Dr Yamada
Fondly known as: Lay-Mon
Special Skills: Defying the volume capacity of pipettes during aspiration. Dangerously known as the "pipette-filter-killer"
Most memorable performance (s): none at the moment
Winning Qualities: Very serious about his work. Touted to be the next "S-protein" man, after his sinseh.
Famous Quotes: Er..
Odds of winning: 1: 50


Contestant No. 3 : Kah-Suan
Representing: NTU
ShiFu: Dr WXX
Fondly known as: Jia-xuan; KTV-Queen
Most memorable performance (s): Numerous. Just to name a few: Attempted to come up with a novel way of exposing her film using just PBST. Exhibit jaw-dropping inner strength (something like nei-gong you know) by breaking not one, but two pipettes with her tiny fists. Demonstrate admirable patience when she decided to give her cells a half-an-hour trypsin bath.
Famous Quotes: I am the student with the best lab technique
Winning Qualities: If we can believe her, she is the "student with the best lab technique"
Watch out for: Her special skill of distracting her opponents with incessant speech, aim to distract or confuse her enemies. However, this could also be her bane should she not exercise care in executing this move during the tissue culture segment.
Odds of winning: 1: 50

Contestant No. 4 : John
Representing: NTU
Guru: Dr Nasir
Fondly known as: Er.. John?
Special Skills: Specialises in western blotting. Known for his generosity with reagents and buffers.
Most memorable performance (s): Fully exemplifies the meaning of "More is good" when he washed his membrane with a 99% PBST-filled tupperware.
Winning Qualities: Very serious about his work. Keen to learn.
Famous Quotes: Err..You all know I'm talking about Bax right?
Odds of winning: 1: 50

Contestant No. 5 : Anne
Representing: NTU
Laoshi: Dr LingHui
Fondly known as: Not known
Special Skills: Invisible gloves? A certain Dr XX informed the committee that shehas been seen working with gloves invisible to the naked eye.
Most memorable performance (s): None at the moment.
Winning Qualities: Very meticulous, like a girl should be, unlike Contestant No.3. Looks professional and pretty in labcoat. (But then it might not be an advantage cos the judging panel is made of female judges) We heard from Contestant No.4 that she has already acquired lots of lab experience before her LDX stint.
Famous Quotes: Not sure, haven heard much from her but we guess it might be "mensuck", if she is one of those who let her tshirt do the talking.
Odds of winning: 1: 20

LDXLab - The 2nd Generation

Introducing... LDXLab - The 2nd Generation

Now showing:
LingHui's & Siti's


















Coming Soon:
Yinchern's & Yamada's











Still in the making....:

It's now Dr. Li-Wang Xiaoxing for you

Ka-ra-OKe! Our singing not OK

KTV. Yeah. much anticipated. All kbox-ers left work on the dot and made our way to clementi kbox, our spirits high.

Later we realised. It's not just our spirits. I've never seen anyone so hyper during KTV. His rocker style transcends beyond his Rod Steward hairstyle, to his choice of songs (Zhang zhengyue, Mayday - much to Kim's dismay and SHIN). His singing rocks...us out of our seat almost everytime. Everytime he's on the mic, he's bursting with energy, and our ear-drums. But i must admit. It is highly entertaining. Hmm. yah. Highly, considering that he is always standing on the couch.

The other students also proved to be outstanding in their own ways. K.S.'s voice was superb. We were blown away. Small statue but huge voice. So envious. And RyM sounds like Andy Lau! Really really like Andy Lau. Believe us when we say he sounds like Andy (dun when we say WJ sounds like Ah-xin, SHIN or Zhang Zhenyue).

We look forward to more entertaining KTV sessions. Maybe during our upcoming chalet. Ha

Goodbye Ling

15th June 2007 marks the last day of work for our dear Miss Ling. We were terrified (terribly happy) to hear that she is turning her back on doing research - from contributing to the future good of mankind (or so we hope to be the case..). She is moving from spectulating the trend of host proteins (PKR, p-PKR) to warrants, options and stocks.

No tears were shed during this time of farewell. Instead, her last day (actually only 1.5hrs) was one filled with laughter (at the students miserable attempts in trying to unethically trick Ling's poor sis (already intimidated by Ling to join a 3hrs queue) into casting gels) , surprises (she can bake cookies) and joy (from finally having a chance to eat donut factory precioussss donuts (oh yes we didn't care that someone had to queue ages for it).

Ling will be missed (and not just by our lab =P). How can we forget her smile, so bright and cheery even when she has to "repeat repeat and repeat" her experiments. Her aura, almost divine (cos i thought only fairies and shen2-xian1 don't need to eat). Her energy, how she look so perky and raring to go (home & gym) all the time. Yes... Ling will be fondly remembered. She's gone, yet her presence is still strongly felt and smelt (she left her shoes behind...)