Alright, soooo I haven’t updated my blog properly for a while. There is just so much to do! I want to go to all sorts of meetings, do all my homework and yes, have a social life.

I really want to go talk to my professors… about what I don’t know, but I have classes during most of their office hours. I have no idea what sort of thing I really want to study (the courses that I thought I’d love are actually ones that I dislike and the courses that I love… well I don’t know if I am particularly good at them). I have started skipping math classes so that I can study it by myself… terrible right? I have never skipped class before, but I just find it easier coming out of a text book. Question is, how to I transfer all the stuff that I am learning into something useful? Something tangible.

Somehow with all of the things on my mind I end up walking around with my head in the clouds. Yesterday I actually forgot to go to my floor meeting in residence because I was so concentrated on finishing my Physics assignment… I also managed to forget to do a pre-lab for CPSC and I also managed to spend a couple hours trying to figure out how to construct a certain program before realizing that we were given the skeleton for the program in the beginning…=P Fun. Here are just a couple of snapshots of things recently. I have been too dazed and confused to develop a full picture of anything.

 Liebe Macht Blind

Staring at my Physics book I had the uncanny feeling that I knew how to solve the problem in front of me, but my synapses just weren’t firing well enough. Work, brain, work, somehow it was not quite happening. My eyes kept losing focus and darkening as the blinks got longer and longer. Even after I had gone to get tea from the cafeteria, even after I had taken a couple of breaks to talk to people outside my room, my attention simply was not there.

Frustrated I decided to go for a run. As I was getting changed I knew that I was doing the right thing. It was a beautiful day and I had barely been outside. Finally as my feet pounded the pavement and I breathed in the sweet, wet air so native to the West Coast I could clear my mind. Running along in the quiet gave me some time to think. Life here just seems too perfect. Luck has been on my side completely, how is it possible for people to live like this? This isn’t the real world. While I was running I just kept reminding myself that I should just enjoy it while it lasts. Hold onto it while you can. When I got back I felt much more awake and was able to concentrate once again.

*Note to self, go running more often! <3

Significant Figures

I don’t get it! We go through all of high school learning how to do significant figures. Multiplication and division: Use the lowest amount of significant figures for you answer. Addition and subtraction: Use the least amount after the decimal point for your answer. It gets drilled into your head. Be as exact as you can, always punch in the numbers at the last minute e.t.c…. Then we get to university. AND NONE OF THE TEXTBOOKS EVEN FOLLOW THEIR OWN RULES.?!?!?!?! What is that supposed to mean?!?!?!?!?!? They round off part way through the answer, or use whatever decimal point they feel like using. Yes there is a section of almost every science textbook that talks about Significant figures… but do they actually follow the rules that they set out? No. On many of the practice quizzes as long as you get near the correct answer you get a correct mark. But some of the examples in the books are almost impossible to follow…

I understand that there are probably many ways of doing significant figures, but, but, but!!! <3

Pursuit of Knowledge?

Theories, theories, theories. Sometimes they make me fed up with their hypothetical situations. In part sometimes I feel like their existence just simplifies and complicates matters. I really wonder why people “pursue” knowledge.  What on earth is this knowledge thing all about? Commodification of thoughts, of words, of time? I have been thinking about a newspaper article that I read some time ago, talking about how people are getting better at figuring out where to get knowledge (the internet), but getting worse at actually retaining the knowledge “Just google it”. (This is my interpretation, honestly I cannot actually remember exactly what I read… I am sure you can find it online (prime example of the internet laziness effect haha)). Anyways with that in mind, I thought about education. There is sooo much information to take in about anything. There is soooo much information available online. So do you think that if people grow accustomed to having the internet available 24/7  people will still continue to pursue their own personal knowledge? I often feel comfortable just with the idea that if I really wanted to know something I could look it up. That I am as entitled to that knowledge as anyone else. Do you think that in 50 years people will feel so automatically integrated with the online networks that they never really have to study or learn?

Perhaps it is already that way in a different sense. The other day  in our Chemistry crystal structures lab we had to analyze three dimensional models of crystals. As students we are so used to pen, paper and screens, that doing an analysis in real life was extremely difficult for most of us. Maybe it was because it was early in the morning, but we spent forever squinting at little beads on rods, failing to visualize more little beads on rods. It was a perfect example of an extreme spatial awareness fail. I wonder if people who have never learnt to read would have had the same or less troubles then us in visualizing the situation in three dimensions. <3

P.S. Where did my brain go?

Errr… If anyone has seen it please tell me. Not that it is particularly useful, or easy to spot (at the moment I think it is quite about the size of a grape), but please just let me know, it would be nice. I desperately need it before midterms. Thank you! <3