Mile Marker 418: Open Houses

I’ve officially finished my work at the lab and achieved all the project milestones. Until the day I obtained the scroll, I can never be totally free. I still have to go back almost daily to do some [culture] maintenance, cleaning up, and a small but tedious errand – cloning a gene into an expression vector and possible induction of the vector to overproduce a protein which will then lead me to the verification of the protein via SDS-PAGE. ‘Small’ and ‘tedious’ appear to be a gross understatement. It’s a goodwill gesture to my supervisor and something that I’ll give my best to do it.

One a much happier note, I’m looking forward to visiting Firdaus’ family orchard next Tuesday. Fruits! It’d be great if we’d repeat last year’s trip when Kak Mimi and the Kuala Lumpur branch (the Penang 418 being the HQ) members were there.

So, as this topic nears its last stop, I’m posting pictures of the open houses by Kak Mimi, Kitha and Firdaus. Over the years, we’ve stuffed ourselves under the roofs of these gracious host, cut birthday cakes, and fool around in true kampung spirit. But most importantly, we visit one another to celebrate our differences – the Eid, Deepavali and Chinese New Year (I’m not sure who has the pictures of CNY open house). Who’d forget rendang? Or briyani and chapati? Or mandarin oranges, satay, and noodle (sorry, pork wasn’t on the menu as it’s not halal)? And oh, the day out in Taiping Zoo after Kitha's Deepavali open house.

As we hear (again) of racist remarks by some of the most intolerant of people in the country, I take comfort in that the spirit of muhibbah is very much alive as far as we are concerned. Still, I don’t deny that the relationship among the different races took some beating; no thanks to a few bigots frothing at their mouths spewing venom. Wonder why we’re Malay, Chinese, Indians and Others here but Malaysians in the rest of the world.

Someone posted this on Facebook with the same caption. I'll leave it in its original language as I find it funnier that way. No, we weren't fighting.

Julian: pisang tu kat rumah saya.Curi-curi ambik pi goreng, ingat I tak nampak???
Mimi: Itu pisang kami yg beli la..
Kitha: Eh...jadi tak jadi makan lah??