April 24th - Day 20

I got a day off from my second boss. Because I got invited to visit MRC-LMB by Paul.

Walking to LMB is a breeze (cold). It really amazes me how much difference walking in England and walking in Malaysia is.

That's the front of LMB, and check out the organization chart. They have some weird people there! Even organization chart has to be different. There's Paul, the one in the blue collar shirt.

Paul's lab has a lot (and I mean a lot) of toys!!! I think that's Dart Vader (forgive my spelling if I mis-spelt it.) And there's Paul's robot, which he built himself. Oh, the buttons have nothing to do with its operation. Ha ha ha... And there's ferofluid, which is liquid iron, and he's got a lot of magnets. There's a huge disc from the 70s.

Here's the most interesting bit - the microfluidics. This machine casts the silicon disc, then a kind of gel is poured on the disc to cast the microfluidic cip which is a "PCR machine". The cip is then bonded to a piece of glass slide, which would look like that. And there's a closer view up-close in a microscope, of the tunnels in the cip.

The gel can then be placed on that "thermal cycler". The cycler is actually a small temperature control block that has small copper blocks which temperature can be controlled independantly. The samples are injected into the "PCR machines" and flows through the "tunnels" and that would result in reactions. I know this may sound too tachnical for some of you, but hey, it's what I do. Get used to it.

Check out the throughput of this lab!!! That's a-week's worth of empty tip boxes next to Paul there, stacked without their lids, mind you. Look what Paul got certified for - the closest guess to the number of human genes. How did he guessed it? It's his birthday. Paul's addiction for watches has been proven understated. Ha ha ha ha...

Also, here are the really nice people of the lab (left picture, clockwise from left): Giang, Alan, Bernard, Paul, Lizzy, and (right picture) Frank. We had a wonderful lunch at the Spice Merchants Indian Restaurant, in celebration for Alan, Bernard and Paul's birthdays. Happy birthday everybody, and thank you Paul.

In the afternoon, near evening actually I visited Dave at Downing. His little office is impressive. He's got everything he ever bought on his travels in there. And there's a lot, I mean a lot of fridge magnets. Dave and Paul took me to dinner at a Thai restaurant and a nice pub for beer afterwards. There were good company, food and conversation all night. Thank you, Judges.

My favourite pair of shoes failed on me. England was too extreme for it. It's sole is now (almost) officially worn out. My heels can feel the bones inside the shoes. I got the cheapest pair of good-looking sneakers at SportDirect.com. It's a store. But it also operates online. Look at my new shoes. After this, you may see them in my one-shoe-in-good-photograph photographs. Sigh... I still don't want throw my old shoes away... It feels sad if I "bury" them overseas. Do you think their bodies should be brought home?

A happy and sad day all together.