BIOL 201
There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail
Last night, I stayed up until midnight with some classical music and Agatha Christie just to wait for my marks to be released. I’m far from disappointed but I know there’s room for improvement; I’ll just have to work harder! It’s been a great year though – I can really reflect on courses now:
- BIOL 200 – This course was actually quite interesting (considering I’m into cells and all) though it was a little poorly communicated exactly what was needed to do well. My section (Berger) did catastrophically on the section-specific midterm so we were scaled up. I’d advise regular studying for this course – it’s a lot of concepts and processes to understand.
- BIOL 201 – I really disliked this course for the sole reason that what was taught was not directly translated into examinable material; far too much material was expected to be gained by doing the problem sets. It almost seemed like lectures were extraneous.
- CHEM 233 – Difficult but rewarding if appropriate (i.e. lots) time investment is allocated for this course. It’s easy to fall behind so stay ahead by studying early and often.
- CHEM 205 – Straightforward and simple – there aren’t any tricks to this course. Learn the material, and learn all of it. Practice the problem sets, they’re harder than the actual exams.
- CHEM 235 – Fun and easy but deceptively tough on marking. Take the time to watch all the pre-laboratory videos and study hard for your written final.
- ENGL 221 – Easy, peasy and fun elective course. Covers Romantic era to modern-day literature. Should be popular with those who dislike older literature.
- ENGL 348 – Absolutely amazing. This class is by far my best class at UBC – sympathetic instructor, enlightening class and inspiring people. There isn’t a lot of work either, just walk in with an open mind and do attend as many classes as possible.
- ENGL 357 – Enjoyable readings and a great instructor made this one breeze by. I wish it were longer but I’m happy with the fair marking overall.
- PSYC 100 – Biggest mistake ever – this course sucked my soul from my body and left me an empty shell. Entirely rote memorization – the exams test on ridiculously minute trivia. Would not recommend to anyone who has a pulse and a brain unless it was absolutely necessary. UBC Psychology, work on your pedagogical development! Doing those psychology studies was fun though; especially for credits.
I woke up a bit earlier today to have breakfast with my dad and grandma. It’s always nice spending time with them; I find that I’m typically out of the house for most of the time during the school/work year so meals are good family times.
Afterwards, I promptly went to campus to return my boatload of books on collaborative authorship and the Augustan authors (evidently, I received 88 on my paper and 90 on my exam where I wrote two essays — one on the character of the Rake and the other on the character of the Coquette through the Restoration and eighteenth-century). I then met with J where I was a tad on the garrulous side, talking about OpenCourseWare and First Year Seminars. I know he’s still looking for an Associate Vice President Academic and several commissioners so I’d look out for those opportunities. J is driven, smart and diplomatic – I think he’s poised to effect real change this year. I hope he reaches out to S and J for their great ideas though.
Afterwards, I bumped into S at the Minischool office where we’ve got…let’s say…a pickle to sort out regarding bookings for Fall courses. While it will be a physical nightmare (can one of the prerequisites for my assistant be that s/he must be able to lift their own weight in wooden stages?), I’m crossing my fingers and praying that the bookings people can help us out. I found out that she might be heading to Edmonton which saddens me a little, but she’s doing what she’s always wanted to do so more power to her. We joked a bit, had a free lunch courtesy of the AMS (who says there are no free lunches in this world? mine had penne carbonara today!) then parted ways.
I went to go purchase my BIOL 334/335 textbooks which were exorbitant but thankfully K has assured me that I may borrow her set for the summer. I get to return my books and get my money back! Hurray.
All in all, not a bad day at all. I’ll be spending my day with S tomorrow doing Minischool turnover stuff. I’m still waiting on A to finish his turnover so I can begin Director of Finance duties at SUS.
Seems like I never take vacations.
On a happy note, I found a video of “My Boyfriend’s Back.” It brings back memories of ballroom lessons with L. Weren’t those fun, L? See the video after the jump.
but then I wonder what Latitude or Longitude I’ve got to?
This morning, I woke up bright and early to complete my dreaded PSYC 100 final examination but all I can say is that I’m so pleased that it’s over. There was some byzantine sign-in/sign-out procedure which entirely facilitated cheating as throngs of students wishing to depart mingled with students who were covertly whispering, “what is a tricyclic?” How Dr. Ashton-James expected that a final examination (with three sections) could possibly complete the sign-in/sign-out procedure in a timely manner when it was already slow enough during the midterm for one section is beyond me. Nevertheless, studying prepared me well and I used Quizlet (which has been well-evangelized by Andre Malan).
I’m still studying BIOL 201 right now and I’m so slow! I’m re-doing the problem sets and bumping into some trouble with problems. I’m going to use these to study tonight and tomorrow morning/afternoon. I didn’t go to Dr. Richards’ review session so I hope there was nothing too imperative for success…
I should mention that I have been ruminating about Andre’s Terry Talk, “What Education Will Look Like in Ten Years”,” for the past while. I’ve resigned from the position of SUS AMS representative because it’s a conflict-of-interest with my new position as AMS Minischool Coördinator, but I’d really like to work with Johannes Rebane to lobby university administrators to bring UBC out of antiquated irrelevancy and into the international spotlight as a centre of teaching excellence. I wonder if Carl Wieman would be cool with that? I can see podcasts (like those at our neighbour, SFU) being rather easily implemented, but vodcasts would be amazing. We’ll see how this goes.
I had better be off to study for BIOL 201 now, but I do expect to post something about University 2.0 soon (see my list of links if you’re interested).
I’ve embedded a lecture by Dr. John Rogers of Yale University about Milton’s Paradise Lost after the jump. It’s worth a viewing!
morituri te salutant
Today’s CHEM 205 exam couldn’t have gone worse! Everything I studied in-depth (i.e. enzyme kinetics, Donnan equilibrium, etc.) wasn’t even covered. Utterly catastrophic by any measure. I can only hope that BIOL 201 will go a lot smoother, but somehow I sincerely doubt it.
Today I dropped by school early-ish to study and studied with J, N and V at Ladha. It was nice catching up with old friends, but just as nice to sip my Starbucks Doubleshot™ on Ice while returning L’s solutions manual.
I think I might briefly review PSYC 100 before Wednesday – I don’t want to be utterly unprepared but I don’t suspect I will do terribly well. Oh well, this term has been something of a disappointment, on the science side…we’ll see how I did on the English courses.
More lightheartedly, I noticed this link on Lifehacker this morning. I absolutely agree that Comic Sans ought to be banned in its entirety. It’s so utterly inappropriately used. And yes, I know, fonts don’t kill people – people kill people, but that never stopped us from banning certain weapons of mass destruction anyway. That’s how I feel about Comic Sans! Ban it for goodness’ sake, ban it now.
Additionally, I watched a cool 3-minute talk by Renny Gleeson at TED the other day, and thought about how I’m hyper-connected (i.e. blogging, Twitter, Facebook, MSN, etc.). During this exam period, I’ve become significantly more difficult to track as I’ve fallen off of MSN and Facebook chat (I still visit Facebook, read Twitter and read my emails though – and, obviously, write in here). It’s been nice! I think I’ll try to be a little more scarce from now on. Enjoy the talk after the jump!
the sea of faith
Studying has been going horribly – I’ve made so little progress with CHEM 205 and I have yet to make any headway with BIOL 201.
On the other hand, I’ve levelled up plenty in Restaurant City and I’ve rediscovered my love of original film scores. Particularly, I’ve been hooked on certain themes from the Harry Potter series, namely: Gilderoy Lockhart (John Williams), Rita Skeeter (Patrick Doyle) and Dolores Umbridge (Nicholas Hooper). Listen for yourself! I really like how Lockhart’s pomposity, Skeeter’s machinations and Umbridge’s subtle menace emerge in each piece.
Even better, I finally watched the Doctor Who Easter Special! It was really sad to remember that Tennant’s leaving…we’ll see how Matt Smith does. I’m so disappointed that Lady Christina de Sousa was only a one-off character…why is it that the Doctor is always surrounded by attractive women that don’t last very long?! He’s the science fiction version of James Bond… And Lady de Sousa was so cool anyway, reminding me of Relic Hunter…
I watched this a week ago from PresentationZen but I still think it’s cool enough to share. Seems like something like D would like:
I read a really great article about Susan Boyle the other day on The Herald – you can read it after the jump!
Out, out, brief candle!
Today I had my ENGL 357 exam which could have admittedly gone much better. I had begun earlier by trying to gather materials to write two essays – one about domestic England and one about commercial England as depicted in the works…but I decided to talk about rakes and coquettes instead. Hope it doesn’t preclude me from getting a good mark…Fingers crossed!
I can share the introduction for my ENGL 357 paper now, I’ve handed it in:
Particularly in the current post-Romantic scholarly milieu, Inge notes that literary academics continue to “maintain the traditional image of the author as an individualist up against a material world, trying to create something pure and unsullied” (623). Stillinger adopts an even stronger position, noting that contemporary scholars are guilty of reifying the author as a lonesome prodigy, of subscribing to “the romantic myth of the author as a solitary genius” (202). Others, such as Foucault and Barthes, have attempted to instead banish or suggest the death of the author, severing the connection between authors and their works (Stillinger v). Adherence to either image, the solitary author or the dead author, is largely incompatible with attempts to study literature of the Augustan era which, according to Griffin, was characterized by “[a] higher incidence of collaboration…than at any time in the history of English literature” (1). This frequency of collaboration, continues Griffin, “can tell us something important about the literary world that the Augustans inhabited, a world different from our own, and requiring that we approach it with properly adjusted critical preconceptions” (1), that is to say, preconceptions that do not presuppose the myth of the solitary author or the absent author. This paper, then, seeks to investigate the ways in which redefining existing paradigms of authorship may lead to meaningful insight into new ways of studying literature of the Augustans, particularly that of Dryden and Pope. Moreover, this paper will attempt to trace patterns of collaboration by attempting to identify the types of literary collaboration, based upon authorial intention and motivation, prevalent in the early and late Augustan periods.
I noticed Dr. MacKenzie making faces of consternation while I was writing my exam…I hope it wasn’t because he was reading my paper!
By happy chance today I was really hankering for some butter chicken. Ended up eating it for lunch and having a Starbucks Doubleshot on Ice afterwards (thanks to L’s influence).
I’m delighted by my new set of pyjamas. They’re silk! How luxuriously sumptuous of me. And I didn’t even pick them (as if I have the time or patience to pick what I wear while I sleep)! They came from Hong Kong by way of visiting relative. How thoughtful! And my dad is making me some ribs for midnight snacking as we speak! Most people who know me realise that if I’m hungry at night, I simply don’t eat. That is the secret to my thinness.
Today my grandma and I had a most interesting talk. Apparently way back when, in Shanghai, some of my ancestors were humble straw sandal weavers. I thought to myself: how exciting! Liu Bei from the Romance of the Three Kingdoms was also a straw sandal weaver and he became to be a great and beloved leader. Totally cool! Such humble beginnings – I cannot ever forget that I am not some prince – that I don’t deserve any sense of entitlement. Everything I work for, I work for on the shoulders of my ancestors.
As it turns out, I got the AMS Minischool position! Now I must pick between being an AMS Councillor and the AMS Minischool Coördinator…hm…
Now the best is behind me, I’m off to go study madly for CHEM 205/BIOL 201.
Edit: Just watched a really cool TED talk by Erin McKean on what Hamlet called, “words, words, words”. See it after the jump!
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