Entry #1

I have absolutely no idea what I should be writing in the first entry.

Um, what we've learnt so far?

Well, there's fingerprinting, and also trying to identify blood and stuff. There was a lot of trouble on my part trying to do the fingerprinting, because I just couldn't see my fingerprint! :( And the one strip of paper that showed my fingerprint really clearly, the one done with iodine, went missing.

We had a stack of paper strips, and I keep rifling through them (while trying not to touch them with obviously oily fingers) to find my beautiful strip of paper that has my most wondrous fingerprint on it - I think my fingerprint is really cool! I always like looking at my thumb and admiring it at most random times - but I couldn't find it anymore.

Recently we did the chromatography paper and the cockle blood thing (the luminol and whatnot - the smell was disgusting afterwards, especially since my friend decided to create marshmallows of cockle blood and hydrogen peroxide, if I'm not mistaken). I haven't done chromatography since I was Year 1 and doing the Chem module in Sem 1, but I was extremely certain that something went wrong in our experiment.

Maybe it was the capillary tubes, but I couldn't get the ink up no matter how hard I tried. Ok, maybe I didn't block off air completely - but seriously, only 2 of the chromatography paper had ink afterwards. I couldn't get the ink at all. No kidding. And I was really sad afterwards, because Miss Tan (please don't read my blog!) was saying quite sternly that those who didn't have a good result wouldn't be recommended for SMP, and I really, really want to get into SMP.

Ok, I'm digressing a bit here - I actually don't really know why I want to get into SMP. I just want to, and I'm prepared to quit my tuition and piano and all that stuff to get into it. I think that it's not that I don't like Science, but it's just that I don't like the Science curriculum. I'm sure I mentioned it in my SIP blog somewhere, but I felt really happy doing SIP (although was a bit hateful at first). Perhaps I wanted to recreate that feeling...I'll never know, but I know that I want to get into SMP. My group hasn't even been confirmed yet, and we're throwing SMP ideas at each other. Physics and bio and chem all mixed together, because we're each strong in different disciplines.

I think I'm more of a Physics person. Granted, I can't understand Scientific theories very well at first, but I just feel a greater affinity with Physics. When I was in primary school I used to pull out all the physics textbooks and read, and during E2K I was particularly happy to be memorising on light and stuff. I even brought it to reunion dinners because I wanted to read the whole stack of notes my teacher prepared for me.

I think J (NOT GOING TO SAY HER NAME!) is more of a Chem person, although her Physics is really good too. She was the one who helped me understand Coriolis force and all that stuff during NASA (the first one to get how artificial gravity worked in a rotating settlement, and the teacher and J had to spend nearly the entire lesson trying to explain to us the concept). She's also the one who offered to help me with Chem last year, but I rejected, and look where it got me.

Bleh.

Sherm (I don't feel comfortable calling her 'S') is very Bio, I suppose. And she wants to be an eye doctor! She used to pull me down to sit on the floor with her during the post-EYA period where everyone was slacking with nothing to do (we were supposed to be practicing for the drama, but the class wanted to fail, so we did. But we narrowly got in; we were like fourth!) and ask me about my eye operation years ago, like what happened and what I had as treatment. She's crazily good at Math (I always wonder why she was Track instead of Math Soc) and I like her reasoning. She's a very logical person, a bit on the weird side, but I think it makes her very human. Although she's very inhumane sometimes (she was happily cutting up the sheep heart. And pushing chunks of it right to people's faces...).

So, back to the topic. We actually threw the chromatography paper away (we got some okay results for the ones with ink) because we couldn't see anything at all. It was like, we didn't do the experiment. And Miss Tan specifically said she was very annoyed with those sort of people, so Sherm and I dug through the bin to find our chromatography paper. By then most were stained with a lot of chemicals, and we picked the few better ones as documentation.

It was sad. I could feel that Sherm was also very on edge, because she desperately wants to get into SMP - more than me. I didn't feel much for it at first - Sherm dragged me into it - but when we managed to get J to agree, I thought that it was something wonderful. My entire NASA group - and those whom I consider to be one of my best friends in the school - may be entering SMP together! Having known each other for 2 years and working with each other for a year, we know everyone's working style well, and everyone's strengths and weaknesses, and it was simply wonderful to be able to work with people you know, people you hold dear (ok, I'm getting mushy), and people that you really want to share your passion with.

It's hard, trying to come up with something that combines bio, chem and physics together. But we're trying to accomplish it - so that everyone will be included - even though we're not in SMP yet. Our application hasn't been confirmed, and I fear for J, because technically she isn't eligible, but she's just so...smart, I guess, that she should be.

I don't know. I feel really anxious - why are the results taking so long to come out?! - and sad at the thought that maybe we wouldn't get accepted. Perhaps technically we aren't the "ideal" people, but I think sometimes you have to give the chance to those who are willing to try rather than those who fit the requirements (not saying the other people aren't fitting the requirements, but I find it hard to believe that others can write about this and nearly cry, like me; my eyes are prickling now).

It's just hard, I guess. This waiting. And it's hard knowing that we may get separated. I don't want to be separated, because SMP isn't just doing research - it's doing research together.

No scientist can do a research alone; he/she needs a team. And I really want us to be a team if we get into SMP.