Khanh recently posted another talk by Ben Goldacre, similar to the talk I posted a few days ago, but more generalized about science. I also thought that this talk was interesting, so I thought I would share it with you guys here.
Science: What Is It Up To?
This answered all my questions about what all those damn scientists are up to…
…I can’t believe I’ve been so easily influenced by them!
EDIT: This video was removed, by chance, right after I posted it. Too bad. If you can, check out “Daily Show: Republican Strategist telling us why science is bad”
Jeffrey Eugenides’ Middlesex
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Middlesex is a fictional novel by Jeffrey Eugenides. It is essentially an autobiography of Cal Stephanides, born Calliope Stephanides; that is, it is a tale of his birth and raising as a female, and then rebirth as a male. It is broken up into 4 “books” (and believe me, being the longest thing I’ve read in a long time, it felt like 4 books) in which his story is told.
The story opens with a history of Cal’s grandparents (a brother-sister coupling) and their upbringing in Europe. It follows with his parents (a cousin-cousin coupling) and their lives. And finally, near what felt like the end of the book, it gets onto the life of Cal. Although Cal is both the narrator and the protagonist, I felt that his spotlight in the novel was short, and was expecting more details to be shared from his later life. I also didn’t like how all the incestuous pairings were presented as the prelude to the birth of this technically intersex individual; I’m hoping this correlation (fictional and N=1) doesn’t translate into the beliefs of people in the real world. Overall though, I did enjoy the plot of the novel.
In terms of how the story was told, Eugenides painted the story beautifully. The whole time I was reading the novel, it felt as if I was watching a movie. His illustrating of each scene panned out as if it were a movie, and it made the book out to be quite an easy read (despite its epic length).
The characters were definitely interesting, and well-developed despite coming from very different lifestyles and time periods. I had issues buying everything in many of the characters, but some of their situations made it sort of difficult to completely imagine.
Overall, I enjoyed reading Eugenides’ Middlesex. Although I found it to be somewhat lengthy, I found the plot to be enjoyable, the characters to be well-developed, and the style to carry the reader through three generations of humanity across two continents.
Getting Involved
People will always tell you over and over, get involved on campus, get involved on campus, it’s one thing that will make your university life complete! And while I agree, I find that sometimes there seems to be a sort of cookie-cutter approach when telling people how to be involved: become an RA, join the executive committee for the Student Leadership Conference, join a club. And while these are all valid ways of getting involved, they aren’t necessarily well suited for everyone. I think the poster child for involvement is the outgoing person who seems to know everyone and fills all their hours outside of class with extracurriculars. For someone like me, an introvert with not a whole lot of time to spare outside of class, this format doesn’t necessarily work.
There are lots of ways to get involved on campus, definitely. Clubs are a good way to start, but maybe there aren’t any that catch your eye (although there are over 300) or maybe you don’t have the time to commit to one. That’s okay, too! If you don’t have the time, a good way of being involved on campus is participating in events: Day of the Longboat, Storm the Wall, the Apple Festival, AMS events, events that clubs put on with a small fee for non-members.
Another good way of getting involved is participating in sports, if that interests you. The REC centre offers many instructional classes at discount prices for students as well as intramurals. Don’t like to play? Show your support at a Thunderbirds game.
An often-overlooked opportunity is Student Directed Seminars. You get to work with a professor to create a course that you want to take that isn’t currently offered at UBC. Talk about taking charge of your education!
The university also has amazing fine arts programs for you to take advantage of – the School of Music regularly puts on recitals and concerts in both the Barnett Recital Hall and the Chan Centre for Performing Arts (many of which are free), the drama program puts on plays year-round at the Freddy Wood Theatre, and the Belkin Art Gallery has always got art on display (also at no cost).
Getting a job on campus, especially a Work Study/Work Learn position, can get you really involved. You get to work with faculty members (networking, anyone?), often in the field of your choice, for a small amount of hours and pretty good pay, and you learn a lot, too.
Ultimately, what makes your university experience meaningful is up to you. For me, involvement means blogging, playing in and attending concerts, taking advantage of all the places you can get into with your UBC card, taking part in events like Day of the Long Boat (and I also intend to Storm the Wall this year), knitting club, taking yoga at the REC centre, and above all, having a community of friends who I can share this experience with.
University is this really neat space where you aren’t quite a kid anymore but not quite an adult, so take advantage of that – have some fun. For more information on getting involved on campus, visit the Centre for Student Involvement website, or go to the CSI in Brock Hall for Involvement Coaching.
Course Evaluation: MUSC 121
Yet another very late course review, this time for History II. Please note that for this class, my professor was a sessional instructor, filling in until they hired someone to permanently teach this class. So some this about this course may vary somewhat from what I experienced.
Course Description: This class covers the history of music starting around 1600 in the Baroque period and moving into the Classical period, ending with Haydn and Mozart.
Textbook use: This course requires three textbooks, Norton Anthology of Western Music Vol. 1 and 2 (and the accompanying CDs) and A History of Western Music (Burkholder). The Anthology had excerpts that were studied in class; I found it much more important than in MUSC 120 because while I didn’t really find I needed it in class, there were actually listening questions on tests. The Burkholder textbook was again mostly to reinforce what was said in class. In fact, a lot of the time what was on the slides in class was almost exactly what was in the text.
Homework: This class didn’t have a whole lot of homework, but more than MUSC 120. There was one large research paper as well as two “library assignments” in which you had to make sample bibliographies. This term, rather than a quiz every week, we had four “midterms” which were non-cumulative and the final was the same size as the rest of the tests. They were a fair bit harder than the quizzes of term 1 (though not super hard), so more studying would be necessary.
Professor: I had Graeme Fullerton, who like I said was a sessional instructor while the school was deciding who to hire for the position. I doubt you’ll have him for this course, but if you do get him for something, I find him to be pretty good: he makes his expectations clear and keeps the lectures interesting.
Class format: Two lectures per week in the recital hall, class size of about 80ish? Something like that. There was a greater emphasis on general concepts than on specific characteristics of a given piece, ie. you don’t need to know “in measure 40 of Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony the transition from main theme area to transition was strange…” etc.
Additional comments: I really liked that the tests for this course were not cumulative; it made exam time more relaxing! Also, since there ARE going to be listening portions of the midterms, make sure you actually listen to the pieces you need to know at least a week before the test. Trying to cram them into your brain the night before is not going to work and you are not going to remember them the next day. And actually listen! Remember different motives or characteristics of each piece, such as instrumentation, tempo, melodies, rhythms, etc, and don’t just have the music playing while doing homework and vacuuming your room: it’s not gonna stick that way.
Couse Evaluation: MUSC 106
Another course evaluation of a course I took in the second term of my first year: MUSC 106.
Course Description: The continuation of MUSC 105, so basically, the same thing except harder. MUSC 105 was really about figuring out how to use solfège, basic dictation skills, easy sight singing, interval identification. It seemed really hard at first because it was something totally new, but it’s important to really get a handle on these skills, because MUSC 106 kind of assumes you’re good at all that stuff now. New course material included identifying more types of chords, trickier rhythms (and having to clap out two at the same time), more difficult leaps to sing, some simple harmonic dictation.
Textbook use: This course requires the same two textbooks as MUSC 105, Manual for Ear Training and Sight Singingand Anthology for Sight Singing by Gary S. Karpinski, and the accompanying CD. The Anthology is more important (I think) than the Manual, because all your prepared melodies for exams come from there, but the manual is also important for when you want to practice dictations at home or read up on a concept you’re not totally comfortable with. The Anthology is used in class nearly every time.
Homework: Again, the homework in this class is not for marks; it’s practicing on your own time. Since no one’s going to check if you did it or not, it’s tempting to just not do it, but the only marks you have for this class are the midterm(s) and the final. If you don’t practice as you go along, you’re going to be shaky for the tests.
Professor: I had Gordon Paslawski, the coordinator, and I found him to be a really really good teacher, even if he did move fairly quickly. (It meant we actually had time to go through everything.) Generally though, the class is taught by a TA and they vary from term to term.
Class format: Small class size, instructed by a TA, generally practicing things you’ll need to know for your tests. You may be asked to sight sing in front of people, but usually it’s on a volunteer basis. Attendance is also taken into consideration if you need to take a re-test later (ie. you should show up for class).
Additional comments: First term, I didn’t practice musicianship nearly as much as I should have, and when I did the final exam I came out of it half-convinced that I’d failed. I didn’t, but I resolved the next term to practice consistently throughout the term, and when it came time for the final, I walked out of there feeling like I did pretty much everything right! No nervousness whatsoever. Imagine that!
Belated Course Evaluation: MUSC 111
So it occurred to me recently that I never actually did any reviews of the courses I took last term… I figure I should continue what I started. It might actually end up being useful to someone. So, MUSC 111!
Course Description: This was also brand new course when I took it, and things generally went the same as MUSC 110; some kinks to work out, but generally we knew what to expect by this time. More music theory, but more advanced this time, and it moved more quickly. This term, rather than covering basic concepts of music theory and harmony, we looked at chromaticism, sequences, more chromaticism, and small forms.
Textbook use: This course requires the same two textbooks as MUSC 110, The Complete Musician and the accompanying workbook by Laitz. I found that Dr. Benjamin often disagreed with the text, but when he did he would usually make his own hand out to explain the difference. The Workbook again is crucial; a lot of the assignments come from that book, although Benjie as we liked to call him (behind his back obviously) would just as often make up his own rather difficult assignments. Such as writing minuets. So many minuets.
Homework: A lot of homework, two very large assignments per week. I found that the weekend one would on average take about four hours. This said, that’s mostly just Prof. Benjamin’s style, so if you have someone else, expect still a lot of homework (it is the intensive stream after all), but maybe not quite so intense.
Professor: We had Professor Benjamin again for the second term, which was nice because we didn’t have to adjust to a different teaching style or expectations. He was such a funny guy, I kinda miss having him as my prof… One thing about him was he always said he would not take late assignments, but always did, without fail. Probably because it took him several weeks to grade them.
Class format: Same small class of about fifteen people. Nearly everyone in it was the same as last term, which was really nice to create a sense of community. Assignments made up 40% of the final grade, I can’t remember the other figures though. There was plenty of opportunity to ask questions; it was mainly a lecture-and-note-taking setup.
Additional comments: The exam was… not as brutal as I had expected, but still fried my brain. One nice thing was that typically Dr. B. scaled the marks, so we looked better than we maybe actually did… Basically this class is just the same as 110, but if you didn’t come into 110 with a strong or at least some kind of background in basic harmony and voice leading, 110 might be a bit of a challenge because the basics are gone over quite quickly in 110 because it’s assumed pretty much everyone knows it. So if you don’t, you’ll either have to study up on your own time or go in for help.
Back to School, and no I haven’t exactly died
Ah, it’s good to be back to blogging. I took a well-rested break and now getting back to school is awesome. I suppose you all want updates?
1. For the summer I traveled to places in Asia. Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, and South Korea. It was a culture shock for every one of them; and I enjoyed immensely all the time I’ve spent (and also the food. omg.). Though strangely enough I found dimsum in Hong Kong to be on par with Vancouver’s dimsum. And meeting family, especially those you didn’t know they were family, is always a happy moment.
2. Imagine Day was, again, a blast. It was fun meeting the new first years and talking to them about expectations and what to do now that they’re in UBC. MUG Leaders were really helpful in that regard. Hopefully they’re still in touch with their muggies..
3. On Sept. 17th, 4:30AM, I submitted my med school application to UBC. I really have got to stop doing these things last minute.. But since I’ve done the application last year I didn’t feel any pressure to complete it early. Now that it’s done, I feel like I got some weight off my back. And I only applied to and will only apply to UBC.
4. 2 days ago I got notified that I got the Orientations and Transition Coordinator position! Really really excited to work with Student Development Staff to make Imagine Day better than ever. Can’t wait to meet the new squad leaders this year!
Third Year Update
Hello everyone,
I can’t believe its already been 2 weeks since school started, this semester really seems to be going super fast! This year is different for me because I’m working, and I’ve become more efficient overall to make up for the time I lose. I remember wasting a lot of weekends last year, and I’m too scared to do that at this point. I am officially in Integrated Sciences in Microbiology and Immunology and Nutritional Sciences. I’m going to go through the process in its entirety (I’m still getting some things sorted), but I want to turn it into an honors degree. To help my application for grad/med school, and because based on how UBC has certain courses restricted to only one semester I have to drag it till the following year, so why not make the most out of my time and pursue an honors. I’ll see how it goes. This semester I am taking Phyl 301, Micb 302, Stats 200, Germ 100, and Isci 300. My first impressions after 2nd week are below:
Phyl 301
Why in the world did I buy that textbook. Besides that, the course is a battlefield, I feel like explaining the 5 minutes before the beginning of this class requires it’s own post. If you thought you’ve seen crazy at UBC you haven’t till you try and get a good seat in the 11am Phyl 301. People are literally throwing bags rows away from them in the effort to get a seat, hoping over bars and multiple rows of seats, arguing over how many seats to save. Yes I have already got told off for saving ONE seat, I let him win and keep the seat, and what happened right after, he saved the seat beside him. The main problem with the seating issue is that there is an Anat course right before Phyl 301. Now a lot of those kids are in Phyl 301, so they don’t move, they stay where they are, so then everyone coming in is like in a way competing for the seats that are left. The prof doesn’t assign readings (well this one at least, there are more to come) and it makes the lectures all the more important. Each lecture has so much information, that being in the nosebleed seats really isn’t the best. The class has like 600 students, there are 2 overflow rooms, and they have the option to facetime the prof a question on ipad should they need one. Thats new! Overall, I’m understanding everything so far, I think my job has actually turned me into a really good notetaker in class, I can catch information faster, write faster, and use abbreviations I learned while working. I will also talk about my job more, because I get a lot of questions about it.
Micb 302
Constantly a lecture behind no matter how hard I try, there is just too much information. I feel like 2 weeks of Micb 202 is in one week of Micb 302. The course is fine, the professor is great, there’s just a whole lot of information. This year the changed the textbook, and I really don’t like it. The book goes in circles, brings up a topic and seems to finalize that topic and move on to something else then bring up the other topic and adds more random stuff. Like I wish it’d bring up a topic like inflammation, and say everything, every receptor, every protein and molecule that participates, but it comes up every chapter with different jargon, and this would be fine if this were multiple choice, but since the midterms are more short-answer I want clarity so I can be clear with my answers. I wouldnt dare to cram this course so I’m trying to be really thorough and keep up. I’m a lecture behind, but thats not bad, I don’t mind staying that way, because she always ends up telling us in lecture :ignore this and that in the book, I’m glad I didn’t read all the intricacies of the complement system before she said that. I also notice that going to lecture, getting a solid idea then reading works well for this course, for me at least, this usually isnt the case. This year they made the change to have 2 midterms, one is in 2 weeks and worth 20% the one after is 30%. I guess because students from last year complained about having a 50% midterm. And I wonder if you always want what you can’t have, because now I’m thinking I’d like to go crazy studying for this one midterm and get 50% out of the way, but sometimes I’m studying and I’m relieved there are 2 midterms in case this one goes bad. I’m never really great at short answer exams. I can understand a concept all the way, all the steps, but not give them exactly what they want and lose marks all over the place. I hope there are practice midterms, so I can work on this.
Stats 200
I have a fear of probability, it’s just something I never got, so I was worried about Statistics. I was initially in a 2pm section, and had a class in Buchanan right before my Stats course (in EEB) and I would always come and the class would be full and I’d have to sit on the ground. I am a horrible horrible morning person, but I had to make the decision to have a seat every class and give my full attention, so I switched to the 9am section which is half empty ( I’m pretty sure a lot of 9am people sleep in and thats why the 2pm section is always full). I prefer the professor who I’m with now, he goes fast sometimes but explains things in the most simple way that I can actually get all the clicker questions, and understand everything before reading the book, this was shocking for me. So far, this course is going well.
Germ 100
Iknew while at UBC I needed to do a language, because it’s just something you can really carry with you after you graduate, and it seems like a straight forward arts elective that doesn’t include countless essays. I was worried about this course because people warned me there will be students who slyly get into the course, and have experience with German, when it’s a beginner course. And of course, some students have shown they know more than they should, someone actually said ‘oh yeah I took German courses…[see my expression]…yeah wasn’t that serious though yaah.’ I decided to stay because I still want to learn the language, I’m enjoying it so far. I actually had thoughts of switching out but I’d already taken the wrapper off my book which was nearly 200 dollars so…decided to stay, I’m glad I did now. There is memorization but once you take a course like CLST 301, memorization isn’t a real problem. The class is straight forward, so far, the prof is very friendly and organized, I’m trying to make it through to the 200 levels and leave UBC able to carry conversations.
ISCI 300
This is a seminar for Integrated Sciences students. It’s pass/fail, so I plan to show up, take what I can from the course, and learn some new topics. I’ve never taken a pass/fail course so I’m still unsure how it works, but the professor seems nice so far.
My Job
Yes I am working as an ER Scribe, it’s the first time I’m working while going to school, so I’ve become more aware of how I spend my time, I’m actually using my planner now, and it’s been a very eye-opening experience. You can google it to see the basic information, but I’m sure duties slightly differ everywhere. It’s the only program of its kind in Canada so far, so that in itself is cool, you get to work with doctor’s and see what they do every shift, it’s really interesting seeing the things you read in a book in front of you. I think I’ve said this before but the only thing thats ever made me cringe was the person who chainsawed their fingers off by accident, other than that nothing really grosses me out. I saw a stomach get drained the other day, and I literally could not believe how much fluid came out, it filled up like two medium sized bags. You’d think being the oldest of 6 I’ve seen an ultrasound done of a baby but I haven’t and the first time I saw that was really nice. I’m still clueless about ultrasounds, a lot of time it looks like a blob, but I’ve actually spotted gall bladder stones, and things like that, and I would probably think it was blobs on a screen a few months ago, so it is a learning experience in a way. And now I’m kind of understanding why they are adding Psychology to the MCATs. For night shifts, you can already imagine the amount of drunk passed out/belligerent people that come in, but in the whole 4 months atleast the shifts I’ve worked, there has only been one Code White and it was cancelled. Overall, it’s been a very rewarding experience working at the ER, I will definitely continue blogging about my experiences there. 🙂
Cooking: The Second-Year’s Nemesis
Chances are, if you were living in residence for your residence, you are now living in some sort of accommodation that includes a kitchen and now you are staring at the cupboards and appliances which stare back at you unhelpfully and you realize: you have to cook for yourself. Yikes.
Maybe you’re one of those people who always cooked a lot for themselves at home anyway, so it isn’t really a big deal, but I am not one of those people; my parents always made the meals in our house. That’s just the way it was. So when I was left alone in my kitchen to try to feed myself, I was anxious. What should I make? Will I screw it up? Will I make a mess, will I break something? Will I over spend on food?
I’ve been cooking for myself for approximately the past two and half weeks (although it feels much longer than that), and I’m feeling much less nervous now. Once you get the hang of things, it isn’t so hard to manage. So although I am no expert, here is my method of feeding myself and relatively healthily and cheaply.
- Start with what you know. Make a list of all the things you know how to make and what you’ve made before. Gather recipes that your mom made at home so that the familiar tastes will remind you of home and not feel like such a shock. Speaking of mom, get her to walk you through some basics of cooking and a few of your favourite recipes before you leave.
- Plan ahead. Figure out what you want to eat for most of the week and do a shopping trip at the beginning of the week so you don’t have to go to the store every other day. That way if you also need to take something out of the freezer to make later that night, you’ll remember and not have to deal with frozen pasta sauce that won’t come out of its tupperware.
- Freeze things. Cooking for one can be challenging, especially since most food is sold in fairly large packages.There’s nothing more disappointing than having your food go off before you can eat it, and things like pasta sauce and cheese can go bad pretty fast. So once I open a jar of pasta sauce, I freeze in serving-size tupperware what I don’t need right away, and when I buy a package of cheese I grate about two thirds of it and freeze it and leave the rest in the fridge. If you’re sharing a fridge/freezer with a lot of people and don’t have room, you’ll have to get creative. Maybe try coordinating shared meals with your roommates? I only have to share with one other person, so I have it easy…
- Cook ahead. Cooking during the week when you have no time can suck, so making a larger meal on the weekend and then eating leftovers all week can save you the trouble. This week is taco week for me!
- One thing I like to do to stay healthy is to make sure I have at least one thing from each food group in every meal. Well, the big meals anyway. Breakfast I tend to skip out on the meat group. I find the hardest thing to get enough of is fruits and vegetables, but what I’ve found that fresh fruit and vegetables like grapes or carrots can easily be added to a meal to fill it out. And frozen vegetables like peas and corn are SUPER easy and fast to make in the microwave.
- My words on eating cheap: stalk the flyers, take advantage of deals, and don’t buy what you don’t need. Good deals are a no brainer, but sometimes people forget that they don’t really need chips or granola bars, or the most expensive brand of cereal. In addition, meat such as chicken is usually much cheaper than its equivalent in beef, so maybe hold back on the cow. Budget yourself, and see what you need to improve on in your spending habits.
I think my favourite go-to food is the quesadilla: fast, easy, and melty-cheese-good. Probably not coincidental that it’s also one of my favourite comfort foods. 😛