Syaffolee

Saturday, June 12, 2004

Bits and Pieces

While I'm sitting here waiting in between steps of an experiment, I'm contemplating on not coming to lab tomorrow. This is due more to practical reasons than laziness--because tomorrow is the big commencement ceremony and I don't want to get caught up in the traffic and crowds and general craziness that such things entail. The problem is that my RIP, or research in progress, is due Thursday and I really want to get stuff done before then.

To be honest, I don't think any of my current experiments are going to affect what I'm going to say in my RIP. Maybe in a month, yeah, but my RIP isn't due next month. Besides, I could work on it at home--not being in lab won't kill me.

* * *
Someone told me that they thought I was unhappy because I'm quiet.

Huh.

I always thought that someone who was unhappy or depressed would show classic symptoms of attention-getting, to draw to the fact that they need help. Perhaps I should be upset that I'm so seriously misunderstood, but I can't work up the energy to be outraged. I guess that's just a symptom of my underlying personality--I keep to myself and I'm mostly laid back (or at least I try to be) even in the face of something that might cause rage in the average person.

All I can say is, I'm definitely not unhappy, but if I told you I was happy and why I was happy, you'd think I was insincere.

* * *Brief reading update: Out of the list I posted last week, I finished The Silk Road: Two Thousand Years in the Heart of Asia by Frances Wood. I guess it's not surprising considering my schedule and that there are lots of pictures in the book. I thought it was interesting learning about all the different cultures and environments and historical skirmishes along the Silk Road. However, the author glossed over the "Great Game" as if the reader already knew what it was (but perhaps this is somewhat forgivable--after all, Wood is trying to cover two thousand years of history under three hundred pages). The Great Game was the struggle between superpowers in the region around the 1800s. The British Empire, which by that time controlled India, were trying to gain a foothold north. Meanwhile, Russia was coming in the other way and between those two were caught the peoples of the Silk Road. Maybe I'll try finding a book on that when I have some spare time.

[posted by S. Y. Affolee on 7:25 AM : ]

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