SATURDAY SNOOZE
I was studying this afternoon for Genetics and Pharmacology, and I went out to the kitchen to get a glass of water when my roommate pointed out the window. The picture above is basically the view I had. Now as many as a few days ago, it was bitter cold outside, but today it reached 9 C. Which meant this guy could snooze up there. How exactly he got up there remains a mystery of course. The amusment of my day. Last night was one of the best parties I have ever been to. Three words: Chocolate Fondue Fountain. That and a very good selection of fruit along with some of the best homemade pizza that I have eaten in years acommpanied by a decent wine selection and veggie platter. I was there for 5 hours. It was the end of the semester party at the chaplain's house, and my hats off to him as a host. Amazing. Of course, now the rest of the weekend is inevitably consumed with last minute cramming antics for my two exams on Monday: Genetics and Pharmacology.
Well, it's incredibly addictive. I haven't seen most of these people for ages, so the opportunity to see what they are up to, current contact info and photos was too good to pass up. I think it will be a genuinely useful tool on occasion and especially for the upcoming holiday season. Now I just need to leave it alone for a couple weeks while I try to rocket through finals Today was completely useless. By that I mean that I accomplished nearly nothing in the entire day. I suppose everybody needs some downtime, but on the other hand, I have a lot of stuff to get done. Wasting a day is not really something I can afford right now. Best to start with a bang tomorrow. I'll be working all day.
PAX AMERICANA
Over the past few years at university, I have been constantly presented with the idea of myth. Most will toss this away as a spiel on Zeus and Aphrodite, but this is not what I mean. Myth as Barthes used it can be used to refer to a second meaning behind symbols or signs. The American flag has a powerful mythical meaning. As the chaplain here notes, this mythological power in America gives it incredible unitive might. It also gives it incredible projective force into the world. Over the next few months, or least over the holidays, I hope to look a little bit into the breakdown or appearance there of of American moral authority in the world. The States are now associated with pax romana and pax britannica. In a sense, at least, the USA is an empire. I don't know how to feel about that one. I identify with the mythos of the US, internalized the Dream. But the Dream needs saving. It was built in a powerful religious context, and the 60's and 70's did much to detroy that, and I have not been incredibly impressed with what I have seen there since. Without realizing it, I believe that many Americans are knocking out what originally made them great. Of course, this is an exploration, and I imagine I will waffle all over the place in search of Platonic Truth. In other news, I met tonight with a potential CRC intern. She was quite nice, and I think if she decides to come here, she will be an asset to the university. And now I need to spend the rest of the week and weekend on academic pursuits, however uninteresting.
ON THE ROAD UP NORTH
On the Road Up North Originally uploaded by kosts. On the way to work this morning it was around -15° C. Of course, as exams are coming, I am increasingly left with less time to do anything but memorize hopelessly boring facts and metabolic pathways of differenct bacterial species and thousands of chemical analyses and complementation pairings. It makes me long for for a sunny day, slurpee, and the open road. I have always had a touch of wanderlust, but this climate is doing nothing to tame it. It's an odd thing, I seek to spend time with people, but I am an odd enough duck that I have never met a person who is interested in even half the stuff that I am. It's frustrating sometimes that even some of my better friends share very little of my facinations or perspectives. I have a friend back in Michigan, who if he were really honest with himself, shares very little with me. It's sometimes an exercise in frustration, because choosing something we both want to do is nearly impossible for the most part. So we don't. So I stay alone. Driving alone with the radio cranked under cloudy skies and a faint hint of thunder in the horizon.
AND THE TENSIONS BUILD...
Well, tomorrow I start at least one new "job", in this case, participation in a research study that pays. It seems that it is fairly lucrative being a human guinea pig. in this particular case, I get to spend two hours in the afternoon playing video games or watching a movie. University life is tough... I wish that were really true... Of course the other job is working at a university lab, which should be a good learning experience. The research sounds promising as well. This notebook that I am on, posting from the middle of my PMCOL 305 class is certainly handy, though I am positive i can't justify the cost. But i do like the freedom of doing the odd task from wherever is convenient. I know a friend of mine does something similar with one of those failed email appliances, but it's not quite the same. It is getting a lot of mileage from me lately as a way to take notes in a few other classes where I can't seem to write fast enough to keep up. Now I just need bluetooth for this thing so i can sync my notes eaily to my desktop, along with my calendar. I am hoping to improve my marks this semester, but as anyone who has reading this blog lately would realize, that may be a lost cause. Still, I think i can salvage something from this. Enough careul methodical work before finals should be able to scrap some decency out of this, though the dream of A's has come to an end.
DELIVERANCE
I think that this is a common plea among those who realize that they're in over their heads. I often wonder if the moment you stop crying out for it, is the moment that you have traded reality for an illusion. I increasingly think that people are trapped within their own minds. Enslaved to think and behave outside of their absolute conscious control. Do we have free will? No. Not really, in any case. It may seem that we do, but we've been set up. The very nature of our brain, our culture, and language itself all affect the way we think. I don't believe for a moment that that absolves one of responsibility in life, it just mitigates their behaviour. It also gives grace more meaning. It must sadden God deeply to see people so far away from "Truth" (in a Platonic sense), and not even be aware of it. Not only have we failed God, but we have failed so badly that we can't see it anymore. I look out among the general population and think: they're lost and so am I. The sheep have scattered and are following the wolves.
CLATHRIN AND COP1
Ah, the joys of secretory vessel coatings. These and other such arcane things I learn everyday. Like, for instance, the repression of biosynthesis in E.coli, followed by their introduction to a rich broth. It's enough to make one's head spin. I am still depesrately trying to figure out how to create a test cross for genetics and understand exactly what is going on there. An I now realize that I should have paid a lot more attention in statistics. It'd save me some time about now. And apparently the Gateway (student newspaper) now has a French section published two Thursday's a month, Le Miroir. Who knew? Tonight is going to be a short post, as I think I am now going to leave the library, and go make myself a bit of supper, return a book to another library, and work on doing 3 labs for chem and the prep for the 4 hour monstrosity of Chem 211 tomorrow. Night
OVERBOOKED AND OUT OF CONTROL
There just aren't enough hours in the day for what I want to accomplish. I am making good on my plan for Operation Library, but I have so much to do that I am not sure if I can get all the way there in the time for finals, the midterm in Biol 201 next week, and the job. I was thinking about it last week, and I realized that I am at my maximum committment level, for the most part. If I take on anything else, I am in big trouble. And of course, there's always unexpected crap that we have to deal with from time to time. I got my final first round midterm back today, but luckily I am desensitized at this point. It really only served to deepen my convictions about the rest of the semester. The bad news is that my classes are getting quite a bit more difficult the further I get in, so I am struggling to get caught up so I don't get behind. The weather is cooling off around here, so I think it will snow in the next few days. The precipitation is in the forecast, it just hasn't dipped as much in temperature as they predicted. It probably will tonight. I am beginning to mourne the loss of daylight. I feel like I am living in a cave half the time. I was walking back from tutoring yesterday, and it was already dark outside. I guess the upshot is that I won't feel so bad about turning into a mole.
BUCKLE DOWN
All of my first round midterms are now completed. I haven't had an ass kicking like that since first year. A warning for you all? Don't underestimate what seems like the easiest course. Those that are conceptually easy will be made tricky by time constraints or ridiculous wording. I am going to have to adjust my schedule for the rest of the year to accomodate for a first period shut out (for all you hockey fans out there). I now need to implement plan B. When I run into or am offered something that sounds fun, I run in the opposite direction for the remainder of the term. Sure sounds appealing, doesn't it? It really doesn't get any easier than that, unfortunately. Remembrance Day weekend is next week up here in Canuckistan, and most people will be heading off for fun activities elsewhere. Not me. I will be wheedling the hours away in between a mountain of books and scrap paper. It'll be silent, except for the faint sound of the occassional curse. Oh yes, it will be a dry, dusty place where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. In my first real trip to the library since the semester started, I realized that Cameron has a bank of Sun thin clients hidden away in the basement. They are are running an old copy of Solaris (9), but if they upgraded to 10, I think they'd be quite nice. They are a very pleasant replacement for Windows. I am almost tempted to see if I connect my desktop back in the appartment into the terminal server... Oh, what' s that? Never mind, my chem book is calling me.
HURRICANE "Α"
Well, amazingly enough, Florida is going to see its eighth major hurrican in a just 14 months. Wilma looks to be getting stronger as it gets to Florida too, though it's no where near the Category 5 monster it was at one point. I imagine that those who live in the Carribean are getting pretty storm weary by this point. Luckily, I am about as removed from that as you can possibly get. The Carribean is at least 1500 miles south of me and to the West I have the Rockies. To the East, there is a thousand mile buffer and then the harmless Hudson's Bay. I also don't live near any major faults. The price for this amazing security? An absolutely nasty winter. But with global warming, I may have the last laugh yet.