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Tuesday, February 20, 2007

you know, lately i've been thinking about med school. not that i'd actually get in (with these grades and my very shaky hands? heavens no!), but surgery and people's insides just sounds so fascinating. i tell you, if pharmacists were allowed to dissect and slice things up with scalpels, i'd be a very happy girl.

either that or some sort of serial killer. :p

the past few weeks have been absolutely hectic. as it turns out, as bad as last term was, *this* term manages to surpass it in sheer busy-ness, craziness, and stress. except for 3 (possibly 4) weeks, every week of this winter term has some sort of exam in it!!! but thankfully it's reading week and i get a bit of a respite despite my upcoming OSCEs. who wants to be a standardized patient for me??? .... PLEASE?!

i hope everyone's chinese new year dinners were good. :) i had so much fun - dave came over to celebrate with my (extended) family, and i must say he fits in really well with everyone. kirby even asked me to give dave a hug for him (after dave had left), but i suspect he might have had wii-related ulterior motives. but kirbs and bethany said they liked him and not just b/c of the video games. awwwww! :) anyway, the dinner and conversation all night was pretty hilarious. one of the highlights of the evening was during the "bai leen" when all us younger unmarrieds go around to the married couples and say a few chinese new year greetings/proverbs before we get our lucky red pockets. here's a (translated) sampling of what my cousins said: "may you grow more hair", "may your son do better in school", "i hope you get less wrinkles", and "may you do well in school" (my personal favourite - it was spoken to our grandmother).

oh, so today i went to this "let's talk science" event with dave. we went to a private school to judge science fair entries. now, i'm not so sure about how smart of these students are, but man, now *i* want to send my kids to private school! that place, though didn't look as impressive from the outside, was absolutely beautiful on the inside! the office was everything you'd picture a private school office to be like - comfy plush chairs, tables with china tea sets on them, classical music playing in the background, nice cabinets with artifacts from around the world... and the kids were actually really polite and well-behaved. the hallways were also decorated with great murals - some even 3D! as you can tell, i'm a sucker for aesthetics/packaging. :p

as for the actual science though, you should probably wait until dave comes out with a blog entry. (one word: "ponies".) from dave's previous experience, i decided to volunteer fully prepared to make (good-natured!) fun of the kids who obviously did their projects the night before ("hypothesis: my homemade compass will not work. conclusion: my homemade compass did not work. therefore my hypothesis was correct"). but instead, i ended up judging the projects of a lot of esl kids at the school, and honestly, you just can't make fun of esl kids. it's just mean.

ohh, but i thought it was funny when one kid's results discussion included this gem: "everyone seemed to have better short-term memory in the quiet, restful environment except for spencer, whose short-term memory was better in the loud, noisy environment. spencer is my brother. i think he might have been trying to fail me." :)

other gems:
"so strange... the garbage plant is growing like a normal plant"
"our hypothesis is, we will fail"
"which is heavier?"
"will it float?"
"so where did you come up with idea for your project?" "me. i'm a genius." "..."
"so do you know why/how the NaOH ingredient might help to clean the stains?" "... no. but i *do* know it's a man-made product. hah! i know more than you think i do!"

but i AM glad those grade 5 memory project girls got second place, they gave a very good presentation. plus they were just so cute! i also liked this other kid's project that dealt with atmospheric pressure, but it was beat out by the bridge, popcorn, and smelly plants.

oh! and one other thing i learned - there's actually a bit of "politics" that goes into the judging process. you have to try to balance girl/boy winners ratios, the different grades - apparently we had all the 7th graders winning and none from grade 8 so we had to "vote" - and sometimes ties are made since the lower grades can be sensitive and sometimes start to cry. awwww!

Labels: chinese new year, dave, family, school, science fairs

posted @ 8:02:00 p.m.

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