|
Odds and EndsMore of this, that, and the other wee thing over there
The letters
not a trade; a calling, not a business; a calling in which your heart will be exercised equally with your head.
 What can I say? I really do enjoy helping people out. Whether it's informal
tutoring sessions or advising underclassmen, whether it's a 3am phone call from someone who dislocated their shoulder
rolling out of bed or just listening to someone who needs to unload a bad day's worth of feelings or share a
secret, I can't think of anything more rewarding than being able to help others,
and I think that medicine would be a good way to do that.No, my parent's didn't make me do this. Actually, my parents wanted me to be a lawyer. Medicine can be a pretty hard path to take. But so is being a teacher, or a soldier, or a policeman, or a parent. I'm not sure that anything worthwhile in life is easy, so you might as well do what you love. It would be presumptuous for me to say I know I can succeed as a physican, but I know I can say I'm going to give the effort everything that I've got. As hard as it has been, and as many times harder than it's going to get, I know that there isn't anything else in the world I'd rather be doing than to help others as a physican.
Okay, so why engineering? Well, sort of the same reason. I like problem-solving, I enjoy trying to figure things out, tinkering with stuff, and building things, and I would like to put those skills to practical use to help other people. I was one of those kids who was addicted to those "how-the-hey-does-that-work" books when I was a kid. (In first grade, I remember wanting to cut open a globe because I wanted to know what was inside the earth. It was a good thing someone stopped me before I did some real damage!) One example of what this has led to is on my senior design project pages or on the Neverworld pages.) I also enjoy working together with other people to get jobs done and accomplishing tasks. For me, the science of medicine is the ultimate engineering problem. More important than that though, medicine is a way to help the people who need help the most, and I'm really looking foward to become the best physican that I can be! For a writing class, I once wrote an essay about this, which someone once suggested that I share. So here it is. My Geek Code GE>MD$ d++() s-: a-- C U L>++ E- W++ N w M- Y+ t+ 5++ X? tv-- b+ DI+++ D+ G e++>>++++ h* !r !y- Hey, what is this wangadoodle all about? Click here for a quickie explanation. Not all scientist/engineers are geeks. Many are perfectly normal, sane people who do not randomly begin wondering how a particular piece of machinery works and have a passing clue what movies are playing in theaters currently. Me...well, normal is boring. :-) I'm slipping, I'm afraid, especially in the more techincal aspects...medicine doesn't call much for geek skills and they get rusty after a while...this is either a good or a bad thing, depending on how you look at it. :-)
 I also love debating, whether it's with teams (like my high school's debate team, or Model United Nations, both in High school or here at NU) or just pickup debates at the table as to why love is not merely a function of particle physics. A friend told me once that the best way to test how sound your personal beliefs are, and whether they are hypocritical or contracitory, is to test them against others in fair arguments. If someone else has the superior argument, then it just might be the superior idea, and hey, life is about learning new ideas. I do a fair bit of webwork. For me, it's the same kind of creative kick I get out of painting, or sculpting; it's another form of art, and it's good fun!     I love classical music. I have played the violin since I was five and
loved it. (Ironically, I've played more concerts with school orchestras and quartets than I have actually
watched! I hope to correct that over the next few years.) The baroque composers are my favorites, but virtually
anything written by Strauss is pretty cool as well (I like his
waltzes!). In addition, there's allots of other selected pieces (Wagner's
Ride of the Valkeries, Holst's Planets, and the not-strictly classical
but cool as all daylights anyway works of John Willams)that rock also. It's was nice living in a town (Chicago) that has not one but two classical music stations.    I also really enjoy the new-age works of Eithne NĚ Bhraon·in (also known as Enya), the Christian ballads of Michael Card and soundtracks (, Phantom of the Opera,Les Miserables and Disney animated features for example).
    At the same time, good books haven't disappeared, either. My tastes in fiction are definately fantasy / sci-fi. I don't get to read or watch virtually anyting during the school year, but I try to keep up with the storylines of many different series.  Some of my favorites from
the screen (Star Trek (all variants), Babylon
5, and Star Wars) and literary fiction [Anne McCaffery (The Dragons
of Pern), C.S. Lewis (The Chronicles of Narnia), David Eddings (The Malloreon, Belgariad, and the hack/slash
adventures of Sparhawk), Robert Jordan (The wheel of time) and
first and best, JRR Tokien (and if you need me to tell you what he wrote,
you really have missed out on some great reading! :) ] are ones I try to
keep up on. I like to read literature for the escape; they say that little
kids love to imagine and daydream about other universes and realities.
I guess I've always been young at heart in that respect.
Or so my friends constantly tell me. Seeing as that I don't smoke, don't drink, have never done drugs, and have utterly no interest in sex, I gotta have some other vices...two, actually.
I'm sure there's lots more I'm forgetting, but I think I've gone on far enough already. :) (or, "Random musings about my pet peeves") One cannot know how far he can go
I have been described at times as being a little nuts. I definately think that's harsh. For starters, some of the most responsible, dependable, and caring individuals I have ever known had flights of fancy and an imagination that definately could be classified as being beyond reality. I take pride in doing the unusual, pushing the unknown, embracing the unexpected. My reputation for weirdness may have come from 1) my habit of waking up at around 4:30 ~ 5:00 am to work on various projects (a time where many of my floormates are going to sleep,) 2) my habit of taking on an overload of things to do. (I think Aristotle summed it up nicely: see above.) and 3) my refusal to let things slide. That takes me to one of my major pet-peeves. I have also been at times pigenholed as a "perfectionist," something that I am most definately not. A perfectionist is someone who isn't happy unless everything is done perfectly, and is willing to stomp all over everything and everyone to get every i dotted and t crossed. I am far, far less concerned about getting the job done perfectly than I am in doing the job to the absolute end of my ability to do so. If I've done the best that I can, then I could care less about whether the job is perfect --after all, it's the best I can do. I would rather not cheat and fail than cheat and get it perfect --exactly the opposite of what a perfectionist belives. I am also not, contrary to another commonly held belief around Lindgren, a pessimist, a fatalist, or a cynic. A pessimist walking along a trail, upon finding a huge hole in the path, concludes that if he/she tried to jump over it, he/she would probably fail, fall in, and break their neck. They would then proceed to turn back the way they came. The optimist would say, "I can jump over that hole. It can't be that bad. It's probably not that dangerous." and jump, and quite possibly fail to make the other side and in fact break their neck. Me? Someone else coined the phrase about methat I much prefer; "pragmatic idealist," a category I think most people fit into. If I saw a huge hole in the middle of the path, I'd weigh the pros and cons, see how deep the hole is, and then walk around the edge of the hole. Or build a bridge. Or get a pole vaulters pole. Or hire a helicopter. You get the idea. I think many times people get fixated on the problems preventing foward progress rather than the eventual goal. Idealism is great for deciding where to go: pragmatism is the acceptance of the very real dangers of getting there --and the will to do it even if your mind concludes it's nearly impossible to do. Yes, seeing all of the dangers inherent in everything can be characterized as lack of enthusiasm --but who cares what attitude others think you have as long as you get to where you want to go, help those you want to aid? Why I support the Blue Ribbon Campaign You may have noticed the large blue ribbon at the bottom of the first homepage. I have placed the blue ribbon on my homepage to express my support for the struggle to overturn the Communications Decency Act. I have always belived that every opinion should be based on a through
review of the facts: thus, before I go into why I am against the Communications
Decency Act (or CDA for short), let's take a look at the act itself. Go
to the Library of Congress
Bill Summary Page. Under the category Bill/Amendment Number, enter
the CDA's formal number, If we take a look at the Commnications Act after ammendments (provided here) have been added, we all of a sudden notice that a law that, for the most part, went after prank telephone calls has suddenly taken all telecommuncations devices into a vast new, and quite tricky, embrace. The most chilling phrase in the act is the following:
(a) Whoever --
"(1) in interstate or foreign communications-
"(A) by means of a telecommunications device knowingly-
"(i) makes, creates, or solicits, and
"(ii) initiates the transmission of, any comment, request,
suggestion, proposal, image, or other communication which is obscene,
lewd, lascivious, filthy, or indecent, with intent to annoy, abuse,
threaten, or harass an other person;
"(B) by means of a telecommunications device knowingly-
"(i) makes, creates, or solicits, and
"(ii) initiates the transmission of, any comment, request,
suggestion, proposal, image, or other communication which is obscene
or indecent knowing that the recipient of the communication is under
18 years of age regard less of whether the maker of such communication
placed the call or initiated the communication;
.
.
.
shall be fined under title 18, United States Code, or imprisoned not more
than two years, or both."
"Indecent" is a much more lenient, and much less defined, term than obscene. There is an extremely rigid definition for the latter, but not for the former. And that is the crux of my problem with the CDA. For starters, this puts the internet under much stricter controls than the print media. Some argue that the internet should be regulated like TV or Radio due to it's pervasiveness and available reach: I argue that the ability of programmers and users to indivdually monitor content (via programs like Surfwatch) makes the internet more like a bookstore you can peruse than a TV you passively turn on. The fact that I can write this page, and that you can read it, with nothing more than the computers we use, illustrates my contention that information on the internet is more akin to distributing pamphlets than to making TV programs. There are plenty of ways of preventing minors from viewing obscene materials without having a law to define it. (Take a spin around the net: you'll soon find rating systems, firewalls, and other systems galore.) The problem with laws is that laws become weapons for those who are willing to use it. Law and the fear of punishment prevent most individuals from even coming close to the line drawn. Normally, this is a good thing. If a law cowers people into not using automatic firearms to settle disputes or not experimenting with illegal drugs while operating heavy machinery, then society benefits. But by the same token, do we want people fearful of being prosecuted for publishing thoughts? Already, we see the law being twisted: one offshoot of this law was a followon amendment that would make distributing information about abortion illegal. Princeton University has warned it's students not to participate in political campaigns on school computers. Literary material and sexual education material, legal in print, can now be banned on-line by opponents of both. And the list of clever new ways people with political axes to grind can use this new weapon are growing daily. There are much better ways to handle this. (I'm personally surprised that the pro-business, anti-government regulation republican congress hasn't tried a private sector solution, like offering a bounty to the corporation that can provide the product that most effectively screens out offensive material. A bounty worked wonderfully for inventing a more efficent refrigerator; why not for censorship?) I am supporting the struggle to remove this danger to our liberties, and to the net as whole becuase I think the future of free communication on the internet, and perhaps the future of our freedoms as a whole, is at stake. When there's going to be a plug that can transmit data of anykind two ways, sitting in every nook, corner, and room in all of human civilzation, I certainly want to make sure it remains as free as possible. Postscript: On June 27th, the Supreme Court upheld a lower court's decision that the CDA was unconstitutional.
First went online, Sept 7th, 1997 at 9:51 PM Last Updated: December 19th, 1998 jsh769@lulu.acns.nwu.edu All images copyright of their respective owners. Use here is strictly personal and not for profit. |
Why medicine? For as long as remember, I thought helping other people and volunteer was really, really cool, and when I was about 10 I realized that being a doctor would be one way to do that. I guess I just never really changed my mind ever since.
As I mentioned earlier, I like getting invovled and helping people out. In college, I was 
Speaking of being young at heart,
I love Disney animated features, for the incredible animation, the great story lines, and the incredible music.
I'm a big fan of the recent movies (
I've tried using personality tests to summarize myself. I came out E(NF/NT/SF)(J/P) [slashes reprsenting dead heats --results varied depending on type and organization of test] on the 
