Root Canals, Group Projects, and other fun activities

I just got off the phone with a member of my project group for my "Social Issues in Biotechnology" class. During the conversation, she mentioned that she just finished a graduate writing workshop recommended by her advisor. After I got off the phone, it occurred to me that no one had ever suggested that I take a writing workshop in grad school. With a sinking feeling, I went and looked at her midterm paper on our class website. Let's just say it didn't fill me with confidence in her writing ability.

Now to be fair, I don't think she is a native English speaker. And I have a huge amount of respect for anyone who knows enough of a foreign language to attend graduate school in it. But on the other hand, when your grade is on the line, you can't help but think that it would be nice to be in a group with a few gifted wordsmiths with a remarkable command of the English language.

I should point out that I've worked with plenty of native-born Americans who were lousy writers, and I'm sure there are plenty of non-native speakers who can write circles around me. But unfortunately they aren't in my BIOT640 project group.

Oh, yeah. On top of that, I have once again summarily been elected group leader. We were playing a game of chicken. The first person to panic and suggest that maybe we should actually meet was tagged as the sucker, and henceforth appointed ruler. That was me. So it's my job to guide the group into coming up with a coherent paper in the next month. It's going to be a long month.

Letting sleeping birds lie...

BoingBoing highlighted this article on managing your body's hardwired "biological clock" that determines sleep cycles. It explains why the only time I usually see the sunrise is when I stay up for it.

The body tells time with a master clock in the brain, a pinhead-sized cluster of neurons in the hypothalamus that takes cues from optic nerves that signal sunlight. By sticking people in isolation chambers, scientists discovered that most people's internal clocks run a bit longer — about a half-hour on average — than the sun's 24-hour cycle. That's why, for most people, it's easier to stay up later and compensate by sleeping in than to force yourself to sleep early and wake early, explains Dr. Eliza Sutton, an acting assistant professor of medicine at the University of Washington. Morning larks are those rarer birds whose body clock is shorter than 24 hours, so they wake up raring to go.

On Frida Kahlo, Mexico, and Art

A friend at work recently went to Mexico City, and has been giving me crib sheets for my upcoming trip. He recommended that I watch Frida, the award-winning film about Mexican artist Fridah Kahlo and her husband, muralist Diego Rivera.

So last night I rented the movie. It was shot entirely in Mexico, and was absolutely beautiful. A lot of the credit for this goes to director Julie Taymor. After listening to her director's commentary, I am a huge fan. She is amazingly articulate about how she manages to portray emotion on film, something that not all directors are able to convey. And her vision and connection to the material in the movie are apparent.

As usual, I spent a lot of time trolling through the DVD extras. The second disc included a variety of interviews with the participants in the film. One particularly fascinating one is with Chavela Vargas, a famous Mexican folk singer (in her 90s) who performed in the film and who actually knew Frida Kahlo. Through the subtitles, she almost seemed to be speaking in poetry.

Another hidden treasure was this story, relayed by Julie Taymor during an interview with Bill Moyers:

I am often interested in the story of the outsider. You know I lived in Indonesia for many years. [...] I was there for two years and I was planning to stay longer and start a theater company. I went to Bali to a remote village by a volcanic mountain on the lake. They were having a ceremony that only happens only every 10 years for the young men. I wanted to be alone.

I was listening to this music and all of a sudden out of the darkness I could see glints of mirrors and 30 or 40 old men in full warrior costume-- there was nobody in this village square. I was alone. They couldn't see me in the shadows. They came out with these spears and they started to dance. They did, I don't know, it felt like an eternity but probably a half hour dance. With these voices coming out of them. And they danced to nobody. Right after that, they and I went oh, my God. The first man came out and they were performing for God. Now God can mean whatever you want it to mean. But for me, I understood it so totally. The detail on the costumes. They didn't care if someone was paying tickets, writing reviews. They didn't care if an audience was watching. They did it from the inside to the outside. And from the outside to the in. And that profoundly moved me then.

The rest of the interview is online right here.

"There is no such thing as a safe Shards O' Glass Freeze Pop."

It must be fun to work someplace where your entire job is basically to be a pain in the tobacco industry's backside. Case in point:

Shards O' Glass Freezer Pops

At Shards O' Glass, our goal is to be the most responsible, effective and respected developer of glass shard consumer products intended for adults. Our Shards O' Glass Freeze Pops are the nation's top-selling frozen treats containing glass shards. Little wonder, considering all we put into them! Enjoy your stay here. And remember, Shards O' Glass Freeze Pops are for adults only.

TobaccoDocuments.org is also pretty cool -- it's an ongoing project to index, cross-reference, OCR, and make available online the thousands millions of tobacco industry documents revealed during tobacco litigation.

Free books

Random discovery: The National Academies Press has placed more than 3000 complete books online for free. They are mostly technical and scientific books (Immunization Safety Review: Influenza Vaccines and Neurological Complications, anyone?), but there are some hidden gems. For example, Degrees Kelvin: A Tale of Genius, Invention and Tragedy:

Charismatic, confident, and boyishly handsome, Thomson was not a scientist who labored quietly in a lab, plying his trade in monkish isolation. When scores of able tinkerers were flummoxed by their inability to adapt overland telegraphic cables to underwater, intercontinental use, Thomson took to the high seas with new equipment that was to change the face of modern communications. And as the world’s navies were transitioning from wooden to iron ships, they looked to Thomson to devise a compass that would hold true even when surrounded by steel.

But as the century drew to a close and Queen Victoria's reign ended, this legendary scientific mind began to weaken. He grudgingly gave way to others with a keener, more modern vision. But the great physicist did not go quietly. With a ready pulpit at his disposal, he publicly proclaimed his doubts over the existence of atoms. He refused to believe that radioactivity involved the transmutation of elements. And believing that the origin of life was a matter beyond the expertise of science and better left to theologians, he vehemently opposed the doctrines of evolution, repeatedly railing against Charles Darwin. Sadly, this pioneer of modern science spent his waning years arguing that the Earth and the Sun could not be more than 100 million years old. And although his early mathematical prowess had transformed our understanding of the forces of nature, he would never truly accept the revolutionary changes he had helped bring about, and it was others who took his ideas to their logical conclusion.

The catch to all this (and there's always a catch) is that you either have to read the books page-by-page online, or pay to buy a printed copy or download a complete PDF. Still, it's a pretty nifty program.

Too much information

I'm sitting in Bongo Java working on my Biotech paper. One of the guys who works here is having a loud conversation with a customer while sweeping the floor. It's all about how he was sick yesterday. He vomited a lot. He's going into great detail. I don't claim to be a marketing expert, but it seems to me this might not be the best patter for a place that serves food.

Being naughty

Someone posted a chain letter asking for money on an Internet message board that I administer. The message included both an e-mail address and a postal address. I deleted the message of course, but not before doing a google search for "mail me more information" and picking out 20 or so things that Miss. Cuevas of Oceanside, CA is now interested in. I threw in a few others that didn't show up in the Google search for good measure -- for example, the Jehovah's Witnesses now know that she would like to be contacted, and that the best time is 6:00 AM on Saturdays. The Scientologists and the Realian movement are also going to be in touch.

If only I had this sort of devotion to stuff I should be doing right now.

Slippery when wet

This morning I slipped when getting out of the shower. As I fell to the floor, I had visions of dashing my brains out on the commode and being discovered by the neighbors months from now . Luckily that didn't happen. But I did slam my shoulder quite vigorously against the tile doorway, and slammed the back of my head hard enough on a windowsill to loosen it from the wall.

After laying on the floor and contemplating the ceiling for a minute or two, I staggered to my feet and noticed a throbbing pain whenever I moved my arm. My shoulder was definitely not a happy camper. In comparison, the head thing was virtually unnoticable.

As the day has gone on, however, the shoulder pain has mostly dissipated. But the dull ache in my head has been getting worse. ugh. Hopefully a good night's sleep will make it all better.

An update

So here's the story about the Indian guy... An organization that I'm a member of is having a big convention in Nashville. They are giving a leadership award to this guy who has helped the organization grow in India. They are paying for his plane ticket, but apparently cheaped out on providing a hotel room. So I got an e-mail from someone in DC asking if I (or another local) could provide a place to stay. I figured it couldn't hurt to know someone in India, so I volunteered.

In other news, I've been staying busy with schoolwork, planning a high school reunion, and various other things. Oh, and reading about Mexico whenever I have a free moment. Looking forward to the trip, even if I haven't convinced anyone else to go with me...

Indian Summer

This June, some random guy I've never met is coming from India to spend a week at my house. Wierd.

senior year

Just for giggles, I've been reading over some old e-mail from my senior year in college -- which is amazingly seven years ago now. I came across this e-mail that I sent to my boss/instructor at the academic program I was working for. (She was also a pretty good friend by the time I left, so this isn't as crazy as it sounds.)

To: program coordinator
From: Me
Subject: you win: it looks like I have to fill a few credits

It looks like I may take Soling next semester - it depends on how my petitions 
turn out, but I may have to fill 3 credits. The only stipulation is that 
if I do take it, I refuse to get out of bed for class before 10:00 am. 
(the moment that happens I am out the door signing up for 
basketweaving and beer appreciation!)

-DD

Yup, that's pretty typical. I've never been a morning person! ;-)

I've had a bit of a blogging draught lately. Between work craziness, schoolwork, two different pro-bono websites, and reading all about Mexico, I've not had much time left. I'll do better in the future, I promise. For the moment, I'm off to renew my license plates, which it turns out expired a month and a half ago. Oops...

Oklahoma

It galls me that I don't think I can check off Oklahoma. When I was in Wichita, Kansas with Habitat for Humanity, I'm pretty sure we talked about driving south and going into Oklahoma just for the heck of it. But I'm also pretty sure we never did it. (We spent 48 hours in a van that week just to get to Kansas and back, so I guess it's understandable.)

Then a few years later, my friend and I did a week-long driving trip around the south, going from Nashville to New Orleans to Houston to Dallas/Fort Worth to Caddo Valley, Ark. where I left my transmission (long story for another time), and back to Nashville. I'm pretty sure I drove through Texarkana, which is only about a quarter inch from Oklahoma on the map.

So I had two perfectly-good opportunities to set foot in Oklahoma, and I flubbed them both. Oh, well... Next time I have an opportunity to visit, I'll snap it up. Although perhaps I should learn more about it first -- the only thing I know off the top of my head is that it's "where the wind comes sweeping down the plains."

Vermont -- the final (east of the Mississippi) frontier

I just filled in Vermont on my "states visited" map below. I talked to my parents, and turns out that they're pretty sure we went through Vermont on one of our Grizwold-esque New England summer vacations.

The car on the right is a near facsimile of the Chevy Malibu we drove on most of those trips, except it's a few years newer. This picture comes from the web site of a guy who apparently spent a great deal of time tripping out this 20-year-old station wagon. "The ultimate goal," he writes, "is to turn this old wagon into a sleeper, powered by 425 cubic inches of Oldsmobile V8 :o)))))))"

Everyone needs a hobby, I guess...

I'm probably nuts...

... but I just made a plane reservation for Mexico, leaving on April 7 and coming back on the 12th. These people almost scared me off, but then some of these people gave me a nudge in the right direction.

Now I just have to figure out where I'm staying and what I'm doing while I'm there. Finding someone else crazy enough to come along would also be a plus!

South of the Border?

I have a very definite case of springtime wanderlust. Now I'm comtemplating a spur-of-the-moment trip to Mexico City during Holy Week. Instead of doing my homework, of course.

Random belated pictures

Here are pictures from my trip to DC and New Jersey last month. They are of many different things, and I haven't bothered to caption them, so you'll have to use your imagination a bit. Buried somewhere in there are pictures of George Washington's diary, a snowstorm, a map signed by Robert E. Lee, and the abandoned church in Camden where my brother is working. Like I said, kind of random.

 

Big Music shoots itself in the foot yet again

For the last few days, I've been grooving to the beats of the Gray Album, D.J. Danger Mouse's artful mix of the Beatles' White Album and Jay-Z's Black Album. The funny thing is, if it wasn't for EMI's ridiculous attempts to sue this album out of existence, I probably never would have even heard of it, let alone downloaded it. The music industry needs to get over its insane addiction to lawyers and focus on coming up with better ways to take advantage of digital music. The EFF has an interesting proposal for "voluntary collective licensing" of music on file sharing networks. Sounds like a good plan to me -- a lot better than continually paying lawyers millions to sue grannies and grade school kids.

Gotta fix that gaping hole on the upper left

I finally got around to putting together my visited states map. (Thanks for the inspiration, Laura.) It was harder than I thought, because I've never really kept track. Initially, for example, I had Vermont checked off, because I've traveled all over New England and just assumed I'd been there. But when I started thinking about it, the closest I could remember being was Plattsburgh, NY, across the lake. So to be fair I took it off the list, making it the only Eastern state I may not have visited.

As you can see, there's a gaping hole in the Northwest quadrant of the country. My cousin is getting married near San Francisco this summer, so maybe I'll try to fill in a few more states on that trip. I also have another cousin in Alaska who has a four-year-old daughter I've only seen in pictures. One of these days I want to make it up that way.

I tried doing "visited countries," but it hardly seemed worth it. The complete list (other than the US) is Canada, Germany, Italy, Monaco, Vatican City, and France (but only a tiny corner of France, so it felt wrong to check off the whole country.) I think I'm going to try to expand that list this year. I was briefly considering doing a last minute trip to England in the next few weeks due to crazy-cheap fares. But I procrastinated too long and the fares disappeared. So I'll probably wait until the summer or fall for my next international trip. Anyone got any good international travel ideas?

UPDATE: I just filled in Vermont without even leaving home! See entry above for details.

create your own personalized map of the USA or write about it on the open travel guide

Sedalina started an lively debate about the gay marriage brouhaha with this post. An interesting read...