2010 in retrospective and some books

Hmh. It's interesting to think that I started 2010 in high school and finished it in college. For all the cynicism and frustration, it was actually a pretty good year. As far as high school goes, I did excellently on my exams, concluded reasonably happily with my friends. And college thus far has had... ups and downs, but I would classify it mostly as ups. I've connected with people I knew from high school and met some (But not too many!) great new people. That, and academic stuff went fine. Yeah, yeah.

There was also a fair share of sadness and frustration, though. I'm usually pretty good about following through on the plans that I make, but that's not always the case. Suffice it to say that there's a difference between being a solitary person and being alone. Ah well. Move on, damaged but not broken, I guess.

On an irrelevant note, I just got copies of The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein and Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo today (Have already read both of them, but didn't own copies). Both definitely fall in my list of Best Things Ever Written, for varying reasons. I'd argue that The Giving Tree is one of the quintessential childhood reads, and it definitely continues to be a moving story into adulthood. Johnny Got His Gun, for those who haven't read it, falls into the sort of hypercritical, disturbing, oft-depressing category that encompasses books by authors like George Orwell and Vonnegut. Put simply, it's an anti-war novel from the perspective of a soldier who wakes up lacking all of his limbs and all seven senses. Although the premise seems a bit... absurd?, the writing is absolutely brilliant at capturing the sensations (or lack thereof) of the narrator. It's gripping, dips into the insane, and as mentioned before, extremely disturbing at times. For anyone who hasn't read it, you need to. I learned recently that there was a movie made of the book a ways back, and think I will look into it - hopefully the cinematography captures the essence of the book.

oh no finals oh no

Nah, just kidding.

Finals week is next week and... quite honestly? I couldn't care less. I was told a few times before starting college that it'd be a huge transition, I wouldn't be able to continue my usual study habits (or, more appropriate, lack thereof), I'd meet people much much smarter than me, etcetera etcetera. Let's see.

There wasn't really any transition to speak of. Just school again, in a different setting, with a slightly different routine. The one thing I will note is that interaction with other people has changed quite a bit for me. I've never been very good at meeting people to begin with (though I'm okay at getting along with them once I'm past that initial bit), so it's incredibly difficult to meet new people when I don't see many people more than once a day, and there are so damned many people besides. A friend from high school, who I had lunch with over fall break, pointed out that IB did an excellent job of forcing us to meet people: It basically threw all of us into a room, said "These are the people you will be having class with for the next four years. Meet them.", and walked away. That's not to say that I don't like the people from high school - I believe that having a few good friends that you can really trust is preferable to having a huge network of people whom you are only somewhat acquainted with. Seems like a lot of people are really fixated on the latter. Insecurity? I don't know.

Study habits? Haven't changed a bit. When I've got a test coming up, I'll look over the things that I need to work on briefly, then not worry about it. And I'm doing fine. Actually, in MCDB (Molecular, Cellular, Developmental Biology), I did the best on the test that I didn't even bother studying for, because I'd gotten an average of a 90ish on the first two and they drop the lowest of the three. I also did quite well on a chemistry test which I walked into sick, with no preparation, and confused about what day it was due to a nap just previously. The results of that test were rather amusing.

Finally... smart people. While I know some very smart people from high school that are at college with me, I haven't met anyone new that blows me out of the water, so to speak. There are other smart students, to be sure, but no one on the scale that I was told to expect. Certainly people talk about having "genius roommates" and suchlike, but judging from the types of people that I hear having these conversations, well, I'm not convinced. (Of note: I really do try not to come across as arrogant. Sometimes it's difficult.)

Onwards towards finals week, then. And all that.

Week One: Complete!

Made it through a week of classes! Yeah! Checkpoint reached! And it's... well, not very stimulating or challenging thus far.

I'm currently enrolled in Intro to Molecular/Cellular/Developmental Biology (From here on out, I will refer to it as MCDB), General Chemistry for Majors, Intro to Sociology, and Intro to the Bible. My MCDB class is seriously just a review of last year's class, according to the syllabus. However, it also doesn't cover as much stuff, so maybe they go into more detail. Maybe. Chemistry might actually prove to be an interesting class, as it is taught by Thomas Cech, a Nobel Laureate. Thus far, however, it's just been a review of basic stuff - significant figures, units, dimensional analysis, etc. More on that in a moment. Intro to Sociology also seems like it might have promise - the material seems relatively interesting (bordering on IB Theory of Knowledge-esque). However, I'm not certain that the other people in the class are capable of discussing it at an engaging level. Yes, yes, that's me being egotistic. I don't care. As far as Intro to the Bible goes, I'm actually amused since my teacher seems more liable to laugh at the Bible than I am. Hmh. Could be a fun class. Intro to the Bible is also my smallest class (as it is an honors class), with about 20 people. The rest of my lectures are all at least 100.

I've also come to the realization (Er, re-realization?) that I'm really really bad at meeting new people. I was okay in IB because generally people were pretty motivated and intellectually interesting to speak to, but it's nigh impossible to judge that sort of thing in a college environment, with thousands of people walking around. As such, I'm finding myself making pre-judgments of people before I meet them, which might not necessarily be a good thing. The problem is, I'm somewhat incapable of having an extended conversation with someone that I don't already respect to some degree. And it's proving to be somewhat difficult to respect these people. For example, in my first chemistry lab section, we were (again) going over basic things: significant figures, units, and the like. Here's the gist of one of the problems that they gave us:

You have a 5.0 cubic centimeter sample of a substance. It has a density of 1.5 g/cm^3. If you were to double the volume to 10.0 cubic centimeters, what would the density be? DO NOT CALCULATE THIS - JUST GIVE AN ANSWER AND EXPLAIN WHY.

See the part where it explicitly says "do not calculate"? Well, at least three people (Possibly more - these three were sitting right in my vicinity) attempted to calculate it. I tried to explain why that wasn't necessary. One person sort of figured it out after a moment (Or, at least, pretended to). One person couldn't be convinced. One person stared blankly at me for a moment before just writing down 1.5 g/cm^3. At this point, I decided that interacting wasn't really worthwhile and decided instead to draw a picture of the most interesting thing in the room: A faucet. See below.

So... yeah. As I suspected, the intellectual transition to college wasn't a transition at all. More of a fall down a hill. The social transition, however, may prove to be a bit more problematic. I will say that I have met some people who I am okay with interacting with for an extended period of time. Some are Lakewood IB kids who came to CU. Another couple are IB people from other schools. One is my roommate, who is pretty alright. And finally, I met a senior over breakfast one day, after convincing the coffee shop to sell me a cup of milk (I am not a coffee drinker at all). So, I guess there's hope.

Onwards, then.

On a different note, I may have found a potential way to make some money over the course of my college life. A friend of mine who was in debate (Now going to Stanford) is starting up a business, selling debate research to high school coaches, and offered to pay me to design a logo for him. I, of course, accepted, and it seems to be going well (Progress shots to be uploaded at some point). I guess I could do some graphic design/consulting as a small part-time affair, though it might be tricky to establish myself. Something to consider.