These few days I am really getting enjoy working (and doing research) in biomaterials lab. I'm just realized that I like biomaterials more than other fields in materials science, how interesting and challenging a research job is. Yup these 2 years I have been doing research on polymeric stents. The difference is last year I concentrated on drug delivery system while this year I'm studying the elastic effect of bilayer stents. I'm interested to both topics, but most likely I'll choose drug delivery system for my future research studies. I did choose drug delivery for my attachment, but it'll use nanoporous rather than polymers. Hope it will be nice too. I really don't know how can I be very interested to biomaterial...probably because its usefulness and lots of application for biomedicals. How proud I'll be If my research can be used for curing others' diseases. During my high school period, I remember that I intended to have a degree in medicine, but how bad I was in biology...haha, but the most important is not necessarily to be a doctor to help others disease rite? I can use my materials background to help others through biomaterials.

OK lets go through why I put the title of this post as "Decision Making". It's related to last postings when I said about I got one nice mentor quitting his PhD degree in biomaterials. Unfortunately I got another friend want to quit also. Hmm...so sad to hear that. He's one of my best friend and "brother". I didn't know what to say to him yesterday when he told me bout this. I was just very shocked...what happen?why must quit? He said he's too frustated to the result of his experiments for this 1.5 year. Currently he's doing tissue adhesive for drug delivery. I was just silent for awhile when he told me everything.

At first I thought he's only kidding...but it's real. Actually he's been thinking about this decision to his supervisor, who is my best lecturer and friend as well...hehe. He then decided to quit asap and apply to either a polytechnic or as master student. He doesn't ever want to continue to PhD degree again in the future. Oh my god, taking PhD degree is not that easy in fact, lots of problems will come year by year. I really need to think it carefully if I really want to take it in the future then. It's not an easy choice though. I like research, but I'm still doubt... can I achive the set goal? it needs lots of my efforts to get the best result.

Currently I'm thinking to get a preparation class for toefl, ielts or GRE during my next semester IA. May be I'll do it at night somewhere. I realized my english skill is still not good enough to get good score. I must do something to improve it. So I'll be more flexible to choose where to continue my study later.

Yesterday while I was learning how to use DMA with YeeShan, she told me better to take master first overseas then continue PhD then go back to Singapore. It's not so worth to take PhD directly here, coz the foundation may not be so firm and the status later will be different. For me may be it's partially true but the most important thing is I want to get new environment and new experience. Here is too study oriented for me...hehehe. May be I'll consider it. I'm a bit puzzled now.

Go back to my gastric. Hehe. Today morning I came to dr Tan as he asked me last week. He said I need to take other medications until 2 weeks onwards then come back to see him. Probably he'll do a Urea test 1 month from now. So totally I need to do it at least for 6 weeks. What a torture! I have to face it patiencely, unless it'll appear again. He said it's probably I got this bacterias when I was in Indonesia, and he assumed I got my own antibody from now on. Ok I need to continue working then. Bye.

The nice thing was my weekend journey with Mai Leng and Karen to Orchard to eat out and walk around. At first we met at Taka Cold Storage coz I was the earliest person who reach there. I looked at some Japanese delicacies while waiting for them, they were so nice and tempted. I really don't know why I'm so curious about Japanese at this moment. Mai Leng introduced me to her female friends. I forgot their name, but they're quite friendly. One is our MSE junior and another one graduated from NTU NBS. Few minutes later (after getting lost :)Karen came then we decided to have lunch immediately coz she was very hungry unlike me who was a bit ful coz I ate fried rice at JP ( I didn't dare to eat late...), but those 2 Mai Leng's friends didn't join us coz they ate earlier.

As our plan before we'd eat at Sushi Tei, so we went to a branch at Ngee Ann City. We took picture in front of huge christmas tree when walking towards the restaurant. The place was indeed really amuse and comfortable. It had real Japanese atmosphere. Before ordering foods a waitress served us green tea either hot or cold. I chose the cold one. It's not strong and really a thirst quencher. Suprisingly it's free flow. The foods were look nice as I saw from menu card and were affordable, moreover there were lots of various Japanese traditional delicacies. In addition, they provided special ginger pickles on the table. It was tangy and very nice.

I ordered tempura ramen, tamago (egg sushi) and daifuku mochi ice cream for dessert. At first I felt too full, but it suddenly stopped when I tried one by one. Haha. I was not brave enough to eat raw fish...I think I need to wait at least few weeks to stabilize my stomach metabolism. Hehe. They were extremely nice and wonderful. The ice cream had chewy mochi skin and the filling was readily melt in my mouth. There were 3 flavours of this ice cream filling, they were macha, vanilla and err forgot another one. I was really full after all. I didn't have big apetite for dinner though... In conclusion I'm really amazed of Japanese people due to their creativity.

Mai Leng ordered katsuo (smoked salmon) sushi, crab temaki(hand roll) and black sesame ice cream for her dessert. She said they were nice too.

And Karen ordered the most coz she's very hungry. No wonder she spent a lot. Haha. She ate nothing before reaching there for lunch. She ordered sashimi and rice, salmon sushi and macha ice cream for dessert. At the end she realized she got light stomachache coz ate lots of raw fish.

Then we continued to walk around to the department store coz I was looking for a birthday gift for a special friend in biomaterials lab, who'll be having birthday right after christmas day. Unfortunately Mai Leng went home earlier coz she planned to watch TV, so only me and Karen left. I bought a nice and meaningful thing that's suggested by Karen. Actually she didn't fully understand the whole characters but at least she knew how to read the header word. Thanks Karen. In addition she bought a unique calendar and I bought air revitalizer including its fragrance liquid. I considered its usefulness to keep my room clean and the liquid itself can keep myself calm and relax...Eventually we finished everything at 7pm, then walked to MRT to go back.What a nice day!

NB: Here are our desserts and special free ginger pickles

Last Thursday, dr Tan called me while I was in the lab. He said Gleneagles Hospital realized that they have found some bacterias from last Saturday endoscopy. They got it after few days, unlike what dr Low said last Saturday that no bacteria but only stress effect. So I walked to MC directly coz I was quite free on that day. I decided to take rest after going to MC and came back to lab on the next day. dr Tan was quite surprised I was there only in few minutes coz he thought I'd be coming after 2pm.

It seemed no more patient and he'd be having lunch soon. He's so nice as usual. Yup in fact he said there were some pylori bacteria inside my stomach that can cause ulcer if not properly treated. Moreover it caused non-stop acid to be produced. Walah walah...so terrible. I was wondering how come I got infected? What I knew it's caused by unhygienic condition and mostly observed in developing country. It's spreaded thru oral. But here is developed country rite? But I didn't ask him how come. I thought I know the reason. Haha, in addition I was too shy to what he'd probably say...hahaha.

Since then I planned to be more careful in doing something related to foods, probably I'd always wash my hand before my meals. I seldomly did it... Then he gave me some strong antibiotics (I realized it after taking for two days...) for 1 week dosage, but probably would be useless coz it should be OK after few days. Next Thursday I'll meet him again to let him know and probably there will be Urea test to check and confirm the presence bacteria. I should say a lot of thanks to dr Tan for his passion and good job. He's very nice person though. While I was taking rest Kee Pah called me. He seemed a bit worry about my condition, but I said OK and not so painful. He'd be starting his holiday in KL together with some MSE PhD students in the evening. So nice. Thanks for your concern Bro, sorry to make you worry.