Have a look at this: The Chris Easton Lab

My (ex-) postdoc supervisor made this website and Amy and I were so honoured that summer scholars were included in it! If you're procrastinating, have a look at "Home", "Photos" and "Research > Supramolecular Chemistry and Molecular Recognition" That's the topic i worked on over summer, though mine was more synthesis.

 

"Ireland's favourite chocolate cafe has opened it first international store, right here in New Zealand "

 

"Butlers Chocolate Café combines two taste pleasures – coffee and hand-made Irish chocolates – in a luxurious café atmosphere."

Ahhhh..nothing feels better than a sugar rush from a tall glass of Cookie Hot Chocolate from Butler's! The hot drink with oreo chunks floating in it also came with a complimentary milk chocolate easter egg. I stayed up to study for my retrosynthesis test in the morning, so no guilt there!

Can't believe 6 weeks is over though amidst the endless assignments, tests and lab reports it seemed forever. Soon, 6 months will be over and I'll only be 6 months away from graduation! Funny how time may be long or short depending on how you perceive it, and yet, it is all fair because the clock ticks just the same.

I'm all packed and for Easter Camp for the weekend, which will be fun! Hangi, hongi, powhiri... bring 'em on! Then it'll be workstudyworkstudy for the week before we have a blast at Micheal's farm in the last week! The weather looks promising, hope it does not disappoint us! We're into the second month of Autumn and it's been pretty mild. This time last year, I was already under layers of my winter clothes!

What a drastic turn in the sky!!

I was out in jandals and a skirt two days ago, and yesterday I had to pull out my winter jacket. And today, I needed my rain jacket and scarf. Felt as if we went straight from Summer to Winter. I dragged myself out of bed this morning to get to work, and it hailed on me! Hail is fun to watch when you're at home with socks on your toes and hot chocolate in your hands, but when you're outside, those bouncing mini-iceballs isn't as fascinating.

Nevermind, when you fin yourself complaining count your blessings! And I am thankful for the job I have as a "casual Worker" at the School of Chemical and Physical Sciences (SCPS). I'm on this 'project" with 3 others to organise the chemical store, which is on level below ground! It's real easy, except the worry that my life might be shortened by a couple of years because I have to move around TOXIC, ECOTOXIC, FLAMMABLE SOLID, CORROSIVE chemicals around. Hence explains my silent prayers each time before I start work. It pays well though. And of course working as a lab demonstrator has its pros and cons.. Marking lab reports is not as fun as I perceived them to be!

On a totally different tangent... the worse thing that can happen to someone is to lose her fighting spirit. It's what drives her.

Something else: It's takes soo much to keep in touch with people. I really can't be bothered anymore. Just let it drift.

My Textbook of Medical Physiology is at closest proximity to me, just in front of me, but eyes are not fixed on the rows and rows and rows of Roman letters. Instead, my head is at an angle where it's just comfortable, staring at something at eye level, rather than looking down at a book. The evil laptop is just a bit furthere away from my textbook! I must stop now, I must. No more mucking around. Blogs, facebook, emails, whatever... Leave me alone, I want to study and I'm dead serious about that!

There's Dancing with the Stars tonight, the America's Cup, and Cricket World Cup against Sri Lanka... and Anzac Day dawn service at 5.45am tomorrow. And apparently there's gonna be quite a few ppl in my flat tonight watching all that and celebrating the holiday, and of course remembering the selfless soldiers at Gallipoli. They've got chips & dip, desserts, snacks, champagne, wine, beer and all. But I've gotta study for my Physiology test on Thursday!! Gahhhh.. Well, I'm not gonna miss Dancing with the Stars and my flatmates will be sure to drag me out of bed by 5.15am to attend the dawn service at the War Memorial. But I want to watch the Cricket and the Amerca's Cup too! I'm slowly turning into a mild sports-junky. Who wouldn't with flatmates who are so into them. Black Caps all the way!!

I am about to give up, on studying physiology. There's absolutely no way I'm gonna finish it, so what's the point. And I don't do all-nighters. And seriously I don't fancy the subject. I just want to go to bed. And every minute my headache seems to get more intense and my eye lids weigh a tonne- all psychological, I only know it too well.

But it's amazing how when I think I'm at the very bottom of things, my mum sends me an email with updates from home. Ps CL was at one point hanging on to dear life because of a burst appendix. A  close childhood friend of mine is coping with schizophrenia, and is doing better now. And suddenly, my absolute detest for studying physiology is lifted. How could I not praise my God who holds all things in its rightful place according to His superior judgment? Surely it confirms that when there's nothing else you can do, or nothing else you feel like doing, you praise the creator of the heavens and the Earth.

Digging A Small Shaft

Karl Rahner, the Need and the Blessing of Prayer

Oh everyday prayer! You are poor and a little tattered and the worse for wear like the everyday itself. August thoughts and  exalted feelings are difficult for you. You are not an exalted symphony in a great cathedral, but more like a devout song, well intended and coming from the heart, a little monotonous and naive. But, prayer of the everyday, you are the prayer of loyalty and reliability, the prayer of selfless, unrewarded service to the divine majesty, you are the dedication which makes the gray hours light and the trivial moments great.

You don't ask about the experience of the one praying, but about the honor of God. You don't want to experience something, but to believe. Your gait may sometimes be weary, but you still walk. Sometimes you may appear to come just from the lips and not from the heart. But isn't it better that at least the lips are blessing God than when the entire human becomes mute? And isn't there more hope then that the sound from the lips will find an echo in the heart than when everything in man remains mute? And in our prayer-poor times, what one chides oneself or others for as lip-prayer is most often in reality the prayer of a poor but loyal heart that laboriously and honestly, in spite of all the weakness, weariness, and inner discontent, it at least continuing to dig a small shaft through which a small ray of eternal light falls into our heart that is buried by the everyday.

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And as my heart (and whole self) seems to be buried in the everyday, my soul leaps with joy and excitement of what I am about to discover in my  relationship with God! I have this quiet confidence in me that much is going to be revealed to me. I cannot feel for certain that anything specific will happen, yet I know much will happen in this year as I choose to walk in His ways. For one, my expectant heart bubbles over in excitement  as some friends and I come together to form ICF's prayer group. There's so much old traditions that I need to handle with careful judgment, and yet there is so much to learn about what true prayer is. And no amount of sermons or bible lessons will impart this knowledge, because communication with God is afterall experience not knowledge.

This whole paragraph may come across as waffle, or airy-fairy spirituality, nevermind, but the simple and I feel the most appropriate definition of prayer is communication with a very close friend. I am reminded about how I find it a struggle to keep up with "long distance friendships", and I realise that it is a result of the yearning to be connected to people you love and you care about. And this rings true of my yearning to be connected with God too, except that the everyday sometimes hides that deep desire. But perhaps digging a small shaft is better than no shaft at all.