Living Fearlessly in 2016

For 2015 and all that happened, I thank and praise and honour God. He who brings me to this, will bring me through it. So I shall trust in Him and keep going. And thank God for bringing a very special person into my life - my tall, dark and handsome love. Without him, the past seven months would've been worse.

A summary of 2015, academically-speaking:

I lived my life in fear for the best half of 2015 - after the series of traumas in my first attempt to be registered as a full PhD candidate.

First, I was told that I should not travel, or attend any soft skills training programmes or conferences, since I have so little time left to do a PhD after transferring to the department. So every time I took a few days off I was feeling guilty and then was told I took too many days off. I didn't know all PhD students were eligible for a month of holidays per year. I didn't know there was Christmas shut down of the university. So I worked through most of Christmas and New Year holidays...

Then, after conveniently trying to get rid of me partly because I had really bad writing skills and horrible time management plus being unwell most of the time, some non-academic-supervisor individual who somewhat was involved with my work announced during a meeting to resolve all these problems the reasons I was not good enough in his opinion to be a PhD candidate. A stack of papers was passed to me... And so, I found out that my daily attendance in the department was tracked for two months without my prior consent/knowledge, my lab books were scrutinised and was given a spreadsheet of all my experiments with dates, I was threatened that if the supervisor and others let me stay, they'd show me the door the next time I make a slight mistake... I know by keeping silent and taking their rubbish offer wouldn't help me to overcome all these, so I asked for help....

Fast-forwarding to skip all the meetings and the nights spent to construct timelime of events, etc...

Seven months later..

The current trade off package: I get to stay and work on the project, but I'd have forgo my complaint to the university against the individual whom I claimed to be psychologically-bullying me for that past eight months and to apologise to that individual that I had undermined him. I did part 1...

Truth is... I only get to stay if I submit a report. That's the real deal. And I only found out I'd need to submit a very formal report a week before Christmas holidays began. Maybe the communication between my supervisor and I really sucks. The worst is my paralysing fears due to all the traumatic experiences I had with them mess up my brain the moment I start writing - all the bad things that happened in 2015 crashed in and I'd be so fearful that I couldn't think at all.

So, after welcoming 2016 in a very Scottish manner with my boyfriend and his family, I'm resolved to live fearlessly in 2016.

Take breaks every now and then, as I am eligible to do so.

Try to strike some form of communication with my supervisor without fearing he'd kick me out from the lab.

Manage my experiments using online lab book tools to avoid incidents where the individual can be tempted to stalking and bullying and stealing ideas again.

To live life to the fullest (John 10:10).

Thanks for reading.

To a great year of academic writing! #AcWri

PLOS Synthetic Biology Event: Interview with Dr. Fuzhong Zhang

There's an event coming up this afternoon, 4pm UK time - an interview by Dr. Steven Burgess (Department of Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge) with Dr. Fuzhong Zhang (University of Washington, St Louis) on the role of cyanobacteria in space (and more!). Dr. Zhang's research is currently funded by NASA and it'll be cool to join them in the discussion on NASA research.

Click here to join the Google Hangout session

If you guys have watched the Martian, you probably know what this movie is one of the few which featured a botanist as a hero in a film. Dr. Zhang is researching on growing cyanobacteria in space. There are other research going around the world - including growing plants in soil from Mars, etc.

Your job will be to ask questions during the interview!

Just in case you wonder how does cyanobacteria looks like. Here's an image of it!

http://www.waterboards.ca.gov/water_issues/programs/bluegreen_algae/docs/cyanobacteria_microscope_big.jpg

Enjoy yourselves!

#syntheticbiology #PLOSSynbio #livestream #interview #cyanobacteria's role in #space #research #NASA today 4pm BST
https://plus.google.com/u/0/events/c2gnundras37n5c08pvst80cgj8

PhD: A Decision in Life (. or ?)

A last minute plea from a fellow Malaysian to fill in the slot for another PhD student who was supposed to share his/her PhD experience brought me to an eye-opener PhD event by the Cambridge University Biological Society (BioSoc). It was interesting how the event was designed - where types of PhDs available in UK and US were discussed, how to get into a PhD programme, what are the requirements, how PhD is linked to industries (thus no longer confined to academia alone) and finally some form of sharing by a graduate student about the Cambridge graduate experience (that's where I came in).

What I thought was interesting in my talk, of which my boyfriend found it amusing as well is this:
"PhD is not a bed of roses; it is more like walking through the rose bushes where the thorns are poking at us but we'll end up looking at the roses one we get through the bushes".

Other than that, a work-life balance is crucial to stay sane and keep going with our PhD battle. We're all warriors, but remember, we're already first a champion in our lives, when the strongest sperm met the ovum and created us.

I wanted to discuss a bit about the "full stop" and the "question mark" in the opening slide but somehow I didn't. Some people are questioning if they should do a PhD, and some have already decided to do a PhD no matter what happened. Life is full of twists and turns. Ten years down the road, I may not be doing what I'm doing now. But, it is still something I won't regret doing..

So, hang in there, people!



I've attached my slides here (with some info on the deadlines of application for Cambridge).

Guest Blogger

I've invited someone to write a couple of entries for my blog. I read something he wrote recently and thought it'd be nice if he could join me to make my blog more interesting.

First a scientist, a scholar, and a sincere individual. The sunshine in my life too! I look forward to host his writings!

Re: http://bloggingtips.moneyreigninc.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/how-to-attract-guest-bloggers-297x300.jpg

Never Leave Experiments Alone...

It's norm in research life that we leave something over the weekend to grow, incubate, etc. so that we could have a good start for the week ahead. Likewise, I also did the same most of the time.

The last weekend of August happened to be the last bank holiday of the year in the UK so my boyfriend invited me to visit his family up north. It was a good weekend, and a long one too. We went to the Peak District which is relatively close to his hometown. I wished I brought my proper walking boots so that I could try walking up to Mam Tor. Unfortunately, a pair of simple sneakers was my companion for the weekend. Let's just say, I still savoured the beauty of Peak District from afar where heather bloomed.

View from Mam Tor

Why did I mention such a nice weekend? Oh well, in order for me to not freak myself out after a good weekend, I did set up some cells to grow over the weekend. I ensured the cultures were bubbling with carbon dioxide before I left the lab on Friday. Little did I know what awaited me on Tuesday was a huge shock that some kind individual had turned off my CO2 supply over the weekend! Yes, the conditions of my cell growth was compromised, so I had to subculture them and waited for another day or so before I continued my experiment. I did cry like a sad kitten abandoned by its mother in my boyfriend's lab out of shock, surprise and anger. I couldn't understand why it happened, to the point of questioning my memory if I did turn it on. Thinking back, I was and am very certain I did turn it on and the cultures were bubbling before I left.

Something took me by surprise again on Saturday evening. As you know, recently I am running some experiments which involved electron microscopy. Usually, I do fixing and embedding myself. I started the process of fixation and embedding on Thursday, which meant I had to return during the weekend to refresh the epoxy resin twice a day. I had prepared fresh resin for the day on Saturday morning and then left for a short visit to Burwell to meet up a German friend of mine. An overzealous individual roaming in the imaging center over the weekend had decided to clean up anything that had my name written, so when we returned to the imaging center for the final refresh of resin, I was totally appalled that my resin had gone missing from the stirrer. More upsetting was to find my pot sitting in the oven with so much of waste in it. I felt so sick when I saw the covers which I labeled with my name sitting in the oven covering pots filled with so much of waste. I didn't have my phone with me, else I would have taken a photos of it. I am helping my boyfriend to fix some of his samples which he needs for his publication. So he was with me when I performed the fixation/ embedding process. I'm glad he was with me to witness all these. We had to prepare fresh resin for the evening. I'm saddened by the fact someone is so inconsiderate, especially we sort of knew who was the other person roaming in the imaging center that weekend. I'm not pointing anyone because I can't be sure, but this raises my alarm once again that someone is out to get rid of me.

A threat had been delivered to me verbally on the evening when the outcome of my first year report was out:
"You can either exit gracefully with an MPhil, or if they let you stay, you will lose all your freedom and they'll observe you like a hawk and the slight mistake that you make, they'll show you the door".

The same individual who delivered such statement also told someone in the department that my cakes tasted horrible and he wished a previous PhD student was still there because her cakes were great. Apparently my cakes tasted alright and people do love it. It was vicious and mean to say things like that to a mutual co-worker, especially when this person ate the cakes I made. Unless, of course, he pretended to ingest it but secretly had been throwing them away. That, I wouldn't know.

I am worried. I am appalled. I am helpless. I am in the dark. I am getting depressed and paranoid.

Yet I know, I am not wrong to fight for something I know I can do and to fight against those who had been messing with my potential of doing a PhD for the past one year. And I am receiving help from the University Counselling Services to ensure I remain sane. I am still producing results despite all my health issues and weird things which are going on around me.

Here's an article published on Nature 467, 516-518 (2010) about Research Integrity. Have fun reading!

Living with Depression While Doing a PhD

I stumbled into this blog post on PhD(isabled) accidentally, and found it very relevant to PhD students nowadays. I feel deeply for the PhD student who wrote the article... This part of the article hit me harder because I am going through similar hurdle, though it didn't start off with having depression.

Any form of health problem could slow us down in PhD progression. But it shouldn't be a reason why we are being told we are not capable of doing a PhD just because our health isn't great or that we take longer time than average to complete a task. If one has dyslexia, one will be given special aid so that they can do a PhD. But if one has hormonal problem or depression which slows us down, one is told by those normal, healthy people that we're incapable of doing a PhD. Academia has become such a sorry state at the moment. Equality? What's that? Until I see justice in my case, I don't believe there isn't discrimination...

An excerpt from the blog post I found interesting:
My own experience is that it takes time for medications to kick in, and only with the right medication can I start to do any kind of working through the issues causing the depression. My last severe episode was mostly spent sitting around waiting for things to get slightly better. That sounds a hell of a lot more fun than it was. I don’t know if people who haven’t been there can know how it feels. It really is a fight to get through one day at a time. Depression impairs your thinking. It is harder to reason like usual, or be creative, or whatever it is you’re normally good at. My memory goes completely to pot. I get times and dates muddled up, miss appointments and stand up friends, which is mortifying. So if you start trying to create a new model of some important theory or other when you’re under par, its going to be even tougher than normal.

Is there a problem with people (supervisors and students) seeing that as a sign they’re not actually capable of doing the PhD work when in fact its just a sign your health isn’t great just now? Can it magnify the anxiety if you think if you can’t think yourself well then you’re also not capable of doing the PhD? I wonder if blogs like this one have an important role in getting this crucial, fundamental message across to supervisors, departments and funding bodies.

I’ve tried to get involved with causes like this before. I found I didn’t have the resources to keep up.

I’ve seen friends take on enormous responsibility for campaigns and causes at the cost of their health.

I had serious doubts about writing anything about this. I can only claim to speak from my own experience. I worry enormously about anyone reading this and feeling misrepresented, but at the same time it feels right to say something.

In the end my constant mantra is to put my health first because everything else depends on that.

I can only be politically active within the limits of my health.

I can only be a researcher within the limits of my health, and not even the PhD comes before it.

Excerpt taken from https://phdisabled.wordpress.com/2013/11/15/living-with-depression-while-doing-a-phd/comment-page-1/#comment-1159

Electron Microscopy

Just some brief updates of my latest muse - electron microscopy and immunogold labelling (of which I started last Thursday). Perhaps the antibody I probed was abundantly available, so it's pretty awesome to see that the results was as expected for the wild type. As much as I was disappointed that none of the mutants I'm currently looking at has different phenotype when compared to wild type, the data is definitely useful to form future questions for my work. Exciting times ahead!

IgL of my protein of interest - yay!

TEM image of my Chlamybaby - pweeety!!

Here's the paper which I mentioned about the techniques used for IgL. Jeremy is an excellent adviser to me when it comes to imaging techniques. I do my own fixing and cell embedding, so it's always great to have Jeremy around in CAIC whenever I go over. Thanks a lot, Jeremy! :)


Hope you guys find this post helpful :) Cheers!