Janel's Place

I'm in a rare form. I think I read enough papers about fruit flies today to stir the depths of the darkest corners of my alleged mind. I have popcorn too, so we'll have to see what this cosmic combination of mental history and diet can conjure.

Politics is droning along on NPR, and thank the good Lord there is always an over-serious talking head available to tell me that someone may or may not lose in the primaries. They do this in sports as well... I guess that is what the majority of the population must need to know. What MIGHT happen. The difference is that the sports people tend to make reasonably good predictions in a relatively curious and interested frame of mind. NPR people seem to be a bit more on the edge of a potential mental breakdown. I am currently in a life phase of needing to cut back on the number of things I worry about that are beyond my control, so my political hissy fits are in remission. With interest I note that Giuliani is not really taking the show. That's fine with me.

My most recent interesting discovery is that Benazir Bhutto has a 19-yr-old son! I missed that memo about that. Hmm. All is not lost? I don't know. But that's cool.

So anyway, I am currently trying to garner enough information about flies to burst a brain abscess a.k.a. write the introduction to two papers and a thesis about a poor little protein that never really deserved all the attention I gave it. Running thesis title... "Drosophila ADF/cofilin: a potentially interesting protein in synaptic transmission." This is the glass-half-full view. A little faith MUST be applied to get through life in one piece. It's always better to put your faith in something solid though, so rather than putting faith in ADF/cofilin I am practicing putting faith in my God-given ability to make stone soup. There is a reason that was one of my favorite stories growing up.

In other random thought processes... I have hit an interesting point of interest in my studies of the beginning of the world. I skipped past those recurrent ideas that there may have been more than one Adam, because I can't seem to get anywhere definite everytime I entertain them, but I DO have to pause and wonder how the sacrifices started. It's definitely a norm later on, and an excellent lead-in/switchover to Jesus' final sacrifice, but as far as I can tell Cain and Abel just started doing it. Maybe a case of simple unincorporated Biblical detail, but it also is tainted with a bit of wonder at how the God I respect so much managed to start that up in an acceptable way to His people. Did He explain Himself? Was it obvious? Anyway, it's not keeping me up at night but I wonder about it.

Now I have to go to a basketball game and read more papers there. Two more weeks! TWO MORE WEEKS! Biology of disease, parasites, viruses, bacteria, fungi, what more could a soul desire to be completely happy??? And I walked a llama and a goat and a calf today. Life is good.