I will have an exciting summer ahead - it is just that I will be spending a lot of money. Really.
My passport holder is teeming with ticket-printouts. 6 air tickets, 1 accommodation confirmation and 1 National Express ticket.
The air tickets include: 1. SW: IAD - MDW - SLC / SLC - STL - BWI 2. VS: IAD - LHR 3. BA: LGW - MRS / MRS - LGW 4. NZ: LHR - HKG 5. 3K: HKG - SIN 6. CX: SIN - HKG - JFK
6 different airlines, 3 different award programmes, 11 different airports :P
I don't know whether my BA ticket to Marseille is cheap - I don't want to take chances because my travel dates are in the midst of the peakest peak season. So it is 120 pounds for each of us, return - definitely cheaper than Ryanair because we won't have to pay baggage surcharges on BA. It is just that I don't know if Ryanair would come out with some insane 1p tickets in the middle of June! Though I am pretty sure by then BA's ticket would become 250 pounds :P
Haha and I decided that, even though Kenneth might not be able to meet me, I will still go to Victoria to take the bus up to Cambridge. The direct service from Heathrow CBS to Cambridge costs 26 pounds, while the tube costs 2.00 pounds to get to Victoria and the bus costs 1 pound. It makes a whole load of sense to me to save that $45 - that is even more money than getting to New York and back :P
Though just hope that VS doesn't delay! My flight should arrive at 7:05am, and I got a ticket for 11:30am - if I still can't make it on time, Heathrow would just simply be completely hopeless...
It is 11:42pm, I am waiting for my transfer to be finished so that I can start the blocking and go home... thus I am using my lab's computer to do some travel planning :)
We have decided to go to Marseille, Provence and Avignon (lovely lavender fields, sunflower fields and the Mediterranean!) after my internship is over! Now we have a problem: air ticket.
It is either insanely early or insanely expensive. The ideal option would be to fly Ryanair down from Stansted on 9 Aug, and then fly the morning BA flight back to Gatwick on 14 Aug, in order for us to be on time for our evening flight to HK from Heathrow. The BA flight is fine - 60 Euros, but the RyanAir one costs like 50 pounds before tax!
The cheapest option (US$245 - still not cheap :( ) would be to fly BA from Gatwick to Marseille and then back to Gatwick. But the first flight departs at 6:05am! We will definitely have to sleep at the airport for that night! That would be ideal from the travelling point of view though, because we will get the most travelling time. Maybe I should just book that so that sushi can really get the taste of what it meant by 'backpacking'.
And still having problems with accommodation in Cambridge - no landlord has given us a definite positive reply yet :( Hopefully this will resolve soon...
... I actually bothered spending 2 hours analysing the exchanges between GCS and me in order to rebuke his accusations against my arguments on the Renaissance. I think I should share it with everyone - since I put in so much effort I might as well entertain a larger crowd. _______________________________________ Haha first thing first - we should all congratulate GCS's brother because he is getting married - haha this is some dream that still lie in some haze somewhere in front in my life :D
Read the yellow stuff if the whole thing is too long.
I get your point COMPLETELY - your argument is framed in such a way that YOU THINK I THINK that the Renaissance is centered on God and the Christian faith, and YES i know that it's not, even before you told me - I have admitted my mistake in saying that 'seeking the path to God is fundamental to all renaissance humanist scholars'.
I think you started to get my point too - such that the Renaissance, for all its outcomes, religion is still something ingrained in it, and you can't look at the Renaissance without studying how the Christian faith functioned in the scholars back then.
Let me explain why I made those assertions against your points - in order to convince you that i make sense.
You said: 'The very spirit of Renaissance Humanism is antithetical to the faith required as a Christian. What does the word “renaissance” mean? It means to be “reborn”, and it is a reborn in the spirit of the Greek and Roman antiquity and a reborn in the pagan classics, not the Christian classics.'
and 'Renaissance Humanism frees the West from medieval Christianity, for you to say that this movement is “fundamental” to the path to God is akin to creationism at its best. (well i think i said 'the path to God is fundamental to renaissance humanism' - not the other way round.)
then: 'I have no objection, if one calls the Reformation, a movement concerned with finding a “path to God”, for it is distinctly religious in character, at the same time influenced by a return to source-the bible, and man’s personal relationship with God. But not Renaissance Humanism. Let’s call a spade a spade.'
From all these I drew this conclusion: Your point = the Reformation is an anomaly because a) You don't think returning to Christian classics is consistent with the spirit of the Renaissance b) Man's personal relationship with God - well, this notion is closely linked to creationism (see the first few chapters of Genesis), and you did not accept creationism as consistent with the spirit of the Renaissance. c) 'Let's call a spade a spade' - you are attempting to seperate the Reformation from Renaissance humanism.
So the logical conclusion is: although the Reformation bore characteristics of Renaissance humanism, these characteristics are actually not consistent with the movement's spirit, and thus, the Reformation is in general not consistent with Renaissance's spirit - that sounded very much like 'the Reformation = anomaly of the Renaissance'.
But I hold a different view because I possess knowledge regarding 'prisca sapientia', Plato's creator theory, and the fact that philosophers actually did attempt to read ancient texts by the prophets Moses and Abraham or at least their contemporaries - so, to me, returning to the Bible and Christian classics is consistent with the spirit of the Renaissance, and if I accept that, I have to accept that these philosophers would accept creationism and thus the first few chapters of Genesis and thus the returning the worship of God to the people.
You are the one who is not consistent (sometimes you say that Christian classics should be out of the picture, sometimes you concede that the pursuit of aesthetics is akin to seeking the 'path of God', now you say that 'Reformation is very much influenced by Renaissance Humanism') - haha hope this is clear enough.
Note I know perfectly well that the Renaissance is not centered on religion - I said 'early humanist scholars set themselves apart from the universities so that they can perform intellectual explorations freely, and in order to fulfill their desire to obtain true and pure knowledge, they attempted to seek original classical texts before they were being corrupted by the medieval scholars' - you don't have to keep stressing that to me (quote: 'but again, the whole movement is not about God or the Christian faith...').
Also you said: 'It is an oxymoron to be a humanist and a God-believer.' 'The very spirit of Renaissance Humanism is antithetical to the faith required as a Christian.'
then you adjusted a little: 'The whole movement entails a movement away from faith, supernaturalism, obedience and other traits associated with the medieval Christian faith.'
Your whole point is that the Renaissance consists of a 'movement away from faith' - and FAITH is CENTRAL to Christianity. If you remove faith, there would be little left for Christians. God doesn't exist in people's hearts if people have no faith - now do you know why I read you as suggesting 'Renaissance humanism is about rejecting the Christian faith' (or in my words, 'rejecting the notion of God')? Even if you fudge it such that it is '"a movement towards the secular worldview", a "gradual transition in values and virtues"', it still meant the same thing to me - you understood the Renaissance to be a 'movement away from faith'.
Note I have NEVER admitted that the Renaissance is a 'movement away from faith' despite I agree with you that the Renaissance is centered on Man and not God: I made this VERY CLEAR in my last post. I merely said 'what gradually changed during that period over several generations of scholars was how ideas were formulated and how people interpreted the world' - faith wasn't out of the picture yet by the end of the Renaissance, but yes scholars have valued experience, observation and experimentation much more. That is what I meant!
Anyway, some stuff that you said aren't even true.
E.g.: 'The only “path to God”, if there is one, is the path to beauty, or the pursuit of aesthetics of some renaissance humanists. This, for one is limited to the arts...'
You can find references to God, divine perfection, etc. in a lot of texts dealing with natural philosophy. I won't say all, but a representative majority certainly, or at least the influential ones.
'Indeed, the whole Renaissance came about because scholars fleeing from the Fall of Constantinople brought with them Greek classics lost to the West for centuries and sparked off the movement in Florence!'
The movement started before that - the exodus fueled it. I have said that before.
Okay, this is not personal right. The last two paragraphs of my last post is meant to be personal - because I see the same pattern re-emerging in your exchanges with me throughout these years, and this is one thing you have never changed. I can't help myself bringing it up.
Anyway, you ARE attacking me in some instances - probably you didn't realise it. I guess it's not only me (whom you consider representing 'The Religious') who will perceive it as such - I guess even people who agree with your points of view will still perceive it as an attack.
One example: I used the word 'mystery' a couple of times in a post, and then you said: 'It seems that you like to use the rhetorical statement “it still is a mystery to me,” indeed, you hold a lot of mysterious views that can only be explained by a distinct, mysterious outlook on human history and knowledge, through a mysterious Christian religious worldview.'
This is at least mockery? And this is what prompted me to say that you should 'open your heart' - because since you think I have a 'distinct, mysterious outlook on human history and knowledge', I perceive that you still don't get my points that I have tried so hard to put forward - the only reason why you still don't get it is because you didn't want to listen to them at all as you are too happy with your current perception of religion. The points that I am referring to here had been presented in the previous paragraphs - and they aren't even religious.
Note I didn't perceive your assertions about the fallacies of Christian theology as an attack. You don't read the Bible the way Christians do, thus you formulate different conclusions about the nature of God from the fragments that you have read - Ferret has addressed this. The actual concepts of the Holy Spirit and the personal relationships between God and Man are foreign to you, thus of course you don't draw the same conclusions as Christians do - and I didn't say that you are wrong from your perspective. Of course you are wrong in the Christian perspective, but I won't make you listen to it.
Just to say a little about that: God is the same God, whether OT or NT, His nature didn't change (this is from Ferret) - it is the relationship between Man and God that changed, because Jesus sacrificed himself for the redemption of Man's sin - as God deemed Man unable to do it by themselves.
Christian theology is based on 4 principles: The Creation - The Fall - The Redemption - The Reconciliation Genesis - the rest of OT - the NT - then Revelation.
In the NT Man is redeemed - as long as you believe that Jesus is the son of God and He sacrificed Himself for our sins - and we are currently at this stage. This notion is still a prophecy in the OT. We were discussing this in small group a few weeks back.
I'll end off with Luke 5:29 - 32:
'And Levi gave a big reception for Him in his house; and there was a great crowd of tax collectors and other people who were reclining at the table with them. The Pharisees and their scribes began grumbling at His disciples, saying, "Why do you eat and drink with the tax collectors and sinners?" And Jesus answered and said to them, "It is not those who are well who need a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance."'
If you are righteous - or you don't think you have sinned (set the original sin aside) just like the Pharisees, and thus you think you don't need God - I am perfectly fine with that. Like I said, even Jesus doesn't force people to follow him.
I think I messed up my HERO test again. There is really a layer of insulation between the unit and me that I cannot cross. Oh well.
They cancelled the German Enlightenment class. So now I am forced to drop 'The Laboratory', and take up 'Philosophy of Religion' and 'Monuments and Memory' instead.
And now I am seeking permission to enroll in Advanced Cell Biology.
So my (should be) finalised class list for Fall 2008: 1. Advanced Cell Biology 2. Genetics Lab 3. History of Medicine: From Antiquity to Renaissance 4. Philosophy of Religion 5. Monuments and Memory 6. German Elements I
Haha I am officially a humanities student. A*Star isn't going to like this :D
Start from the bottom-most post, which is entitled 'On Religion', by coolgoh. It will take you at least 10 - 15 minutes so do so only when you are free.
You can decide for yourself whether I make more sense or he makes more sense. I have to dig out my lecture notes from last year to write my replies :P
Coolgoh has one question after reading one of my replies:
>coolgoh: wait, are you a christian already? >me: it depends on what your definition of a christian is. at the very least i'm trying to become one.
(Finally finished my PURA grant proposal! I am not sure if I can get it though... Keeping my fingers crossed :P and I think I am going to miss chapter camp...)
Thanks guys for your emails and comments! I'm sorry I messed your life up by bringing up stupid comments and ideas :P I have some idea of what is going on now, and we might probably act accordingly if we want to... though my friends don't seem to want to do anything anymore, because next year our financial situation will ease and even the rising sophomores are lucky enough to not get expensive housing, so there is not much need to fight too hard. Let's just hope that our previous voices made a difference in their budgeting for next year, and all will be good...
There is some misunderstanding between GCS and me here. I'll reply to his latest comment here:
> coolgoh:
I think there are some idea mismatches here. If your idea of a private buffet is the uni cafe kind of buffet, that is of course fine - i get the idea that private buffet = buffet in a restaurant/hotel and then justify that price using inflation as a reason.
Your $2400 junior is ridiculous, and i think you agree too. textbook allowances are given to us, and we are not asking for it to be increased - my issue is more with the living allowances, and how you guys actually report your budgets. judging by the way you described it it sounds really dodgy. basically you are asking me to report things i DEFINITELY will NOT need - doesn't sound like proper budgeting to me.
sigh. i have been treasurer for all my life, obviously i know how to do budgeting, and i am teaching people how to do it (i'm not the treasurer anymore - i'm now the VP, and i didn't want to be president)! i have swindled so much money from johns hopkins for our ssa that now we have too much money in our account with the school ready for us to submit for reimbursement anytime, my apartment now is living off food leftover from our events, and we'll be selling/giving out those extra leftover stuff for our next fundraising event. and i encourage people to buy things for events from our university supermarket using their dining dollars so that they can actually cash their dining dollars. though when i do budgeting all i do is overestimate the attendance; i won't submit non-existent expenses and i prohibit people from using the school's money to get things for themselves - i have rejected requests for reimbursements based on that and also stuff bought for a supposedly 'pot-luck' event that i didn't budget for although we have the money for it. after i explained people are always okay with it.
the thing that we wrote is a very detailed breakdown of everything, i even went down to the most ridiculously priced university supermarket and report the most expensive prices of essential items that i can get, and we reported our current rent + meal plan, which is on the verge of being the most ridiculous in the school. we also reported the cost of buying a meal outside, tell them how expensive it is, and we included costs for necessary social events, club fees, etc. i.e. costs that a normal student in the USA will be expecting, and then we did a write-up detailing our current financial situations and i.e. we are partially living off our parents' money so that we can just have a proper life. it didn't even get past HR. that's why we get pissed off - what else can we do? report non-existent spending and mark it up to $2400? it can be very easily done if i want to do it, and i know exactly how to write that kind of letter...! i just didn't want to because it doesn't seem right to me!
probably we can bring it up to a higher level la; i should consider your philip yeo idea - maybe not philip yeo but the director or sth... like i said, next year won't be as bad for us and for the sophomores anymore, so even if they don't raise it we'll still live alright. so yup. ________________________________________ Anyway, we have our first comm meeting with the new comm this year, and I feel that this new comm is awesome. Next year we can really do something interesting!
And community service! I think I am more or less set into committing some time to do that, and we will try to arrange for something regular for the SSA. Nice! Next year will be an exciting year :) - though it means that I will be busy as usual... but better than being too free right :D
(If you are an impoverished scholar from Hopkins trying hard to save enough money to go for an European holiday or having to make do with $3-a-night accommodation in Honduras, don't read this: it will piss you off. If you are a student from Cambridge, please read it - and please tell me that what I say isn't true. I REALLY HOPE THAT IT ISN'T TRUE.)
A*Star finally responded to my reimbursement requests. I don't expect to get a lot of money from them because, hmms, I am subletting my place to Chris (I have to tell them that - I don't want to get charged for some criminal bleaching of trust thing) and Cambridge housing is cheaper than Hopkins housing. Just to quote some figures from the files I sent to A*Star:
Hopkins (my current apartment):
Total: $9414.00 Average monthly: $855.82
I will be in the UK for 2.5 months, thus, the corresponding cost would be $855.82 x 2.5 = $2139.55 I would have already pre-paid 2 months of rent to the school that is not refundable: $855.82 x 2.0 = $1711.64
Cambridge (the perfect place that I've found):
Monthly: £325.00 + ~£20
I will need the place for 2.5 months, so I am expecting to pay £325.00 x 2.5 = £812.50 ($1602.15 - compare $2139.55) Or £325.00 x 3 = £975.00 ($1922.67) if they charge by part-there-of.
Not including bills - but also won't come up to $500 for 2.5 months?!
I supported everything with my online bills and quotes from Cambridge Accommodation Services.
Hmms if that is the case I really do not understand why people in Cambridge are getting paid like $200 - $300 more than we are? I don't know what the PSC scholars there are telling the government really. I have been there - and trust me, if a formal costs £8 - £10, a proper restaurant dinner here costs $15 - $25 too; and if a meal from the hall costs £5 with kitchen fees a proper meal in Hopkins costs $6.00 - $13.00 too, and if we are using dining dollars and not cash multiply that by 1.25.
Bus here costs $1.60 per ride, and bus in Cambridge costs 50p if you have a university card. Bus ride to-and-fro New York City is $35.00 cheapest, not including taxi fares of $22.50 one way to the bus station (these days, I either drive there or take 1.5hrs of MTA there - parking = $10 for 24 hours and MTA = $3.20 because need to change once). If you can get fun fares on National Express, bus fares from Cambridge to London costs £1 - £5 one way, you can usually get them at the last minute, and you WALK to the bus station.
WHAT IS THIS? The same thing applies to Chicago.
And they can still tell Yi Chung that 'as long as you have money to spare, we can't justify a raise'. Well, I have almost given up. If we continue this campaign, we would basically have to advocate for a drop in allowances for scholars in all other schools. We can survive with our allowance - it's just that it's impossible for us to fly SQ (at least not for me, it's getting too expensive) and we won't have a lot of money left every month for random online shopping or getting a new coat etc.. I'll just wait for it to rise automatically, and if it doesn't, then so be it. I'll continue to look for the cheapest possible airlines to fly, and I'll borrow money from my parents (or get them to sponsor me) if there isn't enough - and return them when I start work.
Oh well...
Added 11:31pm, 11 April 2008: Sorry for the rambling - it just seems ridiculous to me when things in two places are similarly priced and the other place gets 20% more than we do. It's not only not fair to us, but it isn't fair to Singaporeans who are paying us too. We wanted more because we wanted to match up a lifestyle - but to Singapore that is NOT a reason, yet they don't find the reasons that we come up with convincing enough - and we also can't bring ourselves to lay everything bare in front of them and request for a thorough, general review. Read the comments to understand why I get worked up all the time when this issue raises itself, sometimes incited by others, sometimes just by me doing some harmless practical research, and sometimes just by travelling!
I didn't want myself worked up all the time, that is why I plead you people to tell me that what I know and what I found out isn't true, so that I can be convinced that all scholars live lives with similar financial considerations as we do. This kind of feeling of injustice is not good for me - and if it cannot be resolved, I will still have to learn to accept it spiritually. I think I need someone to tell me what to do :(
I have just completed the hardest paper I have ever written in my life.
The title of that paper is called 'Shelter Blues - Experience and Selfhood', and it is almost like a critical review of the book 'Shelter Blues: Sanity and Selfhood among the Homeless' by Robert Desjarlais. It was just a 6-pages double-spaced, 1800-word essay - and it took me 3 nights to complete it (normally I would take like, 3 hours?!). Guess what? Because of this paper I slept only 4 hours each night both Monday and Tuesday.
If you think questions like 'why did the author used rhodamine dextran instead of GFP as the fluorescence marker? what other alternatives are possible?' are considered 'critical evaluation questions' worthy of journal club time, wait until you get questions like:
'How and why are questions about “experience” so central to Desjarlais’ ethnography?' 'How does his theoretical approach play out in his ethnographic work in the shelter?' 'What does this all have to say about the concept of “selfhood” in relation to the homeless?'
I am so glad that I am done with the discussion leading for this class. It is getting harder and harder and more and more crazy that my history background ceased to become relevant and my regular logical ways of thinking ceased to work. _________________________________________ > Shireen: This will sound like a reply to your most recent post and thus it is.
I was quite surprised as to how you wrote the last sentence - 'patients all have individual experiences of their illness' - that sounds so anthropological that I can't believe that it actually comes from you. I don't know if you mean what I usually interprete such a sentence as, because if I were to stress something scientific I would use words like 'clinical manifestations' etc. and not 'individual experience'. That is because a person's illness experience is not only shaped by the clinical manifestation of his illness but also the people around him, the cultural and political settings around him, his relationships with his doctor(s), and various other internal and external factors.
In this sense no patient falls into any stereotype - or the 'norm' - because everyone's circumstances are different. That leads me to the point in which there has always been criticisms against the use of a '35-yo Caucasian male, w = 60kg and h = 170cm' as a normal average human in clinical trials and then extrapolating all results from this average human stereotype. How valid are these results? But the dilemma would be: if you attempt to vary your sample group, what would be the basis of your choice of the criteria to be varied? Thus, how valid would your results still be - in either case?
Textbooks always tell us something, but reality is always different, and the danger about textbooks is that they make us feel too comfortable. That is in the everyday life of a biologist too because, sigh, things just don't work even when all published literature says that it should and you are 100% sure that you are doing the right thing. Sometimes I just have to blame the Hopkins water in having a strangely high concentration of the fifth element and thus affecting the buffering capacity of the buffers and the accuracy of the pH meter.
I have a friend who is allergic to metoclopramide, and once he had an adverse reaction to it in a hospital and they took almost a day to figure out why. Someone close to me passed away a few years back from sepsis - and the trigger was something as common as UTI. I was once given a regular dose of amoxicillin for an URTI, it didn't clear, the doctor switched to erythromycin, and it still didn't clear - and eventually I have to be hospitalised for pneumonia which eventually cleared with 4 days of IV penicillin and a 2-week course of Augmentin. Latest example was my aunt's laparoscopic hysterectomy.
Those are all exceptions to the standard common and simple stuff - there could have been possible complications listed somewhere but well, they are not what we see everyday. Grace has commented that 'biology is not logical', which I strongly contest because I think that medical biology is all about finding logic among a big meaningless mess; things will not be logical only because there is something we don't know or we simply don't care. But it also gets to show how random biology and medicine can actually be, and how much heart we have to put in in order to make something work.
Time to go home - I am typing this on B-level in the library :P There will be a Part III coming along!
I was pretty stunned when I saw it :D Though apparently the town is named after a family there 800 years ago and the -ing is added to signify township in old German.
Went to listen to a lecture by President Brody on healthcare today, and he made me appreciate Singapore's system even more. I would say most problems that plague the US system did not apply to Singapore at all, and the problems that he listed are so deeply rooted and the inter-relationships between the various stakeholders are so complicated that he said that currently no one has any idea how to solve them.
At least Singapore's problems are solvable and there is one thing that we are definitely better: America still does not have an electronic medical record system. I was already playing around with it a few years back when I was serving as a medic - although PACES is not a very good system but it is powerful!
And Americans have this 'fear for socialised medicine'. Though my stand is, let's face it - healthcare is a service that everyone needs, it is expensive and it is only the state that has the financial power to help people pay for it. The government needs to have a role in healthcare to so that it can reach everyone - a free market model will not work because whether or not people can pay for it people will still need it - if not they'll die. Even in America the government is pumping in a lot of money into healthcare. Singapore's model is more like a hybrid, and it works for us... and I am happy with that :)
Registration for next semester will start 16 April - i.e. in less than 2 weeks. Currently this is my chosen course list:
1. 020.686 Advanced Cell Biology
(All aspects of cell biology are reviewed and updated in this intensive course through critical evaluation and discussion of the current scientific literature. Topics include protein trafficking, membrane dynamics, cytoskeleton, signal transduction, cell cycle control, extracellular matrix, and the integration of these processes in cells of the immune system.)
2. 020.340 Genetics Laboratory
(This laboratory explores the genetics of living organisms, and students in each section will therefore be required to return to lab on succeeding days to observe and record the results of their experiments.)
3. 140.105 History of Medicine: Antiquity to Scientific Revolution
(Course provides an overview of the development of Western medical traditions from Antiquity to the early modern period, with particular attention to the social and cultural factors that affected medical ideas and practices.)
4. 140.349 The Laboratory
(You probably spend lots of time in one. Find out where it came from, how it works, and what makes it a distinctive place for research and teaching. Special attention to the history of the laboratory at Johns Hopkins, including medical laboratories.)
5. 210.161 German Elements I
(Four skills introduction to the German language and culture. Develops proficiency in speaking, writing, reading and listening skills through the use of basic texts, multi-media and communicative language activities.)
6. There is some dilemma in choosing between these 2 other classes:
6a. 150.219 Bioethics
(Introduction to a wide range of moral issues arising in the biomedical fields, e.g., physician-assisted suicide, human cloning, abortion, surrogacy, and human subjects research.)
6b. 150.235 Philosophy of Religion
(Can one prove or disprove the existence of God? What is the relation between reason and faith? Are science and religion at odds with one another? We will consider historically significant discussions of these questions (for example, by Plato, Anselm, Aquinas, Pascal, Hume, and Kierkegaard) as well as important contemporary writings (for example, by Adams, Boyer, Plantinga, and Van Inwagen). Gilman Course in the Humanities)
Although I will only have 5 classes and a lab it'll still be pretty intense. The problem with the last class is that I am afraid that 150.235 will have too much reading - I will already have a lot of reading from the 3 classes other than German I - and my problem with Bioethics is that I am afraid that I won't get too much out of it (it's a huge class, tonnes of people - whether they are interested or not - will take it because the class will make their CVs/transcripts look more appealing to the medical school admission boards, and thus it has the propensity to become too GP-ish).
150.235 seems very interesting. It seems to be able to wrap up completely what I have been learning - I had a brief survey of the issue by Prof. Principe in Scientific Revolution, my background is in science and its history, and I am also doing bible study now... Also, it will equip me with the ammunition to throw at GCS when he starts his discussion about belief with me again (Plato is an effective cannonball when used as ammo because his stuff is so varied and so chim that it's hard to counter - Aquinas maybe not. I'll find out) :D
The exam asked so many drug names and so much detail (the level of detail that were asked went down to the small fonts in the notes which say 'Selzentry (maraviroc) is approved by the FDA on 12 October, 2007') associated with them that my brain cells simply refused to work after reading the question.
Every turn of the page will produce a 'what are you serious?!' response. There is one page which asked us to name '4 one-a-day pills, state whether they are HAART, whether they are available in the US or not, and name the components of each pill'.
Okay, they are Trizivir, Atripla, Generic 3-in-1 and Triomone. All are HAART. First 2 are available in the US, the last 2 are not. Trizivir = Lamivudine, Abacavir, Zidovudine (3x NRTIs); Atripla = Efavirenz, Tenofovir, Emtricitabine (NNRTI + 2x NRTIs); Generic 3-in-1 = Zidovudine, Nevirapine, Lamivudine (NNRTI + 2x NRTIs); Triomone = Nevirapine, Lamivudine, Stavudine (NNRTI + 2x NRTIs).
Fine, except that I substituted some z's with x's and added l's when there is none.
Then, there comes a question that says:
Name 3 compounds that are derived from natural products and state where they come from. (What?!)
Now I only remember that Berivimat comes from a very strangely named Chinese medicinal herb (no idea what herb), and Cyanopilin (supposed to be Cyanopilin N) comes from some kind of cyanobacteria. Third one? No clue. (Now I know: Carraguard comes from a kind of strange seaweed. Oh well.)
If you expect us to remember things to this kind of fine detail, give us at least 3 days of reading period, free us from any other school work and activities, and get rid of the d-bio exam tomorrow so that we can concentrate. If that can be done, I can give you back everything including small prints plus extra details from the pharmacology textbook only found in Welch library.
Never mind, I will just have to hope that everyone messes this up so that the curve will be low.
'Pretend' nothing happened when something actually has, 'pretend' everything is okay when it isn't, 'pretend' that you have no special feelings for someone when you actually have...
Why do we have to 'pretend'? According to what I understand, we pretend because we have to protect someone, not hurt someone, or to avoid embarassment.
Sometimes, we pretend because we do not have the courage to face the truth - pretending is a way of evading, escaping.
I have been using this tactic for the past year to attempt to convince myself to bring something about myself back to normal, and I have actually almost completely succeeded - it's just that it has never been an official closure.
I really admire sushi - she doesn't even attempt to pretend.
When would I ever have the courage to write what she has written in this space, where I know everyone, and not only people who can understand a specific dialect of the Chinese language, can read?
This is what I wrote, in an almost satirical tone, about me, as an answer to someone's question:
I wrote the answer first, prompted by the guy who asked the question, and then I went to talk to sushi about it, which made her write that post, and when I read hers I feel obliged to write this too.
I will continue to not care unless she has something to say to me about the issue, which is the key to an official closure, but I am fine without - I've long ago accepted that.
I still have to pray harder for strength and guidance!
P.S. - I'll talk about how I became more and more religious as I lived my life in the US in a later post. Now, with 2 midterms looming in 2 days' time, I should try my best to do well first :P
I have been looking for accommodation in Cambridge and have found a place slightly north of town centre which is going to cost me 325 pounds a month + bills around 50/3 pounds. It's supposed to be owned by a university lecturer, and should have a kitchen, bathroom, washing machine, wireless internet, microwave, phone, a garden, etc., and 2 PhD student housemates.
It is almost $100 cheaper than what I am paying for my place now. And it has better facilities.
Judging by this kind of price I can survive even with a little surplus (probably more surplus compared to Baltimore) on my $1400 allowance! Don't tell A*STAR!
This gets to show how ridiculously underpaid we are compared to others :(
I don't want to live too far from town centre, so the price to pay is that I will need a bike to get to Addenbrookes everyday. That's around 3 - 4 miles - still closer compared to the distance between JHMI and Homewood, which is 6 miles. Should take me around 15 minutes depending on traffic.
Will have to do some proper recce-ing when I arrive; my plan is to get a second-hand bike and then sell it after my stay...
Provided that the two PhD students are peaceful, I will be able to enjoy the most tranquil summer in my whole life while doing something interesting.
A sample non-working, non-travelling, EuroCup-is-over Saturday: 1. Wake up 2. Check email 3. Grab lunch 4. Go to Borders to look at books 5. Grab one or bring one (or bring papers, whatever) and go to a coffeehouse and chill one afternoon 7. Buy stuff back 8. Make dinner 9. Check more email 10. Sleep
It sounds so awesome! Haha I am excited :D I need rest! And I am looking forward to it :D
4.5 more weeks to end of term, 6 more weeks to end of finals, 7.5 more weeks to Cambridge!
