The Library's Never Been So Useful Before

I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. It's a blessing that the library's here, but the reason for my frequent use of it is lotsa homework. Which isn't really a bad thing anyway - it's tiresome at times but it'll be interesting and I'm sure I'll learn some good stuff through the experience.

First, a list of my classes for this quarter (kinda belated, it's the end of the 3rd week already. eek! Time's flying so fast!)

IHUM: Ancient Empires (5 units): This is a continuation of my IHUM from last quarter. This quarter we're almost 100% focusing on Ancient Rome. Last quarter I had to do 2 papers and a final; this quarter the final stays but I have an 8-10 page research paper instead, on a topic of my choice. More about this later.

PWR 1 (4 units): PWR (pron. "power") defn.: Program in Writing and Rhetoric. It's another compulsory course for Stanford Undergrads. We're required to take PWR 1 in Freshman year and PWR 2 or another course that meets PWR 2 requirements by the end of Sophomore year. I was assigned to take PWR 1 this quarter - my class is called the Rhetoric of the Bicycle. Haha. The instructor's pretty cool and nice, so it's been interesting so far. The course is supposed to teach you how to analyze rhetorical styles and devices and write a good argumentative paper. I had my first assignment, a 'Rhetorical Analysis', due last week, and now I'm working on a "Contextual Analysis" which is due next Monday (30 Apr) and ultimately the biggie: the Research-based Argumentative Paper which is due at the end of the quarter.

Econ 1B (5 units): Macroeconomics. Pretty self-explanatory. It's actually quite different from the macro econs in JC so far - a lot of real world application so far, and it's not progressing as fast as I thought it would be. It's actually turning out to be more interesting than I expected. The lecturer's Australian, complete with a weird Australian sense of humour that's actually pretty funny but sometimes hard to catch to me, probably even harder for Americans.

Introsem - How Music Instruments Work (3 units): This is a 3-unit introductory seminar on the physics and engineering behind musical instruments. I think it's the perfect class for me - I've been wanting to know stuff like this ever since JC choir when my conductor would explain Physics stuff about sound production to us so we would understand how and why we're in or out of tune, blending our sound or not etc. It's taught by a friendly Scottish Electrical Engineering Prof.

Social Dance I (1 unit) - This is the introductory social dance class that everyone recommends everyone else takes. It's really popular - despite the fact that it's at 8:45am in the mornings twice a week, it's still over-subscribed every quarter. I figured I should hurry up and take it this quarter 'cos I live right opposite the dance gym where it's held, so waking up that early wouldn't be as bad. It's REALLY fun so far. It sux waking up, but once you start dancing and learning stuff you really feel pretty good. Plus the teacher, Richard Powers, is really good - very clear instructions and demonstrations, to the extent that I can't remember a single time I've felt lost for more than a few minutes. It's really a blessing to have a good teacher.

That's it. Total of 18 units. The most I've ever taken here. But I realized that more important than the total no. of units is the no. of 'serious' academic classes that you take and the variety of classes. E.g. if I took Econ, PWR, IHUM and Music Theory (which would also total 18 units) I think it'll be more work and less enjoyable that what I'm doing now.

So I was talking about my research papers: one for IHUM and one for PWR. For IHUM, the topic's up to me and I started by getting interested in the rise of Christianity, especially because Rome was initially a persecutor of Christians and ended up being the empire responsible for the spread of Christianity throughout the world starting from Europe. I've narrowed it down and I think I want to focus on the influence that Constantine's political power had on the growth of the Roman Christian Church - Constantine was the Roman Emperor who converted to Christianity and was the first emperor to officially support and endorse the Christian Church. It sounds chim but trust me, I don't know much about it yet.

As for PWR, my Contextual Analysis (draft is due this Monday) is basically an analysis of a particular source, text, situation or whatever in terms of rhetorical devices, and with an understanding its context and how that shapes how it is viewed and understood. Up till about 2 hours ago I still couldn't decide which topic to do. I'd narrowed it down to two things: Alternative forms of bicycle transmissions, or the widespread use of bicycles on Stanford. I was more drawn to the latter 'cos it sounded more interesting - I was wondering whether the 15,000 or so bikes on campus was a mere result of practicality or whether it was a social phenomenon as well. But ultimately I decided that I was more interesting in researching the marketing aspects of alternate transmissions. So that's what I chose. One of the reasons that I was having such a hard time choosing was that it would help if my final research-based paper is an expansion of my contextual analysis so I wanted to choose the right topic.

2 research papers. And a ton of books to boot. My room is so small, I don't think I can possibly keep all the books I've borrowed in my room (there's no limit of no. of books u can borrow from the library, apparently). So I'm gonna try to sign up for locker space at the library on Monday. I hope it works out.

Ok, enough updates for now. 7 more weeks till I'm done with MY FIRST YEAR AT STANFORD! Time really flies. I'd better enjoy it while it lasts. :)

3rd Quarter already??

One more quarter (another 10 weeks) and I'm done with my Freshman year of school. Wow.

Last quarter turned out well. I got an A- on my Econ final which gave me an overall B+, which isn't bad considering I had two B-s for the two midterms. Got an A- for IHUM, which I'm pretty happy with, and an A+ for Music 22 (Theory) which I'm also happy with of course. Overall GPA is 3.79 right now. =)

This quarter I'm taking 5 classes: IHUM (a continuation of last quarter's Ancient Empires class), PWR (Program in Writing and Rhetoric - a compulsory writing class. Mine is on the Rhetoric of the Bicycle - sounds weird but the lecturer seems pretty interesting so far), Econ 1B (Macroeconomics), an introsem on the Physics and Engineering behind musical instruments, and social dance I (which is at 8:45am on Tues and Thu but it's really fun so I think it's worth getting up for).

Hawaii was great. Honolulu is amazingly like Singapore - spread out urbanization, lots of shopping centers and wide roads in the shopping district a la Orchard Road, many apartment blocks everywhere, and many of those apartment blocks even look like HDB flats! Don't believe me? See it for yourself:


These are apartment blocks that were just behind our hotel:


That aside, we went to the beach a lot; the beaches are really nice; great water, really fine and smooth sand, lots of sun. I got quite a tan I think. Wonder if it'll last. haha. This is Waikiki beach, very near our hotel:

That's Stephen taking a short siesta on the beach at North Shore (we stayed in Waikiki in Honolulu which is to the south of the island)...

We also did a lot of filming for a video for our Spring Show. Don't we look pro? That vertical stick with the white sock on it is our boom mic - it's a mic with an actual sock over it (versus a proper mic sock that's supposed to keep wind out - the sock worked out pretty well too) that's duct taped to a branch that we found. Hahaha.

I'm waiting to get the pictures from the other mendicants before I post my photos online so that I can put all of them in the same album.

Gonna take a short rest/nap now before my next class - I had Social Dance just now, and later I have 3 classes in a row plus another class some time after that so I probably should rest if I wanna make it through. ;)