Posted by alexandra_k on November 22, 2017, at 14:58:27
In reply to Re: politics, posted by alexandra_k on November 18, 2017, at 22:52:31
Provisional B for epidemiology - Which is enough - so long as I get B+ or higher for biochemistry - which is the better paper for me. Going into the exam with an A-/A for that - but I think lots were so concerned about how the 70% exam might function to redistribute a number downwards for bell curve distribution...
I keep kicking myself for really silly errors that I made on these mini-essay things - really not sure how many marks I've lost. And then how many I've lost because they had something a bit different in mind, and so on. I did some doozy's, though. Went on about hydrogen bonding helping longer chain fatty acids pack tighter (of course I meant hydrophobic interactions and I should have talked about symmetry rather than the number of hydrogen atoms - so I really did the whole conceptual fail, there). And then I think I explained the Hb dissociation curve really rather well (if I do say so, myself) and I drew a nice graph showing how allosteric regulators pull the hyperbolic Mb curve into a sigmoid... But then I drew this other one (that we didn't even study for this class) and put the pH, CO2, temperature stuff on the *wrong freaking side of the graph*, *in direct conflict to everything I just said*. Sigh. I don't know how many marks I'll lose for such things... And then there are the things I think I got right - but they want something different. And so on. No idea.
_______________________________Looking for housing... I guess I'm going okay. The hardest thing is food... Lack of food, more to the point. Hunger does bad things to the brain. I think I'm in some sort of shock, too, from the change in diet, honestly. And there are people around, here, and the people around here are lonely. And so I get to doing the thing that I do where I avoid communal areas... I mean, I'll still do my laundry, but I can't bear to use the communal kitchen... And so it's hard to eat healthy food that doesn't need to be cooked / kept in the fridge or freezer. And I've been relying on dribs and drabs of food grants... I think I'll have to go back to eating potato chips and 2 minute noodles... Peanut butter sandwiches... I'm just feeling kicked and demoralised about it all... Get paid today and have $20. That's $10 for gas and... Need to go and ask for food grant again... After having gone in and asked for one yesterday... Horrible horrible guilt feeling... How is this my fault? wtf.
___________________________I went to this professorial talk by someone who I didn't know existed... I mean, I knew he existed because the talk has been advertised for a while, and I was like 'who is this person who never comes to departmental seminars' and so on... He's been doing something admin-y. To do with Medical Selection / the Health Science First Year program-y sort of stuff... Apparently they will be making changes to the program... One of the changes (next year is the first year) is that you can have a by on one of the papers (I elected bio-physics because of the math). He's really a physiology person - anatomy is this nominal department, mostly, just so the university can say they have the only anatomy major / program in the country... Then they bait and switch you for cell biology mostly - but other things besides... Anyway... I didn't realise they are actually getting some (or at least one) promising result from implanted electrodes and stimulation of basal ganglia neurones in people with Parkonsins...
I had come to shy away from neuro because of all the dodgey stuff with brain magnets and the new phrenology of fMRI and so on... And then people always looking for a quick and easy fix instead of (it seemed to me) coming to terms with some kind of reality principle with respect to effort and hard work paying off... And then 10 hours just to get inside the skull (I heard)... But there really are a group of people, here, working on such things, huh.
_____________________________He said I didn't come from an academic family, or they would have said 'come to xx and we can teach you everything you need to know about that [chemistry] in 2 years'. Which didn't actually make much sense of his life... But it made sense of my life... They decided they were not my family... They didn't see that... They didn't say that...
One of them was there. The pastor one. I felt (in the interview) that I didn't connect with him. He asked about ethics... Around euthenasia. I didn't realise there was a real church influence, here, around that, and a real 'no no no no no under no circumstances' thing... And I guess I thought he wanted me to talk about the role of chaplins to help people come to peace with his God, or whatever... I don't know...
Maybe I pissed him off more than I thought.
Maybe it was that I was reluctant to connect with him (I was). I felt like there was some agenda view there of some party line that I was expected to spout. I didn't know what it was. I resented that.
And all of that could really very genuinely have been my issue. I don't know. All I knew was that he was a church person and I was fairly dubious about the church - ethics connection that there is here...
I guess I've come to learn that... That's right. Bioethics here is more an exercise in... Ethics communication. Helping people who don't think through things very well... Helping them think things through. A form of therapy, yeah. I always shied away from applied ethics... They used to say applied ethics is to metaethics (or 'real philosophy') as applied statistics is to mathematicians. Just that... There are genuine philosophical or mathematical problems lurking... But most people working on the applied aspect... Seem to lack the capacity to apprehend the problems even less work towards a coherant solution... The applied stuff is typically... Just a hodge podge of a justification of what people want to say / think is right.
The only statistics I believe in are the ones I've doctored myself. Ahahahahahaha. Funniest thing I've heard in a while... Different talk... Apparently our pathology samples can't fly around the country via the national airlines because It's too full of politicians or political advisors or somesuch...
Anyway...
The food thing is getting to me. As it would anyone, I suppose. Most people do eat sh*t, so I'm supposed to do that... They do keep offering food (I suppose) and conversation after some of these seminars... It's just hard for me to bear because I don't have a coherant story / context typically. People just trying to place people... And then in having conversations with people... Most people can't tell / assess things or people on their merits...
C'mon Biochemistry. I'm really hoping for an A... That might be too much... An A-... Pretty pretty please??
______________________________________
The food thing is... Foundational. A centre point. Food. Sleep. Exercise. Healthy home. The food thing wears me down... So I come to be in a place where I'm not fit to ask for help. Not when the people I need to ask for help are mostly carefully selected to be borderline incompetent / waste your time / distract you with other things and then send you away with nothing without your realising it...
I suppose I can get food packages from churches... From students union... But, again, it's all the wood-chips and salt and sugar and chemicals rubbish that will kill you... Nutritoinal deficiency. Or bioavailability deficiency, failing that...
Thanks so very much for your help!
And pity would be no more...
Slightly postal feeling.
I could always move in with the drug dealers - hey!
poster:alexandra_k
thread:1094248
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/poli/20140225/msgs/1095989.html