Wednesday, April 29, 2009

wha...?

I'm just sitting here minding my own business.

A few minutes ago, some lady came past me, yawning. I looked up, made eye contact, and smiled--something I usually try to do.

I was amazed when she started talking to me. I didn't think she was talking to me at first, but yep, it was me.

"I'm so tired!" she said. "But it's still morning. I have a right to be tired." Brief pause. "I was just up so late trying to find my card! You know. My card." Pause. "Good thing I live where I do. Cleaning checks, you know. You know. I have to go to an appointment."

She kept on talking. I couldn't take it. Eventually she left, and as she was leaving she passed some other girl and started talking to her.

This lady did mention something about Medicaid during the conversation, so I'm guessing there was a good reason for our strange moment.

And yet, I'm still a little weirded out.

Oh well.

Friday, April 10, 2009

"female impressionism"

I was looking at this thing right now on gay celebrities (I NEED TO STOP FOCUSING ON RANDOM TRIVIA AND DO SOMETHING PRODUCTIVE WITH MY LIFE), and there was a caption on one of the guys saying that he was a "New York female impressionist."

Of course, my first thought was that he was a painter. He was, indeed, holding a painting in the picture of him.

But then the rest of the caption talked about how he was beaten and stuff for being gay and how he was dressed. And that's when I realized that being a "female impressionist" has nothing to do with actually being female or being an impressionist.

It has everything to do, apparently, with being a drag queen.

The news media... is so strange. "Female impressionism?" At least they could pick a phrase that doesn't come hand in hand with images of Renoir and Manet. O.o;;

UPDATE: A real female impressionist.

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

home stretch.

School is almost over. The freedom is so close, I can almost taste it, except not really, because you can't really taste freedom, can you.

This week is stressful.

TO DO:
- finish amazing hard Soils midterm
- take O Chem quiz
- take O Chem midterm
- finish 12-page research paper
- give oral presentation (after I come up with a presentation)
- Pesticide Olympics
- Tea Party meetings every night at 5 pm in the Kennedy Center (you should come!)
- keep up to date on current events
- Soils quiz
- Inferno stuff
- write critique of someone else's 12-page paper

Hmm. And probably other things too.

Well. Life's okay. Oh yeah, I have to apply for a job. Oh well.

So anyway. Sorry if I'm lame this week.

Poor Carl had to stay up until 9 pm last night writing a paper, and then he had to wake up at 2:30 or so to finish it. My poor man. And we have to be on campus today until basically 6 pm. Yay being on campus for 14 hours straight!!! WOOT!!!!!

x.x;

Friday, April 3, 2009

Lesch-Nyhan thoughts

Yesterday I went in the Bookstore. I was checking out this non-fiction book I don't know the name of, by the guy who wrote The Hot Zone. The last chapter was on something called the self-cannibals. So I read it, always being intrigued by anything that sounds that strange.

These self-cannibals are victims of a hereditary disease called Lesch-Nyhan disease. It's a sex-linked disease, which means it's carried on the X chromosome, much like hemophilia. Women don't get it, because they typically have another X chromosome to take over from the defective one; men do get it, because they only have one X (and one Y, remember?). They don't have a functional copy to erase the effects of the defunct X.

This disease intrigues me very much. You can tell if a child has it because right off they will urinate orange sand. Yes--urinate orange sand. It's from a buildup of uric acid in their blood. Lesch-Nyhan is basically the suppression of a particular enzyme that keeps uric acid levels manageable. Because of this, up until recently Lesch-Nyhan people would die of gout and kidney failure by typically the age of four. Now, most Lesch-Nyhans die around age 20, though some live much longer.

But the amazing thing about this disease is that the physical aspects of the problem are hardly the most devastating. And not only that--this other aspect of the disease has apparently no genetic marker. And sufferers of Lesch-Nyhan have the same exact brain structure as typical, non-Lesch-Nyhan people.

Lesch-Nyhan people are self-inflictors. Self-saboteurs. They compulsively destroy their own lives--even as they cry out for help. A picture in the book I was reading showed a boy who had chewed off both of his lips, and his own hands had torn out his palate bones one by one. These people bite off their own fingers, even as they scream for restraints. They beg for people to tie their hands to chairs. One man I read about used a fork to hack off his own nose--in a restaurant. As he screamed for people to stop him.

And this behavior is not limited to physical self-sabotage. These people are the cruelest to people they love most. You can tell a Lesch-Nyhan person loves you because they will never say a kind word to you. You can tell a Lesch-Nyhan person hates you because they will be extra sweet to you. If you ask a Lesch-Nyhan person what they want to do, they will tell you the exact opposite of what they actually want.

This is called a behavioral phenotype. It is amazing to me because I cannot fathom a disease that could sidetrack the most basic of human instincts: self-interest. I am incredulous at the concept of a disease that would cause a person's body to harm itself. And even more, I am amazed at the concept of a disease that would make a person compulsively lie to prevent his own happiness.

This particular disease is troubling to me. I wouldn't say my faith is shaken, but I had never contemplated the idea of a behavioral phenotype--a set of behaviors genetically predetermined that simply cannot be sidetracked. The mere existence of this sort of disorder is a strong argument for the third tenet of Darwinism, the one that repulses me to the core. The one stating that people cannot make choices, because our genetics predetermine everything about us. The one claiming that people are no better than animals, destined to evolve in the same way. The one that says that free agency is a mere delusion.

Because if there is such thing as a behavioral phenotype, who is to say that anyone truly has free agency?

If everyone's behavior is determined by his or her genetics, then there really cannot be responsibility. I remember this one time in an elevator, my own genetically-mutated brother reached out and grabbed some random girl's boob. Awkward. We tried to pry his hand off her boob (awkward!!!), and when it was over, no one thought worse of my brother, not even that girl whose boob it was, because we all recognized that James has no real control over his own behavior. You can't hold someone accountable for something they didn't choose.

Do you see what the issue is here?

I just have to wonder, how many of my obsessions are manifestations of my own behavioral phenotype? Arguably, all my actions are. Arguably, every choice anyone makes is really only a manifestation of predetermined genetic makeup.

And yet, if this is true, then what is the meaning of life?

Weird.

So anyway, I guess I'll come back to this post later. Anyone else find themselves bizarrely affected by the knowledge of this disease's existence?

Miss America Story.

So, I have had limited contact with Miss America contestants--to my knowledge I have only known five--but is it just me, or are they all exactly the same? Only one I have met is not totally... exemplified, shall we say, in this story.

THE STORY

So this chick I'm working with for the Tea Party movement has her eyes set on being Miss America. She's running for Miss Provo this year. Anyway, we were trying to increase membership in the Tea Party movement. And as she went through her list of friends to invite them to the movement, she just kept on this running commentary: "Oh, this guy will hate me. Oh, this person will hate me. Oh, this person will hate me..." over and over until she'd invited 200 people.

"Allie," she said, "I just made 200 people hate me!"

So I go to her Facebook page and she only has like 204 friends. Which means I have approximately 4.5x as many friends.

"Don't worry about it. I made 500 people hate me this morning," I said.

She stopped talking.

Until then I needed her email for the group. She started spelling out something, and then she was like, "! Just kidding! I can't put that one up! I don't want people to know how old I am!" And so I deleted it. She waited. "I'm only nineteen," she said. "I mean, that's really, really young."

And then she kept saying that. Different variations, over and over.

So I finally said, "No worries. I understand. I was 16 when I started here, and I just turned twenty."

She stopped talking.

:O)

Here's the thing: if you really care about not letting people know how old you are, YOU DON'T EVER BRING IT UP. When you really care about the prejudice and random crap people put you through for being young, you avoid the situation at all costs. You would NEVER ever ever put your birthyear in your email, and if you had an email like that, you would just let it die out. Never touch it again. You would not be telling your greatest secret to everyone on the street.

Oh, Miss America contestants... when will you learn?

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

licenced.

Maybe I spelled that wrong. "License" is one of those words that I can never remember how to spell (lisense? license? licence? wtf?), along with that horribly annoying word, exercise (exercize? excersize? exersize? wtf?).

I took my Pesticide Application exam at the Dept of Agriculture yesterday. Here is the dumb thing:

There are three tests. One of them, Private, is open-note and you can look at anything you want as you take the test. The other is Commercial. That one, you can't look at anything except what they give you. It's the same exact test, just one way you can basically cheat, and the other way you can't.

Well, I showed up with no notes, and took the test. Private. Because I am retarded. I had to take it closed-note and I didn't even get the licence that lets me work for hire with pesticide.

And beyond that--even though it was closed note, I took the tests in 1/4 of the time they usually take, and I got over 15 points more than I needed to pass.

So, I've been beating myself up on that one. I should just go back and retake it for a commercial license.

Last night we had a meeting about the upcoming Tea Parties. I always get so angry at those things, and then I just feel so helpless I just cry. Lame. Somehow I need to figure out what I can do that involves more than getting into arguments with idiots on facebook.