today i finally started on "A Gift of Pain" by Philip Yancey and Dr. Paul Brand, and it's been such an enjoyable read! i've not been so hooked on a book for so long, and now, with my severly-reduced attention span, it's quite a feat if i can read non-stop for 3 hours and not notice time passing. i'm barely halfway through it, but it's basically an autobiographical account of Dr Brand's life, and how his experiences have shaped his perspective on pain. haha the first chapter on the value of pain struck me so much that when my gastric hit just now, i was thanking God for helping me to feel pain, because at least it means that my stomach isn't dead or anything.

   one thing i like a lot about the book is how it meanders from encounter to encounter. it's really a very leisurely read, not like my previous book (excerpts from C.S. Lewis works, which was a lot of straight-down-your-throat Christian teachings). this one just tells a very remarkable story, and leaves you to draw parallels to the Christian faith.

   there're a lot of detailed descriptions on Dr Brand's medical career, including fairly in-depth discussion on nerves and dissections etc. which is all quite disgusting heh, but fascinating nonetheless. it brought back this sense of wonder and awe; i guess because i really feel that i am learning something new. that is why sometimes i still wonder if arts was the right choice, because so far nothing has sufficiently captivated me. somehow it seems as if nothing i'm learning now is really that new, i guess probably because stuff like econs and lit and even geog - all these can be seen in my daily life. i don't need a teacher to uncover these mysteries for me, perhaps just to delve a bit deeper into them that's all. but there's no sense of discovery, there's no sense of wonder, and that's what i really miss.

   my ambition was once to be a journalist working on the science beat, because i'd already known then that i was never good with formulas, but i just liked learning new things. i still have very fond memories of my sec3 year, when shuhui and i would huddle in the physics lab for 8hours straight, in utter darkness, painstakingly adjusting lenses and objects so that we could get the sharpest and brightest image. up till now, i still love my period of attachment with IME (Institute of Micro-electronics), not least because my mentor, Dr Victor Samper, was a very inspiring person. haha i remember him as this tall, bald Caucasian guy with the kindest nature ever - he'd answer all my questions in-depth, and never once did he make me feel stupid. the most memorable time ever was when we were at IME for a meeting and i suddenly asked him how a laser works. and even though i think we were pressed for time then, he still bothered to explain the elementary theory of quantum physics to me in great detail, and even paused to let me ask more questions. that day, physics (which i've never done well in haha) really lit up for me and i became so inspired that i went home, reviewed it and tried explaining it to all my friends the next day. i think that experience really encapsulated what learning is for me: not pure memorising, but cultivating a genuine passion for knowledge, for finding out new things.

   i still don't know why i was so involved in science stuff in rv, and yet i'm now in arts. it seems so strange, especially since i still really love science. i like how it pursues knowledge in such a systematic way, and how it encourages one to find out more. even though i enjoy lit a lot, it still doesn't evoke the same awe and wonder of discovery in me, maybe because the disciplines are so different. 

   i think that's what i will do, if i'd all the time in the world. i would pursue learning, in the purest form of the word. like how i thoroughly enjoyed learning tetun in east timor. that was learning for me: the fun of coaxing my mouth to form new words,  the challenge of listening out for inflections in speech and trying to copy them, the absolute thrill of realising that i am learning something NEW, even though it might seem useless. and even though later i'd to hunker down to slow and painstaking translations of tetun passages taken off the net, somewhere in me i was still relishing the challenge because it was what i really liked to do, and i could explore it on my own terms, without having it forced at me, bound and lifeless within a certain set of rules.

   maybe one day i could do this again. right now though, the reality is that i'm still swamped beneath a thick stack of Notes To Be Memorised. though sometimes i do get glimpses of the joy of learning, for example when white showed us pictures of the dorset coast, which is a superb example of God and Time working together, without any human interference. i think that maybe this is what compels researchers to continue in their little labs - the desire to be the first to learn. i don't have what it takes to be a researcher though (no patience, and hopeless at interpreting figures and graphs) but ohwell, maybe someday if i'm lucky, my job can let me discover. and learn. and just marvel at God's handiwork.