Lauren's blog: "random journaling."

I, a child Try to reach the stars. . . Sirius is so near. I run to the nearest hill My reach is always too short Wait till I am a grown man! Now, I am old and bent with years No more running to the hill and mountaintop-- Yet, a warm, steady, life-giving glow Reaches me from Sirius . . . the unattainable. I collect White iridescent and evanescent starbeams For my trip home to Sirius the dog star. --Boris Levinson "Dream" i love you, Moxon, and miss you terribly. sleep well.

things i've learned: 1) just because you hear multiple interviews on some random film director on NPR, and he sounds super-cute, does not mean that he is. jake kasdan is, though. and, he worked on freaks and geeks. (insert a slight sigh of regret that it ever got cancelled) 2) you cannot be in college forever. . .but it is okay to want to and to get excited when some random marketplace guy on the radio mentions that he is vacationing in Sewanee--and then very very jealous. 3) the archbiship of canterbury is adorable, in that little old man kinda way. 4) tests suck. 5) only stupid people say "happy good friday"--shut up. 6) me + gmills + eblood + bacT test = unicorns, shooting people in the face and not telling anyone for three days, sugar overdose on robin's eggs, and strange metaphors for the structure of a flagellar motor. current music: deathcab, she wants revenge, john mayer, older elton john, anything that's not studying. current disappointments: holly's dog died and my dad is moving to virginia. i wish my hair were longer. . .but once it is, i'll only want to cut it all off again. and maybe dye it dark. . .change is good--at least that change i would be able to control. i may be going to spring party in a couple of weekends--i want to go, need to go. it'll depend upon when my dad is moving; he starts his new job the following monday. i miss my bestests, though. i wish that the most bestest would blow off law school and go, too. and now, your moment of zen: http://www.slate.com/id/2162292/ xxoo

Melissa forwarded me this article, and I found it interesting; people are forever asking me how it is possible to be a cradle episcopalian such as myself, and a staunch supporter of all things hard science--evolution included. . .don't get me started. I've never really seen it as there being two completely defined sides to the argument, why can't you believe both? I think that this guy puts it pretty eloquently. http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/03/collins.commentary/index.html

How does one know when one is having an affair? I don't mean precisely in the conventional human-to-human sort of way, but. . .what exactly are the signs? Seeing that other on the side, allowing them to invade your thoughts at the most inopportune moments, perhaps doodling in your three-ring binder? I think I might have a problem. I often find myself tracing words onto any object that won't scuttle away, I leave eraser tracks swirled into phraseology on almost any desk that I sit at; whenever I clean out my book bag (now don't scoff, it does happen occasionally), scraps of paper covered in random phrases will undoubtedly float to the floor, the remnants of some half-assed wanna-be-masterpiece. I think it's about time that I just come out and say it. It's hard, but, undeniable. I think that I am having a clandestine affair. . .with words--with language, with anything resembling the ability to put some words in a row. I covet the talent in others (lacking it in myself), and consistently annoy my friends with scraps of song lyrics that I mull over until they're gibberish. My other passion (so I guess it's sort of a complicated affair), music, draws me in mostly with hooks and clever turns of a phrase, little quips and comments said in such a manner as to make one squirm. It's not an art, it's a compulsion. I spend a lot of time driving, and the greater majority of the approximately 15-20 hours a week that I spend in my car is spent concentrating not on the road before me, but on the way words fit together, and can be rotated about a common theme to mean something completely different. I'm in love with metaphors, and am constantly bombarded with the oddest (really lame) ones: I crave passion; I want someone to thirst for me so disastrously that I must pour my heart into a teacup in order to satiate him. My seemingly innermost thoughts, those of someone who yearns for ardor with every fiber her being, yet pushes it away with both indifferent hands as only a true cynic can do, evolve into these perverse little metaphors that bounce around in my consciousness until I finally submit and spit them onto a scrap of paper (or the computer screen). When I'm not being inundated with these pearls of meaningless language-artifact, I devour everything written around me. There are four books on my nightstand, none finished, but most at least ¾ of the way through. My latest is a book called "A Good Dog", a quaint little memoir about a man and his dog that my dad swears is worth every one of the twenty-three dollars he paid for it. I also ventured into the music magazine section (a fate worse than torture at times), and actually spent my hard-earned money on a copy of Rolling Stone and the bird-cage lining known as Spin, merely because they had two of my favorite bands within them; this was followed by a moment of panic during which I was convinced that someone had covertly stolen the middle two pages of my FOB article, argued with my dad, referencing the scraps of paper lining the staples at the back-bone of the magazine (which later turned out to have been pushed through when said staples were inserted), and was ready to go back to Books-a-million in order to get my entire 8 page article. It's okay, take a deep breath; there were no missing pages, I'm just paranoid when it comes to the possible defamation of literature concerning my favorite band. So, at last, I'm coming to the conclusion that it must be some sort of love affair--the type that is more coercion than a conscious decision. But, we can still be friends, right?

For a long time, I thought that perhaps I wasn't cut out for the field that I have chosen. I just always figured that I would do it until I failed. . .I'll take those upper-level biology classes, and if I fail, I'll know that I'm not meant to do this. But, I never failed. . .so I just stuck with it; I didn't have anything better to do. Scientists are smart--scientists are those people that you hate in school--the know-it-alls, the ones who do all the reading, answer all the questions, etc. Not me. I was an english major, really--and not even one of those that did all their shit, just one of the ones that knew how to make their bullshit sound insightful. But, the point of this post is that maybe I can do this after all. I found out that. . .apparently, most people in my field are pretty crazy, much more laid back that I thought, and have eccentricities almost equal to my own. In biochemistry this morning, during the lecture on hormones, this quote was given from an interview with James Watson (of Watson and Crick, the guys who figured out the structure of DNA) on what his idea of happiness was: "My idea is we're dominated by our emotions. And emotions, you know, have chemical circuits. And these influence our genes, and this is not surprising—you might need different sorts of people in a stable society. Some people get angry, some people don't. The gene for endorphin makes up part of a protein called POMC. So this protein is broken down by proteases. On the one end are endorphins, but on the other end is melanocortin and what used to be called MSH. Now MSH is made when you're in the sun. So when you make MSH, you're also making endorphins. So my theory is that that's why the sun makes you happy. But if you're not in the sun, you're unhappy. So my theory of happiness is that there are emotions that have a selective advantage; they make you do things that are good for you." My professor read it aloud to the class, inserting such phrases as "you know", "man", and "dude". It was great--James Watson was a total nutjob--a genius, but a complete weirdo. He's right, technically. . .but, who talks like that? I do. That, added to the fact that Kary Mullis invented the technique of PCR (polymerase chain reaction, used in DNA sequencing and such) while coming off of a trip from hallucinogenic mushrooms, makes me think that I might be okay with this field. If these guys (both Nobel prize winners) can think this shit up. . .I might have a chance, too. And. . .an addendum: I'm totally not comparing myself to these guys--I'm not going to figure out DNA or PCR. . .or, much of anything, probably. The point is that science is not exclusive. You don't have to be especially smart, asian, or have tape on the bridge of your buddy holly's. Those people are probably just as unsure as I am; they probably stare at themselves in the mirror trying to figure out who they are, too. I realized that science is not an elite club--it allows slackers, losers, and people with absolutely no clue as to social niceties; so maybe it'll allow me, too.

i think i need a sexier hobby. While other people post wholly exciting, introspective, and brilliant blogs, I'm forever left with the fact that I have absolutely nothing interesting to share with the world. This is my story of the week: Somewhere along the long trek from Meridian to Jackson, the 174 mile round trip course that I take every day to school, there are two lakes--at the exit (100, to be exact) to a little town called Lake--that in itself, I find ironic, but whatever--I may be overanalytical, due to the copious amounts of nothing from here to Jackson and back. But alas, that is not what this story is about. This story is about cows. I used to have a severe distaste for cows--was absolutely terrified of them (for some unexplainable reason)--but have since overcome that fear, to hold a mild interest for them, I suppose. They're cute. . .from a distance. So there are these two lakes--one is the people lake; there is a dock, some picnic tables (maybe, I might have just added those into my vision of the lake), and a jumpy-off thing in the middle, for jumpy-offing. And then, there's the cow lake; it has cows, all around it, in it, doing cow stuff. So, I see these lakes every day. And then, one fateful day, there were no cows. They were gone, as if by some beam-up light from a spaceship. So I, being the inquisitive person that I am, started asking questions. I started with, "what time of year do they kill cows?". My dad responded with the fact that there is in fact no "cow season", and that cows are generally killed all year long, evident in the fact that we can have steaks any time we want. So yes, that's logical. I consented to the fact that these cows, my cows, I like to call them, were gone forever--shuffled off of this mortal coil, stewed or grilled or in a fricassee or a ragout. So I was sad, sort of. But then, yesterday, I saw the cows--at the people lake! I know, they threw me off--those tricky bovines. I think I need a sexier hobby--or. . .life.