Chill until become ice.
This semester is crazy! 2 midterms next week, and still 12 more weeks to go...At this rate I am going most probably I will end up (again) feeling sick all the time from all the coffee that I drink, and will have to resort to eating tylenol and antacid to counteract that.
To ensure that I have a continuous supply of caffeine-charged drinks, I have bought myself a tea maker. I have a lot of various tea leaves with me - from English tea to various forms of Chinese tea, some from Singapore and some from unknown sources - which I don't know how to consume before the tea maker. So now other than instant coffee my arsenal just got powered up.
Was talking to yc just now. He was asking me why didn't I choose to go to Cambridge - he didn't apply because he thought it is very hard to get in (which is not true if you intend to do natural sciences; same as Hopkins at ~25 - 30% - and upon knowing that he went '**** I should have gone there to chill until become ice!' :P). Well I wanted to do something different, which is true - though now when I think back, if I have gone to England, these are the advantages:
1. Everyone knows where I am studying in. I won't get stares which probably suggest 'you must be some rich kid who cannot study that's why you go to the US right' and even more stares when I say my school is in Baltimore, which get relieved only when I add to that 'ohh it's one hour from Washington DC and it's on the East Coast'. And I wouldn't have to correct EVERYONE when they think that they are smarter than Johns Hopkins's father because they feel that 'John' shouldn't be spelt with an 'S' at the back.
2. I would be able to feel really powerful when it comes to the sciences because I would be devoting all my energy to it. I won't feel that I have lost out in something because I wouldn't have done ANYTHING in the humanities - hence I wouldn't have known.
3. I would probably have stepped onto every single conceivable European country by now. Probably except Bosnia and Kosovo. I might even have gone to Ukraine and Belarus.
4. I would be able to fulfill the 3 years residency requirement, get my UK ID card, identify myself as a real British, be eligible for fully-funded PhD studentships everywhere in the EU, and then be eligible to chill there for the rest of my life.
If we have known #4 way earlier I would probably have gone there with my parents' money. Though if that is the case I wouldn't be able to fulfill #3 - but I am eligible to work anywhere anytime so I might not live like a king but should still be pretty alright.
(See? That's why I have to go back to DHS and make sure that my juniors think properly before they take up scholarships.)
Going there to chill until become ice for master's is one of his options. Even if I ever decide to go there for graduate school I don't think I can chill to that kind of extent - but it is a fact that, in Cambridge, you cycle for 15 minutes in any direction you will find yourself in the middle of some field blooming with yellow flowers in spring but down here you cycle for 15 minutes in any direction you will reach a ghetto. Okay maybe not towards the north, but you get the idea.
There is this NIH - Oxcam thing sounds quite interesting (there is an Advanced Scholars track for non-US citizens who commenced studies in the UK), and since I am dropping the MD/PhD idea, I am considering the UK option again.
(Hahaha there is one great thing about the NIH - Oxcam thing. During the 2 years with NIH I will definitely choose to live in Rockville - 15 minutes Metro to Bethesda from there, is the centre of Chinese food in Maryland, and it is a very nice place :D)
Enough nonsense. Back to work :P
Labels: Life, Studies and Career
