"There is more to
life than what we want."
31/03/2005 21:57
++
Hey people, today was an interesting day, well aren't they all? Well anyway
started off by waking up as usual. Then Chem class and all the usual stuff.
Then later Car and I went to an information session about the Health and
Disease program offered by UC. That was pretty good, they had a killer
lunch, it was awesome. Then later I donated blood, well as much as they
could really take from me. Then after that we rushed to see a meeting
of the students of the Developmental Biology program union or whatever.
The students were really cool and the program seemed pretty cool too...
Soon I have to decide what i want to do, now i know even less then before.
I might end up doing a specialist after all.
"We have to fight
for what we want"
27/03/2005 18:44
++
I'm back to TO after a long weekend of doing nothing, and it feels good.
But now I'm back to the real world and lately there has been some concern
on the Biome Forum about the GPA system, which I personally don't think
is very efficient. Well, anyway, I think all of you that want to change
something in the university are able to. All changes have to start somewhere
so we have to start something if we want change. Let our voices be heard.
Maybe sometime soon we will get a nice group of UofT students, people
from all faculties to help out. If anyone has any suggestions leave in
the comment box under every post... I'd really appreciate any sort of
input. HERE is the cartoon of the day.
"Making decisions
has to be one of the hardest things to do."
23/03/2005 21:43
++ Hey everyone, today I found out that my plans of doing a double major in Human Biology and Comp. Science isn't very realistic, I would have to take some summer courses which I really doubt will be able to happen. Well so I had to start thinking about options again, and I should be deciding this before next friday when the deadline for the first round of posts selection is. I'm now considering doing a Human bio. major together with either Statistics or Spanish, I dont know I thought that could be good. Then another option popped up yesterday, UofT has a new program called Bioinformatics, which sounds really really cool, its basically like a computer science but with focus on biochemistry and molecular biology I think. It seems to be pretty tough but who knows, thats one of the options.
++ Today I was reading a few articles and I found the story of the nuclear accident that happened in Goiania in Brazil a few decades ago, I know it was a horrible horrible accident, but it just shows how people in Brazil are inconsequent. Here it is.
+ Goiânia accident was an incident of radioactive contamination that killed several individuals and injured many others.
On September 13, 1987 an old radiation source was stolen from an abandoned hospital in the Brazilian city of Goiânia and subsequently handled by several people who suffered serious contamination, resulting in several deaths. The incident is considered one of the worst accidents in world history to involve the improper handling of radioactive waste.
The object was a small highly radioactive rod of caesium chloride (a caesium salt; it was made using a radioactive isotope of caesium) encased in a shielding canister made of lead and steel with an iridium window. It was made and used as a radiation source for radiation therapy when the hospital was still in operation. When the building was abandoned in 1984, the source was left behind. Over the following years, many scavengers entered the building to look for useful or interesting items. Eventually in 1987, two people came across the radiation source and took it with them.
The two attempted to open the casing, but were unable to. However, they did manage to break the iridium window, which allowed them to see the cesium rod emitting a deep blue light. The light was caused by fluorescence of the chloride ions when stimulated by the strong gamma rays emitted by the cesium. They sold the object to a junkyard owner who intended to make a ring for his wife out of the strange and beautiful blue material. The invisible gamma rays severely irradiated the two people who initially found it—one later had to have an arm amputated.
The junkyard owner's wife, Maria Gabriela Ferreira, was the first to notice that many people around her had become severely sick all at the same time. She first suspected the culprit was a beverage they had shared, but an analysis of the juice showed nothing untoward.
On September 28 (15 days after the source was found) Maria finally suspected the blue rod to be the cause. She took it to a hospital, and the physician there rightly suspected that it was radioactive. Two local physicists confirmed its radioactivity using scintillation counters.
She died a month later from the effects of the radiation, though she may have saved the lives of many others by finally disposing of the dangerous but innocent looking object.
Afterwards, about 100,000 people were examined for radioactive contamination; 244 were found to have significant levels of radioactive material in their body. It is unclear how many were exposed to the radiation itself. Of those contaminated, 10 people needed intensive care for radiation poisoning. It seems reasonable to assume that considerably more people died than are clearly accounted for.
In summary, the main cause of this incident was clearly the severe negligence of the former hospital management who left behind and forgot about such a dangerous item. The accident clearly demonstrated the importance of keeping an inventory and monitoring of all strong radiation sources by public authorities. This is required by law in Canada, the United States, and many other countries.
Recently,
the spread of the contamination in this case has also been used to estimate
the effect of a radiological weapon
"Note to self: never
take chemistry again"
21/03/2005 20:20
++
I feel no satisfaction afterall. Somehow I feared that this would be the
case. Today was a long day, started off with the end of my 6 hours of
peaceful sleep. I had breakfast and calmly went to my biology class, and
skipped physics. The I had a Religion test, which I think went pretty
well, as usual it was pure memorization, gotta love the arts courses.
I like to not have to think every once in a while. Then I had my stupid
chemistry lab, we shouldn't have labs on the same days as our tests. Well
that went all right, then I handed in my physics assignment. Later this
afternoon I had to write an organic chemistry term test. I really thought
that after a long day I would be able to just relax and feel good that
it was all over. But that's possible when you go to UofT. After a long
hard day you feel like crap cause you bombed a test that you studies sooooooooooooooooo
much for. That sounds like it isn't fair, well it isn't, but that's what
I chose. Well that's enough complaining for a day.
"Apparently Browning
wasn't right about that one!"
20/03/2005 12:56
++ "Vitamin E supplements may raise heart risks, not help: study" That's funny cause I read this headline on the same day that Browning told us that the take home message was: take Vitamin E ! Actually last Friday Carlin and I had dinner with Dr. Browning, it was awesome. He's definitely a very interesting fellow.
++
Now the rest of the weekend I have studied a lot, pretty much the whole
time. I have so much to do for Monday. WebCT, Physics Assignment, Chem
lab report and pre-lab, Religion test, Chemistry test, its just so much.
Well, at least I don't have a calc quiz tomorrow... Well I think I'll
wrap it up here, good luck everyone in CHM138. Here is a picture from
last Friday.
"Chance upon chance,
that's the world we live in."
15/03/2005 22:56
++ KWATS! By the way thanks Pegrassi for the lecture sound file that you sent me. I really appreciate that and the correction you made here. HERE is the Calvin and Hobbes strip for today. Good luck to everyone in CHM138, i guess it's a little early.
+ A man had been born in the Kingdom of Yen, but now lived in the Kingdom of Chu. As an old man, he returned to the land of his birth.
While on his journey, his companions tricked him by saying of another town that it was his old home.
Believing them, the old man became pale and nostalgic. They showed him a shrine and said, "This is your family shrine!"
The old man began weeping.
They showed him some graves and said, "These are the graves of your ancestors!"
The old man was overcome.
Then his companions fell around laughing and told him it was all a haox, and that there was still some distance to travel until they would reach his old home.
When the old man finally arrived at his village, he felt so completely aloof that he didn't experience any grief or nostalgia, and wondered why he had bothered to make such a long journey.
"They have pie"
14/03/2005 20:53
++ Apparently Molson is going to make now a beer with Guarana? I just read on the news paper and thought that was sweet. Even thought I'm not a big fan of beer I really want to try it out. They actually import Guarana from Brazil, for those who don't know what it is. It's just a berry that grows in tropical weather. I also read that apparently Vancouver is the 2nd city in the world in some ranking of the best quality of life, tied with Vienna. For first there is a tie between Geneva and Zurich. Well just thought that was kind neat. Today we also got our Calc marks back, I got a 74% which made me pretty please with the result, and Carlin got an 80%. I have to say congratulations, cause that is very impressive. It was a relatively hard test.
++ Hj eu descobri que uma compania que faz cerveja aqui no Canada, Molson, que por sinal comprou a Bavaria. Bom essa empresa do Canada agora est'a importando Guarana pra fazer cerveja com guarana. Eu nem gosto de cerveja mas eu quero esperimentar essa nova versao.
"So said Mrs. Piggy
Time "
12/03/2005 15:28
++ Carlin just left here, today we spent some time trying to figure out what courses we should be taking next year. I never thought it would be so hard to find a social science that isn't boring. What is a social science anyway? I don't get why they have to make humanities be one thing and social science another. Math counts as science, and I don't see that much science in it. It's weird.
++ Next week Carlin and I are having dinner with Dr. Browning our Chemistry professor, that should be exciting. Today I'm also going to start doing some research on my Biology ethics paper. I'm writting on GMOs, which should be pretty interesting I think.
++ Semana que vem eu vou jantar com o meu professor de química, Dr. Browning. O cara é muito comédia, um dos maiores nerds que eu ja conhecí, mas com certeza um dos meu profs. favoritos. Hj eu tbm comecei a escolher minhas classes pro ano que vem, pois eu estou planejando fazer um duplo bacharelado em Ciencia da Computação e em Life Science, que seria tipo Biologia Humana.
++ Now click HERE for the new Calvin and Hobbes cartoon for today.
"He was a unscrupulous,
uncoordinated, cheating weasel. In other words, he was a hero."
07/03/2005 22:29
++ Today I got my Bio mark back, and surprisinly enough I ended up with a 84%. The class average was 68% after a 6% boost. Carlin did very well as well, usually she kicks my ass, this time she got a 76% though.
++ Ae todo mundo. Esses dias eu comecei a assistir um desenho que eu fazia muito tempo que eu nao via, se chama Dilbet, e 'e muito bom. Eu to viciado agora, eu to chegando at'e ao ponto que eu comparo Dilbert com South Park. 'E que 'e tao bom. Hoje eu tambem recebi minha nota de Biologia, eu tirei 84%, mais do que eu esperava, considerando eu tive um dia pra estudar, porque foi logo depois da prova de calculo. Hj eu tambem comecei a ir atras de tabalho voluntário para o verão. Eu pretendo trabalhar em um hospital e na fábrica do meu pai, mas com meu pai e claro que não e voluntário. Aqui em baixo eu deixei uma foto da rua principal na minha universidade. Clique na foto para ver em tamanho completo.
++ Here is a picture of St. George St., where I bike through every single day hehehe. I found this picture on Biome and I hope they don't mind I took it, but Igave the credits at least.. HERE is the new Calvin and Hobbes cartoon for the day, I fixed yesterdays as well. Enjoy !!!
"So you are not gullible,
you are just busy."
06/03/2005 17:00
++ Lately I have been growing very fond of Dilbert. I had never really watched the show before, well once but that was a long time ago. Now just last week I downloaded a few episodes, and I love the show now. But I still can't figure out if Carlin like it too, she doesn't ever seem to want to answer that question.
++ Well after last week, I took this weekend for resting. I haven't really done any work since friday afternoon. Tonight however, I won't be able to escape. I need to finish my lab report for tomorrow. I also have physics assignments to do. Well it was good while it lasted. It's kinda nice to know that there is only a few more weeks and I will be a free man, working more than 40 hours a week. I guess that's just part of life. Anyway, friday Yang and Carlin came over and we watched a Beautiful Mind, I had never finished watching it before. It was actually quite good. Then yesterday Carlin and I watched the usual suspects, and that was very very good. I definately recommend. Well I think thats it for today I left HERE a new Calvin and Hobbes cartoon. Enjoy
"Cheguei ao fim da
rodada de provas!"
03/03/2005 23:49
++ Doesn't it feel good to be done, or at least almost done? Today I have my Bio mid-term, and I hadn't really studied before last night. So can you imagine cramming 2 months or so of lectures in 16 hours? Well that was probably the case of half of my class. It was a pretty tough test but I think I did relatively well. I have to thank Tegar, a friend of mine for his notes that he posted on the Bio Forum, that was so nice of him to do, and helped me so much.
++ Pra todo mundo que intende um pouco de ingles, eu estou colocando aqui todo dia que eu tiver uma tira de quadrinhos nova do "Calvin e Hobbes" so que 'e em ingles.HERE new Calvin and Hobbes cartoon.! Also there is a picture of Eeney, Carlin's cat. I thought this was a good picture. Thanks Yang.
"Remember the integral
of csc^2x is cotx"
01/03/2005 21:35
++ Today I had a Calculus test, it went alright I guess but it still affects me. Besides I won't know my mark for a long time. Now thursday I have a bio test that I haven't really started to prapare for.
++ I just got a bunch of Calvin and Hobbes cartoons, so I'm going to post them every once in a while here. Maybe even make its own section or something... We'll see. If you want to read the first one, Click HERE !