May 31, 2004
the longest golf course i've ever played...
it's been decided, the chick and rat pics are going up (soon). i really need to start putting more pictures.
this thursday i'm playing a free round of golf with my sis up in hamilton. some pharmaceutical company is sponsoring a free tourney for all the docs in surgery. anyway here's the website:
http://www.willowvalleygolf.com/
some of these holes are really long... it's going to be a long day.
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May 28, 2004
baby rats and chicks (dissected)...
i wonder if ppl would be interested in me posting up pictures of baby rats and chicks (we're talking 1 day old) that we have in our lab. we dissect them so we can take the ganglion (like nerve cells) from them and grow them on various materials. sounds awfully mean, i know, but for the biology enthusiast, the pictures are very very cool. maybe i shouldn't...
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May 27, 2004
books are great...
my whole life i've hated reading. before these past few months, i think i could name all the books i've ever read PURELY out of interest (not school books) on two hands (maybe even one): lord of the rings (that's 3 books, sorta), the blue sword, the hero and the crown, the chronicles of prydain. i guess those chronicles are like 7 books and i have read a whole bunch of children's books like shiloh and no coins please. but really, i rarely read real novels. ever since university started, the reading has gotten even worse... until now.
here is a list a short review of all the books i've finished in the past 2 months:
1) yann martel's life of pi
life of pi is a light-hearted and fun read. it's interesting and well written, but it lacks the 'depth' that i thought it would have (due to all the stellar reviews). if you haven't read it, i suggest you do because it's definately worth your time.
2) orson scott card's ender's game
a fantasy geek's classic, ender's game is an extremely easy read. the best way to describe it is that it's like watching a kick-ass action-adventure movie. you enjoyed it a great deal, but you know it's kind of mindless fun. i guess i'm not giving it enough credit, but it seems card was trying way too hard to be 'deep' and instead he just came up with a book that's pure amusement, that's not really deep at all. he tries to allude to a lot of political and social issues, but it's so blatant that it fails to have any real effect. ah well. still fun.
3) robertson davies' 5th business
fifth business is one of the finest books i've ever read. it has everthing, it's funny, it's intense, it's adventurous, it's suspenseful and best of all, it's extremely well written. 5th business is actually the first in a trilogy called the deptford trilogy, but i heard the other two books aren't great so i might skip out. although 5th business may not be as heartfelt or touch on human emotions as much as say, a fine balance, it's great in different ways. must read!
4) barbara gowdy's the romantic
finished this one pretty recently. if you have ever read alice munroe's stuff, this book is really similar. it is basically about the life and times of a young girl growing up in a small town in ontario. it's interesting because it offers a very unique perspective. on the whole, it's well written, but i find it's too choppy. it goes back and forth from grand sweeping sentences to simple to-the-point descriptions too often. overall, thumbs up.
finally, i'm working on rohintin mistry's family matters right now, and i suspect i'm going to love it if it's anything like a fine balance. i've got another book lined up for after family matters too.
three cheers for well written novels! hip hip hooray!
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May 18, 2004
DOH...
i think it was dustin's birthday last friday and i TOTALLY forgot. SO sorry. ***HAPPY BELATED BDAY DUST*** (am i right?) we'll make it up to you this weekend. well, at least i will. *wink*
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May 17, 2004
hockey culture...
i've always thought that if i had a kid, i'd make them play hockey because i missed out when i was young. but the culture of hockey players seems to be very asshole like.
we played "the lobsters" today in our inline hockey league, and they were a bunch of prototypical 20 year old hockey punks. they were trash talking non-stop, punching, grabbing, hitting. they even had their girlfriends in the stands trash talking the team and the goalie. they were non stop. and unfortunately, a good deal of kids growing up playing hockey turn out like this.
i also find that hockey can bring out the worst in me when i play a team like that. my aggression sky rockets and i start cursing a lot. it's a side of me i really don't like.
maybe it was because we were kicking their ass 5-0 that they were like this, but we played them last year and they were the exact same. (they were beatin us like 6-1 last year and decided to take a break away on their own goalie to insult us).
anyway, there's my rant on hockey.
oh yeah, check this out:
there's a team in our league called "landsberg", i'll post it on this site when we play them. you'll wanna come out because their coach is michael LANDSBERG and their goalie is wade BELAK (no jokes). so it'll be pretty fun to come out.
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May 14, 2004
nerding it up...
observation: it's becoming cool to be a nerd. okay, that's not completely true, but to an extent it is. in middle school and high school, the traditional definitions of "cool" and "nerd" definately held true. and they still hold true, but they've definately changed. i find that it's definately a little "cool" to have nerdy aspects to your life. i mean, they way you dress, the way you act, the way you carry yourself, those aspects of being cool are still there, but being "cool" about "nerdy" things is slowly becoming an integral part of being cool.
for example, it's no longer nerdy to have blogs, and it's no longer nerdy to know about "stuff". being educated in science and history (some people call it knowledge) is important if you're to be respected by your peers. the fact that people "nerd it up", ie study hardcore before exams, is funny and is a joke. part of it is the fact that we're older now, and we value different things, but i do believe that it's a change in society as a whole.
i think that in general, this a good trend. although i never really personally experienced it, the "smart" kids in the class always got teased and i think we're getting away from that. it's important that wanting to learn is cool, because the smart kids are the doctors, lawyers and engineers of our future. if it's so hard for kids to be smart, soon enough, none of them will be want to be smart.
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May 09, 2004
life update...
whoa, blogger looks totally new, this'll take some getting use to.
so today we had our second inline hockey game and only 6 players decided to show up. we play 4v4, so pretty much you had to play most of the game. i currently can't feel my legs because they are so sore from skating around too much. oh yeah, we got beaten 7-4 (or 8-4), but i blame it on the fact we couldn't move for the second half of the game.
today was mother's day and i cooked a vegetarian lasagna for my mom. it actually turned out really well, so i plan on making it next there's some sort of pot luck thing-a-ma-jig. i felt kinda bad, on mother's day it was pretty much just me, my mom and my dad. irene's in bangkok, ethel and yvonne were working at the hospital on call. and i was at my hockey game so i was late for dinner. in addition to all this, my dad can't eat solid foods today because he's got some testing with the doctor tomorrow, so it ended up being my mom and i eating the lasagna (late).
on a side note, golf rocks! my game is seriously coming together and i hope it keeps up. i know you guys are all dying to know how well i'm striking the ball.
work's been okay, i find it surprising that after only one week of work i'm already in the lab every morning running some simple experiments. it took me 3 weeks to figure out what the hell was going on last year.
i've recently been thinking about my future, and here's the plan: if i don't make it to med school next year, the plan is to go to one of the following schools for my masters: MIT, Cornell, UofMass, JHU or CalTech. if med school still doesn't work out after my masters, i want to get my PhD where i get my masters and try to find a job as a professor. i think i would LOVE teaching in a university and i think i'd me good at it too. so that's my life plan, hope it works out.
i'm in that phase right now where i'm extremely pleased with life. i thank God for giving me SO much, i hardly know how to thank Him. i think i'm like this most of the time, but i feel it necessary to announce it from time to time. i love being busy, i love my school, i love where things are going in my life. now if only the right girl would walk through my door, things would be BEYOND perfect! =)
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May 03, 2004
iron chef america, tag team battle...
i've watched a TON of iron chef, including a lot of the special epsidoes (king of the iron chefs, iron chef team ups etc...), but the episode with flay and morimoto versus batali and sakai on iron chef america was the BEST i've ever seen. the combined dish with flay and morimoto was easily the most innovative and amazing dish ever. it was sooooooooo good. go download it if you can, you won't regret it.
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