Weekly Highlights 2019-2020

HIGHLIGHTS FOR WEEK OF 14 – 20 DECEMBER 2020


The end of the semester is again student feedback time, and I just received mine. I only taught one graduate student class, in which I rehearsed the teaching method that I plan to use next semester. And the response was rather encouraging: zero negative comments and some very positive comments. I did spend a lot of time preparing for this lecture. But it proved worthwhile, and gives me confidence for my peer instruction teaching approach next semester.
 
Here are some of the comments:
– He takes great effort in preparing for the class. His classes are very interesting and allow for class participation. He is the best teacher in this whole module.
– Enjoyed his lecture a lot, and came away with enhanced knowledge and reasoning ability.
– Wonderful engaging learning experience especially in this time of zoom. Excellent use of resources.
– He takes great effort in preparing for the class. His classes are very interesting and allow for class participation. His teaching style is excellent for graduate level students. He has made even the online classes as interesting as offline ones. Thanks Prof Thilo!
– A lot of materials prepared beforehand, and a witty, and concise explanations and questions which encouraged our thinking and reasoning ability.
– Excellent usage of zoom to make the session interactive. Learnt so much in such a short period of time. Haven’t had so much fun and learning in a class in so long.

This week we had another online Toastmasters meeting. The speeches were not very amazing and I am not sure if this was again due to the online delivery format, which definitely makes it much more difficult to engage the audience. I also did not volunteer to speak about table topics, partly because the topics were not very suitable for an engaging speech. All topics were about important personal achievements or events in 2020 and personal plans for the new year. This left very little opportunities for incorporating humor, because it is such a fact-based theme. And indeed, none of the speaker was able to incorporate any kind of fun into these topics. And because all speakers talked about their own lives, it was not very easy to relate to the speeches. This goes to show that the speech topic is really important.
 
The winner of the table topics speeches was a speaker who talked really engagingly, but delivered no substance or content at all, which was a bit concerning to me. I guess it shows the scientists in me.

Speaking of engaging presentations, this week I came across a very interesting new scientific paper, which provided evidence that one way to increase audience engagement is the use of the generic “you”. When using the generic “you”, we are not addressing the other person directly (“You look sad.”), but we use the “You” to make a general statement and use “you” in place of “one” (“After a big loss, you feel sad”).
 
How did the authors scientifically “prove” that using “you” makes people pay more attention?
In one approach, the researchers recruited study participants and gave them different sentences. The participants then had to choose which statement resonates with them more.
 
For instance, the statement “Sometimes, you have to take a step back before you can take a step forward” resonated with participants significantly more compared to “Sometimes I have to take a step back before I can take a step forward”. This suggests that using the generic “you” engages the listener more because the information appears more generalizable.
 
Furthermore, the same generic “you” statement “Sometimes, you have to take a step back before you can take a step forward” also resonated more than ““Sometimes, people have to take a step back before they can take a step forward”. This suggests that another reason why the generic “you” is more engaging is that it pulls the reader more into the message that one wants to convey.
 
What was also interesting is that the authors tested this hypothesis using a number of different studies that were preregistered. This is because the recent past has shown that many research studies are not very reproducible. One reason for this is the so-called reporting bias. This means that researchers tend to only report their findings if the results are positive, interesting or novel. For instance, 10 labs may perform the same study, but only one lab happens to obtain a positive result due to statistical chance. If only the lab with the positive result reports their findings, what is available in the literature is not actually representative of the real scientific findings. As a result, the scientific community often draws the wrong conclusions, which can have serious consequences. 
 
One way to prevent the reporting bias is to preregister planned studies. Under those conditions, the researchers have committed to report their results, no matter what the outcome is. This will ultimately lead to a published literature that is more representable of the actual scientific findings.

HIGHLIGHTS FOR WEEK OF 7 – 13 DECEMBER 2020


It was my first live Toastmaster meeting at the Sheraton Hotel and it was a very interesting experience. First, there were the prepared speeches, which I must say where almost all really good. For some reason, the speeches delivered live in person were so much more effective, engaging and attention catching compared to the online zoom talks that I have previously heard. One speaker actually re-delivered a speech that he previously gave online in the humorous speech contest. And I must say that the presentation felt so different. I thought that the live speech was actually really funny and the end really touched me, which I did not experience online at all.

This has some implications for my teaching I suppose, which will be online next semester. It means that I really must try extra hard when delivering my course online in order to really engage the students. It also means that for my own first Toastmasters speech in January I will definitely try to get a live slot.
 
Finally, there were the table topics (i.e.impromptu speeches). I was called upon again and once again, I don’t think I did well. My topic was about whether I would choose love over money. I had some idea of what I wanted to talk about but I did not manage to deliver this in a coherent and interesting manner. But I realized how I believe one can succeed in this. One must first identify a key message that one wants to convey, which would be the ending. Without this pre-planned ending, the talk is direction-less (which I experienced). And then one must be able to quickly think of some interesting or funny points to discuss before revealing the final message. I have tried practicing this and it works with some topics, but is difficult with others.
 
After not doing well again, I must say that I felt quite depressed. And I realized that it has been a long time since I felt depressed because I could not do something well. For that reason, I believe that Toastmasters is a really good experience for me, because it challenges me to improve in something that I am really not good at.
 
The experience of this Toastmasters meeting also made me realize that even though I want to believe that I am not, I am actually quite competitive. I of course know that Toastmasters is only about improving and not about being the best. But in reality, most people are really motivated by both personal improvement and achievement.

Some time ago, I was writing about an education related book that I recently read (Sheila Tobias: “They’re not dumb, they’re different”). A very inspirational person that she mentioned in her book is Dudley Herschbach, a scientist who spent most of his career at Harvard University. Herschbach is a very prominent scientist, who won the Nobel prize in Chemistry in 1986. In addition, Herschbach was throughout his carreer also a very passionate and forward-thinking teacher.
 
Above all, the one thing that really resonates with me is his belief that research and teaching are intrinsically connected and enhance each other, provided we teach in a way that allows us to learn new things ourselves.
“The time invested in teaching bears dividends for research. It keeps the researcher focused on basic concepts and questions. Meeting each season a fresh crop of students, whether in a classroom or lab, requires revisiting those fundamentals and trying to view them with a newcomer’s eyes. Such a focus on basics is healthy for research.”
 
When I am teaching cell biology, I constantly need to learn new things. I am also constantly reading research papers, because my course is based on recent research findings. Much of this has actually fueled projects in our lab. Learning more about how the cell works has also been tremendously helpful in figuring out research problems or coming up with new and interesting hypotheses or questions. Likewise, I do use a lot of our own research problems as examples in my course.
 
Another reason why I agree with Dudley Herschbach’s view is that I really feel that without being a researcher, I could not be an effective teacher. It is the research that motivates me to constantly stay on top of current research developments. Without doing, planning and thinking about experiments myself, I would quickly lose my excitement to learn about new research as well as my credibility as a competent University lecturer.
 
But apart from these direct links between research and teaching, there is another important connection. If we want to train students how to solve problems, how to think like a scientist and get them interested in scientific research, we need to apply research methodologies in our teaching. That means we need to expose students to real life questions that researchers study in the lab. We also need to confront students with questions to which the answer is unknown, and where hence there is no right or wrong answer. For me, finding a potential answer or hypothesis for a research problem is almost as exciting as finding the real answer.
 
For Herschbach, not being afraid of making mistakes is really important.
“In real–world science, getting the answer right isn’t important, because people don’t know what the right answer is…” Drawing parallels to the way children learn to speak their native language, he states “They learn with very little help from adults, because they’re not worried whether they’re getting it right, …”
 
To promote that students do not worry too much about making mistakes, Herschbach used a number of approaches. Firstly, he ensures that the students do not compete against each other by adopting an absolute grading scale. This is in contrast to most science modules, where student performance is graded on a bell curve. In the absolute grading scale, in principle everyone can get an “A”, whereas in bell curve grading the possible number of students receiving an “A” is predetermined. Bell curve grading results in students competing against each other, while absolute scale grading encourages students to help each other. Unfortunately, though, it is unlikely that our University will be implementing absolute grading any time soon.
 
The second approach that Herschbach uses are so-called “resurrection” points. In his resurrection policy, any points a student fails to obtain in an interim test are added to the corresponding section of that student’s final exam. This means that the student will have a second try. ”As a result, anxiety and mental stress levels throughout the course are markedly reduced, allowing the students to focus more on understanding and being curious and creative.” 
 
Herschbach likens this approach to real life research and to real life in general, where we rarely only have one chance to get things right, but usually have the opportunity to keep trying until we find the answer or succeed in some other way. I fully agree with this and hence, I will be trying to implement something similar in the next semester.

HIGHLIGHTS FOR WEEK OF 30 NOVEMBER – 6 DECEMBER 2020


I completed and passed my SG coach Sports Science Course. Overall, this was a rather disappointing course. I did refresh some of my anatomy and physiology knowledge. But if I would not have had pre-existing knowledge, I don’t think I would have learned much from the lectures. There was only transmission of facts and no attempt to actually make us apply what we have learned. I guess there was not enough time because the course tried to cover a lot of things, but there must be a better way to do this. The best answer to this problem is probably the “Flipped classroom”, where the students get the necessary information before the lecture and then class time can be used for applying the knowledge.

After the class I went to a hawker centre in Woodlands, which had a great vegeterian foodstall. It was really crowded when I first arrived but after a while it looked like this.
When I was sitting there, I thought that in some regards, not much has changed in Singapore since I arrived some 13 years ago.

I attended my first Toastmasters Club of Singapore meeting as actual member, and it was the humorous speech contest (via zoom). What I realized is how difficult it is to give a funny speech, especially in this formal setting. I must say that the speakers generally presented really well. But the problem was that it was not really that funny, at least to me. This made me realize that above all, the content of what we have to say is really important. It seems to be that in the Toastmasters setting the content is often undervalued compared to the delivery. But I believe that to truly inspire or affect others, we also must have great ideas.
 
Next week is the first live Toastmasters meeting that I get to attend, which is quite exciting!

HIGHLIGHTS FOR WEEK OF 23 – 29 NOVEMBER 2020


In preparation for my Basic Sports Physiology exam, I watched a video about Michael Phelps, which showed that one reason for his incredible success is his mental race preparation using imagery. What Michale Phelps did before a race is to imagine every possible scenario and develop a plan for each. This includes any possible mishap. And so during the race, he has does not have to make any decisions, but only folwow through on his plan.

I realized that I usually do the opposite. For instance, when preparing for and giving lectures, I have a plan for how optimally the lecture would run. And I hope and expect that everything will work out as planned. If anything goes wrong, I tend to get upset and start blaming, which is of course not helpful. Another effect of my strategy to hope for the best case scenario is that I feel nervous and worried before a lecture in case things do go wrong. Hence, the approach to plan for a course of action for every possible scenario does not only make the lecture run more smoothly. It also reduces anxiety and lets one calmly look forward to the event. Hence, I will try to implement the Michael Phelps approach in the coming semester. Needless to say, this approach also applies to other tasks that we want or need to perform.

 
A few weeks ago I was discussing why obesity increases the risk for severe COVID-19 infection. Obesity is in fact not the only risk factor. Another major predisposing condition for COVID-19 is diabetes. A major brand new study by researchers from Wuhan discovered one potential and quite unexpected reason for why diabetes worsens COVID-19.
 
Diabetes is of course caused by the inability of the body to lower the blood sugar level to maintain the glucose concentration in our circulation at around 100 mg/dl. When blood glucose increases, for instance after a meal, our pancreas releases the hormone insulin, which then promotes glucose uptake and utilization in our tissues. In diabetes, our tissues initially do not respond well to insulin (insulin resistance) and eventually, our pancreas stops to produce enough insulin. Hence, a major form of therapy for diabetic patients is the injection of insulin.
 
Given that insulin therapy is a treatment for diabetes and improves patient health, it would be expected that insulin is also beneficial for patients with diabetes and COVID-19. However, the new study, published in the Journal Cell Metabolism, suggests that it may not be the disease (Diabetes), but the therapy (insulin) that makes patients more susceptible to COVID-19.
 
The study looked at diabetic 689 patients who were admitted to Tongji Hospital in Wuhan with COVID-19. Of the 689 subjects, about half received insulin, while the others were treated with other anti-diabetic drugs. The researchers found that of the 346 patients treated with insulin, 94 died (27.2%). In contrast, among the 343 patients that were not treated with insulin, there were only 12 cases of death (3.5%).
 
The figure shows the so-called Kaplan-Meier survival analysis, which is is a method to compute the survival over time. It shows the fraction of patients living for a certain amount of time as a result of an intervention. For each time-point, the survival probability is calculated as the number of patients surviving divided by the number of patients in the respective group at the beginning. The results show a significantly poorer survival in diabetic patients treated with insulin compared with diabetic patients that did not receive insulin treatment. (T2D = Type 2 diabetes)
 
One obvious potential criticism of this paper is that the study is correlative. That is, the study determines if there is a correlation between insulin treatment and severe COVID-19 infection, but does not prove causality. The latter would require a a randomized prospective study, which is the standard to determine causative relationships, although usually more difficult to perform. In a randomized prospective study, patients with diabetes and COVID-19 would be divided randomly into two groups that are treated either with insulin or with other glucose lowering drugs. This approach would obviously face formidable hurdles. In contrast, in a correlative retrospective study, like the one from Wuhan, it is theoretically possible that the difference observed between patients treated with or without insulin is due to other differences between the two groups. For instance, most straight forward, the greater COVID-19 mortality in the insulin treated group may not be due to the insulin treatment itself but due to the fact that insulin treated patients tend to have more severe diabetes. 
 
However, the authors used various approaches to address these concerns, for instance by performing additional analyses in several subgroups. The subgroups were chosen to adjust for factors that may also affect disease severity. For example, the researchers looked at subgroups of patients with well-controlled glucose or with poorly-controlled glucose. Even within these subgroups, mortality in patients treated with insulin was still consistently higher than in patients who received no insulin treatment. In conclusion, the paper provides rather strong evidence that insulin treatment of diabetics increases the risk of death from COVID-19 infection.
 
An important question is what is the underlying mechanism for the detrimental effect of insulin. Given that in the study insulin treatment was associated with enhanced inflammation and greater injury of vital organs, the authors hypothesized that insulin induces a more inflammatory state in human tissues. Indeed, the researchers from Wuhan found that the insulin treated COVID-19 patients showed increased signs of inflammation and immune system activation, such as abnormal levels of lymphocyte counts as well as increased levels of high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) and the cytokine IL-6. In contrast, these parameters were normal in the majority of the patients treated without insulin.
 
The paper by the Wuhan researchers is important, given that according to the authors there are 460 million diabetics world-wide, a staggering number. Nonetheless, more studies will be needed to confirm the findings and provide more mechanistic insight.

HIGHLIGHTS FOR WEEK OF 16 – 22 NOVEMBER 2020

This week things have been quite exciting in our lab. Our students found some unexpected things, which means we have to think and come up with new hypotheses, which is the part I really like about research.
 
This week I also attended a few interesting seminars, which got me thinking. The first was by anti-ageing research pioneer Aubrey de Grey, and I will write about this some other time.

The second seminar was a talk by four lecturers from DUKE-NUS Medical School, who shared “An e-learning toolbox: tips for successful class design and student engagement”. A big thanks to the presenters for taking the time to share their experience with online teaching and assessment. The presentation had some good suggestions, although many of them I have heard before. Nonetheless, the seminar got me thinking. The main issues that the lecturers discussed were how to make online classes more engaging and how to prevent cheating in online exams.
 
To make classes more engaging, the lecturers suggested involving the audience more by asking questions and calling out names. I agree that this is an approach that definitely increases student attention and engagement dramatically. But at the same time, this approach also increases stress levels tremendously, at least for some students. For instance, I am currently taking a Basic Sports Science online course. If I were to imagine that the lecturers would actually call out names to answer his or her questions, I would be rather anxious and stressed. And I also think that this type of stress may not necessarily be conducive to learning. In the past, I tried to let students pass around the microphone in the lecture hall to answer my questions. In my course feedback, one student actually wrote that he or she was constantly paying attention to where the microphone was and felt so stressed that she eventually stopped attending the lectures.
 
In short, there must be better ways to increase class engagement. During the past semester, I made have use of the chat after posing questions and only moved on after some students provided some answer suggestion. This worked quite well. I believe that it is important that the questions are not merely asking students to recall information but challenge their thinking ability. Under those conditions, students are more likely to respond because there are no real right or wrong answers and the psychological reward for a good answer would be greater.
 
However, in the next semester, I hope to solve the class engagement problem by using breakout rooms where students need to solve problems together and apply what they have l learned. I hope this will be a successful approach
 
The second topic was cheating. There is no question that in the online environment, cheating in tests and exams has become more commonplace . Proposed solutions by the speakers included reducing students’ competitive attitude, in other words, convincing them that they should study to learn and not to achieve. Based on my own experience, this is rather difficult. Being competitive is engrained in students mindset from years of secondary and tertiary education, where learning is mainly about achievements. Another suggestion was the use of technology to prevent cheating, for instance proctoring exams via zoom self-recording by students. Needless to say, these approaches are challenging and require significant effort on the side of both lecturers and teaching staff as well as students. More importantly, I personally feel that these measures send out the wrong message. We are essentially telling the students that we don’t trust them. As such, we indirectly acknowledge and accept competitive learning attitudes.
 
One approach that I have found effective, based on limited experience, is the appointment of a student honor’s council. I would appoint three or four students and make their names and contacts known to the class. Any student could contact the council members with any concerns he or she has with regards to any student cheating behaviour. I then leave it to the student council to deal with this and decide whether they contact me and make any recommendations for my course of action. This approach seemed to have worked, given that there was no reported cheating during the semester where I tried this, while there cases of cheating in the preceding and subsequent semesters, where no honors council was appointed. So I will definitely make use of the honors council approach during the coming semester.
 
Speaking of teaching, we also had the first of our informal Biochemistry faculty teaching chats, which was very interesting and fun. We discussed mainly introducing of digital and data science related aspects into undergraduate teaching, which is something I would like to do in the future. But it requires significant effort on my part to first learn myself. And I am still trying to find an application that is actually useful for my research. One possibility would be structural protein modeling, which would also be applicable in our lab.
 
We also discussed adult education (Continuing Education and Training, which NUS is very keen on). Identifying a gap that adult learners would be interested in and that has not been addressed by other course, yet, is not easy. An obvious thing that comes to mind is DIY science where lay people do cool and interesting experiments using state of the art biochemical and molecular techniques.

Finally I attended a great Toastmaster workshop. I finally officially joined the Toastmasters community (but it will be some time before my first presentation) and so I got the chance to attend a workshop on online presentations (a recurring theme) by none other than 3 times runner-up at the Toastmasters public speaking world championship, Kwong Yue Yang from Australia. I watched his Seminfinal and Final speech from this year and I really liked it.
 
He shared important differences between live and online talks, which resonated with me. For instance, online talks need to be especially entertaining and engaging, because in online lectures it is much easier to wonder off, which I have experienced myself when attending online lectures. It also needs to be easy to understand, due to the shortened online attention span and possible technical glitches.
 
I also liked his tips for essential elements of a good speech, which he came up with on the spot in response to an audience question. His advice included that the speech must be entertaining. In addition, there must be some creative element that distinguishes your speech from everyone else. I personally feel that these point even apply for a science talk, because we want the audience to enjoy the time that they committed to listen to our presentation. Furthermore, the most important thing in a speech is that the audience pays attention, and I believe that all means that help to achieve this are useful.
 
One thing I noticed is that while world-class Toastmaster Kwong communicated extremely effectively, based on his appearance he is not a super charismatic person, which I always though is a requirement to be a great orator. And yet, he has been extremely successful, which almost goes to show that anybody can give amazing presentations with the right approach and necessary ambition.


HIGHLIGHTS FOR WEEK OF 9 – 15 NOVEMBER 2020


Over the past few weeks, a read an interesting education related book by Sheila Tobias, entitled “They’re not dumb, they’re different”. This book deals with a very important question, which is why many science students loose interest in their study subject during their time in University. And as she reveals. a lot has to do with the way science is taught in University. Although the book was written 30 years ago, I could discover a lot of insights that really resonate.
 
Sheila Tobias divides Science majors into a first tier and a second tier. The first tier are the students who are firmly set to become scientists and who will stick to science no matter how bad the teaching is. The second tier are the students who initially are inclined towards science, but then loose interest as a result of how science is being taught. Losing the second tear is a loss indeed, because these students often have wide-ranging interests. They could hence bring different perspectives into science, which is nowadays well-recognized to be critical for innovation and scientific progress.
 
Why are many students turned off by the way science is taught? The author investigated this question by asking graduate students from the field of Arts and Social Sciences to take first year Science undergraduate modules. These students had a very different view point, having gone through non-science related undergraduate studies that provided a very different experience for them. Although almost all of the students did very well in the undergraduate science modules, they generally did not enjoy the introductory science courses. Importantly, they provided some very useful insights.
 
The biggest problem for the students seemed to be that the introductory physics and chemistry science courses in which they enrolled mainly taught and practiced solving problems. Acquiring problem solving skills is important, and it also keeps students alert and motivated. But what became clear to me in the book is that solving problems by itself does not get students interested in a topic. The stand-in students felt that the problems were not interesting because they had all been solved before. Furthermore, what the lectures taught them was essentially “Right-answer science”, where the problem had only one correct answer, which the students had to find. As the author states, this is a “is a pedagogical turnoff”. The stand-in students were missing conceptual problems, where they needed to find and create solutions on their own and not just plug in variables. The students also wanted to be able to question and discuss concepts.
 
The assessments also mirrored these teaching approaches. The exams tested for memorized knowledge and the ability to use the taught algorithms. But they did not provide conceptual challenges and often did not test real understanding. This meant that students could do reasonably well in a course without really having gained much deep understanding.
 
Based on my own impressions, not much has changed over the past 30 years in science education. As the comments of some of the instructors who taught the modules suggest, one reason for this may be that science lecturers take for granted that the students are already committed to become scientists. They see their responsibility in equipping students with the knowledge and tools to understand scientific concepts. Instead, it would be good if they would try to win over more students, and in doing so, remember how they themselves became interested in science.
 
What I realized is that when I teach students in my Cell Biology course about experimental tools and data interpretation skills,  these skills must only be a tool to answer “why” and “how” questions and not the purpose or objective itself. In other words, there should be problems that we discuss based on these skills and these problems should be relevant, interesting and not have known answers. Indeed, one of the stand-in students felt that what was missing in lectures was an opportunity to “speculate beyond the simple chemical properties to the implications of the experiment itself.” This also means to give individual students more attention in order to make them realize that their opinions count.
 
When taking the in the introductory science courses, the stand-in students felt that science is very certain and lacks creativity. But this is in fact not true at all. However, unfortunately, as the authors states, only “students who stay long enough in science to take higher-level courses begin to see science as more creative, less certain.” But all to often before students would reach this stage, they have already been put off from being passionate about science or from pursuing it.
 
This means that science lecturers really need to make an effort early on to keep stuidents’ interest levels high. This can be achieved by letting the students come up with their own questions and solutions, by discussing more relevant and thought-provoking concepts and by challenging students’ critical and creative thinking abilities. Students should become aware that scientific discovery and knowledge gain is an ongoing process and that many, if not most, important scientific problems have not yet been solved.
 
Another problem is that some of the students felt that they were merely touching the surface of the subjects and that they would never really master it. If students feel that they cannot master a course, this robs them of their motivation. As such, I think it is important to make the students aware of how the taught content fits into the bigger picture and what the current state of knowledge is.

Adding to the students’ sense that they can never truly master the content, the book also highlights that many science undergraduates feel intimidated by the perceived competence of their peers. They feel intimidated by how good “everyone” else is, and how hard “everyone” else works. This is partly brought about by the focus on individual learning and assessment and the lack of of collaboration and cooperation between students.
 
Which brings us to the final, and possibly most important shortcoming in Science undergraduate education – immense competition. In science courses, students generally work individually. The stand-in students found a complete absence of a learning community. Their impression was that students’  major focus in science courses is not on learning, but on doing well. And due to the competitive environment, doing well becomes an end goal in itself.
 
The absence of a learning community and competitiveness are partly due to the commonly large class sizes as well as the frequent grading of students on a bell curve. But no matter what the reasons are, lack of a learning community and competition are major factors that get students lose interest in science. This is why it is important to promote collaboration through group work, include non-graded components (one can assign participation marks) and find other ways to get students excited by coming up with creative questions and solutions that are neither right or wrong. It is not an easy undertaking, but seeing students excited about what they are learning in the classroom is a very satisfactory experience, indeed.
 
In fact, to promote student collaboration and get students more excited, I will be using Peer Instruction via Learning Catalytics in my undergraduate module next semester, which I myself am also very excited about. Here is a preview of how it works.


This week’s Oblique Strategies and Big Talk cards are “Don’t be frightened to display your talents” and “If you had 24 hours left to live, who would you be with in 23 hours?”
 
“Don’t be frightened to display your talents”
This actually brings me to a point that I have been thinking about recently. Despite spending a lot of time on research and teaching, I feel that I should really spend more time to publicize what I am doing. One problem is that I like to do experiments and spend time in the lab as well as teach, and I spend a lot of time on it. But publicizing is important, not so much to get recognition, but in order to get new ideas, establish collaborations, find new opportunities and also to get funding. This is something that I need to change.
 
But then maybe “Don’t be frightened to display your talents” actually means that we should not be frightened to try new things, because we don’t know what our talents are. This is also very true.
 
“If you had 24 hours left to live, who would you be with in 23 hours?”
To be honest, I am not very concerned about this. I am much more concerned to make the time that I get to spend during my life meaningful and joyful.

HIGHLIGHTS FOR WEEK OF 2 – 8 NOVEMBER 2020


My SG-Coach Basic Sport Science continued this week. And there was not much change. Didactic lectures with lots of factual knowledge that needs to be memorized. This really brought back all the memories of my student days and made me realize that memorizing is really not fun. There was one moment where one lecture suddenly became more interesting. The lecturer showed a video clip of the 100m competition at the SEA Games, in which the Singaporean athlete lost to a Filipino runner. And the lecturer then analyzed the running style of the Singaporean runner to highlight potential reasons that made him slower. I wish the lecturers would always start with a problem and THEN explain the relevant content. This approach makes the lecture much more interesting and content much more relevant and easier to remember.

I have been discussing recent papers about sugar and fructose in recent weeks. During the last couple of weeks, I read a paper that investigates how we sense sugar. The article starts out with the astonishing fact that the average American consumes more than 45kg of sugar per year. The paper then investigates how we sense sugar. And equally astonishingly, it is not (only) via the mouth.
 
According to common knowledge, sweet compounds are detected by taste receptors on the tongue and palate epithelium. These taste receptors also sense artificial sweeteners, which were introduced more than four decades ago. However, these artificial sweeteners did not have a major effect in reducing sugar consumption.
 
This suggested that perhaps something is different about sensing of real and fake sugar. Indeed, it has been previously observed that mice lacking the ability to taste sweet compounds still develop a preference for sugar. And this sweet taste receptor-independent craving for sweet food is only elicited by real sugar, but not by artificial sweeteners.
 
The paper then started with an interesting experiment, where the researchers exposed the mice to either sugar solution or artificial sweetener (acesulfame K) solution. Initially the mice showed no preference. However, after half a day the mice started to switch to the sugar solution, eventually almost exclusively drinking the water containing glucose. The same response also happened in mice that lacked sweet receptors on their tongue and palate. These results hence suggested that sugar, but not artificial sweetener, can be sensed after ingestion via the mouth.

Sugar activates a gut–brain sugar sensing axis. Left figure: Mice were allowed to choose between 600 mM glucose and 30 mM acesulfame K artificial sweetener. Preference was tracked by electronic lick counters, and the experimental results are presented in the right figure:. The bars on top of the figure illustrate the lick frequency for glucose (red) versus artificial sweetener (blue) during the first and last 2,000 licks of the behavioural test. The results show that initially the mice have no preference, but by 48 h a clear preference for glucose over artificial sweeteners can be observed.
 
The researchers hypothesized that sugar may be detected by specific sensory neurons in the gut and stimulate particular brain regions that mediate sugar preference. Thus, the researchers tried to identify neurons that become activated when giving mice glucose. They did this by staining sections of the brain to detect increased expression of the transcription factor c-fos, a marker of neuronal activation. They found that a region called the caudal nucleus of the solitary tract (cNST) becomes activated upon ingestion of sugar, but not artificial sweetener or water. Importantly, the cNST brain region also became activated when the sugar (but not sweetener) solution was infused directly into the stomach, bypassing taste receptors in the mouth.

Detection of glucose in the gut leads to the activation of the caudal nucleus of the solitary tract (cNST) in the brain.
 
The researchers then hypothesized that the signal from the gut to the brain is transduced via the vagal nerve. To prove this, they performed a rather complicated experiment. They monitored the activation of the cNST region in the brain via a techniques called fibre photometry. They expressed in the cNST neurons a genetically encoded fluorescent sensor protein that becomes fluorescent when the calcium concentration in the neuron increases. An increase in the cellular calcium concentration indicates activation of the neuron. To detect the increased fluorescence, they implanted an optical fibre into the brain near the cNST region. When they then delivered glucose into the intestine (duodenum) via a catheter, they observed that the fluorescence in the excitatory cNST neurons increased. Importantly, this response was absent in mice with disrupted vagal nerves. This confirmed the presence of a gut-brain sugar sensing axis that is mediated by the vagus nerve.
 
In another complex experiment, the researchers showed that the neurons in the cNST region of the brain are required for the sugar preference. Showing that something is required usually involves removing it and seeing if the effect is still there. Hence, to determine if the neurons are required for sugar preference, the researchers removed these neurons and determined if the mice loose the preference for sugar. To specifically remove the cNST neurons, the authors expressed the tetanus toxin in these cells, which leads to cell death. The DNA encoding the tetanus toxin was delivered into the cNST region via Adeno-associated virus (AAV), which was injected into the specific brain region. However, expression of the tetanus toxin required recombination of the coding DNA sequence, which was mediated by a Cre recombinase. The Cre recombinase coding sequence was placed downstream of a promoter that becomes activated by c-fos (a transcription factors that become activated upon neuronal excitation). Hence, in the actual experiment, the virus was injected into the brain region, and then the mice were given sugar water. This led to the activation of the cNST neurons, activation of the c-fos transcription factor, expression of Cre recombinase, recombination of the tetanus toxin coding sequence and subsequent expression of tetanus toxin in these neurons. This resulted in death of the sugar activated neurons.
 
When subsequently the researchers gave the mice glucose again, a preference for glucose was no longer observed, showing that the cNST neurons are indeed necessary for sugar sensing in the gut. A rather complicated experiment to show that activation of cNST neurons is required for sugar preference. But nonetheless an important one, which may in the future even have therapeutic implications, because it suggests potential therapeutic targets to inhibit sugar craving in humans.
 
With all this knowledge, the researchers then tried to rewire the whole pathway and make mice crave a different stimulus. much in the spirit of physicist Richard Feynman, who said, “What I cannot create, I do not understand”. To do this, they first identified the exact neurons in the cNST brain region that mediate the sugar preference. This was accomplished by stimulating mice with sugar and then staining sections of the cNST region for the transcription factor c-fos (to label the neurons that became activated). The researchers found that the activated neurons are positive for expression of the specific neuronal marker protein proenkephalin. Hence, sugar activates specific neurons that express proenkephalin. The authors then expressed a synthetic “designer” receptor in these proenkephalin-positive neurons. The designer receptor responds to the drug clozapine, which binds to the receptor ligand binding domain on the cell surface. Binding of clozapine to this designer receptor then results in the activation of the neurons.
 
In the actual experiment, the researchers gave mice artificially sweetened cherry-flavoured and grape-flavoured solutions as drinking water. The grape solution was mush less sweet, but contained clozapine. What the researchers found was that after 48h the mice switched to the less sweet, but clozapine containing grape-flavored solution. This suggests that the clozapine, after ingestion and travel through the blood circulation, was able to activate the designer receptor expressing cNST neurons and mediate preference for grape-flavored solution. This confirms that activation of the specific cNST neurons was enough to create sugar preference. And the mice expressing the synthetic receptor for clozapine could in theory made to eat anything, as long as clozapine was added to the food.

In the experiment, a plasmid encoding for the clozapine designer receptor (called DREADD) was injected into the cNST area. The designer receptor was only expressed by glucose sensing proenkephalin neurons, which was achieved by using a similar approach as described above for the tetanus toxin. (I.e., expression of the DREADD receptor required a recombination event, which was mediated by Cre-recombinase, which in turn was expressed from the proenkephalin gene promoter.) Upon expression of the clozapine receptor in proenkephalin positive cells, the mice were then tested for their preference between two flavours for 48 h. Shown is an example using cherry-flavoured drink (containing 2 mM acesulfame K artificial sweetener) versus grape-flavoured drink(with 1 mM acesulfame K). After initially conditioning the mice (Pre), clozapine was added to the less-preferred flavour. This resulted in a switch in preference to the less sweet grape solution, which is shown in the diagram on the right. The preference for the less sweet grape solution was initially less than 0.5 and hence not preferred. After adding clozapine to the less sweet grape solution, the preference for this increased in all mice to above 0.5 (which means the mice licked the less sweet grape solution more often than the sweeter one).
 
The study revealed the whole neuronal pathway through which sugar preference is mediated. But it did not really clarify how the gut senses the glucose taken in by the mice. There are different ways through which we can sense external stimuli. There could be peripheral sensory cells in the gut mucosa. Or the sensory cells could be located further up and send sensory nerve endings to the stimulant site to detect specific external signals (see the excellent diagram below taken from wikipedia).
In the case of glucose sensing in the gut, it seems likely that there must be sensory neurons in the mucosal wall of the intestine, which upon stimulation by glucose activate vagal nerve endings in the gut. As a first step to characterize the sensing mechanism, the authors have shown that glucose sensing in the gut is dependent on the main glucose transporter in our gut, SGLT1. Interestingly, the glucose analogue 3-O-methylglucose, which can also be taken up via SGLT1 but is not further metabolized in cells, can also stimulate the gut-brain sugar axis. This suggests that glucose metabolism is not necessary for the sensing mechanism. Also of note, fructose is not a substrate for SGLT1, and as expected, fructose does not activate this sugar sensing pathway. This is likely a reason why the combination of glucose and fructose (in table sugar or high-fructose corn syrup) is particularly harmful (glucose mediates the craving and fructose mediates the adverse effects via its metabolism in the liver).
 
In conclusion, the study has described a novel mechanism through which glucose can be sensed in our gut. This may have important implications. For instance, the study identified a number of potential targets in the gut-brain sugar sensing axis to develop drugs to inhibit sugar craving. The authors also suggest that “it may be possible to develop a new class of sweeteners that activate
both the sweet-taste receptor in the tongue and the gut–brain axis, and consequently help to moderate the strong drive to consume sugar.”

HIGHLIGHTS FOR WEEK OF 26 OCTOBER – 1 NOVEMBER 2020


My second SG-Coach on Sports Medicine at Republic Polytechnic has started and it gives me a chance to once again be a student. This time I actually get to experience online teaching from the student perspective. And I must say that the first two lectures were rather boring. There was hardly any student-teacher interaction. The lecturer did ask some questions, but I found myself much less inclined to say things than in the live classes during the last course. The class showed that the normal way to deliver a lecture definitely does not work online.

The second lecturer tried to make things more interesting through more useful examples, a faster pace and more poll questions. Nonetheless, I found myself detaching and doing other things frequently, because the content was quite familiar. Republic Polytechnic is known for its active learning based teaching style, and this is what I experienced during the live course there last year. But it seems to be difficult for lecturers to implement active learning online.



On Sunday, I went cycling, which was super tiring because there was really strong wind today. It it seemed to always come from ahead. But on the way back I discovered this beautiful leaf, which reminded me that in other countries it is foliage season!



HIGHLIGHTS FOR WEEK OF 19 – 25 OCTOBER 2020

My goal review:
I must admit that my progress towards my goals for this year has not been amazing. Nonetheless, reviewing my goals has been helpful to re-focus on the important things.

In my research, my goal was to build the foundation for establishing successful research lab. Although I have quite a lot of ideas, there is still little to show for. Research is indeed difficult and takes time, especially when the students are new at it. Nonetheless, spending much more time thinking about and doing research has been very exciting for me. Having a good idea is by itself one of the most exciting things about research, even if in the end the idea does not materialize as anticipated.

With regards to my teaching, I have read a lot of interesting articles and have a lot of plans. I feel thankful that I have a job where I have the freedom and autonomy to always try new things.
One good news is that I just had one education related paper accepted for publication, which was one of my goals for this year.
 
I did not progress towards my sports coach goals so far, but my second SG-Coach course is about to start next week!
 
And although I have been injured and there also have not been any races due to covid, I have been doing sports very regularly, usually at least four to five times a week, and as a result kept quite fit.
 
My other personal goals, though, have not really gone too well … Time to take action!

HIGHLIGHTS FOR WEEK OF 12 – 18 OCTOBER 2020

 
I watched a couple of movies this weekend (‘On the rocks’ and ’STYX’), but in the end I did not enjoy them that much. They were both really good movies. ‘On the rocks’ had really great acting by the two main characters, and ’STYX’ kept me on the edge of my seat. But even though the poster above says ’STYX’ is a movie “that goes underneath your skin”, it didn’t. Both movies did not make me think or get emotionally touched.

But still, going for movies helps me to get structure into my day, because it forces me to finish the important things on time so that I can make it in time for the movie (although most of the time I am still late).


Last week I was discussing an interesting study in which the researchers looked at how sugar consumption leads to the development of the metabolic syndrome. Sugar, or sucrose, consists to equal parts of glucose and fructose, which are chemically bound together and cleaved in our small intestine. The study showed that the detrimental effects that sugar has on the body are due to the fructose contained in sugar. Preventing fructose metabolism also prevented the development of the sugar-induced metabolic syndrome.

Interestingly, in another study the same group of researchers has previously shown that glucose by itself (without the addition of fructose) also causes signs of the metabolic syndrome in mice. In the study. the researchers provided mice for 14 weeks with drinking water containing 10% glucose (or tap water for the control mice), with an otherwise normal diet. For comparison, a can of coca cola contains 9 grams of sugar per 100 ml (9%). The authors found that glucose water caused a markedly increased body weight, increased fat accumulation (specifically accumulation of visceral fat) and elevated insulin concentrations (see figures below).

The researchers then tested the effect of blocking fructose metabolism. This was again done by using mice that lack fructokinase (also known as ketohexokinase = KHK-A/C), the first enzyme in the intracellular fructose metabolic pathway. Even more interestingly, and surprisingly, the effects of glucose on body weight, fat accumulation and insulin levels were, at least partially, blocked by preventing fructose metabolism.


Effect of glucose consumption on body weight in normal wild type (WT) mice and mice that are unable to metabolize fructose (fructokinase or KHK-A/C knockout mice). The results show that in normal mice, drinking glucose water markedly increases body weight compared to drinking tap water. Inhibiting fructose metabolism partially inhibits the glucose-induced body weight gain.


Normal wild type mice that drink glucose water have greater fat accumulation and insulin concentrations in the blood, indicative of insulin resistance. These effects are markedly inhibited when fructose metabolism is blocked in the KHK-A/C knockout mice.

In addition, glucose consumption also caused the development of fatty liver and elevated the amount of fat in the form of triglycerides in the liver (see figure below). Again, this effect was prevented if metabolism of fructose was blocked.

The figure shows that histological staining of liver sections. White lipid droplets accumulate upon consumption of glucose water in normal wild type mice but not in fructokinase deficient KHK-A/C knockout mice.
 

How can these unexpected findings be explained? It turns out that glucose can be converted into fructose via the so-called polyol pathway. Indeed, giving glucose to mice led to elevated fructose concentrations in the blood and liver. Importantly, preventing glucose conversion into fructose by knocking out the first enzyme of the polyol pathway, aldolase reductase, also inhibited body weight gain and fat accumulation in the liver upon giving mice glucose in their drinking water (see figure below).

Growth curves and liver fat (intrahepatic triglycerides) accumulation in normal wild type (WT) mice and mice that lack the enzyme aldolase reductase (AR knockout mice) and are unable to convert glucose to fructose via the polyol pathway.
 

In the polyol pathway, glucose is converted to fructose via two enzymes, aldolase reductase and sorbitol dehydrogenase. Interestingly, glucose was found to actually increase aldolase reductase (but not sorbitol dehydrogenase) activity, thus promoting its conversion to fructose.

The researchers have also shown that the metabolic effects of giving mice glucose water is not due to greater energy intake. Likewise, the protective effect of blocking fructose metabolism is also not due to lower calorie intake. These findings are important because they show that the harmful effects of glucose (and sugar in general) are not due to taking in more calories. Instead, glucose and fructose are harmful because they directly elicit damaging effects compared to more complex carbohydrates. These damaging effects are partly due to the very fast absorption of sugar and the resulting spikes in the blood sugar concentrations as well as the fact that fructose is only metabolized in the liver. In other words, if we take in sugar, it is the sugar itself and not the calories associated with it that cause the major health problems.
 

Nonetheless, it is important to keep in mind that the study was done in mice. Hence, it is currently not clear whether similar mechanisms operate in humans. However, the safest option is still to try to resist the temptation to eat too much sugar. This is how I managed to do it.

HIGHLIGHTS FOR WEEK OF 5 OCTOBER – 11 OCTOBER 2020


This week I watched “Talking about Trees” at the Projector, which allowed me to learn something about Sudan. I missed the beginning, so I am not sure why the movie is called “Talking about Trees”. But the movie is essentially the story of 5 cinema enthusiasts in Sudan who plan to open a cinema. All cinemas in Sudan were closed during a military coup in the past and most young people have never watched a movie in a movie theatre. Hence, the motivation of the 5 enthusiasts, who call themselves the Sudanese Film Group, is to give Sudanese people the chance to experience what it is like to watch a movie in a cinema. I liked the movie not only because I can learn about Sudan, but because the story was inspiring and life-affirming.  The group was solely driven by their passion to bring joy to the people. And because they were not planning to charge anything, they actually had to self-finance the project. Yet, as one would expect, they had to run up against a lot of problems.

I also made a video for NUS Cap the Cups, a student group that tries


How bad is fructose for us?

Recently, I came across a number of interesting papers on fructose. Fructose is commonly taken in as table sugar, high-fructose corn syrup and also as fruits. Table sugar, or sucrose, is a dimeric sugar consisting to equal parts of glucose and fructose. High-fructose corn syrup, which is added to Coke and other soft drinks, contains 55% fructose and 45% glucose.
 
First, some not-so-fun facts about fructose and sugar in general from Veronique Douard and Ronaldo Ferraris review on fructose transporters. Centuries ago, sugar used to be much more expensive. And so in 1700, Europeans consumed only about 5 grams of sugar per day. In 1950 it was 120 grams per day and today it is 180 grams per day on average. If we consider that 1 gram of sugar has 3.9 calories, then an average person consumes about 700 calories of sugar alone. That is about a third of the recommended calorie intake (which is 2000 calories for women and 2500 for men). So one can imagine how many calories we can save if we just stop to eat and drink sugar. One can of coke alone contains 39 grams of sugar, of which half is fructose.
 
There are some important differences between glucose and fructose. While glucose can be taken in and used by all cells in our body, fructose is only metabolized in the liver. This is because only the liver has the necessary transporters and enzymes to utilize fructose. (The intestine also expresses fructose transporter proteins in order to absorb fructose from the food to then be transported into the liver.) If we take in a lot of fructose with a meal or sugary drink, one can hence imagine that the liver as the only fructose-metabolizing organ is overwhelmed. The available fructose exceeds the needs of liver cells for energy production and hence, the liver cells are unable to utilize all the fructose. The excess fructose is converted into lipids, or fat, which ends up in the liver (as fatty liver) and other organs.
 
What is also different between glucose and fructose is that glucose metabolism is highly regulated. As a result, cells only take in glucose if they are in need of it, for instance to produce energy. Fructose metabolism, on the other hand, is not subject to such regulatory mechanisms. Hence, liver cells will continue to take up fructose beyond their needs, leading to more lipid accumulation.
 
Evolutionary, when our ancestors consumed lots of fruits, conversion of fructose into fat was a beneficial mechanism, because the stored fat allowed humans to survive during periods of food shortage. However, this survival mechanism has turned into a metabolic liability in modern times, where we consume vastly increased amounts of fructose.
 

In one of the papers published by Andres-Hernando et al. in Cell Metabolism in July this year, the authors looked at the role that fructose has on the sugar-induced metabolic syndrome. The metabolic syndrome comprises of a set of symptoms (central obesity, elevated fasting blood glucose concentrations, high blood pressure, elevated blood triglyceride concentrations, elevated blood cholesterol levels), and sugar increases all of them. The paper has a number of interesting findings:

Firstly, the authors found that glucose stimulates fructose uptake (see the figure below). What that means is that the combination of glucose and fructose is particularly bad, I initially thought that this may explain why fruits, which contain lots of fructose, are generally considered healthy. However, I realized that fruits also contain both fructose and glucose at a ratio of about 2:1. So there must be other reasons why fruits are good for us despite being rich in sugar, which probably has to do with the high fiber content.

Fructose levels in portal vein blood in mice after giving the mice water (black), fructose alone (green) or the same amount fructose together with glucose at an equal ratio (purple).

The authors then prevented fructose metabolism in cells. Fructose is normally taken up into cells via specific transporters. The first step in fructose metabolism is then the phosphorylation to fructose-1-phosphate, which is mediated by fructokinase. Fructokinase is also known as ketohexokinase (KHK) and exists as two separate isoforms, KHK-A and KHK-C. In the study, the authors knocked out both KHK-A and KHK-C. As a result, fructose metabolism and utilization is prevented. What the researchers found is that the KHK-A/C knockout mice, when exposed to high fructose+glucose diet gained much less weight, showed less fat accumulation, did not develop fatty liver and maintained improved insulin sensitivity compared to the normal wild type mice. This means that it is actually the metabolism of fructose that is responsible for all the problems associated with sugar intake.


30-week body weight (BW) gain in normal wild type (WT) and fructokinase-deficient (KHK-A/C KO) mice exposed to water (black), 10% fructose + glucose (WT, purple open circles), or 30% fructose + glucose (KHK-A/C KO, purple closed circles). Fructokinase deficient mice gained much less body weight despite being exposed to more fructose + glucose.

Representative histological staining (H&E) images of liver sections from normal wild type (WT) or fructose deficient (KHK-A/C KO) mice exposed to water or fructose + glucose (FG). Wild type mice develop fatty liver, as apparent from the accumulation of white lipid droplets. No lipid accumulation was observed in the liver of KHK-A/C KO mice. PT, portal triad; CV, central vein.

Mice lacking fructokinase actually took in less fructose via the gut. To compensate for this, in the experiments shown above the researchers actually gave 30% fructose + glucose to the fructokinase knockout mice, but only 10% to the wild type mice. To have a fairer comparison, the researchers then knocked out fructokinase only in the liver. As expected, this did not affect fructose uptake via the gut. Interestingly, despite the fact that fructose and glucose uptake is similar in wild type and liver-specific fructokinase knockout mice, absence of fructokinase in the liver completely protected mice from sugar-Induced metabolic syndrome. The mice lacking fructokinase in the liver did not show any increase in body weight, development of fatty liver, insulin resistance, increase in white fat and decrease in brown fat. The latter findings indicate that preventing fructose uptake in the liver even has effects on distant organs such as the adipose tissue.

Overall, the results suggest that when we take in sugar, the main problem is the metabolism of the fructose in the liver. Liver metabolism of fructose is responsible for all the problems associated with sugar intake. If metabolism of fructose in the liver is prevented, mice stay healthy. So staying away from fructose containing table sugar and high-fructose corn syrup in soft drinks is really a good idea.

Excessive amounts of sugar (fructose and glucose) induce fatty liver and metabolic syndrome in normal WT mice by inducing greater sugar intake thus leading to increased fructose metabolism via KHK (fructokinase). The absence of KHK in the liver completely prevents fructose metabolism, leading to its excretion into the urine.

HIGHLIGHTS FOR WEEK OF 28 SEPTEMBER – 4 OCTOBER 2020


This week I watched “Columbus” at the Projector, a movie about two characters, Casey and Jun, who accidentally meet in a Midwestern town in the US and share their thoughts about their dreams, their relationships with their parents and their relationship with architecture, with which both have a strong connection. I liked the slow pace of the movie. There were many scenes without much action, where we just saw the main characters go about their business at home or making phone calls in Korean (that weren’t translated). It allowed the viewer to immerse himself in the atmosphere, although it seemed to have led others to boredom. For instance, the woman in front of me, who kept on looking at her phone, which actually distracted me from the most interesting scene. In the scene (which I did not get completely), Casey and a friend discussed why people spend their time doing different things, like some people read books in their free time and some people play video games instead. Casey thought that people who play video games do so because they have a short attention span. In fact, she pointed out that video games are made for people with short attention spans. In contrast, her friend said that it is because different people find different things interesting. This is why people who read books usually don’t play video games and people who play video games often don’t read books. Which then raises the question of why do we find different things interesting? And why do we find certain things (and people) boring?

And this is how I came across this website by Farouk Radwan. I am not sure how reliable this source is, but when he writes that interest is dependent on resonance, common concerns and unmet needs, this does make sense. I am interested in things that resonate with my inner world, which is rather introverted, reflective and calm. I am interested in things that concern my own life, like science, research and teaching, sports, challenges etc. And there is the psychological side. Often we do what we do in an attempt to meet an unmet need. This is for instance where shopping for clothes comes in, which is not really interesting by itself.

According to Farouk Radwan, ‘resonance, common concerns and unmet needs’ also explain why we find certain people boring, because their inner world does not resonate with us, because we don’t share common concerns and they do not help us to meet our unmet need (like telling us how they like our fashion sense).

 
This week’s Big Talk and Oblique Strategies cards are “What are you most grateful for?” and “Don’t be afraid of things because they are easy to do”, respectively.

“What are you most grateful for?“
I think this depends on the particular condition that I am in, but right now I feel most grateful that I always have things that motivate me.  For instance, when I read papers about research and teaching in the morning, I often get very excited because I come up with new ideas that I want to try. I feel that always having things that motivate us is very important. It prevents us from getting into a depressive mood, or makes it easier to come out of it. And in order to have these ideas and plans, it is important to never stop to expose ourselves to unfamiliar things. For me, there are still a lot of things that I would like to do and look forward to.
 
“Don’t be afraid of things because they are easy to do“
I think I have to pass this one. I am not even sure what exactly it means…
What I really want to talk about is friendliness. Lately I have been unfriendly, and I don’t really like it. The unfriendliness is usually triggered by other people “making mistakes”, at least in my imagination. But if I am really honest, the actual reasons for my unfriendliness are different and most of the time it is actually, at least partly, my own fault. Firstly, I often realize that I did not do enough to avoid the mistake that someone else made, and I am actually now trying to blame others for it. Secondly, I discovered that I often get unfriendly if my expectations are not met. If something happens a few times, I expect it to always happen. And if it doesn’t and it affects me negatively, then I get upset and unfriendly. This means firstly that I really need to be more careful to avoid my own mistakes and if things go wrong, admit my own mistakes. Then people would probably be more understanding when I feel upset. And secondly, I should try to have less expectations. And after all, if things go wrong, there is always an alternative that we can improvise.

HIGHLIGHTS FOR WEEK OF 21 SEPTEMBER – 27 SEPTEMBER 2020


This week’s ‘Oblique Strategies’ and ‘Big Talk’ cards are “Do the words need changing?” and “Is there anything you wish you  wouldn’t know?”

These are interesting questions, which I guess are meant to get us thinking. “Do the words need changing?” may not be meant so literally. Nonetheless, I would like to share some experience that I had this week when writing two important reference letters and a grant application, which all needed and still need a lot of changing of words. Initially I had no idea about how I could make the letters strong and only had a vague idea of what the grant would be about. But re-visiting the drafts every day for a relatively short amount of time really helped. Every day I came up with some new ideas, some improved phrases and some better words, This experience has shown to me again that the only way to produce something of value is to start early and repeatedly re-visit the draft and gradually mold it into shape, just like a sculpture. At least this is what works for me.
 
“Is there anything you wish you wouldn’t know?”

When I was young and used to watch TV, I never wanted to see the horrible video coverage of human sufferings in the news and always looked away or left the room. This is because if I were to see these scenes, they would stay with me in my mind and I would constantly think about how the people experiencing this must have felt. On the other hand, there are also things that I wish I would know more of. For instance, this week and last week I watched two movies that played in Ethiopia (‘Lamb’) and Tunesia (‘Arab Blues’). Seeing these movies really created a perception of these countries, which used to be white spots on the map for me. And by seeing what problems the local people there face, we get a better understanding of other cultures. But there are still many white spots on my virtual world map.

  
The main characters in “Lamb” and “Arab Blues”

This week I read an interesting article in Science about why COVID-19 tends to be much more severe in obese individuals. I have always wondered about this because it does not seem that logical.

According to the article, the association between obesity or even being overweight and a greater severity of COVID-19 symptoms is now scientifically well established. And the link is especially strong in younger people. The high prevalence of obesity in the United States (with 40% of adults being obese) may in fact be one reason why the US has been hit so hard with COVID-19. And there are in fact a number of reasons why having extra fat is not a good thing when being infected with COVID virus.
 
Having abdominal obesity is especially bad. One reason is that the fat in the abdomen pushes up the diaphragm, resulting in collapse of airways in the lower part of the lung and a reduced lung volume. A reduced lung volume is certainly not helpful if a patient deals with respiratory distress during COVID infection.
 
Secondly, the blood of obese people actually has an increased tendency to clot. This is problematic, given that one major problem in COVID infection is the appearance of many blood clots. Obesity promotes blood clotting by inducing damage to endothelial cells (the cells that line the inner wall of our blood vessels) due to fat accumulation, inflammation and other atherosclerotic changes in the blood vessel walls. COVID virus also infects and damages endothelial cells, due to the presence of the COVID virus receptor ACE-2 on the endothelial cell surface. This means that obese people have even more damage to endothelial cells, thus increasing the risk for blood coagulation.
 
A third reason is that obese people tend to have a weaker immune system. This is in part because fat cells accumulate “in organs where immune cells are produced and stored, such as the spleen, bone marrow, and thymus”.
 
It has also been found that the T lymphocytes do not function well in obese individuals, although the reasons for this are not really clear. One function of T cells is to provide memory of previous infections, i.e. immunity. Hence, there is concern that even if a COVID-19 vaccine is available, vaccination may not work as well in obese individuals. In fact, a study has found that people with obesity who were vaccinated against flu had twice the risk of catching flu compared to vaccinated people with normal weight.
 

The bottom line is that obesity, especially abdominal obesity, is not a good thing. One thing I have recently realized is that the best (or only) way to specifically lose belly fat is sustained endurance type of exercise. Eating less and more healthy is of course good, but ultimately the fat needs to be mobilized (broken down). And because during sustained exercise our body preferentially mobilizes belly fat (or visceral adipose tissue), a long run or bike tour is very effective (at least for me).

HIGHLIGHTS FOR WEEK OF 14 SEPTEMBER – 20 SEPTEMBER 2020


Covid has caused a lot of problems. One is that pressing issues like climate change and waste reduction have disappeared from the headlines, which is very troubling. Although lockdowns have reduced CO2 emissions, accumulation of plastic waste has gone drastically up, as a new article in Science suggest. For instance, hospitals In Wuhan during the height of the outbreak produced 6 times more plastic waste per day compared to the daily average before the pandemic. Plastic waste is not only due to disposable masks, gloves and gowns, but also due to massive increases in take-away and home-delivery food and drinks.

I read that in Singapore two million plastic bags are taken from supermarkets every day. That is TWO MILLION PER DAY, from supermarkets alone. Many countries have imposed a fee for using plastic bags or banned them altogether. But this week, I came across a very innovative approach to discourage the use of plastic bags in this interesting article. In it, NUS professor Sumit Agarwal suggests the use of a shaming strategy, for instance by printing messages on plastic bag, like this: ??

Well, actually the author is thinking more of messages that convey the impact that plastic bags have on the environment, “such as “this bag is a polluter” … or images of litter clogged beaches and animals that have died as a result of plastic pollution”. As he explains, the reason this may work is because humans are very much influenced by what others think of them.

This shows that there are many potential ways to address plastic pollution. No matter what, let’s hope something WILL be done soon.

This week I watched a couple of movies, including Weirdo, the Taiwanese movie about a couple with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), and about how things change when one of the partners suddenly gets better. The movie reminds me of something that I also thought about this week. Things always change, whether it is our work, our colleagues, our values and priorities, our environment or fashion around us. But we often assume that things will remain the same. And we make many decision based on this assumption. We adapt our lives to our work needs, we focus on the colleagues that we feel close to, we stick to the things we like without exploring new things, we buy clothes assuming they will always be in fashion. And if things change, we get upset.

There are two ways to deal with this constant change. One is to not care about our surroundings and be not dependent on it for our well-being. The other option is to enjoy the “now” but at the same time be open to changes and constantly explore and try new things. After all, change not only makes life challenging, but it is also what makes it interesting, what makes us realize new things. If we ourselves don’t change anymore in any way, our lives have come to a standstill.

HIGHLIGHTS FOR WEEK OF 7 SEPTEMBER – 13 SEPTEMBER 2020


I delivered my first online flipped class-room, peer-instruction class.

It was not as good as I thought, but I am super glad that I did it because I learned a lot. It took a lot of time to prepare my pre-lecture video and to come up with all the quizzes. And the zoom lecture itself was stressful because there were a lot of things I had to handle. But I now feel more ready to conduct similar sessions in the future.
 
I learned a number of lessons from the class. It is not easy to come up with questions of the right difficulty level. I also realized that our University Learning management platform has limitations for this kind of team activities. Especially downloading and discussing quiz answers live online is really difficult. And there are always technical problems and one has to be prepared for it. It also feels strange to send off the students to discuss problems in breakout rooms while I sit completely detached on my own.
 
It is a privilege we have as University lecturers to always be able to try new things, and recording the pre-lecture and doing the flipped classroom session was fun. I am not sure why not more lecturers take advantage of our “academic freedom”. In fact, I believe that it is our responsibility to do so. I remember hearing a talk once where the speaker said that a researcher is only as good as his last paper, by which he meant that we cannot sit on our laurels. The same can be said about teaching – a lecturer is only as good as his or her last lecture. If we deliver a lecture in the same way as we did before, we have not improved but have stagnated. And as such, we have not performed well.
 

I watched a few movies this week, including “Miracle”, the story of the 1980 Olympic US ice hockey team doing the impossible and beat the Soviet Union. It was a reminder about how we can create meaning in our lives through hard work.

I also watched “Let them play” at the Projector, a movie about the creation of the first women’s soccer team in France, and all the resistance the team faced from the men-dominated football world. It was a nice story, but it was told as a comedy. And I realized that I don’t really like comedies, because they usually do not give a deep insight into what humans actually feel, and hence, they don’t really touch the viewer.

But the most amazing movie I watched was “Corpus Christi”, a Polish movie about a young man who is released from prison and has a dream to become a Priest. However, being a convicted criminal prevents him from pursuing this dream. So he pretends to be priest and becomes in charge of a parish in a small village. He turns out to be the most unusual priest one could imagine, but one who captures the hearts and minds of the village community. I really liked the main character. I liked him because he was a really cool young guy while at the same time being really courageous, really empathic, and really driven to do good without thinking about himself. People like him are the true heroes. They don’t do what they do to get recognition or to make a living. They do it because they want to, because they have to. They don’t get any awards, and in fact, in the end the main character ended up back in prison.

The movie shows that we should not judge others based on whether they fit our expectations, or based on the recognition they have received. We should judge them by their passion.


This is my picture of the week. It is an amazing photo I found in a story in the Guardian. This is what it looked like on
the summit of Mount Everest in 2019, during the few days in the climbing season where the top is reachable. 11 people died that year due to the cold temperature, the lack of oxygen as well as their inexperience.

HIGHLIGHTS FOR WEEK OF 31 AUGUST – 6 SEPTEMBER 2020

This week I managed to complete another blogpost. This one is called “Happiness must be created” and features a very interesting “computer game” that I used to play in my youth.

I also wrote a commentary on a very interesting research article about “Normal-Weight Central Obesity – A major risk factor for cardiovascular disease”.

The article suggests that if our weight is in the normal range, having more belly fat puts us at greater risk compared to overweight or obese people.

Saturday

I watched “Jo Jo Rabbit” at the projector, a movie about the encounter of a 10 year old “Hitlerjugend” Nazi-minded boy and a Jewish girl in Nazi Germany during 1944/45. The movie was quite unique and innovative, with a great storyline and great acting. I am not really sure what else to write about it, though, which reminds me of my Toastmasters table topic, where I also was unable to think of what to say. I suppose in this case it is okay to talk about something that is related. One reason why I may be unable to say much about the movie is that I can’t really relate to it very well, which is actually a good point. It is a reminder how lucky our generation is, never having experienced war or other real hardships. It makes me think of a quote by Randy Pausch. When he complained to his mum about how difficult things were for him as an undergraduate student, his mother replied “We know how it is, when your dad was your age he fought the Germans.” We are indeed very lucky.
 
  
This weeks Oblique Strategies and Big Talk cards are “Disconnect from desire” and “Do you want your children (if you have any) to be like you?”, respectively.
The second question is quite easy to answer. If I had children, I would want them to have what I consider my good qualities (being determined, perseverant, passionate and hard-working) and do better at things that prevent me from being more happy and successful. For instance, I would want them to be more social and able to talk and connect with others better. I would also want them to be free from some of the desires that I feel are problematic. Which brings me to “Disconnect from desire”. The ability to disconnect from desires is an important quality to have. Spending money to buy stuff in order to feel happier is one of them. For instance, while I am trying to drastically reduce my record collection, I went to buy new records this weekend. It was a great feeling, though, to be again in a record shop after so many years. Records are still magical. But when I finally tried to listen to them when I got home, I fell asleep… But nonetheless, I feel that the cards really have been a great prompt to reflect about things in my life.
 

The Analog Vault at Esplanade Mall

HIGHLIGHTS FOR WEEK OF 24 AUGUST – 30 AUGUST

In finally managed to finish a blogpost on the topic “Why am I not excited about my research project?”. And while having been struggling with my other “new” posts for months, this one took two days to write.

Monday

My second session at Singapore Toastmasters was an interesting experience. On the one hand, there weren’t really any amazing presentations or table topic talks. On the other hand, I realized how difficult it actually is to give an engaging and meaningful speech. This realization came partly as a result of my own experience of being called on to discuss a table topic. The best thing about the meeting were again the tips and feedback provided by experienced toastmasters. Some of the advice was really useful, for instance how to do well in table topics (follow the three C’s = Connect; Convince, Call to Action), with the ultimate goal to take the audience somewhere. However, I am not really sure how on earth it is possible to think of all these things on the spot immediately.

There was also some very good advice on how to change one’s presentation style and to not fall into a routine. One approach is to try to imitate someone else’s style. This may provide some ideas on how one can engage the audience in a different way. Another tip is to change our looks, which will often affect how we come across to others.
 
Saturday

I watched “Les Invisibles”, a French movie about four passionate social workers who take a very unconventional but effective approach to help homeless women. It was a fun and uplifting movie. And it made me realize how much enjoyment we can take from seeing others succeed though our help and encouragement. It often means more than succeeding ourselves.

HIGHLIGHTS FOR WEEK OF 17 AUGUST – 23 AUGUST
Monday

I attended another Toastmasters Club meeting, this time by the Toastmasters Club of Singapore, which was pretty interesting. There were some very good talks, some great and relevant table topics and most importantly, some really good speaker feedback.

The table topics section, where one has to immediately talk about a given topic for a couple of minutes, is quite scary. Luckily I wasn’t called on. To be honest, for some of the topics I would not have known what to say. I tried to observe how to best speakers responded to this challenge. The best speakers managed to come up with a storyline immediately. They also managed to incorporate some small lesson or conclusion. Perhaps one should really just close his eyes and think of what first comes to mind.

One of the table topics was: “What my spouse hates about me”. The speaker actually did not have a spouse, but he solved this issue very well by saying that if a spouse hates something about me, it would be something that I should also be concerned about myself. And so ultimately this question boils down to what I hate about myself.

If I would have gotten this topic, I would have probably said “Losing my patience when unexpected things happen.”, because this is what I experienced this week in the lab. I can try to be better prepared for mishaps. But one can never be prepared for everything. Hence, it might be better to just accept in advance that things DO go wrong. It would also help to have a more peaceful mind.

It is also worth mentioning that most of the time, we don’t really know what friends or colleagues hate about us, because usually they don’t tell us. Live would be so much easier if they did. This actually would have been a great thing to talk about…

I did get a few ideas about what good speakers do when they present: smile!, emphasize, use facial expression to make one’s message more accessible, use acting, speak slowly.

Saturday
I watched “Never Rarely Sometimes Always” at the Projector.

I like going to the cinema. It is always a special and fun experience and every week I look forward to it. The movie I watched this week, “Never Rarely Sometimes Always”, was about a pregnant teenager who traveled with her cousin to a different state in the US to have an abortion. (Her home state did not carry out abortions for underaged teenagers without parental consent.) The movie showed some of the difficult issues that girls and women face, in terms of the law and relationships with abusive boys and men. One thing that surprised me was that the teenagers revealed so little of their feelings in the movie. I guess this is somehow reflective of real life. It could be because teenagers don’t confront their feelings much or because they are not used to express their feelings. I suppose it could be both. The lack of reflecting about one’s feelings might be related to teenagers constantly engaged with digital media. And the lack of expressing one’s feelings probably is due to being afraid to show weakness. Both can prevent teenagers and people in general from coming to terms with conflicts and overcoming them. I guess education and schools could help more to promote student reflection. A great example can be seen in the amazing movie “Freedom Writers”, where the teacher suggested to the students to write diaries, to great effect.

And here is a clip from the movie about diaries.


Stephen Stearns: Designs for learning


Last week, my former Cell Biology student Cheng Kai sent me an amazing article by an inspiring Professor at Yale, Stephen Stearns. In the article, Stephen Sterns describes creative ideas that he has used to teach students.

There are several things really resonated with me:
First, there is his enthusiasm and motivation for teaching. Despite all the dis-incentives that research Universities, which primarily value research, provide to improve teaching, he cares about educating students. He writes “I care because if I have a day in which I have seen a student’s eyes light up on encountering an amazing idea, or in which I can see a student progress in thinking, writing, and speaking with clarity and grace, or in which a student grows in any other way because of something I have said, done, or arranged, I feel better that very night.”
Besides this, I also feel that another major motivation to become a good teacher is to be able to feel self-worth. Or put in other words, being a bad teacher feels really bad.

What resonated with me even more is how Stephen Stearns defined the purpose of education, which is not to learn and repeat information. The purpose of studying and of our whole being, he writes, is to create value. And according to Stearns, students should be given the chance to do so as early on as possible. To achieve this, he emphasizes the need to see students as colleagues from an early time.

How can University education help students to produce value? According to Stearns, it requires to let students make choices and take risks. He writes: “I want my students to lead valued and valuable lives, and they cannot begin to do so until they learn to take risks, make choices, and live with consequences.” I believe that the last point (“live with consequences”) is important because it makes students take their choices seriously.

When I was a student, I was not really given this opportunity, except to some degree while working in the lab. I do remember whenafter many years of studying I was a senior medical student and felt really tired of having to learn more things. I was inpatient to actually do and produce something. It is important to give students a chance to do so as early as possible.

HIGHLIGHTS FOR WEEK OF 10 AUGUST – 16 AUGUST+
Monday

After realizing that movie theaters have actually been open for some time, I finally made it back to the Projector after a very long time. And I managed to catch an amazing French movie called “The Swallows of Kabul”. It was the tragic story of women suffering in Kabul, Afghanistan, during the rule of the Taliban. It was an animated movie, and that was a good thing. It allowed the viewer to focus on the human side, avoiding the shock of the horrendous cruelty displayed by the Taliban. Women being executed for minor or no offenses at all by men who show no mercy or human feelings. And yet, there was a glimpse of hope and the main character was saved from being executed at the last moment through the bravity of a husband and a wife.

I am always amazed by people who in the most difficult times, be it in Nazi Germany, in East Germany where I grew up, or in Afghanistan, are not afraid to risk or even give their life for others and for what they believe in. And I sometimes wonder how I would behave. And then I feel happy that I am so lucky to not having to face these decisions.
Watching a touching movie after so long, even just going out for something other than doing sports or shopping made me experience  happiness. It made this holiday a special day.

Saturday

Remote Teaching with Eric Mazur

I attended an amazing webinar by ‘active learning’ pioneer Eric Mazur, physics Professor at Harvard University. The seminar was called “Remote Teaching with Eric Mazur”, and as the name suggests, it was about online teaching, and how to make it effective. In the webinar, Eric Mazur basically demonstrated how he conducts his online lessons, with us attendees being his ’students’. And I must say that it was really inspiring and revelatory. Even though I think that my classes already involve quite a bit of ‘active learning’, the seminar made me realize that there is clearly a lot to learn and to improve.

Eric Mazur basically gives the students (or in this case us lecturers) a pre-class assignment, which consists of watching a video and reading a text. (This is the information acquisition stage.) Importantly, the students need to comment on the assignment by annotating the text, and comment on other students comments (information processing stage). This is administered via the learning platform Perusall. The lecturer would actually read the comments before class, so that he or she gets an idea of the misconceptions that the class has.

During the class, the students then first have to do an assignment, which consists of answering a set of rather difficult questions, based on the pre-class assignment. At this stage, the answers will not revealed. Subsequently, the students are assigned into breakout rooms in groups of about 5 students, and they then discuss their individual answer choices and come up with a joint answer that they submit as a group. The really cool thing was the platform that we used (Learning Catalytics), which displayed the individual answer choices from each student. It also assigned points. If we got the answer right on the first try, we got 4 points, if we got it right on the second try, we got 3 points and so on. This means that it was actually a competition between the groups. which was really fun! Whenever we got an answer right, we cheered.

Sadly, NUS does not subscribe to Learning Catalytics, but there may be similar softwares available. For instance, the format could be implemented via the NUS learning management system. I will definitely use this approach for my Cell Biology class. Although I have had group-based quizzes in my live classes in the past, I did not incorporate the competition aspect and also did not reveal the obtained score immediate after each question, which makes it a lot more fun.

Another interesting idea was about how to utilize the pre-class videos. One option is to use the videos as a demonstration of a specific problem, where the student first predict what happens (pre-class) and then in-class discuss with their group mates why it happens.

There were other great ideas, like the lecturer sharing white boards or students within groups sharing their white boards and discussing each others’ solutions. These things will be useful, whether or not the teaching in the next semester will be online.


I watched “The Kingmaker”, which was a great history lesson about Filipino politics. Politics can be so interesting, especially if told so well. And I must say that learning about other countries opens doors to understand their people.


Cold showers are good for you
Ever since I was a student, I was really impressed by people who go swimming in the Winter in Germany in lakes that are freezingly cold (around zero degrees). We call them “Eisbader” (“Ice bathers”).

And when I was a student I wanted to try it. I read that you are supposed to start in late summer to go swimming every day as the water gradually gets colder. So I woke up before dawn every morning to jump into the lake across my house. But the problem was that every morning after coming out from the cold water my legs got really really itchy. This is likely due to some allergic reaction of my skin in response to the cold water. Hence, I had to stop the program after a few weeks.
Nonetheless, I stuck with cold showers or to at least ending my showers with cold water. This helps to feel much better and fresher afterwards. It also helps one from feeling cold after taking a shower. The cold water causes the superficial blood vessels to narrow, keeping the warmth acquired from the hot shower inside our body (which is relevant for cold countries). And I have always believed that cold showers or ending your shower with cold water really strengthens our immune system and prevents us from catching a cold. And as I discovered this week, this is precisely what a study has shown.
https://hbr.org/2018/03/cold-showers-lead-to-fewer-sick-days
The researchers found that cold showers lead to fewer sick days. Interestingly, the duration of the cold shower did not really make a difference. Most importantly, two-thirds of the people who took cold showers continued them after the study, which is a good reason to try it.
And in Singapore it is quite easy to go for cold showers!

HIGHLIGHTS FOR WEEK OF 3 AUGUST – 9 AUGUST

This week I attended my first toastmasters meeting (online). It was great to see the enthusiasm that the people showed for public speaking. In fact, it is always encouraging to see if people devote a lot of energy into something that means a lot to them. It was interesting, but to be honest, I thought it would be more formal. I guess I am more the serious type of a person.

Because of the long meeting, I had to work late and when I stepped stepped into the sunlight in the morning, I suddenly felt like I used to as a student or postdoc after a long night of lab work. It was a moment of feeling happy and satisfied for having completed something. It goes to show that happiness can be created through accomplishing things, which I actually have been trying to write a blogpost about this for a long time. But somehow it proves very difficult.
 

For most of the history of modern biomedical research, scientists have been focussing on disease genes in order to find out what causes diseases and how we can treat them. However, as even every lay person knows, not every individual has the same susceptibility to fall ill from certain conditions. For instance, people who exercise regularly tend to be more healthy and generally less likely to fall ill. People who take cold showers tend to be less susceptible to infectious diseases. The exposure to exercise or cold somehow makes individuals able to fight back diseases more efficiently.

In her recent very insightful article “The Biology of Physiological Health”, Janelle Ayres highlights different mechanisms that could be at play to promote human health. According to her article, physiological health mechanisms can be either defensive or homeostatic in nature.
READ MORE HERE

This week I read an old article about the education innovator and active learning pioneer Eric Mazur. The article discussed how we can turn our students into problem solvers. One thing that really got my attention is that teachers commonly teach students how to get to an answer. For instance, in practicals we teach students how to perform a certain technique to measure something, or in class, we teach how certain cellular pathways can become activated. However, in real life people are usually confronted with an “answer”, and they need to figure out how this answer came about. For instance, an assay may not give the expected result, and one has to figure out the reason for it. Or a cellular pathway is found to be activated, and one has to figure out the reason for it. In other words, as Mazur says, while we teach students how to get to an answer, in real life, you know the answers, and you need to figure out how to get there. This is a reminder that when we teach, we should start the discussion of a topic with a question or problem. Or when we give assignments, the starting point should be a question or problem that the students need to address.

One problem is that students often express that discussing problems is wasting valuable time and that the lecturer should spend the time on explaining the course content. This is partly because we (wrongly) feel that we learn more if we are taught new knowledge as opposed to applying knowledge or deducing knowledge. The best way to address this problem is highlighted in the following quote from an article entitled “Teaching without a Textbook”, which I read this week:
 
“A key, and often underemphasized, aspect of any “nontraditional” or nonconventional course involves convincing students that the approaches upon which the course is based will be valuable to them, i.e., that the exercises and other requirements of the course will help them score well on the exams (and increase their understanding). Therefore, it is important to consider in detail the nature of exams and the messages they send to students.”
from: Teaching without a Textbook: Strategies to Focus Learning on Fundamental Concepts and Scientific Process. by M. W. Klymkowsky. CBE—Life Sciences Education Vol. 6, 190–193, Fall 2007
 

Coming up with these answer-centric exam papers is not easy. For my final exam, I usually give the students a research paper related to the course content. The research paper has a lot of “answers”, and I essentially ask questions about how the researchers got to these answers.

I am currently reading “This is what America looks like” by Ilhan Omar, a Somali refugee who in 2018 was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Reading about the story of her life (so far) is really fascinating, because her story is so human. It is full of failures, hardships, disappointments and struggles. I am currently at the place where she abondoned everything, her husband (after getting a divorce), her family and all the rules imposed by her community, which she has been following all her life. She moved to Fargo, North Dakota, alone with her two young children, to finally earn her college degree. It is a tough, but exciting venture. And I had to think of the times when I moved away, with little money but with the single intention to learn about and succeed in research. It is exciting to be on your own and be focussed on one single goal. I almost feel I want to experience this again. But at this stage this might be difficult. But I want to at least help others to experience something that I was able to experience when I was young.


HIGHLIGHTS FOR WEEK OF 27 JULY – 2 AUGUST

This week was rather busy, with all the new students in the lab and having to work two shifts to look after everyone. And some of the projects have not been working well, so I had to spend a lot of time thinking about the projects, too. I did have time to look at the weekly ‘Oblique Strategies’ (“Discard an axiom”) and ‘Big Talk’ (“What object would you save if your house was on fire?”) cards, though.
  
“Discard an axiom”
This week I have actually discarded one minor axiom (= a statement or proposition which is regarded as being established, accepted, or self-evidently true). I used to think that eating Yong Tau Foo (which I am having every day) with sweet bean sauce is a ‘must’. And I usually use quite a lot of it, too. But I suspect that the sauce actually has a lot of sugar. So I tried to eat the Yong Tau Foo without the sweet sauce, and it tastes just as good, if not even better and more natural. It goes to show how much our eating is based on our beliefs.
I have been thinking hard about what other axioms I can discard. But to be honest, I could not think of any. All the things that I considered do bring me some joy and I would not want to miss them, which is a good thing I guess.
 
“What object would you save if your house was on fire?”
Another difficult question. It is really hard to say, because I basically cherish all the things I have. I am not sure if this is a good thing But if really hard-pressed, then apart from my laptop and music hard drive, it would probably be my all time favorite records.
  
 
HIGHLIGHTS FOR WEEK OF 20 JULY – 26 JULY
This week things were quite busy with new undergraduates in the lab, and so I did not really have much time for other things. And especially the fact that the students work in shifts kept me quite busy.
There were a few new lessons from working with the new students over the past couple of weeks.
Firstly, every student is different, and this becomes apparent within a few days. Hence, it is really important to “customize” how I try to guide the students.
All students are excited about doing research. But they differ in what they are excited about. For some it is the ideas, for some it is to learn new things and for some to get interesting results (or any results).
I also realized that there is no point to get upset, because mistakes are bound to happen. It is much better to try to give clear instructions to avoid mistakes. And in a way, making mistakes helps students to learn and avoid mistakes in the future.
 
  
This week’s “Oblique strategies” card said:
“Define an area as ‘safe’ and use it as an anchor”
Avoiding the obvious temptation to draw parallels to Covid-19, I would define a safe area as an area without distractions, where we can be at peace with ourselves. I think the busyness of our daily schedules makes both our homes and work place not really a safe anchor. It would be nice to have a place to which we can retreat and re-gain or calmness and balance. I guess a “safe place” could also be an action, like taking a walk or meditating. I must say I am quite happy that I read this card today, because a “safe place” could be something that is missing in my life currently.
 
The Big Talk card asks “What do you miss”?
I guess there are two types of missing things that we have experienced in the past or people that we are close to. For most things that we miss, we have found some ways to compensate. This could be by communicating with our friends and family remotely or finding new activities, that are good in their own way. So what we miss becomes a fond memory that we like to look back on. And there are indeed a lot of things and people that I have fond memories of.
But then there are also things we miss that we are unable to replace. And those memories make us very sad. These sometimes cannot be avoided. But it is important to constantly look out for new things that can make us happy, so as to not give in to sadness.
 
HIGHLIGHTS FOR WEEK OF 13 JULY – 19 JULY
This week I caught up on my favorite column writer “Mole”, who writes fun and really insightful articles in the Journal of Cell Science. In one of his columns, he writes about his dad, who had just turned 95, and is doing well. He writes about how his dad, despite a good education, took a job that he did not really love, just to make ends meet for the family. And he did this job for his whole lifetime. And because of his dad’s sacrifice and advice, “Mole” (the author) was able to do what he really wanted to do and pursue a scientist career.
 
This made me think of my dad, who is “only” 83, but nonetheless, still plays Golf (and sometimes still wins). And like Mole’s dad, he worked hard for all of his life, and so did my mom. They had to, as this was the only way to make sure they themselves and more importantly for them, their children (me and my sister), could have a good life. When they were young, most people did not have much. They were the post war generation. So my parents did not ask whether their work is fulfilling and gratifying, but tried to make the best of it.
 
When I look at young people today in Germany, things are very different. Young people aspire to jobs that are fun and fulfilling. And they are right to do so, because after all, a major part of our lives is spent working, and hence our jobs have a huge effect on our happiness. And one thing I can say is that my parents also realize that times have changed. But they also realize and often share that having a fun and fulfilling job requires extra commitment and dedication and a lot of hard work. The combination of fun and fulfilling work and just minimal effort does not really exist, at least for most people.
 
 
This week I had some very interesting cards, “Cut a vital connection” (Oblique strategies) and “What makes you feel really alive?” (Big Talk)
“Cut a vital connection”
I can only imagine that the idea behind this prompt is to cut something that we think is vital, but in reality is not. I have experienced many such imagined “vital connections”, which turned out to be unfounded once I cut the connection. Most recently, I had to stop the habit of doing most of my important work in the morning, due to the new work schedule. Realizing that the connection between working in the morning and getting work done is not vital was surprising. We are more adaptable than we think.
One vital connection that I would like to break is to have ideas without having to eat or at least drink something. I don’t seem to be able to think without enjoying some food or coffee. I don’t know if it is just imagination or a real vital connection, but cutting it seems impossible at the moment.
Of course, one can also contemplate the effect of cutting a real vital connection, for instance being able to connect with my parents via skype. And the thought of it makes me realize that some connections are really vital and important.
 
“What makes you feel really alive?”
Feeling alive – I would define this as being truly happy to live in the moment. Things that come to mind are sitting outside in nature, skating while listening to music, or taking a walk. Interestingly, nothing where I feel really alive involves indoor activities. What is also interesting is that the feeling of being alive doesn’t automatically happen when I do those things. It happens sometimes, but not at other times. And I have not really figured out why…
 
HIGHLIGHTS FOR WEEK OF 6 JULY – 12 JULY
 
This week I have been cleaning and organizing the lab, right on time before undergrads are allowed to work in the lab again. And just like at home, if the work place is clean and organized, I look more forward to go there! It really makes a difference.
 
 
This week’s “Oblique Strategies” card says: “Change nothing and continue with immaculate consistency”.
To some this might sound scary, because do we really want to keep doing the same thing in the future to come? And perhaps this what the quote is meant to evoke in people’s mind. But then, to me the statement sounds quite agreeable. The thing is that I like what I am doing, and I could not imagine anything else that I would rather do. But of course, reaching this state did not happen overnight.
“Change nothing” for me means change nothing in terms of the things that I pursue and how I spend my time on a daily basis. Within this structure, there are of course many (and changing) goals that make everything meaningful. “immaculate consistency” in the structure is the key to succeeding. And also to feeling happy. What I find is that on days where I can keep to my plans and my structure I fell happy and most satisfied. On the other hand, the days where I let things slide are the days where I get depressed and unhappy.
 
The Big Talk card asks: “What is your next great adventure?”
Well, I have some plans, but due to the Covid-19 situation, it is a bit preliminary at this stage.
 
HIGHLIGHTS FOR WEEK OF 29 JUNE – 5 JULY
In the most fascinating video about creative thinking that I have watched, Scott Berkun talks (among many other things) about one of the creative techniques called inversion (see link below). This means that when trying to be creative, we take the opposite approach from what we want to achieve. For instance, instead of trying to come up with new features of a mobile phone, we come up with a list of the worst features a mobile phone could have (Scott Berkun’s example). And this often helps to have NEW ideas. This technique is what some researchers used in an amazing new paper that I read recently.
 
When it comes to obesity research, most geneticists focus on finding gene variants that are associated with increased body weight. In the paper, the researchers did exactly the opposite. They searched for genes that are associated with thinness. And they were very successful and identified a gene called ALK (which stands for Anaplastic lymphoma kinase).
 
The gene product of ALK is a protein that belongs to the family of growth factor receptors. ALK sits on the cell membrane and when a ligand binds to it, it dimerizes and then activates downstream signaling pathways. ALK is famous for being highly activated in different types of cancer, in particular in lung cancer. ALK activation is due to a chromosomal translocation that results in ALK being fused to another cytosolic protein. The most common fusion partner in ALK-positive lung cancer is the echinoderm microtubule-associated protein like-4 (EML4), a microtubule destabilizing protein. Because EML4 self-associates, the ALK fusion proteins can form homodimers even in the absence of a ligand. This makes ALK constitutively active, promoting tumor formation.
 
In the new paper, the authors identified a new role for ALK in the brain, where it functions as a thinness gene. They looked for gene variants that are associated with low body weight by comparing an Estonian population of metabolically healthy thin individuals (lowest 6th percentile of the body mass index (BMI) spectrum) with control individuals (which were within the 30–50th percentile for the BMI). They found a marked difference in the frequency if two genetic ALK variants in thin versus normal subjects. This suggests that certain mutations in the ALK gene affect the body weight.
 
To study the functional role of ALK, the researchers deleted ALK in fruit flies and in mice. This resulted in flies with decreased triglyceride levels and thin mice with marked resistance to obesity. They also found that the decreased body weight in ALK mutant mice is a consequence of increased energy expenditure and elevated lipid breakdown in adipose tissue.
 
Representative pictures of hematoxylin and eosin stained adipose tissue sections in normal mice (Alk+/+) and mice with deleted ALK (Alk-/-). The results show that ALK deficient mice have smaller fat cells in their adipose tissue.
 
Body weight gain of male normal mice (Alk+/+) and mice with deleted ALK (Alk-/-) over time. The results show that ALK deficient mice gain less weight over time.
 
The authors then investigated where in the body ALK may function to regulate the body weight. They found that ALK was not expressed in key metabolic tissues, such as the liver, muscle or adipose tissue. However, ALK was expressed in a specific type of nerve cells in the hypothalamus in the brain, suggesting that ALK acts in the brain. They confirmed this by showing that specifically deleting ALK in the hypothalamus, but not in other tissues, caused resistance of mice to high fat diet induced obesity.
 
The results suggest a mechanism whereby ALK expressing nerve cells in the hypothalamus normally negatively regulate lipid breakdown in adipose tissue. This is likely mediated by inhibiting sympathetic nerve signaling. Indeed, ALK mutant mice as well as thin human individuals were found to have markedly higher norepinephrine/noradrenaline levels in their adipose tissue.
 
One obvious question is if the reverse true in obese individuals. In other words, do overweight individuals have higher ALK activity. The findings of course also raise the possibility of finding ALK inhibitory drugs to treat obesity, for which the researchers have already registered a patent. This was indeed a really interesting paper!
 
And here is Scott Berkun’s Creative Thinking Hacks Video:
 
The first half of 2020 has passed now, and this is again a good time to review my goals for this year.
 
In my research, I want to build the foundation for establishing a successful research lab, with the main focus on developing novel strategies for drug treatment of human diseases. Actually this is going quite well, except I don’t have any students due to Covid-19 (but this will change soon). I do have a lot of ideas, focussing on my main interests, which is tissue selective drugs and my new interest of physiological health mechanisms. And I am working on these at the moment.
 
In terms of my teaching, I am currently doing quite a bit of reflection and analysis from the last semester and my education paper is still in review.
 
In terms of my sports and coaching related ambitions, I am planning to take my second SG coach course from October. My own running ambitions and my Level 1 Inline Certification Program (ICP) are currently on hold due to my sustained heel injury. And likewise, the staff running training is on hold due to Covid-19. But in a way, it will be a good opportunity for a fresh start eventually.
 
In terms of my other personal goals:
#1 I plan to join toastmasters Singapore after the first semester. I have signed up now, prompted by this review of my goals!
#2 I plan to limit my clothes shopping to one item maximally per month. I have not really been following through on this goal, which I think is partly due to the virus pandemic. Covid-19 meant that there was clearly a lack of highlights and things to look forward. Hence, buying stuff often became a substitute. And in fact, I do enjoy buying things… There is also the fact that without live lectures in the foreseeable future, what I wear is quite different, which is a good excuse to get more casual clothes…
#3 I plan to limit buying of other things to one item maximally per month. I actually have continued to buy not much other stuff, except music (records)…
#4 I plan to improve my punctuality. With the virus pandemic, there have been much less appointments, and due to a less busy schedule, it has been easier to be on time. But generally, I have managed to do quite well to be on time for meetings and to follow my own timetable.
#5 I plan to build up my website, to include sections on career preparation and running coaching. I have built it up to some degree, but not, yet, in terms of career preparation and running coaching.
#6 I plan to start writing my books.  I have at least started to write on what is supposed to become my teaching related book.
#7 I plan to take up painting.  Still at planning stage.
#8 I plan to become more knowledgeable about operas. I am doing great with this, and it has been very enjoyable!
#9 I plan to sleep a minimum of 6 hours every day. Here is a summary of my sleep statistics for this year. To be honest, I feel quite well if I can get between 5 to 6 hours of sleep.
 
#10 I plan to keep my daytime (11-4:30) free for random things, experiments and student interactions. As for most people, my daily schedule has really changed due to Covid-19, so this goal became a bit irrelevant. The good thing is that the virus situation made me realize certain things. For instance, I used to think that I need to do all my important work in the morning, but actually, I found out that I am also able to do things in the afternoon. However, I also realized that it is really difficult to work from home!
#11 I plan to do one experiment per week. Luckily, I have had lots of time to do experiments over the past weeks.
 
So overall I still have a lot to do this year to follow through with these goals.
 
This weeks Oblique Strategies card is:
“Slow Preparation..Fast execution”
I am not sure if this is really related (probably not), but I have been cleaning and organizing my home again at the end of the circuit breaker period. And I must say, I have really felt the benefits. Coming home to a clean place is fun. And just finding and getting what I need immediately makes me so much more efficient. And most importantly, I avoid getting angry if I cant find something quickly when I need it and am in a rush. So in a way, slow preparation (cleaning and organizing) allows for fast execution.
 
The Big talk card is “What are you looking forward to? It is something that I have not thought about for a while, but it was definitely a great prompt to do so. And I realized, I really look forward to finally be able to go for movies and concerts again, to run races again if my heel (ever) recovers, to give live lectures again, to publish a good research paper, and to spend time at home with my parents. So there is actually quite a lot, and it is good to be made aware of it again!
 
HIGHLIGHTS FOR WEEK OF 22 JUNE – 28 JUNE
 
This week I watched several very interesting climate change documentaries. The first is about the island Isle de Jean Charles in Louisiana. We can literally watch the island disappear! It is an amazing and scary example of how we humans destroy our environment.

And then I watched a French documentary movie called “Tomorrow” and another one called “Chasing Tomorrow”.

They are also climate change movies. But the major difference to most other climate change documentaries is that it has a positive message by showing ways how towns, villages and individual people are actually making a difference, without waiting for the government or corporations to do anything. Basically, the movies suggest that the whole globalization, free trade and never ending growth is a dead end that will make things worse in years to come and this is really scary. And in a way, this is also what the virus pandemic has shown us. Why do we always need more? Isn’t it enough to be healthy and fulfilled with our families, friends, our work and hobbies?

According to the movie, the way to stop the constant growth is to establish local circulating economies, that produce their own energy in ecological ways, find ways to reduce energy consumption and produce their own food. I did not realize that local agriculture is so much more efficient than industrial food production.
 
One problem with the current system is that we buy in supermarkets and department stores, and the money goes to big companies, whose main agenda is to make more profit. And so they maximize their production at the cost of the environment. What this does is prevent local businesses, which work more efficiently and environmentally friendly, from being competitive. A really ingenious way to promote local circular economies is the introduction of supplementary local currencies in many places in the world. This local money exists in parallel with the “real” money and is only used to pay local businesses. And it works extremely well (see the “Chasing Tomorrow” movie, episode 3) to support the local economy, to create more jobs and make the local economy more resilient to global crises.
 
Another thing that I found really impressive is the city planning in Copenhagen (see a short excerpt from “Tomorrow” below). As the Urban Planner Jan Gehl points out, if you plan the city in a car-friendly way, you get more cars. If you plan a city in a way that is more friendly towards bicycling, walking and public transportation, you encourage these behaviors. The result is really impressive.
 

“Chasing Tomorrow” documentary

Last week I was thinking about advantages that people can have due to their race and background. But in addition to thinking about how race and background affects how other people treat us, another important question is how we ourselves treat people from other races and backgrounds. How do race and background affect our opinions and behavior towards others. To be honest, if I try to think about it, I must say that I cannot really discover traces of racism when it comes to dealing with other people. I do connect with certain people better because there are more commonalities and similar reference points, but this is not related to their race. Based on my experience, there are friendly, smart, responsible and helpful people and people who lack some of these characteristics. But this is not dependent on people’s race, origin or religion.

Nonetheless, I do have to admit that I have certain prejudices based on people’s background. People from some cultures behave very differently from my values, to the point that I find it very inconsiderate and upsetting. I of course realize that the values that people have and the way they behave are due to their upbringing, which is out of our control. When they move into a different culture, they bring with them their own culture, habits and values, and these often clash with their surroundings. The problem is that people who move to different cultures do not really know what values and actions others find unacceptable or disturbing. Because their habits and values have been normal and accepted all their life, they assume they would also be normal and accepted in the new environment.
 
I must say that I have experienced this myself at work, where many of my actions are often interpreted wrongly. For instance, in the past I have often suggested and organized lab activities and outings, and assumed that if the lab members would not like my suggestions, they would let me know. However, I eventually realized that since I am the “boss” of the lab, students tend to just accept my suggestions without questioning or voicing their opinions. In hindsight, this makes me feel really bad because I made my lab do things that they did not really want to do. Or I used to (and still do to some degree) ask my students daily about their progress in order to show that I care and I am ready to help. However, some students find this pressurizing because they view the boss as someone who is trying to get his people work harder.
 
Sadly, I don’t usually find out about how students interpret my actions, except sometimes from other people. Hence, the two important things we can do are expressing our feelings and trying to understand why others behave in a certain way.
 
HIGHLIGHTS FOR WEEK OF 15 JUNE – 21 JUNE
The best news is that we moved to Covid-19 phase 2, which means I can go out to restaurants again. I have been so much more productive over the past couple of days! And being able to move around instead of being in just one place makes my day so much more eventful and fun!
This week we also had a (zoom) reunion with my lab at Tufts in Boston from 30 years ago!
This prompted me to dig out some of my old photos from that time in Boston.
 
Student feedback for the last semester
My module and teacher feedback for my undergraduate teaching has arrived. As always, I feel very ambivalent about checking student feedback. On the one hand I am excited to find out what students thought. At the same time I am also scared because some comments can be quite disheartening.
The first news was that my module feedback score did not really improve compared to previous semesters, despite the fact that I taught the module alone (or because of it?). Of course, the COVID-19 situations makes it a little bit difficult to compare scores to previous semesters, so I won’t be worrying about this too much.
In my teacher feedback, I received 36 Best Teacher nominations, out of 88 respondents. I must say I am really thankful to the students who nominated me (!) and who wrote such heart-warming comments. But in fact, I am thankful for all comments, whether positive or negative. By providing feedback, students have definitely made a contribution that I highly value and that is very useful for me.
One thing that was very interesting is how differently some students view the same aspect of the module. For instance, some students felt the weighting of the continuous assessment should be increased because it best reflected student knowledge, others highlighted that it was unfair because students could collaborate due to the online format. And while some students thought that the weekly quizzes should be graded, others appreciated that they were not. I guess this does show that it is rather difficult to satisfy everyone.
One of the most common critical comments I got is that the lectures and the whole teaching is so unstructured and non-systematic. Quite a few students comment that the lectures should be more organized and structured and there should be more explanations on the slides.
This is well illustrated in the following comment: “…this is a level 2000 module, still quite early in university where we have just gotten used to the learning and studying style. Hence, though application learning is useful, it would help a lot more to teach content more clearly first, before applying to questions, instead of mashing the two together as it can get very overwhelming.”
What this clearly shows to me is that students are used to, or conditioned to a didactic (spoon-feeding?) way of learning, and the University courses they have taken did little to change that. This is despite the fact that the University tries to promote active learning approaches. What I can say for my classes is that there is in fact a system behind the chaos that some students seem to experience. This system is based on active learning, where it is the students’ job to piece the concepts together into a whole. This is how a child learns a language, or anything really. And this is also how professionals have to function in the future. When we face a problem in a workplace, there certainly won’t be anyone who will  break down everything in a systematic manner.
There is a lot of talk that before being able to figure things out on our own, we need foundational knowledge, which should be taught in a didactic, systematic manner. But as the example of how children learn shows, I believe that it is never too early to try to figure out things on our own. And besides this, it is so much more fun to learn this way.
 
There were some interesting comments, too. For instance, it was suggested that I should make a transcript of my lectures available (because I am a little hard to understand at times). In principle a good idea, but the amount of work …
Some student actually apologized for poor performance (“Sorry for my poor performance this semester.”). Thank you for being so self-reflective and responsible!
It was also suggested to spend less time on things that are not going to be tested. This indicates that students often have the perception that the sole purpose of teaching is to prepare students for the exam. This is actually not true, because the main purpose of teaching is to prepare students for life. I have also heard the comment that giving lectures that are not included in the exam is a waste of time. The alternative of course is to include every detail that is being discussed in the final exam, which is probably also not in the best interest of the students. But of course, what students are really getting at is to spend more time on the aspects that will be tested and omit parts that are not relevant for the exam. However, this would not only limit the scope of topics that could be discussed, it would also take away from the student the necessity to make an individual effort to comprehend the important content.
There was also a comment suggesting that I should have been more lenient, especially in light of COVID-19. This is a good point, but at the same time a very difficult one. Firstly, it is super difficult to gauge the difficulty of an assessment. The main problem is that there is no way to test a test for the level of difficulty. Experience helps, but I still often get it wrong. I might feel that an assessment is easy but most students don’t get it right. Or vice versa, something appears to be difficult, but in fact it is not. And secondly with regards to the difficulty of assessments and exams, there is nothing worse than ending up with a really steep bell curve where almost everyone scores well. Because then we have to start down-moderating students who expect to get a better grade based on their performance.
Nonetheless, I must say that student comments about the perceived difficulties of assessments like these, opinions about the weighting for different assignments and assessments, the expressed need to provide more learning objectives and summaries etc. are all really helpful!
 
Finally, here are some quotes that speak to my heart:
“–really challenged us to think like scientists
–taught applicable research skills
–made class engaging
–cares about students”
This is exactly what I intended to do!
 
“I think he teaches skills that are extremely useful for us students in future, instead of boring content which we can just google.”
Thank you! And there were many other great comments that I am very thankful for.
 
And for balance a disheartening quote:
“your students are not geniuses who read the same research papers as you. This mod feels like a 4k module and is honestly so effective at deterring me from taking any future cell bio mods.”
 
But let’s end on a positive note.
“Learning of research skills and experimental result skills instead of facts. Hands down best, most enjoyable and useful module that i’ve taken so far(and probably ever will)”
Thank you!
Speaking of student feedback, I have recently written an article about how to make it more effective and meaningful, which hasn’t been published, yet.
 
Being racist
Some time ago I read a very interesting article in the New England Journal of Medicine. In the article, a (white) physician reflects on the unwilling racist tendencies that all white people, whether consciously or unconsciously, have. And I had to think of this article again when following the news about the “Black lives matter” movement.
The article, as well as the really revelatory and educational video below, which describes what everyday life for black people is like, confirmed what I have often felt: I am privileged. In real life, race and background almost always plays a role, in any society. In the society that I am part of here in Singapore, there is no question that it is easier for white foreigners who work here than for foreigners of different race and background. This is unfair. I am not in support of it. And I do try hard not to take any privileges for granted. I try to work hard for the high salary that I am being paid. I try to live a normal life. I don’t drive, I am renting a modest room (without aircon), I try to be self-sufficient. But despite all this, I know that things are much easier for me. And although I tell myself that I don’t like unequal treatment, the fact is that I am not doing anything about it, which means that I in fact accept the privileges.
What can I do about it then. Maybe I should acknowledge to people that I am privileged and ask them not to treat me differently. After all, being unconsciously racist is a consequence of our upbringing and environment. So to try to change people’s way of thinking, we have to be open about it and express things.
 
Speaking of privileges, when I talked to my landlady some time ago, I found out that because her office was closed during the circuit breaker lockdown period, she had no income. And of course, she is not an exception. It made me realize again how lucky I have been to be able to continue to work with continued pay. I have had a lot of work over the past two months, but I realize that this is also a blessing, because how much more difficult is it to not be able to work.
 
Of course, my life has not been all privilege. I have also experienced diffulties of not being privileged, and maybe this is why I can realize that now I am. Being a student and postdoc in the US made me often realize often that I am a foreigner who does not have the same rights and is not really treated the same. There are the constant immigration and visa problems and people often treating me as though I am not at their level or feeling that they have to explain to me how things work in their country. Nonetheless, this was all undone by the privilege to be there!
 
Here is finally the video “Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man”,
The video was recommended by Thomas Frank from collegeinfogeek, who by the way has a great new podcast out on their best lessons learned from college, which I enjoyed greatly!
 
  
This week’s Oblique Strategy card was ‘Abandon normal instruments’. When I first saw this, I thought of my original plan to cycle to Thailand later this year and take the bus back. This idea was borne out of the intention to avoid flying. With the current Covid-19 situation, though, I am not sure if this will be possible. I also hear of people who took the train all the way too Europe…
But the ‘Abandon normal instruments’ also has relevance for research. If one does things differently from everyone else, one has a much greater chance to make a novel discovery. For instance, I was discussing recently with a student the possibility of growing cells at physiological glucose concentrations and trying to find a way to keep glucose constant, just like in the body (as opposed to adding very high, non-physiological glucose concentrations to the cell cultures, which is what everyone is doing). But adapting a euglycemic clamp device for cell culture would be pretty expensive.
The Big Talk card says ‘Where would you like to wake up tomorrow?’ My initial thought was that I am actually very happy where I wake up every day. And when I thought of other places, the only places that came to mind are the rooms that I stayed in in the past, in Boston, London, Berlin. Those were happy times.
 
HIGHLIGHTS FOR WEEK OF 8 JUNE – 14 JUNE
I published my reflection on how I experienced online teaching after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
 
Why is loss of sleep harmful – “Sleep Loss Can Cause Death through Accumulation of Reactive Oxygen Species in the Gut”
This week I read a very interesting research paper on why sleep deprivation is harmful to organisms. More precisely, the paper investigated why prolonged sleep deprivation ultimately leads to death by using fruit flies and mice.
Sleep is important, at least this is what my parents still tell me all the time, given that too often I tend to ignore this fact. But in the study, the researchers wanted to know why sleep is important. They mainly used fruit flies, for which good genetic models for sleep loss exist. Thus, the researchers used an inducible method to active neurons in the brain that suppress sleep. In an alternative approach, they also introduced loss-of-function mutations or knocked down the expression of known sleep regulatory genes. The sleep deprived flies started to die after a week of sleep loss.
The researchers then tried to identify cellular markers of damage that appeared during the sleep deprivation. And the major marker they identified was an increase in Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS). What was amazing was that the induction of ROS was dramatic and happened specifically only in the gut, but no other tissues (see figure). The increase in ROS in the gut was accompanied by increases of stress markers in the gut, such as increases in DNA damage and cell death (apoptosis and necrosis). Importantly, this amazing finding was reproduced in sleep deprived mice.
The figure shows the levels of Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) in different fly tissues. ROS were measured using a fluorescent dye (DHE=Dihydroethidium) that shows red fluorescence when reacting with ROS. The flies in row 3 and 5 are genetically modified to induce sleeplessness.
 
But that was not all. Even more amazingly, the scientists were able to prevent death of sleep deprived flies by giving oral antioxidant compounds or by expressing antioxidant enzymes (superoxide dismutatase and catalase) in the gut. These interventions allowed the flies to live despite not sleeping.
 
This study naturally raises a number of interesting questions:
How does sleep deprivation lead to ROS accumulation?
Why does the ROS production specifically take place in the gut?
How do ROS in the gut cause death?
And what does this study tell us about the normal function of sleep?
 
The study does not really have clear answers to these questions. One obvious hypothesis for the increase in ROS in the gut is that we tend to eat more if we don’t sleep, which would lead to greater gut activity. However, the researchers were able to rule out that the ROS increase is due to overeating. Alternatively, the researchers suggest that ROS clearance in the gut may be a normal daily function of sleep.
One interesting possibility is that the ROS production is related to increased gut motility. Normally, sleep causes profoundly decreased gastrointestinal motility (reference). Hence, sleep-deprived organisms would have high gut motility, which would be accompanied by an increase in energy production and possibly increased production of ROS.
 
Generally it is of course believed that the main function of sleep is for regeneration of our body, in particular the brain, as well as functions such as processing of information and consolidation of our memory. Does this study suggest that these other functions of sleep are not important and that the main function of sleep is to prevent ROS accumulation in the gut. Not necessarily. The fact that sleepless organisms who express antioxidant enzymes in their gut survive does not mean that they are perfectly fine. In real live, these flies probably have a selective disadvantage. Like most others, when I don’t sleep for one night, I am still somewhat functional, but I cannot really concentrate and tend to doze off when at rest. In a real world, this would probably put me at a great disadvantage to fall prey to predators.
As an interesting side note, one thing I have observed is that lack of sleep seems to make me more disinhibited and I have in fact given some of my best presentations after only sleeping for a couple of hours…
Anyway, what this study shows is that often we don’t know the answers to some common phenomena that we experience daily.
 
I have these two card sets on my desk, which so far I have not really been using much.
One is called “Oblique Strategies”, designed by Brian Eno & Peter Schmidt to provoke reflection and creativity. The other set is called “Big talk” by Kalina Silverman, and it is a set of questions to stimulate big talk, as opposed to small talk. So today I drew a card from each set.
The “Oblique Strategies” set said “Try faking it” – What came to mind after thinking about it for a while is that I am proud to be genuine with regards to my interests and passions. For instance, there are many professors who are in this science and research business but it is very clear that they are not really interested in scientific research. I never hear them talk about research, they never do an experiment by themselves or help their students do one. To me, pretending that one is passionate about something, in other words, doing the talk without doing the walk, is a waste of our time. And although doing the talk without doing the walk can be a very successful strategy for many, it is not genuine, and I don’t want to be such a person.
The card from the “Big talk” set asked “What is a quirk your family has?”. I had to think for a while to come up with something we all in our family like to do. The one thing that I thought of is that we all like to play cards (rummy) together. It is a lot of fun and I always look forward to it. What is very interesting is that every family member seems to have a different attitude towards winning and losing. For instance, I don’t really care at all if I win or lose, unless I am losing by a huge margin and start to lose fun. But generally, I am really not competitive when playing cards. On the other hand, I can be very competitive at other things. What I usually try to tell myself in these situations is that I am trying to improve myself instead of trying to be better than others. And that it is not about how good we are, but about how we use what we are given or have acquired to help to make the world a little better.
 
Cycling around Singapore
This was another thing I originally wanted to do during the Circuit breaker, ride my mountain bike all around the periphery of Singapore (Pasir Panjang – Tuas – Kranji – Woodlands – Punggol – Pasir Ris – Changi – East Coast Park – Marina Bay – Pasir Panjang). I finally did it today. Although it was tiring, I got to know a lot of new places. It took much longer than anticipated, showing that Singapore is much bigger than I had thought.
 
At the start
Kranji Reservoir
Yishun Dam
Changi Beach
Marina Barrage
 
HIGHLIGHTS FOR WEEK OF 1 JUNE – 7 JUNE
Back to work
I have been very fortunate to be able to go back to work this week. And I really feel very lucky. It feels good to be able to do work that is not in front of the computer. Nonetheless, being at work feels different now. I feel somehow that the priorities have changed in some ways. Before the pandemic, it was all about achievement and success at work. Now this has been put into perspective as the pandemic has highlighted the fragility of our society. This period made me realize the importance of other things, our health and that of our family, the health of our planet, the privilege to able to experience every new day and even the privilege to work. And as a result, the work actually feels more fun now. The pandemic has indeed helped us to see things in a new light.
 
On the mis(use) of abbreviations
This week I read an article on the use of acronyms and abbreviations in the medical literature, which really speaks from my heart.
One thing that really spoils reading scientific papers for me is the ever more prevalent use of acronyms and abbreviations. It starts out as an interesting article, I read the abstract, then move on to a paragraph in the Results section that provides more details and then Bang, I am hit with abbreviations. “SP increased the rate of CMA”. What is ‘SP’? What is CMA? What this does is a number of things. Firstly, the pleasure of reading the article is fading and gradually turning into anger if there are more abbreviations to come. Secondly, my flow of reading is disrupted. Thirdly, I am going to waste time. If I try control-F for SP, tens or hundreds words will be highlighted, so I have to painstakingly search the text for where the abbreviation first appears. And my excitement for the paper has turned into frustration.
It is a mystery to me why an author would think that most readers will read an article from start to finish and take note of the abbreviation when it first appears. Most people don’t read from start to finish. And even if they do, they are unlikely to make a point to remember the abbreviation. I can only assume that most scientists have had the same experience. Hence, I ask myself why do people, when they write a paper, use so many unnecessary abbreviations. They don’t make the reading easier. If a sentence is too long or too complex, introducing abbreviations is not the answer, but re-structuring the sentence is. The common argument for the use of abbreviations is to save space and reduce the word count (given that many journals have limits with regards to the word number). But the gain when using abbreviations is usually marginal and the price, readability and not bringing the message across, is not worth it. Hence, my personal rule is not to use any abbreviations, unless they are commonly known ones such as ATP or DNA.
A quote from the Strunk & White’s “The Elements of Style”:
“Many shortcuts are self-defeating; they waste the reader’s time instead of conserving it.”
 
Skating from Queenstown to Changi Point and back
This is something I wanted to do during the circuit breaker, riding my urban skates all the way to Changi Point and back, which is slightly over 80 km. But I wasn’t fit enough. So I finally did it today, after one week of rest, It was tough, especially with the headwind on the way back and I had to rest a few times. But after 6 hours I was back, super tired and with a cramp in one leg. But I did it!
At Changi Beach and back home.
 
HIGHLIGHTS FOR WEEK OF 25 MAY – 31 MAY
This week I have been listening to the latest collegeinfogeek podcast, where one of the topics was a person’s “production versus consumption ratio”.
This is obviously an important concept, because if everyone just consumes, nothing new would be produced anymore. But it is also interesting to ask if this ratio actually affects our happiness level. In other words, are people with a high production versus consumption ratio, who are very active in creating things, happier than people who mostly consume passively. I would say ‘not necessarily’. When I look around, it seems that people can be perfectly happy by just consuming. This may have to do with the fact that (as I learned in the coursera course that I am currently taking on “The Science of Well-Being”) 50% of people’s happiness is genetically determined. But what I certainly can say for myself is that I feel depressed if I only consume, and that I take no pleasure from consuming in the absence of producing.
That is why I decided this week that instead of only watching movies, I would actually take some pictures of my neighborhood and at the same time actually get to know it better!
I think producing is important, for our psychological well-being, to keep our motivation going and of course to improve ourselves. That is why I think the concept of the production versus consumption ratio can also applied to teaching and research. If I plan my classes and student projects so that the students only receive knowledge and instructions, what they learn is not very useful and they also won’t be very motivated. What students really need to learn and practice is how to produce new knowledge.
 
How plastics contribute to climate change?
I have always been wondering about this, until I read this very educational article this week.
It starts with this statement:
“Today, about 4-8% of annual global oil consumption is associated with plastics, according to the World Economic Forum.”
And the article then goes on to explain that every step in the plastic lifecycle is promoting CO2 emissions.
Plastics are made from oil, gas and coal. Extraction of these resources releases huge amounts of CO2, for instance due to the power-driven drilling that is required. Plastics refining is also greenhouse-gas intensive. And given that only the minority of plastics are recycled, most of it is incinerated or ends up in landfills. Incineration of plastics releases huge amounts of CO2 (and many toxic gases!). Dumping plastics in landfills does not directly increase CO2 emissions, but do we really want to destroy our environment with mountains of plastic waste. Since only the minority of plastics is recycled, it hence makes sense for us not to use plastics in the first place!
 
HIGHLIGHTS FOR WEEK OF 18 MAY – 24 MAY
The role of individual scientists in scientific discovery
Today I read a very interesting article about Linda Buck, the scientist who in the late 1980s discovered olfactory receptors (the largest multigene family in the mammalian genome, belonging to G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), which is actually the most drugged class of proteins). There are a lot of interesting aspects with regards to her work that the article highlighted. But what was most fascinating for me was the discussion of the role of the individual scientist in discovery, which the article summarized with a quote by Albert Szent-Gyorgyi (Nobel laureate for the discovery of vitamin C), who said:
“Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen, and thinking what nobody has thought.”
Research is a collective effort, where advances are built on other people’s work, where collaborations happen and work needs to be replicated. Yet at the same time, scientific progress is also driven by and dependent on individuals. As everyone in research can attest, some people seem to be just amazing in doing experiments, and others of equal academic qualifications are not. And the work of Linda Buck shows us some qualities of what it takes to succeed: persistence, courage to work on an interesting problem that may not turn out to be successful or may not appear hugely important (of course, nobody can predict the importance of discoveries that haven’t yet been made). Linda Buck’s work also shows that individual success is often due to a difference in approach, constant thinking about the problem and trying of new approaches to come up with a solution, and last but not least a mentor who is not focussed on short-term success.
 
Plastic meals
The current circuit breaker period got me thinking about plastics again. When going out to buy some food, it is impossible to miss how many disposable plastics are being used. Not only the food containers, but people seem to need new plastic bags for every meal and they don’t even seem to have any cutlery at home and need to get plastic forks and spoons. (Why would anyone even choose to eat using plastic utensils unless there is no other choice?) Anyway, I am not sure if I want to imagine the amount of plastics that is used, but essentially for every meal in Singapore alone during this period there must easily be a million of disposable plastic or styrofoam containers and a million plastic bags. That is just one meal. And the only reason is because we keep using disposables.
Why are people like this? There may be various reasons. Hygiene may be a factor (although I honestly believe that exposure to some bugs and uncleanliness is a good thing for our immune system and resilience). But in most cases it is convenience or just thoughtlessness. After all, we all somehow have the ability to suppress inconvenient thoughts. We all know that certain things are bad for us, but we do them anyway. And they become a bad habit.
So if we apply the four steps to a habit from James Clear’s “Atomic Habits” again (see below), we have
The CUE: “I am hungry”
The CRAVING: Get food fast, with the least amount of effort required
The RESPONSE: Quickly buy food in disposable containers in plastic bags. Add some plastic cutlery, some drink in a plastic cup, with a plastic straw, in another plastic bag. Done.
REWARD: I get to eat as fast as possible. No cleaning required. Everything goes into the trash and the house is clean again, and we can wait for the next meal.
As James Clear describes, each of these steps can be potentially targeted to prevent a bad habit, although it may be difficult to change the CUE (hunger).
We can attack the CRAVING by making it unattractive or unpopular to use plastics. We could all contribute to this, by leading by example and trying to convince others to be more environmentally conscious. The last suggestion is difficult, though. I did try to ask people if they don’t have any cutlery at home, but people are usually not very receptive to this.
One could address the RESPONSE by making it difficult to use disposables. Sellers could add more surcharge or better, the government could introduce measures to reduce the use of plastics. As the current circuit breaker measures show, it seems that the Singaporean population is generally supportive if the government takes action. So there would be hope that implemented changes to reduce the use of disposables would be effective.
But most importantly, there is the REWARD. Can we make it unsatisfying to eat using disposables. This ultimately requires a change in mindset. It requires that people become more aware of the issues of our time and start to care about these things. When I overhear conversations, people commonly talk mostly about practical things, where to get good food, where to get cheap food, or news they have heard. But rarely do we really talk and think about how things that happen every day affect us now and in the future. Rarely do we talk about our opinions, reflections and worries. A change in mindset can only happen through leading by example and engaging in conversations.
 
The destructive powers of social media
When I used to be a young teenager, I remember that I did not like to go to school. One reason was that for some reason I always got special treatment, and I used to hate it. Teachers would always somehow treat me differently, because I was a “good student”. They would never put me on the spot. If something went wrong, it couldn’t have been my fault. And if I did something bad, it was not as bad as if someone else did it. It was so bad that other kids were happy if I did something wrong, and then upset if I wasn’t punished in the same way others were. This is what I thought about when I was watching this Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit movie about a girl who experienced a similar situation. What made it much worse in the case of the movie are the social media, which luckily we didn’t have, so I never knew what other children really thought. But it is a good reminder to not, as a teacher, disadvantage as well as preferentially treat students. This is of course much easier said than done, because every student is different and hence needs different attention and approaches.
HIGHLIGHTS FOR WEEK OF 11 MAY – 17 MAY
I have been really busy and engrossed with all my assignment marking, but this article finally opened my eyes about what the current pandemic really means.
Unconsciously, I have somehow been assuming that after the current circuit breaker will be over, everything will gradually go back to normal. But in reality, life will not be the same, for those who have survived the infection, as described in the article, and for the whole society, as the threat of virus spreading will continue to be there for time to come.
I am also getting to the age where some of my friends have been seriously ill from other diseases and I have been thinking about that. When someone faces a serious disease, the priority becomes to get healthy again. In fact, people who go through and recover from serious diseases often display a change in their mindset. They realize that being healthy is the most important thing. They learn to appreciate and take measures to stay healthy.
In our current situation, our civilization is also clearly experiencing a serious condition. And what I hope is that this will also make many people realize the beauty of our civilization and our planet and that the most important thing is that our civilization and our planet stay healthy. All the progress and technological advance becomes meaningless if we cannot keep our planet in an inhabitable condition. For me this means that I want to start taking measures to become more proactive in protecting our vulnerable planet, as well as enjoy all the beauty our world has to offer!
 
I am starting to get some feedback from undergraduate students for my teaching from the last semester. And compared to previous semesters, the one thing that is missing from the feedback is that it was fun to learn.
When I happened to meet one of our staff runners today and felt really happy to see him in person, I knew the reason why. It is fun to interact with other people!
So I think the one thing that the advocates of online learning and the people who feel that classroom teaching is obsolete are missing is the fun part. No online course can replace the fun of being with others in the same space and learning together.
 
I am currently reading “Atomic Habits” by James Clear. One thing I am trying to find out from reading the book is what causes my bad habits and how I can fight them. For instance, I tend to get angry sometimes and it has for long turned into a bad habit of mine. Like earlier this week I was doing some strengthening exercises outside our block, when someone advised me to wear a mask if I don’t want to get fined 300 dollars… Or a car driver didn’t use a turn signal when I was running and wanted to cross a road, orbicycle riders who don’t stick to the left side of the sidewalk. All this caused me to get angry, even though these are clearly not good reasons to be upset.
Based on the book, the way habits form is via CUE, CRAVING, RESPONSE, and REWARD.
So if I were to analyze my feelings and behaviour:
The CUE: Someone does not behave properly
The CRAVING: Telling them off
The RESPONSE: Get frustrated or actually telling them off
REWARD: ?? Actually, there is no reward here. In actual fact, I usually always regret getting angry.
So I havn’t really figured this out, yet. But, the book helped in describing ways to fight a bad habit, by eliminating any of the 4 steps. It is impossible to eliminate the CUE. But it would be possible to eliminate the CRAVING. I can just tell myself that the things I am getting angry about are really insignificant and I don’t care! It is actually that easy.
 
Looking for a change from my marking, I decided yesterday night to watch an episode of the famous German detective series “Derrick” on youtube. It was a very nostalgic experience, as the film even still had the original TV commercials from the 1970’s, bringing me back to my childhood. And after finishing the first episode, I watched another one. And after this, I must say I felt that I had wasted my time, because there was absolutely no meaning to this. I think watching dramas can be a nice thing to do with your family, but as for myself, I think I leave the other 279 episodes unwatched.
 
HIGHLIGHTS FOR WEEK OF 4 MAY- 10 MAY
Yesterday I was listening to some interesting podcast about prisoners who are on death row in San Quentin prison in California.
Some of these prisoners have been on death row for decades. Confined to a room, they have no prospect of ever experiencing freedom again. Freedom for them becomes a word that takes on so much more meaning than it has for us.
What was most amazing to me is that many of the death row prisoners (or at least some) have the ability to have a meaningful life. They meditate and read. Some sleep on the floor and turn their bed into a desk where they work. One prisoner has written three books.
What is most amazing about the fact that these people can create things is that this is not linked to any outcome in the future, because there is no future for them other than remaining in their cell. Hence, creating things becomes the meaning itself, it becomes a way to feel alive, a proof of being alive and a motivation to move on. As one prisoner said, he can still enjoy the beginning of a new day, because it has meaning for him. So creating things is not really a means to an end. But it is the way to be human. Because if we think about it, being able to create things is one of the main things that distinguishes us from animals.
The sad truth is that we live in a consumer society, where we mostly consume, by eating, buying, watching news, movies or content that others have created. Unless we are forced to create things at our work, most of the time we consume. Of course, many people do create things voluntarily and I must say I am always impressed by those that do, by cooking amazing food, creating great videos or anything else that is unique. Not everyone may be able to create things all the time. However, it is already a major step to do things that are not for pure enjoyment, but are things that hold the potential to obtain some new insights that would make a difference to our lives. This includes going for a walk, reading a book, or watching a movie that is not a comedy or an action movie.
 
Amidst all the COVID-19 circuit breaker measures, yesterday I remembered again one reason why I really enjoy living here.
I just read a very interesting scientific article, which talks about how we all can most effectively reduce our carbon footprint.
And it revealed a number of very interesting things:
To begin with, it included some interesting numbers. Firstly, 65% of global greenhouse gas emission can be directly or indirectly linked to household consumption, revealing a huge impact that the energy end user (ourselves!) can have to mitigate global warming. In 2011, global greenhouse gas emissions in 2011 amounted to 6.3 tCO2eq/cap (tons of CO2 equivalents per capita). That is the average for the whole world population. In North America, the carbon footprint per person is more than twice of that (13.4 tCO2eq/cap), while in Europe it was 7.5 and in Africa and the Middle East 1.7. Those are huge differences. In order to meet the goal of limiting the global warming by 1.5 degrees, we all need to reduce our annual emission by about 2.8 tCO2eq/cap on average by 2030. How to do this? To help us decide what are the most efficient ways to lower our carbon footprint, the study actually quantified (based on the published literature) and ranked the most effective options.
On top of the list is using your own car. While I can understand that you may need a car with small kids or if you have difficulties walking, I can’t see why anyone would need a car (or would need to use it) for normal transportation in Singapore. Living car-free alone already lowers emission by 2 tCO2eq/cap.
Measures that can reduce carbon emission by about 1 tCO2eq/cap is not having pets and having a Vegan diet (a Vegetarian diet is less effective, and reduces carbon emission by about 0.5 tCO2eq/cap). Unexpectedly (to me), improved cooking equipment can have a similar effect as Vegetarian diet (0.6 tCO2eq/cap). I don’t really cook as I don’t have my own kitchen.But it seems to me that in Singapore, with so much restaurant and hawker centre cooking, there is a huge opportunity to provide incentives for vendors to cook carbon emission friendly and for consumers to support such food sellers.
Speaking of diet changes, I recently watched this 30 min movie by the amazing Thai director Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit, which really shows the challenges (but includes some drastic scenes). Initially, I was disappointed by the ending, but eventually I understood that this is how it should end to make people think.

HIGHLIGHTS FOR WEEK OF 27 APRIL – 3 MAY

The beginning of May made me take stock of my sleeping and eating habits. One goal I had for this year was to get at least an average of 6 hours of sleep a day. However, during the first three months of 2020 I failed miserably. But I was certain that during the circuit breaker I surely must have slept significantly more. How impressions can be deceiving. The analysis of my daily “sleep data” shows that my sleep hours only increased slightly, and I still failed to hit my goal of 6 hours. I somehow have to change my daily habits and time planning.
I also analyzed my “eating data”. (I score everything I eat based on some rather simple scoring scheme that is based on unhealthy food having high scores and healthy food relatively low scores). The overall trend shows that I have improved in terms of healthy eating this year. However, the worrying trend is that there has been a dramatic increase in my eating score during April from 5.6 during the first half of April to 6.6 during the second half of April. And I can see the results… I guess it does have to do with the greater difficulty to eat healthy in this period. Hopefully it all will be over in one month, and until then I can increase my number of workouts.
I have also started marking my Cell Biology final exam. What I noticed so far is that students did well on the MCQ part, but when it comes to suggesting solutions themselves, students by and large seem to do rather badly. Both type of questions are problem based, but evidently it is much easier for students to choose between different solutions than coming up with their own, which is quite disappointing for me. Even though I do try to include a lot of problem solving exercises, such as weekly quizzes, these are all MCQ based, which I should really change in the future. I do have more open-ended discussions in my actual classes. However, my worry is that many students watch the recorded version of the lecture (especially during the last semester), and when they do so, they fast forward during the sections where they are supposed to use their brain power and think of solutions by themselves.
 
This brings me to a very exciting pedagogical article that I read this morning.
In this article, the authors report that students don’t recognize the value of active, problem-based, student-centric learning. The researchers found that students wrongly believe that they learn much more from a well-delivered lecture where they only have to listen. There is in fact overwhelming scientific evidence that active learning is much more effective than passive learning. But if students don’t recognize or believe this, they won’t put effort into problem solving tasks and independent learning assignments, making them less effective. Hence, it would be really important for us lecturers to explain this to students.
 
It is May, which means the last month before the end of the circuit breaker measures has started. And it also means that my final exam and most report deadlines are over. So I actually got to watch a movie yesterday, the first in a long time. And this was a movie called the The Seventh Cross (from 1944) and it was about a lockdown so much worse than ours, in the concentration camps in Germany during the Nazi era. More precisely, it was about how 7 inmates escaped, of which only one made it. At one point, the surviving refugee said to a woman whom he met and who helped him on his escape, most people can feel safe, enjoy their lives and be with their loved ones every day without fear that this would ever end. They don’t know how lucky they are. What does it mean do be on the run for your life. I can’t really imagine. And I also cannot imagine the suffering of those who are really affected by the current pandemic. But one lesson for sure is that we should be happy about what we have, and not be unhappy about what we don’t have.
 
HIGHLIGHTS FOR WEEK OF 20 APRIL – 26 APRIL
This is a period where I realize that the job of a cleaner or food seller is much more essential than that of a University Professor. But then what I also realize during this time is how essential things other than eating and having a room to stay are for our well-being. It reminds me of my time in the army, where I basically just had to do what I was told to do. And what I was missing most of all is something to look forward to. And I realized that this is how I currently feel as well. There aren’t really things that I look forward to very much. Every day seems more or less the same. The only thing I am looking forward to is the end of the circuit breaker measures … which sadly won’t be so soon.

HIGHLIGHTS FOR WEEK OF 13 APRIL – 19 APRIL
The busiest part of the semester is over and I finally got to do some fun stuff. For instance, today I skated to Marina Bay (without taking the MRT). This was fun, and at at the same time weird, because Marina Bay area was deserted, except for some exercising people. And I also had the once in a lifetime chance to take a selfie with the Merlion and nobody else being in the picture!

Today I was contemplating about why I am so anxious about opening my email. It is indeed one of the things I dread most on a daily basis, because opening my email often means having to deal with problems and do tasks that I really don’t like doing! And it takes a lot of my mental energy, which I would rather use for more meaningful things. I guess part of what causes the anxiety is not being able to control email.

So what I usually do insect cases is surf the web and look for possible solutions. But in this case I could not really find any. I guess being anxious to open my email is primarily a mental issue, where I associate opening email with negative emotions. And this has become so engrained that it is now a habit. Hence, it must also be possible to turn it around by trying to look forward to it. After all, although emails can be perceived as stressful, they can also be an opportunity to connect with people, to get feedback, to help people, to come up with new ideas.
 
HIGHLIGHTS FOR WEEK OF 6 APRIL – 12 APRIL
Things have been so busy with my teaching that I have been really overwhelmed and did not really think much about all the social distancing measures. The good news, things have gone well in both my modules so far. The not so good news is that I hardly had time for other things. But nonetheless, I think I will really feel some sense of achievement when the teaching is over and if things continue to go well. And what’s more, with trying a lot of new things and the changes due to the virus situation, I have learned so much this semester!
 
HIGHLIGHTS FOR WEEK OF 30 MARCH – 5 APRIL
There weren’t any highlights as the semester is getting really busy…
With all the new social distancing measures, we had probably the last staff running session for a while…
HIGHLIGHTS OF WEEK OF 23 – 29 MARCH
Staff running training
SATURDAY
Since all public events are now canceled, I went skating to Changi Point. I even when for a swim in the ocean along the way. I have been missing that. Singapore is a place where you can be on holiday throughout the entire year. But sadly, we are mostly too busy to take the time to enjoy.
SUNDAY
Watched “A State of Mind”
This was interesting, but watching a movie by yourself is not the same as watching it in a cinema!
The movie really gave an amazing insight into the lives of a North Korean family (and two girls who prepared to participate in the incredible annual mass games).

What is always interesting to realize is that despite our perception that the North Korean regime is oppressive and live there is miserable, people still laugh, enjoy their lives and have human values. It is true, conditions are harsh. Most households don’t have heating despite sub zero temperatures in the winter (this movie was from 2003, though). There are daily electricity outages. And the state propaganda is everywhere. Each kitchen has in fact a radio installed that blasts the state media and that can only be turned down, but not switched off! Nonetheless, people have their hopes and dreams.

It reminded me of my childhood in communist East Germany, where people also felt happiness, despite lack of freedom. It is possible to be happy without freedom, but once you have freedom, it is probably very difficult to feel happiness if the freedom is taken away from us.
 
HIGHLIGHTS OF WEEK OF 16 – 22 MARCH
No highlights this week!
 
HIGHLIGHTS OF WEEK OF 8 – 15 MARCH
Staff running training
HIGHLIGHTS OF WEEK OF 2 – 7 MARCH
Watched “A beautiful day in the neighborhood”
Everybody should watch this, and the world would be such a better place. Some parts were a bit exaggerated, but the movie made the important point that being friendly and caring for others makes all the difference in this world! The fact that according to the Tomatometer almost everyone loves this means that most people really value friendliness. The good news: I have already managed to be friendly for two days, including to strangers.
 
HIGHLIGHTS OF WEEK OF 24 FEBRUARY – 1 MARCH
Reviewing my goals for 2020
The first two months of 2020 have passed, and this is a good time to review my goals for this year.
In my research, my main goal was to build the foundation for establishing a successful research lab. What I have done is thinking about how to achieve this, which is mainly related to the type of grants I want to write. And I have started to write one, too. I have not really worked on building and strengthening collaborations so far.
 
My teaching of two modules has indeed been super busy, but so far things have gone well, and I am still excited about the rest of the semester. The changes due to the coronavirus measures have made it difficult to work on improving class participation. And I also need to improve on my delivery of non-science related content. I look forwardt to join Toastmasters in May to improve on this! And I am currently revising my first education related paper, which will hopefully be published – one of my goals for this year.
 
I am still injured, so not much sports is possible and I am just continuing my staff running coaching, With all races being canceled due to the virus it is difficult to find a good goal and motivation for the training sessions.

In terms of my personal goals:

#1 I plan to join toastmasters Singapore after the first semester: still planning

#2 I plan to limit my clothes shopping to one item maximally per month: I got more work to do on this one.

#3 I plan to limit buying of other things to one item maximally per month: This has been successful so far!

#4 I plan to improve my punctuality: Not much improvement, yet, although I have managed to be on time for the important things.

#5 I plan to build up my website, to include sections on career preparation and running coaching: Still at planning stage.

#6 I plan to start writing my books:  Still at planning stage.

#7 I plan to take up painting:  Still at planning stage.

#8 I plan to become more knowledgeable about operas: I have listened to a lot of operas in the last two months, and this has been great. For many operas, once you listened to them a couple of times, they becomes really enjoyable and amazing.

#9 I plan to sleep a minimum of 6 hours every day: This has not worked out, yet.

#10 I plan to keep my daytime (11-4:30) free for random things, experiments and student interactions: This has been difficult, due to the fact that I am still trying to do too many things. They are all exciting or meaningful, so it is difficult to know what to drop.

#11 I plan to do one experiment per week: Amazingly, I have managed to do this so far.

So all in all, I have only made real progress in 3 out of 11 personal goals. But it only has been 2 out of 12 months. There is more work to do!

Watched “Judy” at the Projector
I liked this movie! Renée Zellweger portrayed Judy Garland so well. It showed that what we see on the outside and what is hidden inside is often very different. Judy Garland lived a short and probably often painful life. But her singing continues to touch people and lives on, and on my turntable, too!

Being able to touch people is an amazing gift!

HIGHLIGHTS OF WEEK OF OF 17 – 23 FEBRUARY
Staff running training
 
Watched “Queen & Slim” at the Projector
This was a wonderful story. The interesting thing is that the whole story was basically just a girl and boy on the run from killing a police officer in self-defense. But along their journey, there was so much to learn about different characters. And although in the end there was a sad ending, the movie left me optimistic because it showed that on the whole, despite all their different characters, most humans are good and caring when you get to know them from closer. And that was a re-assuring thing to see.
And this is an amazing photograph!
 
HIGHLIGHTS OF WEEK OF 10 FEBRUARY – 16 FEBRUARY
Watched “Happy Old Year” at the Projector
Clearing out is good, but what about the memories, the physical ones and the ones in our mind. Possessions are usually individual, so departing from them is easy. But memories often involve two people. If one person has moved on, it does not mean the other has.
This is the issue that the main character faced. It was easy to clear her physical stuff. When it came to memories and things that she received from others, she tried to return things to their owner, and she tried to apologize for having hurt other people. This allowed her to move on, but not the people who still cared for her.
I think it is good to declutter from physical stuff and let go. But we cannot let go of caring for others.

Another amazing movie by Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit. How he can always make us discover new things about how we act and feel is amazing.

 
HIGHLIGHTS OF WEEK OF 3 FEBRUARY – 9 FEBRUARY
Staff running training

Lessons learned from dropping my laptop

I dropped my laptop and it was dead, and I was super upset and stressed, especially when I wanted to set up a different laptop and I faced a lot of difficulties.
Unfortunately, I have a tendency to get upset when unexpected things happen. But needless to say, being upset in these times just makes things worse, so it is really counter productive. I think the main reason for feeling so upset is the fact that I almost always have plans to do some things that are important to me. And when suddenly things do not go according to plan anymore, I am unable to relax and calm down until I have solved the problem and everything is back in order again.
Hence, from now on I really want to become more open to changing my plans. And I also want to become a calmer person (which requires some action, and I am still trying to think about that).
But the thing is that if I would have been calm, changed my plans and gone to the repair shop when it opened, everything would have been fine, because the technician found out that the hard drive had just become displaced and disconnected from the fall, which could easily be fixed. And most things that make us initially very upset eventually end up like this.
Why not also, the next time something like this happens, see the ‘thing gone wrong’ as an opportunity? It is an opportunity for change, to obtain a new perspective, to re-evaluate the importance of something. For instance, currently, where we are unable to give physical lectures because of the coronavirus situation, I came to realize how much I enjoy giving lectures and have direct contact with students. The good thing is that there are still many more years to come where I can teach, and maybe there will also be some other solutions that I can think of for this semester.
 
Watched “Accept the Call” at the Projector
This movie was interesting. It was a documentary about a Somali Muslim family living in Minneapolis in the US. The dad, who immigrated from Somalia, was a Sufi muslem and had really amazing values and a big heart. Yet, his son, who was born in the US, became a radical muslim who wanted to join ISIS and was eventually tracked down and imprisoned by the FBI. It is the tragic story of miscommunication, or lack of communication between two generations. And it is tragic, because the dad always tried to be there for his son.

It highlights the common problem, that it is so hard for the older generation to pass on their values to the younger generation. It seems that young people value any other influence much more that that from the older people. Maybe it is an inbuilt evolutionary mechanism to ensure that there will always be change in this world. Nonetheless, we should try to share our beliefs, but by trying to connect with young people and respecting them. This is actually what the dad did, who had very different beliefs from his daughter. But nonetheless, he never stopped loving and supporting her. The dad was really an amazing person, who did not even give up on his son and really tried to understand him and what brought about his path. And the Singapore-born director Eunice Lau really did an amazing job to capture this.

HIGHLIGHTS OF WEEK OF 27 JANUARY – 2 FEBRUARY

Things were rather busy with preparing everything for my teaching and trying to keep up with the other things. Things have gone well so far in the semester. And actually, the fact that most things did go well the greatest motivator to keep going.
Of course, one might say what if things do not go well? Would I lose motivation? But the thing is that this should not really be a consideration. The key is to plan and do everything so that things work out well. When we fail at something, most of the time we know the reason why, unless we are doing something completely new. Hence, if we really put our mind to it, plan well and anticipate potential problems, things should go by and large well.
I am ready for my lecture!
 
HIGHLIGHTS OF WEEK OF 20 JANUARY – 26 JANUARY
Reflections on my first two weeks of teaching
Two weeks of the semester have passed, and I have already given 5 lectures. And I must say I am generally happy with how things have gone so far. I was especially happy that my first postgraduate class went well, because I tried new and untested territory, and I look forward to more classes to come. In fact, I look forward to all my lectures. This is partly because of my decision to teach the Cell Biology module alone and to also organise the postgrad module myself with some great help from really excellent and enthusiastic teaching staff. I must say being in control is a huge motivation booster. And also, being in close contact with students for a whole semester is really exciting because I will (hopefully) see how they progress.
For the first time ever I am making a real effort to learn all student names. This is indeed difficult (especially for someone like me who is really bad at remembering names), but it is also very exciting. I hope that by the end of the semester I know everyone!
I had two main goals for my teaching this semester. The first was to increase active class participation. Sadly, so far this hasn’t really worked out in the undergraduate module, despite my icebreaker exercises in the first lecture. They were fun, but did not really break the ice. I think I need to try to go slower and start with easier questions.
The other goal was to find a more manageable and sustainable way to maintain a high teaching responsibility. I think so far I have actually been quite successful at this. I have still managed to waste quite a lot of time over the past two weeks (!), but more importantly, I have managed to continue with other important activities. I almost finished one exciting teaching article, managed to do some lab work and learn some new things. And all that despite having a bad cold and very bad toothache for several days.
It looks like it is going to be an exciting semester.
 
HIGHLIGHTS OF WEEK OF 13 JANUARY – 19 JANUARY
Watched “Beuys” at the Projector
This man (the artist Josef Beuys) had so much energy and used all his energy and body to make an impact. In fact he said that if we did not use up our body by the time we die, we have wasted it. For him, art is an act in which we participate, with the ultimate goal to bring about change in our society. One of the tool he uses is shocking people. But the concept I liked the most is that success doesn’t equal to succeeding. By trying to do something we have already succeeded in some way. Every step is a step forward.
 
HIGHLIGHTS OF WEEK OF 5 JANUARY – 12 JANUARY
Watched Salary Day/I Dream of Singapore at the Projector
As expected, this was revelatory and shocking. The situation of migrant workers at home and in Singapore is really quite unimaginable for me. And I must admit that my main thought while watching the movies was how lucky I am. It is unfair, some people are born privileged, and some are not. I am certainly in the former category. And this I should admit, and appreciate, and show compassion to people who by chance have been less lucky I am.
 
The new semester is about to start. I still have a lot to prepare, but it is exciting.
 
I watched “Body of Truth” at the Projector
This is a movie about four amazing woman artists who make art using their body or the body. I was particularly touched by the German artist Katharina Sieverding. At one point in the movie she talked about her ‘Transformer’ work that shows the female side of men and the male side of females, and said that in all of us is a part of other people (not limited to gender, but also different backgrounds, different ways of thinking and living). Often we try to hide it, but if we can discover this part and embrace it, there would be much less conflict.
I was also struck by her sense of responsibility to the historical past of Germany and how she wants to remind people of what terrible things we Germans have done, and by how she takes inspiration from political realities that happen in our world.  It was amazing to see how excited she was when her pictures went on a huge gallery display in the German city of Düsseldorf. It was inspiring to see someone so passionate.
 
HIGHLIGHTS OF WEEK OF 29 DECEMBER – 4 JANUARY
New Year’s Eve
2019 has passed, and I feel that it has been one of my best years so far, if not the best! First of all, I have been more healthy than ever, and my family has been healthy as well. I have achieved many of the goals I set for 2019 (although not all).
The biggest change, however, has been to focus on my short term and long term goals. As a result, I constantly have things that I look forward to and that I am excited about. Every day has been a meaningful day, because I came closer to at least one goal. Every day has been an exciting one. And this has been such a big change, because in the past I often just felt after every day that I survived it. But there was no direction.
The second biggest change has been my website. It motivates and prompts me to reflect regularly, to plan and pre-commit.
Although I reached many of my goals (including building up my website), there are some that I did not achieve. Some of them I still plan to pursue in the coming year. And there are new exciting goals as well.
In my research, I want to build the foundation for establishing a successful research lab, with the main focus on developing novel strategies for drug treatment of human diseases. What that means is getting the ideas and trajectories for new projects, writing grants and strengthening collaborations. And as always, an important goal is to see my research students succeed in their research and help them in what they want to achieve.
My teaching over the next semester will be my busiest, yet, where I’ll be teaching two modules (one undergraduate and one postgraduate) almost alone. One thing I want to achieve is to find a sustainable, more efficient way to teach well and still have time for my other important goals. I also want to find ways to engage students more and achieve more active class participation (i.e. students actually saying things in class). And finally, I want to publish one education related paper.
In terms of my sports and coaching related ambitions, I have completed my first SG coach course (and I hope that I have passed it!), and I am planning to complete the remaining necessary courses this year. I also plan to get my Level 1 Inline Certification Program (ICP) this year and hopefully start teaching. In terms of the staff running training, I want to really improve the quality of the training program and make it more goal oriented. I also want to help build a stronger community among NUS staff runners.
In terms of my own running, although I did meet my goals of running 10km below 43 min in Singapore and 5km below 20 min, I did not get to try all the things I wanted due to my ongoing injury. And due to the injury, I don’t really have any personal running goals for the coming year.
However, I do want to pick up longboarding, to a level where I can skate comfortably. I did try and failed to learn skateboarding in my thirties, so I hope longboarding is more manageable! (Actually, I think I change to the more economical nickel board after doing some research.)
Finally, I have some important personal goals.
#1 I plan to join toastmasters Singapore after the first semester.
#2 I plan to limit my clothes shopping to one item maximally per month.
#3 I plan to limit buying of other things to one item maximally per month (not counting things that I need to replace, like personal hygiene stuff, essential broken electrical devices, etc.)
#4 I plan to improve my punctuality. (While I have managed to improve my time-management and reduced time wasting last year, I did not really make much progress in terms of being consistently on time.)
#5 I plan to build up my website, to include sections on career preparation and running coaching.
#6 I plan to start writing my books.
#7 I plan to take up painting.
#8 I plan to become more knowledgeable about operas.
#9 I plan to sleep a minimum of 6 hours every day.
#10 I plan to keep my daytime (11-4:30) free for random things, experiments and student interactions.
#11 I plan to do one experiment per week.
That is a lot of goals, but I am very excited about them, and I look forward to a busy 2020.
 
I went back to Singapore, after spending a wonderful one and a half weeks with my parents.
 
 
On the plane, I had time to look at my student feedback from the last semester.
I was very happy with how the last semester went and I thought it was a good semester. I thought I gave some of my best lectures so far. And all assignments and assessments went very well. Nonetheless, when I opened my student feedback for the last semester, I had the worst scores since I can remember. Everything is average, including the feedback I provide to students, even though I feel that I spend huge amounts of time to upload answers and explanations for every single assignment and assessment and try to provide individual feedback as well. In addition, many students seem to not understand what they are supposed to learn from my lectures.
I am a researcher. Researchers learn by finding out new things. And the better they are at finding out new things, the better researchers they are. I feel that there is no use in learning through spoon feeding, as learning through spoon feeding is useless to our society. What brings about progress is learning by discovering new things. Hence, for me there is no point to teach by spoon-feeding when I can teach through problem solving and critical thinking. This is why I try to teach in a way whereby students discover the answers by themselves.
I guess there is another reason for this approach. Giving an engaging lecture feels exhilarating. Giving a boring lecture feels devastating. And based on my experience, the only way to really engage all students and making a lecture interesting is by making them think.
Nonetheless, it is time for more reflections…
 
FRIDAY
Staff running training
Training was cancelled, but since my birthday has just passed, I spend some time to think about the past 12 months.
Over the past year, I have become happier, as a result of a lot of changes that I have made happen in my life. Right now, I feel truly happy to be alive. And to be honest, I did not feel this way consciously in the past. Often times, I just felt happy that I survived completing all the tasks I had to do, but I did not really enjoy them.
However, one thing that has happened as I have become happier is that I tend to worry more about getting older and yes, dying. It is not something that I used to think about a lot. It is not so much that I am worried that I may not be able to complete all the things that I want to achieve, because the process of pursuing my goals is more exciting than reaching them. And for most goals, we never really reach them completely anyway. But I guess I worry about it more because I enjoy life a lot now, and don’t want to miss out on all the things that I enjoy a lot.
The fact is that we all die one day, and in fact it could be any day. But ultimately, if we have lived happily, we have achieved the best we can hope for. It does not become happier the longer we are living. For the same reason, there is no reason to hold on to something that has made us happy, because of we hold on to it for longer, it does not make us happier. If we move on, the happiness will stay with us, and always be there when we look back.
The one thing that I can do is to treat every day as a special day and be thankful to be able to able to experience it.
If we have lived a happy life, it does not really matter how long we have lived it.
 
HIGHLIGHTS OF WEEK OF 22 DECEMBER – 28 DECEMBER
Spending Christmas with my parents in Germany
   
We went for walks, played cards, went to the Zoo, went for a concert at Berlin Philharmonie, listening to Mozart and Bach, and played mini-golf. I also did not eat chocolate and did some exercise on most days. And I went for “La Traviata” at the Komischer Opera Berlin. It was amazing how Verdi could produce almost non-stop beautiful music for two and half hours. And Natalia Pavlova was incredible. I want to listen to more opera in the New Year.
 
HIGHLIGHTS OF WEEK OF 15 DECEMBER – 21 DECEMBER
I have not felt that happy this week, but rather stressed and hectic. I think it was because I had a fairly long list of things that had piled up on my to do list. And these things have piled up because I really don’t like doing them. But I felt I needed to do them before going home on holiday this weekend.
I obviously have no problem to do my daily tasks that I enjoy doing, including reading papers and thinking about research, preparing my teaching, writing personal thoughts and education related things, doing experiments. And I have no problems with less fun, but important things, which I try to address in a timely manner and then feel good about it. But it is the not so urgent, tedious things that still need to be done, which I have problems to keep up with. And this seems to make me stressed. It helps to schedule these things to be dealt with in a timely manner, but most of the time I don’t actually get them done as planned. And when they pile up it becomes a problem.
To avoid feeling stressed, I guess it is important to really get them done quickly, and allocate some time for it on a daily basis. This probably means that I have to cut back on some other things that I am doing, for instance only work on some projects on alternative days.
I really don’t want to feel stressed!
 
Watched “Mary is happy, Mary is happy” at the Projector (again)
I realised, the best criterion for whether I like a movie or not is whether I remember what it was about. If I think about the movies I watched lately, some of them have already faded from my memory (The Farewell, Wet Season – I don’t even remember what it was about), whereas others seem to stay in my memory for good. I am going to use the same criterion when trying to go through and clear my old DVD’s.
In any case, the director of this movie is amazing, as there are many new things to discover in the various scenes, even or especially when re-watching it. And when I rewatched the film, I can see connections between the first part and the second part of the movie. The main thing I realised when watching it again is that the greatest happiness probably comes from being loved. And it is not something one can force, but one has to patiently wait for it to happen. But often times, people don’t realise love when it is right in front of them.
Watched “For Sama” at the Projector
I have no words for it. But my perception of Syrian people and their suffering has changed completely. At one point, the journalist who shot all the footage said, why are over a million people following me online but nobody is doing anything to stop the Assad regime?
 
HIGHLIGHTS OF WEEK OF 8 DECEMBER – 14 DECEMBER
Watched “36” at the projector and went for National Piano & Violin Competition concert
“36” is a Thai movie by the same director as “Mary is Happy, Mary is Happy” (see below), which I really liked. “36” was a more quiet movie, about memories, and how we remember things. If we don’t have a picture, does it mean it did not exist? When the main character lost her hard drive with all her pictures she took with a friend who meant a lot to her, the computer engineer asked her, but don’t you have the memories. I think it is up to everyone to decide. What I do know is that memories are one of the most precious things we have and a great source of happiness!
I don’t know what it is about Thai culture that makes it so human. Seeing movies like this is very life-assuring, and coming back into the reality in the our culture can be a bit shocking.

The National Piano & Violin Competition Prize Winner concert at Victoria Concert Hall was fun! Highlights were the amazing piano and violin solo pieces by the local composer Wang Chenwei and the performance of Chopin’s Bolero op.19 by Casey Li WeiXi!

HIGHLIGHTS OF WEEK OF 1 DECEMBER – 7 DECEMBER
Watched “Mary is happy, Mary is happy” at the Projector
I only went for a walk at Kent Ridge Park. In fact for the whole week it was difficult to keep up with my exercise commitments due to exam marking etc.
However, I did go to watch the movie, and wow, it was really quite amazing. Firstly, because of the format, being a movie that tells a story based on ‘410 tweets by an anonymous girl’. It is such a unique idea and way to tell a story, and it really reflects our current ‘reality’.
For me, this movie was about the vulnerability of humans, about our feelings and how they can more often than not make us unhappy. It is about unanswered love, longing and searching for happiness. I may not remember it 100% correctly, but one of the tweets said “If we could follow our heads and not our feelings, every day would be a happy day”. Seeing this made me really think about my life. I realised I have been kind of consciously shutting out feelings from my life, and as a result (?) I think that I feel very happy. But is this really happiness? Having feelings can be painful, but it can also bring great happiness. After the movie, I walked along Nicholls Highway across the Kallang river. The empty sidewalk and city lights made for a great walk to contemplate the movie and what it meant for me.
There was another tweet that I remember: “I don’t need to buy everything that I like.” I will try to remember this.

HIGHLIGHTS OF WEEK OF 24 NOVEMBER – 30 NOVEMBER

Cell Bio and my SG-Coach Theory Level 1 Final Exams
I passed my SG-Coach Theory Level 1 exam.  I was a bit disappointed because I only got 80% and was one of the slowest to finish. I guess I am not very good with MCQ. I have to say, though, MCQ exams seem quite meaningless when you are a student.
The Cell Bio exam seems to have gone ok. Two students said it was not too difficult (let’s see when I mark it). But actually, when marking it, the average turned out to be C+ only!
We did have some error in my questions, even though I really tried very hard to avoid it. I even noted the mistake before the printing, but then I failed to carefully double check the final version. And I got very upset about it.
One of my major goals for me this year was to get less angry, and I have definitely improved (in fact, I can’t remember the last time I was angry before the exam). And I thought about why I was so angry. And I realised that it was probably because I went into the exam with the wrong expectation. In my mind, it had to be perfect, and anything less than perfect was bound to be a failure.
Our undergraduate education executive, who was there at the exam, told me her approach is to always expect the worst. And when things do go wrong, we should take it as a challenge to overcome the difficulty. And if all goes well, we should feel happy that we have succeeded. I shall try to adopt this approach, and I probably feel less stressed!
 
Watched “Unteachable” at Projector
This was an inspiration. If I had another life, I would want to be school teacher. In fact, that is what I wanted to become originally, but my parents then convinced me that I would be happier as a doctor. Anyway, it was a movie about Meixi, an education enthusiast who went to a ‘normal technical stream’ secondary school in Singapore and tried to introduce a pedagogical concept known as “Tutorial Relationships” (TR). In a nutshell, an individual student is taught a concept (e.g. a Math concept). He subsequently teaches this concept to another student, who in turn teaches yet another student, and so on (for more details on the approach, see here). As one can imagine, introducing this method in a Singapore school setting did not go smoothly. But it was wonderfully inspiring to see the kids picking up teaching skills (gradually) and gaining self-confidence. Key take-away’s for me include the reminder that learning should be fun (which I will work hard on next semester!) and that inspiration is more impactful and of more consequence to kids’ lives than having good grades. There is another screening on 4 December!
HIGHLIGHTS OF WEEK OF 17 NOVEMBER – 23 NOVEMBER
Watched “Ghost Fleet” at the Projector (Documentary)
This was unimaginable, but yet true. It is as though there is a different world besides ours where human suffering is so great that we cannot imagine it. I could not imagine that such things can still happen today, close to us.
The movie is about men from Myanmar, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Thailand who are literally hired as slaves on fishing ships, where they travel on Thai ships to Indonesia and places as far as Somalia, and usually never come back. They work without ever receiving any pay for years and years, until they die or escape. The captains on these ships treat them with unimaginable cruelty. It is hard to believe that humans can be this cruel. But there is also unimaginable empathy. Patima, the main character of the documentary, and her LPN Foundation have rescued over 4000 of the men. However, there is often no happy ending. Most of the men have mentally suffered so much that they are unable to assimilate back into their home countries.
It is a sad reality, and I think we could all do with more empathy with unprivileged peopled we encounter every day.
 
HIGHLIGHTS OF WEEK OF 10 NOVEMBER – 16 NOVEMBER
No highlights this week
 
HIGHLIGHTS OF WEEK OF 3 NOVEMBER – 9 NOVEMBER
Watched “Toni Morrison: The pieces I am” at the Projector
A powerful woman. It obviously makes me want to read her books. Besides, major lessons/reaffirmations include the power of mornings, to do what you believe in, that writing is not to put down what you know, but it is to find and learn new things, we have lived if we are being loved (by someone, including ourselves).
 
Finished watching “Night on Earth”
Of all the episodes, I probably like the first best.
SG-Coach Theory Level 1 course, day 2, at Republic Poly
Apart from the content of the course, it has really been an enlightening to be a real student again.
 
During the first day of classes (about planning in coaching) I realised that trying to engage an audience can be scary and put students off. This happens when the questions are too easy and are mainly knowledge based (where one can easily be wrong). If one wants to engage students, one must ask about interesting problems (like scenario questions) or questions that require individual experience.
 
The (bad) example the teacher gave also showed that when giving tasks, one needs to be clear in providing the instructions and the mode of assessment.
 
The second class about communication and relationship building was actually a lot of fun. I don’t think I really learned a lot of things, but at least I thought about a few aspects related to communicating and building relationships. The lecturer created a very relaxed atmosphere that made it easy for students to speak up and participate. Things she did to achieve this are:
-be very relaxed/informal in her speech
-start with a fun group assignment that gets people relaxed (draw according to the partners instructions) and afterwards let students share their experiences in class
-let students teach the boring parts of the content: divide students into groups and assign each group one part and give them some time, then ask them to present
-tell scenarios or give real life examples and ask people for opinions
 
The third class about risk assessment was actually the most interesting one, even though I expected it to be the most boring one. What made it interesting? Firstly, the lecturer introduced himself as a very interesting person, who is doing some amazing sports. Since all the students in the course are into sports, they could immediately connect to it. Secondly, his passion and enthusiasm were infectious. Moreover, he did not introduce risk assessment as something boring, but rather something that he feels passionate about. He also broke the ice by letting everyone introduce himself. But most importantly, he made the class very relevant by focussing on real life situations. I found myself paying attention from start to finish, which I never would have expected with this kind of topic.
 
HIGHLIGHTS OF WEEK OF 27 OCTOBER – 2 NOVEMBER
The biggest highlight was that I bought a bike and went cycling with my new bike!
 
I went for my long NUS-Kranji-Lim Chu Kang-NUS tour, which I used to do on an Ofo bike. I must be a bit out of shape because I was super-tired after two thirds of the distance and had to take a break.
 
HIGHLIGHTS OF WEEK OF 20 – 26 OCTOBER 2019
Watched ‘Shoplifters’ at the Projector
No wonder this movie has such high ratings. It is fresh and life-affirming, despite what seemed like a sad ending (it helps to remember that it is just a movie in order to not feel too sad). It is the story of a family about which nothing is usual. In fact, it isn’t real family as none is related to each other. But they show what are the really important things about a family, caring for each other, making each other feel safe, and most importantly, having fun. I realised that I have almost forgotten that one important part of happiness is having fun. There are many scenes that keep coming back in my mind. The movie left a great impression on me.
HIGHLIGHTS OF WEEK OF 13 – 19 OCTOBER 2019
I did a lot of clearing out stuff this week, which never fails to bring great happiness. It is hard to describe, but with less stuff one gets to appreciate what one has, and appreciate the things we like. But it is amazing to think that clearing things can bring more happiness than acquiring new things.
 
Listening to Sibelius Symphonies 2 & 4 at Victoria Hall
I had a great time listening. I guess with Sibelius it is not so much the melody, but the atmosphere he creates. You really feel transformed to Finland (even though I have never been there and don’t know much about it). Sitting in Victoria concert hall listening to Sibelius was also a great time to reflect and be mindful!

Check out the 2nd movement of Sibelius 5th:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97eLCBx–nM

 
HIGHLIGHTS OF WEEK OF 6 – 12 OCTOBER 2019
The big highlights were my Cell Biology student presentation sessions, which thanks to some great student presenters went well. I shall reflect on this separately. And my student Jeff and myself got our galactose 1-phosphate enzyme assay working. Because the GALT enzyme that we needed for this assay costs over a thousand dollars, we expressed it in HEK293T cells on a large scale and the immuno-precipitated enzyme actually worked in the assay, which was very exciting.
 
Watched ‘House of Hummingbird’ Movie at Projector:
This is a Korean movie from 2018 and after leaving the last two movies I watched at the Projector early (Parasite, Rocketman), I watched it to the end, even though it was long and it really had a slow pace with many quiet scenes without much dialogue. It seemed that the things that were not said were the most important ones, though. And hence, the quiet was what really made the movie powerful and leave an impression. It was a movie set in 1994 about a less than average school-girl, who was hit at home and had a hard time in school, too. The main topics for me where the importance of fighting back in life and the question of liking oneself. As it turns out, these two things are actually two sides of the same coin. It also showed that the people who use their power are the weak ones, and we must not let them use their power on us, or we lose our self-respect. I liked this movie.
 
Watched ‘The Farewell’:
My fun movie this week was “Farewell”, which seems to have super high ratings. Hence, I had high expectations, which was probably the main problem. The main issue was that I felt that there was basically no storyline. The granny had cancer and in Chinese tradition the family was to keep it a secret from her. And that was the whole movie. There was no development. And I did not think the movie really provided any good emotional insights into the various characters (except for the main character). And the parts that were supposed to be funny were not really funny to me. The good thing: I stayed until the end and I learned more about China (although I can’t tell if this is realistic, since I have never been there).
 
Watched ‘Walk with Me’ Movie at the Projector:
This was a movie about meditation and mindfulness. The movie basically depicted everyday life in Plum Village, a mindfulness practice centre in the South of France, founded by Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh, who seems to be an amazing person. The reason I went for this movie was basically to try to see if I can get any ideas to increase my happiness and become more … mindful. In fact, in my twenties for a while I used to regularly attend meditation sessions at 5:45am in Boston. And although I often fell asleep during the meditation, I felt really good and had a much better willpower to lead a happier life. I promptly also fell asleep during the meditation session before the movie, but at least I stayed awake for the rest of the movie.
Obviously, everyone might get different things out of this kind of movie. For me two things left an impression. The first was the fact that in the village there are bells ringing every 15 min, during which everyone stops what they are doing and reflects on himself, i.e. practices mindfulness of one’s current state. I think this is very powerful. How often are we embedded in some activity without being aware that we are living and how joyful that is, how joyful the activity we are doing is, or how useless the activity we are doing is (and that we should stop doing it). I think it is a good idea to incorporate such mindful reflection in ones daily schedule (although I don’t think the 15min bell method works in a normal ‘life’ setting).
The second thing that got me thinking was the value of possessions and the joy they do or don’t give us. The monks obviously have no possessions whatsoever, which is pretty amazing. Although this is probably too radical for a normal life, it is a good reminder of the value of simplicity. There is no doubt in my mind that there is a direct correlation between simplicity and happiness. And I think rather than giving up everything (some things yes), I personally prefer the Mari Kondo method, which is based on keeping only the things that really give us joy. I shall really revisit my life and my possessions with this in mind!