WEEK 8

7 "bacteria" with their lovable Dr Wan~ ♡

Wednesday, 22nd April 2015

Our lesson started quite late because Dr Wan was rearranging all the possible classes that have to be cancelled and also decide on when will she be replacing them. It took almost one hour, maybe, I'm not so sure myself. Haha. 

And also! We formed new groups for BMY3102. (Meaning that we are not using the same group as last semester) Groups that we will be in when we have to do presentations or any group work. 

After forming the groups, Dr Wan assigned us to do a mind map on the subtopic that we wanted to do. As for our group, we chose "Bacteria". Everybody have to use Popplet. 

As for me, I have never used it nor open the website. So, it was kind of foreign to me. Ah. Also, most of us (our group members) don't have popplet account. So... We took turn to create account, with only three laptops available. (And none of them are mine. Actually, when Dr Wan told us in our Whatsapp group chat to BYOD, I thought that smartphone would be enough. Oh my my, I was so wrong. Haha. I should have bring my laptop so that our "creating-Popplet-accounts-spree" could have been faster and easier. 

We took about half an hour, maybe(?) to finish creating all of our accounts. 

In the end, we managed to finish the mindmap. Although we were the last group to come back to class (from the cafe, in order to get good Wi-Fi signal). 

P/S Popplet is indeed fun to use! I will definitely use them in the future for mind maps! I usually use Mindmeister when doing mind maps. I have two options now when creating mind maps in the future. Hehe.  

Friday, 24th April 2015 

Our group was the first group that have to present since the first subtopic that Dr Wan going to teach is "Bacteria". 

Everybody was given one minute to present our own points but it seemed that everybody (each of my group members including me) exceeded the one minute given. If we were given two minutes each, I think we can finish presenting our own points in time. Maybe… Hehe.  

Regarding the presentation… There were a lot of things that I have left out. It's not that I want to left it out on purpose but it was because I was nervous. But  I guess it's normal, right? But then again, I didn't practice in front of the mirror (in other word, I lack preparation) I did plan to do it! I really do! But I couldn't find the time.. And also didn’t record how long I will be talking. Reckless. Reckless. My other group members prepared themselves though, (I knew that because they told me they recorded their “talking-time” the night before) I have to make them as example and prepare well for our next presentation~ If there will be one, though. Hehe. 

To be honest, there are a lot of things that I wanted to share with you guys from my part of the presentation, but I didn't do so. I prepared a lot of informations, you know! Haha. I will do better in the future! :) 

Dr Wan also gave advise to the whole class that we have to present properly and confidently (and also in the given time!) as if we are teaching our own students. So, everybody must practice before the actual presentation~ 

I guess enough rants for now. X’) 

Now is the real deal. 

This week we learnt Microbial Systematic in which we will learn in depth about the diversity of microbes such as their physical traits and nutrients. We managed to cover a bit on “Bacteria”.  

Hmm, from what I understand, Let’s say that we all know that there are Gram positive bacteria as well as Gram negative bacteria and they can be differentiated by comparing several traits but the trait that I am most familiar with is their cell walls’ components. In which sometimes may lead to their pathogenicity, especially for Gram negative bacteria in which most of them are pathogenic because they have some features that cause them to be susceptible to antibiotic, hence they can be dangerous to other organisms.  

I guess that’s all I can say for now since we didn’t learn much, yet. Can’t wait for next lesson! :D 

Summary of Week 1 Until Week 7

It's been long! Assalamualaikum and hi~ 

We spent seven weeks with Dr Sieo Chin Chin and it was actually almost two months. There were a lot of things that I have learnt from Dr Chin Chin. 

Dr Chin Chin's style when lecturing is that she explains more than what is on the slide notes so she had already warned us during earlier class that it is important to attend her lecture. Because it is true indeed, some notes were left missing but we can get the full notes by copying them down since it will be shown or explained by Dr Chin Chin herself in class.

Thus, my notes are full with hand written notes that Dr Chin Chin explained in class~

It's good though because that way I will always make sure to pay attention in class in order to not miss anything! 

Hmm regarding the first two topics that we learnt with Dr Chin Chin which is on "Classification And Identification of Organisms" and "Immunology". The number of slides for each topic was ... x'D (a laughing while crying emoticon, haha) because it reached until 60 to 70 pages. If it was Dr Wan's slide notes, I don't think they ever reach that number. So it took quite a long period of time to finish each topic. 

Classification And Identification of Organisms 

At first, it was kind of hard to comprehend what am I learning at that time because it was filled with so many new things! I remember learning them during previous semester, but they were not elaborated to great depth like when Dr Chin Chin taught us. So, I guess it's only normal to feel confused and foreign to the topic. But after revising it again and again, added with Dr Chin Chin's assignments to us and also Test 1 which was focused on this topic only, I was able to grasp the idea of what this topic is trying to teach us. 

However, the most memorable thing about this topic was PCR, if I must say myself. I first encountered PCR with Dr Chin Chin. And it was repeatedly used and mentioned during class as it is a very crucial step in extracting DNA in order to amplify the 16S/18S rRNA gene for DNA sequencing. And other memorable thing is agarose gel which is used to obtain DNA bands. I'm anticipating to do this experiment during lab session in the future~ 

I also manage to understand about ribotyping much better now than before! 

Here are some of the assignments that we were assigned to :

1st Assignment - Self trip to the library to flip through the infamous Bergey's Manual! 

Dr. Chin Chin's comment was amusing even though it is undeniably encouraging. x) 

2nd Assignment - Mindmap on Topic 1 

3rd Assignment - Identify the classification and identification methods used in an article about identification of M. jalaludinii.

Immunology

Hah! This topic! This very topic where Dr. Chin Chin asked us hmm about two to three times ?(if I didn't miscounted) to do the flow of how the immune system works! 

At first she will asked one of us to show the flow of how phagocytosis works until the production of antibodies. Which is the most basic immune response that we have already learned during our early studies. Next, she will asked us to show where is the site in which dendritic cells will took care of the antigens and lastly cause amplification loop which is also called as DTH reaction, where is the site in which the pathogen manage to escape from the phagocytosis process and invade the host cell via damaged tissue and lastly the pathogen will be killed (using cytotoxic T cell) either by granules exocytosis or fas pathway, and also where inflammation occurs. It was hard at first because everybody was unsure where each response occurs but Dr. Chin Chin guided us well. 

What interesting about the flow is that at first the flow chart involved one to two responses but as the lesson went on and each time before ending every lecture, Dr. Chin Chin will asked us to show the flow again and add the new responses that we have learnt that day. So it was "mindblowing" to see the flow getting more and more complicated and how it evolved from one reactions into a kind of loop. It was fun to learn! The main reason she asked us to do that is so that we can remember them. It's good exercise. 

Dr. Chin Chin said "If you are able to draw the flow of the whole process, you're in good condition." and then she added "without looking at the notes".