Lecture day…

Wow today was pretty full. We had two lectures, one in the morning, one in the afternoon. The morning lecture was really long. Three hours in total. Wow. It’s pretty interesting. We talked about Taoism and the contributions of Zhuang Zi and Lao Zi to Taoism, and also Buddhism, and also of Sakyamuni and the monk Tang San Zang, the monk from the Journey to the West.

Our lecture consists of the history and the principles of these two religion. Somehow I felt as if I was attending a religious class… but even though I did drift off(again, I know) but I did get most of the lecture and I did pay attention. I was more interested in the part on Buddhism, but it’s really interesting knowing what’s behind the religion of the Tao. I think in Singapore and China, the idea of Taoism is different. I find that the Taoism Singaporeans practice isn’t very similar to what the Chinese here practice. Before this, I thought that Taoism is just the praying to the different Taoist deities during some of the major festivals and that was it. But after the lecture, I realised that actually in Taoism, worshipping the deities wasn’t the main point. Even though I am not a Taoist, I do see a point in their teachings that I myself feel the same way about. One of the core principle of Taoism is not to meddle with things too much, and let nature takes its course. I think this is something we humans should learn more about. Even though I agree that technological advances are good(I do love my gadgets too thank you very much) and well and helpful, sometimes, trying to achieve too much too fast might backfire instead. Global warming is one example. I know that without advancement, humans wouldn’t be able to achieve greater heights and discover new things, but I do think that sometimes, we should just slow down a little. Because in our haste to change things to suit our needs, we often forget to look past our own immediate concern. Global warming is one of the results. Because of the sudden explosive demand of cars and machinery, and the discovery of using steam to power the turbines, the amount of CO₂ in the atmosphere increased exponentially.

I’m not judging or anything, but I just think that if we did take things in little steps, we might be able to prevent any catastrophe in the future if we didn’t try to push to do everything all at once.

The one thing I find fascinating is that these two religions have a similar start. Both religions are said to have been started by one person. A founder of sorts. Zhuang Zi is said to be the one to write down the Dao De Jing, which is kind of like the core principles of Taoism. And the Indian prince Sakyamuni taught his followers the path to enlightenment after gaining enlightenment himself, and the teachings are also the core principles that Buddhist follows today.

I did follow the Buddha’s  way when I was younger, and even though I stopped going to the temple for a few years and I don’t follow the core values as often now, I do find that sometimes I do miss the comfort of having something to follow, to guide me in the way of life.

And this lecture also talked about something interesting. What happens to us after we die? Do we have an afterlife, or do we simply cease to exist? For Taoist, they believe in that they were made from the earth when they were born, and when they die, they return back to the earth. They call this returning to the original state. While for Buddhists, they believe in reincarnation and karma, so if a person did great deeds and accumulates a lot of good karma, the he or she will be able to ascend to a heaven-like world, while a person accumulates a lot of bad karma, they will be punished and reincarnated as animals or human again or even banished to the Hell. Different people have different ideas on this, but I personally do not have any opinions on this matter. We will know when we eventually pass away. But this does gets me thinking of what could be in the afterlife.

After the morning lecture, we went out to lunch with Jovin and the others. Today we went to KFC. I know I know, fast food, but the fast food here has things that our own country’s fast food chains do not have. It’s really interesting how fast food restaurants have different menus in different countries, and I like to go and check out the different things in each new country. XP but I still miss Singapore’s own fast food restaurants. I mean, the curry sauce, the garlic chili, the cheese fries…

After lunch it’s time for our forensics lecture. Today we just did a re-cap of some things we learnt before, but man, it is a welcome change. I mean as much as I think the IS lectures are interesting, I do miss a little stimulation science gives our brain. But! Ms Tan please don’t kill us with the last paper please! ><

Lecture is on recombinant DNA and PCR and spectrophotometers. So interesting how we can programme things like restriction enzymes to and primers to carry out specific tasks. I sure want to know just how in the world did they manage to programme biological materials like these. Hmmm…

But after the lecture, we are pretty much done for the day. I mean, I do have to go and rearrange my notes and do some research for the upcoming projects(T.T), I’m pretty much free for the rest of the evening. Yay! Time to catch up on sleep(I know I shouldn’t be sleeping at times like one thirty in the morning but…) yeah…

No pictures today too. Didn’t bother taking photos of my food. Stomach was growling so I had to feed it first. Teehee. But I think this weekend we’ll be going to the city for a tour(I know it’s a little late but still… Museums!) and to the zoo as well! I wanna see pandas… Pandas! And Museums! Wheeeeeee~~~ and then Sunday we have that party with the students so… :D

Gonna go do my notes soon. Peace out~~~ ^^