Sunday, October 26th 2003, 20:38
The conference was great! Had a wonderful time, especially when both hotel and transport doesn't cost a cent (I have to buy my own food but, that's not too much). It was like a free weekend holiday to Minneapolis. Of course, there's no such thing as a free lunch, so now I'll have to catch up with (oh shit) lots of homework. I only ended up revising for 5 hours total during the whole trip, as well as only 6 hours of sleep each night.
I went along with three other people (an unmarried couple and another freshman), cramming into the small car for 8 hours, and only 10 minutes worth of toilet breaks in total. Besides killing my legs, it wasn't too bad.
First, my alarm clock went off for 2 hours straight in the trunk, driving everyone nuts. Then the storm clouds came, making the place darker than night. It was pouring, and streaks of lightning could be seen every 5 minutes. The farmland in Illinois, after harvesting, looks very disgusting. Combined with continental storms the likes of which I've never seen before even in Hong Kong, the whole place looked exactly like, well, "wastelands of the stormy side of Mordor".
Wisconsin, by contrast, was very pretty. The oranges, reds and greens on the trees sprinkled on the frosted soils besides the river valley, a vibrancy carpeting the beautiful upper streams of the Northern US state. The uncultivated gentle slopes, when viewed from a distance under the thick gray clouds, is beyond words. A perfect mixture of barren and leaved trees signifies the end of the good times, and the beginning of the terrible winters to follow. The mixture of cold and warm feelings, the sadness that adds to the beauty of nature to keep her splendour for just one day longer, yields stunning results. Too bad the car's moving so I can't take pictures.
What about the conference you'd ask. It was a tightly packed one, with workshops after workshops about the different disciplines of Amnesty, mostly information and technical training that it will take me too long to elaborate. The topics I attended to were fundraising, control of arms, and the use of media. All I should say is that since it is much harder for the US government to crack down on activism from the US itself, these people know a lot about the mechanics behind the policies that lead to violation of human rights. Most of the core members have friends from the senate and many state governments, preventing Washington from effectively cracking down Amnesty.
One of the speakers were very interesting. She was a native Indian that fought, and passed many laws on the congress, for protecting women from domestic violence. Throughout the speech she kept on reminding everyone that it was a Christian concept that men and women were treated unequally, that they are the ones that has corrupted the Indian's egalitarian traditions to the core (as well as all the mumbling on "don't forget this is our land"), and that therefore the natives must educate the uncivilized white people the true ways of society. Anything other than being quiet would be deemed politically incorrect of course.
I stayed in the same room as the "couples", Stephanie and Andy, that drove me. That was embarrassing. They came with the intention of spending two romantic nights with each other, and ended up sleeping with a giant light bulb (I slept on one bed, they slept on the other one). I still feel bad about it.
Photos:
my group (From Left to Right: Stephanie, Lily, Andy)
{U of M campus, some pictures lost during archiving process}
Day's Inn
Lunch at a restuarant
My souvenir
If anyone wants to share what I've learnt, talk to me. It's too much to be written here. Anyway, I have 2 quizzes this week, so I have to stop now. Talk to you later.
Tuesday, October 21st 2003, 23:49
It's the third time in a row that I've repeatedly been woken up in the middle of the night from leg cramps and nightmares. This sucks. Would someone please be nice enough to call me and care about me? Should I need to ask? *sigh*!!!!
The timetable for the spring semester puts my study plans into a complete mess. All my core courses clash like hell. So I end up taking weird-ass courses, with *nasty* timetables. I'll show you when I actually register, which is Nov. 19, 08:20.
Does waking up 8 a.m. 3 times a week doing RHETORIC make anyone happy?
And in case you're interested, I'm going to the Amnesty International Mid-West Regional Conference at Minneapolis this weekend. I think I'll bring my books along to minimize the disruptions that it will cause to my studies. Hotels are provided, and the gas is reimbursed (we all have to chip in for the driver's gas). But food's not , so it will be expensive (I so bet they won't go to anything cheap - not after eating dorm food everyday).
Finally, some people asked me how my roommate looks like, so here you go:
Got micro-econ mid-terms on Thursday. Aced the macro-econ ESSAY mid-term with 98 %. I hope I'll do just as well for this multiple-choice one.
Good night!
Sunday, October 19th 2003, 17:16
Sometimes, a lot of time passes without you actually doing much. It's no longer a matter of time management. Today I stared at math textbooks and perpetually switch off at 5 minute intervals, eyes wide open, pen in hand. I'm not actually sleepy, but my mind is. Just couldn't fall asleep during these past few days.
I foresee something very terrible will happen to myself in the distant future, perhaps a year or two later. It's so terrible I don't even dare to speak those words to myself, or to anyone else because I will have to hear those words being spoken. I know I can't avoid it, but just not sure whether I will be ready for it or not. Or what I should do after it happens...
I don't claim to be a prophet - that's just for evil cults and other maniacs. But some people just look at circumstances in the past and present, and deduce the future with some accuracy. It really sucks when your mind deduces with accuracy your own future. It gives me a feeling of doom.
Saturday, October 18th 2003, 20:55
I'm not sure was the 40 dollars worth it. The TA certainly went through the proofs with me in 160 minutes, but he spent more time reading over the proofs himself than explaining things to me. Now if the professor actually starts to give less computation questions and more proofs, as he subtly hinted last lesson, then the benefits will certainly kick in. If not, then I'll seriously consider kicking my own ass for wasting money and time.
I also noticed the disproportionate number of math TA's and professors that are of Eastern European origin. Is that anything got to do with the unusually high educational levels there, coupled with the lack of high-end job opportunities? If that's true, then it's sad indeed, because unlike the Chinese, most of them won't go back to help their country out. I have many floor mates with unusual last names, but they can't even speak their native language, even though their parents moved here only 30 years ago! Two more generations and they're American inside out.
And that's the importance of having a strong culture in a modern nation-state. Even if you're conquered, you are still one people. All the tribes that took over China eventually became Chinese. No wonder the American government is so concerned with 'patriotism' and the 'American culture'. It's not important - it's essential for survival.
Also, Starbucks coffee is way too expensive. Four 250ml bottles for $3.99? Man, if I were to have a caffeine addiction, it will drain my wallet very quickly. It's also very sweet and lacking in coffee flavour, so I'm a little disappointed. It used to be very good, but now they just mass-produce useless stuff with their logo on it. Maybe their freshly brewed ones are better. What do you think?
Thursday, October 16th 2003, 21:33
As I've expected, I didn't do as well as I hoped for my other mid-terms. The obvious response will be "I will redouble my efforts", but I'm already running at nearly full capacity, so what do I do now? My GPA is very important! As the dude from the CNA resume writing workshop today said, grades are especially important to actuaries, since "you should be the cream of the crop in other fields anyway". That doesn't make me feel good at all.
In fact, looking through the sample resumes of past actuaries at UIUC, I might have to change my major in order have a higher chance to find a job. Competition is insane. I'll have to talk to professors working in LAS, not just in a particular department, for that matter. The problem is whether I'll be plunging myself from the flame to the fire, having to compete with business and (*YUCK*) finance majors in the future, or indeed whether I could delay this decision past this semester, as my curriculum has so many core courses!!!
Well my other major could be economics, finance or mathematics, so there's always a fallback as some stupid secondary school teacher, right? I could always become the next Mr. Henwood in KGV, mumbling stupid phrases such as "It's so simple, how can you go wrong?", but who wants to do that???
Identity crisis?
More like an employment crisis!!!
Wednesday, October 15th 2003, 00:06
Finally survived the first onslaught of mid-terms, which is why you don't see me commenting often or updating at all. Just want to comment on the American educational system - yes it's easy to get B's, but very hard to get A's. With my math course, I've hired a tutor to go over the stuff that I've done so far, just for this Saturday afternoon. 15 bucks an hour's a lot, but what choice do I have?
I'm starting to have a little difficulty in following the food pyramid. If you are to eat grains, you need a large variety of them. Pure carbohydrates will give you problems pretty quickly, but I don't like eating canteen wheat bread that you can't break through without soup either. It's also very hard to make sure that you have enough vegetable variety everyday to supply the many types of vitamins (and harder still when salad is not an option, as I tried having them every dinner, and it gave me severe stomach aches). As for meats, it's another problem. There are tons of meats available, but they are all so disgusting that I'm actually lacking proteins. Don't even start mentioning how little I could do to avoid the oils and salts. If you do that, you genuinely might starve to death.
What do I end up doing? Making ice-cream cones and then giving it to people. One of my pleasures during meal times is practicing how to squeeze the prettiest ice-cream cones.) Anyway, the point is, with my lack of food combined with the lack of exercise, I've now became a skinny person with a huge belly. That sucks.
Got 73/80 for my psychology mid-term. Haven't received the rest, so you'll see me crying about them soon.
Monday, October 6th 2003, 22:54
Lot's of difficult mid-terms this week and a little into the next. This is, I guess, the first test of whether I really am better than these Americans from the Mid-West cornfields. Getting busy, and nervous. The heat is on - figuratively and literally, which makes me tire easily during the afternoons.
Started touching the piano again. I realised that my piano skills have been reduced to grade 6 level. Hours, months and years of hard work gone. And what skills did I acquire to compensate? Nothing. I can't play racket sports for my life, I can't jog quickly, I still can't speak foreign languages or even write properly in Chinese, and I never got good grades, even when I have sacrificed all of the above to pursue them. Eighteen years - down the drain.
WHY?
*sigh*
As a side note, the food's getting better in our canteens. They keep check of what foods are taken up first, and how people take them, and adjust them once in a while. Still sucks, but improving.
Wednesday, October 1st 2003, 20:49 (Playing: The Mists of Avalon - Morgaine's despair)
Fact: The body consumes more energy when it's 3C out there...
Fact: but this is more than offset by increased consumption of food!
Fact: The heaters are finallyon...
Fact: making the dorms so goddamn hot!
Fact: Homework levels have decreased...
Fact: because mid-terms are just around the corner!
Fact: I bought tickets to Toronto Nov 24th - 30th for around three-hundred bucks...
Fact: but where the hell I'm going to live in?