That's not all that needs examining

Weeks (no, months) of filling my head with phosphate groups and Punnett squares and all sorts of other things that really don't belong there, and the CLEP exam has been cancelled because of the (stupid and stinky) weather forecast.  I'm rescheduled for March 6, which means three more weeks of waking up in the middle of the night screaming "The homozygous recessive expresses the trait!  36 molecules of ATP!"

If I were actually capable of learning Biology, this wouldn't be such an extinction-level event for me.  I'd just enjoy the snow day tomorrow and plan for an unpleasant morning on March 6...no worse than root canal (which isn't that bad, by the way). Sadly for me, though, I have no aptitude for science whatsoever.  I'm good at passing tests, and so my efforts have been focused on memorizing just enough to get me through the exam. I have absolutely no hope of retaining any of this unless I continue to beat it into my cement-like skull every day.

Onward.  The Protists survived their demotion from Kingdom status, so I'll live through this.  Meanwhile, maybe male fruit flies will eventually learn sexual responsibility and then we won't need to worry about how many of their 112 offspring are heterozygous for red eyes.

This Just In

In other news, winter would have continued for at least another 6 weeks anyway.

Biology Insults

1. "Stick that in your thylakoid disk and photosynthesize it".

2.

Well, that's one, anyway.  Use it the next time some smug, supercilious specimen of plant life offends decent people everywhere with its insufferable autotrophic boasts.  Autotrophs, are you? You can create your own food out of nothing, can you?  So if I just switch off the sun, and then take away your CO2 producers, you'll still be as green as the day you sprouted, will you?  Let me know what your ficus has to say to that.  Nothing, that's what it has to say.  As it sits there, rooted in its soil, speechless in the face of the hard truth you've just laid on it, that's when you say "so stick that in your thylakoid disk and photosynthesize it,"  Then tell it it reminds you of some algae that used to grow in your pool.  BURN!

Well, maybe you don't want to descend to that level.  (Not that I'm worried about the plant's feelings. That ficus is no better than algae, and I can tell you that I'd sooner associate with some decent algae I've met than with some of the trash I see at the plant nursery.)  But if you have your own pool, do you need to tell the whole damn world about it?  Tone it down, One Percent.

Double-Stranded

That's apropos of absolutely nothing other than molecular biology, a subject for which I have no aptitude. As I (halfheartedly, haphazardly, and reluctantly) studied, I thought that "Double-Stranded" would make a funny funny post title.  It only works, though, if I can tie a sharply witty observation to a biological principle.  But I can't. So I won't. Years of grueling study, and I'm still slow on the uptake.  It's probably genetic.

Free Advice

Before researching treatment and surgery options for the cataracts that you're certain you have, maybe take out your contact lenses and clean them.

The Taking up of Space Which I Require for Other Purposes

Q: Exactly how many containers of flour, confectioners' sugar, and bread crumbs do you need?
A: Far fewer than I seem to have.

Q: Why would you EVER embark on a kitchen-cabinet-cleaning-out project?
A: (deep, deep sigh).

Higher Education and Suits in Chancery

I'm studying Biology now.  I've spent about 30 minutes distracting myself online, and now I have to update my blog (because my reading public, left hanging since mid-December, anxiously awaits a new installment) and then I'll fold the clothes in the dryer and maybe run the vacuum, so that after a full 70 or so minutes of thinking about preparing to study, I'll have actually begun to study.

Full disclosure: I abandoned that last paragraph in mid-sentence, studied for a while, did who even knows what else, and then returned to finish this post about 8 hours later.  Adult ADD is no joke.  This is why it has taken me 27 years (which, in fairness, includes a 20-year total hiatus) to finish my undergraduate degree.  But finish I shall, in about 3 months.  I'll take the CLEP Biology exam in February, then I'll take my very last class.  This is official; my adviser has confirmed that I correctly interpreted my most recent degree audit and that I'm really and truly almost done.

I'm reading Bleak House now.  I don't know if Jarndyce vs. Jarndyce will ever settle but I know now that at least some things come to an end.  I'm just not sure what I'll do when it does.

(Full diclosure #2: I went back to read a post from my old blog and found a tag that, when I wrote it, made me laugh myself silly.  Having forgotten about it for 3 years and seeing it again, I laughed just as hard.  At least one person thinks I'm HILARIOUS.)

Bring me the head of Charles I

Because, as Mr. Dick often said, the trouble from his head has gotten into mine.  Why, you might ask, does it take me nearly two hours to write a single paragraph?  Could it be, perhaps, because I stop and ACTIVELY LOOK for distractions and diversions after every single sentence I manage to choke out of myself? My work habits suck, and my attitude is no better.

###

Would you have been a Cavalier, or a Roundhead? Neither would have appealed to me, and I don't guess that abstaining was an option.

###

Which Cromwell would you invite to dinner, Thomas or Oliver?
I'm Catholic, so I assume that neither of them would come.  Just as well.  They were terrible dinner guests.

Nothing to see here...

If you ask the Washington Post or NBC News, then this didn't happen.

Interesting.

Is it not news because it happened in a foreign country?  Because I'm guessing, just guessing, that if the pro-life demonstrators had sexually assaulted the pro-choicers, in public, then it would have been worldwide headline news no matter where it occurred.

I'm sure, though, that Gloria Steinem, and Cecile Richards, and Terry O'Neill, and Nancy Pelosi, and Barbara Boxer, and Debbie Wasserman Schultz are all going to issue statements condemning this hideously violent attack against religious and free-speech rights, and asserting that their cause is not helped by such behavior.  Maybe they already have!  Yes, I'm sure that's it.

Or not.

Even Planned Parenthood GLOBAL (because maybe Planned Parenthood US feels that it's just none of their business, right?) has absolutely nothing to say about this.  So if they're not morally outraged, it doesn't occur to them to think that perhaps public, violent, obscene attacks on pro-lifers will not win converts; that if someone is on the fence on abortion (as I once was), then the sight of abortion supporters attacking peaceful pro-life protesters might just lead these fence-sitters to decide that they'd rather not be on the side of the people who publicly sexually assault their opponents? And spare me any suggestion that a woman rubbing her bare breasts in a strange man's face, or spray-painting his genitals, is not sexually assaulting him.  If the spray paint can belonged to a man and the crotch belonged to a woman, we'd all be clear on the definition of sexual assault.

I used to believe that abortion should be legal, although I never referred to myself as pro-choice because I have never felt that it was a legitimate choice (and among the women I personally know who have had abortions, most of them say that they didn't feel that they had any choice). I have many friends on both sides of this issue.  And I KNOW that pro-lifers have behaved very badly indeed in some cases.  How do I know this?  Not from personal eyewitness, nor from word of mouth, but because when a pro-life protester assaults a pro-choicer, it's NEWS, and rightly so.

I'm going to wait and see.  The national media took a long damn time to say anything at all about Dr. Gosnell, but they finally did, because they finally had to.  I'm the most obscure blogger in the world right now, but fortunately, I'm not the only one writing about this.  Maybe some actual paid professional journalists will eventually decide that this is news after all.

Defensor

16th-century Augustinian monks and English kings really knew how to sling insults.  I can only imagine the Twitter war between Henry VIII and Martin Luther had social media existed. Damnable and vile pestilence. #fideidefensor, #heretic.

The 11th Hour, (almost) Literally

Word count is just a suggestion, right?  I'm 500 words over, give or take.  This whole thing is held together by the very flimsiest of spit, glue, and Rube Goldberg arguments, and I'm pretty sure it won't hold up to scrutiny if I take out even a sentence, let alone 2 to 3 paragraphs.  Apparently, I learned nothing in freshman comp.  Damn it.

IPO

I might start tweeting again.  I so seldom have anything to say that can't be contained in 140 or fewer characters.  Online taciturnity. It's the new thing.

Wait!

Isn't faith itself a work?

I can't possibly be the first person ever to have thought of this.