Fish out of water at the PSM Annual Convention

-
After five long years, I had the opportunity (and the boss' permission) to attend the Philippine Society for Microbiology 38th Annual Convention at the Hyatt Casino and Hotel in Manila. In the membership update form, there was a portion where members had to justify their absence in the conventions that they've missed; so I listed my reasons down...

2005, I attended the American Association of Cereal Chemists Intl (AACC) annual meeting
2006, I was in Uni
2007, I attended the International Network for Quality Rice workshop
2008, I attended the STARCH conference and the AACC annual meeting

After writing all these down, I realised how long I've been absent; the last microbiology meeting I had attended was the symposium held at the De La Salle University in 2007. Back then, I was starting to feel out of place in the midst of all the microbiologists because I couldn't understand the terminologies anymore. Since getting immersed into my post-grad research topic, my scientific vocabulary gradually shifted from microbiology and immunology, to biochemistry and cereal science.

When the plenary session of this year's convention started, I felt like fish out of water. Bacteriocins, cell-mediated immunity, lactic acid bacteria... these were the terms I was quite comfortable using while majoring in Microbiology back in college. Not anymore, though. While listening to the talks, what my current supervisor had said (when I was struggling to understand what a SNP chip is**) came back to me: just accept that I'm a cereal chemist now. True, the convention's topics being discussed are no longer as relevant to my current work as when I was still in the food manufacturing industry. 

Nevertheless, even though I understood almost zilch (because it takes time to shift my mind back to microbiology) of what were presented earlier today, I enjoyed being there because it was nice to catch up with friends and former professors, and get updated with where the trends in Microbiology lead in the Philippines. It appears that research is focusing on food and medical microbiology, based on the topics in the plenary session and the keynote address (by Dr Jaime Montoya, of the Philippine General Hospital). I can't wait for tomorrow's talks; hopefully, there would be more talks on structural characterisation, or biochemistry.

** SNP chip: some high-tech way of characterising an organism genotypically 

Comments

Post a Comment

Thank you for dropping by!

Before moving on, please share your thoughts or comments about the post. :)

Thanks again!

Popular posts from this blog

Skyflakes

-
One of the more famous Philippine exports is Skyflakes , a wheat-based, salty cracker. It is one of my emergency food items: I typically have some stocked at home and in my handbag in case I become hungry (like in traffic jams). When there's no electricity and it's impractical to cook rice (because the leftover would spoil), I'd open a pack of Skyflakes and generously coat each cracker with Cheez Whiz... if I had a bottle of it within reach. Anyway, each time I spent more than two weeks outside the Philippines, I'd be elated to see boxes of Skyflakes inside Asian stores (particularly when in I was Australia and in the USA). Back then, I took it as a sign of homesickness. When I moved to California, I didn't miss Skyflakes because Mommy made sure that there's a steady supply in the house. Skyflakes is embedded in Filipino gastronomy as a snack, a panawid-gutom , that anyone who reacts positively upon seeing Skyflakes outside the Philippines must have spe
Read more

10 things I learned while driving on Marcos Highway to Baguio City

-
I went on a day trip to the City of Pines, which was around a 700-km drive from my house. I drove  going up there and then from the city to Victoria, Tarlac. After that, my dad took over the driving duties. It was day trip with Tita Ising and Tito Sibing with us. Anyway, this trip was my first time to go to Baguio City with me behind the wheel. As everyone who drives up knows, there are three main routes to Baguio from the lowlands: Kennon Road, which ascends from Rosario, La Union. It was out of my options because it's too dangerous to use that road in the rainy season. The second route is via Naguilian Road, which makes my trip a lot longer because the beginning of the ascent is in Bauang, La Union (further north). The last route, and the one I took, was the Marcos Highway, now known as the Aspiras-Palispis Highway. This 47-km road starts from Agoo, La Union and is touted as the safest route among the three.  As I drove up and then down (on the same day; we were in Bagu
Read more

Surat Mangyan

-
Image
In high school, part of the Filipino curriculum was learning about one of the country's ancient native scripts called Baybayin . I learned back then that this script was eventually abandoned because the Spanish, and eventually the Americans, encouraged the use of the Latin script for written communications. But that's in the lowlands; the rules were different up in the mountains. In the lush mountains of Mindoro, groups of indigenous people called Mangyans  live largely in isolation away from the Christianised Filipinos. This isolation has led to the continuous development of the Mangyans' old script, Surat Mangyan . As I walked inside the Ayala Museum , I saw this bamboo tube (I'm not sure if it's an instrument) with Mangyan script written all over it. I suppose that this was equivalent to a book or a song. But I haven't figured out what's written yet, despite the translation guide provided. What I can do, however, is write my name in Ma
Read more