Saturday, February 7, 2009
I don't really blog...Tsk!
All the stuff below was written for an English class. Eh! I dunno know if I'm the type for actual blogging. If I ever care to, I guess I'll use this lil nook.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Prose Poem
Home from college, to tea! While at work, grinding the homework, mining the essays—a break my soul cries, a break to tea! Toss the kettle on, grab the large mug fit for hot brew, attend now the shrieking boiler, pour its bubbling element, grab the precious tea, spoon the sugar—stir all together! Oh, good, a little break.... A little break of pleasantness, commonness, little-goodness. A time to snub the howls that come from Homeworkland and the depths of the Mines of Activity. Good lands, good, of course, but let me have my tea and be! Back to work I'll go, to friend and foe in Homeworkland, very soon, indeed, to the last sip am I. There, 'tis gone, the lovely brown brew. Little food-friend of everyday and now and then. Much appreciated, though you are gone too soon. And now away I whisk, to work in the Mines of Activity, digging up concepts, observations, and interpretations. I'll be back soon to tea, for it's brutal work.
Change in Taxonomy, Change in Life
Assignment 3
I headed into the woods, my rubber boots on as well as my will to sit motionless for several minutes at a time. I was going to be a zoologist, after all, and patiently sitting motionless was one of the needed skills. By sitting unnoticed, any critter could wander by and show me a little of their natural world, one which wasn't being invaded by eager little kids with boxes to catch them. I was one of those, too. I call the desire to make pets out of wild animals (small ones, like mice, voles, birds, that is) and the acquisition of small wild animals (thanks to cats who wounded them) zoorphanism. Fond of wild animals, I'm also fond of scientific terms and names. Taxonomy, the scientific classification of all kinds of life, was immensely appealing to me. Ordering everything into categories, one could come to understand each animal or plant or bacteria's place in the natural world, as far as human understanding and organization skills went. Taxonomy alone can tell us a little about the short-tailed weasel, my favorite animal, simply by understanding what its classification means.
There are five kingdoms: Animalia, Plantae, Fungi, and the slightly less lovable Protista and Monera. Animalia has about 9 or 10 million members, or “animals” ( ranging from mammals, fishes, birds, insects, worms, etc). At this level, the key features that make something an animal as opposed to a plant created yawns from my happily booted self. I didn't care particularly about multicellular beings, or that animals lacked the plant kingdom's rigid cell walls. I was interested in seeing fuzzy things displaying their behaviors and characteristics.
Moving on from the categories of Animalia and Phylum (another “boring” category that only told me that the animals I was interested in had a spine-like feature), we enter the classes, and these are more familiar even to people who think the entire system a bore. Mammalia, Amphibia, Aves --mammals, amphibians, birds, and etc. Finally, a level where anyone could see why they might put cats and dogs and goats in one category and frogs in another. Inside Mammalia, my favorite class, things goe even more exiting. Carnivora, Rodentia, Lagomorphia, Insectivora—things were getting more and more specific, and here's where many people have fun making mistakes. Rabbits aren't rodents, a meat-eating shrew isn't a member of Carnivoria, and marsupials are no longer a single class. Of course, the frustrating thing about taxonomic facts is that they could change tomorrow as taxonomists reorder things (as they did marsupials).
Diving into Carnivora, we find families: the cat family (Felidae), dog family (Canidae), weasel family (Mustelidae), raccoon family (Procyonidae), and, depending on who you ask to be honest, about 13 in all. Mustelidae boasts the highest number of species of any Carnivoran family, above cats and dogs, around 60. North American Mustelids include weasels, river and sea otters, American and European badgers, wolverines, polecats/ferrets, black-footed ferret (which isn't a “ferret”), martens, fishers, mink, and once upon a time skunks (they were booted and sent to their own family for technical reasons). Once upon a time, what great delight it gave me to recite my favorite members of Mustelidae, and I was going to study them someday! How I wanted to understand all the taxonomy, behaviors, physique, and beauty and charm of this family. I was always annoyed that people focused on the label of weasels as either devious sneaks or crazed berserkers (curiously contrasting stereotypes), or that a key feature of the family was how bad their musk smells, something made famous by the booted skunks. There was more to them than that. I planned informant websites as well as fantasy stories that would portray them in a more complete light, but it didn't happen.
My plan had changed. I no longer read technical books about the weasel family nor do I wish to be a zoologist. My life was interrupted by something I consider better a few years ago. While I have forgotten many things I once knew, I still have a great deal of fondness for Mustelidae and Mustela erminea in particular. After Mustelidae, one comes to the genus, a sort of last name for animals who are very closely related: Mustela is the last name of the weasels, including the smallest, the least weasel, and the largest, the long-tailed weasel, all essentially weasels, yet different enough to warrant a different species name. The species, finally, is the first name of animals, creating, along with the genus, a unique name. When I refer to Mustela erminea, any scientist or layperson can know which particular species I refer to, whereas saying erminea or stoat or short-tailed weasel creates confusion outside of its vernacular home. Once a species is named, taxonomists are very hesitate to rename it because it would cause so much confusion.
But change is a part of life. Once, the idea that I would ever want to do something other than study weasels, mice, shrews, etc, disturbed me. My name was Zoologistia sabrina! I was offended at the idea that I might ever lose interest in weasels. Interestly enough, I haven't lost interest, I've just been distracted by something else. Considering how much I enjoyed weasels, I would say that's the best way to chang; to find something better.
Today's taxonomic facts (alright, I'm just being grim) from Animal Diversity Web, http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/index.html
I headed into the woods, my rubber boots on as well as my will to sit motionless for several minutes at a time. I was going to be a zoologist, after all, and patiently sitting motionless was one of the needed skills. By sitting unnoticed, any critter could wander by and show me a little of their natural world, one which wasn't being invaded by eager little kids with boxes to catch them. I was one of those, too. I call the desire to make pets out of wild animals (small ones, like mice, voles, birds, that is) and the acquisition of small wild animals (thanks to cats who wounded them) zoorphanism. Fond of wild animals, I'm also fond of scientific terms and names. Taxonomy, the scientific classification of all kinds of life, was immensely appealing to me. Ordering everything into categories, one could come to understand each animal or plant or bacteria's place in the natural world, as far as human understanding and organization skills went. Taxonomy alone can tell us a little about the short-tailed weasel, my favorite animal, simply by understanding what its classification means.
There are five kingdoms: Animalia, Plantae, Fungi, and the slightly less lovable Protista and Monera. Animalia has about 9 or 10 million members, or “animals” ( ranging from mammals, fishes, birds, insects, worms, etc). At this level, the key features that make something an animal as opposed to a plant created yawns from my happily booted self. I didn't care particularly about multicellular beings, or that animals lacked the plant kingdom's rigid cell walls. I was interested in seeing fuzzy things displaying their behaviors and characteristics.
Moving on from the categories of Animalia and Phylum (another “boring” category that only told me that the animals I was interested in had a spine-like feature), we enter the classes, and these are more familiar even to people who think the entire system a bore. Mammalia, Amphibia, Aves --mammals, amphibians, birds, and etc. Finally, a level where anyone could see why they might put cats and dogs and goats in one category and frogs in another. Inside Mammalia, my favorite class, things goe even more exiting. Carnivora, Rodentia, Lagomorphia, Insectivora—things were getting more and more specific, and here's where many people have fun making mistakes. Rabbits aren't rodents, a meat-eating shrew isn't a member of Carnivoria, and marsupials are no longer a single class. Of course, the frustrating thing about taxonomic facts is that they could change tomorrow as taxonomists reorder things (as they did marsupials).
Diving into Carnivora, we find families: the cat family (Felidae), dog family (Canidae), weasel family (Mustelidae), raccoon family (Procyonidae), and, depending on who you ask to be honest, about 13 in all. Mustelidae boasts the highest number of species of any Carnivoran family, above cats and dogs, around 60. North American Mustelids include weasels, river and sea otters, American and European badgers, wolverines, polecats/ferrets, black-footed ferret (which isn't a “ferret”), martens, fishers, mink, and once upon a time skunks (they were booted and sent to their own family for technical reasons). Once upon a time, what great delight it gave me to recite my favorite members of Mustelidae, and I was going to study them someday! How I wanted to understand all the taxonomy, behaviors, physique, and beauty and charm of this family. I was always annoyed that people focused on the label of weasels as either devious sneaks or crazed berserkers (curiously contrasting stereotypes), or that a key feature of the family was how bad their musk smells, something made famous by the booted skunks. There was more to them than that. I planned informant websites as well as fantasy stories that would portray them in a more complete light, but it didn't happen.
My plan had changed. I no longer read technical books about the weasel family nor do I wish to be a zoologist. My life was interrupted by something I consider better a few years ago. While I have forgotten many things I once knew, I still have a great deal of fondness for Mustelidae and Mustela erminea in particular. After Mustelidae, one comes to the genus, a sort of last name for animals who are very closely related: Mustela is the last name of the weasels, including the smallest, the least weasel, and the largest, the long-tailed weasel, all essentially weasels, yet different enough to warrant a different species name. The species, finally, is the first name of animals, creating, along with the genus, a unique name. When I refer to Mustela erminea, any scientist or layperson can know which particular species I refer to, whereas saying erminea or stoat or short-tailed weasel creates confusion outside of its vernacular home. Once a species is named, taxonomists are very hesitate to rename it because it would cause so much confusion.
But change is a part of life. Once, the idea that I would ever want to do something other than study weasels, mice, shrews, etc, disturbed me. My name was Zoologistia sabrina! I was offended at the idea that I might ever lose interest in weasels. Interestly enough, I haven't lost interest, I've just been distracted by something else. Considering how much I enjoyed weasels, I would say that's the best way to chang; to find something better.
Today's taxonomic facts (alright, I'm just being grim) from Animal Diversity Web, http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/index.html
Monday, November 3, 2008
A Joyful Hither and Thither
Assignment 2
Ahh! The delight of facial expressions. Full of life and character, especially the genuine smile. Many supermodels would do well to learn how to smile. They keep throwing unreadable, “cool” expressions at me, and stand like who-knows-what! When a person really smiles the important part is not a huge grin, but the effects of the upturned mouth on the cheeks and eyes. The eyes, as one can clearly see in this photo of a man, is squished upward, hiding a part of his eye. Perhaps that's why supermodels don't smile. Goodness, sacrifice human warmth, but don't hide my beautiful eyes!
I love the human face, and its expressiveness. I find the “perfect” face unreadable and unnatural, what with its make-up and lack of being seen in my world. Everyday I see human beings, with all different sorts of faces, some prettier than others, some old and young, but all quite human. If I could, I would like to examine people's faces and enjoy a particular face for itself. But of course, that face is a person who wouldn't hestitate to give me a look.
Thankfully, story people aren't aware of being stared at, and so I may enjoy them and try to capture the essence of an expression. In my stories, many, many parts of me come together. My values, interests, beliefs, religious experience and beliefs, anything. Most of it is unintentional, and it's always surprising to realizes that I'm writing about myself while writing about another kind of person. I used to consider it as a sign that I lack any creativity whatsoever, but now I also consider it as a wonderful sort of thing. What I say in a story I wouldn't have been honest enough to say in a journal, nor might I have been aware of it. Stories are such a natural means of expression, and sneakily dressed as someone else to boot.
The meaning I stuff into pictures like this forest picture, in a way, has nothing to do with forests. Yet, for my meaning to work, it must be a specific kind of forest. It's very dark, mysterious, and there MUST be a sense of a something further in. It mustn't be too open, though it can be more crowded with foliage. If it is too sunny and cheerful, it becomes another sort of meaning, not my mysterious one. I see nothing oppressive or evil about the literal darkness. The feeling it creates in me is not fear, but a strange sort of joy, mixed with longing, confidence, and even a sense of power. The joy of being amongst dark, rich colors, the beauty of nature, and above all, the sense of that otherworldly something is futher in. This essence has something to do with literal conifers, lighting, and weather conditions, but many other images and concepts capture that essence as well. It is merely captured, not the something itself.
Christianity is serious about itself, and its not very romantic. At least not to me, one of Christ's followers. I have never felt the urge to feel that fantastical joy over Jesus Christ as I do trees. The idea sounds out of place, actually. Jesus Christ grants another kind of joy (assuming that yes, Jesus IS the Way, the Truth, and the Light, which is a huge subject beyond this essay), one which has very little to do with feelings, and all to do with with Truth and principles, righteousness and goodness. The photo is of a pslam, one which emphasizes over and over that God's “lovingkindness is everlasting.” The sheer goodness, and the seriousness about goodness, in Christ, creates in me a quiet, deep down kind of joy, as well as that agonizing sense of dread. It is strange to have them both at the same time, and yet what else could my response be? I see perfect goodness (built on a Person, structures, doctrines, and principles, not flimsy warm fuzzies), and a necessary demand for perfect goodness from me. Thus, joy and dread, because I am bad, but in the end joy. For, this ultimately good Person has rescued me from my own badness. Yet, says He, I must grow away from my badness.
Christianity is a very serious religion! (If it is indeed the true one. Hmm!)
Ahh! The delight of facial expressions. Full of life and character, especially the genuine smile. Many supermodels would do well to learn how to smile. They keep throwing unreadable, “cool” expressions at me, and stand like who-knows-what! When a person really smiles the important part is not a huge grin, but the effects of the upturned mouth on the cheeks and eyes. The eyes, as one can clearly see in this photo of a man, is squished upward, hiding a part of his eye. Perhaps that's why supermodels don't smile. Goodness, sacrifice human warmth, but don't hide my beautiful eyes!
I love the human face, and its expressiveness. I find the “perfect” face unreadable and unnatural, what with its make-up and lack of being seen in my world. Everyday I see human beings, with all different sorts of faces, some prettier than others, some old and young, but all quite human. If I could, I would like to examine people's faces and enjoy a particular face for itself. But of course, that face is a person who wouldn't hestitate to give me a look.
Thankfully, story people aren't aware of being stared at, and so I may enjoy them and try to capture the essence of an expression. In my stories, many, many parts of me come together. My values, interests, beliefs, religious experience and beliefs, anything. Most of it is unintentional, and it's always surprising to realizes that I'm writing about myself while writing about another kind of person. I used to consider it as a sign that I lack any creativity whatsoever, but now I also consider it as a wonderful sort of thing. What I say in a story I wouldn't have been honest enough to say in a journal, nor might I have been aware of it. Stories are such a natural means of expression, and sneakily dressed as someone else to boot.
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