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tarigwaemirLowell House, on the Feast of St. Barlaam
As much as I love to complain about the HRKC alumni, never let it be said that our senpai are ungenerous. ^_^ You probably don't get a sense of that at all from reading my LJ, but they do spend heck of a lot of money helping out the club and treating us out to meals. And to top it all off, today, Chit brought two sets of brand-new bokken, complete with tsuba, for Jenny and me, since we'll be taking the shinsa for fifth kyu ranking at the end of the semester. The fifth kyu exam requires performing the first three kata, you see, and we'd been planning on making an order ourselves, but apparently the alumni decided to buy them for us! I think Chit's words were "an early Christmas present". ::grins:: They look beautiful, and I think I will take the bokuto home to show off to my parents next week. (And also, er, actually start practicing kata.)
I don't have a bag for them though, so they're resting rather ignominously on my microfridge. Hmm, maybe I should place an order for a new bag...or look in the closet for a spare one.
That being said, I felt really out of it at practice today. It's really struck me this year how much my mental state affects kendo. I've been off balance all week, both in terms of work and sleep, and I've been in a vague daze after having too many things to worry about and not enough energy to care about any of them. I lost my nice pair of gloves (serves me right for being so scatterbrained) which Mother bought for me last year, and I also haven't arranged for transportation back to New York for Thanksgiving. Urgh, I should go and buy UC shuttle tickets tomorrow. Not to mention the physics exam, the Korean quiz and two problem sets...::sighs:: I've been in a very lazy mood lately. Anyway, from the beginning of practice, I felt that everything was off--my grip, my footwork, my posture, even my kiai--and I kept tensing up my shoulders and feeling completely out of it. I didn't really get back into the rhythm until kakari-geiko at the end, by which point my mind had calmed down sufficiently. ::sighs:: We also started receiving kirikaeshi the hard way, which was new not only for the beginners but for Jenny and me too. The motodachi or receiver holds his/her shinai vertically at their side, which is the way you're supposed to do it--sometimes even with full bougu on, to improve the precision of your hit--but last year, they kept it simple for us. I suppose they're raising the bar this year. It was useful though because it points out very clearly what's wrong with one's strikes.
In other news, we watched a film in biology called Protein Synthesis: An Epic Journey at the Cellular Level, which was, of all things, a visual depiction of translation as an interpretive dance. Yes, interpretive dance, I kid you not. The film began with a serious-faced man in a suit and bow tie in front of a chalk diagram of the ribosome. He proceeded to explain the process of translation, with little asides saying "The mRNA will be depicted by people with colored head balloons," and "The ribosome will be represented by a group of dancing, writhing people." Et cetera, I hope you get the picture. Women in skin-tight suits represented various initiation and elongation factors, a man in a red poncho was GTP and gave out a puff of smoke whenever he was hydrolyzed, tRNA was another group of people holding hands, and amino acids were half-naked men tied to the tRNA by a string leash.
And then the movie started. Of course we were already anticipating a hilarious fifteen minutes. But nothing could prepare us for the sight of people crawling all over one another in some sort of massive choreographed orgy, with an absolutely priceless live band singing out in a hyper, drugged-out voice, "tRNA~! Peptide bond~! Ribsosome releasing factor!" in coordination with the film. Note also that the film was made in the 70s so the music was appropriately, well, 70s style. To top it all off, a narrator explained what was going on in the dance (it was actually very well organized, despite all the groping and twisting) in a paraphrase of Lewis Carroll's "The Jabberwocky". I wish I had a photographic memory so that I could recite their version of the poem for you--it was so, so funny--but I think this movie really has to be seen to be appreciated. Our entire biology class was alternately laughing hard enough to split sides and saying in stunned voices, "Oh my gosh! This is so funny!" Jenny R. and I went up to Prof. Losick afterwards to ask where we can get a copy of this brilliant movie, and he said that he can lend it to us as long as we promise not to rip it. ::sighs:: Well, at the very least, I plan to watch it again the night before the biology final. And Prof. Losick is right, I will never forget the mechanism of translation after that experience. ^_^ The movie's now at the top of the favorites list on my facebook profile.
Jenny and I have concluded several things:
1. If this movie doesn't persuade you to be a biology/biochemistry major, nothing will.
2. Ribosomes are sex. (See previous entry for the bad pickup line we had thought up before.)
3. As a corollary to the above, protein synthesis is, as Jenny says, "a hallucinogen-induced orgy".
4. In other words, translation = Woodstock!
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delentyevox had this great idea about keeping a "What I Learned Today" journal, and I thought about posting a long discussion of the lecture on gravitation in physics yesterday, complete with the architecture of the derivation of Kepler's Laws from Newtonian principles, digressions on whether it is going backward to prove Kepler from Newton instead of vice versa with a tangent on primacy of observation vs. theory in science, and notes on my favorite topics in gravitation: proving there is no gravitational field inside a hollow sphere and the Cavendish experiment. After that, I was going to follow up with some thoughts on the mathematical aspects of each of the sciences: everyone knows physics comes the closest to pure math in its theoretical structure, and that biology is dominated by statistical thinking, but somehow chemistry (at least at my current level) requires a logical mode of thinking that is required for math but doesn't actually ask you to think mathematically. Thus concluding why chemistry seems to be so difficult, at least out of the classes I'm taking.
But I think I'll save that post for another time. ^_^ Actually, I think it would be a more fruitful exercise for me to write about what I'm learning in organic chemistry and try to articulate the principles I need to keep in mind. What I've realized this semester is that while organic chemistry at a certain level is about memorization, what really assures your proficiency in the subject is how well you grasp the underlying ideas. (Sort of the way biology rests on the concepts of structure = function and surface area.) The problem is that our professor expects us to deal with a certain range of permutations on these ideas, and I can't handle that sort of mental acrobatics just yet. But at least now I'm aware of those ideas, and hopefully articulating them will help me do better in the class. We're doing enols and enolates, and typically enough, I hadn't gotten up to that textbook chapter yet, but when the TF assigned us a mechanism problem I realized I could sort of figure it out. And I actually was on the right track and would have gotten it correct if I hadn't drawn one of the intermediates incorrectly. >_< I think that about sums up the degree and quality of my ineptness at chemistry. ::groans::
Yours &c.
As much as I love to complain about the HRKC alumni, never let it be said that our senpai are ungenerous. ^_^ You probably don't get a sense of that at all from reading my LJ, but they do spend heck of a lot of money helping out the club and treating us out to meals. And to top it all off, today, Chit brought two sets of brand-new bokken, complete with tsuba, for Jenny and me, since we'll be taking the shinsa for fifth kyu ranking at the end of the semester. The fifth kyu exam requires performing the first three kata, you see, and we'd been planning on making an order ourselves, but apparently the alumni decided to buy them for us! I think Chit's words were "an early Christmas present". ::grins:: They look beautiful, and I think I will take the bokuto home to show off to my parents next week. (And also, er, actually start practicing kata.)
I don't have a bag for them though, so they're resting rather ignominously on my microfridge. Hmm, maybe I should place an order for a new bag...or look in the closet for a spare one.
That being said, I felt really out of it at practice today. It's really struck me this year how much my mental state affects kendo. I've been off balance all week, both in terms of work and sleep, and I've been in a vague daze after having too many things to worry about and not enough energy to care about any of them. I lost my nice pair of gloves (serves me right for being so scatterbrained) which Mother bought for me last year, and I also haven't arranged for transportation back to New York for Thanksgiving. Urgh, I should go and buy UC shuttle tickets tomorrow. Not to mention the physics exam, the Korean quiz and two problem sets...::sighs:: I've been in a very lazy mood lately. Anyway, from the beginning of practice, I felt that everything was off--my grip, my footwork, my posture, even my kiai--and I kept tensing up my shoulders and feeling completely out of it. I didn't really get back into the rhythm until kakari-geiko at the end, by which point my mind had calmed down sufficiently. ::sighs:: We also started receiving kirikaeshi the hard way, which was new not only for the beginners but for Jenny and me too. The motodachi or receiver holds his/her shinai vertically at their side, which is the way you're supposed to do it--sometimes even with full bougu on, to improve the precision of your hit--but last year, they kept it simple for us. I suppose they're raising the bar this year. It was useful though because it points out very clearly what's wrong with one's strikes.
In other news, we watched a film in biology called Protein Synthesis: An Epic Journey at the Cellular Level, which was, of all things, a visual depiction of translation as an interpretive dance. Yes, interpretive dance, I kid you not. The film began with a serious-faced man in a suit and bow tie in front of a chalk diagram of the ribosome. He proceeded to explain the process of translation, with little asides saying "The mRNA will be depicted by people with colored head balloons," and "The ribosome will be represented by a group of dancing, writhing people." Et cetera, I hope you get the picture. Women in skin-tight suits represented various initiation and elongation factors, a man in a red poncho was GTP and gave out a puff of smoke whenever he was hydrolyzed, tRNA was another group of people holding hands, and amino acids were half-naked men tied to the tRNA by a string leash.
And then the movie started. Of course we were already anticipating a hilarious fifteen minutes. But nothing could prepare us for the sight of people crawling all over one another in some sort of massive choreographed orgy, with an absolutely priceless live band singing out in a hyper, drugged-out voice, "tRNA~! Peptide bond~! Ribsosome releasing factor!" in coordination with the film. Note also that the film was made in the 70s so the music was appropriately, well, 70s style. To top it all off, a narrator explained what was going on in the dance (it was actually very well organized, despite all the groping and twisting) in a paraphrase of Lewis Carroll's "The Jabberwocky". I wish I had a photographic memory so that I could recite their version of the poem for you--it was so, so funny--but I think this movie really has to be seen to be appreciated. Our entire biology class was alternately laughing hard enough to split sides and saying in stunned voices, "Oh my gosh! This is so funny!" Jenny R. and I went up to Prof. Losick afterwards to ask where we can get a copy of this brilliant movie, and he said that he can lend it to us as long as we promise not to rip it. ::sighs:: Well, at the very least, I plan to watch it again the night before the biology final. And Prof. Losick is right, I will never forget the mechanism of translation after that experience. ^_^ The movie's now at the top of the favorites list on my facebook profile.
Jenny and I have concluded several things:
1. If this movie doesn't persuade you to be a biology/biochemistry major, nothing will.
2. Ribosomes are sex. (See previous entry for the bad pickup line we had thought up before.)
3. As a corollary to the above, protein synthesis is, as Jenny says, "a hallucinogen-induced orgy".
4. In other words, translation = Woodstock!
delentyevox had this great idea about keeping a "What I Learned Today" journal, and I thought about posting a long discussion of the lecture on gravitation in physics yesterday, complete with the architecture of the derivation of Kepler's Laws from Newtonian principles, digressions on whether it is going backward to prove Kepler from Newton instead of vice versa with a tangent on primacy of observation vs. theory in science, and notes on my favorite topics in gravitation: proving there is no gravitational field inside a hollow sphere and the Cavendish experiment. After that, I was going to follow up with some thoughts on the mathematical aspects of each of the sciences: everyone knows physics comes the closest to pure math in its theoretical structure, and that biology is dominated by statistical thinking, but somehow chemistry (at least at my current level) requires a logical mode of thinking that is required for math but doesn't actually ask you to think mathematically. Thus concluding why chemistry seems to be so difficult, at least out of the classes I'm taking.But I think I'll save that post for another time. ^_^ Actually, I think it would be a more fruitful exercise for me to write about what I'm learning in organic chemistry and try to articulate the principles I need to keep in mind. What I've realized this semester is that while organic chemistry at a certain level is about memorization, what really assures your proficiency in the subject is how well you grasp the underlying ideas. (Sort of the way biology rests on the concepts of structure = function and surface area.) The problem is that our professor expects us to deal with a certain range of permutations on these ideas, and I can't handle that sort of mental acrobatics just yet. But at least now I'm aware of those ideas, and hopefully articulating them will help me do better in the class. We're doing enols and enolates, and typically enough, I hadn't gotten up to that textbook chapter yet, but when the TF assigned us a mechanism problem I realized I could sort of figure it out. And I actually was on the right track and would have gotten it correct if I hadn't drawn one of the intermediates incorrectly. >_< I think that about sums up the degree and quality of my ineptness at chemistry. ::groans::
Yours &c.
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(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-20 11:59 am (UTC)That is the way we are learning it. Been hit on the head a bunch of times already. Without a helmet. Lucky for me, my hair wrapped around my head kind of takes some of the blow.
That movie sounds like crack. No wonder you guys want to be protien synthesis for Halloween, the crack is affecting your brain.
O.o
(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-20 12:52 pm (UTC)Re: kirikaeshi, it's a good way of practicing it, and you get to correct the errors in your swing more quickly, so think of it as medicine. XD I was slapped in the head a couple of times too, but that was due to my not being used to receiving.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-20 01:52 pm (UTC)O.o
(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-20 01:55 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-20 01:57 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-20 11:52 pm (UTC)I don't understand all these terms! ACK! But apparently there's a kendo... club? School? About five minutes away from where I live... note that there is also a fencing club about five minutes away from where I live. The fact that all this cool stuff is five minutes away from home, and has been since before I was born, is mind-boggling.
The point was... I must watch you in kendo action one of these days. XD
On biology:
Oh. My. God.
Interpretive dance rocks my socks.
Now I want to go to your school just so I can watch that movie. XD
(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-21 11:09 am (UTC)Hahaha, watching me in kendo action? I suppose you could watch me get completely beaten by the upperclassmen...
And yes, you should go here and take BS54 and watch the movie! ^_________^ mRNA is love!