Medicine faculty dinner

Grand Coperthorne (did I get that wrong?). many tables, forgot how many but MicroB took 6 tables, the HOD made it compulsory for all staff to go. Almost all went.


After some blah blah, the thing started and the curtains opened at the side to reveal a not so impressive garden. Everybody else was busy chomping down on the first course.


Course 1: I just so LOVE baby octopuses!


More blah blah in the middle between dishes:


The jazz band played but no body clapped. Poor things.


Dish two:


Some old school dude gave a speech that was really on the boundaries of being seditious. But nevermind, it was quite funny watching him speak his mind in front of the uni president who was at the VIP table.


The waitress trying to come to terms with the slippery mushrooms.



Yummy fish. As usual, no one dared to eat the stomach part, which I gleefully took. Thats the best part of the fish coz the meat is so smooth and tender.


The theme of the dinner was 'retro' and they had the most 'retro' dressed guy and gal go up to do a catwalk. The winner was decided by the volume the crowd cheered for them. When microB has 6 tables there, competition sort of becomes unfair.


Mr Goh won. With OUR help:


Tehre was then the lucky draw. 15 prizes, and Josie won a juice extractor. I would heck know what to do with it if I won it. Probably use it to homogenize mouse liver specimens...


An elated Josie:


Just look at her:


Some almond thingy that some people didn't like very much. I found it ok.

Many other things happened durign the dinner, of which my memory fails to aid me at the moment. They are insignificant anyway.

Biohazard training

Esco invited the staff to go for a biohazard hood training that lasted for 2 days. So I went.


They promised not to hard sell their hoods, what they in fact did was to pull down their compeditors. There's this room with lots of other brands of hoods all disected, and they point out to you the bad points of it. Like 'when you choose a BSCII hood, make sure it has got this and this feature which...oops, this model does not have...'


The disc test, to make sure the pumps are working well. The large metal thing in the center is supposed to replicate a person's hand while working in the hood.


Laminar flow: didnt know there were two types of these cabinets: the vertical and horizontal ones. The horizontal ones blow air directly into your face, but are cleaner.


The animal unit: used for changing animal bedding and housing. Luxury.


BSC2 hoods.


Higher class BSC2 hoods. A few thousand dollars more expensive than the previous ones, but works better because of the more powerful motor.


The one at the right is called a PCR hood! If you do lots of PCR, have one so it stays RNA free. Luxury.


The guy showing us the correct way to measure airflow from the HEPA filter.


Put the anemometer and measure if the blowing strength is up to standard.


Repeat this on 12 different point in the hood. But the guy that serviced the one in the lab mearly moved the machine here and there, and then he was done. Cheated...


Measuring total air suction power. Have to be above a certain number to be accredited by EU.


Masking tape factory owners are rich.


Another tool to measure air movement. It kinda gets boring after awhile.


The training spot is near the airport, so you hear lots of planes passing overhead as they prepare to land, even the landing gear is out.

Jagarsi

The old dude Jagarsi who has been faithfully serving our lab for the past x years (where x= a big number) is finally retiring due to a heart condition. So the department decided to have a farewell lunch for him. Unfortunately, the dude was sick that day and in hospital and couldn't make it for his own farewell lunch. But the lunch had to go on anyway. Its like the birthday boy missing from the birthday party. Sad huh.
Anyway, went to the Rice Table at Suntec. Decent place serving Indonesian food. The whole department went, the attendance sheet officially stating 71 participants. We came, sat down and waited a long time before being served. They had a choice of lime, orange or sour plum juice: all freeflow. Then came the keropok freeflow. What we dicussed and decided was that the people there were knaves who try to make us drink lots of liquids and then give us lots of keropok so that the keropok expands in the stomach with the fruit juice so we can't eat much later on.
The waiters later came with rice, which everybody took very little of, and then the food in nice identical dishes. About 12-13 varieties. Let me try and remember:

Soto ayam (not the best I've tasted)
pickled cucumber (prof likes it)
Rojak buah (prof says its ok)
curry chicken wing (didn't finish the first serving)
sweet black sauce chicken (so-so)
sayur lemak (ordered twice)
tahu telur (TOO OILY!!!)
satay ayam (yum, the thick sweet peanut sauce)
rendang (I personally ate two servings of it)
curry prawn (a favourite)
lady's finger (not bad)
sweet and sour fish (good)
kangkung belacan (good)
otak otak (so-so)


...hmmm....about 14, but have this feeling I missed out one or two.
Anyway, half way through the feast, the HOD gave a speech on how much money in grants the dept has got and how well we are all working and how much harder we must work now, etc. etc.
Then we got back to eating.
But I pitty the people sitting at the HOD's table. Can't enjoy a good lunch. Coz the people there will be too paiseh to eat alot and scared if they order more, the HOD think they glutton or something, and so pretend to be full after the first strand of kangkung.
But my table boh kiek kee. Order the prawns 4 times, satay 3 times, salad, fish, otak...everything take second round, and finish up all. We all is high performance one. Muahahaha....


Ok, ok, pictures:


Nice ambiance:






The ploy:


Why so few choices?


The spread:




Josie's first round:


Soto ayam:


My second round:


Bhu refuses to finish up the curry:


The HOD's table; sorry guys, no second rounds:


Ahhemm....




Escape!:


Trying to fit back a broken branch:






After lunch, we still had an hour to roam around suntec before the bus came to pick us back to campus:


Two of the staffs decided to get a haircut, and the whole department was outside watching... the poor hairdresser, must have been super stressed:


Yup, like I said, the WHOLE department watching one guy get his hair cut:

New air conds

After the central air cond failed some time back, the pressure on the window units found at the general heavy equiptment lab increased. The frequent breakdowns of the air conds caused many in the lab to break sweat. Thus, the department had no choice but to fix the air conds. So the day came when workers lined up outside the yellow doors:


Workers in the general equiptment area. They had to open up the false ceiling, take out the old air cond ducts, put in new air cond ducts, made a mess of the whole place.


The old air cond ducts. Someone should culture some of that stuff on petri dishes. Could open a zoo I think...


The new Mr.Slim Mitsubishi units. I guess its a 2.5 horsepower. There were 4 units installed. Supposedly they are going to close the doors that lead from the main lab corridor to this general lab area. So the corridor will still be hot while the general lab will be freezing antarctica.

Old shaking incubators

The 4 old controled thermal shakers have been taken away. To replace it next month, there will be 3 new units of the Sartorious coming in. Those new units will be stackable and half the size of the old ones, so it will only occupy the same footspace as ONE old unit. Talk of real estate potential! The workers seemed to have a hard time getting the old units out. They were sweating and toiling, maybe partly because of the faulty central air cond. hahah.... free sauna.

First unit:


First unit gone, second one waiting in turn:


Second unit:


No. 3 and No.4:


After all 4 were gone, we decided to rearrange the chest freezers to widen the walking space: