Mixed Messages:

I love a good parody.

I don't know where my place is in this conversation, or even if I have a place in it.  But as a former progressive Christian now religiously unlabled, I feel the need to participate in sharing ideas like these:

"Bill Moyers speaks with Cornel West, Serene Jones, and Gary Dorrien for a fresh take on what our core ethics and values as a society say about America's politics, policy, and the challenges of balancing capitalism and democracy."  (Clicky clicky -- it's 40 minutes long, but well worth it; this segment is about social justice, the economic crisis, and the progressive Christian perspective on it, thanks to giniliz  for posting on FB)


( Read more... )


.

Ah, lulz.  If we couldn't laugh at ourselves, we'd cry our eyes out.

Dudes!

I got an A in my astronomy class!  Now to tackle doing the same in Botany!  It inspired me to spend the beautiful holiday morning. . . in the Botany Lab.  It's an insane amount of material for this level of a class.  And, while I did get the highest score in the the class on the first lab exam, on the lecture exam, I did not.  Far from it, but definitely not failing.  Second Lab/Lecture test coming up next week.

With all the crap that happened this week, I needed to hear I actually did something right.

Venting did help last night.  Well, that, and I talked to a couple of good friends from Sitka.  It was good to be reminded of fun times and that I am missed and loved.

( My First Experience With Hypothermia )

So, if some things do not work out (like getting a job after graduation, and yeah, i know it's a bit early, it's a year and a half away), and others do (like the idea of going to grad school being appealing), I think I have found my Graduate Program.

( IMHO, this sounds completely *freaking* awesome! )


Advice from those of you who have been to grad school?

( Days Three and Four of the Vacation. At this rate, I might be done writing it up by the time I go on the next one. No worries, though, the next few days aren't nearly as interesting and will be lumped together. )

My friend had to work most of the days that i was staying with her, so I went to a few of Boston's many museums in the next few days. . . but I'm tired of writing, and, if you've gotten this far, you are probably  tired of reading so. . . later.

Vacation was pretty good.  A learning experience.

( Days 1 and 2 under the cut. )

that I really like these ads for a sex boutique in Denmark called Lust?
( WTF is that bee doing to that bird? I can't tell whether this is NSFW or not. It might be. )

. . . . after all, sexuality is only natural, isn't it?

I'll write a real entry soon.  I spent 45 minutes writing an entry about my vacation, only to lose it.

 

Haha!  Nope.  But I base this off of dogs (and large raptors).  You scold a dog, he feels bad that he's getting scolded.  They live in the moment.  "I peed on the rug two minutes ago?  That was in the past. . . "  or "I'm sitting on your $300 binoculars?  Where?  But I want to be in the front seat!"
Sunset felt regret that she let me shove a large pill wrapped in salmon down her throat.  So I caught her five minutes later banging her crop on her perch to get herself to throw it up.  I loved that Bald Eagle, but, man, she was one bitchy bird.  Screaming was her favorite thing to do; I've seen her rouse while screaming.  Awww, cute Sunset.  i miss her.

It's what being stuck at home studying will do to you.  By the way, they are the no-sugar-added kind, and they are pretty damn good for no-sugar-added.

Last exam's today -- Ethics and Values in History.  Still need to study more; exam's @ 2:30.

Leaving for Massachusetts on Friday.  Will spend the weekend with a one friend in Virginia, coming back I'll spend the night with another friend in Virginia, parrotbrained , aka "Bad Jason" (will be seeing "Good Jason" in August).  While in Boston I'll be staying with Stef (sunriseducky , not that she uses LJ anymore) and then I'll go to Easthampton and see my friends Ethan and Amy -- I haven't met their youngest daughter yet.  I'm also seeing some other friends.  It seems I have quite the concentration of friends in Massachusetts!

*grumble grumble grumble* and once again, Good Jason will be about 600 miles away from me and I won't get to see him.  A couple of months ago, he was in DC, and I didn't get to see him.  Yeah, 600 miles is a pretty long ways, but not when you compare it with the usual 5000 mile drive.  Oh, well, he'll be really really busy anyway.

So, I'm going to go camping on Cape Cod for a night, and see the MFA and Science Museum in Boston, and go see Walden Pond (Thoreau's been one of my heroes since high school -- My final paper in American Literature my junior year was Thoreau: The Progenitor of the Environmental Movement).    For those of you who have been there, what are your must-sees around the areas I'm going?

Honestly, all I really want to do is whine right now. . .  well, that. and go swimming and run in the mornings, but I have no pool and it's becoming hot weather . . . so I'm glad I have a treadmill.

Speaking of swimming, my bro came up here on Sunday and we went to the beach and watched two dumb farks have to get rescued by lifeguards.  The sign in red lettering advised them not to swim near the jetty, there were dangerous currents.  They did anyway.  As we watched, they kept getting swept further out, so the lifeguards swam after them.  After that, we went to my cousin's twenty-first birthday party.  He was all happy-smiley-drunk (but not anywhere near falling-down-so).  It was good to see him around all of his friends.  Anyway, said cousin's boyfriend started drama (though the boyfriend was 70 miles away -- didn't even bother coming to the party) and it did not end well at all.  So he was home and sober by 10:30 pm.  Not that I'm an advocate of getting drunk for the sake of it, but FFS, it was his twenty-first birthday, he was having a great time, had plenty of sober people watching after him (he actually has a pretty responsible group of friends for a 21-year-old), and then he just got more and more depressed.  It was just sad to watch.

What was cool to watch, though, was The Hunt for Gollum, an LOTR fan film made for a budget of £3000.  Really well done.  The story is taken from events referred to in the book, but not really fleshed out in either the book or films.  As I am one of the biggest Tolkien fans ever (the one rehab BAEA @ the Alaska Raptor Center I got to name I named Gwaihir ), I've been looking forward to this film.  Guillermo del Toro is going to do an awesome job with The Hobbit -- I can't wait to see it.  You can see The Hunt for Gollum here.  If you're a fan of the extended-edition DVDs of the trilogy with all the extra stuff in it, there's lots of that on the website, too, from the making of the film.

I have two finals on Wednesday, so tomorrow will be spent studying.

Hooooo, buddy.  In the middle of a week of school hell.  No, I don't know why I'm taking the time to write this entry instead of studying.

Had a Modern Bio test today.  Extremely hard, as expected, but I improved my score over the last exam by 18 points.  Still not a terribly wonderful grade, but at least I have a B in the class now.  My art project was also due today; on April 20th, she moved the due date from May 4.  It pissed me off, because I thought I had another weekend to work on it.  It looks great, but I did not get all the critiques done that I should have.  Tomorrow (eeps!) is the Lab Practical in Microbiology, and Friday I have a test in Microbiology and in Statistics.  My first final is May 6, and from there they are pretty evenly spread out until May 12.

My birthday went wonderfully, eight other people and I went out to Troy Mediterranean Restauraunt, which was really good and seemed to fit everyone's dietary needs.  And then I went through some sort of 1/3-life crisis panic and put very red highlights in my hair.  It was a spur-of-the-moment thing.  It's different.  I've had lots of compliments, but I may just get tired of it and dye it back.

So very tired, but I took a nap today, so I'm not as zombified as I have been the past 2-3 days.  I'm going to bed and waking up early to finish studying.

Freaking hormonal birds going off at 12:12 am.  He's going to get himself eaten by an owl.  Why do they do that?

From the sound of it, it's a mockingbird.  Idiot.

oh, great.  he's gotten another bird to answer. . . they're going to talk all night.

It was taken by my friend and fellow KBRR intern Noah Elhardt.  Pretty awesome, interesting guy with a fascination for carniverous plants, swing dancing, and the barefoot culture (he's a barefooter, and has even run races unshod).

The description to go along with the photo:
The plants are sundews (Drosera anglica), insectivorous plants which use the sticky tentacles covering their leaves to attract, trap, and digest insect prey. These damselflies (Enallagma cyathigerum) have been ensnared in this manner. Photo taken in Duck Lake, Oregon.




Sundews:  OM NOM NOM NOM
Damselflies:  Oh no help we're being eaten by a mpphhhh

I'm turning 28 today.  Two years from thirty . . .whoa.  It's a little scary.

Not that I would go back to being in my early twenties.  I had lots of good friends close by at the time -- I was living in Sitka -- but I am so much healthier and on top of stuff now.  But not perfect.  I somehow thought I would have my life more together by this age, but I'm learning that I probably won't ever think I have stuff together.  It will help once I get my degree -- I've done lots of stuff in between semesters that I've been in school, but it's time to get this freakin' thing.

Speaking of school, kind of in panic mode right now.  But this happens at the end of every semester.  I have a test in Modern Bio on Wednesday,  tests in Microbiology and Statistics on Friday, a Lab Practical in Microbiology on Thursday, and a big Art project due on Wednesday.  Ack!  It's a little nuts.

Today is Shakespeare's birthday as well.  When I lived in Sitka, I had a tradition of wearing my Renaissance garb on my birthday, because it's so much fun to wear, I never get to wear it, and it was my birthday, so I could wear whatever I damn well pleased.  Anyway, I can't wear it to lab this morning  but I could wear it to class this afternoon.  The thing is, there are plenty of weirdos in Sitka and I could get away with it.  However, I live in Savannah now, and people would think  me absolutely farking insane if I wore my Ren garb to class.  But should I anyway?  Here's the dress, scroll down to the bottom of the entry.  Vote yay  or nay  if you read this by 1 pm -- I'll come home and change by lunch.

By the way, yes, I'm probably pretty much nuts.

This evening, I took a look at the throat culture I'd been incubating in the lab.  While there were a few β-hemolytic colonies, the majority of them were α-hemolytic.  In other words, not really any different from my normal throat flora.  So it's viral.  I took pics of the culture, but am having, erm, communication problems with my computer right now so you won't get to be grossed out.  Not tonight, anyway.  The lab probably isn't going to be open this weekend, so I left the culture in incubation to look at on Monday.
The good news is I'm definitely not feeling as crappy.  More evidence that it is viral.

So I dragged my ass out of bed and made myself look decent to go to the opening night of the Francophone Film Festival on campus.  The screening tonight was of Persepolis.


I'd been really wanting to see this movie, and I'd planned on going to see it before I got sick.  I'm so glad I went.  I'd highly recommend this movie to anybody (well, maybe not young children).  The simple visuals were really stunning.

Anyway, at the reception after the film, I spoke to the students in charge of the film festival.  Upon learning that I was a Biology major, they acted a bit surprised (and pleased) and said "Broadening your horizons, eh?"

Well, yeah, they do let us out of the lab occasionally.  Why is it such a shock that I would want to see this movie?  What's really depressing is that I have a better humanities background than a lot of the students there -- science majors or otherwise.

I'm just always perplexed by the pigeonholes we put people in.

umm, having some physical symptoms that may or may not be strep throat.  i could be just paranoid, though.

i wonder if i could convince my microbiology lab prof (the bio lab manager) to let me use a sheep's blood agar to test for Beta-hemolysis.  Then I would know if it would be worth going to the doc or not.

It's worth a try, right?  After all, what are lab fees for?