Under the Skin

I have sprees where I feel like I'm the best blogger in the world.  Then, I have crises like today when I start to wonder why I would ever start a blog.  I have a boring life.  Today's highlight was making blood jello, aka simulating blood clotting in little itty-bitty cups in order to evaluate the intrinsic coagulation pathway.  It's official name is PTT or partial thromboplastin time, but I like calling it making blood jello.  We even centrifuged out the red stuff too make it more appetizing.  I spend a lot of time with blood, but I probably spend more time with plasma and serum, which people find to be less stomach-wrenching than blood for some reason.  Perhaps the fact that I don't find it to be stomach-wrenching at all contributes to that. Anyways, I like my life.  But I wonder if other people would.  I was talking with the MLS that teaches the intro-to-the-major class. She was talking about how there is a problem in the medical world,...

There are some things in this world that a lot of other people seem to like that I quite frankly don't.  One of these things is pre-cut fruit.  I bought some cantaloupe and honeydew the other day, and since I bought it from the little grocery store, and not the real grocery store, they were not full-sized fruits.  They were buckets of pre-cut fruit.  There are many reasons I don't like fruit this way: 1) It goes bad faster.  It really does 2) It is generally not as cheap as buying the full melon.  But, I don't have a car, and I wanted melons and fruit. 3) They cut the pieces WAY too big 4) I actually enjoy cutting fruit. 5) I am a control freak I want to decide how big my pieces are.  I know the size of my mouth.  And I generally believe that unless it is a wedge of watermelon, melon should be eaten in bite-sized pieces.  You shouldn't have to take melon out of your mouth once it has touched your lips.  Not only is juicy, messy a...

For Valentine's Day, BYU's Harold B Lee Library had a program called "Blind Date with a Book."  They had taken a bunch of "hidden treasure" books and wrapped them up in brown paper.  On the outside of the brown paper, they had written a description of the book, making it sound like a date (such as, "I'm adventurous and mysterious," or "I like to do things the traditional way").  Then, they had made a copy of the library barcode and put that on the brown paper as well.  Then, you picked a book and checked it out, not knowing what it was.  I thought it was a cute idea.  They always say, "Never judge a book by its cover." This way, there was no way you could.  So, I looked at the descriptions and saw one that said, "I like the classics and I'm good with kids."  I assumed that meant it was a children's book, and the thickness didn't seem like something I couldn't handle with my classes.  So, I ...

I have never been much for Valentine's Day.  You can tell people you love each other any day.  Why do we need a special day dedicated to it?  To me, it's just an excuse for an awful love of candy.  But, on the other hand, it is a special day.  And I don't even need to know how. Day 14: Best Movie Kisses, The Princess Bride How could I not end our festival with "the most passionate, the most pure" kiss in the history of the kiss?  'Nough said. Day 14: Best TV Kisses, Merlin (yes, again) I told you quite plainly that I believed these two to have chemistry.  Plus, the pickins are more slim in TV, and I'm not as well-versed in television. But, I love pretty much every time they kissed. Day 14: Best Animated Kisses, Hunchback of Notre Dame So, it is true that this kiss is an interesting one to end with.  And honestly, if I had a little more foresight, I probably would have picked another kiss for the last one.  But, I still ...

A kiss is a funny thing.  It can encompass everything from the the most innocent of a child's kisses, to the less innocent of an older person's.  But really, a kiss is more importantly the way that we tell each other how we feel.  I admit that I used to not "get it."  I thought kissing looked wet and gross and chapped-like and all of those things.  However, I get it now.  Maybe it's because I've kissed now.  It's so much better than that. Day 13, Best Movie Kisses, Never Been Kissed Speaking of not getting it, here's a movie where the girl probably doesn't get it.  I also don't get Drew Barrymore.  But because of the cuteness of this scene and the beauty of Michael Vartan, here it is!  I haven't actually seen this movie for about 8 years.  But I remember this kiss at the baseball diamond. Day 13, Best TV Kisses, Raising Hope Here is a show that I watched the first little bit of the first season, and then lost inte...

Edmond Rostand wrote in Cyrano de Bergerac, "A kiss is a secret which takes the lips for the ear."   The kiss is something shared between two people who love each other.  In French, there are actually three words for "to kiss."  One is kissing a baby or a friend or a greeting, one is kissing in love, and one...let's just say it has more to do with biology than love.  But, the kissing for love is the pure kissing that I'm talking about.  It is the kiss that is a secret. Day 12: Best Movie Kisses, Star Wars Let's face it, the newest three Star Wars were little more than garbage.  However, the first three were good. As I've analyzed it throughout my life, I think a lot of that was Harrison Ford.  The first time you watch this clip, just watch it for the beauty of the kiss.  Then watch it again and imagine that instead of Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford, it is Hayden Christiansen and Natalie Portman.  It will because ridiculous more tha...

So really, from an outsider perspective, kissing is just sucking on body parts.  And I was going to say that I don't think people do that to other body parts, but then I realized that some people do.  The time I saw two people in my junior year English class sucking on each others' hands (no joke) comes to mind.  But really, I think that kissing is so much more than that.  It is an expression of love.  For whatever reason, we decided that that was how we would express it in our species.  And now, embrace it. Day 11: Best Movie Kisses, That Thing You Do In this kiss, Guy asks Faye when the last time she was truly kissed was.  She says 1961.  Seeing as she just got out of a multi-year relationship with a guy, this is a sad thing!  I hadn't been kissed until Brian, but I think that's a sad thing to have kissed a person for that long and then realize that none of it was real.  So, I'm glad that Guy can give her a real kiss.  And it...

In the movie, The Princess Bride , they refer to the kiss as something that was invented.  But how, if it is an invention, could it have arisen in every culture (except for those noted in an earlier post).  Some anthropologists believe that the kiss comes from the fact that at some point in our species' history, after babies were ready for solid food, but couldn't chew it themselves, mothers would chew it up in their mouth and then transfer it mouth to mouth. I don't know if I want to believe this, because it takes something beautiful like a kiss and turns it into passing ABC nutrition.  I like to believe it is something much less germy--even though it is very germy. Day 10: Best Movie Kisses, Stardust Every kiss is better when someone glows.  And this kiss between Tristan and Yvaine makes Yvaine glow.  She is a star, after all.  Besides, this is when Tristan finally realizes that Yvaine is leaps and bounds above Victoria, the woman who is auctioning ...

Looking to lose weight?  One minute of solid kissing burns approximately 26 calories.  How many calories have we watched being burned on my blog this month?   Approximately 60 calories! Day 9: Best Movie Kisses, Sense and Sensibility It was inevitable that at some point this month, we would see some Jane Austen kissing.  This one is the sweetest one that I know.  Also, this is probably my favorite Jane Austen couple.  Elinor and Edward are deep enough that I feel like they're real, but still likeable.  My favorite Austen man is, in fact, Knightley, but I feel like he married down with Emma. Anyways, Elinor and Edward make a good kiss, and we have a legitimate camera spin to top it off. Day 9: Best TV Kisses, Covert Affairs When you have a crazy major that has all its tests each and every Friday, Friday nights and afternoons commonly turn into one major decompression.  So, I have discovered Covert Affairs .  It'...

Did you know that kissing stimulates your heart rate to increase, your blood pressure increases while you kiss, you breathe much more deeply when kissing, and your pupils dilate!   Did you also know that humans have special neurons for kissing in the dark.  And the fMRI of someone who is kissing is indistinguishable from that of someone on drugs.  I don't actually know how they did that study, because really, think about that.  How would you do an fMRI on a kissing person?  I could see how you could do an fMRI on two kissing people, but then how would you be able to separate them again? Day 8, Best Movie Kisses, Pirates of the Caribbean So what's better than getting married?  Getting married on a boat.  What's better than getting married on a boat?  Getting married on a boat while fighting bad guys.  And the crossing swords right before the kiss is a nice touch. Day 8, Best TV Kisses, Chuck So, we're back...

There are people who study kissing.  The study of kissing is called philematology.  So, I consider this one big study in media-based anthropologic philematalogy.  We are analyzing the what makes the kisses good, as well as the romantic area surrounding them. Day 7: Best Movie Kisses, North and South When you first hear the title of this movie, you probably are thinking that it's a Civil War story.  It's actually referring to the North and South of England and how the North came to be Industrialize and the South was the "refined" area.  I love Elizabeth Gaskell, so love stories by Elizabeth Gaskell that have more to offer than just romance are choice.   Besides, Richard Armitage is such a beautiful specimen of masculinity. Day 7: Best TV Kisses, The Middle I know that a lot of people don't know The Middle .  It's a sitcom about an average, lower-middle class family in Indiana.  I find it to be the funniest show on all of television...

Here we are once again.  Did you know that the Thongi tribe of South Africa doesn't kiss?  Also, in many native Amazon cultures, adults don't kiss.  Eskimos really do rub their noses together and that is their form of kissing--they don't use their lips.  While I think it would be pretty adorable if we "kissed" with our noses, I am glad that we're not Thongi or Amazonian, because then I wouldn't be able to continue--or even to have started--this festival. Day 6: Best Movie Kisses, Leap Year In this movie, the two love interests are pretending to be married because they are traveling duress and learn that the inn keepers only have one room, and refuse to give it to an unmarried couple.  At dinner, the other married couples (the inn keepers and then the other random Italians), encourage them to kiss, saying that they kissed each other.  They are not romantically involved at this time, and in fact, the woman is in a serious relationship.  Basically, ...

Today, I didn't do as well as I would have liked on my weekly micro test, my research grant didn't get approved and 50 disposable, plastic knives fell on my head.  But this is okay, because we have the daily kissing dose!  Day 5: Best Movie Kisses, It's a Wonderful Life Okay, so I know full well that there are people in this world--such as my cousin-in-law ("Is there such a thing as a cousin-in-law?)--who do not like this movie.  But I love it.  And a huge piece of it is that I love the character of George Bailey.  He is a genuinely wonderful guy.  And he does love Mary, and Mary is lucky to have him.  But getting married and having four kids (no matter how cute those four are), was not in his plan.  And I really think that there is no problem with that.  You don't have to be happy that your plans got smashed, you just have to be happy with the ones that did happen.  And I think that this kiss represents that concept--the loving what...

Maybe we shouldn't be watching so much kissing.  But, I find it quite enjoyable.  I really don't know if anyone else on Earth is enjoying this.  But I am.  So, let us continue with Day 4 Day 4: Best Movie Kisses , Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 So, let's face it, the only people who shipped Harry and Hermione were people who had never read the books.  Everyone who read the books shipped Ron and Hermione.  It was obvious from approximately the second chapter that Hermione was in that they would get together. So, this may have been the most awaited kiss in movie history.  Plus, they both start the kiss with "I have always wanted to do this," and they both end this kiss with "Yeah.  I have wanted to do that for forever and we should have done that a long time ago." Day 4: Best TV Kisses, Bones I have a roommate who watches Bones a lot. At least she did until she got engaged.  Then she didn't really do it much.  B...

I am sure that by the Fourteenth, some of you are going to be thinking, "When is this girl going to stop?"  Well, you needn't ask the question, because I have already told you.  The fourteenth.  All the same, Cupid and Aphrodite and Adonis and Freya and Aonghus and Mabon and all the other love deities of all the other pantheons are looking on and smiling.  So, even though these love deities do not exist, we are going to continue on, all the same. Day 3: Best Movie Kisses, Enchanted Disney recently has been seeming to have a hit or miss pattern with their movies.  And what do I think they did here?  Hit.  Enchanted is a cute twist on the story, as well poking fun at all the stereotypes of Disney movies.  It's good to know that Disney can laugh at themselves. But this kiss hits mostly every classic criteria of good kissing in movies.  In the rain?  Check.  In a place where you wouldn't usually kiss?  Check.  Just defeat...

While the Epstein-Barr viruses stand vigil (they cause Mono), we continue our celebration of the swapping of spit.  I probably should say something to honor the Woodchuck, as it is Groundhog's Day, but I've always like girly-gushy romance more than Groundhogs.  In fact, I don't much understand the appeal of Groundhog's Day.  So, I will just suffice that to say that Punxsutawney Phil predicts the end of winter, and continue on with the Valentine's Special. Day 2: Best Movie Kisses, Galaxy Quest I know that this might be a strange kiss to like so much.  But, I find it absolutely hilarious to think about it in the context.  The people at this ComiCon-like-thing have no idea of the backstory.  Therefore, I like to think about the different responses of, "They're just trying to get publicity," or "do you think that's Gwen and Jason kissing, or do you think that they're acting and it's the Captain and the Lieutenant kissing," or may...

The Final's Special worked so well, and I have been thinking about this for months!  For the month of February, we will have the "Best Kisses" that I've done before for Valentine's Day, but this is going to be a Fourteen-Day Extravaganza.  I have been preparing and preparing for this folks.  Each day, I will submit to you three kisses: One from a movie, one from a TV show and one from an animated movie.  In the end, we will have the Fourteen Best of TV, Movies and Animation.  I am bad with ordering things that I like, so they are in either the order the clips were procured or I thought of them, or just in random order.  But, if you're not a kiss person, then you may choose not read these.  If you are like most women and some men in the modern world, I think you will enjoy this as much as I do. Day 1:  Best Movie Kisses, Far and Away Far and Away is a very corny movie.  I do not pretend that this is not so.  And yet, it is so corny ...