Return to Innocence

Good God, it's been a while since I've last posted something! The last thing I see was the Timothy Wu event from Autumn of 2007 and quite a bit has happened since then. Although I personally don't know who would be interested in reading such nonsense, for those of you who care, I shall summarize my development over the past year and a quarter.

First off, I shall have you know that I am no longer a silly chemistry major. Honestly, I find it a vile subject that reeks of B.O. and by B.O., I mean the Born-Oppenheimer Approximation. Here, I hold up a broken beaker and pose for the camera, with the captions reading out "Never Again."

I am now occupying my time as a physicist, hoping to dear God that I pass each course I'm taking. The pain of physics is quite different than the pain of chemistry: in chemistry, I hate my the subject with my life; in physics, I hate my life with the subject. Given my first year as a physics student (note that I have not ever taken a physics course before autumn of 2007), I have already found myself flirting with Condensed Matter Theory, particularly working in soft condensed matter, thermodynamics, and field theory. There's something satisfying about being able to describe how information flows through a system and at times I wonder if it actually borders on computer science. However, my good friend Birchwood (or i-Bird, or IB, however you prefer to refer to her), who is a most brilliant mathematician and computer scientist, assures me that I'm just being silly and should finish doing my analysis proofs instead. The joys of having brilliant friends.

In terms of plans, God knows that I have too many. I'm looking towards a doctorate in physics, hopefully at Stanford, and perhaps a Ph D minor in math. I've also looked at systems engineering, but I think I'm better off creating a strong foundation first in some technical skills. I still can't get Fortran to work (and I doubt I ever will), but even if Stanford's condensed matter program isn't as strong as that of U of I or UCSB, I feel quite strongly about the fact that they still have an excellent math department, especially in algebra and group theory. I'm also seriously considering MIT for physics, seeing as how their CM is really strong too (plus they have excellent maths), and Harvard is quite attractive too, but any of these schools would require me to be brilliant, and I have my doubts about that. I mean, I think I'm smart enough to get by in physics, but I just really wish I could have some sort of measure as to what they're looking for. If worse comes to worst, however, I do have the U of I to fall on. Thank God for legacy.

After the Ph D in physics, I'm probably headed towards law school, hopefully enrolling in a dual JD/Ph D program. The Ph D, however, is still in the air, as I have yet to decide between sociology and economics. I'm pretty sure I would have the math background necessary for econ in either case, and a JD/Ph D from Stanford would be pretty sweet, considering their tech-heavy client base and my interests in IP Law (specifically technology transfer and patents). I may also come back to the U of C for the JD/Ph D, but I think then the choice between econ and sociology would be even more difficult--do I choose the department that revitalized the free market or do I choose the first department of sociology in the United States? Stanford's program is also pretty strong in both cases, although they don't seem to have the hardline libertarian philosophy as the children of Friedman has, but I could be incredibly wrong.

In the middle of this, I also wanted to put in an M Sc. in History and Philosophy of Science from Cambridge (a single year study), but as transcripts are pretty unfairly random here at the U of C, I doubt I can get in through the Churchill scholarship or other trust programs. Plus, given the fact that I'm doing so much already, I'll probably end up avoiding real life forever. In fact, why don't we make a quick calculation here:

Age 22: Finish BA in Physics.
+6 years for Ph D in Physics
Age 28: First Doctorate Completed
+1 year for 1L
Age 29: Ready to Begin Second Doctorate
+6 years for Second Doctorate
Age 35: Time to Finish JD
+2 year remaining
Age 37: Multiple Doctorates, but no job yet. Choices: 1) Law professorship (ha! good luck finding that!), 2) work off student loans as a 20K/30K post-doc forever (in econ/sociology--prolly too old to do physics), 3) give up, get an MBA, and become a businessman, 4) find a rich husband, 5) become a writer and live from paycheck to paycheck.

Oh wow... God help me...