O coração guardado não fica partido,
nem tocado,
nem mudado por nenhum outro.

Aberto, vai sentir o sol
e também a chuva,
mas com os dois
vai crescer como uma flor
para ser capaz de bate mais forte
com a paixão da vida.

Life, quantified

I just read this article about self-measurement. It's full of accounts of people who have undertaken self-measurement projects for various reasons, like trying to optimize their running performance, quit smoking, quit coffee, deal with sleep disorders, or improve productivity at work. I found the article quite thought-provoking in its own right, although all the descriptions of people hooking themselves up to sensors of various kinds made me think of this talk about how games will invade real live, as well as this TED Talk about harnessing the power of gamers, both of which I found quite interesting from the perspective of trying to shape the everyday behaviour of gamers (or would-be gamers... or maybe just anyone, really) by introducing into real life some of the same elements that drive them to happily spend hours training/leveling-up their characters, going after some kind of epic weapon or gear, or trying to beat a high score. I refer to gamers as if they're some kind of foreign group, but there's a very good reason I've deliberately avoided playing most video games for the last few years... in any case, my interest in the issue comes from a desire to more effectively shape my own behaviour.

I think I would do well to keep a detailed record of my activities, even just for some set period of time like a week or two. I can't even imagine how much time I don't realize I waste doing absolutely nothing of any productive value (entertainment/recreation counting as productive in some sense). I think seeing some hard numbers in front of me would shock some self-control into me. That's certainly the case when it comes to my spending habits, at least.

On a different note, the social aspects of self-measurement (when the collected information is broadcast) are also really interesting... In situations like trying to quit smoking, I could see how making your data available to friends might enable them to help keep you on track. But this part of the article gave me pause:

Jon Cousins is a 54-year-old software entrepreneur and former advertising executive who was given a diagnosis in 2007 of bipolar affective disorder. Cousins built a self-tracking system to help manage his feelings, which he called Moodscope; now used by about 1,000 others, Moodscope automatically sends e-mail with mood-tracking scores to a few select friends. “My life was changed radically,” Cousins told me recently in an e-mail message. “If I got the odd dip, my friends wanted to know why.” Sometimes, after he records a low score, a friend might simply e-mail: “?” Cousins replies, and that act alone makes him feel better.

As uncomfortable as I am with the idea of, say, Google Latitude, I think I'd really like to know when my friends are feeling down or especially happy, even if it isn't over something they'd consider worth going out of their way to talk to or tell someone about. At the same time, I'm not sure how I'd feel about sharing that kind of info if I were to track it myself... though I guess if the sharing bit were user-controlled, that would be less of an issue.

Today's lesson about going with the flow

Today we had the second annual meeting of Ontario iGEM teams. Last year's meeting was held at Waterloo since we were the ones organizing it, but with the aim of increasing iGEM's visibility within the microbiology community (which has a lot to offer iGEM in terms of faculty and graduate student support), we decided to hold this year's meeting at the 60th Conference of the Canadian Society of Microbiologists. Despite a number of hiccups and hitches in the organization process, the meeting ended up being fairly productive, and I was (somewhat unsettlingly) satisfied at the end of the day. Other musings regarding the meeting will most likely end up here at some point, but I think I learned one important lesson today about going with the flow:

Do not argue about going with the flow.

Going with the flow is something that will happen when it's necessary, whether you plan for it or not. No matter how much of a consensus a group might reach on following a given Super-Awesome Plan of Action, if the plan just doesn't seem to be working in practice, like it or not, the group will then have to devise another strategy — whether this means scaling back a project, redefining previously assigned roles and responsibilities, or any other changes that are appropriate for the given circumstances. But it seems like, in many cases, it's difficult to generate agreement to play things by ear, perhaps because such arguments are often mistaken for opposition to having a Plan A.

Of course you want to come up with the best plan you can for achieving your objectives, but, even when you've learned from firsthand experience that such plans aren't especially likely to pan out as hoped, trying to get people to agree to be ready to adapt if and when the situation calls for it is a waste of energy given that they won't have a choice in the matter when it comes down to it.

There's more I wanted to say on this, but I am losing (very badly) the battle to stay awake, so I leave it at that for now.

Lost memories

I just read this BBC article about how data on optical discs doesn't last nearly as long as one might think (or hope), even irrespective of brand name. A friend of mine (who I trust quite blindly when it comes to topics like this) had told me a long while ago that DVDs don't last especially long and that hard drives are much better for storing one's data. Partially because of this and partially because it's just way easier, basically all of my data (excluding the obscene amounts of anime I amassed from high school through second year) lives on a couple of hard drives and my computers themselves.

Lately I've been thinking about this data of mine, and I've had this nagging inclination to buy another hard drive or two – or even one of those cute little home servers they're selling these days. In any case, this particular article, which in my RSS feed had the title "Lost memories", made me (good, impressionable reader that I am) think about how many photos and videos and other records of various things that I've experienced I've collected over the years. And it kind of hit me, how incredibly sad I'd be if I lost them somehow.

It's kind of odd, considering its increasing ubiquity, how fragile data is now. How instantly huge amounts of it can be lost. I think about the photo albums my mom has from when my brother and I were younger, or even from when she herself was my age (and younger), and... well, an album is the kind of thing you can hold on to for your whole life. I once put a great deal of thought and time and care into putting together a photo scrapbook for a friend who moved away. As much as I'd poured into it at the time, and as much as I'd hoped they would really, really like it, I realize now just how much something like that would mean to me to receive myself. How much it would mean to me years later, to have memories and messages from friends with whom I'd spent some amazing times, preserved in a single book that I could one day show to my kids. (Not that they'd be the least bit interested.)

I don't know where I'm going with this. Now (in addition to buying more data storage) I feel like making some kind of album of my own, to keep in physical book form. But... at the same time, part of me feels kind of strange about photos and other mementos. I'm not sure to what extent I really feel this way, but I have this notion that the things that really count shouldn't require any kind of physical reminders; that the most important things are the ones that shape you as a person – that change the way you see the world and what you do in it. Those kinds of things you carry with you, memories or no memories.

That said, I admit I am a much more sentimental person than most people would probably expect, and ("should"s or "shouldn't"s aside) I can't help but hold on to the physical things that mean something to me.

miscellaneous thoughts in no particular order

I've been having nightmares lately. The kind where you wake up, and this awful feeling of residual fear or dread or anxiety stays with you well after you've gotten out of bed and begun to go about your day. I haven't had nightmares in many months — at least — and I don't remember ever having ones like this, that affect me long after I wake up. Part of me wonders why I've been having them all of a sudden, and part of me doesn't want to think about it.


Drag blues feels amazing. It reminds me of ballroom, and I miss ballroom. Specifically it reminds me of tango, and I think it's because of the nature of the connection. A lot of the lead/follow seems to rely not on the arms at all, but rather on connection through the legs and torso. I really like it... perhaps not surprisingly, considering that my arms are pretty much the bane of my dancing existence. (Sigh.) In any case, I'm dying to learn more blues. I think it's already changing my dancing in general. I've hardly been out dancing salsa lately, but recently I danced a really great bachata (with a ballroom instructor, incidentally), and it felt different from the last time I danced with him — certain things felt easier and more natural to follow, more effortless... and from the feel of those things, it was definitely a direct result of the drag blues workshops I did not long ago (taught by some amazing instructors from Denver).


I need to develop more discipline (i.e., an amount greater than zero). I know I have enough time to do a good number of the things I want to be doing these days without continually getting myself sick (I've long since lost count of the number of times I've been sick since last summer... it is definitely greater than eight), but I've barely been accomplishing anything, and it's really starting to bother me. I'm barely treading water, let alone getting anywhere. I seem to have completely lost the ability to be productive on a regular day. This is not sustainable. I fear the only solution is sheer will power.


Eu não vivo onde moro; eu não moro onde vivo. I feel like my life is in one place, and my home and school are in another. I don't think it's going to change any time soon. Part of me is scared by that thought; part of me wants to be fine with it. Fortunately(?), if I keep myself busy enough, I manage not to think about this or its implications and just enjoy what I have at the moment.

Boredom

I think I've long since forgotten what boredom feels like. I literally cannot remember the last time I had the feeling of "Man, there's nothing to do...", like I always used to whine to my parents about when I was little. It's something I simply can't relate to anymore. That's not to say that I don't lose interest in things. I definitely do, all the time. But for quite a while now, the sheer number of things that I want to do has greatly exceeded the number of things I actually have time to do... I suppose one could complain about this scenario ("Wah, I don't have nearly enough time to do the things I want!"), but when I think about how, a handful of years ago, I had so little inclination to do much of anything at all, despite my vague-but-varied interests... I'm really glad that these days I have genuine interest in so many things—the kind of interest I'm compelled to act on... that actually makes me want to *do* things.

It seems to me that boredom cannot be cured by anyone other than the bored person themselves. If I am bored, and I find someone else to entertain me for some time, won't I just be bored again as soon as they leave? (If the answer is no, what might it be that I will feel like doing at that later time, that I didn't feel like doing before?) I suppose I'm talking about chronic boredom, as opposed to, say, having forgotten the book you meant to bring on your 9-hour flight. I was a little surprised by the Wikipedia definition of boredom as "an emotional state experienced ... when individuals are uninterested in the opportunities surrounding them", which is actually quite an apt description of past-me: there were usually plenty of things I could think of to do, but I simply didn't feel like doing any of them. Perhaps some combination of affect- and attitude-related factors gave rise to this general disinterest in doing things... I don't know.

When there are severe constraints imposed on your activities, like when you're on the bus or waiting for a tardy friend to arrive at a meeting spot, then sure, it's a somewhat different story: that immediate situation isn't particularly rife with opportunities. But when I think about it, in general, it kind of blows my mind how many things a single person could take it upon themselves to just get up and do at any given moment.

The issue of how one goes from being generally bored to never being bored is a perplexing one for me. I don't know how it happened in my case... maybe partly finding things that I really cared about (or just greatly enjoyed) doing and was strongly compelled to spend time on, and partly being inspired by certain people to spend my time actually doing these things. That's not to say that I don't also spend a lot of time doing other things though, which I guess sort of relates to my second thought...

I've noticed that my wanting to do stuff, which is great and all, has actually been affecting my social life in an odd way: unless people want to do the same things I'm usually itching to do, I find I'm increasingly reluctant to make plans with people these days. Even people I really enjoy spending time (and actually want to spend more time) with, which is what makes this really unfortunate and kind of frustrating. I recently happened to grab coffee with a friend after something we'd met up to do wrapped up quite a bit early, and it was really nice. But at the same time, when planning ahead, I don't think I would've suggested getting coffee afterwards (even if I'd known our task wouldn't take long) because there are other things than sitting around drinking coffee (i.e., basically doing nothing) that are much higher on the list of Things I Want to Spend My Time Doing.

I guess what it comes down to is that the activity itself has become much more salient to me than the potential social interactions that would take place during it... which perhaps makes sense, since a planned activity, like hiking or playing a game with someone, or even drinking coffee, is relatively predictable and easy to imagine in concrete terms, whereas social interactions arise spontaneously depending on so many different factors, and it's hard to imagine beforehand what the experience of a social situation will be like. Which basically amounts to it being very difficult for a vague unknown to seem more appealing than a desirable known. So regardless of how often I would indeed be quite happy to sit around and do nothing but chat with people when the opportunity arises (and I definitely tend to get down when I don't do much of anything social for a while), I have a hard time planning such opportunities into my week. And since I'm logistically pretty far-removed from my social world, they don't really arise unless I plan them. I don't know what to do about this, or even if I want to do anything about this, but it seems like a problem.

Tough love

Often, when I've dug a really deep hole for myself, and I know I've screwed myself over to the point where I couldn't undo it if I tried, I'm more than a little ambivalent when things work out alright anyway. And, as happy and relieved as my immediate reaction might be, part of me is disappointed in -- maybe even a little resentful of -- the person who made an exception and cut me way more slack than I deserve, because they've robbed me of the hard lesson I should have learned from my own behaviour.

Ideas Worth Spreading

One of the best websites on the internet (yes, the entire internet) is, in my opinion, TED.com. TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design), for those who aren't familiar, is an annual conference where some of the world's most extraordinary people -- scientists, artists, entertainers, entrepreneurs, innovators -- convene to share their ideas in concise 20-minute talks that range from thought-provoking to inspiring to mind-blowing. To read more about TED itself, you can go here, but I want to share some of my favourite talks that I've watched recently. Talk descriptions are taken straight from the TED site, and below each video I've included some comments of my own.

Pawan Sinha on how brains learn to see

Pawan Sinha details his groundbreaking research into how the brain's visual system develops. Sinha and his team provide free vision-restoring treatment to children born blind, and then study how their brains learn to interpret visual data. The work offers insights into neuroscience, engineering and even autism.

I'm extremely interested in cognition and how people process information, so in addition to the treatments his groups has been doing, his research and its implications are very exciting.

Dan Ariely on our buggy moral code

Behavioral economist Dan Ariely studies the bugs in our moral code: the hidden reasons we think it's OK to cheat or steal (sometimes). Clever studies help make his point that we're predictably irrational -- and can be influenced in ways we can't grasp.

I actually think the description for this one is somewhat misleading. The studies Ariely describes aren't really about why "we think it's OK", so much as under what circumstances we tend to cheat (and, based on those findings, he suggests explanations for this). However, given that the factors involved in those explanations aren't (in all likelihood) consciously considered by people who are deciding whether to cheat or not, his findings are quite interesting. If we're predictably irrational, we certainly aren't intuitively so.

[As an aside, I recently read the paper of his about what the authors term "coherent arbitrariness", how even when the value people ascribe to something is arbitrary (e.g., the amount of money they would have to be paid to be willing to endure the pain of the vice-grip on their finger, as he mentions in this TED talk), they still make adjustments in "coherent" (predictable) ways (i.e., demanding more money for longer duration of pain). He has also authored a neat paper on how buyers and sellers can value the same good quite differently. If you're interested in either paper, let me know and I can send them to you.]

Temple Grandin: The world needs all kinds of minds

Temple Grandin, diagnosed with autism as a child, talks about how her mind works -- sharing her ability to "think in pictures," which helps her solve problems that neurotypical brains might miss. She makes the case that the world needs people on the autism spectrum: visual thinkers, pattern thinkers, verbal thinkers, and all kinds of smart geeky kids.

This talk actually made me shed tears. I cannot explain why. Maybe it has something to do with how strongly I feel about education and the role it ought to have in tapping into the specific strengths that everyone has -- getting people to realize their potential, especially in spite of what "conventional wisdom", such as academic curricula, would indicate should be expected of them.

Dan Gilbert asks, Why are we happy?

Dan Gilbert, author of Stumbling on Happiness, challenges the idea that we’ll be miserable if we don’t get what we want. Our "psychological immune system" lets us feel truly happy even when things don’t go as planned.

This talk I actually watched years ago. As someone who is given to spending obscene amounts of time deliberating over important (and not-so-important) decisions, often to the point where my indecision ends up making my decision for me, I found this talk Most Excellent. Even aside from never really being able to know which choice will be "best", there's the reality that, even if we could always choose the "best" options, it wouldn't necessarily make much difference to how happy we end up being: by and large, humans make themselves (relatively) happy with the reality they are faced with.

Hm. There are several more talks that I really want to share, but I'll save those for another post.

Bottled feelings

I feel like I understand art a little better today. I've rambled on before about how the things (energies? passions?) that are alive inside a person can force themselves out in the form of art... music, movement... or other activities, like working hard for some kind of cause. In a couple of ways I get this a little more now than I did before...

Expression through dance is something I can relate to since I feel it all the time: when I hear the right music (which could even just be music in my head :P), there's this need to let this thing out of me, which can only be released through movement.

The visual art thing, on the other hand, I didn't really get. As intrinsically enjoyable as the act of drawing is for me, I'm rarely compelled to do it in the first place. But for perhaps the first time ever, I recently had a taste of that compulsion: I went out to a lake one evening with a bunch of friends. The moon was a huge, orange crescent hanging low in the black sky. As we stood around by the lake, looking at the stars, we realized the moon was getting lower on the horizon. Soon enough it had reached the lake itself, and I stood there, captivated, unable to look away as this orange crescent moon sank into the water like a ship on fire. Something about this nearly moved me to tears, and it felt like the ship was drawing the breath out of me and taking it with it as it sank. I couldn't bring myself to move until long after the last point of light had vanished on the horizon, and I desperately wished that I could capture what I'd just experienced... preserve it somehow, in the form of a painting.

Of course, I am in no way a painter, and it would be terrible to destroy that experience as it exists in my memory by seeing whatever awful rendering I might produce on paper, so I wouldn't even attempt it. Even my written description just now, which I tried to gloss over as much as possible (while still getting the gist of it across) in order to avoid this very thing, has kind of sullied my memory of the event. :| In any case, even if my inability to express myself through these means stops me from actually doing it, I've now at least had a glimpse of what it's like to want to express myself through visual art.

In this case, the desire to capture a moment made me want to create art: to take my experience of that event and turn it into a physical object so I could have it later, maybe share it with others. In the past, I've been driven by various emotions to write things -- sometimes poetry, sometimes other things -- and it has mostly been because of a need to take whatever I was feeling at the time and get it out of me. To reach in and grab hold of it and pull it out and get rid of it, so I could stop experiencing whatever feeling of unrest was roiling inside me. And aside from looking at what I've just pulled out only long enough to see that it is indeed the thing, in its entirety, that I wanted to get rid of, that's generally the end of it, and I don't deal with the thing any further.

But today, for some reason, I read some things I'd written a while back, during a time when I felt quite different than I do these days. Even though I remember a lot of things from that time, even some events in plenty of detail, I generally can't recall the specific feelings I had. Perhaps it's akin to the way you might remember the face of someone you once knew long ago; you might have a rough picture, but it's hazy and doesn't capture the details -- the features that make that person distinct from others with the same sort of look. Yet if you actually see the person, they're immediately recognizable, even alongside other, similar-looking people. In the same way, though I could no longer remember my feelings from these past times, as I read these things that I'd once written, everything I'd been experiencing at the time came crashing over me again. Nuances of emotion that I still wouldn't know how to begin describing in plain words. Somehow I didn't expect that reading these things could put those feelings back into me, even in spite of how irrelevant they are to the present. That is, given how things are now, it doesn't even make sense that I should be able to feel these things from these other times.

It's as if, in writing each of those things, I distilled that immediate experience out of me and bottled it like a drug... and all it takes to once again experience everything I'd managed to draw out of myself back then is to sip from that little bottle.

I suppose, then, that if another person has had experiences similar enough to that from which a given drug was distilled, they too can be affected by it; this is perhaps what makes art resonate with certain people but not others. This would certainly explain why until a few years ago I had very little appreciation for the arts: I hadn't even begun to live yet.

Morning's here... The morning's here! Sunshine is here...

I love mornings. :D To observe my behaviour, you'd never conclude such a thing. For instance, my last couple weeks have gone more or less like so:

Sunday: wake at 3 pm

Monday: sleep at 7 am; wake at 2 pm

Tuesday: sleep at 11 am; wake at 5 pm

Wednesday: sleep at 4 pm; wake at 6 pm

Thursday: sleep at 6 am; wake at 3 pm

Friday: sleep at 3 am; wake at 12 pm

Saturday: sleep at 7 am; wake at 3 pm

Sunday: sleep at 6 am; wake at 3 pm

Monday: sleep at 5 am; wake at 7 am; sleep at 5 pm; wake at 7 pm

Tuesday: sleep at 8 am; wake at 9 am; sleep at 6 pm; wake at 8 pm

Wednesday: sleep at 5 am; wake at 5:10 am; sleep at 9 pm (!!)

Thursday: wake at 6 am (!!)

Friday: sleep at 1 am; wake at 8 am

I don't quite understand why I always tend to stay up forever into the night, eventually giving in to exhaustion and sleeping sometime in the morning... I guess there's something about the quiet, when everyone else is asleep, that I like, but I most of the time I don't get much (or anything) done when I'm awake really late anyway. Sometimes there's something specific I'm doing such that I stay up forever (e.g., playing guitar), but other times time just somehow elapses, and suddenly it's 6 am, and I wouldn't even be able to describe what I was doing the whole time if you asked me.

I think I need to get into the habit of sticking to a behavioural curfew. Something like "no computer after 10 pm". I really like early mornings, when it's just getting light out (or even before it starts to get light). They're so much better than evenings. They feel so much happier...

I watched a TED Talk yesterday, about lifestyles that are associated with longevity, and (in addition to making me think about what a ridiculously high proportion of the time my body must be under stress -- due to my sleeping habits alone) the speaker talks about the Japanese concept of ikigai, which he, perhaps rather inaccurately, translates as "the reason for which you wake up in the morning"... Now, maybe what he really meant by this description was something closer to a raison d'être, or broader sense of purpose in life (which surely would be a great thing), but even taking it literally: for me it makes such a huge difference simply to have something specific that I want to do when I wake up each day. It's such a great feeling to wake up and to not be able to stay in bed because there are things that you can't wait to do right away. Which is another reason to set a curfew for myself, even (or especially) when there are things I really want to do right that moment, at night.

It's odd... I saw this personality quiz recently (a Which Typeface Are You? quiz, hehe) in which the following question was asked "Are you relaxed -- do you take any chocolate from the box, whether it's orange cream or hazelnut crunch? Or are you disciplined -- do you first suffer the orange cream so you can later enjoy the hazelnut crunch?" I would never think of myself as disciplined (like, at *all*), but I always do the latter. I always eat things I don't like first, saving the best things for last. If this is indeed some kind of manifestation of discipline, maybe there's hope for me yet -- maybe I can make a habit of not only to holding off on enjoyable activities until morning (so I can sleep and wake early :D), but maybe even first doing tasks I don't want to do, getting them over with right away so I can enjoy other things fully afterwards. Wouldn't that be something...

Why trying is good

Holy frig. Like, holy frig. So last week, I started trying to learn a song. I am lame and don't know chords (other than, like, the five-to-ten most generic ones), and aside from the mainstream, strummy sort of songs you play on an acoustic (which tend to consist of maybe ten generic chords total), the handful of other songs I've ever learned were all from tabs. Unfortunately, tabs are virtually impossible to find for most Brazilian music, and I can never make sense of any chords I can find. :| So that left learning this song by ear (and by the handful of fingerings you can see in the video, hehe). Which seemed like it'd be... really, really freaking hard... when I listened to it, but I really, really wanted to learn it, so I tried. And after working at it a little bit more each day since this past Sunday, today I finally finished! :D!

Some parts aren't quite right, and I still can't play it very well, but man! The first time I played it through from start to finish, after I reached the last note I could not stop grinning. I can't believe I actually did it! I listen to the original song, and I'm like, "Whaaaat, I learned that *by ear*?? Whaaaaaaat??" I'm so happy!! Seriously, forget grades or awards or scholarships -- I don't think I've *ever* felt this kind of sense of accomplishment. I feel like a little kid who just made their first-ever Play-Doh man. :D (One arm is falling off.)

Thinking back, there have been a couple of other times I set about learning something that I thought I was crazy to try, given my pitiful skill level (they include the third song I ever learned, and this one). But I did learn them (yay tabs!), and, bit by bit, they were much less impossible than they seemed at first. And then this! So my Important Lesson of the Day is: trying to do things you think you're crazy for attempting is The Best! :D Either you keep trying until you eventually succeed (and you get to be super happy about it!), or you learn a whole bunch through your effortful attempts and at least you know tried your best. :]

So yay! Lack of tabs can't stop me now! :D! There are so many songs I want to learn now... Although, man, it's *insanely* hard to pick out the notes for chords when all of the strings are sounded at once. D: But... I guess it'll get easier as I gain familiarity with the different chords.

Now to apply my Important Lesson to life in general... :o! I want more of this awesome feeling!

On social media I once considered dumb

For a long time, I was one of those people who shocked others when I revealed that I didn't use Facebook. I really didn't see the point of it, and I thought it was dumb, how much time people spent on it. Eventually, years after the first of my friends to get it, I reluctantly and begrudgingly signed up. And then I proceeded to almost never, ever use it, except to view the occasional photos or event info that existed nowhere else.

More recently, however, not only do I find myself using it continually (and being one of the shocked when I now meet people who don't use it), but my hackles tend to go up when people pooh-pooh at it, and I even find myself defending it now and then.

It made me consider exactly what has changed since once upon a time when I never used it, and it seems to boil down to two main things:

First, the world has become a smaller place for me. Part of this is because of people graduating and moving away, and part of this is because I've met people abroad... but much moreso now than ever before, the people I know and really want to keep up with are all over the place; very few of my friends even live in the same city as me. We all have our own separate lives, and we're busy with hugely varied schedules, so it's nice to have quick updates on at least the major highlights (and often a lot of minor ones) even when there's nothing specific we'd be inclined to, say, email one another about.

Second is that one of the main things I do whenever I have a big enough chunk of free time is dance. This, of course, requires somewhere to go dancing and people to dance with, so being able to keep up with goings-on in the dance scenes relevant to me is huge. There are lots of different events and socials and workshops organized by different people and dance schools, and it's hugely convenient to not only know what's going on when I happen to be going to Toronto (or, perhaps more importantly, have something to plan around so I can go for the stuff I'm interested in), but also have a rough idea of who's going to be at what. Maybe this wouldn't be as big a deal if I were out dancing several times a week (as was the case during my Summer of Freedom) and could keep up by word of mouth, but alas... time is far more scarce these days... and even in this scenario, having events listed all in one place is super handy. The Events feature is also of great utility when trying to wrangle my various scattered amigos into the occasional get-together.

There are other reasons I use Facebook these days, but those are the most important ones, and the ones which perhaps most rationally justify my reliance on a form of social media that part of me still hates.

UPDATE: I like how I happened to post this just before Facebook decided to revamp the homepage layout to something that makes me want to gouge my eyes out with a spoon.

Epic. Fail.

Day One

Yesterday was the first day of the new term. My first class was cancelled, but since I currently know, like, two people in my entire program and wish for this not to be the case, I sat around in the classroom chatting with a couple other students for the entire length of the class. My program is interesting since there are so many students from such varied backgrounds. Most of them come from engineering, but some are just out of undergrad while others have worked in industry for years before coming back to build on their education.

Sitting and listening to one fellow talk about things he's done (including a failed business venture and how he studied for some kind of project management certification test requiring 1500 hours of experience) and his views on the types of companies/firms he's worked for (I hadn't even realized there was a distinction between the two :|), I thought he fell into the latter category. But it turned out that he'd just graduated last year and, because of the economy, decided to continue into grad school instead of braving the bleak job market just yet, predicting that prospects for entry-level jobs in his area would improve by the time he's done.

I guess that's what co-op does for you: being able to come out of undergrad with experience working for several different companies (not to mention at least some kind of sense about things like The Job Market) seems like an incredibly valuable thing, and if I could have appreciated this back then in the way that I do now, I probably would have chosen a different undergrad program and done co-op. That's not to say that I regret opting for the program I did -- quite the opposite, in spite of my opinion of the program itself: on the path I chose, I met some incredible people who have without question, and without even trying, changed my life, and I think I learned a great deal during my undergrad, even if it wasn't what my profs were trying to teach us in class.

Part of me wonders how my experience compares to those of the people I'd be working/competing with if I chose the academia route versus The Real World. I currently have little idea of what The Real World is like, and I can't help but listen to people who live in The Real World and be in awe of their vast wisdom and experience, feeling like my little Academia Bubble self would never stand a chance out there. And so it feels especially bizarre to receive any sort of oohing and aahing at my description of the things I've been doing so far, relating to school and to iGEM (as outstanding as I think iGEM is, from the inside), from such vastly wise and experienced folks. I don't feel impressive at all (more like woefully inadequate, half the time), and hearing people make impressed noises in my direction makes me feel more or less like a fraud. As if I said one thing, but they heard something else altogether, and suddenly I've inadvertently but unavoidably lied to them.

I've now steered myself into a program in which I'm not only doing a thesis, but also a considerable amount of coursework, and I've signed up for the co-op option to boot (which is extremely uncommon for a thesis-based program). I suppose, really, there's no point in comparison with other people, even if it were possible; regardless of where in the pack I stand, all I can do is do what I can, the best that I can, and that will get me wherever it'll get me. If I can figure out where I want that somewhere to be, so I can direct my efforts accordingly, all the better.

But lately I've been finding it increasingly difficult to direct much effort anywhere. Maybe it's partly because I spent most of last term being sick, but I think it has a lot to do with how I feed off of other people's motivation. When I'm around people who want to do things, I want to do things myself. Thinking back to fourth year, I still can't believe how productive I was, with courses, grad school and scholarship applications, trips to various places to visit potential labs (and all the research that went along with it) and of course iGEM, the task set of which naturally expanded to fill every waking moment. I remember spending all day at the lab and coming home only to collapse into bed. Scraping ice off my windshield at 2 am before finally heading home. I probably complained at the time, but now I miss it. ... okay, maybe not the midnight car-cleaning, but I miss the non-stop Doing Things, and the seemingly endless well of Desire to Do Things. Whatever it was that compelled me to do the things that I miss in spite of the things that I don't miss. But it wasn't just me: it was me and my friend, who got me into iGEM in the first place. It's so easy to get -- and stay -- excited about things when you're doing it alongside someone. It's more than how spending all day working doesn't feel so much like working (and can even be enjoyable) in the right company: it's how the right energy from some people can make you want to push forward even when they're not actually around. A wonderful positive-feedback loop of passion and drive. That's what I miss most, I think. It's exciting. From time to time I still somehow find myself in a super-motivated sort of phase, but without the feedback loop it tends to fizzle out pretty quickly.

At the moment, however, I'm quite excited for the new term. The courses I'm taking seem really interesting, I'm eager to get going on my thesis, and there's a really promising group of students involved in iGEM this term, including our two new co-ops. This is the best part of the term: everything is so fresh and full of possibilities!