Afternoon Walk at the Summer Palace

“Afternoon Walk at the Summer Palace”
Beijing, April 2008



1st place at the 2008 Study Abroad Photo Contest from Lafayette College.

The misty background is not there by mistake. Beijing is very polluted, and most days would look like that. But think about when the Summer Palace actually was used by the emperor and people wearing clothes like the lady in the picture. I believe the landscape would have looked completely different, and you could see what was behind that bridge. Thus this picture shows two aspects of Beijing and the recent history of China: the old tradition, through the design of the bridge and the clothing style of the lady, and the changes that the evolving Chinese society has imposed on the environment. Of course I did not think about these ideas as I was shooting the photo, but life brings about a lot of happy coincidences, and this photo symbolizes for me that moment of revelation, of understanding, of momentary pleasure. Read more!

An Econometric Comparison of Health Care Systems

The health care system reform currently under the scrutiny of the US Congress has provoked numerous debates about the virtues of the universal health care coverage. Arguments are made in an article by Brown and Khoury , that residents in OECD countries with universal health care are more likely to be confident in the health care system, than in the OECD countries without such a system. The purpose of this model is to determine if the presence of the universal health care system in a country affects significantly the life expectancy of a resident of that country. Thus, life expectancy is the dependent variable measuring the quality of the health care system. Total expenditures on health care, infant mortality and death rate are used as control variables and the binary universal health care variable is the independent variable of main interest.
The best model estimated is presented in Equation 1 and more details about the complete definition of the variables along with the table of summary statistics and a table of the models tried for this study can be found in the Appendices B, C, D. The model used 30 OECD countries and the data available for the 2005 year because it was the most recent year with complete data. The countries used are enumerated in Appendix A.

LE=(1.723)UHC+(0.239)TE-(0.407)IM-(0.654)DR (Equation 1)

Adj. R2 = 0.8253
Prob > F = 0.0000

where LE = Life Expectancy at Birth (years)
UHC = Universal Health Care (1 – if the country has Universal Health Care System, 0 – if it doesn’t)
TE = Total Expenditures on Health, as % of GDP
IM = Infant Mortality Rate ( per 1000 live births)
DR = Death Rate (per 1000 people)

In other models I tried to determine the significance of the expenditures broken down on public and private, but it turned out that they only introduced more bias in the coefficients and reduced the adjusted R squared. The model presented in Equation 1 has all the coefficients significant in the expected direction and a high adjusted R squared statistic. The influences of the coefficients determined through this model are also important. If one is a citizen of an OECD country with an universal health care system, one is likely to live on average 1.723 more years than one who lives in a country without universal health care.

The limitation to this model is the low number of observations on which the regression was done. For a better model, a larger pool of countries should be used. Additionally, one could also distinguish between the types of universal health care systems: single-payer, two-tier or insurance mandate.

In conclusion, provision of universal health care is important for the health care performance and policy advocates and politicians should definitely take into account this opportunity for reform. In United States, 15 percent of the population does not have health insurance. By introducing universal health care, these people could have access to better health care and more chances for success.

REFERENCES:
[1] Ian T. Brown and Christopher Khoury, “In OECD Countries, Universal Healthcare Gets High Marks”. Published August 20th 2009. Retrieved September 16th 2009, from:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/122393/OECD-Countries-Universal-Healthcare-Gets-High-Marks.aspx
[2] List of Countries with Universal Healthcare. Published August 9th 2009. Retrieved September 16th, 2009 from:
http://truecostblog.com/2009/08/09/countries-with-universal-healthcare-by-date/#link3


APPENDIX A - The List of Countries Used in the Model

TOTAL: 30 OECD countries

Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovak Republic, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States


APPENDIX B - Description of all variables used

UHC = Universal Health Care variable is a binary number indicating the presence or absence of a system providing universal health care to the citizens.
The Data was taken from: http://www.gallup.com/poll/122393/OECD-Countries-Universal-Healthcare-Gets-High-Marks.aspx

LEB = Life Expectancy at Birth the average number of years that a person at that age can be expected to live, assuming that age-specific mortality levels remain constant.
The Data was taken from: http://www.irdes.fr/EcoSante/DownLoad/OECDHealthData_FrequentlyRequestedData.xls

TE = Total Expenditures on Health Care as a percentage of GDP. is defined as the sum of expenditure on activities that – through application of medical, paramedical, and nursing knowledge and technology – has the goals of:
- Promoting health and preventing disease;
- Curing illness and reducing premature mortality;
- Caring for persons affected by chronic illness who require nursing care;
- Caring for persons with health-related impairments, disability, and handicaps who require nursing care;
- Assisting patients to die with dignity;
- Providing and administering public health;
- Providing and administering health programmes, health insurance and other funding arrangements.
The Data was taken from: http://www.irdes.fr/EcoSante/DownLoad/OECDHealthData_FrequentlyRequestedData.xls

IM = Infant Mortality. The number of deaths of children aged under one year of age that occurred in a given year, expressed per 1000 live births.
The Data was taken from: http://www.irdes.fr/EcoSante/DownLoad/OECDHealthData_FrequentlyRequestedData.xls

DR = Crude death rate indicates the number of deaths occurring during the year, per 1,000 population estimated at midyear. Subtracting the crude death rate from the crude birth rate provides the rate of natural increase, which is equal to the population growth rate in the absence of migration. Source: World Bank staff estimates from various sources including census reports, the United Nations Population Division's World Population Prospects, national statistical offices, household surveys conducted by national agencies, and Macro International
The Data was taken from: http://0-ddp-ext.worldbank.org.libcat.lafayette.edu/ext/DDPQQ/member.do?method=getMembers

HEPR = Private health expenditure includes direct household (out-of-pocket) spending, private insurance, charitable donations, and direct service payments by private corporations. Source: World Health Organization, World Health Report and updates and from the OECD for its member countries, supplemented by World Bank poverty assessments and country and sector studies, and household surveys conducted by governments or by statistical or international organizations.
The Data was taken from: http://0-ddp-ext.worldbank.org.libcat.lafayette.edu/ext/DDPQQ/member.do?method=getMembers

HEPU = Public health expenditure consists of recurrent and capital spending from government (central and local) budgets, external borrowings and grants (including donations from international agencies and nongovernmental organizations), and social (or compulsory) health insurance funds. Source: World Health Organization, World Health Report and updates and from the OECD for its member countries, supplemented by World Bank poverty assessments and country and sector studies.
The Data was taken from: http://0-ddp-ext.worldbank.org.libcat.lafayette.edu/ext/DDPQQ/member.do?method=getMembers


APPENDIX C - Table of summary statistics



APPENDIX D - Table with relevant estimated parameters and test statistics



Read more!

Interview 4 International Student Brochure @ Lafayette

What attracted you to Lafayette? Was it our reputation, academics, the combination of engineering and liberal arts, the small size, the close student-faculty interaction? Please, be as specific as possible.
I've decided to apply to Lafayette because it ranked first in Engineering programs at a Liberal Arts College. I wanted to pursue an engineering degree and study at a liberal arts college in the same time, and Lafayette seemed to be the perfect combination of the two. I wanted liberal arts because of the all-rounded education you receive as a student. But I also wanted to study an engineering curriculum for the technical and transferable skill set you develop as a student in engineering. Lafayette is the perfect combination of breath and depth that I found in my search for the best match school.

How did you hear about Lafayette? Did you know someone who went here, speak with a high school guidance counselor, found us on the Internet?
I've learned about Lafayette College through a workshop at the Fulbright Educational Advising Center in Bucharest. The workshop presented a case study of a then recently accepted student at Lafayette. I remembered the name and when I got home I looked for information about Lafayette on the Internet. I also remember participating in a webchat where I met Skip Staats, an admission officer for international students, who was very approachable and answered all our questions. I then ended up meeting Skip Staats in person at a college fair in Bucharest during the Fall of that year. The personal attention and interaction with the members of the Lafayette Community was also a factor that determined me to apply.

Can you tell me a little bit about why you chose your majors and why you believe Lafayette is a good place to pursue them?
I've chosen civil engineering because it is the best combination of physics and math targeted towards solving real life problems. Economics on the other hand is the other necessary ingredient for solving real life problems. While it can have technical or theoretical feasibility, no solution is completely feasible until it makes sense economically. Because most of the problems we face today are multi-faceted, a dual degree seemed the most appropriate preparation for the challenges I will face in my career.

What are your goals for after you graduate? Do you believe Lafayette is helping you attain those goals?
My life goal is to be a leader of change in my community, my city, my country, my world. The biggest challenge I will probably face is bringing the change that people want in Romania's most important and still deficient sectors: education and infrastructure. Lafayette has inspired me to have the courage to do big things, to be the change I want to see in the world, has helped me to hone those skills that will be of greatest need after college. The things I have acquired at Lafayette that I am most grateful for are the communication skills, teamwork skills, time management, networking abilities, critical thinking and a keen interest in all of the subjects of knowledge.

Have there been any activities, faculty members, staff members, or student organizations that have really enhanced your experience here?
I don't want to point out specific names here because the list will be too long for you to read, but I can say that all the people I have met while at Lafayette have enhanced my experience in a variety of ways. From them, I've learned the norms of a new society, I've perfected my English speaking and writing skills, I've explored subjects and places I haven't even though of before Lafayette, and more importantly I've learned about myself.

Do you have any advice for new international students?
Thinking long and hard about the decision to study abroad. It is a good amount of effort just to apply and then it is a great effort to adapt to a new society and culture, to become completely independent, but it is tremendously rewarding, if they are up to the challenges of being an international student.

Finally, can you list for me any activities you are a part of here at Lafayette (research, study abroad, internships, special projects, sports, student groups or organizations)?

* Study Abroad Semester in Hong Kong - Spring 2008
* Interim Abroad Course in New Zealand - January 2009 - Envisioning Environmental Science
* Externship at Deloitte New York - January 2009
* Resident Adviser in the Reeder Fellows House
* Member of the Leadership Team of the Reeder Fellows House
* EXCEL Research
+ GA/NN
+ Nazareth WWTP
* Independent Study and Special Project - The Green Reeder House Project
* LEAP/SEES Sustainable Waste Management through Composting
* Tau Beta Pi - Engineering Honor Society - Vice President of the PA E - Lafayette Chapter
* Phi Beta Kappa - Liberal Arts Honor Society - junior year induction
* Omicron Delta Epsilon International Economics Honor Society - junior year induction
* playing tennis in the Club Tennis Team
* going to start working as a Writting Associate in the Fall
* going to start another Excel Research Project with Prof. Veshosky in the Fall.

More detailed information about all these can be found in my Curriculum Vitae: http://diana.hasegan.com/ Read more!

Interviu Revista de Mures

Cum am ajuns în SUA?

De prin clasa a X-a am început să mă interesez despre studiile în străinătate și în final am decis ca SUA și programele americane îmi pot oferi ceea ce vreau eu să studiez în felul în care eu îmi doresc.
Am început procesul de aplicare încă din semestrul al doilea din clasa a XI-a când am dat examenele standardizate SAT. Apoi, în vara dinainte de clasa a XII-a am studiat cu atentie ofertele educaționale de la universitățile americane. Am discutat cu studenți, cu profesori și cu administratori din multe facultăți care ma interesau pentru a-mi alege facultatile care mi se potrivesc. În primul semestru al clasei a XII-a am continuat sa sustin examenele obligatorii SAT care mi-au ramas și testul TOEFL. În tot acest timp am început să îmi completez dosarele de aplicare. Mi-am compus eseurile pentru fiecare facultate, am cerut scrisorile de recomandare, și am completat toate formularele necesare admiterii. Toate dosarele au termene limita la sfârșitul lui Decembrie sau începutul lui Ianuarie. După vacanța de iarnă a început așteptarea ce a durat până la jumătatea lunii martie când am aflat deciziile de admitere. În final am fost admisă cu bursă la 4 din cele 8 facultăti și am ales facultatea LAFAYETTE pentru că îmi oferea cea mai mare bursă și cel mai bun program în ceea ce vroiam eu să studiez.

Unde sunt și ce fac în SUA?

În prezent sunt studentă în anul IV la facultatea LAFAYETTE COLLEGE din nord-estul statului Pennsylvania. Facultatea se numește "college" pentru că se concentrează doar pe studiile de licență. Sunt multe facultăți de genul acesta în SUA și oferă o educație foarte bună la nivel de licență pentru că toată atenția se concentrează pe studenții de licență. Neavând studenți la masterat sau doctorat, profesorii cu doctorat ne predau cursurile, ne conduc seminariile și laboratoarele și mai mult, toate proiectele de cercetare ale profesorilor se desfășoară cu ajutorul studenților la licență. Eu am avut ocazia să lucrez la proiecte de cercetare începând încă de la sfârșitul anului I.

Ce impresii ai?

Sunt foarte fericită și mulțumită de educația pe care o primesc în SUA. Chiar mai mult, am reușit prin programele pe care le oferă facultatea să studiez un semestru in Hong Kong SAR, China și să merg într-o excursie de studii in Noua Zeelandă. Pot spune că mi-a deschis o mulțime de oportunități pentru carieră și pentru viață și mi-a oferit o experiență de viață de neuitat. Am prieteni din toate colțurile lumii și am cunoscut o grămadă de oameni celebrii cu care am stat la masă sau am schimbat cărți de vizită la diverse conferințe și întâlniri academice.

Cum se compară cele două sisteme de învățământ?

Probabil că la nivelul cunoștințelor tehnice, atât sistemul american cât și sistemul românesc includ aceleași cunoștințe tehnice și teoretice. Spun probabil pentru că eu nu am facut facultatea în România și nu prea pot să am o părere prea corectă. În schimb cred că modul de predare cerințele de studiu, implicarea profesorilor și a studenților, resursele de cercetare și finanțare, dotarea laboratoarelor sunt foarte diferite și produc o calitate a învățământului mult mai ridicată în SUA.

Ce planuri am?

Planurile mele includ acumularea de puțin mai multă experiență în străinătate, probabil studii de masterat și unul sau doi ani de muncă. Și apoi vreau să mă întorc acasă în România pentru a aplica experiența și cunoștințele dobândite. Există multe lucruri de care ne plângem în fiecare zi și care trebuie schimbate. Există multe lucrui în domeniile mele de interes care nu sunt la nivel de dezvoltare la care ar trebui să fie. De aceea cred că este nevoie de mine și de oameni ca mine cu o deschidere mai largă și cu o experiență din străinătate să se întoarcă în Romania și să contribuie la schimbarea pe care toți ne-o dorim.

Ti-ai facut prietnei acolo?

Sigur. Mi-am făcut o câțiva prieteni foarte buni americani și internaționali, cam în egală măsură. Dar am cunoscut și m-am împrietenit cu o mulțime de alți americani și studenți internaționali din toate colțurile lumii cu care știu că voi rămâne în contact și după ce terminăm facultatea.

Cum se compară stilul de viață american cu al nostru?

Stilul de viață românesc se îndreaptă din ce în ce mai mult către stilul american. Efectul de globalizare se resimte din ce în ce mai mult în România. Lucrul acesta poate fi cu două tăișuri pentru că pe de o parte devenim integrați în piața globală și avem access la mai multe resurse, dar pe de altă parte din cauza aceasta devenim și mult mai sensibili și vulnerabili la evenimente politice și economice din toate colțurile lumii.

Ce sanse de promovare are un tanar acolo?

Șansele de promovare pe piața muncii în SUA sunt cu cele din România. Promovarea se primește pentru efortul depus și pentru munca de calitate. Se face doar atunci când tu ca angajat produci mult mai mult pentru companie decât ești plătit la salariu. Acesta este un aspect de mentalitate pe care mulți din tinerii din România am observat că din păcate nu îl înțeleg. Toți se așteptă să primească slujbe și salarii pe baza meritelor din facultate. Dar lumea de business nu este un sistem de acordare de burse pe baza meritelor din trecut. Lumea de business functioneaza pe bani. Ai produs companiei mai multi bani decat cheltuieste compania cu tine ca angajat, atunci esti un angajat eficient și vei ajunge la promovare. Efortul și calitatea muncii au valoare atât în România cât și peste tot în lume.

LSRS - Liga Studenților Români din Străinătate

În cadrul acestei organizații dețin funcția de Vice Președinte de Proiecte și am demarat o mulțime un program pilot pentru informarea elevilor și studenților despre oportunitățile de studiu în SUA. Programul se numește CARAVANA LSRS și mai multe informații pot fi găsite pe site-ul http://caravana.lsrs.ro. În acest moment avem aproximativ 2000 de studenți români din străinătate înregistrați în organizație și am încheiat o mulțime de parteneriate puternice cu organizații naționale și internaționale. În 8 iulie 2009 Liga împlinește 6 luni de la înființare.
Mai multe informații despre Liga se pot găsi pe site-ul www.lsrs.ro

INFORMAȚII BIOGRAFICE:

Clasele I-IV: Școala Generală nr. 7
Gimnaziul: Colegiul Național UNIREA
Liceul: Colegiul Național UNIREA
Profil: Matematică-Informatică Bilingv Engleză
Facultatea: LAFAYETTE COLLEGE (Easton, PA, USA)

www.lafayette.edu

Dublă specilizare: B.S. Inginerie Civilă și de Mediu și B.A. Economie și Business
Bursă integrală din partea facultății (~ 50,000 USD / an)

Studii în străinătate:

Semestru de exchange (Ianuarie - Mai 2008) la facultatea LINGNAN UNIVERSITY în Hong Kong SAR, China. (www.ln.edu.hk)

Excursie de studii în Noua Zeelandă (Ianuarie 2009): Imaginează-ți Știința Mediului Înconjurător. (http://ww2.lafayette.edu/~kneya/trip/index.html)

Premii Academice:

• Eugene P. Chase Phi Beta Kappa Prize 2008: premiază studentul din anul II cu cele mai bune rezultate din primul an în cadrul facultății.
• William G. McLean Tau Beta Pi Award 2008: premiază studentul la inginerie din anul II care a excelat atât în domeniul academic cât și în activitățile extra-curriculare.
  
• Tau Beta Pi 2009 Scholarship: bursă de prestigiu oferită studenților de anul III în inginerie de către Societatea de Elită a Inginerilor.
  
• Tau Beta Pi Engineering Honor Society: admiterea în Societatea de Elită a Inginerilor. (admiterea se oferă doar celor mai buni studenți în inginerie aleși pe baza mediei generale, a activităților extrașcolare și implicare în cercetare)
  
• Phi Beta Kappa Liberal Arts Honor Society: admiterea în cea mai veche Societate de Elită Americană. (admiterea se oferă doar celor mai buni studenți de orice profil aleși pe baza mediei generale, a activităților extrașcolare și implicare în cercetare)
• Omicron Delta Epsilon International Economics Honor Society: admiterea în Societatea Internațională de Elită a Economiștilor. (admiterea se oferă doar celor mai buni studenți în economie aleși pe baza mediei generale, a activităților extrașcolare și implicare în cercetare)

Read more!

Long preserved thoughts about Romanian education

Just say the word education and you have guaranteed yourself my attention. I became interested in the problem of education in Romania because it caused me a lot of suffering in my schooling in Romania. But I did not suffer because I could not learn or had bad grades. Instead, school did not offer what I wanted and needed at that time. I am not the person to rebel against professors that give a lot of homework or who ask a bit more from their students.

My concern was that I did not get all the useful information and training through the programs offered in school. Sometimes I felt like I lost a day of my life because I had to go to school to meet the attendance requirement. Some of these days were usually in the first week of classes, last week(s) of classes of each semester, days before school breaks, days before and after a big celebration in my high-school (such as Freshmen Ball, Senior Prom, Halloween Party, Valentines Day). I don't consider them useless, but these extracurricular activities should not require students to stop going to classes and professors to stop teaching their lessons because they did not have enough students.



But wasting time at school is one of the smaller problems that I have experienced in my education. The lack of interest in both students and professors about the general purpose of education is a more important problem. Most professors do not see their job as one of the most important jobs in a society; they are not aware of their responsibility to shape valuable citizens. Professors do not make their courses interesting enough for students to pay attention and show respect to the class, professor and material studied. Most of the times the incentive for studying is a good grade and not the knowledge.

And this brings me to one of the greatest problems of the education: plagiarism. In the presentation I made with Corina for the Romanian Conference at Columbia University we called it the CULT(URE) of PLAGIARISM. When you want to increase your grade in a course in high-school you usually had to submit a paper on a certain topic. Usually that paper was not the creation of the student, but a copy-paste version of some article from wikipedia and other web resources or an already made paper that you can find on websites like www.referat.ro
At the end of high school we had to take a certification of English competence because I graduated from a profile that had English as an intensive study subject. So, we had to write a 2o page paper on a topic of our choice from the English culture. Guess where did all the information in most of my colleagues papers come from?
Plagiarism only trains unethical behavior and wastes the time of the student. He does not gain anything than a good grade for printing some information from the Internet. But that good grades does not serve him in the long run, but professors accept it the way it is.

The professors that are most criticized are usually those who actually do something, and those who don't do anything usually pass somewhat unseen. From my high-school experience, there were two professors severely criticized who did not deserve the words that were brought. One of them was a visiting professor we had for English who was a Peace Corps volunteer. He tried to implement to our class the principles under which he studied in US. He asked us to write papers in English that had to reflect individual experiences; no plagiarism allowed. Students actually had to use their brains and come up with two pages of writing in English and submit the paper before the deadline. First, he was criticized for making students work to much for a class like English. Second, he was "too strict" with the deadlines and did not accept late submissions without penalty ... as this was a very wrong thing to do. And third, he was very strict with using materials which were not the product of the student and he failed the students who did not abide. All he wanted to do was to help students improve their English and respect their integrity but he was perceived as doing the wrong thing. At this point, I owe him a great deal of my success in the college writing courses.
The other severely criticized professor was my econ professor who tried to implement the programs of Junior Achievement as extracurricular activities to our econ class. But the time she invested in doing this was not appreciated and was considered a waste of time for the students. All her enthusiasm and all the knowledge from the program was not good enough for this "great" system of education we had.

Mainly, these are the things that bothered me in school. Of course, there are many more to be said about the problem of education in Romania and I promise to write more posts about it.

But, how can we solve the problem of education? Marian Stas has one solution.
I respect and support the initiative he started, which is called "Public School - The Real Deal". The papers and articles he wrote are here, but all of them are in Romanian. In them, he actually comes with a viable solution to this problem and I have nothing else to say but "Go for it!"

I think this is all for now, but I promise you at least another post about my conversations with some of my friends who are studying at university in Romania.
Read more!

Some Extreme Engineering and Wishes

I just finished watching an episode from the new series of Extreme Engineering from Discovery Channel. This is my favorite show ever, the one which inspired my passion for Civil Engineering. I remember the times from high school when I had to stay up until 12 at night to watch the show contrary to my parents "orders" and when I wrote essays for admission to college about my dream of taking part in such a project set in Romania.

The episode I just finished was about Hong Kong's International Airport. Not only did they build the biggest enclosed space for the passenger terminal for the airport, but they also had to build a huge island for the actual construction of this amazing human endeavor. As if this was not enough, they also built one of the longest system of double-decker suspension bridges in the world, an underwater tunnel and a new system of highways and high-speed railways to connect the city with the airport. Not only did they build this with the most ingenious design and most brilliant solutions to the problems, but they had to stand in front of some of the worst forces of nature, typhoons. If you think this is incredible, wait until I tell you that they finished it in 7 years.

I can only be amazed and inspired by this humanly effort. But I am also covered in a lot of pain because my thoughts took me to my country. Romania cannot even make possible the most mundane job for a civil engineer, building a simple highway across the country. I think the human factor in Romania is a much worse natural force than typhoons proved to be in Hong Kong. My bitterness makes we dream of the time when I will be able to take action and make Romania open its eyes. I want it to realize that life is not about how many estates you have, what cars you drive and how much money you can make. I want it to see that it is more rewarding to have an efficient economy based on a functional infrastructure in a country where the political figures are concerned about development and innovation rather than playing kindergarten games of power.

I hope I am not just a dreamer and that I will live to see it happen. Or rather, I should start thinking about a way to make my wish come true. Read more!

Good or not?

I just finished watching 3rd Season Finale of Grey's Anatomy . I have watched this show for an year. I started by watching a downloaded version of the first season and then I did not have the patience to watch the second season so I just picked up the main parts thanks to the amazing and vast material found on YouTube. Although I skipped the second season I did not feel I lost a lot of information. This already tells a lot about the kind of show it is.

I don't know yet what to think about the episode that ended the first magical number of series. There are pros and cons, as there is to everything in life. So, I'll try to lay them down and see if I get to a conclusion by the end of the post.

First of all, there are so many questions unanswered by the end of the episode. Did Meredith actually end her relationship with Derek when she said "It's all over"? Did she refer to Derek as well when she said that? Why was Callie chosen Chief of Surgery? What will happen now with her dream of having a baby? How would this affect her marriage with George? How will George react to this news? Did George actually fail on purpose? What will happen with the unsolved love between George and Izzie? Did Preston leave the show for good? Or will he return "at a good moment"? What was Richard's reason for not choosing Miranda as Chief of Surgery? What will be the reasons for Addison and Mark to stay at Seattle Grace and not follow Preston's example?
I like drama, so I must like leaving with these questions. The unanswered questions make the viewers' waiting worth while.

But, where did they lose the witty commentaries at the end. I loved them and it made the show to have a purpose. I expected at the end of the third season to see a intelligent observation that was better than all the previous ones. I also found the pace of the events to be slow compared to other episodes. Drama cannot be hurried, but when it's painstakingly long it does not help at all, although drama is supposed to be "painful".

In the end, I think that the quality of the show started to decrease and I am expecting greater effort from the producers next year to please my expectations.

The image I have posted at the beginning is more intriguing than the whole last episode of the third season. Can it be because I have watched Grey's for too long? Read more!