Sheep happens.

Thursday, October 26, 2006

Curve or Straight Line? Your Choice.

So today was the physics practicals. No more pre-war battle simulations. That was war, albeit one which involved a nice-looking pink marble and a pretty convex lens. Oh, and lots of blu-tack as well.

I can just imagine a war in which students of every school throw balls of blu-tack at a bunch of Cambridge Markers, all for the sake of getting that extra mark for their practicals. To think I paid them to seal my fate. This is beginning to feel very wrong. Me, working endlessly day and night, just because I paid a bunch of old men (pardon the generalization) to seal my fate.

Actually, everyone had the choice. Anyone could be getting their distinctions, but why are they not getting them? Why are there still F9s out there? It all starts from one basic phrase quoted from the oh-so-great Shakespeare.

"To be or not to be?"

The student version goes, "To study or not to study?", "To listen or not to listen?", etc. It is all a matter of choice. Which leads me to the topic of "Choices".

Choices are all around us. From waking up to sleeping, the choice is always ours to make. In fact, choosing is of essence to the human. To choose is to have freedom; to choose is to have power; to choose is to live.

Well, as a human, you could choose to eat or to skip a meal. You could choose to miss that examination, or to study for it and ace it. You could choose to play, or to make good use of your time. You could choose anything and everything. In fact, choosing not to choose anything is still a choice, which explains YH's calculator theorem.

You take your oh-so-reliable calculator and enter any integer, followed by the 'Choose' button and a zero. Hey. You get a one. I would like to elaborate more on the calculator thing though. Sometimes, you make a choice in life, and it opens up many other choices for you. Its a chain reaction. Which makes me wonder what choices led to Osama wanting to bomb the WTC.

You could have chosen to draw that straight line, or maybe that curve. Whichever it was, you cannot change it. Its all up to the Cambridge Markers to choose.

Now go back to your desk and do your work. Its not as if the war is over.

This is not the time for cowardice,
For if a single man retreats;
If your mind is weak, if your fire dies;
You'll suffer the first of a thousand defeats.
Let there be blood in the streets;
The war has begun.