Under the Skin

"What kind of men -- I wondered -- were these that killed by day, drank by night, but prayed each morning?" “The more men see of the world, the bigger their hearts." This week, I did my phlebotomy rotation.  I got the veins the majority of the time, and only had one pass-out (which, I found out, was why the blood draw was happening anyways, so I'm not even convinced it was my fault).  But, I also got to finish some more books. I read the first of the Crispin books, Crispin: The Cross of Lead , a long, long time ago.  Back when it won the Newbery Award.  By the way, it was approximately a month ago that I learned that Newbery in Newbery Award only has one r. Look it up.  It's true.  Anyways, I really liked the book then.  My mother thought it was "okay." I didn't quite understand why she would only say "okay."  I kind of understand now.  I didn't reread Cross of Lead, but I did read At the Edge of the World and The End...

 “The world is not a wish-granting factory.”   “You don't get to choose if you get hurt in this world...but you do have some say in who hurts you. I like my choices.”  How I got around to reading this book is a long story.  First, someone posted this on their facebook.  It is called "17 Rants in 4 Minutes."  I thought it was hilarious and so, I showed it to my brother, Caleb, who said, "Yeah, that's Hank Green.  This is the vlogbrothers." I'd never heard of such a youtube channel.  He explained to me that these two brothers, John and Hank Green, send vlogs to each other which they post on youtube. And honestly, though they only ever address their brother in the video, it's not really just for their brother.  And then, I became a fan of the vlogbrothers. They are so clever and funny, but always intelligent in the way they do it. As it turns out, neither of these brothers is just a vlogger.  Hank Green runs a record company and...

 “If a thing is right it can be done, and if it is wrong it can be done without; and a good man will find a way.” When I was a child, my brother, Sam, had a million and one of these abridgements.  They looked like this: I don't actually know what happened to these books.  But there were bajillions of them that just lived on Sam's shelf.  When I learned to read (and he was kind of grown out of them anyways), I started reading them en masse.  Part of this was that there was Book Bingo at school, and you got to mark off the genre of book on your bingo board for finishing it, whether or not it was on your level, short, long or whatever.  So, the majority of these, I probably could have read the real version, but I didn't.  It would have taken me longer, and I might not have won Book Bingo. It occurred to me not long ago that I should reread all the ones that I never got around to reading the real version.  I'm not going to say that I nev...

Today, I had a funny thought.  What if there was a line of scents named after different bacteria?  No, I'm serious.  In the lab, we sometimes use the smell of a bacteria to help identify it.  In college, we are taught the proper way to smell a plate to minimize the risk of infecting ourselves with it.  Stenotrophomonas smells like "a perm."  I don't know what a perm smells like, but I actually really like the smell of Steno.  Eikenella smells distinctly like bleach.  And it really does.  Staphylococcus epidermidis is actually why B.O. smells the way it does.  Streptococcus intermedius smells like butterscotch.  Citrobacter freundii just smells like nasty.  Pseudomonas smells, to some, like grapes.  To others it smells like corn chips.  To others, such as myself, it smells like both.  I don't know how that is possible, but it really smells like both.  Pseudomonas ' smell, in fact, is so distinct, that it...

Tomorrow, we can return to our regular blog style.  I think of myself as a pretty happy-go-lucky blogger.  And I know I don't have a lot of readership, which is fine by me.  I hope that anyone who reads here enjoys it, and that's all that matters.  But, today, I have to let you all know something so you don't get confused later on.  This past week, the man I was going to marry informed me that he did not want to marry me.  We were planning to get married this December.  When he told me, I was an emotional wreck.  I am stable again.  I even made it to work the next day, much to the amazement of the rest of the lab when they found out.  I am honestly not angry at him.  I wish him the best.  In the end, our personalities were different in a way that he could not love. When all is said and done, I don't want to live my life unloved, and he deserves better than living his life with a woman that he doesn't love.  The endpoint ...

 "The first postcard came a year later, from Malheur County, in Oregon. It simply said: We named the first one Ben .  And down in Sonora way a boy rides the range whose name is Abijah." I quite enjoy Western movies and TV.  And yet, I'd never read any Western novels.  So, I thought I'd give it a try.  And how else would you start reading Westerns than with the King of Western Novels, Louis L'Amour.  I don't know anything about Louis L'Amour, so I read the first one, alphabetically, on the shelf at the library, which was Catlow . Abijah Catlow and Ben Cowan grew up together.  But now, Catlow is a cattle rustler and outlaw, whereas Ben Cowan is a US Marshall.  And this is their story together.  This game of cat-and-mouse that they play, both respecting that the other will do what the other will do, but it won't effect what they do. It's a good enough story, but maybe the reason that I don't like it as much as I like Western movies and ...

Something really embarrassing and disappointing happened to me.  Let me first set some background information.  As many of you know, I enjoy writing fiction, particularly novels.  I'm not the best at it, but I like it and it's a "skill" (or something) that I hope to hone throughout my life.  As many of you may also know, I am not a fan of the Brontes.  I have yet to read anything (and I mean anything, poems included) that any of those sisters wrote that I find to be more than either trash or drivel. A few of you may also know that the thing that is hardest for me to write is romance.  I can never get romance right, for whatever reason. So, the other day, I was working on my novel with one of my writers' groups.  I know, I have writers' groups with people that I don't even know.  However, they really help me with my writing.  One of the people in my group, in a good-intentioned way said, "I really like this romantic subplot.  It kind of...

“It is better to be taught to think critically than to be told on what to believe.”    “If any honor existed in war, it was in fighting to protect others from harm” I have given myself the rule that I will review books in series only as a series.  I break that rule, because by the time I finish this series, blogs may have become obsolete, and I feel like it took so much effort to finish it, that I need to share now.  Eldest is the sequel to Eragon .  I read Eragon many moons ago, and tried to read Eldest , but just never got very far due to the awful, 100s of pages of a dwarf, a human, an elf and a dragon traveling and more traveling.  Eragon is a farmboy in Carvahall in the fantastical kingdom of Alagaësia.  Pronounced al-uh-gay-zee-uh.  Even though the trema should make it al-uh-guh-ez-ee-uh.  But I don't think the author knew what half of the diacritics he used throughout the book actually meant, but knew that ...

The time will come for everyone when they will have to die.  I know that this is a sad and depressing thought, but it is true.  No one can live forever.  With a few exceptions, it would seem.  So, today, I present to you 15 characters who I can't help but think, "How are you not dead?"  As always, in no particular order. 1. Aladdin Come on, even Jafar says, "How many times must I kill you boy?"  The guy is a death-defying master. He is constantly chased by guards in Agrabah and presumably sometimes caught. Agrabah, need I remind you, is in Arabia, and Arabians weren't really known for their forgiving penal system.  He is also shut inside a hole, sent to the Arctic in a turret and attacked by the most powerful sorcerer in the world.  Repeatedly.  2. Westley from The Princess Bride Once again, our villain even recognizes it.  As Humperdinck says, "I killed you too quickly the last time, a mistake I don't mean to dupl...

"Mike, You're not scary. Not even a little bit; but you are fearless." --Sulley It's not common that I review movies.  A lot of this is because I don't see new movies all that often.  However, I did see this movie in June, with Sarah.  Yes, I know that that was a long time ago.  And yet, I am reviewing it now. Monsters University is a prequel to Monsters, Inc., that follows how Sully and Mike met and their lives at MU.  As two college freshmen, both Scare Majors, they are diametrically opposed to one another.  Sully is kind of there for the fun, goes to class and scrapes by.  But hey, he's a talented scarer, and his family is knowing for scaring.  He doesn't worry about it.  Mike, on the other hand, is passionate about scaring and makes sure that he will be the top of the class.  He studies and studies, because he wants nothing more than to be a scarer.  They are, however, forced to work together after the head of the scar...