Scrubs!

Rome said...

Your blog's fascinating, I love it! This is coming from a Senior musician in high school planning on doing a pre-med track. What school do you go to?

Thank you for the kind words. I would rather not publically disclose the school I attend for privacy reasons, but feel free to contact me by email if you would like to talk more about this music major/pre-med combination. I am just getting started with it, but I think/hope it will work out. I tried to find a contact email, but your profile is private. :)

Last night, I watched the third and fourth episodes of Scrubs Season 8, and I have to say that I am glad that the show seems to be getting back on track. Scrubs has been one of my favorite shows for some time now, and I was pretty disappointed with the first two episodes of the new season. Has anyone noticed that major characters are missing from each of the episodes so far (except the first one)? The second episode only featured J.D. and Turk; I am not even sure if Elliot, Dr. Cox, etc even appear.. I am sure this saves money, but it's kind of weird to have entire episodes without major characters.

I know that medical shows are incredibly unrealistic and contribute to false impressions about the medical environment, but there is just something about Scrubs that appeals to me. One doctor that I spoke to actually told me that Scrubs was semi-realistic, not in terms of its situations and the drama, but because humor was pretty much the only way to reconcile the truly sad nature of hospitals. Doctors and hospital staff have to do all that they can to get by without becoming lost in the emotional rollercoaster that it must be to treat sick people that could suddenly die.

Although the medical field seems like such a depressing field, there is something magical about it. It is science in action -- our ability to use our discoveries to enhance our lives. And that, is something that I'd like to be a part of.

A New Year

It is now the year of 2009. It is hard to believe that I have lived on this Earth for 18+ years now. When people say that time flies by, they really mean it. It's such a paradox to think that in the moment, life can seem to move by slowly, but then, when looking back upon a period of time, it seems to have gone by so much faster. What a weird phenomenon.

Today, Palm announced their new smartphone -- the Palm Pre. Bluntly, the phone looks awesome! For a company that was doing quite poorly before, this phone is definitely a step in a the right direction. I have never been a big fan of Windows Mobile, and I don't feel like paying the monthly fee for a Blackberry, which pretty much leaves Palm (I don't have AT&T). The Palm Pre basically looks like an iPhone with a slide-out keyboard. It has multi-touch just like the iPhone, and based on the videos I have seen, it is nice and fast. The phone even has an accelerator (detecting when the user rotates the phone) that seems to work REALLY well. Essentially, it has all the features of the iPhone. It even does this crazy cordless charging thing when you just place it on this circular thing. It should be released sometime in the first half of this year (according to the press release), and I am really looking forward to playing with it in store or maybe even buying it for myself. :)

I go back to school in a few days. The days of complete relaxation are ending soon.

Christmas Time

Christmas is such an inspirational holiday. A time to sit back and relax with the family & old friends to reminisce about the past. I find it really remarkable that for these few weeks each year, people from all across the country travel miles and miles by plane or by car to be with their family. From a purely logical perspective, this kind of journey would not make sense. Without human emotions like love, these journeys would be unheard of. But, there is love.

Love really binds human society and has created this world we all share together. I do believe humans are animals, but there just seems to be too much goodwill for us to be organisms just like every other life form on this planet. Is there some sort of force out there that is greater than man itself? I do not know. I have never considered myself an especially religious person, but things like this really make me wonder. Darwinian natural selection could have created human society as we know it today, but that seems almost too perfect, doesn't it? Sure, our society is not without faults; however, what gave us the ability -- as a single species -- to essentially take over the entire world?

I hope that everyone is enjoying break! In a few weeks, it will be time to get back into gear...

Days of Relaxation

It is kind of crazy how quickly people can change from being extremely busy to completely unproductive. And at least for me, when I am busy, I always look forward to doing nothing; at the same time, when I am doing nothing, I look forward to having something to do. Quite a weird concept I guess. These past few days of winter break have been completely relaxation. I think I have gotten 10+ hours of sleep each night and have done nothing useful at all. I have eaten a ton of food, too. I think in the next few days, I want to try to start doing some more useful things. I should probably start working on the violin music that my teacher assigned me for break. She gave me like five etudes and two new pieces ("you aren't going to have anything to do over break, right?" / "sure...").

In the past few days, I have started getting my grades back from my first semester of college, and I have to say I am satisfied. I didn't get the perfect 4.0 that all pre-meds aim for, but regardless, I am happy. Some of my friends have already begun to replan their futures, and I am glad that I do not have to do that at this point. I got almost all A's except for my political science seminar. It's not like I slacked off in that class either; I didn't get accustomed to college writing fast enough. I was kind of unhappy for a little while, but I am over it now. A 3.8+ GPA in college is nothing to be ashamed about.

Hope everyone is having a great break!

I Survived (somewhat)!

Nathan said...

Are you a freshman taking orgo? How?

Good luck on the finals! My exams week ended yesterday at 8:30 AM

Yeah, I received AP credit for chemistry so I placed into organic chemistry as a freshman. I know that many people suggest that premeds retake general chemistry to solidify this knowledge, but I decided to try something more challenging. I had a decent chemistry background so it hasn't been too bad so far.

As of a few hours ago, I am officially done with the first semester of my freshmen year of college. Everything went decently; nothing was too horrible. Of course, I could have done better in a few things here and there, but that just leaves room for improvement next semester.

I was browsing Youtube and found this really interesting thing called the Youtube Symphony Orchestra. Basically, it's some sort of project in which musicians audition online to "play" with the Youtube Symphony Orchestra (YTSO). I am not really sure how the whole performance is going to work out, but it seems like a very interesting concept. Tan Dun (composer of the themes of Hero and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon) wrote a special piece for this event: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tqiro1kdRlw. Since I do not have anything major planned to accomplish over break, I may give this a go. The piece is kind of catchy; for some reason, I feel like I have heard theme before... (around the 4:00 mark). For more information, the website is www.youtube.com/symphony.

I am going home tomorrow. I am so excited for a month of relaxation!

Surviving the First Half

I feel like I am at some sort of intense, academic study camp. Everyone is cooped up in their room studying. The study lounges are overflowing with people. My dorm has 24/7 quiet hours from now until the end of exams. I am not even going to try to go to the library; I am sure every single desk/table will be occupied. I don't feel stressed. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. Generally, I consider myself to work well under pressure, but it's hard to gauge that kind of thing because it is so subjective. Anyway, I will definitely be hard at work in the next few days for my three finals. I am not too worried about my Music Theory stuff, but definitely more worried about my orgo and linguistics finals.

The concepts in orgo aren't too bad, but sometimes, the mechanisms catch me off guard. It's a new concept of problem solving that takes some getting used to. Also, the problems involving predicting products can be quite tricky, because there are so many facets to consider, including both stereoselectivity and regioselectivity. I will probably end up going through all of the suggested problems before my final on Tuesday. Well, this entry was quite a bit more rambly than usual. I will definitely be more cohesive once break begins!

Stuff I have finished:

-linguistics paper
-orgo quiz
-music theory dictation final
-political science paper
-violin juries

Stuff left:

-linguistics final
-orgo final
-music theory written final
-music theory sight-singing/piano final

Just four things left!

Procrastinating...

If you guys leave me comments with questions, I will definitely answer them.

Static Bursts said...

Are you taking Music Theory I? I'm doing my Music Theory HW right now using the TB "Tonal Harmony."

Sight-singing is wicked fun with Josh Bonn.

I am taking Music Theory I right now. What level theory are you taking right now? Tonal harmony sounds very complicated; I don't think we are going to cover that this semester. Sight-singing is...an interesting experience...

I am thinking about recording my jury violin piece and putting it up for you all to hear. Does anyone want to listen?