I had a dream... Well, never mind the paraphrase. Call me Leo (gosh, another paraphrase).
I dreamt of becoming an expert - he who speaks not in vernaculars but jargon, and entertains not truth but hypotheses.
Say, a scientist - he whose lofty prowess can be solidly substantiated in the age of publish-or-perish.
And say, a vertebrate paleontologist - he who seldom failed to look smug each time he saw a deinotherium skull in the University museum being mislabeled 'glyptodont'.
Alas, so much so for this childhood trance.
I was surprised when, you know, once upon a time grandma showed me a pack of toy dinosaurs, but really got flabbergasted when I flipped through the pages of Jurassic Park. Back then, none of us dinosaur-o-kids here had a touch of this dinosaur-renaissance hype - eh, which actually kick-started two decades ago! I yearned to devour all about dinosaurs, but more quickly did dad learn that paleontology is one of the poorest funded sciences (this, aka dinosaur heresy... or dinosaur hear-say). Oh gee.
So I got into the University's medical school, if only for her fine collection of skeletal materials (save the formaldehyde). Time flew and I thought I had mastered all I have to - only to have BBC's Walking with Dinosaurs ground my arrogance flat. Dinosaurs were not heaps of bones! I swore to make a really scientific study in vertebrate paleontology. Just as I regretted that I missed the mentorship program, Professor PW Lucas kindly agreed to tutor my research. To my further astonishment, the very first question I received was 'what do you know about dinosaurs?'
The story naturally ran so on and so forth. I still savor that summer study [1], Newton-under-the-apple-tree style (by the way, I ended up as a medic, no fairy tale). Professor Lucas set a role model of what a real expert is - he who will transform the cryptic broths of knowledge into chicken soup for the public. One magic wond I discovered is illustration, and another, writing.
That's why this memoir. Should a dream spark off in your mind, it looks another dream come true at HKU.
I dreamt of becoming an expert - he who speaks not in vernaculars but jargon, and entertains not truth but hypotheses.
Say, a scientist - he whose lofty prowess can be solidly substantiated in the age of publish-or-perish.
And say, a vertebrate paleontologist - he who seldom failed to look smug each time he saw a deinotherium skull in the University museum being mislabeled 'glyptodont'.
Alas, so much so for this childhood trance.
I was surprised when, you know, once upon a time grandma showed me a pack of toy dinosaurs, but really got flabbergasted when I flipped through the pages of Jurassic Park. Back then, none of us dinosaur-o-kids here had a touch of this dinosaur-renaissance hype - eh, which actually kick-started two decades ago! I yearned to devour all about dinosaurs, but more quickly did dad learn that paleontology is one of the poorest funded sciences (this, aka dinosaur heresy... or dinosaur hear-say). Oh gee.
So I got into the University's medical school, if only for her fine collection of skeletal materials (save the formaldehyde). Time flew and I thought I had mastered all I have to - only to have BBC's Walking with Dinosaurs ground my arrogance flat. Dinosaurs were not heaps of bones! I swore to make a really scientific study in vertebrate paleontology. Just as I regretted that I missed the mentorship program, Professor PW Lucas kindly agreed to tutor my research. To my further astonishment, the very first question I received was 'what do you know about dinosaurs?'
The story naturally ran so on and so forth. I still savor that summer study [1], Newton-under-the-apple-tree style (by the way, I ended up as a medic, no fairy tale). Professor Lucas set a role model of what a real expert is - he who will transform the cryptic broths of knowledge into chicken soup for the public. One magic wond I discovered is illustration, and another, writing.
That's why this memoir. Should a dream spark off in your mind, it looks another dream come true at HKU.
[1] Sham WH (2000). From bones to flesh - the new Tyrannosaurus rex. Unpublished thesis, HKU.
© Leo W Sham, MMIV
© Leo W Sham, MMIV
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