Restarting, again.

I am in Zurich right now.

I have come here for an interview that will possibly set the course for my life the next few years.

I will write about it shortly, but just not right now.

Stayed tuned.

Goodbye, Yellow Brick Road!

The title is just a line I found from the back of my head. Don't get too serious about it. It's also the title of a song by Elton John, one of my favorites.

It suddenly occurred to me that I haven't updated my blog for ages. Recently a lot of things came to my mind. If you bother to read my blog, then you deserve to know what have happened to the blogger for the past few months. I hereby sincerely inform you.

I decided to stay in Sweden for a few more years. Not because of career choice, but relationship. I met a girl in November last year, after coming back from iGEM 2010. Initially, me and one of my friends are supposed to start some sort of A Capella choir, and that's how I met our soprano singer. However, to make the long story short, we formed bonds of love over exchanging our hearts' voices.

I still remember that night in late November. It was merely two weeks after knowing her name. I somehow sensed how she was interested in me. We could chat online for hours every day. The most notable sign she gave me, was even when the conversation had gone cold, she'd come back to me after the long silence, to tell me that she's going to bed and say good night. Maybe it's not that much of a big deal to you, but if you were in my shoes, you'd know how it felt. Between me and her, we had this running joke that she should punch me whenever we meet. That night, it was already past midnight. Suddenly she came online and told me she forgot to punch me. I joked about going over to her place right away to get punched. After exchanging a few more sentences, the joke became more and more serious. That's when I decided to run over to her place.

With my fastest pace I threw on me my jacket, and jumped into my giant winter shoes. I ran the whole 500 meter or so, with my heart thumping like pistons in a truck. I knew if I started running, I just had to at least kiss her that night. Or I would go home defeated, not feeling as a man as I was expected to be. Fortunately, I did it. I remember how electrifying it was when our lips first touched. Until this day, I remain thankful to whatever higher power in the universe, of not only granting me a woman I love, but also a woman who loves me back in return.

During my wildest moments in the states, with my thoughts crammed with pick-up techniques and carnal urges, I never thought this would happen this way. In the end, I have to say that the highest level of picking-up women is not about pick-up, but to love and respect women from your heart. Only then you will built a genuine connection with your would-be right one, only then, you can find your true soul mate without going through that much trial-and-error. Considering all the missed opportunities, times I tried but messed up, I'd say I have deserved it coming.

So, what do I mean by "Goodbye, Yellow Brick Road"? The Yellow Brick Road is an image taken from the 1939 movie "The Wizard of Oz". The road is to be followed, if you are looking for the magical Wizard of Oz. It leads to an Emerald City, often seen as a metaphor for "the road that leads to life's answers". Our heroes in the movie followed the road, only to find that they had what they were looking for all along. So tell me, do you see a connection there?

Safety questions from iGEM Uppsala 2010

Safety questions from iGEM 2010. Four of us stayed up til 3am in a hotel room in Hyatt Cambridge to finish them. As iGEM Headquarter informed us, we forgot to submit them. Luckily they still gave us a bronze for breaking one of the easiest iGEM rules.

1. Would any of your project ideas raise safety issues in terms of:
• researcher safety?

During the design process of this project, it was decided that the project idea involved only well-characterized, documented bio-bricks, and non-pathogenic, well-studied bacteria strain. No mutagenic experiments for making new bio-bricks and no pathogenic bacteria strain were ever involved. In the laboratory where the project was carried out, strict safety rules were employed for ensuring the well-being of the project participants. The rules include usage of lab coats, gloves, goggles and other necessary safety equipments. All the lab works were conducted under the supervisions of senior researchers. The project students were not allowed to work alone or without supervisions.

• public safety?

No pathogenic bacteria strains or virulent genes were involved either as precursor material, intermediate or final product. The laboratory where the project carried out is a closed environment. Safety rules were painstakingly followed to prevent the dispersion of, and to ensure the destruction of any lab waste. Autoclave was used to prevent any GMO from leaking out from the lab.

• environmental safety?

No mutations were designed in any of the constructs. The cells which incorporated the artificial plasmid do not secrete toxins as a result. They were destroyed to prevent any form of leakage into the environment. The bacteria strains used in the project possess no selection advantage over their wild type counterparts, other than antibiotics resistance. Although engineering bacteria metabolism through editing antibiotics resistance is a conventional feature.

2. Do any of the new BioBrick parts (or devices) that you made this year raise any safety issues? If yes,

There are no safety issues with our BioBricks. The constructed BioBricks consist of well-characterized parts without any intended mutations. They are only capable of expressing naturally occurring gene activators, repressors and harmless fluorescent proteins. All laboratory procedures were carried out under general microbiology and molecular biology lab regulations.

3. Is there a local biosafety group, committee, or review board at your institution?

In Uppsala University there is a bio-ethics group. One of the advisors, Daniel Camsund has taken a bioethics course taught by this group. Every stage of the project was closely monitored and approved by Daniel Camsund. Furthermore, under the guidance of Dr. Thorsten Heidorn, the project group complied with the established and applied biosafety regulations of Sweden.

Coming up: the recent incident at UU

Hello everybody!

The character of this blog entry is: sarcasm! If you can't handle that then please don't read any further. Intolerance of sarcasm can be expressed as seizure, heart attack, brain damage and blablablabla....

I will write a blog entry on the recent small incident between me and the Dept. of Cell and Molecular Biology (ICM) at Uppsala University. At this moment, I just sent an email to the prefect, vice prefect and secretary at the ICM. Incidentally, I found out that the vice prefect of ICM is one of the professors I contacted earlier, before this incident started. Well I guess he must've been too busy to look into this matter. Hopefully my email will be well-received. Also, I posted a status update on my twitter to make sure that people know I sent the email. To tell you the truth, when I heard from my sources that people still follow the event by checking my twitter, I felt honored. I mean, when so many professors and faculty members put down their work to make sure a poor little student like me can receive so much unwanted attention, how can you not feel you are in the center of all the spotlight? Just like a Hollywood star! And guess what, one of my friends who happened to have a law book next to his hand, showed me this:

Tryckfrihetsförordningen 2 kap §1

Till främjande av ett fritt meningsutbyte och en allsidig upplysning skall varje svensk medborgare ha rätt att taga del av allmänna handlingar.

Tryckfrihetsförordningen 2 kap §14

Myndighet får inte på grund av att någon begär att få taga del av allmän handling efterforska vem han är eller vilket syfte han har med sin begären i större utsträckning än som behövs för att myndigheten skall kunna pröva om hinder föreligger mot att handlingen lämnas ut.

Tryckfrihetsförordningen SFS 1949:105

If you don't understand Swedish, use Google Translate. Basically it says that since I am a Swedish citizen, I should be able to get all the information per request. And the government is not allowed to speculate what I am doing in a broader-than-necessary spectrum to try to stop me from obtaining the information I'm after. University is a governmental organization, thus, it is bound by offentlighetsprincipen. Theoretically, all the documents are public, even the emails circulating inside the ICM can be accessed by me whenever I want. For instance, one of my friends at KI even told me that it's not recommended to write down personal stuff using the work email, because everything can be seen by any random person. At KI, it's said that some journalists ask the institute for more information than necessary, just to test if KI staff knows the law. I have a feeling that UU should also be put on the test, and I do worry about the performance of UU staff relative to KI staff.

Anyway, when I have time I will collect the information and write down a timeline for the events that occurred. If there is anything that I demand of ICM, it's a formal apology. I want the person who wrote down my twitter "Leo Kinmann" to step out, and apologize to me for exposing my privacy in front of the whole department. I dare to say this, now that I know my rights as a Swedish citizen.

An email to one of Uppsala University's professors

Hi professor,

I understand your concern. I have heard that my email was seen with skepticism from Prof. Stefan Pålsson of the IT department. Somebody thought that my request was a fraud and as a result, dug up my twitter account. Some faculty even urged people to "search further", which could totally compromise my anonimity on the internet. I know the thing about not registering the student's nationalities after asking all the Uppsala and SLU faculties and international master programs for similar information. After living in Sweden for 10 years since my childhood, I am aware of the Swedish way of handling things. However, my duty as the president of Chinese Student and Scholar Association in Uppsala sometimes forces you to walk the line. The reason I asked for the name list is because the system won't register the nationality. So I figured if I could read the name list, I can pick out the number of Chinese students with ease. My true intention is not attempting to breach confidential information, but simply reducing the amount of work for the university staff. And on the legal matter, one of the many coordinators I asked took advice from the university's own lawyer, and he came back to me with the numbers I needed. SLU even sent me a 38-page document with the names of all the students admitted into their international master programs for the past 3 years. I never expected my emails could stir up so much trouble. However, I can assure you that I will contact the university staff in orderly manner and clear the misunderstandings. Thanks for your concern and we might run into each other another time! Until then, I hope you will do well.

Thank you again for everything!

Best wishes,

Leo Kinmann

今天是个好天气吗？

我有时候，心里有些不平静的想法，就会来这里写几行字发泄。

今天请了一个朋友吃午饭。我事先跟她做了一笔交易。我给她跑腿，帮她一个小忙。她回头要做我安插在某人身边的耳目。从波士顿回来之后我一直都在感情问题上纠结。最后跟这个朋友约好了，她今天代替我问某人一个重要的问题，我作为回报请她吃饭。

其实在她转告我答案之前，我就已经猜到了。只是从她口中听到会帮助我下定决心。按她说，某人对我没有感觉。某人自己认为她已经把态度表明得很明白了。同时她说也怕伤害到我，所以没有说死，没有给我一个 full-blown rejection 的拒绝。我跟亚洲女孩相处的时候，最讨厌的就是这一点。相比之下，白人女孩更加直白。如果她们喜欢你绝对不会让你如此猜测，不喜欢你也会立马说明。喜欢就是喜欢，从第一次见面起几个小时内可以进行到底。不喜欢就是不喜欢，话不投机半句多，上来一句“我已经有男朋友了”，“let us just be friends”，简单明了。男生很快就会知道自己有戏没戏，不会在一个人身上浪费时间。从这点来看，我其实更喜欢欧美人。

当然，什么话都不能说死。我找朋友看的是性格，不是年龄人种肤色身高体重三围。这次喜欢上某人就算是被她成熟气质加天真的组合吸引了。我那位朋友当初听我问起某人，她第一印象就是：“Leo Kinmann的眼光不低啊”。可惜啊可惜。

上面那句可惜是说某人，不是说我。我在波士顿给你买的礼品也要送给别人了。

我这个射手座最阴暗的一面又要亮出来了。人人都说射手男花心，其实不然。射手男是见十个人爱一个，而且两人好起来以后会很专注。很多人们见到的花心射手，其实正是属于寻找模式的。他在与十个人来往之后才能决定谁最适合自己，从而选出那一个进行追逐。那另外九个女生以为自己也被人家看上了，等到射手转移目标才发现，原来醉翁之意不在酒。这下好了，九个女生以为射手欺骗了她们的感情，不专一，花心等种种名号被冠在射手头上。还有一点是射手男事业心很重，这好比当年我在康奈尔忙着找科研实习，仅仅两周就使得Selina被别人先下手为强抢去了。我从那以后就成了现实主义者，不相信什么“总有一个人适合你，你只是还没等到”。因为我知道，即使在两人性格兴趣爱好等等都很般配的前提下，也会因巧合导致阴差阳错而走不到一块去。什么事情都是要人去争取的。只有打了该打的电话，约出去了该请的人，才能有进一步的发展。尤其作为男人根本不能等待天上掉馅饼。何况周围还有那么多竞争对手。

唠叨这么些，我也烦了。末了再说一句话：你要是给我rejection，当我的面直接说。自己心里没那个胆儿面对我还说什么“不想伤害人家”。难道人的心都是纸做的吗？担心会伤害我这个行为本身就是一种对我的侮辱，认为我没那个承受能力。你要么跟我好，要么直接拒掉我。拒了我，跟我做朋友是完全可以的，我接受。但是，不给我任何明了的解释让我等待的所有这类中间行为都是玩弄感情。要把我逼急了，后果会很严重。

The first weekend after iGEM

I'm back in Sweden and things seem to be back on track again.

The day I came home, I slept for over 12 hours and woke up at 1pm the day after. I was going to have lunch with an old friend at BMC that day. But since I overslept so much, there was nothing to it. I have had a few very unproductive days recently. In my opinion, I should deserve some of that for working so hard before the Boston trip.

The iGEM Uppsala was not entirely hopeless. We received bronze medal, as I found out once MIT posted the result on their iGEM website. Forgetting to write down the safety questions on wiki wasn't that detrimental to getting the bronze. However, considering most of the teams got gold and there were fewer silver, fewer bronze, and even fewer non-medalists, the bronze is well-deserved but not something I would brandish.

Aside from the academic experience, I met with quite a few Boston-residents that I planned to meet. Allen, Sophia, Mengxiao, and of course my mother's old colleague Jifa. I'm still glad I managed to meet everyone of them during this short visit. After having lunch with Mengxiao in a Harvard dining hall I went shopping. Macy's was a gold mine. Copleys Place and Prudential Center sold mostly expensive stuff for the rich. In the end, I bought a pair of Converse for 45 USD, two shirts and two pairs of pants for 120 USD in total. On top of that I had great food in New England: clam chowder, 1-1/4 lbs lobster times two, great Chinese food, Mexican burritos, and more. In fact food almost got me miss my flight back home. I went away from the boarding gate at Boston Logan airport to buy some takeaway from Panda Express. By the time I was walking back all the way with my fried noodle, kung pao chicken and walnut prawns, my name was called by the staff. They said if I failed to board the plane within 5 minutes, they'd leave without me. I had to rush with my 5 kilo bag and finally made it in time. Although the food was so good it certainly made up for every second of stress I went through.

Back home, Sweden was covered in snow. Compared to Boston's autumn colors, one could imagine how a flight trip can bring you from one season to the next within hours. Quite a few things happened when I was gone. For example, one of my friends got himself involved in quite some drama. But for me, it's time to start working on that damn report and paper. Duh.