A small chuck of UoA.

Woohoo! Finished writing my Botany Final!
And thereby, my third year university life had officially came to an end, formally and peacefully.

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There are a couple things I wish to bring out but overall, the third year university life is one of the most extraordinary experience I’ve ever had. Its simply fantastic, academically, socially, and in terms of general well-being.

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1st Semester
It was relatively disastrous. Selecting Japanese 101 as my art option was one of the move that I regret the most, still I do. I had absolutely no idea how difficult it is to learn another asian language; to be honest to myself, language acquisition is not  one of my talents, I probably even suck at it! I held a great grudge over my decision in taking Jap instead of something I am familiar with such as Chinese. But oh well, the brutal period has passed, I moved on.

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And next we have Biology 321, advanced evolution biology. From that I learned that I simply do not have to capability to take an 8am class. Everything starts off nice and easy as any typical student, freshly refreshed from an enjoyable summer break. First few class was fine, the goal of getting a high grade motivated me from the sweet warm bed; subsequently, I failed to get up and ended up missing most of the classes since the midterm 1. Well I still did ok in the final but I guess I took my lesson and there are absolutely no reason for me to take another 8am class, learning about natural history in the sleepy morning.

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Other Psychology classes I took were fine, pretty decent professors and the material are generally interesting. The time slots were perfect for me. One class I want to give my special credit to is Dr. Caplan’s brain and cognition class. It was probably the most interesting class ever. And I ended up doing very great in the class. (Which relates back to my second year where I took another class with him, thats where I learn hes a cool prof).

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2nd Semester
I had probably the best chance in getting a 4.0 in this particular semester, but I failed to. 3.9 is what I got, but Well I am glad that it did. This semester was both challenging and easy-going. Almost no exam based grade, but paper based. Great! I had to take some more art classes because I need the GPA boosting effect (except Japanese) and I need some more art credits.

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I am glad that I signed up for Dr Dickson’s lab although I must admit that he is rather intimating in most of the situations. I admire his ability to make his arguments and his capability to be creative. Intuitive thinking is probably the most essential elements in advanced science, the create something novel, you are required to be intuitive. Lots of work for me, although the grade he gave me was quite unexpected, I was glad that I worked in his lab. In the other hand, Jer Caplan gave me the third A, in this computational memory model class. There were 3 people in the class, probably one of the smallest class ever. But there cant be a better class than this! 3 people + professor investigating at a highly specific topic, there are a lot to learn from it. Presentations were great, I leaned to speak with a little more formal attitude and facilitating a little more professional and scientific terms, which are all critical aspects of my future.

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Chinese? Yes I paid $1600 and took a Mandarin Chinese course. It was one of the most ridiculous class ever. But in a way, getting a good grade is what I demand at that point. Classics? It was a good class, I learned about greek history and different gods. It provided me an deeper philosophical insight into systemic theology and allows me to discriminate between religious myths and the one true religion. Absolutely no regrets taking Chinese and Classics.

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It was probably the best semester I ever had.

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Spring Semester
The only one class I took was Botany, Drug plants. This class got me thinking deep. The combination of doing research in the previous semester and taking this course outputs an entire different perspective in me. Botany is quite different compared to pharmacology, at least in the philosophical aspect. It is safe to say that the Botany I learned is quite similar to the traditional chinese medicine that has 5000 years of history. Initially I had the chance to pick between between this course and another pharmacology class (Drug abuse) which are very related, I ended up with botany. 2 papers and 3 exams, the workload was slightly overwhelming, but it was ok; I was heavily trained to write papers. Good class, good learning.

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I don’t have a particular conclusion I want to make, but I merely want to say: I enjoyed.
SO here I am heading back to Hong Kong in 2 days, hurray!

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Memorti