coming of age

Convocation for the College of Science was last night. The reception was good :) And I know what my gown is gonna look like, unless they change it in 2 years. At least it's not ugly light maroon or weird sai-browns matched with minty greens. It's just abit uglier than my ideal royal blue-gold/red design.


Suddenly felt inspired to graduate with a round hat. I think that would be a really proud moment cos now I can understand the amount of hard work,time,sweat and tears put into it. But I need to concentrate on 2 years of chinese first hahaha.


Now that FYP is coming to an end, I think if I were a single-degree student I'd be ready to convocate and step out into the (science) world. It's really like a coming-of-age thing. Minus the FYP experience and I think I'd still be a stupid little student who studied for years but still knew nuts. As Richard Ernst, Nobel Laureate for NMR put it, (in my own words)[btw, this is the first time I've attended a talk by a Nobel Laureate, by orders of boss]: Real learning is stepping out of the lecture hall. Research and education should be hand-in-hand. Which is true, cos without practical experience, theory is absolutely nothing. The diversity and unpredictability of all things in life makes theory naught. Nothing ever turns out perfect, in strict accordance to theory. Everything is dependent upon a thousand other easily overlooked factors, which of course are impossible to keep constant.


The take home observation would be that a melting pot of different cultures is all that's needed for science to work. I think the experience was greatly enhanced by the different people in lab, from different geographical, racial, cultural and linguistic backgrounds. It's the chemistry, in all sense of the word. I wonder what life would be without lab. 2 years from now, maybe Mukesh's crystal would have grown into a huge shiny star and I as the maiden viewer (it was a cluster of hairs like a little spider when i first saw it) would be proud to have witnessed its humble beginnings.


I wonder why words fail me when it comes to reports. Maybe I should pretend I'm blogging when I'm doing my report.


And boss still sucks big time.