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profile Cecilia Lanny Winata Aliases: Lanny/Cecilia/Xenopus Location: Singapore Occupation: Grad Student, National University of Singapore Interests: Zen, Martial Arts, Japanese Culture and philosophy, Life Sciences, Religious philosophy, Christianity Hobbies: exploring new places, learning new things, walking (preferably outdoors), cooking, eating good food, home making, swimming, sea sports, anime (Naruto being the best by far), good music to accompany my different moods, and good books to read Schools/Past Affiliations: TK Bunda Hati Kudus, Jakarta (Kindergarten); SD Bintang Kejora, Jakarta (Primary 1-2, 4-6); Ironside State School, Brisbane, Australia (Primary 3-4); SLTP Santa Ursula, Jakarta (Secondary School); SMU Santa Ursula (High School); Indonesia International Taekwon-Do Federation (Jelambar, Jakarta); National University of Singapore archives November 2005 December 2005 January 2006 April 2006 May 2006 August 2006 October 2006 January 2007 August 2007 January 2008 March 2008 June 2008 September 2008 October 2008 November 2008 March 2009 April 2009 May 2009 June 2009 July 2009 September 2009 affiliates 5h4d0w's Lair My old Friendster blog credits skin by: Jane |
Friday, September 19, 2008 @ 6:57 PM
The Konohagakure A week ago, Naruto-kun died, sadly, of reasons unknown to us. Today, we decided to kill Sakura-chan, Sasuke-kun, Kakashi-san, Hinata-chan, and another one called Haku-chan. The latter one being named as such due to its ambiguous gender. I haven't the slightest clue on how to tell their gender anyway, but according to the Xenopus lab people, they can tell adult males from females simply through their body size - males are smaller and females are larger, much larger. And thus I applied it to our 5 months old Xenopus larvae (tadpoles?), and named them accordingly. Haku-chan happened to be of mid-size, and I couldn't really classify him/her/it as either large or small. Five months ago, my colleague started work on Xenopus. He obtained frog eggs, and used them for his experiments. Nine embryos were in excess. Three of which lost their lives along the way, two by his own hands, for histology, and another one of unknown causes. The remaining six survived until earlier today, and I affectionately (and secretly) named them (according to the order of their metamorphosis): Naruto-kun, Sakura-chan, Sasuke-kun, Kakashi-san, Hinata-chan, and Haku-chan. We keep them in a small fish tank which we took from the fish facility, which our facility manager did not want back for ever. It is understandable because keeping our fishes healthy is their main duty, and tanks previously used for animals other than fishes are a definite no-no. I even made a special aluminium foil covering for the tanks, because I learned that metamorphosing frogs are extremely sensitive to disturbance and need shelter. Although my colleague was the one who cared for them primarily, I was the most enthusiastic person in the lab to look at them each day, for four months, waiting for the day I could witness, for the first time, the metamorphosis of a frog. Coming back to their deaths. The story goes as such. About three weeks before Naruto-kun's death, he was the first one to grow a hindlimb. We were so excited to witness such an amazing natural wonder - the metamorphosis of Xenopus larvae. About a week later, Sakura-chan followed suit, growing a pair or hindlimbs, followed by forelimbs. By then, Naruto-kun has already lost half of his tail, and looking much more like a frog which he was supposed to be. It was quite surprising for me to learn that the loss of its tail happened within a mere 2 days, after which it has developed into a creature resembling a small adult Xenopus. Sadly, a week after this happened, Naruto-kun died. We couldn't really figure out the exact reason behind his death. All my colleague (whose project was the one dealing with Xenopus, and who actually took care of them) could speculate, was he died due to the lack of a proper diet. He has been feeding them baby fish food. A greenish powdery substance used for (duh?) baby fishes. Perhaps Naruto-kun really needed to wean off baby food, as do other Xenopii. Naruto-kun's death led us, especially my colleague, to contemplate on what we should do to the rest of his Konoha no nakama (if you don't recognize any of the names by now, you can try to google "Naruto"). We thought that it would be inhumane (inXenoane?) to let them die a slow agonizing death due to starvation. This morning, my colleague came to me and asked for my opinion on terminating their lease of life, in an as humane as possible way. I agreed. He then peered down the tanks containing Sakura-chan, Sasuke-kun, Kakashi-san, Hinata-chan, and Haku-chan, and, knowing that I'm a Catholic, said to me: "Cecilia, would you like to say a prayer for them?", to which I replied, "It's OK", because I was busy handling my in-situ hybridization. Nevertheless, I said a prayer by heart. I wasn't really sure whether my colleague had a religion or not, but he did mention once that he and his family worshipped Guan Yin (Kwan Im). He really prayed in front of their tanks before proceeding to kill them. I find it admirable. I was so ashamed of being a Catholic. I really have to improve on this. I guess he was the one who had the strongest bonds with them, because he was the one who nurtured them since day zero. He went to the sink, poured out the water.... and then grabbed a bottle of bleach.... to which half of the people in the lab (who were also witnessing the process either due to pure interest or as an excuse to ditch their work), shouted "No, not bleach! Tricaine...Tricaine!". I guess that's what happened if you work too much with bacteria. You terminate your specimens with bleach. For animals, you kill them with anaesthetic due to an obvious animal welfare issues. And so they went, Sakura-chan, who has metamorphosed into a mini-frog by then, Sasuke-kun, who has grown a hindlimb, Kakashi-san, Hinata-chan, and Haku-chan, the latter three who had not shown any signs of metamorphosis yet, into their doom liquid, and into the autoclave bag. Just now, I went to my colleague's lab desk, as I have been used to , for the past four months, and realised that my six friends were not there anymore. It's kind of distressing, having lost things, people, or frogs you were so much attached to. I wish their souls peacefulness (According to Christianity), or a better second life (according to Buddhism), or their return to the lifestream of the planet (according to Final Fantasy 7). 1 Comments:LOL!! I really enjoy this post. RIP all the frog ninjas |
