Sic Volvere Parcas
British Army toasts, twists of fate, updates from Burlington, & even some literary references!
There is a lot to say, but let me say that I am grateful to have survived the eight weeks of grind that summer general chemistry at UVM has been, the chaos of having the instructor replaced mid-stream, etc. I am grateful for my friends and mentors (more than a few of whom are subscribers to this Substack) who have kept me sane in this trying time. The big updates are:
My Future at UVM
For anyone who has caught my earlier Substack posts discussing my pre-med school plans - I can say, I will be at UVM until Spring 2026, and I will be here as a biomedical engineering graduate student. That’s right, folks, my mad dash, last moment Hail Mary play worked out!
Along with my coursework (and more than likely a semester or two as a grad student instructor), I will be working for the An-Cockrell lab in the Larner College of Medicine (cf: https://www.med.uvm.edu/ancockrelllab/home & https://www.medicaldigitaltwins.ai) for the next couple of years doing modelling of various things, including post-operative infections as well as other things in the infectious-disease modelling realm. I am in fact pleased, since this means I’ll be able to do the rest of the coursework I need for to apply to medical school, as well as medically-relevant research!
The grind of administrative hell has overtaken the initial joy of making progress on my goal to go to medical school (at least for the now). Dealing with the student financial services folks, the graduate school, looking for housing here in Burlington, etc. Enough to make me scream. Yet still, I am pleased. I’m not “clam in mud at high tide” pleased, but definitely I am enjoying myself, by and large, way more than I have most things in my roughly two score years of life. Honestly, that’s how I know I am on the path for which I am truly meant. Many things in my life I have done because I have felt that it was my duty to do them, and I did, and would grind it out, be miserable doing it, but get it done anyway, because I am the child of my parents, and I will achieve, or die trying.1 Except, in this case, it really doesn’t feel laborious for the most part. I am happy to do it, regardless of the work, the long hours, and what is sometimes a seemingly ceaseless grind, I am happy to do it because I know, here and now, the goal is something that I want, not because my parents or my teachers or my superior officers in the military conditioned me to want it, but because it’s what I want for myself. I know I am a masochist and a workaholic, and if there isn’t at least some amount of pain after achieving something…have you actually achieved something worthy to claim? However, whilst the pain is still here for this, I don’t mind it as much. But like T. E. Lawrence, let it be said that I have a funny sense of fun. For anyone not catching the reference, let me quote the exchange from this scene in Lawrence of Arabia (my favourite movie from childhood for anyone curious):
Mr Dryden (Claude Rains): They are anywhere within three hundred miles of Medina. They are Hashemite Bedouins, they can travel across sixty miles of desert in a day. T. E. Lawrence (Peter O'Toole): Oh, thanks Dryden, this is going to be fun. Mr. Dryden: Lawrence, only two kinds of creature get fun in the desert: Bedouins and gods, and you're neither. Take it from me, for ordinary men, it's a burning, fiery furnace. T.E. Lawrence: No, Dryden, it's going to be fun. Mr. Dryden: It is recognised that you have a funny sense of fun.
As more than a few of my friends have remarked over time, so do I. Now on to…
The Twist of Fate
I don’t think that anyone could have predicted that my original instructor of record for chemistry this summer would suffer a collapse of his health and get replaced over half-way through gen chem 2, but that fact probably saved my grade for the class. So whilst I hope that my old instructor has a full recovery and return to full health, I can’t help but be grateful that he did get sick enough that he was replaced.
The new instructor had a testing style that more maps to how I learn (less pure grinding computation (and with an online testing portal used by that original instructor - no way to show conceptual knowledge if I made a computational error leading me to a wrong answer), more conceptual questions, etc), and it shows in my grade for the class. For Gen Chem 1, I got a flat B (with an 85.5pc cumulative percentage), and for Gen Chem 2, given that of the lecture points, I have earnt 747 out of 750 (I missed one question on the final given I reversed a sign), so my final total percentage, given the lab grade of a 96.4pc (241 out of 250) was 98.8pc total for gen chem 2, meaning I got an A+!!!
The British Army of old had a toast: “To bloody wars and sickly seasons!”, which referred to how an officer was liable to get promoted quickly in the British Army, given that officer’s superiors either had to die or get invalided for him to rise in the ranks. When in uniform, the issue of who exits from an operational theatre of war alive and in good shape, and who suffers disability or death is often enough a measure of seconds or centimetres, in short, to quote from the Aeneid: Sic volvere Parcas (So Decree the Fates).2
Once again, a twist of fate led to a vastly different outcome as a result, and one that benefits me, so I am quite grateful for it to be honest. If I was younger, I most certainly would have blamed myself for this outcome, I would have blamed myself for thinking ill or wishing ill of him. However, at this stage, I know I didn’t cause him to be grievously sick, so I will thank my lucky stars and move on.
Thinking about when I have been on the bad side of a twist of fate, and mentioning great rants in Latin - I bring you Jed Bartlet in The West Wing (specifically the National Cathedral scene from Two Cathedrals):3
She bought her first new car and you hit her with a drunk driver. What, was that supposed to be funny? "You can't conceive, nor can I, the appalling strangeness of the mercy of God," says Graham Greene. I don't know who's ass he was kissing there 'cause I think you're just vindictive. What was Josh Lyman? A warning shot? That was my son. What did I ever do to yours except praise His glory and praise his name? There's a tropical storm that’s gaining speed and power. They say we haven't had a storm this bad since you took out the tender ship of mine last year in the North Atlantic last year... 68 crew. Do you know what a tender ship does? Fixes the other ships. Doesn't even carry guns. Floats around and fixes the other ships and delivers that mail. That's all it can do. Gratias tibi ago, domine. (I give thanks to you, Lord) Yes, I lied. It was a sin. I've committed many sins. Have I displeased you, you feckless thug? 3.8 million new jobs, that wasn't good? Bailed out Mexico, increased foreign trade, 30 million new acres for conservation, put Mendoza on the bench, we're not fighting a war, I've raised three children...That's not enough to buy me out of the doghouse? Haec credam a deo pio? A deo iusto? A deo scito? Cruciatus in crucem! Tuus in terra servus nuntius fui officium perfeci. Cruciatus in crucem. Eas in crucem! (Should I believe that these are the acts of a worthy God? A fair God? An understanding God? To hell with your punishments! I have been your servant here on Earth, I have spread your word, and I have done your work. To hell with your punishments. To hell with you!) You get Hoynes!
I could spend a very long time discussing this monologue, but I will spare you lot that drudgery. Just know, that given the frustration I was feeling with my original chemistry instructor at UVM this summer, I was headed for a despondent rant just like this one before my chemistry instructor was replaced due to illness, except, more than likely, with more crying, more booze, and undeniably less eloquently - because, unlike Aaron Sorkin characters, I am an engineer, and one with a stress-enhanced speech impediment no less, so, no mellifluous monologues from me.
As great as I feel for pulling off a 4.0 for Gen Chem 2 after my 3.0 in Gen Chem 1, I was also totally burnt out as a result, so I decided, on my third day of Bio 2, to drop it and take it instead Spring Semester 2025.4
Honestly, I needed the mental break after the grind that was a year of general chemistry crammed into two months (which, definitely had the feeling of an intellectual version of boot camp, with a touch of Dachau for the flavour). I really don’t recommend it unless you have no other choice. In many respects, it felt like, after achieving my best 10k run time ever (35m59s - which I did exactly once in my youth, circa age 20), puking my guts out afterwards (and oh lordy was that messy) because I ran the last two kilometres at almost a dead sprint as I so wanted to try to get in under 36 minutes, and after that exertion if I had been asked the next day to go run another 5k-10k.5 No thanks!
Other than Organic Chemistry 1 and my Thesis Credits, I am registered for Fall Semester:
As you can see, I’m currently registered for Clinical Devices & Instruments (which I want to take, but I’m not sure I have enough of the life sciences background knowledge in hand to take now, so I may trade it for another engineering class on research methods and ethics), Advanced Algorithm Design (I was hoping to do Advanced Machine Learning this fall, but it was full, however I will probably enjoy this just as much) and Stat 5000 - Biostatistics & Epidemiology. That’s probably the closest thing I have to an easy class this fall, and admittedly, despite the background I already have in statistics and probability, none of what I have taken in that sphere has been applied to the life and health sciences, so figured this would get the brain going on the right track for where I need to be from now into the future.
Mentioning Philippides
On the note of Philippides, and being willing to die to achieve one’s goals, it is probably a good time now to list here the poem that Robert Browning wrote about him (using the alternate spelling of his name: Pheidippides) and the first marathon (the poem which inspired Baron Pierre de Coubertin and the other founders of the modern Olympic Games to invent a running race of roughly 40 kilometres (25 miles) called the marathon):
So, when Persia was dust, all cried, "To Acropolis! Run, Pheidippides, one race more! the meed is thy due! Athens is saved, thank Pan, go shout!" He flung down his shield ran like fire once more: And the space 'twixt the fennel-field and Athens was stubble again, a field which a fire runs through, 'till in he broke: "Rejoice, we conquer!" Like wine through clay, joy in his blood bursting his heart – the bliss!
For anyone who has been to the Louvre, you might have seen the sculpture of him carved by Jean-Pierre Cortot in 1834:6
I feel as though I should note I am much more a fan of his wife (Elizabeth Barrett Browning) as a poet than I am of him, but still, this poem by Mr Browning pushed a movement in athletics that, in a small way has changed the world (and certainly influenced many people, including friends of mine) to be willing to run races of 42 or more kilometres.7 Not my thing, even before I became gimpy, doing 10 kilometres was more than I wanted to do (my preferred running distance was 5 kilometres), but hey, some people do enjoy it, so, hopefully without too much sarcasm, let me say “You do you, boo” and watch those who run them from the sidelines.
And that is a full lid. Happy Thursday, everybody!
I feel like I should note here I was well on my way to killing myself (and I don’t mean this figuratively) as a PhD student at Penn trying to achieve that goal. My health was collapsing, I was in a very bad way, and yet, I was pushing myself forward all the same, instead of doing what almost any sane person would have done and ran the hell away, with alacrity. But for my primary care physician at the time, who truly is very gifted (and whom I hope I can be even a tenth to a fifth of as good a physician as she), metaphorically smacking me across the face with a dead fish a few times to get me to wake the hell up (her father was career Navy and knew how to make a point with gusto). Without her, I would have achieved my engineering PhD at Penn even if I had killed myself crossing the finish line to do it, just as Philippides supposedly did after running the roughly 42 kilometres from Marathon to Athens, in order to yell, “Νενικήκαμεν!” (Nenikekamen! (We are victorious!)) before supposedly dying from exhaustion.
It’s the ending of Book 1, line 22 in The Aeneid. For the members of the Everett Latin Club who are subscribers of this Substack, let’s break it down, shall we?
Sic - meaning “thus”, “so”, or “in this manner” (and also yes).
Volvere - which is from “volvo” (to roll), and is one of (depending on context):
a. present active infinitive
b. second-person singular present passive imperative/indicative
c. third-person plural perfect active indicative
d. second-person singular future passive indicative
Parcas - the accusative plural of Parca, meaning The Fates (aka Parcae), and if you need a reminder of their roles:
Nona - who spun the thread of life from her distaff onto her spindle
Decima - who measured the thread of life with her rod
Morta - who cut the thread of life and chose the manner of a person's death.
So, given we know we are dealing with the third-person plural, we have, relatively literally “So Spin the Fates” and more colloquially/connotatively, “So Decree the Fates”.
I am not going to break down this speech, Everett Latin Club style - you just get my translation of it.
I have earnt a few A/4.0 grades in my time, but this A+ was my first. UW doesn’t have them, I couldn’t earn them as a graduate student, so it never happened for me.
My normal times here were, at my peak, 39 to 40 minutes, definitely good, but hitting just under 36 minutes once, despite the mess I made of myself after, was one of the greatest achievements, physically, of my life. Definitely one of the ones of which I am most proud.
Image acquired from: https://www.artres.com/asset-management/2UNTWAPNW56M?FR_=1&W=1920&H=911
For anyone interested in reading more about Robert Browning and the crafting of the poem Pheidippides, I point to: Cunliffe, J. W. “Browning and the Marathon Race.” PMLA 24, no. 1 (1909): 154–63. https://doi.org/10.2307/456825.