I'm an applied molecular scientist!

I remember a secondary school geography teacher who had a good figure and unfortunately a funny face. She said geographers are busybodies. Anything that's related to human beings from landscapes to politics is of interest to them. That was the only thing I remember about her apart from a very nice pink sarong she wore to school after having acquired it on a trip to Thailand (if you recall that as you sat in class and always had the waists and hips of teachers at your eye level, you'd understand why I remember about the sarong.).

What I'm saying is, I'm reminded of chemical engineers' professional cuckoo-ism - laying own eggs in others nests - by this remark deeply ingrained in my memory. I mean I think geographers don't practice professional cuckoo-ism - at least not to the extent of chemical engineers. But chemical engineering is doubtless the most blatantly and brutally generalized disciplines in a lot of academic institutions. You really can't tell what a chemical engineer does these days. In undergrad days they're trained to be businessmen or theoreticians. In grad school they are trained to be a vague sort of "applied molecular scientist". They dabble in physics and biology AND chemistry and engineering. Nothing seems to be impossible for these all-rounded guys. I bet one day they'll be expected to unclog drains and design landscapes as well. Thing is though, a chemical engineer's field has become so wide that it became precisely the reason for him to focus narrowly in his own little world of work. An applied molecular scientist might just go on and study the same kind of molecule for the same application for a long time, before he is stirred by the eerie absence of people in an abandoned, pipe-crossed unit operations lab.

Mercy, Pity and Peace

When we understand, we could rejoice or we could condescend.
When we don't understand, we could get curious or we could condemn.

Hope it's always of the former.

I Heard an Angel Sing

I have the debate about Singapore politics on Sunday night in mind when I'm reading this poem by William Blake. Sounds like a semi-followup. Read the first 2 stanze and let them impress you before you go on.

I heard an Angel singing
When the day was springing,
"Mercy, Pity, Peace
Is the world's release."

Thus he sung all day
Over the new mown hay,
Till the sun went down
And haycocks looked brown.

I heard a Devil curse
Over the heath and the furze,
"Mercy could be no more,
If there was nobody poor,

And pity no more could be,
If all were as happy as we."
At his curse the sun went down,
And the heavens gave a frown.

Down pour'd the heavy rain
Over the new reap'd grain ...
And Miseries' increase
Is Mercy, Pity, Peace.

Beautiful Science

'There are probably as many reasons to do science as there are scientists. Too often, the aesthetic excitement of science is sacrificed to its undoubted utilitarian value, a trend that seems to be intensifying. Still, many scientists remain who appreciate the aesthetics of the process from discovery to understanding, and for them a treat is in store. The elements of beautiful science are familiar: first the confrontation of the human mind with a natural phenomenon, then its investigation through observations and experiments, and finally, in best case, the convincing demonstration of the validity of one of the theories through confirmation of its specific predictions. The process can take only a few years and involve only a few scientists or it can span centuries and involve many. The practical consequence may be revolutionary and change the course of history (...) or it may have little or no use. In either case, a full scientific story, especially one that has been unfolding over historic times, can be a lovely thing, like a classical symphony or a gothic cathedral.'

-- David Botstein in a "Perspective" article on contributions to the knowledge of the molecular biology of colour vision, Science 232, 11 april 1986, page 142.

If this is the kind of articles Science wants then I could write plenty! What I need right now, instead of 3 final presentations, a lab report and 2 finals, is training in writing in the great blending of science, arts and philosophy.

Tonight

We (A and I) had dinner at the Bunk, ie, the house of YK, IL and BS - the three guys with triangular overlapping traits of being electrical engineers (YK and BS), Christians (IL and BS) and enthusiasts of Singapore politics (YK and BS). It's the latter that motivated me to write here (gosh here's no turning back once you get pulled into the whirlpool of training for scientific reading and writing.).

In order to get YK to stop talking about convex linearity or non-convex non-linearity or stuff to those extents, I asked him why wouldn't the increase in the spending tax be a good measure to help the poor. My question was somewhat missionary since YF had just explained his grounds vs that of YK's, and I felt I owed YF his political presence at the little dinner gathering tonight. So there I was, the proud representative of YF's "optimistic, hard-working pacifism against anti-government sentiments" attitude, going all out to refute YK and IL in their cynicism against the incumbent ruling regime of Singapore.

In short, YK and IL conclude that the PAP is
1. Elistist/not believing in welfare, ie, ill-treats the poor and enriches the rich;
2. Entrenches their own power.
3. Hypocritical about what they actually are and do (ie, #1 and 2) and tell only about the glory.

It all started out fun, but my tendency to get generalized, quizzical and philosophical in my arguement soon made me bid farewell to YF's simple attitude model. I realised that there's no denying that I'm an anti-progression, anti-development, anti-economydrivenmotifofexistence pessimist. I believe in making love not war and natural evolution. Through whose hands is natural evolution effected, and where natural evolution takes us are in general problems that I don't have enough energy to deal with. So, my arguements, instead of being

1. Evidence shows PAP evaluates and makes decisions for the far future (and lo behold my fatal weakness of never being able to state the evidence in question apart from my strong belief in "what I feel".) and therefore is trustworthy in what they plan for us.
2. Poverty isn't easy to eliminate. Perhaps there's progress even now and we aren't aware of it. (gosh I have this love-hate relationship with the word "perhaps". It's perhaps my most frequently used word.)
3. Singapore's still young, so the parental democracy model could work just fine.

[Even with these arguments I couldn't have sounded so fine, not knowing facts such as Bukit Merah and Toa Payoh held pockets of the poorest people in the population (oh wow, nearly an alliteration)]

were in fact:

1. Poverty, anti-opposition, entrenchment of ruling power, elitism are present in every country. Just live with it.
2. You want to effect rapid change and twist the branches of natural evolution. But what follows progress and the golden age is inevitably decline. Singapore is by default in a state of crisis and high energy. Its energy state needs not get any higher to bring about disorder and downfall (considering how the Chinese civilization remained from the ancient times by maintaining a state of unimaginative low-energy. It slugs on. But it survives and outlives.)
3. There's no justice without wrongdoing, no elitism without commonplace-ness. The universe has a relative and balanced set of values.

Even if I had spoken like this all nice and typed it'd not be in the style and line of YK and IL's arguments, so with jumbled up speech you could imagine why in the end nobody bought my "natural evolution/consequence" theory. In fact nobody understood it. BS did just a little, but for the whole time I was out there alone. Oh well, it might just be the great divide between the TJs and an FP.

Don't be mistaken that I'm depressed though. I'm glad that for once I didn't come out of an argument all shaken and felt like I did something wrong, or that people "don't like me anymore". I mightn't be a driven person, but I'm getting hardened nevertheless. I still do think my philosophy of balanced pessimism is the most suitable.

But for the most part it remains as a philosophy. Almost unteachable and at most written down like this. Oh well, words are feeble but actions are strenuous. A contradiction? Nope. A balance.

I Am Not Yours

I am not yours, not lost in you,
Not lost, although I long to be
Lost as a candle lit at noon,
Lost as a snowflake in the sea.

You love me, and I find you still
A spirit beautiful and bright,
Yet I am I, who long to be
Lost as a light is lost in light.

Oh plunge me deep in love - put out
My senses, leave me deaf and blind,
Swept by the tempest of your love,
A taper in a rushing wind.

-- Sarah Teasdale

Simply beautiful.

"Dover Beach" excerpt

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain.

-- Matthew Arnold

For those of us dreamers who had had little faith in the reality around us, and who had counted on a true and perfect lover to alleviate us, we should, and would one day realise that the true and perfect lover is one that helps us gain courage and wisdom to turn back into the once-dreaded reality.

Indulgence of a cheapskate

I opened the fridge and saw that, among the stuff my housemates packed back from a 9-course Chinese lunch yesterday, was some hardened chicken in soy sauce. The soy sauce was frozen into a jelly and shimmered a faint amber under the yellow kitchen light. And due to my upbringing, cultural background and what not, I don't see why this isn't the best food in the world. I could just imagine my parents rejoice in the same way.

The best way to stop feeling guilty is to indulge. My heart gets wrenched and pinched whenever in view of my housemates' spending habits, whenever they bring back exotic fruits, snacks, or in view of the toilet paper disappearing at the rate of 2 rolls per week. I've stopped feeling guilty about feeling bad about these things. After all there's a world of difference between them and I - they shop in Cold Storage and I in mum-style (strictly speaking mum did the shopping, and, well you know my mum. If you do that is); they had workers that clean their family's car and I didn't have no cars to clean with; they didn't come from a country where there had been a proletariat uprise and, well, I did. So I'm just going to stop feeling guilty and celebrate the differences and indulge in being a cheapskate. It feels great!

Acquainted With the Night

Poem lyrics of Acquainted With the Night by Robert Frost.

I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain - and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.
I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height,
One luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.

"Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right" - how befitting. The modern man could neither learn enough of history nor catch up with enough of technology. We were't born in days when empires were built or conquered (including the empire of modernity, built in early to mid twentieth centuries with fundamental sciences). We aren't in time to catch Cyrus and Darius or Neils Bohr. Neither are we born in future when anything could happen (or could it?). So where are we in time? Where does the journey of night-walking lead us?

A Poison Tree

Poem lyrics of A Poison Tree by William Blake.

I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe;
I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I water'd it in fears,
Night & morning with my tears;
And I sunned it with my smiles
And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple bright;
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine,

And into my garden stole
When the night had veil'd the pole:
In the morning glad I see
My foe outstretch'd beneath the tree

But I thought the wrath a person grows is supposed to poison himself? In any case that'd be a more powerful imagery I think.