All the letters on a qwerty keyboard!
What do you do with your computer? Are you using it to its maximum potential?
Here are just a few things I do with my computer that I reckon you don’t.
1) Read my Physics Textbook
2) Read copies of the Economist
3) Watch TV
4) Read my Math Textbook
Next up, I should be finding a way to torrent food and coffee. Hm.
I am in a Higher level Math class and we are now doing trigonometry. Well, I have never really liked Trigonometry because it is something I do not totally understand. There are obscure functions I have only heard of (such as tanh and sinh) and not understanding them just makes me feel horrible.
However, I do love sine curves.
Everything can be described with a sine curve and it is so much easier to use a sine curve (it only has a few arguments unlike English which has 20 million words) and that is it!
An example would be my current situation. I believe I am now at my lowest point on the sine curve. I have a whole lot of backlog and an irritating Chemistry test grade to depress me further. Hopefully, I was right that I am at my lowest point now.
It has certainly been an interesting day at the German European School, something different to break the monotony of school, sheltered walkways in contrast to electric powered buggies. The experience has certainly been enriching.
I have always been interested in this idea of ethics (What am I not interested in) and this seminar has been rather thought provoking.
The first thing that I realised was that I was unsure of the differences between ethics and morality. In daily life, the two words are practically used interchangeably, but as Daryl reminded me recently, no two words are perfect synonyms. An internet search turned up vague and inconclusive explanations.
From the information online and Daryl’s explanations, I have come to the conclusion that the difference between ethics and morality is that ethics is a definitive standard set by the society and though there are different sets of ethical beliefs, it is generally not subjective while morals are subjective and different for every single person. However, this conflicts with the wikipedia definition of ethics as the philosophical study of morals. Thus, I have gone in a big loop only to be back in square one, unsure of the exact meanings of morals and ethics.
Despite my flawed understanding of ethics, the seminar has been interesting. I have always felt ethics was derived from the single idea that is one will treat others as he expects others to treat him. The strong need to uphold justice when witnessing someone being tortured for no justifiable reason must be because one does not want to land in such a situation himself.
Being the ignorant me, I have never come across the different theories of ethics (It might have been covered in POD but I never took school serious before this) that I was exposed to today. These include utilitarianism and the natural law theory. Though the seminar was split into three and covered different aspects, I feel this was my greatest take away from the lecture. I feel that the examples were but different applications of those theories.
Either way, despite dozing off for a few minutes because of my lack of sleep, it has been a great experience.
Talking about dozing off, it was interesting how during the coffee break at the seminar, the students were not allowed to have any coffee. There was a table with 2 pots of coffee and 2 pots of tea in the reception area. At first, I thought it seemed exclusively for the teachers because there were only about 2 rows of 10 cups. However, I later saw some UWC students having some, and thus I went up and picked up a cup. I was immediately stopped by this asian guy standing there and told, “this is for adults only.” I stared at the two UWC girls (in UWC uniform) standing in front of the table drinking coffee. Perhaps he was ensuring it be a Just War and making sure he discriminated.
The problem with literature must be that it is impossible for results to show directly when one works hard. Unlike math or science, literature requires us to have the linguistic ability to express ourselves clearly and eloquently and also the sensitivity to the various nuances of a language. This certainly does not come overnight. I shall have to work even harder.
I have had nothing to blog about recently. Life has been a struggle to keep up with the sheer volume of work being piled on to us. I have not had time to read the library books I have borrowed.
I have no idea what I have been doing, but I know I had better start doing something soon.
As I was playing the piano today, I suddenly realised how none of this mattered. I can easily afford to pay ten dollars for four pairs of socks. Neither does it matter if I wear them. After all it is hidden under our long pants.
I must keep my goal in mind, and work towards it. Why let such small matters bother myself? The time can be spent much more constructively on other things and perhaps if I were to channel all my energy into working harder, one day I may even be in a position to prevent something as horrible as this!
I remember, there was a time when we were crazily excited about the IB extension campus. I remember us joking about how our school would require a shuttle bus service or a monorail.
Just the other day, I saw this in our school.
Hm?
I raise my eyebrow.
Well, It has been an extremely busy week and after my sleepless night, I have been trying my best to clear my backlog of homework.
In my past few months in IB, there have been times the workload has felt terribly stifling and I felt like I was being crushed by the amount of work there is to do. Today was one of those days. I came home and felt somewhat frightened.
My work today, Lit has always confounded me. And after a horrible night of writing my analysis of Sylvia Plath’s Tulips, I have finally completed. The feeling of satisfaction and elation is unbelievable.
I know, it is substandard. I know, it is incoherent. I know, it is lacking in more ways than one. I even know, there are many more things left to do.
But I know, I have completed this, and that will have to suffice to keep me afloat.
I just finished my chem practical. It is time for some Sylvia Plath. Sigh. I would certainly appreciate it more if I had the luxury of time to mull over it and come up with different responses. Of course, the world would never allow me.
Foreshadowing and NAP FAR indeed. In the last 36 hours I have had a grand total of 3 hours of sleep.
Not too long ago, I finished a book called The Time Traveller’s Wife. It was an interesting book, time travelling at all.
“A couple years ago, I saw a little girl get hit in the head with a hockey puck at Indian Head Par. It was horrible. I found out alter that she died in the hospital. And then I started to time travel back to that day, over and over, and I wanted to warn her mother, and I couldn’t. It was like being in the audience at a movie. It was like being a ghost. I would scream, ‘No, take her home, don’t let her near the ice, take her away, she’s going to get hurt, she’s going to die’, and I would realise that the words were only in my head, and everything would go on as before.”
I had anticipated all of this, I had seen it coming a mile off, I tried to get started earlier, I tried telling everyone to start work earlier, but it “was like being in the audience at a movie”, I was unable to change anything.
After all the effort I put in and all that nonsense about my action plan, my NAPFA test certainly did not work out.
It had all gone well. I had gotten sufficient sleep the night before and the morning itself. I had bought the coffee and the chocolate (snickers a substitute for mars). I was getting myself mentally prepared to take the barrage of physical tests.
An hour before the test, my alarm went off and I was about to proceed to take my dose of caffeine when I realised,
I had forgotten my PE attire.
