After the weekend at Annapolis with Todd, it was as if my love for music surged back into me, so I've been spending most of my evenings with my guitar rather than maintaining this blog.  On Saturday, we went to a large shopping mall in Towson, about 30 minutes bus ride away, to watch Spiderman 2. I took the chance to pop into Barnes & Noble to buy a couple of books and CDs beforehand.
 
  The movie itself was vaguely interesting but pretty much forgettable, and after it ended Tom was going on and ON about the physics of Dr. Octopus' fusion reactor! Yes, I know it's ridiculous and laughable, but it's a comic book movie for goodness' sake!
 
  Sunday night, we had a potluck party at Bonnie's place, where we were supposed to bring food from our own countries. I couldn't find fresh chilli and spices at the local supermarket to make curry, so I had to settle for chicken wings instead. After the stuffing ourselves as much as we could, Bonnie, Mel, and the Hispanics settled down to the task of getting drunk at the dinner table, while the rest of us sat around the living room chatting (although we did try our best to make Tom drunk, even though he was innocently sitting with us).
 
  Our conversation centered mostly on Bess' dilemma. She's a girl from Hong Kong going into her last year in Electrical Engineering in Cornell. However, she is interested in cosmology, and she is currently grappling with the question of whether to go into research or to get a job immediately after graduating.  She feels obligated to her parents to get into a secure, safe job in which she will not be satisfied, yet she says she feels 'guilty' going into.
 
   We had an interesting time sharing experiences and thoughts...it seems that a lot of her doubts has to do with a lack of confidence in her own ability to get a secure job in scientific research. Our reaction was: YOU WILL BE GRADUATING WITH A DEGREE FROM CORNELL! She may or may not get into the university she wants, but as far as we're concerned someone of her calibre will definitely get into a graduate program somewhere.
 
  It was an interesting evening, and we didn't leave Bonnie's place until 1am.  The talk we had helped me clarify some of things I have in my mind as well. There were times when my motivations were perhaps misplaced or not in the right place, and it was important to hear the same things from the other people in the same stage of life as I am, and sharing the same passions and ambitions.