I, the virtuoso pipetter.

This evening I switched the telly on in the hope of watching a brainless action flick with lots of car chases, with ripped dudes and cool babes who uttered lines to each other like, "I live my life a quarter mile at a time", with an indifferent, hard gaze, the type of gaze I have when I, too, wear when I don't want to do the dishes at home.

To my misfortune, as the telly flickered to life, I realised that I had instead stumbled upon a wholesome, inspiring, sensible programme. It featured Singaporeans who had made it on the global performing arts scene, garnering awards and international attention, winning competitions despite being below the age category, and most likely doing all this at a very young age of minus two.

My heart was stirred with awe and hope for a better future for the first few seconds, until my ego kicked in, and jealousy reared its green and grotesque head. 'Why not me?', I thought, 'Why not?' I mean, other than the fact that I had always had a problem trying to get a vibrato out of the violin without trembling my entire arm, and other than the fact that my thigh circumference was comparable to the waists of the other girls in my dance classes, I knew that I had potential. I just chose not to use it, that's all.

And so here I am, with a life of scientific research ahead of me. (I would like to point out that microinjection requires just as much hand-eye-leg-finger-foot-mouth coordination as any professional Chinese acrobatic act.) If I had my way, I would be standing on stage with a pipette set up in front of me. In the background, November by Max Richter would be playing. Calmly, I would use my Buchner funnel to pour hydrochloric acid into my pipette. Then, I would delicately place a few drops of phenolphthalein into my beaker of sodium chloride. At this point, some of the more vulnerable ladies in the audience might be clutching their husband's hands in suspense and giving little gasps. After giving a meaningful gaze to the audience, I would slide the beaker ever so smoothly under the pipette, like a seasoned professional. Not a drop of hydrochloric acid would fall. The ladies start sniffing into their hankerchiefs, as their husbands shush them to 'focus on a once-in-a-lifetime performance'. Unperturbed, I would skillfully release the latch on the pipette with utter control. The violins increase in intensity, as the level on the pipette descends smoothly down. Then all of a sudden I would release my grasp, and the falling level would come to a complete halt. I look up at the audience. They shiver in anticipation. I place a finger to my lips and smile a knowing smile. Then I turn back to my pipette, and with one swift, controlled movement, I release a last drop of hydrochloric back into the beaker. It seems like an eternity as the drop falls....and the phenolphthalein turns colourless.

At this point, the audience cannot bear it any longer. Those who aren't on the ground bawling their eyes out, are on their feet, stamping and shouting for an encore. The next day, the press releases a front-page article on my performance, calling it "a transformative, compelling commentary on our times, prophetic and yet, calming". My agent calls me to tell me that I am wanted in Amsterdam, Zurich, Tokyo, Sydney and Beijing, and that I'm setting off a new wave of "artisan-scientists", who claim their C. elegans manipulation/immunofluorescence technique is the next big thing, but no one wants to see them cos pipetting is the real old-school. I shy away from the limelight however, giving credit to my great forefathers like Galileo whose science took them away from popular opinion. I then forever live my life curing AIDS and cancer, but reject all interviews, to the dismay of my agents and humanity, who can forevermore only study the one video recording of my performance, in the hope of illuminating their minds.

Oh, our dreams.