Where?

Hallo everybody! ^_^

Man, I’m soo happy. Today, I finished my first week of the fisrt semester of my sophmore year (hope it stays sophmore and doesn’t become a suffer-more year :P) anyways, I’m just plain happy.

I love all the courses I choose this semester… all.. except one: biology.

But before I rattle on about why I dislike it, I shall first talk about the ones I do like!

So this semester, we have to take Theoretical Mechanics and Electrodynamics, as well as Physics Lab as department requirements. I really love these courses, the professors until now have been really great at explaining it. I must say, I really appreciate the fact that they started from the math used in the course (though many have seen it in applied math already and may consider it a bit of a waste of time, I really really appreciate the time taken to do so) Physics lab is a complete, 360 degress turn from the general physics lab we recieved the first year. Appart form using more interesting equipment, we are going to do more serious experiements, which is really quite nice.

I also chose other courses, some interesting, some still interesting but making me fall asleep.

Among them, I have General Astronomy (required credits), Observational Astronomy, Linear Algebra and biology.

I really love the observational astronomy one. I have always really been attracted to astronomy and astrophysics, I even hope to become an astrophysicist in my future. This course is really worth it, as it’ll teach us to use telescopes and other observational instruments, so I might post on that later on (no promises, I’m sometimes a bit lazy :D)

General Astronomy, I must confess, never thought could be so boring. I mean, the subject is lovely, it entangles you in it, it amazes you with how grand and vast it tends to become, how it can open your mind to soo much and still, it is just so little of what is really or could really be out there. The professor isn’t left behind, she is quite good at it, with a strong voice and all (rare among some professors) and still, I was falling asleep. sigh, we’ll just see how it progresses, hopefully it’ll get better.

Biology is just the boring thing of thursday afternoons. It’s the only thing I might dread this semester. It’s just plain boring. For physics majors I think the course is quite dull, as it really doesn’t give much to us. Sure, biology has it’s interesting points, I won’t deny it. But… oh well, it’s just not my area of interest, I guess a biologist in physics will say the same thing.

And finally, linear algebra. This one is more for fun than I thought. But I do honestly hope that it’ll continue to be that way.

Back in high school, I had really aquired a love for maths, but then I hit university calculus, and it kinda dropped my love for math. This summer I started to get it back, remember why I really appreciated their beauty and their certain elegance. Applied math also helped me get that feeling back. Lets just hope it doesn’t go away again with this semester

In summary, I just hope this semester goes well, and all courses go as hoped, not just for me but for everyone else.

So, to anyone who is starting a semester at any university, hopefully all courses go as planned, and more than a grade and a credits, you get something more, maybe a newfound love. ^_^

Cheers, NM

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The wind here in Hsinchu dislikes me. I think its a conspiracy. A war. Wind versus umbrellas.

That’s the fourth or fifth umbrella in one year. Those are aluminum rods.

I think the winds here and umbrella making companies have an understanding.

Cheers, NM

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The first months of my third grade

You can feel it, the change of wind tells you, the warmth of summer is faintly there and slowly replaced by autumn’s cool temper. Yes something is in the air.

Summer vacation will soon be over and classes will soon start again. The flocks of new students tell you that, the endless school supplies shoppers reaffirm it. Yes, it’ll start again.

And I’m happy as I can be. ^_^

Ever since I was little and started going to school, I would get excited for the start of classes. I still do. This is not something that happens one week before, no. I used to count the days from the last day of classes until the beginning of the following academic year. I would drag my parents weeks before to buy supplies and bore my siblings with anything school related, and two weeks before the start I would have everything ready: backpack (though for 10 years of school I didn’t change it) notebooks, folders and binders each marked with their proposed subject, and filled my fanny pack with every other knick knack you could ever need.

(The picture shows me in third grade, it was, I assume due to the pumkin, October.)

Much hasn’t changed, though I don’t count the days so fervently now nor do I drag my parents to buy supplies (I couldn’t anyways, they are quite out of my reach :D). I do how ever buy my following semester’s books at the beginning of summer, and read them during the summer.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy my summer so many other ways, not only cooped up at home reading books.

But this year, I’m specially excited. It’ll be my second year at university, my sophmore year in Physics. This means I’ll finally get into the more exciting physics, no more general physics (though, I really enjoyed my first year’s general physics course, the prof, in my opinion was quite interesting.)

This semester, we get started with electrodynamics and mechanics, which are both quite cool and very interesting.

I’ve always been hooked on mechanics, ever since I read my first phsysics textbook. I just love how elegantly and simple (yes, simple, though it doesn’t always seem so) the explanations of motion are, how you can analyze virtually anything with just knowing their initial conditions of position and velocity and the forces applied (need not know all of them). It’s wonderful.

Electrodynamics got me hooked last semester in General Physics 2. It has a certain beauty in it, but I can’t really put my finger on it.

Unfortunately I’ll have to wait longer for my passion: Relativity.

It is wonderful how it entalges so much, and how beautifully it describes it. I will confess it can be sometimes a bit hard to grasp, as it’s effects are rarely visible at the speeds we tend to observe, and sometimes it just doesn’t seem plausible, nevertheless, it doesn’t subtract beauty from it, as all that is worth in this world requires a bit of work to comprehend it.

Anyways, I won’t rattle on.

To my fortune, and the unhappiness of many, classes will start next week for us university students. I’m soo excited. ^_^

Cheers, NM

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