Thoughts From Places - Not Particularly Deep

My university campus, the main campus I should say, since I will blissfully ignore the separate and humongous teaching hospital. Anyways, my campus is mainly just the building - the estate is not much to look at as it’s filled with little streets ideal for biking. The building itself is like a small village within the city I was born in, a village with several restaurants, cafes, and if you venture far enough, you might even find a random store that sells back bags and computer sleeves. The campus, or the building, is a strange mixture of old and newer that they never tried to fluently match together, and its length reaches at least 1 kilometer as I understand. (No wonder the non-academic university staff darts around on scooters, huh?)

When you look at a large part of the main building, you’d think you were looking at a factory. To many, that’s the first thing they see - a box-like building that looks like a place merely full of loud machines and the smell of glues and paints, from above it looks like a micro chip. The exterior is painted in several gaudy, saturated primary colors like green, blue and yellow that make you wonder…why? Then you step inside. And there you face more of those saturated primary colors, painted on thick concrete walls. Most of the signs guiding you to departments and various class rooms are bright yellow and of metal. After seeing pictures of it, a friend of mine told me that it looked like an air port. It sort of does, but a more popular comparison among its pupils is a Soviet factory from the 70s. Funny enough, students have nicknamed that part of the campus Siberia, because it’s cold (I disagree with this). Yes, people scoff at how the building looks. But I have to be honest, I fell in love with it the first time I laid my eyes onto it. I have no real idea why, I am not a fan of primary colors used in…anything. But something about this I liked. This place that we call the old part of the campus has a certain charm to it, maybe it’s the uniquely ugly that made me attracted to it.






Then there is the new part of the campus. When you walk across the factory-like hallways and lobbies, you will come to a hallway, surrounded by glass and support beams, across that you will enter the part of the campus that might just be a polar opposite to “Siberia”. Instead of strong colors and heavy looking doors, everything is white and steel grey. There are large windows to allow light and all the signs are plain steel.

I could draw a deep meaning out of this, sure. Here, see me do it.

The building is divided in two by a glass hallway, much like the university politics seems to be, much like anything in life seems to be. On the old side there are the engineer students, the physicists, the mathematicians, the chemists and what-nots, you know, the useful and hence better-funded fields. While the humanities, the useless, reside (You should know that I use useless and useful terms with a tone of bitterness here). In an ideal world, departments work together, experts from a variety of fields come together to revolutionize the world. In the real world, people look at each other from their own buildings, across a feeble glass hallway, wondering what could have been at best, often forgetting the other side is even there. In the real world these people struggle for funding and the ones that do not come on top complain, and the ones that do get annoyed over the complaining. You know, how almost all fights work.

So, that was one way. Let’s see about another. A friend described it to look like an airport. It would be a suitable metaphor, wouldn’t it? For a university to look like an airport. Much like airports, universities are a stepping stone on our way to somewhere else. Uh, yeah, that’s about it. How about the factory metaphor? Universities trying to churn out professionals fast for the unemployment office, worrying more about getting us out of their hands than about the quality of education we really received and how well equipped we are for the job market. Let’s leave that metaphor at that. This is starting to sound like an astoundingly bitter post.

Ultimately, this strange building houses thousands of extraordinary, and less extraordinary people. People with their own lives, hopes, dreams and problems. Some cry themselves to sleep, some can’t wait for the next day. It’s a fascinating thing to wonder about if you manage to conjure up the energy to look further than yourself and your friends, which I often fail at. Because let’s be honest, even now I’m just writing all this for the sake of Thoughts From Places and I haven’t particularly thought of this stuff before, not really. Well, except for wondering what the designer of the old part of the building was thinking. Now that is actually interesting. Was he inspired by a Soviet factory theme or what on earth?

And sometimes you just find...strange things going on in the building.

Thoughts from Places: HELP University

4am, last day of May. What better time to find inspiration to write a thought provoking piece stemming from your university campus, right?

Here's the thing about my university campus. Calling it a campus on it's own is almost ridiculous. There is no campus. It's merely a hodge podge of random buildings in which students exist within. It's a day university, so everyone comes for classes and leaves. The "campus" is split into three parts, all separate from each other and all located in the midst of a offshoot of the city centre. Everywhere you go, you see offices and office people interspersed with students. It can be quite amusing.

The pre-university building is located underground, below a whole stretch of office buildings, and affectionately known as the "dungeon" because that's really what it's like. Sunlight was a scarcity. Every single student from my university will have complained about the campus. But then again, other private universities across the city tend to share our sentiments about their own, although some really are better off than us.

As I walk to crammed hallways and the busy streets from lecture hall to lecture hall and building to building, I complain too. But in the end there's one thing that hits me. The place doesn't matter. It's the people. Because the fact is, many years from now I will not be able to remember how messed up the place was but I will remember the antics that occurred within the walls. What I'll remember is the times I spent rolling on the floor just because I could, and the conversations that were never ending but never went anywhere either.I will remember attempting (and partially succeeding) to stuff myself into a locker because the holidays were approaching and my friends asked me nicely.  I will remember the heartbreak, the joy and the laughter.

Concrete and steel will eventually lose to mother nature and the sluttiness of time. Memories won't.

The campus is what you want it to be. A receptacle of memories, or simply a place.

Thoughts from places: Keele University

Where has everyone gone? No one's posted in ages :( Don't worry, I know most of you have exams and deadlines, but come back soon? :) So on with my blog:

I found myself pondering what thought provoking and inspiring things that my University brings to mind. I thought for a very long time and got nowhere. So I looked at the many photos I'd taken to gain inspiration. Luckily James and I took a few photos only a couple of months ago!

When I think of my Univeristy, I think of this:

A big mass of concrete, in which one works hard, studies hard and parties hard. A metropolis, full of energy and stress. Lots of people. Many friends. Too much to do and too little time. Friendly but distant. A tool; a step in the staircase of life.

But that wasn't the story which most of my photos told. They painted a completely different picture. It's so easy to forget the true beauty which we have lying right on our doorsteps. So easy to get caught up in every day life. This is what I saw when I browsed through my photos:

I completely forget in day to day life, that infact my University is built on top of an old stately manor, has a massive woods and 9 lakes all on campus. These photos show beauty, richness and a peaceful place. I abuse the privilege that I have, by ignoring it and taking it for granted. The worst thing about it is that it's so easy.

How often do we do this in life? Get so caught up in who we are and where we're going that we're blinded and miss the beauty right in front of us. We live in a culture that is so privileged, we become immune. Immune to the simple gifts in life. The smell of freshly mown grass, the taste of home cooked meals and the cold side of the pillow on a hot summers night.

What I'm trying to say, is try and appreciate the good things you have already, rather than the things you used to have or don't have yet. 

Ali

Of Mice and Plurals

So slightly off topic:

A couple of weeks ago in the comments of my questions post Sarah asked why, in English, we use 'mice' as the plural of 'mouse', but 'houses' as the plural. Today I finally got around to asking my lecturer about it, like I said I would.

Firstly, the reason we say mouse in the first place. It's a remnant of an ancient plural form where '-iz' would be added to the end of words, and then a process called vowel harmony would make the vowel in the word sound like the i. So mouse (or its precursor, probably something close to the German 'maus') would become mouse-iz, which gets harmonised to mice-iz.

Now, languages hate redundancy, so when you can already tell the plural form from singular, with or without the -iz, the -iz will slowly get dropped from the word, leaving us with mouse/mice.

As for why this doesn't work for house? Well, as my lecturer said, the clue is in the Scottish pronunciation, of HOOOOOOOOS. See, back in about the 1400s, the English spelling system pretty much matched the way we said it, but over the course of a hundred and fifty odd years all the vowels moved around to... well, basically wherever they liked. So mouse, coming from something like 'maus', has always been that 'au' sound, and thus had developed the harmony from the -iz ending. Whereas house, having shifted from the totally different sounding 'hoos', never developed that, even though after the vowel shift it did develop the same sound as mouse.

Interestingly, the German word for house ('haus') has also been vowel shifted from this earlier 'hoooooooos' form, although early enough in the languages history that it now matches the rest of the 'au' type words.

And now you know.

Kid dreams

Hi everyone!
It's been a while since I last posted, but hopefully the first week of writtens is over, so here I am! (and I'm sorry that post is so late, I'll catch on the last one as soon as I get more time)

The first dream I can recall is actually wanting to become an archaeologist, and more specifically an egyptologist. After that I wanted to study Greek gods and civilization, and then, become a sociologist to understand people in groups and the way society works, because it seemed plain weird to me.
At some point, I wanted to be a opera soprano, (I had been singing since age 6 and already been a soloist in some concerts) but when my parents asked me if I wanted to go to a music school at the age 13, I said no, because I didn't want to leave my friends and science.
I then wanted to work on the canopy, because of the fascinating interactions between the trees and animals: the animals want to eat plants, that create poisons to protect themselves, and the animals then develop counter-poisons, and so on...
After that, my passion became the brain and artificial intelligence. It's been one of my longest dreams, trying to see if AI could actually work with a combination of computation and neurotransmitters. I learned a bit of programming at that time.

That's why I decided to chose scientific studies, actually; and since then, my interests shifted a bit: paleontologist, vulcanologist, and, of course, engineer in geology!

That's all I can remember for now...

Beach tales

                          

For freestyle week, I'll tell you about the trip I recently took with my coursemates to Pangkor Island in the state of Perak. It's about 3-4 hours drive and a 30 minute ferry ride away from the capital, KL. It's not one of the prettiest islands we have, but it's pretty popular cause it's one of the closest and easiest to access. That and it's famous for anchovy and cuttlefish by-products. We went in a ridiculously large group (19 people) so it was kind of like a class trip. Given that we took up half the bus, we made a crazy amount of noise to the disdain of the other passengers who just really wanted to sleep. Whoops. 

Anyway, we took a boat ride around the island and the adjacent privately owned island before heading to a snorkelling area. It was my first time snorkelling so I had to get used to the mask and breathing through my mouth. It doesn't help that I can't swim (I know, hopeless). It was quite hilarious cause everyone was looking for the fishes all over but when we returned to the boat, we found a whole school hiding under it. The rest of the day was spent frolicking on two different beaches, suntanning and playing volleyball. We also went on a banana boat ride (I'm assuming this is a common water sport, but I may be wrong) which was pretty frickin' awesome. 

But with all trips, it was the people and the stupid things you do together that make the experiences. The two nights were pretty much spent playing twister, taboo and drinking (in a moderate, healthy fashion of course). We even decided to play "3D twister" where you used your clothes or surroundings instead of the mats so we had our limbs on each other or the furniture. 

Because we had so much junk food by the last night, we decided to play an eating game to try and get rid of as much as possible. It turned out to be simultaneously disgusting and hilarious. People were eating marshmallows off each other's faces, trading half eaten chocolate, chocolate soaked in wine and rum and even marshmallows dipped in tomyam-flavoured instant noodles. 

This is a tldr version, the full one can be found... here on my blog. Till next time!

Unhelpful Tutorial

Hello, everyone! I am too lazy to write long ramblings and ponderings on things. In fact, I do not even have ponderings at the moment. Hence I shall show you a bit of the process of something I managed to create yesterday.

1. Watch an artistically inspiring video that makes you have ALL THE FEELS.



2. Feel a huge urge to draw something that comes from the heart but realize that you have no idea what to draw and the empty canvas on your computer screen is there to taunt you.

3. The need to do art cannot be shooed away, possibly has something to do with the fact that you watched that video two more times. So you end up drawing something random that isn't as full of creative energy that you hoped it would be, but you keep at it anyways because you figure it's better than doing anything useful.

4. Well here you go, you now have magically created line art, and a background you will not use because you are too lazy to shade the drawing to match that particular background and its painterly nature. You were also too lazy to use anatomical references for the head and the wings and you are painfully aware of that...but you wing it anyways. (oooo pun!)

5. Decide that you only like the circled part of the drawing.

6. Zoom in and begin to color with a shade of yellow that took you ten minutes to pick. Wonder what you are doing with your life.

7. Getting to this point took you way too long. Begin to wonder if you could pass this as a finished piece. Decide that no, this piece cannot pass as a finished piece. Whine about things to a person you have been talking to the whole time on msn. Also discuss what the shade of yellow you are using reminds you of. Proceed to watch two episodes of Friends.

8. Return to the drawing that annoys you and poke it again.

9. Somehow, art has happened. Proceed to post everywhere on the internet.




(click to see the finished piece)
10. Post a blog entry about it and fake work-in-progress shots convincingly. Go to the fridge and demand sustenance. 

How to survive revision/exam time

So, I was thinking to myself what I could write for freestyle week, and I was trying to work out what was going on with my life. Exams. That's what's going on. So I'm gonna give you a few hints and tips to get the study on!

Tidy room, tidy mind

When you're spending so much time, normally confined to one room whilst studying, having a messy room is not going to help at all! Even though you may not think, it's harder to concentrate when your in a messy/cluttered environment. I think that it's for two reasons. One, you probably don't feel as comfortable or at ease when your room is a tip, which is not going to help you at all. Two, it's a visual distraction. So try and stay on top of tidying/cleaning/laundry as much as possible.



Have breaks!


I know everyone always tells you to have breaks during revision, but it really is important. There's only so much your brain can handle! It's up to you how often you have them, and how long for, but I tend to go for 1 hour on, 15 minutes off (or sometime 2 hours on 30 minutes off), but it's about finding what's right for you.

Also, I would recommend having a separate room for studying/breaking if at all possible. This way you it stops you from being as tempted from checking facebook, watching a youtube video, or tumblring, if that's a bedroom thing, whilst your studying in the office say.

Work like clockwork


People always tell you it's important to wind down after a hard day of studying, which it is. Whether it's having a relaxing bath, reading a book or chilling in front on a tv, your brain needs a chance to process all the information you've bombarded it with, and slow down before attempting to sleep.

What people don't usually tell you is that you need to wind your brain up in the morning too. There's no way your brain's going to go from sleeping, to studying in an instant. Set yourself up for a good day by eating a nutritious breakfast (try and get both some fruit and protein in their is possible), have a shower and do something that gets you thinking, that isn't too hard (for example, I'll often have a go at a Sudoku puzzle, or play a brain training game). Trust me, your mind will thank you!


If it's all going wrong

Sometimes after yo're been revising for a while, your mind will just give up. It says "screw you", and then nothing will sink in. This just happens sometimes. You could go over the same paragraph over and over again and you wont understand a word of it. If this happens, just take 5 minutes out. Go and get yourself a drink, have a snack, go for a short walk. When you get to that point there's no use trying to push through out. It's a miracle what 5 minutes out can do.


Stay healthy!


Make sure you're getting your RDA's and if you struggle doing so take some vitamin/mineral tablets to give you a boost. Don't do caffeine. No seriously you might think it helps you in the short term, but it'll catch up with you already. Don't overdose on fatty/sugary foods because you'll end up feeling sluggish. Do some exercise, even if it's just a walk around the block, it'll get you heart pumping and also be a nice break from revision. Get plenty of sleep.






I'm not going to tell you not to cram


I'm not sure about all of your experiences, but whenever teachers told me revision techniques, they always told me not to cram the day of the exam. I disagree.
Don't get me wrong, I am not telling you to leave all your revision to the last minute, or infact that you have to go through your notes on the day of the exam. What I am saying is that it is okay to revise on the day of your exam if you want to. For me personally, I can memorize little chunks of information in the short term and by looking at my notes at the last minute can really help.
However this wont work for everyone. If you tend to get a lot of anxiety and tend to panic the day of an exam, I wouldn't recommend looking at your notes.


Okay, so that's it for my pearls of revision wisdom! Please take all of my tips with a pinch of salt however, as they are what works for me personally and different things work for different people.
I would encourage you to add any of your tips in the comments if you want :)

I hope everyones revision is going well, and good luck with exams! DFTBA!
Ali
xx