Dilemmas are annoying. but sometimes, the inspiration to find an answer to your problems may come from a totally unexpected source. i'll talk about my source later, because i want to cover tuesday first. truth be told, nothing much happened on tuesday. i had one class, from 6:00pm to 8:00pm. it's called "great ideas in contemporary physics", and it's taught by a german professor. at least i think he's german...his accent and name seem to suggest german heritage. well...i can't say for sure, but i am certain that he's from somewhere in europe. that's not my main point, however. what i do want to highlight was that he started his class by showing this video:

if the first thought that came to your mind was, 'WTF does this have to do with physics!??', let me assure you that you're not alone. the professor explained it by comparing lady gaga to modern physics...something about how both are surprising, and even though we may not like them, we at least have to accept that they exist. i thought that it took a fair bit of imagination to come up with that, but i respect the guy's creativity. so far, it's been a recap of the einstein module, but a little bit more in-depth. looking at the scope of the module, most if it will be familiar, except for the last section on chaos theory. at present, the module looks manageable. thank goodness there's no term paper component. only problem i foresee is that i may have trouble focusing on the lecture because of the timeslot, as well as complacency carried over from the last semester. good thing i know some friends taking the module as well...they should keep me grounded.

today was CJC's open house. i personally felt that it wasn't that successful, at least for judo. it's mostly due to poor planning. for as long as i can remember, judo's always had its booth in the auditorium extension. somehow this year, we got shifted down to the area in front of the PAC. normally, we set up an area that is 8m X 10m or somewhere there. due to space constraints, we had to reduce to 5m X 4m, which made performing some of the stunts quite difficult. not only that, the mats were exposed to the sun. we were (painfully) reminded that the mats are pretty good conductors of heat. standing on them for more than 10 seconds without hopping around was already a challenge. nevertheless, we managed to find a shady spot. all was well for a couple of hours...until it started to rain. we then moved to the TDC (training and development centre), which i'd previously only been to for chinese oral and my NYAA interview. quickly setting up again, we had quite a few sparring matches and a breakfalling exhibition-type thing...pretty standard open house-y stuff.

i seem to recall several people saying that the open house was more for graduated students' benefit than for prospective students. after yesterday, i'm inclined to agree. quite a few judo seniors came back, and i got a chance to meet a couple of them whom i'd only heard of before. i hope i'll see them at future training sessions. from what i saw of their performance yesterday, the kids could learn a lot by sparring with them.

after the open house, (another senior and) i joined some of the kids for dinner, before we split and headed home. on the way home, the group that i was in had some very interesting conversations. for privacy's sake, i can't disclose anything that transpired between us. what i CAN say, though, is that several of my hypotheses were confirmed. looks like my people-reading skills are still up to par. go me!

another bit of good that the conversations did for me was that it made me do some soul-searching/reflection. and somehow, that helped me put my dilemma in perspective. recap: this particular dilemma involves the tuition kid that i don't know whether to take or not. you see, i realize that while i WANT to take this kid, i can't. there's no way i can sit down with this kid for a full 120 minutes and not be distracted by some negative emotions. and after yesterday, that fact has become extremely apparent to me. as for why i can get distracted, let's just say that there are some lines that just cannot be crossed, and being in such close proximity for that length of time is definitely crossing some lines. from a professional standpoint, it's not fair to any kid if i'm distracted for any reason during tuition, since that means that i can't give my 100% to the tutoring session. all things considered, it's in both the kid's and my best interest if i gave up this assignment. that's the logical choice.

i don't mind forgoing the money that this assignment will bring, honestly, i don't (despite me having several financial bombs to defuse in the near future). the thing is, i want to help this kid somehow (besides, i promised that i would do my best to help). and yet, i can't be directly involved for reasons mentioned above. the next-best step would be for me to find a proxy. i'm sure finding another chem tutor in the 100+ people i share core module lectures with can't be that difficult. but this has inherent problems, too. i'm just afraid that i'll make a bad recommendation and screw things up further. taking the kid for tuition myself would be a solution to this problem, but that brings me back to square one. guess i have to give this situation some more serious thought. hopefully that'll lead me to other more feasible alternatives.

why is it so difficult to make these kind of decisions!? i wish i had the willpower to do what one of my friends did, which was to deaden his emotions towards a certain person. maybe i should watch more star trek, and learn to be a vulcan. you know, i think that i should stop accepting tuition kids from immediate social circles...as in, a potential kid can't be directly acquainted with me. that might help me keep work and social life separate. hmm...that's something worth considering. guess i'll sit/sleep on this issue a little more.

-random thought of the day: Emo.-