There’s a fine line between healthy scepticism and jaundiced cynicism. – Louis Cataldie, M.D.
The BBC News at 10 is currently reporting on the large oil spill off the coast of Louisiana. I get depressed when I hear about it. I can’t stand to witness such atrocities taking place. The seas and animals and environment and earth and ALREADY dying without a terrible oil spill. Is global warming and coral reef bleaching not enough? Are the pollutions running into our water from pig farms not enough? God damn it. I can’t stand watching such a massive oil spill occurring. Occurring. Occurring. This is very disappointing. I can’t even stand to watch the news reporting. The turtles dying. Birds choking. You call this a normal accident? Normal, indeed. Normal for profits. Normal for business.
Anything but normal.
End of exams. I have officially completed — DC just asked me whether I’d like to go with them to lunch with SP and RP… of course! hmm I feel slightly agitated by the question. but I guess it’s out of good intent (just wanted to share how I feel at this very instant) — the 2009/2010 school year. Well, maybe not exactly. I’d still like to input all of this year’s notes from various courses onto this blog.
This is quite a relief, though. It’s finally over. Wow. Look how far I’ve come. I’m trying to not sound cheesy here, not unlike certain individuals in a certain conference. But I mean it. I feel a sense of relief and a sense of pride. Relief in that it is May (nearly) and I’ve made it past the exams. Pride in that I’ve achieved. Achieved. Succeeded. I’m proud of myself. High average. Well, mostly. I’m slightly disappointed with Stats and Soci. For statistics, I don’t think I ended up receiving an A. Probably only around 84% or so. So close. Well, I tried. Ruminating and catastrophising will not help. Putting it behind me now. As for Sociology? Well… the energy just wasn’t quite there towards the end of the year. I’m slightly surprised, though, that I got 82% for the paper since I had only started to work on it at 5 A.M. on the day it was to be due at 11 A.M. The exam was okay, though, at least I though. (I thought I had done okay for stats also, but it didn’t quite turn out that way. 70 some percent…) I hope that I can get an A for sociology. Sigh. If not, I accept it — just to keep myself humble as a motivation to work harder. Damn it.
What? Wall painting? Mom, please don’t paint the wall. I cannot stand the smell.
In other news, I’ve been in a number of interviews in the past week or so. Did I write about the nursing interview, I wonder? Hold on, let me check… yes I did write about it. Well, I got the position! Sweet. I’m in a bit of a dilemma now, though. Before I talk about that, let me talk about the Health Psychology interview first, which I had yesterday.
I enjoyed the interview with them. One of the interviewers happened to be doing an MPH program, so we started an engaged conversation right away. Overall, it seems really fascinating. Are you afraid of blood? I mean, come on! I was beaming on the inside. I live for blood! (That may sound a bit scary, in retrospect 
) It would be awesome to be able to work with them in an advanced capacity. You know. Drawing blood. Spinning spit — whatever that means. I’m guessing it probably means centrifuging saliva, or something along those lines. Directed studies? I hope so! Reference? I hope so! Connections? Very important! Oh, and I bumped into SC just before the interview and say hello. She is so nice. Also saw JH in the psychology building. Yeah, I enjoyed the interview. Their work seems quite fascinating. Interviewing, wet lab, data… I’m practically drooling now.
Back to the discussion on the current nursing dilemma dilemma dilemma di-le-mma. Trying to get a grip of spelling. Dilemma. Fascinating. So I got the position with SW, but I also have an interview with that other population health group on Monday. Working with them would be advantages simply because the office is freaking beside JF’s!! OMG OMG OMG. The Prolific JF. Besides, it would be a plus for my future MPH. How nice that would be. The problem, though, is that this interview will take place on Monday. Today is Friday and nursing has already got back to me with a position. It’s just that I don’t want to end up with nothing. I need to find the balance between getting a desirable position and getting a position. What if I end up with nothing? Scary thought. But if I wait for the interview result from the one on Monday, will I have kept the current offer for too long. Choices choices. Decisions decisions. Dilemmas dilemmas. Think think.
Meh. I’m not going to think too much right now. It’s going to be interesting to see how my summer turns out. Looking back and reading this will be interesting. This is slightly stressful — this dilemma, but writing it out definitely helps with that. I do find it therapeutic now. After all, Louis Cataldie. By the way, his book, Coroner’s Journal, was way more disturbing than Romeo Dallaire’s Shake Hands With the Deveil, even though both are quite gory.
I thought to my self today: who is more evil, the serial women killer from Baton Rouge or the genociders from Rwanda? This is quite a philosophical topic. Speaking of which, I had an interview with that service learning international ethics group today. You know, the one on campus. We had a general round of introductions, a small spill about ourselves, and an ethics discussion. I brought up things like poverty porn, informed consent, colonialism, dependency. Enjoyed it. Funny thing was that the guy beside me, during his introduction, went on and on and on. He was slightly nervous and his fight-or-flight response was obviously activated. But he just had to talk about his experiences at mickey D’s and reading week. Errrmmm. “lol?”
So which party of the two described above is more evil? One could argue that the serial killer is, because he killed so many innocent, productive young women. If that’s the case, then what about the people in Rwanda who killed hundreds of thousands of innocents? Even though they didn’t carry out the killing themselves, directly, they are still responsible for the murders. If the American is more even, then one would be arguing that the lives of the Africans are worth less. This would be an absurd claim. But then again, if we look at it in context.. what about the context? Well, it Rwanda was in a civil war. American was not. So it was highly abnormal for the serial killer to strike in Baton Rouge. Not so abnormal in Rwanda? That sounds very dehumanising, I’m sorry. This is, indeed, a complex question to address. Is context important? Are numbers even important? What about means and intent? Mechanisms? Sigh… What I know right now is that evil is evil, and must be fought.
I look forward to enjoying my weekend, dear blog. This is quite therapeutic therapeutic therapeutic — there.