a little bored

have been spending most of my time in the lab these days. finally can start sorting my invertebrate samples, but the microbiology work still gets into the way...have to repeat the process because i cant get any results. haih...i thought i can get it over fast and just concentrate on the invertebrate part, but no. hopefully next week i can have some results and get over with it

sorting the invertebrate samples..is not hard actually, basically you will just have to sit there, look under the microscope, search for those little insect larvae in the sample, pick them up and put them in another smaller bottle. but it is SO TEDIOUS..time consuming and tiring. imagine sitting in a place and searching for little things under microscope for hours! can chat..provided i have someone else in the lab, but actually no good because i will forget which part i have looked through and which part no hahaa. thank god i have a radio in the lab. can at least listen to something and make life a little more interesting hahaa

start to miss field trips..i have just had one on 17/10, but then getting stucked in the lab just making me feel like going out there somewhere again. start to think about the project trip 2 weeks ago (6/10 - 11/10), whereby those few days we were just working in the plantation from early morning until late evening..of course no easy job, but then at least we get to go to different places everyday, and occasionally can see some nice birds..and we did something called 'lamping' one night. we drove around in the plantation and shone light around to detect the animals present. animals' eyes would reflect the light, looking like some little lights, and thats we detect them by looking around for those little eyes. seriously very interesting and exciting haaha..it is really fun to be with these professional wildlife people, you can really learn a lot and see a lot of interesting things. too bad we can only join them for lamping for 1 night

some pictures of the trip..all of them are not my own photographs. i only bought my camera after the trip. next time i will have my own photos. yay!

first day of work. first site. testing the stream water with Jim Fong. she is my batchmate from Monash, working for Wild Asia too for now (photo taken by Yong)

towards the end of the first day. Yong, Jim Fong and me sampling in another river (photo taken by John, one of my bosses)

Yong going through the sample, looking for the tiny invertebrates, counting and identifying them. while Jim Fong recording down the data. i was the one collecting the samples since my identification skill is not as good as his

have a good smell at the sample :p (well of course not la hahaaa. just taking a closer look at the sample for the invertebrates)

caught a cat fish in one of the samples at that sampling site. quite a big one (photo taken by John)

dragonfly mating. saw them on our way out from a forest. the bottom one is the female (photo taken by Yong)

in that forest, i saw some peakcock fern too. really nice looking fern, the leaves are blue in some parts other than the normal green. this picture was not taken in that forest though. it was in taman negara (photo by Yong)

a black shouldered kite. one of the nice birds we saw in the plantation (photo by Yong)

the lovely common palm civet cat that we saw when we did lamping that night. it was hiding on one of the oil palm trees. so cute!! (photo by Dave, one of the bird watchers in our team)

we also saw a leopard cat. beautiful, isnt it? :) (photo by Dave)

closer look at the cat

our group photo, taken at the place we stayed. from left: Jim Fong, me, Dave, Yong, John and Kim Chye. Dave, John and Kim Chye are the professional bird watchers. John is also an ecologist. he knows almost everything! from birds to flowers to dragonflies..you name it. he is just amazing!

zz time. back to the lab tmr..