Breaks from Chemistry

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Poem in Thanks

Thomas Lux

Lord Whoever, thank you for this air
I'm about to in- and exhale, this hutch
in the woods, the wood for fire,
the light-both lamp and the natural stuff
of leaf-back, fern, and wing.
For the piano, the shovel
for ashes, the moth-gnawed
blankets, the stone-cold water
stone-cold: thank you.
Thank you, Lord, coming for
to carry me here- where I'll gnash
it out, Lord, where I'll calm
and work, Lord, thank you
for the goddamn birds singing!



Poem in Thanks (2.0)

Kate S

Lord Whoever, thank you for this Oxygen gas
I'm about to chemically react to create carbon dioxide, this basement
classroom in the science building, the gas for the bunsen burner,
the match- both chemical and physical properties of
gaseous state, combustion, and heat of formation.
For the text book, the scientific calculator
for equations, the cracked and broken
test tubes, the 10.0 molarity Hydrochloric acid
ionized: thank you.
Thank you, Lord, coming for
to carry me to Chem 107, where I'll gnash
it out, Lord, where I'll suck it up
and do it, Lord, thank you
for the goddamn Hydrogen-bond molecular birds singing!

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I have had a huge number of INCREDIBLE 'that's what she said's lately. I'm so proud of myself.

Insurance

I had strep throat a while ago and went to the student health clinic on campus for some drugs. I just got the insurance paperwork in the mail the other day. On the front it says:

Important Papers Enclosed:
1. Open Immediately
2. Read
3. Send Home To Parents

I laughed out loud. Opened it, read it, and fully intend on bringing it home with me and sending it over to my parents. I wish all of my papers could be handled (and instructed) so perfectly. I'm guessing after college they stop putting that on your insurance paperwork though. That's too bad.

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I have an iGoogle homepage, and a little part of it has 3 quotes of the day. All three of them today made me laugh and/or appreciate their wittiness.

Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everybody agrees that it is old enough to know better.
- Anonymous
Nobody in the game of football should be called a genius. A genius is somebody like Norman Einstein.
- Joe Theismann
Don't you wish there was a knob on the TV to turn up the intelligence? There's one marked 'Brightness,' but it doesn't work.
- Gallagher

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I love Ray Charles. He calms me down like nothing else when I'm feeling anxious or stressed or generally upset.
One of my favorite songs--
This is a great video. The caption reads: A very rare 1963 performance by Ray Charles in São Paulo, Brazil, recorded one day before his 33rd birthday. This set is a remarkable find. Beyond its historical significance, the video provides enormous pleasure: We get to see and hear Ray, The Genius at his absolute best, exactly as it was show then...



this one too:


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I'm reading Ahab's Wife right now...and MAN is it EPIC. I'm not going to divulge details, cuz I think if you have some free brain cells and a bit of time, you should read it. But it's been 400 pages of swash-buckling, Kentucky-wintering, lighthouse-climbing epicness. It's exhaustive. But a good read.

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MT introduced me to this comedian and I think he's just awesome. He just kills me, and I think I was in the right goofy mood to appreciate the first time I watched it, so it was all especially hilarious. Enjoy the one liners and nice background music--

Books

I love books. And, not to brag, it's just a fact, I read a lot of them. I read a lot of bad books, but I also read a remarkable number of good ones. And there is no doubt in my mind that I would not be sane today, after going through high school, South America, and now college, without books. And so, on this dreary Monday, some of my favorites-

To Kill a Mockingbird- Harper Lee
The Red Tent- Anita Diamant
The Awakening- Kate Chopin
The Scarlet Pimpernel- Baroness Orczy
The Bean Trees, Pigs in Heaven, The Poisonwood Bible- Barbara Kingsolver
Anna Karenina- Tolstoy
The Catcher in the Rye- Salinger
Flowers for Algernon- Keyes
Pride and Prejudice- Austen
The Things They Carried- Tim O'Brien
The Life of Pi- Yann Martel
The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand
100 Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Time Traveler's Wife- Audrey Niffenegger
The Davinci Code, Angels and Demons- Dan Brown
Things Fall Apart- Chinua Achebe
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo- Stieg Larsson
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress- Dai Sijie
Gathering Blue- Lois Lowery
Little Women- Louisa May Alcott
House of Spirits, Eva Luna- Isabel Allende
Fight Club- Chuck Palahniuk


Obviously not completely thorough, and I seriously hesitated on Fight Club, but it's a general overview of all my favs that come to mind. Please comment and add your own favorites! I'm going through books like wildfire and will need something else to read soon!

If I haven't already raved to you about it yet...my new fav. website (after f-book of course) www.booksidoneread.blogspot.com ~~do it!

Flying Home

Yay! It has been 9 hours since I finished my oral final exam for my FYE history class, Civilizations in the Middle East. What a fantastic 9 hours. My final went well, and I feel like overall the class was pretty good. But Seriously, I was so ready to be done with that class. Adios Islam! Hooray!

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I'm sitting in the DIA, and I realize now that I picked a particularly bad spot to sit and eat my Panda Express. "Caution, the moving walk is nearing its end. Please watch your step. Thank you." Bose headphones time! and my new favorite song for the past few days/weeks (can't really keep track) but the music video is fantastic. I feel very politically active just listening to it.



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So, I know I talk a lot about the stuff I read, and I have the feeling I'm going to be quoting a lot of stuff in this blog. But it's what I do. I read. I read for class, read for pleasure, read to get tired, read to kill time, read to get through college, read to get more knowledge. You get the idea.

I've been reading A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson since December, and I just can't seem to get through it. It's interesting, but at the same time it's not. At times it's funny, and at times it's just a history of national parks and very dry...whatever. I can identify with a lot of the stuff he talks about though, and says, especially this last one. It made me laugh out loud on the plane because it is just SO true. And I whole-heartedly agree-
"If there is a greater reason for being grateful to be alive in the twentieth century than the joy of stepping from the dog's breath air of a really hot summer's day to the crisp, clean, surgical chill of an air conditioned establishment, then I really can't think of it."

Snow

Besides being the weather phenomenon we all know and love, Snow is also the title to the book I'm reading for my final symposium for my middle eastern history class. It's by a Turkish author named Orhan Pamuk, who's won the Nobel Prize in literature two or three times, once for this book. I'm a little over halfway through it right now, and it is fantastic. Even reading it at lightning speed (block plan), I totally understand the cultural context, social nuances, and personal issues going on at several levels. Snow's a recurring theme, obviously, and it's also very deep, but if you have some time and want a really good murder mystery meets sad love story meets social turmoil book, it's a keeper.

Here's two of my favorite excerpts from my reading today. I just love when authors get it exactly right at that exact moment in fictional time. Perfect:
"And how beautiful was the falling snow! How large the snowflakes were, and how decisive. It was as if they knew their silent procession would continue until the end of time. The wide avenue was buried knee-deep; it climbed up a slope to disappear into the night. How white and how mysterious!"

context-- sad, sorry, pathetic, but oddly courageous and charming man "Ka" is trying to win the heart of his long lost "love" (personally, I think he's delusional and should base is love on more than a first glance after 20 years of separation...but whateva. then it wouldn't be interesting.) anyways, this is his love's sister telling him what he needs to do to get the girl:
(Ka): "What do I have to do to convince her to trust me?"
"It may not happen in the first instant, but within ten minutes of meeting a man, a woman has a clear idea of who he is, or at least who he might be for her, and her heart of hearts has already told her whether or not she's going to fall in love with him. But her head needs time to understand what her heart has decided. If you ask me, there's very little a man can do at this point except wait for time to take its course. If you really love her, all you have to do is tell her all the beautiful things you feel about her; why you love her, why you want to marry her."

I don't necessarily agree with all that, but I think it's an interestingly beautiful idea. and in this story, it totally fits with the themes and ideals of the characters.

Hooray historical fiction and no more smelly, yucky, non-fiction essay crap!