8 November 2013:
Shamefully side-stepping post-OP scheduled post.
Yes I did promise doing a post about PW when it's all over. But, I'm lazy. There were times before OP that I felt so motivated to write, when I had everything in my mind. But I chose to wait till OP ended, and look what happened.I'll still write about PW, no doubt. Maybe tomorrow or on Sunday. Ever since PW ended I have been wasting my life. Actually, not really. It's true that I spent a lot of time on the computer, almost the whole day, but some of it is educational.
1. I have been watching Periodic Videos, a channel on Youtube. It mainly features Dr Martyn Poliakoff, an English chemistry professor at University of Nottingham. The main thing that people notice would have to be his hair, the exact opposite of mine.
Of course apart from marvelling at the prof's hair, I focus on the content of his videos. It originally started out as a series of videos about elements on the Periodic Table (hence the name), but became so popular that it expanded.
So far he has talked about many, many other chemistry-related things, since 2008. The videos are all rather short (averaging 5~6 minutes), so they ensure that people aren't bored to death. But anyway, the vids really are interesting.
The prof also has dry humour (which is really hard to explain), which I think is another treasure of being British. (Okay not all British have them.) Also his father is Russian-Jewish, so he speaks a little Russian as well.
The channel also has a few other people featured, mainly his lab assistants. From what I see in the comments there seems to be a fandom for this channel. It is indeed educational without being boring, the hallmark of a popular science channel.
2. Another thing I've been watching would be history documentaries about the Cold War. And I follow an authoritative source, the CNN series. I was first introduced to it when Mr S played one episode during a history lecture.
This series covers the Cold War (thanks, Captain Obvious!) in a revisionist manner. So it doesn't have the orthodox historiography of 'Soviets are forever the ones at fault', which isn't the case anyway.
The documentary contains lots of real footage of scenes during various hot wars that broke out during the Cold War, such as the Vietnam War, Afghan War etc. I've seen a number of shootings (real ones, not acted out) until I'm not quite desensitised to it.
Which also reminds me of Mr S's statement of how historians are cynical people. Because the more they dig out of the past, the less hope they have for the future of humanity. A key assumption in economics is that humans make rational choices; history disproves that.
Okay maybe I have been generalising. But it is undeniable that the past century (which I am studying about for A Levels) was a very volatile one. There were two World Wards, plenty of hot wars and a smattering of border conflicts and incursions.
I was talking to KL and telling him that this century seems much safer. He was sceptical. Now I am too, what if the thirteen years we've experienced so far are but a peaceful start? Many things can happen in the remain 87 years of the century.
Now technology has improved so much and there may be an age of 'digital warfare'. No guns and bullets but lots of espionage. US has embarrassingly revealed its crazy spying patterns; almost every other country spies on one another as well.
China as a rising power needs to be watched closely. It may one day go crazy and turn militaristic. Its conflicts with Japan, Philippines etc. countries are perfect excuse for it to attack various spots in Asia.
USA the self-proclaimed 'global police' is now on the decline. It probably won't die to the ground but it'll never regain the glory of its heydays when it countered USSR and seemed to be a model of democracy and liberty.
... I seem to have blabbered on about geopolitics which is no doubt boring to many. Conclusion? The world is evil, humans are selfish. (Econs students, here's a good link to the 'limited resources, unlimited wants' principle and the failure of the command economy.)
I would've loved to buy a DVD of the CNN documentary, but from what I checked online they have only released the USA version, so even if I bought it through Amazon, I wouldn't be able to play it. I shall wait.
3. Besides the above two, I've also been enjoying myself with comedy. So far I've watched 12 episodes (out of 40) of Drew Carey's Improv-A-Ganza, an American improvisational comedy show that was produced about two years ago.
Every episode features about 5 to 6 improvisational comedians and the host Drew Carey, who also participates in the improvs. The show is about 20 minutes long and contains 3 to 4 improv games.
All the improv games involve audience participartion and are so damn funny. I am constantly at awe over how these people have lightning-fast wit and can react to all kinds of situations in a spilt-second.
I really would like to re-create that in drama sessions in the future. Maybe, hopefully, in the midst of SYF rehearsals we could squeeze in some time for such stuff, which we did during crunch time of Twelfth Night (ironically).
4. Lastly, I've also been playing Friendly Fire, an iPhone game about warfare. It is actually a MMORPG, which I don't normally fancy. I didn't know it was at the start, though, I only realised after I started playing it.
Since then I've been hooked. The graphics are not bad (a pity they aren't as intricate as other games) and the concept is rather good. The whole world is at war with each other and you're in charge of a base.
The best part about it is that you can set your base according to real-life landscapes. My base is somewhere in Punggol, a failed attempt at trying to select Paya Lebar airbase. But you get my point. Players can choose their own homes in the map as their base.
The roads and settings are also followed as closely as possible, as a result. Therefore I have met all sorts of different road arrangements which really exist somewhere around the world. That's a really interesting concept probably never tried before.
The war-themed game also got me interested in warfare. I'm not a military history person (unlike J) so I never really fancied the military aspect of histories. But this got me a tad interested.
~
So that were the four main things I've been doing ever since OP ended. Here's three thing that I will do in the coming days:
1. Complete the post about PW. Yes, guilt is creeping in. I should get it done soon. But, as usual, I will not rush it because all my posts are slowly crafted, word by word. I don't believe in doing posts on impulse.
2. Start my tutorial on differential equations. The makeup lectures are kicking in next week and that means it's back to studying. Actually I don't really dislike maths so I'm still fine with doing maths tutorials.
I honestly don't know why people dislike maths, though. It's true that you probably don't need a lot of it (e.g. differential equations) in daily life, unless you're working in a specialised field. But I like its challenges.
Some may think I like maths simply because I've been scoring well on it. Well actually my JCT grade was U and improved to D for Promos, nothing fantastic. But every time a maths problem defeats me I just want to restart and thwart it.
3. Finish up my tutorial on halogen derivatives. I excitedly started that tutorial before school ended pre-OP and nearly completed it. But then I deserted it for OP and have not yet returned for it.
I'm starting to like organic chemistry too, although I haven't been able to remember all the reaction conditions (there are so many!!!) and get them correct. But I am improving and it's certainly a good feeling when you see the question and at least know how to start.
So yes, I should take advantage of this fondness of organic chemistry to finish up this tutorial. There is still another tutorial on amines waiting, and I'm sure during makeup lectures they'll cover perhaps another topic which has its tutorial too.
TTFN.