Not blogging for a week is starting to have some negative effects. beginning to think too much, worry unnecessarily, and do some other unhealthy stuff. tried to blog this past saturday as well, but i just couldn't organize my thoughts regarding what i wanted to blog about. it's not that important, anyway. i'll sit on it for a bit, i guess.
checking back, my last post was...last tuesday! wow, it's been THAT long. nothing much happened during recess week, mostly just lab work with a couple of study days. don't think anything significant really happened...nothing much that i remember, anyway. tuition is a lot more relaxed since i dropped those 2 kids. they didn't contact me, so that's it. frees up my saturday a little. i've also seen the army kid i mentioned a while ago. while he says that his memory is bad, and that he's a little slow in catching concepts, i find him to be not difficult to teach. or maybe we just haven't reached the difficult topics yet. anyway, i think he'll be ok.
this past sunday, i also went for my last external japanese lesson. there's supposed to be a revision this coming sunday, but i think it's kind of pointless. yes, i know i paid for the revision lesson as well, and i should go to make my money worth it. despite that, i can't really bring myself to be bothered about it. felt kind of bad when the teacher asked why i wasn't continuing. but truth is, university workload is increasing, so something else has to make way for now. i was kind of mildly annoyed at one of the remarks the teacher wrote on my homework, and that was to write my kanji more neatly. having studied chinese and written chinese characters for most of my life, i've kind of developed my own "font". same with english letters. so, it just feels weird to be asked to modify my writing style, especially when the problems are minor (like rounded corners, for instance). but i understand he's trying to do his job well.
lab work so far this week has been kind of sporadic, due to various quizzes and mid-terms. despite that, i still managed to do a few NMRs, and i can now confirm that the reaction worked. does my heart good to see that. still have to do a bit more optimization, while concurrently making other substrates, which means more long syntheses...or rather, long columns. well, it should be ok, considering my next mid-term is a week away.
mid-terms...i feel really annoyed with myself for organometallics, which i took earlier today. there was one question where we had to complete a complicated reaction scheme, balancing the compounds throughout. for some weird reason, i forgot that since the the amount of magnesium doubled, there would be a corresponding increase in the amount of magnesium bromide produced, thus getting rid of my 2 excess bromine atoms, giving me dimethyl zinc. i know it doesn't make much sense writing it like this, but in layman terms, i mis-balanced a chemical equation. for shame! it's the kind of mistake i would barely tolerate from my sec 3 kid, so i think you can see how mad i am with myself. but to put it in perspective, i'll lose at most 3 marks from this mistake. 3 marks out of 50 total for a 20% test is...1.2 marks out of my overall grade. while i hate to lose marks like that, i have another test and the final to redeem myself.
one of my friends has a seriously low level of social awareness. it's like, he opens his mouth without thinking. consequently, he's said some retarded things (for lack of a more appropriate description) in front of the very people whom those things concern. it's not that i can't handle him being blunt. i have blunt friends with whom i get along pretty well. it's just that this guy's content/social filters are either totally absent, or are being severely underutilized. though i know he's actually a nice guy with good intentions, i still can't help but feel a stab of irritation after even short interactions.
postgrad matters are taking a backseat in my head, but i thought i should do some analysis now, since i'm having some rare free time.
pros:
familiar environment
(eventual) seniority in the lab, and NUS
high chance of acceptance
direct phd after 4 years
FINALLY getting a transponder (minor)
cons:
4 more years of study
possibly being overqualified after graduation
4 MORE YEARS!
research may not always go smoothly
having to study (though it's only 6 modules + maybe 2 japanese)
maybe somewhere better will accept me
admittedly, it's not very objective or well done (a sign that i'm tired), but i figure this is a good starting point for future reference. and here's something i discovered. graduate students can read elective modules on an S/U basis, subject to approval from the host faculty. that means that my argument for taking japanese is stronger, provided they allow me to S/U. the disadvantage is, S/U declaration must be done at the point of module registration, so if i decide to S/U and eventually get an A, that won't help my CAP at all. decisions decisions.
got a huge shock when i checked my email a couple of days ago. city of heroes is closing down. checking the website verified that. it's odd because the announcement was so abrupt. according to stuff posted on the forums, it seems that the staff were given only a day's notice to pack up and leave. many of us are still asking why, but i doubt we'll get an answer. sucks, because if there ever was an MMO i'd invest in, it was this one. still, it's had a great run of about 8 years, and i have many (mostly) good memories of the game. the servers will remain up until sometime in november, so i was thinking of logging in for a few last looks around. maybe on my freed-up sundays.
can't think of anything else that i haven't mentioned...except that i've been having weird dreams. but that's normal-ish for me. event forecast: i'll be pulling a lot of overtime in the lab, for reaction monitoring and that long column, among other things. if i can make it past next wednesday, things will turn out ok.
checking back, my last post was...last tuesday! wow, it's been THAT long. nothing much happened during recess week, mostly just lab work with a couple of study days. don't think anything significant really happened...nothing much that i remember, anyway. tuition is a lot more relaxed since i dropped those 2 kids. they didn't contact me, so that's it. frees up my saturday a little. i've also seen the army kid i mentioned a while ago. while he says that his memory is bad, and that he's a little slow in catching concepts, i find him to be not difficult to teach. or maybe we just haven't reached the difficult topics yet. anyway, i think he'll be ok.
this past sunday, i also went for my last external japanese lesson. there's supposed to be a revision this coming sunday, but i think it's kind of pointless. yes, i know i paid for the revision lesson as well, and i should go to make my money worth it. despite that, i can't really bring myself to be bothered about it. felt kind of bad when the teacher asked why i wasn't continuing. but truth is, university workload is increasing, so something else has to make way for now. i was kind of mildly annoyed at one of the remarks the teacher wrote on my homework, and that was to write my kanji more neatly. having studied chinese and written chinese characters for most of my life, i've kind of developed my own "font". same with english letters. so, it just feels weird to be asked to modify my writing style, especially when the problems are minor (like rounded corners, for instance). but i understand he's trying to do his job well.
lab work so far this week has been kind of sporadic, due to various quizzes and mid-terms. despite that, i still managed to do a few NMRs, and i can now confirm that the reaction worked. does my heart good to see that. still have to do a bit more optimization, while concurrently making other substrates, which means more long syntheses...or rather, long columns. well, it should be ok, considering my next mid-term is a week away.
mid-terms...i feel really annoyed with myself for organometallics, which i took earlier today. there was one question where we had to complete a complicated reaction scheme, balancing the compounds throughout. for some weird reason, i forgot that since the the amount of magnesium doubled, there would be a corresponding increase in the amount of magnesium bromide produced, thus getting rid of my 2 excess bromine atoms, giving me dimethyl zinc. i know it doesn't make much sense writing it like this, but in layman terms, i mis-balanced a chemical equation. for shame! it's the kind of mistake i would barely tolerate from my sec 3 kid, so i think you can see how mad i am with myself. but to put it in perspective, i'll lose at most 3 marks from this mistake. 3 marks out of 50 total for a 20% test is...1.2 marks out of my overall grade. while i hate to lose marks like that, i have another test and the final to redeem myself.
one of my friends has a seriously low level of social awareness. it's like, he opens his mouth without thinking. consequently, he's said some retarded things (for lack of a more appropriate description) in front of the very people whom those things concern. it's not that i can't handle him being blunt. i have blunt friends with whom i get along pretty well. it's just that this guy's content/social filters are either totally absent, or are being severely underutilized. though i know he's actually a nice guy with good intentions, i still can't help but feel a stab of irritation after even short interactions.
postgrad matters are taking a backseat in my head, but i thought i should do some analysis now, since i'm having some rare free time.
pros:
familiar environment
(eventual) seniority in the lab, and NUS
high chance of acceptance
direct phd after 4 years
FINALLY getting a transponder (minor)
cons:
4 more years of study
possibly being overqualified after graduation
4 MORE YEARS!
research may not always go smoothly
having to study (though it's only 6 modules + maybe 2 japanese)
maybe somewhere better will accept me
admittedly, it's not very objective or well done (a sign that i'm tired), but i figure this is a good starting point for future reference. and here's something i discovered. graduate students can read elective modules on an S/U basis, subject to approval from the host faculty. that means that my argument for taking japanese is stronger, provided they allow me to S/U. the disadvantage is, S/U declaration must be done at the point of module registration, so if i decide to S/U and eventually get an A, that won't help my CAP at all. decisions decisions.
got a huge shock when i checked my email a couple of days ago. city of heroes is closing down. checking the website verified that. it's odd because the announcement was so abrupt. according to stuff posted on the forums, it seems that the staff were given only a day's notice to pack up and leave. many of us are still asking why, but i doubt we'll get an answer. sucks, because if there ever was an MMO i'd invest in, it was this one. still, it's had a great run of about 8 years, and i have many (mostly) good memories of the game. the servers will remain up until sometime in november, so i was thinking of logging in for a few last looks around. maybe on my freed-up sundays.
can't think of anything else that i haven't mentioned...except that i've been having weird dreams. but that's normal-ish for me. event forecast: i'll be pulling a lot of overtime in the lab, for reaction monitoring and that long column, among other things. if i can make it past next wednesday, things will turn out ok.
-random thought of the day: Why am I becoming more careless!??-
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