Ilo Ilo, Philippines

Well.. its day 3 and i've finally gotten hold of a PC. Just a quick rundown of what's been happening the last couple of days cos like i told myself to blog right? something mundane better than nuthin!

Arrived at the airport at 7.45am. I had only woken up at 7am, having only slept an hour. I had reached home at 3am while sorting out loose ends at the lab and spend 3 hours packing, deciding what to wear blah blah.. boring stuff. Anyway.. i was in such a comatose state that the moment i had stepped on the plane and plonked down on my seat, i was fast asleep. and remained so throughout the 3+ hour flight save for a 20 minute breakfast of chicken rice. my friend J met me at the airport, with my transfer tickets to Ilo Ilo. In return, i passed him some dodgy bargain bin VCDs bought from HMV.

The flight to Ilo Ilo was uneventful.. after all, it was a mere 35minutes in the air....and after that a short taxi ride and we've arrived! safe! i think this has got to be the most uneventful journey i've had so far with nnk. could it be that we're finally breaking the jinx!?!

The conference was a blur. mostly presentations on aquaculture and breeding crabs... which is interesting.. but there's only so much "Effects of temperature and salinity on Scylla" and "Results of various nutritional feeds on the growth of Scylla spp." one can listen to without zoning out.. and i've sat through a tonne of it.

My own presentation ended a few hours ago... but strangely, instead of feeling relaxed. i still feel agitated. I almost want to go back to Singapore immediately to finish up the paper because of this fear of being scooped. I feel like my secret's out now and i gotta publish before some nasty bastard sitting with a camcorder at the meeting decides to do a dirty one on me. It doesn't help that one of the Profs told me just now that she has sent some specimens to Imai, my arch nemesis. damn.. i hope this feeling goes away, at least for the time being. i still have 10 days here and i'm gonna make use of it checking out the fish ports, and collecting. that and i bought a whole bunch of VCDs from the mall last night. the whole season 1 of Curb your enthusiam! for only 850 pesos! its less than SGD30. original too! think i got a good deal. Other finds included Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind for less than ten bucks. Movie marathon every night man.

Ok.. times up. gotta go. cheerio.