Things fall apart

Another of my possessions have called it quits. This time round, its my trusty rucksack of 8 years. One of the two zips become dislodged and it can't be done up again. Oh well.. at least my stuff are falling apart now when I still have a bit of RS going for me, and not when I'm skint. I really like this rucksack. Its a litealp by my favorite Kiwi company, Macpac . It's kinda pricy, but I've done my sums and when spread over 8 years of use, it really is value for money. I remember when I first got it and was lugging it all over campus. One of my classmates KY examined it cos it just stood out from the sea of Eastpac and Outdoor packs. He ran his finger over the Aztec fabric and the large YKK zips and told me.. "this rucksack means business"

Later on, another friend, TC whom I only got to know in my 3rd year told me that when he first knew me personally, the only thought that went through his head was "so this is the joker with the macpac". He has a couple too. Somehow, like the other kind of Mac owners, meeting a macpac owner was a meeting of minds. We are suckers for the kind of rucksacks that only Macpac can churn out.

It also gave me some kind of 'respectability' in outdoor gear shops. One look at me and straightaway, you'll know that I'm not exactly a mover and shaker. I don't do lively things such as rock climbing and have no inclination towards 10 km runs and Himalayan mountaineering. But my macpac puts up a good decoy. I walk into the shop and sales assistants start pointing. It really is not that common. Maybe they're thinking, this girl knows a good thing when she sees it. Better not try to sucker her inflated product specs. I don't know any better of course, but it still gave me a great feeling.

Macpac after sales support is good too. Once I lost a buckle attached to the waist strap. It was an ordinary buckle which can be replaced rather easily. But I wrote to George at Macpac about something else and casually mentioned it. Next thing I knew, an envelope with a replacement buckle and a handful of stickers arrived in my letterbox. Such wonderful service! I like to think that my money is spent on happy workers at Macpac who are guaranteed a minimum wage rather than other manufacturers churning out their goods at sweat shops.

Anyway..its been a fantastic 8 years... I loved my Macpac before I loved my Mac (altogether now.. awwww) RIP. I'll try to get it fixed or use it as a field bag from now. Its time to move on and look for a new rucksack... I'm thinking of a litealp again...




My litealp and I on one of my many traipses abroad. This one taken along the busy streets of Colombo, checking out a used bookshop. Photo taken by SS.

My left foot

Friday the 13th came and went with nary a trail of destruction in its wake, with a couple of exceptions.

A pinky house lizard found its way into the cosy interiors of DY's laser printer and came to a messy end when he tried to print some documents and it came with a juicy bloody inmprint. He came to the lab toally freaked out looking for some long forceps to extract the poor bugger out, but it was just too messy. I saw it... the anterior bit of the lizard sticking out from the rollers, the rest presumably on his prints. It was no use.. the lizard was firmly entrenched in the mess where it will slowly but surely rot. Papers with a whiff of Eu de Lizard will not sit well with anyone he's working with for sure.

My very expensive Birkenstock Tatami slippers broke. Its the second time its happened. The first pair broke when I was in Taiwan 18 months ago. Then, I had had it for only 6 months. WTF! All that money down the drain! I was pissed enough to bring it back to Singapore and bring it back to the shop asking for a replacement pair. They were quite nice about it, giving me a new pair without any problems, although they kept telling me that they've never had any trouble with shoes losing the will to go on after 6 months before. This replacement pair lasted 15. And it broke at exactly the same spot on the left slipper. So now I know. It's me. Not the footwear. Its my damned feet. I went back to the shop yesterday to tell them about it, but I guess asking for a replacement to replace the replacement will be really pushing it. (but hey.. the nice people at Apple gave me a replacement Ipod for my replacement too. Something tells me there's a trend in there somewhere.) In the end, I bought another pair of Birkies. Its all so very in now..the last time I read Cleo magazine, there was some little story about how everyone who's hip and happening owns a pair. And A thought only frumpy expats buy 'em. Well.. I'm now officially hip and happening cos I own a pair of Gizeh Birkies - in a very nice olive green shade. So I guess.. Friday the 13th didn't turn out too badly for me after all.

Miscellanea

Other labs pore through Sambrooke et al's Protocols in Molecular Biology when they need to make up solutions (TAE, TBE, EDTA etc), my lab look up The Cocktail Bible with the same air of scholarly dedication for that recipe for Long Island Iced Tea and Frozen Margheritas.

And so it was, with PNG, RM, NS, and LK's advisor sitting pretty on the couch happy and at peace with the world with the aid of vodka mixers and frozen margheritas (with the exception of RM who drank Orange juice - the rare ang moh who doesn't drink !), who should walk in but the botanist next door! That was a funny moment. Not caught on camera, unfortunately. Which was a shame.

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I coloured my hair yesterday. Grew tired of the tangled bleached ah lian mess. So unable to take it anymore, I trooped down to my hairdressers at Far East Plaza, and told him to make it 'more natural'. So a darker base colour was chosen and some highlights. Its not my usual habit to ask him precisely what the shade was, I usually leave it to him, while casually flipping through a backlog of women's mags.

So halfway, he mentioned to me

"The highlights I'm giving you, its something called Met(allic) Green"

That got my attention. And straight away, I looked up from the magazine and stared at him. Matte green? I dowan!!! I had sudden flashes of sloths, those animals that are so slow and sloppy about self grooming that algae take up residence in its coat, giving it a slight greenish hue. I know I'm not the speediest person around the lab, but to have it certified by sloth green highlights? aaaargh!

Seeing the look of horror on my face, he quickly produced a colour sample chart to let me know what it was I got myself into. Ok lah. Not so bad.. slight greenish hue with ash blonde base or whatchamacalit.

So now I'm walking around the department with sensible looking hair but slightly greenish ash blonde highlights. No one's picked out the exact thing about it, although they look at my hair with a quizzical expression and mention something about 'unique' highlights. This colour job better not fade and leave me with green hair!



Don't make me look like that! Please!

Another field trip

In about 2 weeks, I'll be shipped off to the Philippines again for a deep sea cruise. Everyone back in the lab's quite happy cos the boss will be away for that period too. Yep.. between TSH and I, we're taking him off the hand of the other labbies. I can almost see the look of gratitute in some of their eyes.

The reason why I bring this up today is because up from March when the plan was set in motion, till now, it has been eeriely quiet. I was only reminded when TSH talked about it yesterday. Tickets are not booked, I have no idea what the plan is. Greasi has no idea either. On the other hand, the Taiwanese are busy getting the nets and beam trawl ready. In fact, Chia Wei will be in Manila on the 14th, a full week ahead to make sure everything runs, if it runs at all.

In the meantime, I suppose what's expected of us is to simply turn up. But there's still packing to be done and hmm... I honestly don't know. Even TSH is hazy about this. I suppose all I can do now is to get my stuff out of the way and get ready for 3 ( GS says 2 - we're not even sure about this) weeks on a boat. Need to pack skipping rope. If the food's anything like Ex Anambas (actually I doubt that, tasty food isn't a philipino forte), I'll be bloated like a whale at the end of that.





Me in my prime spot on the ferry from Dumaguete to Dapitan. Macam like Amazing Race. Philippines 2005



Ta pow is an alien concept in this country. When NNK asked for some noodles to go, she got the soup in a white supermarket plastic bag. Had do eat out a giant tupperware box