Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Hello world!

That's it. I finally decided to start my own blog. I have been rehearsing this idea for a while, and finally got something actually worth writing about.

Unfortunately, I'm not going to start off very cheerfully.

My first ever submission of a paper to a scientific journal was refused. Apparently, the referee didn't agree with an otherwise widely accepted equation of state. I wonder how he would propose to explain the dark energy. That dude must be a genius. Ha. Ha.

The rest of my week could quite accurately be described as academic hell. My Statistical Mechanics final quiz, under the form of an interview with the teacher, was a disaster. I couldn't remember the most basic calculations for a classic canonic ensemble for a gas of harmonic oscillators. As soon as I left the room all sweaty and shaky and ashamed, it all came back to me. I wrote the whole thing down and ran back to the teacher's office. When I showed him the job done, all he said was "how come you didn't do it before?". Lovely.

I guess everyone is afraid of not being well-succeeded in life, especially when you actually start going on your own. I am terrified. Because science is too damn cruel.

I mean, every other career gives you the benefit of mediocrity. If you can't be the best, just be another average pawn and it all works out. But not with science. A mediocre scientist ends up as a high school teacher, or working at a bank, or some other mind-numbing unfulfilling brainless job out there.

And everyone comes to me saying "don't be sad, it's nothing", or "you'll get another shot at this". Easy for them to say. I'm the one haunted by mediocrity.

But enough ranting about it.

I hope I keep this thing fairly frequently updated. And now, let's work on the looks of this place.