Nine posts, whining
May. 24th, 2005 08:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tarigwaemirLowell House, on the Feast of St. Donatian
Nine pseudo-entries written while studying in the library yesterday and today. I've put them all into separate cuts, since they have nothing to do with each other and were written at very different points in time.
1. Truisms: I was listening to Gold in the Air of Summer by the Kings of Convenience today, when my iPod was playing the Arima/Miyazawa FST, and for some reason, the song reminded me of The Motorcycle Diaries. I had a sudden surge of wanderlust and the renewed conviction that I need to travel like that one day, to take a journey not a vacation, to just go without a plan other than to see what can be seen. I've been dreaming ever since high school about a meandering trip across Europe, traveling by train and sleeping in hostels, but I would like to go other places as well. I would like to see the bicycles and busy streets in Beijing, the pilgrims by the Ganges, the mosques in Damascus and Istanbul, the finches of the Galapagos, the cattle ranches of Argentina, the eucalyptus forests in Australia...all these places we read about in books and history classes. To think that I could spend the rest of my life knowing them only secondhand like I do now feels just a little tragic. I would even like to travel to the middle of nowhere, like the place from which my freshman faculty advisor sent me a homemade postcard written on the back of a Bisquick box. I want to see the unending horizon of the tundra, the tedium of an unchanging landscape, the smallness of humans in a place where there is nothing but ground and sky.
I think that's part of why I need to read because there are millions of places I'll never see, millions of lives I'll never live. One human life isn't long enough to experience everything that can be experienced, but at least we can pick up bits and pieces through stories. It's a truism to say that books can never be a substitute for real life, but that's not the point, is it? On long drives through Long Island or upstate New York, I would stare at the passing houses and think that I would never know what it would mean to live in such a place: what would it be like to live in that distant white house up there, surrounded by trees, surrounded by mountains? What would it be like to grow up across the road from that old-fashioned store that still sold homemade taffy? What would it be like to hold strawberry festivals and harvest apples and pumpkins in the fall? And even if I visited these places, I would never really know, would I? It's daunting at times to conceive the enormity of the gulf that lies between my own narrow life and those of other people, even people who live only two hours away by car. Even the most banal and ordinary lives must possess something exotic, that remains mysterious to me even if it's something as simple as riding a bicycle to school every morning. Perhaps it's only the perspective of a young person who just hasn't lived long enough, or perhaps I've just momentarily abandoned what cynicism I've acquired, but the thought still amazes me.
Then, to realize that in spite of all this, we communicate; we somehow comprehend one another or at least imagine that we do. What a mystery.
2. Fight or flight: Found in the middle of the section notes on signal transduction pathways:
3. More blogging tribulations: Earlier, I went to check my email on the eMacs on the first floor of Lamont, and out of curiosity, I checked the reading log (the Manila version on the Berkman Center server, not the new WordPress version on my domain) again, and it was slow but accessible. -_- After Googling the problem, it seems that my IP address may have been blocked by the server hosting the blogs. I was quite relieved and made haste to save the two entries I couldn't transfer, although I forgot about the unpublished entries. Must remember to stop by the Science Center computer labs after finals are done and retrieve the text. I can get my IP address unblocked if I email the webmaster, but actually I think I'm going to go ahead with the move instead. The Berkman Center server has always been a bit slow (it frequently goes down after midnight, I noticed), and I much prefer the WordPress interface to Manila (even if the people who write Manila themes tend to make cleaner stylesheets).
That reminds me, I should condense my website or actually start putting more content up so that it's not just a mass of null links (outside the fanfiction section, that is).
4. Asian pop: Are there any major Japanese pop artists who sing R&B or hip hop? Because all the J-pop songs I have are dance or techno or rock or enka. I'm just wondering because so many of the popular K-pop artists I know (especially male ones like Bi or Kangta) sing R&B--to the point where I'm kind of sick of it--and of course, Korean hip hop is a whole phenomenon of its own. Of course, I don't really know all that much about the Japanese music industry, so if I've just sounded horribly ignorant, forgive me. I don't even know all that much about K-pop either, but I have a better grasp of who and what is popular because I can watch entertainment shows on KTV when I'm at home.
5. Medieval harem?: From Einhard's Vita Karoli magni, as quoted by Matthias Becher in Charlemagne:
6. Charlemagne's children: According to this family tree, Charlemagne had ten (official) wives and eighteen children. Eight of these were sons, and of those, only one, Louis the Pious, survived. That's...kind of sad.
7. Annoyance: I was listening to Bellissimo, that song from the L'Oréal commercial. Or I think it was L'Oréal...it may have been another makeup company. Anyway, it's the commercial with Julianne Moore as model, and most of the song lyrics repeat over and over (in a breathy voice), "Bellissimo, mon amour," in a horrible American accent. The song itself is nice, but every time I hear the singer say, "Bellissimo," I wince. I don't even speak Italian, and I could probably approximate the pronounciation better than that. Also, why mixing Italian with French? Is it a conscious artistic choice or simple ignorance? I doubt it's the former. But really, it's not even as if the melody was so strict that they couldn't say "mi amore" instead and keep it consistent.
8. Insecurities: 공부하는게 이렇게 힘든게 처음이다. 뭐가 달라졌나? 지금 배우는게 더 어렵고 똑똑한 학생과 경쟁하고 이런 핑계가 많아도 사실대로 말하면 내 공부하는 태도만 달라진거다. 그리고 이 변함은 갑자기 대학부터 시작한게 아니고 십일학년 때부터 조금식 조금식 내가 개을러진것 같다. 더 능력있는 사람은 다를지는 모르겠지만 나는 공부를 정말 제대고 하려면 다른것에 관심 둘 수 없다. 난 모든걸 투자하고 하지 않으면 아무것도 못 이루는 성격이거든. 정말 미친듯이 다른 세상을 모르면서 그 과목에 빠져있는 상태에 공부 해야 되는데...한번 구학년 시작하기 전 방학동안 매일 놀지도 않고 테레비 보지도 않고 다음 학년 공부할 수학을 미리 공부하면서 여름을 보낸적이 있다. 그 때 수학 문제를 연습하면서 혼자 모르는것을 다시 또다시 해볼라고 하면서 "아 이게 학자의 길이군아" 이해했다. 쉽지 않았지만 그때 정말...어떻게 설명하지? 내가 누구고 이 세상에 내 자리가 어딘지 확실했다. 내 부족함이나 다른 사람과 어떻게 비교되나...이런 생각이 없어진 상태였다. 내 기억이 얼마나 옳은지는 모르겠지만 나는 맺날 그때가 생각나면 그런 기억이 난다. 그때가 내가 내 자신과 제일 편한한 때였구나...왜 이렇게 달라졌지? 솔직히 말하면 난 지금 보는 내가 마음에 들진 않다. 내 강한 자존심 때문에 그런 걸 인정하는게 싫지만 그게 사실이다. 하지만 사람이 변하기 마련이고 나도 이 변한 나를 받아들이는걸 배워야 한다. 이럴 땐 정말 피정 한번 갈 수 있었으면 좋은데.
9. When all else fails: For posterity's sake, here are Tari's tips for making up a plausible-sounding answer when faced with a cell biology question for which you have no idea what the answer is:
I received my physics final exam and Charlemagne term paper grades. Well, at least I won't be in suspense about three of my subjects anymore, even if the results are depressing. Physics though is really my fault for messing up so badly on that second midterm, and well, Charlemagne...I don't really care all that much about Charlemagne at the moment. I learned a lot from the course, and I can be satisfied with that. (The final exam wasn't bad at all, and I enjoyed writing it, but my grades have been so consistent in that course that I doubt even getting an A on the final--which is not exactly a likely prospect--will change the situation much.) Nonetheless, the difference between Charlemagne and physics is that I feel like I did all that I could for Charlemagne, and if that wasn't enough for my TF, it was enough for me, and I feel happy about what I've gotten from the course. Physics on the other hand...I feel like I've learned nothing, and the whole course was pretty much jumping through hoops, which I'm not very good at, literally or metaphorically.
I hate thinking about my GPA. It's such a petty, ignoble state of being. But then I do feel like a petty, ignoble person right now. >_<
Yours &c.
Nine pseudo-entries written while studying in the library yesterday and today. I've put them all into separate cuts, since they have nothing to do with each other and were written at very different points in time.
1. Truisms: I was listening to Gold in the Air of Summer by the Kings of Convenience today, when my iPod was playing the Arima/Miyazawa FST, and for some reason, the song reminded me of The Motorcycle Diaries. I had a sudden surge of wanderlust and the renewed conviction that I need to travel like that one day, to take a journey not a vacation, to just go without a plan other than to see what can be seen. I've been dreaming ever since high school about a meandering trip across Europe, traveling by train and sleeping in hostels, but I would like to go other places as well. I would like to see the bicycles and busy streets in Beijing, the pilgrims by the Ganges, the mosques in Damascus and Istanbul, the finches of the Galapagos, the cattle ranches of Argentina, the eucalyptus forests in Australia...all these places we read about in books and history classes. To think that I could spend the rest of my life knowing them only secondhand like I do now feels just a little tragic. I would even like to travel to the middle of nowhere, like the place from which my freshman faculty advisor sent me a homemade postcard written on the back of a Bisquick box. I want to see the unending horizon of the tundra, the tedium of an unchanging landscape, the smallness of humans in a place where there is nothing but ground and sky.
I think that's part of why I need to read because there are millions of places I'll never see, millions of lives I'll never live. One human life isn't long enough to experience everything that can be experienced, but at least we can pick up bits and pieces through stories. It's a truism to say that books can never be a substitute for real life, but that's not the point, is it? On long drives through Long Island or upstate New York, I would stare at the passing houses and think that I would never know what it would mean to live in such a place: what would it be like to live in that distant white house up there, surrounded by trees, surrounded by mountains? What would it be like to grow up across the road from that old-fashioned store that still sold homemade taffy? What would it be like to hold strawberry festivals and harvest apples and pumpkins in the fall? And even if I visited these places, I would never really know, would I? It's daunting at times to conceive the enormity of the gulf that lies between my own narrow life and those of other people, even people who live only two hours away by car. Even the most banal and ordinary lives must possess something exotic, that remains mysterious to me even if it's something as simple as riding a bicycle to school every morning. Perhaps it's only the perspective of a young person who just hasn't lived long enough, or perhaps I've just momentarily abandoned what cynicism I've acquired, but the thought still amazes me.
Then, to realize that in spite of all this, we communicate; we somehow comprehend one another or at least imagine that we do. What a mystery.
2. Fight or flight: Found in the middle of the section notes on signal transduction pathways:
This turns on glycogen breakdown, releasing more glucose into the blood and providing the energy you need to wrestle the black bear. (Do not try to wrestle the grizzly bear. Play dead!)I love my biology TF.
3. More blogging tribulations: Earlier, I went to check my email on the eMacs on the first floor of Lamont, and out of curiosity, I checked the reading log (the Manila version on the Berkman Center server, not the new WordPress version on my domain) again, and it was slow but accessible. -_- After Googling the problem, it seems that my IP address may have been blocked by the server hosting the blogs. I was quite relieved and made haste to save the two entries I couldn't transfer, although I forgot about the unpublished entries. Must remember to stop by the Science Center computer labs after finals are done and retrieve the text. I can get my IP address unblocked if I email the webmaster, but actually I think I'm going to go ahead with the move instead. The Berkman Center server has always been a bit slow (it frequently goes down after midnight, I noticed), and I much prefer the WordPress interface to Manila (even if the people who write Manila themes tend to make cleaner stylesheets).
That reminds me, I should condense my website or actually start putting more content up so that it's not just a mass of null links (outside the fanfiction section, that is).
4. Asian pop: Are there any major Japanese pop artists who sing R&B or hip hop? Because all the J-pop songs I have are dance or techno or rock or enka. I'm just wondering because so many of the popular K-pop artists I know (especially male ones like Bi or Kangta) sing R&B--to the point where I'm kind of sick of it--and of course, Korean hip hop is a whole phenomenon of its own. Of course, I don't really know all that much about the Japanese music industry, so if I've just sounded horribly ignorant, forgive me. I don't even know all that much about K-pop either, but I have a better grasp of who and what is popular because I can watch entertainment shows on KTV when I'm at home.
5. Medieval harem?: From Einhard's Vita Karoli magni, as quoted by Matthias Becher in Charlemagne:
He invited not only his sons, but also the nobles, his friends, and frequently his men and his bodyguards to join him in the baths so that at times a hundred or more men were bathing with him....surely I'm not the only one getting the image of a male harem.
6. Charlemagne's children: According to this family tree, Charlemagne had ten (official) wives and eighteen children. Eight of these were sons, and of those, only one, Louis the Pious, survived. That's...kind of sad.
7. Annoyance: I was listening to Bellissimo, that song from the L'Oréal commercial. Or I think it was L'Oréal...it may have been another makeup company. Anyway, it's the commercial with Julianne Moore as model, and most of the song lyrics repeat over and over (in a breathy voice), "Bellissimo, mon amour," in a horrible American accent. The song itself is nice, but every time I hear the singer say, "Bellissimo," I wince. I don't even speak Italian, and I could probably approximate the pronounciation better than that. Also, why mixing Italian with French? Is it a conscious artistic choice or simple ignorance? I doubt it's the former. But really, it's not even as if the melody was so strict that they couldn't say "mi amore" instead and keep it consistent.
8. Insecurities: 공부하는게 이렇게 힘든게 처음이다. 뭐가 달라졌나? 지금 배우는게 더 어렵고 똑똑한 학생과 경쟁하고 이런 핑계가 많아도 사실대로 말하면 내 공부하는 태도만 달라진거다. 그리고 이 변함은 갑자기 대학부터 시작한게 아니고 십일학년 때부터 조금식 조금식 내가 개을러진것 같다. 더 능력있는 사람은 다를지는 모르겠지만 나는 공부를 정말 제대고 하려면 다른것에 관심 둘 수 없다. 난 모든걸 투자하고 하지 않으면 아무것도 못 이루는 성격이거든. 정말 미친듯이 다른 세상을 모르면서 그 과목에 빠져있는 상태에 공부 해야 되는데...한번 구학년 시작하기 전 방학동안 매일 놀지도 않고 테레비 보지도 않고 다음 학년 공부할 수학을 미리 공부하면서 여름을 보낸적이 있다. 그 때 수학 문제를 연습하면서 혼자 모르는것을 다시 또다시 해볼라고 하면서 "아 이게 학자의 길이군아" 이해했다. 쉽지 않았지만 그때 정말...어떻게 설명하지? 내가 누구고 이 세상에 내 자리가 어딘지 확실했다. 내 부족함이나 다른 사람과 어떻게 비교되나...이런 생각이 없어진 상태였다. 내 기억이 얼마나 옳은지는 모르겠지만 나는 맺날 그때가 생각나면 그런 기억이 난다. 그때가 내가 내 자신과 제일 편한한 때였구나...왜 이렇게 달라졌지? 솔직히 말하면 난 지금 보는 내가 마음에 들진 않다. 내 강한 자존심 때문에 그런 걸 인정하는게 싫지만 그게 사실이다. 하지만 사람이 변하기 마련이고 나도 이 변한 나를 받아들이는걸 배워야 한다. 이럴 땐 정말 피정 한번 갈 수 있었으면 좋은데.
9. When all else fails: For posterity's sake, here are Tari's tips for making up a plausible-sounding answer when faced with a cell biology question for which you have no idea what the answer is:
- Everything in cell biology involves phosphorylation. Everything.
- If it's a regulatory feedback loop, most likely there's GTP involved. Which means GTPases, GEFs and GAPs.
- If it needs energy, most likely there's ATP involved.
- If there's an ion involved, most likely it's calcium.
- Cellular responses almost invariably mean either a change in transcription or a change in the cytoskeleton. Often both.
- Key words: "upregulate", "downregulate", "conformational change", "sequester", "activate", "inhibit"...and yes, of course, "phosphorylate".
- When you want to decrease the levels of a certain protein, polyubiqutination and proteasomes are your friends. Especially when it involves the cell cycle.
- Gene expression has three themes: the actual structure of the protein expressed, the degree to which its gene is transcribed, and where it ends up in the cell.
- Polarization (and not just in the chemical sense) is everywhere!
- What is this subject about anyway? (Other than a sadistic torture method for cramming lots and lots of meaningless acronyms into the heads of hapless biology students.) That's right, it's about cells and cellular mechanisms for basic life processes. At least you can sound grandiose even if you have no idea what the details of the mechanisms actually are.
I received my physics final exam and Charlemagne term paper grades. Well, at least I won't be in suspense about three of my subjects anymore, even if the results are depressing. Physics though is really my fault for messing up so badly on that second midterm, and well, Charlemagne...I don't really care all that much about Charlemagne at the moment. I learned a lot from the course, and I can be satisfied with that. (The final exam wasn't bad at all, and I enjoyed writing it, but my grades have been so consistent in that course that I doubt even getting an A on the final--which is not exactly a likely prospect--will change the situation much.) Nonetheless, the difference between Charlemagne and physics is that I feel like I did all that I could for Charlemagne, and if that wasn't enough for my TF, it was enough for me, and I feel happy about what I've gotten from the course. Physics on the other hand...I feel like I've learned nothing, and the whole course was pretty much jumping through hoops, which I'm not very good at, literally or metaphorically.
I hate thinking about my GPA. It's such a petty, ignoble state of being. But then I do feel like a petty, ignoble person right now. >_<
Yours &c.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2005-05-25 12:31 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-05-25 12:53 am (UTC)Korean hip hop is quite huge actually. A few years ago, there was an article in the NYTimes about how the Chinese Communist government selected members for an official hip hop group, due to the extreme popularity of H.O.T., and shipped them off to Korea for training. Hip hop takes up a huge percentage of the pop music industry, followed probably by ballad/R&B and dance/techno. But there's very little rock, which seems very different from Japan. I mean, not that there's no rock bands whatsoever, but they never perform on the music shows that always feature the up and coming bands and artists.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-05-25 03:25 am (UTC)see, all I really listen to is jpop and bouncydansudansu so I'm familiar with anybody who does bouncydansudansupop and not with people like L'arc and Gackt. Because I don't like the style.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-05-25 03:36 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-05-25 05:18 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-05-26 06:56 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-23 02:44 am (UTC)Also (I keep mushing replies together, sorry sorry) - I friended you because omg fellow animanga lover in teh beeg H I'll be attending, cannot let go! *hooks nails into your sweater* I don't comment much on your journal because it's hard for me to, frankly. The amounts of information processed by your brain far outstrip what I currently have in mine. XD I enjoy reading your little introspections and your thoughts on books - from what I can see you really *are* an all-rounder interested in just about everything, and it's inspiring and intimidating at the same time. Please to meet up with me some time this fall or winter and show me around? ♥
(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-24 01:59 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-05-25 01:18 am (UTC)On a more serious note, though, don't worry about your GPA. There are more important things in life, believe it or not. And no, you are not a petty, ignoble person. You've just been swept into the fearsome river that is the crazy attitude that prevails at this school. Hakuna matata, my friend, hakuna matata...c'est une phrase magnifique ;)
(no subject)
Date: 2005-05-25 01:47 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-05-25 01:57 am (UTC)Dude, the tourists from Quebec are really rubbing off on you *lol* (that's actually how the French version of the song goes, by the way, I have it on my computer ^_^)
(no subject)
Date: 2005-05-25 03:14 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-05-25 05:07 am (UTC)hehehehehe.
also: i totally absolutely 100% feel your wanderlust, on both counts. i'm torn between wanting the security of a city i know, wanting to wander around and have adventures in foreign countries, and living on a farm in like, idaho or something. eeeep.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-05-25 12:45 pm (UTC)we are all too bound by the belief that life must go in a straight path. of course, knowing this does nothing to change my belief that my life must go in a straight path, which i suppose is a testament to my hypocrism...
i sympathize with you on the physics. it's particularly galling for me because 1) i was less than 0.6% away from an A and 2) i performed very well on the second exam and final, but it wasn't enough to save the semi-disaster that was my first exam. whereas in most courses such a drastic improvement over the course of the semester would have counted for something. *blink* er... sorry for whining. well, we're in the same boat? *plop*
i have the feeling that everything i know about bio is going to leak inconveniently out of my head during the exam and i'll fall asleep before i finish it, just because i turned on to be an insomniac on the morning of the final. >_< argh
(no subject)
Date: 2005-05-25 05:21 pm (UTC)...Although looking at what I wrote, nearly every major author in the Western opus has pretty much expressed this dual sentiment a hundred times better than I just did. >_>
The physics...well...heh, when I wrote this entry, I hadn't gotten Prof. Morii's second email yet, and I had thought (according to my calculations) that I had gotten a B+. Which really surprised me because I knew that I was in danger of getting a B+ if I did badly on the final, but the final grade itself seemed pretty good. So I felt unhappy and disappointed in myself, and then I got the second email, checked the PDF and realized that I got a A- after all. So I'm actually pretty relieved right now, although another A- in physics kind of sucks. ;_;
Leak, leak, leak...my brain's a saturated sponge, and it can't take any more information at the moment.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-05-31 12:09 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-02 05:22 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-02 05:45 pm (UTC)I need to practice my Korean. I'm terrible at reading. Anyways, that sort of things happens when you go to college. It's not a bad thing. You should feel challenged.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-02 10:43 pm (UTC)I'm terrible at reading too. I end up looking up every other word when I attempt anything above the elementary school level. XD