Wednesday, May 02, 2007

Chapter17--Review of year 2 semester 2

Alright guys, here is the summary of my year 2 semester 2.



LSM2103--Cell Biology

Hmm...I think I have a love-hate affair with this module. Love it for the content of the module taught and that it is one of the few life sciences modules that are WEBCAST but hate it that I do not seem to able to have a firm grasp of the concepts. It is a bit of a pity because I initially have the feeling that this module could very well end up to be the second metabolism-like module and so I was naturally disappointed that I could not perform up to my expected standard. Anyway, I feel that what is taught in this module would be useful to my future studies especially since I am poised to enter biomedical sciences research. The lecturers for this module were also quite nice and efficient, in fact they are sooo efficient and meticulous that they will try not to missed students queries by replying to every students questions through email and then forwarding them to the whole class so that there would always be a sudden increment in our email inbox especially towards the CA and final exam. Therefore I hope that the future batches of life sciences students will be spared the agony of having to delect numerous emails towards the CA or final exam. Actually, its very easy lah, just set up forum in the ivle for students to put up their queries loh. Hmm, did I mention it in the student feedback and evalution?




LSM2104-Essential Bioinformatics and Biocomputing

To be honest, this module wasn't as daunting as I first thought to be. In fact, content wise, this has to be the lightest workload compared to the rest of the modules that I took this semester. The only "scary" part of this module perhaps is the miniproject because one can have totally no idea how to go about doing it in the very beginning since it is supposed to be kind of a "progressive project" which means that we can only execute and have a better understanding of the whole project as we progress through the course. Luckily, I am blessed with some fabulous team mates for the project so it was overall still quite an enriching experience for me. Overall, I am quite satisfied with this module and I hope that I would be able to obtain a delightful grade for it when the final exam result is released at the end of May. Hmm, maybe I should keep my fingers crossed on this one!


LSM2202--Experimental Molecular and Cell Biology

Now, the module title almost tells it all that the most tiring, frustrating and possibly depressing part of this module lies in the experimental lab reports whereby I had spent countless days and nights working on it. The lab experiments were not that tough but I can tell you that just thinking about researching for materials for that terrible lab reports still give me the shudder. However looking on the brighter side of things, besides the lab reports, this module hardly feel like it is worth 6 MCs( and it would most probably be the only module that I would take in NUS that cost more than 4MCs) because the theory part of this module were relatively easy to understand although the questions set in CA by Dr Nobert Nemming is another story.... Ironically, the best experience that I have for this module stemmed from the lab experiments whereby I met 1 of the most competent teaching assistant(TA) that I have encounter for my short 4 semesters in NUS. This further reaffirmed my belief that a teaching assistant can really make or break one's experience in practicals and once again I blessed with an excellent TA which makes the whole experimental part of this module so much more tolerable. The miniproject itself which is supposed to be the highlight of this module also seems to be a blessing in disguise although there were some slight panic in the beginning whereby we were trying to figure out which BLAST applications and database to use. Once we get past that point however, the whole miniproject appeared to be less daunting as the rest of the report can be considered to be rather straight forward.


FST2201--Introduction to human nutrition

This module can be say to be the sequel to my GEK1529 food and health module that I took last semester since the content taught are mostly similar, the lecturer is the same and even the assignments which include things like diet assessment and poster design are also similar. However, being a level 2000 module, the topics covered is of course more-in-depth compared to GEK1529 which serves as a general education module. Studying for this module is quite a breeze for me since I have always been interested in nutrition and its related stuffs and therefore have the most confident when sitting for the final exam paper. I dare to say that I anticipated good grade for this module. Now the question is should I attempt FST3202 next semester?



GEK2506--Drugs and society

Another love-hate module. Like it for the contents that the module covered which include a brief history of the origin of medicines and some of the important people that helps paved the way for present day medicines.( Hippocrates, Galen and Paracelsius, I will remember their important contribution) The module also covered drugs abuse and the classification of some of the drugs.( Did you know that alcohol is a depressant and not a stimulant?) Others things about this module which I found useful and insightful includes the definition of trademark drugs and generic drugs and a deeper understanding and true meaning of patents and the functioning of pharmaceutical companies. I especially found the topic on pharmaceutical industry relevant because it provides me with an introduction on the drug discovery process and what types of drugs or things can be patentable. Since I am likely to go into Biomedical research in the future( oops, have I mention it too many times?), this topic really intrigued me since we all know that patent is the life blood of pharmaceutical companies and the motivations for most researches. Finally, to round it up, here are the 7 medicines which I learned in this module that changes the world-- Opium, Penicillin, Salvansan, Insulin, Thaliomide, Enovid and small pox vaccine.( not listed in order of merit)

Overall, this semester is quite a good semester with some unexpectancies( good and bad ones). I have even manage to find some interesting facts regarding this semester.

1--The number of faculty which I went to throughout the semester which is Science
2-- Number of miniprojects that I attempted
3--Number of life sciences modules that I took
4--Number of foreign lecturers I have for the semester
5--Number of modules took
6--Number of modular credits of LSM2202 which is probably the only module that I will took that is worth this modular credits.

Yours Sincerely,

Yongster

Tuesday, May 01, 2007

Chapter16--Life's really unpredictable

Just came across this news article today about a 35 year old man who is going to be a prospective master graduate but who died of sudden liver cancer even though he didn't smoke or drinks when he was still alive and lived a reasonably healthy life. Such tragic news about someone dying young always capture my attention because they always serve to remind me that life can be fragile and highly unpredictable. In particular, this article scores "bonus point" within my heart because it got something to do with one of my favourite or maybe I should say one of my most concerned organ of our body which is the liver. Almost all of my close friends should have know by now that I treat the liver with high regard and respect because it is the most important organ in our body in terms of regulating metabolic activities. Come to think of it, ANYTHING that you ingest orally would have to bypass the liver at some point or the other and any kinds of liver damage would almost certainly leads to death if a liver transplant is not carry out in times( think Andrea De Cruz and the slim 10 saga). Therefore, it is certainly not unreasonable or better still, imperative for us to take good care of this organ who have been neglected by most of us for a long time. Perhaps some of my friends have found my constant nagging of them to sleep between 11pm-1am at night( because that is the crucial window where the liver rest daily) if possible tiring but I certainly hoped that they do not regret their decision sleeping late at night in the future should they have any health problems( touch wood). I myself have witness some of my night owl friends feeling restless and lethargic almost daily and attributing their tiredness to all the short hours of rest they got every night without once thinking that it could also be a signal that the liver is screaming for more rest time. You see, as mentioned, the liver is in charge of the fuel level in our body and ensuring that a constant and stable amount of fuels is available to each and every cells in out body. A liver that is tired or sick is just like us being unable to concentrate and this can leads from mild problems like not being able to effectively manage the fuel level in our blood to more serious problems like the shutting down of some metabolic reactions inside our body that could really leads to serious complications. All these reasons is why I myself always maintain a strict sleeping pattern during school term and if possible during the holidays and I am proud to say that I hardly feel tired during the day times. Try doing what I doing for even a week and I can guarantee you that you will definitely feel differently!
The second so-called topics that stirred my heart is the totally unpredictable rythum of life which although I have always been aware of sub-consciously, never really haunted me. Reading about news on people in their prime years dying can get really depressing at times particularly if these people have no major ailments or illness during their lifetime and/or were leading a healthy and fit lifestyles. I mean come on, if these things can just happened to any perfectly alright individuals, it can certainly also have a chance to strive us and the worse and most terrible thing is it always do so when we are least expecting it. Now, I seem to have a more in-depth inderstanding of this phrase that I come across--"the thing that you should be grateful of every morning is your alarm clock because it shows that you are alive". In addition, such reports always cause a mini protest within myself for Iwill have the tendency to ponder again why I should try to lead a healthy lifestyle since even a fit lifestyle seems to be so vulnerable to death as well. I mean, why should we spend so much time and effort trying to exercise and eating a proper diet if death could just strive anytime? It seems so meaningless all of a sudden that all that pumping of irons in the gym and consuming of the recommended 6 servings of fruits and vegetables are not going to help us in delaying death. Nevertheless, after this wave of irrational and more of a emotional venting of frustration, I glad that the rational and pragmatic side eventually came to my head. Yes, although it is true that we are not able to avert these sudden death, it is nonetheless true and scientically proven that maintaining a healthy lifestyle CAN help us in preventing deaths caused by chronic diseases and these should be the things that we are supposed to be concerned about because we have the power to control it. As such, although fate is in the hand of god, the type of lifestyle that we want is in the hands of ours and only we ourselves as an individual can make the effort and decision for the path that we chosen to take and not to regret it later. In fact, these articles only serve to motivate me more because it reminds me that we should never take life or should I put it more appropiately, anything for granted and that we should and must treasure our health for it is our personal responsibility to take good care of it.


I wish everyone good health in their entire life!


Yours sincerely,
Yongster