The Future and Stuff

(Any Doctor Who fans willing to help me out with something? Just scroll down to the bottom of the post.)

I don't know how it is for other people but enrolling in uni scares me more than it excites me. A lot of people have been talking about how they can't wait to start their courses and meet new people and yes, there are so many new experiences to be had but at the same time, I personally feel like I haven't changed much from that shy, unsure teenager who started high school six years ago.

On some level, I know that I am a much more confident, easy-going person because of the experience of high school (despite getting off to a rocky start - understatement of the century yo!). But that doesn't change the fact that I'm not naturally a chatty, fearless, go-getter type of person. I can pretend - sometimes quite well - that I am, and in front of old friends, I don't have to pretend at all. At the same time, I'm definitely more of an introvert than an extrovert. This is something that I definitely have to change I guess.

Speaking of uni, my recent trip to Taiwan and Vietnam has made me realise a new goal of mine: learn as many languages as possible before I die! People have been telling me all my life that language skills are highly valued by employers and up until now, I haven't really paid it much thought. Maybe it is a result of my newfound maturity (or maybe I've just been inspired by polyglots on YouTube) but I've finally realised how much I want to be able to communicate in languages other than English. For my course, I start language lessons in the 2nd year and during the 4th, I will spend 1 year in a designated country. Logically, Chinese Mandarin seems like the best choice (Asian power and all that) but to be honest, the prospect of spending 1 year of my life in China scares the bejeesus out of me. If I can't even survive 1 and half weeks in Vietnam, how will I survive crowded, polluted China for a year?

Along with the language lessons, I will also get cultural and historical lessons about my designated country but at this point in time, I seem to have zero interest in Chinese culture and history. It is also one of the hardest languages to learn because of all the symbols and the lack of an alphabet system. I should know. Eight years of Chinese school and the number of symbols I can write in Chinese number less than 20. I am not even kidding. Twenty symbols in eight years.

A small part of me really, really wants to learn Spanish but despite the widespread use of the language, I'm extremely unsure about the job prospects for someone who knows both Spanish and English in Australia. Perhaps it is different if you live in the US but I haven't heard of many jobs in Australia. Same with French...

But enough about uni, languages and my ineptitude at learning the Chinese language. I've decided to focus on science fiction as a genre study for Year 9's at my new tutor job next term and I was thinking of analyzing one of the Doctor Who episodes. As much as Sadistic Cynthia wants to make them watch either Blink, Midnight or Silence in the Library, she can't because the former two don't have much to say about future scientific or technological advances and their impact on humanity and the latter is just too long (2 episodes instead of 1).

So my question is, do any of the Doctor Who fans who read my blog know of an episode that is a very good example of sci-fi? It doesn't have to be the most brilliant episode ever but it should say something about the possible consequences of technology and science on humankind (or the environment) in the future. It also has to be 1 episode long so I can't use stuff like "Silence in the Library". A possible example is "Gridlocked" because it takes a contemporary issue (traffic congestion) and extends it to pose "what if?" questions for the future. I'm a bit iffy about using it though because of Martha. Eww.... Martha.....