Refraction

So lately I’ve been having second thoughts about choosing a Chemistry major. Or Honours. Whatever. In any case, it’s once again the time of year that I consider running to Arts. (Read: was completely pwned in the lab.)

Ultimately, I spend waaay too much time on French. I spent several hours on my first composition, and several more on les travaux pratiques that we had to do; in fact, that one was turning around in my head so much, I dreamt about finding a passive verb :blush: (Which wasn’t there in the end. My dreams never work out.)

And for Chem I cram two days in advance.

Don’t get me wrong. Chemistry is fascinating. Absolutely fascinating. I have wonderful professors who are geniunely interested in the subject. I have TAs who, by and large, do their best to help muddled students. Everything is going in my favour, in short.

Except me.

I procrastinate writing my Chem labs until the night before. I don’t review material daily as I should if I want to keep up and maintain an A average. I get so worked up in labs that I somehow make stupid mistakes. In short: school is becoming somewhat of a chore.

And the only thing that’s keeping me going is French.

Anyway, this insipid post inspired by one of those quick online quizzes:

You Should Get a MD (Doctor of Medicine)

You’re both compassionate and brilliant – a rare combination. You were born to be a doctor.

Now, to be very honest, I’ve never wanted to be a doctor. Ever. And I wouldn’t make a very good doctor. Even when I wanted to be a psychologist, it was always in some kind of research capacity. I didn’t like the idea of being a therapist or a counsellor. Now, the impersonal face of research? That seemed fun. (Although ultimately not as much fun as blowing things up. Seriously.)

Stupid online quizzes.

When my cousin last came over for a big ol’fashioned family BBQ, she toted with her The Devil Wears Prada. She confessed a liking for both “funny and scary books,” and explained that she picked this one up on the recommendation of her friend. The title seems interesting to me, so the next time I saw her, she lent it to me.

I let it sit in my bedroom for a month and hadn’t so much as opened it. Finally, after feeling exceptionally guilty after the ‘family trip’ to Victoria, I started reading.

I finished it today.
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Warning: This post contains spoilers for the novels Angels & Demons, The Da Vinci Code, and Digital Fortress. If you intend to read any of these novels, I suggest you turn back now and start reading someone else’s blog instead. I have a nice list of links over there. If you click it, well then…. you’re on your own.
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One of my favourite tracks on F.I.R.’s latest album isn’t really a song at all; in fact, I’m not sure how to describe it. It reminds me of a read-a-long story set to some medieval-sounding music, or at least what medieval music sounds like in the movies. A little like the Fable demo that was online before the game came out.

Long ago, there was a bird who sang but just once in her life
From the moment she left the nest
she searched relentlessly for a thorn tree
never resting until she found one
Then she began to sing
more sweetly than any other creature on the face of the earth
But, carried away in the rapture of the song
she impaled herself on the longest, sharpest thorn
But as she was dying
she rose above her own agony to outsing even the lark and the nightingale
The thorn bird traded her life for that one song and
the whole world was captivated to listen!
And God, in His heaven, smiled upon her
As her very best was brought out only at the cost of great pain
Driven by the thorn, with no thought for her death to come

But when we push the thorn into our breast
We know …
We understand …
And still … we choose the pain of the thorn …

The title is “The Legend 傳說” and it’s beautiful in a sad way. Right now, I’m just puzzled over its meaning. The last few lines, especially.

Is the song suggesting that great beauty can be born of great pain? Or that it’s stupid to subject ourselves to something like that?

Wasn’t she outsinging “the lark and the nightingale” even before she pierced herself with the thorn? (Unless nightingales and larks aren’t “creatures on the face of the earth”, but that’s even less likely.)

Oh, and isn’t there some reference to larks and nightingales in Romeo and Juliet?

It’s a very long and pointless post about how I came to the conclusion that the Japanese language is really the exception rather than the rule when it comes to naming foreign places. Along the way, meet Chinese cuisine and my arrogance regarding the English language.
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It seems to me that I’ve been posting a lot about course selection and possible major choices.

Today, I attended an information meeting about a mentoring program (which is primarily directed at the life sciences, but ah well, whatever.) While I was listening to the presenter talk about how important it is to have a direction in life, she said something that really shook me out of my stupor.

Some people don’t know what they’re going to major in. Some people have no idea. At least you know you’re all in Science.

It immediately reminded me of the difficulty of choosing between Arts and Science. Everyone who reads this blog should be familiar enough with the arguments; I won’t go over them again. What that quote really triggered was the memory of a conversation I’d had with my English prof–we were chatting about my status as a Science student and I told him I was considering an English minor. Naturally, being an English prof, he didn’t see anything wrong with that :biggrin: But then he said: “After all, it’s not vocational school.”

I didn’t think much about it at the time. But it struck me, right in the middle of that presentation, that he was absolutely right. University isn’t vocational school. It’s about taking control of your education.

Strange. I like chemistry; I’d like to major in it, but all the same, I’m still wondering what I can do with it. “Research” is really just something I say to mask the fact that I have no idea what I’m going to do with the rest of my life. The average person spends 70,000 hours at work. That’s a lot of time.

Sad, isn’t it? As much as we would all like to rhapsodize about how we’re at university because we like to learn, the fact remains that ultimately, most of us are studying for the money (or glory, fame, prestige…) Or at the very least, security. The two can exist concurrently, but we like to think we have noble ideals that aren’t concerned with such mundane, prosaic things as money.

(On the other hand, I think that’s just my bias showing through. I hate commerce and economics, and I would never take a job in that sector.)

Happy New Year, everyone :biggrin: Wishing you all a joyful and fulfilling 2005 :star:

So, to say good-bye to 2004… Again with the songs! I just don’t stop, do I?

Criteria for judging:
– prevalence in MSN names
– appearance of lyrics in diary
– earworm capability

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Recently, we were assigned a project for Biology. We needed to be in groups of four, five or six, and my group was only a trio. I read the message board, hoping to find someone desperate for a group to join. Naturally, I did–my section is at 8am in the morning and a lot of people miss/skip class occasionally because of public transit or sleeping in.

So we had a meeting on Sunday (only three out of five showed up, but that’s another story.) Two of us have met before, but the other member was unknown to both of us, so we started chatting about nice, neutral things–courses, for one. So the topic of English class comes up, and we learn that our new friend is not taking an English course! Why not? He didn’t pass the language proficency test.

It actually wasn’t too surprising. He didn’t say much of anything throughout our meeting. When he did, it was quite evident that English was a language he struggled with. (We could have all spoken Cantonese, but a biology discussion in Cantonese is not my idea of a good time.)

Yet, the test is written, not oral. Even though a person may struggle with speaking, it’s very possible for them to be a decent writer (eg, my French.) From his emails, I deduced that the one part of English that he does have down pat is Internet slang. Naturally, that won’t help you write an essay. It just strikes me that he might have a better chance of passing the test if he tried to use standard English in his communication. The only way to become fluent in a language is to use it. Properly. Not in some chopped-up, abbreviated fashion.

-_-;;

</end pointless rant about the degradation of the English language>

This entire entry is devoted to a song. Yeah, I was bored. Wait, I have time to be bored? Maybe it’s just a byproduct of spending too much time listening to my mp3 player on the bus. The entry probably makes more sense if you listen to the song, actually …

You’ve been warned. You really want to read this randomness? Okay, well, they’re your brain cells … :weird:

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