Miscellany

[tarigwaemir]

Lowell House on the Feast of Ste. Florence

HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY TIN! I was going to write birthday fic but forgot as usual. >_> I did write something for this week's Kinked theme, but it makes a poor gift since I have no idea what I was doing.

(Actually, that happens to me fairly often when writing original fiction under deadline pressure: at some point, I end up using all the bizarre ideas that pop into my head from goodness-knows-where. I suppose it's my amateur version of the Surrealist mode of writing. I keep looking at what I wrote, wondering if it gives me any insight into my subconscious, but no such luck.)

This game is great mindless entertainment:

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Just came from kendo practice. Practices have been a lot of fun lately, since the new members have gotten their bogu. My quest for better fumikomi and ki-ken-tai-ichi is progressing (slowly, to be sure, but progressing nonetheless). My stamina, however, is still not as good as it should be, and my legs go through that weak muscle fatigue that shouldn't be happening this far into the semester. -_- Perhaps I should eat more protein. I'm also annoyed because my shomen strike keeps hitting off-center, and I'm not sure why. Am I using my right hand too much or is it my left hand grip loosening up again? Must figure it out at tomorrow's practice.

There's also the discomfiting thought that even if I do something really well during mawarigeiko (that is, rotational drills), it means nothing if I can't translate it to jigeiko (free sparring). I, er, don't always enjoy jigeiko, but it really is the heart of kendo, and I need more practice at it. (Especially because I want to win at least one shiai in the Shoryuhai before I graduate, darn it! ^_^)

My goal was to finish grad school apps by tonight, but clearly that isn't happening. ::sighs:: I feel too mentally tired to think about them at the moment; I think I'll just go to sleep early tonight. On the bright side, I got an A on my Chinese philosophy paper: it of the uninteresting and fairly obvious thesis. -_- I wrote about the concept of sagehood in Mengzi and Xunzi, and how the dialectic between the two can be traced back to Confucius' dual emphases on "native substance" and "cultural refinement". But of course, the paper I really wanted to write would have looked at the concept of Virtue in a ruler as exemplified by Liu Bei and Cao Cao, but alas, we are supposed to focus on the course readings. Well, that and I would never have been able to reread The Three Kingdoms in time.

I have another paper due next Friday, on either the Western Marxists or German and French existentialists...I think I'm going to choose the topic on Simone de Beauvoir (I don't usually like to write about feminism, but de Beauvoir is really, really cool).

Yours &c.

Post-script: You know, I've hardly ever mentioned developmental biology here, although it's easily my favorite course of the semester, because haha, it actually makes sense. I don't really remember most of the protein names though, only the "shape" of the pathways, which I foresee will cause me much trouble while studying for the final. (I think that's why I'm good at molecular biology but not so good at cell biology. >_<)

Comments

[magicnoire.livejournal.com]

I don't really remember most of the protein names though, only the "shape" of the pathways, which I foresee will cause me much trouble while studying for the final. (I think that's why I'm good at molecular biology but not so good at cell biology. >_<)

This was exactly the case with me. I loved molecular, genetics, immunology, and infectitious disease so hard. But cell biology was easily my worst class of the bunch. I struggled so much with it and it didn't help that my professors were poor lecturers as that's how I learn biology best -- through doing and lecture. Reading text does nothing for me because I'm unable to process it cognitively and frame it in terms and examples I understand.

So, I guess this is a long-winded way of saying, "I feel your pain."

[troisroyaumes]

Ah, this makes me feel better, because nearly all of the bio/biochem majors I've met so far preferred cell to molecular bio. ^_^ I think the material in cell bio is interesting but it's hard to take it as a course because it involves so much brute memorization of names and acronyms (that all sound the same to me, no less). >_>;;