Recommendations, interview answers

[tarigwaemir]

Lowell House, on the Feast of Ste. Monica

Huh. Today is the feastday of St. Augustine's mother. (I've heard that after taking a Moral Reasoning Core, you will emerge with an eternal hatred of Augustine for writing The City of God; that is, if you didn't hate him already. But I actually rather liked what I read of the Confessions. He's an intense personality, and while they may violently disagree with his ideas, I think most people acknowledge that he was extremely brilliant. Also, I rather sympathize with his compulsion to neurotic self-analysis.)

They are showing Hotel Rwanda in the JCR, and I...am not watching, alas, because I'm supposed to be working on the physics problem set. I also, in a fit of foolishness, volunteered myself to write the script for our Korean class' end-of-year skit. (All the classes in the Korean language program here put on a skit at the end of the year. A prize goes to the class with the best skit.)

I have a fic recs journal, which I haven't updated in forever, but since it looks like I won't get around to updating it until, um, after finals are over, I thought I'd say here that you should read the Kodomo no Omocha fic that faeryetale wrote for me during the fic request meme because it's beautiful: Superstar.

(Today, we did our final presentations on the "taste" of Korean culture--i.e. a certain aspect of Korean culture that exemplifies the Korean character. Our group presented on 정(情), which can loosely be translated to love/sentiment/emotion, but is more precisely the emotional attachment that builds up over time. It is the accumulation of trust and affection and closeness that comes from a long-term relationship, and the reason I am telling you all this is because I spent an afternoon talking about the meaning of 정 in Korean class and came back to find that Meemee basically drew a perfect picture of it in her fic. ^_^)

While I'm at it, you should also all read issen4's Unfolding Fan (I've linked to part 1, but you can find parts 2 and 3 on the first page of her LJ). I've always admired Luce Red's ability to construct these excellent, solid plots and characterization, but she's getting to be a sheer master of story development, which awes me to no end since I can't write anything with a significant plot.

Other recs: Gyousou/Taiki FST: Black Kirin Remix, done in Asian folk/traditional music, and Full Metal Alchemist FST: Pomatoology, utter crack.

1. Do you think it's more or less difficult to be female than male in the hard sciences at the college level, and do your parents' friends approve or disapprove?

I don't really notice it because the biochemical sciences concentration is pretty evenly distributed. The gender ratio is more skewed for, say, physics or computer science. The only times I notice the potential sexism is when there are debates about the low numbers of female tenured faculty, which of course disturbs me but doesn't quite register as something that will affect me ("Surely by the time I'm 30-something, people will be more sensible," I think to myself naively). My parents' friends are usually quite impressed by my choice of major, but I think that's because they keep forgetting that I don't plan on going to medical school. Also, for some reason, the Korean parents I know don't tend to refer to my gender much at all. They don't expect me to have a boyfriend or become a housewife; I suppose they've categorized me under "overachieving future Asian careerwoman" and expect me to make lots of money to support my parents. Sometimes I suspect that they don't really see me as female at all but rather the version of the ideal Korean eldest son who just happened to get born in a girl's body. I would find this annoying if it weren't for the fact that I'm rather blind to the state of my own gender as well. >_>

(Korean grandmothers on the other hand have been giving me sage advice on the art of husband-catching ever since they heard I was going to college. It would be infuriating if they weren't so sweet and hilarious about it.)

2. When did you start kendo?

Fall of freshman year. Yes, um, it's weird how much it's taken over my mind in such short a span of time. O_O

3. Free association test, the first five words you think of: Landmines.

Princess Diana. UNDP. Rwanda. Detonation squads. And for some reason, the Pacific Ocean.

4. You win the lottery. Name two things (of the "Would not be able to do or afford this without the lottery" variety, not including paying off your education) you would do with the money.

Buy a house. (Uncreative, I know, but I've never lived in a house before. Apartments since the day I was born.) If there was any money left over, then I'd save it for the Grand European Literary Sightseeing Railroad Tour that I've been daydreaming about since high school.

5. Do you think academics and scholars should go and research whatever they want to, no matter how obscure or how popular, or that public interest and accessibility should be a consideration? (Assuming that grants and funding weren't issues.)

I am very much a proponent of knowledge for knowledge's sake. If science didn't own my soul and if I had the time and leeway, I would be taking the most obscure, impractical and eclectic courses I could find. Like Ancient Sumerian. One of the reasons I don't want to go into medicine (other than sheer lack of interest) is that I don't want to feel constrained by the need to actually have a practical purpose for my research. I mean, medical research saves lives and is one of the most noble endeavors a scientist could undertake, but that is not the reason why I want to become a scientist. When I was seven, my encyclopedia had a huge chart of the "tree of knowledge" in its inside cover, and I knew what I wanted to do with my life was add to that tree. The only constraints on research that I acknowledge as legitimate are ethical concerns. Public interest isn't very much an issue at all (if it was, universities wouldn't even exist).

(Regarding the former version of question 5: yes, I'm going to graduate school for biology. More specifically genetics/molecular biology, and I think my research is going to be largely genomics-related. The two problems I'm interested in above all else are: (1) how successively higher levels of biological organization emerge from the lower and (2) a molecular-level description of evolution.)

Physics, you shall not intimidate me! I who have faced the horrors of magnetism shall not cower in front of diffraction and interference (which I think is the topic for this problem set)! (Don't mind me; I need sleep.)

Yours &c.

Comments

[issen4.livejournal.com]

I like Augustine's Confessions too, though I admit during the time I read it, I was more inclined to call him "Auggy" in my head, because he'd go on and on and on... and a silly nickname was the only thing that made it bearable. ^^

Thanks for the rec, though I feel embarrassed that you think well of my 'plotting' and characterization. I sort of feel like the Wizard of Oz, turning paddles and cranking wheels and blowing smoke, to deceive people on the outside, while thinking that it's such a sham on the inside. It amazes me that it falls somewhat into place, though.

[issen4.livejournal.com]

The link you gave is to Unfolding Fan, by the way.

[troisroyaumes]

Ah, stupid me, I meant to rec Unfolding Fan, although I've been meaning to rec Finding Sai for quite some time too, which must be why I typed the wrong title. ^_^;; It's fixed now.

[jaebi-lit.livejournal.com]

The mention of Augustine amuses me for no particular reason related to your post but because one of my friends is writing about him for Latin. We're holed up in the Branford cluster working on our respective papers, and it's kind of nice having company because I've never had a chance to whine about Latin papers with anyone who has something to say in return. ^^

1. That's interesting. The only hardcore bio person I know in RL is female, now that I think about it, but I know very few hardcore science people. I envy you - every time I come home, all my parents' friends ask if I've got a boyfriend yet and gives me a knowing look when I say, "No, I'm really busy and I have BETTER OTHER things to be doing with my time." Thanksgiving last year, I got a long lecture (from a 37-yr-old! Who was born and raised in the States!) on why I needed to get engaged before leaving college.

2. Is it difficult to start in college? I don't think the kendo club here is very big, and I'm kinda interested in it because I did it briefly at Yonsei last summer, but I'm leery of joining up as an utter novice. I wouldn't have time anyway, but it's a tempting thought.

5. Interesting. To wrap up the term, my Civ prof asked a series of questions, one of which was whether or not academics should bow to the public masses' interest in the social history of Rome and the trifling details of peoples' lives. I unintentionally avoided the question in my answer, which was that academics should research whatever interests them without regard for how accessible it is to the public. There will always be people willing to teach, so if people want to research obscure things, they should be free to without considering the masses.

Doesn't most scientific research ultimately have a practical purpose, though? Even if it's driven by knowledge for the sake of knowledge (something I am also a big fan of, but then I am widely considered to be an elitist bitch and am a Classicist ^^), the end results usually have practical applications, yes? No? I just finished writing a paper on the biological factors of sexual orientation, so when you mentioned genomics I thought, "If the entire genomethingummy were mapped, people could decide whether or not there was a male homosexuality gene and where it's located!" (as a digression, I don't buy the gene theory. I wrote about prenatal androgens instead but had to do reading about the "gay gene" anyway.)

[troisroyaumes]

2. It depends on the university, of course, but here, most of the people started when they joined the club. Certain universities with strong kendo/kumdo teams have a lot of people that started at a young age (particularly the West Coast schools), but I think Yale's club is as much geared towards beginners as ours is. It is a huge time commitment, but I don't think being a beginner should stop you from joining if you really were interested.

5. Well, the scientific research I'm interested in is largely impractical. And I think that's true of a lot of scientific fields. The stuff you read about in newspapers, to be sure, is usually somehow applicable, but the science that makes waves in the field uncovers some sort of fundamental explanation about how the world works. For example, the discovery of dark matter revolutionized our understanding about the way galaxies form, the early evolution of the universe and whether the universe will end in a big crunch or not, but it really has no practical application whatsoever. Or what my lab is researching right now: the role of a heat shock protein in buffering the effects of genetic variation on phenotype in Arabidopsis. The goal of scientific research is to understand how things work, not to solve problems. A better understanding of the world might help you manipulate it more efficiently, but for many areas of scientific research, only in the loosest sense possible.

Genomics research for me means understanding how networks of genes are interconnected and regulated. To be sure, mapping the genome has a lot of potential practical applications, but I don't particularly plan on working on how to make it applicable. The example you posed about the possible genetic basis for homosexuality...well, sure, this would have a lot of important social consequences, but is it of any biological interest? I mean, considering that we aren't even anywhere close to understanding how sexual attraction works on a physiological level, much less a molecular/genetic one.

(I think people are too quick to say, "a gene for intelligence! a gene for homicidal tendencies! a gene for charisma!" It's actually a bit of a pet peeve of mine. There are an impossible number of proteins simply responsible for transporting molecules in and out of the nucleus. The protein machinery for replicating DNA is more elaborate than any feat of human engineering. There are at least ten genes that affect the precise shade of an individual's skin color. And yet people say so blithely that a single gene can single-handedly determine a complex human trait!)

Heh, sorry for subjecting you to a rant, but this is one of my favorite topics to blather about, and you happened to trigger it. ^_^;;

[jaebi-lit.livejournal.com]

The goal of scientific research is to understand how things work, not to solve problems.

I think I phrased my original response badly. That is what I meant *points at what you said*. I didn't mean that research was driven by a practical purpose but rather that it has results that are practical. Knowing things is key to manipulating them (this is the part where my evil side says, "You have to know how people tick before you can make them your minions! Psychological manipulation is ever so effective. Bwahaha!"). In that sense, while your research would create a map, other people would be able to use the map to do something.

considering that we aren't even anywhere close to understanding how sexual attraction works on a physiological level, much less a molecular/genetic one.

Or a psychological one, for that matter. Love - and even attraction - are often so, so, so irrational (I will not say anything rude about my friends' significant others. Right.).

I think people are too quick to say, "a gene for intelligence! a gene for homicidal tendencies! a gene for charisma!" It's actually a bit of a pet peeve of mine. There are an impossible number of proteins simply responsible for transporting molecules in and out of the nucleus. The protein machinery for replicating DNA is more elaborate than any feat of human engineering. There are at least ten genes that affect the precise shade of an individual's skin color. And yet people say so blithely that a single gene can single-handedly determine a complex human trait!)

Yes! The reason I chose not to write about the Xq28 theory is that (a) I don't buy it; (b) I don't like it. It's popular, but I dislike it very much. I did a lot of reading that made my eyes cross for that stupid paper, and from what I can tell, the research on the male homosexuality gene (I say that instead of gay gene or homosexuality gene because the research on Xq28 has only turned up possible links for male homosexuality, not female homosexuality.) isn't very conclusive and says that there are multiple genethingies that work together to possibly create a predisposition toward male homosexuality. I think that the public likes the gay gene idea because it seems simple, easy to understand, and removes the burden of actually having to critically think about sexual orientation and one's biases. "Oh! There's a gene! Then it must automatically cause people to be gay! Okay, now I don't need to think about it anymore and I can avoid the issue of whether or not a biological or genetic basis should even matter!" If everything's genetic and we have no control over our genes, then any trait or behaviour - stupidity, appearance, sexual orientation, predisposition for a disease - is not our responsibility and so we don't have to try to change it because, obviously, biology is destiny. @.@ I refuse to believe that biology is destiny (one of my own pet peeves. I hate the idea that people can't control themselves, whether due to biology, love, or what have you. "I can't help being an idiot! I'm in love, and there's just nothing I can do about that!" infuriates me so much.) and the concept that any behaviour is determined purely by genetics annoys me to no end, because what makes humans special is supposed to be that we can overcome biological predispositions and control our behaviour. Humans have rational intellect and agency. Popular conceptions of genetic causes simplify the research to the point of distortion.

By the way, is there such a thing as "Protein 53"? If so, what is it?

[troisroyaumes]

Ah, p53...one of the first tumor suppressor genes to be identified, and quite possibly the bane of cell biology students everywhere. p53 is involved in activating transcription of genes that are involved in halting the cell cycle. Thus, when it's mutated, cells start dividing unconstrollably, leading to cancer. Most human cancers are due to mutations in p53.

Re: gene debate, it's odd because one would think by now the nature vs. nurture debate would have firmly been answered resoundingly as BOTH, but there are still these assumptions that people keep using to come up with ridiculous pseudoscientific justification for whatever pet issue they want to argue about. I definitely agree with you that biology isn't destiny--in fact, that's bad science. Genes aren't very deterministic things to begin with; they are affected by the cytosolic environment, by imprinting, by extracellular signals, by DNA-binding proteins, etc. Genes don't work in isolation; otherwise there'd be nothing to study. You're so right that people keep using genetics as an excuse to avoid real issues--the early 20th century eugenics movement in America is a good example. ::sighs:: I find it frustrating because the beauty of biology is its complexity: that the organism is more than the sum of its parts and that biological phenomena aren't reducible. People who come up with such absurdities as the "gay gene" don't really appreciate the intricacies of how genes really work. Anyway, while I haven't read the research, what you've mentioned of it smacks of a priori judgment to me--as if they're purposely out to prove that homosexual individuals are somehow "mutants"--which I think is a terrible approach to science in addition to being just a terrible attitude in general. >_< Ugh.

[jaebi-lit.livejournal.com]

Oh, that makes sense. One of the Relay for Life teams called themselves "Protein 53" and I kept forgetting to ask them what it meant.

The scientists are actually pretty objective about their research and the screw ups come when the media interprets the research for lay people and when the lay people reduce it to "Gene A -> Result B." My biggest problem with the genetic research is that it doesn't take environmental factors into account. The neurohormonal theory (low prenatal androgen exposure -> attraction to men. high prenatal androgen exposure -> attraction to womyn) is more persuasive to me because the studies that have been done attempted to control for social factors such as the perceived sex of the person and social norms about gender behaviour.

[schwimmerin.livejournal.com]

I would find this annoying if it weren't for the fact that I'm rather blind to the state of my own gender as well. >_>

Aah! Then we must definitely go to the Bacchanalia and be girly! Whee!

PS did you read my answers? *gg*

[troisroyaumes]

Yes, I did! I must have forgotten to comment, but I meant to say that I love the mutant powers you came up with for all of us, and I think you definitely are the type to heal people. XD Also, a huge ;_; to the part where you talked about being lonely last fall. (I had no idea! Poor Jenny...)

Well, I thought we were all decided on not going to the Bacchanalia this year, but if you manage to convince Daera and Nan, I'll certainly go. ^_^

[schwimmerin.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm not going to convince them...plus which I'd have to buy a dress, I don't have one.

No worries about the loneliness stuff...totally not your fault, having you and Nan was definitely my bright spot. In any case, an ugly period that none of the involved parties cares to repeat. :)

[faeryetale.livejournal.com]

Wah, thanks for the rec--am very flattered.

(I always feel somewhat intimidated when I comment on your entries--you're so intelligent and so involved with the sciences and I'm just kind of mundane and science-retarded. o_______o)

[troisroyaumes]

Heh, no, I'm just well-versed in the art of pretending I know what I'm talking about. ^_^;; Anyway, you shouldn't feel intimidated! I'm a bit of a science geek, I admit, and prone to rambling, but you're by no means mundane. ^_^

[aetherangelette.livejournal.com]

Why should anyone be intimidated by you, pfffft. xD~~

And you're definitely well-versed that arcane art you speak of xD~~ But that Kodocha fanfic you linked to was very interesting. Keke~ Must read Kodocha again... mmm~ Hey... if you find any for FMoS or KKJ -- TELL ME! xD~~ And Crap made an uber wall for Tsubasa recently.

And ... :dramatic horror music:
I HATE FINANCE!

Because blog hopping brings good surprises.

[bijou-cho.livejournal.com]

I am now under a strange impression that crack attracts more intellectuals than the normal tracks do... because my blog hopping through crack FST links has been a most enlightening expereince. (*koff*)

Thanks for the fst kudos! And I must say I find your blog style writing rather fasinating. It's also mind 'blogging' how you manage to write so much and still fit cambridge into your schedule.

I'm no longer in the education system, but by the time I get around to blogging my brain has already shut down. Hence the prattle and uncontrollable drooling. (oh, there's a whole lot of stabbing going on too, but it's all private. haha!)

Cheerios!

Re: Because blog hopping brings good surprises.

[troisroyaumes]

Heh, thanks! I'm flattered to hear that I sound intellectual. Actually, I'm able to write long LJ entries because I...um...slack off on everything else. >_< Anyway, I sincerely loved that FST. The Yakko song alone would have made my day. XD