A Blast from Somi's Past

So, instead of doing real work in lab yesterday, I decided to take "self-portraits" of myself....

....

But these are not the self-portraits you guys are probably thinking of.... I took pictures of my DNA, just for fun... and also to make absolutely sure that I was human, for the most part.

So, here are my chromosomes, all 46 of them (22 pairs of autosomal chromosomes, with a pair of sex chromosome (XY).. for all you science people). The bright spots in the middle of the chromosomes are the centromeres, that serve to hold the chromosomes together (and other functions as well).

<edit> Oh and BTW... I took these pictures with a special camera that is mounted on top of our microscopes and NOT with my SLR... some people are so funny!

So, the balls that you see next to the "condensed" DNA are intact nuclei that hold in the DNA. The only reason why you can see the ribbon-like DNA is because one of the nuclei had to break in order for the DNA to come out.

So, I decided to zoom out a little, and here we see a collection of nuclei with some scattered DNA. And when I mean "zoom-out", this whole picture below is actually still smaller than a needles' point.

 These pictures kind of remind me of space, with galaxies and planets, doesn't it? It's like we have an entire microscopic universe within us. It reminds me of how complex and profound both life and non-living things are. Props to our Creator!  

Hi everyone!! I'm back from both the GSPC and Canaan Retreat!! They were both very special to me in their own unique ways.

I've posted some pics from both retreats. But for some reason, I forgot to take pictures until the very end, and I didn't take that many pictures either. So I only got pictures from the last night of both retreats and also the morning we packed up to leave. So the following series of pictures are not representative of the retreats as a whole, but solely depict the random craziness of the last retreat nights. Enjoy! (Warning.. it's a lot of pictures!)

Let's start with the GSPC retreat (August 14-17):

So, for some reason on the last night, people decided write all over each other. Here we have Danny tagging all over CJ's face.

Danny looking seductive... in a heebie-clownish kinda way. =)

Next we have Lauren.... I had a hand in this... She's going for the pirate look. Arrrrr!!!

And this cutie is Elisha!! This was the work of Brian.. good job!

Dude, Steve ("Bang-Joo"), I don't know if you remember that night, but you were hilarious!! Steve is sooo comical when he is sleep-deprived! So fun to watch! hahaha!!

This was our Secret Society. And instead of a secret hand-shake or a secret sign, we had a secret facial expression. Hahaha!!! I guess it's not secret anymore!

I like this picture for some reason... It's because Steve's in it. Hahaha, you make me laugh!

And of course... Justin. This is me and Justin doing our superhero poses. Justin, my brother, all I can say is "kindred spirit".

Now on to the Cannaan Retreat: (August 20-23):

Sean, playing with the bass guitar...

Hanna and John's duet body worship during skit... nice..

Club Cross!! haha...

Okay, so on the last night, during late-night snacks, I accidently prematurely fell-asleep for about two hours. When I woke up at 4am... being somewhat alert now, I walked around to see if people were playing games or something. But it seemed that people had just begun to go to sleep... but of course... I found some people who still had energy to burn... I found some accomplices. hahaha.  

Look at the contrast... People are dead asleep in the background and yet "The Soms" rampages on.  =) Somi.. you are so awesome!!

Gina and Somi wrestling. Somi is trying to get Gina to pose for the pictures, but Gina doesn't want to because she had no make-up on..... hahaha... Gina, I think you are beautiful regardless of make-up.

Gotchya!!!

Hahaha!!!

Somi giving Gina a whiff of her "Morning-Breath of Death!" LOL!!.

Sam Yang joined in on our revelry. <---- love this guy!.

We learned that Andy sleeps with his eyes open. kinda scary... =)

We then moved on to picking on the innocent sleeping bystanders. Here's me putting some stickies on Audrey's and Eugenia's forhead.

Another victim of the stickies... (Jane)

I love Pat!!! He is like the biggest Teddy Bear!! ... Jessica is giving props to the camera.=)

Then we got bored, so we moved on to modelling... I really like this picture of Somi. I feel like it can be a magazine ad or something.

Here's me trying to model in my PJ's.... pftsatkj;lkfadf  hahahaha!!

And here's Jessica, who's pretending to be a cartoon.

The next morning... waterballoon baseball.

John Ko winding up for the pitch!!! He swings and it's a....

....OUTTA HERE! HOMERUN!!

Wow, that was a lot of random pictures.

 Oh btw, here is a clip of Sam playing "Watermelon baseball" while we were packing up. haha..

For those who don't know, I passed my oral qualifying exams a couple of weeks ago. But instead of being able to get back to my research in lab, I had to spend this past week listening to and giving research presentations at a couple biological research symposiums...NOT fun. But at least i was able buffer it out with some play during the weekend. Here's some pics from the past two weekends.

Huntington Beach...

The girls playing beach football... (notice Hanna throwing a perfect spiral.)

David and Ray watching the football game (Notice David showing-off this buddha belly.)

Eugenia catching some waves.

Me and the board...

Sunset.

San Francisco: Golden Gate Bridge

Notice the expression of the monkey under Somi's armpit... hahaha!

Chintatown...

Union Square...

Ray taking a picture of a tree...

Prison bars at an abandoned Naval Fort...

Lunch: I love Andy's expression.  =)

Palace of Fine Arts...

Guardian Angels...

Sleeping Swan...

Fisherman's Wharf: Girls having fun at Crazy Caps

Me and Andy... Brokeback style... just kidding!

Helen wanted in on the action too...

Ghirardelli square: Hot chocolate and the Earthquake (8-scoop Sundae)

Yes, that's right folks, two xanga entries within a week's span!

Softball tournament all-day Saturday and church picnic on Sunday equal (=) one-dark-doug. But I definitely had fun.

Here's a group pic of Riverside's Teams A and B, along with our fabulous cheering squad. We only got to the semi-finals, but there is always next year!

Sunday's church picnic was fun. It was also Joanne and Sheena's b-days (Happy Birthday you two!)

<edit> I want to give Mike big props for having the courage to take off his pants in front of the WHOLE church. He came through for our team during the scavenger hunt when the moderator wouldn't accept the red-pants unless it was off Mike. (Oh and by the way, I wasn't trying to grope Mike or anything... it was my pathetic, feeble attempt to cover Mike's nakedness from lustful eyes.) =)

I want to share one little episode that happened between Sam and Joanne at the park. I'll let the pictures do the story-telling. =)

hahaha... you guys make me laugh!