How this semester has changed my thinking
- Every time I sit down with a cup of tea, I can’t help but think about the conceptual metaphor AFFECTION IS WARMTH and, suddenly the gently steaming hot liquid feels like a hug and exactly what I need at that moment.
- When you are eating a piece of bread, you are eating wheat, which is hexaploid (contains six sets of chromosomes) as well as yeast, which is haploid (contains one set of chromosomes).
- I went to the symphony last Thursday, and midway through Venus in The Planets I saw this wonderful image of a small boat drifting in the ocean, with a small cloud of lotus blossoms falling like snow around it and I can’t get that out of my head.
- At my 8:30 Econ stats class, still sleep-dazed and with coffee in hand, I actually thought to myself (semi-sarcastically) that life is like a Poisson distribution, because it has a fixed interval of time and you never know exactly how many events are going to occur.
- I realized that much like the field of phrenology was used the 19th century to scientifically justify racial biases, so is the field of evolutionary psychology misused today to scientifically justify gender biases.
- I finally read one of my favorite poems I heard on the radio in its entirety in class today, and discovered this line: But my heart is always propped up/ in a field on its tripod, /ready for the next arrow.
- If the order of genes on a chromosome is backwards in one area, that chromosome will do a roller-coaster loop-de-loop in that area when it aligns with its normal counterpart to make sure everything matches again. How this happens chemically, I have no idea, but the fact that it happens at all is pretty staggering.
- Plants have an immune system. Also, when herbivores lay their eggs on a plant so that when the eggs hatch, the larvae can eat it, some plants are actually chemically “warned” to brace for incoming larval attack before it even happens.
- I now know how to crochet, although I use my fingers a lot, and my “scarf” is more hourglass shaped than I’d like.
- Being a student does not mean acting like some kind of unbreakable productive machine. No matter how much you may get swept up in the beauty and pressure of learning, you have to set your limits and look out for your own-well being.
Ever lovely yours,
Eleanor
