1) Magical powers in gemstones were believed to have come from cosmic rays striking their countries of origin (i.e. India, Persia) according to the philosophers in the Middle Ages.
My professor may have been on cold medication this entire week, but her lectures were excellent. The part where she paused dramatically and then screeched "COSMIC RAYS!" while waving her hands was just the best part. Equally amusing was where she told us that she would be teaching the Dark Arts next semester, albeit at another school, and if we wanted more such classes, we should petition the administration for courses on necromancy and the like. I'm just trying to imagine telling people Yeah, I'm majoring in necromancy, what about you?

2) People who write scientific textbooks do, in fact, have a weird sense of humor.
I was trying (and failing) valiantly to do about 300 or so pages of reading for my pathophys class midterm when I found these odd nuggets of information:

(On Cancer): "It seems that everything one does to earn a livelihood, to subsist, or to enjoy life turns out to be illegal, immoral, fattening, or - most disturbingly - carcinogenic."

(On Anemia): "Traumatic hemolytic anemia can be seen incidentally following any activity that produces repeated physical blows (e.g. bongo drumming)..."

I think my brain just shut down a little at "bongo drumming."

Ahh. How nice to know that tuition dollars are going to such useful pursuits of knowledge.

I think I've found the one thing that I prioritize even lower than sleep - Valentine's Day.

Honestly. I've already spent enough time on it - I need sleep - I'm getting sick and am feeling like, well, crapshit at this moment - I need to work and damn it, why am I even feeling obligated to do all this stuff when they're not my significant other, I'm not even dating and oh, wait, I don't even like Valentine's Day.

And I hit rock bottom on the loving-my-(ex)-family-group-people last night. Emily had the nerve to up and feel "hurt" that we had gone ahead and planned to make something for the '09 boys without first consulting her (despite the fact that the e-mail chain had been going on for 2 weeks now and she never responded), and then decided that we also needed to throw a party where we all had to attend and ...I don't know, serve food?... tomorrow night.

As in, after my full day of classes (9-5), after kendo practice (8-10), after GIG prep (10-12) - I'm still being expected to put in an extra hour of entertainment to fulfill her "I'd also like to look like I had an essential part in giving something to the '09 boys" needs. I don't think I've slept much since my Sunday afternoon nap.

...Grace, of course, wants me there too so it's like being attacked by guilt that I'm annoyed at Emily for the littlest things still (trying very hard to be nice, really I am) and the puppy dog eyes.

The '09 guys want us to leave Thursday evening open, but with my first midterm looming in the horizon, my Xinjiang app that needs to be done SOON, the references I'm supposed to be writing and the proposal that my professors hinted very strongly that I should send out by this week -- I think I'm just going to hide somewhere with my work and with my cell phone off.

Y'know, I don't know if it's sad - I prefer spending Valentine's day alone doing the work that I know I should be getting done/(should have gotten done had I not been implicated in this string of frivolous nonsense all for the sake of some guy that got himself killed in the 3rd century or thereabouts and got canonized).

Sorry. I know, this was really bitchy. I just needed to rant.

...25-page term paper.
Started research one week before it was due.
Started typing it 27 hours before it was due.
Finished typing in 11 hours.

(and due on the same day)
1 Japanese final (started studying night before)
1 Lab practical (also started studying night before)

Drat.
Now that I know I can procrastinate to this extent, I'll be doing it more often.
Argh.
Sleep.

Note to self:
Let's never start research for a 25-page term paper for tutorial - coincidentally, the only grade for this class - a mere week before the deadline ever again.

Especially when you have a Japanese final and a lab practical exam also on the same date.

Life would be so much easier if we all just reproduced by binary fission. Or if romance was a purely fictional thing.

Because mine doesn't seem up to doing its job. I've had this dratted cold for a while now, and no amount of vitamin C or fluids seem to be helping, ditto the cold medicines. My usual back-to-school allergies just made it worse (kendo practice with the sniffles, anyone?) I woke up this morning with a sore throat, no voice, a headache and completely congested.

The good part (and scary part) about being in a family of doctors is that you always have a supply of medication. Since none of them seemed to have worked separately, I combined a few and realized belatedly that that was not one of my brightest ideas.

Tylenol Cold (non-drowsy) + Claritin = worse headache, no effect whatsoever on the runny nose or throat
Tylenol + Claritin + more headache reliever = headache slightly better, nose just as bad, much dizziness

It was an interesting day, to say the least. My first LifeSci 2 lab had a TF who insisted that we all speak up (and didn't seem to get that I honestly could not speak any louder. The dizziness did not help me or the poor zebrafish embryo we were poking at.

Me: (squinting at pipette)
Lab partner: Aren't we supposed to be draining that before staining it?
Me: (still squinting)

Moral of the lesson: Do NOT recombine drugs.

I discovered over the weekend that I'm actually very easily satisfied. Give me 60-70 degree weather, a nice patch of sun, a cup of tea and maybe a good book and I'm on cloud nine. Right now, all I want is to be able to breathe, to speak, and for the world to stop moving, dammit.

I never thought I had a maternal bone in my body until this week. Last year was so busy that I never really got a chance to meet or know the '10 class, but I am so glad I'm getting a chance now. If someone had told me freshman year that I'd be giving out classes/concentration advice, I would've laughed them off - but hey, apparently I do know something about the system here.

Am doing GIGs (Groups Investigating God) with J-chen and Adrian officially this year. It's odd how in a school as intellectual and as supposedly "open" as Harvard (the motto is veritas after all), certain topics are still taboo - discussion of religion and faith and related issues, for instance. I remember it took some guy in my frosh entryway running around seriously telling certain people they were destined for hell before our entire entryway got together to hash out the topic for once and for all. All 32 of us frosh, crowded into one room thumbing through the Bible and other religious texts and debating issues of predestination and free will until 4 am. (Someone showed up with cannoli at one point, I think).

...It really shouldn't take something that drastic to happen for a friendly forum of that sort to open up. After all, people usually have an opinion on religion, faith, etc., and are capable of discussion without bashing everyone else.

( Why I and the rest of the HRKC heart the underclassmen )

I am so thrilled about this semester.
It is going to be awesome. I know it.

( This is me stressing. Read at risk of annoyance. )

I managed to forcefully convince poor Emily into going to Cornell with me. The team now stands as follows: Brian, Howard, Phil, me and Emily. We're staying just for the team competition on Saturday, so I'll hopefully have time to get my other work done. We leave at 3:30pm tomorrow, which means I need my study card signed very very soon. (Darnit, Justice sectioning! I really need to know whether I've gotten in!)

Brian's driving, apparently. With luck we won't hit any wandering wildlife this time.

Just when you thought the world was all modern now, something like this shows up:
The nerve of this guy astounds me.

Honestly. What century does he think he lives in? I'm no militant feminist, not by a long shot, but whoa.

The sad part is, there will be girls who will reply to said pinheaded, anachronistic chauvinist-pig and go with him.

For a university with as large an endowment as it boasts, Harvard really has cut back disappointingly on several fronts. Namely, undergraduate stuff. The university-provided pillows and red phones in each dorm are no longer there. Financial cuts, they say. Now granted, I have a cell phone and don't really need the land-line (I think the telemarketers use the red phone the most), but it's a pretty arrogant assumption that all undergrads have cells, or that reception is good enough (I, living in a concrete jungle, must beg to differ). And it's just not...safe. It's now that much harder to reach someone on campus.

And, okay, the pillows provided look more like intriguing science experiments (what kind of organisms grow on years of shed skin cells and undergraduate drool?) but still. Some of them are quite new and can be used in case unexpected guests show up, or if we have to host prefrosh.

...I wonder where all the money they're supposedly saving is going.

And as for the Freshman Activity Fair... ( the kendo club operates on Murphy's Law )

It's very...different, seeing more frosh on campus. Makes me realize how old I am, especially when people start asking what I plan to do after graduation (I smile and change the subject quickly). My parents have surreptitiously slipped an LSAT prep book into my boxes; they're well aware that I would die before becoming pre-med.
I have also had the really bad timing of getting hooked onto a new series right before classes begin. Stargate Atlantis really is so addictive. And it's so pretty....

With my future uncertain, the year is off to a good start.