All this "examinating"...
May. 17th, 2006 06:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tarigwaemirLowell House on the Feast of St. Paschal Baylon
Random thoughts while working on the take-home final.
Listening to the Lawrence of Arabia FST by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
merichan at the moment and enjoying it very much. A nicely constructed mix, although it presents a slightly different impression of the film. I remember the movie as being very spartan, epic but spare, as ascetic as Lawrence himself. Nonetheless, the FST works really well as a mix, and I can see the connection (a sort of grand, idealistic sound).
---
I read Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go on Monday. I started reading it, then took a two-hour nap, during which I dreamed that I finished the book. I don't remember the details but I know there was a lot of death, not in a gory way, but definitely a lot of people dying. I woke up, in a dark room, terrified out of my mind. Later, much later, I went to sleep again after having finished the book. I got out of bed to turn off the light then stopped, half-paralyzed, in the middle of my room, too frightened by the darkness and the eerie buzz of the computer. I felt as if I was under some sort of subtle attack; really, one's imagination at three or four in the morning has no discipline at all. I finally made it back to bed, but the anxiety didn't leave me. I don't know why these stories about human clones affect me so--I had a similar reaction to Atwood's Oryx and Crake--because it's not that I'm afraid of clones themselves. Or is it? Is there some instinctual revulsion in the idea of a manufactured human being? Manufactured for a purpose other than to just be alive, I mean. I don't know. I can't really verbalize what bothers me about these stories. Something about believing yourself to be human but being perceived as nonhuman. And about being deprived of free will, of having no rights to your own life. Come to think of it, I was also terrified after reading Brave New World in a way that I hadn't been after other dystopic novels like 1984. Is it because I acknowledge that sort of scenario, a society where humans are under biological control, to be a possible future, more so than any 20th century totalitarianism? Hm.
---
Thank goodness I took Knowledge of Language last semester. I could actually write a reasonable answer to part 3 of the evolution question on my systems biology take-home final, which asked you to compare and contrast features of biological evolution to any other sort of evolution (language, economies, ideas, etc.). Vaguest question ever. So I talked about Universal Grammar and parameter hierarchy (again!). Sometimes I get the feeling that my education undergoes a lot of convergence. (Actually, it's ironic because I wrote a whole rant on natural selection for the Knowledge of Language final. It was the question on the biological evolution of the capacity for language. How reciprocal.)
---
Not sure why I'm still feeling the effects of caffeine. I had two cups of coffee last night and some green tea this morning. Shouldn't it all have left my system by now? It's as if my heartbeat is rattling my ribs, and my knees and hands feel wobbly. The dizziness is probably just due to having stayed up all night.
---
Systems biology final finished. I couldn't answer one 2-point question and one 3-point question, and didn't finish answering one 5-point question (I get the sinking feeling I'm going to get minimal partial credit for that particular question though). Still, better than I did on the midterm, I should think, simply by having answered more parts. Whenever I think of that midterm, I cringe. This semester I had spectacularly horrible midterm scores in all subjects except Korean. Well, I guess the second biochemistry midterm was sort of mediocre, i.e. subpar but not grade-destructive. Ugh, and this semester will be the last on my transcript that I send to grad schools. At this rate, I may have to include quite a few explanations in my statement of purpose.
Let me sum up my attempt at taking three biology courses in one semester: I learned more this spring than any other semester in college, but I did not learn everything that was taught to me, and what I did manage to absorb was nowhere near the level that was expected of me. Was it worth it? I don't know yet.
Yours &c.
Random thoughts while working on the take-home final.
Listening to the Lawrence of Arabia FST by
merichan at the moment and enjoying it very much. A nicely constructed mix, although it presents a slightly different impression of the film. I remember the movie as being very spartan, epic but spare, as ascetic as Lawrence himself. Nonetheless, the FST works really well as a mix, and I can see the connection (a sort of grand, idealistic sound).---
I read Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go on Monday. I started reading it, then took a two-hour nap, during which I dreamed that I finished the book. I don't remember the details but I know there was a lot of death, not in a gory way, but definitely a lot of people dying. I woke up, in a dark room, terrified out of my mind. Later, much later, I went to sleep again after having finished the book. I got out of bed to turn off the light then stopped, half-paralyzed, in the middle of my room, too frightened by the darkness and the eerie buzz of the computer. I felt as if I was under some sort of subtle attack; really, one's imagination at three or four in the morning has no discipline at all. I finally made it back to bed, but the anxiety didn't leave me. I don't know why these stories about human clones affect me so--I had a similar reaction to Atwood's Oryx and Crake--because it's not that I'm afraid of clones themselves. Or is it? Is there some instinctual revulsion in the idea of a manufactured human being? Manufactured for a purpose other than to just be alive, I mean. I don't know. I can't really verbalize what bothers me about these stories. Something about believing yourself to be human but being perceived as nonhuman. And about being deprived of free will, of having no rights to your own life. Come to think of it, I was also terrified after reading Brave New World in a way that I hadn't been after other dystopic novels like 1984. Is it because I acknowledge that sort of scenario, a society where humans are under biological control, to be a possible future, more so than any 20th century totalitarianism? Hm.
---
Thank goodness I took Knowledge of Language last semester. I could actually write a reasonable answer to part 3 of the evolution question on my systems biology take-home final, which asked you to compare and contrast features of biological evolution to any other sort of evolution (language, economies, ideas, etc.). Vaguest question ever. So I talked about Universal Grammar and parameter hierarchy (again!). Sometimes I get the feeling that my education undergoes a lot of convergence. (Actually, it's ironic because I wrote a whole rant on natural selection for the Knowledge of Language final. It was the question on the biological evolution of the capacity for language. How reciprocal.)
---
Not sure why I'm still feeling the effects of caffeine. I had two cups of coffee last night and some green tea this morning. Shouldn't it all have left my system by now? It's as if my heartbeat is rattling my ribs, and my knees and hands feel wobbly. The dizziness is probably just due to having stayed up all night.
---
Systems biology final finished. I couldn't answer one 2-point question and one 3-point question, and didn't finish answering one 5-point question (I get the sinking feeling I'm going to get minimal partial credit for that particular question though). Still, better than I did on the midterm, I should think, simply by having answered more parts. Whenever I think of that midterm, I cringe. This semester I had spectacularly horrible midterm scores in all subjects except Korean. Well, I guess the second biochemistry midterm was sort of mediocre, i.e. subpar but not grade-destructive. Ugh, and this semester will be the last on my transcript that I send to grad schools. At this rate, I may have to include quite a few explanations in my statement of purpose.
Let me sum up my attempt at taking three biology courses in one semester: I learned more this spring than any other semester in college, but I did not learn everything that was taught to me, and what I did manage to absorb was nowhere near the level that was expected of me. Was it worth it? I don't know yet.
Yours &c.
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Date: 2006-05-17 10:45 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2006-05-19 01:26 am (UTC):D