Miss J's Farewell Party

6 December 2008

I couldn't believe it. Today was the last whole day Miss J would be in Cambridge. She's actually leaving tomorrow afternoon! I feel so sad as we are very close here, like sisters...

I cooked some food for this event. The food was not really that fancy as I was busy lately with the genome sequences and spent most of my time 'playing' with bioinformatics software. Still struggling to figure out the best way to process the sequences.

The normal vegetables salad and my rose chicken, suitable to have with briyani rice....

I took a taxi to go to Mdm Zett's new place, Southacre Flat at 12 pm. Too lazy to cycle as her place is quite far from my college and I'd to bring the food.

The hostesses - Mdm Zett and Ms Zee were busy preparing some drink. Miss J was trying to join the fun...

Mr Izud was the first to arrive, and then me. Mdm Zett's place is quite spacious and nice. Check out their living room....

And they have a very nice garden outside which would be perfect for BBQ in summer. And a large tree which I would die to climb! Perhaps in summer....

More people came after 12.30 pm and more food was placed on the table.

The guys were so deeply engrossed in their interesting discussion....


And the girls...somehow they always manage to give a pose even though the were heavily talking just before. So responsive and alert to cameras!!

Main dish :

Briyani rice, beef kurma, Rose chicken, pajeri nenas, jelatah (two version-mine and Mdm Zett!), nasi himpit and peanut sauce.

Dessert :

Bread pudding, tiramisu, muffins, peach pie and ice cream.

Peach pie brought by Mr. Khairul


Muffins brought by Mr. Izud

Bread pudding made by Mr. Hef and Mdm Zett


Miss J was given the honor to start the eating session. Bon appetite!


The girls and food...What a combination! With me in my Christmas mood (so red ya). Hehe!!

Then, the cake session! Mr. Hef's belated birthday.

We sang him the "Allah Selamatkan Kamu" song. He was so surprised of our birthday song selection (Mr. Kimi fault actually!) but made a joke about it.

Chocolate cake from Fitzbillies

Check out Mr. Hef hands when we sang him the "Islamic" version of his birthday song. So very the like when we sing nasyid la....

Many Happy Returns Mr. Hef. May You Be Blessed with Your Life - a Hubby and PhD Student!!

Miss J and her farewell cake...

And it was from Fitzbillies too...

Wish You All The Best in Your Future Undertakings. No Matter What You Decide, We'll Be Behind You All The Way....

We watched Mdm Zett and Mr Hef's wedding DVD, the one that took place at Mdm Zett's house in KL. Everyone cheered Mr Hef for succeeded in saying his wedding vow (akad) only once! Excellent job bro...

Everyone was so focus watching the wedding DVD.....

Miss J received a number of farewell presents from some of us. She was very happy (and sad too as she's leaving us and Cambridge).

A cute Cambridge grad teddy bear from Mr. T!

And a nice love-shaped pocket mirror from Mdm Airina which will definitely lift Miss J spirit as she's obsessed with mirrors - of any size and shape!

Mdm Zett, Mr. Hef and Ms ZZ gave her a nice green pendant and a bracellet but I didn't have the pictures. I stole the picture from Mr. Hef's album in Facebook! Hehe!

Miss J gave us (closest friends of hers) a red bracelet each as her farewell gift. I love it and will always treasure the bracelet with my heart....

And we couldn't resist to pose with our bracelet (tried to pose like pro model but it didn't work!)

Photo session followed before most of the people left the place :

All the credits should go to Mr. Hef for all the nice pictures below.....

Ms ZZ, me, Miss J and Mdm Airina

Circle of friends...

And a few more...

The people that came to this event..

Our last hugs for Miss J before she leaves...

And my favourite among all!

Our 'pandang-pandang, jeling-jeling' (Mr. T gave it this title!) picture

Ms ZZ, me and Mdm Zett waved Miss J our last goodbye...

And my potrait picture which I adore so much. Thanks Mr. Hef!

Then, the rest of us watched Mamma Mia together and sang together at the parts when the lyrics were given. Everyone seemed to be enjoying ourselves with the songs.

Then, we all left for Wolfson (Miss J's college) as we had to collect our thing from her room. She sold/gave away some of her belongings.

Then, we parted as Ms Fatimah and I took a taxi back to St Ed.

I bought an acuostic guitar from Miss J. Hopefully, I'll be able to play something after some practice...

Now, time to sleep. ZZZzzzzz.....

Christmas Happy Hour Genetics 2008

5 December 2008

We were supposed to have our Christmas party today. Since only a few members of the department bought the tickets, the party was sadly cancelled. To replace that, we organised a Christmas Happy Hour instead. Whatever food or drinks that had been bought for the party were used in this Happy Hour.

The price you had to pay to attend this event. Only a pound, not that very much ya...

Mr. Chris, the organiser of the Happy Hour of our department initiated this event. We all helped him in preparing the place and food.

The boys were resting after finished decorating our tea room for the Happy Hour...

Ms Chih and I prepared some fresh vegetables and cut them to sticks to go with the rest of the food..

Food and drinks :

All kind of titbits and drinks especially the fermentation products (alcohol drink and its derivatives)!

And all the minced pies, muffins and others....

Ms Chih was very happy with all the food especially when it was free and you can eat as much as you want!

And this was what I had for the night...

The event started with the Part 11 students activity. We had a pantomin presented by the Part 11 (Third Year students in Malaysia) entitled : The Wizard of Cosmid. This year, the panto was very entertaining and creative. I really enjoyed the play and the story line...

One of the boys turned into a sexy girl and was on a quest to look for indole! And all of them each play a character of a lecturer in the department. A bit synical but more of a laugh!

They didn't just act, they sang too. Apparently some of them have very good voice!

We continued to enjoy the food and chat with friends. Everyone was really happy and enjoyed the event.

Ms Maria (I couldn't remember her full name) and me. She is from Spain

Me and Ms Claudia and she is from Portugal.

Merry Xmas Everyone, Happy Eid Adha and Happy New Year!

Research in Genetics

4 December 2008

It was Research in Genetics Day today, from 10.30 am till 5 pm. I submitted a poster (an old one actually!). My labmate Ms Chih submitted her poster too, which she presented in Poland in October this year.

Me and my old poster (done in May this year!)

With Mdm SA, Ms Nish - my departmental mates

Ms Chih and her cute poster



Mr Chris presented a talk on his work, 'Indole Inside : The Alternative Dimer Catastrophe Hypothesis'. Mr. Chris talk was very impressive as he's very smart, confident and good in delivering his speech. David Summers, his supervisor must be very proud of him.





At 3.oo pm, the result for the most impressive poster was announced. I knew that I wouldn't win as my poster is not really that good. Matthew Savoian from Fly lab won, congrats to him. But the most unexpected thing happened. After the winner was announced, the judging committee announced that, there was a very tough decision in deciding the winner and guess what?? My poster was the first runner up! Haha! Who would have thought that they would considered my poster among the shortlisted ones. Ghee..... I was glad and happy.



The secretary of RIG circulate email to everyone and congratulated the winner. Not just that, she even mentioned about my name as one of the runner up!


The clause in the email :

"Thank you to those who submitted a poster and well done to Matthew Savoian , who won the most impressive poster competition and the prize of £15.00 cash and a £10.00 voucher. It was a tough decision and the judges, Alfonso, Cahir and Steve had their work cut out choosing a winner, with runners up Noor Azlin Mokhtar, Remy Ware and the iGEMteam"


This really lifted my spirit!! Abg John, Ms Marissa (a lecturer in yeast), my HOD and a few others congratulated me. And Abg John was really proud of me. And all that for being a runner up. If I won, hemm... they might have done much more. Hehe! Bestnyerr.... hari ni.

A pose with the lab members -Mr. Chris, me, Abg John, Ms Chih, Mdm SA, Mr. C, David Summers and Mr. Anthony

And especially, a hug from Ms Marissa for my achievement (even though I didn't win!)

Eating Fiesta!

2 December 2008

My labmates and I (especially the ladies!) had been planning our lab activity since a few weeks ago and decided to do it today. This was not our first time for such event. We had done it at least once every term. But this time, our eating fiesta involved more people as the number of the lab members had increased to 14!

We discussed about the food and I decided to make some beef dish. Most of us decided to bring something of our specialty ( a famous dish from our respective country!).

We started heating all the food at 12 pm and prepared the table and other thing.

Mdm Silvia and Mdm SA were preparing the table while I was heating the food.

Main Dish :

I've prepared two dish, my Malaysian food : beef rendang and manggo salad.

Mdm SA prepared some fried salmon in her Bangladeshi way. So lovely in taste...

Mdm Silvia made some vegetarian Mexican dish that went well with nachos. And some stir fried mushrooms whch I forgot to take the picture. Sorry...

And Ms Chih made some mixed vegetables in oyster sauce in her Taiwanese style and used gluten instead of real meat in her dish, some fermented bamboo shoot, tofu, Chinese mushrooms, carrot and others. Tasted very different and nice. I loved it especially the tofu.

And Mr. James, our youngest member made some falafel.

Dessert :

Mr. Chris is not only smart, he is a good cook too. He prepared minced pie and was kind enough to made some 'Halal' minced pie for Mdm SA and me. It tasted good...

And Mr. Nick brought some Chelsea buns from Fitzbillies. My favourite. Yummy!!

And some cute marzipan from Fitzbillies brought by Mr. C.

We really enjoyed the event. Everyone looked happy and full. Uncle Philip joined us for only 15 minutes and left as he had a lecture afterward. They all thanked us (Mdm SA, Ms Chin and me) as the main organiser.

Most of the lab members

Mdm SA, me, Abg John and David

Ice Skating Day

28 November 2008

It winter time. The ice rink is back in Cambridge this year. Not wanting to be left behind, we planned for our lab outdoor activity - Ice skating!

Before our ice-skating session started :

Ms. Chih, me and Mdm Silvia

Mr. Anthony, me, Mdm Silvia and Mr James

Mr. Chris, Mr. Matt, Mr. James, Mr. Anthony (visiting scholar from California), Mdm Silvia (our postdoc), Ms Chih, Ms Irene and her friend, and me bought the 14.00 hour tickets. We paid GBP7.50 each at students' rate.

I was a bit nervous as this would be my second year (and my third attempt) in trying to skate. I was not good last year and probably would be the same "bad" this time.

As before, Mr Matt helped me to tighten up my skating shoes, not letting me endanger myself by having lose ones. So kind and nice of him...

Having my proper skating shoes on-all set up for skating!

It was a first time for Mr. Anthony, a second for Ms Chih and a third for me. I started with holding the rail in the corner and move slowly until I was confident enough to let go of my grip. Then, I skate slowly and tried to move both my legs. It was not easy as I kept on losing my focus! Once my focus was gone, I lost my balance and had to hold the rail again...

The guys were very good to me, Chih and Anthony. Mr. Chris and Ms Irene help Ms Chih by holding both her hands and led her for a spin around the ice rink. Matt and Silvia helped me for a while. Then Chris and Irene held my hands and dragged me with them for a round. At least that made my money worth for skating!

Matt skate beside me most of the time, giving me advice and injected more confident in me. Before the skating session ended, I managed to skate on my own and surprisingly at a faster rate than last year. I believed my performance was not really that bad this year and I am proud of myself!! Hehe...

Even Ms Chih managed to skate on her own today! Good work Chih..

Matt, me, Silvia and Chris

Ms Chih, Mr Chris, me, Mr James and Mdm Silvia on the ice...

The guys stopped at the Castle for a few round of boost. Silvia and I walked back to our lab to collect our belonging and did some more work before we headed home. I felt tired and hungry. Hemm...probably I lost at least 1/2 kg by skating!



What a nice activity to be involved with. Very tiring but fun....

Mycolic Acid group lunch

10 November 2008


We had sort of a group lunch plus a guest from Saudi, Mr. Sammi. I had just had my course on how to keep a lab notebook (it may sound funny to attend such course but I got one credit for that!).


We went to Brown, a nice restaurant in Cambridge. I had never been to this place before but the layout of the restaurant is nice and pleasant. But the food came as a dissapointment to most of my labmate.


Mr. C and I ordered baked soy salmon which turned out to be tasty but the pak choy that came with the fish was overcooked!


Mr. Tony, the visiting student from USA had some pasta which tasted not at all nice. Too bad for him...


Matt ordered a beef burger. He didn't complaint much.


And I was not sure what Abg John had for lunch as I sat a bit far from him to ask. Just a photo that I've got. Courtesy of Mr. Tony as he fortunately brought his camera along! But the pictures will follow soon as I've to get them from Tony!

Trip to Sheffield and Loughborough

8-9 November 2008

Finally, I managed to go somewhere outside Cambridge for short pleasure trip. Ain-ain came to visit me in Cambridge last two saturday. She invited me to visit her in Sheffiled to return favors.

I totally forgot to get myself a railcard until Mr. T pointed in out and nagged me for not having everything in order. Thanks Mr. T, I really needed that!

At Cambridge train station-very excited and high in spirit to start the trip!

We left St Ed's around 6.15 am and got ourselves on 6.55 am train to Sheffiled via Leicester. The scenery along the way was not really that interesting as everything look similar. The train moved quite slow to Leicester. It took us two hours to reach Leicester.

Then, we caught the train to Sheffield after asking the train staff as both Mr. T and I (especially me) were not sure which train to take. We reached Sheffield about 11 am. Ain-ain was already there at the station, waiting for us. Wahhh! Finally, we were in Sheffield!

Me and Ain-ain - in front of Sheffield train station

Sheffield Hallam University

At the market area....

We were quite hungry. We walked (after looking for the direction in the city map) to Oxford Road to get some halal food. The road was not reallt that far from the train station. Mr. T and I used to a lot of walking but Sheffield is a bit of a hill. We found out that we were a bit exhausted!

Oxford Road- the best place to find Halal food here...

One of the most famous Halal restaurant in Sheffield-Kebabish

Another famous restaurant to dine in- Noodle Inn which serves big plates of food! And the prices were not that expensive. And we could order in Malay as the waitresses are mostly Chinese Malaysian students....

Our starter-mixed plater. The portion for three people was so huge! Less than GBP6..

Me and Ain-ain were enjoying our mixed plater!

Seafood fried rice-less than GBP 6

Chicken in black pepper and black soy bean with fried rice. So huge but cost less than GBP6!

Free desserts accompanied the food. The choice between hot sago in cream or vanilla ice-cream...

Mr. T was enjoying the food, especially the free ice-cream!

Sadly said, nothing much is going on in Sheffield at this time of the year. Ain-ain is still alien to Sheffield and we just made our tour based on some of her and Mr. T's experience. Luckily, the weather was not that bad. We were expecting rain all day but it was only a bit of shower from now and then. God must be on our side!

The 'mosque-shape' Sainsbury!

Mr. T and Ain-ain were looking at the map and trying to figure the way around!

Couldn't help myself from capturing the colors of the autumn!

Students accomodation. So modern compared to Cambridge

Welcome to my humble place said Ain-ain...

Ain-ain took us to her one room flat. The flat even though with only one room, still look comfy and nice with a nice kitchen and bathroom.

Ain-ain and me inside her one room flat

We visited several buildings in Sheffield Uni.

The landmark of Sheffiled Uni

The tallest building in Sheffield Uni - Firth Court (the fact that this building is on the hill makes it the tallest!!)

Student community center. They have almost everything here, from cinema, eating outlets and others...

Ain-ain didn't forget to show us her department, Animal and Plant Sciences.

I was amazed to find Perak Lab here! The lab was sponsored by Perak Sultan. God bless our Sultan!

Sheffield City Center

City Council building - Lovely building which houses wedding and other interesting activities, other than the normal admin thingy..

We took the tram to go to the train station. Other than buses, tram provides efficient transportation service here in Sheffiled.

My first time in taking tram but apparently not for Mr. T who had been here before....

We left Sheffield around five and managed to catch the 5. 25 train to Loughborough, our next destination. We promised Ms Ct Ann a visit since december last year. Ann and two others from Leicester came to Cambridge in December last year to visit Mt. T. That was how I came to know them and we became friends. It was about time that we reciprocated their visit!

It took us an hour from Sheffield to Loughborough. Mr Haris was waiting for us at the Loughborough station with his friend, Mr. Faiz (I think!). He drove us to Ct Ann's house. Ct Ann was busy preparing our dinner, her special nasi briyani. Yummy!! She's a terrific cook and I really enjoyed the food!

We ate quite fast as we planned to go and see the fireworks schedule at 8 pm. Ct Ann drove us there and we saw so many people walking towards the fireworks place. But the weather was not on our side here. It rained heavily. Luckily, I'd my umbrella with me. So did Ct Ann. I shared my umbrella with Mr. T.

The fireworks started quite late, at almost nine due to the heavy rain. But at least, the fireworks was much better than the one played in Cambridge, much bigger in size!

There were quite a number of Malaysian that I met here. Hemm...the Malays community here is bigger than Cambridge. I learnt that they tend to live quite close to each other.....

We went back to Ct Ann place and rest for a while. Then, Ct Ann brought us to one of Malaysian family house who hosted another small makan-makan. Abg Adam and his wife, Kak Maria (I believe that is her name. Mr. T please correct me if I'm wrong) prepared some TomYam noodles and spring rolls. Another makan time, I was so full and couldn't take anymore food......

We went back almost midnight. So tired and sleepy. Could hardly kept my eyes open for long. ZZzzzzz.....

The next morning, Ct Ann prepared some roti canai and dal. She invited Lina and her husband Hisham to join us for breakfast. We left the house around 9.30 as Ct Ann took us to the Burleigh carboot sale first, not very far from her place.

Outdoor carboot... Ct Ann, me, Lina and hubby, Hisham

Indoor carboot-my first time ever been to an indoor one...

Then, she brought us to East Midlands, the factory outlet, which is situated about less than an hour from her house. Shopping time!! My favourite hobby other than makan and site seeing.

I bought myself my first white gold ring (as all my gold rings are yellow gold). Also bought myself a new pair of black long boots and two new pair of shoes from Clark. Hemm...this was really a treat for me.

Then, eating time after shopping! Ct Ann brought us to their regular restaurant. Kebab kind of food. The food was not only nice but also very cheap. Just imagine, a dish of meat curry plus briyani rice only cost us less that GBP4. So amazingly cheap!!

Ct Ann brought us around Loughborough Uni. Hemm...quite a nice place they have here.

Landmark of Loughborough University....

Business center building (if I was not mistaken...)

We took the 5.45 train back to Cambridge and reached Cambridge past 7 pm. What a nice but tiring trip....

ZZzzzzzz.....