A Year On and No Wiser

This is why life is so cruel. Because its just so easy to follow your routine and forget all about it completely. Until one day, when confusion, paranoia, lack of motivation and despondence completely take you over, keeping you up at night, forcing you to re-trace your steps to determine where it all went wrong. Forcing you to take responsibility. You knew it was going to be this way, why the hell did you not begin before?

The City Dark allowed me to verbalize something I had been feeling for a while but didn't quite know what it was outside the shell of my brain. I need to see the sky. I need the presence of stars to remind me that I am insignificant, and that I am close to a superior being up there. That one day I will look back at my small form staring up at the sky, and reminisce: "How worried I was about this. How helpless I felt, but then it all worked out in the end." That's the catch. You have to start moving now to make sure that one day, it really will be okay in the end, otherwise you've lost that small shard of hope you're clinging to. Proactive decisions. Independent plans. Watching my own back. Planning ahead strategically. Utilizing my resources to the fullest. I have to do this all on my own to get anywhere now. This is what happens when you lose faith in your mentor. You are so terrified, yet you can't fall apart because you don't have that choice. You are too ambitious to be able to take it if you fail. Thus, you can't fail. You can die, if you want, but you can't fail. No one said this to me. I did.

I can only place hopes in my own self, which is so ironic that it actually makes me laugh. Given my tendency to self-doubt, having hope in myself that I can rely on myself to get through this is not easy. But I will hope. And work. And pray that my hope will give me strength.

I either have to bring my dreams down several notches, or figure out a strategy to take care of myself and my emotions while being aggressive with my work. With or without help. So help me God.

Untitled.

I haven't had such a bad day in lab in quite a while. At least not since I started this one.

Lesson learned: There are worse things than not even having at a chance to get nominated for a fellowship for which it was your last chance because of eligibility issues, just because someone lost your papers and didn't even inform you.

Hell explained by a Chemistry Student

Below is a widely circulated anecdote on the internet. I do wonder though, if this is so legit, why does no  one know who this student is yet, or why has the student not come forward to take credit?

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The following is an actual question given on a University of Washington chemistry mid-term. Hat top to Annabelle Mark who is a constant source of this type of material.

Bonus Question: Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)?

The answer by one student was so 'profound' that the professor shared it with colleagues, via the Internet, which is, of course, why we now have the pleasure of enjoying it as well

Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law (gas cools when it expands and heats when it is compressed) or some variant. One student, however, wrote the following:

First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which they are leaving. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for how many souls are entering Hell, let's look at the different religions that exist in the world today.

Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added.

This gives two possibilities:

If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose.
If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over.
So which is it?

If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my Freshman year that, 'It will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you,' and take into account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number two must be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and has already frozen over. The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is therefore, extinct......leaving only Heaven, thereby proving the existence of a divine being which explains why, last night, Teresa kept shouting 'Oh my God.'

THIS STUDENT RECEIVED AN A+ "

Bel Canto

 "Never be so focused on what you're looking for that you overlook the thing you actually find."

 - Ann Patchett

Tiny Interesting Choices

One of the reasons why I love xkcd so much.