IUPAC-IUB

I get to catch up on biochem, because for the past week I was studying.....biochem. Not like IUB does anything for actually learning anything about membranes.
I went home this weekend. I shouldn't have. Dad blew up at me because I told him to please leave the doorway so I could walk through it. Yes, really. According to him, I'm just an arrogant, useless college student like everyone else he deals with, and that I should still listen to everything he says because he is never wrong, and that I've had my second strike; apparently my first was before I turned six years old. Hmm. I wonder why his grad students never talk to him anymore. Too bad if you mention that to him, he nearly throws you out of the house. And apparently, you're supposed to remember everything wrong the other person ever did. Whatever happened to the whole "forgive of past sins" thing?

I realize I should be grateful that I have parents who let me even visit home. But when going home turns into the man of the house blowing up at both me and my mother for no reason, why even bother?

The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naive forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget. I make every effort to fall in the latter category, though I will admit forgiveness is not easy.
I forgive people who blow up. But I can't forget. I have to stand up for myself in some way.

Clathrin coated pits won't accept that much LDL

.......and dish racks will not accept dirty dishes.

It seems that one is always destined to live with the people that are exactly opposite from you. For the past three years now, I've had to deal with at least one person who, for whatever reason, does not wash their dishes by day's end.

My cousin told me her stories of dealing with those kinds of people. Basically, nothing she did worked. So she ended up moving out.

This is totally coming from an only child who never had chores, never got yelled at to do dishes since Mom always did them for everyone. Yet, when I moved out, I did my kitchen stuff with no complaint. The dishes are washed and either in the rack or put away by the time I go to bed. The only time that didn't happen was when I was seriously ill last year, and sleeping all the time.

I just fail to understand why washing dishes after you use them is not second nature. And leaving dirty dishes out is not only nasty, it's just plain rude. You're taking up space for everyone else, and I can easily knock things over when I reach over those damn things to get to my own bowls and cups.

But, apparently, if you tell people that, they'll go right on doing it anyway.

Sigh.

Funny how things are

I always think it's funny how people think of actually killing the animal used for meat as gross, yet they don't mind eating said meat. I notice it more with the meats I don't eat (beef and pork) rather than the ones I do (fowl and fish). I have no problem seeing videos of any of the above animals being killed for food, polpescetarian animals or not. I obviously don't like the slaughter, but I can see that and still eat some animals. Well, not ones that give you either trichinosis or mad cow. I had no problem with pig dissections, yet people who ate the pig had so much problem with it. Funny. Hypocritical, actually. You eat the thing and you don't want to think about how it got on your plate......

Though quite honestly, I should probably cut out the fowl and eat the fish as that is better for you. That is not vegetarian by my definition. Vegetarian is not eating animals.

Regardless, I am done eating meat for the week. Huge frickin' serving at the cheesecake factory. Bhaji, rice and dal never looked so good.

Nothing endures but change

I realize how isolated I feel from a lot of people.

I also realize I've pretty much always been this way. It's not like I can't have a good time with people from high school or something, even the two girls from middle school I've kept sort of in touch with. But as Baxter said, our lives have all gone in different directions to the point where you just can't relate to a lot of people anymore. What does that mean, though, for a person like me, who has always had a hard time relating to others? Do I really understand the people I still call my friends, who were my friends in high school?

It's not that I don't have friends at UF. I have plenty, and I'm reasonably happy with my life now. But as we all know, the true test of friendship---or whatever passes as such----is time. I have had some taste of who actually bothered to keep tabs on me when I was away for the summer. Rebe is one of them. Regi and Sofi I talked to a little bit too, and of course Alex, my profligate sister/fiancee.

But they are what they are, and things work out as what they're meant to work out as.

Amen, and so be it.

Wow...

I'm a junior who has a lot of homework, a temperamental computer, doubts everything and has no luck with the opposite sex. Things are so different from four years ago.

I've started listening to Sara Bareilles. Yes, just now. But I happen to enjoy her music. I also happen to enjoy some of Def Leppard's music, OneRepublic and Lady Gaga. But anyone who knows me would know about the last one.

I'm too lazy to finish out what I was going to write here. But I have a lot of thoughts whirring in my head. I have just been too busy with school to really think about it all.

Food for thought

I once read in one of those "get ready for college books" that the people you were friends with your first year sometimes aren't the ones around by the end of college. Mostly, this hasn't applied to me---the people I was friends with my first year are still around, and I'm not talking just "hi" friends. There is one girl who still thinks that we are friends exactly the same as we were first year, and though I'm still her friend, I just sort of want to be her study buddy for MCB classes and nothing else, though I'm not really sure how to go about doing that.

There is one girl, though, I think that this applies to.

This is the girl who I lived side by side with my first semester here, then visited all the time second semester---this kid who never caused trouble, loved animals, wanted to be a vet. She happened to go to Australia .....and that's when I think things changed. She started getting better grades when she started drinking (reward system?), and did some very stupid things in the process. The main turning point was when she brought back a random guy without my notice at night, when I told her that this would be a problem...if she wasn't going to respect my and Tessa's policy, what else did she not respect? She didn't help when I got sick, though others---including ones who probably shouldn't have dropped by---did. And when she got her purse stolen upon her partying with people she didn't know, she had the guts to say that my situation (I was still on Valium) was easier than hers. I knew right then that if that's the kind of person she was going to be, she didn't need to be my roommate or my friend any longer----good grades did not always equal good person. The last time I spoke to her in person was when I gave her her tests back in August. It was then that I found out she doesn't want to go to vet school anymore. (but is still same major.) Her roommate this year is graduating, and is doing research/other stuff---still parties but is responsible about it. I don't really know her third roommate. Suffice it to say she moved away from her Texan friends and ended up becoming exactly like them.

It does still sort of sting to know that this is one friendship I should not have made. Then again, I realize that even the most in-tight friends will drift apart after awhile. After all, nothing endures but change, which must mean friendships will fade into nothing eventually. People move, people change, people die.

Thankfully, my other friends have so far kept me sane and made me realize that one bad apple doesn't spoil the bunch.

The ramifications of redshirting

I've seen a lot now about how kids with birthdays close to the cutoff are being held back. As someone whose birthday is a shave close to the cutoff line herself, I have plenty to say about that.

It is common knowledge that you should watch a kid's maturity level first and foremost. When my mom tried to start me in 3K, I was having none of it, despite the fact I had been babysat and in the company of kids my age quite a bit by that point. These kids were all ugly and white, not brown like I thought people should be. I thought they were going to try to turn me white too, and the teacher was so mean I couldn't stand it. A year later, they put me in 4K, but the school made me do 3K activities a few times a week. I fit in better with the 4K people, so they let me go on. But I was a crybaby. And though I know part of that is the fact that I was in doctors' offices so much as a little one (which as you can imagine would make most children scared in new situations) I also think part of it had to do with age. I never felt like I was exactly with my peers as far as feelings. I always felt either too far ahead or too far behind them, emotionally. Now I feel like I'm too far ahead and that I'm old before my time, which is so ironic considering I'm the youngest in the class. Maybe this is why I sought the company of those a year younger than me throughout most of my schooling. Had NFC had their way, I would have been in their class anyhow, so it sort of makes sense.

I don't think I would have gained much academically by being redshirted as I would have just going to a different school altogether, and research shows this also (the difference usually closes around the time kids start middle school.) I was an early reader and early talker; I already made the kids in my class feel like they were light years behind me as far as that one. Physically, also; I was always short and relatively weak, though I'm sure had I been kept back one year I would have been at least a little stronger than my classmates. Emotionally, it's hard to say. I don't know what I would have been like without the problems I had.

After watching those around me, I don't think redshirting "always" helps, but it can in some cases. I have seen a few people in the year above me who defffffffinitely would have been helped if they'd been kept back. Boys are usually redshirted more, and I can see how that's a good thing, by observing the boys I've known. The September-born boys were always ahead in some senses (and if they lacked in anything, which they did, they wore it like a badge). The summer boys.....just....don't got swagga'. The same does not hold true for girls, who basically don't show marked intelligence differences across the twelve months. Emotionally, though, I've noticed that a lot of the oldest (September-November) and the youngest girls (July-August) suffer the most cases of insecure attachment. In other words, they are either mistrustful or needy. I can't stand needy people no matter the month they are born, but I definitely identify with the feeling of not being able to take people at their word, and I think some of it is the baby trying to make sure she's not taken advantage of or carted to a point of no return.

The three kids I've known who skipped grades did well like book-wise, but as far as maturity....I have to say, the girls still win. The boy is never going to be as mature as his classmates. And I will not friend him on any site. (Forgive your enemies; never forget their names.)

So my take on redshirting? Case by case obviously, but if I had to make a general statement: keep boys back; keep girls in the grade assigned; watch PTSD kids closely and delay physical activities for the weaklings. Don't make a kid skip a grade unless they can handle it in every sense of the word.

And I am going to bed. Goodnight.