Do you see to believe?

This was from early February.
There was a time when we talked about spirituality, that we believe there is some unknown force out there. The only difference was that I believed it was God, and my friend was unsure what to call the power. S/he called him/herself agnostic. But now, -and I hate to use this example-, my friend's facebook profile tells me that s/he is atheist, and whenever the topic of religion (or evolution) pops up, s/he adamantly argues how God cannot exist. I have come to accept that everyone holds different beliefs and I respect that. I do not try to force my beliefs onto others, and I'm willing to listen to what others have to say. But it still hurts. It still hurts when people shred up my beliefs in front of me. I wish they would also think before speaking or at least rephrase how they want to express their beliefs. But perhaps I am asking for too much in a world where all beliefs are based upon observations. What about the things you can't see?

Diversity Clubs

I've always wondered about 'diversity clubs' in high schools. The Asian American Association, Hawaiian Students Club, Black Student Union, Jewish Culture Awareness Club, and so on. Generally, these groups consisted of only the race or ethnic/religious group of the title, created a community only for themselves (well, I'm sure they were open to everyone, but not really. I couldn't casually walk into a Chicano students' club), and from time to time participated in culture awareness events (food, shows, art), but that never seemed to be (to me, at least) the core purpose of the clubs. I love the fact that people can create strong, healthy communities for themselves, a place that feels like home- especially at a place where you can easily feel alienated or judged by others. I sometimes miss being surrounded by Koreans and making Konglish jokes. However, I really don't think a majority of these organizations should be called clubs that promote diversity- because to me, it seems like they just create a greater divide from that stance. We somehow alienate ourselves further by pairing off like this. The clubs should just be called student clubs and there should be more events where they can come together and share their culture. I'd be okay with that. - This all stemming from just stumbling across a Wikipedia article description about a private school and its extracurricular activities.

Wallpaper

I'm not a huge wallpaper fan, especially flowery ones. (My mom, on the other hand, is obsessed with flower-print-anything.) However, I think this one is absolutely gorgeous:

Isn't it stunning? I love the color scheme of blue, yellow, and green, and how the golden leaves shimmer. I saw this in one of the color contest entries for Apartment Therapy: Lisa's Robin's Egg Blue Bathroom

I wish there was a proper interior design game. The only one that comes close to what I want is The Sims series, but that isn't good enough. A lot of the paint and wallpaper is boring, the options for floorings aren't enough, and appliances and furniture are still dissatisfactory. I suppose if I really wanted to, I could purchase the 3rd game and an editor, but really.. are there any other options?

Spring 2010

So I received an E-mail yesterday that the finals exam schedule was changing for spring 2010. Granted, as a graduate student, that doesn't really concern me that much, but upon reading the E-mail, I immediately felt terrible for the current undergraduates.

This fall semester had already been belatedly changed such that instructors/professors could not introduce new material during the last week of instruction. On the surface, some students may have rejoiced, because this meant  the reintroduction of 'dead week,' which the university had taken away in 2004. However, no one knew of this until right before the semester started, so every professor and lecturer who had their syllabi and lessons prepared had to revise everything so that they could still cram in all the material students need to know for the final. I suppose the alternative to that would have been to cut down on material. But isn't college a place where you can and want to learn as much as possible?

The proposal..or rather, the decision for spring (and all semesters afterwards) is that all finals will occur in a five-day period (Monday through Friday). This sounds all sweet and dandy if all you get out of this is that there are no more Saturday finals, you can get it out of your way, and attend all commencement ceremonies! But here's the catch: instead of three excruciatingly long 3-hour finals per day, you get to have four of them. 8-11am, 11:30am-2:30pm, 3pm-6pm, and 7pm-10pm. That's right, when you thought that 1.5 hours before your next final on a back-to-back final day wasn't enough time to recuperate and getting out at 8pm on a Tuesday night to review cram for your 8am Wednesday final just didn't cut it, now you're down to half an hour before your next one during the day, and out at night when you can't even see the purpleness of the twilight sky anymore. Oh I'm sorry, you get a full hour before your 7pm final. When students were already exhausted at 8pm from a 5pm-8pm final, how is it that administrators think that students will have the energy to take a final until 10pm? (Advice: Do not sign up for a Tuesday/Thursday 3:30-5pm course next semester, as that will definitely put you in a 7-10pm final slot)

Poor undergraduates. Sure, all you would need to do is schedule your classes such that you don't have back-to-back or too many finals in one day, but seriously, that doesn't often happen the way you want it to when different colleges already require students to take so many prerequisites and breadth courses and many students want to explore other areas of interest by taking courses outside of their department. You don't want the final exams schedules to prevent you from taking courses you really want to (or need to) take, especially if they aren't offered consistently (or are notoriously difficult to get into). In a semester system, a student feels more pressure to grab as many opportunities as they can while they can. And students need more time to cover the breadth and depth of the material during finals. A 'dead week' that really isn't one (class is still held) is not really enough. Cramming more exams every day is not going to help the students organize their knowledge in time for their finals. Once again, budget cuts come into play. With tuition increasing by 45% next year and policy changes galore, how much will it matter whether someone attends Cal or some other institution? I still believe that our campus has a lot to offer for the young mind, but the government and bureaucracy keeps on burning that bridge... turning away international students, brilliant minds without the financial support, brilliant minds who do the math and realize they might as well try for private institutions.... It's sad. How do we fix it?

Draining the battery with identity issues

Sunday morning through Monday afternoon was by far the most productive time I've spent this semester (so far). Having family at home is great, but it definitely diminishes the amount of work I get done, because there just inevitably arises more errands to run, and the need to spend time with people who must and will always come first in terms of priorities.

I finished my 200C readings (was this week's particularly vague and confusing or is that just me?), posted on the forum much earlier than usual, replied to stacks of E-mail, and completed my first video log for lesson 1 (this took forever), had a meeting, and the weekly meeting of one of the most difficult courses I've enrolled in my (short) life. And I still ate all my meals and had a nice coffee break with D. This doesn't sound like much on script, but it was definitely mentally draining (and D probably doesn't realize how much I welcomed that break). As much as I welcome this change of pace and stimulation of the intellect, I worry that I'm letting all the 'busywork' of school interfere with time I must set aside for thinking about my larger purpose in graduate school. What the heck am I doing? Why Do I belong here?